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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: 3544
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 37: Something
by Dr Squidlove
Previously, in chapter 36, Oblivion:
Toby was all dolled up and back at Franco's, engaging in all manner of unseemly sexual practices until he couldn't stand it anymore. He skipped drugs, dabbled in violence, bowed to alcohol and finally danced with someone who gave a shit about him, but that was worst of all. He bolted, and deja vu hit when he stumbled across crime scene tape.
Elliot was working the crime scene, and not-punching bigot cops. He saw Toby and chased him, dragged him to the squad car. He wasn't repulsed by the drag like he'd expected, mostly because he was busy being repulsed by the degradation. Olivia and Cragen stared. Elliot put Toby in a cab home.
Also, there was delicious barbana art.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The last time Elliot stood on Toby's landing this long, it had been the start. He'd been weak-kneed with fear of what Toby was going to expect and excited by how Toby made him feel and he'd no earthly idea where the whole thing was going to lead. He definitely wouldn't have guessed it would lead here.
He still had his key. He hadn't brought himself to take it off the ring. He let himself in, half-expecting Toby to be waiting on the other side, glaring, ready to tell Elliot to butt out of his life.
Toby was curled on the couch, asleep. He was still wearing that dress, and it was riding up his hairy thighs, exposing dark bruises that made Elliot's gut rebel. The make up was mostly gone, at least, except for the raccoon eyes. The wet wipe Elliot had given him was coloured and scrunched in a ball on the floor by his cell phone and glasses and those ludicrous shoes. How did it go this wrong?
The years had given Elliot plenty of practise in going through the motions, so he hung his coat inside the door, remembered he had his gun and he kept his jacket on. He sat on the coffee table and leaned in to sniff for alcohol, got the warm scent of Toby's sweat and then the stench of sex hit him and tumbled his stomach. His hands balled into fists. He took the time to uncurl his fingers, one at a time, and then touched Toby's shoulder, had to shake him before he stirred.
Toby's eyes were slow to open until he saw Elliot, and then surprise only lingered a moment before shame dragged them away. He glanced at the clock, squinted, reached down for his glasses and looked again. "Shouldn't you be solving that murder?" His voice was rusty. He pushed himself to sit up, and the dress rode up his thighs.
"Don't worry about that. I need to be here right now." Cragen had let him go as soon as they'd wrapped up the scene. He'd hauled Munch in to back Olivia for the interviews, and Elliot was going to owe them all three of them.
For a moment they sat just like that, staring at each other.
Toby's hands covered Elliot's, and Elliot realised his own hands had found their way onto Toby's knees, just short of the hem of the dress. He had to force himself to pull away.
Toby's hands followed his, gripped his fingers. "What are you doing here, Elliot?"
He'd been asking himself the same question ever since he climbed in his car. He hadn't forgiven Toby. He didn't trust him. This wasn't going to be some happy-ever-after reunion. "I'm not here for that."
"Then what?"
"You think I just stopped caring about you?"
"Yes."
"I'm not the one who was pretending to be with someone else the whole time." Someone Toby murdered. Elliot had called Brian back, but Brian swore Sean Murphy was straight up, as reliable as a CO could be. Toby had already admitted to trying to kill Chris when he shanked him - and trying to kill Vern - so was it so hard to believe he succeeded once? Elliot looked at Toby, hunched against Elliot's harsh tone in his absurd dress, just enough make up left to accentuate the circles under his eyes, and even after years seeing everything people were capable of, he couldn't see Toby throwing Elliot's dark twin to his death.
"How are you doing?" Toby asked.
Elliot squashed the urge to laugh. It would have sounded harsh. "I'm doing just fine." Better than Toby, at least.
"I've been worried about you."
"Maybe you should be worrying about you."
"You look good." A weak smile.
"Don't." Elliot didn't understand how he could still feel the same things he used to feel, even after all the lies, even under the bitter rage that had clung ever since Taylor threw the photos across the desk. He hated Toby, and the hate was solid and real, but he still loved him. He still missed him.
"I'm sorry for what I did to you," Toby said.
"I know." He believed that much, at least. The despair in his face made Elliot's chest hurt. He believed Toby was as miserable as he was, and he needed it and he hated it. His ever-present anger faltered in the face of Toby's, a rage turned inwards until it was white-hot.
The man who got his life straight for his kids didn't deserve that. The man who smoothed over Elliot's seething temper like it was nothing and cared more about protecting Elliot's relationships at work than his own place in Elliot's life didn't deserve the prison he'd built for himself. Elliot missed him, and it hurt like hell.
