One More for the Stars, Elliot/Olivia
One More for the Stars, r
SVU, Elliot/Olivia
Current season, but no spoilers
Many thanks to the ever-helpful, always-brilliant underthepiano.
"There’s something about him playing catch up with himself that makes her chuckle and when their gaze meets this time it’s more than a punch to the gut, it’s twelve years and every look they’ve ever shared."
Title knicked from "Down in the Valley" by The Head and the Heart.
“It was from oh-nine, case number-” and she doesn’t need the clerk to say it, because she remembers vividly, in startling 256 bit color.
“Yeah, got it, got it,” Olivia says, scribbles the date and time down on her blotter, makes a note to call Alex and flings her pen into the corner of her desk. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, and your partner Stabler, he still on? He’s gonna be called, just, you let him know that-” And sure, the case number swims in her mind, the victim’s name and yes, she’s always accounted for this happening.
Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean he’s gone forever; that’s not how detective work functions. There’s no statutes of limitations on murder and thus, this is inevitable.
Olivia swallows thickly and, and, this doesn’t get to her. It shouldn’t, at least, and she pretends it doesn’t. “He retired,” she says simply and clutches the phone tightly.
“Right, well, we need him on and either I can track him down, use hours of the taxpayers money-”
Olivia rolls her eyes and says, “I get it,” hangs up the phone and gets Fin to shoot Elliot an email about the trial.
He’s not answered either of her emails or her voicemails, so...
So...
---
Their testimony takes roughly two hours, one right after the other and she finds that he’s waiting for her on the benches outside of the courtroom, head against the wall, gaze at the ceiling. He hears her; he perks up and everything, turns to her. Just like she can recall the cadence of his steps against the floor, he can remember hers.
“Hey,” she says casually, “It went well.”
Elliot sits up straight, shifts over on the faded bench although there is more than plenty of room. Olivia takes a seat a respectful distance away and doesn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, it’s been awhile but... thanks for the files.” He turns his head and it would be rude not to meet his gaze. “That helped.”
“Like you could forget,” her head is against the wall too and her eyes slip closed and it’s been only a few moments, but already she’s drained.
Elliot chuckles to her right and the reaction it provokes in her is brilliant and white hot and she wishes it wasn’t. “Yeah,” he agrees, “No, I mean. No.”
There’s something about him playing catch up with himself that makes her chuckle and when their gaze meets this time it’s more than a punch to the gut, it’s twelve years and every look they’ve ever shared. Olivia has never not needed him and for the past few years she’s never not wanted him and that’s the worst part of loving someone that loves someone else-she just wants him to be good and whole, even if that means being apart from her. Olivia has things she wants to say, that she’ll never speak, but still, that jump to her throat and hold.
Elliot sucks in a breath, breaking eye contact because it’s necessary.
“So, you thinking, maybe, the usual?” His tone is beyond hopeful and it makes her want to do nothing if not roll her eyes. Because their usual went by the wayside two years ago; it’s beyond ridiculous that he thinks that they can just pick up. But she finds herself unable to say no to him, as much as she would like to.
She finds herself saying, “Sure,” standing and shoving her hands deep within her jacket pockets and leading the way to the elevators.
---
It’s their usual and it makes sense that they order the usual because what else is there? It’s raining by the time their orders are called and they slink to a table in the corner. Olivia's received many horrible calls at this table in the corner, many hopeful ones. She’s stolen his fries at this table in the corner, and he’s stolen hers.
If they had tables, this most certainly would be theirs.
“This is as shitty as I remember,” he says and takes a bites of his sandwich, a hunk falling out the rear to plop against the plate.
A fry in her mouth, she chews thoughtfully and it’s not resentful, it just is, “It hasn’t been that long, Elliot.”
“Elliot,” he repeats, picking up a pickle spear.
“Yeah,” she confirms, mashing her teeth against the straw of her diet coke. “Elliot.”
“Not El,” he confirms sadly, or what seems like sad, or maybe something else entirely, she doesn’t want to read into it. There’s something about him she can’t describe, and it’s those twelve months between them, she’s sure of it. And, honestly, what the fuck, what in the christ does he want?
And what does she want to give. This is too complicated for a shitty Uptown diner, it’s too much for two in the afternoon. This is double scotch and smoke material; Olivia isn’t sure she can face this in the light of day.
“Thanks for the-” It seems like the necessary step, acknowledging the card, at least. It’s what she tries for. That card, in the days after, had been bitter, a constant reminder of the hole in her life. An Elliot-shaped void.
