the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
Casey goes out alone. She doesn’t remember getting home.
warnings: drug-facilitated sexual assault, alcohol, implied non-consensual sex acts. the assault is not depicted in this, but its aftermath is. please mind these!!
this is not light hearted, whatsoever. if you are sensitive to any of these topics i would recommend skipping this one. please take care of yourself.
beta read by @iwoulddieforher. ao3
The fight had happened at four-seventeen in the afternoon, which Casey knew because she'd looked at the clock on the precinct wall when Olivia said it, like if she could anchor the moment in time she could make it make sense later.
It didn't make sense later.
She'd taken the subway home with her jaw set and her briefcase held in both hands in front of her like a shield. She'd gotten on at the wrong entrance and had to push through the turnstile going the wrong direction and a man in a Yankees cap had made a noise at her and she'd looked at him with her full face until he looked away, which she was good at, which was maybe the only thing she had going for her tonight. She stood for the whole ride because she didn't trust herself to sit down and then have to stand back up again. She watched the dark tunnel walls and thought about nothing on purpose.
Her building door stuck the way the stupid door always stuck. She shoulder-checked it harder than necessary.
She stood in the dark for a long time, breathing through her mouth. Then she went to the closet instead of the shower or the bed or the bottle of sleeping pills she wasn’t supposed to still have. She didn’t want comfort. She didn’t need to mope on her own in her empty apartment. She didn’t need to sit. Didn’t need to think. Didn’t need to call anyone. Not Olivia, obviously. Not her mother, who would ask questions, too many of them, each one landing just slightly off-center from where it hurt, close enough to sting. Not anyone who knew her well enough to hear it in her voice, which narrowed the list considerably and then narrowed it again.
The apartment was quiet. Obviously. The only other person to set foot in there was her landlord four months ago when the fridge started leaking. She'd bought the lamp in the corner because the overhead light was too bright and she'd thought the lamp would make the place feel warmer. It made it feel like she was always about to be interrogated. She didn't look at it.
She wasn’t looking for any dress in particular. She flipped through hangers without really seeing them, her fingers catching on fabric she couldn’t have named. Something that would piss off the detective, who just hated when Casey showed a sliver too much of her skin. Who had once looked at her across the bullpen when Casey had worn a blouse with two buttons undone—two, not three, not four, two—with an expression that managed to be both concerned and faintly disapproving, the way Olivia looked at a lot of things that had nothing to do with her. Who had said, once, in that stupid tone she used when she was pretending to be casual, you know you don’t have to do that. As if Casey’s choices were symptoms. As if everything Casey did that Olivia didn’t understand was a cry for help that Olivia had personally been appointed to interpret.
She wanted to do something Olivia would hate. Not for Olivia to see—she’d never see it, that was fine, that was almost the point. Just to do it anyway. To be, for one night, exactly the woman Olivia had always looked at her like she was trying not to become.
She found it wedged between a blazer she wore to court and a cardigan she wore everywhere else, shoved to the far left side of the rod where things went when she couldn't decide whether to keep them. A black dress she'd bought two years ago for a date that had never happened. The guy had cancelled the day before and she'd never returned the dress because returning it felt like admitting defeat, like letting the non-event take something else from her on top of the evening she'd already spent shaving her legs. So it had lived here between the blazer and the cardigan, no tags because she'd tried it on so many times she'd finally just taken them off.
Short. The hem would hit her maybe four inches above the knee. The back was—the back was nothing, really. Two delicate straps crossing over bare skin that ended right above the dimples at the base of her spine.
The straps sat cool against her shoulder blades. She reached back and adjusted them and felt the open air on her spine and thought, distantly, that she looked like someone who had somewhere to be. Then, she thought, with some satisfaction, that Olivia would absolutely hate it.
She stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself in it and waited for the part where she took it off and found something sensible. She watched her own face for the tell—the slight tightening around the eyes, the almost-imperceptible pull at the corner of her mouth that meant she'd talked herself out of something. She knew her own face well. She'd spent years making sure it didn't give anything away in court, which meant she'd spent years learning every way it tried to. The part just didn't come.
She looked good. She knew she looked good, had always known it in the abstract way you knew things about yourself that other people confirmed occasionally and you were not supposed to say out loud. She had good legs and good cheekbones and she was funny and she was smart and she was so tired of all of that being completely invisible to the one person who was supposed to—who had—who looked at her every day and saw a case file in a blazer. A liability. A woman with a history with this. She wanted someone to look at her tonight the way she deserved to be looked at, which was like she was something, which was like she was a person who existed in a body that was worth noticing. It wasn’t complicated. Olivia had made it complicated but it wasn’t.
She did her makeup heavier than she would for court or for anywhere, really. Concealer she usually skipped, pressed carefully into the shadows under her eyes that had been there since a case in February that she wasn't going to think about. Blush higher on her cheekbones than was strictly natural. Dark around the eyes—darker than she'd worn since law school, since she was someone who cared more about being looked at than being believed, before she'd learned those were in opposition and chosen accordingly. She never let herself do this on work nights because she had to be taken seriously. She always had to be taken seriously. She'd built everything on it. She'd made it the thing that was non-negotiable and then she'd made it the thing that was non-negotiable at the expense of other things and at some point, at some point she'd lost track of whether she'd chosen it or whether it had just become who she was.
Tonight she pressed the liner close to her lash line and smudged it with her thumb the way her college roommate used to do it over the sink in their shared bathroom, already half-dressed for somewhere. The way women did it when they were not thinking about morning.
She looked at herself. She didn't recognize the woman exactly. That was fine.
That was, in fact, the point.
The bar she’d chosen for the night was twelve blocks from her building, but despite the favorable proximity, having walked past it a hundred times, she had never gone in. It was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, one without a sign above the door, only a faded decal plastered on the front glass to identify it. The kind where all the stools at the counter were different heights and the floor stuck slightly under your shoes. Not a lawyer bar. Not anywhere anyone she worked with would find her. Not anywhere she'd have to be Casey Novak, ADA, with her posture straight and her face arranged into something professional and her opinions kept in the back of her throat where they couldn't get her in trouble.
The bartender was some guy in his forties with the expression of a man who had successfully avoided a meaningful thought all day, which questions would likely not spur from, and Casey appreciated that more than she could have articulated.
She ordered a whiskey sour. Then another. Then she switched to something cheaper because the point wasn't to taste it, she wasn't here to enjoy herself, she was here to get drunk, and there was no point being precious about it.
The fight had been about Charlie. Again. Except it hadn't been about Charlie, not really, not the way Olivia framed it. It had started over yet another case involving a defendant with a documented history of paranoid schizophrenia, a defense Casey thought was being handled sloppily, a conversation that had started professional and then turned the same way they always did with Olivia, personal in a way Casey hadn't consented to.
Olivia had that gift. Or that compulsion. Casey had never decided which it was, and she'd had more opportunity than most to figure it out.
I just think, Olivia had said, in the voice she’d use when she’d already made up her mind and was now walking, or rather, dragging Casey toward her desired conclusion like a witness she’d prepped, that your history with this makes it hard for you to be objective.
