Work Text:
Oh, if you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
+++++
There were a few things Elliot definitively knew. Things he could place money on because they were solid. Concrete facts that were laid out before him.
One: grief had him in such a chokehold he could barely see straight for nearly a year. It made him shortsighted.
It made him irrational. It made his skin burn and his face twitch to the point his children called him out. He had held the hands of many parents who had lost their children, and children who had lost their parents. None of it prepared him for the real thing. And the near-constant sensation of breathing through a flimsy plastic straw.
Two: Coming back to the United States was not a mistake.
Living abroad was an escape. Coming home to New York was inevitable. He could always feel the magnetic pull of it, nudging him towards a city that constantly changed and yet remained the same. There were a lot of reasons this was true. He was raised here. He knew nearly every street, every alley, every restaurant. The majority of his life was dedicated to the city. He ran; and like a runaway child, he came home when it was time.
Three: Richard Wheatley was a fucking asshole.
Wheatley was a narcissistic piece of shit. Killed his wife. Tried to ruin his life. Made his mind feel fuzzy and raw. When that wasn’t enough, he brought Olivia into the mess he had created. As if their relationship wasn’t complicated enough.
Angela Wheatley, the very pawn in their back and forth game for nearly a year, manipulated him. Took advantage of him when he was mourning and he feels all the air in the room suddenly disappear when he thinks of her complicity in his wife’s murder and he had kissed her. Gone to her when he was confused and grieving. Everything about it was wrong.
Richard, ever so smug and entitled, created a hotbed of chaos and going out in a blaze of glory and his body never being found just to fuck with his head one last time.
He never wanted to piss on an empty grave until Richard Wheatley.
Four: He was inexorably in love with Olivia.
He’s always had a thing for Olivia, he supposes. When he met her he didn’t think he had ever seen a cop as attractive as her. A kind of beauty that made him get caught looking at her across their desks, one that made him have to fight a smile when he saw hers.
They grew together. A dozen years passed and he could never directly place what it was about her that got so under his skin. Some days he could spend hours in the car with her in comfortable silence. Others he would want to be fucking her in the precinct showers and making her scream his name just to say to everyone else in the building that she was his and his only.
Now he knows her as a Captain, as a mother. She’s so strong and in control. It fills his heart with something heady and solid. Makes him want to submit to her authority. He thinks about her lush curves on top of him, dominant and commanding, driving him to feel things with a woman he’s never felt before.
The fourth fact — the most powerful — is why he is currently riding the elevator to her floor in the 16th precinct.
When the doors open, it’s quiet. Nothing like the precinct used to be when Olivia was merely a detective. Back in the day, it was always abuzz with the sound of phones ringing, perps talking, Munch and Fin arguing over something he won’t pay attention to. Maybe it’s the time of day, it is early in the morning, but he supposes this just is how it is now.
The precinct is nearly unrecognizable. It’s Olivia’s now anyway; Don never cared too much about the aesthetics of the building. But Olivia fights for everything in this unit and he just knows she fought for these ones too. It looks safe and welcoming and feels like a collaborative environment. Like her whole team bands together for a case and doesn’t stop until it’s solved.
Fin’s desk is as much in the corner as one could get in the new precinct layout. It’s also close to Olivia’s office as if he safeguards her from unwanted visitors.
The Sergeant gives him (and the bouquet of flowers in his hand) a tight smirk. He pulls out his phone and he’s probably texting Munch. They’ve had a bet going on for decades about him and Olivia and he’s always played oblivious to it but it's hard to keep secrets inside these precinct walls.
His own children have similar bets. He pretends not to hear it.
After all, his relationship with Olivia is sacred. Something only they know and understand. Everyone else can look and watch to their heart’s delight; they will never know this level of comfort and intimacy.
“Hey,” he says, stopping in her doorway. Lets her eyes find the colorful flowers and the smile he gives her.
