Rating: T/M, sexiness scattered throughout

Disclaimer: Not mine – you know who made 'em, owns 'em, treats 'em so bad.

Spoilers: up 'til season 7

Pairing(s): Elliot/Olivia, mentions of Elliot/Kathy (boo).

Summary: Missing scenes & post-ep for "Blast". In the aftermath of his marriage breakdown, Elliot searches for a home.

A/N: The first installment of this story takes place during the episode. The second installment takes place after the episode's completion.

i.

He assumes he's dreaming.

It wouldn't be the first time. It wouldn't even be the hundredth time he's dreamt about her body, her sighs. About his open mouth against her skin. About his palms cupping her breasts. About Olivia's legs opening and enveloping him, about his hips pushing insistently between them.

The dreams have escalated since his marriage breakdown, growing longer, more frequent, more fevered and more vivid. They were always there though, lurking beneath the surface of consciousness. Even in his marriage bed, he often woke to a raging stiffy and a silent, accusatory glare from his wife. Maybe he groaned his partner's name, sighed it in his sleep as he dreamed. He never asked how Kathy knew. But she knew. Afterwards, she'd banish him to the couch for weeks and refuse to have sex with him for longer. Which was fine by him. Elliot loved his kids but he definitely didn't want to have any more of them, especially not while his marriage was in the excruciatingly slow process of disintegrating. Lying sleepless on the family couch, feet dangling off the end and a permanent crick in his neck, he had to wonder whether that was the underlying appeal of having sex with his partner. That it would be sex for sex's sake. Sex that was not about family, duty, fidelity, piety, procreation. Sex with Olivia would be about pleasure. Bone-deep desire. Pure, unadulterated need. Love, even.

Maybe even real love.

His banishment to the couch never stopped the dreams. Kathy's unspoken wrath stemmed them awhile, briefly displacing his erotic visions. But he still had them, couldn't stop them. Whether he was sleeping on the lumpy family couch or on a crib at the stationhouse with a dozen fellow officers. Once, he even had one while dozing in the sedan on stakeout, his partner sitting vigil beside him, barely two feet away. That particular time, he'd imagined just reaching across, placing a hand on her knee, sliding it up to her fleshy thigh, soft beneath the stiff denim. He imagined slipping his fingers down, into the groove between both thighs, into the warmth he'd find there, the warmth that would increase if he ventured further upwards, cupping her cunt through her clothes. In his dreams, Olivia always reacted favorably to his attentions. Instantly – without hesitation or reservation. In this dream, she simply turned her head toward him, let it fall back against the headrest. She let her eyes close, her mouth drop open and her hips lift towards his touch.

In reality, his partner whacked his arm with the back of one hand, telling him he needed to wake up because she needed to go pee. Then she exited the car and jogged down the street to an accommodating bodega. Elliot had shifted in his wrinkled clothes, hauled himself upright, blinked his eyes and pulled in a breath. It was a disappointing comedown. But one he was used to, almost grateful for. The life that had been his reality for over twenty years was crumbling about him. So it made sense that, in the few moments of peace afforded him, fantasy often asserted itself. The woman who had been the focal point of his life since late adolescence had left him. So, again, it made sense that the other woman in his life – the one forever on the margins, the one who'd anchored him, comforted him, protected and formed him – became his new focus. A prominent force in both his conscious and unconscious realities.

At least, that's how he's always rationalized the dreams to himself. Their persistence and frequency. Their intense allure. An allure that made him actually want to reach out and touch his partner. Do something— anything to draw her closer, to feel her body against his. To feel her mouth open to him and her tongue tangle with his own. The dreams have a definite charge, one that increases with every occurrence. They shock his entire system, sending tingles down his spine, through his limbs, over and around the cavity where his broken heart still hopefully beats. He knows he should suppress them, will them away. He knows he should feel shame and guilt, he should repent for his sins after each foray into fantasy. But he doesn't. He doesn't want them to go away, doesn't want them to fade. And while they last, he never, ever wants them to end.

