A/N: It's been many years since I have attempted fanfiction, so I went with something light and fluffy to start. Just a smutty holiday one-shot, with very minimal angst. Reviews are welcome. E/O of course, as I currently can't imagine writing any other pairing for this show.

Spoilers: Fault, Fat, Underbelly

Rating: K+ for the first 3 chapters, but my fics will always (ALWAYS) end up at M

Disclaimer: Law & Order: SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. No copyright infringement intended, and no money is being made.

Her silent night was too silent.

Olivia had never been one much for Christmas. Naturally, she chalked that up to her childhood and, in more recent years, on the death of her mother. Lack of family outside her squad didn't do much to bolster Christmas spirit. In the early years, when she first partnered with Elliot, he had invited her to join his family for the holiday (what little time any of them got during that time of the year, anyway). Once or twice she had even accepted. But after short, tense small talk with Elliot and Kathy, Liv had mostly just played around with the kids, picked at a plate of food that she never fully finished, and then made excuses and apologies to rush home.

This year, of course, Elliot had no reason to stubbornly convince her to visit - he and Kathy were finalizing their divorce. Kathy had the kids until New Year's and was away visiting her parents. And yet somehow, Olivia still found herself spending Christmas alone, in her over-warm, under-decorated apartment. Some version of Silent Night was murmuring out of her CD player as she swirled red wine absently around in a glass.

She had put off leaving the precinct as long as she could, her eyes dry and stinging over a stack of paperwork, but finally the relative silence of the squad room had gotten to her, so she had walked home. The irony of how beautiful it was that night was not lost on her as she made her way. Snow was falling gently, and the city was lit up more than usual with seasonal additions to all the neighbourhoods. Couples dawdled, hand-in-hand, pointing every now and then at a display, or item in a shop window. Once she had tossed her keys to the kitchen counter and locked her apartment door behind her, she had decided to put a Christmas CD in the player and drink. Call her a masochist if you will, but sometimes wallowing in it worked better than trying to act like it wasn't there.

Speaking of things that weren't there. . . .

Olivia allowed herself to wonder what Elliot was doing with his Christmas Eve. She imagined him on the phone with one of his kids, talking about last minute Santa things. Then she conjured up an image of Elliot just like herself: alone, drinking, and resenting the holiday.

Olivia snorted into her glass at the pair of them. Weathered cops, and self-loathers who had failed at relationships while their careers had been steadily successful.

" . . . and isolating," Liv said out loud to herself. Silent Night had changed to Winter Song with Ingrid Michaelson. Stretching, Olivia rolled her neck from side to side, relishing the snap of tendons.

My words will be your light
To carry you to me

She crossed to her living room window, comforted by the crawl of traffic below and the familiar sounds of Manhattan. A knock at the door startled her back to real-time from her slow-motion fog. Ever a cop, she picked up her gun from the coffee table along her way to the door. "It's not fucking carollers," she muttered, setting her glass on the counter and continuing to the peep-hole.

She cursed the unstoppable jump in her heart rate caused by Elliot's face. Absently, she swiped her palm down her leg and unbolted the door. "El?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow.

He was grinning, and that alone was curious. Bundled in his winter jacket, snowflakes were still melting on his shoulders and twinkling in the light from her apartment. His gloved hands were full at his sides, one with what look like a six-pack of beer, the other with a package she couldn't decipher. "You gonna let me in?" He stamped snow off his boots.

"Shouldn't you be talking to your kids?" Olivia moved aside and then shut the door behind him.

Elliot put the bags he was carrying on the counter on the other side of Liv's red wine bottle and removed his gloves. "Nah," he half-shook his head, "they called me earlier, but they're busy now with the grandparents' traditions and figuring out how to sleep before one AM." He chuckled as he finished shrugging out of his coat, hat, scarf.

Olivia smirked faintly and then took a deep breath. She had such a hard time, when the cop in her constantly sought direct answers. "El."

"Yeah?"

"What are you doin' here?" Her tone was really neither annoyed, nor worried, just a little tired.

Elliot grinned again. "Merry Christmas Eve, Liv."

Olivia smiled a bit, in spite of herself, but merely widened her eyes, waiting for more of an explanation. He cleared his throat and looked down, vaguely aware of the water he was now leaving on Olivia's floor. Without looking up, like a guilty child, he said "I dunno, Liv . . . we don't have to work . . . we both live alone . . ." he shrugged. "It's Christmas Eve. Wouldn't it be better to spend it with a friend?"

A friend. Olivia's mind flinched away from the word. Elliot Stabler was her partner - had been for more than seven years now - and partner was the only word that seemed to fit around her tongue to describe what he was to her. Other than . . .

. . . man you can never have?

Liv silenced the voice in her head and nodded towards Elliot's boots. "You're dripping on my tile, Stabler."

"Sorry." El went back to the door and kicked the boots off. "Can I offer ya a beer?"

"I'll stick with wine, thanks." Liv topped off her glass and went back to the couch.

"Suit yourself." He grabbed a bottle and stored the rest in the fridge. When he dropped down next to her on the couch, she noticed he had the second bag with him. "Cheers?" He tipped the bottle toward her.

"Cheers."

