Title: Step At A Time

Author: ZombieJazz

Fandom: SVU

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law&Order: Special Victims Unit and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The character of Jack, Benji and Emmy have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.

Summary: With the fall upon them, Olivia Benson and Brian Cassidy help their young children start a new chapter in their lives. They must work to come to terms with the new challenges and struggles facing them — including Benji's health, middle school, Grade 1 and new developments, colleagues and dynamics at their jobs. All the while they must make the necessary adjustments to their family and work life to operate within their new reality.

The story is set in the Hello Goodbye, Welcome Home, Facing Forward, Best Laid Plans AU.

"I'm here all night," Cassidy heard Johnny crack off inside the hospital room that he was waiting just outside the door of; leaning against the wall, absently scanning through this bullshit that Liv had wanted him to go over to Lindstrom's office and pick up. Like this was going to be some kind of turning point for him in deciding that therapy – talk, group, sex, couple, family … he didn't fucking know – would be good for him. Hadn't really been looking, though. Mostly listening to John's comedy show he had going on inside the door for the poor nurse that had been put in charge of him that night.

And there she appeared, shaking her head – and spotting Cassidy standing there. She gave him a thin small and his elbow a small squeeze before reaching beside him and applying some sanitizer to her hands. Likely more than needed it with all the macking that Johnny had going on in there.

"He's all yours," she raised her eyebrows at him.

"Yea, lucky me," Brian rasped at her. It got a small amused noise and another little knock at his arm with hers as he pushed himself up straight and she wandered back to the charge station before heading on to the next patient she was monitoring that night.

Cassidy steadied himself a bit – in more than one way – before he made himself step into the room that Johnny was stuck in that night. John just looked sicker and sicker each time they saw him anymore. It was hard to watch. Harder still went the fucking cancer wasn't fucking with his mind yet. Munch was still there. Still Munch – in mind and endless commentary. Got wiped out pretty easily – too fucking easily. But it was more that he just looked like shit.

Bri knew that he'd likely just be sitting there with Johnny until either these latest second-line chemo meds had him wheezing again and the allergy meds got pumped into him to knock him out. Or the fucking cocktail – and the stress and anxiety of the day – just knocked him out. Either way, it was always a little hard to get up and go after Johnny fell asleep.

Been more than once that he'd stayed into the night only for Munch to wake up eventually and give him shit for not having gone home to Liv and the kids. But Liv understood. She'd do the same. Just was that Johnny couldn't seem to handle her company as much.

Wasn't sure Liv quite got it. Thought she was a little hurt. But Brian knew where John was coming from. Didn't like Liv seeing him that way. Brian got some kind of pass. Some sort of bromance or rabbi agreement going on. Pretend that neither of them could see what was happening here. The seconds ticking down on the clock. Didn't talk about it. Not yet. Not sure if they would. He was leaving it up to John. But Johnny – everything was always covered up with a joke. Cassidy didn't expect death to be much different.

They both knew – all knew – it was coming. Cassidy was actually at the point he wasn't sure how much longer John was going to subject himself to treatment. Into second and third-line therapies now. Another thing Johnny didn't tell him much about was what his docs were saying. But also didn't really need to say. Obviously wasn't going great if they were trying yet another cocktail here. Obviously not great if the infusion was so long and had so many side effects that John's treatment days needed an overnight at the hospital.

But that also wasn't going to be something they'd get into. So instead, Cassidy pressed himself to slap on the Yippie Skippy for Johnny. Try for the smiling doofus. That only worked so well. But it still got a smile out of John when he saw him come in the door. The guy was still sitting up in the lounger at that point, gazing at the TV remote that had been left with him like it was some kind of high-tech foreign object. All about the perils of technology, never about adopting technology. That was John. Actually amazing the guy was even considering turning on the TV. Who knew what he watched in his own time. History channel conspiracy crap. Another documentary about JFK. Stuff about the moon landing.

God, they'd set off a firestorm with taking the kids to the space center down in Florida. Taking in the Apollo landing exhibits. He'd worked at trying to convince the kids that the moon landing was all a hoax. Complete fake. First that'd confused the hell out of them. Then it'd just launched into this extended After-School Program of the kids trying to prove Unkie Munchie wrong. Convince him. Give him and Liv a fucking headache. Whole lot of back-and-forth and back-and-forth and frustrated explanations and some animated arm movements from all parties. It ultimately collimated in more backyard rocket science experimentary to get Munch to concede that maybe they launched the fucking things but he was still not going to believe they made it to the moon.

