Hello! Look, I promised there would be less of a wait for this update, and I actually succeeded in making that a reality! :D
A/N: warning for some graphic language and some sex that, while technically consensual, is definitely coercive. The first bold/italic segment is from the last portion of the previous chapter. The second bold/italic segment later in the story is from the episode Downloaded Child (and thus was not written by me). Title from end of the affair by ben howard. Quotes from stay with me by sam smith, betterman by pearl jam, and the blessings by dar williams.
Thank you SO much to Jaime for her constant encouragement, hand holding, and advice. I love you and I couldn't have done this without you reminding me that the end was in sight. And all credit for the Billy Joel joke goes to her!
And thank you in advance to everyone who reads, especially if you leave a comment as well :)
"It's not uncommon for relationships to go through something like this after a traumatic experience," she says gently, the cap of her pen tapping against her chin. "The two of you had certain norms, ways of doing things and relating to each other, before your assault. Then afterwards, everything gets shaken up. The rules change and you eventually get used to it as the new normal. The only thing is, you don't stay in that crisis mode forever. Things keep changing, and sometimes your relationship struggles to keep up, so it becomes a matter of having to make adjustments again."
"And what if you can't?" (Or aren't even sure if you want to, you think to yourself.)
She puts her pen down and looks straight at you, not unkindly. "Well then, I guess you have some decisions to make."
Of course, there were a few things about your relationship with Brian that you had neglected to mention to your therapist. Minor details, really. Like how you'd never told her about the way your last several sexual encounters with him had gone down. Some might have said you were being dishonest, but you saw it more as pragmatism. You know it was fucked up. And when you only had 50 minutes a week, it seemed like a waste of time to be told something you already knew, especially when there was no way to change what had taken place. Besides, what was she going to do? Tell you to talk to Brian about it? Unlikely. Tell you that you're a terrible human being? You can find people who will do that for free, so why the hell would you pay for it?
No, it was better to let things continue on the same way they had been. And they did...for a little while.
{deep down I know this never works
but you can lay with me so it doesn't hurt}
The clock beside your bed says 3:02 when you hear the TV switching off and Brian moving around in the next room.
You don't pretend to be sleeping when he comes into the bedroom, but you don't acknowledge him either. You lie on your back, eyes focused on the ceiling, and wait.
"Hey," he says a minute or two after lying down. "Can't sleep?"
"Mmm."
"You alright, though?"
You turn onto your side so that you can see his face in profile. "Yeah. Are you?"
"Yeah." He's rubbing the spot on his chest where he still has two smooth bullet scars, probably without consciously realizing what he's doing. You've noticed it several times over the last couple of days and you wonder if it hurts. He never talks about it. You've never asked.
"Is there-"
"Do you think they know?"
"Do I...what?"
He shifts so that he's looking at you, the light from the hallway illuminating his face. "The families of the people on that missing plane. Do you think they know that they're not coming back?"
You're momentarily thrown by his question. Not because of the sheer randomness of it (you never have any idea what the hell goes through his head), but because it seems like such a sudden and radical shift of opinion when he's been insisting for months that the passengers had been spirited away to some mysterious location and were anxiously awaiting rescue. So what changed?
"Well, I'm..." You feel like a parent who's just been asked if Santa really exists, wanting to be honest and yet dreading that little bit of innocence lost, so you settle for asking "What do you think?"
His brows crinkle as he squints at you, silently processing. But then, instead of giving you any of the answers you were expecting, he leans in and kisses you. It's soft at first, so soft you weren't even sure if it was real. It wasn't until you felt a warm puff of breath on your lower lip that you were certain, and then your mouth opens and he puts one hand on your shoulder to draw you in closer.
There's a warmth in the air around you that you haven't felt in weeks. It's like the sun beaming down on you in the middle of a dark late-winter night and you're basking in the glow, soaking it in hungrily.
You don't even remember the last time that this had happened, you realize as you shift onto your back and pull him halfway on top of you, one of his legs resting in between yours. And not just this, but anything more affectionate than a bland peck on the lips in passing. So while part of you wonders 'why now?', you quickly decide that it's not important.
