Title: Facing Forward
Author: ZombieJazz
Fandom: SVU
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law&Order: Special Victims Unit and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The character of Jack, Benji and Emmy have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.
Summary: Brian Cassidy and Olivia Benson attempt to cope with his past abuse while trying to maintain their relationship and raise their family. This set of chapters is set in the aftermath of the S20E16 (Facing Demons). The story is also set in the Hello, Goodbye and Welcome Home AU.
Olivia gazed down the couch at the mass of people – the pile of foxes and family and just their own little world of humanity – that they'd become on the couch. Two exhausted parents and two sick and tired little kids. One little boy who wasn't doing very well at hiding it and one little and not quite ready to admit she was lagging too. Both drugged and slightly stoned but finally calming after an unplanned hectic start to the day and too many hours sitting in a walk-in clinic – and developing more whiney children in the process. But they were home now. Together now. And it felt nice.
Emily was doing her best to make up for any lost Daddy time that week. She'd been attached to Brian like glue so far that day. But that was pretty standard. Their little duckling was definitely a Daddy's Girl as much as her Little Fox was a Mama's Boy. And Emmy was nearly as rough and tumble as Brian. Boys socks hiked up to her scrapped knees all summer long, topped off with tuffy little pigtails sticking out the top either side of her head. A hairstyle that he'd been decreed since her starting kindergarten that it was "DADDY WHO DOES MY HAIR RIGHT". So every morning it was Brian who fiddled around with Emmy Girl's unruly, tangles and the elastic bands to perfect the almost always lopsided look that Emily seemed A-OK with.
As much as Emily would put on a sundress, she was just as likely to decide to compliment it with a plastic ninja sword strapped to her back. The overalls that Brian's mom had dug out of some bag of beloved belongings from Brian's childhood were as much of a favorite with their little girl – right along with the patches that Janet had had to sew into the knees for Brian as a little boy and now thrived on plastering the legs with new decals picked out by the little girl. A complete mishmash of flowers and cars and dinosaurs and ladybugs overing the material. Emily was much more likely to want to sit staring at bugs in the grass and go charging without fear onto a football field to snag every flag she could reach – no matter who's team she was playing for. She wasn't a little girl who wanted to play tea party or do Mommy-daughter manicures that Olivia may have imagined when adding a baby girl to their family. If she wanted arts and crafts (that weren't slime related), she had more in common with Jack and Benji. Though, they wouldn't humor her on certain more girlie or feminine endeavors about 363 days a year. They might honor her requests without groaning at her on her birthday and Mother's Day.
But that was OK. It'd still worked out – it was working out. And sometimes Emmy still surprised her when the girlie-girl buried somewhere in there emerged occasionally. At least long enough to inform Benji that his feet stunk like boy feet or to tell him that farting on a pillow and shoving it in her face was super gross. Or to insist that unicorns were as real and as cool as transforming robots from another planet. And that fiery hot – heart-burn inducing – everything and anything wasn't a necessity with every meal or whenever they got any kind of take-out. She'd balanced their family out.
Or Brian had. She'd been thinking about that a lot lately too – as the fear grew that she might lose him. The man she'd known. Or the man who was Daddy to these two kids. That if he didn't do something stupid that he'd just close in on himself in a way that they lost him to the abyss.
Amanda had told her it wasn't her job to look after him. But Olivia thought she was wrong. That maybe she would've agreed before – it wasn't her job to look after a grown man, especially one that didn't want to be looked after. But she also thought the comment from Amanda just … depicted how inexperienced Amanda was in relationships too.
And Olivia had been there. She'd spent years and years there. And it'd damaged – and sabotaged – so many of her attempts at relationships. It gave her yet another excuse to let them fail. To break-out. To not try. To cover up some of her own fears and insecurities. To keep up walls. And to just give herself an excuse to be a bitch to … someone who might've cared about her. But really to herself.
It wasn't that it was her job to look after Brian – it was that it was their job to look after each other. And it wasn't that Brian didn't want to be taken care of – or that he didn't want to or wouldn't deal with his past and his trauma – it was that he was scared what that meant to him as a person and a spouse and a man and a father. A cop. She understood that. It was his own walls and his own insecurities.
But she knew Brian did the same as her – he focused so much of his energy on taking care of others. At work – the cases he had to investigate to make sure all the I's were dotted and T's were crossed and the investigating detectives had played by the rules so that these cases he took so personally went to trial with a ADA that could win. That the evidence and interviews and witness statements and documentation was all there. That the ADA just had to go and lay it out in court. He took it so personally now if a case that he'd worked on didn't stick – in a way that was even more elevated than the work they did in SVU in making sure there were charges that got pressed. Brian was in charge of making sure things really stuck – and if they didn't, he took it badly. Upset with himself, upset with the ADA, upset with the unit that had handled the case, upset with the judge and jury – and devastated for the victims and their families.
