Yay! Crackfic! Crossover crackfic!
I'm sure I've done crackfic before, but I don't think I've ever posted it—aside from "Security!"
Spoilers: The Author's note, Season 13ish and onward. Something/anything. You've been warned.
Here goes: this was written to take place shortly after Benson assumed command of SVU barring the mess that was/is William Lewis (hence that FUBAR situation never happened in this universe). As such, there are plenty of character mistakes, but I feel it flows well enough. Let me know if it doesn't work for you.
Feel free to absolutely ignore this story.
But, if you do decide to read it, leave me a message, and as always, happy reading!
Disclaimer: Do not own! Not at all!
ooOoo
Don't Say It!
ooOoo
The first time it happens, Barba is trying to question an expert medical examiner on the number of infections rape victims suffer.
Calhoun stands up, draws in a great big breath and cries, "Objection!" almost as soon as the words leave Barba's lips.
He turns to her, and finds himself staring at an awkward teenage girl in Rita Calhoun's clothes.
"Your Honor?" he says, turning back to the judge. She shrugs. "Recess?"
"Granted." The courtroom doesn't move. "Court will reconvene tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. sharp."
Barba approaches the girl who looks like she really wants to cry. "All I said was objection," she says, and Barba jerks back as she shrinks again. Now she's a ten-year old.
"Good God," he murmurs. "Rita?"
"Yeah, that's me." She angrily tugs at her shirt as it slides off her shoulders. He slips off his jacket and wraps it around her. "All I said was—"
"Ah, ah," he says quickly. "You keep getting younger? Smaller? Every time you say that word."
"So I shouldn't say it?"
"No, I don't think so."
Benson approaches them, and Barba holds up his hand to tell her stop. She doesn't pay attention. "What the hell is going on?"
"Who swears in front of a child?" Barba looks up at the ceiling before turning an icy glare on Benson. Calhoun giggles.
"What. The. Hell. Happened."
"If Rita says…a certain word, she turns into this," Barba gestures at the counselor.
"Thanks," Calhoun says, sarcasm sharpening her tone. "I'm ten, I think."
"I don't know how, so stop asking."
Benson nods, but he knows she doesn't understand. "Is the word 'objection'?"
Barba winces, waiting to see if anything happens to stupidly mouthy Benson. When she remains the same, if smirking a little at his expression, he shakes his head. "It must only affect counselors."
"Objection," Benson says again, and he smacks her arm lightly. "Come on, Barba, say it."
"No, thank you. I am perfectly happy with leaving the hypothesis untested. I'm more interested in fixing what happened to Ms. Calhoun."
"I'm interested in that too," Benson says. "Let's see if any other lawyers here had the same reaction." She laughs softly, and Barba glares at her.
"Let's go."
They walk through the courthouse, bewildered people and teenagers mingling in the hallways. Barba asks each teenager if they said, pointing at Benson each time for her to say the dreaded word, and when they all nod, he advises them not to say it again until further notice. He also has them give him their phone numbers so he can keep them updated.
"You're really good with people," Benson remarks when, three hours later, they finally head to Barba's office. He only grunts in response, because he is so damn tired.
"Back this up, please," he says to Carmen when they pass her desk, sliding his phone to her, and she nods. In his office, Barba loosens his tie and opens the top button of his shirt. He sinks into his chair and opens his laptop. Benson paces slowly, each step bleeding off what must be nervous energy, until she takes a seat across from him.
"How are we going to fix this?" she asks.
"We? There is no we. You are going to do your job, and I will find out just what the hell happened." He types furiously for a few seconds before printing off a flyer. Benson proofs it for him and he runs it down to the copier on first. He ignores the fact that Benson hasn't taken his advice yet, because in all honesty, it's nice to have someone help him.
Carmen finds him staring at the copy machine, poking buttons until the poor thing rattles to a stop. She hands him his phone. Then she takes half the stack of copied flyers to start posting around the building.
