Blair adjusted the black felt hat perched on top of her head and delicately buttoned the elegant black brocade jacket that she had picked out when she had heard the news. She stood in front of her full-length mirror, examining her reflection.
Her gloved hand briefly fluttered to her cheek, an old habit. There was no mark there, there never had been, but the urge to check for some mark, some imperfection was hard to suppress. She straightened, running her hands down the front of her skirt, wanting to give them something to do, wanting to look at something other than her face. She turned to the side and looked herself over. Very appropriate funeral attire.
Satisfied with her appearance, Blair left her room. She told Dorota to call the car around.
*
Blair had always known that the only way Jenny Humphrey could ever get mentioned in the society pages was by dying horrifically.
He'd called her in the middle of the night in Monaco and she had silently listened, a pit blossoming deep in her stomach, as he'd told her the news. They'd found Jenny stuffed into a dumpster in Midtown, of all places. The police had someone in custody already. Dan's voice sounded mechanical, like a series of coded clicks over the phone.
Come, he had said. Please.
Blair had booked a flight immediately. She'd simply told Louis that a high school friend had died.
A friend.
*
Blair hadn't spoken with Dan for months. She hadn't spoken with Jenny in years. Her heart still tightened bitterly at the thought of her former rival. An anxious hand reached to adjust a headband that wasn't there and a sour look slipped onto her face.
Jenny Humphrey.
There was a part of Blair, a childish, forever-seventeen part, that still blamed little Jenny for what had happened between her and Chuck. She remembered sending the girl away, full of wrath and resentment: her future could have been tied up with a bow that night, if not for Jenny Humphrey.
Blair mused over this on her flight to JFK and then on the ride to the Van der Humphrey's penthouse. As she watched the city glide by behind dark glasses, a voice cut into her thoughts. Put blame where blame is due, Waldorf. If there was one thing Blair hated about Dan Humphrey, even when his voice was only in her head, it was that he was more than occasionally right.
She was twenty-three now and had been married to Louis for two years. She knew that Chuck had treated her very poorly and there was a part of her that had always known that. Dan had been the first person to tell her, out loud, that she was being ridiculous in her treatment of Jenny, that if there was anyone who was at fault, it was Chuck and only Chuck. Which was something that she knew anyway. If she hadn't known it, she wouldn't have terminated her pregnancy two years before, unable to keep a child that she was too young to want and too smart to have any doubts about its paternity.
Dan was the only person who knew about that. She didn't question her motives in telling only him: she felt as though Serena would never understand. Ever since the night of her engagement party, Blair had been unable to trust her friend completely. And Dan had not judged her for not telling Chuck. He had, however, judged her for sleeping with Chuck while still engaged.
Typical, she'd sneered at him. Just typical, Humphrey.
The sleek black town car she was in pulled up to the curb outside of Lily and Rufus' building. Blair took a deep breath and stepped out onto the curb.
*
Chuck and Serena were waiting for her when she got out of the elevator. Blair nodded curtly at Chuck. He returned the gesture. Serena took Blair's hand and led her towards the table, where an extravagant brunch spread sat, while a fleet of caterers purposefully strode about, setting up for the funeral reception that would be taking place in only a few short hours. Blair glanced around. "Where's Dan?"
Serena's expression tightened for a moment. "He's still at the loft. He won't talk to anyone." She made a noise in her throat and Blair thought for a second that her friend might start to cry. "I don't know what to do or what to say to him. But," she said, her voice thick with tears, "I thought that maybe…maybe you could do something." Serena looked down.
Blair understood how difficult this must be for Serena.
She remembered how angry S had been when she'd found out about her and Dan's friendship. Blair squeezed Serena's hand. "I'm sorry to ask you to do this…but…I don't know what else to do. It's been almost a week since the body was found…" Blair quickly wiped away the few tears that had managed to escape Serena's eyes with the tips of her fingers. "I'll go and get him now and bring him to the service." Blair smiled at Serena. "I'll talk to him. Everything's going to be okay."
