A/N: I break my face into a half melon smile. Cock my neck like a question mark. Offer him more of whatever he's drinking in a half-assed curtesy tone. His gaze hangs longer than I've asked for.- Olivia Gatwood
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters as written on the TV show, but this version of them? All mine.
"Thirty to seven," Langan whistled and slapped Elliot on the back. "Those other guys didn't stand a fucking chance with you on the field." He gritted his teeth, though, when Elliot nodded, turned, and kissed Olivia hard on the mouth. He wasn't sure which one of them he was more jealous of, and he lowered his hand off of his friend's shoulder.
Elliot, his hand clasped firmly around Olivia's, looked over at Trevor. "Yeah, well, I promised I'd win it for her," he looked back over to Olivia. "I will never break a promise I make to her," he said firmly.
Carmichael smiled almost proudly at him, then perked up a bit as she asked, "So where are we heading for this big celebration?" She slapped her hands against Elliot's arm a few times and hopped up and down.
Elliot rolled his eyes and laughed, then said, "When we were walking home from The Loop last night, I saw this place, uh…" he scratched behind his ear and poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue. "They, um, they're having a poetry slam, tonight."
"You write slam poetry?" Langan shot a skeptical look toward Elliot, then noticed he and Olivia had stopped moving. "Stabler?"
"Not me," Elliot said, his eyes gazing into Olivia's. "There's a two hundred dollar prize, and the top three get open mic entries for the National Poetry Slam next month." He brushed her hair back, swiped his thumbs under her eyes, and said, "You don't have to, I just thought...baby, you're so damn good," he leaned closer. "And if you win...well, it's just another reason to celebrate...when we get home."
She licked her lips, one hand squeezed his as she tugged on the strap of her messenger bag with the other. Her old, tattered, filled journal lay inside, along with a new, nearly fresh one. She had plenty of poems to choose from, but entering a contest and performing one was a lot different than reading one in class. She bit her lip as the pure love in his eyes registered, and she saw the confidence he had in her, the pride, the absolute conviction. "Two hundred bucks?" She saw him nod, the grin on his face, and she leaned up slightly to kiss him. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?"
"All right," Elliot said excitedly, and he kissed her again before pulling her down the street with a laugh. He let his helmet and gear dangle from his free hand as they walked, and he tried not to let his ego swell as the other people around clapped as he walked by them, said things like "Great game!" and "Fantastic playing!" and offered to buy him a drink if he was heading to a bar.
"Someone's famous," Olivia teased, giving him an elbow to the ribs.
"Yeah, and someone else will be, in about an hour," he gave back, and he kissed her forehead as they rounded the corner.
The cafe came into view, a line out the door and behind a velvet rope, and Langan had to yank them both backward as they moved to get in the queue. "Man, you still don't get it," he said, and he shoved them toward the door.
The Maitre'd, clipboard in hand, looked the four teens up and down. He noticed the Northwood attire, then spotted the pads and helmet in Elliot's left hand. "Four?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah," Carmichael said, her bangs falling into her eyes. She swatted at them and then added, "And she wants to enter the, uh, the thing, the slamming thing."
The large, intimidating man raised an eyebrow and then turned his clipboard to face Olivia. "Sign up," he said, licking his lips. He handed her a pen, his thick, dark fingers clicked it for her. "Then go ahead inside, any of the tables in the front."
There were annoyed whines and impatient groans from the people on line, and Olivia looked at them apologetically as she led the group through the open doors. She looked around, most of the place packed, and as she felt herself being pulled through the room toward an open table, her eyes landed on the small stage. A spotlight, a single microphone in a stand, a small black sandwich board that had The Porter House Saturday Slam written in thick white chalk. Her stomach flipped, and she thought maybe she wasn't ready.
"We could just watch," Elliot whispered, seeing the slightly sick look on her face.
She turned to him and smiled. "I already signed up," she shrugged, and she sat down in the chair he'd pulled out for her. She said a soft thanks, then pulled her journals out of her bag. She plopped them onto the table and slid them over to the space in front of him. "This was your idea, you pick."
He licked his lips and picked up the older book first. He flipped through its pages, the ones he'd memorized a long time ago, and he thumbed the corners, knowing exactly which pages had her poems on them. He made a victorious noise as he opened the harboring book flat and then turned it back to her.
"This one?" she asked, her eyes widening. She ran a hand through her hair and then gripped her heart-shaped pendant with two fingers of her right hand, sliding it up and down the chain. "You're sure?"
He nods and shifts over a bit to let a waitress drop four glasses of water and two bowls of pretzels onto their table. "It's powerful," he told her. "You feel it, get angry, get loud, knock the socks off of everyone in this room." He winked, then reached out to grab a handful of pretzels.
Langan eyed him for a moment, then looked at Olivia as he popped a pretzel into his mouth. "So when did you start writing poetry?" He leaned over the table, rested his chin on his hand.
Olivia ran her hands down the front of her sweatshirt and said, "Uh, seventh grade," and then she cleared her throat. "I wasn't serious about it until last year, though." She sipped her water, then noticed Elliot scooting closer to her. He held out his hands to her and she rolled her eyes, then did as he had silently begged her to do.
Elliot settled her in his lap, wrapped his left arm around her waist, and popped another pretzel into his mouth with his right hand. "She's brilliant," he said to his friends, chewing as he dropped his head against Olivia's. "She's also an amazing artist. She's actually doing some commissioned work for a comic book guy in Manhattan." The pride in his voice was so clear.
