Author's note: I have no explanation for this. Angry, desperate smut ahead.
The music that was playing to this was so soft in comparison. 'You all over me' by the Queen of EO songs -Miss Taylor Swift- for this one.
Enjoy. Or don't.
She gets deja-vu.
She's been here before, same hospital, same reason. Different injuries.
He got whacked on the head, because obviously, she thinks, obviously he's fucked in the head.
To go in alone, not waiting for backup. Again.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He looks at her with that sheepish expression on his face, that makes her want to slap him into next week, which speaks for itself, because she doesn't consider herself a violent person.
He promised her, is all she can think as he grabs his jacket from the hospital bed and gets up.
She stands on the threshold, tucking her thumbs into her fists as she takes him in, steel blue eyes, rumpled, dirty dress shirt.
God, she hates when her walls start to crack.
"Thanks for coming." At least he has the decency not to smile, probably sensing it wouldn't go over well by the way not a single muscle in her face moves.
There's a two inch gash on the right side of his forehead that they've taped. It's badly discolored already, begging for ice. She's here because he shouldn't drive, and his car is somewhere in Brooklyn, which wouldn't be the problem with cabs and Übers all over the city, but apparently Elliot didn't only manage to get himself beat up, he also lost his keys.
Not that he couldn't have called Kathleen.
Not that she had to ask Lucy to stay longer.
Not that his reckless behavior puts her plans on a back burner, seeing how she has a house guest for the night. Goodbye bathtub and wine, she thinks.
To say she's absolutely gutted is an understatement.
He staggers toward her, and she's determined not to do or say anything that could suggest she's worried about him, or interested in how he's doing. She wants him to stew in her indifference, because God, he promised her not to do anything to jeopardize his well being the last time he went rogue.
But then his promises were always a fickle thing.
"You good to go?" Olivia's voice is deep, steady. Her eyes flit to his hip, as if it'll help her to make out why his gait is slightly affected.
"Yeah," he agrees as he steps up to her. Cautiously he grabs her arm. "Liv, look-"
She pulls back, stepping away so he's no longer in her personal space. The very last thing she wants now is to hear an apology.
"Don't, Elliot. Let's just… let's just go."
XXXXXXX
"Are we going to talk about this?" He's on the sofa, looking too comfortable on it for her liking, as she gets an extra set of bedding from the linen closet.
"About what exactly?" she asks, making sure she sounds extra distracted.
"Liv, come on," he sighs, scratching the back of his head as she drops the folded blanket and pillow at the far end of the couch.
"No, really. What is it you want to talk about, Elliot?" she challenges. "How you're on a mission to get yourself killed?" She shakes open the blanket, looking at him for emphasis. "About how you told me the last time you wouldn't go rogue again?"
"You're angry, I get that."
She focuses on taking a deep breath as she drops the blanket after folding it once in the middle. "Do you?"
Because she doesn't think he does. Every time he pulls stunts like this her heart stops beating for longer than is healthy. Every time she dies a little bit inside, praying he'll be okay. She's worried for him. For his children. For Eli, who can't lose another parent.
She'd never admit it, but she can't lose him again, either, and that says something with how fractured this relationship still is.
Everyone calls Stabler her friend, and yet she can't manage to take the word friendship into her mouth, scared it's still a bitter taste on her tongue.
She has no idea what they are at this point, but she knows she cares.
They say that it takes half the time of the duration of a relationship to mourn and fully move on, thinking it might be accurate. She wonders, however, how long it takes to forgive and move forward after you've already moved on.
She'd let him go, and she'd let him back in.
"Yeah, I do. And I'm sorry."
She closes her eyes, shakes her head and pivots, not yet ready to accept another insincere apology. She's heard it before, she'll hear it again.
"Liv," he tries, almost wincing.
"Elliot, why even bother? We've had this conversation before, it's just… it's tiring," she tells him, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand. "I can't do this over and over."
"That's fair," he gives, and gets up when she grabs the ice pack that has room temperature by now, condensation dripping off and leaving a wet trail to the refrigerator. "But let me ask, what can you do then, Liv?"
"What do you mean, what can I do?" she mutters, shoving the ice-pack in the freezer compartment.
"I mean," he starts, his eyes fixing on her. "That it's been seven months, and I'm trying here. I fucked up, Liv. I get that. And I am sorry, but… are you ever gonna forgive me, or am I chasing something that will never be?"
The audacity stuns her.
Is he actually complaining because she didn't move on with gusto the moment he stepped back into her life? Is she supposed to feel sorry because he needs to put in some time and basic effort, so she can even begin to consider opening up to him fully?
What's seven months to him is a daily struggle to ignore the void that still yawns within her, a void he put there when he walked out on her like she meant nothing to him when he was everything to her.
