Work Text:
This is how it happens:
One movie, then two.
Two rows apart, then two seats, then none. The armrest between them unused. The bottle of water in her lap bought with Humphrey money.
“Sparkling wasn’t available?”
“Oh, you’re very welcome,” he takes that as a ‘thank you,’ which it certainly is not. “And next time I’ll be sure to smuggle a bottle inside my coat.”
Next time.
“I can’t think of anything more nauseating.”
And then, inexplicably, her head inclining towards his. His knee grazing hers.
And then—
No, definitely not.
This is how it happens:
A kiss, just to tell.
Then two kisses, and three, and clumsy steps up towards her room. His hands barely grazing her skin and hers holding on enough to bruise. To will it—to make it work.
“Can we—can we, uh, just slow down for a sec?” he stutters when her thumbs hook around the waistband of his pants to help unfasten the button.
“Do you want to know what I find very, very unattractive?”
He laughs, not particularly self-consciously, which is a bit maddening. “Let me guess?”
But then he’s kissing her again, which mostly negates the whole issue. About uncertainty. About hesitation, about waiting, about longing for the simple possibility of something different—something else that could be substantial, and possibly even bright.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“You.”
Well, honestly that’s just laughable.
This is how it happens:
She’s sparkly again. She’s lively and charming and beautiful.
She’s hiding again. She’s empty and faking and fat.
She’s kissing Dan Humphrey as passionately as she can manage at the Pink Party with a hand wrapped around the tie she’d bought him. One of his palms spans almost half of her waist.
“Good enough?” he teases, the words rumbling against her mouth. “Or—”
She bites his bottom lip, and so he pulls her closer, and so she forgets the question. Forgets everything, meaning and circumstances and strict planning fuzzy and insubstantial.
She’s just a girl, finding another reason to kiss a boy, and he’s letting her. More than ‘letting’ her. Pressing into her until her back hits the wall with a loud thump.
Oh, no, wait—
This is how it happens:
“Would you at least disinfect your hands?”
“Can eau de Brooklyn actually wash off?” his voice too snippy for her liking as he touches a cotton ball soaked with rubbing alcohol to her cheek.
“You’re right,” she sighs. “I don’t know what I’m even doing in this wasteland—and with you of all people. Must be the minor blood loss.”
“I’m sorry, all I heard was ‘you’re right,’” his fingertip smoothing down a small band-aid. “And I hope you turned that ring backwards on your trip over here.”
“I took a car, thank you very much.”
A beat, then:
“You think I don’t know who did this to you, do you?” he’s practically vibrating with too many repressed emotions. “And why.”
It’s a gamble, but, “I think that you care more about taking care of me.”
He kisses the bandage firmly, one hand cupping her cheek and eyes straying to her mouth when he pulls back only slightly.
“Well, maybe you’re wrong.”
No, he’s wrong. All wrong.
This is how it happens:
He calls her almost everyday while she’s in Monaco for the summer, and it’s nowhere as annoying as she pretends it is.
“You need to cut your hair,” she tells him once, idly. “I don’t need someone that looks like a hobo from a Preston Sturges movie in the audience of my wedding.”
Much worse, she calls him almost as often despite the fact that the castle really doesn’t get particularly lonely. Perhaps later, but for now there’s no shortage of things to plan and people to harass.
Dan’s voice gets more and more fond.
“Um, excuse me?”
“Gossip Girl posted pictures of you playing softball in the Hamptons.” She doesn’t mention the stretch and slope of his shoulders through the thin material of that ghastly t-shirt, or about how his jawline seems to grow more and more pronounced as the years wear on. “You’ve really let yourself go since I’ve been away, hmm?” She waits for the warm sound of his laughter, but he’s quiet—so she continues, filling up the space with words. “I made an appointment with a hair dresser on Seventy-first and Madison for you. This Friday at noon.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” his voice strained. “I’ve never spent more that twenty dollars on a trim in my life.”
“I believe you.”
“Blair?” he says. Makes her pulse race and breath get a little short. “Blair, I really need to tell you something. I’ve been hoping that it would just go away, and I’m not expecting anything from you, but—”
But he’d never. He thinks that she’d never.
And she wouldn’t.
That’s not who they are. That’s not their story.
This is how it happens:
It doesn’t.