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Chapter 5

I begin to get nervous under all the grinning stares, so I turn to Liv and whisper in her ear, " Can you get them to stop staring at us?! Not that I'm not interested in what being some caged animal in a zoo feels like but..." I trail off. Olivia smiles affectionately at me, and my stomach flutters.

It must be something I ate. I muse. Wait...they didn't serve food yet. Darn it! I can't even make up a good excuse to convince myself I don't have feelings for her.

"Hey guys, can you stop staring at us? Your making John nervous," Liv says, laughing slightly.

"Sure Liv," begins Stabler, a grin slowly spreading across his face, "Just answer one question. How did you end up going with Munch?"

Hey, what's that supposed to mean?! I struggle to keep my indignant outburst inside my own head.

"Elliot! Be nice," Liv admonishes.

She can make anyone feel like I misbehaving child. I like that about her. As long as she's not using said skill on me, of course.

" And if you must know, " She continues, " I wanted to go with John. Do you think he held me at gunpoint or something?"

I smile happily at her confession, glad she's not hiding the fact she actually wanted to come, and the grin Casey had been trying to suppress for the past five minutes comes back. "Awww!" She coos, as Liv glares playfully at her. I laugh and direct the next question towards Casey. " What about you, how did you get roped into going with Stabler?"

Casey reaches across the table to lightly smack me in the shoulder. " I asked him." She explains. I turn to Liv to see how she took this interesting tidbit of information, and when I see her tilt her head and smile I say mock-demandingly, "Oh no! Not you too, don't you dare say "aww." She rolls her eyes at me, removes my hand from her shoulder, (probably so I can't cover her mouth, ) and says quite loudly, " Awww!"

Why must women always defy me?

Fin laughs at our antics and asks his date to dance. Hand in hand they leave the dinner table and go on the dance floor.

Casey and Olivia look at each other quickly.

Oh, great, now they're conspiring something against me, I think. This time I'm actually half right. They break eye contact and turn to stair hopefully at their respective dates.

"Want to dance?" Asks Olivia.

" Aw come on Liv!" I protest, as Casey attempts to drag Elliot out of his chair. She fails, but Elliot gives up anyway, walking somewhat sulkily behind her to the dance floor. I sigh, and ask in a childish manner, "Do I have to?"

" If you don't come on your own accord I'll drag your "skinny behind", I believe Fin called it, all the way to the dance floor myself." She pauses and then says sweetly, "Munch-kin."

"I'm so going to kill Fin later." I inform her grumpily as I grab her hand and lead her to the dance floor, where a slow song is beginning to play.

"I know," She wraps her arms around me as we begin swaying to the music.

This is nice, I think, as I allow myself to revel in her closeness. She smirks as she continues, " In fact, I might just kill him for you."

I chuckle, and as she spins out of my arms gracefully before rolling back in, I pull her closer and whisper in her ear, " Merry Christmas Liv."

She smiles and whispers right back, "Happy Hanukkah, John."

We both smile, and as we lean in to kiss we hear the captain yell from back at our table,

"Sure guys! Just leave me behind! I don't care!"

Olivia's musical laughter reverberates through my ears and strikes a chord somewhere in my heart, and believe it or not, I laugh right along with her. Our faces still inches apart, we continue right where we left off, molding our lips together. We don't notice the fact that Fin and Cragen look at us in disgust, or that Casey lifts her head off of Elliot's shoulder long enough to grin cheesily at us, because we are both too lost in each other.

Merry Christmas indeed.