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drsquidloveSomeone Like You
by Dr Squidlove
drsquidlove @@@ livejournal.com
Oz/Law & Order: SVU crossover
Tobias Beecher's trying to rebuild his family in the shadow of the man he was in prison. Elliot Stabler's struggling to continue in the wake of divorce while his job eats away at his soul. It makes for an odd friendship, but it works.
Rated R for violence and explicit references to sexual violence.
Wordcount this post: 5054 (very long!)
Full headers are on chapter 1.
Oz is the property of Tom Fontana and HBO. Law & Order: SVU is the property of Dick Wolf and NBC. The characters are used without permission, but with much appreciation.
Someone Like You
chapter 12: The second coming
by Dr Squidlove
Previously, in chapter 11, Vertigo:
Elliot's Kathy-themed morning wank took a turn into curious musings about Toby and his wife. Toby and Elliot met up for a meal to exchange their latest crap: Elliot's collapsed case, and Toby's fears in dealing with Holly's trauma.
Elliot reached the point where he had to talk to Toby about his confused feelings, but he found himself kissing Toby instead, and not feeling the slightest bit of regret. Except maybe for doing it in front of Olivia.
Also, there was pretty Barbana art.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Toby paced around his living room, checking the clock again. Elliot would be here any minute.
He absolutely couldn't do this. He couldn't treat Elliot this way. Elliot was having some kind of mid-life, post-divorce crisis, and Toby wasn't going to use that to find out if Elliot groaned like Chris when he came. He wasn't going to hope Elliot would pin him to a wall and suck his tongue and wrestle his pants down and his legs up and fill him with cock.
Could Elliot fuck like Chris? One-eyed obsession, animal need, like every touch was supposed to prove that no one had ever, would ever love Toby like he did?
Elliot didn't have that in him. He hadn't kissed that way on the front step. It had been gentle, sweet. Like a teenage boy with a skittish girl.
Toby had been wracking his imagination for days about what the hell was going on in Elliot's head. Elliot wasn't some kind of affection-starved trauma victim locked in an all-male prison dealing with his wife's suicide. The divorce had been hard on him, but plenty of men got through divorce without lip-locking another guy. Maybe there'd been some case at work throwing Elliot into a spin. That was the best theory Toby had going, but even if it was just some crazed urge to walk the wild side with a piece of rough, Toby owed him better than to take advantage. If Toby had any decency left.
He wasn't sure he did.
He missed Chris so fucking much. And Elliot was right here, offering it.
If Elliot had come straight up on Saturday after that kiss, Toby would have kicked his conscience to the kerb and fucked him. Or if this had been a drunken, confused fumbling experimentation they could blame on the drink and then Elliot could pretend to forget in the morning, Toby wouldn't have been any kind of saint. He would have thrown his sobriety away - again - and poured them both a few more glasses, and tried very hard not to let the wrong name slip. If Elliot had kissed him a few months sooner he wouldn't have had a conscience for using him at all.
But Toby had had two days to think and this was sober and planned and Elliot was the best friend he had. Elliot's voice had been quiet when he called from work to check Toby was still free tonight. Trusting.
That sheepish, hopeful smile from the front stairs nagged at him. Toby hadn't been looking to flip the poor guy's world over. It couldn't have meant anything. Elliot was a good man with a solid job - busting guys like Toby - and a devoted family. Toby was a self-destructive wreck with a fixation on his dead lover's look-alike, not a romantic lead, and he was fucking insane if he was going to screw up the only friendship he had just so he could pretend it was Chris's cock up his ass one more time.
Chris. Toby missed him so much he felt sick with it. He wanted Elliot to hold him again, like last week, and not let go. He wanted Elliot to whisper apologies for dragging Toby back to prison, for falling back over that balcony and leaving Toby behind, alone in that place. He wanted Chris to tell him he still loved him after all of it.
The intercom buzzed, and Toby pressed the button without checking, leaned against the wall. Elliot was downstairs. Too late to pack everything up and move to San Diego, so Toby was going to have to give him the 'just friends' speech. Elliot was planning to kiss him and certain enough that he hadn't cared that his partner saw. Did Elliot believe that time served was the worst thing in Toby's past?
Toby jumped at the knock on the door, had to force himself across the room to open it.
They stared at each other across the threshold. Toby had learned all the subtle differences over the past few months - the extra muscle in Elliot's shoulders, the shifted posture, the softness in his face - all the details that made Elliot not-Chris. Now he saw the strong jaw, the big hands, the sharp blue eyes, and it summoned up the heart-wrenching deja vu from that first glimpse of the ghost climbing out of the squad car outside Franco's. This was Chris, and Toby wanted him.
He stepped back, letting Elliot in, wondering if his own mask was anywhere near as good as Elliot's, because Elliot looked utterly calm as he moved around the room. Turning over Holly's book to see the title, taking in the knick knacks on the shelf. Toby's will was crumbling now Elliot was here, filling Toby's living room, vibrating with nervous energy. Toby wanted another kiss.
Elliot wasn't Chris. He wasn't going to fuck like Chris, kiss like Chris, love like Chris.
Tear his life apart, like Chris.
Elliot opened and closed a drawer, picked up a photo.
"Do you have a warrant?" Toby asked, and Elliot's head jerked up, surprised and then abashed. He put it down.
"Sorry."
How many times had Toby fantasised about a safer reincarnation of Chris? All that passion and love but with his history redacted so he might be paroled, his obsession blunted just far enough that Toby could bring him home and play house, his violence tamed until Toby could trust him with Holly and Harry, with his family and friends and all the irritations of the everyday world?
"Are you working up to telling me you've changed your mind?" A little part of Toby hoped he would. Because this was crazy, but God had filed all the edges off Chris and sent him back into Toby's arms, and Toby was weak, already bowing under the greed clawing in his belly, weighing in his pants.
"No." Elliot rubbed his hands over his shirt. Was he sweating? "I've just never done anything like this before."
The hesitation wasn't like Chris. The inexperience wasn't like Chris. But that stray dog look in his eye, that hope for scraps and fear of a boot... Toby's voice was raw as he said, "A man."
Elliot wrinkled his nose. Not like Chris. "I don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense. I was married. I have kids."
Toby shrugged. He'd been exactly where Elliot was right now, and he still didn't have any magic words. If he were a better man, he'd be telling Elliot to turn tail and run, to put this crisis back in its box and find a woman to turn his world right-way-up again before Toby shredded his life. But Toby was a selfish, terrible person, no matter how Elliot looked at him.
Toby dropped his gaze and Elliot took that as an invitation, taking the final step forward and sliding a hand behind Toby's neck as he leaned in. Chris's heavy, sure fingers. Elliot's hesitant, gentle lips. Toby wanted to press inside, find out how he tasted - hell, he wanted to shove Elliot to the floor and suck his cock right now - but he let Elliot lead, scrabbling for differences to screw to his self control. This wasn't the man he was looking for.