Her history. Her history, which Olivia knew about because Olivia made it her business to know about everything—pieced together from an incident report she had absolutely no reason to have read, from precinct gossip, and from one night when Casey had been tired and Olivia had been warm and she'd made the mistake of thinking that meant something.
Casey had looked at her for a long moment across the precinct. She just felt something. Not anger, at least, not yet. Something older than anger. Something that had been sitting in the back of her throat since the first time Olivia had looked at a mentally ill defendant with that faux sympathy and then looked at Casey like she was waiting for her to flinch. She’d said something in response, although, by her second drink, she could not recall what that was. She ordered another.
She could call Alex. Alex would answer. Probably. They weren't—Casey didn't know exactly what they were. Alex had come back from wherever Olivia and the others never quite talked about in front of her, drifted back into Casey's orbit. They'd worked a few cases together. Gone out a few times after, just the two of them, drinks or coffee or once a late dinner where they'd stayed two hours longer than either of them had planned and Casey had taken a cab home feeling warm in a way she hadn't thought about too closely. She liked Alex. She thought Alex liked her. It was hard to tell, though, with Alex, who held things close in a way Casey understood and respected even when it made her want to shake her by the shoulders, but she thought—she was pretty sure—that if she called, Alex would pick up.
And she'd say what happened? And Casey would tell her, sloppily probably, given the drinks, and Alex would listen without interrupting which was something Casey didn't take for granted, and then she'd say something quiet and precise and completely devastating about Olivia that would land like a scalpel, and Casey would feel better and worse at the same time. Better because Alex would mean it. Because Alex didn't say things she didn't mean, as far as Casey could tell. Worse because Alex would know. Would have always known. Had been dealing with Olivia since before Casey even had the job, had worked alongside her and argued with her and—whatever else, whatever the details were that Casey didn't have and wasn't owed.
She tried to imagine it, sometimes. Olivia saying those same measured, careful things to Alex. Taking her apart with whatever intentions, that mockingly patient expression, her talent for making concern feel like schoolyard teasing. And then what—going home together? Expecting it to be fine? Expecting Alex to just absorb it and move on because Olivia had meant well, because Olivia always meant well, because meaning well was apparently a get out of jail free card that never expired no matter how many times you used it.
When the whiskey loosened the leash she kept on her uglier thoughts, she Olivia and Alex, together. Tangled up in each other the way Casey kept catching herself picturing at the worst possible moments. Was Olivia rough with Alex too? Because Olivia was always rough with her. Not just sharp-tongued at work—rough in the rare, charged moments when they ended up too close, when the argument bled into something physical and breathless. Olivia’s grip on her wrist too tight. Her voice low and mean against Casey’s ear. Fingers pushing inside her like she was proving a point instead of fucking her. Like she was punishing Casey for wanting it. For being difficult. For making Olivia feel things she didn’t want to feel.
Casey had come to crave that edge, which only made her hate herself more. But did Alex get that version? Or did Alex get the soft one? The one Casey sometimes glimpsed when Olivia let her guard down for half a second—gentle hands, patient mouth, quiet praise instead of that mocking little edge that always slipped into Olivia’s voice when she was touching Casey. Did Olivia fuck Alex slow and reverent, murmuring how good she was, how strong, how perfect? Did she let Alex stay in control, let her keep that elegant composure while Olivia went down on her like she was worshiping instead of dissecting?
Or worse—did Olivia use Casey as the outlet? Sloppy seconds. The place she went when she needed to be mean. When she needed to work out her anger, her control issues, her whatever-the-fuck issues on someone who would take it. Someone she could push around and lecture and still make come harder than she probably should. Someone who would let Olivia pin her down and tell her all the ways she was fucking up her own life while Olivia’s fingers were buried inside her.
Casey stared at the sticky bar top and felt her face burn.
Maybe that was all she was to Olivia. The safe target. The one who could handle the roughness, who secretly got off on the cruelty, who wouldn’t break. While Alex got the version of Olivia that was actually capable of tenderness. The version that didn’t need to dominate or correct or punish every time she touched someone.
She didn't know if that was how it had been. She didn't know the details and didn't particularly want them and also if she was being completely honest with herself, which the whiskey was making easier, she kind of wanted all of them, in the grim rubbernecking way you slowed down past an accident. Just to know. Just to confirm that it wasn't her, that it wasn't something specific to Casey that brought this out in Olivia, that Olivia just—did this. Was like this. Had always been like this with the people she loved, if that was even the right word for whatever Olivia did.
Olivia was just a bitch. That was it. That was the whole explanation. Casey had been turning it over all night looking for something more complicated and that was what she kept arriving at.
She was still thinking about Olivia—or not thinking exactly, more like letting her occupy space the way a bad song did, rattling around her skull without permission—when someone sat down on the stool just beside her. Some guy. Brown hair—or maybe it was blond? It was dark, and she was wholly slumped over the counter, and to crane her neck to look in his direction would be rather uncomfortable, so she continued to stare at the wood grain on the bar. She was beginning to think it was peel-and-stick. She could smooth her fingers over it and feel no divots where the grain was uneven, but that could be the result of a thick varnish, or perhaps a good sanding job, or—no, this was vinyl. It was peeling at the bottom near the corner where the counter met the wall, a little curl of fake wood lifting away from whatever was underneath. She briefly wondered if that was sanitary, and then she wondered why she was wondering that, and then she decided that the amount of alcohol coursing through her system would surely disinfect whatever she might inadvertently ingest, so who was she to care. Not her bar. Not her problem. She was not, tonight, anyone's problem.
His body was warm next to her, and he smelled like cigarettes. It made her chest ache faintly, made her think of college, of bad decisions in good company on fire escapes, of the version of herself that had existed before she’d decided to be so stupidly, recklessly, relentlessly careful all the damn time. The version that had stayed out past two on weeknights and bummed cigarettes off strangers and worn dresses like this one without needing a reason. Man, she could use a cigarette. She hadn't smoked in however long it had been since she decided showing up to court reeking of smoke was a disservice to herself and her clients and the general dignity of the proceedings, which had felt like a very mature and reasonable decision at the time and felt, right now, like one more thing she'd given up in the name of being taken seriously by people who were going to condescend to her regardless. She could really use a cigarette.
"Rough night?"
She looked over. The man, maybe thirty, the kind of forgettable that would take effort to describe afterward. Not threatening. Not particularly anything. He had the look of someone who was also here to be nowhere else, which she understood, which was maybe why she answered at all, or maybe it was just the drinks, or maybe she was just tired of being inside her own head and any voice that wasn't hers would do. He caught the bartender's eye and held up two fingers before Casey had fully processed he was there.
"Something like that," she said, and looked back at her drink.
She was thinking about the way Olivia had said your history with this—and then she wasn't thinking about it because the bar was warm and the music had shifted to something with a low bass line that she could feel more than hear and thinking was becoming somewhat optional.
The bartender set two glasses down. One in front of him. One in front of her. She was looking at the bottles behind the bar, the way they were arranged by height, tallest on the left, and she was thinking about nothing, which she was getting very good at, and then she was looking at her phone for a second—she didn't even know why, muscle memory, the same reflex that made her check it forty times a day—and there was a name on the screen that wasn't Olivia's and she stared at it without reading it and put it back down.
