Title: Impossible Things
Pairing: Hints at Daniel/Betty
Rating: R
Summary: The idea that Daniel and Betty would ever be together is ridiculous, because Daniel is Daniel, and Betty is…well, Betty.
Disclaimer: I do not own nor am I affiliated with Ugly Betty.
The idea that Daniel and Betty would ever be together is ridiculous, because Daniel is Daniel, and Betty is…well, Betty.
Daniel lives in a world of glamorous one-night-stands, and Betty is about as far from that as you can get; she is everything he's never had—everything he's never thought to have.
Besides which, Betty has never, ever, ever thought about him in that way, and she never will. He is her boss, and she is his employee, and even if maybe, one time, just for a second, she had wondered what it would be like to go beyond that, she would never admit to it, and she'd certainly never try to act on it.
Daniel wants gorgeous stick-figure girls to fuck, and Betty wants love and marriage and maybe a white-picket fence, and the two are so wildly incompatible that him and her, in the romantic sense of things, is so wrong it's laughable.
Daniel and Betty, together—like, as-a-couple together; like, he's-sleeping-with-who? together—is not ever going to happen, so it's easy for Betty to ignore Walter's jealousy and Ms. Thursday's wild accusations. They are absurd.
It is not, however, so easy to dismiss this preposterous rumor when it's the cover-story of a popular tabloid.
They'd been at the MODE Christmas party, and Daniel, doing the nice thing, had asked her to dance, and it was strictly a coincidence that the camera had caught him looking at her like that.
The lighting, the angle, the exact moment the picture had been taken had all come together to trick the eye into seeing something that wasn't there; Betty had been smiling about something he had said—Betty was always smiling—and Daniel had been blindsided by how pretty she really was when she did that, and it was at just that instant that the camera-shutter had clicked, and it made it seem like Daniel had been looking at her like there was no one in the world there but them.
They'd looked, undeniably, like lovers. She had been in his arms—in a fashionable dress, for once; Justin had threatened disownment if she didn't wear it—and she'd been beaming, beaming at him, and, in that moment, Daniel had been entirely focused on her. And then it was gone, broken, but the picture had been taken and the damage had been done.
"I can't believe this," said Betty, when she saw it. "This is insane! I can't believe these people get paid for coming up with this drivel. I'll send out a statement denying it immediately."
"Wait," said Daniel.
This was not the first nor the last time he'd been plastered across the front page of a tabloid; it did not upset him the way it did Betty.
But with the timing coinciding with the MODE December issue, and the interest generated from the rumor…he could use this to his advantage, he thought.
If Alex had upped the sale of his publication by causing a stir with his polka-dotted boxers, what would it do for MODE if people were buzzing about Daniel's supposed affair with his homely assistant? Especially considering that the December issue was always the highest-selling of the year, and with this and the added interest of the Fey Sommers tribute spread, photographed by Vincent Bianchi himself…the issues would be flying off the shelves.
"Tell anyone who calls that we have no comment," he said.
"But that will just cause more gossip," said Betty.
"Exactly," said Daniel. "Think about how many more issues this will help us sell. Wilhelmina will die when she sees the numbers!"
"But aren't you upset that people are saying things about you that aren't true?" asked Betty.
"Well, it's not like anyone who knows us will believe it," said Daniel. "I mean, come on, you and me?"
"Right," said Betty. "Of course. Anything else?"
"No, nothing," said Daniel, and chucked their picture into the trash.