Not when you're finally connecting over something, anything, without even having to say a word. He had said it felt like you were out of sync, and you have to admit he was right. You were two people orbiting around each other like separate planets, occasionally coming within reach of one another but still not straying from your appointed path in order to actually make contact.
But this is soothingly familiar, the way his tongue slides against your teeth and the smell of his shampoo and the way your syncopated breaths sound in an otherwise silent room. Your palm is pressed against his back and you can feel the rise and fall of his chest underneath your hand, and it reminds you of when you used to watch him sleep and reassure yourself with every exhale that he was really alive, that you didn't lose him in the back of an ambulance or a hospital OR.
You wonder if maybe you were wrong. Maybe there really is a way back to that place- a reset button on your relationship, so to speak. Some way to rewind to a time when it felt like things were getting less complicated rather than more so. Because being together like this, it makes it easy to pretend you're back there again. And even more than that, it makes you think that there might be a future for the two of you together after all.
You decide to take charge, rolling him over until you're now the one straddling him. He's running his hands up and down your sides, gradually pushing your t-shirt up higher and higher, and you start grinding your hips against his.
It's all perfect, until it's not.
"Wait, wait," he says, sitting up abruptly and almost causing you to topple over in the process. "No, I'm- we shouldn't do this."
"What? Why not? You were the one who started..."
"I know, I did, but...no. I was wrong." He puts both hands behind his head, shaking it like he's trying to rid himself of some unpleasant thought that's grabbed onto the scruff of his neck and is refusing to let go. "It's late, we're tired, let's go to bed and we'll talk tomorrow."
"Talk about what?" you ask before he can turn away and feign sleep.
"I...nothing. Goodnight."
"Brian! What the hell is your problem? You come in here, start rambling about that goddamn plane again when you...it's gone, okay, it crashed and no one's ever going to find it so just stop obsessing," you say, your thoughts of not wanting to hurt him with the truth long forgotten.
Even in the dark, you can see the outrage on his face. "You don't know that! What, you think you're some kind of fucking psychic?"
"Yes. I do know," you hiss, grabbing his wrist as you muscle your way onto his lap so that you've got him effectively trapped. If he thinks you're going to give up and leave him alone now, he's dumber than you thought he was.
"What the fuck are you doing?" You hold onto his other hand so that both of them are pinned in between your bodies, kissing him like you never stopped. "Liv. Knock it off."
"You wanted it." He keeps trying to turn his head away from you, and the more he does, the more pissed off and the more determined you get. It's not that you're that desperate for sex, even if it's been longer than you can quantify without doing some careful math. Weeks, maybe, but it doesn't matter. Your frustration with being held back, with failing to move forward, with reliving the same nightmares and the same arguments and the same rejections again and again, it's all coming to a head and you'll be goddamned if you're going to just give in. You've had enough of leaving and being left and tonight you're not doing either. "Don't come in here to try to fuck me and then push me away like one of your whores."
You didn't need to see his face this time to know you had gone too far. It was a subject you had never brought up again after that day you left the courthouse, hand in hand, upon learning all the charges against him had been dismissed. Before that, you had only talked about it once during your long conversations while he was recovering. He promised you that he never paid anyone for sex- to him, they were simply friends with benefits. If it was anyone else, the lack of insight about the power differential between him and these girls would've disturbed you. But this was Brian, with his naive optimism that he could somehow rescue them all by befriending them and convincing them that they deserved better. He genuinely cared. In the case of Carissa, he maybe even loved her, and so you had decided that this was one area you just couldn't touch. Hint at under your breath or in veiled remarks, maybe, but not like this. Not until now.
"What the hell did you say?" he asks, naivete showing through again. He's giving you another chance to take it back so he can pretend that he never heard it, as if denial will once again make everything all better.
You can't fucking stand it.
"I said, I'm not one of your whores." You reach for the back of his head with your fingernails digging into his newly shaved scalp, crushing your mouths together again despite his muffled protests. He tastes like shitty beer and that just makes you angrier, that he's been sitting awake and self-medicating all these nights while you (the one with the supposed drinking problem!) have been suffering alone in sobriety.