Serena managed a watery smile back. Blair turned away from her friend to go back to the elevator and almost ran straight into Chuck. He had been listening to the entire exchange. Blair stared at him for a moment. It had been a long time since she'd seen him and now, the sight of him had awakened a deep-seated rage that took her completely by surprise. She had no idea she was still so angry after all this time. Most of that rage, however, was not directed at him, but rather at herself for caring so much for so long.
"Get out of my way, Chuck." She said it with enough vitriol that a hurt look crossed his face. He stepped aside and fixed her with a withering glare. Blair ignored this easily enough and stepped into the elevator. The doors slid shut behind her.
*
The drive to Brooklyn was shorter than she remembered. She smiled to herself, staring out the window at the sky beyond the bridge. She remembered how Dan had once convinced her to take the subway with from the city. They had been on their way to see an independent film in Williamsburg.
Blair remembered how crowded the subway car had been, how she'd had to stand the whole ride and how much she'd bitched Dan's ear off because of it. She'd enjoyed the exasperated look on his face.
She remembered how the car had stopped suddenly while she'd been looking through her bag for hand sanitizer and she'd lost her balance. Dan had caught her, grabbing her hand and bracing his body against hers as it fell.
Blair had found herself pressing her face into Dan Humphrey's pea coat, her gloved fingers gripped in his bare hand. She had blushed and twisted away from him, then burst into a fresh spurt of complaints about the subway, Brooklyn, and Dan himself to fill the space between them.
*
The loft was unchanged since her last visit. She'd knocked but gotten no response. She let herself in and was struck by the mess that met her. Clothes and newspapers covered the floor and the furniture. There were empty take out boxes everywhere and dishes piled high in the sink. "Humphrey?" she called out, frowning at the silence that greeted her from every corner of the place.
"Dan?" She walked towards the door to his room and tried the knob. It was locked. Blair sighed and reached into her purse. She pulled out a large Chanel pocketbook and daintily withdrew her AmEx card from it. Blair slid the card into the crack between the door and the frame and began bending it, first one way, than the other. She leaned against the door the way Bernard, her Cameroonian bodyguard, had shown her one afternoon while they were bored.
The lock clicked and the door opened.
Blair stepped into the hazy light of Dan's room, to find him in bed, the covers drawn over his head. "Humphrey," she stated emphatically. No answer. "Humphrey." This time with more emphasis: she didn't want him to think this was a social call. "Humphrey!" She stamped her high-heeled foot.
Dan threw the covers off of his head. "What? What the hell do you want, Waldorf?"
Blair put her hands on her hips. "I want you to get up, put on a nice suit and escort me to your sister's funeral service." Dan pulled the covers back over his head. Blair sighed and took four steps toward his bed. She yanked the covers off with one hand and threw them on the floor. Dan glared at her.
"Come on." She extended her hand to him.
"My sister is dead. Isn't that enough?" He was angry, she could tell, but most likely not with her. She smiled at him, her expression and voice edged with embarrassment and irritation.
"Clearly it is." He stared at her, over her extended hand. Then, he slipped his hand into hers and she pulled him up and out of the bed.
*
Blair sat at the table, reading one of the discarded newspapers that littered the floor. She glanced around and made a mental note to call a cleaning service in here while they were at the church. She looked over an article about Jenny, the gory details spilled all over the page in black and white: raped, throat slit, stuffed into a dumpster. Had been out that night with prospective investors for her new line.
Blair shivered, remembering Jenny at fifteen. She'd been so naïve, though she'd never let it get in the way of her lust for power. Blair had respected that a little. Now her former rival was dead, just shy of her twenty-first birthday. Blair sighed. She wouldn't have wished a death like that on anybody.
