Chapter Text
Every morning, at 6:30 sharp, Elliot wakes up first. Well, technically, Liv does. To check on Noah, normally around 4:00AM or whenever some little voice of her past scares her enough that she needs to make sure at least her son is safe from the voice. But she goes back to sleep whenever she’s finished counting five rises and falls of his chest. She climbs back into bed, tucks herself into the furnace that is a sleeping Elliot Stabler, waits until he instinctively pulls her tighter, and then lets herself fall back to sleep.
Aside from that, however, Elliot wakes up first. He brushes his teeth, turns on the $230 Nespresso Liv puppy-eyed her way into getting—
He had laughed when she put it in the cart, thinking she was messing with him.
She broke out the puppy-eyes, stepping so close to him that he had no choice but to look at her eyes.
“Honey, you’re not being serious right now.”
And then she did that stupidly adorable nose scrunch. Suddenly, he was a millionaire and $230 plus tax was a non-issue. Who was he to say no to a nose scrunch and pretty brown eyes?
—and turns on the news.
On weekends, he normally has an hour or two to himself in the mornings because Noah and Liv like to sleep in. Except Noah doesn’t really sleep in and neither does Liv. They do this thing where they wake up around 7:30, stay quiet in their rooms for an hour, and then come out to socialize. Elliot chalks it up to being a Benson thing.
However, this Sunday morning at 6:30 sharp, something feels off. In his old, creaky, desperately in need of WD-40 bones, he can feel that something is different when he wakes up. Liv is on him like normal, head tucked under his chin, hand over his heart, leg thrown over his. He’s careful when he slides out from under her and replaces his chest with his pillow. He wanders down the hall to check on Noah because maybe that’s it. But Noah is fine. He’s sprawled out over his blankets, mouth slightly ajar. His elephant (that he swears he doesn’t keep in his bed) is in his loose grip. Noah stirs a bit when the door creaks as Elliot closes it. Maybe his bones aren’t the only things that need WD-40. He’ll buy some later today.
Elliot’s people are okay. So he goes through his morning. He starts in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. He moves to the living room, finds the remote that Liv put in some spot that only makes sense to her, turns on the news, and heads to the kitchen. He sets up that $230 coffee pot that admittedly makes a damn good coffee, and he waits. Once it’s done, he moves into the living room and settles into his spot on the couch to watch the news. It’s nothing serious because he sees enough of that at work. He watches the weather, the restaurant highlights (that’s how he figures out where to take Liv out on date nights that involve food), and the traffic reports.
Maybe 30 minutes pass before he can hear Liv stirring in the room. He doesn’t go in because she’ll be grumpy if she doesn’t get her quiet hour. But she comes out. Something is wrong.
“Morning, Baby,” he says.
She doesn’t respond. Instead, she makes her way to the couch with him and climbs into his lap. She pulls her legs up until they’re settled comfortably between Elliot’s thigh and the arm of the couch. Her head rests on his shoulder at an angle where, when he talks to her, his lips are right against her cheek. She smells like vanilla. She always smells like vanilla or lavender. Elliot gets them mixed up sometimes, but today she smells like vanilla.
“Hey,” he whispers.
He shifts his coffee so that he can set it down on the side table. Somehow he knows he’s going to be holding her for a while and his coffee isn’t getting finished. He braces his arms around her so that she can go slack without worrying about falling. He isn’t sure if she wants to talk; he assumes not. So he waits. He holds her while the only noise in the room is the TV. He likes that Thai restaurant. He’ll take her there next week.
He lets 17 whole minutes go by before he just can’t take it anymore. Therapy is working.
“Honey? What’s going on?” he asks gently.
She whines a little, but she doesn’t actually answer him.
Her head doesn’t feel too warm, granted he’s going based on how her forehead feels on his head. He doesn’t think she’s sick. Maybe she had a nightmare.
“Bad dream?” he asks.
She shakes her head. He thinks she’s lying.
“Just wanna cuddle,” she whispers back to him.
Despite what might be popular belief, Captain Olivia Benson liked cuddling. Now, Elliot wasn’t sure if this was a “just him” thing or if she was this cuddly with all of her past…men, and he wasn’t going to ask. His heart (and ego) couldn’t handle it. But he knows she likes to cuddle. She liked cuddling in bed, on the couch, while he was cooking, and just about anywhere he could keep her pulled to him and keep an arm around her. So for the rest of the morning, he was going to take her at face value because he needed a little bit to wake up. He shifts so that they’re both more comfortable than they were.
“Okay, Baby.”