091. don't care if critics never jump in line
Title | don't care if critics never jump in line
Chapter | 1/1
Rating | pg.
Characters | Penn/Blake
Notes | They're just really fucking cute, okay. Don't judge me.
He annoys her, when they're younger - and later she'll think of this as the perfect cliché, as the way every predictable love story begins.
But when she's nine-and-a-half and he's eleven and they're sitting at the same table, two kids from showbiz families with a tutor pointing out fractions and pre-algebra, she finds him entirely annoying.
His feet keep kicking hers.
She makes a face when she hears that he'll be playing her love interest, thumbs through the pilot's script while she sets on an antique chair, part of the elaborate set.
"You'll hate him," she tells Leighton, and she knows that's unfair, but she's known Leighton for a full day now and she likes her, she seems like a good judge of character.
Leighton smirks at her. "Do you hate him?"
"I'm just…" She picks at her nails, the ones she just had manicured, and has to sit on her hands to stop herself. "I'm not his biggest fan."
"Why?"
She blows out her breath. "Just…because."
Leighton's smirk curves into a smile. "Ah," she says, like Blake has just given away her biggest secret.
When he arrives on set she hangs back a bit, shying away from Ed's friendly, accented words, from Chace's boisterous laughter, from Leighton's remember me?
"And Blake!" someone says, so she steps forward, not avoiding him, not avoiding anything at all.
"Hey." It's a single syllable but she kind of blurts it, tucking her hair out of her face. She thinks about extending her hand for him to shake, but in the end she doesn't. "Hi," she repeats, softer now. He looks different, good-different.
"Hey," he echoes her. His voice is different than she remembers, too, a little deeper and a little rougher. He hesitates for all of a second, and then he's reaching out, hugging her and, oh.
That feels different, too - when he touches her.
There is a general assumption that they fall in love at the same rate as their characters, which is at least seven-eighths untrue.
Fact: their first kiss is timed with the one Serena and Dan share, cameras rolling in the Meatpacking District, the two of them giddy with first-date butterflies.
She's kind of nervous for it, even though she's trying to be a professional and it's just acting, even after that scene she had to do with Chace for the first episode. He leans in and she leans in and their lips meet; half of this footage will end up on the cutting room floor but when the director yells cut her cheeks are flushed.
(There was one another kiss, one that she doesn't really count. They were at a party, someone's party; she was busy drinking in her first tastes of fame after Sisterhood and he was busy drinking. She was seventeen or maybe eighteen, still an all-American girl with her blonde hair tied up in a high ponytail, on-and-off-again with her high school boyfriend. He had shaggier hair back then and more of a cocky smirk and everything about him contrasted with her wide blue eyes and her bright coloured dress. Looking her over, he hadn't quite smiled and he'd teased about Blakey's all grown up and there'd been a moment, just a moment, when all of sudden her mouth was crushed against his.)
They are not their characters.
Dan and Serena fall into love and out of love and into it again, out of it again, until they stop keeping track, they just take it script by script.
Penn and Blake fall in love. More slowly, more realistically, maybe even more madly. But still, that's it. Period.
Their first kiss, as she dubs it officially, the one that belongs to them and no one else, happens on a Thursday night on his couch, slow and searching, one of his hands pushing her purple sweater off of one of her shoulders.
Third time's the charm, she thinks.
Everything moves fast.
He asks her to go away with him and then pictures of their vacation are splashed all over the internet, she moves into his trailer, and everywhere they go she's on his arm or he's on hers, depending on whose event it is.
Everything moves fast but she still hasn't had enough.
She's not sure that she ever will.
He tells her that he loves her on a Sunday evening.
There is no crescendo, no swelling music. There are no roses, no stories written in spiral notebooks, no champagne and no star-watching, no set-up for this confession, no preamble at all.
It's just him and her, just Chinese takeout containers, just her arm pressed up against his, just her skin buzzing with warmth.
Just: "I love you, you know that?"
She leans her head against his shoulder, nose pressing into his shirt, his skin. Her heart soars off to somewhere she can't reach it, somewhere she knows he'll catch it.
And she says, "I love you, too."
There are mornings when she wakes up, four a.m. because they both need to get to set, wearing one of his t-shirts while Penny hops around the bed, head-butting the blankets, and he'll smile at her and she'll smile at him and it would be alright - if every morning was like this, the two of them and the darkness and a secret that's understood but unspoken.
"I hated you, you know," she says, a quiet laugh in her words. It's early morning in Paris, late night in New York, but he still answered her call. She can't sleep and she feels nostalgic.
There is the sound of sheets shifting, his lazy reply of, "I love you."
"I'm talking about before." She imagines him, at home without her, and it makes her a little heartsick.
