AN-Another 2-3 chapters to go for this. And a story I have been writing for more than a year will finally see its end.
For now, here is the latest.
As always, this would not have been possible without my awesome beta, bsloths.
"Enough with the theatrics, don't you think?"
She doesn't reply, not at first at least, and it takes several very patient seconds till he hears a muffled sound from where her face is stuffed into the pillow.
"Excuse me? What is that you just mumbled?" he asks, knowing full well that whatever he asked Blair right now would pretty much be answered by something sarcastic or angry…Or both.
Dan sighs from where he frames the doorway to Blair's room; walking in with a blindfold into to the Lionesses' den was not exactly his favourite part of whatever it was that he shared with Blair Waldorf and he wouldn't have been here if Dorota hadn't called him. It was one of the strangest conversations of his lifetime for sure,
"Mr. Humphrey? Miss Blair in bed, screaming your name again again. I think you should come and see her."
"Did you just say Blair was in bed screaming my name?"
"Yes, and very loudly too."
"Who's put you up to this Dorota? I don't think Blair would play a joke like this. Was it Nate?
"I don't joke Mr. Humphrey. Not when Miss Blair angry."
"She is ...Angry?"
"Yes...That is what I said. In her room for two days, won't eat, won't come out."...
"It's allyour fault?" she finally looks up, "all of it."
He has been expecting that, hence the initial decision to avoid getting in her path for a few days, but he's also a bit of a romantic and he can't bring himself to see her upset. Oh! Okay, so perhaps 'romantic' was putting it a bit mildly…
"I didn't know about Jenny, Blair," he says with all his sincerity.
Her eyes soften a little, "I know," and just as Dan is about to relax and perhaps approach a little more inside the room, they harden again, "but you thought it was Serena."
Oh! So apparently she had caught that little detail, "I'm sorry?" It's a question because he is still finding it hard to believe that it hadn't been Serena after all. He had been so sure of it.
Blair shakes her head; she can not truly blame him for assuming what she has known first handedly for years. Nate and Serena made sense in so many ways, "It's fine," she says thoughtfully as she rolls over on her stomach and stares at the ceiling for sometime in imperative silence. "Can you believe Serena is engaged?" she says chuckling.
Dan relaxes visibly, "Tell me about it and that too to someone who we have never even met."
"How long do you think it will last?" they both say at the same time and realising that they had just admitted to the little trust they had in Serena's relations they let out a nervous chuckle.
Blair is the first one to stop, "But frankly Humphrey," she says looking somberly at him, "I hope it does last. Everyone deserves a chance at love."
He doesn't know how to respond to that and he is still trying to make up his mind about what to say to her that a) would not offend her in any way and b) would not let his own feelings surface, when she breaks the growing silence in the room, "You were right, " she says so quietly that at first he is sure that he hasn't quite heard her correctly, "you actually were right. I have been using Charlotte for some pitiful selfish reason."
"Wow!" he shakes his head in wonder, "How do those words taste coming from your mouth Waldorf?"
"Like vinegar," she answers dryly and Dan smirks at her; "Well, if it's any consolation to you, I too had a bad day," he tells her.
Blair looks up at him in what he contrives as a concerned look; he isn't sure how the particular expression looks on her but he has seen something familiar on her face a few times before. And sometimes it is directed at him and he sort of likes it. "What happened?" she asks, shifting a little in her bed to form space to her side. It isn't much of a gesture and Dan is hesitant to interpret it any way but one look at her face and he momentarily forgets that he is supposed to be the sensible one. With his heart suddenly speeding up but still a little unsure, he moves forward and takes what he is sure hoping is an invitation. She doesn't immediately push him away and he is okay with that for now; it's a big bed and he is careful to leave ample space between them. Imitating her position, he too turns on his back and stares up at her ceiling, "I went to see Nate today."
Blair doesn't answer but he can hear her mind working and continues before she can jump to any conclusions, "You know, to know what were his intentions regarding Jenny."
He feels her body shake in repressed laughter even though she still remains quiet and awkwardly he continues, "I...I gave him an older brother lecture and guess what he told me?"
"What?" her voice is heavily laced with amusement.
"That if I had been so adamant on throwing my 'cousin' at him, I should not have any trouble with my eighteen year old sister dating him,"
Blair starts laughing, loudly this time and clutches the side of his arm to keep from rolling over. In spite of himself Dan finds himself grinning too.