Elliot leaned in and Toby met him halfway, sweet soft lips pulling at Elliot's, warm and needy and no kiss had ever felt this good. Toby's hands squeezed Elliot's thighs. Elliot cupped a hand behind Toby's head, poured five weeks of longing inside him and Toby drank it all. They could fix this. Elliot just had to forgive him, forget about Chris Keller, what he was, what he did... All the fucking lies...
Elliot pulled back, mouth aching, gut aching, fingers itching to pull Toby down, fuck it all. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."
Toby's face twisted as the hope Elliot just dumped on him was snatched away. "You still feel something."
"Yeah. I feel so fucking angry I can barely look at you."
"That's something."
Elliot stood up, put the coffee table between them. "What does it matter? How could I ever trust you again? How can I ever trust myself? My own fucking feelings?"
He needed Toby to summon up some magical words to excuse all the lies, to excuse protecting a serial rapist and killer, to make him believe Elliot had been something more than a shell to house Toby's dead pervert lover. That Toby hadn't murdered that pervert lover.
There were no magical words, and Toby couldn't fix any of it, so there was no point waiting for a miracle. He wasn't here for that, anyway. He didn't look as he ordered, "Go and get changed. Give me the dress, the make up. I want all of it. We're throwing it all out."
"So now you have a problem with transvestites?"
"No. I have a problem with you slowly killing yourself."
"That's not-"
Elliot leaned in, right in Toby's face and didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about it. "Are you going to tell me you do this to feel good? Tell me you dress up because you like it, because you feel sexy, and I'll give it all back, and good luck to you." Toby smelled like sex. Somebody else's sex. Elliot struggled to get a grip on himself. This couldn't be about him, or it was a waste of time. Now was time to be a cop, to remember how to do his job. Toby wouldn't look at him, so Elliot caught his shoulders, gentled his voice. "Did Vern do this to you?"
Toby tried to pull back. "Save me the nickel psychiatrist routine."
Elliot stayed close. "This isn't a nickel psych. I'm an SVU detective. I've had thirteen years watching victims continue their abusers' work." The flinch was controlled, but Elliot saw it. "Tell me the truth for once, Toby. You owe me that. The whole truth. Did Vern do this to you?"
Toby's eyes burned, and Elliot knew he was about to get a faceful of Toby's history. "Vern gave me to the gays for a makeover and then he signed me up for talent night, told me to get up on stage like this and sing. The whole fucking prison got to see what a docile little prag I was."
Elliot kept his face dead still, but it was probably the biggest effort of his life. The whole prison? What the fuck were the staff doing in that place?
"I got so fucked up on heroin, I didn't give a damn. I didn't give a damn when he made me leave a trail of lipstick all the way down his cock that night. Now I get to feel every drop of shame."
Bile seared its way up Elliot's throat, and he could barely swallow it back. "Why do you want to?"
Toby slumped. "It seems like it's better than drinking."
Elliot took a good few seconds to open his mouth. He wanted to yell, but he made himself sit back down on the coffee table. He had to be a cop. Had to treat Toby like an uncooperative victim. "You think so, Toby? You tell me, would you rather I sit Holly down and tell her you're in the drunk tank, or that you're lying dead in a puddle of piss in the meatpacking district?" He waited, but wasn't especially surprised that Toby had no answer to that. "Do you realise that Leo Markstrom could have been you, Toby? That man you had sex with in Franco's slit Markstrom's throat from ear to ear. Your prison lover raped and tortured three men to death." It was like talking to a wall. "Are you still seeing the counsellor?"
"Yes." After a moment, he admitted, "It's been a few weeks."
A lot of weeks, Elliot was willing to bet. "Have you told her about this?"
Toby didn't answer.
"You have to tell her about this. I want you to make an appointment tomorrow, and tell her about the clubs. You can make an appointment with a sexual health clinic while you're at it."
"I use condoms, I'm not stupid."
"When you have anal sex."
Toby actually blushed.
"You use them when you're doing oral?" Clinical words, like he'd use with Warner or a typed report. And silence from Toby. "You think no one ever got gonorrhoea or syphilis from oral, Toby? What, are you in eighth grade?" He leaned close. "Are you hoping you will? Too cowardly to take your own life, so you're hoping some disease or rapist scumbag will do it for you? So you won't have to do any of the hard stuff, like rebuild your life, or look Holly in the eye and deal with the damage you've done to her?" Toby's words from long ago, right back at him. "You think it's going to help Holly, to bury her father beside her brother and mother and grandfather? You let go like this and you're no better than Genevieve."
