Ok... so here's a little one shot for the lovely Taylor... who's constant thirst for a certain actor and the detective he plays makes my day more times than i can count and inspired me to write this! I'm so glad she found me on Twitter and i truly enjoy the continual spiraling over this man... and THE BEARD lol. So here's a one shot from Elliots POV based on the picture of him laying in his bed after he comes back from UC. It had been making its rounds on my tl and i just couldn't get it out of my head lol... so i hope you all enjoy. This one is for Taylor :)
Set after OC 2x8 so anything that happened after that isn't taken into account.
Dick Wolf owns everything
Burning
He was burning.
He was burning inside while he laid in his bed. The stark morning light was penetrating through the half-closed blinds in his room.
His room.
It didn't feel like his room. The bed didn't either. He felt like a fish put in a fishbowl without… water. A puzzle piece that had been placed in the wrong box... he looked like the other pieces, and no one would even suspect he belonged somewhere else… unless the puzzle was being put together… then they would know. He felt like the trailer had been more… his, than this apartment. He had to keep telling himself he belonged here. With his family. His actual family.
But everything about this… felt… off somehow. Maybe everyone was right… had he rushed into this UC too quickly?
He sighed. No… he had always loved his work. Work kept him going. Work kept him sane. Or at least it had when… when he had his partner.
His… former partner.
The sounds of a faint word or two from Kathleen and his mother drew his attention. He hoped they would just… leave him be for a little while longer. He just didn't have it in him to have a conversation with anyone right now. He loved his children and his mother, but Katie and Bernie would just look at him with that knowing look. Ask him if he was ok, and of course he would lie. Tell them he was fine.
But he was burning inside…
Flashes of the past weeks flipped through his mind. Flutura… Albi… Reggie…Rita…
Elliot took a deep breath in and blew it out. He heard footsteps, and then someone knocked.
"Dad? Grandma's making breakfast." Kathleen said.
He quickly rolled away from the door and closed his eyes.
"Dad?" she questioned, and then slowly opened the door. She must have bought that he was sleeping because after a moment she softly closed the door, and he heard her footsteps disappear.
He opened his eyes and took a deep breath. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just… slip back into this life.
His life.
He knew going under had its costs. You could lose yourself… do things you didn't want to do but had to do to keep up the charade. And he had done a lot of things.
Burned bodies… buried bodies… and had sex with an Albanian mob wife.
Flutura floated back in his mind. She was… intense… different… not Kathy. He had really been lost in Eddie Wagner when he decided to cross that line with her and use her. After the first time they had sex and she had left, he laid there and thought about nothing other than how it felt good to rip off that band aid, but it just wasn't as satisfying as he thought it would be… or nerve racking. The first time he's been with anyone except Kathy. It was easier than he thought it would be and he didn't feel the way he thought he would. The way he should have… it should have made him feel… something… right?
But he hadn't. Maybe it was because he was in his alter ego… maybe his mind just shut those feelings down out of survival… or maybe… maybe there was a reason he didn't struggle to sleep with someone else so close to losing his wife that had nothing to do with being UC and that was a whole other rabbit hole he didn't want to go down.
But maybe…
He was scratching an itch. Servicing a need, but in the end, it left him empty. It was what he needed, but it wasn't what he wanted.
He wanted…
He took another deep breath trying to shake the thoughts of what he wanted out of his head and Flutura floated back in again.
It hadn't meant anything to him. He did feel bad for her though, her upbringing… what had happened to her wasn't her fault, but what she was doing now was. A madame for trafficking young girls. She was a criminal. Maybe he didn't want to see it, wanted her to just be… a mob wife, but he was stupid to think she wasn't involved.
But not Olivia.
Flutura? Is that how you say her name?
Her voice drifted into his mind without permission. He wasn't lost on the… sting of that question. Nothing ever got past her. Even after all these years she could still read him like a book. It was infuriating sometimes… but it was also comforting. He felt an all too familiar feeling wash over him.
This was new for him, and yet not new at all.
Olivia.
Even when he tried not to think about her, she was there in his mind. She was always in his mind. Her smile… her eyes… her voice…
The nights he wasn't out being "Eddie Ashes" he would lay in his trailer and think about her. What was she doing? How was her son? Did she think about him even half as much as he thought about her? Did thoughts of him keep her up at night too?
Then guilt would hit him hard for leaving her. He'd chastise himself for ever hurting her the way he felt he had to in order to leave. He had no right to hope she thought about him. He deserved for her to never think about him again for the way he left, but… he did still hope.
Elliot closed his eyes and took himself back to the trailer.
He would drift off to sleep comparing images of her face, her body, to the Olivia he clung to in Italy, and the Olivia she was now. Older, yet still just as beautiful… maybe more so. Softer, yet her bite stung a little harder now that she was a Captain and he'd be lying if he said her… rank… didn't turn him on because it did. He had thought about the argument they had after the mistake during the small op where they were shot at. He thought his heart was going to beat out of his chest when she told him he wasn't dismissed. He felt the hints of arousal now even just thinking about it.