This one is by far is the longest, the realest. He can feel – not just fragments – but every last inch of her. Her smell his so real, so right, so overwhelmingly Olivia. Not just on her skin but everywhere – all around him, in the cool bedroom air, in the bed clothes they inhabit. The weight of them against his back is making his body overheat, his chest and groin sweat. Her sounds are different to how he'd always imagined them – quiet when he imagined they'd be loud and loud when he'd never imagined anything at all. Her hands don't follow the path his imagination dictates either. And never before has he visualized how her hair would look splayed on the pillow. He can't believe he's never considered that. It's gorgeous and sexy as hell. Most incredible of all though is that this dream isn't fading. It's not ending. It just keeps going. Nobody is slapping him awake, eyeballing him like he should be ashamed of himself.

Elliot opens his eyes. Pulls back. And looks at her.

Olivia shifts her head on the pillow, blinks blearily up at him. Reaching out, he touches her hair on the pillow. God, he loves the sight of her like that. That golden hair let loose on the pillow, her face without makeup, her eyes glinting in the darkness. Her hands are both resting on his hips, his hips resting in the cradle of her thighs. Those light, smaller-than-his hands shift, slip up just slightly, under the hem of the undershirt he still wears. Both of them are still clothed. He still wears his undershirt and briefs. Olivia is still dressed in her pajamas, loose plaid pants and a thin, cotton t-shirt through which he can see her peaked nipples. Elliot withdraws, flings off the suffocating covers then lowers himself back to her body. One of her legs curls around his, her naked toes caress his calf. He closes his eyes, drops his head to her chest and just breathes.

"You okay?" she murmurs after a moment. She places a light kiss on his forehead, fingertips drifting down his lowered face. She pauses before adding, voice more tentative, "We…don't have to do…anything, you know. We could just…"

His own heated breath is bouncing off her bare chest and bathing his already flushed cheeks. Hearing her voice like this – so normal, so rational while her body is wrapped around his – is strange, incongruous. She sounds just like his partner, just like Detective Olivia Benson, only with a bedroom tinge to her tone. He lifts his face to look at her, to listen to how she's going to finish her sentence. Because he can't predict that either.

"We can just…do this," she whispers simply. "If that…if you…—"

She shifts beneath him and he can feel her body stiffen with guilt, with doubt. And that's when he knows for certain. This is not a dream. Guilt never had a place in any of his dreams. Nor did complication. Or uncertainty. Or veiled discussions of his failed marriage and how it might affect his sexual competence.

Olivia takes a breath, averts her eyes and starts a new sentence. "If you're not ready—"

He kisses her. He stops her mouth with his, closes his eyes and parts her lips and chases the kind of pure pleasure he hasn't known in decades. He knows this is not a fantasy. But he wants the fantasy, wants sex for the sake of sex. Sex for the sake of love, of pleasure and hunger and desire. He wants Olivia for the sake of Olivia, despite all the perfectly sane and rational reasons he shouldn't. He also wants a moment – just a moment of clarity – to catch up. To retrace exactly how he made it into his partner's bed, how his clandestine dreams suddenly and startlingly became so real.

-x-

He hates working cases alone. Or, at least, he prefers working them with a partner. With his partner. He loves his job – as much as a person can love something so soul-destroying – but he's better at it with Olivia at his side. His instincts are sharper, his reflexes faster, his stamina longer lasting. He did okay with Melinda as his surprise sidekick. It was certainly better to lose the perp than to lose the vic. And the satisfaction he felt when reuniting a little girl with her grateful parents was worth the inner pang he also felt as he watched them all clutch each other close.

That sweet comfort of family was something he no longer had in his life. Not on a daily basis. And not without countless complications attached to it. He missed the comfort, if not the complications. Their weight and angst and stifling entanglement. He missed having a familiar place to go home to, one special person to always return to. Not that Cragen knew this when he told him to go home and get some sleep. Elliot had nodded silently, his back to his boss. He did not divulge that he no longer had a bed of his own, a closet, kitchen, bathroom of his own. After Kathy left, he lived in their family home for several months. Alone. Surrounded by all that space, all that history, all that emptiness. It was more than he could bare, a punishment Kathy knew would ultimately cause his capitulation. He finally agreed to a permanent separation, to speak with his wife's divorce lawyer. When he did, he insisted that Kathy and the kids have the house, that they live there to give the kids some sense of security, of continuity.

