Love and Luck
(title stolen shamelessly from a Jimmy Buffett song; blame the first paragraph on reading too much Faulkner)
jezyk
Spoilers: Um.... I'll say season 10 just in case, but really nothing in particular, 'cept maybe Undercover.
Disclaimer: Not it. 'nuf said.

It was Thursday evening, just about the time most normal people were sitting down to dinner, gathering their families around them, parents discussing the more interesting points of their days while passing around bowls of mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese and dads told lame jokes and moms begged kids to eat more green beans and kids kept amassing piles of green beans in their napkins to feed to the dog when mom wasn't looking and older sisters regaled the parents with stories of cute jocks who'd smiled at them in the hallways by their lockers and younger brothers snickered and made smacking noises with their lips and baby sisters started to cry partly because no one was listening to the poem they'd learned that day, but mostly because the macaroni was gone and they were left with a bowl of green beans and their big brothers hadn't yet taught them the napkin trick.

Or at least, having never been a part of anything resembling a family in her entire life, that was what Olivia imagined was going on behind all the closed curtains in the buildings they passed. Rather than sitting down to a delicious home-cooked meal or even greedily accepting something from a diner that didn't quite pass for food, she and Elliot were on their way to interview a potential witness. They'd been working the rape since the previous weekend and, although they really ought to have known better, they still had high hopes that the woman really had seen something important and would wrap up the case, agree to testify, and allow them the fleeting feeling of accomplishment.

As usual, Elliot was behind the wheel, as eager to vent some of his anger by cursing at other drivers as Olivia was to avoid driving whenever she could. She'd always preferred walking, having only gotten her license because one was required to attend the police academy. But Elliot was wound up a little tighter than he normally was and Olivia was leery of asking, for fear he was just waiting for her to ask so he could dump some disintegrating family angst anger on her. So she stared out the window silently as they drove deeper into a part of the city she never would have dared venture into without her gun and Elliot at her side.

She watched as the curtains became bed sheets, hung haphazardly, held in place by the closed windows. Inside those places, she knew, there were no happy family dinners, no middle-class issues. The sheets were tacked up out of necessity to keep prying eyes out of family business, not because they were fashionable. Olivia knew all too well about those houses and apartments. Her mother had been a tenured professor and by rights, Olivia should have grown up in one of the popular, well-to-do neighborhoods, and attended private school. Instead, due entirely to her mother's alcohol-induced inability to pay anything on time or to stop drinking every dime she made, Olivia had spent her formative years in the slums she later grew to fear, not simply because of their violence, but because of how familiar they felt. She'd gone to crappy schools and tried her best to avoid all the problems that wound up trapping the other kids in the same neighborhood as adults. Olivia had been bright, and, though it earned her no end of teasing from the few kids who bothered to notice the wallflower, she knew her intelligence could get her out of there.

She'd gone to school and gotten her degree and found a good job and moved into a neighborhood she could barely afford and decorated it with all the most current trends. Not because she'd always wanted to be a snob. Simply because it was different from her mom, different from what she knew. Expensive and refined slowly became the norm for her and most of the time, she was able to pretend that it had always been that way. She was educated and well-mannered and no one ever suspected that she'd lived anyplace else all her life. And she was happy to pretend that it was true, happy to forget where she'd grown up.

Until she wound up in a place so filthy that she half expected to see her mother passed out in the building lobby.

Whether Elliot knew her secret or not, she didn't know. She assumed he did, simply because after twelve years, there wasn't much left that they didn't know about each other. At any rate, he didn't mention her tendency to sulk in her melancholy and she was grateful. She felt her feelings; she didn't want to talk about them too. That was one trait she was happy to share with Elliot. No amount of talking in the world would make her early life have been any different, so she didn't see the point of discussing it.

With a muttered curse, Elliot pointed the car at a parking space. Actually, it wasn't a parking space, which explained why it was open, but it was close enough. Olivia was unhooking her seat belt; Elliot was pulling the keys from the ignition. Squealing brakes unexpectedly close made both of them jump.

The sound was followed by a hideous screeching noise, indicative of hinges sorely needing oil or to be put out of their misery.

"What the fuck! This is my spot!" Leaning on the hood with an angry glare was something recently descended from a Sasquatch. Olivia estimated that he was about Elliot's height, probably a bit heavier, and considerably less well groomed. In fact, if they'd driven to some backwoods part of West Virginia, the man yelling at them was pretty much exactly what she would have expected to find. Except they were in New York City. He was still cursing up a storm about his space and single handedly destroying the ozone layer with the thick gray exhaust pouring from various spots on his pickup.

Olivia turned to Elliot, finding that her partner was doing the same thing. They shared a smile small enough not to be noticed before they climbed out of the car. Hanging back, Olivia let Elliot step up to the man's side, realizing she'd underestimated the man's height by several inches. Luckily, Elliot wasn't easily intimidated, and certainly not by someone wearing a woman's denim jacket, complete with rhinestones on the pockets, Willie Nelson style braids, a frighteningly large silver belt buckle that read 'Bad Ass' and cowboy boots. Olivia fought back the urge to snicker as the man tried to scare Elliot with a stare. Nope, Elliot wasn't going to back down from a man in heels.

Elliot didn't pull his badge, evidently not feeling it necessary. "Why don't you calm down?"

"Why don't you move your fucking car?"

In the man's tone and posture, Olivia immediately knew there was no point in arguing. The man clearly believed he owned the no-parking place and wasn't about to be dissuaded. But Elliot didn't like it when people tried to intimidate him, and after twelve years, Olivia was certain that he liked it even less when it happened in front of her. Had he been with Fin, he would have flashed his badge, told the man to fuck off, and walked away. But Elliot was already in a bad mood and Bad Ass was a much better target for his anger, at least in Olivia's mind.

