It's like they're dancing, slipping gracefully past each other in a seamless rhythm that quickens Elliot's pulse and makes him feel centered, rooted to the ground everywhere the soles of his shoes touch.
The man before him is nothing like the sorry mess he found soaking in Jack Daniels in a paper-strewn apartment. He's sharp, alert, powerful. He tugs at something in Elliot's gut, some unexplored, long-buried urge that he doesn't have time to examine right now. Later, he tells himself. When this is all over, when we've got our guy.
There are families to make this up to, victims to give justice. His own small crisis can wait until they're taken care of.
That crisis reaches its zenith on a rooftop in Manhattan just a few days later. He feels his heart pumping in his throat, hears the rush of all that blood in his ears. He sees Hawkins standing on the edge, about to make such a huge mistake, and he's talked too many people off of ledges this week. He's not sure he can stop the man from what he's about to do, and the worst part is that he completely understands where Hawkins is coming from. Arther Blessert doesn't deserve to live. He's a monster, a killer. He hurts women for fun. He'll do it again, too, if they don't manage to convict him or he weasels his way out of prison someday. Elliot thinks of that little girl in the court room, the way she looked at him, how scared she was. He thinks of twelve jurors sending her grandfather back into the free world to hurt her again. He swallows, and repeats the words Hawk said back to him.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
There's a pause, and Elliot knows what's going to happen before it does, but then Hawk surprises him.
"You gonna make an old drunk do all the work?"
He lets out a long-held breath and starts forward on shaky legs to help Hawkins pull Blessert back onto the roof.
As the wagon is pulling away with their collar stuffed in the back seat, Elliot turns and gives himself just a moment to admire the way the late afternoon glow filters down through the buildings to light on Hawk's face, like the light of redemption. Elliot claps him on the back, leans in close.
"I knew you'd turn out to be the man I thought you were," he says quietly, before pulling away and turning, loping over to join Olivia and Munch, leaving Hawkins to stare after him, face drawn in lines of deep thought but eyes clear and peaceful for the first time in years.
Author's Note: This was inspired by the season 3 episode "Redemption." I'd seen it before, but when I was marathoning the series from the start, something about the way Stabler and Hawkins worked with one another made my slash alert go off. Not that this was that slashy. But still. It was incredibly weird writing for this particular show and I'm not sure I'll ever do it again, but it was kinda fun, too.