Warning: Mentions of rape/sexual violence, but as one would expect given the source canon. Written for a community prompt for the word "Extreme(s)". Disclaimer: All characters property of NBC/Dick Wolf. This story is purely written for fun and not for profit.
They encountered extreme situations nearly every day on the job. That's why Special Victims was such a tough assignment, what made it a department that tended to chew up and spit out even the most dedicated and experienced detectives so quickly. Most couldn't take it more than two or three years, tops, before the horrors started becoming too much to bear. Some never made it through their first case.
There were the children brutalized in appalling, unspeakable ways. The women left broken and scarred, physically and mentally, for life. The men too ashamed to admit they also could be victims of sexually-based crimes. And even when they caught a perp, too many slipped through the system. Loopholes in the law. Juries who couldn't see past a short skirt to understand that didn't equate to "yes". Probation, or five years with good behavior for a crime that had ruined a life.
Homicide had been so much easier, John always told him. A murder victim never sat sobbing at your desk, begging to understand why her assailant had been let free, questioning if she could ever feel safe again. Narcotics had been simpler, too. Their victims were usually criminals themselves, hard to sympathize with for the problems they had brought upon themselves.
So what did it say about him—and about John, Olivia, and Elliot—that he stayed on here, long after it was recommended to transfer to a less difficult, less extreme department? He knew for Olivia it was a personal mission, a need to help others in a way no one had been able to help her own mother years ago. Elliot seemed so often the closest to breaking, seeing his own children there in the eyes of young victims. The same thing that compelled him to work SVU brought him closest to the edge of losing it all.
And John...behind the mask of sarcasm and indifference, Fin knew there was a man who felt it all too deeply. Who joked about his ex-wives and the motives of all women yet would hold tight to a rape victim after a line-up, absorbing her tears. Escort her home and promise justice. Someone who swore he never had the makings of a father yet could instantly put any child they talked to or comforted at ease. Who seemed to react to the toughest cases the worst yet couldn't let them go. He'd take in the victim's pain, her fear and sorrow, and hide it away behind the shield of his tinted glasses.
At night, the nights when they were allowed to rest, Fin would remove those glasses and do what he could to dissipate that pain. He'd force John to share it with him, to look him in the eyes as they made love, to see and know Fin's love for him and let it wash away everything else.
Fin knew that was why he stayed. Because John needed him to. Because he couldn't let his partner face these demons alone.