Title: Cut
Author: mindy35
Rating: M, adult themes
Disclaimer: Not mine, no monies.
Spoilers: thru to "Screwed".
Pairings: Elliot/Olivia, Elliot/Kathy, Olivia/Dean.
Summary: Missing scenes/post-ep for "Screwed". Olivia reacts to the news of Elliot and Kathy's pregnancy and helps the youngest Stabler with her reaction.
A/N: This story was actually written before Olivia's recent chop. It is based on something I experienced during a bout of depression and felt the need to write about. I hope it adds another dimension to Olivia's recent trauma and also helps anyone currently in a difficult place to know they aren't alone.
To Wound
Her first reaction is to cut Braden down to size.
Right there outside the courtroom.
It's enormously satisfying. Biting words rolling off her tongue before her brain even thinks to form them. Her partner is watching though so she keeps her cool. Enough at least that he can assume her rage is due to the prosecutor's attack on their unit and not the news he's just delivered about his ex-wife's pregnancy.
At least, she hopes that's what he assumes. She doesn't know because she keeps her back to him the whole time, her face and eyes hidden from his far too knowing view. A moment later, she storms from the courthouse, leaving Elliot and his news behind.
To Censor
Her second reaction is to sleep with Dean Porter.
It seems like a good idea at the time. And she doesn't see why she shouldn't. Clearly, he'd wanted to for months – his earlier innuendo on the street had hardly been subtle. And she supposes she'd wanted to too. Because it happens, in a haze of Cabernet and case-related chatter.
Elliot discovers this when he shows up at her door, slightly inebriated and wanting to finish their conversation from the courthouse. Gathering her robe about her, she says she didn't realize it was unfinished. When he asks to come in, she blocks his way and tells him she's on her way to bed. Which is not untrue. After all, if she's going to make the mistake of having sex with a fed she might as well make that mistake as many times in one night as she can possibly manage. At the mention of bed, her partner's inebriated gaze skates over her, seeming to notice for the first time that she's clad in nothing more than a thin, floral robe.
Elliot Stabler is hardly the most observant man at the best of times – not, at least, when it came to those tiny details that matter to the opposite sex. Drunk, he's even less so. Neither is her partner good at taking hints. Instead of backing away from her door and leaving her and her bedfellow in peace, he sighs and says he needs a drink. This, she knows from previous experience, is Stabler-speak for I need to talk. Whenever they've had to hash out something of a personal nature, he generally feels more comfortable if he has a drink in his hand while they do. If sober Elliot is a tightly closed clam then tipsy Elliot is a clam with a cagey opening in his rigid outer shell.
Olivia steps out into the hallway with him, one hand gripping the doorhandle. Skipping ahead to what she thinks is bothering him, she says that when she asked at the courthouse what he was going to do she only meant that he had options. Elliot doesn't budge backwards as she advances, disallowing her any personal space. Heavy-lidded eyes on her face, he asks what his options are. And when she doesn't – can't – immediately respond, he asks again:
"What other option do I have, Liv?"
The question, along with the way he's looking at her, makes her breath catch in her throat. If she were another woman, she'd answer him with unflinching honesty. If she were a different woman to the one she is, the one she's been since meeting him that distant day in Cragen's office, then she'd elucidate on that other option he has always had but never taken. She'd convince him of its feasibility, she'd tempt him with its ease and bliss. She'd coax Elliot into considering her as an option.
She's not that kind of woman though and never has been. And it would be fairly hypocritical of her to pretend she is when another man lay snoozing in her bed after the thoroughly exorcising fuck she'd just given him. In any case, the actual words do not need to be uttered. In fact, it's imperative that they're not. Voicing them would make that underlying option they've always sensed but ignored a real possibility. Then they'd be losing something substantial as opposed something hypothetical. As long as it remains hypothetical – imaginary and unspoken – they can continue. They can remain partners, friends and allies as Elliot returns to his previous existence, to the wife who left him and the child he doesn't want.
Nether are fool enough to believe he will choose any differently.