Toby had curled in on himself, which meant something was getting through. Elliot ignored the shame on his face and pulled him up to his feet. Let him stew on that. "Come on. You're going to shower." He shoved Toby into the bathroom and took himself to the bedroom. He didn't want to see if Toby was wearing lacy panties under that dress. He went through the drawers, pulled out a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. There were a few make up things on top of the drawers, so Elliot picked them up and then headed to the bathroom, scooping up the dress lying in the doorway. "Is there anything else? Do you have a whole wardrobe some-"
Toby was reaching into the shower to turn the taps and Elliot got a full view of his body, of the way his jaw tightened as he stretched. Elliot dumped everything on the counter and pulled Toby out, hands on his bare, bruised skin. "What the hell did they do to you?"
"It's nothing."
The skin on Toby's ass and up his sides was mottled with finger-marks, already turning blue in places. Bruises across the front of his thighs, probably where he'd been shoved against a counter. A fat blooming swelling on his back about the size of a fist. Elliot ran his fingers over the fingernail gouges on Toby's hips, felt the shiver but he couldn't pull his hands away. There was a smear of blood dried on Toby's buttock. Elliot had seen this on hundreds of strangers, never on someone he loved. He suddenly wished Liv was here, so she could say this instead of him. He choked out the words. "You can't shower. I have to take you to the hospital, get a kit done."
"It's superficial."
"Toby, it's-"
"I asked for it."
"Nobody asks for this, Toby."
Toby jerked away. "I'm sorry I don't fit in your Leave it to Beaver world, Elliot."
Elliot caught Toby's arms, held him still but didn't squeeze. He'd never, ever leave another mark on him. "Did you like it? Did you have a good time tonight?"
"I chose it."
"Did you like it?"
Toby glared as long as he could, but Elliot wasn't backing down. Toby shook his head.
"How happy would Vern Schillinger be, to know what you're doing to yourself?" Toby had no answer. "You didn't do this when you were with me." It was a question, even if Elliot didn't make it sound like one. If this had been going on while Elliot was obliviously-
"I was a fucking liar when I was with you. I told myself I wanted Chris and I didn't. I wanted you." Toby pressed a hand to Elliot's chest, tucking a thumb under his tie, and the simple touch was enough to lock Elliot's lungs. All Toby's anguish was in his eyes. "I miss you, Elliot. I don't want him. I want you."
"Don't." Elliot gently lifted the hand away and took a breath. He believed him. Maybe that made him a bigger idiot than any of the skels he dealt with, but he believed Toby wanted him now. Five months too late. "Please let me take you to a hospital."
"It's not going to happen."
"Even if you don't want to press charges-"
Toby's hand closed around Elliot's, and for a moment, Elliot couldn't feel anything else. "I wasn't raped. I did this to myself. I asked for it to hurt."
Elliot held on. He couldn't force him, but he had to fight every cop instinct to push. Even the cold, calculating cop instinct that said a case like this would never make it to court anyway. "Then get clean. I'm going to throw this shit away." He untangled their hands and turned his back on the map of bruises as he gathered the dress and cosmetics, and left Toby to himself. He contemplated the kitchen trash for all of a second, headed for the door instead. He doubled back to grab the shoes and the wet wipe. He wanted this stuff all the way downstairs. He wanted it in New Jersey. He wanted cool air and space before he did something stupid. Something else stupid. Why had he kissed him?
He just kissed a murderer. It hadn't felt any different.
Elliot threw the dress and make up in the dumpster beside the building and walked out to the sidewalk to breathe. He put his hands on his car and took a slow breath in, let a slow breath out. He was so angry he was shaking with it. He wanted to beat the living hell out of every man who'd touched Toby tonight. He wanted to shake Toby until his teeth rattled. Maybe it would be best for everyone if he just got in his car and left.
He paced the sidewalk for a few minutes, testing and rejecting his new anger management techniques one after another. Counting and breathing and picturing a fucking happy place; this rage wasn't going anywhere while those marks were fresh in his mind. Toby let men do that to him. He fed men with rape fantasies and put himself at risk and degraded himself. All the shit Elliot dealt with every day, the stuff he dreaded touching his family, marked out on Toby's body.
