A/N: A .44 full of bullets. Face full of pale. Eyes full of empty. A stare full of nails. (Rage Against the Machine) For the sake of this story, the timelines of some cases and details have been altered.
DISCLAIMER: SVU and all related plot/characters originally belong to Dick Wolf. This story, words, and dialogue are mine. © TStabler
It's weird, still being in his sweatpants and tee-shirt at nearly noon, but he isn't complaining. He'd gotten up early enough to make slow, sweet love to Olivia before she left for work, he'd made the kids breakfast and drove them to school. He'd run errands and did work around the house that he'd been avoiding, and he'd finally called the realtor to accept an offer on the place.
All this, and it's still only noon. He shakes his head as he wraps the frame in his hands in the sheet of bubble wrap laid out on the table. He grumbles something about almost eleven years worth of memories fitting into twenty cardboard boxes, and he squeezes the wrapped frame a bit too hard on his way to box number six. "Shit," he snaps as one of the bubbles pops under his touch. He sighs, places the frame on the top of the stack in the box, and he looks around what used to be the living room and is now a couch surrounded by the echoes of a previous life.
Bare walls, no furniture but for the sofa, and he laughs at the different colored square off to the side where he'd once painted around a shelving unit he'd been too lazy to move. He laughs but then his new reality seems to hit him all at once. His job? In jeopardy as it is, owing to his uncontrollable temper and high-octane testosterone. Add in his multi-faceted, unexplainable relationship with his partner and he might as well consider himself an ex-detective. His family? So far, he's got his kids, but Kathy plays dirty, always has, always will. He doesn't know what Olivia's statement says, if it helps or hurts, and he isn't sure he wants to find out just yet. His house? No longer his, and where he's going is up in the air until Olivia gets home.
Again, the road leads back to Olivia.
He closes his eyes for a moment, then, and chuckles to himself. Taking a deep breath, he ignores the rest of the frames that need to be wrapped, and he shoves his feet into a pair of sneakers waiting by the door. He checks his watch and nods, as if agreeing with the time. He knows what she's been through already today, and he knows it's partly his fault. He grabs his keys and jacket off their respective hooks and he grins, hoping what he's about to do will make up for it all. Once he's in his car, he shifts gears and aims to beat his own record for time spent getting from Queens to Manhattan.
Without traffic, with his dash-light spinning, breaking every speed-limit law on every road, it takes him twenty minutes. He parks his SUV in a guest spot at the station, and he whistles as he gets out of the car and walks toward the front doors. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, sends two texts to Olivia, and he waits on the stoop. He doesn't want to go in; for the next two days, he's not concerned with anything or anyone in that building except Olivia. He sees her, through the glass doors, coming down the hall, his instant smile turns sour though, when he sees Falsone walking right beside her.
He cracks his knuckles and he hears himself growl, but when Olivia pushes through the doors and wraps her arms around him, he forgets his anger for a moment. "Hey," he whispers.
"Where are we going?" she asks, and she eyes him up and down. She licks her lips, seeing his muscles bulge and strain against the tight grey tee, she moans softly at the way the v-cut of his body peeks out of the low-slung sweats. She swallows hard, her hands slip down his chest, and then back away into her blazer pockets. "You, uh, you got all dressed up for lunch, huh?"
The way his lips curl into an unreadable smile isn't lost on either of them. "What I'm wearing doesn't really matter," he says, and he grabs her wrist, pulls her hand out of her pocket, and leads her to the lot. He helps her into the passenger seat and he hopes, as he slams the door, that she won't be too angry when they get to where they're going.
When he climbs into the driver's seat, he leans over the console and kisses her deeply, and then whispers, "Buckle up."
She can tell by the way he says the words, and the look in his eyes that comes with them, that he doesn't just mean her seatbelt. She stays silent as they drive, and when she realizes where he's taking her, she furrows her brow. "Um, question…" she holds up a finger.
"No questions," he states, and he pulls up to the curb in front of her apartment. He takes a deep breath and gets out of the car, runs around to open her door, and he says, "You were serious when you said you'd move…"
"Yeah, but I didn't think you mean on my lunch break," she quips, rolling her eyes.
He laughs as he hooks his arm around her waist and practically carries her up the front steps. He waits as she slides the card key through the lock, then pushes the door open for her. "No, uh, I just...got a lot accomplished this morning, and, um…" he runs with her, up the stairs, knowing the elevator would take too long right now. As he pulls her along, he shuffles the keys around in his head, and when he finds the one he wants, he lets out a victorious grunt. "I, uh, took the liberty of packing up some of your stuff this morning, before I started at the house."
She raises a brow, half-annoyed and half-intrigued, and she follows him as he guides her out of the stairwell, down the hall, toward the door to her apartment. "How many calming breaths should I take before we go in there?"
