A/N: This is my first attempt at "adult content" (more developing in later chapters). Please bear that in mind as you read. I love helpful reviews.
Timeframe: Roughly Season 12-ish, but assumes Elliot and Kathy are divorced
And here, the obligatory disclaimer: these characters are so not mine.
"Resolution"
She wakens slowly. She can't remember the last time it happened so gradually, so calmly. The first thing she's aware of is a lack of pain: her jaw is unclenched, her chest is relaxed, her hips and knees open and comfortable. She credits those last ones to the pillow she has pulled under her left arm and leg. For once, she hasn't simply curled and collapsed into herself on her side. The tension is gone from her body, and all she can think about is how rested she feels for the first time in a very long time, and she wonders if this is how normal people wake up all the time.
Cool air hits her bare back, but she won't open her eyes because she doesn't want to admit that she's awake yet. There's a part of her that criticizes herself for being selfish—for having such a good thing and refusing to give it up—but she just doesn't want to know what time it is or how long (or how short) she's been asleep or if the sun is up or whether she missed a call while she was so deeply asleep. This rest has been long-needed, and she smiles sleepily to herself as she finally concludes, And I deserve it, damnit.
She snuggles closer to the support pillow and damn it smells good. The truth is, she's never been much of a sleeper, and as surprised as she is to be so comfortable in her own bed right now, she's even more surprised to discover how familiar everything feels and smells. She burrows her face into the side of the pillow to inhale its scent as her arm tightens its grip, and suddenly her hips rock once against it as if she wished it were a man. She laughs at herself, though not out loud, and rolls over to change sides, pulling the pillow with her.
Only, the pillow doesn't move.
Finally her eyes flutter open in dozy confusion. She eyes the grey cotton pillowcase suspiciously and watches her own hand as it drags across the surface. Again she tries moving it, and when it doesn't budge a second time, the realizations slam painfully throughout her body as she bolts upright: oh-shit-it's-not-a-pillow-it's-my-partner-holy-shit-I'm-shirtless-am-I-naked-no-thank-god-but-holy-shit-it's-not-a-pillow-holy-shit-it's-not-a-pillow. She clutches the sheet to her chest and faces away from him. There is sunlight peeking under the bottom edge of the heavy curtains on the other side of the room, and the alarm clock reads 7:14. She tries to steady her breathing. So much for slow and stress-less waking.
He watches her. He's been awake for a while, waiting for this inevitable moment when she would wake up and the tenderness of sleep would end. It takes everything he has not to reach out and run his palm along the smooth skin of her back. He would mean it as a comfort, of course, as a reassurance that she was okay, that they were okay, but he knows the gesture would not come across that way. She would consider it an invasion of her privacy, especially given how violently she had startled awake in his arms. Because they don't touch that way. Hell, they don't touch at all. The fact that she rolled onto him during the night—even the fact that she let him stay the night in her bed—was such an intimate experience that he doesn't want to invalidate it by pissing her off right now.
But he's an asshole anyway because he knows how much she must trust him to let him stay, and he can see her vulnerability, and—god damn him—he's hard in spite of it. He tries to rationalize and tell himself that it's a body's natural physiological reaction to someone else's proximity at this hour, but he knows the truth: it's for her. He's hard for her, and he hates himself for it.
Finally he rolls onto his left side, facing her, and speaks. "You okay?" he asks quietly.
"Where's my shirt?" she grits, as if it's his fault it's missing.
"Uh, around five o'clock you sat up, sweating, and uh, you tossed it somewhere," he responds. She can't believe how soft his voice is. He thinks about assuring her that he didn't see anything, which is almost the truth, but then decides it's likely to make her feel even more exposed, so he remains quiet.
She throws herself back down with a sigh, hands still clutching the sheet, relieved to have some of the pieces filled in. "Guess I'm not used to sharing a bed," she snorts wryly.