Some twisted part of Elliot wanted to go upstairs and fix it all. If he told Toby it was all forgiven and forgotten, Toby would crawl back into his arms in a second, would maybe promise never to let anyone else touch him again. But Elliot hadn't forgiven him, and no possible way could he forget he wasn't Chris Keller, and even if he could do all that, Elliot couldn't be all that stood between Toby and his mission of self destruction.
But he couldn't leave him alone, either.
Elliot shoved his hands in his pockets and found the earrings from earlier. Costume junk. You'd think Toby could afford something better. He threw them in the dumpster after the dress and headed back upstairs.
He let himself in to find Toby already wearing the shirt Elliot had left, and he'd found a pair of sweatpants as well, was sitting on a chair pulled out from the dining table with his knees and feet neatly together, glasses in place. It reminded Elliot of the day he'd handed over his blood test results. That was the day Elliot got on his knees and sucked Toby's cock for the first time. Had Toby been thinking of Chris then? Comparing them? Elliot's fumbling must have been a pathetic disappointment.
Elliot leaned back against the front door, afraid to get closer. "Did you look like that under your suit the day I met you?"
"Near enough."
Elliot couldn't bring himself to ask how many times Toby had let men hurt him. Or even how many times tonight. He felt sick. "You have to talk to your counsellor." Elliot didn't know what else he could do. He couldn't fix Toby. He couldn't pretend everything was all right.
Toby bit his lip, adjusted his glasses. Hitting all Elliot's weak spots. "Please tell me this isn't the last time I'll see you."
It should be. What was he doing, sticking around? Just prolonging the misery of letting go. "I'm going to call you. If I ask if you've been back there, and if you've been seeing your counsellor, will you tell me the truth?"
"I promise."
"All right. Then I'll call." And pretend he wasn't grateful for the excuse. "When does Holly come home?"
"Tomorrow." He looked up at the clock. "This afternoon."
She'd keep him safe for now, at least. Time to go. Elliot stood straight. "Maybe you don't deserve better than this, but you know she does."
"I know."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The clunk of the door closing behind Elliot was loud. Elliot had kissed him.
Toby was trying to remember how sick he'd felt with the humiliation of Elliot finding him playing the prag in that crowd tonight, the whirlwind of panicked thoughts in the cab home, the self-pity he'd been drowning in when he collapsed on the couch, sure he'd have hours to clean himself up before Elliot showed, if he showed at all.
But then Elliot showed up. And kissed him.
Now it was hope knotting Toby's stomach.
Elliot wanted to forgive him but he was afraid to, and Toby remembered how that felt. Chris wore Toby down in the end. Toby could do it better than Chris. Maybe he could get Elliot back.
Toby looked up at the ceiling. "Is this how you felt, Chris? Did you see that look in my eyes?"
Elliot didn't seem to realise how many times he touched Toby. Every time he touched his knee Toby had wished he'd slide it up, up his thigh, under his dress. Prove he really didn't give a shit about the dress by pressing close, by sliding off the strap and kissing Toby's shoulder the way he probably once did Kathy's.
Chris would have sneered at Toby for the dress. Would have called him a bitch, and maybe he would have been right, but Elliot hadn't judged him. He'd been something else. Sad.
Toby still loved Chris, always would, but he'd had enough of being loved like that for one lifetime. He'd trade it for peace and trust, for someone who'd make him a better man.
The unselfconscious way Elliot had kept touching him, that familiar hand on his leg, had made Toby's cock hard. Just the slightest pressure, the faintest indication and Toby would have spread his knees and forgotten all about what he was wearing, who'd been there earlier tonight, and Elliot would have been the only one he was thinking of.
Of course, Elliot wasn't going to do that.
Yet. Maybe it was just a matter of 'yet'. The way Elliot had kissed him... How could Toby have pretended Hector could substitute? Elliot didn't need to persuade him out of returning to the club. Toby was never going back there. He could still taste Hector's eager tongue and feel pawing hands making him dirtier than any of the rough fucks ever had. He didn't want to feel like that.
Elliot wasn't going to want him while he was screwing everything up. Toby headed for the bedroom and rummaged through the drawer for the bag. Another dress, the rest of his make up. He went and shoved them in the kitchen trash, knotted up the bag and stepped out in the hallway to drop it down the chute. He wasn't going to wait for rock bottom, this time.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
end chapter 37
Feedback conspires to debauch and corrupt the morals of society. 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: 3544
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 37: Something
by Dr Squidlove
Previously, in chapter 36, Oblivion:
Toby was all dolled up and back at Franco's, engaging in all manner of unseemly sexual practices until he couldn't stand it anymore. He skipped drugs, dabbled in violence, bowed to alcohol and finally danced with someone who gave a shit about him, but that was worst of all. He bolted, and deja vu hit when he stumbled across crime scene tape.
