They keep things casual.
She shows up late, letting herself in quietly through the front door of the loft, pulling back the covers and sliding next to Dan. She's already naked and he mumbles a little and rolls over and captures her mouth with his.
He doesn't know when it happened, but at some point he said it wasn't fair to rouse him out of bed for what was basically a booty call and Blair grinned at him and replied that he'd better give her a key then, and that had been that.
"How long have we been doing this," Blair sighs one afternoon, lying supine on his bed as Dan tries to finish his homework, telling himself that he needs to be finishing his paper for class tomorrow, not fucking Blair Waldorf one more time. It doesn't help that her hair is tousled from his hands running through it earlier as he'd kissed her slowly, savoring her, wondering if he'll ever get tired of this. It doesn't help that she hasn't bothered to get dressed, lounging in just a pair of La Perla panties, chewing absently on a finger. It doesn't help that he finds her completely distracting.
"Too long," Dan mumbles, pretending that he's half-paying attention, and he continues to type furiously on his laptop, thinking that it might be a good idea for him to take his work to his study where he can concentrate. The last time he tried that Blair had followed him and planted herself on his lap, firmly between him and his computer, and absolutely no work had gotten done.
So many things with Blair are a recipe for failure.
Blair flips herself over and starts to crawl across the bed toward him, like a cat stalking her prey, and Dan is almost sure he can hear her purring, and then she pounces on him and all work is forgotten.
They date other people.
Blair brings over the many gifts her suitors bring her, flowers and boxes of chocolates and even a mix CD from the son of a famous music producer that they laugh at, then end up dancing barefoot to in the living room before she throws her arms around his neck and distracts him with her mouth yet again. She brings over boxes of Godiva truffles and places chocolates on Dan's bare stomach and proceeds to eat them, her tongue lightly licking his skin, then she looks up at him and proclaims, "mmmmm, salty." She then nips her way up his chest, making "nom nom" sounds the entire way and and he is shaking from laughter and telling her that she's ridiculous, and who knew Queen B could be so silly, then he's not laughing anymore because her mouth is on his and it's a combination of chocolate, hazelnut and Blair. Later Blair tells him that the chocolates taste a lot better eaten that way and that she's going to have to eat them that way from now on. Dan is pretty sure he's blushing when she tells him this.
He wonders if they boys who court her ask if she likes their gifts. He wonders if she answers that she found them quite delightful, and what would those hopeful suitors think if they knew she ate them off the skin of the boy she's fucking while dating them.
She asks him about the long string of girls he meets, with their plain hair and bland faces, not one of them even close to the girl who slinks into his bed each night after he comes home from a date. She gives them biting nicknames like Simple Sally and Plain Jane, and if Dan stopped to think about it very long, he might think she was jealous.
Dan's found it's best not to think too much around Blair.
He tells her about over eager conversations and dull opinions, the way one twirled her hair or another giggled the entire time, about how they get sloppy drunk and tell him stories about how they danced on the bar of some college dive the previous Friday night, as if that might amuse him. He tells Blair about kissing one of them good night, out in front of her dorm, her mouth over eager and sloppy, and how all he could think about was his upcoming midterm.
Blair thinks this is funny. She laughs, then grabs a pillow and they end up rolling around his bed until they're not really playing anymore and Dan feels that hunger build up that he always feels around her and he wants to eat her up.
Every time he has a date Blair ends up in his bed, her head on his bare chest, face tilted up toward him, asking if he's going to sleep with that particular girl, if he likes her, if maybe this one could be The One. Dan always says no, especially considering that fucking Blair Waldorf makes even the remote idea of another relationship seem impossible because no one he dates comes even close to her, and he's not sure why he would need anything else, but he never tells her this.
He never ends up dating any of them for very long.
Dan and Blair end up at the same parties, ignoring each other, both of them circling away like the same poles of magnets, like they don't really care, although Blair had texted him earlier and told him she'd be wearing a black dress and she's sure he'll like it, and when he sees how back plunges almost all the way down to her ass, his mouth goes dry. She's on the arm of some faceless handsome man with lots of money and Dan wonders if he sent the flowers Blair had left on the kitchen counter at the loft the other day as they'd stumbled toward the bedroom, hands fumbling with zippers and buttons, Dan barely able to stand the amount of time it was taking for him to be able to feel Blair's skin under his fingertips.
