Work Text:
A/N: Set in sequence with the A Thing or Two 'verse. They don't necessarily need to be read in order, though.
“Mom! Mom, look!”
Olivia smiles, tipping her head back against the passenger seat. “I see it, bubs. Hard to miss.”
The Atlantic Ocean sparkles in the distance as the car moves across the Bay Avenue bridge toward Long Beach Island. She should probably consider it a parenting fail that they’re so close to the ocean, and her son has never seen it. But, they’re busy people. Her job is—her job—and Noah’s days are full of summer dance intensive, and writing camp. She just hasn’t had the brain capacity to find a day to fight summer traffic, and figure out the complex world of beach badges, and parking, and packing beach things that they may or may not even own.
But, this summer’s different.
“Elliot, have you ever seen a shark at your beach?”
Elliot grins, glancing in the rearview mirror. Noah’s taken to thinking that Elliot somehow has his own private section of the beach, which technically isn’t untrue. The section of land that the Stabler family beach house sits on isn’t exactly highly trafficked, not a lifeguard present for miles, so it may as well be private.
“I’ve seen dolphins,” Elliot offers, adjusting the position of his hands on the steering wheel.
Her eyes close when the weight of his palm closes over her knee, warm through the linen of her pants, and she melts a little further into her seat. The air is warm and salty, and she absently trails her fingers out the open window, breathing deeply. The further away they get from the city, the more she realizes what a good idea this was. She’d been reluctant at first; it will be the first time their families have been together for an extended period of time, the first time that they’ve taken a family vacation. It’s a lot. They haven’t even been dating a full year, yet, she likes to remind him. But he likes to remind her that’s it’s been over twenty-four years, and they don’t have to follow any of the arbitrary dating rules.
Slowly, over the course of several weeks, he’d talked her into it. He’d promised her a quiet week with the boys, and Bernie; a breezy house with free parking, and no beach badges to figure out. A week to use actual vacation days and turn her phone off, to put work aside in favor of al fresco dinners right next to the sand, hours to read something that isn’t a case file, and glasses of chilled wine before bed.
“I hope we see a shark.” Noah’s still eyeing the water with fascination as they near the opposite side of the bridge. “Is Eli coming?”
His voice takes on a slightly different tone, one that only conveys how badly he wants Eli to like him to their trained ears. In truth, Eli is thrilled to have a ‘little brother’, but they’re still figuring out their dynamic, and their respective parents have let them do it. They’ve done a little shepherding, mainly just creating opportunities for them to be in the same space. But otherwise they’ve decided to let their relationship develop into whatever it’s meant to be, whether that’s coexisting, a brotherly bond, or something in between.
“Eli’s there with Gram already, remember?” Liv reminds, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair as she twists around to make eye contact with him, giving him an easy smile.
It works, and he smiles back, still at the age where she can reassure him with her presence, with just the reminder that they’re still Team Benson. She hopes it’s always this easy, knows that it probably won’t be, but hopes all the same.
"Elliot, do you think we'll see a dolphin?"
Elliot’s never talked much about the beach house, just that it’s still in the family, and that Bernie likes to stay here off and on in the nice weather.
“Mama…Mama! Let me help you.”
“Elliot, I’m fine, jesus mary and joseph—“
Olivia smiles to herself from the lounge chair she’s sitting on, a few feet away from the back deck, hiding behind her sunglasses. Bernie’s been slowly transferring some painting supplies out onto the deck for the past twenty minutes, the soundtrack to which has been Elliot protesting and trying to help carry things every step of the way.
“Let me get that canvas, it’s heavy—“
“—Olivia! Get him outta my hair, would’ya?”
She chuckles quietly to herself, setting aside the book she’s been pretending to read.
“El,” she calls, sitting up on her chair, “Leave your mom alone, c’mere a minute.”
“She breaks a hip carrying an easel, it’s on you—“
He points to Olivia.
“—and you—“
Eli looks up from his breakfast in alarm, halfway through a late morning bowl of cereal. “What the hell am I supposed to do? She looks fine?”
“I am fine. Language,” Bernie adds, smacking a paint palate down onto the table, “Shoo. Shoo!”
She finally succeeds in driving Elliot away from the house and across the sand, and he reluctantly makes his way over to her chair, muttering under his breath.
“What was that?” Liv asks innocently, when he’s close enough.
He peers at her over the top of his sunglasses, features relaxing. “Nothin’. How you doin’ over here?”