Casey looked at the glass. Looked at him. He lifted his chin slightly. Not quite a smile.
She should say no. She knew that. She was a person who knew things like that, who kept track, who was—
The next thing she would be aware of was light.
It came in sideways from somewhere, too bright, from an angle that meant morning, late morning maybe, and it hit her directly behind the eyes and she made a sound she didn't recognize and turned her face away from it before she was even fully awake, before she knew anything except that the light was unbearable and something was very wrong with her head.
She lay there.
The tile was cold against her cheek. That was—that was a thing. She was on the floor. Her kitchen floor, she thought, she was pretty sure, the grout lines were familiar, she'd spent enough time staring at them while she waited for the coffee to brew. So that was fine. She was on her kitchen floor. People ended up on their kitchen floors. That was a thing that happened.
Her head was the worst it had ever been. She wasn't being dramatic. She was, professionally, a person who tried not to be dramatic, who measured her words carefully and did not exaggerate for effect in professional or personal contexts, and she was telling herself right now as a factual matter that this was the worst her head had ever felt. It wasn't just the pain, though the pain was extraordinary, a deep hot throbbing that went all the way down into her back teeth and made the backs of her eyes feel like they were being pressed outward from the inside. Her scalp felt hot. Sunburned, almost, tender in a way that didn't make any sense. She had a thin high ringing in her ears that didn't change when she pressed her then harder against the floor, that just sat there at a fixed frequency, patient and horrible. Her neck was so stiff she wasn't sure she could lift her head, but she tried anyway.
The room moved. The room moved a lot, actually, swung sideways in a way that had her pressing both palms flat against the tile trying to find something stable, and her stomach lurched and she thought with sudden sharp clarity that she was going to throw up, she was absolutely going to throw up right here on the kitchen floor, and then she held very still and breathed through her nose until the wave passed and left her shaking slightly and not sick, not yet, not if she didn't move again too fast. So she stayed very still.
There was a taste in her mouth that she couldn't identify and didn't want to. Something chemical almost. Something underneath the stale alcohol that wasn't just stale alcohol, that she kept running her tongue against and then wishing she hadn't. She smelled—she smelled wrong. Not just bar smell, not just the particular staleness of a night out, something else underneath it that she couldn't identify and that made her want to shower with an urgency that she dismissed because moving was not currently an option.
Regardless, she pushed herself up onto one elbow, and looked down at her body. Her shoes were gone—she didn't know when she'd taken them off, didn't remember the door or the elevator or any of the ordinary architecture of coming home. Her feet were bare on the tile. She was still in the dress that she'd put on because—she'd had a reason, she'd had a reason that had felt very important at the time and she couldn't—
Olivia.
Right.
She sat up the rest of the way and put her back against the cabinet underneath the sink and pulled her knees up and sat there. The ringing in her ears didn't stop. The light was very bright. She thought about getting up and getting water and didn't move.
She was so stupid. She was so, so stupid. She'd gone out alone dressed like a cheap slut and she'd had too much to drink and she'd ended up on her kitchen floor and she was twenty-eight years old and she was an ADA and she was so profoundly, embarrassingly stupid.
She pressed her back harder against the cabinet and closed her eyes and felt—something. Something that had been background noise became the only thing in the room. Not the kind of ache that comes from sleeping on the hard tile. She knew that ache. She wasn't—well, she couldn’t say she wasn’t stupid—she had a body, she was a person with a body, she knew what that ache meant and where it came from. But she hadn't. She hadn't done that, she hadn't—she'd been at the bar alone, she'd gone there specifically to be alone, she hadn't wanted anyone, she hadn't talked to anyone except the bartender and—there'd been a man. She hadn’t flirted. She hadn’t left with him. She wouldn’t have. She didn’t do that. She'd been thinking about Olivia and the shitty bar and she hadn't—she wouldn't have. She didn't do that. She didn't go home with strangers, she was careful, she was always so careful, she had spent years being so careful, she was the most careful person she knew, she was—
Why would she feel like that if she hadn't —
Why would she —
She pressed the heel of her hand against her sternum like that would help anything.
She'd had too much to drink. That was the whole thing. That was the explanation. She'd had too much to drink and she didn't remember getting home and she'd slept on her kitchen floor and her body was—it was always weird after a bad night, that was normal, that happened, that didn't mean—it didn't have to mean—
She is so stupid. She is so incredibly, irredeemably stupid, because what had she thought was going to happen, going out alone like that, dressed like that, drinking like that, she was an ADA, she'd stood in courtrooms and argued cases and she knew, she knew better than almost anyone exactly how this kind of night could go and she'd done it anyway because she was upset about a fight, because her feelings were hurt, because she was apparently a child, because—
Because she deserved to have her feelings hurt, probably. Because this was what happened. This was what happened to women who went out alone and drank until they couldn't remember and sat next to strangers—who let them—
She didn't finish that thought.
She couldn't tell if she was protecting herself or just being a coward. She suspected the latter. She suspected she was very good at being a coward about the things that mattered and very good at performing bravery about everything else, the courtrooms and the arguments and the measured words, all of it a mural to cover something that was apparently just—this. Just her.
A woman on a kitchen floor who didn't know what had happened to her and was already, already, finding ways to make it her fault before she'd even fully understood what it was.
What it was.
Her phone buzzed somewhere above her head and she startled badly, which sent a wave of pain through her skull that made her eyes water, and she sat there for a second just breathing before she reached up and felt along the counter without looking until her fingers closed around it. She turned the screen away from her face because the brightness was unbearable and then looked at it sideways, squinting.
Missed Call—Alex Cabot 11:43 PM
Missed Call—Alex Cabot 11:47 PM
And now Alex Cabot, calling. Right now. She remembered, dimly, the name on the screen at the bar. She must have—she'd done something, called or tried to call or something, and Alex had called back twice and gotten nothing and now it was the next morning and Alex was calling again because that was the kind of person Alex was, which was going to make this so much worse, actually, because now Alex got to know. Now Alex got to find out that Casey Novak had gone out alone and drunk herself into a gap in her own memory and ended up on her kitchen floor. Great. That was great. That was one more person who knew she was an idiot.
She answered it anyway because not answering felt worse somehow.
"Hey." Her voice came out as more of a whimper, which she quickly corrected. "Hey, sorry, I was —"
"Casey." Alex's voice was even, but there was something underneath it that she was trying very hard to keep controlled. "Are you home?"
"Yeah, I'm home." She cleared her throat. Tried to sound like a person who was fine, which she was, she was fine, she was certainly not fine but that was a minor detail, that was neither here nor there. "Did I call you last night? I think I might have pocket-dialed, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to —"
"You called at eleven-forty," Alex said. "You didn't say anything. There was noise and then it cut out. I called back twice."
