Things Left Unsaid
An angsty little smut piece that's been lingering in my mind. Loads of clichés. Loads of emotive language and froof. And sexual tension out the wazoo. Hope you enjoy. None of them are mine.
Olivia Benson and her partner Elliot Stabler were the masters of ignoring things.
10 years of partnership had seen to that.
You get pretty good at ignoring the murmurs and whispers that surround a partnership as close as theirs. You get pretty good at ignoring lingering looks, touches that last seconds too long, the double entendre of every single fucking thing they say.
They'd ignored the unspoken words when he'd split with Kathy the first time. At least he'd had the courtesy to let her know what was going on, that time. She'd dealt with his anger, his prickly moods, his instability. She'd been there for him, crossed partner lines, bordered on friendship and maybe something more. And when he'd gone back home they had ignored everything that had passed. Ignored it to the point that it didn't happen at all.
The second time hadn't been as easy to ignore. She'd tried to ignore the fact that Elliot Stabler was fucking dating, had even managed not to say a word when it was revealed. But there was no denying she'd cracked a molar when he announced that Kathy was pregnant. They ignored the hug they shared in the hospital after Eli's birth. They ignored the unspoken tension between them. They ignored the fact that Olivia couldn't help bristling that despite everything she still hadn't even been on his radar.
They glossed right over Dani Beck.
The Bushido case.
Gitano.
Sealview.
There were a whole lot of holes in their collective memory; an unspoken agreement to ignore anything that came under the too hard category. If they ever got remotely close to the unspoken basket Elliot would explode with a rage so prickly Olivia wasn't even interested in attempting to placate him. In fact, she had plenty of avoidance tactics of her own. Between the two of them they were a shrink's psychoanalytical wet dream. Sometimes it was a wonder that they managed to be even remotely effective at their jobs. And yet, in some ways, perhaps that was why they were so good. Being so adept at shutting out everything but the necessary had its perks. They were quicker, tighter, more brutal when they weren't worrying about the unspoken. When Olivia wasn't thinking too long on the fact that the feel of Elliot's eyes caressing her skin hit her straight in her core she was far more effective at interrogation. When Elliot wasn't hyper aware of his partner's shoulder bumping his as they rode in the elevator he was able to convince himself that there wasn't something there.
And they were doing a pretty damn good job at ignoring Elliot's most recent, and seemingly permanent split from Kathy. Which, in Olivia's mind, was impressive considering the seesaw between saccharine courtesy and impassioned screaming matches that they were currently engaged in. The tension had mounted to larger-than-life levels that had the entire unit ducking for cover. In the back of his mind, Elliot knew that it was going to come to a head. Even if neither of them were willing to admit it, he knew that something had to break. Either they were going to come to physical blows of the violent variety or the sexual variety. And that was a thought that he vehemently ignored.
They were engaged in a particularly heated debate when the long-suffering Don Cragen stepped out of his office. His weary eyes fell on the two detectives and he let out a sigh.
"Benson, Stabler; my office. Now!"
Olivia stopped mid insult, her eyes catching her partner's. The Captain's tone had warranted no argument, and his stony expression indicated that he was pissed. The detectives stood in unison and followed Don into his office, feeling the eyes of Munch and Fin on them as they went.
"Cap'n…" Elliot began. Cragen raised a hand and cut him off immediately.
"Hold it, detective." He growled. "You two have been like a bear with a hornet's nest. I'm sick of it."
"Captain," Olivia attempted to interject. Much like her partner, she was shut down.
"There is a conference upstate this weekend. Partner Sensitivity Training. I've taken the liberty of booking you both a place. Whatever this…" he gestured to the space between them. "This issue, is between you, you're going to work it out. I can't have two of my detectives at each other's throats constantly."
"Cap'n we weren't at each other's throats." Elliot argued.
"Exactly. We were having a discussion." Olivia offered.
"And Olivia was just about to admit that I was right. It was sorted."
Olivia snorted and glared at her partner.
"I was not about to admit any such thing. You know that you are in the wrong, Elliot."
"It's a fact, Liv. You can't argue with scientific evidence." Elliot's haughty tone rang out.
"Scientific evidence? What would you know about that? What would your god say on the topic, Elliot?"
"Don't bring god into this, Olivia!"
"Enough!"
The cacophony of voices stumbled into silence as two sets of eyes met their captain's glare.
"This is exactly what I'm talking about. You two are relieved of duty until you can learn to have a civil conversation with one another." He picked up some paperwork from his desk and held it out to them. "This is all you need to know. You leave tomorrow morning. I will be expecting you to report back here on Monday and I expect you to have sorted yourselves out." Thrusting the papers at them he turned and sat down at his desk, indicating that the conversation was over.
Elliot was bristling. That much was evident. Olivia knew her partner well enough not to poke the proverbial bear with a proverbial stick. And yet…
"This is your fault, you know." She hissed, sitting down at her desk.