Her heart contradicts her mind though, skipping a beat as he leans closer. Eyes on hers and voice barely above a rasp, he asks her one more time what other option he has. And for a heart-pausing moment, she's certain he's going to close that final distance between them and capture her mouth with his. She feels the pull between their bodies and she's sure he's going to obey it. He's going to back her against the wall, pressing her spine into the doorframe. She's going to feel his body against hers through his coarse clothes and her flimsy robe. He'll part that fabric with one warm, calloused hand, he'll slide it up her inner thigh to claim her wet cunt or down her outer thigh to draw her leg up round his body. His fingertips will press into her flesh, the denim of his jeans scraping over her flushed skin. He'll feel solid against her, warm and big and urgent. He'll feel and smell like her partner – known yet unknown. Out of context yet deeply familiar. He'll kiss her neck and shoulders and chest with an open mouth, tasting her with his tongue as his hands map her body. It'll be like making love with a best friend, a brother, an ever-present shadow.
Her eyes cut away as the imaginary images climax. She knows she's not the only one thinking them, feeling their intense possibility and dangerous proximity. They're a millisecond away from occurring and the only way to prevent them is to break eye contact, to re-remember who they are. When she's brave enough to lift her gaze back to his face, his eyes are fixed on her lips and her nerve once again fails. Looking away has broken the spell, made him hesitate. Which is what she wanted – or at least, it's what she intended. Like everything about them in the past nine years, it's simply what needed to happen. Perhaps if she hadn't…—. But then their years together were peppered with perhapses, all of which added up to a whole lot of nothing.
His wordless stare is making her uncomfortable and for the first time it occurs to her that her partner call tell she's just had sex. She wonders if her lips are swollen, if her cheeks are flushed and hair mussed. Does she smell like sweat and sex, does she smell like another man? She considers telling him about her decision to come clean to IAB, just to break the silence, but bites her tongue. He will try to talk her out of it. Either that or he'll see it as yet another desertion. Which it is, indirectly. She knows there'll be hell to pay when he finds out that she confessed to the enemy without even consulting him. She'll worry about that later though. Or…maybe she won't have to. Maybe she'll lose her badge, her job, her pension, and Elliot Stabler's volatile temper will no longer be her concern.
Her heart both breaks and feels liberated by the thought. It's sick of beating faster every time he draws close or reaches out or turns his gaze her way. It's sick of panicking every time a gun fires or perp swings or a knife is brandished in his direction. It's utterly exhausted by its one-sided love. It's tired of sleeping alone, of living in endless suspended hibernation. It's tired of being untouched, as tired as her body is. Both want to wake up, both want to do what they're meant for. Her heart wants to expand and pulse and open. Her hands want to stroke the thing they love. Her arms want to embrace, her mouth wants to smile and kiss and lick. Her back wants to arch, her legs entwine and her cunt receive. But none of them ever will, not so long as Elliot Stabler remains at her side, always two discreet paces away.
There was a time, after his divorce and before his reconciliation, when she very tentatively began to believe differently. But that time is over now and she must move on any way she can. Even if it means handing herself over to the enemy. When Olivia opens her mouth to say something to this effect though, she's interrupted by Dean. She hears him call her name a moment before her apartment door is yanked open. He's padding aimlessly about in his boxes with scruffy hair and drowsy eyes, supremely unembarrassed to be confronted by her formidable partner on the other side of the door. Elliot grits his teeth and takes a step back, placing some distance between his body and hers. His narrowed gaze looks Dean over – noting his broad, brown chest, lanky legs and big feet – before turning back on her with a frankly accusatory glint.
Her hackles rise at the glint, at the claim they imply. She could've given him the exact same look when he confessed to her at the courthouse about his teenage fumblings with his ex. But, again, she's not that kind of woman. She's accustomed to burying her desires but it didn't mean they didn't exist or at times overwhelm her. Olivia directs Dean to the drawer of take-out menus he's seeking before turning to re-face her partner. She's almost grateful for the hard look in his eye. It reminds her that as much as she loves Elliot Stabler he also irritates the hell out of her at times. Before he has the opportunity to say something snide and stalk off, she calls out to Dean that she feels like pizza. She knows Elliot will remember the sweltering New York night they'd spent slumped in the sedan, staking out a sex club and discussing post-coitus cuisine. She'd maintained that pizza was the best option for after or between bouts of vigorous sex. Being the protein-freak he was, Elliot preferred a little chicken pasta salad.
Now, he looks at the carpet, running hand over his unshaven jaw before at last taking the hint. "Have fun," is his parting remark before he heads off down the hall. She wishes she didn't feel guilty as she watches his retreating back but she is that type of woman. Hugging her arms, Olivia steps back inside the apartment. And closing the door, she tells Dean to order Chinese instead.
