Welcome to the Queen B & Lonely Boy appreciation thread

"What works with Dan and Blair becoming so close is how wonderfully each complements the other. Chemistrybetween characters is a magical thing and impossible to predict. Some claim to see chemistry between Blair and Chuck, but I’ve never been able to detect any. Perhaps this is due to my being older than the show’s target audience. Perhaps their magic is undetectable by anyone old enough to have a healthy adult relationship. But for me—and I’m hardly alone in this—both Dan and Blair became more interesting characters as they began to spend time together. Unlike Blair and Chuck, who only have their dysfunction to keep them together, Dan and Blair’s ongoing friendship is grounded upon their love of film, art, and books, and, of course, conversation. No two characters on television are as much fun to listen to as Blair and Dan. If Blair and Chuck’s scenes feel like they come off the pages of really bad romance novels, Dan and Blair remind one more of Howard Hawks’s screwball comedies or Nick and Noral Charles in the Thin Man movies." TV Highpoints and Lowpoints, July 2011

"Blair has sort of made Dan her confidant about the pregnancy. I love their relationship I think it’s in a totally different level that we’ve seen of it last season even when they had that kind of combative fun. There’s Dan really feels care taking of her even though he is on his own story and trying to deal with his own things. And I think it’s a nice, it’s really…It feels really…They feel really great together. I love their dynamic." Executive Producer Sara Goodman, October 2011

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"The Dan and Blair connectiont is something that’s been there from the earliest episodes. Their relationship to Serena, and the degree to which they’re polar opposites and represent everything that the other hates, makes their dynamic really charged. At the same time, they are characters that have a lot in common. They are the most book-smart characters hey share a lot of the same interests. And as much as they might want to hate each other, there are a lot of reasons for them to like each other. So it’s a really fun dynamic to write." Executive Producer Stephanie Savage, 2011

She is surprised to see him there, even if probably not as much as he is to actually be there, willingly even when she opens her mouth just to insult him. But the best defense is a good offense and she does defend herself; because no one ever do it for her, because she doesn’t know what else to do, because she is broken. He stays. It’s stupid, and crazy and she thinks he should know better but he stays and she is not alone anymore. It is a matter of fact.He stays and he slides down to sit on the floor, with his jeans and his pain and his regrets. He serves her his own heart on a silver plate, she could pierce it with a fork for all he knows, still he’s doing it. She doesn’t feel like piercing his heart. The words he says mean something, the silence he makes mean something too. She just feels like staying there on the floor. He is for her nothing more than a waste of air, yet he did not desert her, and with him there it seems okay to be broken. Yes, it’s okay. For a few minutes they can be broken together.

His own steps echo in the hallway and while he walks to her he can’t help but ask himself where it went his sense of self preservation, because he’s willingly entering the lion’s cage and he can’t find in himself the strength to turn his back and leave her there. It’s not like she wants his company, anyway. Standing in front of her he can see how small she is. How lonely. And her poisoned heart shaped little mouth can’t drive him away. Strangely enough, he doesn’t mind, because in this very moment he can see past it, and he thinks he knows her by heart. It’s her peculiar way to be strong, to convince herself she’s all right. To tell him she’s not. He sits on the floor and looks in front of him at some point in the wall; and he speaks. He bares the open wound he spent four months carefully hiding from any living soul in front of the only person who would find amusing to stretch it with a five inches heel. Her big eyes are fixed on his and he can feel an entire universe of dreams and beauty and hunger for tenderness behind them. He can feel her. And he wonders if she can feel him too.

She has a talent for scheming, and Dan would probably have some sort of performance anxiety right now if the mere concept wasn’t so painfully ridiculous (and it’s not like he wants to make an impression on her, that would be a distinct sign of his moral downfall). He can feel her arm brushing against him while he takes on his role and it’s like they are an Emergency Response Team of the Secret Service. It’s all very weird, most of all the fact that his unlikely, unholy alliance actually works. She’s excited, genuinely so, like a kid or someone as innocent as a kid which he doubts she ever was, and he’s bewildered by all this energy and will that he sees and that it's all bottled up into her petite body. He suspects he has many good reasons to not be happy about it.

Blair thinks she can be proud of herself. She’s helping the masses, after all – Mother Theresa couldn’t do better. Dan had the humility and the grace to recognize her superior mind and experience in the scheming field so she can be generous with him even if he comes without a pedigree. She usually doesn’t have scheming companions, only minions with little minds and limited visions. Humphrey has some brain – she must admit to herself – so she will entitle him at being part of the team, which she will lead of course. It’s not that bad, because she never had so much fun taking down someone like in this case and maybe it’s not entirely because it’s about Georgina. Maybe, partially, just a little bit, she could swear nothing at all, this has something to do with Humphrey.