They passed the next moments in their familiar wordlessness, while Olivia's Christmas music mumbled on in the background.

"Do you like Christmas, Liv?"

She expelled a slow breath, and spread her hands open, palms up, over the coffee table in a casual gesture. "No family . . . my mother's gone. When she was alive, she was usually too drunk to make much of the holiday." Olivia considered adding a thought on the fact that she was childless as compared to Elliot's four kids, but she held back. "I guess you could say I'm neutral."

Elliot slung an arm along the back of the couch and leaned back. As always he was comfortable in her apartment, he fit - maybe too much, too easily sometimes. "You know, when I was a kid . . ." Olivia braced herself gently, as her heart filled with the smallest of aches. She wanted, so much, to hear his stories of family life but despite her age, there was a jealousy that lurked. " . . . my parents always made a big deal out for Christmas. The tree, the decorations, the whole nine. There was church, and turkey, and getting dragged to the department store for pictures with Santa."

Olivia smirked into her wine glass. "Oh my."

"Yeah. Then when my own kids were small, Christmas became this different kind of excitement. Since the divoirce," he picked his beer back up, "it's hard. Hard not to . . . to see their faces on Christmas morning."

Liv purposely avoided his eyes, knowing how hard it was for Elliot to talk like this, about feelings and family. She had known so few men as walled up as her partner. Often, she defended that about him, to Cragen, even to Kathy when it was relevant. Perhaps it explained why the revelations always came from him this way - in painful, hushed tones, only to her.

"Liv?" El said then, and she hoped it wasn't obvious that her nickname rolling off his beer-warmed tongue like that made her shiver.

"Mmm?"

"Where's your Christmas tree?"Elliot was peering as far as he could around the apartment from his place on the couch, looking for signs of the traditional yearly greenery.

Liv laughed out loud. "No. No, El, no tree. I can't even remember the last Christmas I had with a tree. I've never had one in this apartment." She jerked her chin towards her living room window. "That's my contribution to the season, there."

Elliot's gaze followed the direction, and found a classic red and white stocking with snowflakes on it, tacked to the wall next to the window. Around the window frame there was a single string of multi-colored lights. An out-of-character Elliot allowed his jaw to gape. "No tree?!" he was incredulous. "But Liv, I mean c'mon . . . ya gotta have a tree! It`s Christmas for God`s sake.``

She met his eyes at last, amused by his deep concern of her treeless lifestyle. His ice blue eyes were different than they seemed under squad room lights. They were softer here, inquisitive in a way that held none of the aggression or impatience he directed towards their perps. Again, as ever, she felt warmth, mixed with the wine turn over in her belly. He looked good - casual, in jeans, and a thin but soft sweater with the sleeves pushed to his fingers twitched with wanting to touch him. Of her few weaknesses, Elliot was the deepest, and as time kept plodding on, it seemed to grow worse. There had been a time when she had been able to mask this so much better.

Olivia cleared her throat and pushed to her feet, returning to her bottle of wine at the counter in an effort to put some distance between them. ``Sorry to disappoint, El. If it helps, it`s not like I`d have anything to put on it, anyway.`` She turned back again, this time leaning against the counter. The look in Elliot`s eyes was unreadable.

``Nah . . . nah, Liv,`` he said, more firmly now, also rising to his feet. "That's not right. Christmas with no tree? There oughtta be a law!"

Olivia grinned. "Ah. Okay. Well, we can get Novak on that as soon as all the SVU cases are solved." She watched him pace the short length of her couch in his sock feet, once. Twice. "El . . ."

He stopped, and looked at her. Now she could definitely read his eyes, the look familiar: stubborn, and determined. He said, "Do you have a jacket?"

"No," she deadpanned. "I've never owned one of those, either."

Elliot came around the coffee table and placed his hands on her shoulders. It was an effort not to let her eyes flutter closed at the warmth of his skin. "Get your coat, Liv. C'mon."

"Where're we going, Elliot?" Liv's eyebrows went up again.

He smiled so big this time that Liv felt that ache again. "We're goin to get you a Christmas tree!"

"What? El, no," she replied, but he was already at his boots. Liv glanced at the face of the delicate watch she was wearing. "El, it's Christmas Eve! And it's already past six! Where do you expect to find a tree this late?"

Elliot was doing up his coat. "I know a place."

Damn that man. She was sure it was moments like this which had helped make it impossible to know just when she had fallen in love with him. His stoic need to take care of her, in spite of his busy life and their careers, both touched and aggravated her. It was so alien for her to allow any care into her life at all, but she was also sure that the few-and-far-between men that she'd dated in seven years felt how hard it was, for her to hide it. Not her love for Elliot, but how easy it was for her to let him care, and how impossible she found it to allow her lovers the same privilege.

"Are you going to get your coat on, or do I have to walk all over your tiles again?" Elliot asked, interrupting her thoughts.

She sighed, holstering her Glock and retrieving her jacket. "Wouldn't it be easier to just go to your place, if you already have a tree?" she tried, but she knew it was hopeless. Elliot had found something he could give her, and he wouldn't relent until he got it - he took to much pride in the conquering of something so tangible.

In his rush to get out the door, neither of them thought to turn off the CD player. Nor did Olivia remember to ask about the second bag Elliot had brought with him.