Fic: Me in Lieu of a Golden Ticket 2/2 (Dan Humphrey/Chuck Bass, Gossip Girl, R)
Title: Me in Lieu of a Golden Ticket
Part: 2/2
Author: dancinbutterfly
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Pairing: Dan Humphrey/Chuck Bass, mentions of past Dan/Serena and Chuck/Blair
Rating: R
Word count: 12,093
Thanks: just_abi and guest_age for the epic handholding, and special thanks to waterofthemoon for the 11th hour beta.
Author's notes: For undermistletoe's prompt Day 5 - Three or Five Winter Holidays That Never Happened.
Author's notes 2: This is my first stab at this fandom and it's not at all what I was expecting to write. Also, I kind of stretched the definition of "winter holidays". Anyway, I hope yall like it.
Summary: 5 holidays in Dan Humphrey's future. Spoilers to 2x10 Bonfire of the Vanity.
Part 1
Nate parks himself on a chair on the kitchen bar and doesn’t move. In fact, of all the people moving in, out, and through Casa Humphrey, he’s the only one staying still. He’s drinking a beer and picking at the label and watching Dan.
“You sure I can’t get you anything, Nate?” Dan asks for the third time.
“Nope.”
“Do you want to help? Because we’re going to need another table, and I’m almost out of butter.”
“I’m good.”
Another few minutes pass, and Dan works on the mashed potatoes. He can feel eyes on his back, and it’s really starting to get to him.
“Nate, as nice as it is to have the company, you’re kind of freaking me out with the staring.”
“Serena sent Chuck to get you more butter fifteen minutes ago.”
“Oh. Okay. Totally random but good to know.”
“Which means that unless he drove all the way back to Manhattan to get it, he’ll be back in the next ten minutes.”
“Good. Then I can actually finish this and change before dinner.”
“Dan, come on.”
Dan puts down the electric mixer and turns to face Nate. Over Nate’s shoulder, he can see Jenny, Serena, and Vanessa bickering about how they’re going to set the table. His dad’s gone to get another table from somewhere. Lily is in the living room fussing with the table decorations, and Bart’s in a far corner, his phone pressed against his left ear and his right hand covering his other ear. It’s the busiest Thanksgiving Dan’s ever been a part of, and there are still people missing.
He rubs his forehead with a potato splattered hand and meets Nate’s eyes. “Come on what?”
“Everyone here knows exactly what this is about. What I want to know is if you’re going to get your shit together already.”
“Nate-”
“He was happy with you.” Nate says. “I still don’t know exactly what the hell you did, Dan, since neither of you will talk to me, but grovel already. Because you made him happy.”
“I’m glad you’re so concerned about me.”
“He’s my best friend,” Nate says without apology. “I want him to be happy, and he hasn’t been.”
It hurts Dan to hear that. He’s done a really good job of convincing himself that what they had didn’t matter most of the time. “That’s life.”
“It doesn’t have to be if you two would stop being stubborn.”
“It’s one of my defining character traits.”
“I know. Stop it.”
Dan sighs. “Not that it’s any of your business? But I did grovel.” Pathetically, he recalls with embarrassment, obsessively and to a degree that bordered on stalking that never got an answer. “I groveled for months, and he didn’t want to hear it. So I gave up. Talk to him, Nate, not me.”
“Then you didn’t do it right. Whatever it was he wanted to hear, you didn’t give it to him.”
“It’s been two years. I’ve let it go, and so has he. Why is it that no one else I know seems to be able to?”
“Yeah, and you’re both still single. Jesus, Dan, I didn’t think you knew how to be single, and hell, Chuck doesn’t even fuck the same person twice anymore.”
Dan shrugs and glances down at the countertop. “He’s always had a short attention span.”
Nate makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “Not that short. He’s still in love with you, Dan.”
Dan chokes on a hiss and clenches his fist. He shoves it into the pocket of his dirty slacks and looks up at Nate. “He was never in love with me, Nate. He liked showing me off, the Brooklyn boy he’d cleaned up and housebroken, but he wasn’t in love with me.” That was part of the problem.
“God.” Nate laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. “Are you kidding? No. No, you’re not. No fucking wonder.” He shakes his head again and rubs his face with the hand not wrapped around his mostly empty beer. “You’re an idiot, Dan.”
“Nate-”
“He showed you off because he loved you, man. He was proud you were with him, and he wanted everyone to know. Because he was in love with you and still is. And before you say anything, don’t, because you are, too. So fucking man up already, dude. You deserve each other, but neither of you deserves to be miserable. It’s getting old.”
“He-”
“Did.” Nate says sharply. “Does. He’s my best friend, Dan. And he does.”
The door to the apartment opens, and Chuck walks in with a small plastic bag from the grocery store a few blocks away that is a stark contrast to his designer clothes. Nate stands up as the door closes behind Chuck, who drops the bag by the front door before heading over to the girls.
“If you ever want to fix this, you’ve got to stop hiding. I mean, it was bad enough when you were together, but you ran all the way to Europe after it ended.”
“I tried,” Dan says, staring down at the countertop. He tried, and he wrote, and he called and sat outside Chuck’s door for days waiting for him to come out, and he never did. He stopped himself before he reached the point of standing in front of Bass Tower with a boombox playing “In Your Eyes,” but it was touch and go there for a little while. Chuck closed out Dan’s every attempt to speak to him, and eventually, Dan gave up.
“Yeah, but you didn’t try the right way, and he got tired of waiting. But either way, I think it’s your move, man,” Nate says before following his friend to the cluster gathered around the lonely table.
Dan says nothing in response. He couldn’t have even if he wanted to. The only thing his brain can deal with right now is going to get the butter Chuck left on the floor.
~*~*~
Christmas, 2015
Dan’s surprised when the phone call that comes in the evening on the 23rd isn’t his publisher. Bill’s been pushing him about the Charlie Trout pieces he made the mistake of mentioning a few months ago and hasn’t let up since June. He calls every odd day like clockwork, pestering Dan about his latest novel and needling him to hand over his short stories. Since Dan’s already talked to his dad and Jenner that morning and can hear Chuck in the shower, he doesn’t even check the incoming call log.
“I’m working on stuff, Bill. You’re not helping.”
“Dan?”
“Mrs. Bass?”
“Lily, please.” The please carries a lot of weight. Please, I’ve known you for years. Please, I used to date your father. Please, you used to date my daughter. Please, you’re practically living with my stepson.
“Right, Lily, hi. What can I do for you?”
“I was calling to see if Chuck extended my invitation to Christmas dinner on Friday. He told me you two weren’t going to be with Rufus, so I thought you guys might want to join us.”
Dan isn’t aware the Bass family did Christmas dinner. Last Christmas, Dan had a book signing in Miami, and Chuck came with him. They spent Christmas on the beach, and the closest they came to Christmas dinner was room service and edible body paint.
Chuck avoids Bass-organized family gatherings whenever possible, so Dan’s hardly surprised he didn’t tell him. Still, Chuck and Lily’s relationship is important to him, and he’s learned the hard way that the truth isn’t always the best policy with some parents. “I’m sure he did, but it slipped my mind.”
“Well, could you call me back in an hour and let me know if you two are coming? I need to tell the caterer how many we’re having.”
“Who all’s coming?”
“Me and Bart, of course. Eric’s still in Nice, but Serena will be there. I think she’s bringing that boy she’s seeing, Martin?”
“Malcolm.”
“Of course, I knew you’d know. Don’t get old, Dan, memory goes first. But that’s it thus far. It’s a family gathering. So let me know as soon as you can if you and Chuck are coming.”
Dan blinks up at the ceiling and sits down on the bed. “I’ll talk to Chuck,” he says, sounding hoarse.
“Good. I’ll talk to you later, Dan.” She hangs up just as Chuck emerges from the bathroom with nothing but a towel. He’s naked, using the towel for his hair, the rest of him still flicked with drops of water.
“Talk to me about what?” Chuck asks.
It takes Dan a second to answer. He’s pretty busy staring. “Huh?”
Chuck smirks and snaps his fingers in Dan’s face. “Earth to Daniel.”
“I-that was Lily.”
“Oh?” Chuck’s hands are on Dan’s chest, pressing gently. Dan lets himself be pushed onto his back and welcomes the sight of Chuck climbing on top of him. “And what did my dear stepmother call about?”
“Christmas dinner.”
Chuck said nothing. He just bends his head so he can suck on Dan’s pulse point and drip on Dan’s clothes more effectively.
“She wants to know if we’re coming. She, ah-” One of Chuck’s hands had skillfully undone Dan’s fly and wrapped around his dick. “She invited us.”