She laughs as he slips a palm under her knee, moving her left leg aside so he can sit down facing her, close and familiar. Her foot sinks into the warm sand, his palm slides up the outside of her bare thigh, and the combination gives her goosebumps all over. She bends her other leg up and plants her foot on the chair, bracketing him in.
“Shoulda known forcing you to watch Friends with me would backfire,” she sighs, shaking her head, “Why are you giving her such a hard time?”
“Because she’s eighty-eight,” he answers simply, a gentle smile playing on his lips as his eyes slide over her, “I like this.”
Her one-piece swimsuit is burnt orange, with little diamond-shaped cutouts down the front that follow the lines of her abs (or, where the lines used to be). The neck narrows into a vee, just low enough that her chest will freckle in the sun, but not so low that she feels uncomfortable wearing it on a family vacation.
Her breath catches when he gently squeezes at her hip, and then dips a finger through one of the cutouts.
“El.” She warns softly, though she doesn’t move away, and they both know he won’t stop.
“I like Beach Olivia,” he murmurs, slipping his tongue between his teeth as he grins at her, “You bring any two-pieces?”
She smiles in spite of herself. “Maybe. But there are no strings involved, those days are long gone.”
His gaze drifts behind her, to the open ocean, and she takes the opportunity to drink him in. He looks like an exhale, out here; shirtless, with a few days’ worth of scruff on his jaw, rotating between navy blue swim trunks and khaki shorts. It does things to her, seeing him like this; so clearly in his element, just an element she's never seen him in before.
“What’s he doing?”
“Umm,” she answers absently, turning around to look at her son, “Warm-ups, looks like.”
Noah’s down closer to the water with his resistance bands, sitting on a towel, currently pointing and flexing his foot against the tension of one.
“Can’t get him to take a day off, huh?” Elliot smiles, watching as he switches legs, shaking the curls out of his face.
She shakes her head fondly. “Not a chance. Only reason we came at all is because he’s between intensives. He was excited to come, but I’d never get him to skip a whole week of studio time. He’s there almost all summer, and four days a week during the school year. He would go even more than that, if I let him, but…I want him to be a kid, y’know? Until he really has to get serious about it, if that’s what he wants.”
“All that can’t be cheap,” he muses, leaning back against her bent leg.
She winces and blows out a breath, shaking her head. “No. But, we play up the single-mom angle when we can, he’s gotten a couple scholarships. He loves it so much, and he’s good…I just figured it out as we went. I’d never tell him he can’t.”
They watch Noah tip over onto his back and loop the band behind his feet, crossing the ends over so he’s holding them in the opposite hands; he uses the band to pull his feet all the way in to touch his body, stretching.
Elliot hisses between his teeth and she laughs, glancing over to see a pained look on his face. “I know, some of the positions he gets himself into…”
He turns to her, then, gaze softening. “Hey, you sleep okay? Felt you movin’ around more than usual, I thought.”
Her guard goes up automatically, before she takes a deep breath and forces her body to remember that it’s him.
“I dunno,” she sighs, fidgeting with the edge of her book, “I just couldn’t settle. I haven’t been at the beach—in a beach house—since…”
She trails off, lets him put the pieces together, and watches his face change when he does.
“Shit,” he exhales, leaning in a little closer, “I didn’t even—god, I’m an idiot—“
“—no,” she soothes, shaking her head, “It’s not like that. I wasn’t panicking or anything, it wasn’t even a conscious thing. I didn’t expect it. Just, something about the sounds and the smell, in the dark, I guess…my body remembers. Made me anxious.”
He listens intently, thumb tracing a soothing pattern against her thigh where his palm rests.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, planting a soft kiss on her bent knee, rubbing his cheek there affectionately, “Are you—I mean, if it’s too much—“
“—no,” she interrupts softly, smiling gently, “It’s not too much. I stopped letting him take things away from me a long time ago. Now that I know that might happen, I can be a little more prepared.”
“Get me up, if you can’t sleep,” he urges, eyes serious and warm, “Don’t lie there by yourself. I’ll rub your back, or we can get up and take a walk—“
“—or you could really take my mind off things—“
He grins, nuzzling her knee again. “Or that, I’m always available for that.”
The scratch of his scruff sends shivers all the way up her thigh, where they settle into her core with a throbbing pulse. She tips her chin up towards him, and he takes the hint and leans over her, planting his hands on the sides of her chair.
“Mmm,” she hums against his lips, “Love you.”
He sighs, pressing into her for another, and then another kiss, murmuring. “I love you.”
It’s their own version of ‘I love you more’, without being cutesier than either of them can handle.
Eli lumbers past them across the sand. “Gross.”
