Title: i find shelter
Pair: Elliot/Olivia.
Words: 1,525.
Summary: On borrowed clothes and buried feelings.
Notes: [1] written for the tumblr prompt: "you're trembling." [2] i'm taking prompts to try and get out of this weird writer's block i've had for a while, and am focused more on just writing than i am creating masterpieces, so please don't give this too much thought. it's only meant to be something short and soft. [3] there's only very lightly implied sexual content. it's rated m just to be safe.
It's a ridiculous thing, really. Starts in the dead of winter, when they're working a case. Their target's your average pervert, and Olivia hates that there's such a thing as your average pervert, but orders are orders, and so here they are. Standing half hidden on the edge of an alleyway, the both of them frozen half to death as Manhattan freezes over.
Elliot leans against the brick wall behind them, shoulders hunched around his ears and his arms crossed against his torso. His jaw is clenched: smooth shaven, his chin tucked in the fabric of his scarf—Olivia's scarf, really. Stolen so long ago she considers it his. His cheeks are tinted pink, his eyes squinting against the wind, his whole body shivering lightly as the snow falls around them.
Olivia smirks, a quick little tilt of her mouth. Says, "You're trembling," like it isn't something obvious. Like he doesn't know that. Doesn't feel it.
Elliot flicks his gaze toward her, almost a glare but not. "Sherlock," he says, and Olivia wonders if he'd forgotten the no shit that should come before it or if he just doesn't care. He shouldn't—it doesn't matter. She knows what he means. She always knows what he means.
Olivia smiles now: bright and beautiful. Too bright, really. The situation barely calls for it, but still. It pulls at her lips with a stubbornness she's not bothered to fight, and she watches him for a moment more before her eyes finally roll, a gentle, amused laugh bubbling in her chest.
"Here," she says. Fingers reach for her zipper, the material of her parka shifting beneath the touch. Elliot looks at her, eyebrows rising up beneath his beanie, and Olivia knows there's already a half-formed protest on his tongue, but she ignores it. Waves it away as she pulls the material from her body and steps closer. Reaches out to drape the jacket around Elliot's shoulders, her hand lingering on his arm for a moment longer than it should.
Elliot fidgets for a moment. Fiddles with the fabric to get more comfortable, and the sight makes Olivia want to laugh again. The parka doesn't fit—Elliot's shoulders are too broad, his body too big. Her jacket pulls tight across his back, the material stretching like it could rip, the ends of it flaring out at the sides, and, well. Cute has never been something Olivia associates with her partner, but right now, there's little else that comes to mind. It sits there, at the back of her throat, and she can't help but think it's oddly, strangely intimate. That the whole thing is.
Elliot looks up, then, and Olivia wonders if he feels as ridiculous as he looks. Thinks, he has to. But he wears it almost like a uniform; doesn't let it compromise the formidable aspect to his appearance, and Olivia has to give him props for that. Thinks there's not many people who could pull it off.
He stands there. Eyes her. Takes in the light grey hoodie that's hanging off her, more than a few sizes too big, the zipper pulled right to the top and a dark scarf tucked neatly underneath the collar. Olivia sees his eyes light up—recognition, she thinks. Maybe something mischievous.
"That hoodie's mine," is what he says, and she grins, and she doesn't care that the chill is hitting her harder, now, that it seeps through what layers remain and settles into her skin, like it wants to sink deep into her bones. She's always been warm blooded. Elliot, not so much.
"And that scarf's mine," she responds, and it could mean you're welcome, but it could mean a million other things, too. Knowing them, it's probably something in between.
When their guy finally shows, she's the one who has to chase him.
[]
Maybe it doesn't start in the dead of winter. Maybe it starts years prior, as winter moves to spring, as a jacket gets left on the surface of her kitchen counter, as she slips it on after a moment of hesitation, as she allows herself a moment of self-indulgence—or a moment of weakness, depending on how you look at it.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
[]
They get their guy—they usually do. He crumbles under Elliot's anger, and Olivia is thankful for it. She likes the easy ones. Likes knowing she'll go home and sleep tonight.