“Yeah, you know, I..” And he doesn’t know anything, just pushes his burnt onion rings around the nearly-translucent plate. He’s watching his saturated fats, his sodium, she picks up on it as she watches him go for the food and retreat.
She wants to ask about Kathy and everything else but she doesn’t, because there is some semblance of pride about her. And, well, she doesn’t really want to know. It’s masochism at its prime. There is now a part of him that’s entirely foreign, something she’ll never know. “You ever...” Elliot begins and she stops twirling a soggy fry between her fingers and looks up.
There’s a thick silence, the voice of the fry cook in the distance rings loudly in their ears. Customers order pastrami and chicken salad and they’re having an emotional standoff that’s taken nearly fifteen years. At a formica table. It’s entirely appropriate and at the same time terribly, terribly depressing.
“Ever...” she prompts and Olivia can’t really speak, certainly can’t think. Her salivary glands have stopped producing and the hammering of her heart against her ribcage rattles her teeth.
Elliot pushes back his plate, leans back against the flimsy plastic (his shoulders are too big, he’s too built, the chair will break Olivia thinks desperately, hopes) and crosses his arms. “What if.”
Not a question, and it flummoxes her for a moment. “What if... what?” And even as the words exit her mouth, skim across her lips, she knows what Elliot means and wishes she hadn’t called question to it.
Elliot rubs hands over his eyes, glances at the ceiling. It’s a scab, she thinks, he’s been picking and picking since he’s been away and it’s time to just lob it off. Eating away at him, it’s been; she’s sure of it. Of course she’s sure of it; reading his face became old hat ages ago.
“Us.”
Olivia is well aware of what he’s asking of her, of what he’s questioning of her and in that very moment she decides to be just the slightest bit vindictive, the slightest bit back-handed. “What us?”
Make him work for it.
A lick of his lips and rain pelts the glass windows of the deli harder. “Alright, never, never mind,” he gives in and smoothes his palms over the thighs of his slacks and looks out toward the
torrential downpour.
“Okay,” she says definitively and tosses her paper napkin on top of her barely-touched lunch. And that’s that, she supposes. She didn’t know what she’d hoped for-
“Us, Liv, come on,” he begs. And jesus christ his voice is hoarse and his eyes are too clear and-
This is Elliot Stabler shattering.
“You know what they say in the academy, about partners saving each others lives and living together twelve hours a day and-” she begins, because she’s a good cop and she remembers her teaching. She remembers the warning, the falsities of police partnerhood, the fallacies of it.
Elliot nods, yeah, yeah, yeah, “But that’s all bullshit, Liv.”
“Elliot, how many, I can’t-how many years were you... no, this isn’t...” Elbow on the table and face in her palm. “This isn’t-”
“You’re right, it’s not the time... not the-”
“Not just that, jesus, you can’t...”
The rain pelts the windows; they forget their lunch. “What the hell, Elliot?” she whispers and stares him down. There are strung out moments of silence and there’s no room for awkwardness because she’s pissed and he doesn’t really know what the hell is going on. She wants more of him, she wants him to explain.
Then again, she wants nothing at all.
“It’s one of those things-” he tries, and it breaks her.
With a swift movement, she has her coat and has pushed back from the table. “It really isn’t,” and Olivia retreats to the sidewalk, rain battering her as she rounds the corner and out of sight. Not a typical reaction for her, but one that she truly can’t help this time.
---
It’s a thirty-seven dollar cab ride to Brooklyn, but she can’t stand to walk back to the squad and grab a sedan.
He’s not waiting on her doorstep when she arrives and thank god because that would be awfully cliche and just about enough to do her in. There’s a hand in her pocket, searching for keys and the cabbie pulls away. It’s always that second, when no one is around to watch her walk through the door that she feels vulnerable. That one moment.
Key in the lock she’s about to turn when there’s a “Fuck, wait, WAIT!” It’s a gut reaction, hand at the hip and a fast spin with an open, taut palm aimed for a nose, but it’s Elliot jogging up the wet pavement towards her and this isn’t what she wants.
It is. Maybe she’s too old for it, and maybe it’s all terrifically wrong and perhaps, just perhaps it’s much too little much too late but her stomach flip flops at the ridiculous thought of him chasing after her. Back of her head against the front door to her brownstone, she stops and waits, attempts to gather the wayward tethers of her sanity.