Blair thought she should feel something more than she was feeling, which was mostly sorry for herself: sorry that she'd had to come back to New York, sorry that she had to clean up Dan Humphrey for his own sister's funeral, sorry that she had to see Chuck and Serena again, with everything that was unspoken between them. Blair wished she were back in Monaco, with only an unopened package and the Page Six to remind her of all the complications she'd left behind.
Abruptly interrupting this reverie, Dan came out of the bathroom, freshly showered. Blair glanced up from her place at the table. She pretended that her eyes didn't catch on the slight swell beneath the towel that was tucked around his hips and said, "I laid out your suit in your room. Hurry up, we only have an hour to get there." She returned her eyes to the paper in front of her, but when he passed by, stole a little side-glance. She assured herself that it didn't mean anything.
*
In the car, an awkward silence fell.
Blair cleared her throat. "Did you like the new series of Mad Men?"
Dan looked at her strangely. "Series? Don't you mean season? Oh, I forgot, you're a European now." Blair glared at him.
"I am not!" She smoothed her hair and straightened her hat. "It is not my fault that it is so easy to be much more sophisticated than you and the company you keep." She glanced at him. He chuckled a little and shook his head.
"What are you doing here, Blair?" He turned to look at her. "You haven't talked to me in months. Not since-" he trailed off. Finally he asked, "Why are you here?" Blair stared at him for a moment, her mouth open.
"Because you asked me to be!" she snapped. "What other reason would I have to be here? I mean Serena was the one who asked me to come here and put you on your feet for a few hours to keep up appearances; those few that you actually have to make, that is. You called me. In Europe! At three o' clock in the morning! Said 'come'! You even said 'please'! I didn't know what to think or what to do, except get here as fast as I could!"
He almost sneered at her. "So you don't give a shit that Jenny is dead either." He turned away to look out the window. Blair stared at Dan for a full minute, at a loss for words.
"I can't believe you," she said and said nothing more for the rest of the ride.
*
The car pulled up outside the church where they were having the funeral service and the viewing. Blair felt even sorrier for Jenny: people would always remember how she looked in her casket and she could only assume the younger girl was poorly dressed, as she always had been. She put her hand on the door handle.
"Wait."
She turned to look at Dan. He was hunched down in the corner of the seat, staring with red-rimmed eyes out the window. Blair noticed how tired he looked, how much smaller he looked. "Well? What is it?" she demanded.
He was still staring out the window. "Do we have to go in there?" He motioned towards the church.
Blair pursed her lips and frowned a little. "Yes. I didn't come all the way from Monaco, enter that filthy apartment, see you naked, and go through your sad little closet for something halfway decent for you to chicken out now." She held her hand out to him. "I'll be right there the whole time."
Again, Dan looked at her with her out-stretched hand, an unreadable expression on his face. Finally, he took it. "Promise you'll hold my hand the entire time?" He asked, looking away.
Blair rolled her eyes and sighed. "Of course."
*
After the service, from which Blair had only absconded once (to smoke a cigarette and call a cleaning service for the loft, both totally necessary) it seemed like every girl from Constance Billard ever had to file past Jenny's coffin and 'pay her respects'.
As she walked past the front of this line, Blair reached out and snatched a phone from some girl trying to take a picture of Jenny in her coffin. "Gossip Girl's not waiting on confirmation, whoever you are." Blair shot over her shoulder.
"Yeah, but she wanted to know who she was going to buried in!" the girl shot back indignantly. Blair made a noise in her throat that was half growl, half dismissive sigh. Some things never changed. She spied Dan sitting in the pews in the back. She briskly strode towards him and took a seat next to him.
"Are you avoiding Serena and your family or something? You could be at the head of this line, now. Where are they anyway?" Dan barely acknowledged her. "Fine," she sighed. "Do you want to wait for everyone to leave so we can be late to the reception too?" Dan said nothing and just kept staring at the line. Blair sighed again and took a paperback copy of T.S. Eliot's Selected Prose out of her purse.
She was almost finished with it by the time the line was down to five or six girls. "So," she said, looking up from her book. "Did they catch whoever did it?" Dan shrugged, looking morose.