Dan watches them from across the room, Blair's date's head bent toward hers, her hand on his arm. He's attentive and smiling, and Dan can hear Blair's laugh over the other voices in the room, sweet and clear. Then she looks up and catches him watching her and before he can look away and act casual or look down at his glass and study the pattern of ice cubes floating in it, before he can pretend he wasn't watching her, memorizing her, she cocks an eyebrow in his direction and Dan feels heat start to spread.
They end up in the bathroom, her dress hiked up, breathless, mouths groping, giggling and shushing each other, until neither of them can say anything anymore. His hand is on her ass and his tongue is flicking across an exposed nipple, and Blair muffles her gasp in his hair. He doesn't ask where her date is, doesn't really care. As always, Blair has a way of making him care about nothing else than the way she makes him ache and all the ways she can make the aching stop.
They leave separately. She grins and calls it their exit strategy, and this makes Dan laugh since they live in the universe of exit strategies. She goes first, peering around the corner to make sure the coast is clear. This isn't the first time they've used this bathroom. Dan follows, 7 minutes later. They've never been spotted.
They don't ask questions.
One Sunday afternoon she is sprawled on his couch, her nose buried in a book, and Dan is sitting opposite of her, his laptop balanced on his legs as he types line after line of prose describing her. If he's ever wondered where they stand, if Blair interrupting his sleep by appearing at his bedside, waking him by trailing her lips across his collarbone or cornering him in the bathroom at the Met, her eyes full of mischief as she goes up on tiptoe and whispers in his ear that wants him, might be more than sex, it's a fleeting thought. As if too much thinking is going to make her disappear and he's going to wake up and discover it's been some insane dream that will make Dan blush the next time he runs into her.
He remembers the first time she kissed him in the foyer of his building, tasting of alcohol and Blair, and Dan barely had time to sputter out,
"What are you doing?"
"Shut up, Humphrey."
They had been to see an afternoon movie and then the movie had turned into dinner, and the food was good, the wine was making him feel a little fuzzy, and Dan could still remember how Blair had smiled at him from across the table, her eyes warm and happy, and how they had walked together back to the town car, a little too close, and it had felt like the most natural thing in the entire world for her to lean into him a little, for her head to drop onto his shoulder, for his arm to circle around her waist.
It was the closest they would ever come to an actual date.
Blair had taken him home, telling him it was ridiculous to call a cab when she had the town car, and they'd said nothing the entire ride, her head still on his shoulder. She'd insisted on walking him in, saying something vaguely funny about watching out for his safety and that this wasn't the greatest neighborhood and how could she live with herself if something happened to him.
Dan had sputtered good night and that was when she'd kissed him, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward her, her other hand snaking around his neck and as her mouth met his, Dan realized that he'd been wanting this all night, actually for a lot longer than that. He realized he'd been wanting this moment for his entire life.
It's funny how love has a habit of sneaking up on you.
He wouldn't call it that. They'd ended up in his bed that night, because there was no way once he started kissing Blair Waldorf that he was going to be able to stop, because every kiss left him burning and aching and there was only one possible outcome to the two of them making out in the entryway of his building. They'd scrambled upstairs and Dan had fumbled with the key as Blair kissed his neck and did that distracting thing he would come to realize she was very good at. He finally was able to push the door open just as she was managing to flick open the buttons of his shirt and Dan moaned as they almost fell through the doorway, a mass of tangled arms and legs.
When they were done Blair had slid out of bed and started to pull on her clothes and Dan had watched her with heavy lidded eyes, feeling languid, like he was sinking into the mattress, and he was more than a little disappointed that Blair was pulling her dress back on and not back in bed with him.
"So," Dan said as she pulled on her stockings, putting a leg up on the bed and he eyes followed the curve of her thigh.
"So, what?" Blair had responded. "Don't get all starry-eyed on my Humphrey, it was just sex. A momentary thing that won't happen again."
The boundaries of their relationship, or really their lack of relationship, had been set with those words, although it did happen again. And again. And if Dan ever brought up those words she'd said as she slipped her shoes on and searched his room for her bag, Blair would just tell him to shut up, or she would grab his hair in her hand and pull his mouth to hers, or nip at his earlobe in that way that made all rational thought flee his head. Dan had learned quickly to not ask what they were doing or what it might mean, because it was clear that Blair didn't want to talk about it.
Sometimes he thought he was stuck in some sort of pleasure and pain feedback cycle. It was painful to casually fuck Blair Waldorf but the pain brought so much pleasure that he could ignore it for the most part.
