Everything You Never Knew You Needed
Summary: After an accidental run-in with Vanessa, Dan starts re-evaluating his relationship and his feelings for his best friend…
Author's Note: This is based on a spoiler that there will be a threesome on the show in 3.09, and the promo points to it being between Olivia, Dan, and Vanessa.
Disclaimer: I keep trying to tell Josh Schwartz to hire me, but he doesn't seem to be getting the message. Therefore, I do not own Gossip Girl or any of the characters.
---
"Mmm…" Dan murmured in between trailing kisses along Olivia's neck. "I think not going to Conversations of the West today was the best idea you ever had."
"Oh, yeah?" She replied, attempting to be moody even as her giggles gave her away. "Well, just watch it. I'm going to need you teach me the course in order to make up for it."
He nodded solemnly and pulled away momentarily to look into her eyes. "Don't worry," he assured her. "I can be very sexy while discussing the philosophical implications of Prometheus Bound."
Before she could decide whether Dan's pseudo-intellectual bedroom talk was endearing or disturbing, he pulled her back in for another kiss. Soon enough, she was lying on the bed with her shirt off and Dan was beginning his work on her bra.
Being a normal girl really is great, she thought smugly to herself.
Unfortunately, her satisfied train of thought was interrupted by the sound of the door creaking open. Olivia silently cursed herself for forgetting the number-one rule of sexiling your roommate: always leave a sock on the door.
"Oh, my God." Vanessa's shocked voice rang out, seemingly reverberating off of every Godard poster in the room. "I'm so sorry – I didn't realize…"
She was trying to back out of the room as quickly as possible, but not before Dan practically leaped off of his girlfriend, protecting his bare chest with a pillow. Olivia mildly wondered why he didn't bother covering her up.
"Vanessa!" Dan exclaimed in a near falsetto that neither girl had ever heard from him before. "Don't you knock?"
His best friend fixed him with a withering glare that was intended in jest, but had a teensy bit of hurt behind it. Normally, he would be very right. She was a little bit pushy and a wee bit too invested in other people's business. But right now? He was just being a petulant child, trying to cover up his embarrassment. What confused her was that she felt really embarrassed, too.
Get a grip! She scolded herself. She had seen Dan naked (and in action, come to think of it) plenty of times in her life. It's not like she was in love with him or anything.
"…This is my room, you know," she finally said, after the silence had gone on for too long. "I think I'm allowed to walk in before announcing my presence."
Dan nearly gaped at that proclamation, having forgotten entirely where he was in his haste to compose himself.
What is wrong with you? He chided himself. He had been on the receiving end of Vanessa's walk-ins (or break-ins, some would say) plenty of times. She's seen him making out with Serena on more than one occasion. Hell, she had even caught him on the walk of shame from Georgina's? Why was it suddenly a big deal?
---
It kept being a big deal, however, throughout the afternoon. Even though Olivia had good-naturedly suggested that the three of them start over with a movie for the day, Vanessa had politely but rather awkwardly declined. Instead, she grabbed the books she would need for her next class (which wasn't for several hours) and high-tailed it out of there. Dan had watched her go with a mixture of relief, curiosity and pain crossing his features.
He kept replaying the scene over and over again in his mind, choosing to analyze Vanessa's facial expressions rather than concentrate on what was happening in The Box. If Vanessa were there, she'd say that Richard Kelly could keep trying as much as he liked, but he would never make another Donnie Darko. Which was already overrated in the first place (even if the boys in the sequel were drool-worthy).
Even as he told himself to stop thinking about what Vanessa would say, the thoughts of what she would say if she heard him telling himself to stop thinking about what she would say popped into his brain. Damn, now his head was starting to hurt.
Why had she looked so unhappy? She wasn't supposed to be in love with him – hadn't been for years. She had confirmed that herself during the Georgina blackmail debacle. So … what was her deal? And what was his deal that he couldn't just let it go?
"Do you think Vanessa might have a problem with us dating or something?" He ventured to ask his girlfriend while they were eating pizza later after the film. As Vanessa would have predicted, The Box was a bust.
"Um… Why would she care, exactly?" Olivia made a face at him as she picked the pepperoni off her pizza slice. Casey wanted her to lose some weight for her upcoming photo shoots, and she was having trouble complying with the dietary restrictions. What was so wrong with looking like an average human being?
"I mean, she was being weird this morning… She was acting strange, right? I'm not crazy." He tried to stop himself from doing the incessant rambling thing, but it was already too late. He was on the express train to Babble City. "It was awkward, though – totally awkward. You with the being naked. Me with the making you more naked. Vanessa with the … opening of doors… All of the Godard posters staring at us, À bout de souffle and whatnot."
Olivia was having a hard time concentrating on everything her boyfriend was saying – too many calls from publicists and talk show hosts were really killing her normal-girl buzz. But one thing was abundantly clear: her roommate's name was coming up far too often.
"Well, what do you suggest we do about it?" She asked him teasingly. "I'd say threesome, but I'm not sure she'd be up for it."
She hadn't meant anything by it, aside from humorously reminding Dan that she was dating him, not his best friend. The way his eyes bugged out of his head, however, made her realize Dan did not take these kinds of things lightly.
