A/N: This is a 3-chapters fic. It references episodes from S12. The slanted font indicates past occurences.
Hope you like it and hope you let me know :)
Chapter 1:
The curtain on the window flutters slightly. Even at night the air is damp and the breeze is scarce. She can't sleep. Instead she stares at the ceiling, at the flicker of cars' headlights that washes over it like tide. Sprawled on her bed with only a thin sheet as a cover over her t-shirt and panties, Olivia turns restlessly from side to side, her brain refuses to turn her thoughts off. Her mind, her whole body, is swept away back to that night. The night that had her and Elliot break all rules, the night that had the careful balance and the volatile barriers they built, sink down in its entirety.
It didn't take long from the moment something in her broke, when she needed to feel him after Sonya died and he was there seeking her too, to the day everything erupted. At that moment, when he appeared in that church, she could almost believe that maybe there was something out there after all, something that witnessed her soul break and her need for her partner, because suddenly there was Elliot, answering her need for him. Now, after everything, she thinks that if there is some kind of celestial force out there, it must hate her.
~~~eo~~~
"Now you're making inventory of that?" Elliot asks, his eyes narrowing. His body visibly tenses along with the tone of his voice. She almost wants to back down although she's practically expected that type of reaction from him.
"All I'm saying is that it'd be nice if you let me in on something like that," she responds and her voice reflects the equal annoyance that stirs in her. All she wants is for him to let her in on things, because she backs him up anyway, and she'll gladly get in trouble to help him, but with the way he behaves he makes her cope with the shit without giving her the satisfaction of knowing that he wants her in it with him. And she's not sure, but maybe that's the core of the issue.
"Didn't wanna have you messed up with that too," he explains but she doesn't buy it, maybe she doesn't want to.
"It doesn't work like that and you know it," her voice is still not in the calm range.
"Why? I asked you not to interfere, didn't I?" His hands are at his sides, and there's energy that radiates underneath Elliot's solid, almost rough, exterior. She looks at him, at his blue dress-shirt that fits over his brawny torso, his crewcut hair and his clean shaven face that stare at her. She's not sure why, but she feels like shaking him.
"I tried not to, but I had to, Elliot, you keep pulling this bullshit and I keep getting trapped in it." Her voice is now entirely out of the calm zone. This argument isn't about the case anymore and she knows it. She started it.
"What's that supposed to mean?" His eyes turn to blue icicles on her but she can see the heat that bubbles underneath it.
"I asked you not to do anything stupid," she tries a more relaxed tone, his eyes frighten her. "You said you knew how to handle it. Well, great job handling this, Elliot." Maybe she shouldn't have added that last part.
"What's your problem?" He finally erupts.
"What's my problem?" she practically yells now because he pisses her off and because she wants him to be familiarly mad like this; at least it's something she knows how to deal with. "I don't have one, you seem to cause enough problems to suffice for everyone else." It's not even what she tried to tell him in the first place, but if he's dragging her there, well…
"Shut up, the both of you!" Their Captain joins the yelling, stepping out of his office to find his detectives standing next to their joint desks, glaring at each other. He hasn't seen them like this in years.
The few other uniform and detectives that are at or near the bullpen pretend to mind their own business.
"Thanks, I'll remember that next time you need me," Elliot mutters towards her, ignoring their Captain's order, but what else is new?
Need? So now he needs her? Isn't this what this whole argument is about, that he didn't need her and wanted the freedom to keep doing whatever he wanted to without letting her in?
"Great, Elliot, that's the exact kind of bull you need to pull right now," she says in a quieter tone, thinking about the times he's accused her of needing him. She knows she isn't playing fair too, because he stood by her with the whole Calvin saga when she didn't let him in on it too. And she's not playing fair because she's being all offensive now, and she's not even sure why. Maybe she's actually being defensive. This drives her crazy. The case is solved, in a way they solved it together, IAB wants to talk to her because of Elliot, but that's not new either. So what is it that bugs her so much that she's started this now?
"I pull BS? And what do you do? You know I'm right." Elliot's voice is gravelly and she almost wishes he'd yell at her again. He looks right into her, defiantly, and she feels as if he can read her, expose her, when even she herself isn't fully sure what goes on inside her. Why doesn't Cragen butt in again? She snaps her head at his direction but he just stands there, as if the fact that their tones are quieter is enough.
"You're wrong, and you still violated the restraining order, risking this whole case and now IAB are calling me in, probably wanting to know how much of it I knew." She has to get this argument back to the case, although she's pretty sure it's not his disobedience that got to her.
"We got him, didn't we? I wasn't completely wrong about him. And IAB…want me to pull every mistake you ever made?" Elliot's eyes are blue daggers and his voice twists them in her gut.
"Just try," she juts her chin.