His own sense of security went out the window that day – though it had probably been a false sense of security for much longer than he wished to admit. Packing up his belongings, Elliot had told his future ex-wife that he already had a lead on a new place, a small apartment close to the precinct. He'd lied. He'd been living out of his locker ever since, pulling overtime shifts and sleeping in the crib. He crashed at an old Marine Corp buddy's place a few times. But he couldn't stand sleeping on his couch – or rather, not sleeping on his couch while his buddy made out with his girl in the next room. He'd been to see a couple of overpriced rat holes that some dodgy Manhattan realty claimed were habitable. But his job left him with little free time to hunt for a new place in which to start a whole new life, to start building, if possible, a new home for himself.

The word echoes in his head as he steps off the precinct's ancient elevator. Cragen did, after all, order him to go home and the 16th is currently the closest thing he's got to a home. Rounding the corner, he sees his partner walking toward him, exiting the squadroom just as he's heading for it. A feeling of relief instantly washes over him – because there's his walking, talking sense of continuity, right there. His step slows and his lips curve up as they meet in the corridor. And when she speaks, his eyes feel too weary to hide their affectionate glint. She looks beautiful. Angelic, with the overhead lighting making her hair look like a golden halo. It's always during these late-night moments in the silent, still squadroom that he remembers how beautiful his partner is. It's not that she looks any different or has changed at all. It's just him, how he looks at her in those lingering moments. It's probably just him this time too – how he's missed her, how he needs her, what a wreck he is without her – that is altering his perspective on his partner. Olivia stands there in an ordinary coat with dog-eared files hugged to her body, a familiar frown of concern on her face.

He wonders whether this meeting is accidental or of Cragen's devising. He knows his captain sometimes calls Olivia in if he is working a case by himself and needs someone to talk to, confide in, bounce ideas off. Someone to empathize with him or recenter him. He knows this because he's been on the opposite end of such a call. Cragen has also called him in more than once, alerting him to the fact that his partner needs him. On such occasions, he often finds a dishevelled Olivia at her desk, surrounded by dusty boxes of files. Or in an incident room, coffee stained sleeves pushed up as she pins horrific pictures to a timeline. Or he'll find her passed out on the couch upstairs, a folder open on her chest and several more littering the floor about her.

He's not sure this is one of those occasions though. Olivia isn't there to check on him, to discuss the case or bolster his confidence. She's been focused on a court case and, he assumes, is just there to pick up the folders hugged to her chest. She congratulates him on his catch but then moves past him, asking offhandedly if he's going home. Again, the word repeats in his head. Home. One of these days, his boss and partner are going to figure out that he is effectively homeless. For now, for tonight, he just avoids the question. He's not sure how convincing he is, how convincing he wants to be. Because he feels his partner's curious eyes on his back, tracking his movements as he continues on his path. He pushes through the squadroom doors then slops upstairs to the crib. He's barely lain down, only just closed his eyes when he hears her shoes start to rap softly on the stairs. Elliot rubs his eyes, keeps them closed, folds his arms over his chest. He keeps up the pretense of sleep as she enters, as Olivia takes a seat on the end of his bed and, for a moment, says absolutely nothing.

"Thought you were going home."

"I am home," he replies, cracking his eyes and looking up at her.

She sighs, glances around the crib, waits for an ambulance siren to pass by. "El…if you needed a place to stay—"

His shoulders shrug. "I don't."

Olivia ignores the interjection, finishing her sentence in a soft voice instead. "…all you had to do was ask."

"I'm…" he toes off his shoes, kicks them over the edge of the tiny cot, "between places right now. It's temporary—"

"Come on." She taps his leg with her files then gets to her feet. "Let's go."

He turns onto his side on the bed, hugs his pillow with one arm. "Nah, I'm good. I've got…gym, shower, coffee pot. A real short commute—"

"Don't make this harder than it needs to be," she mutters, tucking her folders under one arm and heading for the door. "It's late. Let's go."

Elliot lifts his head, raises his brows dumbly. "…Where?"

Olivia turns on the threshold, fixes his gaze with hers. "Home."

-x-

He likes Olivia's home, he's always found it very homey. It smells nice. Like burnt candles and soft spices. It has comfy cushions and tasselled throws everywhere. Just no food, never any food.

