A/N: Lately I've been reading some Dan/Blair and the dynamic is pretty interesting! TV Dan and TV Blair would go well together (as opposed to Book Dan and Book Blair who barely even interacted). And they would look good together, too. So I wrote a one shot! They both go Yale here because BLAIR GOES TO YALE and I will not have it any other way. Anyway hope you like it! :)
Coffee Cups and Tiffany's
--
It was the sharp tap of a pencil which brought Dan back to consciousness. He had taken this particular poetry class because its lecturer was reputable; he'd actually come across the name several times in literary journals and the New York Times. As much as his poetry was exciting, the man was surprisingly boring. His strong metaphors showed no traces on his monotone voice as he droned on about Keats. Or someone else, Dan didn't really know; a first for him since he'd always paid attention.
"How would that fare on a philosophical level though?" Dan craned his neck to see the inquisitor. No one had interrupted the professor for forty five minutes. "I found the comparisons too... literal." With the glasses and the sweater he could barely recognize her, but that trademark smug look was unquestionably Upper East Side. He'd see it every time he accompanied Serena to one of those Met benefits and he would be wearing Men's Warehouse instead of Armani. Dan had no idea Blair Waldorf, of all people, would be taking such an intensive class.
Dan watched in amusement as the professor tried to answer her question. He tried using more profound metaphors to prove his point, a ploy to further confuse his students into submission, but Dan could see Blair was having none of it. She started quoting Nietzsche and Socrates, engaging in a coolly tirade with the professor until the bell rang about ten minutes later. They crossed paths as they were both exiting the door, and Blair could see a look on Dan's face she couldn't quite place.
"Let me guess," she began, "you disapprove?"
"On the contrary, I thought it was quite refreshing," he replied.
"Refreshing?" Blair repeated, taken aback. She obviously was not expecting a compliment.
"Your argument was probably the most exciting thing that has happened to that class since, I don't know, girl in front dyed her hair purple last week."
"I hear she's planning on dying it green this week."
"Anything to keep the excitement alive," he answered sarcastically. He and Blair shared a laugh. It was bizarre, to say the least.
She noticed it too. "Humphrey," she said curtly, as a form of goodbye.
"Waldorf," he nodded, as she left him reeling in from their brief conversation. She was no longer an empty pool of stock Upper East Side with Manolo Blahnik shoes. She even mentioned Goethe, one of his favorite authors. He thinks he may have to like her now.
--
The next time they saw each other, they were at a crossroads of a Coffee Bean and a Starbucks. Dan was the first one to greet her. The moment the word hello escaped his lips, the immediate afterthought was that he probably needed to get some sleep because greeting Blair Waldorf nicely was just too ludicrous. The stress was taking a toll on him. Blair lifted her aviators and sipped from her cup.
"What's your fix?" she asked.
"I always take my coffee black," he answered.
"Figures," she said mysteriously.
"What are you drinking?" he continued, trying to be polite by keeping the conversation going. Actually, he just thought she smelled good. Like freshly cut grass, or warm laundry. It was a welcome break from the smell of old books and pencil lead. Which he thinks might have gotten to his head.
"Black," she replied casually, downplaying the similarity. She'd developed a taste for them while cramming for Calculus exams. They were more effective than coffee diluted in cream and chocolate (and less fattening, too). Dan stared at her. This was unfamiliar territory. In high school she could have hidden behind cliques and Serena and oversized Marc Jacobs bags. Today, however, they were both wore sneakers and two day old Yale sweaters. The coffee cup was too small a fortress.
"Huh," Dan mused, "I always thought you were a tea person."
"I was."
Dan took a sip from his cup.
"Nice watch," she noticed, eying the silver piece of adornment on Dan's wrist.
Dan glanced at it, the letters ROLEX registering in his brain before the time did, and shrugged. "Lily sent it to me."
This time, she smiled. "Humphrey."
And he did too. "Waldorf."
--
Dan decided he liked college parties better than benefits. A keg was all it needed, and there were no designer dresses to ruin. He navigated, quite tipsy, across the room, making sure to remember he was aiming for the kitchen. He frowned upon seeing the fridge door open, thinking someone had already gotten to the bucket of chicken he saw when he first came in. Peering over, he saw Blair Waldorf's tiny figure leaning on the shelves. Frosting had made its way into her face. Feeling responsible (and since she was being nice to him, he thought) he pulled her up as she giggled through a bevy of names before settling for Cabbage Patch.