"You, uh, want me to find it? Or get you another one?" he offers tentatively, hoping against hope that she'll say no for some reason—because if he gets out of bed right now, if she catches sight of him in profile, she'll know.
She sighs up to the ceiling again. "What's the point now?" she wonders aloud and he breathes a little easier. "All I really want to do is go back to sleep and forget I just woke up."
He chuckles but won't confess how glad he is that she had finally gotten some decent rest—and that she wanted more of it. "Well, we've got until two at least," he says, closing his eyes as he finds a comfortable position on his left side.
She smiles next to him, and this is not at all anything they're used to, but it's surprisingly easy, and she loves that he's still here. She loves that he said "we" as if it were any other morning, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, as if he had no intention of going anywhere because there was absolutely nothing unusual about the two of them in bed together. Then the unthinkable happens: she innocently draws her right leg up to tuck her ankle under her other leg, and her knee collides with physiology.
They both freeze.
"El?" she breathes.
"Sorry," he huffs and flips immediately onto his back. He can't look at her right now. He swallows hard as he fumbles for words. "Do you, um, want me to go? I—I can go." He's already pulling the blanket aside so he can slide out when she surprises him for the fifth time in as many hours.
"No, it's okay," she tells him quietly. "You can stay—if you want."
He pauses at the edge of the bed, blanket still raised. "What do you want?" he asks.
It takes her a while to respond, but he will wait until she does—wait to hear whether he has broken this tenuous thing between them, or whether she still trusts him, aroused as he is. She won't look at him as she finally admits: "I don't think I'll sleep as well if you're gone." They both know that means she won't even try. They both know that if he leaves now, she'll get up for the day, probably go for a long run, hit the gym, show up at the precinct well before she's due. She'll forget to eat, even though the hectic pace of the day will be entirely her own doing. In the end, she'll have exhausted herself before the real work has even begun—and for no good reason. She's never done "downtime" very well.
He looks back at her, almost gazes. "I'll stay," he assures her and climbs back to his former position. He lies down again on his back, and the two lie there side by side for what feels like hours.
Pieces of the night before come back to her as she lies there, completely wound up again and unable to relax. They had closed their last case just after midnight and hadn't left the precinct in nearly three days. It was Elliot who insisted on finishing all the paperwork that night, and Cragen had grudgingly let them, warning them that he'd better not see them for at least twelve hours after they left. "I've got enough problems with the officers' overtime this month, I don't need heat from the brass about you guys too," he'd said.
They finished up shortly after two, and Elliot had the sedan so he offered to drive Olivia home. When they pulled up to her building, there was a gap out front long enough for them, so she said, "Why don't you park and come have a drink? I sure could use one." He had grinned, saying, "Last call's not for another hour." She had rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, this one's on me," she told him. So he had parked the car and they'd walked up to her apartment together.
Once inside, she had poured them both whiskeys and given him a beer chaser to tide him over while she showered quickly and put on fresh clothes. When she returned to her living room, barely ten minutes later, he was asleep on the couch with his beer half-finished in his hand. Unwilling to wake him and sure he had only nodded off, she flopped down in the armchair next to the sofa to await his awakening.
It was she who was wakened, however, sometime later—maybe forty minutes—when his hands wrapped around her upper arms and he coaxed her from the chair. "Come on," she now remembers him whispering, "no way you're sleeping out here." He practically carried her back to her bedroom, and she imagines she could sense his surprise at how immaculate her bedroom was. But he should have known, seeing the blanket and the rumpled upholstery on the sofa, that she didn't spend much time near her bed. But she remembers him pausing in the doorway, and now she interprets that as surprise, disappointment. Maybe anger.
He deposited her onto the edge of the bed, saying, "Go back to sleep. You've got a good ten hours still."
When he started to retreat, she gripped his forearms. "Don't go," she whispered.
"Liv—" he protested.
"No, just—please. Not yet."
He let out a pitiful grunt. "Liv, I'm tired," he nearly whined.