It feels like time stops for a long moment after the words leave your mouth, like you can count the heartbeats between when he hears your voice and when the message resonates somewhere in his mind. He pushes you away abruptly, tugging on your hair by accident as he flips you over onto your back, and when he doesn't let up it triggers something delicious and awful inside you. "Fuck. You. Olivia."
This time he doesn't hesitate when you pull his head down again. He returns the kiss with just as much ferocity as you, if not more, and by the time you taste copper you're not even sure who bit whom. He's still got one hand pinning you down by your hair, the other fumbling sloppily with the waistband of your leggings while you cackle silently.
You're initially pleased, but it quickly turns to annoyance at his clumsy attempts. "Goddamnit, Brian, if you're going to act like I'm one of your whores, you could at least fuck me like it."
"Wha-"
You stop kissing him long enough to whisper something into his ear.
"You- hey. Hold on, woah." He pulls back again, wiping at his mouth furiously with his palm. "What did you just say?"
"Are you fucking deaf tonight? I said-"
"I heard it, okay, and no. I'm not doing...no."
"And why the hell not?" you ask, sitting up and leaning forward until he's forced to look you in the eye. He tries to turn away but he's got nowhere to go in between you and the headboard.
"What? Because I don't want to. I'm not gonna..."
"Not gonna...for Christ's sake, you can't tell me you've never done it before. Not if you've fucked-"
"Olivia."
"Should I also remind you that we've-"
"Olivia!"
"What?" you shout, the two of you nearly nose to nose.
He groans, head hitting the wall behind him. "I can't do this."
"You said that before!"
"No! What I mean is...I'm not gonna keep doing this where we fuck but we don't talk, you don't tell me a goddamn thing except that you're fine but then you want me to slap you around while I do you up the ass and...no!" he repeats, head whipping to the side abruptly like he's miming an argument with himself. "It's not that you really want to be with me, it's not even really about the sex at all! It's that you're obviously not fine, even though you're never gonna admit it, and you've got a lotta shit to work through that I just. I can't help you with it. At least, not in the way you want me to. Not in any way you're going to let me."
And there it was.
{memories back when she was bold and strong
and waiting for the world to come along
swears she knew him now she swears he's gone}
"We didn't start the fire, hmm-hmm-hmm hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm hmm, we didn't start the fire..."
You interrupt Brian on about the twelfth repetition of that line. "Is that the only part of the song you know?"
"Uh, yeah," he says from where he's sitting on the floor, shrugging and going back to playing with the cat.
It had been days since his outburst, and he hadn't said much of anything since. Not that he had been particularly conversant before. In fact, you think it might have been the most you'd heard him say all at once for weeks (unless you count cooing at Peanuts or pontificating about that stupid plane). Even he himself had looked startled, like an outside invader had temporarily taken over his vocal cords.
"O...livia. Liv. I'm sorry. Liv," he stuttered.
He seemed genuinely afraid of your reaction, which you suppose was logical considering how many times you'd blown up at him for much less. But you were too stunned to say anything, so you simply readjusted your pajamas and mouthed 'goodnight' before curling up with your back to him and closing your eyes.
You expected that he'd get up and go sit in front of the TV, that you'd hear the sound of him leaving the room and then bottles clinking together in the refrigerator. But instead, you heard...nothing. Not even the sound of him sighing or coughing or moving around in bed. Just absolute silence, as if his own words had left him frozen.
You're not sure how long it lasted, because you fell asleep soon afterward. And not a restless, tortured sleep where you replayed his words over and over in an increasingly twisted fashion until you awoke in a panic. You slept soundly, without dreaming, and in the morning you felt oddly at peace. It was a calm that you hadn't experienced, ironically enough, since the last time you woke up to blood on your sheets and bruises on your wrists.
You feel like you have nowhere to go, and yet you haven't felt so free in months. When your therapist said that you had some choices to make, the indecision paralysis that's been plaguing you came back with a vengeance, leaving you wrestling with the same questions you've been asking yourself all winter. Wondering if your relationship was salvageable, if there was a way to erase all the damage done in the past, if there was even anything left worth rescuing.
