The first time he sees her he convinces himself it's a trick of light meets booze all over again. Only this time he's not alone in a hotel room so it's a lot harder to dismiss and be certain that he's just being a pathetic coward.
This is just as dubious a scenario, (albeit for different reasons) he belatedly realizes so he instead stops another shooter girl on the floor and slides a crisp bill into her hands grabbing two test tube shots. He spends the night on the floor in search of a woman who looks the least like any thing he's left back home.
All the red hair in the world doesn't make him forget.
/
Five days pass and he's now no closer to being ready to go back home and face everyone weeks later. He isn't sure just how many people have seen the book, even less sure how many have put two and two together but if Nate's eventual silence is any indication he'd say it's far from safe. This line of thinking leads him straight back to that club because he knows the best way to bring it to a grinding halt is to get properly shit faced.
He leaves his phone back in his room just in case he ever crosses that line that will see him texting someone back home and revealing his current whereabouts.
He's going to fucking maim Vanessa.
The slope is super slippery tonight and he can barely feel his toes in under an hour, must be some kind of dysfunctional record - he's sure of it. Dammit not bringing his phone seems kind of dumb now because he could be calling the folks at Guinness and making a future for himself – but noooo he had to go and be all paranoid. Like seriously, it's not just tonight, he's sure if he told them how many times he successfully fucked shit up with Serena alone they'd consider him.
Especially if he shows them pictures.
Her legs flash behind his eyes and he feels like punching a wall briefly.
So he stumbles to the very long bar and plants himself on a stool not trusting his numb feet to do their job much longer. He orders some whiskey on the rocks; triple, ignoring the look the tanned bartender gives him before mutely making it and sliding it into his hand. Then he turns back out to look at the crowd for what seems like an hour but he's sure is only half that if so much. It's one of the factories in the suburbs that turns into rave central once or twice a week.
It's the opposite of his scene… but then again that's kind of the point.
Nobody is going to look for him here. Vienna is definitely not high on the list of exotic escapes – especially not ones that Dan Humphrey would go to. He finds it ironic and insane all at once that he now understands why Chuck Bass of all people tried to disappear, not to mention Serena's repeated runaway missions.
Yeah he's basically dove off his high horse in just 2 short months.
He spins around in his stool a scowl on his face wondering if tonight he should indulge and try and find a tourist or local girl to entertain him for the night when he's face to face with her.
This time her startled face is all the proof he needs that this is no hallucination.
/
"Shit." He groans and in an instant she frowns at him clearly thinking she's the only one entitled to be displeased about their reunion.
"I'll say Humphrey, who sent you!" her voice is barely heard over the electronic bass.
It takes him a few seconds in his drunken stupor to realize that she had been away and um… engaged when his own personal Hiroshima took place. He's not sure how to proceed now.
Huh but suddenly the urge to flee is dwindling.
And no – it's not just because he's still not over her… it's because she won't be able to rat him out, because she's familiar… because… fuck he's lonely.
"Your hair." He says stupidly. Cue the internal groan.
It's in a bob – he really can't be blamed because um this is Blair, and he's only ever known her with long straight tresses. She's got a slightly asymmetrical wavy bob thing going on like she's done with actual hair styling for good – and it's really, really hot.
She rolls her eyes and puffs her cheeks a bit before slamming her hand on the bar, "Humphrey – Jesus focus! How did you find me?"
"I didn't."
She turns to a girl passing by and shocks him by speaking fluent German quickly, the girl looks at him briefly and then grins back at Blair who only glares in return. She quickly uses her foot to move something out in front of her which he later realizes is a stool then vaults herself up onto the bar and slides over all Nikita-like.
Holy Shit – what is life right now?
Before he can even ask where Blair Freakin' Waldorf learns to go all Alias on him she has fisted her hand in his shirt and is pulling him up off the stool (thank GOD he didn't wobble and faceplant) and is guiding him to a door off to the side marked 'NO ENTRY'
They're out in the back after walking down a long, poorly lit, creepfest of a hallway and the cool air actually kind of sobers him up a little.
Kind of.
"Talk" she takes three fingers and jabs him in his chest which causes him to kind of slump back against the wall.
"YOU Talk." He glowers, "This isn't exactly where I'd expect royalty such as yourself to be hanging out much less tending bar!"