Chuck sighs like he’s been carrying a two hundred pound load up the stairs of a fifth-floor walk-up. “We’ll have to go, of course. She takes these things personally.”
“It won’t be so bad,” Dan breathes.
“Daniel, shut up and get naked,” Chuck orders, ignoring Dan’s comment. “I want to fuck you while I’m still wet.”
“Chuck-”
“Shut up, Dan,” Chuck says again before shoving his tongue into Dan’s mouth and doing it for him.
It’s two hours before he has the presence of mind to call Lily back. But once he does, that’s it. They’re committed. Dan’s sure within ten minutes of arriving at the penthouse that this was a huge fucking mistake.
Bart Bass looks at him like he’d like to squash him like a bug, which is kind of funny because Bart used to like him. Now Dan’s a nasty, poisonous, dangerous bug that threatens the life of him and his family. Dan sticks close to Serena, who smiles and laughs and hugs him and tells him how cute he and Chuck are together, even though Chuck clearly takes supreme offense at the word ‘cute.’
The meal is torture. Dan hasn’t been to a meal this awkward since the lunch when he signed with his publisher, and even that only comes a distant second to Bart’s cold stares and cutting remarks.
“So my son tells us you’re working on another book? He thinks it’ll be another best seller.”
Dan gives Chuck a small smile before forcing out an answer for Bart. “Um, yeah. I don’t know about the best seller thing. I’m still a little convinced the last one was a fluke.”
“Talent isn’t a fluke,” Chuck muses.
“I guess having subject material on hand doesn’t hurt you, either. It’ll be another scathing expose on the upper class, I wager? It’s a pity you can’t come up with anything more original for you fiction, Humphrey.”
Dan shrugs. “I’ve been working on a few things. Miami’s music scene really appealed to me. I’m thinking of going there to do some research for my next book.” he says, hating the niggling need to defend himself. What the fuck does he care what Bart thinks of him?
“That sounds so cool, Dan,” Serena says, meaning every word. “I’m so jealous. Miami is amazing.”
“Well, nothing’s definite. It’s just an idea.”
“A great idea,” Bart says. “You and my son could use some space.”
“Bart.” Lily’s voice is a warning.
Serena’s boyfriend, Malcolm, who to this point has been the picture of stoic silence, chooses that moment to rise from the table. “I’m going to have a cigarette.” He pushes back and disappears out to the balcony, leaving Serena blinking after him.
“He doesn’t smoke.”
“We’ve got plenty of space,” Chuck drawls, slow and precise. “In fact, sometimes I’ve wondered if we couldn’t have less.”
“All the same, you two would do well with some distance. It’ll clear both your heads.”
Dan watches Chuck’s fingers clench on his glass. It’s Evian, but Dan knows that he wishes it was something stronger. He never asked Chuck to stop drinking, and he hasn’t stopped completely. But it’s not like it was, and it’s times like this when he knows Chuck misses it.
“My head is perfectly clear. And unless Dan’s been recently fucked, so is his.”
The remark is purposefully provocative. Dan’s seen Chuck do this a countless times to hundreds of people, himself included. But Bart doesn’t rise to the bait. “I’m sure you think so, Chuck. I just wonder if you’re not too close to-” Bart pauses, looking for the right word for Dan’s presence. “The situation to see the reality.”
Serena and Lily exchange a desperate look across the table at each other, and all three of them look at the Bass men. Under the table, Dan moves his leg slightly to the left so that his knee is touching Chuck’s, and he doesn’t pull away.
“Oh, tell me what the reality is,” Chuck says, placing his elbows on the table. He twines his fingers and stares over them at his father. “I’m dying to know.”
“He’s mining you for material and living off you while he scratches out trash,” Bart says. “You have responsibilities, Chuck. Bass Industries is a multinational company, and you’re going to have to grow up eventually.”
“Grow up?”
“Yes. You’ve been trying to escape it since you were a boy, but some time, you’re going to have to stop behaving like a child.”
“So just so we’re clear,” Chuck says, untangling his fingers and pressing the tips together. “Living with someone, being with that one person consistently for almost two years, is more childish than fucking my way through Manhattan. I just want to make sure that I’m hearing you right. Serena, you’re making notes, right? Because it sounds like my father thinks that we should stop sleeping with one person and start slutting immediately. I don’t know about you, but I for one am relieved to know that’s mature adult behavior. It makes me feel a lot better about the orgy I’m attending later.”
The thing is, Dan knows that Chuck really did get invited to a Christmas-themed orgy in the meat packing district, though before this, he was pretty sure they weren’t going tonight. It’s not the first invitation to that kind of thing Chuck’s gotten since they got together. It’s not something that comes up too often, but occasionally Chuck still takes them up on it, though usually when Dan’s willing to go along. Hunting, Chuck says, can be more fun in a pack.
“Son, don’t be obtuse.”
“Bart,” Lily says, her voice gentle as she breaks into the conversation, “You’re fine with Eric. Chuck and Dan are good together. Can’t you be all right with them, too?”
“Eric is not my son.”
The entire table goes silent at that. It’s a bit like a smack in the face, and Lily’s face is turning red with fury. She’s biting her lip so hard that Dan can actually see it breaking the skin, but she’s restraining herself for later. Dan has no doubt that when he and Chuck leave and Serena goes off to find her smoking non-smoker boyfriend, she’ll tear him a new one. But that’s not what this particular fight is really about.
It’s about Chuck, and Dan’s tired of sitting there and listen to Bart tear him down because of him. What they do isn’t about anyone else. It shouldn’t have to cause problems for Chuck and his dad, not after all the effort Chuck’s put into rebuilding his relationship with the man.
“Mr. Bass, I’m sorry that I-”
“Don’t apologize to him,” Chuck says, and there’s no room for argument. “Dad, I think we established years ago that I’m never going to be exactly what you want. Why don’t you just add this to the many ways that I’m not what you were expecting. I like my life the way it is, and on this we’re just going to agree to disagree.”
“You deserve better, son.” Bart means it, and somehow? That actually makes this whole thing better.
“Probably,” Chuck agrees. “But strangely, at the moment, I don’t want better.”
Dan manages to keep himself from kissing Chuck until later, when they’re safely out of Lily and Bart’s view and on their way home, alone in the back of Chuck’s limo. But it’s a near thing.
~*~*~
Dinner is just this side of a riot. There are six different families represented last time Dan counted and two dozen people crammed into two tables that are groaning under the weight of the food. Dan cooked about half of it; the rest, the girls brought from various different places. He just sort of picks at his food while his family and friends all talk and laugh and just generally enjoy each other.
He’s pretty sure Serena had something to do with the seating arrangements because he’s sitting across the rectangular table from Chuck so that he can’t not look at him, although Chuck is managing to avoid his gaze expertly. It shouldn’t be an issue, really.
It just… he’s right there, four feet away after a long day and two long years. When he moves wrong, his feet hit Chuck’s under the table for an instant before he pulls away, and it’s killing him. It’s killing him and he’s sure everyone present knows it.
That’s a strange position to be in-where everyone around you knows exactly how you’re feeling, but no one will say anything. Awkward is a word for it. Embarrassing is another good adjective.
Lonely works, too, though he doesn’t realize that until he’s halfway through a reconstruction of Niagara Falls with his mashed potatoes. He’s lonely. He’s been lonely for two years, and it took his collective family and roughly thirty hours of fairly intense stress to make him see it.
He doesn’t need Chuck, but he misses him, and he misses what they had, who they were together. He misses talking to him and fucking him and sitting next to him on a couch and arguing with him about whether or not they should go to the grocery store or if he should just let Chuck have the help get it and all of it.
Nate was right about one thing-Dan hasn’t let go. And he doesn’t want to.
“Hey,” Dan says, pushing the flat end of his fork into his potatoes to better define the path of the falls. “Chuck?”
Chuck’s acknowledgement of him is slow. Like he doesn’t care and giving him his attention is a courtesy instead of something every human being deserves. By the time he finally meets Dan’s eyes, the entire apartment’s fallen silent.
“What is it, Humphrey?”
Dan reaches across the table into Vanessa’s personal space, grabs the gravy boat, and pours it into his mashed potatoes. The stream trickles over the falls, and Chuck stares at him.
“You never did get yourself a CAT scan, did you?” he muses. Dan can tell, just tell, that he’s fighting not to be amused. Chuck’s never known what to do with silly.
“No.”
“Was that all?” Chuck asks, and it seems like everyone they care about is holding their collective breath.
“No.”
Chuck drums his fingers on the table in impatience. “Well, spit it out, already. I was in the middle of a conversation with someone who matters.”
Dan swallows hard, licks his lips, and jumps. “I’m in love with you. Still. I’m still in love with you.”