"Oh God, what a mess," she admits once the giggles have stopped.
"Tell me about it." Dan replies.
"You know," she confesses, "the main reason I did this was because I was bored," she props up on an elbow and looks down at him, "go on, judge away!"
But hadn't he promised her that it wasn't his place to judge so he just raises an eyebrow instead, "Bored? Seriously, Waldorf, don't you get reruns of Seinfeld to cater to that?"
She flops back on the bed and gently nudges her elbow at him, "Oh! Quit being such a pain Humphrey. This entire thing was supposed to be fun. You know, a pet project I didn't have since you started dressing in a way which didn't give me an immediate head ache and Jenny Humphrey went into exile, but it's not fun anymore," she sighs, "Nate not only hates me for meddling but I don't know how to explain any of this to Charlotte."
"Are you finally convinced that you do need to expand your subscription beyond the New Yorker?"
Startled, Dan looks up. He had been so engrossed in one of her international magazines that he had not heard her come downstairs.
"Blair..." his voice dies in his throat. He has seen her in the most exquisite gown and evening dresses on several occasions before but just the way she looks right now has him fumbling like he has never spoken a full sentence before in his life. Her face is scrubbed clean and he can detect only a very pale shade of lip gloss on her lips. Her hair is loose and frames her heart shaped face in the most delicate of manners and she looks fresh in a pale beige coat over her white dress, the green scarf he had given her for Christmas secured nicely around her neck.
He had never thought that one day he would be blessing the January of New York.
"Humphrey! It's rude to stare." There is a hint of a blush on her cheeks.
"Sorry," he averts his eyes and quickly recovering himself adds, "but you didn't have to dress up to go out on a lunch with me, Waldorf. I would find you beautiful even in your PJ's."
The colour on Blair's cheeks darkens, "Daniel Humphrey, are you flirting with me?"
"Why Miss Waldorf," Dan smirks at her, "whatever gave you that horrid idea?"
She smacks his arm in response and chucking Dan picks up his jacket from the couch, "Let's go."
It takes a while after his lunch with Blair that Dan finds time to call upon Nate. The meal had run more than its course when the two had ended up arguing over how Blair was being a hypocrite about not wanting to eat in Brooklyn; she had clearly enjoyed her meal the other night but fearing that their conversation would sooner or later run into what else had happened that night, it is finally settled upon that Blair could choose a restaurant in Manhattan as long as it was Dan who ordered, and thus the Sole Kebabs and Paprika Schnitzel had won the argument over Rognons A La Dijonnaise. Good thing too, there was no way Dan was ready to have kidneys in the middle of the day. French delicacy or not.
He was now waiting patiently yet again for Nate to stop laughing. He had warned Nate and Serena, who he had found at the Empire as well, that not only what he was about to tell them was supposed to go to their graves with them but that laughter was positively not an option. They had argued that his secret they would keep but laughter was really an involuntary bodily response and they had no control over it.
"Did ...Did you just say you and Blair kissed?" Nate asks between laughter, "man I knew there was something fishy going on between you two."
Dan turns to Serena for her help. The blonde has not yet responded to his sudden declaration and he is a little more insecure about what she thinks about it than how amusing Nate finds it. Serena looks at him squarely and he is slightly relived to see that there is no anger or worse hurt in her eyes. Instead she just looks thoughtful, "Dan," she begins, carelessly stirring her drink as she sits next to him, "who kissed who?"
He is a little startled at the absurdity of the question, even more so because Nate, having recovered from his laughing fit, is actually nodding sagely at the question, "What is that supposed to mean? We kissed each other, that is that."
"No, Dan," Serena explains, "kissing Blair is one thing, being kissed by Blair is a different thing altogether."
"Well, how am I supposed to remember who made the first move?" Dan asks irritably, "there were two mouths fused together, two tongues clashed against each other in a battle of dominance. And we did make it to a cab and there was much in there which the driver should not have seen in the review mirror. Her body was flush against mine and who knows if..."
"Whoa..." Nate interrupts, standing up, "dude, you're a writer. We get it but enough with the unnecessary details."
Dan glares at him but shuts up. It really was a stupid question to ask.
After a tensed silence in which he is trying to understand how to best explain the situation to his two friends and rough fingers have passed his already unkempt hair several times in frustration, he tries," I don't know what the kiss meant. I don't even know what Blair wants out of it but," he looks at each of them seriously, "I do know that I care about her. I wanted to kill Clampton when he hurt her and no offense to you Nate but you would have been on my hit list too if her fancy about you being in love with her had been true."