To Sever
Her next reaction is to confess her sins to IAB.
Officially, she's re-evaluating her commitment to the job. Unofficially, she's re-evaluating her commitment to her partner. Deep down, part of her hopes that Internal Affairs will possess the power to achieve what she cannot. She cannot summon the willpower herself to sever her connection with her partner. She tried before and failed. She still ended up back at that desk, facing him every day, walking at his side, matching his stride, backing him up, finishing his sentences. Her life and self and heart all messily entangled with his. Whatever it is that keeps her coming back, keeps them bound to each other is much, much stronger than her. Olivia has never considered herself a weak-willed individual – at least, not since her troubled teens. She's worked hard at gathering her strength about her and holding it there like a protective cape. But now, she's looking to a higher power to once and for all make the decision she hasn't been able to. She's looking to that board of stuffed shirts to save her. Or doom her. Who knew now? All she knows is that she long ago lost all perspective when it came to Elliot Stabler. He's the one weakness she just can't seem to overcome.
Just months before she'd fought for the right to remain his partner. She'd stubbornly refused to acknowledge that there was anything inappropriate about their alliance. Both of them had. What accomplished and fantastical liars all those years of collusion had made them. They didn't need to exchange a word, not even a single look, before launching into that well-worn double act of denial. Sometimes, she wonders if it fools anyone, if they ever did. She certainly fooled herself for a good few years. Truth is though, neither of them wants to pull the plug despite knowing that they must. Whether it happens in a week or a decade, the heartache when the axe falls will be the same. The heartache is the only thing she can count on as inevitable. But since neither she nor Elliot has it in them to bring about their own estrangement, she's hoping IAB will be the bad guy. She's hoping their rules and regulations will for once prove useful. Let them make the decision, she thinks as she climbs the steps to face them, let them force her hand and heart. Let them take the brunt of Elliot's blame, let them drive the inevitable wedge that separates life from life, mind from mind and soul from soul.
It's surprisingly easy, falling on her sword. She doesn't hesitate in telling the unmitigated truth. She answers their questions without making excuses and shakes their hands when she's dismissed. Afterwards, she feels lighter, relieved, able to breathe. Descending the steps, with Dean watching her walk away, Olivia feels free.
When she receives their decision, she cries. Cragen calls her into his office, going easy on the lecture when he sees her face. She holds it together until she gets to the bathroom then she doubles over, one hand grasping the edge of the basin as involuntary, guttural sobs erupt from deep within her. She doesn't know if she's crying out of relief or disappointment. She's not sure if she craved the wedge or dreaded it. She's not sure if she'd rather have the heartache now when she's prepared or inflict it on her unwitting self at some undetermined later date.
When she returns to the squadroom, Elliot is standing at his desk in jeans and a grey hoodie, gathering files to take home – a home he is once again sharing with his wife and kids. Both of them are in the bad books with IAB so both have been stuck on desk duty. They've spent the entire week facing each other across their desktops while staunchly avoiding eye contact. Considering their equally matched obstinacy, it's a game that could go on for decades. If they'd been on better terms they'd have headed off now to drown their sorrows at the local cop bar. But Elliot is still pissed at her for going to IAB without giving him a heads-up. And no doubt for sleeping with Dean Porter. The most she's gotten out of him in the past few days is the odd grunt or apathetic shrug. He was making it real easy to come to terms with the idea that that week sitting opposite him might be the last of their partnership.
Olivia silently gathers a few files as well, preparing to head home to her empty apartment. Her face is probably splotchy from her bathroom breakdown but thankfully her partner doesn't so much as glance at her. Ever since he told her there's no crying in baseball, it's been a point of pride with her not to cry in front of him. Ever. He's rummaging through his locker when she turns to open hers and Olivia can't help noticing the wrinkled photo of a teenaged Elliot and Kathy that has been resurrected and is once again stuck to the inside of the door. Elliot casts her a sidelong look as he shuts his locker then grabs his coat and heads for the door without a word. He doesn't toss her coat to her as he normally would or ask for the verdict on her misconduct. She assumes he got it out of Cragen the minute she exited his office anyway.
