Three-shot, based on the season 6 episode Rage, but with an alternative ending. Underlined print are quotes from the show, which I don't own.
Elliot has been separated for a while and reaches his boiling point. If you can, watch the episode before reading. Awesome Stabler closeups. Only the last scene is different from the original: I changed the location as well as the outcome of the conversation. Please heed the rating for angst, explicit content and a hint of violence. Prior knowledge of their abusive parents is assumed.
...
The guy had gotten to him. More than any suspect before. Olivia knew it. Elliot had tried to get under the man's skin for hours and hours, but in the end, Gordon Rickett had gotten under his. She knew her partner and she'd seen him almost lose control several times. Elliot had arrested Rickett once before, in 1991, but the DA couldn't convince the jury to convict the man on circumstantial evidence alone. He'd raped and killed more underage girls in different states since then and it was eating away at Elliot.
She'd gone home to get some sleep after Elliot had dismissed her, wanting to continue the interrogation with Fin, not her. She knew he'd keep the end goal in mind and wouldn't ruin the interrogation. His need to get the man to confess was greater than his need to smash his face in. He was walking a thin line though, and she knew he knew it. She wasn't sure why or why now, but they could both feel it.
When the 24 hour hold was up and they had to let Rickett go, he'd rattled him even more. Olivia had caught the last part of the interrogation when she returned to the station. Rickett and Elliot had been talking about rage and Elliot had told Rickett he was very good at hiding it, but he knew it was there.
"Gordon, you're kidding yourself if you think you're controlling it. It's controlling you."
"What do you know about controlling anything?" Rickett had asked him.
"I don't murder people."
"Give it time. You say you see something in me? Well, I see something in you, too. You think you control. You can't. You're controlled. By your boss, by your job, by your wife, your kids. What would you be if all those controls went away?"
"I'd be you."
Elliot had sat there, motionless, for several minutes after Rickett had been sent on his way by Cragen. His eyes had been bloodshot when he finally emerged from the interrogation room. Olivia had tried to get a read on him, but he'd shrugged her off. His defensive walls were up completely and she knew he needed them right now to be able to keep functioning. But he'd need an outlet soon, or he'd explode at the wrong place or the wrong time.
And so she'd kept an eye on him while they continued their investigation. Elliot had gone home to shower and change and when he came back, he seemed like his old self again, extremely motivated to keep going at it to nail Rickett. They made headway fast, using the lies Rickett had told during the interrogation against him. They found his safe house and there, they actually caught him in the act of kidnapping yet another young girl. Rickett grabbed the girl and used her as a shield when both detectives drew their weapons.
Rickett started taunting Elliot, daring him to pull the trigger and kill him while threatening to snap the girl's neck. He pulled the girl aside a bit, giving Elliot a clear shot. Olivia knew what he was doing and she knew Elliot would never forgive himself later on, if he let his rage get the better of him now. Just when she thought he was going to shoot Rickett, she fired her weapon first, hitting the man in the shoulder. Rickett went down screaming and Olivia quickly tended to the frightened young girl, who was shaken up but physically unharmed. Elliot still had his gun trained on Rickett though and approached him slowly. Olivia could see his hand shaking and wanted to stop him. She called out to him but knew she should let him make the right decision on his own. He was on the verge of an outburst of rage, but she knew he was strong. He could reign himself in and do the right thing. Finding an outlet for his rage could come later. Needed to come later. Because she knew he couldn't go on like this, unless something changed, drastically. He'd been bottling up too much for too long.
She breathed a sigh of relief when Elliot put away his gun and started reading Rickett his rights. They were bringing him in and would write their statements, doing it all by the book. Olivia stayed with the girl while she was checked out at the hospital but hurried back as soon as possible to see Elliot. Munch told her he'd been very restless. He'd hung around the station for a while, probably to wait for her, but had left around 7. Olivia thanked Munch and left as well. There was no need to tell the older man where she was going. He knew. And Elliot knew she would be coming too.
After knocking on his door twice, she decided to use her key. He'd given it to her about a month after moving into his new place, for emergencies. This counted as an emergency. She heard sounds coming from Elliot's bedroom, and for a brief moment she wondered if he'd decided to take someone home to blow off steam with. But unless he'd already been dating someone, and she knew he hadn't, he wouldn't have had time to pick someone up. Would he?
Olivia slowly walked over to the bedroom door, that was slightly ajar, and pushed it open. Elliot was doing push-ups and from the looks of it, he'd been going at it for quite a while. Sweat was dripping from his face and his bare back was covered in a sheen of sweat as well. Olivia took a deep breath, willing herself not to be affected by Elliot's impressive physique. She had some bottled up emotions of her own, but this was hardly the time to let those out. She had come to talk to Elliot and to see if he was alright.