Seven months of his pathetic (No, she didn't mean that!) groveling...those were years of trying to figure out who she is without him, as a cop, as a woman, as a human.
Seven months of 'I'm sorry' to a decade of 'Why?'
Seven months of 'Liv.' Maybe a lifetime of ‚Elliot'.
The muscle in her chin jumps, quivers with emotion as her voice drops, and her wavering gaze locks with his.
"Are you actually serious now? What is this? You putting a deadline on me?" she asks in quiet disbelief. "How long do I get, Elliot? How much time am I allowed to come to terms with you disappearing on me for ten years?"
He comes closer, holding out a hand, as if only she took it, they can be what they used to be. A unity. Inseparable. "You know I'd never do that."
She knows shit, she thinks. She has no idea who he is anymore, so she ignores the hand, steps around the breakfast bar to create more space, and focuses on keeping her voice low for the benefit of her sleeping child in the other room.
"No? Because it sounds like you do. And you choose to do this here? Now? When you know I have no means to back out of this conversation?" she shakes her head sadly. "Did you even lose your keys?"
"I didn't lose 'em," he starts, holding up a hand as her eyes widen.
Olivia scoffs, and she desperately wants out. Hell, she wants him out. "You told me-"
"I said I don't have my keys. As in on me right now. They're in the car."
And his car is somewhere in Brooklyn, yada yada yada.
"Look, Liv, I'm not establishing a deadline, or giving you an ultimatum, I want to talk. That's all. Because-," he puts one hand on his shoulder and scratches, and she's acutely aware that it's the one that took a bullet so many years ago. She was sick with worry then, she's sick with simmering resentment now. "It doesn't feel like we really ever talk. You are constantly keeping me at arm's length," he explains, sounding despaired. "And I get why that is, but I don't know how to change it. If you could just tell me what I… what I have to do… to get us back."
"There's not a fucking protocol to follow! God, Elliot," she sighs frustratedly, running a hand through her hair and gripping it as if she wants to rip a strand out.
"I was never even inside your apartment until today," he points out gently, glancing around as if to emphasise that point.
She's been inside his. She's attended a get together with his children, all five of them. Hell, she even attended his wife's funeral, and to this day she isn't quite clear on whether she needed to go for herself, or for him; if it was paying her respects to Kathy, or giving silent comfort to Elliot. She'd gone out on a limb for all of these instances, but her door had stayed locked-until tonight.
Now he's here, invading the place that's her sanctuary, the one part he hadn't previously contaminated with their past and their complicated reality these days. He took the very last part that was only hers and somehow marks it with his touch, makes it his. Her sofa, her toilet, her glass, her ice pack.
He's all over her place now, and God, she wonders if nothing's sacred anymore, because where does that leave her? Where is she to just breathe?
"You just left me, Elliot," she points out helplessly, and she's said it before, at the hospital, but whenever they meet, whenever he calls, it's all she can think of. "I don't know what to say here." A tear slides down her cheek and she angrily wipes it away with the back of her hand. "I didn't know who I was anymore! I questioned everything. Thirteen years of us. Everything you ever said to me, everything we've done. You just set off into this new life, and I was still here, wondering what the hell I've done, if it was something I did, something I said! Wondering a million times if you were okay! Do you get that you broke me, Elliot?" she weeps, looking at him although she doesn't expect an answer, and sure enough he looks as lost as before.
"You broke my heart!" She cries out, sticking her arms out. "And what for? What is it that you were trying to say in that goddamn letter, Elliot? You said you needed to write it all down once and for all, but you didn't, did you?"
She isn't even surprised at this point. She had read the letter, she took that leap of faith, because he was still Elliot, how could she not. And she had been willing to talk, and they did, but he'd still held back whatever the hell he implied he needed to say to 'her face'.
His silence is sobering, and she can't believe that she shed more tears over him again tonight. He wants forgiveness and he can't even give her the truth in plain fucking English. It only fuels the already pent-up anger.
"What the hell is it that you were trying to say, Elliot?" she demands calmly, stepping in his personal space now. Her voice drops. "That you wanted to fuck me? Is that it? You had to go because you wanted to fuck me?"
She can literally watch the storm gathering in his eyes and she doesn't care if she pushes him over the edge.
"Olivia-," he grinds out, and it sounds like a warning.
"No tell me, because I'm right here. You want to fuck me?" She sniffles once, but breathes slowly now, looking him right in the eye. "Cards on the table. You need me to say it first?"
She wants to draw him out, because he's never going to say what she thinks he meant to say. He's never going to be completely honest with her, and maybe this is what she needs to finally get over him, to find an end to them.
"Because I did. I wanted to fuck you." She swallows hard as his eyes flit to her lips for a split second.