Shrugging on her own coat, Olivia closes her locker, gathers her stack of files and heads for the elevator. They wait for it in silence, ride it downwards in silence. Then, striding unsynchronized through the precinct vestibule, they part ways on the dusk-lit street outside.
To Slash
Her final reaction to her partner's news is to cut her hair.
It's a habit she developed when she was thirteen. She began by cutting her body, making bleeding little incisions on the underside of her arm or the tender flesh of her thighs. Seeing deep red blood bubble up from the cuts validated her, relieved her. Oddly, it actually made her feel more in control of her own body, her emotions, her pain. Her mother soon found out though and forbid the practice, confiscating her secret stash of sharp instruments.
Serena Benson prided herself on her strength and viewed her daughter's habit as a weakness not to be tolerated. In defiance, Olivia's younger self began cutting her hair. This proved doubly rewarding. Not only did it inflict a more visible punishment on her body, it also embarrassed her refined and restrained mother no end, having to introduce a daughter with a makeshift Mohawk uncaringly cut by kitchen shears. She would lop off chunks at a time, delighting in her hair's unevenness, reveling in her own ugliness. She would cut and cut and cut until all she had left was a blunt pixie do that was as prickly as her personality. Then she would wait, watching with sadistic anticipation, until her hair grew long enough for her to ruthlessly hack it off again.
At the time, a much more dangerous New York than the one she knew now, along with the rest of the America, was beginning its punk rock phase. So no one on the streets she roamed gave an angry girl with messily cropped hair a second look. Her antagonistic absence of vanity made eyes pass right through her, skip right over her. She'd loved the feeling of invisibility it gave her. She felt insignificant, ugly, dead. Best of all, if no one saw her then no one could see what a reprehensible freak of nature she was.
This was a habit Olivia never quite grew out of. Even as a relatively well-adjusted adult, whenever something happened in her life to shake her foundations, she still found herself mentally reaching for the kitchen shears. At some point, she graduated to hairdressers. For years, she never attended one for fear of the disapproving whispers her missing chunks of hair might produce. More than this though, the thought of someone poking around up there, running intrusive hands through what was left of her hair, inspecting it's sad state with inquiring eyes, was like inviting a stranger to pry into an open wound. Occasionally, she still took to it herself. She couldn't resist the glorious power and punishment, the vindictive satisfaction she got from it. Then she'd visit a hairdresser she never had before and never would again and with a stoic expression, ask them to fix what she'd so casually mangled.
After Elliot tells her of Kathy's pregnancy, after she cuts down Braden, after sleeping with Dean Porter four times in one night and reporting to IAB the following morning, after receiving word of her suspension, she takes a pair shears from her kitchen drawer and watches her reflection as she saws off her ponytail. The abandoned shank sits on the bathroom sink for the next few days, a slowly suffocating chestnut snake. Before she's due back at work, she visits a salon she trusts, asking her long-suffering stylist who simply tells cute jokes about her strange habit to do something with the mess she's made. Olivia closes her eyes as he begins. He revels in the freedom she allows him and she barely cares what he does with her head. She invites the change, welcomes someone else's view of her over her own internalized condemnation. She lets the fine blades zip about her head, silencing the cacophony of voices inside, and when she opens her eyes, she sees in the mirror a no-nonsense cop, a confident woman with a short stylish do who at least appears to have her life sorted.
Heading through security a few days later, the rotund guard who likes to engage passers-by in a little sassy dialogue before work compliments her on her new look. Bonita pats her weave and says she'd never have the guts to go from long to short like that. Olivia just shrugs and says she should try it someday. It's odd to her that no one sees the badge of weakness she wears on her head. No one else seems to see what to her is so obvious. Every woman knows that hair isn't just hair. It's a signal to the world of a woman's emotional state. But as the older woman cackles, she's relieved that her most recent heartache doesn't appear as obvious and as raw on the outside as it feels on the inside.
To Disconnect
Elliot doesn't notice her chopped locks or if he does, he doesn't comment on them. Not that she expects or wants him to. He'd never understand the psychology behind her constantly changing hairstyle. Which is probably why he laughs when Kathy tells him that Elizabeth has taken to cutting her hair with craft scissors. And has sliced open her finger in the process.