Elliot finally noticed her standing in the doorway and jumped up. He looked at her, breathing heavily, and she could see in his eyes that the storm that had been raging inside him, hadn't calmed down yet.
"We got there just in time. Rickett didn't rape her," she said, hoping that the fact that he had saved Rickett's last victim from any further trauma would help him. "CSU found two types of blood in the basement. One is recent, and the other is likely years old."
Elliot was still staring at her and she made an effort to maintain eye contact with him, and not let her eyes drop to his heaving chest, where sweat was now tricking from his pecs down his abdomen until they were absorbed by his sweatpants, that hung low on his hips.
"Did you think I froze? Is that why you fired first?" Elliot asked her, his voice raspy and tense.
"I fired first because you would've killed him," she replied truthfully.
"He deserves to die."
His eyes were full of pain and unrest, and Olivia wondered if Rickett's words from the interrogation still haunted him. That without all the people and responsibilities keeping him in check, he'd be just like Rickett. Elliot had grabbed a towel off the bed and wiped his body down haphazardly, still looking at her.
"Maybe he does. But he wanted you to kill him." she said. "He wanted you to always remember that you took his life, not 'cause you had to, but because you were angry."
"I'm still angry."
"I can see that. You can't keep bottling it up El, you gotta ..."
"Then what Liv?!" Elliot yelled suddenly, interrupting her. "What's the alternative, huh? If I don't keep it all inside ..."
He stopped to take a breath, and looked away from her but she could see him trembling, and it wasn't just from his earlier exercise. He shook his head and wiped his face and neck with his towel, but his movements were uncontrolled.
"I'm afraid I'm losing it Liv," he admitted and she stepped closer to him to force him to look at her.
Elliot took a step back as if her proximity startled him.
"El," she said softly, but she could feel some of his tension transfer to her own body.
When their eyes met again, the intensity of his gaze pulled her in, and she stepped closer to him again. She was so close now, that Elliot had to look down to maintain eye contact. He didn't. He closed his eyes in stead. His breathing was shallow and hot puffs of air hit her forehead.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself," she said, willing herself to speak gently despite the whirlwind of emotions hanging between them and churning inside herself.
She was breathing in his scent and the mixture of his aftershave and sweat was intoxicating, as was his intensity. The angry tension was coming off him in waves and it felt like it was enveloping her, until she no longer knew where she ended and he began. They were both intense people, filled with pent-up anger and frustration at how the world had treated them in the past, and how it was still treating innocent children today. Their combined outrage was what had made them such a perfect team for six years but it was also what made them so damned combustible. They calmed each other and they fueled each other.
Tonight, she'd come to try and calm him, but she could feel something building between them that was the complete opposite: they were fueling each other. She tried to control her breathing but, their chests now mere inches apart, she had started to match the quick pace of his breaths, as if she was as much out of breath as he was. She saw his Adam's apple bob and lifted her eyes again. This time, he was looking down at her and when their eyes locked, she knew. It was happening. It was going to happen. Right here, right now. And Elliot knew it too.
"I don't ..." he rasped, but words failed him.
"It has to come out El, or it will destroy you from the inside out."
Her voice had barely been more than a whisper but he was hearing her loud and clear. He closed his eyes again and shook his head, as if trying to shake off what he was thinking and feeling.
"No."
"Yes," she said immediately, challenging him with one single word and his eyes flew open again.
He moved his face even closer to hers, looking straight into her eyes when he hissed,
"You don't know what you're doing."
Her heart was beating fast but she knew there was no turning back now. Maybe she hadn't thought things through. Maybe Elliot was right and she didn't know what she was doing. She sure as hell hadn't planned to goad him like this. Maybe she was done thinking and done knowing. One thing she knew right now was, that Elliot needed an outlet for his rage, and that anger wasn't the only thing he'd kept bottled up. It wasn't the only thing for her either. It had been growing in the dark corners of their minds and they had seen it in covert glances; felt it in unnecessary touches; voiced it in yelling matches that had been too loud and silent treatments that had been too silent. And it was materializing before their eyes.
Right here.
Right now.
She just needed to break his resistance. It wouldn't take much. Not tonight because he'd been teetering on the egde for two days straight with no sleep. One little push and he'd fall. And she would be there to catch him. She would always catch him.
"I can take it."
There it was. The challenge.
