A/N: This is an AU Bensler Teen Romance – something I told myself I'd never write, but this plot bunny popped into my head and now it won't leave. This story is set in July of 1984, so there will be lots of 80s references. Now, I'm a 90s child, so if I got a reference wrong, please let me know! Google only goes so far.
I have two other stories under SVU that I need to update, and so naturally I chose to start a new one, just note that if you're following those two-shots (one EO & Bensidy), I haven't forgotten them! I'm also working on a new AO piece, too.
So for this fic, these are how the ages are going to break down: Elliot is 19, Kathy is also 18/19, and Olivia is 16. Baby Maureen is one. Yes Kathy and Elliot are her parents – no they are no married. Kathy will factor into the story, however. Also, I only gave Elliot two siblings instead of the canon 7 since the show never really mentioned anyone aside from a brother.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, as per usual.
Chap 1: A Summer Getaway
Legs crossed at the knee and a look of frustration painted across her countenance, Olivia Benson fidgets in the passenger's seat of her mother's 83' BMW E30. All of her attempts at comfort have been fraught for not; no matter how many times she yanks on the hem of her acid wash cutoffs, the material doesn't straighten; instead it heads north, leaving the young brunette in even more discomfort than before.
The two-hour ride from Manhattan to New Jersey had seemed much more exciting under the pretense she'd be able to covet the prestigious position of driver. Not to mention the pretext that her mother wouldn't send her back to the 1700s with her choice in music to fill the silence. It'd been 93 minutes of endless concertos and symphonies; the music of Bach and Beethoven drowning out any attempts Olivia made to be intimate with her own thoughts.
One thought in particular that seemed to be streaming through her head is why Serena Benson insisted that Bach and Beethoven kept her calm whilst driving. The shrill screech of the string instruments and the intruding clangs of the percussion sections caused a feeling of anxiety to seep into Olivia. She much preferred the soft crooning of Janis Joplin calling for the good ole' summer time, or Jimi Hendrix excusing himself to kiss the sky; all music Olivia knew that her mother owned. It was true, Serena Benson owned an extensive 60s rock and roll collection.
But Olivia took what she could get. If old dead guys in bad wigs kept her mom calm whilst driving, then she could deal. Olivia knew the other manner in which her mother kept calm; it came in bottles of all different shapes, colours, and sizes and left a demon in its wake.
"I thought I was going to get a chance to drive?" Olivia questions, struggling to be heard over the wave of instruments seeping from the radio. Haplessly she tugs at the hem of her shorts once more; again to no avail.
"And I thought I told you to wear clothes?" Her mother counters, her blue eyes flitting to Olivia's bare, bronze legs.
"They are clothes; it's 96 degrees, Mom. What do you want me to wear, a nun's habit?"
"You know that's not what I mean, Olivia, but you have to be careful with what you wear. You're a very beautiful girl, with a woman's body, and you live in a world full of wolves. You don't want to attract the wrong attention, do you?"
A sullen look passes across the young brunette's face as she nodds knowingly; the unsaid hangs between the mother and daughter pair as Serena Benson hits her right turn signal and exits the interstate.
/
Twenty minutes later Olivia Benson is in the driver's seat, and she smiles brightly as she slips a tape into the tape deck of her mother's car. She's only had her driver's license for two months, and living in Manhattan afforded her little to no time to practice.
"Eyes on the road, Olivia; the radio isn't going anywhere – not to mention we're only a few miles away from the house." Serena's voice warns.
Only half listening to her mother's words, Olivia nods, and then hits play. The sound of Prince cooing about a little red corvette filters through the air.
"Why you children insist on listening to this man scream and moan his way through a song, I'll never know," with a slight grin, Serena jests and Olivia notices that a smile is tugging at her mother's mouth. The young girl warms at the sight, happy that the mood between them is light and teasing. It was a nice contrast against the constant digs and criticism that the two usually exchange like currency. Someone was always on edge at the Benson home; rarely did they approach each other with anything other than wariness, defenses always at the ready.
"Take a left at the next light, and its straight down from there."
Laughter, uninhibited laughter flits from Olivia's lips as she considers her mother's words in regards to one of her favourite musical artist. "Oh right because Prince's screeching is any different from Janis Joplin's wailing?" She counters, with an eyebrow raised above her aviator specs as she follows her mother's directions.
She'll never tell her mother, but she lives for moments like this: Moments where they're mother and daughter and not forced fate and cold concrete, an unsolicited gift and a horrid circumstance. Olivia takes what she can get because she wants a mother - her mother, but rarely gets to have her.
