This is the first of 3 planned chapters. I don't usually upload until all are complete, but it's been so long since I posted anything that I've almost forgotten how. Like George in the story, I'm not much of a sports fan, so please just go with the flow even if these teams wouldn't meet during the regular season. I did choose them for a reason. No, I don't own the characters, Mr. Wolf does, and I'm not planning on making any money from the story. I think I've taken care of all the warnings. I hope the small band of Huang/Stabler shippers out there finds this a pleasant holiday surprise.
Control Issues
A Monday evening in early December
Huang-Stabler residence
Dr. George Huang was curled up on the couch watching the Live from Lincoln Center production of M. Butterfly (the Puccini opera, not the Broadway play) on PBS and sipping a glass of wine. It felt good to be able to relax. The only thing he needed to make it a perfect evening would be to have Elliot Stabler beside him, but Elliot was probably still on the road down from New York's maximum security prison in Ossining.
Huang had had a hectic day. The Department of Psychiatry meeting had lasted all morning. He'd become so bored that he'd started making a list, just in his mind of course, of the pathologies exhibited by his colleagues, particularly the chief of service. He'd stopped counting somewhere around 15. After a lunch consisting of the cafeteria's Monday mystery meat (as opposed to Tuesday's, Wednesday's and so on), he'd made his way to the medical record department in the hospital's basement (next to the morgue). Normally, he prided himself on keeping up with his patient care documentation, but he'd been involved in a particularly difficult case with the NYPD's SVU of late and had gotten behind. He spent the afternoon dictating a stack of reports. He'd had an equally large file of reports to proofread, correct and electronically sign. Not for the first time did he wonder where transcription was being shipped off to this year in an effort to save the hospital money. From the looks of some of the reports, he might have better luck if he dictated in Chinese. Finally, he'd made late rounds and checked on his resident's work. It had been just after 7 p.m. when he'd unlocked the door to his home.
He'd immediately noticed the blinking red light on his private line and played back the message. "Hey, George. The captain wants me and Liv to take another crack at that bastard Hogan for the Naper case. I'll be running late. Don't wait supper on me. I'll give you a call when I hit the city - see if you want me to stop for anything." Huang smiled at Stabler's latest manifestation of thoughtfulness, but the smile faded as he pressed the button to erase the message, and the little voice in the back of his head reminded him that while Elliot could be acting out of a genuine sense of caring, he could just as easily be trying to score points for the next time he was oppositional and defiant. Huang sighed and berated himself. Don't go there. Don't ruin the evening.
He pushed the negative thought from his mind and went into the bedroom to change into a pair of comfortable black jeans and a black Shaker knit sweater. Next stop was the kitchen where he began the prep work for dinner. He didn't mind cooking - in fact, he found the methodical dicing, slicing and cubing necessary for many Chinese dishes to be rather restful. While he preferred vegetables and tofu, he knew Elliot would be hungry when he got home, so he decided to fix Kung Pao chicken, a spicy dish with both meat and peanuts that he knew Stabler particularly enjoyed.
He'd finished in the kitchen in time to watch his favorite opera and was just getting into the plot when the phone rang. He hit the mute button on the TV remote and rose to answer it.
"Hey, George, traffic wasn't as bad as usual, which is about the only thing that's gone right today. I just dropped Liv off at the precinct. You want anything from Mustard's? Munch has me making a run. I should be home in about a half hour."
Huang smiled at the reference to Mustard's Last Stand, Detective Munch's favorite deli just down the street from the stationhouse. He suspected that the frequently morose man liked the deli as much for its unusual name as he did for its food. "No need, Elliot. I should have dinner ready by then."
"OK, just checking. See ya." The line went dead.
"Thank you for asking. Good-bye, Elliot," Huang said softly into dead air. He hung up the phone, unmuted the TV and took a few steps toward the kitchen before turning around to retrieve his glass of wine which he finished in one swallow as he returned to his dinner preparations. Between working with the wok and the rice steamer and the beautiful music floating in from the living room, not to mention a second glass of wine, it seemed to Huang that in no time at all he heard Stabler's key in the front door.
"Hi, honey, I'm home!" Stabler called out.
It was a running joke between them. Sometimes, Huang thought, it was funny and romantic, rather like Ricky and Lucy; sometimes it was childish and Neanderthal, more like Fred and Wilma. When the next sound he heard from the TV was not the beautiful soprano aria Un Bel Di, but a raspy-voiced country rock singer belting out "Are you ready for some football?", he knew immediately that tonight it was the latter.
"Mmm, smells good, George. I'm starving!" Stabler made a quick stop in the kitchen to plant a light kiss on the top of Huang's head and then headed back to the bedroom to change into gray sweat pants and a rather ratty-looking Marine Corps sweatshirt. "Grab me a beer, will ya?" he called back over his shoulder. "Make it a Schlitz."