Slow and soft, nothing but lips... Elliot was kissing like Toby was his wife, like they were making up after a fight. Too subtle for Chris but it settled in Toby's groin just the same.
It had been three years since Toby's last kiss. The Judas kiss, when Chris begged him to do one little favour for Bonnie. Anger flared, and subsided. The one who stole Toby from his children wasn't here.
Elliot broke the kiss slowly, rocked back to meet Toby's eyes. "That felt good." And then his eyes dropped, and shifted off to the side, and there was a trace of heat in his cheeks. Elliot, father of four, straight and a little repressed, kissing a man for the second time. "I didn't exactly come with a plan."
Toby had a plan. Elliot on his knees on the bed, ass in the air, face planted in a pillow, muffled cries for more. Arms spread so Toby could stare at that tattoo of Jesus stretched over Elliot's skin. Had Chris felt like this on New Year's Eve? Like some debaucher of heterosexuality?
"No plan other than kissing you, anyway."
Toby touched Elliot's lips. "I like kissing." A quiet voice whispered in the back of Toby's mind - was this how Chris felt, all those lying, seductive words?
Elliot smiled, and it was beautiful. Like a man who'd been told he was forgiven, invited back to share a pod. It took Toby's breath away, made his hard cock even harder. Elliot looked down and put his hands on Toby's waist. "I don't... I'm not sure about the rest of it."
Toby barely caught his laugh. Elliot kissed a man, and didn't want to get his pants off? Where else did he think this would lead? Did he want to go the movies and hold hands?
"It's ridiculous, I know." Elliot rubbed his forehead. "But I've never even-"
"It's not ridiculous." Of course it was, but there was no reason to scare Elliot more. No reason to grind his iron erection into Elliot's hip, give him a few specific ideas about how men fucked.
Chris hadn't held back: that first night in lockdown they'd done damn near everything despite Toby's barely-healed stab wound, Chris giving no quarter for Toby's traumatic baptism with Vern, blanketing every hesitation with hedonistic pleasure. Toby had been a whole new person by New Year's morning.
Toby was no master of seduction, didn't know how he would go about doing that with Elliot, and only the smallest, darkest part of him wanted to try. The very least he could do was savour every blush and fumble, catalogue every difference in this mirror-Chris for as long as he was willing. Starting with these cock-teasing treacle-kisses.
"Show me what you are sure of."
Elliot looked up, eyes dark, a flash of danger like a whisper of Chris, and edged Toby backwards until his ass hit the wall and then he kissed him again, still gentle as before but now Elliot took a moment to rub their cheeks, came back to suck his lip. Toby felt a tongue flick against him and disappear as hands tightened on his waist. Toby groaned.
Elliot pressed closer, opened Toby's mouth with his own and a diffident tongue touched Toby's teeth, deliciously erotic. It had been an age since seduction counted as anything more than a long look and 'Got condoms?' An age since sex felt intimate.
On and on, never escalating beyond a gentle squeeze of Toby's hip, the briefest dip of tongue, never enough to measure the taste of him against his twin. Chris loved to kiss, could kiss for hours, but always thrusting his delicious tongue deeper, always pushing his hard-on against every bit of Toby he could reach, urgency and control, whispering filthy promises and obsession, making Toby feel more desirable than he'd ever imagined, more than he expected he ever would, after Vern desecrated him.
Toby ran his hands up Elliot's chest either side of that alien work tie, cotton shirt over solid pectorals that were so familiar and not quite right but he wanted more anyway. To the sudden, alien bump of Elliot's shoulder holster. He wouldn't have ever found that on Chris.
All of Toby's experiences with guns had been bad: blind shots raining through tear gas breaking up the riot, Chris bleeding in his arms, the news of Said's death delivered like an afterthought.
"Does it bother you?" Elliot asked gently.
Toby realised he'd stopped, so he slid his hands along Elliot's broad shoulders. "No." Mostly it was just a niggling reminder that only one of them was a felon.
Elliot shifted closer, liking the touch. Only so close, though - no hard-on contact here. Elliot wanted this but he wasn't ready to feel Toby's cock against his thigh, wasn't ready to let Toby measure how hard he'd got. Toby would have fucked him at the drop of a belt but Toby wasn't a man who could bully. Not about this.
Though he could make out with his only friend under false pretences. A real model of good citizenship. He had to get some control. Slow this and then maybe he'd find the strength to stop it.
Toby eased him back, laid a hand against his jaw. The sight of Elliot's wet lips made him throb. "We don't need to rush." They didn't. Toby almost laughed as he realised the truth of it. No coke-heads were going to bang on the door of the toilet stall, no guards were going to shine a flashlight in their glass-walled pod. They had all the time in the world, for Elliot to come to his senses or Toby to find his spine, and maybe for a while Toby could stop drinking and just know the bottle was in reach. "Are you hungry?"
Elliot stared at his mouth, and then his eyes, and then his mouth again. "Really?" But he couldn't completely hide his relief. Elliot wasn't ready for this to escalate to the X-rated images on Toby's mind.
Toby gave him one more kiss to show they were only taking a break, prouder of himself than he'd been for anything in a long time. "I'm hungry. Want to go out or stay in?"
"Got any good leftovers?"
Toby shook his head. He'd been too riled to cook. And outside, in public, would be safer for them both. You couldn't chug a bottle of whiskey in a well-lit restaurant. "There's a hamburger place around the corner. Bright lights and linoleum floors, but the burgers are good."
A crooked little smile. "Sure."
Toby grabbed his wallet and headed out towards safety, but Elliot brushed against him as they reached the door and Toby caught his elbow, needing one more little fix. "Is there any chance I'll get your shirt off tonight?"
Elliot flushed. "I... Uh, yeah. There's a chance of that."
Toby slid his hand over Elliot's hard bicep where Christ hung, waiting. The Second Coming. Toby watched Elliot's colour deepen, until he reached past to open the door. Yeah. Elliot would be ready for more than kissing.
They walked a good hetero foot apart to the burger place, made their orders and sat at a table by the wall. Safely exposed, and a situation that recalled dinners and conversations instead of sweaty groping in a dark corner of his pod. This was Elliot, talking about his kids, about Olivia, grousing about the brass, becoming himself again.
Only this version of Elliot Stabler had just kissed Toby. Toby couldn't grasp what was going on in his head. He waited until they were picking over the last of the cold fries before he asked, "Do you want to talk about this?"
Elliot gave him a look that said what he thought of that.
Toby tried a different tack. "What did Olivia say after our little show?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? She didn't think it was unusual to see you kissing men on the street?"
Elliot ground his jaw. "No, that was new."
"She doesn't want to know?"
