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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: 3552
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 31: History repeating
by Dr Squidlove
Previously, in chapter 30, Monsters:
After punching Toby, Elliot went and sat on the back step of his family home, reeling. Kathy joined him, answered his phone to tell Olivia he was all right, and then tried to find out if that was true.
Elliot's anger surged when Toby turned up at his house to talk, but curiosity made him listen. Toby told Elliot about Chris's betrayal, to show he understood, but Elliot didn't find the tale especially comforting. He didn't find any of Toby's defence of Chris comforting. Or his reassurances that he wanted Elliot now. It was all Elliot could do not to punch Toby again.
Toby went home, closed his door on Holly, and marinated in self-pity.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Elliot arrived as the stretcher was loaded onto the ambulance, Olivia backing off to give the paramedics their space.
"How's he doing?"
"Some pretty serious groin trauma."
Elliot cringed.
"How was court this morning?"
"Fine. The case is going to ride on Diaz's testimony." He would have gladly taken a few more days of self pity, but since Novak had dragged him in to testify, it seemed he may as well get back to it.
Olivia took him for a quick walk through the crime scene, summed up the witnesses so far. Work first, personal waiting for the privacy of the car on the way to the hospital.
The moment Elliot started the car, the personal was fair game. Self-pity wasn't the only reason Elliot had been in hiding.
"So are you going to tell me what happened on Thursday?"
"No."
She'd called Kathy when she was looking for him, so she knew it wasn't about Kathy or the kids. She'd dropped him off at Toby's in a rage, knew he wasn't there later. She was a detective. She'd figured out as much as she needed to.
"You had a fight."
A fight. She said that like it was a temporary thing. "The whole thing was a mistake."
When he found the courage to look over, she had a sympathetic smile. "Welcome to the wonderful world of dating."
"You can keep it."
"He cared enough to call me to make sure you were all right."
Elliot's hands tightened on the wheel. "Toby called you?"
"To tell me he was worried about you, that I had to find you."
"That's all he said?" Elliot couldn't imagine why Toby might tell Olivia about Elliot's doppelganger, but he was relieved he hadn't anyway. "When did he call you?"
"I was almost home, so I guess it was about half an hour after I dropped you off."
Elliot would have been barely out the door. Toby must have still been bleeding when he called.
"He sounded more than worried."
He couldn't stand for Olivia to know how he'd been taken in. Seventeen years on the job, and he'd been conned by a known ex-con. How was he supposed to trust his own judgement?
Elliot had been cataloguing all the ways he'd peeled himself open for Toby: the confessions and admissions, all the sex. He'd put his mouth on Toby's cock and told Toby he liked it. He'd exposed parts of himself that Kathy had never touched in twenty years of marriage. What an idiot he must have seemed.
The worst of it was, even knowing it had all been bullshit, he missed Toby.
Elliot hadn't thought he could ever feel more lonely than those first weeks rattling around the empty house after Kathy left and took the kids. He wasn't good at living in an empty house. He didn't fill a bed by himself. He woke up last night and thought about calling Toby for company, until he remembered he wasn't ever going to talk to Toby again. Was that how Toby felt, after Chris broke his arms: half ready to forgive the unforgivable, if only it would bring back the illusion?
"Toby and I are done."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Agent Pierce Taylor sat back in his chair, gloating like the cunt he was. He thought the smug twist to his mouth was going to be what got to Toby? He obviously wasn't counting on the wash of memories his face brought. The terror that ripped Toby up for the two weeks Holly was missing, the devastation when Taylor stole away the only comfort Toby had by telling him Chris was to blame. The betrayal, when those incompetent fucks let Hank walk. He hadn't even had the guts to tell Toby himself.
Now the same man had taken Elliot from him. History fucking repeating.
"Tobias Beecher. I thought I might be seeing you soon." He didn't have anything to say about the yellow bruise on Toby's cheek.
Toby took a seat, not waiting for an invitation. "Why did you do it? Do you get a kick out of tearing up people's lives?"
"That wasn't my intent. Until I got a look at your new fuck-buddy, I just thought you were an informant."
"Because you had that cunt Starling ragging on me." Starling had been noticeably less interested after he ran into Elliot. Toby had been optimistic enough to believe it was because Elliot's badge protected him. He hadn't imagined Starling was on Taylor's speed dial.
Taylor leaned forward. "I don't want to talk about your right to privacy, Beecher. I want to talk about two families who want to know what happened to their sons. There's no reason to protect Keller anymore. I want to know if there are any other cases we can put to bed."
Was Agent Taylor like Elliot? Pushing for justice, not caring if he stepped on toes here and there if it brought home someone's lost children? Toby hadn't ever looked past his frustration when Taylor wouldn't listen about Schillinger, his fear when Taylor was gunning to put Chris on death row. But ever since Elliot showed up with the file of Chris's victims, Toby had been wondering what Elliot would do in the agent's place, and he wasn't sure he would be different.
"You think your son's funeral was hard, Beecher? Remember how it was, waiting for some kind of news on Holly."
Toby hadn't ever forgotten.
"Imagine being stuck waiting for seven years."