Fuck. He was such an old beatnik, hippy, man in black. Cassidy didn't fucking know. Did know – could see – he looked like a real old man now. Frail, bordering skeletal, even for Johnny. And wrapped up in a blanket. But still the smart-ass smile – and the grotesque ears. Bigger with what the disease and its 'treatment' had done to the bit of fat and muscle the guy had previously had on his body.

"Brian…," John greeted. There was some real surprise and relief in the tone. Johnny always seemed a little surprised when he showed up. Though, it was getting kind of predictable at this point. Thought it'd likely be part of the routine until the end. Or at least as long as Johnny kept telling him when these overnight infusions were. "What no flowers? You really should've …"

"Yea, no flowers. I left them with Gloria to make up for her having to put up with your kind of pain in the ass, Munchie Munch …," he said with a nod back toward the door and the nursing station.

"Oh? So you did make sure she knew they're from me?" he said with that little bit of sparkle still right there in his eye.

Cassidy gave his head a bit of a shake at it. More that changes …

"You really think you got to lay it on that thick every time she comes in the room," Brian put to him.

"She loves it," John said, shifting in his chair a bit, while Brian grabbed the much less comfortable one and dragged it over to slouch across from him.

"Yea? She loves some seventy-two-year-old cancer patient macking on her?" Brian nodded at him.

John gave a little shrug. "You know some woman are real Florence Nightingales.

Brian snorted a little at that little bit of sarcasm. "Yea, well, maybe you should get your bleeding heart along with your ass in the hospital bed. Might have more luck."

John allowed him a quiet smile for the effort while he got settled.

"Think you'd be over the fear of hospitals with Bingo by now," John said. "You don't have to wait out in the hall while she's in here."

Brian gave him another look, tapping his crunched up paperwork on his knee. "Don't get any ideas, Johnny. No way I'm letting you crawl into my lap while the nurses poke and prod ya."

John examined him a bit more at that. "Still going that well, huh?"

Brian gave him a little shrug. "Nah, it's fine. He's fine. Big Man's a trooper. Depends on the day what kind of supports he needs to soldier through. You know?"

"I do," John allowed mutely.

Brian kept his eyes for a beat after that. Knew Johnny knew. Johnny likely had a whole different – starker – perspective than him and LIv in some ways. Could feel it in a different way. Him and Liv were just kinda left to imagine. It was driving them a little crazy.

"More me and Liv losing our minds right now," Brian said scrubbing at his face real good and slouching a bit more against the arm rest.

"What about?" John asked.

Brian just made a little noise. Thought about not getting into it – because John really didn't need any more shit layered onto him. But also knew it was some kind of distraction. Likely talking about this was better distraction than whatever he was going to find on the TV in this shared room that likely some person was going to be groaning and screaming in the bed next to him by the time the lights got flicked out for the night. Was just that he didn't really want to have Johnny stressing about Ben's stuff. Not that he got the real sense that John did. He seemed to take any conversation about it in stride. Take a real pragmatic perspective on it all. Be real, 'You and liv are the right people to handle this' talk. Supportive. But that didn't necessarily hint at what was really going on inside the guy. Rarely did. Munch didn't talk about shit like that. His own walls.

"We signed off on the immunoglobulin therapy," Brian nodded at him though. "Know it's the best choice. Right choice for the kid. Gotta try. But still – you know – any blood transfusion stuff has got to make you a little leery no matter all the safety precautions and statistics they spout at you. And, just I don't know, some of the side effects. And the cost. This turns out to be the best thing and regular thing and we'll really be going for broke here."

"You need cash?" was all Johnny said.

And Brian shook his head and held up a hand just to stop that in its tracks. "Nah, we're fine, Johnny."

But Munch leaned forward a bit and put his hand on Cassidy's knee way too intense-like, really looked at him, right in the eye. "You're the chosen son, Brian. Take the money now or get the inheritance later. At this point, it doesn't make any difference to me."

Brian sat back a bit, letting out a sigh. "C'mon, John. Don't talk like that."

John only shrugged at him. "You know it's there."

"Yea. I thought your fortune was all shifted out to your five wives on a monthly basis?" he tried – trying to lighten this load and to just offload it. Get off it.

"Four," John corrected firmly. "And you don't see any of them here to be divvying up the remaining big bucks there way."

"Oh? That how that works? Clearly need to brush up on my tax and estate law given the pending fortune coming my way," Brian muttered.

"Might be a good idea," Munch said. "Just don't trust anyone who deals in finance – in this socio-political economy."

"Right," Brian rolled his eyes a bit. "You know, maybe you should use some of that fortune while you're living and look into moving some of this treatment to in-home."

"And desecrate my humble adobe with all this paraphernalia," he said with a swipe of the arm to the IV and the various beeping machines tracking his vitals. But Brian thought he more likely meant that moving the treatment to home might be a step toward dying at home – and a hospital bed arriving there to accommodate that process.

