Sorry for the delay and thank you for reading! *hugs*
And thus Dan finds himself sitting outside the main doors of the school after his last class, waiting for the unbearably self-assured Matt Dainard to come advise him on his next plan of action. He honestly cannot believe this is his life sometimes. He doesn't even like this guy, hell, he doesn't even know him and yet, here he is…
Dan hears bounding footsteps behind him and checks his watch. "You're late," he says, without looking up.
"Your watch is fast," Matt responds cheerfully, sliding onto the step beside him, and Dan just shakes his head disbelievingly.
"Okay, so we're both here," Dan says grumpily, resting his elbows on the step behind him. "Start talking, oh wise one."
Twirling his scarf through his fingers, Matt pulls out a leather-bound notebook with Daily Accounts printed on the cover, blushing slightly as he tries to hide the front from Dan's watchful eyes. "I have a game plan, obviously," he says, flipping it open to the last page, where Dan sees a long list written in Matt's nearly unintelligible scrawl, presumably explaining what Matt thinks Dan should be doing.
"Your handwriting is terrible," Dan says, squinting as he tries to decipher what can only be called meaningless scribble. "Seriously, it's worse than mine, and that's saying something."
Matt shoots him a contemptuous look. "Yes, but that's what we've met to discuss. I am so sure."
Dan resists the urge to pout like a two-year-old. "Do you think you could try not being a smart-ass for half an hour? Please?"
"No promises," Matt says, running a finger down the list, as his eyes dance across the page. "Now let's begin. I've made a comprehensive-"
Dan snorts. Matt ploughs on regardless.
"Comprehensive list of all the things I know about Miss Blair Waldorf and all the things I gathered about your relationship from my conversation with you earlier, my little detour to Kelsey's office and some between-class espionage." He jabs a finger at the list. "She goes to Columbia. She's your ex-girlfriend's best friend and your best friend's ex-girlfriend. She has a psycho ex named Chuck Bass that somehow got himself into Columbia and often tries to destroy everything she loves. She's rude and snarky and too clever for her own good. She thinks you're a simpleton and hopelessly naïve, and I tend to agree, by the way, but she somehow sees something in you and initiated the kiss that turned you into the pathetic quivering puddle of want that you currently are." He says all this without taking a breath, and Dan just stares at him, dumbfounded.
"How?" Dan finally splutters, and Matt's grin can only be described as coy.
"Never mind, that's irrelevant. Now have I got everything right so far?"
Dan nods mutely. He doesn't know what to think.
"Excellent," Matt says briskly, flipping to a fresh page, his tone suddenly businesslike. "Right. Well. Let's get started."
"Started with what, exactly?" Dan asks, his big chocolate eyes blinking slowly. Matt talks so fast and manages to fit so many words with so many different meanings into a single sentence that he's having a hard time keeping up.
Matt fixes Dan with a probing gaze, and Dan feels oddly scrutinized, like he's being judging for not cottoning on quicker. "With getting Blair back, of course. Dear god, Daniel, it's not rocket science we're talking about here."
"That'd probably be a lot less complicated, you're right," Dan mutters under his breath, but nods resignedly at Matt, gesturing for him to go on.
"Okay, so the reasons you won't work are currently… Nathaniel Archibald, though god knows why, since, from the looks of it, he's completely over her and has his eye on someone else, someone that he's scared you will swoop in and steal if single. Serena Van der Woodsen, although she knows and is perfectly alright with it, encourages it, even. Chuck Bass, which, if truth be told, is the only legitimate hindrance at the moment, since the other issues are problems that you have really created in your own head and cannot be called problems at all."
Dan scowls at his shoes, fighting down the urge to rip Matt's silly little notebook out of his hands and into the path of an oncoming car.
"And Blair herself, of course, since she has been the main saboteur in your can't-really-be-called-a-relationship thus far. And you," he adds as an afterthought. "Since you inexplicably told her this morning that you want nothing more to do with her."
"I meant that, you know," Dan says, but he doesn't even sound convincing to himself. "My life was a lot… easier before I got involved with her."
Matt waves his hand dismissively, distracting circling things on his Wondrous Page of Absolute Gibberish with a red pen. "Yes, well, if you only did things that were easy, you would still be going to NYU with the other pretentious artsy twats, not to mention dating…" He consults his list quickly. "Vanessa Abrams, Blair's sometimes-enemy and your on-again off-again girlfriend. Which actually brings me to my next question. What's her take on all this Blair stuff?"
