A/N: Here we go again, please tell me what you think of it! Enjoy.
Whispered HopeOlivia had almost made it home.
Had any bystander been present, observing, they would have seen the way she swayed considerably when she walked, the way she stumbled in a manor that could only indicate intoxication.
They would have noticed the way her fists were clenched so tightly her knuckles were of a vivid white colour, and that her face was presented in an expression of intense anger. Another clue that this woman's night had been nothing but misery.
They would have perceived the tears, the streaming torrents that spilled incessantly out from her red-rimmed eyes.
Any bystander would have asked her if there was anything they could do to help.
Any bystander would have called this poor woman a cab; would at least have made sure that she got home safely.
But there were no bystanders that night.
And Olivia didn't make it home safe.
It wasn't a big surprise to her. Not really.
It wouldn't have been a big surprise to anyone, in retrospect. Nope, no one would be shocked that the infamous Benson and Stabler had fucked it up again. Royally.
But that didn't stop it from hurting, from tearing at every fibre of her being until she was left feeling stripped, naked, in the wake of a violent storm.
She's been drunk. She knew she shouldn't have gone past three or four. Five, at the very most. She was well aware of her damned limit, for God sakes.
And she knew, she knew better than to get fucking smashed with the likes of Elliot Stabler around. It could only have lead to trouble. And, Christ, the trouble it had lead to.
Lowered inhibitions, heightened senses of touch and the apt capacity to think that everything she heard meant something it really, really didn't, could only have lead to the death of her.
And at the time, she honestly hadn't meant that literally.
Jesus, he was an idiot. He was the biggest idiot alive and he was the one with the tiniest brain. The one with the uncontrolled anger issues, the one the was bound to end up hurting someone so very deeply, and the only one slow enough not to realize he was actually doing so until two hours afterward.
And fuck if he wasn't trying exceptionally hard not to blame the whole ordeal on Olivia.
It was she, after all, who had suggested they go out that evening. It was all her idea. And she was the one who was irresponsible enough to get drunk without a B plan.
She was the one who had started it.
But he'd played along, and after a long, gruelling case, who the hell wouldn't want to get completely smashed and forget their whole existence? Who wouldn't want to empty their mind of the horrifying images of sickeningly mistreated adults and children that would otherwise haunt their dreams?
He understood where she was coming from, but that didn't stop his from being angry with her.
But then he went and fucking ruined her night, ruined her chance to unwind and let go. The problem was she'd let go of a little too much rope there, and Elliot felt like it was his responsibility, as her partner and as her friend, to make sure that she didn't let slip things that, if she'd been sober, she'd have shot herself before revealing.
But when she spoke, when she spun him a story so wonderful, so amazingly fantastic that he felt warm all over, he couldn't find it in himself to stop her from voicing her thoughts.
But he was still a good man, so to save himself, as well as her, the immense humiliation that would come in the morning, he got up and left. No good bye, no safe cab home. No words at all, actually. He'd just stood and stalked out the door.
She'd followed, of course, and cried and told him that she 'couldn't believe he was doing this to her!' And then she'd thrown his earlier move back in his face, stumbling away, drunkenly. To get a cab, he hoped.
And now he felt like the stupidest dumbass alive, because it only hit him now, that what she was trying to say. It was only as he was halfway home that he realized what Olivia had really been saying to him.
And then he really needed to apologize; because he also grasped that everything she had told him that night was reciprocated, only ten times stronger.
So her turned and started towards her apartment, with every intent of making peace with her.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
You are such a screw up.
Why, why did you do that? Why did you scare him away? Why the fuck did you tell him your most guarded secret, your most precious, most coveted thoughts?
Did you really think he'd take you? Did you really believe that he would stay with you and tell you that it was okay, and that he felt the exact same fucking way about it?
Olivia's thoughts were a miasma of unhappy sounds. She wished she could just turn her brain off.
