the bed looks just like the moon
gossip girl, blair/dan, (implied blair/nate, nate/ vanessa), words 1463, pg -He offers his company till she makes it to the other end.
notes: for girlyevil- my take on your prompt, it's very different from my usual style but I thought I'd give it a whirl
If they didn't already know each other than this would be a perfect story.
A fall afternoon and their bodies collide along the sidewalk, his stack of books joining her Hermes purse on the floor as both of their belongings scatter across the granite.
He apologizes profusely, hand at her elbow as he helps her up. He's rambling of course, sentences don't end and words lose meaning but she isn't listening, just disentangling herself from him to brush down her dress.
It's a pretty dress. Black and sort of floaty, with sleeves that whisper, following the movements of her hands as they slide up and down her small form and he shuts up.
Shuts up and trails off because she's looking right at him and his knees are turning to jelly.
"Blair.
It comes out harsher than he means it to be and he wishes the word would leap back into his mouth but this is Blair Waldorf and no second chances is sort of a given.
"What are you doing here?" he asks, utterly without thinking because hello, it's New York and she lives here and now, goes to school here.
(Same place as him, but that's not important-
-they've gotten much better at avoiding each other.)
Her eyes turn up at him, through glistening lashes and she says- "I'm-"
"I think I'm taking the subway."
His heart imitates his tongue, stuttering and stopping. She looks smaller somehow, though she's still got her heels. Her hair's darker, skin still ivory and she looks positively miniscule with her black dress and wet eyes.
He offers his company till she makes it to the other end.
Sunglasses slide up to her nose and she says no, thank you and she has places to be with the same old smugness he always expects.
She's six feet tall again as she walks away.
*
It's another two weeks (week and half) before he becomes one of those places.
They start with lunch.
Except, you know. Not lunch.
Because all she orders is a salad leaf and a black coffee, hat tilted to the window, lest passerby's (Gossip Girl) spot her with lonely boy.
He sighs, orders a large fries and makes small talk about the weather and their psychology professor's new shoes.
Her eyes flick up from the plate and those lovely red lips form an "oh" that tells him she never really realized she never saw him and his Moleskin in the back seat.
He goes back to his fries and pours ketchup.
She adds pepper and takes a few.
*
He gets a card from Serena the next day.
There's no message. Just a phone number with Blair's name scribbled next to it.
He thinks this is wonderland.
*
There is box at the opera.
There is a box at the opera and she wants to go.
She has a new dress, old pearls and ticket in her pocket so she asks him to go with her.
As a friend.
He says yes. As a friend.
It's their worst idea, yet.
*
He cleans up well.
He cleans up well and he knows it because she allows herself a small smile before taking his arm and leading him up the stairs. She leans into him while they circle the foyer- socializing- and he can feel his blood rush.
She's never been this close to him before, her tiny hands pressing into his side and he thinks if he could lock her to him, he would.
She's shaking hands with a matron when she first stiffens against him. She's asked if this is her beau and he can feel her whole body go rigid against his, elbow pressing hard into his torso.
She's all bones, cold bones and the night's new magic is gone.
She says no.
*
He rests his forehead against the cool bathroom mirror and tells himself he's not her boyfriend.
He doesn't care because he's not her beau.
He counts to ten before talking to her next.
Holds his breath and thinks of all the different words in the English language that rhyme with snob.
*
Tragedy doesn't strike till the second aria. Intermission is cold, polite and he hates it but it's better than what follows.
Right across from them sit a pair of two very familiar people, closely entwined in the Vanderbilt box. Nate's arm is twisted around Vanessa's face, their faces pressed closed and they're barely aware of their surroundings.
He remembers a time he and Serena were once that intimate and he thinks Blair shares his pang of nostalgia but the look on her face is mixed with regret.
Her body slants away from him and he glances down where her dress dips.
Her spine is straight.
*
They walk sometimes.
She doesn't really like the subway and he hates cars so they walk.
Parks, corridors, Bendels- they walk together.
His arms swing at this sides, slightly awkward and her fingers are knitted together and she hates fidgeting, so he asks if she'd like some coffee.
He holds open the door for her and earns a smile- it's the first real one she's bestowed on him since their disastrous non date two nights ago and he'd been starting to wonder what point there was in maintaining a friendship with her if all it bred was awkward silences.
But her lips curve and her dimples are his weakness so all is forgiven and forgotten by the time they reach the counter.
His coffee is black and hers is sweet- something caramel or chocolate and his eyebrows shoot up because with all her sharp edges, he'd never have guessed she'd have a sweet tooth.
She raises one perfectly plucked eye brow and says it chases the bitterness away. She says it simply- without bite but he thinks of her back that night, so straight and so unbending.
And wonders why he always chooses to forget she's fragile, too.
*
Vanessa calls.
She asks him what he thinks he's doing. What he's doing attending the Marriage of Figaro with Blair Waldorf.
He honestly doesn't have an answer (at least not one he's ready to share yet) so he poses a question instead.
She likes talking about Nate. She likes talking about her work, the war in Iraq and the girl who sits behind her in class.
He can read between the lines (or hear, as it were.)
It really is all about Nate.
*
The next time they brave the night together, it's a movie.
Something loud and bad and Blair has a migraine and she could really use a drink, so they stop at a bar on the way home.
(Even though he tells her, of course, that what she needs is an asprin and good nights sleep but she's wearing pink and she wants strawberry daiquiris.
He knows better than to argue with her when she's like this.)
*
He's lying on his bed the next morning, watching Paris When It Sizzles and Blair's limb are tangled with his. The volume's low so he can't hear every other word that leaves William Holden's mouth but the still unconscious brunette is murmuring her appreciation into his shirt, her lips moving tantalizingly slow so he figures it's worth it.
Her lashes flick open, brushing against the skin of his neck and he shivers.
She takes in her surroundings, head swiveling slowly till her gaze comes to rest on him and he can sense her wide eyed fear.
She likes neat. Pin striped jackets and such. She likes lines- straight firm lines.
Not like this, with his body, his heart so close to melding with hers and all the boundaries between them are blurred and hazy and he can see her draw back before she moves an inch.
She moves up and away from him.
The door slams and the movie goes on.
He wonders if he'll ever see her again.
*
The year scrolls by with paper and ink and there's a girl or two.
He tells himself he couldn't possibly be lonely without her- tells himself this while walking down the street and yes, this much reading is normal for the summer and it is her favorite cup of coffee he's drinking.
(His favorite, too. Two weeks after she left, he decided he didn't need anymore bitterness, either)
He bumps into a girl.
Books, pens, purses all fall to the floor but the people don't.
He tosses cup of coffee down to the ground, with the pens and the ribbons and all his copies of Evelyn Waugh and kisses her.
He kisses her like a soldier come home from war- all desperate passion and no finesse.
Her fingers press into the back of his neck.
She kisses him back.