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For the past few months, Elliot has felt less like someone powering through a rough patch, and more like something’s prey, constantly escaping the belly of the beast. Every time he thinks things couldn't possibly get any worse, another horror is thrust upon him. He thinks it started with his wife wanting a divorce - though of course, that evidently would have had to have had its own beginning, too, in order to start a domino effect. He moved out of his home, his time with his kids drastically cut down, and the security of a familiar love was suddenly a million miles away. What he'd grown used to for well over a decade was suddenly a whisper in the wind.
He developed two main coping mechanisms: hyper fixating on his cases, working himself tirelessly, and eating.
Every case has it's own hardships, but nothing had prepared Elliot for Victor Paul Gitano. The tragedy that became that whole investigation—a sadistic monster ruthlessly slaughtering innocent people, eventually tearing through Elliot's sanity with the teeth of a knife, making him bear witness to a nightmare almost turned real. Elliot's judgement call resulted in a child dying. His entire world came shattering down around him as he dropped to his knees for Olivia, believing she was dying. He sacrificed potentially saving a victim for her. Realising how much she truly meant, that he couldn't simply ignore those distant voices in the back of his mind, it was a heavy weight on his shoulders.
Next thing he knows, his best friend and partner is requesting space from him. He was angry at her, furious that she'd just disappear without even saying anything—but he was the one who pushed her away first. He knows, deep down, there's no one else to blame but himself.
“Elliot, we’ve been partners for seven years, longer than anybody else here—I…we needed a change.
I’m sorry. I should have talked to you.
It’s just…it’s just too complicated.”
The stress is never ending. He's been getting migraines again. New cases, court summons, meetings with principals, kids choir practice, interrogations, midnight interviews, marriage counseling, failed line-ups, morgue visits, Sunday church, school report cards, increased bills—is Elliot even living anymore or does life merely just happen to him? It feels like there's never even a second to breathe.
Through it all, he feels so fucking lonely. Through it all, he copes by eating.
Then Dani came along. When she began warming to him, it felt like being shocked with defibrillator paddles after a century of flat-lining. Someone trusted him, wanted to be around him. She was there to laugh at his jokes, to tease him playfully, and she had faith he'd be there for her in return, even when the going got tough. He wasn't haunted by the ghosts of loneliness, because here was the lifeline of convenience, his fresh start. He liked Dani, she was what he needed…
Which is why after a beer and good company, when walking her back to her car under the glow of moonlight, when Dani turns to him with such hopeful, glassy eyes, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth as her gaze flickers between his own and his mouth, Elliot doesn't even think about what to do. She'd helped him stay motivated when it felt like he'd lost everything. This is pure instinct, like gasping for air after almost suffocating. His brain isn't given the chance to weigh up the pros and cons, his body just reacts, fiery and hungry. He grabs her waist and pulls her close, pinning her to the cold steel of the jeep with the weight of his body, and kisses her like he's been starving all his life.
There's no hesitation on her part either, as she grabs his face with both hands and reciprocates the affection, her lips just as eager. Her back arches and she grinds her groin against his, able to feel the twitching semi he's sporting even through a layer of denim. Barely anything besides her breath in his lungs and he's already aroused.
“Ever had sex on the roof of a car?” She asks, her voice scratchy, airy, and Elliot moans from the thought alone, grinding himself against her harder. She exhales a laugh. “Seems like you wanna, at least.”
He hadn't actually thought that far, if he's honest, but he doesn't admit that. He feels lucky to even get a kiss, let alone theorise the possibilities of public sex—or hidden away sex under the veil of darkness, for only voyeuristic fishermen to see. The breeze drifting off the dock's seafront should make him bristle, but the warmth of a beautiful woman keeps him cosy.
Dani’s suddenly hiking up his cotton tee before he realises she's going for his jeans, popping the button and undoing his fly. As Elliot's about to stop her, she pauses herself, one hand pushing his top up further to reveal his bare midsection, while the other holds his pants up.
“I knew you were big, but…” Dani cocks her jaw and grins wickedly, eyes lighting up as she takes in the sight. “You look bigger under your clothes.”
Elliot frowns in confusion. “My pants are still up, what are you talking about?”
