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More of the same, one of those things she doesn't foresee ever coming to a halt. She'd chalk it up to what her life has become, but she's not quite ready to throw in the towel on that just yet.
Her clothes fit the same as they always have but she finds patches that are threadbare and tries to remember when she put the effort into worrying them. Countless cases, how many times had she had to run here or there in heels she knew she shouldn't have worn on the job in the first place? It's all careless and calculated and there's a supposition that nothing she does really matters and how sad is that.
It's sad.
How many articles stained with the youngs' blood, the innocents'.
No, she chalks all of this up to Olivia Benson, NYPD, open the door.
----
Seasons aren't lost on her; if they were, March wouldn't have brought some sort of depression, but it's all the same in her bones and what does it matter? There are shoes that are ruined because of the damned salt and she has to take the sedan to the wash four or five times before she feels confident returning it to the squad.
Elliot buys new sunglasses and claims them for Spring, and she shrugs and wonders why actually she segments their lives into solstice. The years, and the anniversaries and why, again, does she bother marking them.
Her life peters on instead of out. There are three men, all some variation of Daniel. There's the real one, the Danny and the Dan. She sleeps with one of them, but she doesn't remember which. What she does remember is that it was good, so good that she finds herself pondering it during quiet times.
She doesn't think about what fucking Elliot would be like because it would get her literally nowhere. And, well, she knows what fucking him would be like: she would hate herself forever and ever and ever. Or maybe not, and maybe that scares her too.
Either way, she'd feel it underneath her skin for ever and ever and ever. That wouldn't do.
----
It feels the best when they laugh with each other. He cuts her down just right and she's reminded that soul mates do exist and he's hers, and she'll take him in whatever way she can get him. They both carry the badge, and they order the same beer afterward. There's static moments in the sedan, and times when he drops her off that a goodnight-kiss is all that it would take to carry them up the three flights to her apartment.
It would be complicated even if wasn't, and it's not.
It'll just never happen.
----
It happens.
More of the same. A ride uptown and nothing's different but...
They're not drunk and there are no stunning declarations of anything. He's not divorced and she doesn't feel particularly lonely. Sometimes things just happen when they happen and there's nothing behind them. Nothing that anyone can define.
It begins with a smile he gives her. Something indulgent, positively full of mirth that she wants to feel it. The sun is up and it's the middle of the afternoon in Harlem and though she's thought about this moment a million times before, and nine-hundred, ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times are in the car (she doesn't know why) it actually doesn't happen that way.
The street is dead, save for the Megabus that has screeched by twice during the half hour they were out informing the family that the perp is in custody. It's a brownstone and she can see such potential in the building, in the people who live there, in the area. She sees it all in herself and him and can't stop seeing it. And he takes a deep breath and smiles at her and she smiles back as though to say, "Yeah, yeah, what?"
The hand that curls around her neck, beneath her turtleneck is softer than she'd expect, and their teeth bump but she sighs and sags into him and doesn't think that anyone could be watching.
An hour later, they're in her bed and he's between her legs and she swears to god - doesn't find god - but discovers a new crack in her ceiling.
----
When she wakes, he's in her bed and there's nothing awkward. He makes the coffee and she showers and he irons his shirt and they leave for the office as though this has been going on for years. The sweater she'd thought he'd ripped is folded neatly on a bedside chair; this shocks her more than anything that's happened between them.
There's a pull in her thighs that she hasn't felt in months and it makes her want to weep or scream. Either/or. There's too much walking today, too many people to interview. All she wants is a quiet space to rehash what the fuck was going through her head and how the fuck she could have let that happen.
"Olivia Benson," she says and cringes when the soreness in her back becomes too much. "NYPD. Open the door."
---
Elliot tucks her hair behind her ear and it's not much at all, but too much. "You know, this was bad timing." Like it's his fault when it's no one's fault, when she just wants some kind of footing.
"Yeah, when would have been a better time?" The tone of his voice reminds her why she's not actually pissed about this.
She scoffs and pays for their coffee. "Never?"
He grabs a cup from her, shrugs his shoulders; it's so easy for him, yeah? "Well it wouldah happened some time, so why not now?" Elliot smiles at the barista and tosses a dollar in as a tip. He's walking away and he really is something else. Moments she can't help replaying in her mind and she knew it'd be like this, she just didn't know she'd be able to function to properly in the aftermath. Olivia didn't know she could walk beside him, sign her name on paperwork and pretend that things weren't like they were.
Maybe she wasn't pretending. The not knowing killed her.
"Wouldah happened some time?" she questions, blowing on her coffee like it's talked back.
He walks ahead of her, holds the door open. As she passes it's, "Yeah, cause it's supposed to, s'one of those things."
Maybe it is, too, because her hand is screaming for his as they walk down the avenue.
---
There are songs that slay her soul. Somehow, he manages to find them on her playlist.
They have a jack in the sedan because who doesn't? He has an iPod and so does she, and they take turns with theirs on shuffle. It's her turn and he pressed the 'forward' button until he supposedly randomly stops and some sickening guitar strain fills the car and she rolls her eyes and wants to jam the heel of her hand through her skull.
Why now? she wants to think, picking at something that isn't there on her jeans.
Elliot shifts into drive and she wants to ask why, seventy-five percent of the time he's driving. "You like this song," he tells her, and damn him for knowing that, and how attentive of him, and really, just damn him.
"Hm," it's a hum. It's non-commital.
Elliot glances at her, she feels his hand hovering near her thigh and dares him. "You uh, gonna go see him in concert?" Good for him, listening to the radio, finding that out. A chuckle, maybe, is what he responds with. "I just thought, he's got a nice voice, you listen to him all the time."
"You think I'm fifteen, El?" She chuckles back. It can be the same, she can pretend it's the same. "I'd be the oldest person there."
"Who gives a fuck?" he asks and catches her gaze.
Who gives a fuck, indeed.
"I'm going to kiss you again," he tells her, a reminded, something she was supposed to know already. Catch up, Olivia, catch up.
Elbow on the lip of the door, head in her hand, she quells the smiles that's such a threat, "Oh, I'm sure." I dare you, she wants to say, but there's none of that. Because a response, any, is a dare in itself.
---
They run into each other at Target and it's the funniest thing because she doesn't want him to know that this is where she buys her underwear and why doesn't she want him to know that?
Elliot's dressed for the weekend and holding a container of Tide in one hand and a box of Brita filters in the other. "You stalking me?" he asks and the smile in his voice makes her so glad that it's Saturday. Without asking, he tosses his things in her cart.
And she pushes, she just goes ahead and pushes. "You know I have nothing better to do with my time." Olivia wants to tell him to go away, but she doesn't, wants to ask him to leave her be for a minute so she can grab a few pairs of low-waist briefs, but she doesn't.
"You buy your underwear here?" his voice is as far away as he can make it seem, his eyes drawn to the direction on the side of the filter box. Before she can say yes, he carries on, "Didn't look like Target underwear to me."
Her first instinct is to hit him but she laughs, something throaty and though it's all wrong and their timing couldn't be worst and this is probably just another mark against her morals, she says-
"You know, I'm going to kiss you again.
---
Sidewalk, Flatbush, and he kisses her or she kisses him.
They're so intertwined, the details don't particularly matter.