"Sounds Like Hallelujah" (Don, Don/Sloan) PG-13/Light R
Title: “Sounds Like Hallelujah”
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13/Light R for some sexiness.
Character/Pairing: Don, Don/Sloan
Spoiler: “Election Night, Part II”
Length: one-shot
Summary: Don gets it done and gets the girl.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs
Author’s Note: So there’s this. I’ve been wanting to write Don/Sloan since season one, when they argued how to best talk to a Japanese spokesman in deep denial, but couldn’t quite get it to work. But I had these ideas bouncing around in my head and the finale was pretty terrific and my brother sent me this article today: Don’t Date a Girl Who Reads. And it’s not necessarily that Maggie is a girl who doesn’t read, but that Sloan most definitely is. And so, it got me wanting to do some writing and then, you know, fic! Title and cut courtesy of The Head and the Heart. Enjoy.
~ * ~
Don didn't notice the first time he met Sloan.
It was late and he was tired and they’d only brought her in for some kind of consultation on the latest economic crisis because Charlie wanted more women on the floor.
She’d barely registered, all long limbs and long hair and those enormous glasses that make her vaguely resemble a bug. He remembers thinking she was good looking, a given since she was on the air, but he’d seen better boobs and fewer freckles and he mostly remembers being really, really tired.
She had good legs though. He noticed when she crossed them, and the term “moneyskirt” came to mind. It makes him wince now, but back then he didn’t have much use for pretty girls who liked to talk about money. Especially pretty girls with weird glasses that struggled to make eye contact.
Thing is Don, was that guy when he first met Sloan. At least until she opened her mouth.
She’d sat up straighter in her chair and pushed her glasses up her nose and let loose a scathing criticism of “News Night’s” economic coverage. He remembers feeling like his brain was getting smaller, like he couldn’t keep up, and he didn’t care that his mouth was gaping so wide his chin was probably resting on his chest.
He remembers the way she leaned back in her seat when she was done, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, smug satisfaction all over her face.
He’d never seen anything sexier in his entire life.
---
Don dates Maggie because she’s that girl.
Plain but proper, the kind of girl he knew he could take her home to his parents. A sweet, smart, wholesome Midwestern girl. She understood his world and his work and didn’t mind when he rolled in closer to dawn than dusk with coffee breath and hair that hadn’t been fully combed in three days.
Maggie got all that stuff and it made him want to get her, but the problem was she never got him. Because the thing is, with Maggie, it was never about him. It was always about her.
Maggie was the right girl all along. She was just all wrong for him.
---
Sloan makes up news on the air and almost gets fired.
She deserves to get fired and he knows she should get fired, but it’s hard to hold it against her when she walks out of the studio shaking like a leaf.
She holds her own against Charlie and he knows he’s supposed to be watching the scene unfold with sympathetic amusement, but he mostly wants to storm over there and tell Charlie to stop yelling at her. She knows she did something wrong; there’s no need for the public humiliation.
Maggie asks him about it during dinner. “I heard Charlie ripped Sloan a new one,” she says and digs into her pad thai. “Heard you saw the whole thing go down.”
He takes a bite of drunken noodles and changes the subject.
He wonders when he stopped wanting in on the joke and started wanting to fight someone else’s battles.
---
Sloan contemplates leaving and something tight tugs in Don’s chest.
He thinks it might have been bad Chinese from the night before, but it happens again when she storms into his office and tells him she’ll never see him again.
He starts pushing things across his desk and half listens to what she’s saying, but it’s hard to ignore when it stops being about her job offer and starts being about all the things only he’s supposed to know.
He can’t do much more than stare at her, like that first time, because she’s right and she’s letting loose, and all he can do is stand there and let her see all the way inside.
It’s the most terrifying moment of his life.
---
It doesn’t stop him from asking Maggie to marry him.
He feels nothing when she says yes; he feels even less when it inevitably ends. He mostly hears Sloan’s words in his head: despite her claim, she’s rarely ever wrong.
---
Maggie gets Sloan in the divorce.