Her mascara is running, she’s sure of it, but she turns to him, licking her rain-slicked lips. “Elliot, go-” but there’s nowhere for him to go. There’s no home that she can point him in the direction of. Instead, her hands come up to cup his jaw. “Go... anywhere.”
“This is,” he shouts over the din of the rain smacking against dumpsters and pavement and car roofs, “This is ridiculous, Liv!” and then he kisses her.
Lips to lips and her head lands against her door. Four in the afternoon in September and Elliot has her pressed against the foyer door of her home. His tongue slicks against hers and it’s bright, it’s him, it’s too much.
“This isn’t fair,” she breathes against his mouth and he immediately returns-
“For who?”
“Stop,” she gasps and he does, hands up in front of him and Olivia glares at him from beneath wet lashes, turns on heel and turns the key in the lock, effectively making the decision for the both of them. Step takes a step inside and he, he...
He remains on the threshold.
“El,” she whispers and he takes a step inside slowly. Once he’s in the hallway it’s all brash and alive and a hand behind him slams the door even as he advances on her, presses her to the wall and kisses her again. Utter madness, and she tears away for a moment to say, “Second floor,” and he hangs his head, pants as she rounds him and mounts the stairs.
They’re at her landing in a matter of moment and she has her door open and it’s all Olivia; it has to be her who invites him in, it has to be her that makes this happen. Elliot before her is sodden and broken; she pants and drips over her welcome mat as he begs, “Please.”
She’s no fool, Olivia is very aware that there’s nothing but right now. There will be no “after,” there is only the years before this, that lead to this. In the moment, there is nothing but affirmation and her twines her hands behind his neck and pulls him forward, sends Elliot stumbling into her apartment, flailing blinding behind him to kick the door closed.
His lips are at her neck and she’s clawing at his tie; his blazer comes off with a wet “plop” against the linoleum of the kitchen and his tie is next, a wet “thwack” against the door. “Are we, are we,” she gasps as he ruts against her.
“Liv?” Elliot asks, gasping just below her ear as his fingers glances against her hips delicately. Her own blazer lands on the floor atop his.
“God, yes, what? What?” Her hips buck into him, involuntarily.
Elliot swallows, lifts his head and pauses, settles until she glances up, meets his gaze. Blue to brown, “Are we?”
Olivia’s eyes tear away, at the floor and without glancing up, she pulls her t-shirt off. “Yes,” she breathes and his lips are back on her immediately, at the hollow of her throat, fingers tugging at the clasp of her bra. Her own hands struggle with the buttons of his shirt.
“God, god,” his mouth sloppy at her jaw and on her cheek and her neck and she finally manages to free him, but for the buttons at his wrists. “Fuck it,” he growls and tears at his wrists until the buttons strain and pop off, pinging against her refirgerator.
And then they stand, both naked from the waist up, panting and dripping in her kitchen. She takes in his chest, as she’s done many times before but he, god, Elliot’s eyes never leave her face. “Hey,” he takes a small step towards her, smooths the wet hair off of his face, thumb resting against her lower lip. “If you ever thought that there was a time when I didn’t... need this-”
“Don’t,” she begs and lifts up on her tiptoes, kissing him against and struggles to walk them-backwards-into her bedroom.
He spends nearly too much time discovering her body, dipping his fingers here and there, tasting her until she’s sure she’ll faint, moving against and within her in a way she can honestly say she’s never felt this before.
When he comes, he doesn’t duck his head into the crook of her neck, he looks into her eyes and says her name and she tries very, very hard not to cry. Because it’s how she feels, it’s how she finally feels. A sight she swore she’d never see and so, she feels.
Elliot cleans them up quietly, brings her a glass of water from her bathroom and settles back into the bed beside her, knowing that there’s nowhere else in the world he could possibly stand to be right now except in her bed, the scent of their sex everywhere, everywhere and his throat constricting, heart running over with it all.
Olivia sees it in his eyes; she says... nothing. A faint smile and a hum and she slinks down underneath the bed clothes, pushing the invading thought of “this was wrong” to the furthest recesses of her mind.
His arm curls around her stomach-a shade too tight-and his lips find the nape of her neck. This, this is everything she ever wanted and it’s searing, knowing that this is the only time she’ll have it. “I’m gonna fall asleep,” he murmurs into sweat-slicked skin and Olivia twines a leg over his.
His breathing evens out as he drops off and she thinks about how she’s dreamt this a thousand times before: Rain against the window with Elliot, wrapped around her, saying nothing.
---
He isn’t gone in the morning.
Olivia can’t decide if that’s a problem.