"Oh, she wants to know, all right. She's just not going to ask."
Toby huffed a laugh. "Doesn't that manly repressed emotion thing ever get tiring?
Elliot lifted his chin and blinked, taking the tease more seriously than it deserved. "Sometimes."
Toby wanted to squeeze his hand - probably would have, a few days ago - but it now it seemed too loaded for a public place. "If she's not going to ask, then I guess it's up to me. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He lifted a shoulder and dropped it, casual as you please.
"Not freaking out? A little?" Toby needed to see a little freaking out. A cop in crisis. A spike to his conscience.
"Why? Just because I'm a straight, middle-aged Catholic man with four kids and an ex-wife and some kind of out-of-the-blue attraction to another man?" Just like that.
"Doesn't sound strange to me."
Elliot's eyes focused, and he leaned forward. "How did it happen for you?" Toby shook his head, but Elliot covered his hand, squeezed it briefly and let go. "Please?" Those big blue eyes probably got him a lot of things he didn't deserve.
Toby stared down at the table, searching for palatable pieces he could pull out of that mess. "I thought I'd hit bottom. 'Bottom' is a relative term in prison. I was just learning to survive, and then they moved a new guy into my pod."
"And?"
"And he took a blender to everything I thought I was."
Elliot frowned, thinking through that. "Is this the man who abused you?"
"No." Not exactly. Not that abuser. "No. Chris came after."
"Chris?"
Toby had never let his name slip before, and he didn't like hearing it in Elliot's mouth, reminding him of just what a manipulative fuck he was being. He wanted this conversation over.
"You cared about him?" Naked surprise.
"I did."
"And did he...?"
"We loved each other." Toby dumped it out there, got it out of the way, and he thought, randomly, of holding Chris close before Chris was whisked away to Cedar Junction. Chris took the fall for Toby's hit on Hank Schillinger. What would Elliot think of that? "We saved each other."
Elliot mulled that for a while: this new revelation that Toby's history with men wasn't all rape and anonymous fucking. "So what was it about him?"
Toby was desperately alone and Chris was a charming sociopath on a mission to destroy what was left of him for the entertainment of Vern Schillinger. There were some things Elliot never needed to hear, and Chris was the last thing Toby wanted to discuss with Elliot tonight. Or ever. "I don't know."
"Where is he now?"
"The same as everyone else," Toby snapped. "Dead. Are we done with the interrogation, Detective?"
Elliot pulled back. "I'm sorry."
Toby wanted Elliot to be pissed. He wanted Elliot to storm out of here, so they wouldn't end up back at Toby's apartment, kissing as he lied his ass off. Elliot wasn't treating him like a suspect. Toby was just being an irritable prick because he felt guilty about lying like a lawyer, omission and distraction and not telling Elliot exactly what he deserved to know: that they were here right now because he was a dead ringer for Toby's dead lover. "No, I'm sorry. I just... I don't want to talk about him."
"No, you're right. I always keep digging. It's habit."
They fell quiet, rapport broken. If it was Chris sitting opposite him, this would be the start of hours of cold shoulder as Toby apologised and nagged, all while Chris pretended there was nothing wrong. Toby waited to see how - if - Elliot would be different.
Elliot lasted all of three minutes. "I don't know what it is about you either, why I can talk to you, why I'm excited about seeing you when I get off work. I'm just trying to make sense of this." His eyes were warm and sincere, and the words heated Toby through. He wished it had been so easy with Chris.
Fuck it. He was going to be selfish. Maybe Elliot needed this just as much as he did, and Elliot never needed to know what was going on in the back of Toby's mind. He wiped his fingers on his napkin and pressed his ankle against Elliot's. "I'm done eating. How about we head back to my place? You can kiss me some more." Toby could teach him to kiss more like Chris, and maybe that would be enough. Or maybe it would get him more. If Toby had to fudge this a little he would. If he could pretend some drunken stranger pounding him in a stall was Chris then Elliot would be a cakewalk. Toby could keep his eyes open.
Elliot smiled, relieved. "Let's go." He picked up the check and followed Toby out the door. Toby was going to keep his mouth shut and stop talking things to death, just like Chris would have told him to do, and see how far he could push things with his mouth and wandering hands. Not what Chris would have told him to do with some new lover who wasn't Chris, but it was what Chris would have done, in his position. Forgive me and let me fuck you, all in one breath.
As they hit the street, Elliot's phone rang. "Stabler." He body shifted into work mode - Toby had learned the way he held himself when he was on the job, different to when he was talking to his kids, different to the way he moved when he was focused on Toby. "Where?" There'd be no fucking Elliot tonight. Relief and disappointment stormed through, tangled up together. "I'll be there in twenty." He slipped his phone away as he turned, a rueful look on his face. "I guess you won't be taking off my shirt just yet."
Wow. The bedroom voice was new. Gravelly and promising and all Elliot. "Next time."
Toby walked him to his car, and they didn't touch as he climbed in. "I'll call you."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Toby came up on his elbows, eyes wide in the dark. He was alone. Chris wasn't here.
He struggled to summon the pieces of dream. He'd been back in Oz... except it wasn't Oz: it was a shopping mall, and he'd been searching for Chris but there were copies of him everywhere: browsing in stores, selling shoes, mopping floors. He had to find Chris before count, but Chris didn't want to see him. Toby stared up at the ceiling, counting his breaths.
Chris wasn't turning away from him again. He wasn't abandoning Toby to Mondo Browne or calling him a bitch in front of the rest of Oz. Chris was dead.
So why could Toby feel his scorn, leaching through the room?
Toby swung himself out of bed and felt his way through to the bathroom to piss. He didn't piss two feet from his bed anymore. Chris's disgust followed him like the weight of that stare across Em City.
'You got yourself a bland, domesticated replacement, Toby? You thought all these months that it was enough to be friends with that cop? Now you think prying your way between those prim knees is gonna fill the gap I left?'
Elliot couldn't replace Chris, but Toby was so fucking needy that a bit of kissing tonight had him craving any touch he could get. Even if Elliot wasn't man enough to follow through, give Toby what he needed.
He slid back to his bedroom and went to his knees to dig into the very back of his t-shirt drawer until he found the crinkle of a plastic shopping bag. Toby dragged it out into his lap. Bunched inside was the soft material of his little red dress. He took a slow breath in, let it slowly out. He didn't have to do this. In the very bottom of the bag was a box with eyeliner and lipstick. Nowhere in here was the man Elliot thought he was kissing tonight, not even the one Chris had fought for.
This bag held Vern Schillinger's prag.
Elliot was a goddamn fool, if he thought Tobias Beecher had anything to offer.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Elliot stowed his gun, pulled off his tie, started unbuttoning his shirt. He still didn't know what this whole thing with Toby was about.
