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He cuts his hair and she swallows the comments for as long as she can because they're not friends anymore. They're not anything anymore.
And then, they are again.
They're friends again. Because she didn't lie and she did miss him and he just… He cut his hair and finally the words come out.
"You cut your hair."
Dan blinks up from his coffee, confused for a beat, and then he smiles, slow, easy with just a hit of amused edge. Nobody else smiles at her like that.
"A few months ago, it was getting annoying."
She sniffs, looking away, "I noticed."
"Did you now?" His voice trails off and Blair doesn't allow herself to rise to the bait. Shoots him a look as she takes a sip of her pumpkin latte; her one seasonal indulgence.
Dan grins and lets the moment pass. He's become very good about that.
They finish their coffees and by then she has somewhere to be and so does he. They're still getting reacquainted with each other. (That's a lie, they've never been more comfortable that they are now. That's another lie, she remembers his bed.)
Dan walks with her and until the closest subway station and heads off with a careless wave. His hair is cropped so closely in the back she can almost see the skin under it. Her fingers itch; she curls them into the pleats of her dress. Turning away, Blair continues down the street. She has her places to be.
-
His hair still curls obnoxiously in the front though. Just a little. Just enough to remind her how soft the thick curls were under her hand. They're leaving Nate's one afternoon and she can't help, she flicks that little bit.
Dan's eyes widen, "What was that?"
"Your hair is making funny animal shapes."
"Oh..kay?"
She tilts her head, regarding, "You haven't had it this short in a long time."
Rubbing a hand through his short cropped hair, Dan looks toward the elevator doors. "Yeah, I know. It's just easier this way."
"At least it doesn't look like a Brillo pad anymore."
Dan laughs.
"Thank, I guess."
"Who cut it?"
"Why do you care?"
Blair sniffs, juts her chin out. "Just want to know whose hand I have to shake next time I see them."
Dan stares at her for a beat, she doesn't look at him, but she can feel his gaze. Imagines it's sweeping the line of her cheek. (Her jaw was smooth, strong, and faintly flushed, he wrote in his book.( Blair sets her jaw, unwilling to let any sort of blush creep through under his appraisal. His laugh catches her off guard though.
"Nate took me to his stylist."
The elevator dings. (Her stockings -- thigh highs trimmed with black lace -- caught under his nails as he lifted her up against the glass. The elevator dinged with their floor, he had also written, but not in the book. That had been a short story she had seen on his desk. She doesn't think he's published it. Too close to certain facts, she guesses.)
Blair steps out quickly; her neck feels warm. "I hope you offered to name your first born after them."
His footsteps sound behind her, but she thinks she can hear him smile too.
-
"Why'd you cut it?" The words spill out of her without bidding, but fact is that she's been thinking about about it for a while. Ever since he cut it. She hated his mop of hair before, she hated how he never cut it even as she told him too while running her fingers through it. Hated how he would just smirk over it and shake the mass of curls at her, as if mocking, and then not a month after they were done and she swallowed the question for months.
Dan's head snaps up from where he's texting. "What?"
Blair swallows. "Your hair, why'd you cut it?"
"I didn't…" he blinks.
She rolls her eyes, "Yes, yes, you did."
"No… I didn't?" he says, rubbing a hand over said head of hair. "I haven't cut it since…" he stops, looks at her, "Oh."
Blair inspects her nails. She should call for a manicure tomorrow. "Sorry?" She looks back up at Dan, "You were saying?"
Dan clears his throat. "I… I guess I just needed a change. Why?"
She nods, "Well you had that mop for so long I was merely wondering what caused you to depart with your own personal muppet."
"And zing," Dan mumbles, looking away from her. Blair bites her lip, stops. It's a bad habit. "Shouldn't you be glad that I did? You hated it."
She shrugs, "You didn't seem to care when…" she waves her hand between them. Dan gets it, of course he does, and just nods. She's thankful. Their current truce and friendship still balances on a very delicate line. They've both been very careful not to upend it.
"I was always planning to cut it," he says. Blair stares at him. "You know, when it got too long. Then when I realised I was resembling a European soccer player or Beckham in the nineties--"
"You wish, Humphrey."
He grins, "Yeah, well, it was getting too long."
"Is it too late to say I told you so."
"Would it make you feel better?"
Blair grins.
"Go ahead."
And she opens her mouth to tell him so, but stops. She had hated his over grown mess of curls, but she had secretly loved them too. She had loved twisting her fingers in her, pulling his face to her body by them. She had loved…
Curling and uncurling her fingers, she doesn't fight her instincts and reaches up running a hand through the short tresses. Soft, short hair prickles against her palm. Dan's eyes go wide, his mouth drops.
