A/N: I am taking a (short!) break from the multi-chapter Rolivia fic I have been writing – Equinox – and in the meantime, I was watching some old season 10 episodes. One of my favorite episodes from that season is Swing, and it inspired this brief two-shot. This is a follow-up fic to the episode, that takes place the night after Kathleen's sentencing. Enjoy, and review if you do. The second chapter should be up by tomorrow or the day after.
Rating: M for language and sexual content
Spoilers: Rage (S6), Undercover (S9), Swing (S10)
Triggers: Mentions of sexual assault
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money. Do you have any money? Will you share?
An Equal and Opposite Reaction
Liv could smell the alcohol with the inward swing of the door. Rum? she thought, No. Scotch. The harder the crash, the more serious the liquor. He had his arms raised, braced against the doorframe, and his head was hanging, as though the wait for her to open the door had been days rather than mere moments.
"Can I com'in, Liv?"
"El," she frowned, "you're drunk."
He nodded. "Yeah. I am."
She half-rolled her eyes and left the door open, walking back into her living room. Elliot followed, shutting the door behind himself, but not bothering to take off his shoes. When he stopped, he swayed slightly on his feet, looking at her blearily. Taking a seat at the bar that divided the room, she crossed her arms.
"So. Did you just come to sober up, or?" she prompted.
"You saved my kid," Elliot said.
"Kathleen saved herself, El. With a little help from you – and maybe Maddox."
"Nah," he shook his head. "You saved her – I don't know what you did or how, but I know you had a hand in it."
"Shouldn't you be at the clinic, then, spending time with Kathleen and Kathy?"
He took a not-so-graceful seat on Olivia's couch. "Yeah, well. Kathleen is not so happy with me, right now."
"Oh, because you got her put in Rikers, you mean?"
"You don't need to lecture me again – I was there for the first one." Elliot picked absently at the arm of the couch, frowning. "You got anything around here to drink?" he asked after a beat.
"I think you've had enough, El," she chuckled.
"Probably," El nodded, "it's just . . . " he met her gaze, "you implied I don't talk enough. I just figure this'd be easier if I had another drink."
Liv sighed. "El, if you can't talk to me without being trashed, then that tells me pretty much all I need to know."
"Sand castles," he blurted out. "I used to make these . . . sand castles. Interconnected, taking up half the beach. All different sizes, and shapes, you know? Like little cities."
Liv held her breath. She could count on two hands the number of things she knew about Elliot's childhood, most of which she had learned in the course of the last week.
"When I got older, I liked to draw. Ma says I used to sketch buildings. Seascapes. Waterfronts . . . and I – I guess I was kinda interested in architecture."
She tried to picture her partner as anything other than a cop, and couldn't.
"But my old man, he uh – I looked up to him, you know? I mean, I was scared of him, but I knew he went to work to catch bad guys every day. I wanted to do that. I wanted to carry a badge and a gun, like my father."
But you were scared of your mother, too, Liv opened her mouth to say, but then closed it again. She got up from the bar stool, and crossed to the couch, sitting down next to him.
"Liv . . . my father," Elliot's voice caught in his throat, and he swallowed hard, taking a shaky breath. "He used to beat the shit outta me. Mostly with his belt, but . . . not always."
Olivia's eyes widened.
"He was a hot-tempered S. O. B., who cheated on my mother every chance he got," Elliot admitted, "and I was never quite man enough, or Stabler enough, or Catholic enough for him."
"I'm sorry," she told him softly.
"No need to be. He's been dead a long time," El shrugged. "But Liv, if I've ever . . . scared you," he winced, "when I was beating up perps, or walls, or garbage cans, then I want to say I'm sorry."
Liv grinned gently, bumping his shoulder with hers. "You didn't have to drink a paycheck worth of Scotch to say that, did you?" He snorted but wouldn't look at her. "Elliot, if I was afraid of you, I wouldn't've worked with you for the last decade. I just don't like to see you self-destruct, is all."
"Yeah, well, I sure as hell passed that on to my kids. Maybe you should be scared of me."
"You're not the first cop – or father – to have a hard time raising kids. What you need is to stop holding yourself to a higher standard than the rest of the human race. Set yourself up like that, and you're guaranteed to keep meeting trouble along the way."