Elliot hands her back her parka as they prep to leave for the day, the fabric folded twice over, and Olivia takes it. Smiles when he says thank you, as if to say it's nothing. Don't worry about it.
She puts it back on as she leaves the building, the thick material a shelter from the night-time chill, and when she inhales, the smell of Elliot lingers: traces of cologne, faint but distinct, like he'd only worn her jacket long enough for the smell to take a weak hold.
It's comforting in ways Olivia doesn't want to think about, but as she steps out onto the street and starts in the direction of her apartment, she takes a long, deep breath. Lets the familiar scent invade her senses.
A smile tugs at her mouth again: something gentle, this time. Something softer. She tucks her chin against her chest and hides it in the curve of her collar; as if by doing so will whisk it out of existence.
(It doesn't.)
[]
Sometimes she hates it, the way Elliot can make her feel like she's sixteen again: love sick and starry-eyed.
Sometimes it's her only reminder that there's still good in this world.
[]
He takes the parka back only a week later.
Another stakeout, in the Sedan this time. Small blessings, Olivia thinks, but then their heater stops working and the guy never shows; leaves them to sit in the car for four, five hours before they're forced to call it quits.
Elliot lounges in the driver's seat at first, hands curled around a hot cup of coffee, the steam only visible when light filters through the windshield, casts the otherwise dark car in a gentle glow. But then the coffee disappears, the warmth with it, and he's reaching behind her for the jacket. Pulling it off the back of her seat without permission and throwing it over himself like a makeshift blanket, his arms curled around his body and his chin tucked against his chest.
Olivia watches from the corner of her eye. "Now you're just a thief," she says, and he laughs: soft and airy, his mouth stretched in a grin that's grown increasingly uncommon over the years, and suddenly she isn't cold at all.
"Yeah?" Elliot says. He's still looking straight ahead, his gaze fixed somewhere across the street, where their guy's supposed to show. "Arrest me."
He'd sound dead serious if not for the playful tilt to it, the subtle hint of something teasing. Olivia shakes her head. Tries not to think of her body pressed to Elliot's as she cuffs him; of the images that come after that.
"I'll get you back," is what she tells him, a promise.
His only response is a disbelieving hum.
[]
Sometimes she wonders how long they can keep the act up. How long they can pretend.
Lately, she's felt it slipping away from them.
[]
When he kisses her for the first time, it's his scarf—her scarf—that pulls her to him.
It starts out innocent enough. Elliot wraps the fabric around her neck, says, "You can have it back," like it's some sort of surrender, and Olivia smiles. Looks up at him from where she stands in the doorway to her apartment, her eyes meeting his while his hands are still twisted in the scarf. Holding her there. Keeping her close.
And so the cliché goes: slowly, all at once.
There's an impossibly long moment where all they do is stare, but then Elliot is tugging her forward, is leaning downward, reaching out. His hands are cold but his mouth is warm, sweet and scorching, and Olivia sighs beneath its touch. Curls her hand in the fabric of Elliot's shirt to steady herself.
She wants to blame it on alcohol or no sleep or late hours or something, but it's all futile. There are no excuses. It's just them. Just this.
No hiding, she thinks, and, well.
All or nothing.
[]
Maybe, she thinks. Maybe they never fooled anyone. She stopped fooling herself years ago.
She remembers it, the indisputable realisation. It'd occurred the same night she'd crawled into bed with his hoodie wrapped around her.
[]
Elliot touches her with a gentleness she's always surprised to find him capable of: his actions slow, languid, meaningful. Somehow everything she'd ever dared to imagine and nothing at all like it.
When it's over, when she's sated and showered and he walks out of her bathroom to find her sprawled across her own bed, nothing but his shirt covering the expanse of her skin, Elliot says, "What are you doing?" in a voice that clearly means, I don't care, keep doing it.
Olivia grins, and, God. She's happy. She's so fucking happy.
"Getting you back."
end! if you liked it, please drop a line, and if you have any prompts you'd like to send me, you can find me at elliot-olivia over on tumblr.