with the safety switched off
Fandom: Law & Order: SVU
Relationship: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler
Summary:
"I don't want to be here," Elliot says, head still down, but looking into her eyes.
"Yeah, well. That's what the Jameson's is for."
Elliot, Olivia, and a party to celebrate Kathy's pregnancy.
Title: Something to Get Through
Author: Sarken
Rating: R
Author's note: Oh, boy, do I have some things to say about this. Might be time to revisit the old days of DVD commentary for fic.
Also available on the Archive of Our Own.
***
Elliot doesn't tell anyone Kathy's pregnant. Olivia is careful to keep his secret, but when Kathy drops by the precinct with her round belly, the cat is officially out of the bag. The energy in the room shifts: there are nudges and head tilts and whispers and barely suppressed excitement that explodes not ten seconds after Kathy walks back out the door.
Olivia leans back in her chair and watches with a smirk while Elliot takes the back-slaps and congratulations and ragging for his silence with a tight smile and bright pink cheeks.
"Should have a party," Fin declares, and the general murmurs of agreement drown out Elliot's objections.
"I don't want to say anything," Munch says, leaning against the edge of his desk and crossing his long arms and legs, "but someone's being awfully quiet at her desk over there." He fixes his gaze on Olivia; Fin and Lake look, too.
"You knew," Lake accuses, but he's grinning. "How long?"
"'Bout as long as Stabler himself, I'm betting," Fin says.
Elliot throws a stack of Post-Its at him; it flies through the air end over end. "Hey, I waited almost an hour."
And that's how Olivia gets stuck with party planning duty. It's not much of a punishment, really, because it's not much of a party. It's celebratory drinks after work, involving every cop friend of Elliot's who doesn't have somewhere else to be.
Even on short notice, it's enough to almost fill the bar.
"You should schmooze," Olivia tells him over the din. He's been sitting with her twenty minutes now, ever since they walked in, his hand on her back. "It's your party."
"Exactly," Elliot says and takes a swig of his beer. "They can come to us."
Olivia laughs, but it works. Fin and Lake swing by first, just long enough for a quick and unsentimental toast, and then comes a guy a little older than Elliot, who--even in a bar full of off-duty cops--looks remarkably like an off-duty cop.
"Hey, Elliot, congrats," he says, voice full of Staten Island. He's probably got a wife at home, couple of teenagers, maybe a GSD. "What is this, number four?"
"Five," Elliot says. "Three was twins." Then he gestures to Olivia with his bottle. "My partner Olivia. Liv, this is Mike Wetzel, outta Fort Pitt."
"Nice to put a face to the name," Olivia says. Tomorrow, she won't be able to pick this guy out of a lineup.
"Olivia," Mike repeats, thinking. "You sent the email, right?"
"I did."
He scoffs and waves a dismissive hand at her, but in a joking way. "Gotta be your first. Got to a point, we were so sick of celebrating this guy's swimmers making it upstream, we took up a collection, bought him a TV for the bedroom. Guess the damn thing finally busted." He laughs, open-mouthed and loud and ugly.
Elliot rubs the back of his neck.
"Well, it was nice meeting you, Mike," Olivia says with her biggest, fakest smile. Friendliness as a cover for showing her teeth.
"Yeah, yeah," Mike says. He turns away, then back with a pointed finger. "See you for number six." Laughing too hard, he walks away, and inserts himself immediately into another conversation.
"Wouldn't bet on that," Olivia says under her breath. She washes the bad taste out of her mouth with what's left of her beer, then gestures to Elliot's. "You want another?"
He shakes his head. "Jameson," he says. "Double."
She can't fault him for that, and when she comes back from the bar with whiskey for both of them, she finds Cragen in her chair. She sets Elliot's glass on his left, to the far side of Cragen.
"Oh, sorry, Liv," he says, quickly vacating her seat, always a gentleman. "I better get going anyhow. Congratulations again, Elliot. Give my love to Kathy."
"Thanks, Cap," he says, smiling genuinely, warmly.
Olivia sits back down, and Elliot clinks their glasses lightly before taking a small sip.
"Kathy wants you at the baby shower," he says, looking at the scratched tabletop. "Invitation's in my desk; remind me to give it to you."
"Yeah, okay," she says. She rubs her finger across a ring of water, breaking the circle. She doesn't know if she means the reminder or the party. She can't not go, she knows that, just like she knows how god-awful it's going to be, sitting in a room with Kathy's friends and family, playing shower games and answering so how do you know Kathy with oh, I'm Elliot's partner.