"Charming, how my love life is the most talked about topic between the two of you." Nate says dryly; he had just been told about the entire Charlotte scheme in all honesty and was still trying to come to terms with how his liaisons had pretty much marked the past week for Blair and Dan.
Dan and Serena ignore him and the latter is looking at Dan in an expression so serious that he can't really place it, "So," she says, "this is not exactly what I had in mind when I told you to look out for Blair."
Dan sighs; there were bigger issues to handle here. If Blair and he ever had a chance, not that he saw much hope of it at the moment, there was still Serena they needed to get a green light from. Funny, how she was engaged to some stranger but they still needed her opinion. He cared about Serena and so did Blair; that was one of the many things he admired about her.
"Does it bother you?" he asks her.
"Are you in love with her?" she asks instead.
He takes in her question and weighs it. Was he in love with Blair? Love as in love? Or was he just looking out for her? Being a good friend to her? Hell, who was he kidding, he had been feeding on these feelings for a very long time now.
He answers Serena with another question, "Would it bother you if I answered it in an affirmative?"
Nate grins and after a pregnant pause, Serena smiles too, "I think you just answered me, Dan."
Meanwhile, Blair decides to do some damage control of her own.
Charlotte's room is a mess to say the least, in fact Blair can hardly see through the film of smoke when she takes a tentative step inside. Coughing against it, she calls out to Charlotte.
"Blair? Oh! Thank God you're here. I was just about to call you."
"Charlotte? What is going on here? Are you burning something?"
"Yes," the silhouette of the girl finally reaches Blair, "yes, I'm burning all my memories with Nate."
Blair takes a double take at her, "What memories?"
Charlotte grabs her hand excitedly, "Come, I'll show you."
With a feeling that tells her that she should not have come here in the first place Blair lets Charlotte lead her to a small metal bucket where a steady flame is glowing.
Damn Humphrey and his persistence that she should go make things right with Charlotte.
"This," Charlotte says picking up a piece of paper, "is the check for the first meal me and Nate had together."
"You had kept it?" Blair asks incredulously. Seriously, how had she missed that the girl was a psycho case?
"Yes, I did," Charlotte looks at her like how could there be two ways about it, "I also kept this." She picks up a CD, "it had been playing in his room the first time I went to his place."
Blair recognizes it to be from Chuck's collection but she doesn't say a thing, "And what is that?" she asks instead looking at a shiny metallic object in the pile of things on the floor.
"This," Charlotte says picking it up, "was tied to his tie that night."
"You stole his tie clip!"
"Blair," Charlotte sobs, "I wanted a memory. You had told me that Nate was Mr. Right. But now," she picks up the listed things and tosses them into the fire, "I don't want any memories."
And then Charlotte Wilkins starts wailing loudly.
Confused and wishing she was anywhere but here at the moment; Blair places a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, "So I gather you've heard about Jenny Humphrey?"
Charlotte nods, "It's all over Gossip Girl. She is not even pretty, Blair. What does she have that I don't?"
Blair looks at her critically; the blonde dye in her hair has started to fade and a gleam of orange is visible, her mascara is streaming down her eyes and through the thin sheen of white smoke she looks almost scary.
"I have no idea," she lies and is met with another loud round of sobbing. Where is Dan Humphrey when one most needs him?
"I...I," Charlotte sobs, "I will never get a guy like him again. Oh! Blair what did I do wrong? Even Tom does not talk to me anymore."
Tom Sheppard, Blair sighs. How could she let Charlotte, someone who most of NYU thought to be her friend and some of The UES thought to be her new minion, go back to hippie, tree hugging Tom Sheppard?
So much for the promise she had made Dan that she would never indulge in matchmaking again. This was not just about fun or curing her boredom anymore, it was her civic duty now to save the likes of Charlotte.
Humphrey would have to understand, "Now, now Charlotte, don't cry," she says hesitantly wiping away a tear and quickly cleaning her fingers with the side of her scarf, "Tell me, how much do you know about Chuck Bass?"
AN- Hehe…Blair will not learn that easily! Please do review, I love knowing what you guys think.
On a different note, any Community fans here? I will soon be posting a Community fic soon in case anyone is interested.