5 - VULNERABLE
Elliot released a nervous breath while he waited, grabbing hold of another when he heard her heels clicking closer on their path from the locker room to the lounge.
He was sitting on the couch when Olivia walked in, self-consciously pulling at the hem of her short jeans skirt, her legs bare but for the fishnet stockings that squeezed her skin rather uncomfortably. While a bit looser, her top didn't leave much to the imagination either, with a deep V neckline that gave away a lot more cleavage than she was usually comfortable showing at the precinct. Her loose hair cascaded over her shoulders and framed her face, which donned heavy makeup that greatly flattered her eyes.
Her big, round, brown eyes.
"Liv," hoarsely escaped his lips before he could vet it as he stood up.
Her outfit was tight and revealing in all the right places, but it was still wrong to look, no matter how dry the sight had the power to make his mouth.
"It's Susie," she corrected him with a cautious smile, but it almost sounded like permission.
In reality, she was distracted taking in the tight grey t-shirt that she could see wrapped closely around his chest and abdomen, even as it was mostly covered by a brown, rugged leather jacket and the dark jeans that hugged his muscular thighs a bit more than she would have expected.
She swallowed, determined to play it all down — the way she was looking at him, the way he was gazing at her, how it all sent her heart racing. "It's amazing, all you need to do to go undercover is wear some jeans and a leather jacket."
"The visual focus will be on you," he explained, taking a few steps forward and letting his eyes roam her body just for a second to drive his point home. "You look…"
His adjective never saw the dim light of the empty room, hanging invisible in the air instead. As if choreographed, both peered downward above the mezzanine railing, noticing that in addition to less lights turned on downstairs, there were also less people walking through the bullpen as night fell in a rush outside.
"The ad does mention good looks for the waitress," Olivia said only to fill the silence. "But it's weird that it said married couples are welcome."
Elliot's brow furrowed as he gulped at married couples and all the implications from his previous life as a married man, his current life as someone who used sex as a painkiller, and his imagined life with Olivia — with Susie —, which was about to begin. His thumb played with the golden ring adorning the void he'd grown used to around his finger, his glance matching the piece of metal to its counterpart in Olivia's tightly-fisted left hand.
He caught a whiff of her scent from his closeness, the intoxicating mixture of her with a sweet, slightly citric fragrance, something too girly for her on any given day but that in a weird way suited her tonight.
Susie suited her tonight.
Elliot's body had no interest in his mind's confliction, and he had to fight the physical reactions as his eyes strayed down her body in ways that his shouldn't, but Rob's could.
Rob's freedom to want her suited him tonight.
He kept his voice guarded. "I guess we're about to find out the reason for that preference, but it really looks like they want the perfect replacement for Geoff and Patricia."
He was just a man lusting for his wife. It was the role he was expected by everyone to play.
The small space between them had Olivia's heart hammering in her chest. She took a breath, trying to rein it in and starting to move away, fighting the magnetic pull of him before it was too late. "Should we get going?"
"Hey, wait…" Elliot's fingers curled around her arm, an impulse that could not be tamed in time: he needed to touch her. Well, Rob needed to, he reminded himself. That made it acceptable. "You can't walk away from me like this."
Elliot's other hand wrapped around the dip of her waist, then slid to rest on the small of her back as he pulled her to him, the sudden and firm nature of the movement making her stumble on her own foot and forcing her to brace her forearms against his chest for balance, her hands splayed on his shoulders. His fingers released her upper arm and curled in a loose fist that skimmed her arm all the way up, running along her shoulder and collarbone, unfurling and cupping her neck, his fingertips rooting themselves into the hair on her nape while his thumb traced the shell of her ear.
He sucked in a sharp breath when she shuddered. They were just acting.
Olivia witnessed it all, unmoving, afraid to disturb the scene she still didn't know how to participate in. "What are you d-doing?" she exhaled through shallow breaths.
"This is a problem," he said, his voice causing shivers to slowly crawl up her spine. "If we're going to pass as a couple, we can't be this nervous touching each other."
Nervous. Neither of them could believe he was actually acknowledging it, but then again, they also couldn't believe the way they were holding each other right now. But he was right; they both knew. In the brief conversation he'd had over the phone with Alvin Hobbes to set up details about the interview, it had come up that the previous bartender-waitress duo had made it a habit to give the customers a free show that they'd come to expect and enjoy.
Touching each other naturally — and frequently — was a requirement.
"I know," was Olivia's delayed response. Her voice became a shaky breath when she saw his eyes dramatically drop to her lips. "You're right."
She reciprocated, her gaze thoroughly outlining his lips and the five o'clock shadow around them that also covered his broad, square jaw. She swallowed dryness as she forced her eyes up again to find his.