He'd been imagining it ever since he left Elliot's house. Toby pulled out the notebook he'd been working in, flipped it open to a random page of scribbled notes and arrows. "I've been awake the last few nights, remembering everything I can." It looked like his study notes from his undergrad days. "You have to realise, Chris lied as often as he told the truth. To me, too."
"Nice boyfriend."
Toby didn't give a damn what Taylor thought of that. "He never reeled off a list of names and dates. It was a detail here or there. A place, a, a bar..." A pair of oak trees by a stream. A covered bridge where he'd pulled his truck off the road to throw up, after the first time.
"There were other bars?"
Toby swallowed. "I think so." Other bars. Other victims. Two more college boys, at Toby's best guess. He wasn't going to talk about the ones they shared. Shemin, Browne, Barlog, Winthrop: what happened in Oz stayed in Oz.
Toby stayed for almost two hours, combing deeper through his private conversations with Chris than he had with anyone. With Agent Pierce Taylor. You like that, Chris? Toby thought. I'm peeling away your skin for the man who put you on death row. Chris had no answer to that. Toby wasn't sure any of it was enough that it could have got Chris convicted directly, but it tied him closer. It was the hazy details of the others that Taylor seized on: potential victims that had never been connected to Chris. His mind was quick, precise, making connections, prioritising information. This was what Toby imagined Elliot was like, on the trail of murderers and rapists.
Eventually Toby's notes ran dry, and he was little more than audience as Taylor shuffled through records on his computer, so he stood up. He felt exhausted right down to his bones, thin and unbalanced like those first days after his leg casts came off. He wanted to get out of here. "Is that what you needed?"
Taylor only glanced up, finger sliding along a road on a map of western Connecticut. "This is good. This helps."
"If you're done screwing around with my life, can you get Starling to stop holding up my paperwork to see my son in San Diego?"
He glanced up, thoughtful. It almost looked a little like kindness. "I'll see you can go, Beecher. Thank you."
"Stabler's a good cop. Don't fuck him over."
"Good cops don't fuck skels."
"Read his jacket. He helps kids. Does a better job than you." The best proof that Taylor had a soul was the way he flinched when Toby reminded him how he'd failed Gary and Holly.
He hesitated. "How's your daughter?"
"She's well. She's doing really well, considering." Taylor didn't need to know she'd been wetting the bed again since she saw Elliot punch him.
"I'm glad."
Toby headed for the door, almost made it when Taylor spoke again. "Beecher. There's something I've always wondered. Just for curiosity's sake." He turned his pen in his fingers. "Do you have any idea why Keller confessed to ordering the hit on Hank Schillinger?"
Toby met his gaze. "No."
Taylor smiled, blank and official. "Thanks for your cooperation."
Toby pushed himself out of there, held himself together in the crush of suited agents in the elevator, out of the building into the fresh air. There was a park across the street, small and green between the cluster of grey federal buildings, and Toby claimed a bench gratefully.
He'd done it. He'd spilled all Chris's secrets across Agent Taylor's desk, violated all the hard-won trust, and now all he could see was the hurt in Chris's eyes when Toby told him Ronnie was giving him up.
If Chris was here now, would he leave Toby on the floor of some storage room, neck broken?
Toby waited, but Chris was silent.
All those late night confessions felt like last week. The quiet words they'd shared after the fucking was done. Toby had told Chris things he never would have dared to tell Genevieve and Chris had told him...
High and confused and terrified, and he'd realised there was blood on his pants and he'd barely pulled the truck over before he was falling out the door, puking his guts out as the first blush of pre-dawn painted the outlines of a covered bridge that looked like some kind of postcard.
Toby had held Chris and Chris had clutched him tight, fingers digging in like claws, had needed Toby. Toby had read between the lines, knew where that blood had come from, but all he'd wanted was to protect Chris, keep him safe from the memories.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"You want a coffee, Detective Stabler?"
"I'm fine." Elliot didn't notice who asked. Kept his eyes on the photos he'd spread over the interrogation table. Collins was first. Thirteen years old. Red-haired and freckled, a little overweight, shy. His body was dumped in a culvert.
Munch had crawled through cabinets of property records and piles of LUDs in search of patterns. Finn had dredged through all the witnesses, dug up a few more to get a patchy description. Olivia was piecing together the victim's lives, reading diaries, talking to parents.
Elliot had laid out a spread of crime scene photos.
Their killer didn't bother to close the victim's eyes, didn't tidy their bodies. No contrition. Elliot shut out the information Olivia had brought, the little details that made these teenagers human.
A lot of blood in the first scene. Less in the next. In the last couple, an incision direct to the femoral artery, bleeding them into a contained puddle. He was getting neater. An attempt to contain forensics?
Elliot put himself on the railway tracks of the last murder. Victim struggling. Shadows but not too dark. Backyards behind those fences. An overhead bridge within sight. This killer didn't seek attention but he wasn't hiding, either. He didn't care. He wasn't afraid of peeking neighbours. Wiped his prints but cops were an afterthought. He just liked neat. A neat puddle of blood, pleasure in that acquired skill that he felt in his cock. He liked to watch the blood run, arousal compounded by the victim struggling against him... he liked to hold the victim close, feel all that power as the flailing thing was tamed.
