A/N: Yes, I am alive! No, I didn't have any interest in writing a back story. Lol Just angry sex. Hope you are all well in the apocalypse. I hope to write some more soon. Reviews welcome! Pairing is E/O

Rating: NC-17

Spoilers: Fault, Underbelly, Annihilated, Screwed, Paternity, Philadelphia/Florida, Undercover, Spooked

Trigger Warnings: Rough sex

Concessions

Olivia's skin chilled in the empty interview room, still reeling as the metallic echo of Dean Porter's footsteps hurried down the precinct's back stairs. Her stomach was cramped with anger and betrayal; suddenly, going home didn't seem like a bad idea.

Elliot was in the bullpen - returned, she assumed, from his own fit of rage over Porter's performance – when she started for her desk. She pulled her jacket from the back of her chair, slipping into it without meeting Elliot's gaze.

"Going home?" he said gently. Liv nodded behind the curtain of her hair. "Let me drive you. I'm done here, too." She was too tired, off-center, to argue, and she waited while he got his own jacket and the keys to his car.

Porter and his case had taken them all over the city in a short time, including the end of a gun barrel. It took all of Liv's effort not to fall asleep on the drive to her apartment, watching the city blocks pass her window.

"I'm sorry, Liv," Elliot apologized quietly as he pulled up in front of her building.

She smirked half-heartedly. "No, you're not."

Even he had to admit that his ribbing of Porter had been obvious. "Ok, I'm not that sorry," El conceded, "but I owe the guy one, either way."

Olivia met El's eyes, remembering the way his arms had trembled with panic when he pulled her body from the airport tarmac, checking to see if she was bleeding. "He wasn't saving my life, El," she reminded him, "he was just covering his ass."

"Hey, you came out alive - that's all that matters to me." Elliot shrugged, but she wasn't so sure she could say the same. Liv reached for the door handle. "Let me walk you up."

"El, I'm not a child. I'm fine."

"Messing with the Feds is nothing to sneeze at. Someone could be waiting for you up there."

"You think I can't take care of myself?"

"I didn't say that," he protested, but he was already getting out of the car to join her.

Elliot hovered quietly behind her on the way up, glancing into all the corners and dark shadows. Olivia turned on her heel as she let herself inside, stopping El short in the doorway. "Ok, I'm safe. Thanks."

"Not going to let me check the apartment, eh?"

"Nope. Not under the bed, either," Liv sighed, but her eyes betrayed her amusement.

"Huh. What about those roses Porter gave you?" he asked, jerking his chin in the direction of the counter where the flowers were in a plain vase. "What if there's a bug in 'em?"

"I'm not afraid of bugs," Liv dismissed.

"I mean a listening device," El chuckled, brushing past her doorway stance. "He could still be surveilling you."

Olivia rolled her eyes and shrugged her jacket off. "Like I told you – it wasn't me he was interested in, it was the case." She crossed to the fridge and pulled out a bottle. "Beer?"

Elliot gripped the bottle and opened it without missing a beat. "That's not what it sounded like. You know, from the bedroom."

"What can I say? Subterfuge is a strength." Liv swigged her own beer and dropped her gaze to the roses.

"That dress sure was a strength." Elliot smiled, and Liv blushed.

"Yeah, well, I'll wear it for you, the next time you bring me a dozen roses," she grinned.

"I'll keep that in mind," El chuckled. The room fell quiet then, and it grew serious in the breath that filled it. "All seriousness, though, Liv – you okay?"

"I'm fine," she told him. It was what she always told him, even though it was most frequently a lie.

"I just – I know you two worked together, on that case in Oregon . . . "

"That was three years ago, El," Liv interrupted.

"Still - "

" – and to be honest, he didn't like me much then, either."

"What?"

"He said I was annoying," Liv said, frowning.

"Porter said that?" Elliot raised an eyebrow, then laughed into his beer. "Like that asshole has any right to talk!"

We're best friends, she had told Porter of herself and Elliot. At least I know he'd never cover up two murders and lie about it, she thought now.

"My point was," El cleared his throat, "I know that he lied to you, and you thought he was on our side. That's hard. So I'm sorry."

"Well, it's not like you didn't try to tell me," Liv admitted. "I should've listened."

