Work Text:
“So, Neal’s in the wind.” Sloan whispers as she slips inside his office, trying to shut the door without making any sound that might alert a passing FBI agent.
This is surreal.
She risks a glance at him, but Don has barely reacted to her stealthy entrance.
“Hypothetically,” he says, not looking at her. “If he did commit some kind of crime, and hypothetically assuming he and all his bosses have spent the entire day trying and failing to fix it, then it is possible that one of said bosses, if they happened to be an individual with misplaced daddy issues, a hero complex and a law degree, might have made a pompous, self-righteous-ass decision to take matters into his hands. He might then – hypothetically – have taken responsibility for both the source and the felony-committing journalist.
If all of that was true, then yeah, you would be right, and Neal Sampat would currently be doing his best ‘Great Escape’ impression for the benefit of the United States Government.”
This speech is delivered in Don’s softest, driest, most quietly furious tone. He continues to focus intently on whatever he’s reading off his desktop computer. If this really was a hypothetical situation, Sloan might even laugh.
Instead, she keeps her arms crossed tightly over her chest and perches on the edge of his desk, peering down at the monitor.
“Is googling ‘best brunch buffets near Wall Street’ really the best use of your time right now?”
“I’m coping, Sloan. I am coping with the un-cope-able. And you ate all the damn waffles this morning.”
“Do you have any idea how many crab claws you ate, because it was the equivalent of like, three Sebastians from Little Mermaid!”
“Lobster,” Don replies immediately. Sloan scrunches up her nose.
“No, they were definitely crab, nobody eats lobster at brunch –”
“No – Sebastian, he was a lobster, not a crab.”
“What? Sebastian was absolutely a crab.” Of this she is certain – why would he be a lobster when the whole point of him was that he was grumpy: ergo, crabby. A visual pun – even more obnoxious than a verbal one.
It is entirely possible that she is hyper-focusing on the inane.
“It’s funny, the things people try to control when they think they’re not in control.”
“He was a Haitian crab!”
“He was a Jamaican lobster – have you even seen?! – you know what?” Don lifts his head, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “This is not important at all."
Sloan frowns; he’s finally looking at her, but she is finding his stupid hangdog face annoying and wants to hit it as much she did what was probably only a few hours ago but feels like years.
“I don’t like this feeling, Don,” she says firmly, glaring at him. He cracks an exhausted but characteristically smartass grin in response.
“Which one, honey? The might-get-arrested one, the worried-about-your-friends-and-colleagues one, or the my-knowledge-of-classic-Disney-films-is-seriously-suspect one?”
“The I-don’t-like-it-when-my-boyfriend-calls-me-honey one,” she snaps, and regrets it instantly. She sees it register on Don’s face, that funny fish eye he gives her when he’s surprised.
“Your boyfriend?” he echoes, recovering and arching a brow. And now she’s frustrated, because she can tell when he’s being flip to cover shit and she really doesn’t want to get into this conversation after the fucking day they’ve had.
“They’re just words, Don,” she says, clutching her arms tighter. “Boyfriend, girlfriend, couple – they’re just words that magazines tell people they’re supposed to use for no real reason when it’s totally clear what –” She doesn’t notice herself building up steam until Don cuts her off by throwing his hands up in surrender.
“Alright, alright,” he concedes. “I knew what you meant, anyways. You don’t like feeling powerless. Neither do I. Does anyone?”
“Do you ever think News Night’s made you soft?” Sloan asks, scooching backwards on the desk until her hip brushes against his elbow where it rests along side his keyboard. She can feel his eyes, now level with the curve of her waist, skating over the rest of her body.
“Sloan, who do you think you’re talking to right now?”
“Touché.” She pauses. “You know, two years ago or whenever it was? When Will was in the hospital, after the Greater Fool article, and I got that job offer? I would have left, back then. I was ready to leave.”
Don studies her. He looks at her differently than most people. It’s disconcerting, inscrutable. She doesn't quite know how to take it. She half expects him to say something glib, ask playfully if he’s the reason she stayed. He isn’t – not mostly. Mostly she stayed… well, because she stayed. Sloan is not practiced in the art of self-examination. When it comes to her emotions, she usually feels like more of an observer than a participant.