It wasn't the violence that got this guy off. There was no strangulation, no beating, no rape. None of the hallmarks of Chris Keller's profile. His mind recoiled, but too late. Elliot had been trying hard not to think of Keller while he stared at crime scenes. Usually he shoved every bit of his own family out of his head while he did this, shielded them even inside his own mind, but Chris Keller was here ever since Elliot saw that mugshot, and he dragged Toby after him.
Elliot didn't want to think of Toby, either.
The third victim was Feinman. His pants were found folded neatly in a trash can nearby, clean of blood. The age of the boys and the removed pants had landed this in SVU but there was no direct evidence of sexual assault. It wasn't the bare thighs that made this guy's heart pound. It wasn't the blood. It was power. His own mastery of death. Strong fading to weak. Clinging to him in spurious hope of mercy.
When they got this guy in a room, Huang was going to tell them that power was the key. If they wanted his trust, they'd admire him. If they wanted to rile him up, they'd question his precision, belittle his pathetic victims.
He liked them fat and slow, low self-esteem. Easy to seduce, too out of shape to fight back. Stupid fat kids, easy for a man with the power of life and death to feel superior to losers like that.
Elliot had Keller's mugshot in the jacket he'd slung over the chair. He knew how fucked up that was, but he couldn't throw it away. Elliot was finding it easier to climb inside the perverts' minds since he started carrying it with him.
His victims had been college boys. Young and strong and good-looking. Trophies for a man who could seduce and subdue them.
Elliot closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. He had to concentrate on the case in front of him. Olivia was already watching him strangely, wondering where his confidence had gone.
The condoms... a wrapper at every scene but never a condom. No sign of penetration but faint traces of lubricant on the victims' thighs. They'd assumed the killer couldn't perform but maybe he was just containing the mess. Their murderer rolled a condom on to masturbate as the life soaked away, or maybe he came at the pure thrill.
Neat freaks were easy to rattle. A little soda rubbed across the table to make it sticky, a lunch stain on your shirt. Olivia had pushed one guy over the edge by spilling a coffee over some fake files and not bothering to clean it up.
This killer liked his victims small and compliant. He wouldn't feel so powerful with Elliot in his face. Elliot would roll up his sleeves, show a little muscle, give this scumbag a taste of being manipulated and bullied, see how fast he crumbled with Elliot's forearm across his windpipe.
The thrill of violence lit Elliot up inside, one little twist to turn that ever-burning pilot light to fire. He wanted to hurt this bastard.
"Detective, you want a coffee?"
"I just told you I didn't!" Snapped back to reality, an empty room and a table covered in photos.
"Sir, that was four hours ago."
"The hell it was."
The officer backed out, and Elliot wanted to chase after him and tell him to stop being such a pansy-assed...
Elliot blinked and rubbed his face, checked his watch. One am. No wonder his eyes hurt.
Poison was still flowing through his brain, rolling in his stomach. The thread of the profile he'd been building was gone, but the oily mindset of a predator clung inside his brain.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"I don't want to go."
Toby checked his watch. If they didn't get going soon, he was going to be late for work. He was already pushing it with all the time he'd had off lately. "You were the one who begged her to get tickets back in April, Hol. You can't pull out the morning of the show."
"Why don't you come with us?"
"Because Mother got your tickets in April, and they were sold out an hour later. You didn't visit her last weekend, you don't want to go tonight. Your grandmother's going to think you're mad at her."
"I'm not. I just don't want to go." Holly turned her chair and kicked her foot against the desk, pouting like the five year-old Toby hadn't known.
It made no sense. Holly loved musicals; she'd never turned down a show in her life. Toby went in and sat on her bed. He was definitely going to be late for work. "What's going on, Holly?"
"Nothing." She slid down to the floor and started digging through her bag, moving things around but not seeming to actually look for anything. She'd been wasting the last of her summer vacation, had turned down invitations from friends, had barely left the apartment for... for two weeks. Toby was a self-absorbed fool. "Is this because of Elliot?"
"No." A complete lie.
Toby should have dealt with this properly. Holly had regressed ever since she saw Elliot punch him, and it was hardly a surprise. "He's not coming back. He won't hurt me. He would never hurt you."
She hunched deeper.
"I should have told you that I went to see him afterwards. He was sorry. He was sorry he frightened you."
She flashed a glare. "I wasn't frightened."
"He won't be coming back." He had to fight for his next breath. He hadn't said that aloud in two weeks, and it hit him all over again, just how colossally he'd fucked up the best new thing he'd had since he walked out of Oz. He rubbed his face. He leaned on Holly hard enough; he wasn't going to cry in front of her.
"I don't want to leave you alone," Holly said softly. Her hands were curled around the edge of her bag.
"I'm safe. Elliot won't be back."
"I don't want you to drink."
Jesus. He wasn't going to cry in front of Holly. He took a slow, careful breath in, controlled it on its way out. He wished he could tell her there was no chance, no way he'd ever do that again. That he hadn't lingered way too long in front of the beer in the store yesterday. That he loved her more than he was a weak fuck-up.
