an: I thought I'd try something different here. And less depressing than my usual writing. Honestly, no real rhyme or reason for this. It just happened. I really liked writing it though, so I hope you enjoy reading it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Thursday, 8:00pm:
He found her brooding in a corner booth alone, playing with the ice in her empty glass. He wasn't exactly thrilled over the verdict that afternoon, but he wasn't as ready to dive head first into a few glasses of Scotch as she clearly was.
"I knew you were a hard liquor kind of girl." He said as he scooted into the booth beside her.
"Can't drown your sorrows in a dirty martini." She said. It was silent as she ordered another glass and he figured it was now or never. Her spirits wouldn't be lifted no matter how long he waited. He couldn't blame her though. He wasn't one to feel better after he was told the reality of the situation either.
"Casey–"
"Are you familiar with Greek mythology?" She cut him off.
"Not if you're going to quiz me on it." He said, only vaguely remembering the names of certain Gods from his younger years.
"Well, there's this dragon – something Hydra? Hydra something. He has many heads and he is quite virulent, because of his breath and his blood and what not. And for every head that was cut off, two more grew in it's place." She looked over to see him smirking. "Don't look at me like that, Stabler. I may have been drinking, but I'm not crazy. I do have a point."
He laughed. "Okay, I'm sorry. Finish."
"Thank you." She laughed herself, but was quick to compose herself. "That's our life, you know that?" She looked at him seriously, but he could only give a smile.
"So does this dragon ever die? Or is just a never ending series of head regrowth?"
"Hercules slays him at some point." She waved her hand in the air as to dismiss the importance of her statement.
"So the message here is that you can defeat evil. Right? Eventually you'll slay the dragon. Sometimes, we do make a difference."
"I don't slay him. I'm not Hercules. You better fit that role, with the muscles and virility..." She stopped to roll her eyes at the ridiculous grin he had due to her ego boost. "I prosecute the dead heads." She nodded. "I'm pretty good at it too."
"So what's the problem then? What's got you sitting in this booth drinking your sorrows away?"
"There is no modern-day Hercules. We cut off a few heads and more show up. In our own small worlds, we might make an even smaller difference. But have you ever thought about the big picture? I mean, I don't change the world. I drag very emotional people through very nasty trials in the name of justice." She slouched in her seat and crossed her arms. She seemed to be throwing a childish fit, and he knew if she had been sober her words would mean more. It was the thing that had bothered her at first, but it was quickly becoming the thing she was forgetting. And that had been her plan to begin with.
His plan had been to give her a little bit of perspective, but things never seemed to go as planned. He slouched to her level, and stared with a frown. She took him down with her. Damnit.
"Lernaean!" She shot up and startled him.
"What?"
"Lernaean Hydra. The dragon's name. Lernaean Hydra." She said proudly.
It was going to be a long night.
9:30pm:
He was willing to bet his eyes looked like a glazed doughnut. He laughed at his own comparison and squeezed his eyes shut.
Cop. Doughnut. Get it?
When he opened his eyes, the room blurred and he noticed his drunker half wasn't so drunk anymore, and she was smiling at him.
"Is the room spinning yet?"
"No, not yet. It's blurry though. Definitely blurry." He hadn't had much to drink, not nearly as much as Casey had, but it was enough to relax him. "How are you feeling?"
"Pretty good. The room isn't spinning anymore. I'm still pretty buzzed though."
He nodded his head and silence fell between them. The bar itself was bustling with noise and Casey found herself entertained by the patrons. One couple in particular caught her eye and she nudged Elliot with her shoulder.
"Look at that. He's giving her a stuffed heart."
"What's wrong with that?" He asked as he leaned over her. She could smell the dark Ale on his breath mix with her own.
"It's a stuffed heart. What are they, fourteen? It's not even an anatomically correct heart."
"What's wrong with a cartoon heart? She seems to be happy with the gift." Elliot said as he retreated back to his own personal space.
"There's no meaning behind that. He got her a meaningless plush toy that he probably picked up, without thought, on his way over here tonight with the hopes that it'd somehow woo her and make her more inclined to spread her legs. And the worst part is she's too stupid to even realize it."
Elliot blinked. It was rare to see his ADA so passionate about something so... trivial. "So what makes an anatomically correct toy heart better?"
She turned to face him, wondering if he was mocking her. He seemed to be genuinely interested in reasoning, so she continued. "It says you not only put thought into it, but you put effort into it too. Think about it. A plush heart is such a cliché, you know that. So you think, 'I wonder what I can find that can not only make fun of that, but have a real meaning too' and viola! The anatomically correct heart comes into mind. You know it exists, but it's very uncommon to find in your average store. So you look around, which is the whole effort part. You're putting effort into it."
He watched as she became very animated, moving her hands as she spoke. He nodded along, listening carefully as if that were something terribly important.
