Chapter Text
"We still grabbing a drink tonight?" Elliot asks dropping the Cynthia Yellins case file on his desk and turning towards Olivia.
"You still dropping by to see the kids first?" She asks as she leans back in her chair. Elliot smiles and takes a seat in his.
"Yeah. Kathy said I could come by tonight to see them." He says fidgeting with his ink pen between 2 fingers.
"Hey we got a hit on Stephen Dachiells prepaid cell phone it's reloaded with air time every Monday morning from the same address." Munch interrupts handing Elliot a piece of paper with an address on it.
"I guess that's us." Elliot says sliding his jacket off the back of his chair.
When they arrive the man at the counter advises that the man in the photo Stephen Daschiells comes in regularly and gives them a home address.
When they finally find the man they come to the realization that he has a wife and kids and that his name is actually Malcolm Royce.
Malcolm Royce a name and face Elliot would grow to hate.
----
"I gotta get out of here." Elliot turns and quickly faces away from the man crying on the bed who had just heard the news he's lost his wife and kids at the hands of his wife.
"Yeah, probably get back and brief Cragen." Olivia says
"Can you handle it?" Elliot asks, barely making eye contact with her.
"Sure." She doesn't hesitate.
He pulls up to Kathy's house and sits in the driveway for a few minutes. They had gotten wrapped up in the case so he hadn't had the chance to visit the kids like he wanted to but she said he could still come see them. And it was good because he needed to.
He needed to see their faces, hear their breathing, feel their skin against his palms. Things Malcolm would never do again.
He slowly walks to Kathy's bedroom and sighs and stands at the door. "Thanks for letting me come by." He says. "Did it help?" Kathy asks and he shoots a half hearted smile.
"Yeah." He nods his head and they look at each other for a few moments.
"Stay." Kathy muttered softly.
He swallowed hard and remained motionless for a moment. Only a moment.
He felt sad and lonely and vulnerable and he wanted intimacy. He wanted to feel someone touch his skin, he wanted to feel the warmth of someone pressed up against him.
He just wanted someone.
He swallows again to wet his throat to supply her with an answer.
"I should get back to the station. Paperwork.." he said softly and she nodded her head comprehensively.
It's what the majority of their marriage had been, him running off for some new case or getting stuck late at the office dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's.
It never failed to disappoint her when he did it but it didn't surprise her either. Elliot would always choose the job over her.
What she didn't know was that for once it wasn't the job.
-----
Forensic had proved Malcolm was the sole perpetrator of the heinous crime scene he couldn't get out of his head. So when Malcolm's finished feeding him a handful of lies Cragen comes to pull him out.
I'm not coming out. And you're not coming in.
He shoves a chair under both doors to prevent entry from either side. Elliot confronts Malcolm telling him to tell the truth and when Malcolm says he did Elliot hits his wits end. He informs him that he knows Malcolm is lying and that he's going to get the truth out of him one way or another.
He continues walking towards Malcolm, jabbing thick fingers into Malcolm's chest.
"What'd your children ever do to you?" Elliot asks when Malcolm doesn't answer any of his other questions.
"Come on killer. Are you a killer..huh?"
"What'd your children do to you?!" He screams "Just tell me that." He says and the man is cowering back, backing himself up against a wall and holding his hands up in defensive motions.
"You wanna kill someone.. kill me." Elliot goads the man. Before he can process his anger or a single thought his hand is cupped around the back of Malcolm's head, elbow resting on Malcolm's shoulder as the other arm wraps across Malcolm's chest, hand firmly gripping Malcolm by the jaw.
"Come here." He pulls him towards the thick double sided mirror and can faintly hear Cragen screaming at him to open the door.
"Do you know how easy it would be to mess this up and leave you paralyzed, sitting in your own piss and crap for the rest of your life?" Elliot whispers before forcefully jerking his hands in opposite directions, twisting the man's neck towards his shoulder with one quick movement if he had applied much more pressure in that forceful jerk it probably would have snapped the man's neck.
And he wanted to. It was a combat move he had learned in the army and it would be so easy to do it.