The truth was he hadn't questioned her being home every night because he'd been using her as a crutch, to fill the gap Elliot left.
"Holly." He waited for her to turn to face him, sullen and apologetic all at the same time. "You're going to the show, and you'll stay the night with Gran. In return I promise you, I won't drink tonight."
"I don't want to-"
"You can't babysit me forever. You have to let me earn your trust." He could see her teetering. "You can call to check on me at intermission."
She rolled it around for a long time before she finally said, "Okay."
Toby was going to be apologising to her for letting her down for one thing or another for the rest of her life. "Come on. You have five minutes to get your things packed to stay at Mother's tonight, and be out the door."
He left her to it and went out to hide in the kitchen, made a show of clearing the breakfast dishes as he counted his breaths. He owed Holly a hundred apologies for putting all this on her small shoulders, but he needed to keep his composure.
Holly appeared in the doorway, bag on her back.
"You went to see him?"
He'd hoped she'd missed that. He stopped wiping the counter. "I needed to make sure he was all right."
Her look made it clear she didn't think that mattered. "He hit you." She emphasised every word, and especially the last.
"Holly... How about I make an appointment with Ling? It's been a while. Maybe we can talk about what happened with Elliot."
"Why? You said he wouldn't come back."
Toby had been rehearsing diplomatic ways to say this for days, hadn't found one yet. He squeezed out the washcloth and hung it over the tap. "Because you shouldn't feel you have to sneak out by yourself to wash your sheets."
Wide eyes, betrayed, and a flush crept up her neck.
Toby hated that he was adding to her humiliation. How did you explain to an eleven year-old that it was a miracle she wasn't a basket case? "You don't have to be embarrassed, honey. You have to know I understand."
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. "How? Do you wet the bed like a baby?"
"I drank. I did drugs." He whored himself out to strangers. "God help me, Holly, we're going to find you better coping strategies than mine." Holly nodded, eyes suddenly too bright, and Toby rubbed his face. Too much honesty? It was nothing she didn't already know. "Come here." He crossed to her even as he said it, and hugged her tight. "I love you."
"I love you, Dad."
Toby squeezed his eyes shut. No matter what happened in the rest of his life, he wasn't going to fuck this up.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
end chapter 31
Feedback provides all the nutrients a growing squid needs. 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: 3552
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 31: History repeating
by Dr Squidlove
Previously, in chapter 30, Monsters:
After punching Toby, Elliot went and sat on the back step of his family home, reeling. Kathy joined him, answered his phone to tell Olivia he was all right, and then tried to find out if that was true.
Elliot's anger surged when Toby turned up at his house to talk, but curiosity made him listen. Toby told Elliot about Chris's betrayal, to show he understood, but Elliot didn't find the tale especially comforting. He didn't find any of Toby's defence of Chris comforting. Or his reassurances that he wanted Elliot now. It was all Elliot could do not to punch Toby again.
Toby went home, closed his door on Holly, and marinated in self-pity.
Elliot arrived as the stretcher was loaded onto the ambulance, Olivia backing off to give the paramedics their space.
"How's he doing?"
"Some pretty serious groin trauma."
Elliot cringed.
"How was court this morning?"
"Fine. The case is going to ride on Diaz's testimony." He would have gladly taken a few more days of self pity, but since Novak had dragged him in to testify, it seemed he may as well get back to it.
Olivia took him for a quick walk through the crime scene, summed up the witnesses so far. Work first, personal waiting for the privacy of the car on the way to the hospital.
The moment Elliot started the car, the personal was fair game. Self-pity wasn't the only reason Elliot had been in hiding.
"So are you going to tell me what happened on Thursday?"
"No."
She'd called Kathy when she was looking for him, so she knew it wasn't about Kathy or the kids. She'd dropped him off at Toby's in a rage, knew he wasn't there later. She was a detective. She'd figured out as much as she needed to.
"You had a fight."
A fight. She said that like it was a temporary thing. "The whole thing was a mistake."
When he found the courage to look over, she had a sympathetic smile. "Welcome to the wonderful world of dating."
"You can keep it."
"He cared enough to call me to make sure you were all right."
Elliot's hands tightened on the wheel. "Toby called you?"
"To tell me he was worried about you, that I had to find you."
"That's all he said?" Elliot couldn't imagine why Toby might tell Olivia about Elliot's doppelganger, but he was relieved he hadn't anyway. "When did he call you?"
"I was almost home, so I guess it was about half an hour after I dropped you off."
Elliot would have been barely out the door. Toby must have still been bleeding when he called.
"He sounded more than worried."
He couldn't stand for Olivia to know how he'd been taken in. Seventeen years on the job, and he'd been conned by a known ex-con. How was he supposed to trust his own judgement?
Elliot had been cataloguing all the ways he'd peeled himself open for Toby: the confessions and admissions, all the sex. He'd put his mouth on Toby's cock and told Toby he liked it. He'd exposed parts of himself that Kathy had never touched in twenty years of marriage. What an idiot he must have seemed.
The worst of it was, even knowing it had all been bullshit, he missed Toby.