"Well, I'd have to say that Marx got it right," she mumbled drunkenly.
Dan feared she might be a secret communist, though the behavior might have clued him in. "Why do you say that?"
"It's all in the proletariat," she laughed, clasping his arms. Dan wasn't sure if she was insulting him or making a point.
"You have frosting on your cheek," he observed.
"And you came into the kitchen for food. Instead you have a drunk girl in a 300 dollar dress with frosting on her cheek."
Dan thought he would probably never understand her. But it was oddly invigorating to try.
"Sanity is a madness put to good uses," she quotes Santayana, and Dan was taken in. He went for the frosting near her lips first.
--
At Eleanor Waldorf's Thanksgiving party, Serena tried to pry him about Blair at Yale. They had so much work to do that free time only allowed for a quick phone call or a hastily written e-mail. Dan didn't say anything, wondering if they'd ever agreed to not talk about it. He reckoned the omission came with kissing your ex-girlfriend-slash-step-sister's best friend. And he didn't even want to remember after that, though the images keep replaying on his head and he could not, for the life of him, clear them out. He began carrying a small black moleskin notebook (like Hemingway did, Blair explained) to accommodate his thoughts. Serena gave up (finally, the girl was just unshakable) and makes a beeline for the cute waiter with a tray of hors d'oeuvres. He downed a flute of champagne in one gulp, and contemplated on trying scotch.
Blair was at the other end of the room, nodding at Chuck Bass' probably interesting stories about his travels. She laughed distractedly and finished her drink a little too quickly than average. She pattted Chuck's chest gently and convinced him to get her another glass of whatever she was drinking (in Yale she usually just had beer). Her smile turned into a scowl as she made her way to Dan.
"Let's get out of here," she whispered, and tugged on his tuxedo jacket, pointing him to the penthouse elevator. Dan was more than happy to oblige her. He didn't like small talk, and Lily's friends always smelled of strong French perfume.
"Insipid," Blair complained, as they were walking around Fifth Avenue.
"Really?" Dan taunted. "I thought it was rockin'."
Blair learned that, once exposed to enough, sarcasm was quite humorous. It was like intelligent backbiting. "You talked to Serena."
"She asked about you," Dan said.
"And?"
"I told her I saw you at the library sometimes."
Blair laughed hollowly.
"How was Amsterdam?" he asked bitingly.
Blair frowned. "I tuned out after pot brownies."
They stopped in front of Tiffany's and Co, where the silver display caught Dan's eye and he remembered what Serena whispered before she turned her heel and left.
"Honestly Blair," Dan asked, "what are you doing? You hated me, remember. And I hated you."
"Did you really?"
"He's waiting for you with that drink."
"At some point it became too exhausting. So I just stopped."
"You cant just stop feeling."
"Well then I never hated you in the first place. And don't you think this conversation's a little bit overdue? "
"What are you doing? He's proposing to you tonight."
"Now you get a moral compass?"
"We-"
"Stop making it difficult, Dan."
"Stop being difficult, Blair."
Blair paused for a few moments, noticing the pale blue illuminated by festive lights. She sighed. "I don't want to fight with you here," she insisted, sounding like one of those Park Avenue children when they leave Central Park. "We're at Tiffany's, where everything is pure and good and shiny."
She sounded ridiculous. "I almost forgot," Dan said, smiling at her, his annoyance immediately dissuading. Somewhere in those nights lost in Audrey Hepburn movies and tangled limbs and lips, he'd begun to understand that she was a tad bit insane. It was endearing, he thought; it only made him appreciate her more. And she knew that he was a tad bit intense and yet, whenever she felt particularly Audrey (a term she coined herself) or horny (he smirked at the thought) she would dial those numbers without even looking and ask him to come over. He never liked the luxury of the Upper East Side, but he found himself warming up to it, extremely thankful that Blair insisted on a studio apartment just outside of Yale with 500-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.
She held on to the lapels of his tuxedo, moving closer. "I'm not going back," she said stubbornly. She leaned in for a kiss, just in case he needed further persuading (something she knew would work, even in the direst of situations) and she thought of Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak and realized this was how it was supposed to feel.
All they needed was a cat.
He laughed. "And I'd be stupid to even try and make you."
And he was glad that she wouldn't, too.