It somehow hurts more than watching his fiancée reveal her feelings for someone else in front of a “Sex in the City” tour bus.
---
It takes all the willpower Don possesses not to look at the pictures of Sloan.
He contemplates the angel and devil on his shoulders:
1. It might be his only chance to see Sloan naked.
2. He knows how those photos got there.
He tells IT to block the website. It doesn’t feel like trying when he does the right thing.
---
Don says the words again in the taxi home.
Sloan’s right hand is wrapped in a towel and encased in the bag of ice they bought at a bodega and there’s a possibility she might be sued, but she can’t stop grinning like an idiot.
Seeing her smile, the first real smile all day, makes him smile too, and then they’re laughing and the cabbie is muttering into his hands-free and suddenly she’s pressed up against his side, her eyes bright and shining and free.
“Thank you for coming,” she says softly, ducks her head so dark hair falls across her cheek.
He wants to push it away, tuck it behind her ear or run his fingers through it, but he only adjusts the ice pack and shrugs.
“I’m jealous I didn’t get to hit him too.”
“Hey, cabbie!” she says loudly. “Can you turn around at the next light? We have unfinished business - ”
“No,” Don interjects, his voice rising in volume to block out Sloan’s. “SoHo, please?”
The cabbie mutters some more but keeps driving down Fifth. Beside him, Sloan huffs. “We could go back. My hand hurts a lot, but I feel awesome!”
He shakes his head, leans back against the seat. “It was enough just being there with you.” She turns to the window, watches the streetlights as the cab takes her closer to home. “You didn’t need me, you know? You handled him just fine on your own.”
She looks at him and it’s dark so he can’t see her eyes but he can feel them, dark and intense and focused directly on him. “Yeah,” she says softly. “But sometimes it’s really good to know someone has your back.”
“I’ll always have your back,” he says and mentally kicks himself, except while it sounds lame, it’s the complete truth. He’ll fight for her like he’s never fought for anyone else. “You impress me,” he says again and he thinks she catches the meaning in his words, that he didn’t do it because he was trying to be a nice guy, that he did it because he wanted to do it for her.
Across the cracked leather, she reaches for his hand.
---
Don becomes a Jets fan during the summer.
He’s never cared much about football one way or the other, but he sure as hell gets invested when Sloan starts dating the Giant’s new tight end.
He considers asking Will to teach him about sports, but it’s bad enough that Mac knows how he feels. He doesn’t think he can handle the ribbing from both of them.
He spends an embarrassing amount of time googling the guy and being jealous of his abs. He follows that humiliation with a set of crunches, and his reward are sore stomach muscles that make it hurt to laugh or cry or do any of the things he enjoys. It makes him hate the guy even more.
He passes a new Cross-Fit on Broadway and contemplates joining, but then he remembers the hours he works and the life he lives and, yeah, not going to happen.
Instead, he goes home and sinks into his couch and tries to catch up on “Breaking Bad.”
Mostly he remembers how he twisted himself into knots for Maggie, how hard he worked to make himself into someone he wasn’t.
He’ll never forget how that turned out.
---
There’s a moment during Genoa.
They’re exhausted and running on fumes and they’re heading out to Gregory’s because they have to get out of the building, even if it’s only a ten-minute coffee break.
Don orders their drinks and they topple into a booth. It’s 8:30am and the morning crowd rushes in so there’s a wait. Sloan is pressed up against his left side but he’s too tired to care, especially since he’s not sure either of them has showered in 48 hours.
Don watches the suits get their lattes, watches the world keep turning even though his is on the verge of collapsing. It never ceases to amaze him.
He wraps an arm around Sloan’s shoulders, just to prop her up, and she surprises him by resting her head against his chest, soft hair tickling his skin through the open collar of his shirt. She closes her eyes and breathes in deep, breathes him in, and presses her hand against his heart.
“Lub-dub, lub-dub,” she whispers under her breath, curls into him and drops her free hand to rest on his forearm.
