A/N: The Rachel/Dan sex scene is in the next chapter! This chapter finally features a bit of buildup between Dan and Blair. Definite slight AU. All encounters are basically what happened in the show but I fiddled with the scenes a little bit.
Thank you for reading and reviewing!
"Come on, let's go help her," Serena exclaims with zest, and leads Dan over to the tiny new teacher. Without thinking, Dan reaches out to help carry her files – one, two, chivalry ain't dead, it's been passed down from Humphrey to Humphrey as long as Brooklyn has existed – and he is met by a warm, sincere smile.
"Thank you," she says, lacking the authority that Dan is used to from Constance teachers. This woman is uncertain, awkward, out of place. She can't quite walk in heels, her hair quite shabbily cut, and her clothes look inexpensive, perhaps even secondhand. In fact, she appears much younger than Serena and she looks up at Dan with hopeful eyes, as if he is about to save her from the school bully.
Nonsense. Serena is kind and lovely. She isn't the bully. She uses her magnificent – hell, damn near omnipotent – powers for good.
Dan smiles at her and offers up an "of course," a little tongue-tied, finding himself tripping over his own thoughts.
Rachel Carr. The name is cute, plain, non-threatening. He hasn't heard a name like that in a while. Serena van der Woodsen sounds like a castle or a magistrate, and merely the words "Blair Waldorf" inspire great fear in those who cower below her. Nate Archibald. Charles Bass. These names carry weight, hundreds of years of history, blood money, scandal, prestige. But Rachel Carr. Sounds like a girl who would hang out with a Humphrey.
Little Claire is poised comfortably in the pocket of his school uniform.
"Why are you wearing this hideous outfit," she laughs, pulling idly at his burgundy tie. "It doesn't do good things for you. If you let me dress you, you'd be … " She trails off, a bit of color rising in her cheeks.
I'd be what, Claire, he whispers smugly. Do you think me handsome, Jane Eyre?
Little Claire is conflicted: impressed by his adept literary allusion, yet embarrassed and annoyed. "No, Mr. Rochester, if I dressed you, I could perhaps – and this is a stretch! – make you look presentable. Not handsome. Please." She huffs a little and then looks at her watch.
"Dan! Dan! It's time to check the Yale decision!" She's squealing and sliding down his arm to reach his phone.
No, Claire, I'm nervous, he says pleadingly, but she's already peering at the screen.
He looks away, heart clattering in his ribcage like a wild animal.
"Oh, Dan," says Claire, and he looks down at her cautiously. Her face is absolutely glowing. He thinks, for one crazy second, that he could spend the rest of his life gazing at her, big, sad eyes and shiny brown hair and tiny, full lips. "I think you should look."
In the next second his life changes. His heart looms and his eyes widen and he realizes that for the first time ever, Daniel Humphrey, with no familial pedigree, no pullable strings whatsoever to speak of, is a winner.
Little Claire is jealous.
"Do I go to Yale in your novel?" She asks him, eyelashes aflutter, legs crossed seductively.
Maybe if you play your cards right, he answers mischievously but the answer is: of course, yes, a hundred times yes, Claire and Dylan go to Yale together where they both so clearly belong, and they fall in love in the crispness of New England autumn. He's got it all planned out. It's a happy ending, the exact kind that she'd scoff at.
Claire seems satisfied, and then, with an eyebrow raise, "Are you going to check if Serena got in?"
Dan feels guilt shoot through him like an arrow.
Oh, Jesus. Serena. His high school sweetheart slash stepsister slash love of his life, right? He'd spent half his morning talking to an imaginary character from his book and hadn't even bothered to tell his girlfriend.
He runs up to her, shouting the words out to a hushed courtyard, all awaiting the news – "I got in! I got in!" – and he's engulfed immediately, hair enveloping his face in a curtain of gold, feels her chest pressing against his tightly, and when he pulls back, he is greeted by her million dollar smile like always. "What about you?" He asks, awaiting the obvious – it's Serena fucking van der Wooden, of course she got in, she's the eternal winner – and is blindsided by her nervous, fumbling answer: no.