He took care of the people on his team – as a boss and supervisor now. He was protective. He went to bat for them – sometimes to his own peril. He'd been pulled off cases and put in a box more than once because he didn't play by the rules in quite the way anyone wanted. But that was Brian. It always had been. He did things his way.
He took care of them at home too. He took care of his family. He'd made repeated sacrifices for them – personally, professionally, financially. He committed time and energy and love and worry to their kids. He listened to their problems – and took even their five-year-old's opinion into consideration when making decisions. He let Olivia win fights that maybe he won't have backed down on in his previous life. But she'd done the same. Like this house and Brooklyn. It was a compromise and sacrifice in so many ways for both of them. It wasn't where she wanted to live but it was a space that she was happy to have her kids growing up in – and if they were going to be living in Brooklyn, it was a neighborhood that was meant for families with proximity to schools and transit and Brian's mother and Cragen when he wasn't down in Florida with Eileen or out on a fishing boat off Bimney. But it also was a brownstone duplex – the including the garden level so their kids had personal, private space to play – in a gentrifying neighborhood that maybe they really shouldn't have been able to afford. Brian had sold his cabin and property he'd worked so hard on – in overcoming another one of the worst moments in his life. And she'd had to cash out some of her mother's trust that she'd been so fundamentally opposed to touching for so long. A great compromise and a great sacrifice – for these two little human beings that they both were so invested in and just adored and loved so much.
But it wasn't just the big decisions and sacrifices like that that Brian did. Olivia had been reminded again that week with him gone just how much he actually did for their family. All these big and little things in their daily lives that added up so quickly for her and for the kids. How much of the load he actually did carry. Keeping house and raising children – it was a team effort. They were a team they were – even when they were out of sync as a couple, they were united in their household and their commitment to it.
And he really tried to take care of her too. In so many ways Brian wasn't what – or who – she'd ever envisioned herself settling down with. But that fantasy she'd created was likely too much of a glorified fantasy non-reflective of reality. Because she hadn't excelled at relationships and she'd never had an example growing up of what a healthy, mature, adult, long-standing relationship looked like. She'd barely had anything that could be classified as a family as an example for raising these kids and having this life partner and co-parent now.
But she knew this – Brian might not be Prince Charming, but he was kind to her and he was wonderfully caring. He did all kinds of little things to demonstrate his affection – like Saturday morning breakfast and going all the way to the farmer's market to get her the bacon she liked. It wasn't an isolated incidence. And it hadn't be lost on her that he'd done that that morning – after driving sixteen hours the day before and being gone all week and exhausted and up most of the night with her, however, nice and fun and needed that'd been. He'd done it – and it spoke volumes about him and where his head was at and how he was thinking and what he was trying to express to her without him saying a word. He was like that. His gestures – big and small – carried so much weight.
Brian may not be a grand romantic but he tried – and he did a lot of things to make her feel special and still attractive and wanted and sexy even in her middle age. And all the years with him, she was realizing it wasn't the grand romance or the fantastic love story that made a love story – that made a relationship – it was all these little repeated moments of showing up. Or trying to make life a little easier for you day-in and day-out. It was all those little things that said 'I love you' without saying it.
It was the constant work at maintaining what they had. And it was work. Work that sometimes they got too lax about – that maybe she'd been too lax about lately. Maybe they both had. But they'd gotten a reality check. A big one. They needed to do better. She needed to do better.
Olivia tried to take care of him too. Maybe not as hard as she should've. Maybe she'd let some of that 'he's a grown man' thought pattern kick in. And maybe she'd given herself the excuse that he was rough-around-the-edges Brian Cassidy and he didn't need her wearing kid gloves while handling him. That that wasn't even what he wanted.
But then she saw – felt – how much he lit up, how his body language changed – when she did tell him she loved him. When she did little things too to show him he was loved and needed and wanted. When she let herself respect his sexuality and needs too – let him feel attractive and like a man. Like she wanted him that way. And she did.