It’s only two blocks south, but ACN feels a million miles away. He closes his eyes and it’s just the two of them, the even rhythm of his heart. There’s no Genoa, no Stamtonovich, and definitely no Jerry Dantana. Her hair is vaguely greasy and he’s pretty sure they both smell, but when he breathes in deep it’s just her.
He asks her about it later, after the barista calls his name and they snap apart and trek back into the mess of their own making. “You okay, Sloan?” he asks, leans back against the elevator wall and hopes he won’t collapse. “Thought I lost you for a moment back there.”
She smiles but looks at the floor, runs a finger around the rim of her lid. “I…” she starts, looks up with her eyes bright, but exposed. “Just for a moment, I needed something real.”
She turns back to her coffee and he closes his eyes for the last ten floors. The only sound is the steady beat of their hearts.
---
Don knows he should tell Sloan the truth about the book.
Not knowing is making her act insane and talk like a cheesy movie villain. Plus, it means Neal might actually be able to do his job, which means Mac will stop ranting about Cambridge v. Oxford.
So yeah, he knows he should tell her about the book.
Except he really likes that crazy look she gets in her eyes and how her cheeks flush and her breathing gets all erratic and…yeah…
He’s not going to tell her about the book.
---
Three things go through Don’s head when Sloan kisses him:
- he’s kissing Sloan. He, Don Keefer, is kissing Sloan.
- he, Don Keefer, is kissing Sloan and other people can see it happening.
- those late nights he spent with his hand wrapped around his cock and her name on his lips seem a lot less sleazy.
---
There’s nothing glamorous about their first date.
It’s close to 3:00 am when they finally break for the night and Sloan’s eyelids are well past drooping.
Still, she doesn’t protest when she’s stuck waiting an extra ten minutes in the lobby because Elliot can’t read social cues, or his idea of fine dining turns out to be a 24-hour dinner on 34th street.
She gamely picks up her sticky menu and flips through the laminated pages. “I’m starving,” she says, lingers over the specials. She doesn’t look at him, seems to forget how only a few hours earlier, she stormed into the control room and pushed a book into his chest and kissed him so hard that she stole his breath.
He nudges her foot under the table. “Thanks for going out with me.”
Finally, he gets her attention and she glances at him. “Is that what this is?”
“Sloan,” he says softly. “I’m asking you out.”
Across the table, she hides her smile behind the menu. He takes it as a yes.
---
Charlie marches them up to HR the following morning.
“I have another one for you!” he announces, presses a hand into each of their backs, and shoves them through the door.
Janie Kim glares at them and mumbles something about transferring to the DC bureau.
---
They have a thing.
They don’t interact much at work outside actual work, so they have a thing.
He sees her or she sees him and their eyes will lock and they’ll smile, just a quick quirk of their lips.
It makes his chest tight every single time.
---
Will sidles up to him at the holiday party, takes a sip of his scotch and crosses his legs.
He turns his attention to Mac, who’s talking to Sloan, where Don’s attention is already focused. He’s been waiting for this conversation for the past six weeks; it’s what big brothers do.
Will doesn’t say anything for a while and Don watches Mac’s enormous ring catch the light. A year ago, the ring in his pocket wasn’t nearly so large, but all it ever did was weigh him down.
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Will finally says.
“What does?” Don asks, takes a pull from his beer.
“Getting it right.”
He pats Don’s knee and picks up his fiancée, slides an arm around her waist and steers her towards the makeshift dance floor. It’s a side of Will that he’s never seen before, but it still feels authentic, real.
There’s no shame in an honest change.
---
Their relationship moves slower than he’d expected. They’ve both been engaged; no one’s a virgin here.
He’d slept with Maggie on the first date, because she claimed to love sex and pointed out that they were already friends, but he knows it was really because he wanted to see her naked.
He wants to see Sloan naked too, but he’s been there and done that, a choice that feels less like a missed opportunity and more like the best decision he’s ever made.
He wants more than to see Sloan naked. He wants to see inside her first.
---
Scott’s ghost lingers.
She doesn’t talk about it, but he can tell in the way her eyes take on a different kind of fire every time she has to discuss arbitrage on the air.
