Chapter Text
A SIMPLE SIGHTING WILL DO.
It was never supposed to be this way. The plan was always Serena. Their friendship was formed by trying to save Serena. She was the centrepiece of every scheme he had cooked up with Blair Waldorf. She was the centrepiece of everything. Until, somehow, she wasn’t. Until, somehow, it was Blair. She’d made her way into his dreams and into the curve of his wrist and into everything he tried to write. Blair, the Queen of the Met Steps. Blair, the girl with the wicked quips and the soft heart she hid underneath layers of gnashing teeth and barbed wire and Dior dresses. The only person in the world who could correct him on his feelings about subjective art and he’d still come out clawing to be right, somehow convinced she’s won. And he’d lose with a smile etched into his cheeks. He didn’t care about her at all, had seen her as the pretty little obstacle to overcome in his quest to be Serena’s knight in shining armour. Suddenly, she was washing glassware in his sink with L’Occitane Shampoo and meeting him in art galleries, always with a plan, always with the guise of plausible deniability.
This was never supposed to be a chapter in his story. Poor boy from Brooklyn, misunderstood and lonely in a world that will never be his. Throwing himself into it all for a girl. Blair was just supposed to be Serena’s best friend, the angel of the upper east side, the bared, biting teeth to Serena’s soothing tongue. Then she was more, somehow. She became the whole thing. The dreams shifted. It became less about the sun, more about trying to catch a glimpse of the moon amongst the bright lights of the city. He didn’t know he’d fallen in until he was drowning.
Poor boys were never Blair’s thing. Trying to save someone and end up being saved by them, chasing an underdog to make them a winner, that was always Serena’s move. Blair was always the one who wanted royalty. Nate Archibald, the prince of the upper west side. Chuck Bass, some kind of king in the shadows, always half in, half out. But Blair had gotten so tired of loving people who were always halfway out the door. She didn’t think there was anyone she’d lost that didn’t have her claw marks etched into their skin. Chuck, Nate, Serena, her father. All bared some kind of mark from Blair trying to hold on too tightly. Even when she’d told herself that her prince would come someday, she wasn’t sure she’d ever believed it. Maybe that’s why she’d climbed to the top with a pretty smile as she stood on a pile of bodies, a heel digging into someone’s back. Because she’d learnt that there wasn’t any other way. None of those birthday candles or wishes on eyelashes had ever given her anything. Except for a boy who was immovable. A boy would make her laugh and keep her company on the other end of the line as they spitefully rid themselves of Valentine’s Day. Definitely not a prince, definitely a pauper, and yet, Blair found herself realising Dan was the only one who didn’t yet have scars from her claws. Maybe the plausible deniability wasn’t ever for her, but for him. If she doesn’t care, then she can’t hurt him. She really should quit while she’s ahead, throw him off the cliff before he realises just how much blood she’s capable of drawing. She knows he’s seen it before, but he’s never felt it. Yet every time she tries to walk away, the words are lost on her lips.
Perhaps the only way to keep him safe from her claws is to make sure it’s never anything more than platonic. Friends don’t leave scars. They heal them. Right?