Elliot hadn't thought he could ever feel more lonely than those first weeks rattling around the empty house after Kathy left and took the kids. He wasn't good at living in an empty house. He didn't fill a bed by himself. He woke up last night and thought about calling Toby for company, until he remembered he wasn't ever going to talk to Toby again. Was that how Toby felt, after Chris broke his arms: half ready to forgive the unforgivable, if only it would bring back the illusion?
"Toby and I are done."
Agent Pierce Taylor sat back in his chair, gloating like the cunt he was. He thought the smug twist to his mouth was going to be what got to Toby? He obviously wasn't counting on the wash of memories his face brought. The terror that ripped Toby up for the two weeks Holly was missing, the devastation when Taylor stole away the only comfort Toby had by telling him Chris was to blame. The betrayal, when those incompetent fucks let Hank walk. He hadn't even had the guts to tell Toby himself.
Now the same man had taken Elliot from him. History fucking repeating.
"Tobias Beecher. I thought I might be seeing you soon." He didn't have anything to say about the yellow bruise on Toby's cheek.
Toby took a seat, not waiting for an invitation. "Why did you do it? Do you get a kick out of tearing up people's lives?"
"That wasn't my intent. Until I got a look at your new fuck-buddy, I just thought you were an informant."
"Because you had that cunt Starling ragging on me." Starling had been noticeably less interested after he ran into Elliot. Toby had been optimistic enough to believe it was because Elliot's badge protected him. He hadn't imagined Starling was on Taylor's speed dial.
Taylor leaned forward. "I don't want to talk about your right to privacy, Beecher. I want to talk about two families who want to know what happened to their sons. There's no reason to protect Keller anymore. I want to know if there are any other cases we can put to bed."
Was Agent Taylor like Elliot? Pushing for justice, not caring if he stepped on toes here and there if it brought home someone's lost children? Toby hadn't ever looked past his frustration when Taylor wouldn't listen about Schillinger, his fear when Taylor was gunning to put Chris on death row. But ever since Elliot showed up with the file of Chris's victims, Toby had been wondering what Elliot would do in the agent's place, and he wasn't sure he would be different.
"You think your son's funeral was hard, Beecher? Remember how it was, waiting for some kind of news on Holly."
Toby hadn't ever forgotten.
"Imagine being stuck waiting for seven years."
He'd been imagining it ever since he left Elliot's house. Toby pulled out the notebook he'd been working in, flipped it open to a random page of scribbled notes and arrows. "I've been awake the last few nights, remembering everything I can." It looked like his study notes from his undergrad days. "You have to realise, Chris lied as often as he told the truth. To me, too."
"Nice boyfriend."
Toby didn't give a damn what Taylor thought of that. "He never reeled off a list of names and dates. It was a detail here or there. A place, a, a bar..." A pair of oak trees by a stream. A covered bridge where he'd pulled his truck off the road to throw up, after the first time.
"There were other bars?"
Toby swallowed. "I think so." Other bars. Other victims. Two more college boys, at Toby's best guess. He wasn't going to talk about the ones they shared. Shemin, Browne, Barlog, Winthrop: what happened in Oz stayed in Oz.
Toby stayed for almost two hours, combing deeper through his private conversations with Chris than he had with anyone. With Agent Pierce Taylor. You like that, Chris? Toby thought. I'm peeling away your skin for the man who put you on death row. Chris had no answer to that. Toby wasn't sure any of it was enough that it could have got Chris convicted directly, but it tied him closer. It was the hazy details of the others that Taylor seized on: potential victims that had never been connected to Chris. His mind was quick, precise, making connections, prioritising information. This was what Toby imagined Elliot was like, on the trail of murderers and rapists.
Eventually Toby's notes ran dry, and he was little more than audience as Taylor shuffled through records on his computer, so he stood up. He felt exhausted right down to his bones, thin and unbalanced like those first days after his leg casts came off. He wanted to get out of here. "Is that what you needed?"
Taylor only glanced up, finger sliding along a road on a map of western Connecticut. "This is good. This helps."
"If you're done screwing around with my life, can you get Starling to stop holding up my paperwork to see my son in San Diego?"
He glanced up, thoughtful. It almost looked a little like kindness. "I'll see you can go, Beecher. Thank you."
"Stabler's a good cop. Don't fuck him over."
"Good cops don't fuck skels."
"Read his jacket. He helps kids. Does a better job than you." The best proof that Taylor had a soul was the way he flinched when Toby reminded him how he'd failed Gary and Holly.
He hesitated. "How's your daughter?"
"She's well. She's doing really well, considering." Taylor didn't need to know she'd been wetting the bed again since she saw Elliot punch him.
"I'm glad."
Toby headed for the door, almost made it when Taylor spoke again. "Beecher. There's something I've always wondered. Just for curiosity's sake." He turned his pen in his fingers. "Do you have any idea why Keller confessed to ordering the hit on Hank Schillinger?"
Toby met his gaze. "No."
Taylor smiled, blank and official. "Thanks for your cooperation."
