Author's note: So I'm back again, with a new name but the same muse. This is what has been tentatively titled the Dan and Blair 60's project that I've been working on, on and off for a number of months now. A second part is underway but I think ultimately this story will be short, a classic tale of the rich girl and the poor boy and the feelings that neither of them would have counted on arising. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed imagining it all. A special mention to Raiza who, in the earliest days of the project, acted as my sounding board. The title is derived from 'A Sunday Kind of Love' by Etta James.
I do not own anything apart from the storyline. Any songs, artists, authors, publications, characters or otherwise are property of their rightful owners.
001.
A sultry jazz song strains from his record player while they lay side by side one another on his bedroom floor. His desk, she marveled at it the first time she'd come into his room, is pushed in front of the door so that no one can come in. A packet of cigarettes lies within reach of each sets of their fingertips and her feet are to the right of his head. His knees reach her shoulders.
He's not really all that tall, but she is rather short, her height pertaining to the kind of size that make people implicitly more inclined to describe her as cute. She hates it, he knows she does too, which is precisely why he makes a point to call her by it whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Their fingers touch occasionally but they never intertwine. It extinguishes the spark she thinks, so they don't hold hands unless they're in public. Behind closed doors she more than encourages the accidental brushing of fingertips, nimble, explorative fingers and light as a feather kisses that eventually lead from one thing to another; spark by spark until there's fire.
They talk about nothing. They argue about everything.
You would think he was a genius.
As opposed to thinking of him as a murderer or grammar? Yes.
This is why I won't read your stories. I can only imagine the appalling orchestration of the English language you would assemble.
He softly drags his finger down the arch of her heel. Her leg retracts almost instantly, toes curling and the word 'don't' leaving her lips. He does it again. She swats at his leg and with just a bit more force than last time says it once more.
She's only annoyed; he thinks he can risk it one more time.
"Dan!"
She sits up sharply, propped on her elbows and directs a withering look in his direction. "Do you have any idea how infuriating you are sometimes?" she asks, her lips curving into a smug smile. Every time she insults him, directly or not, she always looks relatively triumphant. This smile says, even if I like you, I still don't, and it makes no sense, but if you know Blair like Dan does it makes all the sense in the world.
Dan merely smiles. "You like me, really."
"No" she says firmly, lying back down. "I really don't."
He chuckles. "I've heard that before."
"So why hasn't it gotten through your thick skull yet?" she prods at his leg with a pointed finger. Her nails are getting long; Dan notices and is thankful he's wearing slacks.
Her mother is in Paris during the summer. Dan stays because the only person around is Dorota, the maid, second mother and keeper of all of Blair's secrets. Her door has a lock that is vastly more efficient then his desk working as a barricade.
They share her bath. It's big and marble and looks like something straight out of a palace. The sight of it brings to mind colonial styled mansions that the likes of the Pope, royalty and of course, the lavishly rich possess. Despite the fact that her clothes all boast a label of some kind Dan almost finds it easy to forget how much money Blair has.
He remembers when he sees the library in her house, which also has a lock they make use of.
Blair's pinned up hair tickles his chin while she leans against his chest. The soft sound of classical music filters in from her room and a smoke of a different kind wafts around her bathroom. Her slender and soft frame feels disjointed against him, lazy and heavy. Her head lulls, falls onto his shoulder and her eyelashes touch to her cheeks while she breaths out a sigh.
Dan's fingers trace over her collarbones, from one shoulder to the next and he breathes against her neck. "Do they know about me?"
"Who?"
"Anyone."
Blair replies in a simple voice. "No."
"Why?"
Her reason is simple. "I don't want to share you."
Blair had shared Dan at first, with Serena.
They had met in a bar that Serena often dragged her to. In saying that, Blair was fond of the place. The smoky bar was a call back to the twenties and forties with a stage, a full band and a singer. Every Friday night the stage was transformed and they put on burlesque shows.
Chuck loved it, Serena often joined in. Nate would stay by her side and occasionally let out a low whistle. It was a surprise they'd ever been interested in one another. He was much too flirtatious to be considered charming, and she was much too subdued to be considered endearingly shy. She would never do the things Serena did. Waldorf's couldn't do the things that the Van Der Woodsen's could, not because they weren't capable just because there were different sets of expectations for each of them.
Blair would get good grades and go to college. Serena would drift through school with a lack of concern and likely get married, a lot. They'd spoken about it a few times.
The night they met Chuck and Nate were pursuing a lost weekend. Serena had downed several gin martinis and slinked off backstage with one of the dancers to get dolled up. She knew all the routines. Blair knew all the routines as well, but remained in her seat, casually sipping a glass of champagne and reading through a selection of poems by Pablo Neruda.
