la dee da- spring has sprung! I'm in a particularly nice mood, so I figured I'd make some progress on my favorite little fiction. (takes break to dance happily around room and sing very loudly) anyhow, interesting thing happened today, something that most of you probably don't care about but what makes me very happy…
Me: (all charming like) Mattie-dear, may I please have a candy bar? I don't have any money, but you are my favorite person ever.
Matt: sure. (because he can't deny my charmingness and my sexiness and besides, he is my candy boy and my horn whore)
Alex: I have bird flu. No guys, I really think I have bird flu.
All: (rolling eyes)
Kate: so hold up. Matt is waiting on me hand and foot and Alex has the bird flu. this is the greatest day ever!
so it is the greatest day ever. that probably is completely meaningless to you, but it isn't to me. it kicks ass, that's what it does! la dee dee da! (dances about again and rocks her body right)
the only thing not making it the greatest day ever is that we have these guys at our house installing a few new trees, and it is bugging the hell out of me. I am home alone right now, and it is only slightly creepy to try to use the bathroom and look out the window and see these twenty-something high school dropouts swinging around in your trees. waving, actually. and you flip out and close all the windows and blinds and wonder why the hell your parents would leave you to fend for yourself against these monkey-men. ach, where's Dorothy when you need her? or Toto at least…
this makes me think…do you know how many documents are in my Microsoft Word that have the title: 'la dee da' or something of the sort? well, A LOT.
anywhoo, here' some more intrigue. lovely lovely intrigue, it just makes my day. now I get to share some with you. and yes, I really do know EXACTLY how everything fits together. REALLY.
FELICITATIONS MY FIC-READING FLIST!
…
The address was in Brooklyn Heights, and was not the dive Elliot had expected at all. Instead he was standing outside a sparkling new apartment building, staring up the twenty one floors as the rain began to fall in a gentle curtain across his face. And as though the curtain was being parted, she held a hand above his eyes, and shielded him from the cold.
He turned to her, seeing something like love in her eyes, but also something like fear. She wiped his brow with her fingertips, releasing into his gaze a new and promising smile.
The doorman let them in, seeing the badges and only raising his eyebrows a bit before stepping by. They filed past into a high-ceilinged lobby, with décor that was as rich and modern as they were sure the inhabitants were. She rested a finger against the elevator button, giving him a small and secret smile before the door opened and they stepped inside.
"I wouldn't say they left Katrina with nothing," She said quietly, standing beside him as the car rose nineteen floors. "I think I'd have to wait about fifteen years before my paycheck could afford anything like this."
"Vassar drop-out with no job and no income- yeah, I'd say her parents helped out a bit." He gave her a quick glance, his eyes laughing. She smiled more, but hid the expression as the door began to open.
"Good thing we called ahead of time." She whispered, knocking lightly on the door.
He nodded, staring at her as she turned in place, watching the hair falling into her eyes and the long fingered hand that pulled it back behind her ear. Her eyes were dark and apprehensive, but it only made her all the stronger.
When the door opened, they encountered even more surprises.
The apartment was not as large as he'd expected, but it was wide enough for one to think they were stepping into a great deal of money. The door opened directly onto a large room with a glass table and extensive fireplace, sunlight falling across the floor and making rainbows on the carpet beneath the table's surface. What was curious about the room itself was the choice of décor, because he felt himself watched by a hundred pairs of saintly eyes as he followed his partner inside, staring at the wide-eyed Madonnas and tear-stained faces of monks, their lips painted bright red upon their porcelain faces, making them look as though they had died a cold and well-known death before being preserved in their miniature states.
"Jesus…" Olivia whispered as she stared at all of them, lining the walls and sitting placidly on the tabletop.
