Title: Finders Keepers
Author: Frannie
Rating: R
Summary:
She is lying next to him on an old leather couch in a cold warehouse. She is half naked, and angry, and she probably knows he had almost, almost done the unforgivable, but Elliot steel feels ridiculously happy.
She must hate him, but he is relieved.
Safe, he thinks, and finds himself sighing into her hair. Over the last hour he has gotten as close to her as he could, pressing against her from head to toe, forcing her against the backrest of the couch. His arm feels heavy at his side, and if she were any other woman he would have probably used it to draw her closer still. It’s Liv!, he thinks, and gently places his fingers on her hip.
The fabric of the shirt she is wearing, his shirt, feels alien under his palm.
He feels her shiver from the cold and of its own accord his arm moves from her hip to rest across her stomach and pull her close. He feels her tense up and instantly panics. Was she afraid of him?
Fuck.
He feels the moment she relaxes into his embrace and it is enough for him to close his eyes, finally, and rest.
-
The day Liv leaves for undercover, she comes out of the locker room in a blue sundress. She looks up at him, once, and he cannot help but show his approval. His gaze is heavy, resting primarily on the vulnerable lines of her neck.
Don’t go, he thinks, but the message must not get across because she lets the Fed place his hand on the small of her back and guide her out of the door. Dejected, miserable, horrified, Elliot still finds time for petty jealousies.
Munch and Fin exchange glances, but keep their mouths shut. In retrospect, Elliot envies them that moment, it was never their partnership on the line.
That night, he goes home to an empty apartment, and stands in the shower thinking of pushing that sundress down Liv’s shoulders. Of bunching it in his fists, high above her waist, and pushing into her while she lies, palms flat on the interrogation table.
He thinks she would be wet, and ready, aroused by the game of cat and mouse they play with the suspects. Not that it could ever happen, he muses, they wouldn’t even have condoms, but the Olivia in his head surprises him. ‘Bareback, so I can feel you.’ she says.
He wants punish her for leaving, again and again and again. Hurt her, just the way she liked it, just so she would know that he was serious.
That week Cragen calls him into his office, and the agent has been shot, and Olivia Benson is officially deemed missing.
Something inside of him shatters. He’s been worried that she wouldn’t come back because of him, third time’s the charm and all, but now thinks gone. The word reverberates through him. He aches for her.
The Feds have some leads, and he pursues all the ones they find unworthy. Eco activists, online role playing groups, armageddon cults. All minor league.
He dreams of her and that sundress every night, and when he finally finds her after four months, she is wearing some horrible long yellow skirt and a furious expression.
-
He joins an armageddon cult - three, actually. And he joins several role playing games, factions of animal rights groups, starts going to underground bars. But, it is the first armageddon cult that proves to be the answer. Radical new age Christians, demanding initiation ceremony after ceremony.
Once accepted by the Leader, a math teacher from Texas, he is lead into the warehouse to meet the First Wife, and a harem of women standing demurely behind her.
One is lead towards him, long dark hair curling over fragile shoulders and Elliot’s heart stops. Oh, sweetheart, he thinks.
Something male and primitive inside of him snaps.
He walks towards her, because he cannot bare not to, and places rough fingers on her chin. He drags his thumb over the line of her jaw, the edge of her lip, and rejoices that she is finally, finally, safe under his hands.
They demand he claim her before witnesses, and as she drops to her knees, he thinks, Dear Lord in Heaven, yes please, and hates himself.
Her eyes are spitting daggers at him. The First Wife mocks her that she cannot arouse an interest in such a man, but all that is secondary. He will not force himself on her.
He digs his fingers into her arm and drags her to her feet. The leader is dumbstruck, the First Wife almost giddy with delight. The congregation begins to whisper.
Out of all the reasons he can give them, he says ‘I prefer blondes’.
-
Then, they are alone and locked in the warehouse.
She stands before him naked save for her underwear, ordered to reconcile him to the idea of marriage and bonding.
He forces himself to look away, gives her his shirt, and wants to ask, Did they hurt you, baby?
‘Where is David?’, she asks, and it takes him a moment to realise that it was the Fed’s name. He says nothing, but sits on the couch, and wishes that the last three hours never happened.
She berates him for ruining the operation, for being a sonofabitch, but all he can think is ‘she knows I was tempted’ and wonders if she’s disgusted.
When she gets tired, and cold, she lies on the couch next to him, and he folds his body around her.
-
Eventually, he dreams of finding her, except in his dreams, she is willing. When she kneels before him, her gaze is full of barely contained anticipation.
She takes him in hand, and then, into her mouth, and even in his dream he knows this is better than everything.
With this act, she is his; his bride.
In his dream he sees Olivia, and thinks wife, and says, Kathy.
And then he is awake and she is struggling.
-
She refuses to talk to him the next morning, but he can still smell her on his fingers.
He is so tempted to lick them, to taste her.
The Elders arrive. The First Wife looks dejected, but the others are smiling. A stately looking woman greets Olivia with a hug, laughing and pleased with what she calls the turn of events.
‘You have decided to Claim her after all.’ The Leader speaks.
Elliot, unbelievably, finds himself blushing.
‘As such, the Elders have deemed that you shall be granted a secondary Ceremony, before witnesses’. At Elliot’s hopeless expression, the old man grins.
‘It’s just a wedding son, the bodily Claiming is already complete. Joseph, show him the rings’.
Elliot swallows. Beside him, Olivia starts laughing hysterically.
.