Chapter Text
The first time Don Keefer tells Sloan Sabbith he loves her they're standing in a line at SFO after taking a long weekend to go to Sloan's parents' 40th anniversary party.
"Your family's nice."
"Well most of them, there's a few mad aunties here and there and no one talks to Steven anymore, because of that one time... Wait I probably shouldn't tell you about that yet."
"What could Steven have done?"
"It wasn't entirely Steven."
"You sent Steven into exile?"
"It wasn't entirely me, Harper's at least 27% responsible."
"How did you get to 27?"
"It's a rough guess." She says as the queue slowly moves forward and she puts her stuff in trays and gets ready to go through security.
"So what did you do to Steven?" He asks her once they get through security.
"Don I really like you- "
"Well that's good news considering I flew across the country to meet your parents."
"And I don't want you to think anything less of me. So I'd really rather not tell you what happened to Steven."
"Sloan unless you killed the guy, I'm pretty sure it's not going to make me love you any less."
"Ok." She says hanging on to his last words letting a pregnant silence hang between them. "I'm not going to let that make me tell you what happened to Steven, I'm not falling for that trick, Keefer."
"Wait, you thought that was a trick?" He asks offended.
"Most people don't confess their love for someone just to find out what happened to their cousin. And if they do they definitely don't do it in the same sentence."
"Ok I'll give you that. But I do mean it."
"I know." She smiles walking off towards the gate.
-
The next time the 'L' word is brought up is a month later on a rainy Sunday morning.
"Remember last week when you agreed to dog sit Elliot's dog?" Sloan asks.
"Yeah, I also remember it was your idea." Don says rolling over and pulling the duvet up to his chin.
"Strangely I don't remember that."
"Really?" He asks. "I seem to remember it was a follow up to a conversation where the word 'hypothetical' was used in every other sentence and and words like 'future' and 'moving in together' were also thrown around." He says referencing a conversation they had a few weeks ago, where they managed to have an actual adult conversation about where they were heading. A week later when Elliot was asking around for someone to dog sit, they had both agreed that if would be a good trial run for when they eventually hypothetically moved in together and got a real life, not hypothetical dog.
"Ok, I may remember that. But technically this is your apartment and for all legal reasons you are the assigned dog sitter."
"What legal reasons would that be?"
"I don't know, if he bites someone."
"I don't see that 100 pound ball of fur biting anything in the immediate future."
"Anyway, someone needs to walk that 100 pound ball of fur."
"And that someone could be the person who agreed to look after it."
"Don't call him an it." Sloan says slightly insulted. "If you loved me, you'd walk him." She says not really paying much attention to her word choice.
"Ok then." He says hopping out of bed. He's not going to fail that test again.
"What?"
"I'm not failing that test again." He says getting ready.
"What test?"
"The I-love-you test."
"That wasn't a test, just a bad choice of words." She says sitting up.
"No, no. You don't get to do that."
"What?"
"Discount the test just because I nailed it."
"It wasn't a test."
"Sure it wasn't."
"It really wasn't."
"You're just upset because I'm one up on you now." He says putting on one of the plaid shirts that she let him keep.
"You are not, it wasn't a test."
"Yes it was, professor." He calls as he walks out of the bedroom.