They are sitting in the sedan, sipping cold coffee and watching a darkened residence at the time. Their stakeout has lasted three hours and shows no sign of abating. Their side-by-side proximity means Olivia can hear every word of his phone conversation with his exasperated wife. As a general rule, in such circumstances, she tries not to eavesdrop. Instead, she makes a concerted effort to focus on her job, to give her attention to the life occurring outside the four doors of the car. She does all she can to block out her partner's other life, allowing him his privacy and squelching any internal pangs she may feel.
This time, however, her ears perk up. On the other end of the phone, Kathy sounds tired and cross. She isn't sure whether to take Elizabeth to the local hospital for stitches or a psyche consult or both. Elliot, on the other hand, seems to think the whole incident silly and meaningless. His wife insists that he talk to his daughter though and a moment later, a different voice filters over the line and into the car. Olivia can hear her high-pitched tone and distressed sniffles. Elliot chuckles and tells Lizzie to calm down. Casting him a frowning look, his partner whacks his arm. When he replies with a questioning lift of his brows she rolls her eyes and tells him to give her the phone. He pulls it away from his ear and blinks at her.
"Give it to me," she insists, holding out a hand.
Elliot compiles, handing over the phone and watching her put it to her ear.
"Hey Lizzie, it's Olivia," she says into the phone. "Just hang on a sec for me—"
He ducks his head, watching her open the door and exit the car.
"You keep an eye on the residence," she tells him, phone pressed to her breast. "I've got this." Then she slams the door and heads across the street to settle on a stone stoop.
At first, Elizabeth is reluctant to talk. At the age of thirteen, she has entered the stage of teenhood where mumbles and monosyllabic answers constitute conversation. She's always been rather a quiet child, in Olivia's limited experience. Her intelligent, secretive air often seemed to get eclipsed by the bigger Stabler personalities. And as the least problematic of her partner's children, she was also the one with whom Olivia had had the least contact. Still, she was used to coaxing confessions out of tight-lipped teens and had more than enough experience breaking down the Stabler brand of stubborn.
The first hurdle towards communication is getting her name straight. Elizabeth insists on being called Liz – not Elizabeth or Lizzie. Just plain Liz. Elizabeth is too pretty, she says, and Lizzie is a kid's name. Olivia smiles, remembering thinking the same thing about her own name. When she shares this with Elliot's daughter, the young girl says:
"So that's why Dad calls you 'Liv'?"
Olivia glances back at the parked sedan and sees her partner watching curiously as she shivers on the stoop. She darts him a look and points to their mark's unobserved door. Elliot holds up a hand and diverts his attention as she goes back to drawing out his daughter. With time and coaxing, it comes out that, as the baby of the family, younger than her twin by eight minutes, Liz is having trouble with the idea of a new baby. Especially on the heels of a not adapted to separation and divorce. And while Olivia isn't able to tell herself that the new child doesn't change her relationship with her partner, she can at least assure little Liz that the imminent arrival does not alter her parent's love for her.
"I know," is Lizzie's cavalier response. "I don't care about that, that's not why I did it."
Before rising from the stoop, Olivia gives Lizzie her number. The girl's voice sounds calmer and in the background, her mother is telling her it's now bedtime. Olivia tells her to call if she gets the urge to cut again. Anytime, day or night. Lizzie says she will and ends the call. Olivia trots back across the street, dodging a passing cab and casting a glance in the direction of the still darkened door of their suspect. Sliding back into her seat, she hands her partner his phone.
"It's just hair," Elliot says, defending his earlier flippancy. "It'll grow back."
"It's not just hair," she answers, rubbing the warmth back into her hands. "Not to a girl."
When she glances across at him, his eyes slide upwards, focusing for the first time on her recently lopped off hair. Olivia turns away.
"She'll be fine," she murmurs, gazing out the window. Though she's not entirely sure which of them she's talking about.
To Erase
Three weeks later, Elliot shows up at her door with Elizabeth. Olivia is recovering from an all-nighter so she's dressed in black leggings and a grey hoodie and is probably sporting a severe case of bedhead. When she opens the door, her partner is grasping a chunk of blonde hair in his fist as though sheer willpower will reattach it. Beside him, Lizzie looks sullen and uncooperative.
"We tried to make her go to a hairdresser," Elliot says, "but she would only come here."
"Don't wanna go to a hairdresser," Lizzie mutters, gaze cast to one side. "They'll laugh at me."