“Humphrey, this isn’t the time or the place.”
“I am. And I’m sorry. I was stupid, and if you’d just let me explain back then, we could’ve fixed this, but…you’re here, and I’m here now, and I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I never said it before, but I love you.”
Bart opens his mouth, then hisses in pain and clenches his teeth as Lily’s hand disappears under the table. No one else tries to say anything, and Dan feels like he’s frozen in this one horrible moment, like he’s going to be stuck in this second forever.
“We’re going to have to move this conversation a little less public.” Chuck sighs in exasperation. Then he turns to Serena. “Don’t bother putting away my plate. I won’t be long.”
That doesn’t give Dan much hope, but still. It’s better than nothing.
~*~*~
Halloween 2017
It all falls apart after Dan passes out on his ex’s bed. It’s just the once, he never gets naked, and he’s really drunk, but still. Not good. He stumbles back into the apartment that he and Chuck share at noon the next day, and Chuck’s waiting for him on the sofa, the contents of Dan’s portfolio spread out in front of him.
He was on his way back home after a meeting with Bill to get that stupid thing, which he’d left on the kitchen counter, and ran in to Greg. They literally collided with each other. A friendly hello turned into a cup of coffee to catch up and then an invitation to the Halloween party Greg was throwing that Dan really couldn’t refuse.
He spent three hours trying to get a hold of Chuck by phone before he just gave up and headed to Greg’s. They didn’t have leashes on each other, and occasionally things came up and neither of them said no. But he’d dated Greg for more than a year in college, and that was a different game than a blowjob in a hotel in Denver or Seattle. So he’d wanted to touch base. It just didn’t happen that way.
He didn’t remember the party that well. There were shots that were bright green in test tubes, and after the third, he kind of went foggy. He remembered talking to a girl with a bad blonde dye job dressed as a slutty nurse who’d read his first book and wanted to know all about the Serena character.
“I’ve always thought I was a bit of a Serena,” she said, mooning at him. At that point, he wasn’t drunk enough to tell her that no, she really wasn’t.
After that everything got kind of blurry. He’s pretty sure he got a handjob from a the slutty nurse and possibly got suckered into a game of suck and blow that got a little out of control, but he wasn’t sure because he just couldn’t remember.
None of that matters when he gets home, though. He walks in wearing the clothes he had on the day before, smelling of cigarettes with a mouth that tasted like something that’d been dead a week. Through the merciless hangover, he sees Chuck. That he’s sitting bolt upright, his back rigid rather than slouched back in comfort, sets off alarm bells more than the mess of papers in their living room.
“Late night?” Chuck asks. His voice is so cold that goosebumps rise on Dan’s arms. Chuck angry, he can deal with. Chuck angry usually ends with Dan getting fucked into something solid and vaguely uncomfortable until they’re okay again. Cold Chuck is out of his reach, closed off and unwilling.
“Chuck, listen…” Dan begins, then stops. He has nothing to say, and he really can’t defend himself because they don’t treat each other like this. Dan’s the one who set that standard.
“Did you fuck him?”
“Greg?”
“Yes.”
“I…” He only has the smallest impulse to lie. But it passes, and he steels himself against the fallout the truth is going to get him. “I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck, feeling ashamed. He had his clothes on when he woke up, but Greg was in bed with him. He had been in such a hurry to get out that Dan hadn’t woken him up and asked.
“Lovely.”
“I’m sorry. I spent all afternoon trying to call you,” Dan says, coming around to the couch and sitting down beside Chuck.
“I know. I can work voicemail, Daniel. I’m not incompetent.”
“Then you know I invited you. And you know I tried to tell you.”
“I’m sure. Besides, I’ve had a very interesting night.” He holds up the papers, his knuckles white. “Aren’t you curious as to what I was up to while you were fucking your Serena replacement?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Dan says again, like that makes any fucking difference. Like the fact that he actually probably didn’t fuck Greg really matters right now. But it’s starting to sink in through the throbbing in his skull that while Chuck is probably not happy about what he did, that’s not what Chuck’s upset over.
“I was looking over your work. It’s good, Dan. Excellent, in fact. I really identify with your protagonist.” He throws it into Dan’s lap as he rises. Only when he picks up the scattered pages does he realize, and the bottom drops out of his stomach.
He suddenly knew what Chuck was holding, and god, he was fucked. He wrote them when he couldn’t sleep or when he was trying to work himself out, and the content was often ugly. And always private, stories that were his alone. And each and every one was totally damning.
“Chuck, it’s not what you think.”
“It’s not? Because I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what I think.” He grabs another story off the coffee table and clenches in his fist. “There’s over three hundred pages here, Dan. Of me. Of that ridiculous Trout character you base on me.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You’re so fond of your privacy, Daniel. You’re obsessive about it. But there are things in here I told you, private things. Things I’ve told only you. You took that, and you wrote-” He stops before he can lose his composure and takes a deep breath. The papers bend in half under the violence of Chuck’s fist, the only outward sign of his rage. “I can’t believe how long I’ve trusted you.”
“I know,” Dan says. He keeps his voice low and knows that he’s just this side of begging. “I know what this looks like, but you’ve got to listen to me.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. No wonder you never want anyone to know about us. It’s hard to get fiction published when everyone knows you’re fucking your main character.”
“Chuck, please,” Dan shouts, desperation making his voice rough and ugly. “I want people to know, I do. None of this is right. You just have to let me explain.”
Chuck shakes his head once and then looks away, at the windows and out at the view of the Manhattan skyline. “Get out.”
It’s not just the bottom of Dan’s stomach that’s dropped out now, but his whole fucking world. “Chuck, come on. You don’t mean that.”
“I want you to be out of here in the next ten minutes, or I’m going to physically remove you. I’ll send someone over to Brooklyn with your things tomorrow.”
“What? Wait, Chuck, listen to me, okay? I know I fucked up with Greg, and us, and all of this, but I can explain. Just give me a chance to explain. ”
Chuck closes his eyes and turns his head so that Dan can’t even see his whole face anymore. “I don’t want to hear it, Humphrey. This is over.”
“It’s been nearly three years, Chuck. You can’t just throw what we have away after-”
“I can. I am. Get. Out. I’m bored now.”
“No.”
Chuck sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’m done, Humphrey. And I want you out of my house. Now. Don’t forget your trash when you go. Wouldn’t want anyone knowing what went on here, would we?” He drops the crumpled story to the ground as he speaks and walks swiftly to the bedroom.
By the time Dan gets to the door, it’s locked. Panic hits him like a fist, but he only humiliates himself by pounding on the hardwood and pleading for twenty minutes before he surrenders, picks himself up off the floor, and leaves.
He doesn’t react on the long train ride back to Brooklyn. He doesn’t let himself feel it as he tosses the hard copies of his stories into the recycling, either. It’s not until his sister emerges from her room on her way to help set up a Halloween party over near the Parson’s campus, dressed in a fairy costume she made herself, that he cracks.
“Dan?” Jenny asks, tilting her head to the side. She’s just cut her hair short, and she looks just like Tinkerbell. It shouldn’t hurt him, there’s no reason, no connection to his loss, but for some reason, it does. “Hey, are you okay?”
He shakes his head, and she crosses the living room to where he is as he sinks to the floor on legs that won’t hold him anymore. They sit on the floor as he sobs into her stomach. She never makes it to her friends, instead staying to soothe his hair and rub his back as he falls apart.
She doesn’t ask him for an explanation. And she gets him off the floor and into his old room before their dad gets home. But he catches her by the wrist because he can’t, he just can’t be alone. He can’t deal with where his brain is going to go if he’s left by himself with his thoughts.
“Jenny, please.”
She doesn’t even sigh. He’s never loved her more than when she takes off her fairy wings, slips off her green heels, and slides into bed with him, wrapping her arms around him and stroking his hair again.
“Some trick or treat,” she mutters, trying to make him laugh. But Dan can’t even bring himself to smile.
~*~*~
Dan slides the door of his room shut and realizes that Chuck’s never been in this room before. In his house, yes, but not his room. He looks good surrounded by Dan’s things. He looks good with Dan.
“That was quite a stunt.”
“So’s this.”
He crosses the room and catches Chuck’s face in both his hands, and he’s kissing him, and Jesus, he tastes the same way Dan remembers-a little more booze than when they were together, but he tastes like turkey and that sticky heat and Chuck and home, home that Dan’s never wanted to admit to having found with a member of the Upper East Side elite.
Chuck kisses him back, but only for a few seconds before he breaks away, gasping and glaring. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I wanted to see if the snozzberries taste like snozzberries.” Chuck raises one eyebrow at that. “They do.” He laughs at himself because if that really just came out of his mouth, then his seams are coming apart faster than he thinks.