Dani’s eyes lift and she huffs out a teasing laugh. He feels her thumb rub against the top of his groin where his pubes start, tickling him lightly. “I meant your weight, Stabler, not your dick. You're fat.” Her gaze returns to his belly, and she exhales longingly. “Or I guess fat is where you're heading. Maybe stocky would suit you better. Or hefty.”
It takes him by surprise—1. How upfront and unapologetic she is telling him he's overweight, with a fond tone and salacious smile to ease him, and 2. That she thinks he's fat…
Or “stocky”; however she wants to dress it up.
Elliot's not obtuse, he knows he's been gaining weight since he and Kathy separated. Hell, it might have even started before that point, subtly, settling in places like his ass first so as to deceive him into believing nothing was amiss. He'd always been blessed with a generous posterior, but that had been about the fattest thing on him for most of his life. When the weight began appearing on his hips and stomach, of course he noticed.
It isn't something he's cared to put all the time and effort into changing. Frankly, he's had more important matters to deal with first and foremost. The woman he'd vowed to love for the rest of his life didn't want to be with him anymore, and he didn't have the luxury to mourn that loss. His kids were growing up faster and faster every day, and now they had questions, they had attitudes, that at the best of times he wasn't equipped to deal with alone. Then there was work…
Victims. Pain. Dead innocents. Villains that looked like them, the good guys. It weighed him down, each and every case, taking just a little more from him every time.
It used to be more manageable when he had Olivia. She shared the ache, managing the burden together so neither felt overwhelmed or crushed. He could look up from his desk and take solace in the fact she understood it all. Her delicate features, her bright smile, she made it all that little bit easier—and as payment for her patience, he lashed out and pushed her away.
He forced blame upon her so he didn't have to blame himself, so he didn't have to look inward and acknowledge the gut-wrenching agony he felt at the mere thought of losing her. He can still see it so clearly, her laying on the floor, blood soaking the hand against her neck. Grief struck him fast and fierce like white-hot lightning, and when he came to learn the consequences of his devotion, he revolted.
His use of food as a coping mechanism suddenly increased tenfold. He ate to fill the all-consuming hole devouring his sanity, to focus on the euphoria of something delicious rather than wallow in the debilitating grief of his life. After hurting Olivia, after seeing her cry, after telling her it was okay to shoot him, after she left without saying anything… Elliot didnt know where else to go; it felt like all he had was the comfort he found in food. He couldn't go to Kathy. She was the only other person he might find comfort in, if it wasn't so absurd and insulting: “Hay honey, I know we're currently separated because you're tired of me putting my job first, and tired of me shutting you out. Let me make the first move to correct that by talking about my feelings. So I'm really fucking depressed because Olivia decided to temporarily transfer and I miss her like crazy—”
No, he wasn't that much of an idiot. He kept his depression a secret, and ate through the pain. It was (and still is) the only reliable thing to help. Cheap takeaway meals dripping in grease and fat, crispy battered fish soaked in butter and oil, delectable chocolate desserts so sweet it made him dizzy, thick milkshakes that filled him up—food sedated the horrors of the world better than anything else.
(And unsurprisingly, when Olivia abandoned him again, he instinctively went back to eating twice as much, eager to fill the void.)
His eyes flick between Dani’s gaze and her hands. One hand, in particular, splayed over the developing spare tyre he calls his stomach. He sucks in instinctively when she presses her thumb down against the supple flesh, and her gaze lifts to his. She looks perplexed by his own confusion, her shoulders lifting defensively.
“What? You're hot.”
Elliot jerks his head back and scoffs. “You just called me fat.”
“I didn't say it was a bad thing. I like guys with some proper meat on their bones.”
He's not sure how he feels about that. Her preferences are fine, obviously, it doesn't matter who she finds attractive—but was Elliot really someone who qualified as that? He thought he was getting chubby, but he didn't realise other people would perceive him as straight up fat. Maybe that was stupidity on his part. He knew the scales were climbing, he knew his pants were shrinking, but he thought he still had time before he was…well, just that, fat.