She pauses then and looks him in his face evenly, scrutinizing him more than she's ever done in all the time he's known her - never giving him more than a bored, dismissive stare. And that was even when they were… friends… or whatever.
\\ \
He doesn't know.
Blair looks at the set of his shoulders, his hesitant eye contact and the way he's nervously licking his thin lips and realizes he really doesn't know.
So what? The Universe just decided it was pledge week and she was being hazed?
But then wait if he really doesn't know… "If you don't know then what are you doing here?"
Shit, she regrets those first four words instantly because even as drunk as he is he's still annoying know it all Dan Humphrey and his brain quickly pulls it all together.
"You're hiding too." Stated not asked he follows it with "Interesting."
"What are you doing here?" She's not surprised that even drunk he realizes that she means in the city – like with his life.
"Second hand book store." Typical.
"What happened?" he asks.
"Why should I tell you?" She folds her arms.
"Because the only people I could tell that it would matter to can't know where I am… and they're the same people you're hiding from."
He rubs his face tiredly or drunkenly… maybe both and she digs the nails of her right hand into the crook of her left elbow, fucking shit he's right of course.
"Well if you must know I was too humiliated to go back home after I miscarried a baby that wasn't the prince's." His eyes bug out for a second then he stands straighter looking at her with … is that concern?
What a choir boy.
"Did he know?"
"Not at first, but when I wasn't as anxious to try for a second he became suspicious… anyway the note I left the night I snuck out told him everything."
She can't look at him right now, shame feeling like hot water running down her back.
"Your turn."
He sighs heavily and stares up at the sky, oh man this is gonna be bad isn't it? "I've been secretly writing a book… satire… about everything."
"Everything?" she coaxes dangerously.
"The Upper East Side, all of you guys, high school – college the twisted dark places in between. You have to understand though that somewhere around the time that I finished it I never wanted it to see the light of day but I couldn't throw away an actual completed novel that I'd worked on for years."
His eyes are pleading and guilty, and at first she doesn't understand why since what happened with them was short lived and pg but then she hears the word echo in her mind.
Everything.
She slaps him hard and fast to which he replies.
"There you go."
"How could you do that? We let you in and you betray us? Going around like you're better than all of us when your hands are every bit as dirt-"
"Actually." He grinds out, "Vanessa's the one not afraid of filthy hands."
Oh this is so a hazing.
"Also don't for one second insult my intelligence and try to claim that any of you other than Serena when it suited her own purposes ever let me in."
Who knew that after weeks of feeling barely anything, thinking just how over it all she was - that Vanessa Abrams would be able to show her just how wrong she was?
Or that Humphrey still had such a massive chip on his shoulder?
"Great – I'm never going back home." She turns to leave, because she's not going to be losing out on great tips for the likes of this mess right here.
But then he catches her wrist in his undeserving hand and tugs her lightly so that he can meet her eyes, "Blair… I'm sorry."
She feels awkward and won't admit that her eyes burn a little bit before she pulls her hand away.
"Come… we both need a shot."
\\ \
He asks for her contact information, since unlike him she has long since gotten rid of her American cell phone.
She says no.
But then a week later on a Wednesday she dedicates a whole day to visiting all the second hand book stores Google finds for her before she ends up in his.
She goes to the counter where he's reading a magazine and fails to notice her for about fifteen seconds before she clears her throat.
He bolts out of the chair but still stares at her in silence, almost like he's trying to decide whether she's real or not. After she glances at the door thinking this may have been some kind of mistake he moves, reaches into his pocket then wordlessly slides his phone towards her.
Fine. Ok. So she puts her number in there.
He may be Dan Humphrey but here nobody knows what that even means and still less people pay attention to her. The company would be nice once in a while.
They start hanging out the way they did back in New York only without secrecy - movies, food, art shows. It's all on a smaller scale both in an effort to conserve money as well as remain invisible, she misses dressing up – like really up. But sometimes he slides his hand in hers when they cross the street into heavy traffic and suddenly the fact that her flats are from a flea market doesn't really matter. She eventually goes online for the first time in weeks and actually looks into this whole book drama he seems so keen on ignoring, pushing down the licking flames of rage that swell inside her.
When he shows up to the club that night she barely acknowledges him and even though he may understand and allow her that he does so while getting smashed then heading out to the floor.
