Thanks to Cropper1818 for the hearty beta.
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Three, four, five... he was only six.
The boy was six years old, raped, dumped, forgotten.
And the case went unsolved. The case went unsolved for months; months and months and months.
After six of them they find the perp and corner him into a confession. The man cries, weeps, begs as he tells Elliot that he didn't mean to, doesn't mean to and then tells the cops to eleven more rapes, three more murders and Elliot gets so pissed that he can't even hit the man.
Instead, he vomits just as he shuts the door to the interrogation room, all over Munch's shoes.
The detective cracks a joke about seafood salad and although Elliot laughs, the sound never reaches his eyes. He's hollow, a gray bordering on black. Wiping his mouth, he coughs out a command to Olivia who's too concerned for her partner to actually hear what he has said. "Elliot, are you-"
"Fucking, just do it, okay?" he barks behind him, not bothering to turn back, just grabs his coat from the back of his chair and bumps shoulders with Wong as he makes his way out of the precinct. There's nothing else he can do, not really; mind on autopilot because there's nothing else to be on. There is black and black and more nothingness and it's either drowning himself hard in a bottle or walking and breathing, breathing.
The air is biting although it's only early October. In the city, there's nowhere to be alone, no real place to crawl into and hide and so his body crawls to a stop at a maple tree, his barely-there nails cutting into the barely-three bark. The bright colors of the autumn leaves, normally soothing to look at, just remind him of blood, blood and more blood.
There's nothing he can do but stand and fight the bile again threatening to rise from his throat. He stands and fights the tears that prick the back of his eyeballs. It was never supposed to be like this; did anyone ever speculate that it would be like this? He stands... he stands and watches small children walk by, each holding on to the other's hand, an adult at either end.
...a train of sadness.
He wonders how many of them will make it past the age of eighteen.
Elliot thinks that maybe he needs to hollow out, let it all go, the emotions, the fears, just let it all out. He is becoming a shell of a human being already; why not go all the way? He's barely there as it is. Clinging to the slight companionship of his children as an ex-wife continues to draw them away.
It's not her fault; it's his. It really is too bad that he has kids, he thinks to himself. Maybe then he wouldn't have gotten so caught up in saving everyone else's. Then again, she never really understood why he went into the academy, never really understood why he jumped at the chance to help out on a rape case.
Kathy never understood why he went into such a gruesome line of work.
What she never understood was that for awhile all he could see was her face. And now all he sees is his kids, relatives, neighbors... what she never understood was that people needed to be saved and yes it was someone's responsibility. And, no, no, NO he can't ignore that.
Eight years after Dickie's tenth birthday the boy (man, really) will understand that Ashley Ciancimeino is alive because Elliot had spent those last three hours at work (and then again what did he care, he'd gotten a new bike). She is alive because his father has forgone sleep and caught a slight mishap in paperwork.
Maybe too many women try to understand, pretend to. Maybe (there were too, too many maybes for him to consider) he tries too hard to let all of his complications slip away...
But maybe she was the only-
"Hey," comes the call from behind him, the soft crunch of leaves dull beneath her feet. He turns to face her and she is beautiful, the autumn atmosphere bringing out more colors in Olivia than he thinks he's ever seen in her. Elliot sighs again and turns his eyes to the sky; it hurts to look at her after so much pain. "You okay?"
Never, never has he been okay, never. But he shrugs his shoulders and makes an unintelligible sound, continues to stare into nothingness. So Olivia does as well; standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk, they stand and stare up into the sky as the clutter revolves around them.
"I don't get it," Elliot mumbles and she steps closer to him so that they're shoulder to shoulder.
"Maybe we're not supposed to understand it, Elliot, maybe we're just supposed to..."
A heavy sigh and she stops speaking, watches him through her peripheral vision, waits on him to speak, to move, to anything. But instead he stands and stares at the leaves, watches an orange one fall slowly to the ground. Again he sighs and settles his hands hard into his coat pockets and just wonders how much bluer the sky can get.
It is turning to winter, after all.
It's taunting him.
There are birds, birds and kids and happy, smiling, laughing people. They're all happy and they don't know about little Aiden who's on a slab, torn apart by a brutal man who doesn't look brutal and doesn't look monstrous... just looks like a man. Elliot looks like a man.
Looks like any man...
Looking down from the sky, it's no longer blue but brown that he's looking into. She's not smiling, not happy, not serene; behind her eyes is a storm of emotions just waiting to spill out on the landscape. They don't; hell, she's a pro at this and he's only supposed to be.
"Seriously, are you... alright?"
The answer is no. No, he's no alright, and why lie about it, why lie to her. "I, uh-" Elliot scratches the base of his skull and fights the urge to look up again, look up at the forever of the blue. And still he looks at her, at the way the left side of her lip is pulled inwards, being bitten on by her teeth. The way her eyes are drawn and a little tight, concerned...
And like that, a split second of brash realization and he loves her.
Not that he wasn't before, but he knows it now (in, in, in love...), knows it just as he knows...
What does he know? What's knowledge? What's there to really hang onto? Maybe really, maybe it really is the brown of her eyes, the way her brow crinkles when she's about to cry. Maybe all he needs to know is the fact that she came to find him when he is in distress.
Olivia's head falls and she twiddles her thumbs over the scratchy fabric of her jacket, the movement making slightly screechy noises in between them. Watching the movement, Elliot takes the brief distraction to move into her. Toe to toe they stand, both imagining how red blood can really be, how loud the sound of their own hearts beating in their ears can beat.
"Thanks," said directly into her face, lips only inches away.
Her smile was quick in coming, sad but true, "No problem."
Nodding, his hands grope at the bottom of his pockets, gathering lint beneath his fingernails. Scratching, scratching until he felt pain, the cotton pressing between flimsy nail and skin. Distraction.
And then her voice, "But are you really-"
His hands are out of the cotton prison fast.
Kissing her, he's kissing her, barely hitting her lips, hands too hard on her skin, kissing her.
In the middle of a downtown crowd, kissing her.
Munch and Cragen and whomever could walk out and catch them and he's kissing her too hard and too deep to be platonic. But she's kissing him back, hands on his forearms, holding him tight, deepening the kiss with her lips and tongue. Eyes open and he's surprised that it's this easy, this completely slick, the falling in together.
Three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon and no one seems to care that they're being lewd on a public street. Finding themselves is that easy, the slight autumn breeze reminding the both of them that this is reality, that it's good to switch angles, to feel different portions of the same kiss.
Breathing isn't an issue because they pull away long enough to stutter out a laugh, half sentence and crash together again.
There is nothing to be said.
Nothing.