They’re naked in her bed when they can’t avoid it any longer, especially when Sloan’s hands shake as she unwraps the condom.
“Hey, hey,” he says, taking the foil packet from her. “We don’t have to do anything.” Which is the last thing he ever thought he’d be saying, but it’s the truth. He wants to have sex with her, wants it more than most things, but he doesn’t need it. Not like this.
She whips her head around, eyes wide and vulnerable. “I want to be on top,” she says and pushes him onto his back, slides her thighs over his hips as she bends to kiss him.
He can’t really complain. She slides over him and she’s hot and wet and he loves the way her breasts bounce with each shift of her hips. He can’t believe he ever thought she was anything less than perfect.
He likes the small moans she makes and the glisten of sweat on her flat stomach and the way her nails dig into his shoulders as she moves.
He likes every part of it.
Especially when her movements get all erratic and she pulls him up so her breasts are pressed hard against his chest and her arms are wrapped around his neck and he’s looking right in her eyes when she comes.
Later, he’ll hold her tight against his heart. When he runs his fingers through her hair, brushes it back from her cheeks, it’s his hands that are shaking.
---
Maggie’s hair is still short but at least a normal color when she decides to weigh in.
She’s not as mean either, less brittle. She reminds him a bit of the girl he thought he could marry.
They’re working late together, rushing a piece on the inauguration, and it’s light and easy, the way it never was at the best of times. There’s no pressure to be the good guy; he can just be him.
Sloan texts to ask what he wants for breakfast, and when he slips his phone back in his pocket, Maggie’s watching him.
“I get it,” she says, her gaze more focused than it’s been in a year.
“She’s at the top of her game. Of course Beyonce’s gonna serenade the president.”
Maggie throws a pen at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Maggie,” he starts because he owes her this much. She was the one who cheated, but honesty was never his strong suit.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she says, blinks to hold back the sheen of tears. “The way you look at her…I don’t know why I ever thought it would work with me.”
She turns back to her laptop but he has trouble concentrating. All those months they were supposed to be in love, and now she’s able to see him clearly. It still amazes him, how long it took him to wake up.
When he gets home it’s almost dawn and Sloan is asleep, fuzzy, early morning light falling across her face.
He drinks her in, the slim, sleek length of her leg and the dark hair falling across the pillow, but mostly her arm splayed across the bed and reaching for him.
He thinks he could keep looking at her for the rest of his life.
---
Valentine’s Day falls on a Thursday in 2013 and Don has big plans.
Last year it was the Four Seasons, bubble bath and champagne and all the trappings of romance done right. Last year was what he thought he should be doing. Last year was all about being what he thought Maggie wanted. Last year was nothing about being who he actually was.
This year there are flowers, because he’s not a complete idiot, but dinner is takeout from Coppola’s and the entertainment is “The Sweet Smell of Success” on his flatscreen.
Sloan shows up in a tight red dress, but quickly exchanges it for his J-School hoodie and boxers. She pads through his kitchen in slouchy socks, opens the wine while he sets out the food. It’s quiet and domestic and doesn’t make him panic nearly as much as he thought it would. It doesn’t make him panic at all.
“I got you something,” he says after they’ve both made fools of themselves slurping up fettuccine and washing it down with Pinot Noir. Her eyes light up and she giggles, one step away from clapping her hands in delight, as he drops a box into her lap. Her forehead knots for a moment, but then she laughs, tears pooling in her eyes as she takes in the framed Amazon review. “I’m not the only one to buy your book.”
She kisses him, gentle and then hard, so he can taste the wine on her breath. “I got you something too.”
Her present is soft and blue, an enormous Giants logo splashed across the front of the jersey. “In case you forgot, tennis is my sport,” he reminds her, but she only curls into his side and rests her head on his shoulder.
“Turn it over.”
The name reads “Keefer” and then, where the number should be, it says “Good Guy”.
“Sometimes I get it right,” she says softly.
He leans in and kisses her, thinks about the person he tried to be a year ago and the person he actually is today. “Yeah,” he says. “Sometimes you really do.”