“You’re comparing me to lickable wallpaper. How romantic.”
“No, Chuck, I just… I wanted to see if you taste the same. I miss it.”
“Get a patch.”
“Chuck, will you just drop this bullshit for ten minutes and talk to me?”
“You didn’t seem inclined to talk,” Chuck muses, settling himself on Dan’s bed like he owns it. It’s a calculated move that succeeds in making Dan’s brain stutter and stall for a few seconds.
“Make impassioned speeches, molest me, but not talk.”
He takes a deep breath and continues because this is more important than how good Chuck looks on his unmade bed. “I wasn’t kidding, Chuck, out there. I’m still in love with you.”
“I love the way you put that,” Chuck bites. “Still. As if there’s a history of you loving me.”
“Are you serious? There’s five years of me loving you.”
“And yet you waited until now to air that dirty little secret in public?”
“Secret? You were never a secret, Chuck. Jesus. I’m trying. I’ve been trying for years, and I’m wondering what the hell you need me to do to prove that.”
Chuck’s face is a mask. He’s gotten better at hiding himself in the years they’ve been apart. Dan didn’t think it was possible for him to get more closed off, but he has, and it breaks Dan’s heart. “I can’t really help you with that.”
“Can you at least let me explain this time?” Dan asks. He moves to stand in front of Chuck, his legs and Chuck’s less than an inch apart. “I spent six months trying to get you to hear me about those stupid stories, and you wouldn’t listen. Will you please just listen now?”
“Why? Need a photo for your next book cover?”
“No, Jesus, Chuck, they were mine,” Dan says sharply. “Those stories? They were mine. You’re not easy to live with, Chuck, and sometimes-” He rubs the back of his neck and resists the urge to pace. He has this pathetic hope that if he stays close enough, his words will get through. “Sometimes being with you hurt. And sometimes it pissed me off. And sometimes I was, like, scarily happy. Those stories were mine, Chuck; they were for me so that I could understand being with you.”
“Glad to know I provided you with so much material. Remind me to call my lawyer about likeness royalties.”
“Damn it, it was private. They were never about material, and if you had ever listened, you’d know that. I’m not the diary type, so I fucking wrote stories, okay? I could figure myself out from a distance if it was fictional. I never published any of them.”
“Right. And that’s why Big Pond is on every best sellers list in the country.”
That makes Dan stop. He’s been on tour for that book for so long that he’s kind of forgotten that it’s floating around New York, too. But it’s been a year. He thought that if Chuck had read it, well, there would’ve been something besides radio silence. “You read it?”
“Of course I did,” Chuck says, leaning backwards. He props himself up on his elbows and gives Dan a cool look. “I needed to know whether or not to sue you for slander.”
“I wrote that after you ended it. Chuck, if you read it, how…” He can’t even formulate the question. The book was a thinly veiled love letter, and the rough draft his editor chewed apart had been even more blatant. “We had three years, Chuck, and they were some of the best of my life. That was what that book was about, and if you read it, you know that. I just don’t know how you can still choose to see the worst in me.”
“I don’t choose to see it,” Chuck says, but he can’t meet Dan’s eyes. “It’s there.”
“Yeah. And it’s there that you’re an asshole and an emotional cripple.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“And I don’t care,” Dan shouts, his hands waving as he tries to get this to sink it. Two years of trying and waiting to speak explode out of his entire body. “What’s wrong with you is still there, but I don’t care. I dealt, I can deal, because there’s also the side of you that would do anything for his family but mostly just wants to spend time with them, and the part that’s funny in a way that’ll tear flesh to the point where I sometimes think you write your material ahead of time, and the part that used to walk out of the shower naked, and the way we used to argue that always made me see something I never could be before, even when you didn’t manage to get me to agree with you.”
Chuck says nothing. He’s just staring up at him, but something’s different in the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes.
“We both are fucked up, Chuck,” Dan says as he lowers himself over Chuck on the bed. It feels just like it used to in the moments before they came together. “We’re royally fucked up, in fact. And I love you anyway.”
“Always with the speeches.”
“Tell me you love me, too.”
“Humphrey-”
“Dan. And this isn’t a game. Just tell me, okay? Because if you read it, if you’re here, then you love me, too. God, aren’t you tired of this yet? ’Cause I’m tired. And I miss you.”
He watches Chuck close his eyes. He can see Chuck’s Adam’s apple move as he swallows, and he knows, he does, that this isn’t easy for Chuck. It’s been years since they were together, and even without it, he’s not good at trust, at giving himself. Dan knows the only time before Chuck’s ever tried was Blair, and it crashed and burned like the Hindenberg.
But Dan’s not Blair. He’s never been like Blair, as much as he now has to admit that he does like being with the Upper East Siders. He’s never played Chuck like Blair did, and he’s not going to start now.
It’s with this in mind that Dan plants a small kiss on the corner of Chuck’s lips. Another on his jaw. One on his temple and each eyelid. It’s not the sort of thing he would have felt comfortable doing when they were together, but it feels like the right thing to do now.
As he strokes his thumb over Chuck’s sharp cheekbone, Dan can see more of that hateful stiffness is leaching out. When Chuck’s arms are relaxed and he’s lying flat on Dan’s bed, Dan presses his forehead against Chuck’s and cups the side of his face. Chuck sighs, and he knows somehow that they’re going to be able to get back where they need to be.
“You don’t have to say it back,” Dan says. “Just let me love you okay? That’s all you have to do. Just let me, okay?”
Chuck goes rigid, his eyes open, and Dan’s heart drops. That wasn’t what he meant to do. He was trying to make it easier, make it so he wouldn’t feel like he had to pull away.
“It doesn’t work that way, Daniel,” Chuck says. Dan can feel his breath against his lips.
“It can. It’s called unconditional love, Chuck. It means that I love you no matter what, even when we’re screwed up and have wasted a couple years,” he says, and he smiles, remembering their first Thanksgiving together, him sprawled over Chuck almost exactly like this. “Deal with it.”
There’s a long silence that stretches in the small space between them. He can practically hear Chuck thinking, although he’s not exactly sure what, so he busies himself relearning Chuck’s face while he waits. He’s thinner, and he’s starting to get a few very faint lines around his mouth that Dan can only see because he’s so close.
He’s looking right at Chuck’s lips, so he shouldn’t be surprised when Chuck’s hand comes up and pulls down on the back of his head, bringing their mouths together. It shakes a gasp out of Dan and then a moan because god, yes, he’s missed being kissed by Chuck-which is a completely different and equally amazing experience from kissing Chuck.
When they break away to breathe, they’re both panting, and Dan’s glad that this is like he remembered. They still burn together just like they always have. It’s just better now that they’re not burning each other.
“What if I do?” Chuck asks on a shallow breath.
“Do?”
Chuck’s eyebrows rise, then lower significantly.
“Do you?” Dan asks, choking on hope. It’s like finding the fucking golden ticket under a boring paper wrapper, and it’s so close to everything.
“No, Daniel, I came all the way out to Brooklyn for the first time in more than two years for the cranberry sauce and stuffing.” He heaves a heavy sigh, and Dan can feel his hand squeeze a little tighter on the back of his head. “Of course I love you.”
Dan flounders because as much as he thought he knew what he would say if this ever happened, as often as he imagined it for him and Chuck and for his book, he’s at a loss. And Chuck is smirking up at him, enjoying his reaction.
“You seem surprised,” Chuck says. His voice has a lightness to it that Dan’s missed so badly that he feels like an amputee whose severed limb has just magically grown back.
“No. No, I’m not,” Dan says, even though yeah, actually, he kind of is. It’s just that a part of him has never really believed Chuck would say it. The chance that he wouldn’t is what he’s been protecting himself from, hiding from, since the very beginning. But he’s done hiding Chuck and hiding from him, so he laughs a little and shakes his head. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Chuck says, but he’s smiling, an elusive real smile that Dan’s only seen a handful of times in all the years he’s known him.
“Listen, I’m going to kiss you again,” Dan says, and then gives Chuck a short wet kiss that’s a little like a period, punctuating the end of the bullshit. “Then we’re going to go out there with everybody, tell them what happened, and finish dinner. Afterwards, I plan on having sex with you, but beyond that, everything else is up for negotiation.”
“They can wait,” Chuck says, pulling them back together. Dan lets himself be kissed, then rolled onto his back and grins up at Chuck, tugging at the lapels of Chuck’s suit jacket and fumbling with small buttons as Chuck works on the front of Dan’s shirt.
The last bit of fabric comes off Chuck’s shoulders as he works his mouth down Dan’s bare chest. They break apart to take off their belts and pants and underwear before coming back together in a mess of limbs and skin, and Dan is thankful.