Elliot was working the crime scene, and not-punching bigot cops. He saw Toby and chased him, dragged him to the squad car. He wasn't repulsed by the drag like he'd expected, mostly because he was busy being repulsed by the degradation. Olivia and Cragen stared. Elliot put Toby in a cab home.
Also, there was delicious barbana art.
The last time Elliot stood on Toby's landing this long, it had been the start. He'd been weak-kneed with fear of what Toby was going to expect and excited by how Toby made him feel and he'd no earthly idea where the whole thing was going to lead. He definitely wouldn't have guessed it would lead here.
He still had his key. He hadn't brought himself to take it off the ring. He let himself in, half-expecting Toby to be waiting on the other side, glaring, ready to tell Elliot to butt out of his life.
Toby was curled on the couch, asleep. He was still wearing that dress, and it was riding up his hairy thighs, exposing dark bruises that made Elliot's gut rebel. The make up was mostly gone, at least, except for the raccoon eyes. The wet wipe Elliot had given him was coloured and scrunched in a ball on the floor by his cell phone and glasses and those ludicrous shoes. How did it go this wrong?
The years had given Elliot plenty of practise in going through the motions, so he hung his coat inside the door, remembered he had his gun and he kept his jacket on. He sat on the coffee table and leaned in to sniff for alcohol, got the warm scent of Toby's sweat and then the stench of sex hit him and tumbled his stomach. His hands balled into fists. He took the time to uncurl his fingers, one at a time, and then touched Toby's shoulder, had to shake him before he stirred.
Toby's eyes were slow to open until he saw Elliot, and then surprise only lingered a moment before shame dragged them away. He glanced at the clock, squinted, reached down for his glasses and looked again. "Shouldn't you be solving that murder?" His voice was rusty. He pushed himself to sit up, and the dress rode up his thighs.
"Don't worry about that. I need to be here right now." Cragen had let him go as soon as they'd wrapped up the scene. He'd hauled Munch in to back Olivia for the interviews, and Elliot was going to owe them all three of them.
For a moment they sat just like that, staring at each other.
Toby's hands covered Elliot's, and Elliot realised his own hands had found their way onto Toby's knees, just short of the hem of the dress. He had to force himself to pull away.
Toby's hands followed his, gripped his fingers. "What are you doing here, Elliot?"
He'd been asking himself the same question ever since he climbed in his car. He hadn't forgiven Toby. He didn't trust him. This wasn't going to be some happy-ever-after reunion. "I'm not here for that."
"Then what?"
"You think I just stopped caring about you?"
"Yes."
"I'm not the one who was pretending to be with someone else the whole time." Someone Toby murdered. Elliot had called Brian back, but Brian swore Sean Murphy was straight up, as reliable as a CO could be. Toby had already admitted to trying to kill Chris when he shanked him - and trying to kill Vern - so was it so hard to believe he succeeded once? Elliot looked at Toby, hunched against Elliot's harsh tone in his absurd dress, just enough make up left to accentuate the circles under his eyes, and even after years seeing everything people were capable of, he couldn't see Toby throwing Elliot's dark twin to his death.
"How are you doing?" Toby asked.
Elliot squashed the urge to laugh. It would have sounded harsh. "I'm doing just fine." Better than Toby, at least.
"I've been worried about you."
"Maybe you should be worrying about you."
"You look good." A weak smile.
"Don't." Elliot didn't understand how he could still feel the same things he used to feel, even after all the lies, even under the bitter rage that had clung ever since Taylor threw the photos across the desk. He hated Toby, and the hate was solid and real, but he still loved him. He still missed him.
"I'm sorry for what I did to you," Toby said.
"I know." He believed that much, at least. The despair in his face made Elliot's chest hurt. He believed Toby was as miserable as he was, and he needed it and he hated it. His ever-present anger faltered in the face of Toby's, a rage turned inwards until it was white-hot.
The man who got his life straight for his kids didn't deserve that. The man who smoothed over Elliot's seething temper like it was nothing and cared more about protecting Elliot's relationships at work than his own place in Elliot's life didn't deserve the prison he'd built for himself. Elliot missed him, and it hurt like hell.