"So, your…errand this morning," he asked. "Did you see Paul?"
He'd been holding back the question ever since she'd gotten back to the station, unaware of whether she had changed her mind about telling Cragen or anyone else about her discovery. He brought it up now in an attempt to fit dialogue into this earth-shattering exchange, to pretend the real-life repercussions of this role-play game didn't exist, but he also needed to know.
Somehow, she seemed vulnerable enough to give it to him straight.
Maybe talking would help them get used to their bellies shoved flush against one another, their hands clutching at each other's bodies, their fingers moving slowly in indefinite patterns against each other's skin, even through a thin layer of fabric.
Maybe it would help them reconcile how natural it felt already.
It might even ease the tightness that had grown in Elliot's chest from the moment the old man had said Olivia's name for the first time.
The question threw her off-balance, the feelings stirred up by it almost more dangerous to her now than the ones hovering in the stillness between them — they were certainly more foreign. She was used to her conflicted feelings for Elliot, although maybe not used to grappling with them so upfront, but she wasn't at all used to having encounters with a father figure to mull over, understand, and report.
She would have told Elliot anything then if she had known how to describe it.
"Yeah, I saw him," was all she said, her eyes telling him that whatever this was, it already ran deeper than he could imagine, maybe than she could imagine.
She leaned further into him, caught in the small space where their magnetism reversed, kept them together instead of safely apart. She usually did everything she could to run in the opposite direction, but the unknown feelings she needed to escape this time had to be outweighed by an equally powerful force that had to be him.
Olivia didn't know if that was the reason, but she was suddenly overwhelmed by a completely different type of need: she wanted so badly to kiss him.
"There's something else," she said, her eyes tentatively touching his lips, carrying the weight of her intentions.
He should have known this was going to follow. Maybe he had. "I know," he assured her, deliberately looking at her mouth now.
Her eyes grew wide against his pools of blue, and her voice dropped to a whisper as she put the tension between them into words. "They'll expect us to kiss, and they'll expect for it not to look like it's the first time."
The first time.
Elliot cleared his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing impatiently. "Yes," he whispered back, their surroundings and quite possibly everything else instantly forgotten.
He hadn't known she could have this power to silence his mind. The warmth of her skin rendered his questions and worries irrelevant. He wondered just how much more she could do with her lips latched onto his.
They stared at each other for what felt like forever before Olivia inspected their surroundings for any bystanders, finding none before she was forced to face him again. His eyes wouldn't allow hers to wander for too long.
Her lips tingled with anticipation. She licked them once, then reprimanded herself.
Was this really going to happen, just like that? After nine years? Well, it was just an undercover operation. It wasn't really them. But still. The reality and the importance of it hit Olivia with full force then, panic making a breath-taking appearance as she realized the flaw in her play: masking a vulnerability with another.
They closed the gap one millimeter at a time, a give and take of distance as they covered such short ground in a torturously-slow fashion that felt like a hundred-miles-per-hour speed. Elliot's mouth made the first move, brushing against Olivia's. Hers responded, leaning into the touch. They lingered in that moment: there would never be another first time.
Their lips connected, and they revelled in the sensation for a second before the exchange became a bit less hesitant, a bit more eager.
Olivia's lips parted of their own accord, and Elliot didn't need any additional invitation to slide his tongue between them. The moment it touched hers, she felt an instant, aching need pulling from her core and sending her heart into an even more erratic beating pattern. The accompanying sound that escaped from the back of her throat encouraged him, and heat enveloped her as he tightened his arms around her, deepening the kiss even more, releasing a groan of his own that caused her fingers to curl around his jacket's collar to pull him closer.
When it felt like they'd been kissing for a little longer than necessary — not that any of this had any known parameters — Elliot felt the need to pull away, leaving behind one last, light pull of her lower lip, reluctant to break contact. Their foreheads leaned on each other, both pairs of eyes still closed, before Olivia moved to rest her head on his shoulder, easing herself into a fairly less dangerous hug.
They listened to each other's breaths and their own hearts slowing down.
"His real name's Edward," she revealed, more confident now to talk about this, the words coming out without effort under Elliot's protection, sheltered by their perfect alibi and the way the world hadn't exploded because they had kissed. Feeling stronger about one vulnerability seemed to help with the other. "Edward Paul, so technically not entirely a lie."
Elliot needed a minute to come down from the high of the kiss and remember what she was talking about before he could respond. His fingers were still buried in her hair, and they now stroked the skin of her scalp softly, a red flag raising in his brain as he made the connection between the name and who it alluded to. "Where did you find him?"