"It looks good, Humphrey. Maybe a little too short." She takes a step back, pressing her palm against her thigh.
He shakes his head, "There's just no pleasing you, is there, Waldrof?"
"You're only figuring this out now?"
-
They're in her room. She's flipping through UK Vogue. He's flipping through The New Yorker. They've reached this level of comfort again and Blair doesn't even feel the need to excuse his presence in her life, in her house, in her room, anymore. He's there, take it or leave it.
He's her closest friend; Serena her best friend. Nate her surprisingly unwavering one, and Chuck is Chuck. Whatever that means now. She knows they were friends once -- a long time ago they were truly friends, she thinks she remembers. But Dan is the only one that functions at her speed, intellectually, emotionally. He's unwavering too in his own way. Dan Humphrey, the peripheral boy in her life, slipping out of view sometimes but always there.
"It was because of you."
His voice cuts through her metal dressing down of the main spread -- they really don't know how to dress Jennifer Lawrence -- and she glances over to him.
"Sorry?"
"The hair cut," he says, not looking up from his magazine, "it was because of you. You always bugged me about and then we… well, looking in the mirror I just kept hearing your voice and so I called Nate and he gave me his stylist number and the rest is history."
Blair swallows. The magazine falls onto her comforter as she turns towards him. "Oh."
"Yeah, so now you know."
"Yes, I do."
"It was either that or get a tattoo."
"Tattoos are disgusting."
"Also painful."
"Well, I'm glad you didn't mutilate you body."
Dan chuckles, "Thanks."
"You did cut it too short," she says, and he rolls his eyes with a sigh, "but it's growing out nicely."
Dan, she knows, doesn't blush easily at compliments, especially from her, but his lips quirk and his shoulders do this thing. They do it now. It makes her smile. He smiles back at her and picks up her magazine, handing it to her. Their fingers brush and Blair feels curls her toes in her stockings. It's an unnerving realisation that they're the same ones from the elevator that time and she shifts her legs on the bed. He can't know, there's not way he can, but now she's all too aware of it.
"Hey, feel like lunch?"
He looks at her like he's trying to figure the sudden change in her and she stands; the magazine falls back to her bed, fluttering closed. Something passes in his eyes that once she would have studied closer.
"Sure, what do you feel like?"
Spinning, grabbing at her phone and purse, Blair breaths out, needing to get out the room. "There's that new sushi place that just opened."
She can hear Dan move around behind her, "Should we call Nate or Serena to join?"
Blair nods, taking hold of the arm he offers her as she slips her shoes on -- they used to do this. They used to have a comfortable routine when they would go out and get ready. His arm when they were in a rush and her slip-sliding into her heels; her fingers adjusting his tie because he only knew one kind of knot -- and she smiles in thanks. "Nate, Serena is working."
Dan nods, and keeps her hand looped in his as they make their way down and out. Blair doesn't move it away, it's comfortable there.
-
Her feet are getting massaged and she's admiring her new nail colour when he speaks up.
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this."
Blair rolls her eyes and turns her head to where Dan is sitting, a smock over his body, and Gianni is working on the mess of curls he calls hair.
"Look, Humphrey, as much as I want to thank Nate's stylist for the service he did to the world before, he just didn't know what to do with your hair. He's used to Nate's boy band locks and nothing with your kind of body."
Dan's grin is a slight too wicked in the mirror, "You think I have a body."
"Your hair does and it's the one of a middle age man going through a mid life crisis. Gianni here understands texture and volume." Behind Dan, Gianni smiles and winks at her, "My dad recommended him especially."
"Harold was always my best costumer," Gianni shares. Blair smiles and waves him away, "He speaks very well of you." She addresses Dan again, "Never go to anyone else, ever again."
Dan laughs, "You have way too much interest in my hair."
"I have to look at it."
He laughs again, warm and thick. Gianni warns him to stop moving with a snap of his scissors. Dan stills. Blair giggles.
When they're done, Blair runs her fingers through his hair. It's short, but the curls are still prominent, still springy and soft under her skin. "So much better," she grins.
Dan pulls her and away and then touches a strands of hers. "I like yours too." Blair bats him away and turns. Her cheeks feel hot.
"Come on, we still have to get you some new shoes and ties," she says and starts walking down the street.
Dan's at her side in two steps and he sighs, dropping an arm around her shoulder and kisses her cheek. "You take me on the strangest dates."
"This was not a date."
"Sure, it wasn't."
"I don't date muppets."
"Don't look like a muppet anymore, you just made sure of that."
Blair's lips curl, "I did, didn't I?"
"Strangest dates."
"Shut up, Humphrey."
His laugh is warm by her ears. "Whatever you say, Waldorf."