~ * ~
Writers live for feedback - please leave some if you have the time.
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13/Light R for some sexiness.
Character/Pairing: Don, Don/Sloan
Spoiler: “Election Night, Part II”
Length: one-shot
Summary: Don gets it done and gets the girl.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs
Author’s Note: So there’s this. I’ve been wanting to write Don/Sloan since season one, when they argued how to best talk to a Japanese spokesman in deep denial, but couldn’t quite get it to work. But I had these ideas bouncing around in my head and the finale was pretty terrific and my brother sent me this article today: Don’t Date a Girl Who Reads. And it’s not necessarily that Maggie is a girl who doesn’t read, but that Sloan most definitely is. And so, it got me wanting to do some writing and then, you know, fic! Title and cut courtesy of The Head and the Heart. Enjoy.
~ * ~
Don didn't notice the first time he met Sloan.
It was late and he was tired and they’d only brought her in for some kind of consultation on the latest economic crisis because Charlie wanted more women on the floor.
She’d barely registered, all long limbs and long hair and those enormous glasses that make her vaguely resemble a bug. He remembers thinking she was good looking, a given since she was on the air, but he’d seen better boobs and fewer freckles and he mostly remembers being really, really tired.
She had good legs though. He noticed when she crossed them, and the term “moneyskirt” came to mind. It makes him wince now, but back then he didn’t have much use for pretty girls who liked to talk about money. Especially pretty girls with weird glasses that struggled to make eye contact.
Thing is Don, was that guy when he first met Sloan. At least until she opened her mouth.
She’d sat up straighter in her chair and pushed her glasses up her nose and let loose a scathing criticism of “News Night’s” economic coverage. He remembers feeling like his brain was getting smaller, like he couldn’t keep up, and he didn’t care that his mouth was gaping so wide his chin was probably resting on his chest.
He remembers the way she leaned back in her seat when she was done, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, smug satisfaction all over her face.
He’d never seen anything sexier in his entire life.
---
Don dates Maggie because she’s that girl.
Plain but proper, the kind of girl he knew he could take her home to his parents. A sweet, smart, wholesome Midwestern girl. She understood his world and his work and didn’t mind when he rolled in closer to dawn than dusk with coffee breath and hair that hadn’t been fully combed in three days.
Maggie got all that stuff and it made him want to get her, but the problem was she never got him. Because the thing is, with Maggie, it was never about him. It was always about her.
Maggie was the right girl all along. She was just all wrong for him.
---
Sloan makes up news on the air and almost gets fired.
She deserves to get fired and he knows she should get fired, but it’s hard to hold it against her when she walks out of the studio shaking like a leaf.
She holds her own against Charlie and he knows he’s supposed to be watching the scene unfold with sympathetic amusement, but he mostly wants to storm over there and tell Charlie to stop yelling at her. She knows she did something wrong; there’s no need for the public humiliation.
Maggie asks him about it during dinner. “I heard Charlie ripped Sloan a new one,” she says and digs into her pad thai. “Heard you saw the whole thing go down.”
He takes a bite of drunken noodles and changes the subject.
He wonders when he stopped wanting in on the joke and started wanting to fight someone else’s battles.
---
Sloan contemplates leaving and something tight tugs in Don’s chest.
He thinks it might have been bad Chinese from the night before, but it happens again when she storms into his office and tells him she’ll never see him again.
He starts pushing things across his desk and half listens to what she’s saying, but it’s hard to ignore when it stops being about her job offer and starts being about all the things only he’s supposed to know.
He can’t do much more than stare at her, like that first time, because she’s right and she’s letting loose, and all he can do is stand there and let her see all the way inside.
It’s the most terrifying moment of his life.
---
It doesn’t stop him from asking Maggie to marry him.
He feels nothing when she says yes; he feels even less when it inevitably ends. He mostly hears Sloan’s words in his head: despite her claim, she’s rarely ever wrong.
---
Maggie gets Sloan in the divorce.
It somehow hurts more than watching his fiancée reveal her feelings for someone else in front of a “Sex in the City” tour bus.
