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sarkenFandom: Law & Order: Organized Crime
Paring/Characters: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler, Frank Donnelly
Summary: Lying is the most fun a girl can have while playing strip poker with her former partner and a dirty cop.
Title: a wonder for gods and mortal men
Author: Sarken
Rating: PG-13
Author's note: Shout-out to Bernini, the ancient Greeks, Panic! At The Disco, and pretty much all of OC seasons one and two. Y'all really had my back on this.
Set early in the Brotherhood arc, before the diamond heist in Can't Knock the Hustle.
Title from Hymn 2 to Demeter.
Also available on AO3.
***
For ten minutes now, Elliot and Olivia have been lingering at his door, talking in whispers and soft smiles in the apartment's sleepy light. Her hand rests on the knob, and he can't stop thinking about how he'd like to kiss her when they finally get to goodnight.
A knock on the door behind her makes them both jump and puts them on alert; they trade confused, suspicious glances. It feels like they should be drawing their guns.
She steps back while he opens the door.
Frank grins in the harsh light of the corridor. "I told Parnell you had to be standing us up for a girl." His grin widens as he looks between them. "You kids kiss and make up?"
"Did someone say we had a fight?" Olivia's voice is pitched high and sweet; Elliot still knows the slight tilt of her head that goes with this act.
Frank laughs. "Old school Benson-Stabler knock-down, drag-out, right in the middle of One PP? Someone might've mentioned a thing or two."
"Yeah, well," Elliot says, "don't believe everything you hear. You coming in or what?"
"Depends," Frank says. "You stayin'?"
"Why not."
They settle around the coffee table, three beers and a deck of cards between them.
Frank stops his lazy overhand shuffle long enough to wave Elliot away from the jar of coins he grabbed from the credenza. "Penny ante? Seriously?"
Elliot laughs. "What's wrong with penny ante? You win the lottery and not tell me?"
"It's just--we're all adults here. We can make things a little more interesting than penny ante, don't you think?"
"So, what, like a drinking game?"
Frank rolls his eyes. "Like strip poker, numnuts."
Heat pricks Elliot's skin as it rushes up from his chest, into his neck and face. He tries to cover his discomfort with a snort. "Yeah, like Liv wants to see you without your shirt on." His eyes dart over to her. Give me a sign and I'll get us out.
"Well, maybe not me." Frank jerks a thumb toward Elliot. "You gotta see this guy, though. Solid as a rock. Like one of those Greek gods, but without any hair."
"Greek god, huh?" Olivia arches an eyebrow and neatly slips the deck from Frank's hand. Mimics Frank's easy shuffle once, twice, three times before laying the first card down in front of Elliot. "There you go, Ares." A card to Frank. "Autolycus." And one to herself. "Persephone."
She doesn't want out.
"Now, Ares--that guy I know," Frank says, thumbing the edge of his card. "But Autolycus?"
"A master thief."
Olivia's smile is feline, and Frank nudges Elliot and preens like a bird. "A master thief and the god of war--are we unstoppable or what?" He scoots his chair closer to the table. "So Persephone, what's she about?"
Spring, Elliot thinks. Rebirth. Departure and return.
"Persephone," Olivia says thoughtfully, slowly, like telling a story, "was abducted by Hades. She became queen of the underworld."
The Ratto di Proserpina. He and Kathy had seen it, in the Borghese Gallery. He'd stood in that cold marble room, surrounded by emperors, and tried to find the beauty in it. Tried to understand why a man who could carve something as beautiful as the give of a goddess's flesh beneath a grasping hand would depict it in an act of violence rather than love.
"Persephone," Frank repeats, and it sounds different this time. "Okay. Yeah. Persephone."
Cards dealt, Olivia returns the deck to the table. "Best hand chooses who strips. You want to fold, you can, but--" she pauses, raises a finger in the air--"you only get to do it once. We good?"
"We're good," Elliot says, and Frank slaps a hand on the tabletop and says, "Let's play, baby."
Elliot's cards are garbage, and from the way Frank's squinting, his aren't any better.
"How many of these can I throw out?" Frank asks, rubbing his chin.
"Gotta keep one."
He makes a faint noise of disgust as he picks which one.
Olivia takes two. She's always been unnaturally lucky at cards, darts, and pool, and her straight wins the hand.