"This town better have a cinema, too. We're going to be here for three weeks and I'd rather not miss Purple Rain – Abbie will never let me live it down."
"You mean that brunette with the southern accent you hang around with?" Serena inquires and Olivia nods, her dark brown locks falling from the clip that pins the strands to her head and off her neck.
"That'd be her. We were supposed to go together until you told me we'd be spending your vacation here." Olivia responds as she signals her left blinker and turns, heading down a paved path that leads to a row of houses. As she does so, she hums along with the song for a moment before breaking out in full voice at her favourite part.
"A body like yours oughta be in jail/ 'Cause it's on the verge of bein' obscene/ Move over,/ baby, gimme the keys/ I'm gonna try to tame your little red love machine . . ."
"You'll never make it on broad way with that voice. Now, our house is two to the left, that driveway there," The teasing continues as Serena points to one of the smaller houses that stands about twenty feet from it's nearest neighbor.
Olivia's brown eyes follow her mother's pointing finger to a driveway, located to the left of a baby blue house – the house she'd be spending the next three weeks calling home. She pulls into the driveway and cuts the ignition.
Taking her hair from clip she brushes it out with her fingers before pinning it back in place, and adjusting her too big sunglasses over the bridge of her nose. With a yawn she stretches in her chair, her long legs hit the gas and break pedals and she proudly declares "Here!" Although she'd only driven the last seven miles, pride courses through her veins; she's a driver now (if a seven mile drive could really constitute her as being one).
Serena's brows furrow together as she sticks a manicured hand inside her oversized black back and she digs around for the keys. "Let me "Let me just find the keys and we can get our stuff inside," she says and Olivia nods. "Its somewhere in here, on a silver ring." Serena mutters more so to herself, and Olivia nods again, her eyes catch a gleam of blue and she gets out of the car.
"I'm gonna go check the beach out, yell when you find them." She shouts through the opened driver's side window and stretches, yanking on her shorts and straightening her tank top as it rises up her stomach. Her flip-flops sound against the ground as she makes her way through the gate that separates the driveway from the beach.
As soon as she's through the threshold, the smell of salt water and sand fills her nostrils. The burning sun beats down against her olive skin causing her pace to slow. She feels heavy, but somewhat free and languid as she shuffles along the hot sand. Her eyes glance down to the water and she watches as the tide ebbs and flows against the edge of the weight sand. The water is bright and blue as she sunlight dances off its surface in waves, causing the ocean to shimmer like a fresh cut diamond placed under direct light. The entire scene causes Olivia's breath to still.
It's beautiful. She repeats to herself and for the first time possibly ever, she contemplates just how lucky of a hand fate has dealt her. For what seems like the hundredth time today, she smiles, a rare fete indeed.
She considers the prospects of spending three weeks here, in paradise; with a mother she knows little about, and thinks that maybe this won't be too bad.
A masculine voice breaks her from her reverie and she turns at the sound, shoving her slipping sunglasses against the bridge of her nose. "You must be Miss Benson."
Her brown eyes flit across the stranger's face as she scrutinizes his appearance with the eye of a detective, taking note of his large build, his formal stance, and blue eyes. His knuckles are scared and his got a bit of stubble on his chin; he's probably in his late forties to early fifties, and she can tell he's tired. Not the tired where a nap would solve everything, but the type of tired where your bones ache and mental exhaustion is a given every day. Regardless, Olivia doesn't think she knows him.
Her lips part to speak, to ask the man how he knows her, but before the first syllable falls from her tongue, Serena charges towards them, the bottom of her dark blue dress slacks covered in sand. She grabs Olivia by her wrist and places her own body between Olivia and the stranger. In her hands she's holding the keys to unlocking the house.
"Olivia." Serena states flatly, and Olivia watches as her mother's normally calm light blue eyes become dark, as if storm clouds have rolled in. Serena Benson is a lioness ready to pounce on anyone approaching her cub. "Go back to the car and get our stuff in the house."
"Mom, he - " Olivia begins, searching for a way to protest what she deems as an overreaction on her mother's end, a reaction she'd seen countless times before. Any time, in particular, that a man had the audacity to approach her within her mother's eye-line.
Once, when she'd accompanied her mother to a late night lecture, one of Serena's students had asked her for coffee afterwards. Catching sight of the exchange, Serena threated to have the boy thrown from the university if he ever approached her daughter again.
It was frustrating and embarrassing to the young woman who'd quickly gained the marker as outcast in school. Boys were afraid to approach her for fear of Serena.