Huang plated their dinner and brought it out to the dining room table, including the requested Schlitz and another glass of wine for himself. He glanced into the living room and saw night shots of the beautiful Chicago skyline taken from the Goodyear blimp. "Bears versus Giants," the announcer intoned. "Temperature on the field is a crisp 32 degrees with wind off the lake gusting to 20."
"It's Bear weather, real football weather in Chicago," his sidekick chimed in. Whether he was one of the washed-up former quarterbacks for the home team, a man who'd never been stellar in the first place, or the loud-mouthed, abrasive coach from the last time the Bears had won the championship way back when he'd done a postgraduate year at the Cermak Mental Health Unit at the Cook County jail, Huang couldn't remember. The myriad pathologies he had been exposed to on the inside had been much more interesting to him than the "Super Bowl fever" that had swept the city on the outside.
His reverie was interrupted by Stabler sighing, "Damn, that's good!" He took another swig directly from the bottle rather than using the provided glass. "This was my beverage of choice back when I was in the Corps. Glad to see they're brewing again. Nice of Fontana to remember and send me a case now that he's back home working homicide out of Area 1."
"You know he called me today. He and some of the guys from his squad got tickets for the game. We got this friendly little wager going. I pity him; I really do. Manning and the boys are gonna kick Chicago ass from one end of the field to the other while Fontana is freezing his off in the stands. We'll be having some craft brew from Goose Island, Lou Malnati's deep dish Chicago-style pizza and Eli's cheesecake Saturday night. Man, I can almost taste it!"
Huang shook his head. "Elliot, do I need to remind you that my specialty is forensic psychiatry? I haven't done GI since I was an intern."
Stabler shrugged. "Fine, we'll save the cheesecake for my kids. I was kind of hoping that for once you wouldn't gripe about my cooking, though." Stabler grinned at him, picked up his plate and proceeded into the living room where he plopped down on the couch. Huang knew, however, that the comment hadn't been entirely in jest. Elliot's nights to cook usually meant takeout - burgers, hot dogs or pizza - which he tolerated but didn't really enjoy. Chinese takeout was Elliot's idea of haute cuisine, and his usual idea of dessert afterward had absolutely nothing to do with red bean ice cream. It had been amusing at first, but now . . . Huang shook his head. He wasn't being fair. Elliot was used to having Kathy do the cooking. He was doing the best he could under the circumstances. This was just one of many changes in his life since his divorce, and it wasn't really high on the list. It was just . . . it was like being back in medical school again with only the time and money for fast food at strange hours. It hadn't seemed all that bad at 20-something, and even now there was a certain nostalgia involved in looking back at that time, but he didn't want to go through it again any more than he wanted to go back to being in high school. In spite of himself, though, Huang found a small smile tugging at his lips. He had to admit that Elliot's idea of dessert was better than red bean ice cream.
"Earth to George. Come in, George." Stabler's voice interrupted his thoughts. Huang found it somewhat disconcerting to glance up at the TV and see a shot of Soldier Field that looked as if the saucer section of the Enterprise had landed atop the old stadium. "Come watch the game with me." Stabler patted the vacant couch cushion beside him and smiled.
"I'm sorry, Elliot, I don't care much for football."
"No?" Stabler's tone of voice implied disbelief and an unspoken question: How could anyone not like football?
"What position do you imagine I could play? Fullback for Emerald City High?" Huang smiled slightly, but the mirth didn't reach his expressive dark eyes.
Stabler laughed, but then gave the small, slender man an appraising look. "Nah, you'd be the quarterback, George, any place you played. They're the brains of the outfit," he said with a grin. And yet, there was perhaps more than a pinch of seriousness in the response.
"Brains enough to never play a game where on a regular basis I'd end up at the bottom of a pile of a half-dozen men all built like King Kong," Huang shot back.
"Never know what you're missing until you try it. You might like it, George." Stabler's grin was larger and his tone of voice suggestive.
"Handling the one I have is sufficiently challenging, thank you." Huang tried to keep his reply cool. This verbal foreplay was one of the intimate games they played.
"Built like King Kong, huh?" Stabler replied after a pause. He'd obviously considered using another word.
And then the pregame chatter ended, the game started and all of the sparkling promise the evening had begun to hold was extinguished. At least that was the view from the dining room table where Huang ate his dinner alone in polite silence.
He tried again to establish a connection with Elliot during one of the innumerable commercial breaks hawking booze, broads (or at least the little blue pill) and big engines (definitely a phallic symbol, especially for men needing the little blue pill).
"Did you have a difficult day, Elliot?" Huang's voice was soft, gentle and perhaps a bit tentative. In most homes, this was a normal question between spouses or partners, but Huang knew that depending on his mood, it could set Elliot off. Stabler didn't like it if he thought Huang was acting like a shrink at home.