She turns toward Elliot, something hungry in her dark eyes. Something he wishes he'd seen as they'd lingered at the door. She licks her lips--and swings back to Frank.
"Detective Donnelly," she says, "you're overdressed. Why don't you take off your coat and stay a while?"
Elliot laughs, relieved, and Frank glides his hands down the length of his lapels as he gets to his feet. "Don't mind if I do," he says, shrugging his long brown coat off his shoulders, letting it slip down his arms. He tugs the cuffs of his sweater and gets back in his seat.
The next hand goes to Frank, who points across the table and says, "C'mon, Stabler, give the lady a show."
He could. He used to, alone with her in the locker room, where her eyes would meet his, dark and deep and wide. But that had only been for them, not Frank, not this damned undercover op.
He kicks his foot up on top of the coffee table and takes off his boot.
Frank scoffs and swats dismissively at the air. "He always this fun?"
Olivia hums. "Used to be a lot." Her smile is all eye teeth.
Elliot doesn't like it, this conspiratorial rapport. Frank doesn't respect rank and he doesn't respect women, only manages to be kind if they're victims or he wants to screw them.
"You gonna look at those, Ares, or use your x-ray vision?"
Elliot doesn't correct him as he picks up his cards. Two tens, two threes, the queen of hearts. He rearranges them and puts the face card down. "One."
It doesn't feel like a victory when he wins the hand, but he smirks like it does and crooks a finger at Liv. "Let's go, Proserpina."
She's got a necklace, two shoes, and a fistful of rings. Earrings, he'd bet, hidden behind that curtain of hair.
She sets her jaw and pulls her sweater over her head.
Eighteen years Elliot spent in Special Victims. He'd know an old cigarette burn anywhere.
Even on his partner's skin.
He wants to retch. Wants to beat the shit out of something. Someone. Wants to look into Olivia's eyes for some explanation, but when he tries, she doesn't even look at him. Only Frank.
Frank, who isn't leering, but staring awestruck, like a believer witnessing stigmata.
"We'd take care of a guy like that," Frank says, his voice a little thick.
Olivia picks up the deck. "I took care of him." She forgets to shuffle before she starts to deal.
"I'm just sayin', it's--that? That's what brothers are for." Frank gestures between himself and Elliot. "Guys like me and him, we'd take care of a guy like that."
Elliot's knuckles ache where his fingers have curled into fists. He can't unclench them to reach for his cards.
"You know what? Fold." Olivia throws down her cards and a goddamn flush scatters across the polished wood. "I don't know if you're hard of hearing or what, Detective, but I said I took care of it. I don't need your Brotherhood. If anything, your little Brotherhood needs me."
He gets it now, Elliot does, watching the glint in Frank's eye and the darkness in Liv's. Gets why everyone's been looking at him like he's slipping away.
Go home, Liv, he thinks. Before it's too late.
"'Need' is a strong word," Frank says, shifting his weight. He sits back, just a little, and taps his cards against his chin. "'Could use,' on the other hand..."
Across the apartment, the kitchen faucet drips.
"Getting Stabler out of the doghouse with IAB, that was you?"
"Well, he is my partner."
"Now it's all starting to make sense." Frank smiles like he's had a revelation, phony as can be. "Just, uh, tell me one thing, Captain. Now that Tucker's gone, which member of the rat squad did you screw?"
Olivia gets up so fast, her shins bang the table. It's going to leave a bruise.
"Screw you." She takes half a step away only to spin back and point an accusing finger at Elliot, her crumpled sweater clutched in her hand. "And screw you for thinking I'd want his brotherhood."
Elliot's head is spinning, and it isn't until Frank says, "Women," that Elliot jumps up to chase after her, unbalanced and off-kilter in his single shoe.
She's almost to the door, struggling to cram her sweater into her purse and her arms into her coat.
"Liv." Elliot catches her bare elbow and whirls her around to face him, but he doesn't know what else to say. What he can say, with Frank just down the hall. "I--I didn't know."
"No, you didn't." Olivia pulls her arm back. Her dark coat hangs low on her arms. "And you still don't, because you still haven't asked."
"I'm asking now," he says, and he knows he's pleading. Desperate. He doesn't care. "Let me get rid of Donnelly and we can talk."
Olivia shakes her head. "I'm going home, Elliot." She pulls her coat up and buttons it just enough to hide her skin. "When you're done with Donnelly and the Brotherhood, you can try asking then."