Life can be so cruel, she realizes. All that fine faculties of his wasted into a plebian, remorseful mental attitude, when obviously the dirtier the better. He’s from Brooklyn, so he should make a poster out of it, still he’s stubborn enough to hold on his principles and his utopist vision of the world, like they will give him any charm at all. It worked only on King Arthur, and he had an incestuous love to make him stimulating, so it doesn’t really counts. Choreographing his sister’s boyfriend shame would have made him darker, and somewhere in the back of her mind there’s this idea of him, bad just as she is. Of him with no valid arguments to point out her devious ways. Of him, closer. Oh, well, but why would she want him to be, after all?

Contrary to the blond, light breeze of Serena leaving him, Blair is a dark hurricane investing him with a frontal impact he can’t avoid. He has no intention to admit to himself he’s actually quite fascinated with how the wheels turn in that brilliant, sharp, seductively deviant brain of hers. Listening to her is a thrilling experience, when it doesn’t result into some sick play, which it happens more than half the time, really; this is basically why he knows he needs to stay away from her. He doesn’t intend to be stripped of his conscience if ever her reasoning starts to make sense, or to look any alluring, because aside from her objectionable inclinations he can remember what he saw behind her eyes in a lonely hallway during an afternoon in September. And that girl is his equal Possibly, his friend.

He doesn’t know why Serena would think Blair will ever listen to him, of all people. She doesn’t look thrilled to be there, and this makes him more at ease (he has this feeling that he could actually be the one person that’s capable to read her the one that doesn’t even need to try to be able to do that - and it’s ridiculous and scary). Suddenly he looks at her – at her low gaze and long lashes and auburn air that make her look even more melancholic, like an autumnal day – and he knows. He knows her fears, her desires, what keeps her awake at night and why a part of her can’t help but hope against any better judgment. And he knows just why he has this urge he has to suppress to reach out to her and hold her hand and tell her she can’t possibly be just another girl, to anyone.

She knew better but still kicked and protested to not be there, facing Dan Humphrey with his torturing wardrobe and his insight on her heart. She hates that he is right. Above all she hates that whatever he says to her, it actually always gets to her. The universe is probably laughing at her expense right now – she’s being guided by a boy from Brooklyn that is never capable to find a way to a decent boutique. Do you love him? He asks, and Blair finds yet another reason to hate him. How can he understand if she nearly needed to make a diagram for all the others to get it? His voice is soothing and very warm and it makes her feel naked. And he doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t judge (activity in which he is usually very good at) and he makes her braver.There are times, like now, when if she didn’t know better she could swear he’s the only one who can read her, the only one who doesn’t even need to try to understand her.

I look forward to seeing you. Every thought is… burnt up in a great flame - Truthfully he would rather eat his tongue then say something like that to her, ever again. He raises his hand and tries to look at her with longing (he’s not sure he can manage that – it’s Blair, no one can blame him) as to reach for her cheek and she turns what it was meant to be like a chaste kiss into some sort of all-in wrestling, climbing on him to bully him better and he has no other choice but to lose, because they are on stage and because he would never hit her, if his own life depended on it. She almost talks against him mouth, his arms are around her body holding her on top of him – he’s sure they are breaking some law of the physics, in the best case, because any touching between them must surely lead to catastrophe. He can feel her breath and her resentment. And then when she walks away he can distinguish something incredibly similar to disappointment in her voice. He never knew he had the power to do that to her.

Blair is tempted to believe him when he tells her he didn’t plot any revenge against her, just because he’s Humphrey. She knows better – she stopped long ago to trust people, she doesn’t even trust herself, really. But he says he didn’t do it and a small part of her believes that. That’s what makes her angrier at him. He ruined her life by outing information just to humiliate her; then he made a fool out of her for ever being lead to believe in him. He looks surprised and annoyed and true, and she's hurt. He shouldn't be that good at that. Even now he’s making her feel incredibly stupid, because even now a small part of her trusts that he’s telling her the truth.

He doesn’t mean to sound judgmental; but saying he’s genuinely surprised by her lack of outturn in getting laid – with Chuck **** Bass of all people – it’s an euphemism, because – aside from her toxic personality – Blair looks like she just awoke from her pose in the Antonio Canova’s sculpture “Psyche revived by Cupid’s kiss” (he would love to think otherwise but he’s got two eyes, both working perfectly, 20/20 vision, so no chance to miss out the truth). So, really, it’s hard to take seriously this big problem of hers because it is simply not conceivable. It’s not his fault if the whole situation sounds so comical. Besides, there’s something wrong in this conversation – aside from the obvious, of course – because he’s missing a point. There’s something she is not telling him. He’s not delighted that he can tell that of her.

She’s crude, and visibly annoyed; if she can’t send him away because Serena needs to use her as excuse to keep him tied to her ankle at least she can make him regret it. He even stammers when she tells him her problem, like it’s not embarrassing enough to be reduced to be seeking advices from Lonely Boy. He enquires her, and she lies. His eyes scrutinize her, like he’s searching for something. She’s so good at lying; she could be the worthy heir of the sublime Audrey – yet Humphrey looks her in the eyes and he knows. She hates that; unlike her (self-centered) friend, Humphrey knows the glaring contrast between looking and seeing – he observes people the same way he observes art, with all the passion of his senses and the vigor of his intellect - and so he makes her the centre of his world for forty seconds. The longest forty seconds of her life. She hates him. He’s lucky he makes himself useful sometimes.