This is worry, Sloan. Do you feel that pounding in your temples? And this is fear, the ice trickling down your arms. This is hurt. This is care. This is shame.
That’s a new one, that ache in your stomach when he says your name. We haven’t labeled it yet. Unprecedented. Data remains stubbornly inconclusive.
“And now?” Don seems to have resisted the temptation to be himself and is taking this seriously. “Now you’d stay?”
She sighs. “Now I’d stay.”
“Yeah. Fuck me. I’ve gone fucking soft.”
“Probably means we should bail, right? I mean when you’re in deep enough to stop thinking rationally about it that’s when you should get the hell out of dodge, right?” She hears her voice going a little pitchy, speeding up again. Don notices, too, because he leans back in his chair, smiling up at her gently. He reaches over to rest one hand on her knee, begins to draw lazy circles along her thigh, drifting dangerously northwards.
Sloan tenses; his fingertips trail lovely warmth through her leg. She glances crossly out at the newsroom, fuzzily visible through the glass partition. Not very many agents remain, but they catch the eye with their bright, emblazoned regulation jackets. Even fewer staff members are still hanging out, clustered in corners and trying to ignore the techs. The novelty of the G-Men having worn off, finally, round about the fourth hour of watching their workplace methodically vivisected. God, it’s getting late. She’s so tired, and her neck is sore…
Still.
“Don, do you know how much harder it would be for you to google brunch buffets if I snapped all the fingers off that hand?” He snorts.
“Relax,” he says, not moving his hand but thankfully not venturing any further. “I’ve never actually been into exhibitionism.”
Sloan lets her shoulders drop a little. Her position right now allows her a perfect view of the top of his head. She could get revenge, twine her fingers into his hair and tug, because she knows what that does to him. But she keeps her hands to herself. Tomorrow, maybe, or the next day, or the day after whenever they all manage to get a good night’s sleep, she will let him goad her into teasing him back. And they’ll have one of those evenings where they both leave work breathless, muttering excuses (no, we’re just sharing a cab, his/her neighborhood is right on the way to mine, y’know these fares keep going up -)
But not tonight.
Tonight Neal is missing, Randy and Blair are about to pounce, and it’s entirely possible that every single member of the senior staff has committed at least one felony. Depending, of course, on whether or not two of those staff members could be considered a ‘couple.’
The conundrum of ‘labeling’ her relationships has never been quite so literal.
“Do you really think,” Don asks, “that the smart thing to do would be leave? Where else would we go, anyway? It’s not like any of us got out of Genoa with spotless reputations.”
“I think,” she answers, “and I’m not saying that this is what I’m going to do, but honestly I think the risks of staying at the moment outweigh the risks of leaving. If this whole Neal thing wasn’t happening right after Genoa, if the twins’ birthday wasn’t coming up, if we hadn’t accidentally become white collar criminals… Then yeah, maybe you’d be right, the best decision would be to stick with the devil we know rather than trying to start from scratch.”
“There were a lot of ‘ifs’ in what you just said.” That’s when she finally swats his hand away.
“I know,” she grumbles. “Look, if I’m on TV, doing my market round-up, I’m telling people not to invest in ACN. It’s too risky. Too many variables.”
“Too many variables,” Don repeats, significantly. Too significantly. She furrows her brow.
“So what you’re saying is, hypothetically, if all those variables went away, you’d wholeheartedly invest in ACN.”
“Yes. Probably. Maybe. But – that’s not the point – quit talking in hypotheticals!”
“Ok,” Don says, laughter creeping into his voice. “Fine. But in the real world, there are always variables, right? No investment is without risk.”
“Yeah, but you can make sure that the benefits outweigh the risks, or that your relative risk is lower. In this case – in ACN’s case – it wouldn’t be. Not for the guy on the street.”
“But you’re not the guy on the street. You’re you.” He says fondly. “And you’re still here. At ACN. Even with the variables.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Why?”
“Well I have something else on the table.”
“And what’s that?” She looks at him, surprised that he doesn’t already know.
“Heart.”
Don swallows, heavily, and she can’t seem to help but stare at the movement of his Adam’s apple.
“Ah.”