"They say they did."
"But you don't believe them?" Blair narrowed her eyes at him. His behavior was starting to remind her of one, Chuck Bass, and Blair was quite close to telling him so. Dan shrugged again and didn't answer. Blair sighed and stood up, suddenly impatient.
She walked to the front of the church and shooed the last couple of girls away, a pair of looky-loos if Blair had ever seen them. "Take your fake Louis Vuitton's and your horrible spray tans and get out." They shot her dirty looks as they walked away. "By the way," Blair continued, "fake Louis Vuitton is so five years ago."
She looked down at Jenny's body. Her eyes swept over the younger girl's perfectly made face, catching for a moment on her throat.
"What a pain in the ass you were," Blair whispered. She sighed. She wished Jenny were still a pain in the ass. Dan was walking up the isle towards her. Blair bent down over the casket and quickly whispered, "I wish this hadn't happened to you. I'm really, really sorry. For a lot of things." She straightened, adjusting her hat and smoothed her hands over the front of her coat.
She walked past Dan and took a seat near the middle, pulling her book out again, wanting to give him some privacy. She was on the last page when Dan tapped her on the shoulder. "I'm ready to go if you are." Blair packed her book back into her bag and stood up.
"I was born ready," she said as she hooked her bag over her shoulder.
*
In the car again, Dan told Blair that he did not want to go to the reception.
"Why not?" Blair asked.
"Because I don't want to see them; any of them. My mom and dad will just be fighting over whose fault this is, Lily will be drinking, Serena will be impossible and Chuck will be there. And that's really all he has to do these days to make me want to kick his ass: exist in the same space as me." Dan shook his head. "You can go, but I'm going back to the loft."
"Well then, I'm going with you." It was a split-second decision on her part. "We'll order in, watch a movie and I need to trade you for a new book. I finished the one I brought earlier." She said all of this while staring straight out the window. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Dan staring at her. She turned to look at him. "What? Did you expect me to say 'no'? Or perhaps you expected me to strong arm you into going?"
"I don't know what I expected. I didn't even expect you to come here. I know how you feel…how you felt about Jenny and how you feel about me." Dan shrugged. Blair wanted to slap him. She was so sick of him, with his shrugging and his low expectations. Who did he think he was, calling her here and then giving her a mountain of shit for her trouble?
"Why in the hell wouldn't I come?" Blair asked, her voice getting louder with every word. "You said that you wanted me to come, so I'm here. You're my friend and I thought you needed me. And this is bullshit, you acting this way! I know that you're grieving and I know that Jenny's dead, but that is not an excuse to dump all over me for no reason." She was out of breath. She snapped her gaze back out the window. Glancing briefly over her shoulder, she added: " And you clearly have no idea how I feel about you or your sister, so please assume away at my attempts to help you."
She said nothing else for the duration of the ride.
*
As soon as they walked through the front door, Blair breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the loft was spotless, as ordered and as paid for. Dan followed behind her. He looked at her, catching her eyes. "Thank you, Blair. And I'm sorry for what I said. You were right. I uh, I'm just not really used to people right now."
She smiled at him.
"Want to order in?"
"Sure. What do you want?"
Her smile got bigger. "Do they have Nobu in Brooklyn?"
Dan snorted. "I'll pick a movie then?"
Blair gave him a look. "How can you pick a movie when we haven't even decided what's for dinner?"
Dan was still smiling at her, but she could tell that something had suddenly changed. The corners of his mouth had begun to tilt downward and his eyes were wet.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Blair was hardly bewildered by these sudden changes in mood. The situation definitely called for this type of thing. What she was confused about was what she was expected to do.
Dan sat down on the sofa, putting a hand over his eyes. "I just…all of this…" He looked up at her. "I'm glad you're here." Blair smiled at him again.
"I'm glad to be here." As soon as the words left her mouth, Blair realized they were true.