"I don't have any of him, actually." A voice sounded from behind them, and they turned to find themselves staring into the half-familiar face of Katrina Bates, dark hair tied behind an angular face. The same sad eyes her brother had possessed protruded from similar cheekbones, her nose small and delicate as the ones on the figurines scattered about the room. "I inherited them from my Great Aunt, the whole lot of them. That's how it always goes, you know: my sisters get her villa in Buenos Aires and the house in the Keys, my brother gets the woman's fortune, and I get her collection of saint statues. That's how it's always been- don't leave anything to Katrina, or she'll waste it away. But I guess you can't get rid of a large number of porcelain saints in a wasteful fashion, right? Oh, I suppose I could sell them, but I don't know…" Her fingers brushed the face of the nearest one in an almost adoring gesture. "I'm growing rather fond of them, actually. Jonathan's always liked them anyhow."
She dropped into the chair behind her, gesturing for Olivia and Elliot to follow suit. "He's dead then, isn't he?"
Olivia leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "No one's told you?"
"Why would they? I don't belong to the Bates family anymore. I'm the lost soul, the black sheep. They were probably chomping at the bit for years to sign me away, to dump me on someone else's list of problems." She let out a small sigh, reaching for the half-empty wine glass that was hidden among the saints covering her table. She took a long drink, breathing slowly when she finally put it down. "Everyone hated me, but my sisters hated Jonathan. I was the object of their spite most of the time, but occasionally he'd be the one they'd blame, just because he was the perfect child. Daddy wanted a boy first, and he got my sisters, two years apart. I'm sorry for it, really; they're bitches, the two of them. Always have been, always will be. Daddy couldn't wait to marry them off to some yacht club bastards ready for a pair of trophy wives. But Jonathan was the right kid. Daddy loved him best, and he never tried to hide it."
Olivia coughed at this point, and Katrina looked up. "Do you want something to drink?"
"Just a water, thanks."
"All I have is alcohol."
"No tap water?"
"Oh…" Katrina blinked, staring at Olivia strangely. A lone tear rolled down her cheek suddenly, and she didn't bother to brush it away as it rested above her lip, a perfect pearl on the corner of her thin mouth. "You're right. I…forgot."
When the water was retrieved, Katrina sat back down, blinking as though dazed again. "You have to understand my family. Mom didn't love any of us, which is probably why she is still on a vacation to Greece she took in 1996. Daddy loved Jonathan, and no one else, and that's why the only person he ever talked to was Jonathan. My sisters loved themselves. Jonathan loved me, even though he shouldn't have. And I loved…well, I loved whoever didn't kick me in the ass and tell me I was shit." She took a deep breath. "I'm a suspect, aren't I? Dodgy person like me, I'm sure daddy told you I put a bullet through my brother's brain and sent you over here. Well, judge all you like. Arrest me, why don't you? But Jonathan was the only one who ever showed me any affection, and I'm not going to blow his head off for that. I'm a Bates whether I like it or not, and we pay our debts…and I still owe him big. He's the one that paid for this apartment. Couldn't have his sister living in a pisspot in Harlem; had to buy me some new penthouse with all the trimmings. That's what Jonathan was like: he did things without you asking, things you wanted but you could never ask for. He'd just do them, and he didn't care if you paid him back or not. He just liked the giving part."
She took a cigarette from her pocket and began to light it. Halfway through her first puff it dropped from her lips and fell onto her lap, where it left a dark stain on her thigh. She ignored it, even when it seemed to burn her skin.
"Katrina…" Olivia leaned over, pulling the sheet of paper from her pocket. "Do you know what this means?" Katrina took the paper with careful fingers, still not removing the cigarette from where it smoked and flared against her pants. "Your brother's roommate said he wrote these words down during phone calls with you."
Katrina's eyes hardly reacted to the paper, but something did spark in her expression, as though the cigarette in her lap was now burning dimly in the depths of her pupils. "He loved it." She smiled slowly, as though her face were thawing. "He always loved it."
"Loved what?"
"Our game. We played it when we were little, and I always wondered if he…" She bit her lip, trying not to cry. But the tear was already rolling down her cheek, splashing against the yellow page in her hands. Her grief was colliding with the last piece of him she had. She looked up at Olivia and Elliot. "You don't understand me…"
"I'm afraid not."
"He was schizophrenic, did you know? No, I suppose you wouldn't; daddy spent years erasing it from the records. In school, in college, work, everything. But Bates money silences everything you know, so it wasn't too much trouble. No one was supposed to know about Jonathan. He was getting the best treatment, and it really seemed to be working. But sometimes I wondered if it still haunted him…especially the people he talked about."