Paring/Characters: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler, Frank Donnelly
Summary: Lying is the most fun a girl can have while playing strip poker with her former partner and a dirty cop.
Title: a wonder for gods and mortal men
Author: Sarken
Rating: PG-13
Author's note: Shout-out to Bernini, the ancient Greeks, Panic! At The Disco, and pretty much all of OC seasons one and two. Y'all really had my back on this.
Set early in the Brotherhood arc, before the diamond heist in Can't Knock the Hustle.
Title from Hymn 2 to Demeter.
Also available on AO3.
***
For ten minutes now, Elliot and Olivia have been lingering at his door, talking in whispers and soft smiles in the apartment's sleepy light. Her hand rests on the knob, and he can't stop thinking about how he'd like to kiss her when they finally get to goodnight.
A knock on the door behind her makes them both jump and puts them on alert; they trade confused, suspicious glances. It feels like they should be drawing their guns.
She steps back while he opens the door.
Frank grins in the harsh light of the corridor. "I told Parnell you had to be standing us up for a girl." His grin widens as he looks between them. "You kids kiss and make up?"
"Did someone say we had a fight?" Olivia's voice is pitched high and sweet; Elliot still knows the slight tilt of her head that goes with this act.
Frank laughs. "Old school Benson-Stabler knock-down, drag-out, right in the middle of One PP? Someone might've mentioned a thing or two."
"Yeah, well," Elliot says, "don't believe everything you hear. You coming in or what?"
"Depends," Frank says. "You stayin'?"
"Why not."
They settle around the coffee table, three beers and a deck of cards between them.
Frank stops his lazy overhand shuffle long enough to wave Elliot away from the jar of coins he grabbed from the credenza. "Penny ante? Seriously?"
Elliot laughs. "What's wrong with penny ante? You win the lottery and not tell me?"
"It's just--we're all adults here. We can make things a little more interesting than penny ante, don't you think?"
"So, what, like a drinking game?"
Frank rolls his eyes. "Like strip poker, numnuts."
Heat pricks Elliot's skin as it rushes up from his chest, into his neck and face. He tries to cover his discomfort with a snort. "Yeah, like Liv wants to see you without your shirt on." His eyes dart over to her. Give me a sign and I'll get us out.
"Well, maybe not me." Frank jerks a thumb toward Elliot. "You gotta see this guy, though. Solid as a rock. Like one of those Greek gods, but without any hair."
"Greek god, huh?" Olivia arches an eyebrow and neatly slips the deck from Frank's hand. Mimics Frank's easy shuffle once, twice, three times before laying the first card down in front of Elliot. "There you go, Ares." A card to Frank. "Autolycus." And one to herself. "Persephone."
She doesn't want out.
"Now, Ares--that guy I know," Frank says, thumbing the edge of his card. "But Autolycus?"
"A master thief."
Olivia's smile is feline, and Frank nudges Elliot and preens like a bird. "A master thief and the god of war--are we unstoppable or what?" He scoots his chair closer to the table. "So Persephone, what's she about?"
Spring, Elliot thinks. Rebirth. Departure and return.
"Persephone," Olivia says thoughtfully, slowly, like telling a story, "was abducted by Hades. She became queen of the underworld."
The Ratto di Proserpina. He and Kathy had seen it, in the Borghese Gallery. He'd stood in that cold marble room, surrounded by emperors, and tried to find the beauty in it. Tried to understand why a man who could carve something as beautiful as the give of a goddess's flesh beneath a grasping hand would depict it in an act of violence rather than love.
"Persephone," Frank repeats, and it sounds different this time. "Okay. Yeah. Persephone."
Cards dealt, Olivia returns the deck to the table. "Best hand chooses who strips. You want to fold, you can, but--" she pauses, raises a finger in the air--"you only get to do it once. We good?"
"We're good," Elliot says, and Frank slaps a hand on the tabletop and says, "Let's play, baby."
Elliot's cards are garbage, and from the way Frank's squinting, his aren't any better.
"How many of these can I throw out?" Frank asks, rubbing his chin.
"Gotta keep one."
He makes a faint noise of disgust as he picks which one.
Olivia takes two. She's always been unnaturally lucky at cards, darts, and pool, and her straight wins the hand.
She turns toward Elliot, something hungry in her dark eyes. Something he wishes he'd seen as they'd lingered at the door. She licks her lips--and swings back to Frank.
