leigh57 | Fic: baby, it's cold outside (Reply)

fandom: Law & Order: SVU
title: baby, it's cold outside
word count: 1089
warnings: language, cranky cops
a/n: If you choose to read this story, it's important to know that 99% of it probably doesn't make sense. It's Christmas, Theo. It's the time of miracles! (If you don't get that, you're a lot younger than I am;)

This is for you,

lauridsen09, with my apologies;) The complete list of prompts is here. I'm posting it today because I failed at getting the fic for today done, and that's how I roll.

On the eighteenth or twentieth try, freezing fingers jamming the key forward (and praying just a little bit, because Christ does he not want to listen to Olivia bitch about this), he realizes there’s not a chance in hell the car is going to start.

The sun’s almost vanished and snow blows in bursts across the windowshield. This was supposed to be one of those assignments they all dream of getting -- full day’s pay plus a few hours of overtime for staking out some swanky cabin in the Catskills that may or may not be the vacation home of this dickhead who may or may not have have paid three of his students a fuckload of money to have sex with him.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. He doesn’t have the energy to put conviction behind the word.

Olivia doesn’t respond. She just rubs her gloved hands together and yanks open the glove compartment. “I put one of those fancy new flashlights in here a couple weeks ago. What the hell happened to it?”

Fuck.

She’s going to kill him. For a nanosecond, he cycles through a few implausible lies. But he gives up and says, sticking his hands under his arms for warmth, “I picked Eli up from preschool a couple days ago. He was bored on the drive home so-”

“You gave him the flashlight,” she interrupts.

“Yeah.”

“And forgot to bring it back.”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect.” She slams the glove compartment shut. “I’ll call Cragen.”

“And tell him what?” Elliot feels his stomach shifting, drifting toward that tipping point where hunger turns into nausea.

“That we’re stranded in East Bumfuck and we need a jump.” The phone illuminates the annoyed outlines of her face as she begins to punch the keys.

“Liv. You heard the radio. Nobody’s gonna make it up that hill until at least tomorrow afternoon.” He pulls off a glove to blow on his fingers.

“So what’s your brilliant plan, Elliot?” She hits “end” and throws the phone into her lap. “Sit here and freeze to death because you can’t work up the motivation to move?”

Damn.

He remembers, vaguely, when her voice only got that tone if she wanted to pull a perp’s nuts off.

He remembers, vaguely, when they used to have fun.

Before he even realizes what he’s doing, impulse catapulting way ahead of thought, he shoves the car door open and steps out into the blast of frigid air, snow crunching under his condition-inappropriate footwear. “My plan,” he announces over his shoulder (authoritative, even though he just figured it out himself), “is that we’re not going to freeze to death. Come on.”

Weapon drawn in case he’s yet again called a situation totally wrong, he strides toward the house, grinning a little when he hears the car door slam behind him.

************

“I’m still pissed about the flashlight.” Olivia’s stretched out on a giant leather couch, sipping steaming hot chocolate, her stocking-covered feet reaching toward the propane fire that conveniently blazed into action with the flick of a switch.

“I know.” Took him a while, but he’s figured out that the fewer words he says to her, the less he manages to make her angry.

“The hot chocolate helps.” She smiles over the top of her cup and it hits him, broadside two by four, how long it’s been since he’s seen that particular grin -- relaxed, mischievous, harmlessly flirty.

He misses it, that giant expanse of history (the history he never slowed down enough to appreciate when it still fell into the category of ‘current events’) before his unintentional life left turn.

Misses her laughter and her elbow knocking into his. Misses opening his mouth without spending five minutes planning his next sentence. Misses silence that was comfortable instead of sad and weighted.

But after a moment, quiet click of a fancy clock on the wall and the swish of Olivia fiddling with a fleece blanket, he realizes that this particular silence, if not quite relaxed, is also not . . . creepy.

He takes a sip of the ridiculously expensive hot chocolate (How much are you supposed to use? he’d asked Olivia, staring at the ornate package. The instructions are in fucking French!), wiggles his toes to warm them inside his navy dress socks, and decides that given the circumstances, he’ll take what he can get.

When five or ten minutes have passed and he thinks he might thaw, Olivia tosses the blanket covering her legs aside and stands up, walking towards the enormous kitchen. “Hey, El?”

“Yeah?” His voice comes out creaky, like he feels. She hasn’t called him that in a long time.

“Looks like we’ll be here a while.” She opens a cupboard. “So I’m gonna find us something to eat. Why don’t you see if you can hunt up a deck of cards?” She pulls out a box and scans the back of it before glancing at him. “Or Clue. You know these people have Clue.”

************

Five games of Clue and one ‘Frontera Roasted Vegetable Monterey Jack and Poblano Pizza’ (What the fuck, he thinks, but it’s really good) later, the coffee table is littered with wadded up napkins, crumbs, and empty cans of Diet Coke. Elliot crunches one in his hand and throws it at the pristine recycling container by the kitchen island.

He misses.

He’s about to make a smart comment when Olivia’s cell rings. “Benson.” She pushes herself off the floor, perches on the edge of the couch. “No, that’s fine.” She sighs and rubs her temple. “Just tell them ASAP would be great, okay?” A pause. “Let me know if anything changes.” She pitches the phone on the couch. “They’ll be here tomorrow, noon at the earliest.”

Elliot clears his throat. She’s been in a decent mood all evening, and he has no desire to push his luck. “Okay.” He glances at the stairs. “You probably want to go to sleep. I’ll make sure everything’s locked up.”

“Are you already tired?” She grins, shaking her head. “Gettin’ soft.”

“Yeah, right.”

“There’s a 2000 Pine Ridge Cab Sauv in the wine rack. I haven’t had wine that good in fifteen years.” She walks toward the kitchen. “You in?”

He looks outside, watches the snow drift down. Fancy porch lights glint off the flakes, make them sparkly. Olivia clinks glasses in the kitchen. The cushion seems to have developed magical magnetic properties.

“Yeah, I’m in.”

************

ON A WILDLY DIFFERENT SUBJECT, N came home today and had me watch this video about kids at a super white Tennessee school trying to understand the Holocaust. Only people who know me really well will understand how I could link this to a Christmas story (although honestly, a large reason is purely to avoid being spammy), but in any case, it is lovely and filled with hope and it choked me up but good.

I hope things are good with you guys! How is it already December 6?