She could feel how scared he was that that would have changed – that it would change now. But she'd admit that even though there'd always been a few question marks in their sex life, she hadn't worried on them too much because there was too much good to make her dwell on the less-than-average oddities. Her and Brian fit together well in too many ways. Even when they didn't. They had too much of a foundation in too many areas of their life. They'd established something – them, this family – on mutual trust and respect. And a lot of good times even though they'd endured some of their worst moments together and outright showed them off to the other person. They'd hurt each other – but they'd gotten through it. And they were still there – still together.
It worked even as much as it didn't. They had their foundation. They had their shared history and shared experiences and reference points and mileposts – for as much as they were different people they had all these intersecting point in their lives where they just came together. Little moments of magic. That added up to bigger moments of happiness when you stepped back to look at the whole picture. When you recognized that contentment counted for a lot and then some.
So it meant even if on days like this, it was Brian Emmy preferred – Olivia was willing to share. Just like she'd managed to make herself share Benji – and just like Benji wa still so much hers. Especially when he was sick. He just wanted Mommy Fox. He'd been as flaked out and as sucky with her since they'd gotten home from the doctor's as Emmy was being with Brian.
It was so strange to look down the couch at her family. This little family they'd created together and was just so much theirs. Not that adoption was some sort of strange oddity in New York City that earned much of a second-glance or regular comments. But they rarely got any sort of comment or mistaken identity passed off their way.
Benji – somehow, some way – looked much like Brian. Especially now that she'd seen so many pictures of him as a little boy. The similarities were striking in some of their features. And Olivia was loath to admit there were personality traits in her son that reminded her of the man she'd picked to help her raise this little boy. The anxious energy, the stubborn anti-authority, the puppy dog excitement, the smart as he wanted to be in any given moment manipulation, and this quiet self-conscious wounded nature. Was it nature or nurture? Or just life experience? She didn't know. But she did know that no one ever so much as gave a second-glance or questioned whether Brian was Benji's biological father or not. And she also knew that Brian was just as likely to tell her that Benji's personality was all her – and her fault – with a sprinkling of Jack in there. Especially the stubbornness.
And as much as Benji looked like his adopted Daddy, Emily was some how hers. Brian always commented on her eyes. "They're your eyes, keeping me in check even when you're not here," he contended all the time. But their little girl's complexion too and the nose, Brian regularly stated too. Likely just to gouge her since he knew she wasn't exactly the biggest fan of her nose to face ratio. Only Emily's hair was several shades lighter, but Olivia didn't doubt with age and life and sunshine, it was likely to darken up over the years. Just like Brian's had and just like she knew Benji's strawberry locks eventually would too. Though, she still secretly hoped that they wouldn't become the dark auburn – almost brown – that Brian's had as he aged. And it was a funny thought process – because their genes weren't there. Yet they two of them – were so their kids in so many ways.
And how could you not care for that? How could you not want to fight for it? And take care of it? And love it? And be forgiving of mistakes and blunders? How could you not look past all the flaws and just … enjoy what you had. Even if it was a sickly Saturday after a busy week? Because this all just still felt pretty good. It still felt right.
It still felt so right that she hated knowing – wondering – if Brian was sitting there feeling uncomfortable and wrong. Though, she wasn't sure he did. Not because of … everything … though maybe cause of their seating positioning.
Their little girl was twisted in some sort of acrobatic move – flopped backward, hanging across Brian's lap to the point her head was slanted precariously off his knee and near staring at the movie upside down. Meanwhile, her legs and feet were near in Brian's face, flung upward, crunching her toes into the back cushion over and over. It didn't look particularly comfortable. But Olivia had learned that kids tend to treat couches like jungle gyms long ago and seem much more content staring at TV from odd angles too. If it meant they stared at it longer than if she told them to sit up properly – she didn't really care how they sat and watched.
Though, Brian had reason to care that afternoon. He'd flopped over her and Benji's way to get away from the restlessness of Emmy's movements and the potential that he might take a kick in the face.
His one hand was resting across Benji's ribs and chest – like he was still expecting this to be bronchitis and not strep and he was monitoring his every breath. His head was lulled back against the cushion – close enough that Olivia had her free hand up, running her fingers through Brian's hair. Her other hand was still intermittently checking at Benji's forehead, monitoring his temperature and the touch of clamminess there. But he seemed undisturbed by the maneuvre. He was transfixed on the movie.