---
It takes all the willpower Don possesses not to look at the pictures of Sloan.
He contemplates the angel and devil on his shoulders:
1. It might be his only chance to see Sloan naked.
2. He knows how those photos got there.
He tells IT to block the website. It doesn’t feel like trying when he does the right thing.
---
Don says the words again in the taxi home.
Sloan’s right hand is wrapped in a towel and encased in the bag of ice they bought at a bodega and there’s a possibility she might be sued, but she can’t stop grinning like an idiot.
Seeing her smile, the first real smile all day, makes him smile too, and then they’re laughing and the cabbie is muttering into his hands-free and suddenly she’s pressed up against his side, her eyes bright and shining and free.
“Thank you for coming,” she says softly, ducks her head so dark hair falls across her cheek.
He wants to push it away, tuck it behind her ear or run his fingers through it, but he only adjusts the ice pack and shrugs.
“I’m jealous I didn’t get to hit him too.”
“Hey, cabbie!” she says loudly. “Can you turn around at the next light? We have unfinished business - ”
“No,” Don interjects, his voice rising in volume to block out Sloan’s. “SoHo, please?”
The cabbie mutters some more but keeps driving down Fifth. Beside him, Sloan huffs. “We could go back. My hand hurts a lot, but I feel awesome!”
He shakes his head, leans back against the seat. “It was enough just being there with you.” She turns to the window, watches the streetlights as the cab takes her closer to home. “You didn’t need me, you know? You handled him just fine on your own.”
She looks at him and it’s dark so he can’t see her eyes but he can feel them, dark and intense and focused directly on him. “Yeah,” she says softly. “But sometimes it’s really good to know someone has your back.”
“I’ll always have your back,” he says and mentally kicks himself, except while it sounds lame, it’s the complete truth. He’ll fight for her like he’s never fought for anyone else. “You impress me,” he says again and he thinks she catches the meaning in his words, that he didn’t do it because he was trying to be a nice guy, that he did it because he wanted to do it for her.
Across the cracked leather, she reaches for his hand.
---
Don becomes a Jets fan during the summer.
He’s never cared much about football one way or the other, but he sure as hell gets invested when Sloan starts dating the Giant’s new tight end.
He considers asking Will to teach him about sports, but it’s bad enough that Mac knows how he feels. He doesn’t think he can handle the ribbing from both of them.
He spends an embarrassing amount of time googling the guy and being jealous of his abs. He follows that humiliation with a set of crunches, and his reward are sore stomach muscles that make it hurt to laugh or cry or do any of the things he enjoys. It makes him hate the guy even more.
He passes a new Cross-Fit on Broadway and contemplates joining, but then he remembers the hours he works and the life he lives and, yeah, not going to happen.
Instead, he goes home and sinks into his couch and tries to catch up on “Breaking Bad.”
Mostly he remembers how he twisted himself into knots for Maggie, how hard he worked to make himself into someone he wasn’t.
He’ll never forget how that turned out.
---
There’s a moment during Genoa.
They’re exhausted and running on fumes and they’re heading out to Gregory’s because they have to get out of the building, even if it’s only a ten-minute coffee break.
Don orders their drinks and they topple into a booth. It’s 8:30am and the morning crowd rushes in so there’s a wait. Sloan is pressed up against his left side but he’s too tired to care, especially since he’s not sure either of them has showered in 48 hours.
Don watches the suits get their lattes, watches the world keep turning even though his is on the verge of collapsing. It never ceases to amaze him.
He wraps an arm around Sloan’s shoulders, just to prop her up, and she surprises him by resting her head against his chest, soft hair tickling his skin through the open collar of his shirt. She closes her eyes and breathes in deep, breathes him in, and presses her hand against his heart.
“Lub-dub, lub-dub,” she whispers under her breath, curls into him and drops her free hand to rest on his forearm.
It’s only two blocks south, but ACN feels a million miles away. He closes his eyes and it’s just the two of them, the even rhythm of his heart. There’s no Genoa, no Stamtonovich, and definitely no Jerry Dantana. Her hair is vaguely greasy and he’s pretty sure they both smell, but when he breathes in deep it’s just her.