He grinned. "Sometimes what I don't understand is how you became a cop. You're too damn smart for your own good."
They held each other's gaze just a beat too long, and Liv's heartbeat faltered. "What about your mom?" she asked.
"My mom never wanted to be a cop," Elliot deadpanned, earning himself another shove.
"I meant what was your relationship with your mother like?"
"Christ. I really do need a drink if I have to answer that one."
Liv rolled her eyes and pushed to her feet, going to the kitchen. "All I've got is a couple bottles of beer, and half a bottle of red wine."
He'd followed her, and she could feel him behind her. The creak of his leather jacket, the warmth of him. He reached out to the cupboard above her head, turning the wine bottle to read the label.
"Not much for variety, are you, Benson?" he chuckled, and the tickle of his breath against the side of her head raised goosebumps on her forearms. "Guess I'll go for the beer," he decided, and turned to the fridge.
Goddammit, she thought, get a hold of yourself. The first time he opens up to you, and you're focused on jumping his bones? Grow up.
As far as Liv was concerned, any window of opportunity there might have been for her and Elliot to "resolve" their unresolved tension was long since closed. Kathy and Elliot had been back together for a year, after being separated – nearly divorced – for three. Those years had been filled with demons and perils of all colors; a few that still haunted the two of them, but they had managed to come out on the right side of things.
Elliot tossed the cap from the beer to the counter. "I should'a told you my mother wasn't dead."
"Yeah, you should have," Liv nodded, filling a wine glass for herself.
"I'm sorry I never told you about her." Eyes on the floor, he spoke to his feet as he leaned on the counter edge. "I'm just not . . . I mean, even with Kathy, I've never been comfortable talking about myself."
"I've never noticed," Liv smirked into her wine glass.
"You're one to talk," El countered.
"Jesus, El, you know more about me than anyone."
He held her gaze. "What happened in Sealview?"
Just the prison's name changed the tenor of the room completely. The enjoyment that had been touching the corners of her eyes and mouth slid away with haste. "That's not fair," she said darkly. "It's not the same thing."
Keeping his silence, he watched her eyes, waiting. When she didn't say anything more for several minutes, he sighed. "You're right - it's not the same thing. But it's still important."
"You just want to know so you can decide if you want to kill him." She stepped around him, headed back to the living room.
"I could kill him regardless," Elliot shrugged, "and for less than I'm scared of." It was the first time Olivia had heard him say it that way; the first time he had said the thought scared him. "I want to know if . . . he raped you," he told her. Bile rose in his throat from the words, and he clenched his jaw in defiance.
Breathing shallowly, Liv stared into her wine, wondering if she could will what little she'd already swallowed to make her numb. "He - " she tried, then stopped. Elliot took a step closer. "Harris didn't rape me, Elliot."
"But he hurt you," he substituted.
She looked up, at last, and the shame in her eyes was matched only by the rage in her partner's. "He, uh," Liv licked her lips. "He sexually assaulted me."
Ten years in SVU pitched a collection of terminology at him then, running down the most likely candidates: oral assault, digital assault, forcible touching, fondling. Elliot saw red, squeezed the beer bottle in his hand, stopping short of busting it in his fist. "Olivia, I'm - "
"Will you stop saying you're sorry?!" Liv snapped. She gulped the rest of her wine. "I'm not a fucking child, I'm a big girl!" She blew past him, back to the kitchen for a refill.
He turned, but knew better than to follow her this time. "Liv, stop. You're not a girl at all; you're a woman, for all the button-down work suits that you insist on. And an incredible cop. None of that changes the fact that I should have been there for you, and I wasn't."
"Drop the guilt complex, Stabler," she sniffed, "you can't save everyone, all the time."
His temples pounded in time with his chest. "We're not talking about everyone, we're talking about you!" Now he did follow, striding into the kitchen, stopping with the length of the bar between them. "My partner, my friend, Liv."
"I thought we were talking about you. Isn't that what you got drunk to come here and do?" she pointed out, "Or was that just a convenient cover for you to turn it back on me?"
Elliot took a deep breath, reining in his temper, struggling to refocus. "Ok. Yeah. You're right. So, I didn't tell you about my mother because I was – I am – ashamed. Ok?"