His fists clench and he takes a few steps toward her and he stands there, his stance is wide, towering over her, almost chest to chest with her, as if to intimidate her. "Well, fuck it," he puffs in her face, his lips emphasize each syllable for her, and finally she recognizes this kind of anger in him, it's not rigid anymore, she can see the explosion hovering there.
"Fuck you!" She sputters, rolling every word in a calm voice, her head is tilted up to his face, her eyes piercing him back.
It's like there's nothing around them, it's just them locked in this struggle, something she almost forgot they could do. It's been years.
"Elliot, go home, now!" Cragen finally decides to intervene, pulling Elliot by his sleeve.
Elliot steps back, his eyes locked on hers, and the heated look in them almost makes her shiver. She can't read what's in it, it feels like he hates her. She knows he doesn't, but it's something in that vicinity and she doesn't know why she's brought it out of him now, when their recent years have healed their bruised past, when they have fallen into a steady pace with each other. It's been comfortable.
The 'why' teases her, but then there's the 'how'; how come it took one argument to get them to this? Maybe he wasn't so cool after all about this kid accusing him of molestation? He acted too cock-sure about this entire case, even when she and everyone else kept warning him from making mistakes. He hadn't listened of course. And besides, since when does he take a 'personal day' during a case? Something was off, maybe Tucker's words got to him worse that she thought. She knew how that rat sonofabitch could make you feel. But she is off too, and she knows it. She practically made him snap though she's still not really sure why.
Elliot disconnects his eyes from her, turns to their desks, grabs his jacket and she can hear his footsteps banging on the floor as he's leaving the bullpen.
"Olivia, back to work, we'll talk about this later." Cragen jerks her back to a bullpen that suddenly contains more than just Elliot.
She nods and turns back to her seat. Was it something in this case that made them jump at each other's throats like that? They've dealt with worse. Not every day Elliot is being accused of molestation and still, they've seen worse, and it's not the first time he acts on his own volition and she has to deal with the consequences, so it must be something else. She thinks about how she helped him, stepped back when he had asked her, stood by him with Cragen and Officer Nelson and everyone. How she was the one who called him at home when he didn't answer his cellphone to tell him about the ADA's deal, she's the one who had to listen to a smug Kathy who was obviously in bed with him. She's the one who had to tell his wife about the whole thing while he wouldn't even bother to pick up the goddamn phone when she called. She's the one who was left nauseous after hearing Kathy's breathy voice, trying her damnedest not to imagine what Elliot looked like in bed with her.
It feels as if this case is going to get complicated.
~~~eo~~~
Olivia stirs in bed, tossing away the sheet that covers her, trying to catch as much of the air that scantly flows through the window.
She can't explain what has taken over them that night. She tried to explain it to herself but she can't. Maybe it was the feelings that floated to the surface when Sonya died, maybe it was all the things between them that were kept in check for years and years and couldn't be bottled up anymore, maybe it was just pure lust that flared up inside them at the exact same time.
The thing is that for years they hardly ever touched each other. Whenever he did touch her it was always so brief that it was gone before she could register it. In over a decade, she could count on one hand the few times he really touched her. It was always during a life threatening situation or right after one. In those moments, she couldn't suppress what she felt, the security, the belonging, the hope. And she always had to tear herself out of his arms before her feelings crushed her, before she would lose her grip completely.
Maybe she finally did, because she loves him. So much. Too much.
She's in deep shit and she knows it. He already left her, the squad, and even before he did, she had figured that they wouldn't survive it, that they wouldn't be able to work together for much longer after this. She couldn't look at him without remembering, without wanting, needing. Once she had it, once she had Elliot's arms around her, his chest pressed against hers, his smell of cologne and masculinity swathing her, she couldn't go back. She's ashamed to admit it, but sometimes she thinks that beyond everything else, it's a thirst, a longing that only Elliot could satiate.
~~~eo~~~
"Thou shalt not covet thy partner", wasn't that what his priest said? He remembers sitting in church only a few days after the night that changed his life, spreading phony smiles around him, evading his wife's eyes, because that coveting thing - it was too late for him. And not only because of that night; it was a few years too late. He felt as if his priest, his God, knew exactly what he'd done and for how long he'd wanted it.
He didn't even bother to take the wedding ring off his finger when he fucked his partner.
Maybe his God knows that he doesn't fully regret it, not even now, after everything that has happened since.
For years he has walked around feeling like an asshole. He went home every night to his wife and kids, and Olivia went home alone. He knew she wasn't really dating and somewhere deep inside he also knew that it was because of him. He wanted her to be happy, he did, he still does, but he couldn't help feeling that he didn't want to lose his spot as the most important man in her life. He kept her on the back burner.
Covet. He should have known it would erupt.
And now, now Elliot sits on the front porch in the middle of the night, holding a beer bottle, running his hand over the stubble on his jaw, a few days worth of stubble because he has no reason to shave daily anymore.
TBC