They eat take-out in front of Letterman and Dave makes both of them actually laugh out loud. They don't talk about their respective cases or much of anything else. It's late, there's no time. So as the latest band plays the latest love song, Elliot washes up their dishes while Olivia makes him a bed on her couch. He's grateful, happy to be there. But God, he's getting sick of couches. He's sick of the way their cushions shift and separate, sick of their hard arms and short lengths. Sick of feeling like an exile, an outcast, like a person without a place. Which is, he supposes, exactly what he is. He knows Olivia's couch is going to be no more comfortable than his family couch or his buddy's couch. But he smiles and thanks her, starts to unbutton as she retreats to her bedroom. He lies on the couch in his undershirt and briefs, listening to the sounds of her showering, the soft fizz of the spray and the splatter of the water bouncing off her body and onto the tiles. Elliot turns onto his side, eyes drifting around her living room. They touch on her coffee table, an open newspaper, a program from an art exhibition, a collection of photo frames, a bowl of flowers, a pair of slippers, a rack of magazines, a clutch of travel brochures, a potted plant, a stack of CDs, a tub of moisturizer, a cup of pens, a pair of earrings and matching bracelet. All the bits and pieces that make up a home.

He hears Olivia exit the shower, hears her twist the taps then open the door. He listens to her potter about in the bathroom for a while, remembering how he used to listen to Kathy do the same thing. And then, at some point, he stopped listening, stopped paying attention, stopped being intrigued by her fragrant feminine mysteries. Several minutes pass. Then the bathroom door opens and a light flicks off. He hears her mattress creak and can tell from the proximity of the sound that the door to her bedroom is still partially open. Elliot closes his eyes and tries to concentrate on getting some much needed sleep. Dreamless sleep, if possible. Before drifting off, he wills his brain to forgo – for one night, at least – images of fleshy thighs, full hips, heaving breasts, haloed hair, open lips and dark brown eyes that beg him to enter her, take her and never ever stop moving as deeply within her as he can reach.

-x-

He doesn't sleep. Can't. Which is not much of a surprise. He stares at the ceiling for hours, studies the patterns cast by the streetlights coming through Olivia's gauzy, wafting curtains. Her neighborhood is noisier than Queens, with partiers passing by on the street, cabs honking impatient horns and those ever-present New York sirens drifting by. Eventually, Elliot sits upright, swings his feet to the floor. He grabs his watch from the coffee table, glances at it then tosses it down again. He rises, arching slightly to stretch out his creaking back. When he finally finds a place to live, he vows on his life that he's gonna get the best bed that money can buy. And no couch. He doesn't need to look at or sit on or be anywhere near a couch for a good decade or so.

He shuffles towards Olivia's bedroom, the carpet soft beneath his feet. Stopping at the door, he reaches out and pushes the half closed door open a little wider. He can't see much, just a lump under the covers, in the darkness. He can hear her long, slow breaths though and tries not to disturb her as he creeps across to the bathroom. He eases the door shut behind him, turns on the light then lifts the toilet lid. Taking out his penis, he lets his head loll back on his neck as he pees. A long, thick, relieving stream. It's almost a pleasure since pleasures for him are currently so few and far between. After flushing, he washes his hands in the sink, splashes some water over his stubbled face. Then, leaning forward, he examines himself in the mirror. His skin is growing dry and craggy with age and any wounds inflicted on him take much longer to heal. There's still a slight scar over one brow from that suspect who turned on him and Olivia. His fingers drift down his face – he desperately needs a shave, a haircut and decent night's sleep. Several decent nights' sleep. In short, he looks like crap. Elliot humphs at his reflection, flicks off the light and turns to the door.

He tried to be quiet, tried not to wake her. But when he opens the bathroom door, Olivia is sitting up in her bed. Her hair is mussed and her bare feet are planted on the rug by her bed. She's perched on the edge of her big mattress in plaid pajama pants and a plain white tee. Shoulders slouching, she looks up, runs a hand through her hair as he exits.

"Is it the case? Or the couch?"

Elliot lets out a sigh, leans a shoulder against the doorjamb.

"Like I said, El. You'll get him."

He nods, casts a glance toward her couch but doesn't move, doesn't speak.

"You just need to sleep on it," she adds a moment later, voice lower and crackly with sleep.