Elliot frowned. Something wasn't right. "Why did your father erase the records?"
Katrina gave him a small smile. "Jonathan is a Bates. He's the heir to Daddy's fortune, to our family company, to everything. Jonathan was the head of his class all through school, and doing better than anyone else in my family at college. But people hear schizophrenia and they think insane homeless people, not world corporation leader. I think sometimes Daddy thought that by erasing the records he could erase the disease too, but…" She paused, laughing uncomfortably. "I hated Jonathan when I was younger, you know that? I hated him because he could escape. He could always escape with his other friends and I just had to sit there and take whatever shit life threw at me. I remember this time when my mother was leaving for London, and Daddy was screaming at her, telling her not to go. Valerie took Jonathan and me upstairs to listen, just because she was a little bitch like that. She locked us in our parents' closet, then ran away giggling to herself. And I had to sit there and hear my father call my mother a 'lying fucking whore' for two hours. But not Jonathan. Jonathan didn't hear because Roger was covering his eyes and singing him a song."
"So Roger was one of his hallucinations?"
"One of many. Roger went away when he was about seven or eight; he was depressed for a week, but then this boy named Benjamin came. Tall, soccer or football player, something like that. He said Benjamin could drive a car, and he had a girlfriend. The doctor said Jonathan was imagining an older brother figure for himself. I don't know. Sometimes there'd be other ones: tall blonde women that looked like our mother, or this man who played chess. Jonathan played chess for hours with Andre. But they went away eventually, with the medications and all. When the medications didn't work, we'd play this game. I was little then, probably about nine or ten. I'd read a story out loud, and then Benjamin would tell him his favorite word from every sentence. He was right every time, too. One word from every single sentence in a 100 page story. We did it in conversations later; Jonathan thought it was the greatest thing. It must be that he was writing down one word from all my sentences in the phone conversations as well. So I guess…" She looked at the paper, smiling again. "I guess Benjamin was still there."
"This is all very helpful, Katrina." Olivia gave her a warm smile. "Thank you."
"I think…I think I want to stop now. I can do that, right? I can stop?"
"Whenever you need to." Olivia handed her the familiar business card, indicating the number on it. "Call us when you're ready again."
"I will." Katrina smiled softly at the Madonna figure directly across from her. "I'm an atheist, you know." She said quietly, turning to Olivia. "I'm not crazy; I don't worship these things or anything. It's just…I grew up without anyone. Jonathan always had someone. Everyone always had someone else. And now I still…" A stray finger rested on a saintly head, and she traced a circle around a faded halo. "I'm not so lonely with them around, actually."
"I know." Olivia whispered, nodding before walking out the door. Elliot followed behind, resting a hand on her arm, hoping she could pull him out of the darkness he felt around them. A hundred pairs of eyes watched them go, and then turned back to the woman now weeping in her chair, face clouded by a thousand memories and two bottles of chardonnay.
…
She was in a church. She didn't know why, since her lack of religious obligations kept her away from those sorts of places, but that's where she was.
Her eyes rose to follow the ceiling arching high above her, and then followed a marble floor down the church's length. It was empty, and cold, and silent.
It was frightening, really.
She stepped down the row of pews before her, waiting for something. Someone. Anyone. She paused when she saw the red pool on the floor. Wine. She thought, oddly enough. A chalice lay beside the pool, casting a silver glare in her eyes from the chandelier lights reflected upon it.
But when her finger dipped into the pool and met her tongue, it was not a sweet but a metallic sensation hat entered her mouth. She spat, realizing she had tasted blood.
And then she found the source. For trickling down her forehead and dripping off of either side of her face was a steady stream of blood. She caught the chalice in trembling fingers and met her reflection in its center. There was a hole in her forehead, dark and sinister and pouring out her life's blood.
She would have fainted, yet something kept her conscious. Perhaps it was the blood now dripping down her thighs. But this was not the musty month's blood. This was blood from a deeper source, from a womb she had yet to tap, a pain she had yet to feel. And then it struck her in a great wave of horror. She doubled over, fighting for the breath to scream. For it was as though she were being raped from within.