She let out a massive yawn and then patted the bedspread behind her. "Sleep here," she said simply.
"Liv," he warned her.
"Elliot," she reasoned, "you passed out on my couch as soon as you sat down. You shouldn't be driving right now."
He glared at her for a moment. "Fine," he finally growled. "I'll take the couch." He started for the door but stopped when he heard her voice.
"El," came her defeated protest. He turned to face her and she looked him dead in the eye. Please, was on the tip of her tongue and made its way into her gaze. "Come on," she breathed instead. She didn't need to tell him that she couldn't be by herself right now or that it was his presence alone that made her feel safe enough to let herself succumb to sleep; he already knew, and she knew he knew.
He had stared her down for a moment before finally relenting. "Okay," he huffed as he dropped his gaze to the floor. Who was he to deny her? Even on their worst days, he would sacrifice almost anything for her. No, their partnership wasn't unhealthy at all, and the fact that he was about to get into bed with her wasn't at all dangerous or stupid. He stalked around to the other side of the bed as she began pulling down the bedspread from her side. "I don't have anything to sleep in," he told her, as if he thought that might change her mind.
"We're both adults, we'll be fine," she said grumpily as she threw herself into bed. Part of her wanted to joke, "Just don't tell Cap," but she knew that wouldn't exactly make the night any easier. Rather, it would only draw attention to the fact that they really were about to get into bed together—and not because they were undercover on a case, not because someone up top only booked one hotel room at a conference, not because it was some last-ditch effort to stave off frostbite or hypothermia or any other if-we-don't-share-body-heat-right-now-we're-going-to-die disease, but because she asked him to. And, despite how many times her mind had drifted to fantasies much like this, it terrified her to learn how simple it really was to get him into bed with her: all she had to do was ask. Not that that's what this was, of course, she had been quick to remind herself. He was her partner, they were exhausted, this was practical. This wasn't the sexiest man she knew finally getting into bed with her after twelve years of foreplay. This wasn't that. It wasn't. He was her partner, they were exhausted, this was practical. She didn't want him. He was her partner; this was practical. He was just her partner. And he didn't want her.
Behind her she could hear him hesitantly pulling his clothes off, and she lay there, facing away from him, hyper-aware of every clink of metal and rasp of fabric against skin. By the time he nervously slid into the bed next to her, wearing only his grey t-shirt and black boxer briefs, she felt so awake that she couldn't imagine ever falling sleep again—for the rest of her life.
"Well, goodnight," he had said, the discomfort evident in his voice.
"Night," she had replied, hoping she sounded even remotely sleepy.
And then they had lain there, much as they were lying now, with an awkward and unnamed tension between them. Finally the stress of her hyper-vigilance must have worn her out, because before her clock read four a.m., she was asleep again. And within three hours, her arm was resting on his chest and her leg was draped over his.
As they lie there now in the dusk-like darkness of her bedroom, she fights the urge to roll over and resume her former position. Part of her doesn't believe she'll be able to fall back asleep otherwise. The other part of her doesn't believe how suddenly clingy she's become.
She supposes she ought to ask for his permission before she does it, but she doesn't know how. Excuse me, Elliot, may I please sleep on you? How exactly does one say that? Instead she rolls over onto her side to face him, still clutching her sheet. She watches him as he stares at the ceiling, and he no longer looks relaxed or comfortable by any stretch of the mind. Even as she speaks, she's aware that she might be about to push him so far beyond his comfort zone that they'll never recover. But she can't stop herself. She needs it. "El?" she asks softly.
His head turns to her. "Yeah?"
She takes a breath and props herself up on her elbow. "Do you think I could, uh..." she begins. She bites her bottom lip, stares at his chest, and tries again: "Would it be okay if, um..." She can't finish it, so she hopes he can read the rest of her question in her eyes when she looks up at him.