No matter, thinks Dan viciously, no matter, you can always pay your way in, but instead says warmly, "I'm sure you'll get in. In the spring."
"In the spring," Serena says lightly, and they hold hands.
That night he celebrates with his family. Gourmet pizza, of course, and Rufus opens a bottle of wine, even serving a glass to Jenny. Dan is aflame with happiness; he feels vigor and pure elation zipping through his veins. In a strange, slightly drunken moment, though, he finds himself expressing to his family: "Well, it doesn't really matter where you go to college, in the end. I may have gotten into Yale but that doesn't mean I'm any better than anyone else. It all depends on what you do with yourself. You could go to community college and still be a brilliant person."
Rufus and Jenny nod in perfect agreement, although they seem confused as to why Dan would bring this up on his victorious day.
"Of course, Dan. But you can allow yourself to feel a little proud," says Rufus with a fatherly wink, while Jenny just throws a piece of half-bitten crust at him.
Later on, tipsier than he would admit to himself, Dan wonders where Miss Carr attended college. Two years of Teach for America straight into Constance? Probably somewhere prestigious.
"Who cares about Miss Carr?" Little Claire asks, bemused. "I'm so happy for you, Dan."
She's not sincere very often but in that moment, Claire's smile matches her eyes, fizzing with excitement. Dan feels a pool of heat gathering in his stomach, coiling and furling into something new.
He doesn't know how it happens exactly, but one moment, he's talking to Miss Carr in the hallway at school, simple, perfunctory greetings, hello, how are you, yes, everyone here is insufferable and we're the only normal ones, hope you're having a good day, and the next, they're at a coffee shop, discussing his writing.
He orders them both small mochas and the way she sighs after her first sip is rejuvenating. "Dan," she says with gusto in her voice, "you are so talented."
He doesn't tell anyone about their morning meeting, not even Serena (especially Serena?), lying to his family on his way out, saying he has an a early project.
Rachel loves the story about Serena, the one he always writes, an untouchable Park Avenue Princess and a certain loner with a penchant for writing, says it's refreshing and honest and beautiful.
But oh, the short stories about Claire.
Miss Carr looks at him, eyes shining with barely-there tears, and utters that they are some of the most inspiring things she has ever read.
"And I'm an English teacher, Dan," she breathes out, and he is struck by how big and sad her eyes look, a little bit Audrey Hepburn.
Of course, the rest of her face is wildly different – Rachel looks distinctly youthful with a button nose and thin lips and straight brown hair like a schoolgirl, but those eyes, god, those eyes.
He's in the midst of getting lost in them a bit, looking directly at them so he can see the color in them, so he can describe it later and spin those brown orbs into words, but a familiar voice cuts through his internal monologue.
"Dan…and Miss Carr," Serena is standing in front of them, confusion etched into every line of her face. She's holding a cup of coffee a bit like you'd hold a weapon, so Dan stands up immediately, meeting Serena's height.
He says something awkward and folksy like, "Well, we should be off," and the two of them leave Miss Carr sitting there, Dan's stories in her lap.
Little Claire is one hell of a sulky mood. "So going to the opera, are you Brooklyn," she says sitting on his shoulder and examining her nails.
"I bet they'll be able to smell the poor on you."
Claire, he says, trying to be placating, I've been to a hundred of these functions. They're used to vermin like me now.
"That's exactly what you are. Vermin. A pile of worthless shit."
She jumps off his shoulder onto the countertop and walks away from him, sashaying her hips from side to side in a way that she knows Dan will notice.
Why are you being so awful to me! He exclaims. You're acting like – like –
The words are on the tip of his tongue but he catches himself right in time. She looks up at him with venom in her eyes, knowing exactly what he was about to say.