It seemed like a man ought to know what it meant, or at least what came next when he kissed someone, but Elliot was well and truly confused. Thank god Olivia was pretending she'd never seen the kiss on Toby's steps, only giving herself away with the occasional thoughtful stare when she thought Elliot wasn't looking. He couldn't have handled one of her interrogations.
He hadn't had the time to reminisce at the crime scene or through the flurry of witnesses, but now it was almost three am and Elliot was a little buzzed from lack of sleep and the apartment was quiet and the last few hours of work were slipping away under the memory of kissing Toby. He'd liked kissing Toby. Hard lips and stubbled chin.
It hadn't been like it was with Kathy, and yet somehow it was. Was he gay now? He didn't feel different - at least not that kind of different. He was glad he'd been honest enough to tell Toby he wasn't sure about what he wanted out of this. His mind still shied away from the details of what Toby was going to expect if this kept going, but he wasn't done kissing him.
He didn't know what Toby did expect, but nobody was ever going to be fucking anybody in any public bathrooms. His ass puckered at the thought of it.
Elliot brushed his teeth and pissed, replaying the evening. He'd spent the last few days quietly panicking about what was going to happen, if Toby might feed him the 'just friends' speech, or worse, try to drag him straight into bed. He'd been so caught up in the whole issue of Toby being a man that he hadn't thought to worry about how clueless and inexperienced he'd feel himself, fumbling around with someone new for the first time since he was a kid. It hadn't mattered. They'd been on exactly the same page. For all his discomfortingly broad exploits, Toby hadn't been in any rush to get Elliot's pants off, and he'd been too kind to tell Elliot if he was doing it wrong, or being weird.
Elliot wondered if his patience was partly down to the mysterious Chris. He'd always assumed Toby went from victim to promiscuity, and now... Toby had loved a man. Elliot hadn't expected that. Elliot sat on the side of the bed. What had Chris been like? What kind of man did you find in prison, that could soothe the damage done by rape? Facing a sudden mid-life attraction to a man was hard enough without that kind of history.
Elliot would have been okay with Toby taking his shirt off. He'd liked how Toby's body had felt solid and strong through the fabric; Elliot wouldn't have minded touching bare skin. Wouldn't have minded finding out how he felt about exploring a flat, furred chest.
As he slid into bed, he closed his eyes and let himself drift back a few hours, rewrote the evening so Toby's hands had the chance to unbutton his shirt and drift up his skin, so Elliot found the courage to drag Toby's polo shirt up over his head. Elliot closed his eyes and took his thickening cock in hand, imagined they'd got back to kissing, just like that.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The music was loud and the crowd was young, but Toby wasn't the oldest one here. He was a better fit with the old raging queens than the vibrant, drug-addled dancers, could see it in the derision in their eyes as they watched him pass and got back to thrusting in time. Toby welcomed it. They were right about him.
It had been months, and nothing had changed. Toby could reach the bar in twelve steps, credit card down and he'd be drunk off his ass in half an hour. From where he stood right now, he saw six different guys who could palm him any drug he'd heard of, and a few he hadn't. That's why Toby never brought extra cash. He was a paragon of virtue when it came to booze and drugs, a credit to all Sister Pete's hard work.
When it came to fucking, on the other hand... This place, these men, made Toby another kind of junkie. From standing right here, Toby could see seven - no, eight - different guys whose cocks he'd had in his mouth or up his ass. Given a chance, Chris would have spilled their blood and used it to stamp his name on Toby's skin and the darkest parts of Toby would have liked it. What would Elliot have thought of that?
Elliot Stabler was no anonymous fuck, no junkie's fix. He was a tepid substitute, and Toby had grasped for him as if Elliot's warmth was a match for Chris's fire. Toby wondered what Chris would have done to Elliot. He doubted a broken neck would have been enough.
Toby's mind shuddered away from wondering how he felt about that, attention turning to scan the room. Rua was by the stairs, shouting in the ear of one of the pretty, jaw-grinding dancers who'd sneered at Toby earlier. He'd do well enough. It only took a finger tracing the tribal patterns tattooed across his back and a silent gaze and Rua was smiling, forgetting his fresh conquest and nudging Toby towards the bathroom. Toby pulled him to the bathrooms upstairs instead, far from the one where Leo Markstrom bled out.
Rua was a reliable fuck. A tank of a man with a beer can of a cock who never tried to kiss Toby or ride him bare. He just shuffled Toby into a dirty stall and turned him to brace against the cistern as he worked the hem of Toby's dress up his thighs, over his bare ass to bunch around his hips. "You've been missed around here." Spit-covered fingers wiped a damp streak down Toby's ass, and then two pushed inside to test the way. "Nobody loosened you up yet, baby?" Rua wiggled his fingers to stretch him.
Toby gripped the sides of the cistern. "Call me sweetpea."
The familiar sounds of foil and latex, and then Toby's tattooed friend gripped his hips hard enough to bruise. "Sure thing, sweetpea."
Toby barely muffled his moan as the guy split him open, fuck it hurt, but the name stabbed deeper where a stranger's dick couldn't reach. Prag. Bitch. Good for nothing but you bend over and take my cock so nicely, sweetpea.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
end chapter 12
Dr Squidlove clutches feedback tight with all tentacles. Concrit thoroughly welcome, warm fuzzies treasured. Here or at drsquidlove @@@ livejournal.com
The complete works of Dr Squidlove can be found at http://members.iinet.net.au/~tentacles/squidfic.html
S.
by Dr Squidlove
drsquidlove @@@ livejournal.com
Oz/Law & Order: SVU crossover
Tobias Beecher's trying to rebuild his family in the shadow of the man he was in prison. Elliot Stabler's struggling to continue in the wake of divorce while his job eats away at his soul. It makes for an odd friendship, but it works.
Rated R for violence and explicit references to sexual violence.
Wordcount this post: 5054 (very long!)
Full headers are on chapter 1.
Oz is the property of Tom Fontana and HBO. Law & Order: SVU is the property of Dick Wolf and NBC. The characters are used without permission, but with much appreciation.
Someone Like You
chapter 12: The second coming
by Dr Squidlove
Previously, in chapter 11, Vertigo:
Elliot's Kathy-themed morning wank took a turn into curious musings about Toby and his wife. Toby and Elliot met up for a meal to exchange their latest crap: Elliot's collapsed case, and Toby's fears in dealing with Holly's trauma.
Elliot reached the point where he had to talk to Toby about his confused feelings, but he found himself kissing Toby instead, and not feeling the slightest bit of regret. Except maybe for doing it in front of Olivia.
Also, there was pretty Barbana art.
Toby paced around his living room, checking the clock again. Elliot would be here any minute.