"At a clinic for oncology treatment," she replied, slipping her hands underneath his jacket for better access: being a layer closer to his skin made her feel safer. "He was expecting me."
"Son of a bitch," Elliot muttered, the hand he still had on the small of her back finding a breach between her skirt and her top. She didn't object in any way when it slid into direct touch with her skin — if anything, she trembled slightly, burrowing deeper into his neck in response.
Her voice was small, but she kept talking, because every forbidden thought she exposed to him made her feel a little lighter. "I drove him home afterwards. I know where he lives now."
Elliot sank his fingers into the softness of her back as his own body tensed up with rage-tinged worry. While he recognized and welcomed the weight, physical and otherwise, that she was laying upon him as she relaxed a bit more and gave him another piece of the truth, he struggled to keep his cool upon learning she'd put herself at risk like that.
"Why didn't you call me?" he rasped. "You shouldn't have gone with him alone."
"I can handle myself," she murmured, quite unconvincingly.
Edward's voice echoed in Olivia's head. What he means is that you can't take care of yourself. Maybe that was part of the reason she hadn't wanted Elliot there, but now, surrounded by him, it was difficult to think of any scenario in which she wouldn't want him with her. She wanted him to know now. She needed to share this with him.
She was thankful when she felt the air passing through him as he huffed with frustration and let her answer slide with clear difficulty. He was afraid that she might be starting to see this guy as her father out of the pure need to fill that void, but he knew lecturing her about it would just be reason for her to keep things from him again in the future.
"What did he say?" he prodded further. "He tell you more about your mother?"
Her breath was warm against his neck when she sighed, the brush of her lips on his skin resembling a kiss that, in that moment, she felt entitled to somehow, but still held back. "He said I don't need the details in my head."
"So thoughtful all of a sudden," Elliot grinned through clenched teeth, grazing her temple with his lips.
Olivia's grip around his middle tightened, and her voice lowered. "His treatment's not working. He's getting weaker and weaker. He could barely walk after the chemo."
Elliot noticed the worry in her voice. The heartbreak. Could she really be fearing for this man? She pulled away so they could look at each other, and he witnessed it in her watering eyes.
"I'm trying not to feel anything," she confessed, her whisper choked with the tears she was trying so hard to hold inside. Maybe if she said it quietly enough, it wouldn't sound so bad. "Am I a horrible person?"
"No," Elliot grated. "It's the opposite. He doesn't deserve it, but you're too good not to care."
"I don't want to," Olivia pleaded, a tear finally making it down her left cheek. How could he forgive her for giving a shit about this monster? She certainly couldn't.
The finger he had on her earlobe slid across her cheek to wipe the moisture, staying longer to trace her cheekbone, then her jawline. "I know," he nodded.
With all the unexpected naturality in the world, he leaned into her, and her lips once again received his. Was this still preparation for going undercover? Was it him comforting her? Kissing away her tears? Moving on its own, one of her hands slid around his torso and up his chest and neck until it cupped the back of his head.
"El," she moaned when he pulled back into reality, heat coursing through him upon hearing his name spoken like that.
He wanted to make her say it again.
"It's Rob," he corrected, the same way she'd corrected him before.
They needed to keep each other in check.
But that was also the explanation to all this, Olivia figured. In Susie and Rob's world, this — whatever it was — was allowed, encouraged. Required. Maybe Susie could help Olivia confess to everything she hid. Maybe Rob would listen and not relay her sins to Elliot.
Maybe he could kiss her wounds better without anybody else knowing about it.
"Thanks then, Rob," she acknowledged.
Their bodies slowly, reluctantly disentangled, their gazes escaping each other, and a moment later they heard their names — their real names, coming in the captain's voice from downstairs.
It was time to go.
Susie slipped onto Olivia quite easily, no doubt with the help of Elliot's suddenly non-stranger hands: they still burned on her forty minutes later. The taste of his lips also echoed deep in her throat, insisting she didn't forget about their rehearsal back at the station.
Deep in Susie's throat, she corrected herself. She was almost easier to wear than the clothes Olivia couldn't remember owning before becoming Persephone James.
Persephone and Susie were both easier to wear than Olivia Benson.
But she was Susie now. Susie was a woman who had no family of her own, who had met the man she loved at work. Rob and his deep blue eyes were her whole world.
They had met at their previous job, where she had waited tables and he had served drinks, where she had entertained customers with her looks while he had overseen secret card games. They had only left because their relationship was frowned upon — their previous boss hadn't appreciated them getting distracted with one another.
Quite like partners shouldn't get personal. Unless they need to go undercover, of course. That made pretty much anything fair play, and they were both counting on that.
