A/N: Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses - Killing in the Name (Rage Against the Machine) For the sake of this story, some characters are much younger than canonically written, and it's set very early in the history of the show.

DISCLAIMER: SVU and all related plot/characters originally belong to Dick Wolf. This story, words, and dialogue are mine. © TStabler

She's seen him like this before, too often for her liking, but it's the first time she's watched the fallout from start to finish. The first time she hasn't been able to bring him down before he did serious damage, or before the captain found out. She leans against the open door's frame, crosses her arms, tries not to moan at the sight before her. His body is eerily similar to one she'd seen in a college textbook of hers, an art history class she'd taken simply to fill a few credits. Chiseled. Made of stone. Perfect. She brings one hand up to smooth over her chin as the other cups her elbow, and she props one foot up against the molding to keep her balance. She's shaking, and she knows why.

He doesn't know she's there. He has no idea she's watching him. He exhales through a small O in his pursed lips as he pushes himself up, inhales through his nose as he lowers himself down again. He blinks as beads of sweat roll down from his forehead and sting his eyes. The only thing on his mind is how angry he still is, how the festering pool of frustration and agony is about to bubble over, and almost did, onto the one person in his life who doesn't deserve it.

She takes a silent breath as she pulls on the cuffs of her baby blue sweater, her lower lip finds itself wedged between her teeth, and she can't tear her eyes away from him as he moves. His bare back is carved like marble, she can see every muscle twitch and twist as the pace of his push-ups quickens. She sees the sheen of sweat glistening in the fluorescent locker room lights, and it takes every iota of willpower she has to stay where she is and not run to him and lick it all away. There are darkened spots on his heather grey sweats that tell her his lower body is getting just as much of a workout, and she squeezes her eyes shut in an attempt to not envision herself naked beneath him at this moment.

He hears a small thud from behind him and he burpees himself upright. He turns sharply, and when his eyes land on her, he smirks. He reaches over to a shabby wooden bench, grabs a white cotton towel, and rubs it over his face, ridding it of sweat and fury. "How long have you been standing there?"

She swallows forcefully, her arms still crossed tightly, and she shrugs. "Long enough," she says, and the inside of her cheek takes the abuse of her anxiety. "Are you okay?"

He lets out a petulant laugh, sliding the towel down his face and neck again. "No," he says bluntly, and the smirk on his face is the one he gets when he's about to tell a perp he's under arrest. "Not really."

Her eyes dart to his chest, and it's just as godly as the rest of him. She watches it rise and fall with his heavy breathing, follows a droplet of sweat down his pec and over his nipple and she has to consciously remind herself to inhale. "Um," she swallows again, tucks a wave of dark hair behind her ear. "Do you, uh...do you…"

"No," he bites. He tosses the towel over his shoulder, shaking his head and giving a downturned pout. "I don't wanna talk about it," he says, and he leans over to the bench again to grab his discarded tee shirt and hoodie. "I'm gonna ask you again," he whips his head toward her and there's a darkness in her eyes that he can't hide. "How long were you standing there...watching me?"

One of her eyebrows climbs higher of its own volition, her hands drop to her sides, and her thumbs hook themselves through the belt loops of her dark denim jeans as she huffs. It's her defensive stance, her version of deer in headlights. "I wasn't watching you, you egotistical son of a bitch, I was worried about you," she spits at him, lying and telling the truth at the same time. She juts a hand over her shoulder and angles her body away from his. "What was that, back there?"

He shakes his head again, sniffs loudly, and clears his throat as he unfurls his tee-shirt. "What was what?" Though he knows damn well what because he broke a promise he made to himself and to his partner a long time ago, and it's part of the reason he's experiencing an insufferable amount of rage, right now.

"Munch has been on the phone with HR for half an hour trying to get us a new filing cabinet," she starts, "Langan is coming up with a list of fucking motions he plans to file because you flew off the handle and broke his client's arm, and do you know what I had to say to Cragen to keep him from suspending you?" She narrows her eyes and blinks once, but when she opens her eyes she freezes. She watches him pull on his tee-shirt, the fabric clings to his still-damp body, and she hopes to God he can't tell how turned on she is by just looking at her.

"You didn't have to say anything to him," he counters, his lips curling into a smile that falls somewhere between vindictive and seductive. "I didn't ask you to…"

"Ask me to…" she scoffs at him disbelievingly, taking a dangerous step in his direction. "You didn't have to fucking ask me, I am your partner! Saving your ass is part of the job description!"

"But running down here and staring at me for the last twenty minutes isn't," he cocks his head to the left, his unreadable smile in place. "Couldn't have just said something the minute you came into the room, you just…" he chuckles once and thrusts out a dismissive hand. "Stood there?"