"WHAT?" Elliot's voice bellowed, causing heads to turn. His hands hit his desktop.
"You heard me. If you could have just kept your opinions to yourself we wouldn't be getting sent off to sensitivity training." Olivia's demure expression must have sent him over the edge because Elliot flung the papers on his desk and stormed out of the bull pen. With a huff Olivia watched him leave. This was one of those moments that they would choose to ignore had happened. As would be the conversation that landed them here. The conversation about Olivia's current relationship status. Or lack thereof. Yep, it would be filed into the to be ignored basket for sure.
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A pounding in her head wrenched Olivia from sleep. It took several moments of groggy disarray before she realised that the pounding was not emanating from her head, but from her front door. With a growl of frustration and weary reservation, she dragged herself from her bed and moved to open the door and cease the thudding.
"You should check your peep hole before opening the door." And there he was. Clean shaven, freshly showered, smelling great and awake. Damn him. He pushed past her into her apartment and suddenly there wasn't any space for her. The air was sucked out of the room by him. She felt crowded. She felt stifled by his presence. Why did he have to be so imposing?
Closing the door with a sigh she turned to him.
"It's not my safety you should be worrying about when you bash on my door at this hour of the morning, Elliot." She says with a glare for effect. It was not as commanding as she would have liked, considering she was standing there in her pyjamas. Elliot's eyes on her body; tracing the outline of her breasts in her thin camisole, was quickly filed under ignore as she brushed past him towards her bedroom.
"Thought we should get an early start. The quicker we get there the quicker we can get this over with."
"It's a weekend conference, El. I don't think it matters how quickly we get there." Olivia called over her shoulder, entering her bedroom and closing the door behind her.
Elliot sat on the sofa, eyeing his partner's unfamiliar apartment. He had only set foot inside a handful of times, and all of them fleetingly. Since her return from her undercover case and her move to this apartment their partnership hadn't exactly been on "beers and Chinese after a case" levels. Not like before. Before a whole bunch of ignored things. His fingers drummed an anxious beat on his knees. He was not made for still moments. He wasn't made for small spaces. He wasn't made for confinement. Most of all, he wasn't made for holding things in. All of those ignored things were building. Pretty soon they were going to overflow. Only, he didn't have the insight to realise that just yet.
His eyes eagerly met Olivia's as she exited the bedroom with a bag slung over her shoulder. She was dressed in jeans and an NYPD sweater so faded and worn and swimming on her. A thought fleetingly entered his mind as he recognised the sweater as his but he sent that thought flying away. Ignored.
"Ready?" he asked, unnecessarily. Sometimes the silences were harder to bear than words. With a nod, Olivia follows him out of the apartment and down to the waiting car.
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Long roads.
Silence.
Awkward conversation.
It's hard to know which is worse.
At first there was traffic, the noises of the city, things to distract them. To help them ignore the stifling intensity building inside the car. Help them leave the unsaid things unsaid.
When did they find themselves so close, yet so far apart, Olivia wonders to herself? How can you know someone inside and out and yet feel as though you've never spent a day with them in your life?
When you ignore all the unsaid things, a voice whispers in her mind.
Every conversation begins and ends in seconds. Both of them grasping at straws for safe topics.
His kids. Only a safe topic for a few minutes. Then it strays into territory that is to be ignored.
Her latest dating disaster. Only safe until she mentions that she was actually disappointed that this one didn't pan out. That statement sends Elliot into a silent jealous rage for several miles. A rage that he covers with nonchalance and a sudden interest in the song playing on the radio.
They both choose to ignore the unsaid.
A brief attempt at talking about work. Only to end in a heated debate once more over whose fault it was that they were being sent on this godforsaken weekend in the first place.
Then there is silence as they stare out at the road before them, bristling, humming at the tension, pondering when everything got so damn fucked up that they can't even talk anymore.
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"You've got to be kidding me."
Of course, there would only be one fucking room. What else did he expect.
"It's fine."
If she says fine one more time he might just snap. They both know it isn't fine. They might not say it, but they both know it.
"I'm going to find another hotel."
"Just leave it, El. It's not the first time we've shared a room."
Ignore that, he tells himself.
"Cragen should have booked two rooms."
"You heard the guy, El. System error. They're booked out. Let's just take the room and deal with it. You can sleep on the floor if that makes you feel better."
Her condescending tone makes him see red. It makes his blood boil. He feels rage and need pounding through his veins. There's only so much a man can take.
She's already taken the keys and is heading to the room. His choices involve sleeping in the car and nursing his pride or following her and supressing every fucking instinct he has.
He is only a man after all.
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Before they'd even gone to bed for the night they knew that every single thing about this weekend was going to be ignored. Without a doubt.
He was going to ignore how his cock stirred painfully when she emerged from the bathroom, in pyjamas, skin flushed from the hot shower.
