Title: Alone I Lie.
Pairing: Elliot/Olivia.
Words: 730.
Summary: Veiled conversations.
Notes: A could-be phone call set in episode s07e20 'Fat'. G rated, oneshot.
He contemplates calling for a long time. His phone sits in his hand, his grip loose, gentle. His eyes are open: blank, unblinking, and staring at a crack in the paint on his ceiling. It's barely visible in the half dark of the evening light, the walls of his apartment cast in shadows.
He half hopes Olivia will do it first, that she'll initiate the contact. Call, text, something. He's never liked this part, never been good at it.
She doesn't, though, and eventually he gets tired of waiting. Can't handle the silence. He fumbles, flips his phone open.
Olivia picks up on the third ring. "Benson."
Elliot swallows at the sound of her voice. "Liv."
There's a pause, short enough that he almost misses it. He doesn't, though. The split second of silence louder than anything they've said so far.
"Hey." Her voice is softer this time, the professional edge gone. Elliot listens to the background noise: shuffling feet, the sound of a spoon hitting the sink, a soft sigh as she settles on her couch. "You okay?"
"I—" I don't know, he thinks. His mind is a muddled mess, his emotions all over the place. He has no idea where to start, what to say. He stays quiet, traces the scratch Blaine had left on his chest with an absentminded drag of his hand.
"Yeah," Olivia huffs from the other end. Elliot can picture her, her legs curled up beneath her, a throw pillow on her lap, the humourless curve of her mouth as she talks. "Me too."
Elliot exhales slowly, his eyes fluttering shut. He's in bed, a blanket pulled up to his chest, pooling around his waist. He wants to continue their conversation from before, wants to talk about it, but the words sit clogged in his throat. His jaw locked as if incapable of speaking.
"How's the case?" Olivia tries. Work is easy—or at least it used to be. They should be able to talk about it.
"You know." He drags a hand over his mouth, sinks further into the pillows. "Same old."
Olivia's hum is almost inaudible, but Elliot catches it. He imagines she's disappointed, that she'd expected more. That she'd hoped for it.
After all, he called her.
"And Blaine?"
There's a beat of silence, another that follows. Elliot inhales, exhales, tightens his grip around the cell phone. "He's not you."
The admission is soft, gentle. Elliot listens; listens to Olivia fall silent, to the rhythmic sound of her breathing, the quiet murmur of a TV. A car horn sounds in the distance, gravel crunching as it speeds down the street. It's gone almost as quick as it comes.
"Elliot," Olivia says. Stops. Changes what she'd been about to say. "Why'd you call?"
Another pause, shorter this time. "I don't know," Elliot admits. "I wanted—" To hear your voice, he thinks. To talk to you. Because I miss you. Because everything else is falling apart and I don't want to lose you, too. "'M sorry I walked off."
On the other end, Olivia sighs. It's quiet; tired, rather than annoyed. "It's okay," she murmurs. And it's not, not really. She'd wanted to talk, to finish the conversation they keep starting and failing to complete. But they're good at ignoring the obvious, at half-truths and cover ups, words they can hide behind, play off, pretend they don't mean as much as they do. It's how they are—have been, for years.
"I should go," Elliot says, and it's abrupt. He blurts it, the phone call suddenly too much for him to handle. He lifts the ball of his palm to rub at his eye until the pressure is almost painful, chooses to focus on that instead of the mistake he's about to make.
"Okay," Olivia tells him, and Elliot wishes she'd fight it, but he knows better. He hasn't given her much of a reason to.
"Okay," he repeats. His voice is hoarse, harsh. His finger hovers over the end call button when he hears her speak again.
"El?"
His heart thrums, he can hear it in his ears. "Yeah?"
Olivia sighs into the receiver. "I miss you, too."
Elliot breathes, and it could be a sigh of relief, but it feels an awful lot like panic, too.
The line goes dead before he can say anything.
He knows he'll call again tomorrow.