(end)
Part: 2/2
Author: dancinbutterfly
Fandom: Gossip Girl
Pairing: Dan Humphrey/Chuck Bass, mentions of past Dan/Serena and Chuck/Blair
Rating: R
Word count: 12,093
Thanks: just_abi and guest_age for the epic handholding, and special thanks to waterofthemoon for the 11th hour beta.
Author's notes: For undermistletoe's prompt Day 5 - Three or Five Winter Holidays That Never Happened.
Author's notes 2: This is my first stab at this fandom and it's not at all what I was expecting to write. Also, I kind of stretched the definition of "winter holidays". Anyway, I hope yall like it.
Summary: 5 holidays in Dan Humphrey's future. Spoilers to 2x10 Bonfire of the Vanity.
Part 1
Nate parks himself on a chair on the kitchen bar and doesn’t move. In fact, of all the people moving in, out, and through Casa Humphrey, he’s the only one staying still. He’s drinking a beer and picking at the label and watching Dan.
“You sure I can’t get you anything, Nate?” Dan asks for the third time.
“Nope.”
“Do you want to help? Because we’re going to need another table, and I’m almost out of butter.”
“I’m good.”
Another few minutes pass, and Dan works on the mashed potatoes. He can feel eyes on his back, and it’s really starting to get to him.
“Nate, as nice as it is to have the company, you’re kind of freaking me out with the staring.”
“Serena sent Chuck to get you more butter fifteen minutes ago.”
“Oh. Okay. Totally random but good to know.”
“Which means that unless he drove all the way back to Manhattan to get it, he’ll be back in the next ten minutes.”
“Good. Then I can actually finish this and change before dinner.”
“Dan, come on.”
Dan puts down the electric mixer and turns to face Nate. Over Nate’s shoulder, he can see Jenny, Serena, and Vanessa bickering about how they’re going to set the table. His dad’s gone to get another table from somewhere. Lily is in the living room fussing with the table decorations, and Bart’s in a far corner, his phone pressed against his left ear and his right hand covering his other ear. It’s the busiest Thanksgiving Dan’s ever been a part of, and there are still people missing.
He rubs his forehead with a potato splattered hand and meets Nate’s eyes. “Come on what?”
“Everyone here knows exactly what this is about. What I want to know is if you’re going to get your shit together already.”
“Nate-”
“He was happy with you.” Nate says. “I still don’t know exactly what the hell you did, Dan, since neither of you will talk to me, but grovel already. Because you made him happy.”
“I’m glad you’re so concerned about me.”
“He’s my best friend,” Nate says without apology. “I want him to be happy, and he hasn’t been.”
It hurts Dan to hear that. He’s done a really good job of convincing himself that what they had didn’t matter most of the time. “That’s life.”
“It doesn’t have to be if you two would stop being stubborn.”
“It’s one of my defining character traits.”
“I know. Stop it.”
Dan sighs. “Not that it’s any of your business? But I did grovel.” Pathetically, he recalls with embarrassment, obsessively and to a degree that bordered on stalking that never got an answer. “I groveled for months, and he didn’t want to hear it. So I gave up. Talk to him, Nate, not me.”
“Then you didn’t do it right. Whatever it was he wanted to hear, you didn’t give it to him.”
“It’s been two years. I’ve let it go, and so has he. Why is it that no one else I know seems to be able to?”
“Yeah, and you’re both still single. Jesus, Dan, I didn’t think you knew how to be single, and hell, Chuck doesn’t even fuck the same person twice anymore.”
Dan shrugs and glances down at the countertop. “He’s always had a short attention span.”
Nate makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “Not that short. He’s still in love with you, Dan.”
Dan chokes on a hiss and clenches his fist. He shoves it into the pocket of his dirty slacks and looks up at Nate. “He was never in love with me, Nate. He liked showing me off, the Brooklyn boy he’d cleaned up and housebroken, but he wasn’t in love with me.” That was part of the problem.
“God.” Nate laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. “Are you kidding? No. No, you’re not. No fucking wonder.” He shakes his head again and rubs his face with the hand not wrapped around his mostly empty beer. “You’re an idiot, Dan.”
“Nate-”
“He showed you off because he loved you, man. He was proud you were with him, and he wanted everyone to know. Because he was in love with you and still is. And before you say anything, don’t, because you are, too. So fucking man up already, dude. You deserve each other, but neither of you deserves to be miserable. It’s getting old.”
“He-”
“Did.” Nate says sharply. “Does. He’s my best friend, Dan. And he does.”
The door to the apartment opens, and Chuck walks in with a small plastic bag from the grocery store a few blocks away that is a stark contrast to his designer clothes. Nate stands up as the door closes behind Chuck, who drops the bag by the front door before heading over to the girls.
“If you ever want to fix this, you’ve got to stop hiding. I mean, it was bad enough when you were together, but you ran all the way to Europe after it ended.”
“I tried,” Dan says, staring down at the countertop. He tried, and he wrote, and he called and sat outside Chuck’s door for days waiting for him to come out, and he never did. He stopped himself before he reached the point of standing in front of Bass Tower with a boombox playing “In Your Eyes,” but it was touch and go there for a little while. Chuck closed out Dan’s every attempt to speak to him, and eventually, Dan gave up.
“Yeah, but you didn’t try the right way, and he got tired of waiting. But either way, I think it’s your move, man,” Nate says before following his friend to the cluster gathered around the lonely table.
Dan says nothing in response. He couldn’t have even if he wanted to. The only thing his brain can deal with right now is going to get the butter Chuck left on the floor.
~*~*~
Christmas, 2015
Dan’s surprised when the phone call that comes in the evening on the 23rd isn’t his publisher. Bill’s been pushing him about the Charlie Trout pieces he made the mistake of mentioning a few months ago and hasn’t let up since June. He calls every odd day like clockwork, pestering Dan about his latest novel and needling him to hand over his short stories. Since Dan’s already talked to his dad and Jenner that morning and can hear Chuck in the shower, he doesn’t even check the incoming call log.
“I’m working on stuff, Bill. You’re not helping.”
“Dan?”
“Mrs. Bass?”
“Lily, please.” The please carries a lot of weight. Please, I’ve known you for years. Please, I used to date your father. Please, you used to date my daughter. Please, you’re practically living with my stepson.
“Right, Lily, hi. What can I do for you?”
“I was calling to see if Chuck extended my invitation to Christmas dinner on Friday. He told me you two weren’t going to be with Rufus, so I thought you guys might want to join us.”
Dan isn’t aware the Bass family did Christmas dinner. Last Christmas, Dan had a book signing in Miami, and Chuck came with him. They spent Christmas on the beach, and the closest they came to Christmas dinner was room service and edible body paint.
Chuck avoids Bass-organized family gatherings whenever possible, so Dan’s hardly surprised he didn’t tell him. Still, Chuck and Lily’s relationship is important to him, and he’s learned the hard way that the truth isn’t always the best policy with some parents. “I’m sure he did, but it slipped my mind.”
“Well, could you call me back in an hour and let me know if you two are coming? I need to tell the caterer how many we’re having.”
“Who all’s coming?”
“Me and Bart, of course. Eric’s still in Nice, but Serena will be there. I think she’s bringing that boy she’s seeing, Martin?”
“Malcolm.”
“Of course, I knew you’d know. Don’t get old, Dan, memory goes first. But that’s it thus far. It’s a family gathering. So let me know as soon as you can if you and Chuck are coming.”
Dan blinks up at the ceiling and sits down on the bed. “I’ll talk to Chuck,” he says, sounding hoarse.
“Good. I’ll talk to you later, Dan.” She hangs up just as Chuck emerges from the bathroom with nothing but a towel. He’s naked, using the towel for his hair, the rest of him still flicked with drops of water.
“Talk to me about what?” Chuck asks.
It takes Dan a second to answer. He’s pretty busy staring. “Huh?”
Chuck smirks and snaps his fingers in Dan’s face. “Earth to Daniel.”
“I-that was Lily.”
“Oh?” Chuck’s hands are on Dan’s chest, pressing gently. Dan lets himself be pushed onto his back and welcomes the sight of Chuck climbing on top of him. “And what did my dear stepmother call about?”
“Christmas dinner.”
Chuck said nothing. He just bends his head so he can suck on Dan’s pulse point and drip on Dan’s clothes more effectively.
“She wants to know if we’re coming. She, ah-” One of Chuck’s hands had skillfully undone Dan’s fly and wrapped around his dick. “She invited us.”
Chuck sighs like he’s been carrying a two hundred pound load up the stairs of a fifth-floor walk-up. “We’ll have to go, of course. She takes these things personally.”