"Like who, Brooklyn? Who do I act like? Can you even admit it to yourself? Is it someone that you hate? Is it someone that you want but can't say? Who am I to you, Humphrey," She's snarling now, claws out and teeth bared.
No one, yells Dan. You're based off old Hollywood starlets and Elizabeth Bennett and other strong female characters in literary masterpieces…
"Keep fooling yourself, asshole," She spits out. "And Rachel Carr? Really? If you think she's going to do the trick, you're delusional. She's like the decaffeinated, two-dimensional version of me with dried-out roots and bad taste. As long as you keep seeing her I'm gone."
Poof! And little Claire is gone as fast as she came. The smell of nectarines linger in the air.
One time in the fifth grade, Daniel Humphrey participated in a school recital. It was his first and only time performing music in front of an audience, and he blamed the oppressive public school system for viciously forcing young children to pick an instrument and join orchestra or band.
He had wanted to play the drums, but his mother had insisted that he choose a string instrument, because she'd played viola and Rufus was obviously a master of the guitar – "it's in your genes, Dan," she'd said.
Dan was not very good. In fact, Dan was the worst in his class. He tried and tried to produce a nice, mellow tone on his violin, but he simply could not play anything better than a screech. Still, his mother took him to lessons and encouraged him to practice at their home, no matter how painful it was for the rest of his family to hear.
The concert was in the spring. Dan was under-practiced and, moreover, not talented. He was one of the most inexperienced in his class, so he was playing his solo near the beginning of the program. He could feel his hands sweating and knees knocking together as he waited his turn. As the little girl behind him played the piano, he looked out into the concert hall nervously, and saw his family. Rufus was waving at him goofily, in a way that convinced him that Dan could do no wrong. Even if he went up there and – man, pooped his pants or something and couldn't hit a single note, Rufus would hug him and say, "Great job, son." Jenny was dressed in a pink puffy dress, light blonde hair in braids, looking bored but smiling at her big brother sweetly. And finally, his mother. Beaming.
In a miraculous feat, Dan managed to perform his Bach minuet flawlessly. The pride that he felt afterwards was almost overwhelming.
For some reason, the entire time Dan was at the opera, his nebulous memory of an elementary school concert was the only thing he could think of. As he looked around at the beautiful, wealthy people dressed in their richest attire, smiling and laughing at each other in a manner that almost seemed genuine, Dan felt unmistakably different from them. And he was glad.
Although his mother may have left, and may even have left their family scarred and tainted by her abrupt disappearance, Dan appreciated the way she had raised him, wholeheartedly, kindly, justly. And even if Lily were to become his stepmother, Dan knew that he'd be okay – wherever he was, in the lonely halls of St. Jude's, at a frivolous UES party, in the hallowed halls of Yale, at a familiar coffee shop in Brooklyn. He felt it as a truth echoing through his body. He wanted desperately to tell Claire – hey, I'm going to be okay.
He wanted to look into her large eyes filled with the pain of a cold upbringing, broken family, fearsome mother, and say hey, you're going to be okay too, I'll make sure of it.
But Claire was stubborn – that was how he'd written her character, after all – and didn't turn up.
Instead, Serena came to find him, telling him that she was sorry but she wasn't coming to Yale. The open curriculum at Brown was simply a better fit for her; she'd never actually wanted Yale, and she'd looked up the distance between them and it was only 2 hours, which was absolutely nothing! Dan looked at her and smiled, said, "We're going to be okay, I'll make sure of it."
Later that night, lying in his queen-sized bed, Dan recalled the way Serena had looked as she confessed. Guilty, sad, defeated. Her lips quivered and the crease between her eyebrows deepened, and she was even a little pale. But her eyes looked like they always did. Glittering like diamonds, incandescent and full of hope.
Little Claire's absence makes Dan go insane. Or, perhaps the fact that he had started talking to an imaginary character was the first sign he had gone mental in the first place. Either way, he aches without her, longs for her in a way he hadn't even thought possible. He spends his days and nights dreaming about her, hoping she would turn up again, sneering at him like she knew something he didn't.