She was going to ignore the sounds he made when he jerked off in the shower.
They were both going to ignore the awkward high school moment when they moved to climb into bed; both moving to the left side. They would ignore the goofy grin he'd flashed before remembered himself. They would ignore the girlish blush that caressed her cheeks. They would ignore how it felt to climb into bed together. The brusque goodnight he'd muttered before rolling to his side and feigning sleep. The way the bed jostled as she shifted to get comfortable. The way even their fucking breathing was in sync as they drifted off.
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Warm breath in her ear. A warm hand on her stomach. A warm body pressed against her back.
Ignore it, she willed herself as her foggy brain tried to grope its way out of the grips of sleep.
Hardness nestled against the crack of her ass.
It was a little hard to ignore that.
Yet, they did manage to ignore it. They ignored it so much that when Elliot had woken to find himself pressed intimately against his partner he'd managed to nonchalantly roll away and make his way to the bathroom.
The words remained unsaid.
Day one of the conference allowed them to ignore the shift in intimacy between them as best they could. Despite best efforts it was a little hard not to react to your partner when you'd woken up pressed together. It was a little hard to ignore the memory of his hardness pressed against you when you were forced to participate in trust exorcises that forced your bodies into intimate contact. It was a little hard to ignore the look in his eyes when you caught him watching you.
They did, however, ignore his near violent encounter with another participant. Sometimes Olivia felt that Elliot could star in his own David Attenborough documentary; his raw animalistic instincts were so finely honed. The young, attractive male approaches female. Engages in meaningless banter with aim to woo female. Female is not interested but plays along as flattered at the attention. Older, alpha male intercedes, taking younger male down a few notches and unmistakably marking his territory.
And he wonders why she can't hold down a relationship.
They ignore the constant, lingering knowledge that in a few hours they will be back in the hotel room and in bed.
Over dinner they manage to effectively ignore that every time their eyes catch there is a spark. She feels it in the catch in her breath, the skip of a heartbeat, the heat that pools between her legs. He feels it in the tightening of his cock, the way that his tongue feels swollen; too big for his mouth. They both ignore that they are suddenly nervous of one another.
How long can they go on ignoring this?
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Her leg is thrown over him, wedging his erection against his stomach. Her cheek rests against his chest, rising and falling with the suddenly quickening breaths that he takes.
His hands have found their way under cloth and satin to rest on heated skin. One splays itself casually across the curve of her hip, belaying the sudden panic he feels. The other has wound its way into the soft hair at the nape of her neck. He has effectively pinned her to him.
He can ignore this.
What he cannot ignore is the heat radiating from her. Intimately. Pressed against him. He aches.
What he cannot ignore is her hand, resting on his abs, ever so close to where he wants her to touch him so badly.
What he cannot ignore is the sudden quickening of her breath and the knowledge that she is awake and aware and not running away.
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It shouldn't surprise either of them that they move in unison. Isn't that what they've always done? Even when they lose their sync, they somehow manage to do it in unison.
It's impossible to know who moved first. The elastic band that was a constant between them; stretching to breaking point before catapulting them back to one another finally snapped and they were sent careening on a crash course. A clash of tongues and teeth and skin on skin. Hands grasping. Touching. Caressing. Claiming. Exploring. His body crashing to hers with a force that should shock them but is so familiar and such a goddamn relief that it's like the second fucking coming.
And she is coming. Screaming with it and he's barely even touched her. She'd ignore the smirk that graced his lips right before they lowered to where she wanted them most. She'd allow him that because it had been such a long time coming and she would pay him back later. Her body was wound so tight and damn her if she hadn't been imagining this for years. His smart arsed mouth finally being put to good use. Those fingers that she'd watched clumsily plunking away on the keyboard for years were finally on her; playing her like fucking bow. And she allowed it. Her body snapped and careened.
He ignored the less than manly sound that had escaped his lips when she'd taken him in her mouth. The sneaking suspicion that she'd hold onto it didn't escape his mind but he pushed it away as he pulled her closer, sinking into her. It was as though all those years of verbal sparring matches had been nothing more than foreplay and damn him if his single-minded focus all these years hadn't been on her mouth.
They both ignore their mutual cries of pleasure when they are finally joined. Hers is laced with discomfort as she adjusts to him and his is the sound of a man who has finally lost the battle with the final vestiges of self-control. He holds her, then, in the moments right after the end of everything they have known and before the beginning of everything that is to come. He holds her and allows her the moment she needs. He ignores the fact that this is going to be over much too soon. It is fast. It is rough. It is a powerplay. It is everything that is their partnership. And somehow, they find their sync. Their rhythm and it works. Just like it always works between them.
Because despite all the things that they are going to be hard pressed to ignore now, this is the moment that everything has been leading them to.
Despite all the things left unsaid, they say it all.