Sloan picks at the sleeve of her jacket, and neither of them say anything for a minute.
“It’s like I said,” she goes on, eventually. “ACN’s made me soft. I can’t make the rational decision anymore. I can’t sell my stupid stock because now I’m invested. Emotionally invested.” She looks back out towards the studio, and spots Mac’s brunette head bent in conference with Jenna’s pony-tailed blonde one. “It’s better to stay distant. It’s safer. That way you don’t lose too much if everything falls to shit, if you get abandoned – by the company. If the company abandons its stockholders.”
In her head, Sloan rolls back the tape. What were they talking about? Is she making any sense? This is economics. So why does she feel so confused?
Words. Words. Words never do anything but let her down.
“Right,” Don replies carefully. “Because – companies – dumping their stockholders – that happens. A lot. It sucks.”
Economics, Sloan. Economics.
“That’s why you gotta go for the mutual funds, man,” she says, trying for a bright tone. She even throws a pally punch into Don’s shoulder. He gapes at her for a second.
“Wait, mutual – what? Sorry, what’s happening with the mutual funds?” He splutters.
“Middlemen, you know? Distance. And they do all the work for you.”
"Oh, yeah. Middlemen. Got it.”
She really doesn’t know what his deal is.
“Hey, pass me some post-its, would you?” Don says suddenly, reaching behind her to grab a pen off his desk. She has to contort herself slightly to get at the drawer with the post-its, but she manages. “Thanks.”
He taps the pen against his lips a few times, then scribbles something too quickly for her to see, peels the note off the pad, and hides it in his palm.
“What are you writing?” she asks suspiciously.
“Takeout numbers. When was the last time anyone in this office ate anything?”
“Can you not think about food for like ten seconds?”
“You want Chinese or Thai?”
“… Thai. Just get me something covered in peanut sauce.”
“Your metabolism is absurd.” She expects him to get up then, and go find some underling to collect dinner orders, but he doesn’t. He turns back to the computer, clicking idly. Sloan peeks again, and this time he’s opened his email – it hasn’t updated, nobody’s has. He closes it when he realizes she’s watching and shoots her a smirk.
“I was never any good at investing, Sloan,” he says. “Not until I started following your lead.”
Sloan has never been so interested in the distressing patterns on her jeans. They receive the full bore of her gaze and she is not even at all aware that Don is staring at her again in the stupid way that he does, like she is an obscure and beautiful work of art, puzzling and fascinating. There are too many things in that look that he gives her.
But Sloan, of course, does not feel his look like a thousand tiny pinpricks on the back of her neck. She could be anywhere in the world right now. Just her and her jeans. No Don. No relationship. No ACN.
“So if you’re still gonna invest in ACN, variables and all, then so am I.”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore,” she says cautiously. He rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, you do.”
Don’s phone buzzes, and it makes both of them jump. He seizes it, scans the screen.
“Shit, I have to take this.” He stands, and reaches for her hand.
“Here,” he says, pressing the post-it he’s been crumpling in his hand into her palm. “Find some intern to take care of this, would you?”
He hangs on her fingertips a beat longer than strictly necessary, and then he’s out the door, barking “Don Keefer, who am I speaking to?” into his phone and marching in the direction of Will’s office.
Sloan looks at the post-it, and feels her throat catch. There is a number for a Thai place on here. But it isn’t the fact that he already knew which takeout she was going to pick that gets to her.
Beneath the number, in decisively bold print, he’s written,
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She remembers watching him walk away from her this morning, mid-argument, and the panic that bubbled up behind her anger, the goddamnit, Sloan, you did it again –
And he’d just been hailing a cab.
(This is your brain, Sloan. Chemicals reacting to environmental stimuli, making you think funny things about his smile, his cologne, and that awful plaid shirt he was wearing when you first met him. Nerves and synapses, making you wonder how you haven’t scared him off yet, even with your impromptu confessions and your awkward prevaricating and the way you manage to be both too-much and not-enough at the same time.
This is your heart, Sloan. A bundle of muscle and blood and electricity without consciousness that, despite all evidence to the contrary, is not going to beat straight out of your chest.
This isn’t love, Sloan. Not yet.
But it’s… Well, it’s something.)