Dana asks her worriedly when she goes out back to have a cig, "What is your boyfriend doing with that blonde?"
"He's not my boyfriend – I keep telling you that." And the sad look she gets back jumpstarts some kind of fire.
She throws the cigarette on the ground and grinds it into the gravel picturing Chuck's face before she's barreling down the hallway and back inside the club. She sees him walking into the bathroom and only hesitates for a second before she's angrily following after him. He's washing his hands by the time he sees her in the mirror and only has a moment to squawk and turn around before she's in his face hands itching to hit his cheek again.
"You're mad." He won't look at her.
"Yes."
"You finally decided to read it?" she blanches; she doesn't think she can even go that far… to see how she looked in his eyes.
"No… just looked on gossip girl - the press releases and the fall out…." He looks nauseated and she feels a little bit vindicated.
"I told you I was sorry."
He looks petulant and that's when she spots the lipstick on his neck, she reaches out and swipes her thumb against it – hard – skin burning on skin and raises it to his face, "Oh yeah?"
All of a sudden she wants to cry, wants to forget these past few weeks, wants a do over, and wants an excuse to wear the gorgeous dress that's hanging in the back of her closet. It's confusing and he holds her thumb looking at it for a moment before wiping it clean with his own.
"She's not you."
She doesn't know who moves first but he keeps her hand held tightly and trapped between their bodies his other hand going straight around her neck his thumb grazing the sensitive skin. It's not like the kiss they had before, it's not like one of Chuck's but… it's dear God it's actually good. Her free hand spreads itself flat on his back before he nibbles her lips taking advantage of her gasp pushing his tongue over hers and suddenly she's fisting his slate colored shirt.
He hums contentedly and she pulls back slightly pressing her forehead against his briefly attempting to mentally talk herself out of continuing and it's like he's a mind reader or something because he leans in and runs his tongue over her bottom lip and whispers a guttural apology again.
Fuck it.
Nowhere to go but up…
She pulls her hand out of his (not sure this is supposed to be that sweet anyway) and leans in spreading his knees and sliding her fingers up his thighs before settling them on his back her left hand reaching all the way up to rest on his shoulder from behind. He has one arm wrapped tight like a snake around her waist the other cradling the base of her neck his thumb pressed against the hollow of her throat.
His grip is possessive, something she never thought him capable of and she thinks briefly that a drunk Dan Humphrey is way more ballsy than the watered down version she was forced to endure back home. (Why is it that she's only attracted to a man's need to consume her not elevate her? Daddy issues much B?) He's started dragging his swollen lips across her jaw and trailing his hot breath right down the center of her throat his hand that was there leaving to squeeze her bare thigh when the door flies open.
It's the blonde from earlier and she thinks briefly of Serena, and her response when she found out about them. She's torn between missing her friend and smug remembering her face when she called her on just being upset that for once the attention wasn't all hers. Dan stares blankly at the girl who can't seem to settle on crestfallen or outraged.
Yeah, she wants to say, he's confusing like that.
So instead she turns away to tell him he's on his own when he's already reaching out for her face again pulling her in for a shorter kiss.
"I um… the bar." She blushes – the horror.
"After?" She feels a small smile slip out of her before she can stop.
/
So yah he's kind of a dick tonight. Jesus how do all the other guys do this routinely? He spends the rest of the night sitting in the middle of the bar so he can 1)see her no matter where she is and 2) eye her ass in her tight silver shorts every time she has to walk by. There's a moment when the group of guys next to him all order shots and get her one as well and she slides it back keeping her eyes on him the whole time and he grits his teeth in an effort to remain calm.
He's not even completely sure anything will happen when he goes back to her place tonight. He knows he wants it to but will settle for whatever she's willing to give.
/
She lives above a pastry shop, something that is just so… her. It makes him smile every time he has come over but tonight the smile on his face is different, hopeful somehow. He's slowly starting to sober up because she made them walk back saying she wanted the air on her face, he thinks it's because she can't smoke in cabs. He's trying to think how to approach the rest of the evening, he knows she responds to him when he's more aggressive – a part of him that he's always held back with other women.
Truth be told it's really fucking liberating to not have to be tender just because he's nice.
Serena latched onto him *because* he wasn't like all the other guys, a role he found himself feeling trapped in each time they revisited. Vanessa (ugh still bitter inside his mouth just at the thought of her) told him, left no room for him to just be – 'you're not like other douchebags Dan.'