Born either out of the need to impress her or the desire to prove that he was a macho asshole, Elliot leaned forward into the guy's face. "I'm not moving."

Olivia squeezed her eyes closed and told herself that Elliot was absolutely not doing it to piss her off. Then she stepped forward, drawing both pairs of eyes to her. She met Elliot's and nodded toward the building. "Come on, we have work to do."

Miraculously, Elliot listened to her for once, giving the man a wide berth as he stepped around him and came to Olivia's side. But before they could move away, Bad Ass was back.

He crossed in front of them, the click of his heels on the cement almost funny as he blocked their path. "You need to move your fucking car, pretty boy."

As if the whole persona wasn't amusing enough, Olivia couldn't wait to tell the guys about Elliot being called a pretty boy. She relished the laugh she'd share with her friends over it. Unfortunately, Elliot failed entirely to see the humor.

He moved forward, narrowing his eyes. Olivia knew he was moments from bruised knuckles and she was not in the mood for that. "Get the hell out of my face, asshole!"

Olivia's hand was on her gun, though she was torn whether to brandish it at their new friend or to use it to clobber Elliot. Either way, she was pretty much guaranteed success.

"Move your damn car or you'll be sorry." The man wasn't intimated by Elliot and Olivia guessed it had something to do with the alcohol wafting off his breath.

"Are you threatening me?"

Trying to suppress the giggles inevitably brought on by even inadvertent Beavis and Butthead references, Olivia told herself that laughing would only make the situation worse. She reached out, putting her hand on her partner's arm. "Stop, Elliot, let it go. What can you possibly gain from this?"

Elliot's angry glare turned on her. "You been hanging out with Huang again?"

Before she could respond the jerk jumped in, mimicking her. "Yeah, Elliot, let it go." He snickered, finding his impression incredibly funny.

With her hand on his arm, she could feel the way he tensed, his instincts wanting him to fight it out. He glanced at her, giving her a look she could almost label apologetic. The cause was already lost. They both knew it.

The prick only needed to give Elliot an excuse and unfortunately, he did. He reached out, grabbing Elliot lapels. "Move your fucking car now!"

Olivia didn't even see him swing. She just saw the guy's head jerk back, blood spurting from his lip. She sighed, imagining that her night was going from bad to worse right before her eyes. She had to try something. She stepped in, using the time the man was staggering around, to grab Elliot's jacket herself. "What are you doing? Do you really want to explain this to IAB?"

Elliot winced, as though the thought of repercussions had escaped him entirely until Olivia brought it up. He nodded, glancing at the guy who was crouched down, nursing his busted lip like it was a fatal blow. "Fuck off."

In keeping with the shitty luck that comprised the rest of her night, it turned out that Becky Thompkins was quite possibly the most reluctant witness Olivia had ever encountered. It took the better part of thirty minutes to get the woman to open her front door. After that, they asked and begged and pleaded and nearly threatened for over an hour before Becky finally agreed to come down to the precinct the following morning to work with a sketch artist.

Although it was far from the best outcome and they had yet to find out if Becky had any intention of actually showing up or if her agreement had simply been a ploy to get them to leave, as they headed down the four flights of stairs Olivia couldn't help but feel that something was actually going right. Becky had been reluctant, but not impossible. She hadn't denied being at the club; she hadn't denied seeing anything.

With a sigh, Olivia began mentally cataloging her freezer's contents and pondering what to have for dinner. She pushed on the metal bar of the door, releasing the lock, and stepped back onto the street with Elliot half a step behind her.

And not quite a moment later, just when Olivia had decided on the Stouffer's meatloaf, something cold and sharp pressed against her throat, stealing her breath and her thoughts. In a moment of instinctive terror that could never be fully trained way, her eyes locked on Elliot's. The eye contact only last a second, only long enough for her to see his eyes widen in matching fear. A hand shot out of the darkness, catching his chin and sending him falling backwards.

Then she heard the snicker, the voice still fresh in her memory, Bad Ass was definitely the one behind her with the knife. Unfortunately, she hadn't figured that he'd have so many friends, friends which were descending on Elliot in front of her.

They were grabbing him, hauling him to his feet, holding his arms back, four or five of them, she couldn't tell because it was dark and she couldn't turn her head. Elliot's lip was bleeding, his eyes sparking with anger and fury and more than a little bit of horror when he recognized the situation Olivia was in. Bad Ass' arm was around her middle, pinning her arms to her sides, pulling her against his strong, lumpy shape, his knife making its own point, pushing sharply into her throat.

His intoxicated breath washed over her face as he spoke, half laughing. "You should have listened to your girlfriend, Elliot." He turned then, his face, his lips, his mouth, brushing against Olivia's cheek, eliciting a whimper of disgust from her that she couldn't force back.

The peanut gallery had a good chuckle, both over Olivia's response and Elliot's short-lived attempt to pull free. He'd reacted instinctively, she knew, jerking his arms and trying to help her, receiving a blow to his gut that doubled him over.

Olivia tried to keep her wits about her, not sure how long it would be before one of the bastards caught a glimpse or a feel of a badge or gun. She wasn't sure if it was good or not that their attackers had no idea they were cops.

"Elliot here owes me." Bad Ass snickered, his tongue slapping against Olivia's face, leaving her to fight back the gag reflex. And then his voice was in her ear. "And you're going to pay me."

Elliot struggled again, either not knowing or not caring that he was seriously outnumbered. They held him back, but Olivia could see that he was putting up far more of a fight than they expected.

"Have at him, boys." Bad Ass chuckled as his friends let loose, Olivia watching helplessly while they pummeled her partner.