Part Two
She caught up with him almost a block from the station. He was practically running, trying to burn off some of the rage by exerting himself. She called to him, telling herself that he simply hadn't heard her. She did have to run to make up the distance. Finally, she made contact, pulling on his arm until he stopped. But rather than the irate diatribe she'd braced herself for, Elliot's face was pure devastation. It nearly broke her heart to see him like that.
"What happened?" She guided them closer to a wall to get them out of the parade of foot traffic.
Elliot was indeed shaking, but rather than looking like he was about to punch someone, Olivia was afraid he was about to collapse. Or cry. She wasn't sure which would be worse.
He lifted his hands, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the house. "Dickie showed up at school this morning with a black eye and a split lip." Much to Olivia's alarm, Elliot sniffled, his face crumbling as tears spilled over his cheeks. "He told his teacher that I hit him."
He may as well have hit her at that moment, the weight of his words striking her like a blow so powerful her knees nearly gave out. "What?" It was all she could manage, total disbelief clouding all other words from her grasp.
"The teacher knew I was a cop, so she called it in. IAB's investigating me for abusing my son." His voice broke on the last word. At the same time, his legs folded under him. He'd sunk to the dirty sidewalk before Olivia was able to react.
She crouched beside him, clutching his hand, but she couldn't swear which one of them she was trying to comfort. "Elliot, what happened last night?"
His eyes flashed in anger, but not for long, as though he was too broken by the event to even maintain an emotion. "I didn't hit my son."
"I know that." And she did. Because Elliot had a temper, but he wasn't an abuser. She absolutely knew that. "But he said you did, so something must have happened. Did you yell at him?" She squeezed his hand to reassure him.
He heard an accusation in her words, however, and snatched his hand away. "What is that supposed to mean?"
She pulled back, hurt by his mood change. Still, she preferred it to him crying. At least she was used to dealing with a furious Elliot. "It doesn't mean anything. I've never known you to be a drinker, El. You look like shit. So what happened when you went home last night?"
Elliot stared at her, his brow creased in thought. "I don't know."
She blinked, waiting for the punch line, wondering how he could be joking give the situation. But he didn't smile or wink or exclaim 'gotcha.' She didn't know what to think, let alone say. "Seriously, Elliot, what's going on?"
He shook his head. "I remember leaving work yesterday. And I woke up a little after ten this morning, feeling like shit." His eyes darted around, looking for help from the sidewalk, which wasn't exactly forthcoming. "I know I didn't hit my son."
Olivia winced, knowing she was going to have to dispute his statement and really not wanting to be there to see the effect it would have. "I don't know what to tell you, El, because apparently Dickie says you did."
Elliot choked, coughing and sputtering, showing her the reaction she'd nearly had to her own words. "I would never hurt my son." He shook his head, screwing up his face as tears surfaced again. "I know what that does to a kid."
It frightened her to hear him say that. She knew he wasn't speaking from the perspective of his job. He was speaking as the kid. And while she'd long known Elliot had been a victim of child abuse, she'd never once heard him admit it. She'd simply known from Elliot's tells, from the way he, at times, feared his own temper. His worst fear was turning into a man like his father. She saw that in how desperately he fought against it. And Olivia firmly believed that Elliot would die before he gave up that fight.
Reaching out to grasp his hand, she nodded. "I know. I know you didn't hit him."
Elliot stared at her. "You believe me?" He was genuinely surprised and it told Olivia that she'd made the right call.
"Are you suspended until IAB's done?" She slipped into the lead role, knowing Elliot would instinctively follow her.
He shook his head. "No, Cragen refused Whitman's suggestion." He shrugged with a hint of a smile. "I might have gotten a little upset."
She shook her head, realizing that their hands were still joined, yet doing nothing to abort the contact. "You? Upset? That's preposterous!"
"Yeah, tell me about it. Don't let it get around, I don't want to get a bad rap." He hadn't given any indication that he noticed their hands, but then his hand shifted, his fingers rubbing gently across her skin. "So I should probably go beg for Dad's forgiveness, huh?"