"Detective Donnelly," she says, "you're overdressed. Why don't you take off your coat and stay a while?"
Elliot laughs, relieved, and Frank glides his hands down the length of his lapels as he gets to his feet. "Don't mind if I do," he says, shrugging his long brown coat off his shoulders, letting it slip down his arms. He tugs the cuffs of his sweater and gets back in his seat.
The next hand goes to Frank, who points across the table and says, "C'mon, Stabler, give the lady a show."
He could. He used to, alone with her in the locker room, where her eyes would meet his, dark and deep and wide. But that had only been for them, not Frank, not this damned undercover op.
He kicks his foot up on top of the coffee table and takes off his boot.
Frank scoffs and swats dismissively at the air. "He always this fun?"
Olivia hums. "Used to be a lot." Her smile is all eye teeth.
Elliot doesn't like it, this conspiratorial rapport. Frank doesn't respect rank and he doesn't respect women, only manages to be kind if they're victims or he wants to screw them.
"You gonna look at those, Ares, or use your x-ray vision?"
Elliot doesn't correct him as he picks up his cards. Two tens, two threes, the queen of hearts. He rearranges them and puts the face card down. "One."
It doesn't feel like a victory when he wins the hand, but he smirks like it does and crooks a finger at Liv. "Let's go, Proserpina."
She's got a necklace, two shoes, and a fistful of rings. Earrings, he'd bet, hidden behind that curtain of hair.
She sets her jaw and pulls her sweater over her head.
Eighteen years Elliot spent in Special Victims. He'd know an old cigarette burn anywhere.
Even on his partner's skin.
He wants to retch. Wants to beat the shit out of something. Someone. Wants to look into Olivia's eyes for some explanation, but when he tries, she doesn't even look at him. Only Frank.
Frank, who isn't leering, but staring awestruck, like a believer witnessing stigmata.
"We'd take care of a guy like that," Frank says, his voice a little thick.
Olivia picks up the deck. "I took care of him." She forgets to shuffle before she starts to deal.
"I'm just sayin', it's--that? That's what brothers are for." Frank gestures between himself and Elliot. "Guys like me and him, we'd take care of a guy like that."
Elliot's knuckles ache where his fingers have curled into fists. He can't unclench them to reach for his cards.
"You know what? Fold." Olivia throws down her cards and a goddamn flush scatters across the polished wood. "I don't know if you're hard of hearing or what, Detective, but I said I took care of it. I don't need your Brotherhood. If anything, your little Brotherhood needs me."
He gets it now, Elliot does, watching the glint in Frank's eye and the darkness in Liv's. Gets why everyone's been looking at him like he's slipping away.
Go home, Liv, he thinks. Before it's too late.
"'Need' is a strong word," Frank says, shifting his weight. He sits back, just a little, and taps his cards against his chin. "'Could use,' on the other hand..."
Across the apartment, the kitchen faucet drips.
"Getting Stabler out of the doghouse with IAB, that was you?"
"Well, he is my partner."
"Now it's all starting to make sense." Frank smiles like he's had a revelation, phony as can be. "Just, uh, tell me one thing, Captain. Now that Tucker's gone, which member of the rat squad did you screw?"
Olivia gets up so fast, her shins bang the table. It's going to leave a bruise.
"Screw you." She takes half a step away only to spin back and point an accusing finger at Elliot, her crumpled sweater clutched in her hand. "And screw you for thinking I'd want his brotherhood."
Elliot's head is spinning, and it isn't until Frank says, "Women," that Elliot jumps up to chase after her, unbalanced and off-kilter in his single shoe.
She's almost to the door, struggling to cram her sweater into her purse and her arms into her coat.
"Liv." Elliot catches her bare elbow and whirls her around to face him, but he doesn't know what else to say. What he can say, with Frank just down the hall. "I--I didn't know."
"No, you didn't." Olivia pulls her arm back. Her dark coat hangs low on her arms. "And you still don't, because you still haven't asked."
"I'm asking now," he says, and he knows he's pleading. Desperate. He doesn't care. "Let me get rid of Donnelly and we can talk."
Olivia shakes her head. "I'm going home, Elliot." She pulls her coat up and buttons it just enough to hide her skin. "When you're done with Donnelly and the Brotherhood, you can try asking then."
