Title: Haunting
Summary: "I do not need to stand outside for an hour in the freezing cold before walking through that building in order to live a little."
Pairing: Implied Casey/Olivia.
Spoilers: Nada.
Disclaimer: Dick Wolf has more characters than he knows what to do with, and these are two of them.
Author's note: It's topical, it's cheesy, it's the first thing I've written in almost a year that's more than two pages! Just a fun little ficlet in the spirit of Halloween. Feedback is my anti-drug!
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Casey Novak muttered as she crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to warm herself up a little bit. It was colder than she had anticipated and the crisp October air was going right through her light jacket.
Olivia Benson chuckled as she rubbed her hands over her arms. "You need to learn to live a little, Novak."
"I live plenty!" objected Casey. "I do all kinds of things outside the office, I read, I go to the movies. I do not need to stand outside for an hour in the freezing cold before walking through that building in order to live a little."
"Sounds to me like you're scared," Olivia said, teasingly raising her eyebrows at the young attorney.
"I'm not scared!" Casey protested. "This just … isn't my idea of fun."
"Uh huh." Olivia grinned devilishly at Casey before stepping forward with the line of people in front of her.
Casey rolled her eyes and turned her attention instead to her surroundings. A ramshackle building loomed in front of her, the gray clapboard warped and stained from the years of being out in the elements. A few of the panes of glass in the dark windows were broken; the whole house seemed gloomy and deserted. And what impressed Casey the most was that the entire decrepit facade was staged. With a small whimper, she looked around at the people standing in line on either side of her. "You do realize that ninety percent of the people in this line are teenagers, don't you?" she hissed to Olivia. "Don't you think that forcing me to go into a haunted house is a little immature?"
"I don't recall forcing you to come here," Olivia replied with joking innocence. "All I said was that going to the haunted house would be fun."
Casey gave an irritated sigh. "That's not how the conversation went and you know it. And now I'm standing in the cold, waiting to go through a cheesy haunted house with a bunch of teenagers."
"See, now I want to believe that you're protesting solely on the grounds that this is immature, but all I'm hearing is that you're terrified." Olivia's voice was almost singsong.
"I am not scared!" Casey repeated. At Olivia's teasing grin, Casey just groaned in frustration. "You know, Benson, I could just leave you here and take a cab home."
"You could," Olivia nodded. "Of course, then I'd know you were afraid."
Casey held Olivia's gaze for a long moment before sighing in defeat. A smug smile tugged at the corners of Olivia's mouth; she knew full well that Casey wouldn't leave. Casey tore her eyes from Olivia's and instead poked her head out to see how fast the line was moving. After some quick mental estimation, she figured that they'd be inside the building in about ten minutes. With any luck, she'd spend most of the time inside the haunted house so concentrated on getting warm that she could ignore what was lurking in the hallways.
"Casey, really," Olivia said, nudging the attorney to get her attention, "if you don't want to go in, we don't have to go."
The ADA turned her head to meet Olivia's eyes and smiled. " Oh, no. No, we're going in. I'm not going to stand here freezing my ass off for over an hour for nothing."
"Suit yourself," Olivia replied, a self-satisfied grin on her face.
The next few minutes passed uneventfully. Casey spent the time listening to bits and pieces of the teenage conversation around her while shivering and trying to stay warm. Soon, the entrance was within Casey's view. Finally! Casey thought. Her teeth were beginning to chatter. "You know," she said nonchalantly, "I remember when this place was an antique store."
Olivia turned to face Casey and raised an eyebrow. "You tell yourself whatever you need to."
"No, I'm serious! My grandmother used to take me here all the time when I was little."
"Huh." Olivia looked the building over with a small frown. "Doesn't look much like an antique shop now."
"No." Casey took a deep breath in and held it for a moment as she and Olivia stepped up to the door. The detective handed their tickets to the door attendant, who was dressed as a vampire. Casey shuddered. "Just once, I'd like to see someone at one of these things dressed as, oh I don't know, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz or something."
Olivia snorted and looked over at Casey. "But you're not scared," she teased.
The ADA rolled her eyes, but she didn't argue. "Let's just get this over with."
The two of them stepped into the entrance hall of the haunted house. What had once been the main floor of the antique store that Casey remember was now a dark, dreary Victorian front foyer. To one side was a curtained-off dining room, and to the other was a conservatory with high stained-glass windows which were draped with heavy black fabric. "I guess we go this way," Casey whispered, pointing towards the conservatory.
"Yes, we do," Olivia nodded, walking forward.
"You've been here before?" Casey asked incredulously.
"Yeah." Olivia thought that would have been all the explanation Casey needed, but after a quick glance over her shoulder at the attorney told her that Casey needed more details. "You remember Jeremy Randle, that little boy we took from his stepfather last year?"
Casey nodded. "Of course."
"All he wanted during everything was to go to a haunted house. I took him here." Olivia continued to walk into the conservatory. "I promise, this place isn't gory or gross like most of the haunted houses. The scares and creepiness are solely based on atmosphere."
"Great," Casey muttered under her breath.
Olivia chuckled. "Come on."
Casey took a deep breath as she and Olivia stepped into the conservatory. The "plants" in the windows had long since died, leaving thin tendrils of twisted roots and stems, and dried, crumbling flower petals littered the floor. As Casey slowly made her way through the conservatory, she had to admit that the decorations were flawless. The place did indeed look like a deserted Victorian mansion and nothing like the old antique store.