…
Olivia shot upright in bed, clutching the sheets to her naked form, touching trembling fingers to a brow now permeated with sweat. The darkness of the room met her with stagnant defiance, a stubborn reminder of her surroundings. It was night. She had been asleep. It was only a dream.
A hand stroked her shoulder, another going to her bed. "Liv!" Elliot ran a finger across her face, cool and calming. "Liv? Are you alright?" He was sitting upright as well, pulling her closer as the sobs overtook her body, as the tears began to roll down her face.
"Ssh," He whispered, rocking her back and forth as he would a child. She felt so safe in his arms, so warm and soft and full of life…yet she was still cold. She held her hand to her forehead, half relieved to fell it whole. Half-frightened by the memory that still lingered in the touch of her own hands. "It was just a dream, Liv. Just a dream." His words were so warm, so perfect in the night air that fled before them.
She was so glad he was here.
She'd almost sent him away when she'd seen the men parked outside her apartment building, giving her a small nod as she'd entered, Elliot not following far behind.
"El…you can't stay. Cragen has men everywhere."
"They're not inside your apartment, are they?"
"Well, no, but you know how he is…"
"Liv…" He touched a finger to her lips as they entered the elevator. "I told Cragen I'd spend the night with you, to make sure you were safe. And he was okay with it."
"He didn't flip out or anything?"
"No." Elliot smiled one of those I-know-something-vaguely-mysterious smiles.
God, she would die a thousand deaths for the secret of that smile.
"You know, I don't think Cragen knowing about all this would be a horrible thing." He said quietly, eyeing her carefully, studying her reaction. "He knew about you and Cassidy and he didn't have a problem."
"What?" She spun around, eyes widening. "He knew about that?"
"Yeah. He was the one who came up to me and asked what I thought about it."
"What?" She grabbed his collar, pulling him closer. "And you were going to tell me all of this when?"
"Liv, calm down." He took a deep breath, but she still saw the amusement in his eyes. The bastard was enjoying this, damn him. "Cragen asked me if I thought anything was going to come of you two, that's all. He figured I had a pretty good handle on what was going on, and I told him what I knew."
She couldn't help but glare at him. "Which was?"
"That it wasn't going to go anywhere."
She paused, her eyes taking in this rare expression on his brilliant face, glowing softly in the dim lights of the elevator.
"Why did you say that?"
"Because it was true. Everybody gets drunk and has something with their partner. Everybody."
"What about your old partner, El? Any wasted flings?" She grinned mischievously, her mouth spreading open in such a way that it made her heart flutter.
Elliot rolled his eyes. "We were both guys, Liv."
She continued to smile. "Hey, I've seen Brokeback Mountain. I know what happens out on the range."
He shook his head, smiling as he wrapped his hand beneath her arm. "Well, that's good for the cops in Montana, but the rest of us don't swing both ways on the force."
They left the elevator, taking slow and heavy steps to her door. Neither wanted to leave the conversation behind, and neither wanted to begin something new and more exciting.
At least in the verbal category.
A second round of sex had been amazing, but it had been desperate, too. She had clung to him in such a way that she swore their bodies had become an absolute one, one heart beating for two.
One soul flying forth with one set of broken wings.
She was afraid to let him go now, as he caressed her back into bed, telling her it was alright, relieving her of her tensions. Elliot Stabler was suddenly just a distant shadow now, her heart still bent as it twisted and tore through the faded memory of a dream. She couldn't leave it. Not yet.
"Liv…I've got you." She fell back into his arms, her bare back hitting the skin of his chest. His hands came to rest before her breasts, one finger grazing the dark nipple as it floated to her side.
"Is it wrong, Elliot?" She whispered it to the night.
"What?" He groaned, rolling over a bit, his hands remaining in front of her.
"Is this…" She was indicating whatever it was this was; the sex, the hands, the hearts, everything. "Is this wrong?"
He didn't reply immediately, but when he did he said it quickly enough to turn back onto his pillow and hide his face from her sight.
"It's complicated."