Here's a oneshot for my Dair buddies out there. What a shame GG went in the Chair direction-I do like the couple, but they were so abusive when they were together. Dan and Blair had a healthier relationship. (OH, gosh, I hope I didn't just ignite a shipping war.)
Depending on the year, Daniel Humphrey could either be the biggest romantic or the most caustic, cynical anti-romance advocate in the world on February 14th. Most years, Serena was the cause of his flip-flop. When they were first married, he'd come up with adorable scavenger hunts and getaways to Paris, and she'd be thrilled for days. After a few years, though, he'd find himself locked out of the penthouse on that fateful day, calling friends to beg a night on their couch.
Luckily, this year, there wasn't a single way he could get it wrong—because he was with the woman of his dreams.
"Nothing you're planning will surprise me," a slightly shrill voice said over the phone. "We've known each other too long."
Dan smiled into his cell. "Your seamstresses are two hours behind, aren't they?"
Blair sighed. "How did you know?"
"We've known each other too long. Besides, you're using your 'career stress voice'." Dan looked at the plan he'd scrawled on the back of a receipt. "All our favorites. Film Forum. Sushi take-out and chocolate cake, with the low calorie version for you."
"A woman in her thirties needs to be conscientious of her figure."
"You don't need to be," he chided her gently. "You had a baby seven years ago, and you look as fit as when you were 18."
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Humphrey."
Old habits died hard.
"Handcuffs if you're interested," he joked.
"Pick me up at 8?"
"I'll be the one in the scruffy tweed."
"Some things never change." He could hear her smile through the phone. "I'm excited to see you. I love you."
"I know. I love you, too."
"I love you. I really do love you."
"You don't have to keep saying it."
"I didn't when we were dating last time, and that makes me unhappy. So I want to make sure this time, I say it a million and one times."
"You and I both know that the couple that really means it doesn't have to say it."
"You and I both know that I don't care. Be here at 8."
Dan waited for her to hang up with a chuckle, and reflected on the past few years with a writer's eye. In hindsight, he really didn't know where dating Blair Waldorf had fallen in his whole Gossip-Girl-get-Serena-back scheme. It was one of those things that just happened.
Dan supposed it was because in life, you get faced with a choice—you can choose to be with the person who sets your pulse on fire, who makes you angrier and lower than you've ever been and keeps you coming back for more, and who could light your soul up with a smile…or the safe choice. And he thought that choosing Serena would eliminate the boring, frustrating, safe choice of Blair. Blair had done the same—why settle for Brooklyn Lonely Boy when she could have her destiny with the dark and smoldering Chuck Bass?
The problem with romances that set you aflame was that the flame was never sustainable. Being truly, madly, deeply in love with Serena didn't change the fact that they had next to nothing in common, that Dan got jealous and Serena got flirty, and that marriage didn't automatically keep stoking the fires of first and unforgettable love.
In a similar way, Blair and Chuck's marriage had seemed so perfect at first, even after their son was born, but the problem with people is that they seldom change. Chuck was, admittedly, a brilliant and attentive father, but a mind prone to scheming and brooding can't just stop. And Blair didn't want to put up with the darkness anymore. A rift was created in both marriages, and on the Upper East Side, divorces were like hot dogs. You could buy one (at an exorbitant fee) at almost any street corner, it seemed.
It had been amicable splits for both of them. Serena was off doing…something or other, with someone or other. Probably happy, and a little confused. Chuck still got to be a father to Henry, and he saw him nearly daily. He and Blair had somehow worked out an agreement for the sake of their son, who was young enough to take the divorce well.
And Dan and Blair? Well, after a year of wallowing (for Dan) and hyperactivity to numb the pain (for Blair), the two ex-best friends sat down for coffee to complain about their failed marriages. And the coffee date merged into months of coffee and talking and Film Forum movie "meetings" and late night phone calls until they both decided that maybe the safe choice wasn't so bad.