Elliot took a quick step forward, bumping into her and making her back hit the door, that closed on impact. His hands were against the door then, next to her head and his face was so close to hers that their noses were touching.
"You can't."
"Try me."
Her voice was low and ominous. She wasn't afraid of him and she wasn't afraid of what she was unleashing in him. He was literally straining to keep it all inside, the muscles in his arms and neck bulging from the effort, and his eyes were like a smoldering fire. It was the same fire that had ignited in her. Elliot might be closer to his breaking point, but he wasn't the only one struggling with the tension that had grown between them, ever since his wife had left him for the last time. There was no going back. Not anymore. No going back to his wife and no denying what had been brewing between the two of them - whatever it was. They weren't in love. That was for teenagers. What they shared went beyond infatuation, beyond love even. It was a need that went deeper than anything she'd ever experienced. A need to have him in her life, and it didn't even matter what he was to her. Her partner. Her friend. Her lover. Her husband. It didn't matter, as long as he was there. She was incomplete without him and she'd seen the same helplessness in him that she'd felt when she realized it. They were incomplete without each other and what was happening tonight, was always going to happen.
She wasn't afraid.
Not anymore.
It was their destiny and she knew she could take it. Because she knew he would never hurt her. He didn't have it in him to hurt her.
When Elliot spoke again, he choked out ever single word. He was near tears.
"I ... never ... ever ... laid ... a hand ... on a woman ... or a ... a child."
She knew he was about to fall. He just needed to let go of his fear of becoming his father or Gordon Rickett.
"I know," she whispered. "I trust you."
"I don't know if ... if I trust myself."
He closed his eyes and one tear trickled down his cheek.
Olivia moved at last, her back still up against the door. It might seem that she was trapped, but in reality, Elliot was. And she needed to set him free. Her hands moved to his waist, and the feeling of his bare skin under her hands sent an electrical current through her body. Elliot's reaction was immediate. He dropped his forehead to hers and let out a ragged breath.
"I trust you," she repeated, while moving her hands up his sides slowly.
"Liv," he warned her but she had gone too far to stop now. Besides, she was finally touching him, her hands moving from his sides to his pecs until Elliot suddenly pushed himself off the door and grabbed her wrists, pinning them to the door next to her head in a split second. His heavy breathing told her he was close to losing it and with her hands immobilized she had only one weapon left that she could use. She looked him in the eye and took her shot.
"Fuck me."
Bulls eye.
His mouth crashed over hers and before she realized what was happening, he had released her hands and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed her hard, relentless, while pushing his hips into hers. She couldn't breathe but she didn't care. He needed this. He needed her to get the rage out of his system and she wanted him to use her. She wanted to be the only one he'd ever use like this because they were incomplete without each other. She needed him as much as he needed her. He was grasping at her sweater now but she still had her black jacket on. He didn't give her an inch of space though, pressing her against the door and still kissing her deeply. She barely had a chance to join in and return his kisses. When he finally broke off the kiss, her lips were tingling and she gasped for air. Elliot grabbed her jacket with both hands and yanked it down her arms until it came off. Her orange sweater was next and she raised her arms so he could pull it up and off of her.
As soon as her sweater was off, his mouth was on hers again while his hands roamed her body. They didn't speak. They didn't have to. They had perfected their unspoken understanding by now and even though it was the first time they were together like this, they knew each other's bodies. Elliot was rough but she could take it. She knew he would be like this and in the few moments she'd had to think about it, she had decided it was what she wanted. For him. He would be rough and she would be bruised tomorrow, but still, he wouldn't hurt her because she didn't consider this hurting. He was hurting and she wanted him to let it all out. To finally find some peace. And the selfish part of her just wanted him, in any way she could have him.
Her shoulders were burning because they were pressed against the door so hard but Olivia ignored it. Her hands were roaming his back and she moved them down until they could slip inside his sweatpants. She moaned into his mouth, that was still devouring hers, when she felt his perfect ass under her hands. He wasn't wearing any underwear. Elliot groaned as well and finally created some room between them so he could cup her breasts through her bra. Olivia arched her back, needing to feel more of him, and pulled his hips into hers. He was rock hard and his erection pressed into her core so hard that it was painful. But she could take it. She could take all of it because this was Elliot.
She gasped when he yanked her bra straps down, exposing her breasts, and whimpered when he lowered his head to take one of them in his mouth. She cried out when he bit down before sucking hard. Pain and arousal battled for dominance and in the end, her devotion to Elliot won out. She could take it if this was what he needed. His hand was on her other breast and he was kneading it. Olivia kept pushing her hips into his, needing to feel him, more of him, down there.