Toby pushed himself out of there, held himself together in the crush of suited agents in the elevator, out of the building into the fresh air. There was a park across the street, small and green between the cluster of grey federal buildings, and Toby claimed a bench gratefully.
He'd done it. He'd spilled all Chris's secrets across Agent Taylor's desk, violated all the hard-won trust, and now all he could see was the hurt in Chris's eyes when Toby told him Ronnie was giving him up.
If Chris was here now, would he leave Toby on the floor of some storage room, neck broken?
Toby waited, but Chris was silent.
All those late night confessions felt like last week. The quiet words they'd shared after the fucking was done. Toby had told Chris things he never would have dared to tell Genevieve and Chris had told him...
High and confused and terrified, and he'd realised there was blood on his pants and he'd barely pulled the truck over before he was falling out the door, puking his guts out as the first blush of pre-dawn painted the outlines of a covered bridge that looked like some kind of postcard.
Toby had held Chris and Chris had clutched him tight, fingers digging in like claws, had needed Toby. Toby had read between the lines, knew where that blood had come from, but all he'd wanted was to protect Chris, keep him safe from the memories.
"You want a coffee, Detective Stabler?"
"I'm fine." Elliot didn't notice who asked. Kept his eyes on the photos he'd spread over the interrogation table. Collins was first. Thirteen years old. Red-haired and freckled, a little overweight, shy. His body was dumped in a culvert.
Munch had crawled through cabinets of property records and piles of LUDs in search of patterns. Finn had dredged through all the witnesses, dug up a few more to get a patchy description. Olivia was piecing together the victim's lives, reading diaries, talking to parents.
Elliot had laid out a spread of crime scene photos.
Their killer didn't bother to close the victim's eyes, didn't tidy their bodies. No contrition. Elliot shut out the information Olivia had brought, the little details that made these teenagers human.
A lot of blood in the first scene. Less in the next. In the last couple, an incision direct to the femoral artery, bleeding them into a contained puddle. He was getting neater. An attempt to contain forensics?
Elliot put himself on the railway tracks of the last murder. Victim struggling. Shadows but not too dark. Backyards behind those fences. An overhead bridge within sight. This killer didn't seek attention but he wasn't hiding, either. He didn't care. He wasn't afraid of peeking neighbours. Wiped his prints but cops were an afterthought. He just liked neat. A neat puddle of blood, pleasure in that acquired skill that he felt in his cock. He liked to watch the blood run, arousal compounded by the victim struggling against him... he liked to hold the victim close, feel all that power as the flailing thing was tamed.
It wasn't the violence that got this guy off. There was no strangulation, no beating, no rape. None of the hallmarks of Chris Keller's profile. His mind recoiled, but too late. Elliot had been trying hard not to think of Keller while he stared at crime scenes. Usually he shoved every bit of his own family out of his head while he did this, shielded them even inside his own mind, but Chris Keller was here ever since Elliot saw that mugshot, and he dragged Toby after him.
Elliot didn't want to think of Toby, either.
The third victim was Feinman. His pants were found folded neatly in a trash can nearby, clean of blood. The age of the boys and the removed pants had landed this in SVU but there was no direct evidence of sexual assault. It wasn't the bare thighs that made this guy's heart pound. It wasn't the blood. It was power. His own mastery of death. Strong fading to weak. Clinging to him in spurious hope of mercy.
When they got this guy in a room, Huang was going to tell them that power was the key. If they wanted his trust, they'd admire him. If they wanted to rile him up, they'd question his precision, belittle his pathetic victims.
He liked them fat and slow, low self-esteem. Easy to seduce, too out of shape to fight back. Stupid fat kids, easy for a man with the power of life and death to feel superior to losers like that.
Elliot had Keller's mugshot in the jacket he'd slung over the chair. He knew how fucked up that was, but he couldn't throw it away. Elliot was finding it easier to climb inside the perverts' minds since he started carrying it with him.
His victims had been college boys. Young and strong and good-looking. Trophies for a man who could seduce and subdue them.
Elliot closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. He had to concentrate on the case in front of him. Olivia was already watching him strangely, wondering where his confidence had gone.
The condoms... a wrapper at every scene but never a condom. No sign of penetration but faint traces of lubricant on the victims' thighs. They'd assumed the killer couldn't perform but maybe he was just containing the mess. Their murderer rolled a condom on to masturbate as the life soaked away, or maybe he came at the pure thrill.
Neat freaks were easy to rattle. A little soda rubbed across the table to make it sticky, a lunch stain on your shirt. Olivia had pushed one guy over the edge by spilling a coffee over some fake files and not bothering to clean it up.
This killer liked his victims small and compliant. He wouldn't feel so powerful with Elliot in his face. Elliot would roll up his sleeves, show a little muscle, give this scumbag a taste of being manipulated and bullied, see how fast he crumbled with Elliot's forearm across his windpipe.
The thrill of violence lit Elliot up inside, one little twist to turn that ever-burning pilot light to fire. He wanted to hurt this bastard.
"Detective, you want a coffee?"
"I just told you I didn't!" Snapped back to reality, an empty room and a table covered in photos.
"Sir, that was four hours ago."
"The hell it was."