Dani doesn't seem to notice the internal turmoil Elliot is going through, as she steps into space, pressing her body flush against his, and expertly slips her hand down the front of his pants. As she takes hold of his hardening cock, she kisses along his jawline, the affection deceptively sweet compared to her hand slowly rubbing his shaft. As soon as he feels the friction, all coherence in his brain may as well drip out his ears. He melts against her body, groaning lowly as he bears his neck for her.
“That's it, Stabler,” She growls, sucking lightly at his pulse point, her hand picking up in pace. “Relax. You're too tense.”
Elliot swallows hard. He takes hold of her hips and grips hard, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
“We're…we're in public.”
She scoffs. “We're outside, sure, but this is hardly public.” She kisses along his jawline, and tightens her fist that extra amount, making Elliot bare his teeth as the tangible heat swarming his veins thickens. She presses herself closer to him, her breasts squashed against the supple swell of his own chest. “Your cock is pretty big too, by the way.”
Elliot snorts, following up with an aroused groan. “Thanks.”
Dani nuzzles against his face, nudging him so she can get to his lips to kiss him again. She's full of fiery passion, winning dominance all too easily and swallowing his airy moans with pleasure. Elliot's lips are more delicate, stalling every few seconds when a new wave of arousal laps at his senses. It feels juvenile somehow, but Elliot realises in that moment how much he's missed kissing someone. The sweetness of another person's lips chasing his own, he remembers how exciting it was when he was a teenager. It became a passive gesture in his marriage, not something he savoured.
He feels Dani’s other hand gently land on the curve of his lower belly, flattening against the supple flesh before giving him a tender squeeze. Elliot moans into her mouth, his nails biting harder around her waist.
“Your shirts have been looking real tight lately,” She says, matter-of-factly. Her hand gives him another squeeze before sliding round to appreciate his love handle. “I love a man who knows how to eat.”
Elliot doesn't know how to respond. Dirty talk has never been his forte, and it definitely wasn't Kathy's either—the most vocal they ever got was simply stating their love, or breathless confirmations that things felt good. Dani sounds so confident as she speaks, and why shouldn't she? She's sexy, and her gravelly accent suits the filth.
“So it's good—” Elliot starts, getting tongue tied momentarily as he feels her rub the tip of his cock, smearing precum. “It's good I'm fat?”
“Eh, I take back calling you fat. Like I'd said, you're not really big enough to be fat,” She expertly spins the two of them around so Elliot is pressed against the metal door of the jeep, and he's grateful; the wobble in his knees rejoice. Dani squeezes around his shaft a little harder, dragging her fist slowly but with expertise, making Elliot actually quiver. The way she pushes herself against him has him yearning in a way he forgot he was able to feel. She cocks her jaw as she watches him closely, studying the way he submits to her touch. “Semantics aside, it ain't a bad thing.” She nuzzles her nose along his jawline until she meets the lobe of his ear, and nips the flimsy piece of skin with her lips first, before going again with teeth. “Imagine how heavy you'd feel against my back if ya took me doggy style.” Her whisper crawls through his ear like she's on her hands and knees herself, and Elliot whimpers.
“Holy shit…”
She chuckles lowly. “Could use my back like a shelf for ya gut.”
How does she make such a blunt word like “gut”, a term that doesn't inherently have any good or bad connotation to it, sound so sinful? He imagines the idea, her face down in his sheets, her gorgeous curly blonde hair unruly where she's thrown it around, and his belly wobbling as he thrusts in and out of her, clapping as it slaps against the curve of her ass, or the small of her back. Honestly, as much as the idea does turn him on, he's pretty certain he's not big enough for his belly to reach her back. It doesn't hang that much…
Does it?
With the hand not down the front of his pants, Dani places her palm on his chest and feels around for the delicate outline of his pert nipple poking against his shirt. She takes it between her forefinger and thumb and gently twists before giving it a tug, as if he's the nob of a turn-style radio. Elliot's reaction is instantaneous, much to his embarrassment, as he slams a hand against the roof of the jeep and growls deeply, arching against her touch.
“Oh now look at that,” Dani’s voice is dripping in smug arousal. She flicks his earlobe with her tongue, chuckling darkly when he whimpers. “So sensitive. Maybe I ought’ta suck your tits right here. D’ya like that, Stabler?”
