Author's Note: This story was written for a prompt by loveoftheimpossible for the SVUWinterFicFest2016. It is a gen/friendship fic, although you could choose to interpret it as pre-slash, if you wish. :)
January 2005
John Munch surveyed the wreckage of his life from the comfort of his living room sofa.
This is the reason why I keep working so hard, he realized. Being alone and stuck in this place with nothing I'm allowed to do is enough to make me think about eating my gun.
Well, maybe not quite anything so extreme as that. But he wasn't beyond wallowing in his misery and throwing a good pity party for himself as an alternative.
Under different circumstances, he might have rejoiced at being placed on mandatory leave. Having the time to catch up on his endless reading list, or maybe get out and enjoy some of New York's fine cultural offerings... This week off could have been prime opportunity to indulge in some of the many things he'd always intended to do since moving to the city years before, yet he never seemed to find the time for them.
Unfortunately he was under strict physician orders not to do so any such things. As a result, this time off felt more a prison sentence than a relaxing reprieve from duty.
His situation could be a lot worse, he knew. He tried to console himself with that fact, every time his thoughts traveled down too dark a path. The nasty blow to the head he'd suffered might have given him a concussion, but Fin had tackled his attacker before the brute could have followed it with a more severe injury. That son of a bitch was now awaiting trial not only for the sexual assault of a minor but for assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. John hoped the bumps and bruises he was nursing would earn the man at least an extra few months on his sentence.
"Rest is your prescription for the next few days," the E.R. doctor had ordered when John had woken up to find himself in a hospital bed. "Your brain needs time to heal, like any other part of the body would after an injury."
"My brain still hasn't healed from the results of this last election," John had replied. "Four more years of George W. Bush? Has this country gone mad?"
Fin had rolled his eyes at that. "Too bad that concussion didn't knock some sense into his brain. Or at least give him political amnesia."
He'd been discharged with a strict list of do's and don'ts to follow until his follow-up appointment in a week to evaluate his mental status and recovery. That list included no strenuous physical activity and limited reading time, be it on the computer screen or the old fashioned printed page, to minimize eye strain. He was also forbidden from operating any kind of motor vehicle and to generally avoid intense mental exercise, stressful situations, and to try to sleep as much as possible.
All of it combined to make John utterly stir-crazy. And he was only on day two.
So he sat on his sofa, flipping through the television stations and finding nothing worth watching. Weekday t.v. was a true wasteland of inane talk shows featuring supposed celebrity guests he did not recognize, soap operas where everyone was rich, beautiful and dumb as a doorknob, and endless commercials for vocational training, injury attorneys, and home products that no one needed—but they could be all yours for nineteen-ninety-nine plus shipping and handling. He tried to endure but after a while he could feel his aggravation rising from the mind-numbing stupidity of it all. He decided he needed to find some other kind of distraction or entertainment instead.
He thought he'd try listening to some music. It had been a long time since he picked a favorite artist from his record collection and played his way through their catalog for a day. But Monk only made him feel edgy, more agitated and restless than before. Lou Reed was a little too cerebral and intense for him in his current state. The Stones made him want to dance around, and just bopping his head back and forth too much made him woozy and threatened to bring on a headache. Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack left him nostalgic but melancholy, reaching for old photo-albums and yearbooks and again leading his thoughts down morose avenues of thoughts, memories he was better leaving behind.
He contemplated silence as an alternative, while making dinner of instant cup-of-soup and saltines.
I should call someone, just to talk to another human being, he thought. But who would he call? He didn't want to bug his coworkers; Fin was no doubt happy to have a few days free of him. His last attempt at a romantic companion, several months before, had ended with the lovely lady slamming her door in his face after one too many missed dinner engagements. He could call his brother as a last resort, he supposed. But then he'd get harangued for never calling except when he had something to complain about, and why didn't he come down to visit mom more often, and all those warnings from the doc about avoiding stress would fly right out the window.
That meant, John thought with grim resolve, it was back to the boob tube for another stab at mindless entertainment.