She catches the grey of Dan’s suit next to her and points her eyes on him thinking that now she really did hit rock bottom. She tries to resort to her long experience as consumed liar to show her best expression of stoic indifference but he’s not even looking at her. He watches Chuck and then puts himself in front of her to cover her visual. Blair would never say that out loud but she’s grateful he’s saving her the sight she was self inflicting herself and putting himself as target to her every most intimate dissatisfaction. If nothing else Dan Humphrey is always been a great target. She feels reassured by her capability to still spit poison so easily and with such class. He laughs. She thinks that maybe it’s a quality even to be able to take an insult with such class. She ends up thanking him – luckily she has no energy to realize the scary number of times she said those words to him (in all the worst times, those times you are supposed to find your friends and yet she found him). Truth is: she’s horrible, depraved, soulless, but he still thinks she deserves to be with someone who makes her happy and he stands there patiently listening to her passing judgment on his private life, belittling his good disposition and condemning his wardrobe, so maybe it’s not so bad to be standing in front of Dan Humphrey and his in-need-of-a-new-haircut head. Not so bad, at all.

He thinks it’s pathetic. The whole situation is; but mostly it’s Chuck Bass who’s pathetic, flirting with the new, random bimbo, whom is going to become attractive like a venereal disease in the morning (Dan is pretty sure he has intimate knowledge of the latter, even more so than the one he clearly intends to have with the former). He never liked him, but tonight Chuck managed to become even more abominable in his eyes which, he must say, is a big achievement; the bastard is intentionally walking over Blair’s feelings right in front of her, and making him painfully aware of the fact that he doesn’t like it. Yes, he doesn’t like it. He has this hateful need to make her feel better so he doesn’t even mind that much when she unsheathe her cutting tongue on him, demonstrating him she’s still very much alive and kicking. He’s got vaccinated, by now. To think about it, the world would be less interesting without some verbal challenge. Their witty battles make him feel intellectually stimulated and brave. And it’s fun. In her way Blair Waldorf is fun. Maybe this is the reason why he asks her to dance. What he still doesn’t know, not can begin to understand, it’s the reason why she says yes.

There are various words for the same thing: Suicide, self-annihilation, self-destruction, dying at your own hand. To immolate your sanity and your self-esteem on the altar of Blair Waldorf just because she's sad. He always publicly declared that he doesn't like her - and he could swear with his right hand on the Bible and his left foot on the Koran, or he would if he didn't suspect that would be blasphemous - yet he can't go past her, can't leave her behind, can't help himself but try to tell her that she deserves more. That she should be happy. But her smile is lost, and what's replaced it is only a pale shadow of it. She needs to acknowledge that she is supposed to get it, all of it - her smile, her dreams, her happy ending - but doesn't know how to tell her. And she doesn't need to know he wants that for her.

It's eating her alive, the relationship she worked for. There's something inside of her screaming while she keeps her facade in place and yet wonders how can anyone not realize that is all pretend. Even if she screamed no one would hear her anyway, no one would understand. But Humphrey, whose timing is so excellent she wants to laugh. It bothers her that he notices, that he knows the difference between her annoyance and her pain, that he cares enough to ask her what's wrong, to offer a reassurance. It bothers her that when he looks at her he sees something she is scared to recognize herself. It bothers her that maybe, maybe because of his eyes, because of his voice, because of him it's not his ice that's melting, but hers.

He is nonchalant about it, or at least does his best to. She's Blair Waldorf, and her second job - right after being a poisonous beauty of impeccable taste for fashion and verbal elegance - is to party, so it's quite bewildering to look behind his shoulder and find out she's nervous. She thanks him (for being her kind of, someting like, well... date, this is the word that makes him feel not so much nonchalant about this) and it's hard for her to admit that she needs him: the Brooklyn resident, Lonely Boy, Dan-not-worthy-of-her-time-Humphrey. And he enjoys his position for once. Aside from shocking him into accepting, aside from his white knight complex, he really can't explain to himself why he's there with her. He gets a kick out of it somehow. He gets rid of her headband and touches her hair and he feels a bit like the kid who pulls at the hair of the girl he likes. Not that he likes her, of course.

She holds her pochette and follows him up the stairs feeling like she's about to be thrown out any moment now, like someone caught at the Emmys without an invitation. She usually gets an invitation for Emmys, but this is not her natural habitat and the only thing that makes her feel better is Dan. Which is worse. He could refuse her in front of a bunch of people that would have laughed at her for the rest of her miserable existence as a college student but he didn't. She would have. But Dan is not like her, and even if she usually prides herself for being who she is, who he can't be, reality is that Dan Humphrey always makes her feel like all that schemes and lies are just pointless. Like life and self-fulfillment and happiness are something else entirely. Something she never knew and she's scared to. So much so that she almost takes his arm, because a crazy part of her thinks he'll shield her. He won't let her fall. He'll be what she needs the most, even if it's socially unacceptable. Even if she never deserved it.