Casey closed her eyes. So she'd just—breathed at her, apparently. Into the phone. Like a very pathetic obscene caller. Perfect. That was perfect, that was a great addition to the evening's accomplishments, she was doing so well. Let's tally it up, she thought, let's just go ahead and lay it all out. She'd picked a fight with Olivia, or let one happen, or failed to prevent one, however you wanted to categorize it. She'd gone home and put on a dress she had no business wearing anywhere except her own apartment. She'd taken a cab to a bar she'd never been to specifically so no one would find her, which, great call, very smart, gold star for that one. She'd drunk until she couldn't account for herself. She'd apparently called Alexandra fucking Cabot at eleven-forty in the evening and just. breathed at her. And then she'd gotten home somehow, by some mechanism she couldn't access, and she'd ended up on her kitchen floor, and now Alex had called back a third time and Casey had answered it and was sitting here accruing more evidence against herself in real time. She was doing great. She was absolutely doing so great.
"I'm really sorry," she said. "I had too much to drink and I must have—I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you."
Which was an understatement, and not even an interesting one. She'd had too much to drink was what you said when you'd had three glasses of wine at a work event and said something mildly embarrassing to a colleague. She'd had too much to drink was not—it didn't cover it, didn't come close to covering it, and she knew that and was saying it anyway because it was the smallest possible container for what she was trying to hand Alex and she was hoping Alex would just take it and not look inside.
"How much is too much?"
Of course. Of course Alex wasn't going to take it. Casey had known Alex for two years and in that time she had never once watched her accept an insufficient answer from anyone, in court or out of it, and she'd still somehow hoped that this would be the exception, that Alex would let her be vague and small about it, that she'd say oh no worries, glad you're okay, talk soon, and hang up and Casey could go back to sitting on her floor in peace. She didn't know why she'd thought that. She didn't know why she kept thinking things that were obviously wrong.
Casey opened her mouth and closed it. "I don't know exactly."
Which was true. Which was the truest thing she'd said so far. She didn't know exactly, she didn't know approximately, she didn't know at all, and saying it out loud to Alex made it more real in a way she hadn't been prepared for, made it sit differently in her chest, heavier, the not knowing suddenly feeling less like a gap and more like an answer she didn't want.
"Do you remember getting home?"
And there it was. The question she'd been hoping most wouldn't get asked, which was stupid, which was so stupid, of course Alex was going to ask that, Alex was the most precise person she'd ever met, Alex didn't ask questions she wasn't already following to their conclusions, Alex had probably known exactly where this conversation was going before Casey even picked up the phone. And now here they were. Alex having to ask her, a grown woman, a licensed attorney, an assistant district attorney, whether she remembered getting herself home from a bar the night before. Whether she'd managed the basic task of existing unsupervised for one evening without something going wrong. She had a law degree. She had a bar license and a caseload and a reputation she'd spent years building and Alex Cabot was on the phone asking her if she remembered getting home like she was checking on a teenager who'd snuck out, which was humiliating, which was exactly as humiliating as it deserved to be, which was—she didn't have a right to be humiliated. Humiliation implied she hadn't earned this. Humiliation implied she had any ground to stand on at all.
"I'm fine," Casey said, which was not an answer. "I have a headache, I just need water and—"
"Casey." Very quiet. "Do you feel okay?"
The ache. Low and specific. She'd been carefully not thinking about it for the last however long and Alex had just walked right up to it in four words.
"I'm fine," she said again, and even she could hear how thin it sounded, how little it was doing, what a terrible job it was doing of convincing anyone of anything. “I’m fine I just—I think I’m being dramatic.”
"I don't think you're being dramatic," Alex said, apparently having decided to say the thing. "I think something happened last night, and I think you need to go to the hospital."
"I don't—Alex, I don't even know if anything—" She stopped. "I don't remember. I don't remember anything after the bar and I know how that sounds but it doesn't mean—it could just be—I was drinking a lot, I was really drinking a lot, so it could just be that I had too much and that's why I don't—" She stopped again. Pressed her fingers against her eyes. "I just. I don't know what you think happened from this conversation. I called you by accident. I got drunk. God forbid. Women get drunk, Alex, it happens, it's not—you can't just tell someone to go to the hospital because they got drunk and pocket-dialed you, that's not—I'm fine. I'm hungover, I just need to drink some water and sleep and I'll be—" She was rambling. She could hear herself rambling, could hear the way the sentences were getting longer and less controlled, which was not helping her case, which was in fact actively undermining the point she was trying to make, which was that she was fine, she was completely fine, there was absolutely no reason for anyone to be concerned, certainly not enough to go to a hospital, certainly not enough for any of this.
She'd just had a bad night, she'd said she'd had too much to drink, which, yes, clearly, obviously, that was not in dispute, but that was—people did that. People had too much to drink and didn't remember things and woke up feeling terrible and it didn't automatically mean—it wasn't automatically—
God forbid, she thought. God forbid a person have a bad night. God forbid she drink too much one time and not have it turn into a whole—into a—
"Casey," Alex said, very gently. "I know."
"I'm probably just being dramatic," she repeated, and her voice came out smaller than she'd meant it to, smaller than she had any interest in it being, and she pressed her hand over her eyes and willed herself to hold it together because she'd already cried once on this floor and she was done, she'd decided she was done, she had made that decision and she was sticking to it.
"You are the least dramatic person I know," Alex said. "Which is why I’m already in my car."
Something in Casey's chest moved in a way she didn't have words for. She wanted to argue with that, wanted to point out that she was currently on her kitchen floor having a breakdown on the phone with someone she barely knew, which seemed pretty dramatic to her, which seemed like it qualified, but she didn't have the energy and she suspected Alex would just dismantle the argument anyway and she was so tired of losing.
"You don't have to—" she started.
"I'm coming," Alex said. Not unkindly. "I'm going to drive you. You don't have to talk in the car if you don't want to. You don't have to talk at all. But I'm coming and I'm taking you and you can be angry at me for it later."
Casey looked at her kitchen. She thought about saying no. She thought about insisting, about being a person who handled things herself because that was what she did, that was the only thing she'd ever reliably done, the one skill she'd never lost even when she'd lost everything else. She thought about saying I'm fine one more time and seeing if it worked any better on the third try. She was so tired. She was so tired and her head was splitting open and she ached everywhere and there was a gap where last night should be and she was just. so tired.
"Okay," she whispered.
"Okay," Alex repeated. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
Casey nodded even though Alex couldn't see her. She stayed on the floor after Alex hung up, phone in her lap, the screen going dark, and she looked at nothing and she thought about how now Alex knew. Alex knew she was stupid. Alex knew she'd gone out alone and drunk whatever was put in front of her and ended up here, and Alex was coming anyway, and she didn’t know what to do with that. She'd spent so long making sure she wasn't something anyone had to deal with, making sure she took up exactly the right amount of space and no more, and Alex was just coming. Twenty minutes. Like it was simple. Like Casey was worth the twenty minutes.
She stayed on the floor and she didn't cry again, and she held the phone in both hands and she waited for the sound of someone buzzing up from the lobby and she tried very hard not to think about how long it had been since anyone had come.
Something I really like about The X-files is its doomed but still hopeful romanticism. Mulder and Scully are alone against people with unimaginable power who can kill them both or one of them (which probably would be worse for the one who stayed alive), they are basically defenseless against them. No one knows the struggle they are going through, and if people knew, they wouldn't believe them. They both lost their loved ones because of the stuff they are involved into and they basically don't have an opportunity to live a normal life anymore. But they are still trying to know the truth, to find out what is being hidden, even if it will cost them everything. If the truth is out there, it can be found. And even if they gonna lose, they are still fighting and not falling in complete despair, even though they have all the reasons to, because you know, 'I want to believe'.