Undercover, there was nothing wrong with Elliot's possessive hand clutching at Olivia's waist whilst his other shook Alvin Hobbes', or his poorly-hidden, uncomfortable fidgeting as their potential boss ran his eyes lazily all over her body, asking for her hand and kissing it slowly.
Nothing wrong, except for the churning in his stomach at the man's scrutiny of his partner's body. Elliot acknowledged then that this feeling would become something quite common to him for as long as this undercover gig lasted.
"Our previous job didn't allow for relationships between employees," he said, his arm firmly poised on the back of Olivia's chair, before breaking into a dry laughter. "Because that's where they drew the line. With everything else that happened there."
"That why you left it?" Hobbes asked. "Or were you guys fired?"
Elliot turned to Olivia, but she smiled and looked away, leaving it to him to speak for both of them. "We left. We kept it on the down low for a while, but I wanted to marry her," he turned to Hobbes again. "I knew from the beginning that she was the one."
"Not a problem for me," Hobbes said. "Actually my last bartender and waitress were married too, like I said on the phone."
"Why did they leave?" Olivia asked, feigning curiosity to test the man's reaction.
"Just moved out of town," Hobbes replied vaguely, and Elliot's fingers squeezed Olivia's shoulder in response.
"Lucky us, I guess," he smiled. "I mean, I think we're the perfect fit, aren't we?"
Hobbes chuckled, pushing himself up from his chair. "I like your cockiness, Rob. Maybe you could both work tonight and show me you really are the best fit. How does that sound?"
Elliot could tell from the man's eagerness that there were currently no other candidates at their level, if there were any at all. While he knew their profiles had been created precisely to fit the needs the man described in his ad, Elliot feared their resumes might be too perfect, that they could raise suspicion. Maybe that was what this test drive was all about — proving they were the real deal.
"Absolutely, we'd love to, right, babe?" he replied, exchanging a smile with Olivia.
"Of course," she confirmed, directing a seductive smile at Hobbes that brought the softness of her lips right back onto Elliot's mouth. He bit down on his lower lip to fight the feeling.
Hobbes stood up promptly. "Come on, I'll show you the basics."
Munch had been right. The place looked like it had once been just a cheap bar; now, it just looked forgotten, abandoned. Drinks were definitely not paying the energy bill. Hobbes showed them the ropes and implied that Elliot — Rob — would be responsible for a few other transactions. He accepted the instructions naturally.
Olivia's — Susie's — job was to look good and keep the customers distracted while the transactions happened at the bar, as well as to leverage on her close connection with Rob to decode wordless communications and instructions and act on them in a timely fashion as needed.
The reasons for Hobbes' preference for a couple were becoming clearer to them.
Nothing had been strategized between them beyond that, and they'd gone into that interview knowing that: that they'd gone in pretty much blindly. They weren't even expecting to start working right away, but it was a Friday night, and it was obvious Hobbes wanted to get back in business as soon as possible. So just like that, before there was any time to prepare for anything, the doors opened.
Soon after, while Olivia's empty eyes contemplated the empty tables, her empty tray tucked between her arm and her side, Elliot approached her from behind, his cheek landing right next to hers, his arms around her waist. She realized this was what it was going to be like from now on: their guarded restraint would have to become this detached, implied consent. Their physical silences would become loud touches.
She was going to get so devastatingly used to it. She was already halfway there, on their fucking first night undercover. Fuck.
Her eyes fluttered closed as a careless breath ripped a sigh from her throat, but she told herself he would interpret it as acting. At least they would always have that excuse at the ready. She felt so vulnerable again, so weak, and she hated the notion that it was all because of him. Any fear related to the operation, to her father, to anything else outside of their bubble was completely shunned out.
When Olivia opened her eyes again, her resigned hands had already covered Elliot's forearms, and she realized for the first time that his Marines' tattoo had been concealed. She traced the contours with the tips of her fingers as she saw them in her head.
Rob hadn't been a Marine.
He was no choir boy either.
"The drug operation is pretty much what we had guessed," he whispered into her ear, inhaling her shampoo as he nuzzled her temple, the softness of her backside against his crotch not lost on him. Her feather-like touch on his arms, the girth of her waist trapped under his grip: he struggled to stay focused. "Keep your eyes open for the customers, remember what the bouncer said about some of them being interested in Patricia."
"Think they'll be interested in me?" Olivia mused out loud, while her heart longed to ask if the man underneath the mask of Rob, towering over Susie, would be interested.
A tender kiss on the crook of her neck emptied her lungs. Elliot's arms released her while his voice sealed the deal, whatever deal, all deals. "I have no doubt."
Olivia glanced in the direction of the door and caught Alvin Hobbes watching them from the distance with an approving nod.