Elliot leaned in and Toby met him halfway, sweet soft lips pulling at Elliot's, warm and needy and no kiss had ever felt this good. Toby's hands squeezed Elliot's thighs. Elliot cupped a hand behind Toby's head, poured five weeks of longing inside him and Toby drank it all. They could fix this. Elliot just had to forgive him, forget about Chris Keller, what he was, what he did... All the fucking lies...
Elliot pulled back, mouth aching, gut aching, fingers itching to pull Toby down, fuck it all. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."
Toby's face twisted as the hope Elliot just dumped on him was snatched away. "You still feel something."
"Yeah. I feel so fucking angry I can barely look at you."
"That's something."
Elliot stood up, put the coffee table between them. "What does it matter? How could I ever trust you again? How can I ever trust myself? My own fucking feelings?"
He needed Toby to summon up some magical words to excuse all the lies, to excuse protecting a serial rapist and killer, to make him believe Elliot had been something more than a shell to house Toby's dead pervert lover. That Toby hadn't murdered that pervert lover.
There were no magical words, and Toby couldn't fix any of it, so there was no point waiting for a miracle. He wasn't here for that, anyway. He didn't look as he ordered, "Go and get changed. Give me the dress, the make up. I want all of it. We're throwing it all out."
"So now you have a problem with transvestites?"
"No. I have a problem with you slowly killing yourself."
"That's not-"
Elliot leaned in, right in Toby's face and didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about it. "Are you going to tell me you do this to feel good? Tell me you dress up because you like it, because you feel sexy, and I'll give it all back, and good luck to you." Toby smelled like sex. Somebody else's sex. Elliot struggled to get a grip on himself. This couldn't be about him, or it was a waste of time. Now was time to be a cop, to remember how to do his job. Toby wouldn't look at him, so Elliot caught his shoulders, gentled his voice. "Did Vern do this to you?"
Toby tried to pull back. "Save me the nickel psychiatrist routine."
Elliot stayed close. "This isn't a nickel psych. I'm an SVU detective. I've had thirteen years watching victims continue their abusers' work." The flinch was controlled, but Elliot saw it. "Tell me the truth for once, Toby. You owe me that. The whole truth. Did Vern do this to you?"
Toby's eyes burned, and Elliot knew he was about to get a faceful of Toby's history. "Vern gave me to the gays for a makeover and then he signed me up for talent night, told me to get up on stage like this and sing. The whole fucking prison got to see what a docile little prag I was."
Elliot kept his face dead still, but it was probably the biggest effort of his life. The whole prison? What the fuck were the staff doing in that place?
"I got so fucked up on heroin, I didn't give a damn. I didn't give a damn when he made me leave a trail of lipstick all the way down his cock that night. Now I get to feel every drop of shame."
Bile seared its way up Elliot's throat, and he could barely swallow it back. "Why do you want to?"
Toby slumped. "It seems like it's better than drinking."
Elliot took a good few seconds to open his mouth. He wanted to yell, but he made himself sit back down on the coffee table. He had to be a cop. Had to treat Toby like an uncooperative victim. "You think so, Toby? You tell me, would you rather I sit Holly down and tell her you're in the drunk tank, or that you're lying dead in a puddle of piss in the meatpacking district?" He waited, but wasn't especially surprised that Toby had no answer to that. "Do you realise that Leo Markstrom could have been you, Toby? That man you had sex with in Franco's slit Markstrom's throat from ear to ear. Your prison lover raped and tortured three men to death." It was like talking to a wall. "Are you still seeing the counsellor?"
"Yes." After a moment, he admitted, "It's been a few weeks."
A lot of weeks, Elliot was willing to bet. "Have you told her about this?"
Toby didn't answer.
"You have to tell her about this. I want you to make an appointment tomorrow, and tell her about the clubs. You can make an appointment with a sexual health clinic while you're at it."
"I use condoms, I'm not stupid."
"When you have anal sex."
Toby actually blushed.
"You use them when you're doing oral?" Clinical words, like he'd use with Warner or a typed report. And silence from Toby. "You think no one ever got gonorrhoea or syphilis from oral, Toby? What, are you in eighth grade?" He leaned close. "Are you hoping you will? Too cowardly to take your own life, so you're hoping some disease or rapist scumbag will do it for you? So you won't have to do any of the hard stuff, like rebuild your life, or look Holly in the eye and deal with the damage you've done to her?" Toby's words from long ago, right back at him. "You think it's going to help Holly, to bury her father beside her brother and mother and grandfather? You let go like this and you're no better than Genevieve."