He absolutely couldn't do this. He couldn't treat Elliot this way. Elliot was having some kind of mid-life, post-divorce crisis, and Toby wasn't going to use that to find out if Elliot groaned like Chris when he came. He wasn't going to hope Elliot would pin him to a wall and suck his tongue and wrestle his pants down and his legs up and fill him with cock.
Could Elliot fuck like Chris? One-eyed obsession, animal need, like every touch was supposed to prove that no one had ever, would ever love Toby like he did?
Elliot didn't have that in him. He hadn't kissed that way on the front step. It had been gentle, sweet. Like a teenage boy with a skittish girl.
Toby had been wracking his imagination for days about what the hell was going on in Elliot's head. Elliot wasn't some kind of affection-starved trauma victim locked in an all-male prison dealing with his wife's suicide. The divorce had been hard on him, but plenty of men got through divorce without lip-locking another guy. Maybe there'd been some case at work throwing Elliot into a spin. That was the best theory Toby had going, but even if it was just some crazed urge to walk the wild side with a piece of rough, Toby owed him better than to take advantage. If Toby had any decency left.
He wasn't sure he did.
He missed Chris so fucking much. And Elliot was right here, offering it.
If Elliot had come straight up on Saturday after that kiss, Toby would have kicked his conscience to the kerb and fucked him. Or if this had been a drunken, confused fumbling experimentation they could blame on the drink and then Elliot could pretend to forget in the morning, Toby wouldn't have been any kind of saint. He would have thrown his sobriety away - again - and poured them both a few more glasses, and tried very hard not to let the wrong name slip. If Elliot had kissed him a few months sooner he wouldn't have had a conscience for using him at all.
But Toby had had two days to think and this was sober and planned and Elliot was the best friend he had. Elliot's voice had been quiet when he called from work to check Toby was still free tonight. Trusting.
That sheepish, hopeful smile from the front stairs nagged at him. Toby hadn't been looking to flip the poor guy's world over. It couldn't have meant anything. Elliot was a good man with a solid job - busting guys like Toby - and a devoted family. Toby was a self-destructive wreck with a fixation on his dead lover's look-alike, not a romantic lead, and he was fucking insane if he was going to screw up the only friendship he had just so he could pretend it was Chris's cock up his ass one more time.
Chris. Toby missed him so much he felt sick with it. He wanted Elliot to hold him again, like last week, and not let go. He wanted Elliot to whisper apologies for dragging Toby back to prison, for falling back over that balcony and leaving Toby behind, alone in that place. He wanted Chris to tell him he still loved him after all of it.
The intercom buzzed, and Toby pressed the button without checking, leaned against the wall. Elliot was downstairs. Too late to pack everything up and move to San Diego, so Toby was going to have to give him the 'just friends' speech. Elliot was planning to kiss him and certain enough that he hadn't cared that his partner saw. Did Elliot believe that time served was the worst thing in Toby's past?
Toby jumped at the knock on the door, had to force himself across the room to open it.
They stared at each other across the threshold. Toby had learned all the subtle differences over the past few months - the extra muscle in Elliot's shoulders, the shifted posture, the softness in his face - all the details that made Elliot not-Chris. Now he saw the strong jaw, the big hands, the sharp blue eyes, and it summoned up the heart-wrenching deja vu from that first glimpse of the ghost climbing out of the squad car outside Franco's. This was Chris, and Toby wanted him.
He stepped back, letting Elliot in, wondering if his own mask was anywhere near as good as Elliot's, because Elliot looked utterly calm as he moved around the room. Turning over Holly's book to see the title, taking in the knick knacks on the shelf. Toby's will was crumbling now Elliot was here, filling Toby's living room, vibrating with nervous energy. Toby wanted another kiss.
Elliot wasn't Chris. He wasn't going to fuck like Chris, kiss like Chris, love like Chris.
Tear his life apart, like Chris.
Elliot opened and closed a drawer, picked up a photo.
"Do you have a warrant?" Toby asked, and Elliot's head jerked up, surprised and then abashed. He put it down.
"Sorry."
How many times had Toby fantasised about a safer reincarnation of Chris? All that passion and love but with his history redacted so he might be paroled, his obsession blunted just far enough that Toby could bring him home and play house, his violence tamed until Toby could trust him with Holly and Harry, with his family and friends and all the irritations of the everyday world?
"Are you working up to telling me you've changed your mind?" A little part of Toby hoped he would. Because this was crazy, but God had filed all the edges off Chris and sent him back into Toby's arms, and Toby was weak, already bowing under the greed clawing in his belly, weighing in his pants.
"No." Elliot rubbed his hands over his shirt. Was he sweating? "I've just never done anything like this before."
The hesitation wasn't like Chris. The inexperience wasn't like Chris. But that stray dog look in his eye, that hope for scraps and fear of a boot... Toby's voice was raw as he said, "A man."
Elliot wrinkled his nose. Not like Chris. "I don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense. I was married. I have kids."
Toby shrugged. He'd been exactly where Elliot was right now, and he still didn't have any magic words. If he were a better man, he'd be telling Elliot to turn tail and run, to put this crisis back in its box and find a woman to turn his world right-way-up again before Toby shredded his life. But Toby was a selfish, terrible person, no matter how Elliot looked at him.
Toby dropped his gaze and Elliot took that as an invitation, taking the final step forward and sliding a hand behind Toby's neck as he leaned in. Chris's heavy, sure fingers. Elliot's hesitant, gentle lips. Toby wanted to press inside, find out how he tasted - hell, he wanted to shove Elliot to the floor and suck his cock right now - but he let Elliot lead, scrabbling for differences to screw to his self control. This wasn't the man he was looking for.
Slow and soft, nothing but lips... Elliot was kissing like Toby was his wife, like they were making up after a fight. Too subtle for Chris but it settled in Toby's groin just the same.
It had been three years since Toby's last kiss. The Judas kiss, when Chris begged him to do one little favour for Bonnie. Anger flared, and subsided. The one who stole Toby from his children wasn't here.
Elliot broke the kiss slowly, rocked back to meet Toby's eyes. "That felt good." And then his eyes dropped, and shifted off to the side, and there was a trace of heat in his cheeks. Elliot, father of four, straight and a little repressed, kissing a man for the second time. "I didn't exactly come with a plan."
Toby had a plan. Elliot on his knees on the bed, ass in the air, face planted in a pillow, muffled cries for more. Arms spread so Toby could stare at that tattoo of Jesus stretched over Elliot's skin. Had Chris felt like this on New Year's Eve? Like some debaucher of heterosexuality?
"No plan other than kissing you, anyway."
Toby touched Elliot's lips. "I like kissing." A quiet voice whispered in the back of Toby's mind - was this how Chris felt, all those lying, seductive words?
Elliot smiled, and it was beautiful. Like a man who'd been told he was forgiven, invited back to share a pod. It took Toby's breath away, made his hard cock even harder. Elliot looked down and put his hands on Toby's waist. "I don't... I'm not sure about the rest of it."
