Author's Note:
This is a slight AU, in the sense cases are mentioned in a different order / I mention investigations
that happens when Casey is already gone.
"The Sun's Daughter,
You've been made
Not to fade
Quite inconceivable"
("The Garden of Everything" - Steve Conte & Maaya Sakamoto)
***
"Oh, there is thunder in our hearts."
("Running Up That Hill" - Kate Bush)
***
"She brings me flowers to ease the pain,
She brings me light where only darkness reigns"
("Crescent" - Dead Can Dance)
Getting to her apartment at the end of a day always seemed like an eternity for her, but that evening in special it felt like a journey to the other side of the country.
Not because places were full or traffic was exceptionally bad that day, she just felt like her head weighted a million pounds with all the thoughts of the world crammed inside her skull. Most of it regarding the current case as it would always be as long as she was alive and a cop.
However, the impact all of those things on her mind kind of paled in comparison to that single wisp of thought that had been flickering in the back of her mind for the longest time already. Longer than she wanted to admit. There was also the fact she felt like an asshole for what she had done earlier, but that was an entirely separate issue.
She quickly ate the leftover from the take-out she had the night before just to put something in her stomach, showered and laid down in bed. However, as tired as she was, she couldn't sleep for the life of her. She tossed and turned like a restless cat for over an hour before kicking the blankets away from her in frustration and simply getting up and going to the living room.
She had called it a night at work exceptionally soon that day, Cragen hinting she should go home because she looked like a zombie and her mind obviously being away from her work having a lot to do with it. So it wasn't long until she was laid again, this time in her sofa, lights out and sound on at the first radio station she had found. A full philharmonic played some epic classic tune - she was never one for classical music to be honest, but it seemed good enough for her at that moment. The organized chaos of the sound being some background noise and maybe it would distract herself a little from her own mind and mistakes.
Needless to say she was unsuccessful.
The wisp of thought between her ears was insistent and loud among the others - it was like an obnoxious bug trying to bite her at all costs, small but always reminding her it's there by buzzing right in front of her face. The subject was far from looking like a small, irritating bug, however.
It was far, far from that.
She always thought of when it all apparently had started, which she could pinpoint as if she was seeing a movie unroll right before her eyes.
She was not expecting it at all. But only because she was caught by surprise, it didn't mean it was less than real.
Only because she wasn't expecting it to ever happen to her, it didn't mean that, many months prior, she hadn't seen Casey Novak walk into the precinct like she had done a million times before; dressed all in black attire and coat waving behind her like a rebellion flag, she came towards her desk and smiled a good morning.
The fact she was caught by surprise definitely wouldn't change that, from that moment on, something had drastically changed inside Olivia.
It was her time to wave flags too, inside her mind - red, like Casey's hair falling down her shoulders like a sun's daughter probably would have if cosmic bodies had offspring as it was told in old origin myths.
Olivia remembered how confusion struck her like lightning bolt as intense as the brand-new set of feelings she never knew she had. She could hear the distant thunder that followed, again and again as her heart pumped it up inside her ears. It was that same lightning-bolt confusion and other kinds of self-preservation shields that later, made her come up with all the excuses ever created by humankind, denying the summer storm that had just began inside of her at the mere sight of Casey Novak.
Casey rested her briefcase on her desk, smiling at her. And like a child from starry gods would probably do in modern times, she quoted the first line from Space Oddity at Olivia's distraction . The detective's absence of mind was obvious without her reply, and stare without blinking. She apologized to Casey, blaming it on the work's ability of keeping her from sleeping well. At the present moment, Liv thought of the irony.
Casey had answered her with a concerned squeeze on her shoulder, and the gesture seemed like it was still painted onto her flesh. She remembered how she had looked down to hide the thunder inside her becoming crimson on her face and she felt embarrassed on her own high-schooler reaction to all of that.
It didn't get any easier or more subtle after that day.
It took her a ridiculous amount of time since that event - months, actually - to realize why she had never actually felt like that with any guy she ever dated. She had liked (some) of them, that was a fact, but she barely remembered when she had such a reaction before that.
Or at all , to begin with.
After months letting everything slowly sink in, it was actually pretty evident why she seemed incapable of setting with any man, or why she felt so… out of place with them when it came to be about her emotional side. Sex with them was fun, there was no doubt about that, but such affinities with men ended there, and it was so goddamn obvious why now.
On the other hand, everything was so much easier with Casey - to open up about her untold memories, to be herself as someone who had lived through some pretty rough patches, or to be someone who just wanted to be affectionate and even silly sometimes.
Casey knew things about Olivia and her past not even Elliot did. The best example was telling the ADA about that one time as a kid in which she had to literally fight her mother back in order to survive, how it wasn't as hard as she thought it would be, or as hard as if she had to tell Elliot. The devastated, outraged expression on Casey's face when she told her all of that would be one hard to forget.
What followed that one day, when she had seen Casey under that prism for the first time, was the same summer storm feeling, repeating over and over like the notes she heard on the music she was absent-mindedly listening to.