"I emailed your entire contact list of lawyers," Benson tells him when he returns to his office for a brief moment. "They said it's only been reported at that courthouse. Nowhere else."
All he says is, "Hmm," before scrolling through his phone to find Calhoun's number. She answers on the third ring, her young voice tripping him for a moment.
"Are you patient zero?" he asks. "You first changed at 2:15 p.m. Is that the earliest of all the changes?"
"No," she says. "I don't think so. Look, the doctor has us all isolated. When are you going to break us out of here?"
"When I figure out how to fix this mess. Don't say the word. It's still unsafe."
"Okay," she says, and then hands the phone to a nurse who asks him if he's said the word yet too.
He hates her patronizing tone and hangs up. Although, he laughs to Benson that even non-lawyers are afraid to say the word.
"Objection?" She smiles. "Well, then."
He calls many of the other lawyers until he narrows down patient zero to Pippa Cox in children's court. She remembers saying it almost fifteen minutes before Calhoun did. And she remembers that she was cursed by a homeless man begging for change.
"No, not change, coffee. I thought he wanted coffee, so I gave him mine. He cursed me then. Said, 'Never shall you say the word, for I have forbidden it. If you do say it, there will be consequences.'"
"You got cursed? That's your story?" Barba scrubs a hand over his face. He doesn't want to believe her because it's outrageous. How on Earth does giving someone coffee actually constitute being offensive enough to curse someone, let alone all the people that person works with?
"I got cursed," she confirms, hanging up before he can ask any more questions.
Barba bangs his head on his desk. Olivia looks up from his laptop, a worried look pinching her face and tightening her eyes. "Are you okay?" she asks softly and he shakes his head.
"How the hell do you curse someone?"
"You swear at them," she says. "Like, just now, when you—"
"Liv, you're my friend and I like you very much, but shut up. Seriously, stop talking." She sits back, a miffed expression on her face. She waits with her mouth snapped closed while he paces in front of her. "Pippa Cox, you remember her, children's advocate. She says she was cursed by a homeless man asking for coffee." He laughs, and she raises an eyebrow at him.
"I take it she didn't give him what he wanted?"
"Oh, she did. She gave him her coffee. But, you're right; it wasn't what he wanted."
"If he asks for coffee, what else can he want?"
"Maybe money," Barba proposes. "Ms. Cox said that he cursed her after she gave him her cup."
"Do you even believe that someone can curse another person like that?"
"No, but you saw what happened to Calhoun. That was…it was unreal and yet it happened."
"So what do we do?"
Barba ignores her use of 'we' again and grabs his coat from his chair. "I need to find that homeless man."
ooOoo
It's surprisingly easy to find the man. He stands on a corner not far from the courthouse, wrapped in a thick, black military jacket, a red and blue patterned ski hat pulled low over his graying sandy hair. Behind him sits a collapsible chair filled with unidentifiable items that appear broken beyond repair, and yet every time the man tires of demanding coffee from passersby he pulls out a screwdriver and tinkers with a large orb.
"Hello there," Barba greets as cheerily as he can when he finally catches the man's eye. "I've come to help you."
"Can't help me," the man mutters, scratching at his thick beard with the head of the screwdriver. "Can't help anybody unless…Coffee."
Barba pulls a dollar from his pocket and sticks it into an empty coffee cup. He passes this to the man who examines it with a glare.
"Fine," he says, wide mouth pouting. "What do you need?"
"A young woman gave you actual coffee yesterday," Barba begins.
"Coffee," the man says again, blue eyes twinkling maliciously as he stabs at his orb.
Barba hands him another dollar. "You said something to her, didn't you?"
"Coffee," the man repeats, cursing softly when a piece of the orb falls off and clatters on the sidewalk. "Germs and dirt everywhere. Go stand on a corner, make nice with the natives. Never mind that they'll kill you with their mutated strains of influenza and small pox!"