Toby had curled in on himself, which meant something was getting through. Elliot ignored the shame on his face and pulled him up to his feet. Let him stew on that. "Come on. You're going to shower." He shoved Toby into the bathroom and took himself to the bedroom. He didn't want to see if Toby was wearing lacy panties under that dress. He went through the drawers, pulled out a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. There were a few make up things on top of the drawers, so Elliot picked them up and then headed to the bathroom, scooping up the dress lying in the doorway. "Is there anything else? Do you have a whole wardrobe some-"
Toby was reaching into the shower to turn the taps and Elliot got a full view of his body, of the way his jaw tightened as he stretched. Elliot dumped everything on the counter and pulled Toby out, hands on his bare, bruised skin. "What the hell did they do to you?"
"It's nothing."
The skin on Toby's ass and up his sides was mottled with finger-marks, already turning blue in places. Bruises across the front of his thighs, probably where he'd been shoved against a counter. A fat blooming swelling on his back about the size of a fist. Elliot ran his fingers over the fingernail gouges on Toby's hips, felt the shiver but he couldn't pull his hands away. There was a smear of blood dried on Toby's buttock. Elliot had seen this on hundreds of strangers, never on someone he loved. He suddenly wished Liv was here, so she could say this instead of him. He choked out the words. "You can't shower. I have to take you to the hospital, get a kit done."
"It's superficial."
"Toby, it's-"
"I asked for it."
"Nobody asks for this, Toby."
Toby jerked away. "I'm sorry I don't fit in your Leave it to Beaver world, Elliot."
Elliot caught Toby's arms, held him still but didn't squeeze. He'd never, ever leave another mark on him. "Did you like it? Did you have a good time tonight?"
"I chose it."
"Did you like it?"
Toby glared as long as he could, but Elliot wasn't backing down. Toby shook his head.
"How happy would Vern Schillinger be, to know what you're doing to yourself?" Toby had no answer. "You didn't do this when you were with me." It was a question, even if Elliot didn't make it sound like one. If this had been going on while Elliot was obliviously-
"I was a fucking liar when I was with you. I told myself I wanted Chris and I didn't. I wanted you." Toby pressed a hand to Elliot's chest, tucking a thumb under his tie, and the simple touch was enough to lock Elliot's lungs. All Toby's anguish was in his eyes. "I miss you, Elliot. I don't want him. I want you."
"Don't." Elliot gently lifted the hand away and took a breath. He believed him. Maybe that made him a bigger idiot than any of the skels he dealt with, but he believed Toby wanted him now. Five months too late. "Please let me take you to a hospital."
"It's not going to happen."
"Even if you don't want to press charges-"
Toby's hand closed around Elliot's, and for a moment, Elliot couldn't feel anything else. "I wasn't raped. I did this to myself. I asked for it to hurt."
Elliot held on. He couldn't force him, but he had to fight every cop instinct to push. Even the cold, calculating cop instinct that said a case like this would never make it to court anyway. "Then get clean. I'm going to throw this shit away." He untangled their hands and turned his back on the map of bruises as he gathered the dress and cosmetics, and left Toby to himself. He contemplated the kitchen trash for all of a second, headed for the door instead. He doubled back to grab the shoes and the wet wipe. He wanted this stuff all the way downstairs. He wanted it in New Jersey. He wanted cool air and space before he did something stupid. Something else stupid. Why had he kissed him?
He just kissed a murderer. It hadn't felt any different.
Elliot threw the dress and make up in the dumpster beside the building and walked out to the sidewalk to breathe. He put his hands on his car and took a slow breath in, let a slow breath out. He was so angry he was shaking with it. He wanted to beat the living hell out of every man who'd touched Toby tonight. He wanted to shake Toby until his teeth rattled. Maybe it would be best for everyone if he just got in his car and left.
He paced the sidewalk for a few minutes, testing and rejecting his new anger management techniques one after another. Counting and breathing and picturing a fucking happy place; this rage wasn't going anywhere while those marks were fresh in his mind. Toby let men do that to him. He fed men with rape fantasies and put himself at risk and degraded himself. All the shit Elliot dealt with every day, the stuff he dreaded touching his family, marked out on Toby's body.
Some twisted part of Elliot wanted to go upstairs and fix it all. If he told Toby it was all forgiven and forgotten, Toby would crawl back into his arms in a second, would maybe promise never to let anyone else touch him again. But Elliot hadn't forgiven him, and no possible way could he forget he wasn't Chris Keller, and even if he could do all that, Elliot couldn't be all that stood between Toby and his mission of self destruction.