Eventually he ended up on some cable station playing nothing but endless sappy, saccharine made-for-tv movies, and they were at least more tolerable than the daytime offerings he'd sampled earlier. Almost all featured some B-list actress playing a plucky heroine dealing with a major life crisis and finding love before two hours were over (commercial breaks included). John didn't know why he kept watching them, as the hours crept on to well past midnight, except they were pleasantly mind-numbing and the leading ladies generally easy on the eyes. He could also drift in and out of sleep and not lose track of the storylines, they were all so pedestrian and predictable.
The only problem with these movies is they, too, started messing with his head after a while. Or maybe it was the concussion, and his drifting in and out of sleep while these stories unfolded on the t.v. before him. Stories on the screen started blurring with his own memories and unsettled dreams. The heroines of the films morphed and merged into women he'd known, tried to help, and failed. Women he'd loved—either too much or not enough—and either way they'd left him.
Left him, or ended up dead.
Helen… He reached for that old yearbook again he'd pulled out earlier, wanting to see her face one more time. Only the picture in the book was now a crime scene photo of her dead and lifeless body, ligature marks around her neck…
John blinked and realized he'd been asleep and dreaming, a violent wave of nausea passing through him as he nearly toppled off his sofa.
This can't be good for a rapid recovery.
Again he contemplated reaching for the phone, simply to talk to someone. Don, maybe? The captain had his own share of ghosts and demons from the past; he'd understand. But the clock on the wall said it was past 2 a.m. He didn't want to be a pest, or get the captain so worried that he ended up suggesting John take two weeks of leave, not one.
A fate which, at this rate, would truly be worse than death.
John decided to make himself a strong cup of tea and try to stay up the rest of the night.
He watched more crappy, sappy movies—whether to comfort or torture himself, he couldn't say. One flick was about a young woman who, after being raped, became an advocate for victim's rights because of the way she was treated by the police and legal system during her attacker's trial. Although melodramatic, the story reminded John of far too many victims he'd met and tried to help during his years at SVU and how the experience could be so rough on them.
It made him think of Sarah Logan, in particular. And that wasn't a memory he usually allowed himself to dwell upon. She had tried to speak up without shame, to give a recognizable face to rape victims. Take away the stigma in whatever small way she could. And what had it gotten her? A psycho stalker of a fan who couldn't stand the idea that some other man had "ruined" her.
The fact that he still lived to rot in jail while Sarah was dead, blown to pieces by a homemade bomb, was an injustice that haunted John and filled him with rage to this day.
Another film, airing later the next morning, was about a woman and her difficult relationship with her own mother, who had been emotionally abusive and manipulative toward her daughter her entire life. Eventually the film's heroine was able to stand up to her mother and start living her own life, becoming a successful business woman and starting a family of her own.
Only that's not how it usually goes, does it? John thought, wishing he had someone willing to listen to him bitch about this movie. Not in real life, anyway. Look at Gwen. Smart and funny, and yet she could never escape her mother's shadow, her constant demands and judgments of every choice Gwen made. And he had never been able to get Gwen to see just who her mother really was, not even when the old bat was dead.
The urge was there to call her, now, knowing she was here in New York, and she'd probably come running to his side if he did. But that would only open them both up to another cycle of hurt neither needed to subject themselves to. Gwen was someone he best dealt with only through the distance afforded by screen names and semi-anonymous forums online.
Day three continued on, and John had settled into full couch potato mode, one movie after the next because he was too lazy to try to find anything else. He watched a clueless mother struggle with her son's computer porn addiction, then a sixteen year old debate whether to keep her baby when she got knocked up by her older boyfriend. After that, it was the story of a woman who didn't realize for years that her husband was secretly a rapist leaving a trail of victims behind him every time he traveled for "business" out of town.
It almost felt like a day on the job. Maybe that's why it had become oddly comforting, despite the dark subject matter of so many of these movies.
The scared housewife was about to confront her husband with her suspicions when there was a knock at John's door, startling him so much he almost fell of his sofa again. He waited, once he regained his balance, unsure if he'd actually heard it or hallucinated the sound.