"New Yorkers don't have small pox," Barba says gently, choosing to ignore the other, potentially inciting drivel spewing from this bitter man.
"Coffee," comes the expected demand. Barba remembers to put two more dollars in the cup. "Speak."
"You cursed her from saying a specific word—one that is essential to her job. I'm here to gather information on it."
"Coffee," the man says, and Barba digs another dollar from his pocket. He drops it into the cup and watches as the man shakes it. It's almost full and it doesn't rattle. "Coffee."
Barba hands him another dollar and finally the man looks satisfied. "It's a temporary curse. Wears off after twenty-four hours."
"Twenty four hours after you cursed her, or twenty four hours after she first used that word?"
"Both."
"Both? Seriously? How is that even possible?"
"Anyone who didn't use the word can say it twenty-four hours after I cursed her. Everyone who did say it will revert back to normal twenty-four hours after she first said it. Don't ask how it happened, that part is classified." The man pretends to look terrified, searching the crowd that has gathered around them. Seemingly satisfied that who he's looking for isn't here, he goes back to tinkering with the orb.
"What happens to the people who said it more than once?"
"Someone said it twice?" The man stares at Barba, eyes large and concerned. "Shit. No one ever says it twice. How the hell was I supposed to know?"
"Why do you curse people?"
"Not people, lawyers. Scum of the Earth."
"Lawyers are people. I'm a lawyer."
"Top o' the morning to you." He tips his hat.
"It's midevening."
"Scum," the man says, shaking his cup again. "Coffee."
Barba dumps two dollars in the cup this time. "You're not real. You can't be."
"Careful, lawyer. Want me to curse you too?"
"Coffee," Barba says, walking away from the man. "Coffee. I need coffee."
He walks into the nearest Starbucks and orders six cups of the flavor of the day, taking a window seat and beginning pulls out his phone. When he finishes calling everyone, his cups are empty, and he feels more exhausted than a bad case. He makes one final call to the judge, explaining that they can't actually resume court until Calhoun is normal again. She agrees to an extension of recess, since it's in the defense's best interest. He lets his phone fall to the table where it knocks over one of the cups.
He leans his head against the window and people-watches for a moment. It'll be good to say the word again, he muses, but he hasn't actually missed it that much. And, it'll be fun to trick the detectives.
ooOoo
2:00 p.m. the next day finds him in Special Victims' bathroom, facing a mirror and chanting "objection" under his breath. When he's satisfied that he is definitely staying middle-aged, he heads to the bullpen.
All the detectives are clustered around Rollins's desk, discussing what to do should the case be dismissed due to the curse.
Barba climbs onto Benson's old desk, glancing around at all the arguing people gathered there. He jumps, feet smacking the table with an obscenely loud bang.
Immediately, silence falls.
He draws in as large a breath as his lungs can hold.
"Object—"
"Don't you dare say that word!" Benson interrupts him, pointing a finger at his chest. "If you say it, what will we do? How will we fix it?"
"Objection," he says calmly, smiling when they all recoil. "Nothing happens when I say it. I've already said it a hundred times."
Benson smacks his arm and Amaro and Tutuola share knowing grins. Rollins remains unchanged, but as soon as Benson heads back to her office, she shoots him a crooked grin and two thumbs up.
Smiling, he jumps down and exits the room, a bounce in his step. His phone is already ringing. Calhoun's number pops up.
Court is back in session.
~The End~
ooOoo
A/N: The crossover is Stargate: Atlantis. The only character who appears is Rodney McKay. The orb that he keeps tinkering with is the offending Ancient tech that enabled him to "curse" the lawyers. He made up the thing about hating them because he wanted Barba to leave him alone. He was stationed in New York to observe something—may or may not be related to another story idea I had months before this one came about. I don't think there will be a "Rodney's Point of View" story at all, just a footnote in the original idea if it ever gets off the ground.