"I'm glad I can help."
*
After vetoing La Strada (too depressing), The Godfather (they'd seen it too many times) and Night of the Living Dead ("What are we supposed to eat? The delivery boy?"), Blair finally settled on The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
"Really?" Dan had said when she showed him. "I'm surprised you go for that hipster stuff."
Blair looked at him sideways. "What's a hipster?" When Dan just stared at her for a moment, trying to gage whether she was serious or not, she shrugged and said, "There, see? You don't even know. What are we going to eat with this?"
Dan thought for a moment. "There's a deli really close to here. Smoked white fish, lox, bagels, blintzes?" Blair wrinkled her nose. "Mmmmm….not now."
"Alright, sushi then?" She smiled and nodded enthusiastically, her hair vibrating as she bobbed her head.
Blair saw the expression on his face change a little. She'd seen that look before, but had never been able to tell what it meant. Who are you, his face said. Who is that girl?
*
They walked to pick up their food. Blair had thought they should get out and get some exercise after sitting around all day. Dan had protested that after almost a straight week in the loft he'd been several different places already, all in one day at that. Blair issued the rejoinder that riding around in the car didn't count as getting some fresh air. "But walking around Brooklyn does?" he shot back.
Blair smacked him smartly on the hip with her purse. "Well this is practically the country." She adjusted her jacket, feeling a tad overdressed for a moment, after all she was wearing labels. In Williamsburg. She glanced at Dan and, hesitating for a moment, asked if she should change.
There was a slight pain in her stomach when she asked. It reminded her of that seventeen-year-old self, who hated Jenny Humphrey because she was so afraid. She was afraid now, afraid of his answer, which made her hate him a little.
Dan smiled at her quizzically. "I thought Blair Waldorf told me what to wear, not the other way around?" She said nothing and he stared at her for a moment. "You-you look fine. Uh, great. Beautiful."
Blair raised her eyebrow. "Beautiful?"
Dan cleared his throat and started to blush. "Um, dignified. Dignified is what I meant when I said 'beautiful'."
She took a step towards him. "Then why did you say 'beautiful'?" She could suddenly feel, very precisely, her engagement ring around her finger. It felt tight and heavy. She had never liked rings very much.
Dan took a step back and put on his overcoat. "Because I'm an idiot." He walked past her and opened the front door. He stopped it with his foot and gestured for her to go first. She brushed past him, her thumb rotating the rings around on her finger.
*
When she kissed him, it didn't make her think of the first time, but when she's honest with herself (and a part of her that isn't seventeen anymore always is), she'd thought of that kiss almost every day since it'd happened.
*
The Life Aquatic was over. They'd eaten practically their weight in raw fish. Blair had footed the bill, despite minimal protestations on Dan's part. After the film, she'd expected him to be a bit calmer or at least ready to go to sleep. She hadn't noticed him looking at her through most of the movie. As soon as she'd turned off the TV, Dan had looked at her; his arms crossed across his chest and said, "Did you read it?"
Blair frowned at him. "Read what?" Dan sighed, exasperated.
"Look, Blair, my sister just died. I am having a lot of uh, thoughts about how life is fucking short and how none of it could mean anything one day…and I just need you to drop the pretense because I need to know. Now."
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Humphrey." Blair said, narrowing her eyes at him.
"The package. The one I sent you in August."
Blair looked down at her stocking feet and bit her lip. "Oh."
Dan looked furious. "Oh? What do you mean 'oh'?"
Blair kept her eyes trained on her feet for a moment. "I'm sorry."
"For what? Could you be any more cryptic, Blair?"
She sighed. "I…I didn't open it." He stared at her. "I'm sorry! I just…I was afraid. I'm always so afraid of…I was afraid." Her eyes didn't stray from her feet. "What was in it?"
"My book," he said off-handedly. He had a slightly dazed look on his face, as if months of expectations had suddenly been dashed to pieces.