Then, his voice low, "I didn't mean to say I wanted to fuck you," he growls. Her stomach plummets at once. Because of the tone of his voice. Because of the implications.
"Then what, Elliot," she challenges just above a whisper, almost flinching with anticipation of what's next. Because he's never going to say it. That's what she holds on to. He's going to be the one to save them and ruin them with his silence all at the same time.
He swallows, and she watches his Adam's apple bop. Olivia shakes her head. Her nose crinkles with emotion, and she's so over it.
"I thought so." And she pivots, before he grabs her wrist to stop her.
"I meant to say I loved you," he says, and then corrects: "I love you."
She stands stunned, looking somewhere at his middle before her gaze lifts to meet his. Her lip quivers and her eyes fill to the brim, and she doesn't know what to believe anymore. For all the time she needed for him to say it, she almost wants him to take it back because of how much it hurts.
"You left me." Her voice is a shudder. She feels broken, and desperately wants to be whole, wondering what it will take.
"And I am so, so sorry," Elliot says slowly, trying to coax her nearer with a gentle tug. Instead of allowing him, she pulls away.
Looking up, Olivia turns around, but she only makes it two steps into the room before she pivots and walks back towards him. She puts her palms against his chest, as if she's going to push him, but pats him with shaky hands instead. Shaking her head, tears roll down the slope of her cheeks as she closes her eyes.
"Do you know... how much… I wanted to hate you?"
"I deserve that."
"How much, even since you are back, I tried to hate you?" She breathes out a sob. "How I believed that for sure you must hate me, because… why else would you do this to me?"
"No. Goddamn, Liv, I've never not wanted you." It sounds like gospel and she desperately wants to believe it.
Her eyes burn with ten years of pent-up grief, but looking into his, she sees thirteen years of them. Too many years of loving him, of wanting him.
It hits her like acid rain, because she still does.
She still loves him. Still wants him. She wants him so damned much, it's embarrassing. She feels it in her skin, in her bones, with every fibre of her being.
She's poised to use her hands that are still flat against his chest and push him away, be done with him. Instead her eyes flit to his lips and back to his eyes, and while her heart and head are still at war she puts her mouth to his.
The ache within her doesn't cease, so she searches for the remedy she expects his lips to be. He caused all this hurt, all this grief, so he must hold the power to take it away, she thinks. It's only logical.
It's not dignified, the way she starts taking from him, working her mouth over his thirstily. He's responsive, and she parts her lips to drive this along. She tastes his sorrow mixed with her tears, and sucks his bottom lip between her teeth.
Elliot exhales roughly into her mouth and she pulls back, looks at him again.
Twenty-three years, she thinks, and this is what it amounts to.
Her hands and gaze fall between them, and she finds his belt, sliding the leather through the buckle slowly, deliberately. She glances up with parted lips, breathing heavily, and the single nod Elliot directs at her is all the encouragement she needs.
Slowly she walks backwards, pulling him with her by the belt. With surprisingly steady hands Olivia unbuttons his jeans, slides down the zipper, only to push him back onto the couch.
Biting her bottom lip she straddles him. He growls when she sits square on his groin, and the sound meets her square in the gut.
She kisses him ferociously. She wants to drown in his mouth and forget. Elliot matches her with no less need and despair, and soon enough it's all tongue and teeth. She bites his lip, taking everything he has to offer, every single thing she can get. She takes hot and hard, and goddamn, this is not going to be sufficient, because the dampness that has built in the air pocket her pants created around her spread legs proves she needs more.
She aches and throbs for him, and to hell with it all, she thinks.
She needs to consummate ten years of radio silence, ten years of loss, then years of trying to get over him, and never knowing if she really did.
She needs to consummate the anger, the sadness, the desperation, the burn.
She needs to consummate thirteen years of them. Of Longing. Of restraint. Of doing the right thing.
So, scraping her teeth over his bottom lip, she lifts her hips, gets up. Panting, she undoes her jeans. Pushes them down. Discards them haphazardly.
Her gaze drops to his pants as she's hooking her thumbs around the hem of her underwear. "Take 'em off," she manages huskily. Breathlessly.
He's compliant with her request like never before, deliberately raising his hips and yanking his denim and boxers to his thighs, never once taking his gaze off of her. He doesn't get any further than that, because once she drops her panties, she's back on top of him, feels him right where she needs him. Feels him warm and hard and twitching as she coats the upside of him with her silky, blatant desire. She bites out a moan and it scatters between them as she raises her hips, one hand flat on the back of the couch. She's breathing hard, trying to find her way around him, guiding him to where he's needed.
Jesus, she's embarrassingly wet for him, and it proves in the way he slithers inside her so easily. Olivia holds her breath as she lowers herself back down, onto him, not allowing herself to get used to him slowly. Her eyes widen and then fall closed.