"Ow please my neck." Malcolm reaches up, trying to pull Elliot's hands from his head. "He's trying to kill me!" Malcolm screams
"I want you to suffer the way your children suffered" Elliot said, tightening his grip on his head.
"They didn't." The man mutters strainedly
"They didn't." He repeats. "..I put sleeping pills in their juice."
"What about Cynthia?" Elliot asks, turning the man's head slightly.
"Yes." Malcolm whispers.
"What?!" Elliot yells in his ear.
"Yes."Malcolm repeats, still pulling at Elliot's hands and trying to break free. "I didn't want them to wake up."
"Maybe because you couldn't look into their eyes while you killed them." Elliot says, finally releasing his grip from the mans head and giving him a shove.
He removes the chairs from under the door and walks out.
From the moment he stepped out of interrogation, past Cragen and down a hall, he passes person after person while the man keeps mumbling and screaming about how he had to kill them and how he didn't have a choice.
He heads towards the elevators, passing another series of people-Officers in uniform, Munch and Fin, faces from around the office but he doesn't actually see a single one of them.
The elevators doors swing open and hers is the first face he actually sees.
Her hairs in a ponytail, bangs down almost into her eyes, light mascara and eyeliner, light pink lip gloss that compliments her complexion.
"Hey, El." Olivia greets, voice soft and casual, and for a second her voice is almost enough to conquer that beast inside of him.
"You okay?" She asks as he passes her by and steps onto the elevator without a single word. He needs to put as much distance as he can between himself and that man-himself and everyone.
The elevator doors slowly draw closed just inches from his face and all he can do is stare at the ground.
----
"Hey El. It's me. Calling again. Look I know that the Royce case hit you hard but I'm here if you need me." Olivia says, she looks at his empty chair and thinks that there's no way being cooped up and all alone for 2 days is good for him right now. She ponders for a second still staring at his empty desk and papers strown across it.
"I'm going to go to Forlini's bar tonight to have a drink, I don't want to pressure you into anything but feel free to join me if you'd like. Hope to see you. Bye."
She sets the receiver down and continues looking at his desk. The office feels so bare without him, so quiet. Lonely.
She understands why he's gone, understands why he's dodging her calls and not responding to her texts. She's been there. She's done the same to him. Sometimes she wishes he would just let her in though.
----
"Can I get you another miss?" The bartender asks and Olivia looks at her glass, there's only a few drinks left and she opens her mouth to answer the man "Ye-" she hears the doorbell of the front door and quickly bites her sentence off, turning her head towards the door.
A man and a woman file in and take a seat in a booth and she turns back to the bartender. "Yeah." She mutters softly followed by a sigh as she lifts her glass up.
She keeps checking her watch and her phone. Minute after minute after minute ticks by and she tries to focus her attention on something else instead. She asks the bartender to turn the TV up and he complies. She zeroes in on the news story, arm resting on the counter, fingers closed around the bottom of her glass.
The condensation collects at the bottom of it spilling onto her fingers.
She reaches across to a tiny holder that holds straws and napkins.
She wipes her fingers across a napkin and looks at the clock hanging on the wall again.
She's been sitting here for 2 hours ordering drink after drink just trying to pass the time. She doesn't want to give up. She wants to hold out hope that he'll show.
They've been spending a bit more time together in the weeks before everything that happened.
They hadn't had any serious discussions or crossed over from friendship into anything else but they both had a lot of free time on their hands between his divorce and her being alone and not having a family.
She had gotten kinda used to having someone to spend her time with for once, it was just a complete bonus that the person she had been spending time with was her extremely hot partner she had feelings for for years.
She looks down at her cup and flashes back to one of the times they had been sitting at these same bar stools only a few weeks prior.
"Why are women so complicated?" Elliot joked as he took a sip of his beer and glanced over at her.
"I'm not complicated." She managed through a chuckle.
"Yes you are. " He countered tipping his glass back up to his lips. He didn't really want another drink but he was trying to focus on something other than her.
"How am I complicated?" She asked with a smile and raised her eyebrows at him.
