Work Text:
She’s trying not to stare at him.
He doesn’t look much different than he had a year ago; when she’d last seen him. His face is smooth, newly shaven from what she’s gathered. He keeps reaching for his chin, his fingers seeking. A habit, she notes.
She knows a thing or two about that. It’s been one week and her own fingers haven’t quite gotten used to the now empty space over her heart.
They’ve talked or texted almost daily since he’d come home at the beginning of the year. But today is the first time they’ve been able to meet face to face. It seems ridiculous. Seems insane if she’s honest - how two people who’ve wasted so much time, still can’t figure it out.
They’re getting there though she thinks.
His head is bent, eyes squinting despite the glasses he’d pulled out and slid on. There’s a wine menu in his hands, the same one that she grasps in her own, and he’s mumbling about red or white and all she can do is grin because she could care less what they order. She’s just happy to be here. With him.
“Which one are you thinking?” He asks, eyes lifting to meet hers.
It’s always going to be red for her, but right now all she can see is blue. His eyes light, and shining with amusement when she shrugs.
“Can’t read it can you?” He says around a cocky grin.
“Please,” she scoffs, narrowing her eyes before dropping them to her own menu.
She can’t see shit. She holds the laminated sheet out in front of her and does her best not to let him know that her eyes are just as useless as his.
“Maybe if I hold it over here,” he starts, but she cuts him off when she reaches over the table, fingers plucking his glasses from his face.
She doesn’t look at him when she slides them on. Just scans the menu, eyeing the list of reds. She can hear him chuckling across from her. Low, and deep down in his chest. When she spares a look at him over the menu, there’s a grin on his face and she can feel a smile blooming over hers.
“Shut up,” she says around it.
They both order a red. One that’s pricy, but not ridiculous. They leave his readers between them on the table.
He fills her in on everything. All the details he’d withheld until they were out from behind a screen. From being strung up on a cross to ‘working’ on the honey farm. From Randall and Mama to Joey and Eli.
“Should have named him after Kathy’s father,” he half jokes and her own words from seventeen years ago ring in her ears.
‘Just what the world needs, another Elliot Stabler.’
He isn’t really looking at her now, and maybe that’s why she does it.
Maybe that’s why she reaches her hand across the table and slides her palm over the inside of his forearm, right where it meets his wrist. She squeezes once and his eyes are back on hers then.
“You know El,” she starts, before dropping her eyes to where her hand rests.
“A name doesn’t determine who someone will be.” She looks back up at him then.
“But if it did,” she squeezes his arm and swallows, “I’d say Eli is going to turn out just fine.”
They’re both quiet after that. She slides her hand back over and they order a second glass of wine. It’s not uncomfortable. They’re both older now, wiser in most ways, and they’re good like this. They always have been. In the silence.
The toe of his shoe presses into hers after a while and when she meets his eyes again, the clouds are gone. Thunder and rain swept away for now.
They talk about her next. Her son and her squad, and Maddie Flynn’s mother. He knows most of the details, but she tells him more now. About the overwhelming urge to save a girl she’d never even met. About going too far and pushing too hard. About Bruno and Fin and everyone else questioning her every move.
They’re on glass three when he asks about the compass.
“You wore it everyday?” He asks, voice low and rough. His fingers twitching where his hand rests so close to hers on the table.
She toys with the stem of her glass, her brown eyes dropping to the dark liquid swirling inside as a shy smile curls at the corners of her mouth.
“Everyday, El,” she tells him softly.
The words slip out while her eyes slide shut.
“Do you think she’ll return it?” He asks.
“I hope so,” she answers.
It’s her shoe then that finds his under the table.
“It works pretty well,” she whispers, eyes rising to meet his once again.
They cool it on the wine after that. There’s one, maybe two good sips left in both of their glasses and she doesn’t need or want anymore. It’s made them both a little braver tonight. Heavy topics and sensitive words have passed between them with more ease than in recent years.
It’s not just the alcohol though. Something feels different. Like the smoke has cleared and the rain is still hanging around, but the sun is peaking through again.
Like he had to leave and come back again, but the right way this time.
She watches him across from her. He’s telling her something about Jet and Reyes and how they think they’re fooling everyone and she is listening. Or trying to. But his black shirt is only buttoned halfway up his chest, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. He’s waving his hands around while he grumbles, ‘we all know what’s going on,’ and there’s no ring on his left hand anymore.