"You go the extra mile when you realize you can really only get the damn thing online. So you order it off Amazon or wherever, and you even pay the extra twenty-something for expedited shipping."
"Twenty-something just for shipping?"
"Well, yeah. It's a pretty big stuffed heart." She held her hands close to six inches apart to give a rough estimate of size. "And it gets there like the next day. Anyway, when you finally give it to her, it means something. It's not an 'aw how sweet' kind of something. The anatomically correct plush heart says 'I mean business'. It's real. And she knows it."
Elliot finished off the last of his beer before setting the glass back on the table. "Has anyone ever given you a plush heart? Anatomically correct or cartoon, either or. Doesn't matter."
"Cartoon, yes. All throughout my life, for Valentine's, birthdays, Christmas... I told you it's a meaningless gift. Anyone can give you one and it doesn't have to mean a thing."
"That's such crap, Casey. My kids make me paper cut outs of hearts, cartoon hearts, and they mean the world to me. It's the thought that counts."
"Kids don't count. They don't know what an anatomically correct heart looks like. They probably couldn't even pronounce it. Besides, they're your kids. Everything they do means the world to you."
They were interrupted by the clinking of water glasses being set down in front of them. Casey offered the waiter a thankful smile, and then continued. "You can't tell me you wouldn't be upset, or at least confused, if Kathy bought you a cheap toy heart for your anniversary. Where's the romance in that?"
"If Kathy bought me something like that... You're right. It would be weird."
"That's because women know it's a shitty thing to give to someone."
"And it's weird for your ex-wife to celebrate your anniversary." He wasn't bitter, but he wasn't exactly casual about it either. He was a little amused at how quickly he had gained her undivided attention, though.
"You didn't tell me that."
He swallowed hard. "It was official last month. It's been over for a while now." He sighed, and then added, "It's not something I really enjoy talking about."
"Okay." She nodded. "So what do you want to talk about?"
"I don't know. I kind of like getting to know the kind of cynical and slightly weird side of you. I don't get to see it often."
She laughed. "I'm pretty good at hiding my crazy. You just caught me at the right time I guess."
10:45pm:
Casey's cell phone buzzed in a small circle on the table, taking Elliot and herself out of their conversation. He quietly drank his water as she picked her phone up.
Her text message read 'come over' and she sighed in annoyance. She set her phone down only to see the detective with his trademark grin. "What?" It was more of a harsh statement than a question, because she knew he had read it too.
"You're somebody's booty call."
"I am not." She was defensive until she realized that was exactly what she was. A booty call. "It didn't start out that way."
"I can't buy that someone like you would let someone turn you into a booty call."
"Why can't I be a booty call?"
He laughed at the fact that she seemed to be offended. "You're too much to handle. It's like playing with fire. What did he do? Buy you a toy heart?"
"Can it, Stabler. You don't know what you're talking about."
"He did, didn't he? He bought you a goddamn toy, out of the kindness of his wooing heart, and you let him turn you into a booty call. That's exactly what happened, isn't it?" Elliot was ecstatic with his new found discovery. She was staring blankly in front of her, arms folded against her chest, and a small smirk she was trying so hard to hide. He had never enjoyed teasing someone so badly. "And you still spread your legs for him. I think that makes you a hypocrite, Novak."
He knew he probably took it a little too far the moment she cocked her brow at him and gave him a familiar look. It wasn't one she owned, but rather one he could place on a variety of lawyers. It was the type of look that said "I can eat you alive, and I will", and he had to admit, she wore it best.
Rather than respond with words, she chose a self-alleviating, much more childish approach.
"Did you just flick me?"
Again, she responded with a flick to his forehead. The flicking continued until he took hold of her wrists, and caught the playful gleam in her green eyes. He thought it was weird, the way he become so aware of what he was doing and how soft her skin felt beneath his fingertips. It was a spark, that connection he hadn't felt in so damn long. And it was with the mouthy redhead he had seen nearly every day for the past three years.
He leaned into her, past her lips and to her ear. He knew she felt it too by the way her breath hitched and by the goosebumps that formed as he ran his hands down her wrists and along her arms.
"Come over." He hummed in her ear. Who was she to say no?
Monday, 8:45am:
Casey entered her office with a relaxed demeanor. She hadn't seen Elliot since their night together, and while she wouldn't deny she wanted to see him again, she had decided not to stress herself out over it. He had succeeded in cheering her up, she even had fun. If that's all it was meant to be, then she would simply have to deal with that.
When she walked behind her desk, she found something that easily made her heart race. In her chair sat an anatomically correct stuffed heart, with a serious face sharpied onto it, no doubt the work of Detective Stabler. She could only laugh at it as she picked it up.
Underneath the heart was a small note that read,
I mean business.