"I never liked the guy - can't say I knew he would nearly get you killed, though," El said quietly. Then, after a beat, "Been a long time since I've been that scared."

She thought about Eli's birth, after a car accident a couple years ago. "Since Eli?"

"Since Gitano," Elliot replied.

A chill rippled through both of them at the name, dredging up moments of fear, of nearly losing each other, of guilt and of shame. Yet, at the same time, it was as close as they had ever come to speaking honestly to each other about their relationship. About what losing each other meant.

You and this job are about the only things I've got anymore.

And here they were, four more years gone in the blink of an eye, failing again to say what they really meant. Our feelings don't matter Porter had said, but oh, how wrong he was. Some days, it seemed like personal feelings were all that mattered now, in the larger war that was their job.

The intensity of her anger surprised her, and she took another drink, trying to douse it with beer before it snuck out in front of Elliot. She had grown used to not expecting much from men, after her years at SVU, but it was something else when men she trusted were the disappointment. Before Porter it had been Kurt Moss, and before that it had been Elliot himself.

Gitano was as vulnerable as they had ever gotten – the only moment that Olivia had ever hoped El would grab life by the balls. Instead there had been Oregon, Dani Beck, and ultimately Elliot had gone back to Kathy, which brought the circle back around to Eli being born. It had taken more time than Liv anticipated for their partnership to return to normal after that and Lowell Harris, and she wasn't eager to rock the boat with a fight.

"Time passes," Liv murmured, "but I never get any less happy that guy's dead."

"Can I ask you something?"

She took a deep breath and sighed. "Sure."

"What did Porter mean, when he said, 'the last time he was here'? You cut him off in a hurry."

Olivia narrowed her gaze. She knew he had been itching for a fight, especially since the dick-measuring contest the two men'd had in the precinct – she had just been hoping that El would keep it in check until he got home to Kathy, or maybe the gym. "Why do you ask?" she returned, keeping her tone light.

"Because I want to know," he said pointedly, holding her gaze as he raised his beer to his mouth.

"Elliot." It was a warning.

He toed the line she'd just drawn, then stepped directly past it. "Did you sleep with him?"

Liv's eyebrows went up of their own accord. "Elliot!" He could have exhaled and knocked her over, she was so stunned. Eleven years of carefully-crafted boundaries meant they never got within shouting distance of discussing sex.

"It's not a hard question," he shrugged, and she wanted very much to smack the smugness out of his voice.

"How is it any of your business?"

"Oh." El put down his bottle. "Not my business. Okay, let me try a different one, then. What happened in the basement of Sealview?" He read her face, waiting. She grit her teeth, glared at him. "That's . . . not my business either?" He crossed his arms over his chest, scratching at his stubble with one hand. "That's strange – since I thought partners had each other's backs."

As cold as ice, Olivia let the words fall: "That's easy to say, for someone who wasn't there."

"Wasn't there?" Elliot echoed, and Liv watched the hard swallow that followed. "You think I didn't try? That I didn't raise hell, nearly take the roof off the squad fighting with Cragen? The prison was locked down – and the Warden had already seen me!"

It had been low, and she knew it. Struggling, Liv tried now to back off, but Elliot's pain was too raw, and she saw that he was going to have his way. He gave his beer bottle an annoyed push across the counter, then came around the counter side, white-knuckling the edge with one hand. "Do you think I haven't been there a thousand times, inside my head, imagining what I wasn't there to stop? That I never lay awake at night, dreaming up ways to kill that sonofabitch?"

The agony in his voice was more than Olivia had imagined was buried below the surface. But finding herself feeling bad for him just made her own shame worse. Goddamn what they did and didn't talk about, if he was trying to force her to pick one, she wouldn't talk about Sealview. Couldn't talk about Lowell Harris. "Yes – I slept with Porter," Liv spat out, "You feel better, now?"

Her 180 made him freeze, blinking slowly at the feeling of air escaping his lungs in a rush. "In Oregon?" he asked on his shallow inhale.

"No. After."

"After?" Elliot raised an eyebrow.

"During the whole thing with my brother," she whispered. Her breathing was quick and shallow. They stood, taking stock of each other, eyes locked. "Do I get to ask a question, now, Elliot?"