Dan shakes his head quickly. "She doesn't know anything about it. And I'd like to keep it that way, please. Vanessa's not always the most reasonable of people and we just got our friendship back on track. I don't want to do anything to threaten that, not right now at least."
Matt shrugs. "That's fair, I suppose. Fine, we can leave Vanessa out of our great plan. For now."
Dan glares suspiciously at Matt. "You're being surprisingly reasonable about this. Why?"
Matt crosses his arms, snapping his notebook shut, and looks at him intently. "I might come off as a prickly son of a bitch that doesn't know when to sit down and shut up, but… I am trying to help you, believe it or not."
Instantly contrite (although he doesn't really understand why), Dan tries to figure out how to backtrack while still maintaining that he most definitely did not sign up for this.
Fortunately, Matt saves him by flipping the page open again and continuing as though there had not been an interruption. "Since Vanessa doesn't go to Columbia, she doesn't need to be dealt with right away. But you do need to come clean to Archibald. It'd simplify matters considerably."
Dan sighs theatrically, folding his arms and placing them on his drawn up knees. "While I'm at it, I might as well tell him that I did, as a matter of fact, go over to Serena's the other day to make Blair jealous, although that would mean admitting that I lied to his face earlier…"
"Don't complicate things unnecessarily," Matt says firmly, fishing around in his satchel for a highlighter. "Tell him you kissed her. Tell him you might want a romantic relationship with her. Let him know that he's free to date Van der Woodsen."
"That's all well and good," Dan says, his mind racing with possibilities. "But he's also good friends with Chuck Bass, and if Chuck finds out that I might be pursuing Blair… well, let's just say that no one knows how to throw salt in my game quite like he does."
"Minor setback," Matt says dismissively. "Tell him that it is imperative that Chuck remains in the dark about your little dalliance with the Waldorf girl. Tell him it's… vital to the nation's security. I don't know, I'm sure you'll think of something. Besides, if my sources are correct, Archibald isn't exactly the shiniest rock in the garden. He'll be none the wiser."
"Hey," Dan protests weakly. "That's…"
"True, I know," Matt says, and Dan doesn't have the energy to argue. "Right, so once that's out of the way, we have Serena Van der Woodsen to worry about."
"Serena doesn't seem too opposed to me and Blair," Dan supplies. "At least, she's been pretty cool when speaking to me. Her and Blair, on the other hand…"
"Ah, the infamous girl code," Matt says, rolling his eyes. "That's quite an inconvenience, you're right. And from what I've heard, you do not want to be the cause of a Waldorf-Van der Woodsen catfight."
"No, you don't," Dan agrees. "So how to prevent this from happening?"
"Easy," Matt says, and his knowing little smile is infuriating. "If Serena finally makes up her mind where Nathaniel is concerned, Blair won't feel strange about dating her ex-boyfriend. And when I say make up her mind, I mean that they should be blissfully ridiculously happy, far too in love to be bothered with trivial things like their best friends' love lives. Ergo, that's our next step."
"You can't force two people to be together," Dan says pointedly. "The best kind of love happens on its own, without help from anyone or anything else."
"Oh, don't be naïve," Matt says pityingly. "Sometimes people need that little push to confirm what they already know. Which is where you will come in. You make sure that Nate knows how very over Serena you are and make sure Serena knows that 'Serenate' is a Dan-sanctioned idea. You with me?" Matt extends his hand.
"You terrify me," Dan says matter-of-factly, but reluctantly reaches over to grasp it briefly.
Two hours later, Dan stands outside Nate's apartment, his hand poised to knock, when the door flies open and his fist manages to connect with Nate's face instead.
"Dude, what the fuck-" Nate splutters, bending over to clutch his poor battered nose. Dan hurriedly rushes inside, mumbling apologies and making sure the damn thing isn't broken.
"My bad, man, my bad," he says, bending over to get a closer look, and Nate just glares. "What were you doing waiting by the door anyway?"
Nate finally straightens up, still staring at Dan suspiciously, his left hand still cupping his face. "I was not waiting by the door, jackass," he tells him, gingerly poking at his slowly swelling nose. "If you must know, Serena and I had plans, but I'll probably have to cancel, thanks to your clumsiness."
Dan's eyes widen. "With S-Serena?"