Her attention was precise, as if she had tunnel vision and nothing outside of the words on her page and the glass of champagne in her hand were of any importance. The low thrum of conversation around her served as background noise. The remarks and looks cast in her direction went by unnoticed. At least, they went unnoticed until Serena came bounding up to her, all smiles and tugged her book from her grasp.
"B!" she enthused "come dance!"
Blair took in the sight of her beautiful and blonde best friend, clad in an outfit that could barely be considered anything more than lingerie. She looked feminine, womanly. It made Blair feel like a little girl.
Squashing down her inferiority complex with a sip of champagne she shook her head. "Serena" she protested "I could never…"
"Come on, why not?" she whined like a child, her words spoken around a silly smile that was infectious and Blair had to fight considerably not to adopt. "The dancer in the sapphire green outfit you love so much twisted her ankle and can't perform."
"I am not a replacement Serena and I have things to do."
Serena pouted and looked at the book she had managed to extract from her hands, her expression growing perplexed. "We're not studying any poetry this semester."
Snatching her book back and furrowing her brows Blair's eyes closed while she exhaled through her nose. "I know that. I never said I was doing school work."
"Well at least let Dan keep you company until I come back" she urged, turning around to wave her hand wildly above her head. She was signalling someone, Blair realized, a someone who had to be Dan, whoever Dan was.
"I can look after myself, you know."
The blonde grinned, her ocean eyes sparkling. "That doesn't mean you should have to, and besides" she tacked on "you'll like Dan."
She didn't like Dan. He questioned her literary taste ("Neruda?" he said. He raised a brow, lips twitching into an amused smile. "A little racy for a girl who would rather sit on the sidelines of a burlesque show rather than dance, don't you think?") He never stopped speaking, and with all the words he spoke he never once, not even out of general politeness, asked her to dance.
"If you're quite done criticizing me" the brunette finally snapped when her champagne flute was empty, "and don't even have the decency to ask me to dance or to offer to buy me a drink would you mind being quiet so I can go back to enjoying my evening."
Wearing a lopsided smile and leaning just slightly closer to her Dan spoke dubiously. "Do you want to dance?"
"With you?" Blair's nose bunched in distaste. "No."
Things went like that for awhile.
Serena drops out of school and becomes a dancer for the Friday night burlesque group. Blair's presence is mandatory. What isn't mandatory is Dan's, but he finds her every Friday and sits next to her like he was invited and she wants him there.
The burlesque dancers don't perform until ten. The back half of the stage is concealed by red velvet curtains and the first half is occupied by the in house singer. A blonde woman in a powder blue silk dress sings Etta James accompanied by an eleven piece band that only grows to be more elaborate as the night presses on.
Dan asks her about school, what she's reading, if she's been anywhere interesting recently, or seen anything worth seeing. He asks so many questions she begins to grow suspicious. Unless they're arguing, (which she supposes is often) she never learns anything about him. Then again, maybe it's that she never asks.
But Blair is feeling generous on one particular night and cuts in forcefully. "Enough, Daniel."
"It's Dan" he asserts automatically.
"Oh, whatever Humphrey" Blair flicks her wrist dismissively, resorts to his last name instead. "I don't know anything about you" she says, seemingly out of the blue, to him anyway. For Blair, this has really been a long time coming.
The realization that she knew so little of him was cushioned by the fact that she didn't care to know. The realization of how much he knew about her only made her wary that she didn't know him as well. Her desperation to even the odds up was the contributing factor that lead to the forthcoming conversation.
"There's nothing to know, or at least, nothing of interest anyway" he replies.
"You really know how to sell yourself" she scoffs.
He just smiles and takes a sip of his beer.
Seeing he won't willingly offer up anything Blair insists; "Tell me something."
"I write."
"You write?"
She sounds disbelieving and she looks it too. All the arguments they'd had over literature and films, heated and both equally passionate about their chosen opinion and she had never guessed that he felt so strongly because of artistic stand point. She's marginally disappointed in herself.
"You mustn't write anything good" she remarks hotly. "I've never heard of you."
Dan's sigh is bordering on laughter. "I'm not published" he amends.
"So what do you write then? Essays, assignments?" her tone verges on mocking, despite her genuine curiosity. It's not completely implausible that Serena's friend from Brooklyn isn't entirely disinteresting, is it?
"Stories mostly" Dan corrects her. He looks quiet, hands withdrawn from the table to twist in his lap like he cares what she thinks. She knows he doesn't, he's never taken any of her constructive criticism on board.
"And what do you write about?"