"Fuck," she growls through gritted teeth. It's been too damned long.
It's everything, and she wonders why she's always known he'd fit her just right, just a little better than any other man before him.
The stretch is delicious and the suddenness causes her just enough discomfort to remind her of what this is.
It's penance and retaliation. Ephemeral, and yet a permanent scar in the history of them. It's heaven and hell. It's just like him. It's everything he is and has been to her.
He cups her cheek gently, and for a moment she allows herself to turn into his touch, her eyes falling closed. But the corners of her mouth twitch with hesitance because it just doesn't feel right.
She can't take it. She can't. So, she grabs his hand and peels it off of her, pushing it into the cushions with vehemence.
"Liv-"
"Don't," she bites out, but in reality it's a plea.
She can't have this be gentle.
She needs to get out the grief, the anger, the tears shed.
She needs to get out every moment of guilt she's felt for wanting a man that wasn't hers to have.
She needs to get rid of the clutches the stinging resentment towards him has on her, and she can't do this if he's being so goddamn soft.
She can't let him love her. Not yet.
She grabs his shoulder, and her palm causes an audible slap against his skin as she uses it as leverage to lift her hips. She looks at him, holds her breath as she plunges back down, then exhales staccato. Once. Twice.
The pace she sets is lazy, but her movements are hard and pointed. She bites her bottom lip, and his gaze is searing. His hands settle on either side of her hip, and once he's learned her rhythm he matches her, thrusting up when she sinks down.
The urgency grows as her need for release starts swirling in her stomach. Her palm cups the back of his neck, her nails digging into the skin around his hairline. She scratches her way into him, wants to leave her mark and simultaneously make him hurt like she does. She wants him to feel her, and God, she wishes he'd make her feel him.
Wrapped around him she picks up the pace, moves faster, almost unpredictably so. He hits that spot that's wholly electrifying. The room is filled by a jumble of gasping, moaning, and her panting.
Each strike of her hips is painful comfort.
She takes him. Wants him. Needs him.
Her body begs for release and her movements get frantic, her breath hitches.
"I need to…," she gasps, and when she slows down just a little he reaches between them, presses his thumb against her clitoris with perfect aim, and rubs in small circles.
Jesus fucking Christ, it feels incredible, and yet she instinctively pushes his hand away from her most sensitive spot, and replaces it with her own.
He doesn't get to touch her. He has no right.
If she's going to shoot her dignity to hell, she's damn well going to do it how she wants to.
Her body works him, moist and hot. Her fingers work herself, and she squeezes her eyes shut, and when she does, she realizes he is everywhere.
He's inside her, and all around her. The taste of him is still in her mouth, on her tongue, on her teeth. He thrusts up into her hard, and when she opens her eyes they burn with unshed tears, because this is as liberating as it is painful.
She's never wanted anything so much, and regretted it in the same breath.
She whimpers, because God, she's so, so close, and she can hear Elliot groan, and his hands grab her hips harder now. She gave him scratches and momentarily she thinks she wants him to bruise her. Her breath is ragged and the remaining clothes are sticking to her torso as she rides it out fast, hiding her face in his shoulder. Her arousal clots in her stomach and drops deep into her abdomen, and when she comes, she cries her release into his neck. She knows he follows as he bucks up a couple more times and then stills around a single gasp.
The release is sweet and suffocating. The aftermath, however, is sobering. Bitter.
She breathes hard against his damp, salty skin, hiding, and suddenly it's like she can't breathe anymore, because she doesn't know how to bring herself to look at him after this. All of a sudden Olivia feels incredibly raw, and what has just transpired sinks in fully.
She fucked Elliot, because she wanted salvation through his skin, through his body.
She wanted…
She doesn't know. She doesn't know what she wanted, what she needed, what she expected.
Emotion crashes into her with overwhelming force, and before she knows it she's silently sobbing into the safety she finds in him.
Her body writhes as Elliot wraps his arms around her, and after spending years in a terrible freefall she finally feels steady.
When she lifts her head, she finds his eyes in a shade of deep concern. He's hesitant to touch her now, so this time she is the one to reach out and cup his cheek tenderly. There's no fight left within her, she's done pushing him away, done keeping him at arm's length.
She wants him in. In her life, in her heart. She wants Elliot in every way.
Slowly she bumps her forehead to his, mindful of the gash on the right side of his head. She purses her lips, allowing the tears to fall.
"I'm sorry," he says, and his voice is thick with regret that she's heard before, but until now the knot of hurt in her chest had never unraveled.
Slowly Liv nods against him, still forehead to forehead, both of her hands now cradling his neck. She releases a single jagged sob.
And finally, finally, her lips meet his with the sweet taste of forgiveness.