"I don't want to be here," Elliot says, head still down, but looking into her eyes.
"Yeah, well. That's what the Jameson's is for."
"Elliot!" A booming voice and the approach of its owner interrupts their combined misery. "Long time, man."
"At least two kids ago," Elliot agrees, smiling at the man. He has a kind face and an infectious grin; Olivia likes him better than Mike. "Mac, my partner, Liv. Liv, this is Mac. We met in boot camp, then again at the academy."
Mac tips his Miller Lite in her direction as a hello. "From the email, right?"
Olivia smiles. "From the email." Next time Fin wants a party, he can send the email.
"Damn, man, you keep lucking out," Mac says.
"I know it," Elliot says. "Liv's the best."
"And how's Kathy?"
"Ah, you know. Says she feels like a whale, but she loves it. The other day..."
Olivia tunes them out there, cannot possibly listen to fairy tales about Elliot's happy, pregnant wife. She scans the room, looking for--well, she doesn't know what. Looking for someone who's not here for Elliot, maybe. Someone she could start a conversation and end the night with without it feeling like a betrayal.
"How about you, Liv?" Mac asks, drawing her attention with her name. "Any kids?"
Elliot takes it for her. "I keep trying to pawn my teenagers off on her, but she knows too much about 'em."
Mac laughs. Olivia tries to.
"Teenagers, man," he says, in the voice of a father. "Anyway, great seeing you. I find Dave, I'll send him over. I know he's around somewhere."
Elliot gestures goodbye with his glass. "Mac's a good guy," he says to Olivia, though she doesn't doubt that. She knows it's just something to say.
"I'll keep him on the guest list for next time, then." It doesn't come out quite as light as she wants. She takes a drink, doesn't enjoy the burn of the whiskey tonight so much as she suffers through.
She takes another to feel it again.
"Hey hey, Stabler!" This guy's dressed young for his age, arms thrown wide, and Olivia immediately likes him and his rounded Yankee cap just slightly less than Mike. "Decade plus in sex crimes, you still ain't figured out how to use a rubber?"
"Yeah, well, that's the thing about being married," Elliot says. "You don't wanna, you don't gotta. Should try it sometime."
The guy gestures with both hands, grins a shit-eating grin Olivia wouldn't mind taking a swing at. "What, you think I haven't?"
"Marriage," Elliot corrects in his settle down voice. "Joey, this is my partner--"
"Olivia," Olivia finishes. "From the email." She pushes her chair back, plants her fists on the table, knuckles down, and looks at Elliot. "Much as I love a conversation about birth control, I'm gonna go pee."
As she turns away, she sees him out of the corner of her eye, sliding her glass closer to him, resting his hand lightly over the top.
There's no line for the bathroom and no one else inside--tonight, she might be the only woman here--and she takes a shuddering breath as she stares at her reflection over the sink. She feels hot, like she could cry or puke. Like she can't go back to that table, to Elliot, to the person he's pretending to be for the people who no longer know him, to the endless congratulations about an accident. She just wants to get out of here, and she doesn't want to do it alone.
She'd take an accident at this point; it would feel like a miracle.
"Liv?" His voice through the door makes the first tear fall; she squeezes her eyes shut so it's the only one.
"I'm okay," she says, raising her voice. It sounds hoarse.
He opens the door. "Liv--"
She shakes her head. "Don't, Elliot. This isn't--it's not fair." She opens her eyes. The light hurts, refracted through her tears. "You don't have to sit by me all night."
His tie is loosened; his arms hang by his sides, sleeves rolled up. He looks tired. "I want to. I--Liv, I wish... I want--"
"Yeah." She turns toward him. He can already see her red eyes in the mirror; he might as well have to meet them. "I wish and I want and all it gets me is a night sitting by your side while a bunch of cops congratulate you on your pregnant wife." She laughs, reaches behind her to brace her hands on the edge of the sink. "One time, you take her to bed. One time, and--" Her voice breaks, anger cracking open around grief. "It's not fucking fair, El."
He's holding her, then; more importantly, he's kissing her then, and as he sits her on the edge of the sink, she thinks this is funny, actually, how she found someone in this bar who doesn't know him and it's him. But she's going to his wife's baby shower, so she lets him stick his cock inside her while she grabs fistfuls of his wrinkled shirt and prays for an accident and a miracle.
(Two weeks later, in the cornflower blue of the Stablers' bathroom, she bleeds. She rests her forehead against the tile and breathes, takes it as her miracle.)
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