"Wow," Abby said with a smile. She had taken off her sweatshirt and pulled down the sleeves of her long Northwood polo. "I'd love to see some of your stuff, Benson, I'm taking a few art classes as my semester electives." She and Olivia shared a smile and a high five, then she looked only slightly higher to Elliot. "What about you, Stabler? Any hidden talents?"
Olivia shoved a pretzel into his mouth before he said what she knew he was going to say, and she chuckled when he narrowed his eyes at her. "You're very good at that, but they don't need to know it," she whispered lowly, and then she grinned at Abby. "He plays the piano."
"Oh, really, now," Langan said, almost skeptically. "Like, are we talking plunking out Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, or can you…"
"He's fantastic," Olivia interrupted with wide eyes and a loving smile. "Anything from Chopin to Billy Joel. He, um, can carry a pretty strong tune, too, but…" she looked at him and sighed. "He'd rather wrestle in the mud."
"Hey, now, that's not fair," he said with a mouthful of pretzel. He kissed her nose and said, "I sing to you, it's...special." He wags his head back and forth and squints a bit. "Maybe I'll sing to our kids, eventually, but right now...just to you."
Carmichael made a sweet swooning face at them as she let out a long, "Aww," and then whacked Trevor in the arm. "Aren't they the absolute cutest?"
"Oh, yeah," Langan intoned sarcastically with a dramatized nod. "A couple of real pug puppies." He rolled his eyes and shot his eyes over to the stage. "I think they're starting, so you might wanna not be sucking face right now." He threw a pretzel at Elliot's head.
With a laugh, Elliot swiveled his chair a bit, facing the stage with Olivia still in his lap. They watched as each poet got up, read their poem, then stalked back to their seats. They clapped and cheered, and Elliot silenced Olivia's protesting self-deprecation with kisses, convincing her that she'd be incredible, reminding her to breathe. Finally, the host, in his black turtleneck and red beret, called Olivia's name. Elliot gave her one last encouraging kiss and handed her the opened journal.
She smiled at him as she took a deep breath and walked up to the stage. She stood in front of the microphone, cleared her throat, looked down at the book in her hand, and then closed it and dropped it onto the stool beside her. She took another deep breath and blinked once before she said the first words of her poem, as loudly and as patronizingly as they sounded when she wrote it. She didn't have any control over her own emotions that boil over with every word and the truth landed with every syllable she uttered.
Hey, pretty girl!
The ice chip words fall off an acid tongue and fly through the air like frozen daggers, my psyche their target.
Bullseye
Hey, pretty girl!
I turn and offer only a half of a smile because you do not deserve my full attention.
I earbuds in and head down again, walk with longer strides.
But you're such a pretty girl!
As if genetics and chapstick somehow excuse me from ever being in a bad mood around you.
There's more than pretty girl, in class, right answers, perfect scores, a badass on the ball court, a freak on the dance floor.
But you're such a fucking pretty little girl
As if having long eyelashes and a pair of tits means I am not allowed to be smart and fearless, I have to dumb down and bat eyes and smile that fucking pretty little smile because it makes you feel better.
Don't be like that, pretty girl!
Don't make men feel stupid, don't make men seem weaker than you, don't make them wait, don't lead them on, don't turn them down, don't try to fight them off, they have earned this!
No, I have earned this. I have earned the right to be smarter, stronger, to take my time, to flirt and fight, to say yes, please, or no, thank you, or no, fuck you, or nothing at all because I don't owe you anything!
What the fuck is your problem, pretty girl?
My problem is that there is no problem. My intelligence is not a problem, my strength is not a problem, my commitment to a man who is not you is not a problem, my rejection to dinner and drinks and sex in your Buick is not a problem. The problem is that you think it's a problem.
I bet your mother was a pretty girl, too, pretty girl.
Yeah, she was, until her pretty became pain became pity became painkillers, became paranoia because someone like you decided she was too fucking pretty to turn him down.
You're a real bitch, ya know that, pretty girl?
And now I smile, but I unclip my wings and unscrew my cheeks, and earbuds in but head up straight this time, as I raise two middle fingers and find a place where being pretty is the last on the list of membership requirements, I leave them all shaking their heads and clicking their tongues.
Shame. She was such a pretty girl.
The crowd cheered for every hard point she made, but she didn't notice. They yelled for her anger and passion, but it didn't register until she was finished, and the entire room erupted. She saw people on their feet. Elliot, Abby, and Trevor were cheering and she noticed tears in Elliot's eyes. She leaned into the mic again and said, "Thank you," before grabbing her journal and running down the stage steps and over to the table, to him.
He threw his arms around her, lifted her up, swung her around, and kissed her without any concern for anyone watching, he even ignored the whistles and hollers and catcalls, staying pressed to her lips harder, for a moment longer. "You're fucking incredible," he told her softly, and he sniffled, his tremendously proud tears drying as he sat down and pulled her onto his lap. "And I do not apologize at all for finally turning you into a little potty mouth," he joked.
She rolled her eyes and dropped her journal back onto the table. "I picked up a lot of bad habits from you," she said with a smirk.
"Hey, Benson," Carmichael called over the table to her. "That was seriously good." She reached out to hug her around the neck, grabbing a few pretzels as she sat back. "Are we ordering actual food, now?"
The friends shared a laugh, and as they each looked at menus and specials, Elliots left hand slipped up and down the inside of Olivia's right thigh. She leaned back into him, closed her eyes, and leaned her head back. "El," she whispered.
"What, sweetheart?" he said back, looking down. He dropped the menu and skimmed his hand down her soft cheek.
"Tell Trevor to let us know who wins," she whispered, her eyes opened and she looked at him with the most sincere plea in her eyes. "And take me home."
A/N: Next, a celebration to remember...finally.