"Excuse me, did you just say 'your book'?" Blair practically shrieked. "You wrote a book? Like a whole one? Was it about Serena? How did I not hear about this?"
"That's…that's why I sent it to you. It's published as being by 'Anonymous' because of Vanessa. It's a long story. I mean, I get the money from the sales but-"
"Wait," Blair said, her voice starting to crack with laughter. "Anonymous? Is that book Inside? Because Gossip Girl was bitching about it all the livelong day, trying to get everyone to figure out who wrote it! Of course I-" Her eyes widened.
"Am I…in that book?" The look on Dan's face said it all. "I am! Oh my God…wait…" she paused, thinking back. "Am I…am I Sabrina?" Dan said nothing. Blair jumped up from the couch. "I am!" She practically screamed it.
She looked straight at Dan. "You! You're in love with me!" She took a step towards him. "Aren't you?"
"Does it matter?" Dan glanced down at her left hand. "You chose Chuck over me and then you chose Louis."
"You told me that when we kissed it meant nothing."
Dan immediately shot back: "You told Chuck that kissing me only made you realize that you wanted to be with him first."
Blair bit her lip and couldn't meet his eyes. "What?" Dan asked. "No sharp retort? No witty insult?"
"Fuck you." She practically snarled. Dan stared at her. "Just…just fuck you! You have no idea…!" She could feel tears beginning to well up in her eyes, she was so furious. Her hand moved to her cheek and the tears began to run down her cheeks. This made her even angrier.
"You could never understand," she said coldly.
"Could you even try to explain before deciding that I wouldn't understand?" He sounded so frightened and worried when he said it that her anger subsided almost immediately.
"I was just…so young and so stupid. And I was so in love. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before." She laughed, bitterly. "It was better than puking. That's how good it felt." She glanced at him. She didn't think she'd ever said something like that to anyone, something so raw. He was looking at her, but she saw no judgment on his face.
She shook her head, a wry smile on her face. "You have no idea how much I used to hate myself. And you…you were always too good for me weren't you?"
"No." Blair looked at him. "Blair, I went there that night to tell you that I had feelings for you. But you said-"
"I was scared. Alright? Are you happy? I was afraid that the way I'd felt for almost my entire life was a lie, I was afraid that you could never have feelings for me! You, on your high horse with Serena, with Vanessa. Haven't I always just been Blair Waldorf to you? Don't I deserve what I get, Dan?"
He seemed stuck in place, that scathing way she had said his name having frozen him in its congealing hostility. "Blair, I-"
She closed her eyes. In her head she heard that voice, Chuck's fucking voice, bubbling up out of the past, so cold and cruel:
Let me be more succinct. You held a certain fascination... when you were beautiful, delicate, and untouched. Now... now you're like the Arabian my father used to own. Rode hard and put away wet. I don't want you anymore, and I can't see why anyone else would.
She began to cry in earnest now. She felt suddenly as if no one had ever loved her, that love itself was nothing but an illusion brought on by the false notion of importance in a cold and indifferent universe. Her misery had swept away all conscious thought and logic from her mind. She felt lost in despair, as if wandering in a thick fog, with only the sobs that now wracked her frame for company.
And then, as if in a dream, she felt arms wrap around her. She was nearly breathless from crying but she still managed to whisper, "How could anyone ever love me? I'm disgusting."
He whispered in her ear, "I love you. You're my friend. I'm sorry that I was so afraid." Laughing, he continued, "I should never have believed you. You always were such a good liar."
She pulled back and looked up, into his face. For a moment, she could do nothing else. A part of her could not believe that it could be so easy, even after years with Louis, who treated her like the person she wished she could be, some perfect princess who'd never made a mistake in her life. But, she realized, in one terrifying and ecstatic thought that Dan Humphrey, of all people, had already loved her for who she was.