He laughs. "Uh, just one, I think," he chuckles, and he closes his eyes and prays as he opens her door. He watches with shallow breaths as she steps into the almost empty space. He loves the way her brown pants hug her hips and elongate her legs, the way the matching blazer hangs loosely over a skin-tight black tank. He wonders, only briefly, how the suit will look in a puddle at her feet, but he knows he's going to find out soon enough. "I figured, uh, we only have a couple more days to use the place to its fullest potential."
No sound comes from her as she looks around the room, blank-walled and vacuumed, and she sees a few boxes stacked in the corner. "Where's the rest of my stuff?" she asks softly, her eyes glued to the only piece of furniture in the room. One that isn't even hers. It's new. It's only here for one reason. She moves closer to the black, angular cushioned table, runs one hand along the outstretched bars, and blinks once. "Elliot?"
"Storage," he says, slowly walking toward her. "Take that off," he points to her blazer.
Her head whips toward his and she meets his darkened eyes. Obediently, she pulls the brown cotton off of her arms and lets it drop to her floor. "You actually bought one of these things?"
"It's all I could fucking think about, since I saw it in that woman's bedroom," he tells her, moving his hands to her black tank top. He pulls it out of her pants, then lifts it over her head, loving how she willingly moves to allow him. "Pants," he says flatly. Almost instantly, he hears the zipper pull and the fabric rumple, and he smirks. "Good girl," he teases, and he leans forward to kiss her forehead. He hooks one hand around her back to pull at the clasp of her bra, the other swoops between her legs and he moans loudly. "Oh, good fucking girl," he groans as his fingers meet bare, wet flesh. He drags his fingers up, slowly, and when he hears her whimper, he moves his lips toward her ear. He nips at her lobe, sucks it into his mouth as he pushes his middle finger into her, and when he hears her bra drop to the floor, he whispers, "Get on the table, face down."
She gulps, but turns, and her hands grip the leather cushion tightly as she climbs up, dropping her face into the designated space. Her pulse races, her breath quickens, and she feels him moving her arms and legs onto their slats. "Oh, shit," she whispers, feeling him strapping her down. An anticipating moan escapes when she feels him pull her legs wider apart, and she hears him shifting his sweats. She wonders if he'll take them off completely or move them down only enough to give him the mobility he needs to fuck her senseless. After all, she only has an hour.
"Show me," he says, sliding the tip of his disk up and down her wet slit, "How good you are." He presses into her, moans at the way she stretches around him as she takes him in, and he slaps both palms down on her ass hard. "You like that?" He does it again, harder, and thrusts fully into her at the same time.
She yelps and tries to move, but the way he has her bound to the table forbids it. "Yes," she moans.
"Yes...what?" he teases, and his hands curl and grip the rounds of her ass.
She smirks, knowing he can't see it. "Yes, Sir," she complies. It hits her, then, and she has to wonder who told him. He obviously knows how grueling her morning had been, how stiff and severe she'd needed to be, how totally in control. She moans again, his hands squeeze her ass harder as he starts his punishing thrusts. She balls her fingers into fists, feels her toes curl without permission, and she knows that at this angle, this restricted, completely at his mercy, she's going to cum fast, hard, and more than once. It's what he needs, and what he knows she craves.
"You," he growls, and he presses one hand into her body hard as he drags it upward to her neck. "Are," he says, wrapping her hair in his hand. He pulls hard, and he says, "Mine." He leans over as he slams into her, he knows his hot panting in her ear is giving her goosebumps because he can feel them on her skin. "Yes?"
"Yes…" she moans, the way he takes himself all the way out of her and then drives all the way back in is sending every nerve in her body haywire. "Yes, Sir," she moans softly. Her eyes flutter shut when he licks the conch of her ear, and she hears him whisper something against her skin that nearly makes her heart stop altogether. "God, yes," she cries, and when he pulls her hair harder, she adds, "Sir," with a whimper.
He chuckles and slips his other hand away from her ass, between her spread thighs, toward her clit. He knows exactly how to touch her to drive her mad, and he waits until he's pulled out to brush his thumb over her clit. "Tell me," he breathes as he straightens out, "When you want to cum." He thrusts into her hard, pulls out, strokes her clit, slams into her again. It's a pattern now, a rhythm all his own, and he feels the way she tightens and grips every time, her body needing him to stay inside, fighting against his pistoning. "Olivia," he says with a clenched jaw, "Tell me."
"Not yet," she whispers, "Please," she seems to be begging herself, not ready to let go. It proves fruitless, though, as it only makes Elliot work harder, faster, deeper, stroke her clit roughly. "Oh, God," she cries. She can't clench her thighs or grip the bars, there is nothing she can do to stave it off, and that's exactly what he intends. This is completely out of her control. She is no longer in control at all.