He does, and the terror in his eyes is not lost on her. "Sure," comes his high-pitched reply. They're both frozen for a moment, and then he moves his hands from where they'd been resting on his abdomen and links them together under his head, granting her access to his chest. She slides closer, and his voice is very low when he asks, "Are you sure you don't want me to get you a shirt?"
She surprises them both when she whispers, "I don't want you to go anywhere." And then her left forearm finds a home along his sternum and she relaxes against his side. He tries hard not to think about how close she is or how perfectly she fits alongside him or the fact that there's only a thin sheet covering her bare chest, now pressed snugly against his ribs. No thinner than a t-shirt, he tries to tell himself. No thinner than a t-shirt. But his body isn't listening, only reacting to her closeness and the gentleness of her touch, and he is losing the battle to control the tightness in his groin.
Her head rests on his left bicep and her hair smells like juniper, and he knows he's fucked. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't from the moment he offered her that ride home last night—and so was their partnership.
If he had simply dropped her off and gone on to a bar by himself, he would have been rejecting the olive branch she was offering, consequently discarding the partnership. By accepting her offer, he had completely set himself up for the rest of the night's events. When she asked him to stay, he could have said no. He could have hammered the final nail into the coffin and confirmed for her that their partnership could not be resuscitated at this point; it included neither friendship nor preference, and he would never even consider extending himself on her behalf, instead always choosing something else before he thought about her. Sure, he could have accepted her vulnerability and stomped mercilessly on it. By getting into the bed, he absolutely shattered their professional distance, and thereby risked not only their partnership but also their careers. This morning, he could have insisted on leaving. He could have abandoned her when she needed him most, violating her trust and leaving her to question his commitment. Instead, he obliterated any remaining shards from last night's shattering of professionalism and was now playing with fire as he permitted his topless female partner to nestle into his side. Yes, he understands, he is well and truly fucked. And so is any hope for a healthy partnership after this.
It's as if she's aware of his thinking when she raises her head slightly and heaves a sigh that he can feel in his own lungs. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. She pauses and doesn't know how to continue.
When Elliot was married, he participated in a lot of conversations that he later realized Kathy had already scripted for the two of them. A cynical part of him wonders now if Olivia is waiting for him to prompt her, but when she's silent for too long, he asks anyway: "For what?" His voice is gruff but tender.
When she shrugs, he knows she wasn't baiting him after all, and every muscle in his body aches from wanting to reassure her somehow. She takes another deep breath. "For everything," she says because she thinks he's expecting an answer, and it's the only one she's got. "For this," she suddenly continues. "For being so... needy. For asking you to stay, for forcing myself—"
"Sh-shh, hey," he's cooing before she can finish the thought. "Hey, no. No-no." His right hand cradles her head to his chest, his thumb gently stroking her cheek. As soon as he does it, he realizes he's given himself away—because they don't do this, they don't touch this way—but, for the life of him, he can't let her go. "It's okay," he whispers into her hair, and his lips are so close that it wouldn't take any effort at all to kiss the top of her head.
She raises her head a little to look at him, narrowing her eyes as she tries to process what else it could mean to have his thumb on her cheek and his lips in her hair. For once his face is completely open, and it tells her that his actions can't mean anything other than what they do. Now that it's out there, he is unapologetic in this admission, and for the first time ever, she lets herself believe that she hadn't just been imagining everything for the last twelve years.
He is emboldened when she drops her head to his chest again, accepting everything he was offering in that silent exchange. Leaving her face, his hand finds hers where it rests on his chest. As his fingers caress hers, the tension leaves his body and he sighs deeply, relaxing into the mattress. Sleep threatens to overtake him again, and he is a willing victim to it. He sleepily removes his left hand from behind his head, and Olivia shifts to accommodate the motion. His hand comes to rest on her bare shoulder, and it has such a warm, calming effect on her that she nearly falls asleep right then. A moment later Elliot's hand trails down her side all the way to her hip, then back to the dip of her waist. He establishes a secure hold and barely has time to revel in the recognition that he's holding his goddamn partner—and she's letting him—before he succumbs again to sleep. The smile on his face is faint but unmistakable.
