giantessmess
in
rpfs
'fairytales' - Mariska Hargitay/Alex Cabot fic
Author:giantessmess
Title: Fairytales
Rating: PG-13, maybe.
Pairing A combination of Alex Cabot/Mariska Hargitay, Mariska Hargitay/Steph March, Alex/Olivia
Words: 984
Feedback: Please tell me if I have or haven't managed to make this work.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people/characters (whichever is which).
To begin with, I thought she was related to your father.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter how little you are really alike. It’s the eyes that get me. She wears them like awards-night jewelry, (the kind you only take out on loan). Can a person embezzle body parts? Or is that just in the perverse old versions of fairy tales?
Nobody bothers to read those anymore.
Your skin wasn’t as perfect. But she kisses like she learnt it from the back of a cereal packet. She cries out the wrong name when she comes, moaning guilty apologies as her brain catches up. But I never apologize. Mariska knows what this is.
Still. Your eyes. And the lips are yours, too. Her body is smaller, somehow. But it’s a badly-disguised thievery. I explore it as carefully as I can, in case she’s keeping you a secret.
“You miss her.”
Sometimes she asks me. Sometimes, I ask her.
“We only worked together,” she clarifies, carefully. And I know what that feels like. The co-worker curse.
“Please,” I sneer. “There are pictures you both together.”
“If you really must know,” she fidgets with an earring. “Of course I miss it…seeing her everyday.”
They hadn’t slept together. It doesn’t surprise me, because I’ve only seen Steph in photos. I know she’s supposedly off, having a full-length, non-serialized life. But I barely recognize the similarities. She’s a fiction someone made up about me. I think she only exists in magazines.
Sometimes I have to strain to remember that you’re the one I gave the spare keys to. I worry I’ve just been telling myself stories. Her breasts pressed against mine, her breathing hot on my neck. She protests that she knows nothing about it.
For an actress, she’s amazingly reticent to play pretend.
“Don’t make me spell it out. Olivia isn’t real.”
“Is New York real?”
“That has to be a trick question.”
“Am I real?”
She runs her fingers over my back, as if that’s any answer.
She grows your hair long and turns it into hers. She carries you differently. You’d probably snigger if you saw it. Obsessed with her own smile, she laughs just to hear how far her voice can carry. Life isn’t funny, I want to protest. When I snap and mutter something cynical, she doesn’t even glare in the right way.
“Sweetie,” she pulls me aside. “There’s so much good you can do in the world. You just have to you put your heart into it.”
And I hate her for those hijacked vocal chords.
But I stay, because I have nowhere else to go. If New York is a lie, and you are just a story, then LA may as well be my refuge. But that doesn’t mean she makes me feel safe. Her arms only look strong when the camera angle is right, or when the light brings up details that aren’t there. This city isn’t any place to be under Witness Protection. But I can’t help but feel at home in the land of lies. There are different ways to hide, and we both have our reasons.
I only appear in public when she asks me, on the verge of tears.
“Play Steph tonight. Please?”
And I go, costumed in another woman’s dresses. I test how good I am at her game. But I’m relieved when she gets sick of it, and stops inviting me to premiers and parties. Valez would love to see me so exposed. Besides, husbands make good red carpet accessories. Hers always matches her handbag.
I hate that she makes me beg. I’m certain she does it out of spite. No matter how much I cry for her to give you up -stop pretending, please, just let her go- she still denies there’s anything to find.
“You’re scaring me. Calm down, Steph.”
“Alex,” I correct, “Alex, Alex.” I close my eyes in frustration. Neither of us is seeing this picture in focus.
When I manage to steal them, I crawl into bed with her scripts. I bury myself in the smell of carbon, the feel of your words. Lines, she calls them. But you were above that pretension. You never gave me a line. I try to picture how it was, before Mariska. Before this. Why didn’t anyone tell us? Our life together is just a collection of film strips, and cut dialogue, shoved in some stranger's drawer. Did they write our first kiss? Are they sure they didn’t? It happened, I remember your lips were chapped. I remember my feet were pin-prickly from the snow. And how did it even happen, if it’s not on some damned bloopers reel? Did it write itself? Or maybe the camera only sees what it approves of.
God, if you could hear me now. You’d probably murmur something about life just being life, about me being overly-stressed. Damn it, Alex. I worry. You’d probably think I was losing my mind. Olivia, I don’t even know if it’s mine to lose anymore.
Still, I’m a Cabot, even if I’m only written as one. And I’m never without a plan. Mariska. I only have to find the right way to touch her. Touch you. Her. You. Recognize your voice, as she moans non-words. Jesus. Please say you’re there. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. I use my fingers like an archaeologist, pressing and circling. My mouth is a magnifying glass. My tongue, a specialized tool.
I try to think back to those old fairy tales and Dorothy clichés, in case there’s some trick I missed. I approach her like a closing argument. Or should I just click my heels together? Drench her in water?