Elliot drops his forehead against her collarbone as she chuckles, cupping the back of his neck.
“How’s the water?” Eli calls back over his shoulder, grinning.
Elliot rolls his eyes. “I dunno, wish there was a way you could find out. Whoa. He’s jumping.”
Olivia sits up to look, just as Noah takes a few running steps on the wet sand and executes a leap, hitting a split in midair.
“Hey, Noah?” she calls, waving to get his attention, “Careful in the sand, okay? You only get two ankles.”
“I know,” he calls back, moving to a new spot, “I just wanna do a few.”
They watch as he sets himself up and focuses, takes a couple of precise steps and then launches into a firebird leap, leg bent up so far that his toes graze his curls as he arches back, his other leg stretched out straight.
Her breath catches, and she feels Elliot glance at her.
“I love that one,” she murmurs, “He takes my breath away. You know? Not just when he’s dancing. All the time.”
He does know, she knows, and he squeezes her knee. “I know.”
“Dude, that’s sick.”
Eli’s noticed what Noah’s doing and comes out of the ocean to watch, shaking the water out of his hair.
Noah shrugs, “It’s okay. There’s other people at my studio who get more height, I’m still working on it.”
“No, it’s actually so cool. We should take a slo-mo of it—“
And then they’re off, deeply engrossed in a language they’re both fluent in—Instagrammable photos.
“Not sure I really saw that coming,” Elliot grins, shaking his head.
She chuckles, settling back onto the lounge chair and closing her eyes. “Can you move? You’re blocking my sunlight. You told me this week was nothing but sunbathing and reading.”
He gives her thigh a playful slap as he gets up, and she bites the inside of her lip to hold back her grin.
“Alright, now, you see this part right here? That’s the good part. So, what you’re gonna do, is just get right in there and suck it out.”
Everyone at the table chuckles heartily at the disgusted face Noah makes.
“Suck it out?” he says incredulously, eyeing the crab leg warily.
Elliot nods, noisily slurping on one himself to demonstrate. “Yep, you gotta do it, it’s the best way.”
Olivia dips a piece of claw meat in butter, nodding at him. “Go ahead, sweetheart, you’ll love it.”
Resigned, he shrugs and does as he’s been told, slurping on the crab leg until he gets a mouthful of meat.
They laugh again as his eyes widen, and he nods enthusiastically. “Oh, that’s good.”
“It sure is, bud,” Elliot chuckles, scooting over a little closer to him, “Let’s get you into those claws, that’s another good part.”
Olivia watches as he loops an arm around her son to help him with the nutcracker, showing him where to place the claw and offering a little more muscle to crack it open. Eli’s cracking into his third crab already, while she keeps up a steady supply of picked crab meat in between herself and Bernie on the table.
“He’s taught all his kids how to crack crab,” Bernie comments quietly, nudging Olivia, “He loves this.”
Olivia’s suddenly swallowing down a waterfall of emotion at that, and she shares a watery smile with Bernie before she clears her throat and blinks the tears away.
“Alright, what do you want more of?” she offers, picking through the bag on the table for another crab, “Legs? Claws?”
“Honey, you pick it I’ll eat it,” Bernie says nonchalantly, dipping a piece in butter, “I can’t crack ‘em anymore but plenty of room, I’ve got hollow legs.”
“Okay,” Olivia chuckles, breaking the crab in half to start, “You got it.”
It’s the kind of summer evening she’s only dreamt of.
Idle chatter and the sound of crab shells hitting the table, the swish of brown paper in the breeze—Elliot reaches into the cooler and knocks the cap off of another shandy, setting it down next to her empty one with a wink.
Later, she takes him to bed and makes love to him; quiet—because the walls are thin and they have to be; deep and slow—because sometimes, the amount of love she feels for him is overwhelming, consuming in a way she’s never felt before.
Afterward, she realizes he won’t go to sleep until she does. Normally, he’s asleep in minutes, but tonight he lies facing her, blinking warm and heavy, refusing to drift off. She’s not feeling that same grip of uneasiness from the night before, but he doesn’t know that, and so he keeps watch over her.
“I’m okay,” she murmurs, on her stomach with her head facing his, “Promise.”
He nods a little, blinks. “I know. I’m just…”
He trails off, and she smiles a little. “Watching my back?”
Elliot likes the sound of that, and he grins, stretching a hand out to rub light, soothing circles over her shoulder blades. “S’what I do.”
She hums, and drifts off.
A/N: Thank you for reading! I get so soothed when I write this 'verse, I hope it has the same effect for you.