Work Text:
Olivia walks into the squad room to find three of her detectives—one who is a sergeant, for god’s sake—and her two preferred ADAs huddled in front of her office. Noah had gotten a stomach bug the previous night but had panicked when she and Lucy referred to it as such at the possibility of a bug living inside him. If it weren’t for the desk sergeant gathering her attention, she would push past her coworkers and see for herself what the problem is. They get a few minutes to talk amongst themselves, which is more amusing than irritating, and she listens to their chatter while she pages through any messages she had missed.
“That looks like real snow,” Amanda points out.
Rafael shakes his head and takes a sip of coffee. “Nope. Cotton.”
“Was this in here when you guys came in?” Sonny asks.
“It was here,” Mike replies. “I didn’t even see it at first.”
“It’s kinda tasteful,” Fin observes. Judging from his next response, the others must look at him with bewilderment. “What? It looks nice. Like a snow globe.”
“Snow globes are tacky,” Rafael huffs.
“You would think so,” Amanda shoots back. Sonny and Mike laugh at that; Olivia can imagine the scowl on her close friend’s face at being betrayed by his boyfriends.
The desk sergeant wraps up with his recap and she thanks him with a nod. At the sound of her voice, Mike and Fin turn around and instantly walk away from her office. Olivia catches a sliver of evergreen in her office, but she’s more focused on Amanda and Rafael glaring each other down, both of them looking seconds away from a fight.
“You can stop ogling each other,” she cuts in, striding over so she can open her office door. The blinds over the windows obscure her view, but she can already see white pillows on her desk and deep green spires. “Unless that’s part of why you’re here, Rafa.”
“I’m here for Sonny,” he insists, wrapping an arm around the waist of the taller ADA. “He offered to buy me coffee before we left for work but he needed to stop here first.”
“You can’t get enough of him, can you?” Fin teases. “First you date him, then you make him join the dark side, now you’re escorting him around the city?”
Rafael smirks right back. “Missing John much?”
Olivia cuts in by shooting both of them a silencing glare and opens her office door. Before she can even step inside, she’s struck with the smell of peppermint and pine trees. Her office, much like Rafael had said, has been turned into a snow globe: white sheets cover every surface, her tables and her chairs, with white mounds sloping over them; the windows have paper mache snowflakes taped onto them, mimicking the light dust of snow outside; a tiny green tree sits on the table in front of the couch, glowing with different lights and alternating between them. Three square boxes—a small, medium, and large—sit in front of her desk, the paper shiny and the bows folded precisely in the middle.
When she walks over to her chair, she finds a stocking taped to the back. It has “Captain Olivia Benson” scrawled in glittery script that curls over the white fluff. She can feel a small box inside but she doesn’t pull it out, just removes the stocking gently and sets it on her desk.
“This is a bit extra,” Rafael muses.
Olivia glances up at him, standing in the doorway behind his boyfriend. “Which one of you did this?”
Sonny shrugs. “Like Mike said, it was here when he got in this morning,” he says. “We know just as much as you.”
There’s no sign to tell her who did this. The stocking only has the box in it—and she refuses to open it until she’s either alone or she knows who would go out of their way to do something like this. There is no note on her desk, or any of the chairs, or on the table in front of the couch. And if Mike—who would be the first one of the squad to arrive as the sergeant and as the second-in-command if she was running late—says it was like this when he arrived, then she trusts that.
“Well,” she sighs, adjusting the shawl wrapped around her chair so she can sit down in it, “there are more pressing cases to figure out today.” The desk only has a white sheet wrapped around it, silky to the touch and held up by a strand of tinsel. Anything on top, files and all, was left untouched. The only thing that isn’t is the framed photo of her and Noah, which has been adorned with a strand of tinsel that matches the one wrapped around her desk. “Carisi, you have the warrants we requested?”
Sonny places his briefcase on the arm of the chair in front of her desk and raises the two blue slips with a soft smile. “One for the office, one for the apartment.”
“Brilliant. Fin and Rollins can get that handled. How’s the Miller case looking?”
“Someone’s feeling festive.”
Olivia looks up over her glasses to see Rita Calhoun standing in the doorway, one hand on her bag and the other pushing back a strand of hair from her face. She can’t help but smile at the effortless movement, the way she cocks her head when Olivia parts her lips to speak and eyes her from the shine of her hair to the clack of her heels. “I would take the credit if it was mine. It was like this when I got in.”
“Oh?” Rita never could hold back a smirk, and she lets it loose as she walks in, purposely swaying her hips as she does. “How mysterious. One of your kids outside?”
“I’m not sure.” Olivia places her glasses on top of her head. “I don’t know many people who could pull off a B&E in a cop’s squad room.”
Rita sits at the end of her desk, her bag dropping to the floor, and Olivia stands to join her, her hands falling onto Rita’s waist instantly. The belt she had worn that morning to counteract the stark cream of her dress is strong against her fingers. Olivia sighs quietly when Rita shifts under her grasp and reaches up to delicately remove her glasses. As much as she loved her, Rita was considerate and cautious, always wanting to check that Noah was taken care of before they shared a night curled beside each other, always locating her glasses before she ran her hands through the cascade of dark brown locks that flowed between her fingers like the waters of Niagara.
But for all that, she could be quick and sharp; when Olivia said she didn’t date lawyers, Rita pointed out that she was a defense attorney, not a prosecutor, which was more of a lawyer than her current profession. Prosecutors followed and obeyed the laws—she bent them. If Noah was cranky, she could verbally bounce back and forth with him and talk him down from whatever tantrum he had been close to having, but she never let him think she disapproved of him. The trips to the playground and secret slips of ice cream were enough proof. Olivia was drawn to Rita’s mind; she was in love with her mouth; she worshipped her body. All curves and smooth skin and spicy flavors, light brown hair like cinnamon sprawled over her bed.
“You know,” Rita hums, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger, “breaking and entering only counts when you intend to commit a crime. And the last I checked, wanting to decorate your girlfriend’s office for the holiday season is not a crime.”
Olivia squeezes Rita’s waist at the teasing words. “Are you saying you’re a felon?”
“I’m saying that if nothing criminal occurred, then there is no crime.”
“It’s still trespassing.”
Rita waves her hand between them. “Rafael will let me plead it out.”
Olivia chuckles and leans forward when Rita places her hands behind her neck and presses their foreheads together. The feel of her lips is familiar, a cozy warmth spreading throughout her body and tingling in her fingers. Rita hums and sways in place, and Olivia tightens her grip. She doubts she will ever find a way to get over this woman. The way she absolutely wrecks her, the way she gives herself up to a woman as beautiful and striking as Rita Calhoun, Olivia never wants to leave.
“Also,” Rita whispers against her lips, and Olivia falls into the stretch of heat in her voice, “I’m sleeping with the complaining officer, so I think I can get the charges dropped.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Olivia scoffs, unable to stop the smile from reaching her eyes. “But I think you’re right.”
“If I had a nickel for every time I heard both of those things.”
Olivia laughs and melts further into the kiss, thanking whatever force broke her no-lawyers law and let this woman enter her heart.
Olivia advises everyone to leave her office the way it is. If it has anything to do with Rita staying for two more hours despite not having a client in police custody, or the ring on her finger, no one says anything. But in a room full of cops, the dots are easily connected.