He’s free.
“Liv.”
Her eyes feel heavy and she has to blink a few times to bring him back into focus.
He chuckles and raises an eyebrow at her.
“Am I boring you with tales of inner-office romance?”
It’s her turn to laugh then. She brings her arms up, crossing them in front of her and leans in slightly.
“No,” she says. “Makes me kind of jealous.”
She can the second her words take root. He looks at her with a gleam in his eye, and he opens his mouth to respond, but she cuts him off.
“I mean, it would be nice for Fin and Bruno to have something to gossip about other than who keeps sending flowers to my office.”
His eyes go wide then and his mouth snaps shut.
She stares at him for a beat, mouth straight and eyes unmoving. She watches as he swallows and drops her gaze, and she listens as he clears his throat. And when he lifts his head, eyes catching on hers again, she takes pity on him and smiles. It starts at the corners of her mouth and spreads all the way up to her eyes, she knows. A full grin aimed right at him.
He huffs out a laugh and looks down at the table, shaking his head. His shoulders relax and his eyes are full of relief when he looks at her again.
He opens his mouth, then closes it. Whatever he wants to say forced back.
But there’s wine in her system and she feels like taking risks tonight.
“What?” She pushes.
He matches her pose, bringing his arms up on the table and leaning in, and she lets her eyes drop to the bare skin of his chest and the ropes of muscle in his arms. When she brings them back up, there’s a cocky smirk on his face and his voice is like sandpaper as he whispers, “Isn’t that considered inner-office romance?”
She laughs and leans in even closer. Her arm pressing into his.
“We don’t work together, Detective,” she whispers.
He nods, and apparently she isn’t the only one letting the alcohol guide her tonight because as she moves to lean back to her side of the table, he slides his palm over hers and laces their fingers together.
They sit like that for a while. His thumb tracing patterns over hers and their voices low as they steer their conversation back from the line they’re precariously close to stepping over.
It feels good to be brave. Brave for herself. She fights for everyone else’s happiness and it feels good to finally be brave enough to reach for her own.
When they finally make their way outside, the air is cool, and her skin is warm, and his hand is heavy on her back. She feels light and heavy at the same time.
They walk and they talk, and she leans into him more than she’s ever let herself in the past.
When they turn, she realizes that she has no idea where they’re going until she sees the gate to his back garden come into view. He bypasses the gate though, stopping only when he gets to the side door, but he makes no effort to open it.
“Guess I, uh…guess I wasn’t really paying attention” he says, head tilted towards the door.
“Me neither,” she murmurs around a soft smile.
They have been good tonight. Pushing it just so, and she knows there’s almost six glasses of wine between them, but her heart is sober and maybe this is what her brain needs to finally let her take for herself.
She steps in front of him, her back to the door.
“You gonna drive me home Stabler?” She asks. “Or are you gonna invite me in?”
His breath catches and the look on his face tells her that however far they’ve come tonight, he wasn’t really expecting her to let it get to this point.
His eyes trail over her face, stopping at her mouth before dragging back up.
His jaw is tight and his eyes are dark, and there’s hope, and longing, and want coloring them.
This is why we don’t do this,” he says with a half grin.
She keeps her eyes on his, leaning back as he steps forward and places his hand on the brick wall behind her. Leaning in.
“Maybe it’s why we should do this,” she whispers.
She tries to rein it in, but she can’t keep her grin contained. Maybe it’s the alcohol; it probably is. Or maybe it’s him.
Him with half the buttons on his shirt undone, and the pair of glasses she’d stolen earlier to read the overpriced wine menu, tucked halfway down his chest. Him with one foot between her own and the other pressed against the outside of her right. With his forearm, still bare from his rolled up sleeves, resting so close to her face.
His eyes are blue and shiny and somehow it feels like he’s looking at her for the first time tonight. Maybe he is.
He’s never been able to look at her this openly before. She lets him now, and maybe it is because of the alcohol. But only partly, she knows.
He looks happy, and as she feels the smile bloom across her face, she realizes that it’s happiness she feels inside of her chest too. It’s like a bubble trying to pop inside of her and she thinks that if she lets it, it just might evict the loneliness and fear that have lived inside of her for far too long.
“El,” she whispers. It’s not a warning, but he must think it is because he ducks his head a little and inches closer.
“M’not drunk Liv,” he says. And despite the shine in his eyes, she knows it’s true.