"Me and Liv, we're shooting straight with you, John," Brian found his eyes. "No one's in the garden unit. You'd have your space. We can help you over this hump."

Thing was 'this hump' might be the 'last hump'. And there was a flicker in John's eyes. One that he likely didn't mean for Cassidy to see, because he tried for another joke.

"Skeletor terrifies the children enough," he said with a gesture at his diminishing mass, his prominent cheekbones and hanging skin. "I don't think they need to see dust-to-dust."

"You kidding me," Brian pressed at him. "You know how much the kiddos love science. You already got them versed in dust-to-dust with Liv's baking gone wrong out back."

Johnny allowed him a thin smile for that effort but didn't let the conversation – where the answer was likely always going to be 'no' – die. He straightened, grabbing Brian's crunched up papers as he went.

"You bring me some of Bingo's latest cryptography? Just to prove to him how 'wrong' he is about everything?"

Brian snorted at that. He'd gripped a little tighter on the papers as John tugged at them. But that only earned a look and a firmer pull at them. So Brian had let them go. And watched Johnny scan the papers too.

"It's just something Liv had me pick up," Brian mumbled. "You know … shut her up a bit about it. Happy wife …"

Munch looked at him over the top of the papers – and his glasses. "She wants you to see a head shrinker?"

Brian shook his head at that and slouched some more in the chair. His ass was already going numb. "I don't know. I guess. Or group therapy. I mean, it's fucking ridiculous. These lists – there's probably going to be vics her unit's dealt with at the therapy groups. And the shrinks – like half the names I know from the job. Star witnesses for both sides. So, what the fuck do I do with that?"

John made a sound and handed the papers back to him. Brian just crunched them back into a roll again and went back to tapping them on his knee.

"Why's she want you to see a shrink now?" John asked.

Brian shrugged and exhaled. "It's not exactly now," he gestured a bit. "I mean, she dragged me to some 'family' and 'parenting' counselor back in the winter. It's just – not my fucking thing. You know?"

"Maybe it should be," Munch stated flatly, raising an eyebrow at him.

"What? And sit across from some baby booming ass-hat looking to have me keep lining his already deep pockets by letting him catalogue my entire sexual history so he can label it as dysfunction?"

Munch just looked at him. Maybe too long. "As much as I am loath to acknowledge that SVU's Mother Teresa is having a sexual relationship with my former partner, the Choir Boy … Brian, is that an area you need to talk about?"

"What? You playing head shrinker now, Johnny?" he pressed at him.

Munch just shrugged and gestured up at the IV. "I'm actually just kind of stuck here looking for ways to pass time."

Brian sighed and sat back again.

"It sounded like that was a line you'd rehearsed," John put to him instead.

Brian exhaled. "Yea, well, when you get down to it – you go into some therapist or counselor or whatever and tell them some perv touched you as a kid seems like them wanting to know what kind of dysfunctional its turned you into pretty quick."

"Only, I think we both know that sexual molestation has far sweeping effects that span far and wide outside the bedroom," Munch said. "And, I'd give the vast majority of shrinks the professional courtesy of providing the benefit of the doubt that they're educated enough to know that too."

Brian scrubbed at his face a bit and just looked at John. "Know the funny thing is that my relationship with Liv – relationship and … you know—"

"Still bashful about buying the condoms, Brian …," Munch offered flatly in a long ago tease. But there was still some truth to it.

Cassidy exhaled. "Liv's the only woman I've been with that I've actually skipped the embarrassment of that pharmacy trip," he said. "John, she's the most normal relationship, most normal sex, I've had. I know that. And I know it's fucking fucked up – because Liv's just as fucked up, if not more fucked up than me. But it's not something I want to sit around getting all Kumbaya about with a counselor or a support group. It just sounds like a fucking big circle jerk to me. And – there: trigger …"

John just stared at him. "Is it the sex – the communication," John corrected, because he clearly got it, "that's got her wanting you to follow-up with some people on that list?"

Brian slumped his temple against his fist on the armrest and shook his head. "I don't know. Not really. She likely tells Lindstrom – her shrink – not me."

John just raised an unimpressed eyebrow at that and gave him a look.

"She thinks I'm projecting on Ben too much," he said flatly with a bit of a frustrated gesture. "And I'm being 'over-protective' and 'hypervigilant'. Short fuse with anyone that looks at the kids. Etcetera, etcetera. Basically – triggering."

"Are you?"

Brian shrugged. "The kid has victim written all over him."

"Does he?" Munch put to him.