The raises his arms in front of him to signal peaceful intentions, and Olivia figures that he's caught sight of Serena's defensive position and darkened eyes. "Woah, Ma'am, I meant no harm," the man grates, his Brooklyn accent thick, and Olivia smiles. She'd always been fond of Brooklyn accents and it was nice to see more New Yorkers in New Jersey.
"I'm Joseph Stabler, my wife Bernie and I are renting the house three doors down with our kids. Just wanted to introduce myself since Bernie's . . . uh, taking a nap. I know the owner of your house – Sal, he said the woman coming up had a daughter; just wanted to let her – and you know that there were other kids for her to be around. Got two boys and a girl. Elliot, Ethan, and Elizabeth."
Other children? The mere thought causes Olivia to smile. It wasn't often that she got to spend her time with other kids her age. Abbie was just about her only friend, if she didn't count her mother's many colleagues that seemed quite fond of the young girl who had a pension for quoting James Baldwin, T.S Elliot, and Sylvia Plath.
In front of her, Serena's stance slackens and Olivia can see the wheels in her mother's head turn as the older woman attempts to read the stranger as friend or foe. "I'm Serena Benson, and this is Olivia. We were just hoping to spend a quiet couple of weeks as a family."
"Mr. Benson's not joining you?" Joseph Stabler questions, and Olivia is certain that the temperature drops at least thirty degrees at the stranger's seemingly harmless question.
Olivia didn't have a father, as far as both she and Serena were concerned. Sure a man had fathered her, if you could call it that, but a father and husband implied much more than biology.
"There is no Mr. Benson." Serena snaps, and her voice signals that the topic is closed; no more questions were to be asked on the subject.
"And this is why I usually let Bernie do these things," he chuckled awkwardly, nodding in understanding. "Well, if you two change your minds, I'm right down the way. We're having a barbeque on Friday. Drinks and food, you're both more than welcome to come. You can meet my wife and she can help me remove my foot from my mouth. Don't hesitate to stop by at any time. Bernie's always looking for another woman to gab with."
There mere thought of Serena and another woman, a woman possibly not well versed in academia who quite possibly spent all day and night catering to three children, having a conversation almost made Olivia laugh. What would they discuss? Aphra Behn and broccoli? Serena Benson had the tendency to be a bit of an intellectual snob, if you asked her daughter.
"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Stabler."
A smile crosses Joseph's lips and he nods at the two women. "Mrs – Ms. Benson, Olivia."
Olivia nods back and watches as he walks away, taking note of which house he finally stops at. She shakes her wrist as she feels her mother's nails dig into her flesh causing Serena to relinquish her hold. Once her mother's vice grip is gone, Olivia takes a few steps back, her mind flitting back to Mr. Stabler's children: Elliot, Ethan, and Elizabeth; she'd always wanted a sibling, a little brother to terrorize; a little sister to coddle.
"Here are the keys, Olivia, go get our stuff." Serena tosses the keys, and with little to no effort Olivia – and barely paying attention, Olivia catches the keys in her right hand.
She fiddles with the ring for a second, listening as the metal jostles together. Gnawing at her lip she glances down at the sand and then back up at Serena. She desperately wants to ask if they'll actually attend the barbecue, but contemplates pushing her mother's buttons. The ride had been so nice, and they'd actually enjoyed one another's company. Should she push it?
"Can we go Friday, Mom – to the barbeque, please?"
Serena's brows raise and Olivia smiles an innocent smile that, given the right conditions usually caused her mom to cave. She silently hopes that the conditions are right.
"Let's get settled first, please – then I'll decide. I'd wanted to get a jump on my lesson plans. . ."
"But we came here so that you could get away from work," protests Olivia and she lifts her glasses away from her eyes, staring at her mother.
"Just get our things inside, and I'll consider it." The young girl takes note of the tone of her mother's voice, the tone that said 'this conversation is over' and purses her lips.
She nods, and jingles the keys in hand and heads back towards the car. She pops the trunk and begins pulling out bags, as a passerby on a bike whistles at her, and then shouts "bend over again baby!"
"And put some clothes on, too, Olivia." Serena chides as she eyes the man with contempt. She reaches into the trunk, next to Olivia and Olivia watches as she grabs a brown tote. Bottles clang together as she does so, and Olivia nods again. The sound doesn't miss Olivia's ears and she takes a deep breath.
You promised, Olivia mentally reminds her mother, as she whispers a quiet "Okay, Mom." Serena grabs the keys from her hand and heads inside.
Three weeks. It was going to be an interesting three weeks.
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