She tilts her head back all the way until it rests against the door at her back. Her chin tilts towards him then and she just looks.
He’s so familiar to her, and when he’s this close she can hardly believe that she’d gone so many years without him.
When he’s this close, close enough that she can see the lines on his face that have etched their way into his skin over the years, she finds it hard to think of him as a question mark.
“I’m not drunk either, El,” she laughs.
He chuckles and she can almost feel it in her own chest.
“You’re not sober either,” he whispers.
She closes her eyes at his words, but she answers.
“How would you know?” She teases.
“We don’t do this often, remember?”
She smiles as she says the second part and she hears him start to speak, but he quiets before any words come out and she opens her eyes back up to him.
He looks serious now. A smile still sticks to the corners of his mouth but his eyes drop when he tells her,
“You’d never let me get this close if you were.”
He’s right, she knows, but his words sink into her like a weight. A reminder she thinks. A reminder that she’s supposed to be careful here.
But she’s so tired of being hesitant when it comes to him.
“Maybe I just needed a little help,” she says, pushing off the wall.
Her nose almost presses into his when she stands up straight. His hand stays pressed into the wall and she feels surrounded by him. She can hardly see his eyes from this angle, and when she tilts her head back to catch them, her nose brushes against his and she feels his chest hitch against her own as his breath sticks in his throat.
“But I know what I’m doing, El,” she whispers.
It’s him that moves first.
Her words have made him brave, and his hand is warm when he lifts it from his side to rest at her waist. He shuffles forward until his chest is flush with hers and it’s her turn to gasp as his forehead comes to rest against hers.
She can feel her chest rising and falling against his. Their hearts, stuttering in synch from their proximity.
“And what are you doing, Liv?” He murmurs, almost against her lips.
She kisses him then. Because he’s right there and she wants to, and he asked.
It’s fast, and ends before it even starts. The press of her lips, soft, barely there, and she pulls back after less than ten seconds, with a soft pop.
It’s quick, but it’s enough to leave her breathless. The bubble inside of her chest finally popping at the most minute of touches.
Happiness.
It floods her system and she hears his intake of breath - delayed shock when it finally registers for him what she’s just done.
The hand at her waist slides to her lower back and he’s pulling her impossibly closer. His hand on the wall falls, coming down to rest with the other. He’s still surrounding her, but it’s his whole body now. His hands are on her, and it’s not the alcohol that has her buzzing when he leans in and gives it back to her. The slightest of brushes of his lips against hers before he whispers her name.
“Olivia.”
She expects him to devour her. Teeth and tongue and rough palms against her face, but he surprises her.
It’s like she’s given him permission and he’s savoring every second. He brings his right hand up, fingers brushing her hair out of her face before resting against her cheek.
“I think we should get ‘not drunk’ together more often,” he rasps. A grin stretching across his face.
She laughs and shakes her head, eyes dropping to his chest before meeting his again.
She loves him. Has loved him for so long.
“I think you should kiss me, Elliot,” she whispers, her own smile spreading, but he cuts it off before it can fully bloom.
His lips are warm and he kisses just like she’d known he would. He gives and he takes, and she gasps when he slides his hand under her shirt. The callouses on his palms make her shiver, and there’s tears slipping down her cheeks because for so long, she believed she’d never get the chance to truly know his touch.
When he pulls away, she can see the emotions in his eyes too. For all the teasing the alcohol has allowed them tonight, it is nonexistent in their want, their need, for each other.
He brings his hands up, palms cupping her cheeks, and he uses his thumbs to swipe away her tears.
“Olivia,” he whispers.
“I know,” she says, pressing her lips to his.
This time when she pulls back, there are no tears. She feels lighter than she has in years. Thirteen to be exact.
“All this time and all it took was wine and flowers,” he teases as he reaches in his pocket for his keys.
She huffs out a laugh, head rolling back against the door.
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s all…” she smirks.
—
When she gets to work on Monday, there’s a new bouquet waiting for her at the front desk. She rolls her eyes when she sees Fin shoot Bruno a look over the top of his computer.
Unlike the three before it, there’s a card.
She uses her fingernail to peel back the paper, revealing his sloppy scrawl.
‘I worked there for a long time. I think this should count as inner-office romance.’
She shakes her head, rolling her eyes, before she spots the smaller note at the bottom.
‘Hope these make you smile.’
Like the blossoms in her hand, the grin on her face blooms.