Two hours later, he stirs awake to a steady movement across his abdomen and up his torso: a lazy up and down, a gentle back and forth. At first it has a lulling effect, as it might in any other situation, and he nearly falls back asleep as his body reacts involuntarily to the soothing contact. It is peaceful and quiet, and he's trying to remember the last time he awoke feeling so content when the peace suddenly drains from him and rigid panic sets in. His body tenses with the memory of where he is, and his eyes shoot open to confirm that nope, he's not in his own bedroom, and yep, that's Olivia Benson's hand rambling over the cotton-clad contours of his chest. He shivers out of want as her palm skids under his navel, and he tries like hell to get himself under control.
It's too much, though, when she drags her left leg over his and uses the leverage to pull her hips against him. "God, Liv," he groans, and his embarrassed laugh comes out as a strangled chuckle as he tries to decide between grabbing her shoulders to shake her awake or not to risk touching her at all. "You gotta—Jesus," he hisses as she rocks against him again, "—aw, you gotta wake up, Liv." Her left knee is tucked between his legs, and there's very little—a slight shift up and to the left or a sudden leg spasm—keeping the decorum between them. "You're killin' me, babe," he breathes at the very bottom of his register, finishing the thought with an ardent, guttural plea: "Come on, wake up!"
Her hand suddenly stills. "I'm awake," she says simply.
He shifts, trying to sit up. "What?" he rasps.
She's still clinging to him, eyes open but unwilling to meet his gaze. There is only the briefest of pauses before she deliberately draws her left knee up further and rolls to straddle his left hip. His lingering erection presses into her thigh and she finally raises her eyes to his. "I'm awake," she repeats simply.
As she stares him down, she knows no fear. No matter what she tried to tell herself the night before—that he was just her partner, that she didn't want him, that he didn't want her—this morning has convinced her that none of it's true, and, she concedes, it probably never has been.
His mouth hangs open. What the fuck is she doing. It's not a question; his brain can't form questions. And even if he had the power of speech in this moment, he wouldn't be able to master inflection.
She braces herself on her forearms, one on either side of him, then slides down his body slowly before quickly bucking her pelvis upward against his thigh. They only break eye contact when his eyes roll back in his head from the action. He growls as he tries to focus his vision again. When he catches sight of her face, she wears a smug look of satisfaction, and it only makes him angrier—and harder. The additional glint of mischief in her eye is almost enough to make him throw caution to the wind, flip her onto her back, and take her right there. That's what Primal Elliot wants to do. She arches an eyebrow and starts inching down his body again, and Primal Elliot's mind begins calculating the force it'll take to flip her and which article of clothing will need to come off first.
But then Rational Elliot shows up. Cop Elliot. Partner Elliot. Party over.
The fire is gone from his gaze as he lightly grips her upper arms. "What are we doing?" he asks quietly, sadly. We, not you. It's a serious thing they've started, and it could be the ruin of them both.
She stops instantly and rolls off of him, flopping onto her back next to him. Feeling rejected, embarrassed, and ashamed, she drapes an arm over her eyes to hide from him.
"I'm not saying I don't want this," he's quick to say, turning immediately towards her. "I just think we ought to talk about it first—"
"Yeah, because you're so damn great at talking," she sneers, rolling away and into a standing position in one smooth motion. He watches her walk towards the bathroom, and he wishes there weren't so much finality in her strut. She stoops near the foot of the bed to pick up her discarded t-shirt, and it's on before she hits the bathroom door, and he's got a sick feeling in his gut that he's missed his only chance. When the door latches closed behind her, he glances at the clock. Time of death, 9:23 AM. There could be no resuscitating their partnership—or anything else—after this. He is sure of it.
