AN. omg im so sorry. I forgot to post c3 and just came to post c4 oops. so heres a double update.
Bang. clank. Crack.
Olivia groans into her pillow. It wasn't very often she gets to have a lay in and all she can hear is banging and faint music coming from next door. She knows it's Elliot before she even looks, he'd always been the same, saying that Saturday mornings were for getting up and doing things, making use of the day. Olivia on the other hand thought they were for catching up on all the sleep missed during the long working hours of the week.
Eventually she gives up and throws the blanket off her body, throws her legs over the side of the bed and puts on her slippers, walking as furiously down to the front door as she can manage while trying to keep the fluffy footwear on her feet.
Elliot doesn't hear her coming over the sound of his music and it isn't until she taps him on the shoulder that he even realises anyone is there. Of course he'd been trying to get her attention but he had at the same time got lost in his restoration of this 70s convertible he had bought a few weeks ago.
"Good morning sunshine" he says turning towards her with a cocky grin on her face as he sees she looks anything bar full of sunshine.
"Are you trying to annoy me?"
"Whatever would give you that idea?"
"It's 9am"
"I know"
"I was asleep!" she practically shouts but his grin only gets wider as his eyes rake her up and down.
"I can tell"
She looks down and realises she'd walked out in just a tank top and some shorts and she thinks maybe she should have put some more clothing on before coming out into the street or at the very least a bra because even though it's summer its not that hot out yet and she could see her nipples straining against the top which means he just had as well.
"Idiot" she crosses her arms across her chest self consciously and turns towards her house. "Just keep the damn noise down!"
"Not a chance" he whispers to himself as he watches her walk away, the short pyjama bottoms showing enough leg to remind him of exactly what he had lost.
He took pity on her eventually and headed inside not long after. He wanted to keep her mildly annoyed but not become a neighbour from hell and so Olivia enjoyed the rest of her morning in peace until the kids finally came down just before lunch time asking what was for food.
It was a nice day so the three of them decided to go and eat outside. She made a spread of sandwiches and fruits and laid them on the table underneath the large sun umbrella through the middle. They'd always enjoyed going on picnics in the parks as kids and this was their more grown up version and Liv every moment they'd sit down and eat as a family.
The three of them sit there chatting amongst themselves when they hear the beat of music coming from next door and Olivia rolls her eyes and tries to tune it out, she doesn't want to keep having a go at him and she wonders if she'd be this angry if it was anyone else living next door to her? Probably not.
Then she hears the grunting. Grunting she knew was coming from Elliot. Over and over she hears him grunt in a rhythm that has her mind floating back to a time she'd be hearing that noise during a much more exciting time. Most men weren't that vocal in the bedroom but Elliot was quite the opposite, if he wasn't whispering sweet nothings in her ear he would be making all the right noises to show he was enjoying himself.
"What is he doing over there?" Sophia asks, noticing the noises coming from over the fence as well. Lucas stands up and wanders over, leaning his head over the fence to see Elliot working out on the ground.
"Push ups" he calls back to his mother and sister and Elliot even though he was half way through a rep pushes back to see what was going on.
"What's up?" He asks, seeing Lucas' head poking over the fence.
"Wondering what the noise was"
"That would be AC/DC" Elliot answered, standing up and walking over to the fence.
"Not the crappy music. You"
"Did you hear that Liv? He just called my music crap" he shouts over the fence to her even though she still has her back to him.
"It is" she throws back, turning around just long enough to glare at him.
"Ouch"
"I'm going inside" she tells the kids as she stands up. "There's a bad smell out here"
The kids look awkwardly at each other but Elliot laughs as he watches her walk inside.
"She'll be back" he tells them and Sophia rolls her eyes.
"Stop trying to wind her up Dad"
"It's a sign of affection"
Sophia shakes her head as her dad walks into his house and turns the music up on his sound system. Her younger brother only laughs but she worries if her father pushes her mother too far that she knows the places to hide a body.