She doesn't understand how or why he lets himself turn into such a dick when he's angry but she's fairly sure she knows him well enough to not take it personally. She rolls her eyes and says, "I know better than to try to talk to you when you're in Hulk Mode." She takes a solid look at him, her eyes traveling the entire topography of his body, and she presses her lips together before she says, "Make sure you calm the fuck down before you leave." She drags her eyes up to meet his. "Don't bring the asshole home to Kathy."

Her words feel like a slap in the face, he flinches as though he could genuinely feel the pain of her palm swiping at his cheek. "I'm not…" he lets out a deep, trembling breath. "I'm not going home to Kathy."

She gives him a dismissive snort, not letting herself do the hopeful leap she so desperately wants to do at hearing him say that. "Great," she exhales with a half nod. "Then I'm the lucky one that gets to see this side of you." It registers then, the hurt in his eyes, and she licks her lips as she takes one more solid step toward him. "There was a lot of blood…" she reaches for his left hand, curling her fingers around his wrist and lifting it up to get a better view of it. "You should...you need ice, or…"

He rips his hand away from her, for no other reason than her touch burns his skin. "I'm fine," he cracks. "I've punched the fuck out of shit before, and this probably won't be the last time. I've never broken my knuckles, or…" he pauses and blinks once. "It's just a couple of cuts. Ripped skin, I'm a bleeder." He tries to smile at her. "You know I am."

She backs up, she thinks too little too late, and she says, "I'd take the stairs if I were you, go out the back. If Cragen sees you…"

"What, uh," he starts, and he moves to her side. "What did you say to him?"

Shaking her head, she grins smugly. "Don't worry about it, after all, you, uh, you didn't ask me to do it, so let's both just pretend I didn't." She turns to leave but he grabs her arm, and the vile glare she gives him as she turns around isn't enough to get him to let her go. "What?"

He sees the lines of her jaw square off, he can tell she's clenching her teeth. He slides his hand down her arm and he almost works up the nerve to grab her hand. Thinking better of it, he lets his hand fall away from her completely and he shrugs. "I'm…" he shakes his head, licks his lips, and he looks around the small gym. The walls are painted concrete, one window on one side is too high to give anyone a view out of it and too low to let in any natural light. The floor is the same poured concrete only it's covered with gym mats that were probably donated from a local high school after years of wrestling and gymnastics. The back wall is lined with small, dented, rusty metal lockers, each one wearing a piece of masking tape with a unit member's last name written on it. He tilts his head when he spots his, and right next to it, Olivia's. "How long have we been partners?"

Her eyes widen. "What the hell does that have to do with…" she stops speaking when she notices that his body is still twitching, though he's had plenty of time to calm down. Something's wrong with him, and she decides to answer his question before he explodes again. "Two years, six months, two days, seventeen hours, and thirty-eight minutes." She twists her wrist when he gives her a befuddled glance, showing him her watch. "I set a timer when I got this job. Guy outta the Three-Nine bet me three hundred bucks I'd quit in less than five years," she says, and she isn't joking.

He laughs softly, nodding, and he looks down at his worn sneakers. He kicks at the blue mat at his feet and gives another sniff. "And how many times has this happened in the last two years?" he asks. "Ya know, uh, me...completely losing my shit?"

She screws up her face and tries to sound reassuring as she begins, "You did not completely…"

"But I am," he nods as he interrupts her, and he lifts his head to look at her. He knows, he can tell by the way her eyes change that she sees exactly what's happening. His red eyes widen a bit more, his lips flatten, and he takes a breath to keep himself from crying. "I am...I'm losing it, Liv." He moves and the loud cracks of his back and neck pop and ripple through the thick tension in the air between them. "Believe it or not, this used to happen more often."

She furrows her brow, looks at him as though it's the first time she's ever seen him. She silently analyzes the creases in his forehead, the lines in his cheeks, they're not wrinkles but they mean something. "More often than once a day?" she jokes, but when she sees him flinch at her words she softens her tone. "I was...I was kidding, I'm sorry."