"Olivia," he sings, tilting his head. "I can feel how much you need it," he says, and his thumb moves faster. He chuckles at the way her legs jerk against the straps, how badly they want to close and clamp around him. "Don't fucking fight it." He grunts and moves faster, even harder, gets deeper inside of her with every buck of his hips. "You can't fight it, baby."
"Oh, my God," she cries, and he's ripping her release from her before she can tell him she's cumming. Her entire body burns and she can feel every single isolated muscle contraction and release as she convulses. He isn't stopping, he's thrusting through her vice-like gripping and she feels the way her body betrays her by giving into him. "Oh, God," she cries.
"Again," his voice commands, his thumb circles over her clit, he leans over and uncurls his hand from her wavy hair. He curves his arm around her, under the U-shaped table, and he tugs and tweaks the first nipple he finds. He drops soft kisses to her slick back and he says, "So fucking sexy, so beautiful," he nips at the thin skin of her shoulder blade. "So incredible, watching you cum, for me." He growls and thrusts again, feeling her tighten around him even more. "Feeling you cum for me." He pulls harder on her nipple, twists it in his fingers, and he lets out an almost evil chuckle. "But you didn't fucking tell me, baby. You know what that means?"
Her eyes close, her lips curl into a satisfied smile, and she whispers, "Yes, Sir," and she hopes he now knows that maybe she still has a bit of control after all. Her victorious moment is short-lived, though, as he kicks his knee out, moving the leg bars of the table, spreading her wider for him. She misses his warmth almost immediately but she moans when she feels his hands set themselves on her hips, as they dig into what she assumes are now permanent bruises in the shapes of his fingerprints. "Oh, God," she says once more, and she knows that she's in for it.
He moves his hips faster, he hears the way his body slaps into hers, he can feel how hard he's slamming against her, and he drops his head back when she starts to pulse around him. "Fuck, you feel so fucking good," he speaks, and his hands move in time with his thrusts. Smoothing over her ass, down the sides of her back, along the perfect line of her spine, until he spreads her lips apart and flicks relentlessly at her clit again. "Ask, this time," he says, and he works even harder, even faster, knowing he won't last much longer either.
Her eyes close, she bites her lip, her body begins to shake and tremble, and she is lost to him. He needs to pull the rigidity from her, make her let it all go, and she will never understand how it's the same fucking thing she needs, but she will always be thankful. "May I cum?" she asks, though her teeth are tightly gnashed together, her entire body engulfed in flame. She doesn't get an answer and she rolls her eyes both in response to his incessant dominance and the way she needs release. "Sir?"
"Cum," he tells her, and he speeds up his thrusting, moves his thumb over her clit more rapidly. "Cum baby, cum for me," he tells her, and he hears her cry his name louder than ever before, while the entire table shakes and wavers. He can feel her pull him deeper and now, he can't move at all. He's locked inside of her as her muscles throb around him, milk him, make him cum the way he's made her. "Oh, fuck, Liv," he spits out harshly, and he stills with his hands wrapped around her waist as he fires, fiery hot and deadly fast, with grunts and a growl of her name that sounds like a mythological beast roaring.
When he stops moving, she takes a deep breath and opens her eyes, surprised by the floor beneath her; for a moment she'd forgotten where she is. "El?" she calls softly, and though he doesn't say anything, she can hear and feel him unbuckling the straps.
He knows her muscles are weak now, being spread eagle for so long takes its toll, and he lifts her into his arms, cradling her to him. He brushes her nose with his, then kisses her deeply, soundly. "I love you," he whispers, and he springs it on her. "I think we should keep this place. Ya know, for, uh…" he licks the spot behind her ear. "Obvious reasons."
"Yes," she tells him, her face buried in her neck. "God, yes," she chuckles. "I can't imagine, uh...keeping all of your new toys in the house with the kids, no matter how many of them fold up." She points to the table and chuckles again, and as he drops her to her feet, she asks, "How did you know?"
He readjusts his sweatpants and then drops to pick up her pants. He holds them out so she can step into them, realizing now how ritualistic this has all become, and he says, "Fin. When I called this morning he, uh, told me you were briefing the rookies, so I knew you had the morning from hell." He kisses her lips softly as he slides the zipper of her brown pants up, and then he says, "I knew you needed to let it all go as much as I needed...to hold onto it." He kisses her cheek and then bends to pick up her bra.
She lets him loop the straps over her arms and shoulders, loving how gentle he is, and she hears the snap of the clasp behind her. She smiles and grabs his hand, and then she says, "I saw the look in your eyes."
He's coming at her with her tank top, his brows knitted, as he asks, "When?" He pulls it down over her head, lets his fingertips graze her skin as he rolls it down and smoothes out the wrinkles. He marvels at the way the dark cotton makes her tan skin look more striking, and he runs his fingertips over her bare arms and shoulders. "Baby?"