Still it sure was sweet that she was down for the threesome.
Woah wait – the hell? How did he wind up here?
Right, Blair – who has little to no expectations of him, who with disdain tells him he's too nice. To say that she's refreshing is an epic understatement and he can't wait to return the favour – booze free.
Just you know, in case she thinks she needs to sauce him up to like him.
He looks over at her now while she blows smoke upwards sitting on the stair in front her door which is next to the shop's door. "You know I never thought you for a smoker."
"Exactly."
"You really want to that badly be someone else?"
"Anybody else Humphrey."
"That's too bad." She shifts and averts her eyes, oh right too soft and squishy.
He considers briefly jokingly saying in a voice slightly lower 'so you gonna fuck me or what?' but doesn't want a slap without alcohol to numb it. Maybe he could spit and adjust his half chub (fucking tease, touching him through his pants earlier.) but he settles instead for jerkish reverse psychology.
"Well it's a masterful plan because if it was one thing Blair Waldorf wasn't; it's gross." Her flinch is faint but it's there and it's all that he needs.
He slides down opposite her and takes his phone out looking for messages he knows won't be there and knows she's thinking the same thing.
"Do you miss Serena?" Huh – or maybe not.
"Do you miss Chuck?" he counters without looking from his most recent (still unsolved) hangman puzzle.
She blows smoke in his face.
"Are we just totally fucked up here Dan?"
Oh wow first name.
"Do you… still want Chuck? Or Louis for that matter?" He puffs his chest out to try and look tougher than he is.
She frowns, not an angry scowl but the face she makes when she's thinking about something unpleasant. The seconds that pass make him feel heavier and smaller, he's not even sure if she ripped his clothes off now he could perform.
Well…
"I want… I want what my life could have been then. The options, the safety of the expected." She flicks her cigarette into the street staring after it as she reviews her answer.
"We're not totally fucked up then." He smiles tiredly.
"I'm using you." That would have hurt if she didn't look completely sad or turn the last word out in a question.
"Maybe… for now." If she is, he's honestly ok with it because he's not sure he isn't either, but he does know that…
"Look we may be trying to forget a lot of things and certain people, but there's nobody else we'd rather eclipse it all with." It's his turn to end his statement with a question.
"Give me your hand." He says roughly and her small one shoots out without hesitation – it's better than any answer she could give him.
He means to pull her close, to offer them both some brief calm comfort but one of her feet slips off the side of the single stair causing her to half tumble into his lap. Her cheeks flush and he kind of thinks something is wrong with a dude who finds a humiliated girl pretty.
File that one away for future therapy sessions.
He laughs softly (at himself) which damn sort of gets her all huffy and out for blood because she straddles him before he can even blink and - bam her fingers are in and tugging at his curls. She stares him in the eyes for a few seconds before she smashes their mouths together.
This time he doesn't forget to take the reins back.
He doesn't even hate the nicotine taste as much as he figured he would.
\\ \
She'd give him something to laugh abo-oh!
His hands within seconds of responding to her kiss are right on her ass. One squeeze, two and then he leans his upper body back letting his head lean against the door to adjust the angle before pressing her into his crotch.
Why hello.
And yes she does believe she is grinding – hard – into Dan-fucking-Humphrey (also hard) in an alcove in Vienna late at night.
He does the thing again where he traps her bottom lip between his teeth and she decides then and there to just accept once and for all that one (two) kiss didn't tell the whole story and this right here feels pretty good. Her hands have left his hair since he leaned back instead bracing her weight against the door on either side of his head so she takes one, without breaking their kiss, and attacks his buttons. His mouth is back on her neck again and she feels like an engine is going off in her head – he walks a line with her no one else has before.
It's needy, firm, rough yet revering all at once. Makes her feel drunk.
He drags his teeth over the swell of her breast and she moans loudly the sound echoing off the small space – too late for shame now.
Confident that she's going to keep pressing intimately into him without his guidance (and why wouldn't she?) his hands find better things to do like tug her tank top out from her shorts and slide up to her breasts. He has no pace to speak of, choosing instead to keep her guessing. One minute he's lightly grazing her nipple, then he pinches lightly the underside of her breast while growling softly and she doesn't know how much more she can take. He brazenly lifts the shirt up and puts his hands on her back causing her to not only lean into his mouth but her knees slide and even more of her weight is on his hardness.
