Heyy'all- so I'm here because it's SVU night and I can't sleep without thinking about what's going to happen next with #bensler after watching episode 3 of Organized Crime. I don't own the show or the characters, but I really like to play with them. Smut is coming! Let me know what you think of this chapter, as it's my first time writing EO. Slight spoilers for eps 1-3 may be included.
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"Noah, did you remember to pack your toothbrush and pajamas?" Olivia asked, as her son walks over to Amanda to give her a hug. "Don't worry, Cap", she assured, "I have whatever Noah needs anyway, you just need to relax and enjoy a weekend to yourself". Olivia smiled, grateful to her friend for understanding that she needed a little time to decompress. Nothing made Olivia happier than being a mom, but ever since Elliot showed up, she'd been struggling to keep it together in front of her son every minute of every day. A glass of wine when he went to bed for the evening helped, but not as much as spending a relaxing weekend in her home, figuring out how to compartmentalize her feelings enough to get through the day.
"Thank you again for taking him for the weekend," Olivia says to Amanda before moving towards her son for a hug, "See you in a couple days, love you". "Thanks mom, love you too" Noah said, as he and Amanda headed for the door. As she hears the door close, she can't help but feel lonely when the weight of her thoughts has nothing to hold them aside from a deafening silence. She thinks back to the days before Noah, before he brought so much joy into her life, and how so many nights were filled with silence and nightmares and longing for a family of her own, yet forever married to her work. There was no doubt that the job was fulfilling, but she always felt an emptiness when she returned to her empty home after the conclusion of a case, no longer with her partner who always helped her carry the burden. Her partner. The partner that supported and protected her (even when she insisted she didn't need protection), like no one else ever had. The one who drove an hour out of his way just to ensure she made it to work safely. The one who would mortgage his home to bail her out of prison. The one who would give her a kidney. The one who left.
Olivia shakes her head, forcing herself not to focus on the thoughts that would surely make her weekend anything but relaxing. Before she even has a chance to open the fridge to grab last night's leftovers, she hears a knock at the door. Assuming Noah must have forgotten something, she heads to the door and is shocked when she finds none other than her partner on the other side. "Hey Liv" he says, as he lifts his face and she sees it littered with cuts, bruises, and butterfly bandages. "Holy hell, Elliot, what happened to you? Come in", she rushes him, as if the trouble that caused his wounds had followed him straight to her door. She closes the door and bolts the padlock, unsure what he had come here to tell her… but judging by his face, it wasn't going to be good news.
Her concern for him outweighed her anger, as it always did, and she found herself wandering back to the fridge. "Are you hungry?" she asked, "You look like you haven't had a good meal in weeks. Have a seat and we can talk, Noah is with Amanda for the weekend" and motioned to the sofa opposite the kitchen. "Sure, thanks Liv", he responds, "Sorry for showing up like this, but I needed to see you. To talk to you", he backtracks as he takes a seat on the couch. She places a bottle of wine, a glass, and beer on the coffee table in front of him, and heads back to the kitchen to grab the warmed up Chinese food and some plates and forks. He pours her glass of wine for her and pops open the beer with his teeth before she situates herself at the opposite end of the sofa. It was just like the old days, except it wasn't. Always so in sync.
Elliot twirls the lo mein on his fork a few times before glancing up at Olivia, who appeared deep in thought. "I wanted to tell you that I heard you the other day. I'm getting some help" he says, staring at his plate. His therapist had encouraged him not to bottle up his feelings any longer or they were going to explode, and that he needed to begin to mend the bridges that had broken over the years.. or at the bare minimum build a dam in the interim. He was grateful to Olivia and Kathleen for pushing him to get the help he needed, and in exchange he hoped he could bring eventual closure for all of them.
