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He hates Dean Porter.
He hates the way Porter just waltzes into Olivia’s life, knocks things over, and then waltzes back out again. He hates the way Porter looks at him, smug, like he is all too aware that Oregon is something only he and Olivia share, that Elliot has been and probably always will be excluded from those details. He hates the way Olivia looks at Porter, like he could be the answer to every question she’s ever had about her ability to be loved. And he hates that Porter was the one to save her today, that it was his gun that killed Rojas and his shot that saved her all too precious blood from being spilt. He hates everything about him. But the thing he hates the most is that Olivia doesn’t hate him. She doesn’t hate him at all.
It’s just shy of 2 am, the squadroom dark save for the lamps on both their desks, warm circles of light spread across the paperwork they’ve been working on since Cragen told them to have it ready by morning. It’s quiet, and has been for the last hour or so, ever since Fin called it a night and wished them luck, leaving them in what Elliot had thought was a comfortable silence.
Evidently it was not so comfortable for her.
“Why don’t you like Dean?”
The question catches him off guard and he glances up, eyebrows raised. Elliot clears his throat and looks back down at the form in front of him. “What makes you think I don’t like him?”
She doesn’t respond and when he looks up again a few seconds later, she’s giving him a look that he’s seen her give perps many times. A look that says she’s not in the mood for games.
He starts signing his name at the bottom of the form, the dark ink easier to focus on than the dark of her eyes. Those eyes that can tell him exactly what she’s thinking with just a glance. Those eyes that convey all the emotions she tries so hard to hide from the world. Those eyes that were almost shut forever just a few hours ago-
“I think he’s good at his job,” Elliot answers after a few more moments of quiet. It’s a non-answer, evasive, and they both know it.
“I didn’t ask if you think he’s good at his job,” Olivia says, fingers wrapping more firmly around the pen in her hand. “I asked why you don’t like him.”
They’re alone in the squadroom, so he’s not exactly sure how honest she wants him to be. If she wants him to voice aloud why he’s so hostile with not just Porter but every guy who eyeballs her. If she’s asking him to actually put into words the unspoken, complicated dynamic they have between them. He’s pretty sure if he said because you're my partner, mine , and there’s no room for anyone else in this relationship that he’d end up sounding like a pretty big ass and she’d probably smack him across the face. There’s more to it than just that, of course. More to his possessiveness, his protectiveness. More to the deep and unwavering loyalty they have for one another. But sometimes words fail to accurately capture emotion, and he’s spent the last decade trying to quantify just what it is about her, about them, that gets to the core of his soul so easily, and he’s never been able to find a single sentence, phrase, or word that does it justice.
But it’s the middle of night, and she was nearly killed today, and he doesn’t think either of them could really handle facing the it of them right now, so he takes the easier way out and gives an honest- if not complete- answer.
“He uses you.” Elliot looks her square in the eye as he says it, and can practically see the indignation rise to her shoulders, just as he knew it would.
Olivia scoffs. “He does not use me.”
Elliot nods, not entirely up for this fight right now, and looks back down at his paperwork. “Okay,” is all he says, the back of his neck prickling as she continues to glare at him.
“How does he use me? Please enlighten me,” she says, tapping her pen pointedly on her desk.
He could defuse this situation, cut this argument off at the knees right now, but she asked the question and clearly wants to hear his answer, so he puffs out a breath and leans back in his chair, gripping both armrests as he meets her expectant gaze.
“He used you in Oregon, he used you with Simon, and he’s using you now,” he states plainly. It’s been awhile since the subject of Dean Porter has made him angry, but as she shakes her head in disagreement, his temper starts to rise just a bit. Because he’s right, and she knows it, even if she wants to deny it.
“That is not true-“
“He used you to solve that case with the missing girl in Oregon and then took credit for it,” Elliot interrupts, counting on his fingers as he lists the grievances he has against Porter. “He used you to track Simon down when he was wanted for rape, and he’s using you now to solve this case because it got away from him and he wants you to clean up his mess.”
Olivia shakes her head again, a sardonic huff leaving her lips. “He didn’t use me in Oregon, I solved that case on my own,” she argues back, and she could be right about that, but it’s been three years since Oregon and she still hasn’t told him everything that went on over there, so he’s had to fill in the missing pieces himself. But that’s a whole different argument for a whole different day.
“And he didn’t use me to find Simon, he stuck his neck out and helped me even though I broke the law,” she goes on, and that one stings just a bit because Elliot stuck his neck out too, more than once, over the whole mess with her brother, and he remembers just how turned around her head had been back then, and how long it took for her to turn it right way round again. Dean reappearing and disappearing in a matter of days hadn’t helped either.
“And if he’s using me now, well newsflash, pal- he’s using you too,” she snaps, leaning forward a bit to emphasize her point.
