A/N: This is my first fic ever, so please feel free to leave feedback! I mostly just got tired of waiting for my favorite angsty svu fic (Those Graces by lucyspenser) to update so I decided to write my own... We'll see how it goes. Characters are property of NBC/Dick Wolf. Thanks for reading!

October 2017

You're surprised that anyone is still awake in the apartment. But you hear footsteps coming towards the kitchen, where you're pouring yourself a late night glass of wine. All of the sudden he's there, wrapping his arms around you from behind and pressing his face into your neck.

"Hi." You say with a sigh, leaning into him a little more.

"Thought I'd never see you again."

"Yeah, well. Caught a rough case. Really rough case."

"You okay?"

"I'll be fine."

You were trying to get better at that, at saying you would be fine. It was better than lying, than putting on that mask of quiet understanding that you liked to hide behind. You still had trouble when it came to exactly phrasing your woes and concerns, but gone were the days of your silent scream of an internal monologue - STOP ASKING ME HOW I AM, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO ANSWER.

He kisses the temple of your head, pawing at your hips. You couldn't be less in the mood, but you also know for all the stress your body takes, that's more pent up sexual frustration on his part. I had to wait so long to just touch you, I'm sure you understand it being hard to resist. You did, and there were days that you wished you could merge into one being with him and never think about being by yourself again. His desires came from a place of love, but you needed time, and space, and a fucking shower.

"Babe," You mumble against him. "I'm really tired, I…"

"Shhh, yeah, I know. Just missed you." He gives you one last kiss and then heads back towards the bedroom. You notice your face moving into a dopey smile, almost subconsciously, as you watch him peek into Noah's room before he turns the corner, closing the door slowly so that it doesn't make a sound. He's grown gentler with age (and medication), and it's something you never saw coming. You loved him more than when he used to toss his fists into walls and eye sockets, if that was even possible.

You crawl into bed after another glass of wine and a shower, and your eyes have started stinging so badly that you can't read the digital clock by the nightstand. His arms automatically wrap around you, an instinct learned almost immediately after you two started seeing each other again. He doesn't live with you, still, because you think it's too much and you don't want to mess up the progress you both have made over the last few years by moving too quickly. But it's nice to have him over a few nights a week, even if it's always at your place and he sometimes stays for three or four days in a row.

As he pulls you into him, your mind wanders back to the beginning of the week, when you'd had a frustrating day at work, and the residual stress from Sheila showing up at your door was still getting to you, and your mind had been racing for a while. You were wound up to say the least, and he could tell. He'd absorbed all the tension that you were carrying, until you came home to him standing in the kitchen, fiddling around on his phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Waitin' for you."

That was all it took. His mouth crashed into yours and all of the sudden he had you face down on the couch, with your hands pinned behind your back as he fucked into you over and over. He was straddling your legs so they were close together and, despite any discomfort, it felt like such a release to let someone take over for a few minutes while you regained your composure.

"I'm gonna come inside of you, ok? I'm not pulling out."

"God, I - yeah. Yeah."

You felt him stagger against your back, gripping your wrists a little tighter. It wasn't long after that he flipped you over, his face in your cunt because he knew that you weren't going to come from that alone, and he was all about equitable partner distribution of orgasms. You feel pressure building and then it's a release, the headache you'd had for weeks vanishing, your neck and back setting into their natural positions. There wasn't a knot in your body at this point, and your so satiated and shocked and turned on that you don't notice he's moving back up towards you, his hands moving lower, and lower…

He widens your knee back out and reenters you, and you think that it can't get much more intense than this. Was this how people your age normally had sex? You felt like you were seventeen and horny again, like everything was new. You're sitting against the couch now, so you can move your legs, which automatically widen once he's buried all the way inside of you. He still puts your hands above your head so that you can't stop him from going as hard as he wants. It works out this way, and it always will. He knows that this is all you want, that if it were up to you, you'd never have gentle, generous, loving sex again. It would be hard and fast and it would hurt - that was what made you like it so much.

"Do you like it when I do that, huh? You like feelin' me all the way up inside you like that?"

"I, yeah, I love yo- I, thank you."

You're stammering and babbling on when you come again, which is too much of a shock for your body to process and you're quivering below him as he finishes inside of your for the second time in a night. When he pulls out, he's watching you carefully. You both fall against each other on your couch, and he has both arms wrapped around you, his skin warm as you shudder.

"How was that? What the doctor ordered?"

"Yeah." You look up at him, squinting, then give him a peck on the lips. "Thanks."

He stirs against you now, feeling you shiver because it's a little drafty in your room and you can still feel him inside of you, feeding into your sadistic needs. There's a lot he won't do - you've either already asked or tried to convince him over the course of a night, with the ultimate result always disappointing on your end. But at the end of the night, it's feeling him wrapped around you, feeling safe from everyone else, that counts.

He kisses the back of your neck, and the sensation of his lips on your skin makes your body buzz. He sighs a little and mumbles a goodnight, burying his face in your neck like he always does.

"Night, El."

His tiny snores start not long after you speak, and your lulled to sleep by his easy rhythm. If only it could always be this simple.