It seems like the only reasonable approach to the life full of horrors.
she doesn't know i'd let her ruin all my days
emily prentiss x f!reader
tags: developing relationship, insecurities, hurt/comfort, body worship(?), smut, bottom!emily, top!reader, age gap not specified, smut with feelings, no use of yn
warnings: explicit content, minors please dni <3
summary: you don't understand why emily won't touch you.
word count: 4.5k
request: hiii, so for a fic request i was thinking something along the lines of unit chief emily and younger reader and they’ve been going out or dating for a little bit (...) and they haven’t done anything more than makeout because Emily’s a little insecure about being older (...)
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a/n: um im such a liar i said this would take a few days but i couldnt stop writing it so here it is ! ty for requesting <3 i had so much fun !!! hope u like it
Emily is obsessed with touching you any chance she gets.
It's surprising, really, the way she starts clinging to you when she finally feels like she's allowed to. When you're at hers, she keeps a hand on your hip while you cook dinner, she likes laying on the couch with you on top of her as you watch some random reality show. Emily keeps her face pressed into your neck, breathing you in, whenever she can.
And it's good. God, it's great. You want it all the time, you love how much she enjoys it, how close she keeps you. There's only one problem.
You want her. Constantly. And it seems like every time you try to move on to something more, she retreats. She kisses your cheek, your forehead, ending the makeout session as soon as it starts.
You don't push, you haven't been going out that long, anyway, and maybe she's still uncomfortable. Maybe you thought she’d be fine with it earlier because you were friends before, yet that might be the reason she's still uncertain, you're not sure. Although trying not to take it to heart is hard, especially when it seems like she doesn't want you as much as you want her, and you don't know if that's because she doesn't see you as her equal.
Being younger than her never really mattered to you. Ever since you started at the BAU you thought she was beautiful, attractive, sure, but she treated you like a colleague worthy of respect, even as her subordinate. Emily never made you feel like you were less than her or your teammates, which is why you never really thought about her age or yours as anything of a problem.
Perhaps you were wrong and she sees yours as a problem.
But there are moments in which you can't believe these conclusions. There are moments, when you're having dinner or just talking on a rare free night, that she looks at you and you can swear she wants you, too. At this point, anything could be true. You enjoy spending time with her, you care about her, and this one thing won't put you off a relationship that you believe can be really good, for the both of you. But this liminal stage ends up confusing you anyway.
Sometimes, your frustration gets the best of you.
You're on her couch, after dinner on a night when you're mercifully still in town. Emily never kisses like she doesn't mean it. She grips your hair and holds your jaw with her other hand, she tilts your chin slightly lower so she can get her tongue into your mouth. Emily sucks on your bottom lip like she's starved for it, then dives back in, leisurely feeling as you open up for her.
Scratching the back of your neck, she lets out a surprised sound when you pull her closer by the cheeks. When you get a leg thrown over her lap, though, she lays a hand on it softly, touching your thigh as if she's afraid you might break. Emily slows the kiss, kisses your chin, then your cheek, and still, with her lips swollen and cheeks red from effort, she smiles like nothing's happened.
“We should watch a movie,” she says, reaching over for the remote. You grip her arm, not letting her get away that easily.
“You're kidding me, right?”
Emily frowns, seemingly genuinely confused — if you weren't so frustrated you might've even found it cute. “I don't know what you mean.”
You chuckle humorlessly, resigned. This is fine. It's just something you'll have to get over. “Never mind,” you say, bringing your leg back from where it still rested over her, almost managing to stand up before she touches your hand.
“What's happening?” She asks, so lost that you actually feel bad. Seriously, what is she doing to you? “Did I do something?”
“No,” you sigh, “it's me. Pick a movie, I'll be right back.”
Emily's still frowning, but you get up, turning away from those sorry eyes. You can't help but feel bad that you put that look on her face when she hasn't done anything to earn it.
In the bathroom, you throw some water on your face. Chuckling ironically at yourself because the feel of the lace lingerie you have on is starting to annoy you. Lately, you've been choosing aesthetics over practicality with your underwear, just in case. Apparently, it was futile.
Reaching under your shirt, you remove your bra, tired of the uncomfortableness it brings. In a t-shirt of Emily's, you can barely tell you're not wearing it, anyway. Since you came straight from work, all you have is your laptop bag, not even pajamas in it, so she's lended you some. You figured you'd keep the lingerie on, again, just in case. Deciding it doesn't really matter, now, you get out of the bathroom and throw it in your bag, cursing the fact that you can't do the same with the bottom piece currently digging into your hips.
Back in the living room, Emily is sitting in silence. She's got a silk set on, some button-up shirt and pants that feel as soft as they look. You like seeing her this casual, comfortable at home, with you. Knowing you should focus on that, you smile at her when you sit back on the couch, your arms touching so she knows you're not upset.
“I couldn't choose,” she says in a low voice, sounding oh-so-dejected, pointing at the television.
Okay, does she have to make it this hard?
“I’m sorry, Em, I was just… upset about something else.” You try, touching her shoulder, letting her silver hair slip through your fingers. “I didn't mean to take it out on you.”
Emily shakes her head, a soft, yet genuine, smile on her face. “Don't worry about it.”
Biting your lip, you nod, still unsure but deciding to take her word for it. “There's a new thriller I thought you might like,” you change the subject, taking the remote from her hand and delighting in the fact that she snuggles up against you, her head on your shoulder, one of her arms around yours.
This is fine. This can be enough.
In bed, Emily has a terrible habit of scrolling through her work e-mails before you turn the lights off.
It usually ends in her getting annoyed at something or someone. She sighs, mutters about how she needs to stop looking at her phone before bed, then does it again then next night.
Tonight's no different. The only different thing is you're sitting next to her, leaning back against the headboard and reading a book, one you've read a thousand times. More passing your eyes over the words than actually absorbing them.
Emily huffs, takes off her glasses, places her phone on the nightstand, screen turned down. She turns on her side, still half propped up by pillows, and scoots closer. Her arm finds your waist, her head leaves the pillow to rest on your shoulder.
“Read it out loud?” She asks, her voice muffled against your skin.
You don't add anything, only start reading to her from the top of the page. You know she's not asking to know the story, she just wants to hear your voice.
“As the king made no answer, the little prince hesitated a moment. Then, with a sigh, he took his leave. // ‘I make you my Ambassador,’ the king called out, hastily. // He had a magnificent air of authority…”
The cold tip of Emily's nose touches your skin where your shirt’s moved a little. She presses it closer, breathes you in. Leaves a featherlight kiss on your shoulder.
You close the book harshly in the middle of a sentence.
“You must be tired,” you say, placing Le Petit Prince on the nightstand. “We should get some sleep.”
Emily frowns, “you're acting weird.”
You look away to turn off the lamp. She catches your hand.
“Talk to me.” She asks, her voice so syrupy as it usually is this time of night. “Please?”
Taking a deep breath, you buy some time. Not nearly enough.