“It won’t be so bad,” Dan breathes.
“Daniel, shut up and get naked,” Chuck orders, ignoring Dan’s comment. “I want to fuck you while I’m still wet.”
“Chuck-”
“Shut up, Dan,” Chuck says again before shoving his tongue into Dan’s mouth and doing it for him.
It’s two hours before he has the presence of mind to call Lily back. But once he does, that’s it. They’re committed. Dan’s sure within ten minutes of arriving at the penthouse that this was a huge fucking mistake.
Bart Bass looks at him like he’d like to squash him like a bug, which is kind of funny because Bart used to like him. Now Dan’s a nasty, poisonous, dangerous bug that threatens the life of him and his family. Dan sticks close to Serena, who smiles and laughs and hugs him and tells him how cute he and Chuck are together, even though Chuck clearly takes supreme offense at the word ‘cute.’
The meal is torture. Dan hasn’t been to a meal this awkward since the lunch when he signed with his publisher, and even that only comes a distant second to Bart’s cold stares and cutting remarks.
“So my son tells us you’re working on another book? He thinks it’ll be another best seller.”
Dan gives Chuck a small smile before forcing out an answer for Bart. “Um, yeah. I don’t know about the best seller thing. I’m still a little convinced the last one was a fluke.”
“Talent isn’t a fluke,” Chuck muses.
“I guess having subject material on hand doesn’t hurt you, either. It’ll be another scathing expose on the upper class, I wager? It’s a pity you can’t come up with anything more original for you fiction, Humphrey.”
Dan shrugs. “I’ve been working on a few things. Miami’s music scene really appealed to me. I’m thinking of going there to do some research for my next book.” he says, hating the niggling need to defend himself. What the fuck does he care what Bart thinks of him?
“That sounds so cool, Dan,” Serena says, meaning every word. “I’m so jealous. Miami is amazing.”
“Well, nothing’s definite. It’s just an idea.”
“A great idea,” Bart says. “You and my son could use some space.”
“Bart.” Lily’s voice is a warning.
Serena’s boyfriend, Malcolm, who to this point has been the picture of stoic silence, chooses that moment to rise from the table. “I’m going to have a cigarette.” He pushes back and disappears out to the balcony, leaving Serena blinking after him.
“He doesn’t smoke.”
“We’ve got plenty of space,” Chuck drawls, slow and precise. “In fact, sometimes I’ve wondered if we couldn’t have less.”
“All the same, you two would do well with some distance. It’ll clear both your heads.”
Dan watches Chuck’s fingers clench on his glass. It’s Evian, but Dan knows that he wishes it was something stronger. He never asked Chuck to stop drinking, and he hasn’t stopped completely. But it’s not like it was, and it’s times like this when he knows Chuck misses it.
“My head is perfectly clear. And unless Dan’s been recently fucked, so is his.”
The remark is purposefully provocative. Dan’s seen Chuck do this a countless times to hundreds of people, himself included. But Bart doesn’t rise to the bait. “I’m sure you think so, Chuck. I just wonder if you’re not too close to-” Bart pauses, looking for the right word for Dan’s presence. “The situation to see the reality.”
Serena and Lily exchange a desperate look across the table at each other, and all three of them look at the Bass men. Under the table, Dan moves his leg slightly to the left so that his knee is touching Chuck’s, and he doesn’t pull away.
“Oh, tell me what the reality is,” Chuck says, placing his elbows on the table. He twines his fingers and stares over them at his father. “I’m dying to know.”
“He’s mining you for material and living off you while he scratches out trash,” Bart says. “You have responsibilities, Chuck. Bass Industries is a multinational company, and you’re going to have to grow up eventually.”
“Grow up?”
“Yes. You’ve been trying to escape it since you were a boy, but some time, you’re going to have to stop behaving like a child.”
“So just so we’re clear,” Chuck says, untangling his fingers and pressing the tips together. “Living with someone, being with that one person consistently for almost two years, is more childish than fucking my way through Manhattan. I just want to make sure that I’m hearing you right. Serena, you’re making notes, right? Because it sounds like my father thinks that we should stop sleeping with one person and start slutting immediately. I don’t know about you, but I for one am relieved to know that’s mature adult behavior. It makes me feel a lot better about the orgy I’m attending later.”
The thing is, Dan knows that Chuck really did get invited to a Christmas-themed orgy in the meat packing district, though before this, he was pretty sure they weren’t going tonight. It’s not the first invitation to that kind of thing Chuck’s gotten since they got together. It’s not something that comes up too often, but occasionally Chuck still takes them up on it, though usually when Dan’s willing to go along. Hunting, Chuck says, can be more fun in a pack.
“Son, don’t be obtuse.”
“Bart,” Lily says, her voice gentle as she breaks into the conversation, “You’re fine with Eric. Chuck and Dan are good together. Can’t you be all right with them, too?”
“Eric is not my son.”
The entire table goes silent at that. It’s a bit like a smack in the face, and Lily’s face is turning red with fury. She’s biting her lip so hard that Dan can actually see it breaking the skin, but she’s restraining herself for later. Dan has no doubt that when he and Chuck leave and Serena goes off to find her smoking non-smoker boyfriend, she’ll tear him a new one. But that’s not what this particular fight is really about.
It’s about Chuck, and Dan’s tired of sitting there and listen to Bart tear him down because of him. What they do isn’t about anyone else. It shouldn’t have to cause problems for Chuck and his dad, not after all the effort Chuck’s put into rebuilding his relationship with the man.
“Mr. Bass, I’m sorry that I-”
“Don’t apologize to him,” Chuck says, and there’s no room for argument. “Dad, I think we established years ago that I’m never going to be exactly what you want. Why don’t you just add this to the many ways that I’m not what you were expecting. I like my life the way it is, and on this we’re just going to agree to disagree.”
“You deserve better, son.” Bart means it, and somehow? That actually makes this whole thing better.
“Probably,” Chuck agrees. “But strangely, at the moment, I don’t want better.”
Dan manages to keep himself from kissing Chuck until later, when they’re safely out of Lily and Bart’s view and on their way home, alone in the back of Chuck’s limo. But it’s a near thing.
~*~*~
Dinner is just this side of a riot. There are six different families represented last time Dan counted and two dozen people crammed into two tables that are groaning under the weight of the food. Dan cooked about half of it; the rest, the girls brought from various different places. He just sort of picks at his food while his family and friends all talk and laugh and just generally enjoy each other.
He’s pretty sure Serena had something to do with the seating arrangements because he’s sitting across the rectangular table from Chuck so that he can’t not look at him, although Chuck is managing to avoid his gaze expertly. It shouldn’t be an issue, really.
It just… he’s right there, four feet away after a long day and two long years. When he moves wrong, his feet hit Chuck’s under the table for an instant before he pulls away, and it’s killing him. It’s killing him and he’s sure everyone present knows it.
That’s a strange position to be in-where everyone around you knows exactly how you’re feeling, but no one will say anything. Awkward is a word for it. Embarrassing is another good adjective.
Lonely works, too, though he doesn’t realize that until he’s halfway through a reconstruction of Niagara Falls with his mashed potatoes. He’s lonely. He’s been lonely for two years, and it took his collective family and roughly thirty hours of fairly intense stress to make him see it.
He doesn’t need Chuck, but he misses him, and he misses what they had, who they were together. He misses talking to him and fucking him and sitting next to him on a couch and arguing with him about whether or not they should go to the grocery store or if he should just let Chuck have the help get it and all of it.
Nate was right about one thing-Dan hasn’t let go. And he doesn’t want to.
“Hey,” Dan says, pushing the flat end of his fork into his potatoes to better define the path of the falls. “Chuck?”
Chuck’s acknowledgement of him is slow. Like he doesn’t care and giving him his attention is a courtesy instead of something every human being deserves. By the time he finally meets Dan’s eyes, the entire apartment’s fallen silent.
“What is it, Humphrey?”
Dan reaches across the table into Vanessa’s personal space, grabs the gravy boat, and pours it into his mashed potatoes. The stream trickles over the falls, and Chuck stares at him.
“You never did get yourself a CAT scan, did you?” he muses. Dan can tell, just tell, that he’s fighting not to be amused. Chuck’s never known what to do with silly.
“No.”
“Was that all?” Chuck asks, and it seems like everyone they care about is holding their collective breath.
“No.”
Chuck drums his fingers on the table in impatience. “Well, spit it out, already. I was in the middle of a conversation with someone who matters.”
Dan swallows hard, licks his lips, and jumps. “I’m in love with you. Still. I’m still in love with you.”
“Humphrey, this isn’t the time or the place.”