“I never said that he wasn’t,” Elliot counters, forcing the tiny lick of anger back down into its cage. “But the difference is that when he’s done using me, I won’t give two shits as he walks out the door. But you… you will care when he leaves, and he will leave, because he always does, and you’ll be let down because he always lets you down. It’s like he chews you up and spits you out, and doesn’t care about the mess he leaves behind.”
She stares at him for several long moments, a war between anger and denial waging in her eyes, before she drops her gaze back down to her paperwork. “That’s not true,” she says quietly, but it sounds hollow, and he hates Dean Porter all over again.
He hates himself just a little bit too right then, for putting that frown on her face and for throwing Porter’s bullshit back in her face. It’s been a long two days, and it’s times like these when he should just nod his head and say you got it, partner, whatever you say, but when it comes to Dean he just… can’t.
“Look, I’m not… trying to make you feel bad,” Elliot sighs, leaning forward and settling his forearms back on his desk. “But… you’re my partner. It’s my job to keep you from getting hurt, and he doesn’t always make that job easy.”
“Your job is to keep me from getting shot or stabbed or killed,” she corrects, looking up at him once more. “You don’t have to protect me from him. He doesn’t try to hurt me.”
“But he still does. And that’s not okay with me.”
They stare at each other for several long moments, and he thinks she’s probably trying to stare him into submission, to make him backtrack and correct himself and admit that it is not his job to protect her emotionally. And he supposes that technically, it’s not, but you can’t be partners with someone for twelve- going on thirteen- years and not become attached to the parts of them that aren’t simply physical.
He’s protective of Olivia in a way that is unique to only her. He defends his family, sure, like a father and husband is supposed to, but the need to look out for her, to guard her, to fight off any harm that dares to look in her direction, that need has become its own separate piece of him. Its own entity within him. He couldn’t control it or change it if he tried. And if she resents him for it, well. Tough. Like he said, it’s his job to keep her from getting hurt. And Dean Porter does not make that job easy.
But neither do perps with cruel intentions, and the scene at the airport flashes through his mind for the millionth time today. It’s his job to keep her from getting hurt, and he nearly failed completely. She changed clothes hours ago and washed Rojas’s blood from her face and hands, but he can still see her lying on the asphalt, can still feel the way her hands shook as he clutched them between his own.
“You really scared me today,” he says, surprising himself with his own honest vulnerability.
Olivia blinks rapidly and then looks off to the side, caught off guard by his change in topic. “Yeah, well. I was pretty scared today too,” she murmurs, moving some papers around on her desk. “Maybe now you know how I feel when you risk death every other month.”
He blows out a laugh through his nose, mouth curving up into a half smile. He has to give her that one. It does always seem like he’s the one scaring the crap out of her and not the other way around. He much prefers it the usual way. He’d take a hundred more guns to his head or bullets to his body if it meant he never again had to feel what he felt today. Helpless, as he watched an evil bastard hold her life in the palm of his hand.
“I’m surprised you don’t have more gray hairs considering how much stress I’ve caused you during my brushes with death,” he teases, grinning at the way her eyebrows raise immediately.
“What do you mean more gray hairs?” she demands indignantly, the corners of her mouth tipping up. “I don’t have any gray hair, unlike someone else I know.”
“Hey, last week you said I was balding, now you say I’m going gray. Pick an insult and stick with it, Benson.”
“A person can be both balding and graying,” she shoots back. “You’re a perfect example of that.”
He shakes his head and stands as she laughs at him, the sound burning off whatever residual resentment still lingered from their earlier conversation. He pours them both fresh cups of coffee and sets hers down next to her stack of files. She hums her thanks and reaches for the styrofoam absently, attention fully back on the forms in front of her.
As he sits back down in his chair, the base creaking from weight and overuse, he knows they’ll probably never get past this stalemate on the topic of Dean Porter. Another thing they have to agree to disagree on, no matter how much he wishes she would see his side. But over a decade of partnership has taught them that some things are better left up in the air, rather than risking catastrophe over an endless tug of war. Staying partners is more important to either of them than winning an argument, and they’ve learned to make peace with the things that they don’t see eye to eye on. Some of those things are bigger than the others, and he hopes Porter packs his bags and gets the hell out of Dodge before he becomes one of those bigger things.
The minute hand on the clock slowly ticks toward 2:30 am, and though he should really focus on his paperwork, Elliot studies Olivia’s face in the lamplight, traces the line of her jaw and the swoop of her hair with his eyes. Her eyes flit back and forth across the page as she writes, pen held daintily between her fingers. She exhales long and slow, and he’s hit with that unknown yet familiar feeling that he’s begun to label as Olivia, seeing as she alone can lay claim to it.
He must stare a bit too long because she glances up at him and smiles, soft and gentle in a way that takes him back twelve years, to when they were both so young and so eager and not so tired. When she looks at him like that, it’s hard to believe that an entire decade has passed between them because that smile, so rare and hard-earned, will forever be timeless to him.
He gives her a half-smile in return and then finally gets back to his paperwork. They may actually finish before the sun starts to rise.