“Did I do something?” She asks again, crestfallen now. Your chest physically hurts.
“No, you didn't do anything.” Taking her hand, you lace your fingers together. “I mean it, Emily. This is my issue, I'll get over it soon.”
Frowning, “I’d like to help.”
You shake your head, kiss her cheek. “I think,” you whisper, “no, I know, you're the best thing that's happened to me in a long time.”
Emily only looks at you, eyes big and searching. Her profiler skills working at full speed and, still, she can't figure you out.
“I don't want to ruin it,” you finish. Squeeze her hand for good measure, to let her know you're there.
“I'm so confused,” Emily says, sitting up properly. “Why won't you tell me what's wrong?!”
“Why won't you have sex with me?!”
Alright, blurting it out was not how you wanted to do this.
You close your eyes, cheeks flaming. “Forget I just said that.”
When you look up, Emily looks… stunned. Her lips are softly parted and her eyes are wider than usual. Too bad you really want to kiss her.
“Let's go to sleep.” Imploring now, you try to pull your hand away. She doesn't let you.
“I'm sorry-” She starts, but you interrupt her.
“No! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that, I was-”
Emily shuts you up with a kiss. Pressing your lips together, she holds your face in place as she kisses you. She doesn't deepen it, but she lingers, then softens.
“Stop talking,” she murmurs against your lips. “Please.”
You nod, pressing your lips together.
“I'm sorry. I didn't realize this was weighing on you.” Her voice is collected, like she sounds in the conference room. You want to shake her, tell her to yell or show that this is affecting her, too. “I never wanted to make you feel unwanted.”
“I don't-” You interrupt yourself before she can because, really, what can you say to that?
“I do want to have sex with you,” she says, calmly, but there's a light rubor to her cheeks, like it's hard for her to say it.
“Then- Why? Do you think it's too early? We've known each other for over a year.”
Emily nods, moving the hands that were resting on your shoulders to grip your own hands. “I don't think it's too early, I…” She shakes her head. “I don't know how to explain it.”
“Emily,” you say, finding that you really want to get that disheartened look off her face more than you want an explanation. Trying to convey in your tone what you feel about her. “You don't have to explain anything. We’ll do it when you're ready. If you're never ready, we'll never do it.”
“Simple as that?” She asks, slightly incredulously.
You shrug, “simple as that. I just wanted to know why, but that doesn't matter.”
Emily smiles, a small thing that you might've missed if you weren't paying attention. “You're so young,” she starts, confusing you again. It must show on your face because she quickly continues. “I'm not. And I don't look like I did at thirty anymore, or even forty. And maybe you should be with someone like that.”
Scoffing, you can't believe what she's saying. “You think I want to be with anyone else? I've been crawling up the walls because you won't touch me!”
Emily shakes her head negatively, “I believe you. When you say you want me, I can trust it. But I don't think you should.”
You cross your arms, dislodging her hands from yours. “That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”
She opens her mouth to protest, but nothing really comes out.
“I don't care that you don't look like a wax figure. Do you care that my stomach isn't perfectly toned? Or that I have acne scars on my back? Cellulite?!”
“Of course not, but-”
“Emily!” You interrupt her. “I love you. God, why is that so hard for you to understand?”
She blinks. Silence engulfs the room.
“I was gonna wait, because we've only been together a month or whatever… But we've been friends for so long, and fuck it, it's out there now.” Holding her face between your hands, you bring it close to yours. “I love you. And I want you like I've never wanted anyone in my life.”
“I love you,” she whispers back. But you don't have time to react before Emily kisses you, holding you in place by the shoulders, forcefully pressing your lips together like a woman starved.
Moving a hand over her side, she grips it before you can leave it there, holding it in her lap and pulling back from the kiss. Emily touches her forehead to yours, breathing hard with her eyes closed.
“Sorry, I-” She gasps out. “I didn't think it'd be this hard.”
You nod, placing a comforting kiss to the side of her mouth. Pushing her softly against the pillows, you lean over her a little, but not enough to completely cover her body. Trying your best not to be overwhelming, you look all over her face, taking note of her breath coming in hard pants and her hands clenched in the fabric of your shirt.
“Emily.”
She opens her eyes, not realizing she'd even closed them in the first place. They're wide, searching your expression.
“Take a deep breath,” you suggest, touching your cheek to hers when she does so. “Again.” Matching her breaths, you keep her under you for a moment, hoping she can finally relax. “I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm going to do, and if you need me to stop, tell me, alright?”
Lifting your head, you lock eyes. Emily nods, pressing her lips together and managing to keep her breathing normally paced.
“I'm going to kiss you, now.”
And you do exactly that.
At least this is familiar territory. Emily quickly melts into you, her mouth welcoming your tongue in a practised move. You don't touch her anywhere else, only keep one of her hands in yours, the other resting by her head on the mattress. She lets out a small sound of approval, her neck lifting to get closer, head tilting for the best fit.
When she comes up for air, you lower your face into her neck. “Here,” you whisper. “Okay?”
Emily hums a consent. You kiss below her ear, slow and wet, enjoying the taste of her skin in the way she hadn't let you before. You've been dreaming about this for weeks, months, and the reality of it is better than you expected.
Placing kisses down her neck, you reach the base of it, right where it meets the skin of her shoulder. A particularly hard kiss there leaves a slightly red flush in the shape of your mouth. Emily gasps above you, her free hand moving to grip your shoulder. You let her hold onto you, let her feel the assurance of your body over hers.
You take your time exploring her skin. The exposed area of her chest glistens and flushes where you've kept your lips on it, enjoying the taste and the way she shudders, her back unclenching, lowering back onto her soft sheets.
“Can I take your shirt off?”
Not even having dared to undo a button, you wait for her approval. Emily looks up at you, an ethereal vision with her cheeks red and her lip swollen where she bit it to contain her own whimpers. She doesn't say anything, so you move your hands to your (her) own shirt, slowly lifting it off yourself. For a second, you'd forgotten you'd taken your bra off in the bathroom, but the chill in the room quickly reminds you of it.
Emily looks at you intently, her eyes mapping every bit of exposed skin. She licks her lips, placing her hands on your waist and squeezing softly. You nod at her encouragingly.
Dragging her hands up, she keeps her palms under your chest, not going further. You feel your skin heat up at the attention, but don't move to cover yourself, letting her look as much as she wants to.
Emily looks into your eyes again, "take it off.”
You don't waste any time. Swiftly opening the buttons on her silk shirt, you lower your head to breathe in every amount of skin that is gradually shown. When it's completely open, you kiss her sternum, the valley between her breasts, her stomach, but you don't move to push it off her body. Slowly, you taste every bit that's uncovered, feeling as Emily's hips move on their own accord, lifting up from the bed ever so slightly, a sight that you'll soon learn means she's aroused.
Getting your arms under her back, you pull her up, touching your uncovered chest to hers. “I'm going to take it off, now.”
Everything is said in your lowest tone, as if you're trying not to spook a scared stray. When Emily nods, you finally rid her of her shirt, throwing it somewhere on the floor and not caring to look. There is a much more interesting view right in front of you.