Brian started listing off on his fingers. "He's adopted. He's small for his age. He's dyslexic. He's a previous victim – abuse, neglect, abandonment. And now this? Lupus? Fucking in the hospital for treatment and imaging and tests all the time? Out of school sick like monthly? I mean, c'mon, you know what's out there. You know how predators are, what they look for. I don't think I'm being that absurd about wanting eyes on my kids."

Brian could see the way Munch was looking at him – and he shook his head hard at it.

"Liv's got her own shit where she's all twitchy too," he added defensively. "So, I don't know. It's just now she's got some name to put to it for me, how I am as a parent, why I'm that way – so it's 'concerning'."

John just stared at him again. "Have you talked to anyone about what happened to you yet, Brian?"

He shrugged again. "Sure. Whole courtroom got to hear."

"That's not what I meant," Munch said flatly. "You know that."

He sunk back some more. "Liv. I feel like a lot, she feels like a bit. And the parenting counselor she made us go to got the highlights. I don't think the woman felt too qualified to deal with my shit. We ended up talking about Ben. And Emmy. Their learning differences, how to parent that. Which was why we were supposed to fucking be there."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Munch asked.

Brian huffed a bit. "John, the thing is that I don't fucking know what anyone wants me to say about it."

"You were eleven?" Munch said.

"Yea, good detecting, Johnny," Brian muttered and stared at the floor – stopping himself and calming himself. "When it started," he managed more calmly. "Two ball seasons. He groomed me the first season. You know – I was a good mark too. Single mom, no dad on the scene, likely picked up on some of the DV that was in my life. So, yea. It stopped just after I turned thirteen – because I started skipping out of practice. Didn't let my Ma sign me up the next summer." He sat there staring at the floor for a while and then said a bit more quietly, "Hands and mouth. He didn't rape me."

"That's legalese semantics," John said. "He raped you."

Brian cocked his head at him. "He molested me," he provided flatly. "And I don't know what else anyone needs to hear about it."

"Cassidy," Munch finally said. "I don't think it's the courtroom details that Liv wants to hear about – or that she thinks maybe you could benefit from some therapy for – now, with two kids and a wife at home …"

Brian sighed a bit and looked at him. "Yea. How it screwed up my life? Right? Head case and a real sob story?"

"Is that the way you feel about your life?"

Brian shook his head and stared off at the television that Johnny had never managed to get on. "I know that any of those things – it's not what Ben or Em or Liv. Or my mom. You. Need in their lives."

"Well, I don't want to speak for the rest of them," John said, "but I didn't select you as my protégé lightly. And je ne rein that choice. So I would wager admitting – or acknowledging – that a monster impacted the person you are, Brian, isn't going to make your family suddenly equate you as a head case or sob story. You're a survivor – like your wife. She appreciates that. There's probably something to it in why the two of you have endured the other for so long."

Brian allowed a little amused noise at that and let himself look at John. "Liv beats herself up about it all a little too much. End up feeling like I'm revictimizing her. Like even being around me – dealing with my shit now, or it being out in the open – it's like fucking her up more. Sometimes."

"And that would be something you'd do better talking to a therapist about than me," John said. "As you know, I didn't excel at keeping a wife or managing her issues amid the many of my own."

Brian allowed a little smile at that and gazed at the ground again. "You know, right now, yea … there's stress with Ben, his health. All the questions and fears, worries with that. And Em. This dual-lingo thing that Liv went and got her in. Like the kid wasn't more than smart enough, like I wasn't going to keep up with her barely through middle school – now I'm supposed to try to help her with homework in another fucking language? And French? C'mon. Then shit at work. This slot they're dragging their asses on filling. So backlog. And some of the investigations we've had to do. These cases this fall," he shook his head and stared at the floor. "But if you want to talk triggers, I look at Jack and feel like shaking the kid. I feel like I'm looking in a mirror and that kid – alienation, can't keep a girlfriend, can't hold down a job, anger, short fuse, emotional immaturity. All this anxiety about everything and not saying 'boo' to anyone about it. He's headed straight into a blackhole. And it's like we keep trying to pull him out of it – before his 20s, 30s, whatever – disappear into it. And he's just like 'fuck you'. I don't know."

He shook his head and stared at John. "I'm told life is suffering," he said. "Apparently it's a good gauge in knowing we're still a live."

"Yea, that's about right," Cassidy muttered. "Living the dream."

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Munch said.

"Yea ..," Brian muttered and leaned to take the forgotten remote from Johnny. "Shotgun … I'll find some Neanderthals running into each other – Monday Night Football – for you to watch."

"There's a way to knock me out faster," John said.

"Sure," Brian allowed. "Just as long as it's not going to put you out of your misery just yet."

Not yet. Wasn't ready for that. Didn't think Johnny was either.

Comments, reviews and feedback appreciated.