“I am. And I’m sorry. I was stupid, and if you’d just let me explain back then, we could’ve fixed this, but…you’re here, and I’m here now, and I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I never said it before, but I love you.”
Bart opens his mouth, then hisses in pain and clenches his teeth as Lily’s hand disappears under the table. No one else tries to say anything, and Dan feels like he’s frozen in this one horrible moment, like he’s going to be stuck in this second forever.
“We’re going to have to move this conversation a little less public.” Chuck sighs in exasperation. Then he turns to Serena. “Don’t bother putting away my plate. I won’t be long.”
That doesn’t give Dan much hope, but still. It’s better than nothing.
~*~*~
Halloween 2017
It all falls apart after Dan passes out on his ex’s bed. It’s just the once, he never gets naked, and he’s really drunk, but still. Not good. He stumbles back into the apartment that he and Chuck share at noon the next day, and Chuck’s waiting for him on the sofa, the contents of Dan’s portfolio spread out in front of him.
He was on his way back home after a meeting with Bill to get that stupid thing, which he’d left on the kitchen counter, and ran in to Greg. They literally collided with each other. A friendly hello turned into a cup of coffee to catch up and then an invitation to the Halloween party Greg was throwing that Dan really couldn’t refuse.
He spent three hours trying to get a hold of Chuck by phone before he just gave up and headed to Greg’s. They didn’t have leashes on each other, and occasionally things came up and neither of them said no. But he’d dated Greg for more than a year in college, and that was a different game than a blowjob in a hotel in Denver or Seattle. So he’d wanted to touch base. It just didn’t happen that way.
He didn’t remember the party that well. There were shots that were bright green in test tubes, and after the third, he kind of went foggy. He remembered talking to a girl with a bad blonde dye job dressed as a slutty nurse who’d read his first book and wanted to know all about the Serena character.
“I’ve always thought I was a bit of a Serena,” she said, mooning at him. At that point, he wasn’t drunk enough to tell her that no, she really wasn’t.
After that everything got kind of blurry. He’s pretty sure he got a handjob from a the slutty nurse and possibly got suckered into a game of suck and blow that got a little out of control, but he wasn’t sure because he just couldn’t remember.
None of that matters when he gets home, though. He walks in wearing the clothes he had on the day before, smelling of cigarettes with a mouth that tasted like something that’d been dead a week. Through the merciless hangover, he sees Chuck. That he’s sitting bolt upright, his back rigid rather than slouched back in comfort, sets off alarm bells more than the mess of papers in their living room.
“Late night?” Chuck asks. His voice is so cold that goosebumps rise on Dan’s arms. Chuck angry, he can deal with. Chuck angry usually ends with Dan getting fucked into something solid and vaguely uncomfortable until they’re okay again. Cold Chuck is out of his reach, closed off and unwilling.
“Chuck, listen…” Dan begins, then stops. He has nothing to say, and he really can’t defend himself because they don’t treat each other like this. Dan’s the one who set that standard.
“Did you fuck him?”
“Greg?”
“Yes.”
“I…” He only has the smallest impulse to lie. But it passes, and he steels himself against the fallout the truth is going to get him. “I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck, feeling ashamed. He had his clothes on when he woke up, but Greg was in bed with him. He had been in such a hurry to get out that Dan hadn’t woken him up and asked.
“Lovely.”
“I’m sorry. I spent all afternoon trying to call you,” Dan says, coming around to the couch and sitting down beside Chuck.
“I know. I can work voicemail, Daniel. I’m not incompetent.”
“Then you know I invited you. And you know I tried to tell you.”
“I’m sure. Besides, I’ve had a very interesting night.” He holds up the papers, his knuckles white. “Aren’t you curious as to what I was up to while you were fucking your Serena replacement?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Dan says again, like that makes any fucking difference. Like the fact that he actually probably didn’t fuck Greg really matters right now. But it’s starting to sink in through the throbbing in his skull that while Chuck is probably not happy about what he did, that’s not what Chuck’s upset over.
“I was looking over your work. It’s good, Dan. Excellent, in fact. I really identify with your protagonist.” He throws it into Dan’s lap as he rises. Only when he picks up the scattered pages does he realize, and the bottom drops out of his stomach.
He suddenly knew what Chuck was holding, and god, he was fucked. He wrote them when he couldn’t sleep or when he was trying to work himself out, and the content was often ugly. And always private, stories that were his alone. And each and every one was totally damning.
“Chuck, it’s not what you think.”
“It’s not? Because I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what I think.” He grabs another story off the coffee table and clenches in his fist. “There’s over three hundred pages here, Dan. Of me. Of that ridiculous Trout character you base on me.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You’re so fond of your privacy, Daniel. You’re obsessive about it. But there are things in here I told you, private things. Things I’ve told only you. You took that, and you wrote-” He stops before he can lose his composure and takes a deep breath. The papers bend in half under the violence of Chuck’s fist, the only outward sign of his rage. “I can’t believe how long I’ve trusted you.”
“I know,” Dan says. He keeps his voice low and knows that he’s just this side of begging. “I know what this looks like, but you’ve got to listen to me.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. No wonder you never want anyone to know about us. It’s hard to get fiction published when everyone knows you’re fucking your main character.”
“Chuck, please,” Dan shouts, desperation making his voice rough and ugly. “I want people to know, I do. None of this is right. You just have to let me explain.”
Chuck shakes his head once and then looks away, at the windows and out at the view of the Manhattan skyline. “Get out.”
It’s not just the bottom of Dan’s stomach that’s dropped out now, but his whole fucking world. “Chuck, come on. You don’t mean that.”
“I want you to be out of here in the next ten minutes, or I’m going to physically remove you. I’ll send someone over to Brooklyn with your things tomorrow.”
“What? Wait, Chuck, listen to me, okay? I know I fucked up with Greg, and us, and all of this, but I can explain. Just give me a chance to explain. ”
Chuck closes his eyes and turns his head so that Dan can’t even see his whole face anymore. “I don’t want to hear it, Humphrey. This is over.”
“It’s been nearly three years, Chuck. You can’t just throw what we have away after-”
“I can. I am. Get. Out. I’m bored now.”
“No.”
Chuck sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’m done, Humphrey. And I want you out of my house. Now. Don’t forget your trash when you go. Wouldn’t want anyone knowing what went on here, would we?” He drops the crumpled story to the ground as he speaks and walks swiftly to the bedroom.
By the time Dan gets to the door, it’s locked. Panic hits him like a fist, but he only humiliates himself by pounding on the hardwood and pleading for twenty minutes before he surrenders, picks himself up off the floor, and leaves.
He doesn’t react on the long train ride back to Brooklyn. He doesn’t let himself feel it as he tosses the hard copies of his stories into the recycling, either. It’s not until his sister emerges from her room on her way to help set up a Halloween party over near the Parson’s campus, dressed in a fairy costume she made herself, that he cracks.
“Dan?” Jenny asks, tilting her head to the side. She’s just cut her hair short, and she looks just like Tinkerbell. It shouldn’t hurt him, there’s no reason, no connection to his loss, but for some reason, it does. “Hey, are you okay?”
He shakes his head, and she crosses the living room to where he is as he sinks to the floor on legs that won’t hold him anymore. They sit on the floor as he sobs into her stomach. She never makes it to her friends, instead staying to soothe his hair and rub his back as he falls apart.
She doesn’t ask him for an explanation. And she gets him off the floor and into his old room before their dad gets home. But he catches her by the wrist because he can’t, he just can’t be alone. He can’t deal with where his brain is going to go if he’s left by himself with his thoughts.
“Jenny, please.”
She doesn’t even sigh. He’s never loved her more than when she takes off her fairy wings, slips off her green heels, and slides into bed with him, wrapping her arms around him and stroking his hair again.
“Some trick or treat,” she mutters, trying to make him laugh. But Dan can’t even bring himself to smile.
~*~*~
Dan slides the door of his room shut and realizes that Chuck’s never been in this room before. In his house, yes, but not his room. He looks good surrounded by Dan’s things. He looks good with Dan.
“That was quite a stunt.”
“So’s this.”
He crosses the room and catches Chuck’s face in both his hands, and he’s kissing him, and Jesus, he tastes the same way Dan remembers-a little more booze than when they were together, but he tastes like turkey and that sticky heat and Chuck and home, home that Dan’s never wanted to admit to having found with a member of the Upper East Side elite.
Chuck kisses him back, but only for a few seconds before he breaks away, gasping and glaring. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I wanted to see if the snozzberries taste like snozzberries.” Chuck raises one eyebrow at that. “They do.” He laughs at himself because if that really just came out of his mouth, then his seams are coming apart faster than he thinks.