Nate walks over to freezer to grab some ice and an old piece of cloth. "Yes, Serena Van der Woodsen. Why, is that a problem?" He removes the ice tray from the fridge and lays it on the counter.
"No, of course not," Dan assures him, probably too quickly, because Nate cocks an eyebrow at him. "Seriously, it's fine. You know what? No, it's not. It's more than fine. It's fantastic. It's wonderful news. The best I've heard all day, really," he lowers his voice when he realizes that he's nearly shouting.
Nate looks thoroughly bemused as he presses the homemade ice pack to his nose gently. "What the hell's wrong with you? Did someone lace your mid-morning coffee with crack or something?"
"No," Dan says, looking injured. "And I don't know why you'd think that. All I was doing was expressing my… delight at your…" He trails off, unable to find the words to explain himself, and attempts a winning smile.
Nate doesn't buy it. "Look, if you have something to say, you might as well come out with it," he tells him impatiently, heading toward the door. "But it'll have to be another time, because I think I'll need to show this," he gestures toward his almost-twice-its-normal-size nose. "To the family doctor."
"But… but Serena," Dan says uselessly, following Nate to the door. "What about your plans? You can't cancel now. It'd be rude," he says helpfully, and Nate squints at him, his hands on his hips and as he stands in the doorway.
"Maybe you should accompany me," he suggests. "You're acting really weird. Like, weirder than usual."
"Oh, hardy har har," Dan snaps, and steps out into the hall with him. "Everybody's a comedian today."
"I'm serious! I'm sure erratic behavior's a symptom of… something," Nate calls, walking toward the elevators, and Dan flips him off.
"The fifteen seconds you spent listening to this message are fifteen seconds of your life you'll never get back. Time is precious, so don't waste mine. Leave a message at the beep! Or, you know, don't."
Beep.
"Matthew Dainard, you asshole, your little Machiavellian scheme failed, failed fucking miserably, and my best friend is now in the hospital with what looks like a broken nose and it's entirely my fault. Oh, and did I mention he now thinks I'm still into Serena? Because he does. He also thinks I'm on crack, but that's a whole different story. Yeah, as you can imagine, things didn't go exactly as planned. I effed up and we need to fix it, stat. Wherever you are, call me. And while you're at it, change your stupid answering machine message," Dan growls, snapping his phone shut and tossing it into his bag.
And somehow, when Matt doesn't call him back immediately, Dan finds himself standing outside the door of one Serena Van der Woodsen, his finger on the doorbell (yeah, there's no way on god's green earth he's trying his hand at knocking again today, not with his luck), knowing full well that Matt will disapprove, but doing it anyway. Some misplaced sense of rebellion, maybe. Either way, Serena answers right away, and beams when she catches sight of a ruffled-looking Dan.
"Dan, I didn't expect you today!" She flings both her arms around his neck and he staggers backward, surprised. "You should've called ahead of time and told me you were coming." She pouts, releasing him, but still standing uncomfortably close. "Nate's picking me up in…" She twists Dan's hand around so she can check the time on his watch. "Well, he should've been here already." Her eyebrows knit together worriedly.
"And he would've been," Dan finds himself saying. "He was really excited and everything… until I came over and punched him in the face."
Serena's eyebrows shoot up into her hairline.
"Oh god, I just heard that you heard and this is not how I meant it," he says quickly, inwardly kicking himself. "I was trying to… it was a total accident… okay, look, never mind, how it happened is inconsequential. The point is that it's my fault he wasn't here on time and, um-"
"Oh Dan," Serena grabs him in another bone-crushing hug and he utters a low groan of protest that goes unheard. "You're so sweet. Did you seriously come all the way down here just to let me know that?" Her long silky blonde tickles his nose and he fights down an urge to sneeze.
"Actually," he begins, but stops. He doesn't quite know why he ended up here of all places, so how can he explain it to Serena? Answer: he can't. "Yes. Yes, that… is why I am here. At your house. To tell you that Nate can't make it, although he really wanted to-"
"And I love you for it," Serena says, her smile impossibly wide. Her hand still rests on his shoulder and Dan gulps. "In fact, now that you're here and you've driven all this way, you might as well come in and eat some scones. Oh wait," she says, and grins fondly at him when he opens his mouth to decline. "Scones are far too highbrow for you Columbia poet types. Black coffee, no sugar?"
Alas, much as he might want to, it is an offer he cannot refuse. Forcing a smile, he nods once, before following her into the house.