Toby barely caught his laugh. Elliot kissed a man, and didn't want to get his pants off? Where else did he think this would lead? Did he want to go the movies and hold hands?
"It's ridiculous, I know." Elliot rubbed his forehead. "But I've never even-"
"It's not ridiculous." Of course it was, but there was no reason to scare Elliot more. No reason to grind his iron erection into Elliot's hip, give him a few specific ideas about how men fucked.
Chris hadn't held back: that first night in lockdown they'd done damn near everything despite Toby's barely-healed stab wound, Chris giving no quarter for Toby's traumatic baptism with Vern, blanketing every hesitation with hedonistic pleasure. Toby had been a whole new person by New Year's morning.
Toby was no master of seduction, didn't know how he would go about doing that with Elliot, and only the smallest, darkest part of him wanted to try. The very least he could do was savour every blush and fumble, catalogue every difference in this mirror-Chris for as long as he was willing. Starting with these cock-teasing treacle-kisses.
"Show me what you are sure of."
Elliot looked up, eyes dark, a flash of danger like a whisper of Chris, and edged Toby backwards until his ass hit the wall and then he kissed him again, still gentle as before but now Elliot took a moment to rub their cheeks, came back to suck his lip. Toby felt a tongue flick against him and disappear as hands tightened on his waist. Toby groaned.
Elliot pressed closer, opened Toby's mouth with his own and a diffident tongue touched Toby's teeth, deliciously erotic. It had been an age since seduction counted as anything more than a long look and 'Got condoms?' An age since sex felt intimate.
On and on, never escalating beyond a gentle squeeze of Toby's hip, the briefest dip of tongue, never enough to measure the taste of him against his twin. Chris loved to kiss, could kiss for hours, but always thrusting his delicious tongue deeper, always pushing his hard-on against every bit of Toby he could reach, urgency and control, whispering filthy promises and obsession, making Toby feel more desirable than he'd ever imagined, more than he expected he ever would, after Vern desecrated him.
Toby ran his hands up Elliot's chest either side of that alien work tie, cotton shirt over solid pectorals that were so familiar and not quite right but he wanted more anyway. To the sudden, alien bump of Elliot's shoulder holster. He wouldn't have ever found that on Chris.
All of Toby's experiences with guns had been bad: blind shots raining through tear gas breaking up the riot, Chris bleeding in his arms, the news of Said's death delivered like an afterthought.
"Does it bother you?" Elliot asked gently.
Toby realised he'd stopped, so he slid his hands along Elliot's broad shoulders. "No." Mostly it was just a niggling reminder that only one of them was a felon.
Elliot shifted closer, liking the touch. Only so close, though - no hard-on contact here. Elliot wanted this but he wasn't ready to feel Toby's cock against his thigh, wasn't ready to let Toby measure how hard he'd got. Toby would have fucked him at the drop of a belt but Toby wasn't a man who could bully. Not about this.
Though he could make out with his only friend under false pretences. A real model of good citizenship. He had to get some control. Slow this and then maybe he'd find the strength to stop it.
Toby eased him back, laid a hand against his jaw. The sight of Elliot's wet lips made him throb. "We don't need to rush." They didn't. Toby almost laughed as he realised the truth of it. No coke-heads were going to bang on the door of the toilet stall, no guards were going to shine a flashlight in their glass-walled pod. They had all the time in the world, for Elliot to come to his senses or Toby to find his spine, and maybe for a while Toby could stop drinking and just know the bottle was in reach. "Are you hungry?"
Elliot stared at his mouth, and then his eyes, and then his mouth again. "Really?" But he couldn't completely hide his relief. Elliot wasn't ready for this to escalate to the X-rated images on Toby's mind.
Toby gave him one more kiss to show they were only taking a break, prouder of himself than he'd been for anything in a long time. "I'm hungry. Want to go out or stay in?"
"Got any good leftovers?"
Toby shook his head. He'd been too riled to cook. And outside, in public, would be safer for them both. You couldn't chug a bottle of whiskey in a well-lit restaurant. "There's a hamburger place around the corner. Bright lights and linoleum floors, but the burgers are good."
A crooked little smile. "Sure."
Toby grabbed his wallet and headed out towards safety, but Elliot brushed against him as they reached the door and Toby caught his elbow, needing one more little fix. "Is there any chance I'll get your shirt off tonight?"
Elliot flushed. "I... Uh, yeah. There's a chance of that."
Toby slid his hand over Elliot's hard bicep where Christ hung, waiting. The Second Coming. Toby watched Elliot's colour deepen, until he reached past to open the door. Yeah. Elliot would be ready for more than kissing.
They walked a good hetero foot apart to the burger place, made their orders and sat at a table by the wall. Safely exposed, and a situation that recalled dinners and conversations instead of sweaty groping in a dark corner of his pod. This was Elliot, talking about his kids, about Olivia, grousing about the brass, becoming himself again.
Only this version of Elliot Stabler had just kissed Toby. Toby couldn't grasp what was going on in his head. He waited until they were picking over the last of the cold fries before he asked, "Do you want to talk about this?"
Elliot gave him a look that said what he thought of that.
Toby tried a different tack. "What did Olivia say after our little show?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? She didn't think it was unusual to see you kissing men on the street?"
Elliot ground his jaw. "No, that was new."
"She doesn't want to know?"
"Oh, she wants to know, all right. She's just not going to ask."
Toby huffed a laugh. "Doesn't that manly repressed emotion thing ever get tiring?
Elliot lifted his chin and blinked, taking the tease more seriously than it deserved. "Sometimes."
Toby wanted to squeeze his hand - probably would have, a few days ago - but it now it seemed too loaded for a public place. "If she's not going to ask, then I guess it's up to me. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He lifted a shoulder and dropped it, casual as you please.
"Not freaking out? A little?" Toby needed to see a little freaking out. A cop in crisis. A spike to his conscience.
"Why? Just because I'm a straight, middle-aged Catholic man with four kids and an ex-wife and some kind of out-of-the-blue attraction to another man?" Just like that.
"Doesn't sound strange to me."
Elliot's eyes focused, and he leaned forward. "How did it happen for you?" Toby shook his head, but Elliot covered his hand, squeezed it briefly and let go. "Please?" Those big blue eyes probably got him a lot of things he didn't deserve.
Toby stared down at the table, searching for palatable pieces he could pull out of that mess. "I thought I'd hit bottom. 'Bottom' is a relative term in prison. I was just learning to survive, and then they moved a new guy into my pod."
"And?"
"And he took a blender to everything I thought I was."
Elliot frowned, thinking through that. "Is this the man who abused you?"
"No." Not exactly. Not that abuser. "No. Chris came after."
"Chris?"