Nodding, Olivia climbed to her feet and tried to ignore the odd feelings his feather light caress stirred in her. "Then we'll go talk to Dickie. Maybe he'll be able to explain what's going on."
Elliot's face, which had only just relaxed, immediately returned to its pinched expression. "No, I'll take care of it." He didn't wait for her to answer, just headed for the precinct, leaving Olivia to wonder what she'd done wrong.
Although she wasn't far behind him, he'd been busy. As soon as she walked into the bull pen, Cragen informed her Elliot was taking the rest of the day off. He was already gone, so she couldn't even ask him what he was going to do. Irritated as all hell with him, Olivia sat down to work on some late reports, several of which would have been Elliot's responsibility, had he decided to work for more than fifteen minutes that day. Still, despite her annoyance at spending the day being a pencil pusher, Olivia was just as pleased to be able to duck out of the office at a reasonable time.
As always, she headed for the shower as soon as she got home, using the short time to relax and organize her thoughts. The following day was her day off and she decided she'd call Casey to see if she was free. Though she had little left in common with the redhead, Olivia figured after the public disgrace she'd faced, Casey could probably stand a nice lunch and movie treat from a friend. Olivia emerged from her shower feeling refreshed and looking forward to the prospect of a girls' day out. IAB, Dickie, even Elliot seemed to have been washed away. She stepped from the steamy room, humming to herself.
Olivia had long been aware, and somewhat tolerant, of her messy habits. There were always dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor, and stacks of unorganized mail in the living room. But there was one thing Olivia was anal retentive about and it was carefully arranging her lingerie. She was forever rushing out the door with little time to spare, and so, she'd made it a practice to be able to easily locate a bra that wouldn't show through a white shirt or panties that wouldn't sit higher on her hips than her pants.
So it chilled her to the bone when she pulled open her drawer to find a tangled mess of underwear.
First she remembered her scare with her pajamas.
Then she remembered how distracted she'd been, tossing stuff all over the place while she'd been scolding herself for doing that very thing.
She knew she'd messed up her previously organized drawer, because she'd been exhausted and hadn't been paying attention, as evidenced by the fact that she hadn't even noticed her pajamas stretched out on the bed.
With a disgruntled snort, she mentally canceled her plans with Casey. She needed to spend the day cleaning up her apartment, sorting her bills, and working through that pile of laundry until she was no longer tempted to toss her clothes anywhere but the hamper.
And so she did, cleaning and sorting and organizing everything she could get her hands on, in between multiple trips to the laundry room to finish that mammoth task. She left the laundry folding until the end, having dumped each dryer load onto her bed as they finished. No use in starting to match up socks only to realize half of them were still drying. As she worked through the pile, carefully putting everything in its right place, she noticed her purple lace thong was missing. After everything else was sorted and put away, the purple bra sat alone on her bed. Had it been any one other than her favorite, she would have let it go, but it was her most comfortable pair of panties, so delicately girlish that she couldn't believe they didn't bunch or pinch or itch.
A thorough search of her apartment turned up nothing. So she retraced her steps to the laundry room, checking to be sure she hadn't dropped them on the way. She rechecked the machines she'd used, washers and dryers both, realizing they were gone. She'd been in and out half the day, and although she'd personally die first, she'd heard a few other tenants complaining about missing intimates from the laundry in the past. Disappointed, she double checked the empty machines and gazed around the laundry room, wishing they would magically appear somewhere to erase the violated way it made her feel to know someone else had them.
Any good mood she might have felt from having her apartment in perfect order, just the way she liked, was gone. She was pissed off about the thought that some woman with whom she might have shared the elevator or met at the door had skulked off with her panties. It grossed her out just thinking about it, but she refused to consider that it might have been a male neighbor, like that skeevy one who lived next to the super, because that was worse. She resolved to put the whole incident out of her head. So she curled up with the novel she read so rarely that she had to remind herself of the lead character's name and found her way off to sleep.
And she blamed the lingering scent of a familiar cologne on having over done the fabric softener.
At ten minutes of four, her phone started to ring.
Instinctively, she checked the display, knowing exactly who would have to nerve to call her at that hour while she was still technically on her day off. Even though she was in a bad mood, she had a bit of mercy for her partner, since she knew his issues were worse than one stolen pair of underpants.