In a cruel twist of fate, he has the worst case of writer's block he has ever encountered combined with the most agonizing blue balls in his life. Little Claire was gone, which meant that he couldn't write any of her dialogue. Before, everything she said was natural and eloquent, but when he tried to write without her presence, his words came out clunky and uneven.
Little Claire was gone, which also meant that he was horny as fuck. He hadn't had sex with Serena in days and well…he didn't really want to. They were in a bizarre sexless purgatory where neither of them were sure if they were going to end up brother and sister, which was decidedly not good for the erotic appetite.
He walked around at school in a daze, paying minimal attention in his classes. However, his sudden loss of interest in his subjects was dismissed by his teachers to be senioritis, which they deemed quite forgivable on his part because he was already safely into Yale.
In one of these particularly hazy moments, Dan bumps into Rachel Carr in the hallway. She looks lovely in a light sweater and her hair is styled particularly nicely, and Dan blurts out these sentiments before he can stop himself. The whole encounter is vastly awkward, and the way Rachel is looking at him is so similar to the way little Claire does, smiling up at him through her eyelashes teasingly, and he can't help it, he just kind of wants to touch her, or rather, talk to her and see if any of her dialogue sounds like Claire's, and fuck, he's in too deep and he can't even tell the difference between his professor and his imaginary character and Blair Waldorf –
Right. Yes. Blair. Blair Waldorf is a giant bitch. Horrible. Evil. Bitch.
Blair spreads a salacious rumor about him and Miss Carr having some sort of lurid affair, all because of some immature vendetta she has against the teacher for giving her a B. And god, how stupid, why can't she just solve her problems on her own without creating huge, messy complications for his relationships? He has to explain it to Serena in the courtyard, and he's sweating and tired and he keeps seeing Serena's face in front of him but her eyes are brown, they're Claire's, they're sad. He digs a nail into his skin, says, wake the fuck up, Dan, and she's back, eyes baby blue as ever and accusatory. He swears over and over again that he didn't do it, he didn't cheat on her, he's Dan Humphrey, he's a good guy, he's not spending his nights masturbating to an image of a gorgeous brunette that he's created for his novel, hey, that's not technically cheating okay, fuck you, Blair.
He determines that barging into the women's restroom and confronting Blair is the best course of action. She's looking at her reflection and fixing her lip gloss, and when he comes in, rather violently, she doesn't even bother to look surprised. It's like she'd been expecting him. Her eyes are murderous and flashing in the mirror but her tone is sickly sweet – a rehearsed routine. He wants to call her on it, to grab her by her shoulders and press her up against the cold bathroom wall, and say, I see right through you, Waldorf.
"I don't know what you mean, Humphrey," she says innocently, and Dan's brain is going on overdrive, because Blair … wow, she looks quite a lot like Claire and he'd always kind of known it subconsciously but it's starting to well up as an unrecognizable truth in his head, and he's wrestling it away, trying to keep it suppressed.
She turns to look at him, hair curled expertly and lips taunting him with a ridiculously perfect pout.
"Maybe she can give you notes on your story. Naked." She quirks her eyebrows up at him, a distinct challenge, and Dan cuts in front of her, obstructing her way out of the ladies' room.
"Look, I know you did it, Blair. Just fix it. Miss Carr is a good person, and she doesn't deserve any of this."
He puts a hand on her shoulder, meaning to be aggressive and domineering, to show her who's boss, but halfway down he realizes that he's never really touched Blair Waldorf before, and his hand starts to shake a bit. He knows he should backtrack, somehow get out of this situation, but he can't – and there it is, his hand, landing on her shoulder tentatively, almost tenderly. He looks down at her and Blair's face is a mirror of his own: nonplussed and yet…strangely content? She snaps out of it quicker than he does, of course, and shakes his arm off of her.