Olivia nods slowly, looking back and forth between the two of them. "You know, Liz…I used to cut all my friends' hair in high school."
Lizzie looks up, making brief eye contact through her specs. "Did you wanna be a hairdresser?"
"Nah…" She smiles and shrugs. "Wanted to be a groupie."
Lizzie snorts and glances up at her dad. Elliot smiles back down at her.
Olivia reaches for the blonde braid in his hand. "This," she says, tossing it towards the trash, "is gone. But if you want, I could fix it up for you."
She shoves her specs up her nose with one finger, eyeing her defiantly. "Maybe I want it lopsided, maybe I like it like that."
"Lizzie—" Elliot begins but his partner interrupts.
"Then I'll leave it lopsided," she replies lightly. "Lopsided can be pretty."
Elliot's youngest trudges inside, mumbling under her breath, "Maureen's the pretty one, haven't you heard? Kathleen's the sexy one. I'm just the geeky one."
Elliot follows her in, closing the door behind them. Olivia heads into the kitchen to retrieve the hairdresser's shears she now keeps on hand.
"I was a geek too," she says as she unsheathes the scissors. "Nose constantly in a book..."
Lizzie faces her with a disbelieving frown. "But you're so pretty."
"Well…you should have seen me then," she replies, opening another drawer and pulling out a handtowel. "I was quiet and serious and had all this big, curly hair I didn't know what to do with."
"Bet you never got called four-eyes," Lizzie counters, tipping up her chin.
"No. No, I didn't..." Olivia heads round the counter and comes back with a stool. "But I was called metal-mouth a lot." She places the stool in the center of the kitchen then taps her front teeth with a finger. "Braces."
"No kidding?" Elliot murmurs, smiling slightly.
Lizzie narrows her little Stabler eyes at him and her father promptly retreats to the living room. Olivia pats the stool, waiting patiently for her to make the decision to come to her.
"Mom doesn't understand," Lizzie says as she slips up onto it. "She was a cheerleader."
"Ah…" Olivia arranges the towel about her shoulders then undoes the solitary braid on the left side of her face. "Maybe you're just a late bloomer. Like me."
Lizzie smiles for the first time and seems utterly unconcerned with whatever she's doing to her hair. Shifting on the high stool, she calls out to her dad: "You should let her do you, dad!"
"Thanks," he calls back, "but I'm good."
"You said you needed a trim!"
Elliot wanders in from the lounge. "I only said that to get you to go to a hairdresser."
"You said if I got my hair cut, you'd get yours cut too."
"I meant by a professional."
Olivia glances at him over his daughter's head but says nothing.
Lizzie picks up a chunk of snipped blonde hair from her lap and brandishes it at him. "Whas the matter, dad? You chicken?"
Elliot opens his mouth but nothing emerges. Olivia stifles a smile and tells him to go get her a comb.
"What kind of comb?"
"Any kind of comb."
He shrugs, heading in the direction of her bedroom while she continues to snip at Elizabeth's hair. When he returns, his hands are full of combs and brushes, no two of which are the same.
"Who needs this many brushes?" he asks, holding the collection out to her.
"Girls do," Lizzie replies as Olivia selects a wide-toothed comb and turns back to his daughter.
She combs out her thin blonde hair, parts it three different ways and checks for any untidy patches. Then she pulls back and announces: "Done." She points to a mirror in the vestibule. "Go look."
Lizzie hops down from the stool, dusts some hair from her neck then moves to the mirror to check out her lop-sided bob. "Cool." She turns and faces her father. "Your turn."
Elliot holds up a hand. "I prefer my barber, thankyou."
"C'mon…" she mutters, rolling her eyes. "It'll be a precious father-daughter bonding experience."
He glances over his shoulder at his partner who snips her scissors in the air.
"Where's the trust?" she murmurs with a small shake of her head. "After all this time…where's the trust?"
"Yeah, dad. Where's the trust?"
"I…trust Liv—"
"Well then." His daughter turns on her heel and heads into the lounge room as though the matter is settled.
Elliot shuffles reluctantly over to the stool in the middle of the kitchen. "Just…be gentle, okay?"
Olivia smiles as she arranges a fresh towel about his shoulders. "It's just hair, El. It'll grow back."