A funny thing about the safe choice—you often take its nuances for granted. It might seem boring to pick the man who'll watch Rosemary's Baby with you on the couch on Valentine's Day instead of whisk you off to Paris, but you know what? Flights are exhausting, and there is something to be said for the comfort of settling on your couch, not having anything to prove to the person you love. You are in sweatpants and you are still stunning to him or her because you are true. You are real. You are shoveling cookies in your face, but it doesn't matter because he bought you the cookies because he knows they're your favorite. You don't say a single word throughout the entire movie because you know and she knows you don't have to say anything.
The safe choice is the easy choice for a reason. It's like breathing. It's sustainable. It's simple. It doesn't need gestures or words. It doesn't need promises it can't always keep or everlasting fire. All it needs is knowing that the man you love is going to pick you up at 8 from work, and the woman you love is going to be waiting for you until you come and get her.
So Dan arrived at Waldorf Designs at 7:45, taxicab waiting for him and his lady outside the main entrance, and he buzzed himself up the twenty floors to Blair's spacious and stylish office, which she always kept meticulously clean.
Except today…
Dan entered Blair's office and did a double take, because the place was a pigsty. Swaths of fabric, half-finished mid-stitch, covered each surface. Old, vintage patterns cluttered the desk. Several calendars were taped to the walls, with dates and times circled in red. And amid all the mess, Dan could hear Blair in the powder room connected to the office, throwing up.
"Blair?" he asked, raising his voice just a hair. "You all right?"
A voice grumbled from within. "Go away."
"Are you making yourself sick?"
"Yes, of course I am forcing myself to throw up my lunch, because I haven't learned anything from my high school days," she quipped, and he could hear her smacking the porcelain toilet bowl in frustration. "I'm not making myself sick, I am just under a lot of stress. This has always happened since I was pregnant with Henry—when I stress out too much, I can't keep any food down."
"What happened? Can I come in?"
"No!" she sighed weakly. "My seamstresses went on strike. Apparently even the most professional and high-paid artists of couture want the night off for stupid Valentine's Day… So I had to finish the collection myself. "
Dan wrestled with the doorknob a bit. "I'm coming in."
"Please don't. I'm disgusting."
"Highly unlikely," he smirked, jiggling the locked doorknob just a tidge until it gave.
Blair turned around, cheeks flushed and red with pure embarrassment. Her eyes widened pitifully, already wet and bloodshot from overexertion. She looked a bit like a starved, sad weasel.
"You Upper East Siders with your fancy crystal doorknobs. Anyone can jimmy them open with five seconds of effort," he laughed gently, unfazed by the apperance of his sad, weasel girlfriend.
"You Brooklynites with your thieving, low class habits." She pushed some hair out of her eyes, once glossy but now frizzed and mousy from all the times she'd swatted it out of her face today. "I'm sorry I look like hell."
He kissed her forehead. "Why on earth would you apologize? You look lovely."
"You don't have to lie."
"I'm not. I really dig girls who hang out in their bathroom."
She giggled in spite of herself, then her eyes bulged—and she threw up again.
Dan patiently held back her hair and jewelry until she was done. "I think we should cancel our night in."
"No!" she groaned. "I've been looking forward to it all day! You planned everything. I don't want to cancel."
"Blair."
"Don't. Want. To. Cancel."
Dan sighed and sat down on the cool tile floor. "It's not cancelling, it's letting you regain your health until you can manage sushi. I can offer a compromise."
Blair eyed him warily before giving up and cuddling into his open arms, exhausted. "I might be amenable to that."
He chuckled. "Get your bag, leave the work behind. You're coming over still."
The couple left the bathroom floor, and Blair grabbed her largest bag, which she tried to stuff with unfinished dresses she could work on if Dan ever went to a different room in his loft.
He noticed. "Blair. Put it back."
"I have to work."
"Put the dresses back."
He got her into the cab by ignoring her half-formed protests, let her sleep on his shoulder all the way to Brooklyn, and patiently let her put on some of his own flannels. Wordlessly, he brought her to the couch, where she snuggled into fetal position, and let her fall asleep while he ate some cold macaroni leftovers.
He flopped onto the couch next to her with a bowl in hand and smiled at her. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he let Blair snore the holiday away. Because sometimes, Dan thought to himself, love doesn't have to be complicated. Sometimes, it's as simple and easy as eating macaroni on the couch with the most beautiful woman in the world right next to you, drooling on your pillows.