Dan has barely sat down when his phone buzzes insistently, and Serena shoots him a questioning stare before going to place her coffee and scones order in the kitchen. Frowning, he reaches into his bag and pulls the irksome thing out of his pocket. He groans audibly when he sees the newly saved contact's name flash on the tiny screen. Of fucking course.
-Daniel. My apologies for not contacting you sooner. I was… otherwise occupied. Where are you now?
Dan snorts, feeling annoyed. Here he is, making a mess of his life, while little Mister I Know What's Best gets a different kind of action elsewhere. It so figures.
-S's place, loser. Wasn't aware that getting laid was part of the job description.
Seconds later, he receives the prickly reply.
-Leave NOW. Who said you could make decisions on your own? You know where that got you last time. And PS. I was NOT 'getting laid'. Jeez, Dan, be more crude, why don't you?
But then Serena walks back in and Dan hurriedly snaps his phone shut, stuffing it into his pocket. He plasters a cheerful grin on his face and strips off his glove to accept the coffee from her outstretched hand. "That was quick," he remarks, blowing gently on the steaming hot liquid.
She shrugs, going to sit across him on the arm of her olive green sofa. "Mildred knows your coffee order by now," she says simply, and the atmosphere of the room suddenly takes a turn for the awkward.
"Right," he mumbles, taking a sip and nearly burning his tongue.
Serena nods, taking a distracted bite of the scone in her hand. "So. Um. Are you… enjoying your classes?"
Dan heaves a sigh of relief, placing his cup on the triangular coffee table next to the armchair he is currently occupying. A neutral topic. "They're…" But before he has a chance to form an answer to her question, his phone beeps for the sixth time since she returned and Dan groans, knowing that he can no longer ignore it. Holding his hand up in the universal 'one second' sign, he plunges his hand into his pocket to retrieve it.
Once he does, however, he immediately wishes he hadn't.
-doc says everything fine so you can stop ur worryin. at serenas place now but dinner tonite?
And it's not Matt, although there are a slew of irate texts from him right below it. No, it's Nate and he's here.
"Fuck," he breathes, and Serena looks alarmed.
"Is everything okay?" There's a noticeable crease between her eyebrows.
"Yes… no," Dan fumbles, grabbing his bag and standing. "No, they're really very not okay, Nate is either very close or already here and I have to get out of here right the fuck now."
Serena springs into action, seeming to comprehend the urgency of the situation immediately, and follows Dan to the door. But before they have managed to cross the distance to it, there's a sharp knock at the door, and they exchange alarmed glances.
"One second!" Serena calls, her voice shaking, and she wordlessly gestures at the large wooden cabinet. When Dan looks mystified, she sighs, grabs him by the collar and all but drags him toward it. "Get behind it," she mouths, and Dan looks at her like she's crazy. Firstly, cobwebs. Hundreds of them. And secondly, a five year old wouldn't fit in the space between the mahogany dresser and the (apparently freshly painted, if the smell is any indication) lavender wall, much less a fully grown one-a hundred and forty pound nineteen-year-old. She must be crazy.
"Just do it," she says exasperatedly, shoving him lightly, as she prances off to answer the door. Dan hastily squeezes himself into the tiny space, feeling more claustrophobic and uncomfortable than he has in several years. It's a very very tight fit.
Fifteen minutes later, Dan is still stuck in the four inches of space he had so unceremoniously been thrust into, and he's tired. Not to mention bored and he kind of needs to pee.
And Serena and Nate just will not seem to stop talking. Well, in all fairness, he admits, Serena'd made a few unsuccessful attempts to abort the conversation when Nate had first walked in, but now? She seems to have forgotten that she left Dan here a quarter of an hour ago, and is happily chatting about how Blair thinks she might leave Paris a day early to celebrate New Year with her friends.
And okay, you'd think that this would be interesting to Dan, considering his infatuation with the person being discussed, but Dan knows all this. When he and Blair had hung out, she'd talked candidly about these kinds of things – she'd trusted him seemingly more than her best friend and he'd lapped it all up delightedly, thrilled that he had this position in her life. But now, he thinks, rather bitterly, it's become apparent that he'd had no such thing. Like most-self absorbed people, Blair just needs a ear to talk into, a hand to hold when things don't go her way.