The air is cooler now and when juxtaposed against the hotness of his mouth on her, her nipples strain even more which he feels under his palm, "Mmm cold?"
It's teasing and comes out around a mouth full of breast - she just huskily tells him to shut up (keep going!).
She's in the process of raking her nails down his ribs when a car drives by slowly and he pauses leaning her upper body flush against his to wait and see if it slows down. When it turns the corner his hands fall from her and he looks up his head still on the door, eyelids hooded and actually drawls up at her.
"I need to get you upstairs."
She pulls down her shirt and refuses to admit that her knees feel a little weak, and even if she did it's obviously because of the position she was just in – not the words he said or the way he looked at her. And if it's hard to find her keys in her bag, it's because she's got shoes, her phone, and junk in there and her keys they're small and at the bottom.
It's not because he's sucking on her neck and reaching around her to firmly touch her through her shorts – nope not at all.
They barely manage to lock the door behind them and make it up about 6 of the 15 stairs when she feels his hand slide up her thigh. She turns sideways to shoot him a look but he's got a mischievous (hot) expression on his face with his teeth biting down on the corner of a lopsided grin daring her to stop him.
Never being one to back down, not to common folk like him, this is how she finds herself on the stairs with her shorts and panties pulled down with him finally finding a good way to shut himself up. The fact that there is another unit up a second flight of stairs past her own has her all kinds of aroused because they could easily come across them (even if it is early in the morning). The stairs are digging into her back but she doesn't care because he's nipped the inside of her thigh and hummed like he just tasted a food he's been craving for weeks.
Her head is spinning and she's trying to figure out if they should just get caught up in the moment and do this here and now or if she wants to lay out beneath him with some basic amount of comfort.
He presses his tongue deep and her head falls all the way back.
"Inside – please." She chokes out.
"More?" he smarts off.
"Fuck you." She shoves his forehead and grabs at her underwear because they're higher letting her shorts fall on him.
She doesn't look back to see what he thinks about her walking up the stairs in a tank, underwear and wedges. She just wants to get to the door before he tries another one of his little tricks again (then surprise him with a few of her own).
He's already shrugging off his blazer when he walks in after her and she lulls him into a false sense of security by leaning against the wall smiling as he slowly shuts the door clicking the lock slowly but forcefully. He slides his hand over to stop right beside her head and his other reaches out tracing her hip as he eyes her lips then – surprise! – she grabs him and switches their positions.
He makes a little curious yet pleased sound which she barely has time to appreciate because his belt buckle is waiting. Now it's her turn and she drops to her knees without any pretense or hesitation. He feebly reaches for her breasts a few times, leaning over at an odd angle to make it as his groans get her more turned on by the second. His hands reach into her hair and she feels self conscious for a beat and she must have stiffened or something because he manages to moan out a hoarse 'I love your hair.' Before she can reprimand him with a glare for being wishy-washy he fists his hand in it and thrusts lightly into her mouth and yeah ok aaalll is forgiven.
He pulls her off and her lips make little pop, explaining that he needs a minute, they end up in the hallway just outside her room with him teasing (torturing) her against the wall. He's hitched one of her legs around his waist and instead of sliding home he just leisurely rubs his erection back and forth against her. She's pleaded and he's taken her hand and trapped it against the wall when she tried to take over, she's even bitten him on his shoulder for good measure but he's just chuckled.
When he traps her earlobe between his teeth and whispers "Who's a virgin now?" She kind of loses it.
She pulls her head back and looks at him, shit is this a dream? Has she woken up for the day yet? Suddenly she's biting her lip concerned and he stops and asks her simply 'what?'
"Prove this is you, that this is actually happening. Because… this seriously feels like some kind of alternate universe thing."
"Blair… really? Right now?" She feels his hard on jump against her intimately which only spurs her on.
"Please Humphrey."
She's reaching out for something familiar and he sighs and asks her what she means.
/
This girl is impossible.
She's going to make his boner go away and fast if this keeps up. "What do you need me to do?"
"Say something Daniel would say." He's confused because it stands to reason that Blair wouldn't call him Daniel but whatever.