Until one day things changed.
Her name was Ingrid, she was a film studies major, and Dan actually liked her. Instead of telling him boring stories about partying and whining about her studies, she made him laugh and he found himself not wanting the date to end. He hadn't even kissed her at the end of the date, but he'd wanted to, and this made things suddenly feel overly complicated.
He knew he'd find Blair in his bedroom when he got home, and she was there, lying across the foot of his bed, a book next to her, armed with her usual index of questions.
Did he like her?
Did he kiss her?
Did he want to fuck her?
Will he see her again?
Dan answers, 'yes' because he thinks he might actually like this girl, at least a little more than the others, and Blair's brow knits and a brief look of consternation flickering across her face. Then Queen B is back and Blair is stripping off her clothes and no matter how much Dan enjoyed his date, all thoughts of Ingrid slip away as Blair stands before him in just a lacey bra and panties and he lets out a low, guttural moan as he reaches for her.
By the end of the night all thoughts of any other girl have been erased from his mind.
Blair is suddenly busy and not around as much. Charity events, she mentions casually when Dan asks her what's kept her from the loft. He waits for her and days turn into a week and finally out of boredom he picks up the phone and dials Ingrid. She's happy to hear from him, a little over eager, and Dan tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach that he never should have called her back, because it's not fair to start something when he's in love with someone else.
In love.
Without Blair around to confuse things Dan can finally see what he's been trying to ignore during months of fucking and late night take out at the loft. Without the fog of sex to complicate his feelings, he can finally admit that he's in love with her and he has been for a long time. Long before she kissed him in the foyer. He's accepted their arrangement because he's pretty sure he's not much more than a distraction for Blair who is destined to end up with someone besides him.
They end up at the same parties.
Except this time there is no text from Blair about what she's wearing and Dan has been seeing Ingrid for about a month, and although she's not a doe-eyed dark haired vixen who drives him to the brink of insanity with just one look, she's fun and they end up drinking beer in bars and debating the merits of neo-noir, and he's gotten used to kissing her goodnight, and she's really not that bad.
It's been a month since he's seen Blair, so when she drifts into the room on the arm of a handsome dark-haired man, and Dan hears a woman next to him whisper that it's the son of a Greek shipping magnate, and Ingrid is gripping his arm and chattering on about how amazing the decorations are and pointing out people she recognizes from the gossip blogs, all Dan can do is stare.
Blair is wearing red and she always looks so good in red, the way it sets off her creamy skin and her dark hair, and the dress drapes around her breasts and suddenly Dan can remember exactly how they felt under his hands, and her back is bare, and all of the sudden it's hot and stuffy and he's finding it hard to breathe and he starts to loosen his tie.
She turns and catches his eye and before he can look away his gaze is locked with hers and there is no way he can break the hold those brown eyes have on him. Then she turns away, like seeing him is nothing, like there wasn't electricity sparking between them, saying something to her date, who laughs in that handsome and dumb kind of way that handsome and dumb boys do.
They drift away from each other, like the same poles of magnets, never coming in contact, and Dan grips his drink and downs it in one gulp, and Ingrid asks if he's feeling okay, because he seems like he might be coming down with something. Dan thinks that if he's sick, it's the kind of sickness that's incurable, a stupid moon-eyed love sickness, and it doesn't matter because nothing can come of it anyway.
Despite his best efforts, he and Blair end up at the buffet table at the same time, piling their plates high with horderves, saying nothing until Blair clears her throat and manages to squeak something out, her voice sounding a little unsteady and surprisingly nervous. It's not quite what Dan expected and it briefly disarms him.
"She seems nice."
It's the kind of small talk strangers make, not something you say to someone you've seen naked. Somehow they've gone from illicit lovers to complete strangers, and it was never something Dan wanted.
"Blair," Dan's voice is strangled, because he wants to tell her that Ingrid is nothing compared to her and it's still Blair that he thinks of late at night, still her in his dreams, and it always will be.
"I'm happy for you."
It's like it's all done. Blair has let him go and now he can move on to another woman, except that no one has actually asked Dan what he thinks about this, and suddenly he realizes that this is far from done, so he puts his hand on her arm and Blair flinches at his touch.
"This is not what I wanted." Dan says quietly. "I didn't want to find a nice girl who I like well enough. I didn't want to be let go."
