With the Lights Turned On
Summary: (Or When Dan Tells Blair) To the surprise of no one, Dan is the affectionate one in their relationship. DAIR.
A/N: Sorry I suck. College continues to kick my butt. Its 4am. I'm writing for Dair. I've earned your review. Title comes from that Birdy cover that I lovelovelove.
Takes place between 5.17 – 5.18.
To the surprise of no one, Dan is the affectionate one in their relationship.
Not to say that Blair does not show her love, because she completely and totally does. She tucks her head under his chin when she needs him to keep her from breaking into pieces. She kisses his knuckles when they are swollen and worn from his constant type, type, typing. She touches her nose to his when she's kissed him and she wants him to know that she means it. She shows it all the time. Dan shows it more.
He tucks a loose curl behind her ear every time he sees her as if to say, "Hello, I missed you, I'm still not over your perfection." He kisses her forehead every time she leaves (he really, really hates to see her go), hoping it will shield her when he cannot be there himself. Really, he never stops kissing her.
Blair is not complaining. She just has never had a man in her life that shows her their love more than they say it. At times, she cannot tell whether she should be comforted by his warmth, or anxious for his words. But she's still Blair Waldorf, Goddamit. She won't go on wondering for long.
At the moment, Dan's head lies contently on her lap, his nose buried in the latest issue of Details, his legs crossed over the coffee table. As an alibi, Blair could say that she was actively analyzing the pages of Elle that she is flipping through periodically. However, as she sits on the Loft's couch with her legs stretched out in front of her, and this 170 hunk of man resting perpendicular on her lap, that would be a lie.
She is thinking about him. She wants to crack his code. Also, they are a both a little tipsy from Lily's annual something-or-other, so now's as good a time as any.
"Daaann." She keeps her gaze calculated and fixed on the magazine.
"Hmmmmm."
"Can I…ask you something?"
He hiccups, and tries to readjust himself so he can look her in the eye with less of a strain. He gives up, his coordination lost in the night.
"Of course."
"Its just…I want you…to tell me."
At that, he pushes his magazine aside entirely, and moves to sit next to her. She readjusts her legs, and he's sitting upright near her on the couch, prying her fingers way from the pages.
"Tell you what, Blair?"
She sighs, placing the magazine down, letting him thread their fingers together.
"Everything, Dan. All of the things that are…running through your mind…the things you don't tell me. I mean, I won't pretend I don't already know you better than I know anyone else. I know how you like your coffee, and I know that you aren't embarrassed to admit that Rufus is one of your best friends, and from tonight, I know that when you are really drunk, you like to braid my hair."
He gives the messy braid he fashioned in the car ride back to the Loft a few hours ago a light tug, for good measure.
"All of that is true."
"I read the book. I heard the vows. I know. But..." she was wrong before. This is not easier to do tipsy. Sure, most of the effects of the liquor have worn off by now but she thinks it would have been wiser to wait until she was more clear-headed to have this conversation. Truly, this is monumental. She is asking him to tell her.
"You want me to tell you." He nods, understanding. She loves that about him. Its 3am, and they spent the night drinking, and she can barely convey a clear train of thought and still, he understands.
"You just…spent so long not telling me, you know? I want you to tell me. For me and you both." She lets out a breath she did not know she was holding as she watches him prepare himself for…whatever this is about to be.
"You are right. I did spend a long time not telling you. So…where do I start?"
She rubs his knuckles to reassure him as she prompts, "When did you know?"
She thinks she may have fallen a little more just then, because he blushes a deep red like he's Lizzie McGuire or something. Adorable.
"Well. Hmph. Truth is, I was feeling…this way the entire time that we got to know each other better, since last winter. But I didn't even let myself think it. It didn't really hit me until one day that spring. It was not even necessarily significant. You were bustling around your bedroom, looking for an earring before we ran off to some exhibit, and you bumped into your dresser. For a moment, you dropped everything you were holding, grabbed your bruised knee, and just yelled 'FUCK'. Do you remember?"
She smirks, still rubbing. "I do."
"I had never heard you curse before, not like that. Not even when you were around your closest friends. And to see you let loose, to let the Waldorf veneer crack a bit in front of me…well I guess you could say that it cracked mine too."
He pauses, breathes, and looks up, seeking permission to continue. She nods, because no way in hell is he stopping now.