Toby had never let his name slip before, and he didn't like hearing it in Elliot's mouth, reminding him of just what a manipulative fuck he was being. He wanted this conversation over.
"You cared about him?" Naked surprise.
"I did."
"And did he...?"
"We loved each other." Toby dumped it out there, got it out of the way, and he thought, randomly, of holding Chris close before Chris was whisked away to Cedar Junction. Chris took the fall for Toby's hit on Hank Schillinger. What would Elliot think of that? "We saved each other."
Elliot mulled that for a while: this new revelation that Toby's history with men wasn't all rape and anonymous fucking. "So what was it about him?"
Toby was desperately alone and Chris was a charming sociopath on a mission to destroy what was left of him for the entertainment of Vern Schillinger. There were some things Elliot never needed to hear, and Chris was the last thing Toby wanted to discuss with Elliot tonight. Or ever. "I don't know."
"Where is he now?"
"The same as everyone else," Toby snapped. "Dead. Are we done with the interrogation, Detective?"
Elliot pulled back. "I'm sorry."
Toby wanted Elliot to be pissed. He wanted Elliot to storm out of here, so they wouldn't end up back at Toby's apartment, kissing as he lied his ass off. Elliot wasn't treating him like a suspect. Toby was just being an irritable prick because he felt guilty about lying like a lawyer, omission and distraction and not telling Elliot exactly what he deserved to know: that they were here right now because he was a dead ringer for Toby's dead lover. "No, I'm sorry. I just... I don't want to talk about him."
"No, you're right. I always keep digging. It's habit."
They fell quiet, rapport broken. If it was Chris sitting opposite him, this would be the start of hours of cold shoulder as Toby apologised and nagged, all while Chris pretended there was nothing wrong. Toby waited to see how - if - Elliot would be different.
Elliot lasted all of three minutes. "I don't know what it is about you either, why I can talk to you, why I'm excited about seeing you when I get off work. I'm just trying to make sense of this." His eyes were warm and sincere, and the words heated Toby through. He wished it had been so easy with Chris.
Fuck it. He was going to be selfish. Maybe Elliot needed this just as much as he did, and Elliot never needed to know what was going on in the back of Toby's mind. He wiped his fingers on his napkin and pressed his ankle against Elliot's. "I'm done eating. How about we head back to my place? You can kiss me some more." Toby could teach him to kiss more like Chris, and maybe that would be enough. Or maybe it would get him more. If Toby had to fudge this a little he would. If he could pretend some drunken stranger pounding him in a stall was Chris then Elliot would be a cakewalk. Toby could keep his eyes open.
Elliot smiled, relieved. "Let's go." He picked up the check and followed Toby out the door. Toby was going to keep his mouth shut and stop talking things to death, just like Chris would have told him to do, and see how far he could push things with his mouth and wandering hands. Not what Chris would have told him to do with some new lover who wasn't Chris, but it was what Chris would have done, in his position. Forgive me and let me fuck you, all in one breath.
As they hit the street, Elliot's phone rang. "Stabler." He body shifted into work mode - Toby had learned the way he held himself when he was on the job, different to when he was talking to his kids, different to the way he moved when he was focused on Toby. "Where?" There'd be no fucking Elliot tonight. Relief and disappointment stormed through, tangled up together. "I'll be there in twenty." He slipped his phone away as he turned, a rueful look on his face. "I guess you won't be taking off my shirt just yet."
Wow. The bedroom voice was new. Gravelly and promising and all Elliot. "Next time."
Toby walked him to his car, and they didn't touch as he climbed in. "I'll call you."
Toby came up on his elbows, eyes wide in the dark. He was alone. Chris wasn't here.
He struggled to summon the pieces of dream. He'd been back in Oz... except it wasn't Oz: it was a shopping mall, and he'd been searching for Chris but there were copies of him everywhere: browsing in stores, selling shoes, mopping floors. He had to find Chris before count, but Chris didn't want to see him. Toby stared up at the ceiling, counting his breaths.
Chris wasn't turning away from him again. He wasn't abandoning Toby to Mondo Browne or calling him a bitch in front of the rest of Oz. Chris was dead.
So why could Toby feel his scorn, leaching through the room?
Toby swung himself out of bed and felt his way through to the bathroom to piss. He didn't piss two feet from his bed anymore. Chris's disgust followed him like the weight of that stare across Em City.
'You got yourself a bland, domesticated replacement, Toby? You thought all these months that it was enough to be friends with that cop? Now you think prying your way between those prim knees is gonna fill the gap I left?'
Elliot couldn't replace Chris, but Toby was so fucking needy that a bit of kissing tonight had him craving any touch he could get. Even if Elliot wasn't man enough to follow through, give Toby what he needed.
He slid back to his bedroom and went to his knees to dig into the very back of his t-shirt drawer until he found the crinkle of a plastic shopping bag. Toby dragged it out into his lap. Bunched inside was the soft material of his little red dress. He took a slow breath in, let it slowly out. He didn't have to do this. In the very bottom of the bag was a box with eyeliner and lipstick. Nowhere in here was the man Elliot thought he was kissing tonight, not even the one Chris had fought for.
This bag held Vern Schillinger's prag.
Elliot was a goddamn fool, if he thought Tobias Beecher had anything to offer.
Elliot stowed his gun, pulled off his tie, started unbuttoning his shirt. He still didn't know what this whole thing with Toby was about.
It seemed like a man ought to know what it meant, or at least what came next when he kissed someone, but Elliot was well and truly confused. Thank god Olivia was pretending she'd never seen the kiss on Toby's steps, only giving herself away with the occasional thoughtful stare when she thought Elliot wasn't looking. He couldn't have handled one of her interrogations.
He hadn't had the time to reminisce at the crime scene or through the flurry of witnesses, but now it was almost three am and Elliot was a little buzzed from lack of sleep and the apartment was quiet and the last few hours of work were slipping away under the memory of kissing Toby. He'd liked kissing Toby. Hard lips and stubbled chin.
It hadn't been like it was with Kathy, and yet somehow it was. Was he gay now? He didn't feel different - at least not that kind of different. He was glad he'd been honest enough to tell Toby he wasn't sure about what he wanted out of this. His mind still shied away from the details of what Toby was going to expect if this kept going, but he wasn't done kissing him.
He didn't know what Toby did expect, but nobody was ever going to be fucking anybody in any public bathrooms. His ass puckered at the thought of it.
Elliot brushed his teeth and pissed, replaying the evening. He'd spent the last few days quietly panicking about what was going to happen, if Toby might feed him the 'just friends' speech, or worse, try to drag him straight into bed. He'd been so caught up in the whole issue of Toby being a man that he hadn't thought to worry about how clueless and inexperienced he'd feel himself, fumbling around with someone new for the first time since he was a kid. It hadn't mattered. They'd been on exactly the same page. For all his discomfortingly broad exploits, Toby hadn't been in any rush to get Elliot's pants off, and he'd been too kind to tell Elliot if he was doing it wrong, or being weird.
