ball the umbrellas in london couldn't hide my love for you
gossip girl/b, blair/dan
notes: for gatheringlight, sequel/companion piece a href=.#cutid1to the bed looks just like the moon/a but could be read on it's own.
blockquoteand it came to me then, that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time/blockquote
Her bags are packed and piled against the door when she steps out of the house.
It's iMilan/i this year (but Paris first) and she hasn't spent a summer in New York since she was four and Daddy took a trip to Rome with his hair dresser.
(iPaolo/i, if memory serves- and with Blair it usually does and she thinks she remembers Daddy's indiscretions with greater clarity than she recalls either Nate's or Chuck's.)
She hasn't iwanted/i to be home for the summer since the year Chuck broke her heart and she reminds herself how much she hates tourists while adjusting her sunhat in the mirror. Slides her fingers over the dressing table and reaches for the lipstick.
She paints them red.
Dan Humphrey, she decides, is a inuisance./i
Always has been really, since that time he held her hand over fries at the lunch she should never have gone to and when he ruined her night at the opera and now-kissing her on a street corner, pressed up against her for all the world to see-
He is most definitely a nuisance.
She wakes up beside him, the next morning. Hair mussed and the traces of yesterdays lipstick still smudged across the angle of his jaw and it isn't till her phone rings that she realizes she's supposed to be in France.
That her father and Roman are waiting for her across the ocean, hoisting a mock placard at Charles de Gaulle airport.
She reaches across the nightstand for her phone and Dan's arm tightens around her.
There are three missed calls from the parental units and she bites her lips, eyes sliding over to his face.
These are not conversations that she looks forward to having.
He's charming in the mornings.
Quieter than usual, because his tongue isn't awake and she's less guarded, less sharp so they share a quick kiss over breakfast. He pulls on a pair of pants from the pile of clothing strewn over the floor and she fishes out a shirt from under her heels and pads out into the kitchen after him.
Her legs are crossed at the table and she reads the newspaper while he fixes her breakfast, not feeling the need to talk for the sake of talking.
The sun peeps in through the windows and she thinks of how it seeps into the black of his hair and frowns at herself for indulging. One night after-
-one night doesn't make them anything, yet.
He serves her pancakes, grinning at the disfigurement but she's still quiet, eyes fixed to the flickering light of her phone. Almost as if she's waiting for it to ring.
Her fingers tighten around the coffee cup, teeth catching her lower lips when it finally buzzes the screen lighting up to Roman's name. Dan's hand reaches across the table to catch hers.
His brow is furrowed, eyes crinkled up in concern.
"Is everything all right?"
She waits a beat. Maybe, too.
"Oh,of course"- her voice is carefully breezy- "It's just-"
-there's a gulp for air and the ithings/i this boy does to her-
"I'm supposed to be in Paris right now."
Her voice goes up in the end like it's a question. A calm, composed question.
"You're going to Paris?" he asks, drawing out the words slowly.
Her hand flicks the air. "I hadn't exactly counted on last night happening."
There's a blush but it isn't hers. He hadn't counted on it either- she'd received quite enough assurances to the contrary of the course of last night.
(most of which included the word iincredulous/i instead of un-fucking-believable.
He's polite. A poet- a ipolite/i poet.)
His lips brush over the curve of her cheek.
"Can I come too?" he breathes into her year and her pessimistic heart swings open it's doors.
She wonders if she'll ever stop expecting tragedy.
She helps him pack.
Struts into his apartment, sometime around noon with her hands on her hips, hair twisted into a bun. She's ready for business and more than a little miffed to find that his meager belongings are already tucked into a suit case.
"Dissapointed?" he asks, perceiving her pout and his lips slide over her nape.
She turns to face him and wonders if half the reason she came was to check if he was still coming with her.
Her body settles into his arms.
Dan Humphrey is not Chuck Bass-
-she wonders how this could have ever been a bad thing.
They don't make it to the chateau.
A week in Paris will suffice, she thinks, and she can tell Dan is bored of being dragged from one boutique to the other as she slips in and out of pretty little dresses with shorter skirts than she'd wear back home, while he waits on her in cafes- trying to explain to the waiter that he'd love some milk in the coffee and trying to read directions and maps to the library.
She realizes that the language difference is only further crippling her socially awkward paramour and suggests a change of scene.
His eyes light up so fast that she throws away the ticket to Milan and all her dreams of Venice. He kisses her softly, smiling into her mouth and she thinks she could get used to this iselfless/i thing.
(But only in great moderation and ihe/i must never be privy to her motives.