“You’re comparing me to lickable wallpaper. How romantic.”
“No, Chuck, I just… I wanted to see if you taste the same. I miss it.”
“Get a patch.”
“Chuck, will you just drop this bullshit for ten minutes and talk to me?”
“You didn’t seem inclined to talk,” Chuck muses, settling himself on Dan’s bed like he owns it. It’s a calculated move that succeeds in making Dan’s brain stutter and stall for a few seconds.
“Make impassioned speeches, molest me, but not talk.”
He takes a deep breath and continues because this is more important than how good Chuck looks on his unmade bed. “I wasn’t kidding, Chuck, out there. I’m still in love with you.”
“I love the way you put that,” Chuck bites. “Still. As if there’s a history of you loving me.”
“Are you serious? There’s five years of me loving you.”
“And yet you waited until now to air that dirty little secret in public?”
“Secret? You were never a secret, Chuck. Jesus. I’m trying. I’ve been trying for years, and I’m wondering what the hell you need me to do to prove that.”
Chuck’s face is a mask. He’s gotten better at hiding himself in the years they’ve been apart. Dan didn’t think it was possible for him to get more closed off, but he has, and it breaks Dan’s heart. “I can’t really help you with that.”
“Can you at least let me explain this time?” Dan asks. He moves to stand in front of Chuck, his legs and Chuck’s less than an inch apart. “I spent six months trying to get you to hear me about those stupid stories, and you wouldn’t listen. Will you please just listen now?”
“Why? Need a photo for your next book cover?”
“No, Jesus, Chuck, they were mine,” Dan says sharply. “Those stories? They were mine. You’re not easy to live with, Chuck, and sometimes-” He rubs the back of his neck and resists the urge to pace. He has this pathetic hope that if he stays close enough, his words will get through. “Sometimes being with you hurt. And sometimes it pissed me off. And sometimes I was, like, scarily happy. Those stories were mine, Chuck; they were for me so that I could understand being with you.”
“Glad to know I provided you with so much material. Remind me to call my lawyer about likeness royalties.”
“Damn it, it was private. They were never about material, and if you had ever listened, you’d know that. I’m not the diary type, so I fucking wrote stories, okay? I could figure myself out from a distance if it was fictional. I never published any of them.”
“Right. And that’s why Big Pond is on every best sellers list in the country.”
That makes Dan stop. He’s been on tour for that book for so long that he’s kind of forgotten that it’s floating around New York, too. But it’s been a year. He thought that if Chuck had read it, well, there would’ve been something besides radio silence. “You read it?”
“Of course I did,” Chuck says, leaning backwards. He props himself up on his elbows and gives Dan a cool look. “I needed to know whether or not to sue you for slander.”
“I wrote that after you ended it. Chuck, if you read it, how…” He can’t even formulate the question. The book was a thinly veiled love letter, and the rough draft his editor chewed apart had been even more blatant. “We had three years, Chuck, and they were some of the best of my life. That was what that book was about, and if you read it, you know that. I just don’t know how you can still choose to see the worst in me.”
“I don’t choose to see it,” Chuck says, but he can’t meet Dan’s eyes. “It’s there.”
“Yeah. And it’s there that you’re an asshole and an emotional cripple.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“And I don’t care,” Dan shouts, his hands waving as he tries to get this to sink it. Two years of trying and waiting to speak explode out of his entire body. “What’s wrong with you is still there, but I don’t care. I dealt, I can deal, because there’s also the side of you that would do anything for his family but mostly just wants to spend time with them, and the part that’s funny in a way that’ll tear flesh to the point where I sometimes think you write your material ahead of time, and the part that used to walk out of the shower naked, and the way we used to argue that always made me see something I never could be before, even when you didn’t manage to get me to agree with you.”
Chuck says nothing. He’s just staring up at him, but something’s different in the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes.
“We both are fucked up, Chuck,” Dan says as he lowers himself over Chuck on the bed. It feels just like it used to in the moments before they came together. “We’re royally fucked up, in fact. And I love you anyway.”
“Always with the speeches.”
“Tell me you love me, too.”
“Humphrey-”
“Dan. And this isn’t a game. Just tell me, okay? Because if you read it, if you’re here, then you love me, too. God, aren’t you tired of this yet? ’Cause I’m tired. And I miss you.”
He watches Chuck close his eyes. He can see Chuck’s Adam’s apple move as he swallows, and he knows, he does, that this isn’t easy for Chuck. It’s been years since they were together, and even without it, he’s not good at trust, at giving himself. Dan knows the only time before Chuck’s ever tried was Blair, and it crashed and burned like the Hindenberg.
But Dan’s not Blair. He’s never been like Blair, as much as he now has to admit that he does like being with the Upper East Siders. He’s never played Chuck like Blair did, and he’s not going to start now.
It’s with this in mind that Dan plants a small kiss on the corner of Chuck’s lips. Another on his jaw. One on his temple and each eyelid. It’s not the sort of thing he would have felt comfortable doing when they were together, but it feels like the right thing to do now.
As he strokes his thumb over Chuck’s sharp cheekbone, Dan can see more of that hateful stiffness is leaching out. When Chuck’s arms are relaxed and he’s lying flat on Dan’s bed, Dan presses his forehead against Chuck’s and cups the side of his face. Chuck sighs, and he knows somehow that they’re going to be able to get back where they need to be.
“You don’t have to say it back,” Dan says. “Just let me love you okay? That’s all you have to do. Just let me, okay?”
Chuck goes rigid, his eyes open, and Dan’s heart drops. That wasn’t what he meant to do. He was trying to make it easier, make it so he wouldn’t feel like he had to pull away.
“It doesn’t work that way, Daniel,” Chuck says. Dan can feel his breath against his lips.
“It can. It’s called unconditional love, Chuck. It means that I love you no matter what, even when we’re screwed up and have wasted a couple years,” he says, and he smiles, remembering their first Thanksgiving together, him sprawled over Chuck almost exactly like this. “Deal with it.”
There’s a long silence that stretches in the small space between them. He can practically hear Chuck thinking, although he’s not exactly sure what, so he busies himself relearning Chuck’s face while he waits. He’s thinner, and he’s starting to get a few very faint lines around his mouth that Dan can only see because he’s so close.
He’s looking right at Chuck’s lips, so he shouldn’t be surprised when Chuck’s hand comes up and pulls down on the back of his head, bringing their mouths together. It shakes a gasp out of Dan and then a moan because god, yes, he’s missed being kissed by Chuck-which is a completely different and equally amazing experience from kissing Chuck.
When they break away to breathe, they’re both panting, and Dan’s glad that this is like he remembered. They still burn together just like they always have. It’s just better now that they’re not burning each other.
“What if I do?” Chuck asks on a shallow breath.
“Do?”
Chuck’s eyebrows rise, then lower significantly.
“Do you?” Dan asks, choking on hope. It’s like finding the fucking golden ticket under a boring paper wrapper, and it’s so close to everything.
“No, Daniel, I came all the way out to Brooklyn for the first time in more than two years for the cranberry sauce and stuffing.” He heaves a heavy sigh, and Dan can feel his hand squeeze a little tighter on the back of his head. “Of course I love you.”
Dan flounders because as much as he thought he knew what he would say if this ever happened, as often as he imagined it for him and Chuck and for his book, he’s at a loss. And Chuck is smirking up at him, enjoying his reaction.
“You seem surprised,” Chuck says. His voice has a lightness to it that Dan’s missed so badly that he feels like an amputee whose severed limb has just magically grown back.
“No. No, I’m not,” Dan says, even though yeah, actually, he kind of is. It’s just that a part of him has never really believed Chuck would say it. The chance that he wouldn’t is what he’s been protecting himself from, hiding from, since the very beginning. But he’s done hiding Chuck and hiding from him, so he laughs a little and shakes his head. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Chuck says, but he’s smiling, an elusive real smile that Dan’s only seen a handful of times in all the years he’s known him.
“Listen, I’m going to kiss you again,” Dan says, and then gives Chuck a short wet kiss that’s a little like a period, punctuating the end of the bullshit. “Then we’re going to go out there with everybody, tell them what happened, and finish dinner. Afterwards, I plan on having sex with you, but beyond that, everything else is up for negotiation.”
“They can wait,” Chuck says, pulling them back together. Dan lets himself be kissed, then rolled onto his back and grins up at Chuck, tugging at the lapels of Chuck’s suit jacket and fumbling with small buttons as Chuck works on the front of Dan’s shirt.
The last bit of fabric comes off Chuck’s shoulders as he works his mouth down Dan’s bare chest. They break apart to take off their belts and pants and underwear before coming back together in a mess of limbs and skin, and Dan is thankful.
(end)