But now you know. In his mind, you're broken. He thinks he could still save you, if only you would 'let' him, but you know that's not how it works. You're too far gone for him to fix even if you were willing to let him in. And you're definitely not, now that he's let slip what he actually thinks of you.
It hurts. You know that maybe you deserve it, that you are the reason things have gotten to this point, but that doesn't mean you have to like it. The old you would've gotten furious, lashed out at him and then taken it out on yourself. At some point, maybe you still will. For now, though, you're going to keep the bottles and the self-torture devices tucked away and do what you should've done a long time ago. Leave. Because it's not going to get any better this way, not as long as you have to relive all this guilt and shame every time you look at him.
You've never been good at dealing with your emotions. So now it's time to do what you know best and run.
Peanuts abruptly stops playing with the feather toy that Brian was dangling above her head, walking away briskly as if she's realized she's late for some prior engagement. Brian puts the toy on the arm of the couch and looks up at you. "Liv. Uh."
"Mmm?"
"I've been thinking about...damnit. This is hard," he says, tilting his head from side to side in discomfort. When you don't reply, he sighs quietly like he wishes you would fill in the blanks for him. "But I think I- you should know that..."
"Brian?" you ask when you can't take watching him fidget and hum any longer.
"I want to...but I dunno how to say it..."
"Say what?" You're trying to hide your nerves, but your mind is already racing miles ahead. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. You were supposed to be the one who ended things, not the other way around, and now you've misjudged the situation and waited too long. You're going to be the one who gets left behind; the one thing you swore you weren't going to be. Fuck.
His tight expression suddenly relaxes, and you think you can hear him breathe a tiny sigh of relief- or maybe just resignation. "So you know how in the song it says 'we didn't start the fire'? I mean, who's 'we'? And if 'we' didn't start it...then who did? Who started the fire, Liv?"
"I...don't know."
You can't wait any longer. It's time.
It's just, I guess we're both kinda stuck, aren't we?
Yeah. What happened?
Well, you know, Brian, I've been thinking about it. You know, you and me, we found each other at the darkest, lowest point of our lives, right? You got shot, demoted. I got hurt. And you got me through that.
Well, we've always been there for each other, Liv.
You know, maybe that's what it was supposed to be. Maybe there's something even more right for each of us, you know? I still think about a bout having a family. Do you ever think about having kids with me, or growing old with me?
I just don't see myself growing old.
I know you don't. I know.
{this ain't love, it's clear to see
but darling stay with me}
You stay arm-in-arm as you walk down the street, silent except for the warm puffs of breath that escape your mouths and dissolve into the air above your heads.
"Liv?" He stops walking abruptly and turns to face you, leaning against the brick wall of a darkened storefront.
"Yeah?" you ask, fingers still curled around his. "Wha-"
He puts his hand on your shoulder and pulls you in with a surprising urgency, mouths and teeth and tongues colliding in a frenzy of activity. It wasn't coming from a place of anger, or a place of feeling like he had something to prove. It felt like goodbye. Like both of you were trying to take it all in, give it everything you had, because there weren't going to be any more chances after this.
When he finally, reluctantly, pulls away, you hear him say your name. You expect it to be followed by him telling you that it's over, that maybe he should find someone who's more right for him- but hey, at least we gave it a try, yeah?
Instead he says it again, with his forehead touching yours and his gloved hands on your cheeks.
"I love you."
He brushes a tear off of your face with his felt-covered thumb.
You don't answer.
{these nights never seem to go to plan}
It's unusually quiet inside the restaurant, almost like everyone around you has put on their hushed funeral voices out of respect for your dying relationship.
You sit where you always sit and both of you order what you always order. The only deviation from script comes when you ask for an iced tea after Brian orders a beer.
"Y'know what, never mind. I'll have the same as her."
"Bri, you can have whatever, it doesn't matter-"
"Nonono," he insists, turning toward the waiter and pointing a finger toward him with a cluck of the tongue. "You got that?"