You're not dismissed…
I'm standing right here Captain…
He felt a knowing shiver skip across his skin. The way she could still make his body react was… well a little terrifying… and… wonderful.
His mind drifted back to how she looked now. She had filled out from the rail she used to be, but it was achingly good. He had a hard time not thinking about her full breasts in his hands… her thick thighs wrapped around him… obeying her orders implicitly… looking up into those eyes of hers… those deep beautiful eyes…
Her eyes… her eyes hadn't changed. At least not when she looked at him. They still took his breath and thoughts… and heart. She had always been able to do that… even when she didn't know she was doing it. Even when he didn't know she was doing it.
There was something else there though now. He could see the hint of it… something he'd only seen after Sealview, of which he still didn't know the details of. There was something… guarded about it. Guarded about her. It wasn't like she was protecting herself from him… even though he could tell she had tried to when he first showed back up in her life. It sent an eerie shiver down his spine thinking about it… what could have caused that. Caused her to be wary that he didn't know about.
Maybe… maybe he would ask her sometime.
Things had just been so… intense with them recently. All these feelings… so many feelings. Feelings he used to bury deep down inside him and tighten the lid on because he wasn't supposed to have them. He wasn't supposed to feel that way about her.
He was married… he was set… solidly. But the day she came into the one-six it blew his foundation to pieces. She caused doubt in where he was in his life… because when he was with her… it just… fit. It was effortless. Even when they disagreed… even when they fought… there was more there. More he wanted to take, wanted to give… but he couldn't. But now…
There was nothing stopping him.
And he wanted her. He had always wanted her.
He sighed again. He didn't deserve her. All the things he has done to her. He needed to be better… he needed to be better for himself and for his children… and for her. She had asked him to come home. That was what he was going to do.
Come home.
Not just physically… because being here in his apartment with his family wasn't enough. He knew what he needed to do.
He sighed and turned onto his stomach tucking his arms under his pillow. He would wait.
Wait till the apartment was silent. Kathleen was taking his mother to the doctor in a few hours and Eli was leaving for school soon. The place would quiet… he would be alone. And then he could do what he needed to do.
He laid there feeling a second wave of sleep starting to hit him, and he closed his eyes as images of Olivia drifted in, and this time he let them.
EOEOEOEOEOEOEOEO
Elliot had been woken a little after ten. The apartment was still. He rolled out of his bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen. He found a note written by his daughter letting him know they saved him breakfast, it was in the fridge, and they would be back later in the evening.
He took in a big breath and let it out slow. That would mean he had most of the day then to himself.
Good… he thought.
He scratched his face, feeling the hair he had grown accustomed to. He ran his fingers through his beard and then placed his hands on the kitchen island. He let his head hang for a minute trying to just acclimate himself to this weird limbo he was in.
He stood there, once again not sure what to do. He felt out of place again, and yet he was where he was supposed to be.
Then… the only person who could ever wade through the mind field of his brain found her way into his thoughts once more.
I want you to come home… Before it's too late…
He could hear her voice like she was standing in his empty kitchen right next to him. He had tried to reassure her he was ok… but she knew. She always knew.
I mean… before Eddie Wagner takes over and Elliot Stabler is nowhere to be found…
Elliot Stabler.
Eddie Wagner.
He knew what he needed to do.
He then moved from the kitchen to his bathroom. He opened the glass door to the shower and turned on the water, before he got undressed.
The water was hot when he stepped in. It felt good. It felt… normal.
Small steps.
He still felt the burning on the inside, but with the hot water of the shower burning the outside of him it was making him feel less stuck, and more like he was starting to move forward… slowly… into this new chapter of his life.
His life.
Not the real Eddie Wagner's…. not the fake Eddie Wagner's whose life he had been living…
Elliot Stabler's life.
His life.
The one he had always wanted to live. The one he never got to live.
He grabbed the soap and started to clean himself. First to wash off the ashes of Eddie. Then to wash off the life he used to live. The one where he left everything he knew and moved across an ocean to live in a foreign country. He did everything he could to move on from the life before that. The one where he was stuck. Stuck in a marriage he didn't want to be in anymore and stuck doing the right thing by his family.
Stuck wanting something he didn't have a right to want but wanted anyway.
A change of continents fixed the problem for a while… but in the end it hadn't worked. They had seemed happy… Eli had been happy… but he was just… going through the motions because he had abruptly exited another life. The one… the one where it was her and him. The one where they were partners. The one where it would always be her. One where he didn't say goodbye because he knew he could never say goodbye to her. He didn't want to. He never intended to ever say goodbye to her because that meant he was nailing the door shut to the possibility of ever crossing over into that life and he just couldn't do that. Because it was her.
And he knew it had always been her.
But he did love Kathy. He had been in love with her at one point in his life. Before he knew what it could have been. Before he knew what he could have had. But somewhere between all the fights and silent treatments and time apart they just… had fallen out of love. He was mostly to blame for that. He knew he would always love her though. She was the mother of his children and that would never change.