The officer backed out, and Elliot wanted to chase after him and tell him to stop being such a pansy-assed...
Elliot blinked and rubbed his face, checked his watch. One am. No wonder his eyes hurt.
Poison was still flowing through his brain, rolling in his stomach. The thread of the profile he'd been building was gone, but the oily mindset of a predator clung inside his brain.
"I don't want to go."
Toby checked his watch. If they didn't get going soon, he was going to be late for work. He was already pushing it with all the time he'd had off lately. "You were the one who begged her to get tickets back in April, Hol. You can't pull out the morning of the show."
"Why don't you come with us?"
"Because Mother got your tickets in April, and they were sold out an hour later. You didn't visit her last weekend, you don't want to go tonight. Your grandmother's going to think you're mad at her."
"I'm not. I just don't want to go." Holly turned her chair and kicked her foot against the desk, pouting like the five year-old Toby hadn't known.
It made no sense. Holly loved musicals; she'd never turned down a show in her life. Toby went in and sat on her bed. He was definitely going to be late for work. "What's going on, Holly?"
"Nothing." She slid down to the floor and started digging through her bag, moving things around but not seeming to actually look for anything. She'd been wasting the last of her summer vacation, had turned down invitations from friends, had barely left the apartment for... for two weeks. Toby was a self-absorbed fool. "Is this because of Elliot?"
"No." A complete lie.
Toby should have dealt with this properly. Holly had regressed ever since she saw Elliot punch him, and it was hardly a surprise. "He's not coming back. He won't hurt me. He would never hurt you."
She hunched deeper.
"I should have told you that I went to see him afterwards. He was sorry. He was sorry he frightened you."
She flashed a glare. "I wasn't frightened."
"He won't be coming back." He had to fight for his next breath. He hadn't said that aloud in two weeks, and it hit him all over again, just how colossally he'd fucked up the best new thing he'd had since he walked out of Oz. He rubbed his face. He leaned on Holly hard enough; he wasn't going to cry in front of her.
"I don't want to leave you alone," Holly said softly. Her hands were curled around the edge of her bag.
"I'm safe. Elliot won't be back."
"I don't want you to drink."
Jesus. He wasn't going to cry in front of Holly. He took a slow, careful breath in, controlled it on its way out. He wished he could tell her there was no chance, no way he'd ever do that again. That he hadn't lingered way too long in front of the beer in the store yesterday. That he loved her more than he was a weak fuck-up.
The truth was he hadn't questioned her being home every night because he'd been using her as a crutch, to fill the gap Elliot left.
"Holly." He waited for her to turn to face him, sullen and apologetic all at the same time. "You're going to the show, and you'll stay the night with Gran. In return I promise you, I won't drink tonight."
"I don't want to-"
"You can't babysit me forever. You have to let me earn your trust." He could see her teetering. "You can call to check on me at intermission."
She rolled it around for a long time before she finally said, "Okay."
Toby was going to be apologising to her for letting her down for one thing or another for the rest of her life. "Come on. You have five minutes to get your things packed to stay at Mother's tonight, and be out the door."
He left her to it and went out to hide in the kitchen, made a show of clearing the breakfast dishes as he counted his breaths. He owed Holly a hundred apologies for putting all this on her small shoulders, but he needed to keep his composure.
Holly appeared in the doorway, bag on her back.
"You went to see him?"
He'd hoped she'd missed that. He stopped wiping the counter. "I needed to make sure he was all right."
Her look made it clear she didn't think that mattered. "He hit you." She emphasised every word, and especially the last.
"Holly... How about I make an appointment with Ling? It's been a while. Maybe we can talk about what happened with Elliot."
"Why? You said he wouldn't come back."
Toby had been rehearsing diplomatic ways to say this for days, hadn't found one yet. He squeezed out the washcloth and hung it over the tap. "Because you shouldn't feel you have to sneak out by yourself to wash your sheets."
Wide eyes, betrayed, and a flush crept up her neck.
Toby hated that he was adding to her humiliation. How did you explain to an eleven year-old that it was a miracle she wasn't a basket case? "You don't have to be embarrassed, honey. You have to know I understand."
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. "How? Do you wet the bed like a baby?"
"I drank. I did drugs." He whored himself out to strangers. "God help me, Holly, we're going to find you better coping strategies than mine." Holly nodded, eyes suddenly too bright, and Toby rubbed his face. Too much honesty? It was nothing she didn't already know. "Come here." He crossed to her even as he said it, and hugged her tight. "I love you."
"I love you, Dad."
Toby squeezed his eyes shut. No matter what happened in the rest of his life, he wasn't going to fuck this up.
end chapter 31
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The complete works of Dr Squidlove can be found at http://members.iinet.net.au/~tentacles/squidfic.html
S.
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no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 10:02 am (UTC)But at least Toby's sober and not trolling bars for strangers to hurt him.
He gave Chris up, but not all the way. I liked that. He's our serial killer after all.
Poor El, I hope he doesn't see Toby as a mistake, cause he sure wasn't.
Ah, our friend agent Taylor was back. Nice scene.
You've got me crying over the holidays, good job.