The waiter walks away without comment, wholly unimpressed with whatever's going on between the two of you.
"Hey, so," Brian says after several minutes of silence. "About the apartment, I think you should keep it. If it's too expensive-"
"Brian. Who said anything about someone moving out?"
"Well...I don't know. I guess I just figured, if we're breaking up... "
"We don't need to talk about this right now." You're surprised by your reaction, seeing as how you were intending to end the relationship, and yet hearing those words brings back that same hollow feeling you had when he said if it weren't for...you know...things would have been different. You shouldn't feel this way. This was what you wanted. "Let's just enjoy our dinner and we'll figure things out later, okay?"
The waiter sets your drinks down on the table and Brian immediately reaches for his, downing half the glass in one gulp. Bet now he's really regretting that iced tea. "Whatever, alright."
"So how was work today?" you ask in a pleasant voice.
"Oh. Good. It was...good, I guess. You?"
"Same. Good."
"Mmm."
You both stop trying and don't look up from your phones until your food comes.
{she loves him
she don't want to leave this way}
"Liv?"
"Yeah?" you ask, curled up on your side facing away from him. Upon returning home from your mostly silent dinner, you both wordlessly got ready for bed even though it wasn't even ten o'clock yet.
"I know you said we don't need to...but I guess I wanna know...what are we doing now?"
"Going to sleep." You're not trying to be witty.
"Liv."
"Brian, you're leaving in a few hours, this really isn't the time for-"
"You started it," he snarls, inhaling and exhaling loudly before going back to his previous defeated tone. "I just need to know what you want. That's all."
You don't answer, and he doesn't ask again.
{she feeds him
that's why she'll be back again}
"Why don't we just...put things on pause."
"Yeah?" Brian says, a bit too quickly.
"Mmhmm. While you're gone, we'll just...you'll think about things, and I'll think about things, and then you'll come back and we'll figure out what we've both been thinking about."
"Does that..."
"I'm not going to see other people," you say, as if he even believes you. "That's not what I'm talking about."
"Me neither. I mean, seeing other people. I'm not. And I'm not going to. While I'm gone."
"Okay." You believe him.
"People always say that, y'know. That they're taking some time apart, or whatever, but they're not breaking up, and...do you think any of them ever get back together? Or is it just something they do because they're scared to say it's over?"
"Brian, I don't-"
"I didn't mean us. Just people. In general."
You think about what Barba said to you about Brian. He's convinced himself that if he does everything right, that if he's good enough and loves you enough, he can somehow fix you. But what he doesn't realize is that it's never going to be enough.
Finally you say it. "I don't think they do."
You expect him to ask what you mean by that. He never does.
{if you're gonna get your heart broke, you gotta do it just right
it's gotta be raining and you've gotta move your stuff that night
and the only friend you can reach isn't a good friend at all
and you know when he says 'now who dumped who?'
that you never should've made that call}
"And so, that's basically where we are now," you said to Elliot as you finished giving him an edited version of the conversation you'd had with Brian earlier that night.
Elliot leans back in the burnt orange diner booth, hands tucked behind his head as he squints at you. "I am...so confused."
"About what?"
"I...you...everything! Did you actually break up with him? Where is he now?"
"Right now? He should be leaving soon. I know I shouldn't have but...I just needed to get out. I didn't want to have to say goodbye to him for however long," you admit, elbows propped up on the table as your hands run through your hair.
"Are you gonna have his shit packed when he comes back?"
"No! Were you listening to anything I said?"
"I listened to it all! But I still can't figure out if you broke up or if you even wanted to break up with him." Elliot scratches his head like he's trying to crack a particularly complicated case. "Because you told him that maybe you're not right for each other, but then you asked him if he wanted to have a baby with you."
"Yeah, but-"
"And it seems like you were disappointed when he didn't say yes! I mean, what was the poor guy supposed to do?"
"'Poor guy'?" Your eyebrows shoot up somewhere past your hairline. "What, you're defending him now?"
"Whoa, of course I'm not. Believe me, I'm not gonna shed any tears for dumbass if you kick him to the curb. Which I don't think you did. Right?"