Still, they had been stuck, and they both knew why. But he had made a vow. A vow to Kathy and to God. He had to try to do the right thing. And he thought the right thing for his family was to leave her… to abandon her to be exact… because he knew he could have never faced her or called. He would have never left.
Now looking back, he knew it wasn't the right thing. He'd give anything to go back and change the past, but he couldn't. All he could do now was move forward. Fully step into this new chapter of his life. A life where he didn't have separate compartments for everyone…
Elliot moved his head under the spray and just stood there, letting the water cascade down his body. This was the start. The start of putting his life back together. And this time it was going to be his life. The life he used to fantasize about and wish for… and yearn for. But he needed to be at his best.
She deserved nothing but his best.
It was a risk. He knew that. She may not be ready. She may not… want him. He leaned into the tile placing his head on his hands letting the hot water scale down his back. That thought alone shook him. But he needed to remind himself that if he went down this path… the path he had always wanted to go… the only path that ever seemed… right to him, he had to go knowing she might say no.
But then at least he tried. At least he'd know. He felt a twinge of fear in his stomach, but then her face flashed through his mind. All their years together… he knew she felt something. She had stood by him through the worst parts of his life… unwavering and asking for nothing in return. Her light had protected him when the darkness surrounding him threatened to take him under. You don't do that for someone who is just a friend. Just a partner. And she was anything but just anyone to him.
She was everything.
He didn't deserve her.
He'd made mistakes and he wouldn't blame her if she decided it was too much or she didn't want him, but he was going to lay it all out there. Go at her pace but let her know… leave her with no doubt what his intentions are.
He loved her.
He wanted her.
He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
Olivia.
He had always loved her. He let his feelings for her wash over him. He could openly show them now. And he didn't care who knew it. The only person whose opinion mattered was hers.
He grabbed the soap and started to lather it over his skin. He was starting to feel more like himself every second he let Olivia invade his mind, and every second the walls were starting to crack and his true feelings for her were spilling out through those cracks. And he welcomed it. It was… freeing, and yet also grounding.
She kept him honest. She held him tight to the man he was… the man he is. She had always seen him.
Oh God, he loved her. Really loved her. Opening this wall around his heart was starting to make his heart thump faster, and he felt… renewed… reborn.
He was starting to feel overwhelmed by just how much he loved her. He had never let himself feel the whole of the love he had for her because he knew it would consume him. And now he was going to let it.
She was everything to him.
This was really going to happen. He was really going to let himself finally live the life he wanted. Not the life he had to live.
And suddenly he wanted to see her… now. He wanted to look into those eyes of hers and stand close to her… feel the comfort he always felt at having her with him. He wanted to openly look at her. Her mouth… her jawline… all her new curves that she kept hidden under blazers that did her no justice.
He was starting to become aroused again. He moved his hand down between his legs and slowly stroked himself thinking about Olivia. He thought about all the things that kept him up at night for the past ten years. The touch of her hand… the lingering stares between them, speaking volumes without words. What it would feel like to run his hands through her hair. To touch her skin… everywhere. To take her out, have her on his arm… see her wearing one of those slippery little dresses for him, only to be able to take it off her later.
He started to move his hand with purpose now. He gripped himself at his base and slid his hand down his shaft with a little more friction. He groaned thinking about what kind of sounds she would make… what it would feel like to kiss her… be surrounded by her… taste her… bury himself in her. Run his tongue over her beautiful skin, to caress and touch every single piece of her and to hear her moans of pleasure… to feel her come around him.
He started to pump his hand faster, his body aching for release as his mind imagined just how amazing and wonderful it would be to love her, and then for the first time the thought of just how close to reality it all could be and it hit him hard, and he came with her name on his lips.
He leaned into the tile again and sank down a little, relaxing really for the first time since he'd come home. Olivia always made him feel like himself.
He finished his shower. The water had lost its heat and he now had the last step to take before he fully felt like himself again.
He needed to shave.
He got out the tools he needed. He'd start by trimming it.
He took one last look before he began. No more Eddie. Only Elliot.
Once he started it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. The more hair he cut, the faster he wanted to get it done.
He was feeling the weight start to lift with every piece of hair falling onto his sink. The razor felt good on his skin. With each pass more and more of him came into view. More and more of himself was being revealed.
Finally, he took the towel on his counter and brought it to his face removing the last bits of shaving cream. He took a deep breath in and looked at himself in the mirror. He eyed his handy work, looking at his jawline, his chin and then into his own eyes. Eyes he knew. Eyes that had looked at the only person he now was able to admit, was his soulmate.
He was back.
He felt revitalized and now there was a familiar burning inside. A burn that had been inside him for twenty-three years. A burn he was now ready to fuel and never let go out.
His heart and soul and body and mind were burning.
And they were burning for her.
He was burning for her.
Burning for Olivia.