They all were. In some sort of stupor they were just staring at it. The latest Michael Bay Transformer offering. The kind of movie that she'd usually get up from the couch and go clean the toilet instead of watching. But not that day. That day she was perfectly happy to lounge there with the three of them – and put out of her mind any question about if her five-year-old should really be watching this. Not that it really mattered – so many of the TV and movie rules she'd tried with Benji had faded. To a point. And she'd learned to trust Brian's judgement on if some of these Transformer and Ninja Turtle and Marvel super heroes (she'd been informed they weren't a DC family) were appropriate for their children or not. Just let she'd let him handle the fall out if something happened on the screen that made him decide to turn it off or if something was scary enough that Emmy ended up with nightmares (which rarely happened, though she almost always informed them a movie was too scary their first try through it. Olivia thought it was more Emmy got bored and just didn't want to admit it to her Daddy and Big Bubba so she used 'scary' as an excuse since she'd learned that meant it got turned off to try again another time).
"That's a sam-eer-i 'Former," Emmy muttered to seemingly no one.
"It's Drift," Benji provided anyway.
Emmy squirreled a bit in her position, righting herself and flopping herself against Brian's side. His arm that had been blocking her feet from impacting with his battered-enough face, finally came down and wrapped around her instead.
"I like 'im," she said.
"He's pretty cool," Brian agreed passively. "He used to be a Deception."
Emmy looked up at him wide-eyed. "He a bad guy?"
"Not in this," Brian provided. "He's a good guy here."
Emmy stared at the screen again. "He good at sam-eer-i stunts."
"Tactical combat," Benji croaked out again.
"I like 'im," Emmy reaffirmed. "He like a Ninja Turtle 'Former."
"Sorta," Brian agreed.
"Sorta wrong," Benji muttered and did his own squirrel manuever, cuddling into her more.
"You think he got oozed with slime to become a 'Former, Daddy? Like the Turtles?" Emmy asked and gazed at Blubberbutt, giving him a good squeeze to transform him to an angry narwhal in that moment.
"Dumb," Benji muttered against her side.
"Shh …," Olivia soothed and rubbed at his back.
"Tell her to shh," he sulked. She could tell he was hurting. "I can't hear the movie."
She just kept rubbing at Benji's back and Brian did the same with Emmy. But she gazed at him with big eyes.
"Daddy… you didn't say?"
"Yea, Duckie, I don't think oozing slime, experiments gone wrong made Drift. He's from Cyberton like all the other Deceptons and Autobots."
Emmy considered that. "But you think that maybe slime could make 'Formers since it 'formed the Turtles?"
"Yea, I don't know. Maybe," Brian allowed.
Emmy snuggled into him more at that. "Maybe we should make 'Former slime," she said. "Like robo slime for their sir-kits and gears. So they run good for battle."
"Sure," Brian muttered. "When you two are on the upswing we'll get right on teaching you both about personal lubricant."
Olivia made a little amused noise at that and caught eyes with him. He gave her a 'got your mind in the gutter, been with SVU too long' long. But she knew he'd purposely made the sideways joke for her benefit. It was another little thing he did. Even though it had bit him in the ass more than once when the kids had picked up one of his little comments and repeated them in public. Brian only cared so much when that happened, though.
Olivia's phone buzzed and she reached away from Benji to grab it and look at it while Brian gazed at her questioningly.
"It's Jack," she said and removed her hand from his hair to reply to their oldest. "He's heading over …"
"You tell him we're under quarantine?" Brian put to her.
"Mmm …," she allowed. She had. But sometimes Jack's listening skills – via text or otherwise – still left something to be desired.
"Tell him to bring popsicles," Benji croaked out again.
She held at him a bit. "I'm telling Peedg that we don't want him to get sick so he shouldn't come over."
"But my throat hurts so much," Benji whined so hard he sounded near tears.
"Mine too," Emmy copied.
Olivia let out a sigh and eyed Brian. And they just stared at each other a long beat but then he patted again at Benji's ribs and gave Emmy another little squeeze. Then he managed to extract himself from the pile of plagued humanity they were on that couch.
"OK," he allowed. "I'm going to do a popscile run." He gazed at her again. "And … wonton soup?"
She gave him a thin smile and a little nod. "Thank you," she mouthed.
He only nodded back, as Emily shifted on the couch again and this time flopped right onto her free side – putting her under a bigger pile of her sick, needy children. But it still felt good. She still held at them.
And despite the germs and the fevers and the shear amount of antibiotics and NSAIDs in their systems, Brian stepped over and bent down, planting a brief kiss on each of their three foreheads.
"I'll be back in a bit," he said. And he padded off toward the door. Off on the latest mundane mission of their lives. But the life they'd made together. That she knew he valued.
This situation that worked. When they forced themselves to remember the fundamentals that worked for them: be kind to each other, listen hard and fight fair. They'd just have to get back to those fundamentals.
They were. She could feel it. All together now.