One of the plants had a small flower red bud growing on it, seemingly bright against the darkness of the rest of the room. Casey had just reached out her hand to touch it when all of a sudden, something jumped up at her from inside the twisted roots. She screeched and jumped backwards, placing her hands over her mouth. After a moment, she was able to see that the "thing" had been a small pretend crow and that it was now hovering in front of her on a string that was hanging from the ceiling. She let her breath out in an embarrassed sigh. Olivia laughed and put her arm around Casey's shoulders. "That thing scared the crap out of me last year. Come on, we go upstairs next.
"The theme of this place is an abandoned Victorian mansion," Olivia continued as she and Casey headed up the winding staircase. "Back in 1907, the well-to-do Corcoran family was throwing a Halloween dinner party. It was supposed to be the event of the year; everyone who was anyone in New York society was there. Only thing is no one ever came home, and when the police went to investigate, the house was empty with no sign at all that there had been a party. Over the years, people have heard the sounds of the party and have reported seeing strange things every Halloween night."
Casey looked up at Olivia, who was a little further up on the staircase than she was. "How do you know this?"
"The whole story was posted in signs along the line," Olivia answered matter-of-factly. "I paid attention because I knew you weren't."
Casey wrinkled her nose at the detective. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," she muttered and continued up the stairs.
The upstairs was bathed in darkness, the only light coming from electric candelabra bulbs in sconces lining the corridor. Casey could hear screams from other people touring the house, along with doors creaking open and closed and heavy footsteps in walking the hallway. Casey knew on some level that the footsteps and creaks were simply on a soundtrack, but the darkness of the hallway and the general atmosphere were heightening her senses and making her uneasy.
She felt ridiculous being so jittery inside something she knew was staged, but she'd only been to one other haunted house in her life. Her older brother had taken her to one when he was supposed to be baby-sitting her. She was only eight at the time and the experience had terrified her. "When I went to the other haunted house, it was a guided tour," Casey whispered. "This way feels more like we're actually exploring a house like in all those horror movies."
"That's the point, Counselor," Olivia said with a chuckle. "Let's go in here." She gestured towards a door on her left.
"Do we have to, you know, explore? Can't we just walk through the hall and then go home?"
Olivia reached down and took Casey's hand, half-dragging her into the room. "You can squeeze my hand if you get scared."
"Ha ha," Casey replied, rolling her eyes. She didn't, however, pull her hand away from Olivia's.
In fact, she didn't take her hand away from Olivia the entire rest of the time through the house. A couple of times, she even squeezed. The rooms upstairs were bedrooms and a bathroom, all dimly lit. A "ghost" jumped out of one closet, a "hand" grabbed Casey's leg from under one of the beds, and the door to another of the closets rattled and shook as if there was something inside trying to open it. However, when Olivia opened the door, there was nothing inside the closet. Aside from a few specialized lighting effects to act as the spirits in the rooms, the effects were simple but effective. Black curtains hung on every window so that the only light in any of the rooms was supplied by bare bulbs here and there.
A second staircase at the end of the hallway led back down to the kitchen, and after the kitchen was an open dining room and parlor which were set up for a large dinner party. A couple of tables were lining the far wall of the parlor. Dessert trays were on each table, waiting to be raided by the best of New York society. "They never got to the desserts," Casey whispered.
Olivia smirked at the ADA. "Casey? Not real."
Casey made a face at the detective. "This is the last room, right?"
"Yes." Olivia quickly led Casey through the room before the effects had a chance to reset themselves from the previous group of people. "There," Olivia grinned once they were outside, "that wasn't so bad, was it?"
"No," Casey said, letting out her breath in relief. She had never been happier to be outside, even though it was even colder out than it had been before they went into the house. "It wasn't."
"Liar," Olivia said, pulling her hand away from Casey's. "You almost broke my hand a few times in there."
Casey didn't even know how to argue the point; she knew that Olivia was right. Casey wasn't afraid of much of anything. The nightmares she had were mainly caused by the crime scene photos she saw and the disturbing cases she had to try day in and day out. But, for reasons she couldn't explain, she was afraid of the haunted houses. It made her feel rather childish. "If you tell anyone about this, I'll have to kill you."
"That's a pretty serious threat, Counselor," Olivia teased. "I didn't think that officers of the court were allowed to make threats like that."
"Olivia, please." Casey grabbed the detective's hand, tugging her to a stop. "I'm serious. I don't want anyone else to know."
Olivia looked taken aback for a moment, and then she smiled gently. "I won't tell anyone, I promise."
"Not even Elliot?"
"Not even Elliot," Olivia confirmed.
"Okay." Casey let go of Olivia's hand and started wordlessly heading towards the detective's car.
Olivia hesitated a moment before hastening her step to catch up with the ADA. She didn't want Casey to be angry with her, and she was now beginning to regret forcing Casey into the haunted house. Olivia had noticed that Casey had become uncharacteristically quiet when Elliot had mentioned that his twins were going to a haunted house with their friends and then pushed her on the subject, going as far as asking her to join her when she went to one. Unable to think of a good reason to decline the invitation, Casey had accepted and had been dreading it since. "Hey, Casey?" Olivia asked as the two of them approached the car.
"Yeah?"
"You're not mad at me, are you?"
Casey sighed and looked over at Olivia. "No. But Liv?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you decide that I need to live a little, can't we just go to a ballgame or something?"
Olivia chuckled and slung her arm around the attorney's shoulders. "Absolutely, Case. Absolutely."