"By the time I had come over to kiss you, I already knew, and I was going crazy. Then afterwards when things didn't go as…expected, I really knew, because of the way I was…hurting. And after the summer, when I spent all my time writing depressing haikus' from Dylan to Claire and I joined a softball team to try and get my mind off of you, I really, really knew. And then…"
He gulps and Blair realizes that whatever he is about to say, he's never actually said out loud.
"That night at the loft when you…came to me. Asked me to take you to Cece's and you, trusted me, turned to me. I wanted so badly to forget the consequences, forget everything that had stopped me before, and just run off. Just for once, get to be with you. When Louis showed up, when you left with him, furious…there was no more denying left in me."
"Dan," she offers quietly.
"Oh, don't give me those pity eyes," he chuckles, good-natured as ever, "You were so pissed. And you had every right to be. I was being selfish. I just wanted you, that was all. But after that night I vowed to never put my own wants first, not when you were still in my life, because you are more important than anything."
A chill runs down her spine because good God, she knows that he means it.
"So after that, there was just a lot of me avoiding it entirely. I was still dealing with Inside business at the time and part of me was so scared to let it come out. Scared to let everyone know about what I really thought of the people closest to me, especially you. I had barely even acknowledged my feelings myself and I knew as soon as it was published, everyone in the city would know."
She is just sitting there, rubbing and nodding, utterly mesmerized.
"But being around you had made me want to stop acting like a pussy all the time. I had wanted to be a published author since I learned to read and the only thing stopping me was fear. So I ripped the Band-Aid, and well, we all know how that turned out."
He ducks his head sheepishly for a moment, and then lets his gaze slowly shift back up to her. His eyes search hers for a moment, trying to decide whether or not he should be cryptic about the next part. He knows she wants him to tell her, but he's not sure he wants her to have to relive all that agony along with him.
"We do. And then…" she prods, ever impatient.
"Well then I, I had to be…around you more. You needed a friend. And I needed to be that."
Pause. A flash of panic surges through Blair, her fingers trembling.
"You can go on. Its okay."
He shuts his eyes for a moment, letting it wash over him. She had asked him to invite her in all those weeks ago, and now that she's really here, he finally understands what she meant. Sure, he's spent more than a year pouring over pages and pages of what were essentially love letters to this girl, but somehow, just plain telling her how he had been feeling was difficult. However, he wanted her, every little piece of her, and this is what she wanted. So he opened his eyes, his mouth, his heart.
"I felt like I was drowning. All of the time. I was just in so deep, and I couldn't say a word. I remember asking myself if I had made the whole thing up in my mind, how things had happened. Because that spring, I had felt like maybe, somehow, there was hope that you felt the same way about me. There were moments, you know, like at the Columbian coffee shop when I let you eat the whipped cream off of my latte, or when our arms would brush on our way to an exhibit. I was stupid, I know, but I had felt like maybe it wasn't just me. Maybe we had fallen together."
She's stopped rubbing by now. And stopped breathing, too.
"I was miserable. My book was doing great and I was having all this success and I could not enjoy it at all because I was too busy being eight different shades of pathetic over you." He chuckles a bit, scoots closer to her on the chair.
"By the fall my Dad had noticed, and he described me as 'sick' over you. I never wanted to talk about it, but he was always asking if I was okay, if I had told you yet. I was convinced that I never would. I had tried a few times, but every time it just became more and more clear that you weren't ready, that it would have destroyed our entire friendship. So I just kept saying nothing."
He pauses a moment, a uses his free hand to cup her cheek for a moment.
"Blair. Breathe."
She does, immediately, and reddens at being caught.
"I'm sorry, its just…keep going, Dan."
He sighs, and racks the free hand through his mess of curls.
"I didn't really realize it then, but I had been…waiting for you. I was kind of stuck in this awful place where I knew you were off limits, but I had fallen so hard, I really could not even bring myself to want anyone else. So mostly, I just tried not to think of you too much. But then I would end up writing, and drinking, and self-reflecting, and of course, all I could think of was you. Blair, for the last year and a half, all I have ever been able to think of is you."
Her breath hitches at that, and it makes him smile.
"There were so many nights where I just couldn't sleep, just thinking of your voice," he whispers, inching near her, reveling in his effect on her. "And your hair, and your smile. And how I have never met a person so brave, who believed in everyone around her so much, but who almost never cut herself a bit of credit. I would think of you, constantly. So much that I couldn't eat sometimes, that I was scared that you would see me and you would know how much I had been thinking of you, and that it would scare you off."
He smiles. "Irrational, I know."