But he couldn't leave him alone, either.
Elliot shoved his hands in his pockets and found the earrings from earlier. Costume junk. You'd think Toby could afford something better. He threw them in the dumpster after the dress and headed back upstairs.
He let himself in to find Toby already wearing the shirt Elliot had left, and he'd found a pair of sweatpants as well, was sitting on a chair pulled out from the dining table with his knees and feet neatly together, glasses in place. It reminded Elliot of the day he'd handed over his blood test results. That was the day Elliot got on his knees and sucked Toby's cock for the first time. Had Toby been thinking of Chris then? Comparing them? Elliot's fumbling must have been a pathetic disappointment.
Elliot leaned back against the front door, afraid to get closer. "Did you look like that under your suit the day I met you?"
"Near enough."
Elliot couldn't bring himself to ask how many times Toby had let men hurt him. Or even how many times tonight. He felt sick. "You have to talk to your counsellor." Elliot didn't know what else he could do. He couldn't fix Toby. He couldn't pretend everything was all right.
Toby bit his lip, adjusted his glasses. Hitting all Elliot's weak spots. "Please tell me this isn't the last time I'll see you."
It should be. What was he doing, sticking around? Just prolonging the misery of letting go. "I'm going to call you. If I ask if you've been back there, and if you've been seeing your counsellor, will you tell me the truth?"
"I promise."
"All right. Then I'll call." And pretend he wasn't grateful for the excuse. "When does Holly come home?"
"Tomorrow." He looked up at the clock. "This afternoon."
She'd keep him safe for now, at least. Time to go. Elliot stood straight. "Maybe you don't deserve better than this, but you know she does."
"I know."
The clunk of the door closing behind Elliot was loud. Elliot had kissed him.
Toby was trying to remember how sick he'd felt with the humiliation of Elliot finding him playing the prag in that crowd tonight, the whirlwind of panicked thoughts in the cab home, the self-pity he'd been drowning in when he collapsed on the couch, sure he'd have hours to clean himself up before Elliot showed, if he showed at all.
But then Elliot showed up. And kissed him.
Now it was hope knotting Toby's stomach.
Elliot wanted to forgive him but he was afraid to, and Toby remembered how that felt. Chris wore Toby down in the end. Toby could do it better than Chris. Maybe he could get Elliot back.
Toby looked up at the ceiling. "Is this how you felt, Chris? Did you see that look in my eyes?"
Elliot didn't seem to realise how many times he touched Toby. Every time he touched his knee Toby had wished he'd slide it up, up his thigh, under his dress. Prove he really didn't give a shit about the dress by pressing close, by sliding off the strap and kissing Toby's shoulder the way he probably once did Kathy's.
Chris would have sneered at Toby for the dress. Would have called him a bitch, and maybe he would have been right, but Elliot hadn't judged him. He'd been something else. Sad.
Toby still loved Chris, always would, but he'd had enough of being loved like that for one lifetime. He'd trade it for peace and trust, for someone who'd make him a better man.
The unselfconscious way Elliot had kept touching him, that familiar hand on his leg, had made Toby's cock hard. Just the slightest pressure, the faintest indication and Toby would have spread his knees and forgotten all about what he was wearing, who'd been there earlier tonight, and Elliot would have been the only one he was thinking of.
Of course, Elliot wasn't going to do that.
Yet. Maybe it was just a matter of 'yet'. The way Elliot had kissed him... How could Toby have pretended Hector could substitute? Elliot didn't need to persuade him out of returning to the club. Toby was never going back there. He could still taste Hector's eager tongue and feel pawing hands making him dirtier than any of the rough fucks ever had. He didn't want to feel like that.
Elliot wasn't going to want him while he was screwing everything up. Toby headed for the bedroom and rummaged through the drawer for the bag. Another dress, the rest of his make up. He went and shoved them in the kitchen trash, knotted up the bag and stepped out in the hallway to drop it down the chute. He wasn't going to wait for rock bottom, this time.
end chapter 37
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S.
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Date: 2015-01-13 04:19 pm (UTC)NIP
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Date: 2015-01-17 10:47 am (UTC)Hey, NIP!
Yes, even my blackened soul likes a bit of hope, every now and then.
When I set out to write this story, I never thought about that parallel, but as I wrote it became inescapable. Which was quite delicious to me, thematically speaking. I love a good parallel theme...
Thank you!
S.