"You wouldn't – I mean, you wouldn't, right?" He spluttered, unsure of what had just happened. Why was he talking about Vanessa so much? Why would Olivia say something like that to him? Why was he being so melodramatic?
Olivia's melodious laugh surrounded them immediately. "Relax!" She said, a huge grin covering her face. "I was just kidding. You're such a dork sometimes."
She blew him a loving kiss, but she still felt like something was not quite right. Over the course of the last few months, their couple had somehow begun to include a little too much of a certain third party.
---
Somehow, the moment blew over for both of them and they managed to get right back on track, making out on Olivia's bed without a care in the world as to who might come in.
And, of course, Vanessa Abrams just had to come in then, proving to the world that she was nothing if not right on cue. Wrong place, wrong time was basically her motto in life.
"Oh, my God," she cried out, but in a way that sounded almost rehearsed. Like she was struggling not to laugh or forget her lines. "I'm so sorry – I didn't realize…"
Dan got up from his ministrations, but didn't feel the need to cover himself up this time. Instead, he walked over to his best friend and grabbed her by hand. While she eyed him curiously, she did not protest as he pulled her back towards the bed with him.
"Don't worry about it," Olivia called out good-naturedly as Dan and Vanessa made their way back to her. "We love having you around. Why don't you stay?"
"I should really be going, though," Vanessa insisted, although she still didn't let go of Dan's hand. Not even when he brought it to his lips for a slow kiss. "I have class, so I should leave you guys to it." She spoke with force, but didn't even attempt to move.
"I really want you here," Dan whispered in her ear before leaning over and kissing his girlfriend.
"You want me here to … what?" Vanessa asked bitterly, looking away from the scene in disgust. "To watch?"
"No, silly!" Olivia laughed that girlish laugh of hers. "To join."
Vanessa's mouth fell open, and Dan took the opportunity to kiss her full on the lips. She was shocked and flustered at first, but she quickly responded, allowing his tongue access and immediately running her fingers through his hair.
"I've been wanting to do that for so long," he breathed when he finally pulled away, as if realizing it for the first time. The glow in her eyes told him she felt the same way, and he felt a surge of warmth coursing through his veins. Why hadn't they done this before?
"Am I going to get a turn anytime soon?" His girlfriend asked from her spot on the bed, using that same sweet tone as always. He found himself bored by it.
"Maybe later." He shrugged her off and went back to kissing the girl that had been there all his life.
---
Dan woke up in a cold sweat, panting heavily and frightened out of his wits. He frantically looked around the room and slowly realized that he was not in Olivia's dorm but rather in his very own Brooklyn loft. Thank God.
He breathed a sigh of relief. Obviously he had not been involved in any kind of crazy threesome the night before – that was probably just too much pizza and his overactive imagination talking.
As happy as it made him that he could continue to rightfully count on his properly functioning moral compass, the dream itself gnawed at him in his currently lucid state. It was one thing to dream about a three-way with his girlfriend and his best friend. Olivia's comments the day before could easily take care of that. Plus, he was a red-blooded male, was he not? It was in his nature. Chuck Bass would be proud. Not that Dan would care what Chuck Bass was feeling ever, of course. Even if, for the record, Chuck Bass would say that dream was far too tame to even register on his radar. That was probably the kind of dream Chuck had when he was 8 or something.
No, the real problem was how the dream had felt. There had been more feeling, more sparks, more magic – as cheesy as it was – in one dream kiss with Vanessa than there had ever been with Olivia. Even if it was just his subconscious, that part of his brain obviously thought that kissing Vanessa was so powerful that it could cause him to forget about every other girl in the vicinity. Even the ones he was supposed to be dating.
He liked his girlfriend, sure. She was beautiful, funny, and smart – not to mention famous. She was a good kisser, too, so that wasn't an issue. And it was kind of gratifying to think that she had picked him over, say, Orlando Bloom. But, despite all these things, there was something missing. He couldn't just go see a terrible film with her and make fun of it under his breath the whole way through, for example. After all, some of the actors in the movie would probably be her friends – and she was way too nice to ever talk badly about them. And if he ever forgot himself and started judging something about her lifestyle without thinking, she'd never put him in his place. She would apologize for it or try to avoid the topic, trying to skirt around the Olivia part of her life and still pretend for a moment that she was Kate.
So, even though he liked Olivia, he had dated Serena van der Woodsen for long enough to know that he didn't really like those apologies. They made him feel like the bad guy, when he really was more of the guy that just didn't know any better. And he certainly didn't appreciate the way she tried to hide herself. What he actually wanted was someone who was real, through and through.
Vanessa was real, even if that reality was a bit too much to take at times. And she had been right, even if she hadn't realized she was talking about herself. They shared the same background, the same interests, history, and even personality traits. When he was feeling down, she just knew it. And she knew how to make it better without even having to say a word. When he lost sight of his own flaws and started trying to pick on hers, she brought him crashing back down to reality – because their flaws were usually the same. And there was something beautiful in that.
He didn't know what had come over him, or what he could possibly do about it, but he did know that he couldn't stand the thought of hearing her say "I'm not in love with you, you moron" ever again.
He was so screwed.