She smiles too, so taken with him, and touches his neck. "You couldn't eat, Dan?"
"Oh, Blair. You have no idea. Really, this is the watered down version. I have been so sick over you for so long, it is absolutely embarrassing."
"Its not embarrassing at all. You are…something else, Dan Humphrey."
He blushes at that, and distantly hopes that this is his out.
"So, Dan. Continue."
She is brutal. If he's honest, its that quality that made him fall for her in the first place.
"So there was the wedding, and everything that had to do with it, and it all made me so nauseous, I was sure I had come down with something. When I had to write the vows I honestly thought I'd die. That the whole unrequited thing was too much, that what I felt for you was going to crush me, that I would not make it. But I wanted you to feel loved on your wedding day, so I wrote it, and I want you to know, Blair. I meant every word."
She knows. Deep down, underneath all of her crazy, she had known then, that night at the bar. She didn't know how much it tore him apart, though.
"I know," she whispers.
Its quiet for a moment. He senses that the guilt that she must feel. He wishes he could erase it all.
"After the wedding, my Dad begged me to move on. Get over you. Because you were married, and I was more involved than ever, crazier about you than ever. But, of course, I couldn't, because you're Blair Waldorf. One does that simply move on from you."
"So I just held on, kept being your friend, kept holding my tongue. Part of me was scared that I would never be able to move on, that I would stay like that forever. But most of me didn't view that as a bad thing, because feeling this way about you, falling for you like this…it was probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. It forced me to grow up, stop being so selfish, open my eyes. I would have been fine with gazing at you from across the room for the rest of my life. But then, well…you know the rest."
She's closer than ever now, and she is not letting him off that easy.
"Refresh my memory?" She asks it innocently, with her free hand buried in his curls once again.
"Blair." She nods, maintaining the innocent act. It makes his chest tighten, just looking at her.
"Fine. Then, Valentines Day. You were trying to set me up with Serena, and for a while, it had hurt that you really didn't see why I was reluctant to get back with her. But then…"
"But then…" she mimics, kissing his jaw.
"But then you undressed me, pushed me up against a wall, and told me what I had no idea you were thinking about me for the past few months. I was so scared, frozen in place, but I saw something in your eye. You were just kind of sparkling up at me, and I knew that if I did not act on it, even if it was just a fleeting glance, I would regret it forever."
He gulps, let's a shudder pass through him from the way she's touching him and from the memory itself, and then, "Then I kissed you, and it was the best decision I have ever made."
"What was it like?" She's pulled back from his jaw now, her gaze locked on him, unwavering.
"What was it like to finally kiss you after pining over you for a year? To stop feeling so hopeless and miserable and aching every second I spent next to you? To feel your tiny little fingers grasp at my shirt and my neck, wanting me just as badly as I had wanted you? What was it like?"
He sure does know how to build some suspense.
"It was like flying, Blair. It was just like flying."
She gasps, tears forming in her eyes. Later, she'll blame the liquor, but for now, its the boy in front of her. He is just…dazzling, dazzling, dazzling.
He breathes. He has never said it before. He has shown her, without a doubt, in every thing he had done for her, in every word he wrote. But he has never said it, and Blair can feel deep in her heart that he is about to.
"I have never felt this way about anyone, Blair Waldorf. You are the first thing I think of every single morning. Even when you're driving me insane, even when you're breaking me apart, even when you're across the ocean. I love you. I am so in love with you and I want you to know that I do not regret spending a year and half completely love struck over you. Not for a single moment."
His eyes will not leave hers. He won't leave her either.
"I love you. God, Dan, I love you so much…it is terrifying."
Three weeks into their relationship, and she's crumbling to pieces in his arms, reduced to tears by his love for her. It's much too deep, much too fast, and she hopes it never ends. It doesn't.
He kisses her then, one of those dizzying kisses that he used to think were just for his dreams, or for Lily and Rufus after they had spent a day just sitting near each other, loving each other. His hands are buried in her hair and he is probably crushing her with his body weight, and none of it matters. He's flying.
They let a few moments pass, foreheads connected, eyes unmoving. Finally, unwillingly, she yawns, and he leans up to kiss her nose.
"Come on, let me help you untangle your hair. Lets go to sleep."
So he does, and they do, and he won't stop kissing her in the morning when he wakes up and finds that she is still there.
FIN. Seriously. Its 6am. I just finished this. REVIEW POR FAVOR! Hope you liked!