"Be my guest."

"Did you sleep with Dani Beck?"

They never fought like this: throwing unspoken secrets at each other. Even Stabler's ribbing of Porter during the case had been blatant compared to their accepted norm. Olivia was so unstable she felt lightheaded; she wondered if that had been his play all along, to rattle her and then shove her over the edge.

Stabler had been married 9 of their eleven years of partnership, and yet their partnership had suffered its fair share of jealousy. Had she wanted an explanation for the two years he'd been socially, technically, single?

She fucking did. Was there a dignified way to say, I was a coward. A jealous, selfish coward?

He completed his circling round the counter and stood in front of Olivia. His gaze never left her face as he answered: "No. I didn't."

It wasn't the answer she had been banking on – the false story she had convinced herself of, in the two years that had followed Dani's stint at sex crimes. It was another surprise, and she couldn't look at him anymore.

Looking at her back now, he spoke over her shoulder. "But obviously you thought I did, for some reason."

"Cut the crap, Stabler," Liv snapped, "I saw you two." Her mind's eye tried to dredge up the image of the blonde, curly-haired Greek goddess-looking detective that had replaced her. The stunner, Kathy had said. Olivia snuffed the image out.

Elliot startled. "Where?" His mind raced immediately to the bar parking lot, their brief kiss.

"At the office. At our desk, El. After I came back from Oregon, I came in to see Cragen . . . I saw her, in my place. I saw you two, talking. Close. Too close."

"You mean the way you and I talk, Liv?" he said lowly. When she still didn't turn, he put his hands on his hips and sighed. "I don't know what you think you saw, but I did not sleep with her." He had no reason to be righteous, and he knew it – he knew full well why Liv was asking. Better than anyone, he knew what his cowardice had driven him to with Dani, much like it had started this spinning top of an argument now.

Taking one more step forward, he closed the distance between them. If she turned around again, she would be pinned between him and the counter. "I can't believe after I put my ass on the line for you - here and in Philly – you went to Porter," El muttered.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"What?!" Clenched teeth and jaw flexing, she turned into the snare he had created, her eyes blazing. "I didn't sleep with Dean because of you and Dani," Liv hissed. "I fucked him because you got Kathy pregnant!"

He could count on one hand the number of times he'd witnessed her say "fuck" in all their years. It made his skin tighten with pins and needles, I fucked him, it was a fire that went right to his groin in jealousy and desire. One reckless, fearful night that had driven him back to Kathy and he'd been paying for it, for two years. He loved his new son measurelessly, but going back to his marriage was never the long game Elliot had been playing.

Of course Olivia had never asked him how he had ended up in that position. Why would she? Pretending everything was under control was the only game they were good at. "She . . . Kathy is my wife!" he finally blurted, as if that was somehow an explanation.

Liv was dangerously close to him, her lips close to his mouth. "Yeah? And what was she when Gitano had a gun to your head, and you wanted me to shoot you?"

It wasn't that he hadn't left Kathy for her, it was that he had been alone on that cliff, expecting her to be the push. He didn't want a world where he had to face the choice of losing her again. He had asked too much of her. What about me? she'd asked him afterward. He had never given her a real answer. Somehow it was easier to ask her to shoot him, to ask her to leave, than to tell her how lost he had felt as he thought she lay dying on that terminal floor.

Angry tears had welled in Olivia's eyes, and she refused to let them fall. "Get out," she ordered, done with waiting for an explanation. Done with waiting for him, in his convoluted crisis.

"No."

"Goddammit, Stabler!" She planted her hands on his chest, ready to push him out of her space, but his hands encircled her wrists and held her. Hard.

"Elliot," she seethed.

It's time that I properly thanked you, her words to Porter echoed in his mind. How he had strained to hear what came next, the sound of her kissing him. What was he, if not a self-punishing Catholic?

Olivia struggled to pull her wrists from him, succeeding only in turning her skin an angry red under his fingers. In response, he pushed into her further, pinning her forearms between their chests. Elliot wanted to erase every trace of Porter . . . of Moss, of all the men that had been taking his place in her bed over the years. But more than that, he wanted to erase his fear.