It felt like a split-second decision and she hoped it looked like one as well. It was a point of pride with her that he not know she'd been thinking about it from the moment she'd gotten off the jet. Or maybe it was since she'd gotten that package in August. Or maybe it had been-
But there was no time for that now, because her lips were on his again. Life-changing was the watchword.
*
They'd taken hands and rushed to Dan's room. Blair silently thanked herself for having the wherewithal to call the cleaning service when she had as Dan slid his hand over her hip, tracing the line of her body, before letting it stop on her back. He turned her towards him and kissed her again.
Blair felt sweetness suffuse her whole body. She pressed herself against him, wanting to know what he felt like and very curious as to what he would do next. He wrapped his arms around her and sat her down on the edge of his bed. He took a step back and looked at her for a moment. She met his eyes and didn't look away. She waited for him to say that it was wrong, that she should go back to her husband or maybe that she was insane.
Instead, he dropped to one knee in front of her and ran his hands up her stocking thighs. He hooked his fingers under the tops and slowly rolled them down, first one, then the other. He took her heel in the palm of his hand and slowly kissed the ball of her ankle, her calf, the side of her knee, and began inching his way up the inside of her thigh. He slowly leaned her back, spreading her legs apart. She put both of her palms down on the mattress so that she could remain up right.
Blair closed her eyes, enjoying the softness of it, the feeling of blood rushing through her legs and the slight tickle of his lips against the sensitive skin. She felt his hands go under her skirt on either side of her legs, reaching for her underwear. She lifted her hips to help get them off and suddenly felt the contrast of the cold air on her bare skin where her legs met with the heat of his breath between her thighs. Dan put his hands on the insides of her legs and gently pushed them farther apart and pushed her back, so that she was propped up on her forearms.
She felt his tongue tentatively taste her. He could tell that he was testing the waters, seeing where her weak spot was. For a moment, she tensed; but even as she did, he opened his mouth wider, lapping at the lips of her pussy, running his tongue along the edges of her clit before sliding over it, causing her to inhale sharply.
She leaned back on her elbows and put her legs around his head. He responded by wrapping his hands around her thighs, slipping his tongue inside of her before sucking her clit and the skin around it greedily, as if he had been craving the taste of her.
Blair began to move her hips up and down against his mouth. She felt the skin on his slightly chapped lips brush over the most receptive part of her and cried out. She buried her hands in his hair, roughly pulling him even closer. She wanted more and she realized that her hips were practically moving of their own accord. She stared at his head between her legs and thought back to the first time she'd ever spoken to him.
Do I smell pork? And…cheese?
Her hands tightened in his dark hair and she felt her climax spread through her like wave after wave of electricity, her mouth open in a silent scream. Finally, catching her breath, she sat back up on her hands, her legs still around Dan's shoulders. He looked up at her, his mouth wet from her and smiled. "Can I get up? My knees are kind of killing me."
She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him on top of her. They were both still half hanging off the edge of the bed and Dan put his arms around her, trying to scoot both of them closer to the center of the bed. Blair began to undo the buckle of Dan's belt and the fly of the dress pants he hadn't bothered to change out of. She could feel him getting hard against her and she started to rub him with the palm of her hand, enjoying the feeling of his cock getting bigger and harder with her every touch.
He reached between them to get his pants out of the way and she took his cock in her hand, enjoying the heat of it and the feel of his skin against hers. She guided him inside of her and he pushed into her eagerly. Blair let out a sigh as he slid deep inside her. She put her arms around his neck and pulled his face to hers. They kissed and Blair hooked her ankles together at the small of his back.
He pushed into her, a bit too roughly this time and she gave out a sharp cry. "Ow!" He pulled back, a worried look on his face. She gave him a look. "Be careful." At that, she gently pushed him off of her and onto his back.
Blair stared at him for a moment, enjoying the sight of him, his cock slick, breathing heavily from being inside her. She stripped off her shirt and mounted him again. She pushed herself down on him slowly, placing her hands on his chest to keep her steady as she worked back into her rhythm.