She lies back down, her eyes locked on yours, her hands gripping you at the height of your ribs. You move down with her, trying to stifle a smile but losing the battle, kissing her chest so she can't feel embarrassed.
“You're perfect,” you murmur against her skin, causing her to shiver at the warmth in your voice. Keeping your promise, you continue, “I'm going to taste you, now.”
Taking a nipple into your mouth, you smile around it when she whines. Sucking slightly, the sounds she lets out spur you on. This is so, so much better than you could've imagined. Emily moans when you move to her other breast, the cool air causing even stronger shivers on her wet skin.
After a while, when Emily's breathing is labored for an entirely different reason, you bring your face up to meet hers. You can never get enough of the way she kisses, so you ask for it again. A thumb on her chin, pressing it down to guide her jaw, loving the way she relinquishes her body to yours. Your tongues meet heatedly, and you moan at how she tastes, yet again. She groans in the back of her throat, gripping your hair strands and keeping you exactly where she wants you.
You touch her chest, taking care of it with your hands this time as she kisses you oh-so-sweetly, in that way only she can.
Coming up for air, you smile at the expression on her face, dazed and relaxed, at last. Surprisingly, Emily smiles back, a small tilt of her lips but a smile nonetheless.
“Can I take your pants off?”
She nods, running fingers through your hair to move it away from your face. Twisting it onto a low ponytail to keep it there, she runs her hands down your bare back, then your chest, mapping your body with her fingertips as best as she can reach.
You remove her pajama pants, leaving her underwear on for now. Closing your eyes, you try to center yourself. She's everything and she really has no idea.
“I really didn't plan for this,” Emily murmurs, pulling you back to the moment. She's gesturing at her underwear, you notice, a simple, black cotton pair.
“It's perfect.”
Standing up, you take off your, also borrowed, sleep shorts. Emily lifts her eyebrows at the sight of your lace bottoms.
You smile, “just in case.”
Emily, mercifully, laughs. A loud, free thing that settles your worry.
“You can stop narrating now,” she says, pulling on your hand so you straddle her hips.
“You sure?”
She nods, pulling on the back of your neck to kiss you.
As you kiss, you feel her hips bucking up into yours. Your hands find her body again, relearning every curve that you, for a while, thought you'd never get to see. Finding the edge of her underwear, you only look at her, waiting for a sign of discouragement. Emily only nods.
“Fucking hell,” you whisper unconsciously after finally, finally, getting her naked. “I've been wanting to do this for months.”
Emily lifts an eyebrow, “months?”
You hum in agreement, growing more speechless by the second. Kneeling between her thighs, you stare at her unabashedly, earning an impatient look from Emily, who clears her throat. “Sorry,” you grin up at her, delicately lifting one of her legs onto your shoulder. Emily closes her eyes as her cheeks heat up.
“You're perfect.” It feels like you can't say anything else. You desperately want her to understand that you've never meant anything more than this. “Fuck, Emily, you're stunning.”
She opens her eyes, looking away quickly when she notes the flame in yours, her face turned to the ceiling. You let her have it, not wanting her to be uncomfortable, and start kissing the inside of her thigh where it's resting near your face.
Her skin erupts in goosebumps. You can smell her so strongly from where you lay, your mouth starts salivating almost immediately.
In the end, you don't know if you taste her more for her pleasure or yours. Every minute that passes with your head between Emily's thighs, you feel yourself get more and more aroused. You know you're just about to become addicted to her, you'll want to do this every hour or every day and it's gonna be so hard to not jump her every morning in the office.
The sounds she lets out are a spectacle apart. Her throat raw from moaning, the whimpers and gasps that she produces every time you find just the right spot. Every time that deliciously raspy voice hits your ears it spurs you on, when she calls please! into the ceiling, when she keens as you slip a finger into her.
Two fingers pulling forward, your mouth sucking precisely on her clit — you learn that's the perfect recipe. Emily cries out, telling you not to stop, telling you it's exactly right, and just like that, don't stop, fuck.
There's barely a breathy, broken, “baby, I'm so close” before she comes into your mouth. Her thighs shake and her hips try shooting up as you hold her down, keeping her close and still with your tongue on her, tasting as she comes down. Her back arches in the most stunning arch and you want to do it all over again, keep doing it, all night, all week, if she'll let you.
When she pulls your face away, gripping your hair strands and trying to stop you, you whine at the separation.
Once you're face to face again, you pout jokingly at her. “I was enjoying that.”
Emily smiles, “yes, well, I need a minute.”
She brings you in for a kiss, groaning as she tastes herself on your tongue. You feel the wetness on your chin passing onto her face, your kiss messy in the best way possible. Emily nips on your bottom lip, then beams at you.
“I don't know why I was so worried.”
You shrug, “I don't know, either.” But your eyes soften in understanding. A kiss on her cheek to tell her you've got her.
“Your turn?” She asks, grabbing your hips with her hands already under the waistband of the lace. Emily keeps them there, giving you the same time you gave her. It's sweet, even if you've told her you were crawling up the walls, and that she can probably feel the damp spot on her thigh from where you straddle her.
“I'm not done yet.”
Getting up again, you remove your underwear, then sit down next to her and pat your lap playfully. Emily rolls her eyes, but complies, straddling your own legs this time.
Gently moving her legs where you want them, you get one thigh over hers, the other under, and she swiftly adjusts herself when she gets your intention. She keeps herself lifted, not resting her weight onto you yet, leaning down to touch her forehead to yours, more easily as you're slightly propped up against the headboard.
You hold her hips firmly, guiding her down to bring your centers together. Emily closes her eyes, shivering.
Kissing below her ear, you whisper, “ride me?”
Emily sighs next to your face, hiding hers in your neck. “I'm not twenty anymore.”
“That doesn't mean anything,” you say, taking her earlobe between your teeth and enjoying the way she shudders. “I'll guide you, hm?”
She doesn't say anything, but she nods, and her hips give a slight, barely there, thrust forward. You both moan in unison.
Keeping a tight grip on her hips, you encourage her to move.
It's dramatic, sure, but you feel like you've died and gone to heaven in the span of a few seconds.
Murmuring in her ear about how good she looks, how well she rides you, you delight in her needy whimpers. Emily lets out these enticing little gasps where she hides her face in your neck.
Still guiding her movements with a hand, you take another to touch her back softly, caressing the skin and feeling as beads of sweat start to form from the exertion. You don't stop praising her out loud, the vibration of your voice emboldening the undulation of her hips, and Emily grips the hand that's resting right there, a bruising hold that keeps you anchored.
It takes a little trial and error, but you find the perfect rhythm together. She lifts her head when she's getting close. Her neck strains as she approaches orgasm, you've noticed, her entire body tensing in expectation.
As her breathing gets more labored, her brows furrowing from the effort, you think you've never seen someone this beautiful, and you tell her just so. Her cheeks flame, still so unused to praise, but it still spurs her own, her thighs burning now from the merciless pace she sets. With a particular twist of her hips, she slightly moves off where you need her the most, but she looks so ruined, so gorgeous, almost reaching her peak, that you don't say anything. You have time. Now, you only grip her harder, letting her take what she needs from you.
Telling her how good she rides you, how perfect she looks above you, you watch in ecstasy as her back arches and she comes again, an almost sob of relief leaving her lips.