He yawns and says, as if it doesn't mean something, as if it should be something she knows already, "Me too."
fin
Chapter | 1/1
Rating | pg.
Characters | Penn/Blake
Notes | They're just really fucking cute, okay. Don't judge me.
He annoys her, when they're younger - and later she'll think of this as the perfect cliché, as the way every predictable love story begins.
But when she's nine-and-a-half and he's eleven and they're sitting at the same table, two kids from showbiz families with a tutor pointing out fractions and pre-algebra, she finds him entirely annoying.
His feet keep kicking hers.
She makes a face when she hears that he'll be playing her love interest, thumbs through the pilot's script while she sets on an antique chair, part of the elaborate set.
"You'll hate him," she tells Leighton, and she knows that's unfair, but she's known Leighton for a full day now and she likes her, she seems like a good judge of character.
Leighton smirks at her. "Do you hate him?"
"I'm just…" She picks at her nails, the ones she just had manicured, and has to sit on her hands to stop herself. "I'm not his biggest fan."
"Why?"
She blows out her breath. "Just…because."
Leighton's smirk curves into a smile. "Ah," she says, like Blake has just given away her biggest secret.
When he arrives on set she hangs back a bit, shying away from Ed's friendly, accented words, from Chace's boisterous laughter, from Leighton's remember me?
"And Blake!" someone says, so she steps forward, not avoiding him, not avoiding anything at all.
"Hey." It's a single syllable but she kind of blurts it, tucking her hair out of her face. She thinks about extending her hand for him to shake, but in the end she doesn't. "Hi," she repeats, softer now. He looks different, good-different.
"Hey," he echoes her. His voice is different than she remembers, too, a little deeper and a little rougher. He hesitates for all of a second, and then he's reaching out, hugging her and, oh.
That feels different, too - when he touches her.
There is a general assumption that they fall in love at the same rate as their characters, which is at least seven-eighths untrue.
Fact: their first kiss is timed with the one Serena and Dan share, cameras rolling in the Meatpacking District, the two of them giddy with first-date butterflies.
She's kind of nervous for it, even though she's trying to be a professional and it's just acting, even after that scene she had to do with Chace for the first episode. He leans in and she leans in and their lips meet; half of this footage will end up on the cutting room floor but when the director yells cut her cheeks are flushed.
(There was one another kiss, one that she doesn't really count. They were at a party, someone's party; she was busy drinking in her first tastes of fame after Sisterhood and he was busy drinking. She was seventeen or maybe eighteen, still an all-American girl with her blonde hair tied up in a high ponytail, on-and-off-again with her high school boyfriend. He had shaggier hair back then and more of a cocky smirk and everything about him contrasted with her wide blue eyes and her bright coloured dress. Looking her over, he hadn't quite smiled and he'd teased about Blakey's all grown up and there'd been a moment, just a moment, when all of sudden her mouth was crushed against his.)
They are not their characters.
Dan and Serena fall into love and out of love and into it again, out of it again, until they stop keeping track, they just take it script by script.
Penn and Blake fall in love. More slowly, more realistically, maybe even more madly. But still, that's it. Period.
Their first kiss, as she dubs it officially, the one that belongs to them and no one else, happens on a Thursday night on his couch, slow and searching, one of his hands pushing her purple sweater off of one of her shoulders.
Third time's the charm, she thinks.
Everything moves fast.
He asks her to go away with him and then pictures of their vacation are splashed all over the internet, she moves into his trailer, and everywhere they go she's on his arm or he's on hers, depending on whose event it is.
Everything moves fast but she still hasn't had enough.
She's not sure that she ever will.
He tells her that he loves her on a Sunday evening.
There is no crescendo, no swelling music. There are no roses, no stories written in spiral notebooks, no champagne and no star-watching, no set-up for this confession, no preamble at all.
It's just him and her, just Chinese takeout containers, just her arm pressed up against his, just her skin buzzing with warmth.
Just: "I love you, you know that?"
She leans her head against his shoulder, nose pressing into his shirt, his skin. Her heart soars off to somewhere she can't reach it, somewhere she knows he'll catch it.
And she says, "I love you, too."
There are mornings when she wakes up, four a.m. because they both need to get to set, wearing one of his t-shirts while Penny hops around the bed, head-butting the blankets, and he'll smile at her and she'll smile at him and it would be alright - if every morning was like this, the two of them and the darkness and a secret that's understood but unspoken.
"I hated you, you know," she says, a quiet laugh in her words. It's early morning in Paris, late night in New York, but he still answered her call. She can't sleep and she feels nostalgic.
There is the sound of sheets shifting, his lazy reply of, "I love you."
"I'm talking about before." She imagines him, at home without her, and it makes her a little heartsick.
He yawns and says, as if it doesn't mean something, as if it should be something she knows already, "Me too."
fin