Like a good masochist I love it. Guess I have more in common with Toby than I thought.
Damn, I thought my writing was dark, but you are a true queen of darkness.
ETA: You have El mentioning Mukada here. Did you mean Huang or am I missing something?
no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 10:59 am (UTC)Toby's holding it together-ish. I think he should be proud.
El definitely sees it as a big, terrible mistake. We'll have to see if we can change that.
Wonderful. Your tears sustain me.
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 01:31 pm (UTC)Looking forward to more angst in future chapters, and maybe some nice things happening too?
no subject
Date: 2014-12-27 08:48 am (UTC)Oh, crap. Well that's embarrassing. Guess I've got some fixing to do. Thank you.
Just for you, because you were kind enough to point that out, I'll make sure something nice happens. Somewhere along the way.
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-27 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 01:44 pm (UTC)And who's Ling?
no subject
Date: 2014-12-27 09:03 am (UTC)Ling's not canon.
She's just Holly's counsellor. The poor kid deserves a counsellor.
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-27 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 01:43 pm (UTC)Still... I can't believe the degree to which Elliot has now become obsessed with Keller. It's almost like Toby transferred all his own thinking (and also Keller's posthumous charm) on to him somehow. That's the freaky part of this chapter.
The description of the violence and the thinking behind it is utterly nerve-jangling, but it's also giving me the courage to do write about it in a fanfic piece I'm writing. It's not easy... I'd rather get into the details of a fight and the thinking behind it than the grizzly details of a crime. But the last few chapters you've written have encouraged me to describe what I don't even want to see. So I thank you for emboldening me with your work... Sort of an unintended Christmas gift.
Now, with all that out of the way...
PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE LET THERE BE A HAPPY ENDING FOR THESE TWO!
I don't care anymore if they get back together, just let them not hate each other.
Hope you had a wonderful holiday season!
Love,
Adam
no subject
Date: 2014-12-27 09:02 am (UTC)I think it's healthy, too. If Toby wants to keep himself together in the real world, he needs to let go of the prison habits that are ingrained, think like a father.
Yay, I love that you noticed the passing of Chris to Elliot. Toby may have let go of a burden, but Elliot has picked it up.
And I love that I am influencing you to be more twisted and depraved. :-D I think I find the violence harder to write, just because it's action, and writing action requires a particularly deft handling of rhythm. The depravity I embrace with glee.
Ah, lowered expectations. You want a lack of active hate? We'll see...
Thanks, sahem!
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-27 12:11 pm (UTC)El becoming a twisted true reincarnation of Chris? Eeh.
Plot bunnies, they are breeding fast.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-27 09:07 am (UTC)Oh, he's got the raging part down.
Toby's making an effort. ~pats him on the head~ Good Toby.
Thanks helvetica!
S.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-29 07:46 pm (UTC)And I love how Toby is trying to move on.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-31 01:58 am (UTC)Heh. So much anger management.
Toby does work very hard at moving on. Whenever he's not trying to completely screw everything up, he's always working on moving on.
Thanks mulder!
S.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-01 03:19 pm (UTC)I was particularly interested in how you made Chris throw up on his first murder. I always imagined him as a cold blooded murderer, not really as a pure sadist who does that shit for pure enjoyment, but more as someone who sorts of decides to do it at regular intervals when he feels the pressure cooker in his brain going past a certain stage and he knows that if he does not let the violence go on his own terms quickly, he'll explode in circumstances not controlled by him and be found out. But you make it sound like violence might have been more of an acquired taste for him. Unless he's been faking distress with Oscar-worthy realness for Toby's benefit?... I totally want to know the bottom of it, and we'll probably never know because Chris is dead and the person with the most info is Toby, who already spilled all he knows! Gah, frustrating!
Loved how Elliot discovers how easy it is for him to think like a psychopath, and how terrified he is. I saw the comment above on how the burden of Chris is passed from Toby to Elliot. Chris is like a virus being passed out. It's fascinating how potent his presence is in this chapter, yet he's been dead for years.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-02 09:05 am (UTC)Yay, iskra!
Oh, I love all the different interpretations of Chris. Yours is fascinating.
I don't think Chris has a conscience in a meaningful sense, because all his repentance in canon is selfish fear of hell (except maybe around Toby and Bonnie). But he is scared/ashamed of the monster inside him. I think that's what I had in my own mind with the throwing up. And to my mind that first murder had to be momentous, unless he's killed like that before. I mean, you don't live a normal life for decades and then start serial killing.
I would definitely assume Chris has been coldly violent all his life, but murder is big.
And then there's that... I think it was the conversation with Ronnie, where Ronnie talks about lotsa drugs, lotsa college boys, and one of them - I think Chris - suggests Chris pulled the hold up because he wanted to get caught. And that's... omg, fascinating insight that fanfic seems to have left untapped. So far. :-)
I think it's one of the things SVU does best, showing how the job damages Elliot. In the early seasons Cragen totally accepts Elliot's violent bully act in the interrogation room, but over the years, more often it isn't an act at all. Chris is not a burden Elliot wants or needs.
Thank you so much for the lovely chatty feedback!
S.