"Ashamed? El, my mother was a falling down drunk. If it was a contest - "
He slammed the beer bottle onto the counter. "That's my point!" he hissed. Liv gaped at him. "Your mother is gone, your father . . . " he motioned, but left it dangling, "and the problems you had with Simon. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only family you've got, and I didn't want to be just another fuck-up in your long line!"
Olivia's eyes stung with tears, frozen in place in front of the sink. Christ, is that how he sees me? she thought, sickened, As some little sister he has to watch out for? The squad is my family. I'm not some charity case. He – he pities me. She stepped forward, vibrating with upset, with her embarrassment. "That's why I didn't want to tell you," she seethed, "because I don't need your pity!"
She punctuated the last word with the pitch of her wine glass at the kitchen floor, where it shattered with a satisfying crash. Elliot moved back quickly, off-guard by the level of anger he'd never seen in his partner before. How any man had managed to assault her, he didn't know; she was a warrior, a hurricane in a glass.
While he was gathering himself, she had stalked back to the living room, and he turned to find her there, swearing at her own fingers. "Liv? You okay?" he asked quietly. He knew by the way she was eyeing her finger that she'd gotten glass in it.
"I'm fine, Elliot," she replied flatly. "You should go home."
"Let me see," he said, rounding the corner into the same room again.
"El. I'm fine. I can handle it."
Ignoring her, he took her wrist gently, turning her hand in the light. He saw it, immediately. "You have a pair of tweezers? Some nail clippers would be good, too."
" In the bathroom," Liv told him. She could feel the fight bleeding out of her, as if the glass had created an exit to vent it.
"Sit on the couch," he instructed, then headed to the bathroom. After rummaging for a few minutes, he returned with the tweezers, clippers, and a first aid kit. He pulled up her coffee table, using it as a seat, where he sat between her knees and took her hand into his lap.
Olivia watched his face, frowning with concentration, chasing the glass splinters with the tweezers. She wondered, if he was normally the parent to play doctor to his sick kids. What he'd just been through with Kathleen was certainly no great indication. Did he know he had great kids? Did he ever come down out of cop mode long enough to really see it?
"Listen," he spoke, breaking into her reverie, "I know you don't want to hear any more apologies, but I gotta say somethin'." He kept his eyes on her finger, his voice close to a whisper. "I'm sorry, that I wasn't with you in Sealview. I knew that UC situation was high-risk. And I know - " he stressed, "I know that you can handle yourself. I never doubt you. I just . . . "
"I know, El. I get it."
"Harris is an animal," he ground out. "Whatever he did, it haunts me. The not knowing. Not because I thought you couldn't handle it, but because it was you. It was you, Liv."
Elliot glanced up for a brief moment, and she finally recognized the look in his eyes. He looked back down, finally succeeding in liberating the shard from her finger. It came away with a burn of pain and Liv sucked in a gasped breath. The wound bled, faintly.
"Fuck, sorry," he rasped. Without thinking, he raised her hand and took the fingertip into his mouth, sucking gently. It was the most intimate contact they'd had in ten years. Olivia's heart trip-hammered, and she grew helplessly wet in an instant.
Sheepishly, he removed it again, reaching for the first aid kit. She watched him finish – clean it, put a band aid on it. He grinned. "All better," he declared.
I've got a few other parts that could use some doctoring, Liv thought furtively, her chest blooming with heat.
"I'm going to sweep up your floor," Elliot said, standing up.
Slowly, Liv got up and made her way back to the edge of the kitchen, watching her partner as he swept. "Will you . . . finish telling me about your mother?"
"I was close to my mother," he answered after a pause. "Until I got old enough to recognize that her behavior wasn't like other moms. But even then, the good times were good. You know, when you're a kid, plenty of crazy ideas seem mostly like a lotta fun."
He bent, sweeping glass into the dust pan.
"Sometimes those ideas got my folks fighting though," he admitted, "and I think that's when it started to frighten me. I guess I . . . drew back from my mother, not wanting to give my old man more reason to dislike me. He knew I was a lot like her. I thought being like her would make me crazy, too. That I would lose both my parents." Elliot stood, looked at her again. "In the end, I guess I still did."
Olivia swallowed dryly, her heart aching. "Elliot, I . . . I met her."
He stilled. "Huh?"
"I went to New Jersey, and I met your mother," she confessed.