"Yeah, you could say that. I know that son of bitch Hogan raped and killed that little girl, but he won't formally confess unless McCoy takes the death penalty off the table." Distracted by a good meal, a beer and the prospect of a New York victory, it appeared that Stabler had taken the question at face value.
"I don't see that happening. Do you?" Huang asked quietly.
Stabler snorted. "Not in an election year and especially not with Branch making noises about running again since his campaign for governor crashed and burned. McCoy can't afford to look soft on crime."
"When it comes to the Naper case, neither Branch nor McCoy has clean hands. They both helped put two innocent men on death row and fought to keep them there for years even after it became clear that Hogan was most likely guilty. Then there was the trial for prosecutorial misconduct . . ."
"Look, Doc, I know you're proud of yourself - you saw right through that 'vision' thing Cross was spouting about the murder, but Cross and Ramirez were no choirboys. If Cross had kept his big mouth shut, they probably would have gotten off the first time; but no, he didn't like cops and wanted to 'mess with their minds.' He didn't give a rat's ass what his games did to the parents of that little girl. So fine, Branch messed with his mind a little and then they got off. They'll get no tears from me."
Huang had come to collect Stabler's dirty dishes and the empty beer bottle. Stabler's anger hit him with as much power as a slap in the face. With a slight edge to his voice he replied, "Elliot, Jennifer Naper was 10 years old when she stayed home sick from school, was abducted from her home, brutally raped and killed. This case has been going on now for longer than she was alive. It needs to end. Her parents need to know once and for all who killed her and that the perpetrator is paying for the crime." There was no response from Stabler who was engrossed in watching the replays of the hapless Chicago quarterback's miscues - an interception, a fumble and a rather nasty sack 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage - and it was apparently only the first quarter.
Huang knew it wouldn't matter, but he felt compelled to add, "And yes, Elliot, I am proud of myself. I'm good at my job, and I worked very hard to get where I am. You should know something about that because you did, too."
The second quarter had begun with the Giants making a 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. Stabler pumped the air with a fist. "Yes!" As an afterthought he added, "Did you say something, George?" By now, Huang was back in the kitchen. Being a highly intelligent man, he knew a rhetorical question when he heard one and didn't bother to answer.
Huang chose to wash and dry the dishes by hand rather than use the dishwasher. It would give him time to think about his current situation. He'd known from almost the moment they'd met that Elliot Stabler was a passionate, emotional man with a remarkably short fuse. Elliot made absolutely no effort to hide it, so there was no sense in trying to pretend surprise at his subsequent outbursts. In fact, while he was being honest with himself, those first two characteristics were what had drawn him to Elliot after the breakup of his first long-term relationship. It was apparently his pattern. They'd been what had attracted him to his first partner, and he knew that he could never be satisfied with someone who was wishy-washy about things and content to just drift through life.
Huang permitted himself a small smile. It had been Elliot who had been surprised by how passionate and emotional he could be. His family had brought him up to be cool, calm and polite, to fit perfectly the West's stereotype of the inscrutable Oriental. Years of training in psychiatry had reinforced those attributes, but deep down inside he was a passionate man - passionate about his work, his interests outside of work and life in general. And when he loved someone, it was with his whole heart.
So, had he simply miscalculated just how aggravating dealing with Elliot's short fuse on a daily basis could be? Certainly, it hadn't escaped his notice that now and again Detective Olivia Benson, Stabler's partner at work, had found it necessary to give him a verbal, if not a literal, slap up the side of his head when his attitude crossed the line. Had he thought, against every tenet he'd learned in Couples Counseling 101, that he could "change" Elliot when it came to his less than pleasing aggressive behavior? Despite his years of psychiatric training, had he simply been like anyone else on the rebound from the loss of a cherished relationship? Had he simply latched on to the first person that seemed even remotely appealing in order to fill the void without giving the matter the careful thought it required? Huang sighed. It was too late and he was too tired to deal with the issue tonight, but he would deal with it. He put the last of the silverware away in the drawer and put the towel on the bar on the cupboard door to dry.
"Hey, George, while you're up, would you get me another beer?" Stabler called from the living room. For a moment, Huang considered ignoring him, but then did as he was asked. He didn't bother with a glass this time. "Thanks, George," Stabler said before taking a swig. His angry outburst from earlier in the evening had apparently been forgotten. "You sure you don't want to join me?" he asked as he slid over on the couch to make room. "Manning's putting on one hell of a show. Catch that score - and it's only halftime." Huang's eyes widened when he saw it. There were going to be some seriously depressed Bears fans at work Tuesday morning if things didn't turn around soon. And yet, he mused, from what he remembered of his year there, Chicago sports fans put up with such disappointments from all of their teams on a regular basis and just kept coming back for more. 'There's always next year' was a popular refrain in that town. There had to be a code (or two or three) in the DSM-IV for that illogical behavior. New Yorkers would never put up with it.