Every little detail was magnified and she started to notice everything - the way the ADA would walk through court corridors, proud and shiny like she was heading for a swords-and-horses type of battle, the way she squinted spring-colored eyes when the case developed in ways she wasn't expecting; the way she also parted her lips in surprise whenever that happened was being particularly harder not to notice. The way her voice got a little huskier when she had a drink or two with her after work. How she would stand straight and tall and disarmingly beautiful like she was an actual cosmic body's offspring came from old stories, or how a cloud of subtle flowery scent would take over everytime she stood close do Olivia; how Casey's eyes would squint not due to surprise but because she was laughing openly, something that was awfully rare to see in their daily lives. Really paying attention to the sweet dimples she had when she did that was probably one of her favorite things.
The philharmonic ended the suite and was replaced by some piano sonata - the detective only knowing it was called like that thanks to the radio host mentioning it before the song had started.
She rubbed her face in a gesture that actually mingled many feelings together.
The myriad of excuses inside her head had almost convinced her that the way she saw Casey had abruptly changed without any warning, as if one day she had just woken up suddenly having the hots for her friend. It certainly seemed like it at a first glance, but she was a detective. She knew it wasn't like that at all.
In fact, she did notice Casey way before that, probably since the first investigation they had worked together.
Casey's sharp intelligence and determination, even if sometimes mishandled, kind of fascinated her right from the start. Of course, she had to be an idiot towards her at first - if she wasn't unnecessarily rude towards people from time to time she would be called Huang and not Benson.
Later on the case, seeing how compassionate and sensitive Casey Novak was behind her harsh actions made Olivia notice and like her even more. Her friendship with the ADA just grew from there, and now she knew there was also other kinds of feelings blooming ever since.
But she was so deep in denial that her subconscious had to really bring it to the surface, circling and underlining Casey with imaginary neon-colored markers that day, point at her, and basically scream her name so Olivia would finally see the real nature of her feelings towards her dear friend. It was weird how she felt she was way too old to feel so lost and confused like that "over a crush ", but her logical side said that she had all the reasons in the world to be feeling the way she was.
She recognized fear she was she saw it.
Fear of discrimination, of rejection from people she loved, the fear of losing Casey's presence and friendship in her life if she ever find out about Olivia's feelings for her. Fear too, had many different colors and shapes, she had just learned lately. But so did love.
Everything about how she felt towards Casey was unexplored territory, and as such it was being slow and confusing for the detective to figure things out. It didn't took that much however, to realize that what she was feeling was far from being just some curiosity attraction. She would even prefer it was only that, really. It would be a lot easier to solve and to deal with. But Casey was basically a magnet in all senses and it just had to be complicated and terrifying.
It wouldn't be me if it wasn't complicated and terrifying as hell, right?, she scoffed to herself. She felt her eyes burn as she contemplated the light stripes from the street against her dark ceiling, her fingers slowly playing with a lock of her hair, elbow up against the sofa.
She felt another sharp sting of embarrassment, telling herself to get her shit together, that she was being childish, followed by the sting of confusion and the sting of fear again. It had become a cycle, and she was afraid people were already noticing it. Elliot for sure had, being the closest to her at the precinct, he would feel her mood shifts like he was a humor barometer.
She wasn't that hard to read, though. She was a bad liar.
Which meant that Casey too, had noticed that something was off. Liv tried her best to be professional and just follow the investigation work, sometimes a little too much. Especially in the last couple of months, she knew she was passing off as cold and distant to her friend, and that was probably the worst, most unfair way to deal with her situation but she couldn't avoid the behavior. It was one of her oldest tricks whenever she felt she was getting too emotionally close to someone.
Olivia was cornered, and she knew that. There was no way to win, really. I guess , she thought to herself, it's only a matter of which option will hurt less. Which one would hurt her more, that was easy to tell. But which one would hurt Casey less? Whatever one that was, she would take it without thinking twice.
The classical music colored her dark living room, and she sat up, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and hands pressed together, her mind deeper and deeper in her doubts and fears and affections.
She was only procrastinating a decision.
That wasn't the first time she thought about the weight of her actions and their consequences regarding that subject. She knew perfectly well that she was thinking about all of that because earlier that day Olivia had been particularly cold-bordering-nasty to Casey when discussing the case, and guilt was consuming her alive.
She knew Casey was probably aware something was off because in that afternoon, the expression the ADA had after Olivia's rude attitude looked like she would kill someone, when it in fact hid extreme disappointment and Liv knew her all too well not to notice it. After staring at her, hurt and angry, Casey turned around and left the precinct without a word, the crossed expression normally reserved for lost cases and absolved perps still on.
Going so low to that kind of level surprised even Olivia herself, in the worst way possible.
The detective was slow to process her feelings and she felt like she had the Midas' touch to spoil everything she ever cared for - the embodiment of a perfect storm -, but she still had her sense of justice and heart above everything. The classical music was still playing around her when she made her decision, and stood up to change.