They take the train to London.
He drapes an arm around her shoulder like a question, whispering "Is this ok?"
He'll cross an ocean with her and fuck her in the alcove of the Palais Garnier without scruples but an arm around her shoulder needs confirmation.
She reaches up to touch his fingers, pull them closer to her sweater and pulls her knees up to her chest and lets her head roll on to his shoulder.
Her hands are still folded in her lap.
He loves it.
They stroll along Covent Garden and skip up the stairs to the National Portrait gallery and his eyes are wide with excitement. He's got his hand on the small of her back, even though she's leading him and he won't shut up.
He talks about Austen and Dickens and tells her things about the city that she already knows, talking rapidly and with very little breath. The only way she can get him to stop is to press her lips to his and take away what breath he has left.
It proves to be rather effective.
So, he'd balked a little when she proposed that they stay at the Ritz.
His mouth turned down at the corners and she was scared he'd leave.
It's but a moment of reaches out to touch her shoulder and she lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.
He doesn't kiss her this time. Just slides a finger across her cheek for the unshed tears and leans his forehead against hers.
Harold comes up to London.
He and Roman have an apartment. One for cocktail parties and dinners and they throw one in Blair's honour.
It's a dainty affair, all light yellow dresses and satin ties with pretty little glasses lined up along the ebony bar and people swish around drinks like the film is rolling.
Dan wears grey, black tie matching her napkin of a dress and they spill darkness into the airy little room. Harold raises his glass in a silent toast when he spots her, like an ink stain on the white fabric of the door and for once, she doesn't want to play along.
They slip through the crowds- she says "This is Dan Humphrey."
And nothing more.
The back of his hand brushes against hers, drawing slowly back. She turns her palm towards him and stops his wrist. Their fingers are linked till the sherry runs dry and the little London street pulls black cabs to the door.
They're having dinner at West End, a week later, when she asks him if he still loves Serena.
Dan's wrist shudders but he steadies his drink with admirable strength of mind.
"Yes" he says with some difficulty, "the way you still love Nate. And Chuck."
She shudders delicately and knows he's said the wrong thing and she's going to run- he can feel it in his bones.
"I'm not in love with her." He reaches for her.
He catches one glimpse of her that says this isn't enough- she leans across the table top and kisses him, hard, before walking away.
Her heels still clack against the sidewalk as he stands there calling her name.
The rain begins to pour.
The hotel room is empty when he reaches there, soaked as a rat.
Her dresses are still in the closet but there is a no sleeping mask tucked under the night lamp and no little vial of chanel no 5 against the bathroom the sink.
He slams his hand against the mirror and every cut looks like her ruby red lips smiling up at him.
He sinks to the cold tiled floor.
It takes him ten days and ten nights to find her.
He scours the city as best he can, combing through Harrods and spending hours skulking outside Harold's place hoping to see her bright coat bob down the stairs.
He calls Serena on the ninth night and tells her he doesn't love her and he can't find Blair and what in hell is he supposed to do?
"You shouldn't need to ask me this."
Her voice sounds deep, like there are worlds not oceans separating them.
He picks up an umbrella and braves the night for one more vain attempt to find her.
It's Selfridges.
He finds her at Selfridges, trying on a wedding dress that's two sizes too big for her, lace hanging loose around her tiny waist and she back the veil when she sees him.
"Humphrey."
He wants it to be some big movie moment. Snatching her up and kissing her and saying "don't ever do that to me again."
He offers her his hand instead.
They sit on the settee of the dressing room. And they talk.
"I don't want to go back to New York."
His finger trails up her spine.
"You love New York. You love Tiffanys."
Her chin crumples. "This has nothing to do with Tiffany's."
He pulls up her face to meet his.
"We can't do this in New York," she tells him.
"We don't have to do. We don't have to anything, if you don't want to."
She doesn't respond. He takes his hands off of her and moves to his own corner of the seat, palms on his knees.
He's waiting for her. She doesn't think anyone's ever done that before.
She reaches for his coat and tugs it over her shoulders.
She takes off the wedding dress and she takes him home.
They try kissing in the rain.
It's not a very wise attempt. The cobblestones of Trafalgar Square have been washed wet and she slips a little, when she moves to meet him. His arms tighten and the umbrella finds the floor and he holds her a little closer than he should. She wonders why all his grand romantic gestures end up soiling her belongings and drags her mouth away from his to scold him.
She still doesn't want to go back to New York and he still needs to finish school.
The summer is long.
She's fairly certain she'll manage to keep him.