"You know what I felt, when I thought Rojas pulled that trigger today, Liv? I thought you were dead."

"Stop it," she breathed, less forcefully.

"I had to come back here, and watch you with him. In that dress . . . Jesus." Elliot shuddered with the force of his want, and it sparked Liv's nerves anew. His lips crashed onto hers then, with her still crushed in his embrace.

Her partner was a solid wall of muscle that didn't leave space to broach further protest. The kiss was angry, fed by their denials, by their stubborn insistence that they were fooling anyone. It was a gnashing and pressing of lips, not gentle. Starving.

"Fuck you," she growled as it ended.

He let her wrists go, dropping his hands to her hips. His grip still merciless, Elliot pulled her into his pelvis. Their bodies lined up, the reality of his pounding erection biting into her groin. "If that's what you want," he panted.

Olivia's mouth ran dry as she looked at him in genuine surprise. Her body throbbed, her hips involuntarily rolling against him. Elliot growled. Her eyes flew shut. Oh God. The next sound in the tense stillness of her apartment was the sound of Elliot unbuttoning and unzipping her black dress pants. With both hands, he wrenched them down over her hips and ass as he lowered to his knees.

Her sex was swollen with her desire. In the dim kitchen light Elliot drew two fingers up and dragged them through the soaking trail of her wetness, then thrust both fingers inside of her. Olivia grunted, too stubborn to give him the satisfaction of her words. Even his fingers were rough in their thickness, filling her with a sort of territoriality. His strokes were short, hard, and he stared openly at her face in the illuminated shadows, drinking in her reactions.

Her nipples grew hard under her clothes, her grunts changing to panting breaths and short whimpers. She was embarrassingly close immediately, her body tired of her neglect. "Oh. Fff -uck." Olivia's legs shook, held up by two fingers and El's other hand on her hip. "Fuck!" Head thrown back, the orgasm tore through her with force as her hands gripped the edge of her sink in desperation.

Already back to his feet before her eyes reopened, he grabbed her hips again, turning her against the counter. Using his weight to pin her, Elliot's hands moved between their bodies, opening his jeans and freeing his erection. Breathlessly, he leaned over her and slipped a hand between her legs, opening her, rubbing her clit as he readied to push into her.

"Say it," he whispered next to her ear.

"No."

He nudged the tip of his cock inside her, sunk his teeth into her shoulder. "Say it," he groaned. "Say you were jealous."

"You say it first!" she demanded, struggling to push her hips backwards. El kept his pelvis still and pushed both of his hands beneath Olivia's shirt, cupping her breasts and pinching the nipples that rose above the bra's cup edges with the force of her breathing. A muffled "Ungh!" and then, weakly, "Fuck you, Stabler."

The force of both of their hips slamming forward rattled the cupboard doors as he pushed inside of her. "God," he shuddered, "God, I've been so jealous." Beneath him, Liv smirked as he continued to pound her against the counter.

He was large and thick, and she hadn't been laid in so long. Liv's body ached with pleasure and pain, muscles burning with the effort to accommodate him. The apartment was silent except for the sound of their bodies hitting the cupboards, the slippery thrust of his cock and their labored breathing. Elliot pulled one hand back from beneath her shirt, snaking it under them to rub the rigid line of her clit. His mouth kissed the curve of her neck, nosing hair from her nape as he groaned.

"Olivia . . . "

Her palms slid flat against the counter, letting out a squeak. Elliot gave a short, intense thrust and their bodies melded into one another. She could feel him throbbing inside of her, her own center throbbing under his fingers. "Jesus," she panted, "Elliot, I was jealous, ok? I was jeal - "

The concession was cut off as Elliot rolled his hips and growled, emptying inside of her with an animalistic growl. Olivia whimpered with the completeness of her satisfaction, going limp in his embrace as her orgasm washed over her, dazed and impressed that he was still able to support her.

A long silence stretched out then: muscles unclenching, breathing recovering. It was Elliot who finally spoke, tentatively. "Liv? Liv. Tell me what you're thinking." He still hadn't let her go – too anxious to discover whether he needed to duck for cover or head for the door.

"I was wondering which side of the bed you're going to sleep on," she replied quietly.

Elliot chuckled, took a deep breath, and knew that they would be alright.