And Dan is busy musing and feeling resentful when he hears Serena's deliberately raised voice exclaim, "I guess we'd better hurry if we want to catch the five o'clock show! We don't want to miss the beginning," and hears Nate's rather puzzled voice murmur his assent. He sighs, allowing himself to breathe.
But alas, his relief is short-lived, for the footsteps are nearing the door when one pair suddenly stops in its tracks and he hears Serena's sharp intake of breath. "That's…"
And then he doesn't hear anything for a few seconds, until…
"That cup. You don't drink coffee," The words are spoken quietly Too quietly. Dan can practically hear Serena mentally floundering for some plausible excuse to explain it all away, but this doesn't seem to work out too well, since all Dan can hear is the deafening sound of Nate's unspoken accusation.
"It's black coffee," Nate remarks, his voice still oddly soft, and Dan assumes that he's bending over to get a closer look, and can just picture Serena's panicked face behind him. "No one in your family drinks black coffee. The only person I know that takes it like this is…"
Dan winces. Closes his eyes.
"Fine, yes, okay, Dan was here," Serena blurts. "He was here and he drank coffee and he didn't tell you because… because I asked him not to."
What?
"What?" Nate appears to be having a similar reaction.
"Yeah," says Serena, and Dan can hear her heels clacking against the linoleum floor as she paces. "I asked him not to because… because I wanted his help."
"With what?" Nate's voice is guarded, and there's an accusatory edge.
"With you," Serena says, after a few seconds. "He knows… he knows how much I like you and hopefully vice versa and he wanted… to help me. He… well, I mean. That's all there is to it." Although her words are halting and hesitantly spoken, Dan finally sees why Serena once considered acting as a career option.
Nate doesn't speak immediately, but when he does, he sounds marginally more relaxed and much less suspicious. "That's… really sweet. I just don't understand why he wouldn't tell me. We talked explicitly about this and he told me repeatedly that he'd be honest with me where it concerned you. It just-"
"This morning?" Serena says quickly. "Well, he stuck to that then, because this happened yesterday."
Seriously, what?
Dan can hear the frown as Nate talks. "Wait, so this is what you were telling me earlier? The thing he denied?"
"Yes," Serena says, and when Dan peeks around the cabinet, he sees her nodding her head vigorously. "It was before your discussion but after I begged him to keep it a secret."
Nate looks even more perplexed than before (although far less hurt) and he scratches his cheek distractedly, eyes darting around as he considers the story he has just been fed. Serena's hands twist nervously as she watches him, and Dan holds his breath, because he really never thought that this situation might turn out to be salvageable after all.
"Okay," Nate finally says, dropping his arms, and shooting the statuesque blond a tiny smile. "Although I still don't see why this coffee cup was left her the entire night…"
"I'll talk to Mildred," Serena says right away. "She's been so distracted lately…"
And then, while Dan repeatedly thanks his lucky stars, Nate and Serena exit the apartment, chatting about what a burden it is to have inefficient staff, the incident seemingly forgotten.
And then, of course, since this is Dan, while trying to surreptitiously make his way down the winding stairs, he somehow finds himself face-to-face with a very wound up Blair Waldorf.
"H-" He begins, wondering why Blair hadn't just taken the elevator like she normally did. She'd always said that people who used staircases were hopelessly plebeian, so why hadn't she taken her own advice?
"Humphrey," she barks, and tries to push past him, knocking him in the gut with her ridiculously heavy Louis Vuitton clasp. Still reeling slightly from the unexpected blow, Dan grabs her arm to stop her, and instantly regrets it when she whips around, staring daggers at him.
"Um, hi," Dan says uncomfortably, resisting the urge to take a step backward.
Blair's mouth twists into a grimace, and for a second Dan thinks she might hit him again, but instead she responds with a terse, "Hi."
Buoyed by the not-brush off, Dan bites his lip and tries to figure out how to phrase what he wants to say next. "About this morning…"
"Water under the bridge," she says abruptly. "Anything else?"
Thrown, he shakes his head, and she begins walking.
"Blair?" Dan suddenly blurts out, immediately regretting it, and she stops in her tracks. Turns around, her fists clenched almost imperceptibly.
"Please… please don't tell Nate about this," he says in a rush, and a gradual dawning look of comprehension settles over her pixie-like features.
"I should've known you couldn't stay away from her," she says, shaking her head, and there is evident hurt in her big dark eyes. "Your secret's safe with me."
And this time, when she storms away, he doesn't try and stop her.
Reviews are adored! XD