"Get your contaminated hands off me, Humphrey. For the last time, I don't know what you're talking about." She says sharply, but her breath is shallow, and she looks flustered. There is a strange sensation in Dan's legs a bit like he's melting; the hubbub of school and class all careen away and the only sounds he can register are his heartbeat and Blair's rapid breathing.
He should have let her go at that instant, his brain knew it, every bone in his body knew it, but his hand – fuck, his hand is on some sort of suicide mission – and it reaches out and tucks a wayward curl out of Blair's face on to her delicate shell of an ear. And then, as his brain commences screaming – WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, HUMPHREY – his feet start to walk towards Blair, cornering her near the sink so that they are face to face, Blair's hand clutching the counter.
"What do you think you're doing," She hisses at him, cheeks flushed and eyes looming forward at him, larger than life, like a Dali painting threatening to swallow him whole.
At this point, Dan loses control of every limb and every single ounce of sense he has left in his body, so naturally, he grabs Blair by the waist forcefully and lifts her up onto the clean granite countertop that Constance has so graciously provided them. She lets out a shocked gasp, a loud, unfettered noise, but does not say a thing, letting his hands stay at her hips, holding her in place.
She is light as a feather; Serena must have at least 20 pounds on her and the van der Woodsens are known for being skinny. It inspires a strange feeling in him – something he's never encountered with Serena, this weird masculinity and machismo, like he knows he can lift Blair up with one hand and carry her over her shoulder. It disturbs him, makes him feel like an asshole and a creep, and also gives him the goosebumps. At the same time, he registers a sort of discomfort, a worrisome itch at the back of his brain saying, does Blair eat anything? Is she okay?
Her skirt is soft and short and although he has apparently lost his mind he at least steels his eyes so they do not stray downwards and see what he knows is in sight – a flash of Blair Waldorf's garter, black and lacy and dangerous as hell.
He looks into her eyes and they are glaring topaz daggers at him, poisoning him with their encompassing beauty.
"I know what you did," he says, mostly for the sake of something to say, and it comes out shaky and haggard and rough.
Blair smiles then, hearing the sound of his uncertain voice and knowing she has the upper hand. She shimmies a little bit down the counter so that his hands are now not touching skirt but bare leg. His hands twitch a little bit at first but then stay frozen in place, memorizing the way her smooth, warm skin feels.
"Do you, Humphrey? I wasn't aware that you knew me so well."
Her voice is a low pianissimo, whispering a sultry secret in his ear.
She is about to move off the counter – he can feel it in the tensing of her thigh muscles, and he knows he is about to lose her. He knows she has won. He knows she will continue to win. But he has one move left in his arsenal so he uses it, a desperate last measure. He reaches out with just one finger and ghosts it along her knee up to her inner thigh where skin meets skirt and stops there, feeling her shudder underneath him.
"Me neither." He says, and he knows the words are lame and defeated but they are the best he can do.
Blair Waldorf jumps off the counter, slamming his hands away from her, the surreptitious, slow air broken with her sudden movements.
"Stay away from me, Humphrey," she spits out and is gone in a graceful flash, leaving Dan fantastically confused, guilty, and agitated.
He spends the rest of the day with half a boner, feeling like a shitty person and even shittier boyfriend. He doesn't know what compelled him to such inappropriate antics – he'd touched Blair's thigh! – and even Dan, master of denial that he was, could not forget the way those moments in the bathroom felt, stolen and secret and definitely sexual. He convinced himself that they were both just using every juvenile trick in the book, trying to use sexual desire to their advantage to manipulate one other. But since when did Dan Humphrey lust over Blair Waldorf, or, even crazier still, the other way around?
When he gets a call from Miss Carr asking him to meet her outside of school so they can talk about the scandal, Dan answers yes immediately. Finally. Something that will make sense again. Seeing Miss Carr in a melancholy stupor will dissolve any positive feelings towards Blair he has in an instant, because Blair is girly evil personified, and this he has known from the very beginning.