He gathers his wits and calls some blood north so he can think on his feet, hey he's a writer he can do this. "Uh… Well so much for being able to take the nice guy hat off – finally – for tonight…"
She pinches him as a silent warning, reaching down to take him in her hands. "Blair." He moans. "How am I supposed to give you familiar with you jerking me off?"
"Sorry." She pants.
"Listen I don't know what you want me to say, what magical words are going to get us back on track here because that's where I want to be badly right now – back on the track that leads to us in your bed."
He shoves himself against her roughly at the word bed. "I want you, badly... ok? I have for months and maybe I told myself that it just was best to let it go because we're all so incestuously linked – the group I mean – but you're here now and naked and fuck."
He pauses and she waits, her breath held, "I'll burn every bridge in the world if it means that you-"
She's kissing him before he can say '-and I can finally do this.' And her mouth is hotter than any fire he's willing to light.
Way to go Danny Boy – some passionate romance left in you after all.
/
He leans, grabs her behind the thighs and lifts her with little effort.
Hard to explain how but this just feels right.
Her wetness pressed against his stomach, ankles digging into the small of his back, fingers toying with the curls at the nape of his neck.
It feels oh so right.
/
After weeks of trying every sordid thing he could to forget it all, he finds absolution buried all the way inside her. Her lips are right by his ear and all it takes are the words 'yes' and (oddly enough) 'Daniel' to make everything seem ok. They're sweating; he's making Her Majesty sweat and if it weren't so sexy he'd cackle and stick his tongue out at her. Every thrust gets him closer to straight up not giving a fuck about that stupid book, about the silence on his phone, or that nobody is really trying to find him. In fact when her nails dig into the dimples above his ass he tumbles over the other side of insanity and actually hopes they never do.
He has his own crisis of faith but keeps that shit inside his head where it belongs during sex and leans his upper body up so he verify that it's really her. That he didn't take that blonde home because he drank that much. He leaves one hand pressing hers into the bed with their fingers laced and places his other on the metal headboard using it to change the angle.
Her moans become wild and her nails dig into the back of his hand.
Yep – he's not lasting much longer.
He pulls out and turns her on her stomach, covering the length of her body with own (better to finish as close as possible) peppering her shoulder with quick kisses before taking her chin and turning her mouth inside out. She impatiently lifts her ass but bites his lip when he goes to move his head away – Jesus.
He takes her hint and pushes back and she after a minute returns each move - punctuated only by gasps.
Maybe they tumble over into insanity together.
\\ \
When she wakes up the next morning she's alone.
Hmmm – is she happy or sad? She knows she asked him to show her the nice boy underneath last night but… she likes the new side of him she now knows she brings out (pillow talk).
Ok yeah she's not sad – she's pretty much devastated.
That what? Dan Humphrey is like all the other boys in the world?
Since when did she expect things of him?
She sits up just as her front door slams.
Shit – ok well she's just a big cliché of a girl isn't she?
How he manages to pull off a plain white v-neck with slacks she's failing to understand. Since when can he pull anything off? His hair looks like he ran some water through it quickly because she knows there's no way that mess of curls stayed like that in his sleep. He winks at her and puts – oh is that food! It is! It's food and its sitting precariously on her chest of drawers while he slides his shoes off.
He hands her the cup but doesn't take his up instead looking at his watch and moving to the foot of her bed.
Oh.
So she rushes out to beat him to it, "So last night – great but definitely doesn't need to be a serial."
He looks at her like she's trying to convince him that shopping is a waste of time.
He kneels then sits and crosses his legs placing himself so that each one of her legs is on either side of him. "Blair?"
"It's cool I ge-"
"Blair!"
…
He laughs then, soft and disbelieving and fixes a warm, sweet smile on her and to her shock it doesn't make her want to vomit.
"I don't have any clothes here… so maybe I could go home and… come back."
Oh.
"Whatever you want." She tries for aloof but then they both laugh at the same time and she puts her cup down.
"Sorry." She says and she really means it and it's the second time in less than a minute she has shocked him. "I just figured for the sake of simplicity that you'd have maybe wanted to just go back-"
He grabs her ankles and gives a good yank sliding her (was he always this strong?) unexpectedly towards him the sheets tangling around her waist. She squeals in spite of herself and he adjusts her to straddle him then whispers against her mouth.
"Don't you dare finish that sentence."