Blair won't look at him. Her hair falls over her face and she looks down at the ground or at the wall behind the buffet, but not at him, but she also doesn't move away, just stands there not moving, listening. Blair's breath hitches a little. She still won't look at him. Then, after a long moment, she speaks. Her voice is quiet, and Dan has to lean in a little, close enough to smell her perfume and he feels that ache start again. His hand grips her arm a little tighter, as if that's the only thing keeping him anchored as she speaks.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this. I've had it in my mind for so long, grow up, get married, find that boy who fits into my world. And then you, you happened and it wasn't supposed to happen like that, but as long as I was with you, fucking you, everything was okay. Then you met that girl and I saw that she could give you what I couldn't. She's like you, Dan, and I'm not."
She's looking at him now, her eyes shining with tears, and suddenly it's just the two of them,
"You're so much better than me. You don't really want me." Blair says quietly. He can't believe how wrong she his.
Just as Dan is about to tell her that what he really wants is Blair Waldorf and that she's truly the only person who can give him that, her date materializes next to her and she's turning toward him and smiling and the moment has slipped away, and Dan turns back to the buffet and absently shovels some shrimp onto his plate, ignoring them, then turns back around and Blair is gone.
Dan feels stunned and strange, and he pushes back into the crowd and finds Ingrid standing next to a potted plant looking a little lost. She tells him she wants to go, so Dan nods because he can't really say anything at the moment, so they head outside into the cool night air, and Ingrid is chatting away, then she kisses him and her mouth is sweet and soft, and she tells him he can come home with her, and Dan answers 'no', trying to ignore how sad she looks, and hails a cab then sends her home.
He's not surprised to find Blair in the foyer of his building. It actually makes him smile a little. Here they are, full circle. Then, as much as he wants to take her into his arms, for them to go upstairs back to the familiar confines of his bed and their arrangement, Dan doesn't. He just stands there, looking at her, Blair looking at him, saying nothing. Then she speaks.
"The problem, Humphrey, is that I'm in love with you."
Dan blinks. Only Blair Waldorf would find this to be a problem. He says nothing.
"And it's not in the plan."
He wants to tell her to fuck the plan, to throw it out the window, to write a new plan, but he still says nothing.
"You were my guilty pleasure, a pit stop on my way to my fairytale. And that girl, Ingrid, well she seems nice and really, perfect for you, and I don't really know why I'm here, except that you said that you wanted me and I think you really should let me go."
"Blair..." Dan almost doesn't recognize his voice as he grits out her name.
"No," she blurts out, putting a hand up to stop him from saying whatever he's about to say. "You have to let me go. I'm not the girl for you."
Dan steps toward her, half expecting Blair to turn and walk away, but she stays still, watching him. He takes another step and reaches out for her hands. Doesn't she get it by now? Isn't it obvious?
"You're the only girl for me." Dan whispers as his mouth descends and captures hers and he feels Blair sigh against him, and she feels so good against him, and Dan realizes how much he's missed her, missed them.
They keep things casual.
Except it's not like before. Their guilty pleasure has become something entirely different but just as enjoyable.
Dan calls up Ingrid and tells her that he can't see her anymore. She doesn't cry or ask him why, because ever since the night of the party she's known something is wrong, and Dan doesn't try to explain, or even tell her what a great girl she is, although it would be the truth. It's best to let her move on as easily as possible.
He comes home from class and Blair is there, lying on his bed, asking how his day went, leafing absently through a magazine. He throws his book bag on a chair and flops down next to her, running a finger up her bare arm and Blair smiles then asks him if he'd like to tell her about his day or just go straight to the fucking. Dan asks her why she even bothers to ask when she already knows the answer.
They end up at the same parties. This time Blair hangs onto Dan's arm at the latest charity ball and he can't stop looking at her because she's so beautiful, and even though they know they'll be leaving together, they still end up fucking in the bathroom, for 'old times sake' Blair tells him mischievously and because he can't keep his hands off her and Dan thinks some things may never change.
They don't ask questions. There's nothing left between them to ask, because they already know, and as they lie in bed together, stretched up against each other, skin against skin, the sweat on their bodies cooling, Blair shivering and nestling a little closer, her leg winding between his, Dan's hand stroking her back absently, she whispers something against his chest, her voice slurred as she starts to drift off to sleep.
"I love you."
Dan answers back, and there's nothing else that can be said. He loves her too.
The End