He would never tell her this, but he put on this specific outfit for her benefit. It pays off because her gaze flicks over the snug black henley and his dark wash jeans, the ones that are slim in the leg and taper out to his boots. He’s purposely giving her an eyeful just to get her guard down a little bit.
“Elliot.”
The way she says his name these days is always with the tone of surprise. He hasn’t exactly been reliable until now and he is here to change that.
The flowers are in her hands now. “Got those for you.”
Olivia’s cheeks bloom with color. It's a rosy pink, matching some of the flowers he picked out for her. He doesn’t know the names of the majority of them. The florist followed him around the shop and picked each one he pointed at, one that reminded him of her.
“You’ve never gotten me flowers before.”
She peers up at him over the bouquet with a hint of shine in her eyes.
“No, I guess I haven’t.”
Her voice is quiet like she doesn’t trust herself to speak any louder. “Can you close the door please?”
She sets the flowers down on her desk and draws the blinds closed, gesturing for him to sit on the couch. They've been dancing around this for decades, although nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to how hard they have fought against this in the past year.
And today he realized he is tired of fighting fate.
“Elliot,” she starts, sliding her hand on top of his. Her thumb brushes over the back of his hand and he stays perfectly still — willing this moment to never end. He looks from their joined hands to see her. Really see her. In all of her vulnerability. That shininess in her eyes remains and yet, joy blooms in them as well.
In the end, it doesn’t matter who leans in first. Only that his forehead connects with hers softly, a mere moment before he cants his head to the right and captures her mouth. He leaves his hand, grasping hers on the leather couch, and his other hand spears into her hair.
She gasps and this is precisely what he wanted. Kissing her until she’s breathless and she forgets all her responsibilities, forgets every shouldn’t and can’t that exists in her mind.
Olivia, his greatest friend, his best confidant, the only woman who saw him through to his very core. It's only right that he met her in this very office over twenty years ago. Back when he only had four children, and he was dutifully married, had never once drifted from his faith. Now, he realizes his faith is stronger than ever because of her.
Elliot pulls her closer. The room is quiet, apart from the soft sound of their mouths meeting again and again. He knows her; knows they are on borrowed time before someone walks through her office door, knows if he dares to move his mouth to her neck she will stop this from going further.
She's so responsible and diligent. An improper part of him would jump at the opportunity to get hot and heavy with her, right here in her office.
A moment can only last so long, however, and she parts her mouth from his, resting her forehead against his cheek as she fights for air.
Olivia stays close to him. Soaking up the heavy dose of intimacy between them. "We both have to work."
"I know," he murmurs. His lips brush against hers while he speaks. "I'm going to think about this all day."
She laughs at that. It's a quiet little snort. One that he wants to hear all the time.
Elliot slowly stands and walks over to the door, holding it closed for just a moment longer. "Liv?"
"Yeah?"
"You know I'm in love with you, right?"
He's surprised her with his boldness, so much that she only makes a small noise, nodding to him. She smiles and it feels like their little secret — they're in love like a couple of kids and free-falling now.
+++++
A week later, he makes love to Olivia for the first time.
It seems silly to think of this, all of this, as making love, but after everything they have seen together in SVU, everything life has put them through, it's the most appropriate description. After every layer is peeled away and every barricade preventing this very moment, all that's left is them. Skin to skin. His heart races but it's steady for her.
The notion of true intimacy has never really crossed his mind.
Sure, he's portrayed intimacy before, in bed with his wife. He held her close and kissed her forehead or held her hand. All of it was intimate to a degree.
What he and Olivia are doing now is true intimacy. He feels it. Sees it.
Her legs are over his shoulders and his face is buried between her thighs. He is lying on his stomach on her bed, completely naked, holding her hips down with a single hand as he devours her. She grips his other hand tightly, her fingers interwoven with his. Their palms feel right together. They both cling to one another; he clings to her to salvage some level of self-control, and she clings to him to feel safe, to finally let go.
"Elliot," she says, breathless and low. "I-"
"I know."
Five: Olivia is in love with him too.