"Yeah…" He chuckles lowly, humorlessly. Because he really doesn't know how to broach such an audacious request as the one on his brain.

They've slept together before though, hundreds of times. He knows what her body looks like, curled on one side, lax with sleep. He knows what her breath sounds like, what her face looks like, how her limbs curl unconsciously about her. It shouldn't be such a big deal – he wants her to tell him it's not such a big deal. Two beds, one bed. Partners, friends. Married, single, separated, divorced. What the hell does it all matter? What does it matter if sometimes he dreams about her? Fantasizes about her body, her sounds, her sweet-smelling sex? How does it matter if he desires every inch of her when, really, right now, all he wants her for is her bed? All he wants is that slice of mattress beside her, that extra pillow, that feather doona that no doubt smells like candle wax and spice and woman.

Seeing him eye off the temptingly vacant spot, Olivia smiles and ducks her head. "I know. I've slept there. My couch…sucks..."

He takes a step closer, folds his arms over his chest. "Think they invent them as torture devises? To punish wayward husbands?"

"…S'possible," she murmurs, lifting her feet from the floor and crossing her legs on the mattress. "But…this bed…" she glances over her shoulder at the tousled sheets, adds carefully, "…was not."

Elliot shifts on the spot, lowers his gaze to the floor. He really wants that mattress, aches for her pillow and sheets, longs for a soft, warm body sleeping beside him. But he dreads those dreams, those wonderfully wicked images that have been interrupting his sleep with such regularity, such impunity. "Not sure…" he admits, putting some laughter in his tone to disguise the seriousness of his meaning, "Not sure I'd trust myself."

"Well…" Olivia gives a tired shrug and tucks her toes under the covers, "I trust you." She reaches over to turn off her lamp then settles on one side with her eyes closed, leaving the final decision up to him.

Elliot swallows, shuffles a little more, hesitates a moment then pads around the bed and lifts up the covers. Easing down onto Olivia's mattress is as about close to heaven as his sorry soul will probably ever get. He stretches his body out, lies flat on his back, nothing scrunched or dangling. He adjusts his head on the pillow, just to feel its perfect, soft plushiness. He glances across at his bed mate's turned back then sighs deeply and closes his eyes.

"Happy now?" she mumbles into her pillow.

Elliot sighs again. "You have no idea…"

-x-

It happens in their sleep. They just gravitate towards each other, their unconsciouses leading them astray. And when they wake – bodies entwined, mouths joined and breaths quickened – they don't stop. They don't immediately withdraw their trespassing mouths and tongues and hands and limbs. They continue. Elliot continues pressing his hips, his hardness into the juncture of her open thighs. Olivia continues lifting her hips with each slow thrust he gives, continues sighing as he presses into her, as his lips plant a line of kisses down the blissfully stretched column of her neck. Elliot doesn't stop one hand from sliding under her butt, beneath her pyjama pants, cupping her flesh and lifting her toward him, pressing her to him for a sustained moment, making her breath hold as he grinds himself against her covered clitoris. He doesn't stop that same hand when it wants to slide up, cup her breast through her t-shirt, trapping and rolling her nipple between two fingers. And Olivia doesn't stop her lips from parting and releasing a long, low, keening moan.

Neither of them, even for a second, hesitates. At least, not until he begins coming to his senses, realizing that what's happening between them is actually happening. In reality. In Olivia's actual bed. With his actual partner of over seven years and under circumstances that will have definite and serious consequences. Consequences that become more tangible the moment she starts talking, the moment she starts sensitively referencing his failed marriage. But one thing Elliot is absolutely sure of is that doesn't want to talk – not about that, not about anything. In truth, he has nothing to say for himself. He doesn't know what he's doing, where he's going. He doesn't know who he is or will become without his family, his wife, his church, his home. He just knows that kissing Olivia like his life depends on it seems like a good place to start figuring out the whole mess. He just knows that feeling her body wrap around his, stroke against his, rise up to meet his makes him feel more wanted, more alive than he has since he was a maladjusted teen. All he really knows is that Olivia hasn't left him, Olivia is still with him, Olivia still loves him. Which must mean he belongs right there – in her bed, in her embrace – even if just for a night.

TBC...