She sighs as he hands her suit jacket to her. "When you saw me walking with...Falsone," she hesitates, knowing he hates when she uses the man's first name, "You know you don't have anything to worry about, right? I'm not, uh," she moves into him, tugs on the damp collar of his tee-shirt, and she looks into his eyes, smirking. "I'm not allowed to flirt with him, remember?"
"Damn fucking right," he sneers, and he grins as he slaps her ass and kisses her hard. Pulling back a bit, he exhales. "I know, I just...packing up this place...boxing up the house today, it all made me feel like I was losing everything, and then I see him with you and I know he's not a bad looking guy, he's never been married, he doesn't have kids, he's your age…"
"Yes, because I'm clearly bothered by the whole four years between us," she rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and she says, "I don't care that you've been married already, I love your kids, and you...you make him look like Quasimodo."
He chuckles and kisses her gently. "I just don't want you to think…" he drags a hand down his face as he checks his watch, muffled curses fly as he grabs his keys and coat off the floor. "I don't want you to think that this is some kind of…"
"I know you," she tells him. "I know you and Kathy were as happy as you could possibly be for the first couple of years," she exhales and runs her fingers through her hair, walking out of her apartment as he holds the door open for her. "I even pointed it out in that statement Kathy wanted. The last ten years sucked, but those first two...sure you never wanted to marry her, not until you had to, but you and Kathy and Maureen...for a while, you were happy. It' when you grew up, that it all changed. A couple of kids made a mistake and got married. But a couple of adults need to do what's best for the kids born from that mistake...from the life that mistake gave the two of you for little more than a decade."
He knows there are tears in his eyes and he walks her to the elevator, not trusting his blurry vision with the stairs this time. "You, uh, you said that?"
She nods and says, "I also said that you put those kids of yours first, all the time, you have since the day I met you. I said that I have never seen you yell at them, you've never ignored phone calls, missed conferences…" she bites her lip as she steps into the elevator, and she pushes the button for the lobby. "I said that you are the most passionate person I know, in every sense of the word, I talked about how brave you are, and how this divorce is destroying you but you know it's the best thing for everyone, especially your kids. I said that you have a support system at work, a colleague's son who is more than happy to babysit whenever you need, and...I may have hinted around that you wouldn't be raising the kids alone if the judge granted you any kind of custody." She shrugs and says, "I didn't tell them who'd be helping you, I just know...Kathy can't say the same thing. Judge McHenry can't ignore that."
Elliot wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands, shakes his head, and he lets out a strangled sounding laugh as he pulls her close to him. "Wow, uh, you'd think you love me, or something."
She nods, her head moves against his chest, and she whispers, "I do." She tightens her hold on him, knowing she has to let go sooner than she'd like. "I love you," she whispers, and it's the first time her voice doesn't waver when she says it. Maybe she's getting used to the idea. She takes a breath and as the elevator lands and opens, she asks, "So why did you pack up my apartment without telling me? And when the hell did you buy that…"
"Oh, I, I also bought us a swing," he says with a wag of his eyebrows. "And a pole. I didn't install them, yet, I wasn't sure you'd agree to keep the apartment, it's extra money a month, but I figure splitting everything…" he pauses. He notices they've stopped walking. "What?"
"You bought what now?" She folds her arms. " A pole, for whom?" She blinks a few times and purses her lips.
He licks his own and then leans in to whisper, "We'll take turns," and he winks. "Told you, this goes both ways, no matter what," and he grabs her arm as she starts walking again. "I mean it," he whispers. "I would never ask you or tell you to do anything if I wasn't ready and willing to do it for you."
She nods, knowing that already, and then she says, "You still didn't tell me why you spent the morning moving packing everything you own."
He clears his throat. "House is sold, we have to be out by the end of next week, I figured I'd get a head start on…" he sees the way her lip is caught between her teeth. "Okay, now what?" he gruffs, folding his arms.
"I, uh, I know you sold the house," she says, and she rests her hands on the handle of the passenger side door. "Honestly, the bidder lowballed you. I know you only accepted an offer that low to spite Kathy, but I didn't think..." She shrugs. "You only accepted it this morning, so I assumed you'd wait to start packing, which sucks because now you need to go home and unpack."
He shakes his head as he runs around to the driver's side, but he leans over the hood of the SUV before opening his door. "Liv, I don't think you heard me, we need to be…" He squints at her. "How did you know the bidder lowballed me?"
"El," she smiles at him, and just before she sits down, she says, "I'm the one who made the offer." She tilts her body and says, "You just sold the house to me."
He watches her get into the car, and suddenly the three-hundred-pound weights that have been laying on his shoulders float away. He blinks once, smiles, and he laughs silently as he looks down at the light tan-line where his wedding band once lived. It's not a scar anymore, it's a placeholder, and by the grace of God, he can avoid fucking up the only good thing in his life long enough to seal it over with a promise of permanence.
With Olivia.
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