Elliot wondered if his patience was partly down to the mysterious Chris. He'd always assumed Toby went from victim to promiscuity, and now... Toby had loved a man. Elliot hadn't expected that. Elliot sat on the side of the bed. What had Chris been like? What kind of man did you find in prison, that could soothe the damage done by rape? Facing a sudden mid-life attraction to a man was hard enough without that kind of history.
Elliot would have been okay with Toby taking his shirt off. He'd liked how Toby's body had felt solid and strong through the fabric; Elliot wouldn't have minded touching bare skin. Wouldn't have minded finding out how he felt about exploring a flat, furred chest.
As he slid into bed, he closed his eyes and let himself drift back a few hours, rewrote the evening so Toby's hands had the chance to unbutton his shirt and drift up his skin, so Elliot found the courage to drag Toby's polo shirt up over his head. Elliot closed his eyes and took his thickening cock in hand, imagined they'd got back to kissing, just like that.
The music was loud and the crowd was young, but Toby wasn't the oldest one here. He was a better fit with the old raging queens than the vibrant, drug-addled dancers, could see it in the derision in their eyes as they watched him pass and got back to thrusting in time. Toby welcomed it. They were right about him.
It had been months, and nothing had changed. Toby could reach the bar in twelve steps, credit card down and he'd be drunk off his ass in half an hour. From where he stood right now, he saw six different guys who could palm him any drug he'd heard of, and a few he hadn't. That's why Toby never brought extra cash. He was a paragon of virtue when it came to booze and drugs, a credit to all Sister Pete's hard work.
When it came to fucking, on the other hand... This place, these men, made Toby another kind of junkie. From standing right here, Toby could see seven - no, eight - different guys whose cocks he'd had in his mouth or up his ass. Given a chance, Chris would have spilled their blood and used it to stamp his name on Toby's skin and the darkest parts of Toby would have liked it. What would Elliot have thought of that?
Elliot Stabler was no anonymous fuck, no junkie's fix. He was a tepid substitute, and Toby had grasped for him as if Elliot's warmth was a match for Chris's fire. Toby wondered what Chris would have done to Elliot. He doubted a broken neck would have been enough.
Toby's mind shuddered away from wondering how he felt about that, attention turning to scan the room. Rua was by the stairs, shouting in the ear of one of the pretty, jaw-grinding dancers who'd sneered at Toby earlier. He'd do well enough. It only took a finger tracing the tribal patterns tattooed across his back and a silent gaze and Rua was smiling, forgetting his fresh conquest and nudging Toby towards the bathroom. Toby pulled him to the bathrooms upstairs instead, far from the one where Leo Markstrom bled out.
Rua was a reliable fuck. A tank of a man with a beer can of a cock who never tried to kiss Toby or ride him bare. He just shuffled Toby into a dirty stall and turned him to brace against the cistern as he worked the hem of Toby's dress up his thighs, over his bare ass to bunch around his hips. "You've been missed around here." Spit-covered fingers wiped a damp streak down Toby's ass, and then two pushed inside to test the way. "Nobody loosened you up yet, baby?" Rua wiggled his fingers to stretch him.
Toby gripped the sides of the cistern. "Call me sweetpea."
The familiar sounds of foil and latex, and then Toby's tattooed friend gripped his hips hard enough to bruise. "Sure thing, sweetpea."
Toby barely muffled his moan as the guy split him open, fuck it hurt, but the name stabbed deeper where a stranger's dick couldn't reach. Prag. Bitch. Good for nothing but you bend over and take my cock so nicely, sweetpea.
end chapter 12
Dr Squidlove clutches feedback tight with all tentacles. Concrit thoroughly welcome, warm fuzzies treasured. Here or at drsquidlove @@@ livejournal.com
The complete works of Dr Squidlove can be found at http://members.iinet.net.au/~tentacles/squidfic.html
S.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-01 11:00 am (UTC)Ha. There is certainly danger in being best friends with a detective...
Thanks Joe!
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 05:16 pm (UTC)And will Elliot go digging about Chris? Hm.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-01 11:01 am (UTC)Yeah, he is. Though to be fair, he is stuck between two very pretty objects.
Thank you mulder!
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-01 11:03 am (UTC)Yeah, see! Progress! At this rate Elliot should know what's going on before he's fifty.
Thanks, maze!
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-31 12:54 am (UTC)can't wait for next part :)
no subject
Date: 2014-11-01 12:08 pm (UTC)Thank you iskra!
I think it's something most of us do, at least a little: corner ourselves with our own fears, and then lash out. Toby's just turned it into an art form. This won't be the last time, hee!
It's been a long, long time since Toby lazed around in bed with a lover. I'll see if I can get him there. I'm sure he'll make it difficult. :-)
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-31 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-01 12:12 pm (UTC)Gah, thank you helvetica! I needed to hear that.
'Cos Toby, really, is being quite awful here, and I have rewritten these chapters many, many times to build in some empathy.
I should remember, I suppose, that if everyone's empathy survived six seasons of Oz, then you're a very understanding bunch of people.
S.
Loved It
Date: 2014-10-31 12:01 pm (UTC)Awww I'm afraid of Elliot going bonkers if he finds out the real truth about Chris. :( Poor Toby. We all are selfish fools sometimes aren't we? xD
Re: Loved It
Date: 2014-11-01 12:20 pm (UTC)Yay, thank you!
I'm so glad you've still got sympathy for Toby. I'm pushing the limits on that one, but I still feel sorry for him too. I think the strength of Toby as a character is that it's so easy to see yourself in him.
I seem to have established a fairly steady every-third-day rhythm, and I think I can keep that up.
S.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 12:17 pm (UTC)Toby's want and need for Chris is so tangible and I find myself again being so terrified for Elliot getting involved in such a dishonest relationship. But at the same time, it's Toby's want and need that makes him so compelling and so utterly human.
This line killed me "Because this was crazy, but God had filed all the edges off Chris and sent him back into Toby's arms, and Toby was weak, already bowing under the greed clawing in his belly, weighing in his pants."
My worry now of course is that now Toby has mentioned Chris and Elliot is contemplating that Toby had actually loved a man while in Oz, that he's going to be curious, and the one thing a curious cop does is dig, even when they shouldn't.
Oh boy, back to the addiction.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 12:50 pm (UTC)Oh wow, I didn't realise I'd left you all the way back here! Oh yeah, sparrow. You've got some fun stuff ahead. :-)
Perfect! That's just what I want: you terrified for Elliot and not as angry at Toby as you probably ought to be.
I could hug you for line-quoting. I liked that one too.
Yay, sparrow's back! Can't wait to see what you think.
S.