He asks her about it later, after the barista calls his name and they snap apart and trek back into the mess of their own making. “You okay, Sloan?” he asks, leans back against the elevator wall and hopes he won’t collapse. “Thought I lost you for a moment back there.”
She smiles but looks at the floor, runs a finger around the rim of her lid. “I…” she starts, looks up with her eyes bright, but exposed. “Just for a moment, I needed something real.”
She turns back to her coffee and he closes his eyes for the last ten floors. The only sound is the steady beat of their hearts.
---
Don knows he should tell Sloan the truth about the book.
Not knowing is making her act insane and talk like a cheesy movie villain. Plus, it means Neal might actually be able to do his job, which means Mac will stop ranting about Cambridge v. Oxford.
So yeah, he knows he should tell her about the book.
Except he really likes that crazy look she gets in her eyes and how her cheeks flush and her breathing gets all erratic and…yeah…
He’s not going to tell her about the book.
---
Three things go through Don’s head when Sloan kisses him:
- he’s kissing Sloan. He, Don Keefer, is kissing Sloan.
- he, Don Keefer, is kissing Sloan and other people can see it happening.
- those late nights he spent with his hand wrapped around his cock and her name on his lips seem a lot less sleazy.
---
There’s nothing glamorous about their first date.
It’s close to 3:00 am when they finally break for the night and Sloan’s eyelids are well past drooping.
Still, she doesn’t protest when she’s stuck waiting an extra ten minutes in the lobby because Elliot can’t read social cues, or his idea of fine dining turns out to be a 24-hour dinner on 34th street.
She gamely picks up her sticky menu and flips through the laminated pages. “I’m starving,” she says, lingers over the specials. She doesn’t look at him, seems to forget how only a few hours earlier, she stormed into the control room and pushed a book into his chest and kissed him so hard that she stole his breath.
He nudges her foot under the table. “Thanks for going out with me.”
Finally, he gets her attention and she glances at him. “Is that what this is?”
“Sloan,” he says softly. “I’m asking you out.”
Across the table, she hides her smile behind the menu. He takes it as a yes.
---
Charlie marches them up to HR the following morning.
“I have another one for you!” he announces, presses a hand into each of their backs, and shoves them through the door.
Janie Kim glares at them and mumbles something about transferring to the DC bureau.
---
They have a thing.
They don’t interact much at work outside actual work, so they have a thing.
He sees her or she sees him and their eyes will lock and they’ll smile, just a quick quirk of their lips.
It makes his chest tight every single time.
---
Will sidles up to him at the holiday party, takes a sip of his scotch and crosses his legs.
He turns his attention to Mac, who’s talking to Sloan, where Don’s attention is already focused. He’s been waiting for this conversation for the past six weeks; it’s what big brothers do.
Will doesn’t say anything for a while and Don watches Mac’s enormous ring catch the light. A year ago, the ring in his pocket wasn’t nearly so large, but all it ever did was weigh him down.
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Will finally says.
“What does?” Don asks, takes a pull from his beer.
“Getting it right.”
He pats Don’s knee and picks up his fiancée, slides an arm around her waist and steers her towards the makeshift dance floor. It’s a side of Will that he’s never seen before, but it still feels authentic, real.
There’s no shame in an honest change.
---
Their relationship moves slower than he’d expected. They’ve both been engaged; no one’s a virgin here.
He’d slept with Maggie on the first date, because she claimed to love sex and pointed out that they were already friends, but he knows it was really because he wanted to see her naked.
He wants to see Sloan naked too, but he’s been there and done that, a choice that feels less like a missed opportunity and more like the best decision he’s ever made.
He wants more than to see Sloan naked. He wants to see inside her first.
---
Scott’s ghost lingers.
She doesn’t talk about it, but he can tell in the way her eyes take on a different kind of fire every time she has to discuss arbitrage on the air.
They’re naked in her bed when they can’t avoid it any longer, especially when Sloan’s hands shake as she unwraps the condom.