His eyes meet hers but his amused look is interrupted by his daughter calling out:
"There's a photo in here of you, dad!" There's a short pause before Lizzie calls out again, adding: "You look smashed."
"It's not polite to snoop," Elliot calls back to her.
"Like you can talk," Olivia mumbles as she moves round to begin trimming the hair at the nape of his neck.
The moment her fingers sweep up his neck, collecting his hair and trapping it between her forefinger and middle finger, both fall conspicuously silent. Elliot's back stiffens, his chest puffs outwards with a held breath. Olivia performs a few perfunctory snips, mostly for his daughter's benefit, then takes a breath and blows the scraps of hair away. She immediately regrets the action when the breath held in his chest releases all at once and his spine emits an involuntary shudder.
There isn't a great deal for her to cut on the sides but she plays around with the scissors, snipping back his closely cropped hair. Really, she's just buying time. It's already uncomfortable, standing close to his side, running her fingertips though his hair, trying not to let her breast brush his arm. She shifts to the other side, wondering how she is going to tackle the front, which is where his hair needs the most attention. His fists are balled up tight on his thighs and she's not sure how she can avoid standing between them. She's not sure if slotting one leg into the open 'v' of his thighs will help prevent bodily contact or simply make things more awkward. The height of the stool puts his face on a level with her chest and though the grey hoodie is far from revealing, the last thing she wants is to feel his breath puffing against her exposed skin. And his breath is coming faster. He can't conceal it and she can't ignore it. But nor can they ignore the presence of his daughter in the next room and all she signifies.
In the end, she decides to just get it over with. After all, the point is not that Elliot receive the best haircut of his life but that Elizabeth not feel alone. So she steps round in front of him and shuffles in close. Elliot solves the problem of where she should position herself by opening his legs wider to allow her room without any unseemly contact occurring. His fists open, hands gripping his thighs tight. She drops her gaze to his, giving what she's sure is an unconvincing smile. Then she lifts both hands to his head. Elliot breaks eye contact by closing his eyes but almost instantly seems to decide against this strategy. Instead, he just stares straight ahead at the dint at the base of her throat where her pulse is beating beneath her skin. Olivia pulls in a breath, traps his hair between her fingers and cuts. She repeats the process several times before realizing that her mouth is dry and she's biting down on her lower lip. Releasing the lip, she snips again at her partner's hair but this time, in her distraction, scores her own finger.
She inhales sharply, withdraws her hand and sticks the wounded finger in her mouth.
Elliot whips the towel off his shoulder. "Lemme see, is it bad?"
Olivia shakes her head and mumbles something around her bleeding flesh. Elliot pulls it from her mouth and looks at it. Blood springs to the surface and a long forgotten rush darts through her. Before the rush can take hold though, Elliot wraps her finger in the towel, putting pressure on the bleeding.
"I think that's enough," he murmurs, voice low and taut.
"It's nothing," she says. "And you're lopsided."
He flashes her a half-smile. "It's all the rage these days."
Olivia swallows and steps back. Out of the 'v' of his legs, away from his smile and his eyes, back from his unfinished haircut. She retracts her hand from his grip then moves to the sink. She has her back turned, running the cut under some cold water, when Elizabeth rounds the corner, a book from her shelf hugged against her. Behind her glasses, her eyes cut from her father to his partner then back again before her voice breaks the silence.
"We should take her to lunch, dad."
Elliot rises from the stool and dusts himself off. "Sounds like a fair exchange."
Olivia turns at the sink and shakes her head. "I, ah…I'd have to get changed."
"So get changed," Elliot shrugs, picking up the stool. "We'll clean up in here." He turns to Elizabeth. "Right?"
Lizzie nods. "Mm-hm."
Olivia tucks some hair behind her ear then nods in agreement. "Okay…Gimme five."
"Never, in nine years, have I known you to be ready in five minutes." Elliot smiles as she slips past, sidestepping the hair shavings. And him. "We'll give you fifteen."
Olivia rolls her eyes and continues on her path to the bedroom. The first thing she does is head for the adjoining bathroom. Peeling back the kitchen cloth, she inspects the accidental cut she made in her own skin. She watches a few bright red spots of blood drop to the white porcelain basin. Then, opening a drawer, she locates a pack of bandaids and tears one open with her teeth. Olivia wraps it round her bleeding finger then tosses the blood-stained towel toward the laundry basket as she exits.
END.