He chuckled and shook his head back and forth slowly. "You don't want me to answer that." He said and his voice was still playful but there was something else lurking in his tone too.
"Yes I do." She says egging him on and nudging him with her shoulder. He tilts his head slightly and takes a deep breath. "This." He said simply without missing a beat and she looked at him with confused look as he took a drink of his beer. "What do you mean this?" She asked, rotating in her chair slightly to face him a bit.
"This is complicated." He had said eyes locking on hers for a moment before briefly skimming her body then landing on the counter where the back of his forearms are planted.
Before either of them could say anything else Elliot felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Fin sliding into a stool beside him.
She hears the bell of the door again and it rips her from the memory.
She inevitably sighs and takes another drink of her beer. It was pitiful really.
"Boyfriend?" The bartender asks and she feigns a smile while shaking her head. "Friend." She advised and finishes off the last remnants in her glass. "I guess I'm gonna call it a night."
She takes a cab home and checks her phone again. She finds Elliots name and opens up their texts. "I'll be there at 7. Got caught up with paperwork." She had texted. No reply.
She checks the time at the top of her phone screen. 9:46 pm.
She can't be mad at him for not showing, it's not as if they had any sort of plans or as if he had even insinuated he would try to make it. He simply hasn't responded at all.
She pushed the power button to lock her screen and slides the phone into her purse. She's wearing dress pants that have no pockets which is admittedly very inconvenient.
When she makes her way inside her apartment she sets her keys in the bowl on the counter. She pivots back towards the door and slides her shoes off. It's been a long day and she can feel an ache in the arches of each of her feet.
She collects her phone from her purse and plugs it into the charger, setting it on the counter next to the bowl that holds her keys. She moves to the other side of the island, fishing around in the cabinet to find that bottle of wine she's been wanting to open for a while now.
Very rarely she spent a little extra on a bottle of wine hoping some day she would have a reason to drink it, or someone to drink it with at the very least.
It had been so long that she has to dust if off before she can open it.
She slid the cork out of the top with her corkscrew-Pop
She lets it sit on the counter and lets it breathe for a minute. She reaches down and pours herself a glass. When the red liquid fills half the glass the sets the bottle back down and brings the brim of the wine glass to her nose to smell it.
It smells sweet but also a little sour.
She brings it up to her lips, slowly tilting the glass up to take a drink
Ding
Her doorbell rings and she looks at the clock on the wall. 10:25 pm.
She slowly walks over
Who could that be at this time of night.
She stands on her tiptoes to look out the peephole.
"Liv..Liv it's me open up." Elliot shouts from the other side of the door, knocking on it impatiently.
She undoes the chain lock then undoes the deadbolt and swings the door open.
"Elliot.." she whispers softly, eyes studying him in the doorway.
"What are you doing here?" She asks and he looks into her eyes for a minute before shifting his weight to his other foot.
"I wanted to talk." He said softly. Barely making eye contact.
When he takes a step forward to walk into her apartment she can smell the liquor on him.
He makes his way inside shuffling between her couch and coffee table and sliding his jacket from his shoulders and throwing it across the back of the couch.
He plumps down into the couch and looks at the cushions on both sides of him.
When he finally looks up at her he can't help but notice her eyes are already locked on his.
"We need to talk." He said and she shakes her head softly, trying to give him her full attention. She takes a seat on the arm of the loveseat across from him.
"Okay." She says softly. "What do you wanna talk abou-" before she can even finish hes offering an answer. "Us."
She swallows and shakes her head, slightly caught off guard.
"What about us..?" She asks and he tilts his head as if to say "You know what." But answers anyways when she doesn't respond to his body language.
"What is this?" He asks sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees.
"What do you mean? We're partners. We've always been partners." She says and he shakes his head annoyedly.
"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it Liv."
She swallows feeling slightly anxious and not wanting to answer in case she's reading the wrong signals. She shakes her head and raises her hands slightly as if to say she doesn't know what he's talking about.
He sighs heavily and quickly finds his way to his feet. He looks at her bare walls, the boring dim colors that she has to know don't look good. He shoves his hands in his pockets and bites his lip trying to will himself to say what he came here to say.