“Hey, hey,” he says, taking the foil packet from her. “We don’t have to do anything.” Which is the last thing he ever thought he’d be saying, but it’s the truth. He wants to have sex with her, wants it more than most things, but he doesn’t need it. Not like this.
She whips her head around, eyes wide and vulnerable. “I want to be on top,” she says and pushes him onto his back, slides her thighs over his hips as she bends to kiss him.
He can’t really complain. She slides over him and she’s hot and wet and he loves the way her breasts bounce with each shift of her hips. He can’t believe he ever thought she was anything less than perfect.
He likes the small moans she makes and the glisten of sweat on her flat stomach and the way her nails dig into his shoulders as she moves.
He likes every part of it.
Especially when her movements get all erratic and she pulls him up so her breasts are pressed hard against his chest and her arms are wrapped around his neck and he’s looking right in her eyes when she comes.
Later, he’ll hold her tight against his heart. When he runs his fingers through her hair, brushes it back from her cheeks, it’s his hands that are shaking.
---
Maggie’s hair is still short but at least a normal color when she decides to weigh in.
She’s not as mean either, less brittle. She reminds him a bit of the girl he thought he could marry.
They’re working late together, rushing a piece on the inauguration, and it’s light and easy, the way it never was at the best of times. There’s no pressure to be the good guy; he can just be him.
Sloan texts to ask what he wants for breakfast, and when he slips his phone back in his pocket, Maggie’s watching him.
“I get it,” she says, her gaze more focused than it’s been in a year.
“She’s at the top of her game. Of course Beyonce’s gonna serenade the president.”
Maggie throws a pen at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Maggie,” he starts because he owes her this much. She was the one who cheated, but honesty was never his strong suit.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she says, blinks to hold back the sheen of tears. “The way you look at her…I don’t know why I ever thought it would work with me.”
She turns back to her laptop but he has trouble concentrating. All those months they were supposed to be in love, and now she’s able to see him clearly. It still amazes him, how long it took him to wake up.
When he gets home it’s almost dawn and Sloan is asleep, fuzzy, early morning light falling across her face.
He drinks her in, the slim, sleek length of her leg and the dark hair falling across the pillow, but mostly her arm splayed across the bed and reaching for him.
He thinks he could keep looking at her for the rest of his life.
---
Valentine’s Day falls on a Thursday in 2013 and Don has big plans.
Last year it was the Four Seasons, bubble bath and champagne and all the trappings of romance done right. Last year was what he thought he should be doing. Last year was all about being what he thought Maggie wanted. Last year was nothing about being who he actually was.
This year there are flowers, because he’s not a complete idiot, but dinner is takeout from Coppola’s and the entertainment is “The Sweet Smell of Success” on his flatscreen.
Sloan shows up in a tight red dress, but quickly exchanges it for his J-School hoodie and boxers. She pads through his kitchen in slouchy socks, opens the wine while he sets out the food. It’s quiet and domestic and doesn’t make him panic nearly as much as he thought it would. It doesn’t make him panic at all.
“I got you something,” he says after they’ve both made fools of themselves slurping up fettuccine and washing it down with Pinot Noir. Her eyes light up and she giggles, one step away from clapping her hands in delight, as he drops a box into her lap. Her forehead knots for a moment, but then she laughs, tears pooling in her eyes as she takes in the framed Amazon review. “I’m not the only one to buy your book.”
She kisses him, gentle and then hard, so he can taste the wine on her breath. “I got you something too.”
Her present is soft and blue, an enormous Giants logo splashed across the front of the jersey. “In case you forgot, tennis is my sport,” he reminds her, but she only curls into his side and rests her head on his shoulder.
“Turn it over.”
The name reads “Keefer” and then, where the number should be, it says “Good Guy”.
“Sometimes I get it right,” she says softly.
He leans in and kisses her, thinks about the person he tried to be a year ago and the person he actually is today. “Yeah,” he says. “Sometimes you really do.”
~ * ~
Writers live for feedback - please leave some if you have the time.