I can’t decide if she’s the wicked witch or the wizard. But both of them have a lot to answer for.
Title: Fairytales
Rating: PG-13, maybe.
Pairing A combination of Alex Cabot/Mariska Hargitay, Mariska Hargitay/Steph March, Alex/Olivia
Words: 984
Feedback: Please tell me if I have or haven't managed to make this work.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people/characters (whichever is which).
To begin with, I thought she was related to your father.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter how little you are really alike. It’s the eyes that get me. She wears them like awards-night jewelry, (the kind you only take out on loan). Can a person embezzle body parts? Or is that just in the perverse old versions of fairy tales?
Nobody bothers to read those anymore.
Your skin wasn’t as perfect. But she kisses like she learnt it from the back of a cereal packet. She cries out the wrong name when she comes, moaning guilty apologies as her brain catches up. But I never apologize. Mariska knows what this is.
Still. Your eyes. And the lips are yours, too. Her body is smaller, somehow. But it’s a badly-disguised thievery. I explore it as carefully as I can, in case she’s keeping you a secret.
“You miss her.”
Sometimes she asks me. Sometimes, I ask her.
“We only worked together,” she clarifies, carefully. And I know what that feels like. The co-worker curse.
“Please,” I sneer. “There are pictures you both together.”
“If you really must know,” she fidgets with an earring. “Of course I miss it…seeing her everyday.”
They hadn’t slept together. It doesn’t surprise me, because I’ve only seen Steph in photos. I know she’s supposedly off, having a full-length, non-serialized life. But I barely recognize the similarities. She’s a fiction someone made up about me. I think she only exists in magazines.
Sometimes I have to strain to remember that you’re the one I gave the spare keys to. I worry I’ve just been telling myself stories. Her breasts pressed against mine, her breathing hot on my neck. She protests that she knows nothing about it.
For an actress, she’s amazingly reticent to play pretend.
“Don’t make me spell it out. Olivia isn’t real.”
“Is New York real?”
“That has to be a trick question.”
“Am I real?”
She runs her fingers over my back, as if that’s any answer.
She grows your hair long and turns it into hers. She carries you differently. You’d probably snigger if you saw it. Obsessed with her own smile, she laughs just to hear how far her voice can carry. Life isn’t funny, I want to protest. When I snap and mutter something cynical, she doesn’t even glare in the right way.
“Sweetie,” she pulls me aside. “There’s so much good you can do in the world. You just have to you put your heart into it.”
And I hate her for those hijacked vocal chords.
But I stay, because I have nowhere else to go. If New York is a lie, and you are just a story, then LA may as well be my refuge. But that doesn’t mean she makes me feel safe. Her arms only look strong when the camera angle is right, or when the light brings up details that aren’t there. This city isn’t any place to be under Witness Protection. But I can’t help but feel at home in the land of lies. There are different ways to hide, and we both have our reasons.
I only appear in public when she asks me, on the verge of tears.
“Play Steph tonight. Please?”
And I go, costumed in another woman’s dresses. I test how good I am at her game. But I’m relieved when she gets sick of it, and stops inviting me to premiers and parties. Valez would love to see me so exposed. Besides, husbands make good red carpet accessories. Hers always matches her handbag.
I hate that she makes me beg. I’m certain she does it out of spite. No matter how much I cry for her to give you up -stop pretending, please, just let her go- she still denies there’s anything to find.
“You’re scaring me. Calm down, Steph.”
“Alex,” I correct, “Alex, Alex.” I close my eyes in frustration. Neither of us is seeing this picture in focus.
When I manage to steal them, I crawl into bed with her scripts. I bury myself in the smell of carbon, the feel of your words. Lines, she calls them. But you were above that pretension. You never gave me a line. I try to picture how it was, before Mariska. Before this. Why didn’t anyone tell us? Our life together is just a collection of film strips, and cut dialogue, shoved in some stranger's drawer. Did they write our first kiss? Are they sure they didn’t? It happened, I remember your lips were chapped. I remember my feet were pin-prickly from the snow. And how did it even happen, if it’s not on some damned bloopers reel? Did it write itself? Or maybe the camera only sees what it approves of.
God, if you could hear me now. You’d probably murmur something about life just being life, about me being overly-stressed. Damn it, Alex. I worry. You’d probably think I was losing my mind. Olivia, I don’t even know if it’s mine to lose anymore.
Still, I’m a Cabot, even if I’m only written as one. And I’m never without a plan. Mariska. I only have to find the right way to touch her. Touch you. Her. You. Recognize your voice, as she moans non-words. Jesus. Please say you’re there. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. I use my fingers like an archaeologist, pressing and circling. My mouth is a magnifying glass. My tongue, a specialized tool.
I try to think back to those old fairy tales and Dorothy clichés, in case there’s some trick I missed. I approach her like a closing argument. Or should I just click my heels together? Drench her in water?
I can’t decide if she’s the wicked witch or the wizard. But both of them have a lot to answer for.