He nods at her and then continues speaking. "I used to be so much worse, so you...you're doing your job, okay? You have...calmed me down a lot. A fucking lot." He scratches at a spot on his chest. "But when I get like this, fuck...I don't know...how to get a handle on it. I mean...there's no other way to…" he can't find the words, not without being more honest than he can be right now, not without sounding all the more like the asshole she thinks he is. "And, uh, when you said…" he inhales. "I've been with her since I was seventeen, obviously Kathy already met the asshole." He palms his way down his face and exhales. "Not...I wasn't this bad, though. I was just…" he coughs. "I've never yelled at or hit my wife or my kids, I never will, and ya know, we were married so long, she's seen me punch a few holes in the plaster, but she and the kids never bear the brunt of this the way…"

"I do," she almost whispers. Like a flipbook, she remembers every time she's watched him hurt somebody in the box, get into a scuffle with a perp, come to blows with anyone who dared disagree with him. She replays memory after memory of his boxing matches with lockers and car doors, nights where she witnessed him rip and tear punching bags and mutilate the machines in the workroom. He doesn't have any problem letting her see the rage and the violence, and for the first time in almost three years, she understands why. Or at least, she assumes. "Go home," she whispers, and she turns to leave the room, her eyes closing, praying he doesn't stop her again, but as usual her prayer goes unheard. She slowly expels a deep sigh. "What?" She barely looks at him over her shoulder, both hands on the sides of the door frame.

He says something to her that doesn't register at first, not until he walks over to the wall of lockers. "You hear me?" he prods, because she didn't say anything.

"Is that what this is about?" She watches him move, the way his body vibrates as his arms tense and release. "You can work things out with her, you always do. I'm sure it's not as bad as…" she jumps at the sound of the metal crumpling under the force of his punch. She winces, watching him remove his fist from the crater he's made in the door of an empty, nameless locker. "Jesus, Elliot!"

"I've been trying to figure out…" he sniffles, he's crying now, he can't stop it. "What's been making me so angry, and I can't…" he shrugs. "It's just how I'm wired. My father…"

"My mother," she counters, stopping him. She moves fast, pulling his one still-balled fist into both of her hands. "You keep telling me that I'm not going to end up like her, that my father being what he was doesn't mean anything about how I'm gonna turn out, so take your own fucking advice." Her voice is low and she has no idea that she's grazing his swollen knuckles with her fingers. "You are not your father, this is not bad wiring, El."

He looks into her eyes and sniffles but says nothing.

She tries to smile. "To answer your question, you've lost your shit a lot, when a case got personal or someone really fucking pushed your buttons, but I have never seen you like this. Not...not like...this." She turns his fist over in her hand and uncurls his fingers. She cringes when he seethes, and she can hear the knuckles click back into place. "The is the worst it's ever been, and…"

"And you're still here," he whispers to her. "I don't...I don't mean for you to be the one that has to deal with me like this, but you're…" he pauses, licks his lips, and he rubs his eyes with the hand that's not finding a comfortable home in her palm. "Liv, you're the only one I trust enough to see me break." The words leave him and he chokes on a breath. He didn't mean to say it out loud, but now that he's gone this far, he might as well tell her the truth. He brings his eyes to hers again, and he says, "I think I know why I've been…" He curls his fingers again, unfolds them, keeps them resting on her hand. "I, uh...I know what triggers it, and this shit with Kathy...yeah, it added fuel to the fucking fire, but…" he looks into her eyes.

She sees his pupils dilate, watches them dart back and forth as they focus on each of her eyes independently. Her breath sharpens like icy daggers in her lungs when his lips curl into an almost smile. "But?" she whispers, but she isn't exactly sure she wants to hear what he's about to say.

He clears his throat, swallows back, and exhales long and slow. "You ever want something...so fucking badly...and somehow it's always just...out of reach?" He watches her nod, he grins. "It's, uh...it's like that." He settles for a cryptic admission, knowing he's not in any frame of mind to say anything more.

There's a silence between them, only the very soft sounds of her fingers brushing over his bruised and torn hand.

"Can I stay with you?" he whispers, his eyes glued to the patterns her fingers are drawing in his palm. He hears her answer and he nods and gulps. "I need you," he tells her, and admitting it out loud makes him feel both weak and strong. "I need you to...be there…" he sniffles. "And I need you to help me find a way to control this...rage...because this can't happen again, not at work, and especially not in front of…not with you."

"We'll figure it out," she tells him, and suddenly she gasps and she drops his hand as if it were a lump of hot coal, as though she'd only just realized she'd been holding it. "Go," she says to him, "You have a key to my place, just...go." She runs both of her hands through her hair and empties her lungs completely on her way out of the room.

He watches her move and when he can no longer hear her heels clicking on the tiles, he turns suddenly, lets out an incredible grunt, and punches the empty locker one more time. He immediately drops his head against another, whimpering slightly. He's certain that, for the first time, he's broken one of his knuckles. He shifts around and slides down the wall to the floor, pulls his knees up to his chest, and he closes his eyes and bows his head. Everything in his life is on the verge of shattering to pieces, and he's praying that someone can help him keep the most fragile parts together.

Olivia.

A/N: Oh...my. What's happening to Elliot? Is this the first or last time he loses control? Will he find another way to vent that won't result in broken bones or a lost job? And what did Olivia say to Cragen?