A/N: Weird idea, I know, but I went with it anyways, and L&O isn't mine.

A bottle smashes on the sidewalk, dropped from an open window, ten stories above. Flip-flops smack on the sidewalk, moved by a teenage girl who blows a bubble with her gum as she talks with a friend. In an alley, people argue, eyes shifting nervously, and they run when they hear a police siren.

These are the sounds of New York City, these and the gunshots, and shouting, cell phones ringing and cars honking. This is the city that never sleeps, with people constantly moving, too busy to spare a glance for someone other than themselves.

A quiet place is hard to find. But it is a quiet place in which two detectives find themselves, with the murmurs of the medical examiner and the clicking of the cameras that the CSU techs are holding. It's early, but they can hear echoes of cars on the bridge above them, and the river moving in front of them.

Doors slamming tell them that their latest body is being taken to the morgue. A witness's voice tells them how said body was discovered. A radio from a squad car calls for a unit to report to an address on Manhattan's west side. Their lieutenant appears, her footsteps louder than normal in the gravel beneath their feet.

These are the sounds of their job, the one that they've worked for "God only knows how long," as they put it. These are the sounds that define them; the ones that make them who they are. The sounds of their lives, the ones they hear even when they're not looking or listening for them.

It is these sounds that tell them what they need to know, that lead them where they need to be. They're everything and nothing, all at once. Annoying at times, but necessary.

And they wouldn't trade them for the world.