"I'm glad you're seeing someone, I know that couldn't have been easy for you. I'm proud of you, El" she said with a small smile, before returning to her plate. The way his nickname rolled off her tongue scared her, she'd felt so on edge since his return, wanting to be supportive but also not let him off the hook for the years of pain he had caused her. "Yeah well," he stumbled, "I owe that much to my kids. And to you" he said before chancing a glance at her again, but when brown eyes met blue, they immediately retreated. "What happened to your face?" Olivia said, deflecting because she already felt her defenses crumbling from one look into her eyes. How does he still have this power over her after all these years?
She felt his eyes on her immediately, and she knew the words he was going to say before he even said them. "Back off, Liv". They still made her blood boil, and then he continued, "I don't want to talk about it". She was sure the food could stay warm merely from the pure hot rage she was feeling in that moment, and she abandoned her dish entirely. "Elliot," she began, her fight for control apparent in her tone of voice, "You may have forgotten over the last ten years but I was your partner. We told each other everything, and entrusted our lives in each other's hands every day. You may have forgotten about that when you decided you didn't wanna talk about it and just left, but I didn't. And here you are in my home, looking like you got the hell beat out of you by some crime boss's bitch and you want me to back off?!". She could tell by the look in his eyes that she had hit a nerve, and she braced herself for a verbal onslaught. She could see the flush rising up his chest under his collar, and she couldn't help but feel slightly aroused. The thought crossed her mind that maybe she needed therapy with how much her body betrayed her when he exhibited any signs of frustration. Now this felt like the old days.
She was standing now, pacing in the kitchen to give herself some space to breathe, but she knew he wasn't far behind. He cornered her and slammed her back into the refrigerator, pinning her body beneath his with his hips. She fought against him but he knew every move she was going to make before she made it, and pinned her hands to her side, leaving her no way to escape. "Forget about you?" he practically growled into her ear, and she felt his hot breath against her neck. "I can't fucking forget about you Olivia. And I've never even wanted to. That's the whole fucking problem". She fought against him, trying to free her hips but immediately regretting it when she shifted slightly and felt his hard length between her legs. She bit back a moan, refusing to give him that satisfaction, but her head tipped back slightly. He must have noticed, because a cocky grin disappeared nearly as quickly as it appeared. "Let me go!" she said, and continued to struggle until she sunk her teeth into his shoulder, trying to free herself. "Christ Olivia, you wanted me to talk about it so just fucking listen for a minute" he growled again before practically grinding his hips into hers so hard that the refrigerator rattled.
She stared at him then, his blue eyes full of fire, and that flush rising further up his neck as he pressed into her. "You want to know why I left? You said it yourself all those years ago… it's complicated. I moved a fucking ocean away from you and still thought about you every day of my life for the last ten years. Do you have any idea what it's like to know that the one person you trust, the one person you truly love, will never ever look at you the same way again?" She could see his anger fading, as a single tear slipped down his cheek. He involuntarily loosened his grip, but she didn't move, paralyzed by his admissions. He continued, "The job was killing me Liv, but I had the strength to get up and do it everyday because of you. For you. For the faith you always had in me. After Jenna happened, I could barely look at myself in the mirror. I knew if I ever looked at you and saw that pity in your eyes, I knew I would break. I couldn't love you because you deserved so much more than what I had become. So I put an ocean and a sea of unanswered text messages between us, and spent every day hoping you'd find the happiness you truly deserved. But I spent years wondering what gelato flavor you'd select from my favorite shop, imagining you tossing pennies into the Trevi fountain, picturing your hair blowing in the breeze as we took a tour of the Colisseum, wondering what it would feel like to hold your hand on the Spanish steps, watching you eat a fresh slice pizza at the local market, seeing you taste Italian espresso for the first time. Thoughts of you lived rent free in my head for years, and it felt like the most beautiful torture, a penance for loving my partner who could and should never love me back. And look at you now, a captain and a mother, living out the dreams you may have never realized if I had been holding you back all these years. The truth is Liv, you never needed me to be extraordinary".