A/N: This is my first posted fanfic. Up until this point I've been around reading and reviewing but I thought I'd finally try my hand at writing something. I would really appreciate reviews and feedback -- good or bad!
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or anything affiliated with Law & Order:SVU. They belong solely to Dick Wolf (lucky bastard!)
It wasn't like she hadn't seen him without a shirt on before.
She had seen him shirtless in plenty of situations – completely "just partner" appropriate situations, of course. Like when they were working out or the numerous times he had crashed on her couch because it was late and they were both too drunk to drive.
And then there were the few moments she had allowed herself to spend being amazed at how the muscles rippled in his back after the incident with Blaine. She shook her head, not wanting to go back to such a dark time in their history. Things were still complicated but by now Olivia had accepted that they always would be. She had run to Oregon but even there she couldn't escape him. He had crept into her dreams most nights and the nights he didn't appear she woke up tired and missing him. So, because she was a logical person -- hell, a detective who got paid to notice and deduce -- Olivia had resigned herself to the fact that she was most definitely in love with her partner.
Sure, she knew it would never work between them. Even though he and Kathy were divorced now, there were still too many obstacles, too many secrets, too many people who would be affected. Too much history.
It was with the frame of mind of a realist that Olivia resumed her carefully inconspicuous study of her partner's bare chest. The chest whose residence was confined strictly to her daydreams and behind her eyes at night. The chest that smoothly flowed into a toned, defined abdomen that her hands desperately wanted to dance across. The chest that she could easily picture hovering….No, Olivia refused to go there. Especially while she was sitting in the locker room of the 1-6, still technically on duty but about to be faced with a very unhappy Cragen.
The precise reason as to why Elliot and Olivia were currently in the locker room, as opposed to on the streets, was because of an incident that had occurred during the interrogation they had been in mere minutes ago. Their perp, Peter Mitchelle, had been attacking new mothers for the past two weeks and Munch and Fin had finally managed to track him down and bring him in.
"Why'd you pick them, Peter, huh?" asked Olivia, leaning on the edge of the table. "Because women who have just given birth are a hell of a lot less likely to put up a fight?"
"Just not man enough to handle a stronger woman, are you?" Elliot chimed in from the corner.
"Or maybe," Olivia continued, "it's because you have issues with your own mother. It always seems to come back to the mother, doesn't it Elliot?"
"Mhmm," Elliot assented
Olivia pushed herself off the table to walk around to their perp. She circled him, leaning closer to his ear.
"See, my partner and I --, " was all she got out before Mitchelle had her pushed up against the wall with one hand around her neck and the other grabbing her right breast roughly.
"You wanna see me do a real woman? I'll take her, I'll take her right here!" he screamed into the two-way mirror.
Olivia punched him twice in the face before kneeing him swiftly in the balls. She looked on in disgust as the man fell to the floor, immediately curling up into the fetal position and looking very much like he was trying not to cry. The satisfying crunch of bone she had heard after her second punch made her almost certain his nose was broken.
"Are you okay?" Cragen asked, turning away from the observation window as she walked out of the room. Olivia nodded.
Before the Captain could continue, they both were startled into turning back to the window by the sounds of Elliot Stabler in rage. Elliot had Mitchelle back on the floor, this time clutching his ribs, before Olivia could get in the room.
"El! Elliot! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Olivia yelled over the sounds of Mitchelle's whimpering. She grabbed his elbow to drag him out of the room and into some degree of sanity but he pulled away. He towered over the injured man for a second as Olivia heard him whisper vehemently, "No one ever screws with my partner like that. Ever." There was a certain amount of finality in his voice that Olivia had never heard before. It was coldly terrifying and under no circumstances did she ever want it directed toward herself. Elliot poised his foot to give Mitchelle one last kick but Olivia quickly yanked him away.
"Elliot!" she said roughly, "Let's go!"
Outside the interrogation room, the two detectives were met by a livid Cragen. "Both of you need to cool off and get cleaned up. Then I want you in my office," he barked, glaring.
So it was because of Elliot's infamous lack of control that Olivia found herself staring at his naked chest. What she didn't understand (and certainly didn't want to spend as much time thinking about) as well as the smooth muscles in his torso, was what had made her partner snap. Well, technically, she knew what had made him snap, it was the 'why' that was puzzling her. It was obvious from his last comment to Mitchelle that he had taken offense with the perp's actions toward her.
Of course Olivia had been pissed too; she didn't take too kindly to being felt up by a criminal in an interrogation room. But she was also confident that she had the situation completely under control. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened and it wouldn't be the last. She knew that, as did Elliot, yet Olivia couldn't remember her partner ever reacting so violently to what was clearly a controlled (and certainly not life or death) situation.
Despite all her detective training and her uncanny ability to read people, Olivia was at a complete loss as to why Mitchelle's declaration that he would "take her right there" had fazed Elliot to the point of outright and unnecessary violence.