Dan ran his hands up her torso, staring at her intently. He cupped her breasts for a moment before struggling with the clasp of her bra for a moment. Blair waited to see if he needed any help before brushing his hands away impatiently and undid it herself. Dan sat up underneath her and kissed her neck, trailing down to her bare breasts, cupping them again. He gently took her nipple into his mouth and slowly sucked it.
Blair moaned and hugged his head to her chest. She loved the feeling of his hair tickling the skin between her breasts. She tipped his face up towards hers, both hands on either side of his face. She looked into his eyes for a moment and then silently kissed him. They began to rock together, faster now, finding each other's pace. Blair started to come again and she closed her eyes, feeling warmth and release radiate through her.
When she opened her eyes again, Dan was staring at her, transfixed. She let a slow smile spread across her face and began to move her hips faster and faster. She could tell how close she was, so it was a decidedly calculated move when she suddenly stopped.
"Blair-" Dan whined. "Blair….please….oh God! Please!" He wriggled underneath her, desperately. She bent down so that her mouth was next to his ear and her hair engulfed him. "I like to hear you beg," she whispered. She kissed his neck and began to fuck him again, watching his face as he got closer and closer, until he came, his fingers digging into her hips and his mouth falling open as he let out a groan.
Blair collapsed onto his chest, both of them breathing hard. She looked at the rings on her left hand. She wondered if this changed anything. She let out a sigh. Dan looked down at her. "Are you okay?" Blair glanced up at him.
"I'm…I'm fine, I think. I mean I know we've…Louis and I…, have both slept with other people but…" she bit her lip. She looked at him again. "It wasn't like this for me before. It didn't mean any thing before." She shook her head. "I don't know."
Dan put his arm around her and they lay that way for some time, in silence.
Then, after some time, Blair said, "You know, I'm sorry."
He glanced down at her. "For what?"
Blair swallowed. "Jenny. I'm sorry that she's gone. I'm sorry she had to die that way. I'm sorry for banishing her. I wish I had never done it. You'd have had more time with her that way. I know it doesn't mean much now, it all happened so long ago, but I'm…I'm sorry."
When he couldn't meet her eyes, she said nothing and put her arms around him. After a moment he said, "Thank you for saying so. It means something to me."
They were quiet again, until Dan broke the silence. "I keep expecting to see her again. I miss her. Even though she'd already been gone for so long." He laughed a little and wiped his eyes, where tears had begun to form. "I just keep expecting this fourteen year old girl to walk through the front door. I don't blame you though. Jenny was her own person and she did whatever the hell she wanted no matter what anyone said." He fell silent and Blair rested there, wondering what tomorrow would bring.
After some time, she fell asleep.
*
She woke up when the light was still a bluish-gray, the sun not even threatening to rise yet. Dan was still asleep next to her and she wondered, briefly, why he had slept with her, considering the grief he'd given her about sleeping with Chuck while she was engaged. She sat up, running her hands through her hair and heaved a deep sigh.
She considered what to do next: should she leave? Return to her husband and tell him all about the trip? But the way her heart swelled when she looked down at the man sleeping next to her let her know that she would not be telling Louis about some meaningless tryst. Those sorts of things rarely bothered him, as long as they were kept away from the press. But this was different.
She did not want to leave Dan alone here, particularly after her peak at what had been going on before she'd arrived. It irritated her that he had no one else to help him, though she was more irritated with Serena for her lack spine and Nate for his obliviousness.
Blair watched Dan sleep for a few moments, noting the rise and fall of his chest and the only thing that went through her mind was that this was all Jenny Fucking Humphrey's fault. She felt that this might just be the girl's last attempt at, if not dethroning her (which it might) than at least driving her crazy (which it clearly already had). This idea was totally insane, but it seemed like the only explanation for how all these bizarre events had come together.
"You bitch," she laughed quietly. "You fucking bitch."
Somewhere, somewhere, she was sure she could hear her old rival laughing with her.