"No. We're...reevaluating things while he's gone."
He nods. "I'm gonna give you some unsolicited advice. Don't have a baby while you're reevaluating. Better yet, don't even have unprotected sex until everything is...evaluated. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."
"We're...no. Not happening," you assure him, unwilling to go into detail and tell him that you haven't had sex since before your last period.
"Good. Because I love Eli, I can't imagine my life without him, but sometimes I wonder what would've happened if- anyway. Back to talking about you," he says quickly, smirking. "So just answer me this, do you want him gone or not?"
When he puts the question to you like that, it makes you feel even more mixed up than you do already, because what you genuinely want is for Brian to fight you on this. Telling you that he loves you and offering to let you keep the apartment is gracious of him, but you don't want gracious. You want him to start shouting, to beg you not to do this because he needs you. To say that he was lying and you aren't broken, that the past is already forgotten and all he wants is a future with the two of you together.
But he's not going to do that, because he doesn't feel that way about you.
He loves you, just not enough.
Elliot notices your bottom lip trembling before you do and his demeanor instantly softens, grabbing a couple of napkins from the dispenser and passing them across the table. "Hey...I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to upset you. All I want is for you to know what you want."
You give him a tiny nod. "It's okay."
"It's not." He reaches halfway across the table, palm facing upward, and waits to see if you'll take his hand. When you do, he frowns at you sympathetically. "I thought everything was...why didn't you tell me you guys were having problems?"
"I thought it was obvious," you say dryly.
"But, I mean...these last couple weeks, it seems like you've been in a good mood. Like things were getting better for you." You shrug, because you can't really say whether he's right or not. "You could've talked to me, I know I'm not exactly his biggest fan, but I wouldn't have said 'told you so'."
He's actually right about that. If you told him the entire story, no holds barred, he wouldn't waste time with talking and would just go directly to Brian to beat the living shit out of him. That's why he got the heavily edited version. "El, it's not that. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time, and I didn't tell you until now because I needed to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asks, tracing over your hand with his fingers.
"That I didn't want you to think...this doesn't mean I expect anything from you." He rubs his chin as you continue cautiously. "I need to be on my own for a while. Figure things out for myself instead of...I know this sounds terrible, but I'm so tired of having to think about how I'm affecting someone else."
"It's not terrible. You've had him around since you...ah, for a long time, and it's understandable that you need that space. It's been a hell of a couple years for both of you."
"It has. But...so we're okay, you and me?"
"Course we are. You know I'm on your side. I just want you to be sure of how you feel and what it is you want."
You dab at your eyes with a napkin. "Yeah. I don't think I'm there yet."
"But you've got time, right? How long's Brian going to be gone?"
"At least six weeks, if not longer."
"See, there you go. You don't have to make any decisions right now. Take some time for yourself, whatever you need, and I think everything will fall into place," he says. "And I know that I'm, uh, biased...but if you ever wanna talk, I promise I'll do my best to just listen and stay neutral. Well. I'll try, at least."
"You've never been that good at staying neutral, El."
"I said I'd try, didn't I? Can't make any promises." He gives your hand a squeeze. "Are you going to be okay being at home by yourself?"
"Yeah, I'll probably have Nick over. He doesn't like staying at his house alone when Zara's not there, and I think he and Amanda are on the rocks so..." You could tell that Nick's been fishing for a sleepover invite for some time now, but you didn't want to explain to him that Brian had taken over his old spot on the couch (and sharing a bed with your subordinate once was more than enough). "It'll just be Olivia Benson's Home for the Single and Traumatized now."
"Oh right, Nick. That's...if you ever need me, though, I'll be there."
"I know. Thank you." Realizing you've been holding onto his hand for a while, you carefully pull back, not wanting to make things weird. "For now, can we just...stay here for a bit? I don't really want to be by myself tonight."
He beams at you, signaling to the waitress for a refill on your coffees. "Course, Liv."
{she said 'I've got this suitcase and I don't know what to pack'
and I said you can take anything you want, just wait and see}