When she falls forward, spent, you wrap your arms around her and kiss her temple, then wherever you can reach. You whisper that you love her, she answers with a squeeze of your arm, still catching her breath.
“You've ruined me,” she says when she finally finds her voice again.
“I did no such thing.”
Turning her face to look at you, your noses brush together. “You probably fixed me.”
“Don't be silly,” you joke, nipping at her nose. “There was nothing to fix.”
“Huh,” she considers, pressing your lips together sweetly, like she can't get enough. “Somehow, I almost believe that.”
Saw the End of the World Last Night | a.cabot x c.novak
--❝ “Casey,” she tried to reason, “Things are going well for us right now, career wise- generally. It’d be so complicated … Why is it so important to you that everyone knows we’re having sex?” ❞--
╰⟢ Casey wanted to tell others about the fact she and Alex have been seeing each other- but Alex preferred they kept it quiet, in her bedroom, where things felt easier. A SVU case brings everything to a head when it seems as though Casey might've fallen victim to a perpetrator targeting women outside of queer bars.
╰⟢ A/N: approx. 15k words. warnings for internalized homophobia, canon-typical case descriptions, potential violence against main characters (Set in a universe where there are more than a mere 27 lesbian bars in the entirety of America.)
╰⟢ requested by the very sweet @cherry6pao ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚
“My parents are coming up next week,” Casey said, like she was offering something. “It feels awkward not to introduce you to them, you know.”
“How so?” Alex hummed, a little preoccupied by how nice it felt to fit like a puzzle piece in the redhead’s side, all warm skin and toned flesh even as her chest was still heaving slightly.
Everything felt well in the world, even though her thigh did feel a little sore from the blissful torment of Casey’s teeth. The bed felt like it was sucking her in after all the ‘cardio’ she’d just exercised; if she was honest, Alex wasn't really paying attention to what Casey was trying to tell her. She was halfway through the process of falling asleep in her arms as it were.
Casey was quiet for a moment. Perhaps she hadn't expected that line of questioning; assumed it would've been implied.
“They're going to ask me if I have someone in my life,” she said eventually, “I don't like lying to my father.”
“I doubt he’ll be particularly ecstatic that it’s a woman,” she responded tiredly, “Easier just to shrug it off.”
She knew that Casey's parents were aware, to some degree, that their daughter preferred her time spent with the daughter of another parent’s, but to the extent they accepted it she wasn't entirely sure because Casey had told her before she wasn't sure either. Regardless, it was true: everything would be easier and less complicated if they simply enjoyed each other behind closed doors and in closets.
Casey ran her tongue along her lower lip and made a slight shrugging motion that jostled Alex slightly.
“Still. It feels odd to me that no one knows about us.”
“What do other people really need to know?” Alex murmured in response, “This is all we really need, isn't it?”
Her hand slid up and down Casey’s chest, running the pads of her middle and ring fingers along the curve of her ribcage. Idle, quiet, blissful, like how this moment was supposed to be, although this conversation that Alex regarded as coming out of near-nowhere was slightly throwing her off balance. This disgruntled her; she wasn't a particular fan of anything but cuddling and sweet talking after sex, and serious matters in her opinion should be dealt with when she wasn't naked and exhausted and positively dizzy off of body warmth.
“I’m not saying it's not nice like this,” she’d said after another long moment of silence, “But wouldn't it be nice, to just … be able to hold my hand in public? Not have to make excuses to talk privately to make plans at the office?”
“We’ve been having fun,” she said, and then made an expression following that statement to convey obviously that wasn't all they'd been having, along with a slight wave of her hand at her own nudity, “I don't understand what you mean.”
Casey snorted. “Alright, Alex.”
The blonde readjusted where her head lay, just beside Casey’s breast, close enough to feel every ounce of warmth radiating from her body. She almost let the conversation die there; she didn't understand the point of wishful thinking like that, both of their lives would be ridiculously complicated if they were to decide something like that, so the discussion and the overloading tone that Casey wanted to argue felt entirely unnecessary. Frankly: she wanted to wrap her arms around her waist and go to sleep.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She murmured anyway, sleepily, trying to entertain her.
Silence, again. A long bout of it. Alex was almost convinced she’d sigh and murmur a ‘nevermind’ or ‘you’re right’ after having thought about it.
Then: “You can't tell me that, if I were a man, we wouldn't already be dating. I’m at your apartment every weekend for the weekend, Alex.”
“But you're not,” she responded, “Unfortunately, we happen to be of the same gender. It’s unfair, but it's just how it is. It’ll just be needlessly complicated if we start advertising it. Don't tell me you’d be happy about the looks we’d get if everyone knew.”
“But- we could tell our friends, couldn't we? We could just tell Olivia and Elliot- they'd accept it…”
“You already told them you were bisexual,” she yawned, “I don’t really- I don’t see the point in telling them about me … I didn't realize this mattered to you so much.”
She was mildly disgruntled when Casey pulled away, slightly, stealing the warmth she’d been sharing beneath the covers back, and apparently her small huff further provoked her.
“Casey,” she tried to reason, “Things are going well for us right now, career wise- generally. It’d be so complicated … Why is it so important to you that everyone knows we’re having sex?”
Casey sat up, curls tousled at the back where they’d been pressed against Alex’s bedsheets, the skin of her cheeks still coming down from the high Alex had given her. She stared at her for a long moment, as if waiting for her to elaborate, but Alex just shrugged vaguely and furrowed her brows.
That was it for her, then, although Alex would only realize that in post. Casey’s fingers closed around her shirt and she tugged it on without giving Alexandra patience any further than she already had.
“I’m not your dirty secret,” she said, “I’m not anyone's secret; I thought I could be more to you than that, but clearly I was wrong. My fault, then, for letting this develop more than is convenient for you.”
“Hey,” Alex sat up then too, although by then Casey had already stood to try to seek out where her underwear had been haphazardly tossed, “Casey- it's not like that,”
Apparently, something had evidently been building inside of the redhead, something urged on by offhand comments and small snippets of her conversation in her matter-of-fact tone. It wasn't like she was happy they couldn't kiss in public, but it wasn't like that was an end all for her- in Casey’s eyes, perhaps, she realized suddenly, her flippancy might have been found in offense she hadn't realized.
“I’m not anyone's secret,” she said quietly, and quickly, as though this was something that had been gnawing in her skull that she was finding the courage to pour out, “and I thought what we had wasn't something considered any dirtier than what it would've been had I been born male,” Casey proceeded, and her tone was harsher now. Stronger, louder.
She’d found it- her underwear- and the elastic of the waistband made a vicious sound when she snapped it. There was something decisive with finality in the way fabric made a sound like a small whip against her flushed skin.
Alex was caught off guard. The topic of conversation and Casey’s seemingly sudden conviction; the small strange feeling in her chest that felt something like shame, although she wouldn't admit that.
“If this,” Casey gestured vaguely to the disheveled state of the bed, “Is all you’re content with having, find someone else content to having it with you, but I’m most certainly not the one. I’ll see you at the office.”
“Casey-”
... To continue reading, please proceed here to ao3. The first page break is where this picks back up ...
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