With a shrug of his shoulders and an off handed gesture he makes an inconsequential response. 'The things everyone writes about." When he bothers to look in Blair's direction Dan notices something in her chocolate eyes that usually isn't there. He could be mistaken, but he swears she's actually interested in what he's talking about.
"Love, romantic and unromantic, unrequited, torturous, all consuming" he begins to list the subjects that spring to mind, "idle fascinations, reimagined memories, beautiful women."
At this point Blair practically snorts. "I suppose you've written about Serena then" she states.
What's surprising to the brunette is how much she wants him to say no. What's even more surprising is the crushing weight of her disappointment when he doesn't.
In one fell swoop Dan Humphrey became every other boy she'd ever known.
Because Serena left school to be a dancer she ends up moving into the penthouse, taking the spare room. She and Lily aren't speaking; it's happened before though, so Blair can't really say she's worried all that much.
Dan helps move in Serena's things though there's barely any heavy lifting required that warrants his helping hands. He carries her luggage, several suitcases, and a trunk, all full of clothes. There are a few books, some photos, a small number of records and an impressive stash of liquor that has been stolen over the course of a few years.
It's the middle of summer and climbing up and down the penthouse stairs and traveling in the elevator grows tiresome quickly. Dan flops onto Serena's bed when they're done and releases an exhausted sigh.
"I'm so sorry Dan," Serena apologizes "I had no idea it would take so long."
He waves his hand, dismissing the subject with a barely audible 'don't worry about it. I was the one who offered to help.'
The blistering heat eliminates the collective majority of their motivation to do much else for the rest of the day so Serena selects a bottle from her stash and they share it around them. The bottle goes from hand to hand and Dan is surprised that Blair never makes any sort of comment about Brooklyn and germs, even more surprised when her lithe frame slumps and falls back onto the mattress next to his.
Nate, Serena's second pair of helping hands, shows up late with a thoroughly put out expression written across his face. "I just went to your mom's place" he speaks directly to Serena, "and she said you were already done."
"Nate!" Serena squeals, her lips adorning a smile that lights up her entire being while she spins on her heel. Her hands clap together excitedly and she abandons her task of changing the record they were listening to in favor of throwing her arms around the late arrival.
He catches her around the waist, his hands lingering at her hips when she draws back from their embrace. "Don't worry about it, Dan and Blair helped me" she explains, smiling over at the two of them still lying back on her mattress.
"You mean I helped you, while Blair criticized the way I walked up the stairs" Dan interjected.
Blair immediately came to her own defense. "Those stairs are marble and Dorota's knees hurt when she has to spend too much time on them scrubbing, you were going to leave scuff marks everywhere. Besides, you shouldn't drag your feet, it's a terrible practice."
Nate offers reparation for his absence earlier in the day by producing a cigarette case stocked with his most recent score. They open another bottle and Serena and Nate take up residence on the floor at the foot of the bed. The bottle goes clockwise and the smoke counter clockwise.
Their lacking motivation manifests into outright laziness and they argue over whose turn it is to get up and change the record every time one side finishes playing before Nate has a stroke of brilliance and suggests they switch to radio. Most of the songs are rock and roll, so Blair complains while Nate and Serena dance and Dan sings under his breath.
Eventually as night descends upon them the host opts for more jazz and Blair's mood lightens. The transcending calm and milder weather, now accompanied by a light breeze siphoning in through the cracked open window, renders the four of them almost completely still, satisfied with motionless interactions. The conversation is lazy and heavy with pauses and sighs.
"We should do this more often" Serena says, dropping her head onto Nate's shoulder.
Blair can feel Dan's laughter rumbling in his chest from her place next to him. "Nothing?" he questions.
Nate smiles and pushes his hair off his face. "Sounds good to me man."
Blair simply hums her agreement.
It seems perfectly insignificant when, by chance, Dan and Blair happen to be left alone while Nate and Serena go down to the kitchen to see if there's something that, between their lacking domestic skills, they can throw together. But a song comes on that consequently (and surprisingly) they each claim to love and Blair looks appropriately impressed when she speaks. "Humphrey, there may be hope for you yet."
His brow quirks upwards while he clambers from the bed and finds his feet. "You think?"
She smiles while Dan extends his hand in her direction. Four months later and he's finally asking her to dance.
The writing style is different to what I'm normally used to so I hope that those of you reading find it easy enough to follow. I know the time lines are a little confusing but all you need to know is that the first couple of scenes will likely be revisited once the story meets in the middle, and that those from there on are in chronological order, from their first meeting through to them gradually finding their footing around one another.
If you're so inclined I'd love to hear what you think, or to answer any questions. You can also catch me on my tumblr (the link can be found on my profile.)