Click. There. Done. She was done. With everything. She wished she could just…just not feel anything at all. No hurt, no sting of rejection, no flaring, searing burn of anger threatening to engulf her. At the same time, she strangely yearned for Elliot at her side. Maybe it was because if she had his shoulder to lean on, she wouldn't be falling and tripping and making a fool of herself in front of whoever might be watching.
Who was she kidding? There was no one about the streets tonight, at the hour. Everyone was home, drowsing peacefully in their beds, pleasant thoughts dancing in their heads. She should have been home too, in her bed, comfortable. But she couldn't see three steps in front of her. And if she concentrated too hard on that, then she forgot to move her feet and suddenly the sidewalk was right under her nose and damn, it fucking hurt.
She was so dizzy, too, and god damn it if she didn't want to be rid of that fog that prevented her from moving normally. She felt like she was in a dream, the horrible kind where you are imprisoned in your own body. She knew she wanted to move fast, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, she wanted to talk, also, to scream at the top of her lungs but the damned fog consumed her and stopped her intended motions. It turned her steps into stumbles; it turned her bold shouts into incoherent mumbling.
Just as she was struggling with the lock of her building, trying to fit the god damned huge key in the tiny lock that wouldn't fucking stop moving for one stupid second, she was aware of huge, huge hands, vice like on her upper arms. And they weren't gentle, either. They gripped her, hard, and pulled her uncooperative body away from her door, leaving her keys to drop with a jingle onto the cold cement steps.
Olivia managed a small cry through the haze, trying to let the hands know that she'd really appreciate it if they'd let go. Because it really fucking hurt.
And then she was in the alley that held the building garbage, and the unfriendly, rough hands her on her. Something else was on her, too, big and heavy and it was starting to suffocate her with the way it was straddling her.
A man's body…Sobriety tried to take control when the realization hit her. She started to resist, but it was weak. Her feeble attempts at freedom did zero to deter this stranger from his mission.
And as much as she was trying to tell him how much she did not want this, he wasn't giving her any room. He was in her face, the whole time, smiling, acting like maybe she was supposed to be enjoying it, too.
But she wasn't. She wanted Elliot, no matter how humiliated she felt. She wanted Elliot to get this man the fuck off her because she couldn't breath and every, single muscle in her body fucking hurt, especially ones that really had no business being sore at that moment. And she was helpless to do anything, because she was drunk and slow and uncoordinated. She had been such a good choice for him, suchan easy target.
Oh, Christ, it hurt, and she wanted it to stop, stop, she wanted Elliot, she wanted Elliot…
Forty-eight minutes later he was walking up to her building, hands tightly clenched, jaw fixed. Because in less than five minutes he would be facing the anger of a woman who was better left alone when so thoroughly pissed. Because soon he would be on the butt end of Olivia Benson's wrath.
Oh, shiiiiit.
But he needed to apologize. He needed her to know that he did agree with her. That he felt just as much in return.
Something glinting in the streetlamp caught his eye. It was on Olivia's doorstep. Maybe a coin, a penny, and if he was lucky he might score higher. But then his heart sped up.
Olivia's keys. And the door was locked.
The door was locked, and her keys were on the ground, which indicated that she'd been here not long ago. But that she sure as hell hadn't gone in.
"Liv?" He called, thinking maybe she'd dropped her purse and gone back around the bock to get it. He strictly refused to let the panic engulf him, but worry was starting to seep through the cracks.
"Olivia?"
And he backed up, looking left and right for any sight of his troubled partner. Just as he was about to walk the other direction, a slight scraping sound came from the alley beside her building. Like the noise a wounded dog might make while trying to get away.
He jogged to the alley, bracing himself for what he might find there. His muscles tensing, his breath held.
But nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for the unspeakably horrifying sight that met his eyes when they scanned the area.
Suppressing the urge to be violently sick right then and there, he sprang forward and ran towards the crumpled, broken form of his crying, mutilated, helpless Olivia.
A/N: I'd love to hear your thoughts, everyone!
There'll be another chapter, depending on how many review I get going, so…. you know what to do if you'd like another!