"I called Fontana to needle him about it. He was on his way home to Cicero on the Eisenhower already. Call got dropped before we could really get into it, though. Must have lost the signal driving under the old post office."
"I'm sure that's what happened," Huang said with a smirk. "Thank you for the offer, but it's been a long day. I think I'll turn in. Good night, Elliot." He leaned over and kissed the top of Elliot's head.
"Night, George," was the rather distracted reply. The second half had already started.
In the bedroom, Huang changed into a T-shirt and thin, loosely fitting, drawstring pajama bottoms. He carefully extracted his contacts and exchanged them for a pair of gold wire-rim glasses. His eyes blinked several times in relief. After carefully arranging his pillows, he got into bed, selected a book from the small pile on the nightstand and began to read.
The book had been an award-winning bestseller some time back, but he'd only gotten to it recently. He'd found it fascinating so far. Tonight, however, he was experiencing difficulty concentrating. He noted that the TV volume had been turned down and that Elliot's enthusiasm for brilliant New York plays (or Chicago misadventures) had similarly become muted. There it was again, that maddening Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine that passed for life with Elliot Stabler.
He knew that he needed to become more assertive with Elliot and knew that he was capable of doing so. He was a highly trained and very skilled forensic psychiatrist. He was also a trained FBI agent. He could do this - any time he wanted to. The problem was that at the moment he just wasn't up for more confrontation. There had been more than enough at work lately. He didn't want it at home, too. There had been too much at home not so long ago when his former lover had ended their relationship. He needed peace and quiet and a man who shared at least some of his outside interests.
Well, clearly that wasn't going to happen during football season. That was OK, he told himself. The season only lasted a few months. It wasn't healthy to be joined at the hip 24/7/365. And it was true that he didn't expect or want that. It was ironic, though, considering all the times that nurses on the unit had complained to him about their husbands and boyfriends going AWOL any time a game - high school, college or pro - was broadcast which had apparently been quite frequently with the cable's premium package. He'd glibly given the standard advice without much thought. It had never been a problem between him and the cardiologist who had been his lover. "Dr. King of Hearts" had shared his enjoyment of music, art, theater and exotic food - enjoyed them almost as much as he enjoyed performing an electrophysiology study or arrhythmia ablation or implanting a cardioverter-defibrillator - and had despised sports even more. Put to the test in his own life, the advice was turning out to be something less than helpful.
Much later, Stabler came into the bedroom having already shed the sweatshirt and sweat pants which he tossed on top of the clothes hamper. Standing at the foot of the bed in a T-shirt and briefs, he was struck once again by how vulnerable George looked in his wire-rim glasses. The thought of anyone raising a hand in anger to his George was like taking a Black Talon to the heart, as was the fleeting memory of how his insistence on interviewing the condemned sadistic serial rapist and murderer Matthew Brodus had almost gotten George killed not long after he'd joined the squad.
There are times, Stabler, when you're a real ass! If you'd listened to George in the first place, he wouldn't have gotten hurt. And you were no prize tonight, either. You had no cause to take your frustration with the Naper case out on him. Didn't you learn anything from Kathy finally getting fed up to here with your attitude and dumping you? Huang would have been pleasantly surprised by Stabler's insight into his unpleasant behavior if he'd known about it.
Stabler padded up to the head of the bed, his bare feet silent on the carpeted floor. He took the book off Huang's lap and placed the marker on the open page. Before he placed the book back on the small stack on the nightstand he caught the title and a few of the blurbs on the cover: The Devil in the White City . . . the story of two men . . . famed architect and city planner Daniel Burnham . . . serial killer H. H. Holmes . . . the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Stabler couldn't quite stifle a quiet chuckle at Huang's choice of light reading material. "Only you, George, only you," he whispered softly as he gently removed the gold wire-rim glasses and placed them carefully on the nightstand beside the books. He walked around the bed and got in on his side before trying to ease Huang down into a recumbent position.
"Elliot? Is there a case?" Huang's voice was fuzzy. He was still more asleep than awake.
"Go back to sleep, George. The game ran late. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," Stabler said quietly as he reached up over the center of the headboard and flipped the switch for the light on Huang's nightstand. The room was plunged into darkness save for the diffuse glow from the streetlight that managed to steal in around the edges of the window drapes.
Huang was vaguely aware of the warmth of Stabler beside him, the arm placed across his body in a gentle but definitely possessive embrace and the fingers making vague patterns on his flank that were meant to soothe rather than arouse. As he again drifted off to sleep, he was reminded that there were indeed advantages to having Elliot Stabler in his life.