"Yeah, El, what?"
"Uh, is this Liv?" The unfamiliar voice sounded unsure.
Fear shot through her, adrenaline bringing her fully awake by the time she sat up in bed. "What is it? What's wrong? Where's Elliot?"
"I'm guessing Elliot's the guy who's passed out face down on my bar. You're the last person he called, so you're the lucky designated driver."
Her mercy disappeared entirely. "Son of a bitch!" She was already standing up, knowing sleep was out of her reach for the night. "Where is he?" She got the address, grumbling unhappily at the disconnected phone as she dressed and headed out into the cold early morning.
She couldn't believe he'd dared go out to drink so soon, especially with IAB coming down on him. He'd gone into work hungover a day earlier, something Cragen and IAB both would certainly notice when he pulled it again so soon. She was still grumbling when she pushed through the door of the nearly empty bar. Sure enough, there was Elliot, quite literally passed out face down on the bar.
Shaking her head, she smiled at the barkeep. "Thanks for the call."
Her new friend Chuck smiled. "Oh, it's no sweat. Elliot here owes me a hundred bucks." When Olivia scoffed, he shrugged. "I'll pat them down for a cell phone, but I'm not about to go for a wallet."
Olivia wasn't sure she wanted to reach for his wallet either. She thought she might grab his gun, the one she was sure he'd been stupid enough to wear when he was going out to get piss drunk, and shoot him instead. She went for his shoulder, shaking him. "Elliot, wake up." She got no response on the first several attempts, but she kept trying. Waking up passed out drunks was, unfortunately, something she had ample experience in.
His head finally lifted up, his huge pupils and glassy eyes moving so slowly she'd have sooner thought him high than drunk. Eventually, he lifted his hand out of a puddle of spilled scotch, quite possibly intending to make contact with her. However, his perception was a bit skewed, and so, his hand dropped halfway between them. His eyebrows knitted together in a slowly dawning confusion.
"Liv?"
He tried again with his hand, spreading his fingers through the empty space between them like he thought she was some kind of apparition.
With her eyes wide, she looked at Chuck. "What the hell did he drink?"
He shook his head. "Don't look at me. He was high when he came in."
Olivia rolled her eyes, convinced someone must have spiked his drink. Elliot certainly wasn't popping ecstasy. Touching his outstretched hand lightly, she tried to get through to him. "Where's your wallet?"
Finally correcting for the distance, but not force, his hand slapped the side of her face, leaving a wet smear of alcohol on her shirt when his hand settled on her shoulder. "Olivia!"
"Oh, fuck, El, can you work with me here?"
He stared at her, his unfocused eyes unwavering.
She gave up on getting him to make sense. He recognized her. Which meant he trusted her. With Chuck's assistance, she got Elliot on his feet, much of his bulky weight leaning on her. Still, he seemed balanced enough against her for her to let go with one hand, feeling carefully for his wallet in his back pocket.
Unaware of much else, he definitely noticed when her hand found his ass. She was only trying to work his wallet free without landing him on the floor in the process, but apparently, his hormonal response wasn't at all affected by his inebriation. He couldn't even stand up on his own, but there was her suddenly lecherous partner, leering at something vaguely in the direction of her left shoulder.
Christ, the drunk son of a bitch thought she was coming onto him. She ignored him and pulled a credit card from his wallet. Judging by the grin on Chuck's face, she was fairly sure that Elliot had just paid for a substantially larger number of drinks than he'd actually ingested, but it was hardly her problem. She simply signed her name to the bill, more upset by Elliot's roaming hand than his finances.
With Chuck's interest in helping her gone, Olivia had quite a time of it dragging her touchy-feely partner to his car. She shivered in the cold as she leaned him up against the passenger's side, unhappily facing the prospect of looking for his keys. She glanced at him and saw his stupid getting-lucky smile still in place, but his eyes, at least, appeared a bit more with it.
"Where are your keys?"
He just kept staring at her, his eyes slowly dropping down to the v-neck of her shirt, seeming to suggest that perhaps his keys were hidden in her bra. Or at least, that he'd be happy to look for them there.