Suddenly Elliot pulled her away from the door, turned them both around and threw her on his bed. Her legs were dangling off the foot of the bed. Elliot grabbed her belt but his hands were shaking and he couldn't get it undone. Olivia put her hands over his to still them, and he placed his hands on the bed on either side of her hips. He was breathing hard. He didn't make eye contact with her, he just watched her hands while she undid her pants and started sliding them down her hips. Her stomach clenched, knowing she was seconds away from revealing herself to him completely. Elliot moved again, grabbing her pants and panties and pulling them down her legs until she could kick them off along with her boots.
He was on her again then, pushing her legs apart and moving between them, and dropping his full weight on her. He propped himself up on his elbows, giving her just enough room to breathe, before his mouth was on hers once more. Her breasts were scraping his chest and she could feel his harness pressing against her through his sweatpants. He couldn't be comfortable, laying half on, half off the bed, but he was frantic and in stead of moving them both onto the bed properly, he pushed himself up again until he was standing between her knees, looking down at her body. Her bra was still on but pulled down. Otherwise, she was completely naked and exposed. Opened up to him, body and soul.
Elliot dropped his sweatpants and Olivia bit her lip when she saw him. All of him. She wanted him. She wanted him inside her. He finally looked at her and kept staring into her eyes when he grabbed her legs, pulling her up to the right height, and then thrust forward fast and hard. Olivia cried out and closed her eyes. She knew he'd be rough but she hadn't been prepared for this. She reached behind her, trying to grab the headboard of the bed, but it was too far away. Her ass was hovering over the foot of the bed and Elliot was inside her. He pulled back and thrust again, only slightly less roughly than the first time, but her body was starting to adjust. He had an iron grip on her legs and when he moved again, he didn't stop. Olivia could do nothing but take it.
There was nothing romantic about what they were doing. He was fucking her like she'd told him to and he needed this. He needed to get the rage out of his system and all the frustration that had built up over the years while his marriage crumbled and their partnership warped into something that no two work partners should be to each other. He was panting while he moved inside her, faster and faster, and Olivia's arms flailed to find something to hold on to. She dug her fingers into the comforter and squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them again when Elliot dropped one of her legs and moved his hand to her abdomen and then down to the most sensitive part of her entire body. His thumb found her clit and he rubbed it roughly. The feeling of him moving deep inside her and his thumb on her clit was nothing like she'd ever felt before. She had thought she wasn't ready and had already accepted that this would all be for Elliot, but sensations were shooting through the lower half of her body now that made her gasp and moan along with Elliot. She could already feel it starting. The heat, the fire, the inevitable.
Olivia fixed her gaze on Elliot's face. He was getting close too and sweat was dripping from his face again while he continued to pound into her. He dropped her other leg too and leaned forward so he wouldn't slip out of her, pushing her up the bed with each thrust as he kept going. He was leaning on his elbows now and the friction between their bodies had replaced his thumb in the best way. Olivia hooked her legs around him, pressing her heels into his ass and spreading herself wider for him in the process. A surge of pleasure tore through her body, pushing his name from her lips.
"El!"
Elliot groaned and she could feel him getting even larger inside her. Knowing she was doing this to him made her fall over the egde and she cried out when her orgasm hit her. Elliot wasn't far behind and grunted a few times. Then, his body shook and she knew he was coming. He pushed into her a few more times, cursing under his breath and Olivia wrapped her arms around him as best she could while he emptied himself deep inside her. Elliot dropped his head to her chest and stilled, still intimately connected with her. They were both completely out of breath and Olivia felt dizzy. She closed her eyes and just enjoyed having him here like this, lying on top of her completely sated, feeling his warm breath on her exposed breast. She caressed his head and his shoulder while they just lay together in silence for minutes, catching their breaths.
After a while, Elliot pushed himself up and off of her. Olivia closed her legs and pulled them up on the bed. She rolled on her side to look at her partner. He was lying on his back, his face covered with his hands.
"Are you alright?" she asked him softly.
Elliot let out a shaky sigh.
"No."
Olivia propped herself up on one elbow and pulled one of his hands away from his face to make him look at her. She saw tears in his eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asked him softly.
Elliot reached up and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers.
"Liv, I ... I feel like I ... raped you."
...
Dun dun!
Well, we know better because we know what Olivia was thinking, but can we blame Elliot for feeling bad about what he did and how he did it?
Did Olivia just make matters worse? Next chapter will be the last one. Please leave a review if you can spare a moment. Thanks!