Another knock came after a pause, followed by, "Yo, Munch, you there? It's your partner."
Fin's voice was unmistakable, even if quite the unexpected surprise. John glanced out his window to see it was dark outside already…had he really spent the entire day zoned out on the sofa watching these damned movies? Apparently so.
"Be right there," John called back, taking a minute to run into his bedroom to inspect himself. He grabbed a robe to throw on top of the t-shirt and pj bottoms he'd now been in for two days; he knew he otherwise looked a disheveled mess, but there wasn't anything else he could do about it now. He went to the door and found Fin dressed as though he'd come straight from work in his suit and tie, heavy winter coat and hat.
"What are you doing here?" John asked.
"What do you think? Checking up on you. Finished up pretty early tonight, guess since I didn't have you talkin' at me all day and distracting me."
"So you had to come over and get your daily dose of Munchian wisdom? I'm touched."
"Don't flatter yourself," Fin replied, but there was a hint of a smile beneath his scowl, and John was sweetly surprised by the visit. Fin lifted the large and clearly heavy plastic bag in his left hand and continued, "I got you some dinner if you want it. Italian from that place on 9th Avenue you like."
"Enough to feed an army, I see. In which case you'd better come in and help me make a dent in it." John led Fin into the living room, clearing off enough space on the coffee table to put the bag down. "I'll grab some plates. You want something to drink?"
"Beer if you have it. Otherwise water's fine."
John went to the kitchen, found a beer for Fin and grabbed some water for himself—alcohol was another regretful no-no during his recovery. When he came back into the living room he found Fin sitting on the sofa, scowling at the movie currently playing. "Don't tell me you watch this shit. My momma's always glued to these damn Lifetime movies every time I go over to visit on a Sunday."
"Don't judge me," John said, as he sat down next to Fin and handed him his beer. "In case you can't tell, I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders at the moment. And there is nothing else tolerable on when you're under doctor's orders not to stress yourself out."
"Yeah, you don't need to watch the news and get yourself into a frothing rage. So what do you want to start with? I got Caesar salad, baked ziti, chicken parm, shrimp scampi…"
"Give me the salad and the shrimp. I know you love your carbs."
They filled their plates with a first round of food and sat back, John curious to ask about work but knowing Fin probably didn't want to dwell on it after hours. In fact Fin seemed drawn into the movie himself after a few minutes. "You just missed the scene where she tells her husband she knows he's a rapist," John said to fill him in.
"Yeah, I think I actually saw this one at my mom's a couple weeks ago."
"Don't spoil the ending."
"C'mon you know these things all end the same. She's gonna kick his ass to the curb and end up with that nice dude she met at the farmer's market." John raised an eyebrow at Fin, who quickly said, "I told you my mom watches these all the time."
"Uh huh."
The film continued on to its inevitable conclusion, as Fin had predicted. As the credits began to roll, John said, "Change the channel before I get sucked into another one of these."
"Mind if I put on the Knicks game?"
"Help yourself." Fin had fed him; John could tolerate a basketball game in exchange. Truthfully he was simply happy for the company, the break from the mindless routine that had put him in such a mental loop of doldrums and moodiness. He ate as much as his stomach seemed willing to tolerate, then asked, "You want the rest?"
"Nah man, you keep it. Figured you could use the food." Fin took a sip from his beer, then put down the near-empty bottle on the coffee table. "Meant to check in on you yesterday, but got caught up on a late call downtown."
"Well, as you can see I'm fine. Bored and wallowing in my sloth, but fine." Only a few months ago Fin had taken a bullet and hadn't even taken a full day off from work. John wondered if he, too, had been so restless at the prospect of being forced to take a break from the job.
John had a lot of things he wondered about when it came to his partner, and maybe some day he'd work up to asking about them. But right now he didn't want to press, and it was nice enough to just have his company for a few hours.
Nice to know that someone cared about him, in Fin's quiet and understated way. One partner in work—and in life, if he thought about it—whom he hadn't failed, who stuck by him no matter what.
And John knew he would always do the same in return.