"Damn it, Elliot, what the fuck is with you? Kathy still pissed over Dickie?" She tried his jacket first, luckily finding his keys in the right hand pocket.
As she moved to open his door, he shifted over, blocking her path, his hands strangely coordinated as they found her waist. "Less not talk bout her," he slurred at her.
With a shriek, Olivia found herself yanked into his chest, her hands futilely pushing at his strong arms. "Elliot, what the fuck?"
His grin was completely out of place when he leaned forward, his mouth only catching the corner of hers as she turned away. "Zakly." Before she quite figured out what he was doing, his mouth was clamped against her neck, teeth biting down too hard, guaranteed to leave a mark on her skin.
"Stop!" She shoved at him, but her strength paled in comparison to his and she got nowhere. So she twisted instead, trying to pull her skin away from his teeth, causing herself more pain in the process. "Fuck, Elliot, that hurts!"
One of his hands moved down, cupping her ass, holding her against him. "You stard it."
She jerked her knee up quickly, refusing to give any consideration to the fact that she was choosing to cause a man she cared a lot about a significant amount of pain. But it wasn't like Mr. Octopus had given her any options. As she made contact with his groin, the hand that had been trying to reach up her shirt fell away.
"Ow! Fuck!" As he doubled over in pain, he moved far enough for her to pull open his door. "Wacha do that for?"
"Get the fuck in the car and be happy you're not permanently injured, dumbass."
A shove from her got him into the car. She didn't bother with a seat belt, figuring such an intimate distance would only land her in more trouble. She barely waited until he'd pulled his legs inside before she slammed the door. Once again grumbling to herself, she climbed behind the wheel and started the drive to his house.
Elliot was quiet for a couple blocks, until he looked at her and squinted. "What the fuck are you doing?"
She let out a sigh, promising herself that killing her partner was liable to only create more paperwork in the long run. "I'm taking your drunk ass home." She checked the traffic light, hoping it would turn green, and then glared at him. "And I might talk to Kathy to see if she's aware you're going out and getting so piss drunk at night that you don't know what the fuck you're doing."
His eyes narrowed, his drunk haze lifted instantly by anger. "You stay the fuck out of my personal life, ok?" His fist slammed into the dashboard, causing Olivia to jump.
She hadn't expected Elliot to get pissed off that fast, and certainly not at her. It left a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach regarding the whole mess with Dickie – because Elliot had been drinking, because he hadn't been able to explain to her anything about what had happened, because he hadn't wanted her to talk to Dickie, because his rage appeared so suddenly. She swallowed hard, trying to get the taste of bile out of her throat. "I'm taking you home. Just go back to sleep."
"The fuck you are!"
Without another word, Elliot jumped out of the car, tripping over himself as he tried to hail a cab. The car behind them blared its horn, but Olivia ignored it, standing up, shouting over the roof of the car.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Drunk and stumbling or not, he succeeded in hailing a cab. "Go fuck yourself, Olivia!" He climbed in without bothering to check if the cabbie was interested in going to Queens.
Dumbfounded, Olivia watched the cab disappear around the corner before she got back into his car. "Fuck!" She slammed her own hands into the wheel, upset over his behavior. She didn't want to be mad at him, not when it was so obvious he needed her help, but she couldn't help it.
With a sigh, she directed her attention back to driving, only noticing when she stopped at the next light that his wallet, the one she'd been afraid to put back in his pocket, was still lying on the seat next to her. For a moment she worried about him not having the money to pay for the cab. And then she shook her head at herself, decided he deserved getting yelled at by both the cabbie and Kathy when he had to make one wait while he woke the other. Out of frustration with herself and her partner, she hurled his wallet onto the floor and staunchly ignored it the rest of the way home.
But Olivia wasn't drunk, nor irresponsible, so she knew leaving a wallet in a car in New York City was a quick way to get both of them stolen. So after she found a spot near her apartment, she grabbed his wallet and carefully put his copy of the receipt she'd signed inside before she made her way into her apartment for whatever bit of sleep she could still find.