—
Olivia sat on the lounge, eyes closed with her head leaning on the back of the couch and sighed. She'd had to get away from him. When she'd turned around and saw him there with his bulging muscles sweating like that her mind had dropped into the gutter. She had flashbacks of him and her in bed, him moving his length in and out of her as she gripped onto those arms. The sound of his grunting had hit her right between her legs and she was embarrassed that she still had to fight off the urge to fantasise about her ex husband.
She also hated that since the divorce he'd clearly been working out more. He'd always had an amazing body but he was more ripped now than ever before and she keeps finding herself dreaming of what it would be like to run her hands over his new muscles.
It took a while but eventually she felt calmer, even if still slightly aroused but that was becoming the new normal for her. She needed to get laid, she knew it. She wondered how many people Elliot had been with since the divorce and her eyes squeezed shut even tighter as she tried to run away from the images of him with another woman that were now entering her mind.
"Get a grip Olivia" she whispers to herself as she stands and walks back out to the garden to collect the plates she knew the kids wouldn't have brought in with them. She'd heard them chatting as they walked up to their bedrooms not long ago and she wondered if she'd see them tonight or if she was about to have another Saturday night alone.
Elliot was nowhere to be seen when she walked out, or even better nowhere to be heard. She could hear the music coming from inside his kitchen but that was the lesser of two evils even if it was an album she hated.
She walks back and forth a few times taking the lunch items in without realising he's in his kitchen watching her through the french doors he has open. He can't see fully over the fence but he can tell she's dropped something from the way her head drops back and how she kneels down for a few seconds disappearing from sight. She was always so clumsy, he wondered how she'd survived in the job as long as she had because the more time he'd spent with her when they had first started dating he'd been shocked by just how accident prone she was. He had found it adorable of course and was always there to help her (or an item she'd dropped) up from the floor with a smile on his face.
Elliot turns the music up again trying to drown out thoughts of Olivia and her cute shortcomings. He didn't know what it was like to NOT think about Liv anymore, had he ever? This felt like the worst of it though. At least before they got together they were always physically together, now he missed her in every way. Being in love with his partner and lying to himself about it was less painful than having had her and lost her. He had learnt the hard way that whoever had said the line "it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" had never lost a woman like Olivia.
Olivia was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher when she heard the volume increase and rolled her eyes. He was really starting to piss her off now if she could hear it in her kitchen it was clearly too loud and where she had thought previously he was a neighbour from hell just because he was her ex husband he was now just a plain old neighbour from hell so she decided enough is enough. She would go around and have a word with him like she would any other annoying neighbour.
She checks her reflection in the hallway mirror as she walks by, stopping for a second to fluff up her hair before she walks out of the door and over to the house next door.
Bang bang bang.
She isn't sure if he will even be able to hear the knocks with that racket in his kitchen so she bangs again louder until he comes to the door and opens it with an amused look on his face.
"Can I help?"
"You can turn that crap off"
"That's no way to speak to your neighbour. Where's my hello? In fact i'm still waiting for my welcome basket"
He leans against the doorframe chewing the inside of his cheek as he sees the colour of her face turn a darker shade of red.
"I'm so sick of you and your annoying oversized ego"
"Ouch"
He places his hand on his chest feigning being hurt.
"You're loud, obnoxious and a pain in my ass Stabler"
"Stabler? Does that only come out for the insults?"
"Well being one was the worst time of my life so it's fitting"
The smile drops from Elliots face instantly and he nods. Liv's eyes flicker away from his seeing the pain she had just caused him. She went to open her mouth to apologise and tell him she doesn't mean it. Why does she keep doing this? But Elliot speaks first.
"I'm sorry about the noise. I'll keep it down" and before she can reply he closes the door in her face and her eyes close in exasperation. It's a defence mechanism, a toxic one but when she feels vulnerable she bites and her ego just can't let her take the words back.
As she walks back to her house she makes a mental note telling herself she needs to try and be kinder. Maybe getting on with Elliot isn't the end of the world. She doesn't need to be mean to ignore her feelings, she'd managed to do it for plenty of years before they became a couple.
By the time she enters the kitchen again she can't hear the music and she wonders if he was going to stop trying to annoy her now and if he did was it worth it for the look she had just seen in his eyes?