"Why'd you wait at the bar so long?" He asks and she tilts her head and widens her eyes.
"What..?" She asks, confused.
"Why did you wait so long." He repeats and widens his stance. "I never said I was coming." He says and when she looks at the ground for a second and then back up at him he tilts his head towards her and shakes it slightly, a silent "Well?"
She shrugs her shoulders.
"You won't even admit it to yourself will you?" He asks and she grows slightly annoyed.
"Look El I think maybe you've had a bit too much to drink-" she starts and he cuts her off again. "Why do you think that is?" He asks firmly.
"Because of the case..everything that happened." She says and he shakes his head.
"You don't get it Liv do you?" He fixates his eyes on a spot on the wall behind her.
When she remains silent once again he chuckles annoyedly.
"Get what?" She bites off, her voice slightly firmer and she instantly curses herself for losing her temper.
"This case isn't the problem." He asserts. "You wanna know why I haven't been at work? You really wanna know?" She raises her eyebrows willing him to answer.
"I'm trapped. I feel like I'm sinking." Her eyebrows are knitted, noticeably confused.
"Malcolm Royce? He's a murderer." She tilts her head waiting for him to go on "But.." he starts and shakes his head. ""I wouldn't call it love I'd call it betrayal." Does that ring a bell?" He asks and she blinks a few times, she realizes it's her words from the other day. "That's me Liv." Her eye twitches slightly. "I'm Malcolm Royce and you're Cynthia Yellin."
Her eyes soften. "Do you get it now Liv.?" He asks and she slides off the arm of the chair into the actual seat.
"I'm trapped. I'm the married man and you're the mistress." He says holding his hands in the air to emphasize his point.
"I'm trapped and you just sit there and act like there's nothing going on between us."
"El I don't.." he begins pacing around the room and she bites her sentence off.
"Am I going crazy is that what it is?" He asks only turning his head towards her for a moment. "Or maybe you like my personality but you're just not attracted to me." He's rambling and she's not sure how or when to cut in.
"I'm racking my brain trying to figure out how you remain so goddamn calm and collected and closed off." He says
"I'm-im not." She says and he shakes his head.
"You know Liv just once I'd like it if you could say how you feel and not feed me some open ended bullshit that's open for interpretation." He bites off.
She's fuming now. "You know what screw you Elliot." She says making her way to her feet, quickly finding her way to the front door and tugging it open. "Get out." She says. "We can talk when you're not drunk." She motions to the open door.
"Imagine that another excuse to not say how you feel." He grabs his jacket from the back of the couch and heads towards the door.
"If you ever decide how you feel give me a call." He says, stepping around her towards the door.
"Fuck you Elliot." She yells at him and he pivots towards her leaning across the threshold between her apartment door and the hallway. "Wouldn't you like that?" He says cockily and she wants to hit him but her eyes find his lips. She can smell the liquor on his breath.
When her breath hitches and she takes a step back he shakes his head in disbelief and swallows. "This is why falling in love with someone is so goddamn hard." He says and she glares at him for a second before it really hits her what he just said. She opens her mouth but before any words come out;
"Don't waste your breath Liv. I'm leaving." He snarls.
"Well go ahead then see if I care." She bites back and he turns to face her.
She's angry. Her fists are clenched. But there's a look in her eyes. He knows she cares. She'd never say that and mean it.
"Go ahead. No one's stopping you." She goads.
He takes 2 large steps forward and his hands fly up to cup her face as he claims her mouth. It's passionate but not desperate. He kisses her with an intensity she's never felt before and it's stirring her insides but it's not some overeager schoolboy kiss. "No." He mutters against her lips. She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him back with just as much fervor. Her fingers caress his scalp and he pushes his body against hers until she's met with the wall behind her.
"You don't get to push me away anymore Liv." He says reaching up to rub his thumb across her cheek as he continues kissing her.
Her hands glide across his thick neck and shoulders and caress him as he slips his tongue into her mouth. His hand slips from her face to entangle in her hair.
When he feels himself getting slightly aroused he pulls away and rests his head against hers.
Complicated