His eyes roll back into his skull at the obscenities coming from her mouth; the shamefully outlandish statement that he even has “tits”. The second she said it, his cock throbbed, and if the blood in his body hadn't flooded south so fast, he might have argued with her labelling his pecs as such. He reaches for Dani’s ass, needing something to hold onto as she returns to nibbling his earlobe.
Dani pinches his nipple harder and gives it a tug, delighted when Elliot actually whines, his knees buckling as if they might give out under him. Her laugh is lascivious, it sends a shiver down his spine and boils the rolling waves of pleasure brewing in the pit of his stomach. “God, you’re so fucking desperate. I love it.”
“This…this is a bad idea…” The logical part of Elliot's brain desperately tries to be a voice of reason, but it's rendered useless by all the blood normally flowing through his brain instead flooding down south. When Dani scoffs at his suggestion, he tries to find sense in the slowly melting mush of his mind. “Really, Dani, if we get arrested for public indec—”
Suddenly her fist stops dead in its tracks. “Tell me you don't want this, and I'll stop.”
His balls contract from the abrupt stop of that sweet, sweet friction. His cock throbs in her grip, the warmth of her palm indistinguishable from the heat of his groin. Logically, this is a terrible idea. Elliot is a detective, his department specialises in sex crimes—performing a sex act out in the open where people could potentially see him is beyond risky; it's outright moronic. He should remove her hand, end the whole interaction, part ways and pretend it never happened…
But fuck, it's been a long time since he's had a woman touch him with such desire.
He grabs her face and pulls her in hungrily, diving deep into her mouth with a fiery kiss, moaning earnestly, as if he hasn't just been questioning their actions. Her body curls against him in want, wrapping one arm around his neck to hang off him. She empties her lungs into his mouth with a soft, wanton moan, and slowly begins working his length once more, dragging out her movements to keep him on the edge of dire need. Even though Elliot's the one who surged forward like a man deprived of oxygen, it's Dani who leads the kiss, her lips dominating his, her tongue sliding forth to explore his mouth. Elliot moves in accordance with her dance.
When Elliot lets out a particularly pathetic whimper after she swipes her thumb over the head of his cock, Dani finally pulls back for space, grinning smugly, her lips glistening pink and swollen. “Atta boy. You like this, don't’cha?” When Elliot nods, his neck loose like a bobble head, she chuckles. “You’re always wound so tight. When’s the last time you felt relaxed?”
At the bar, he thought, but that wasn’t true either, because overthinking had become something like background machinery, always functioning even when he didn’t acknowledge it. Dani and Casey enjoyed casual conversation, throwing jabs his way to have fun, and although Elliot was happy to be around friends, his mind never stopped. It begged the question: when really was the last time he felt relaxed? Was it before Kathy asked for a divorce? Was it before he joined SVU? Hell, was it back when he was 17, a normal, unbothered teenager, moments away from being told he was going to be a father?
Then he had a thought—a sobering, nauseating, destructive thought that usually his better mind would filter out and leave to collect dust in the back of his skull. As he jerks against Dani’s hand, divine beauty paints itself across his vision.
Olivia. Her first day at SVU, gorgeous and hopeful and doe-eyed the way all wannabe heroes start out. Olivia, the first time they got dinner together, when they talked about why they joined the force, what they hoped to achieve as detectives, where they’d travel if they could go anywhere in the world. Olivia, the first time she met Maureen, when she’d come by after school with tears in her eyes, afraid her daddy would be angry she got detention (only to learn that, though he had to save face in front of Kathy later, he was proud that she’d punched some older boy in the balls after he slapped her ass), and Olivia had comforted her until he was out of interrogation. Olivia, when he told her Kathy wanted to leave him, and even though he felt like shattering into a million pieces, the way she looked at him so sure he would be fine…he actually believed her, for just a moment.
She’d had a way of taking away his stress merely by existing. Her pink, supple lips, her shining brown eyes, her air of confidence and kindness and grace that made Elliot weak in the knees. Olivia knew how to make him relax, until finally she couldn’t take it anymore, because he was a raging bull in a chinashop, and his fears and anxieties were becoming a titan too powerful to subdue, and he refused to drop his guard again. Olivia kept him in check, she knew when he needed to step back, but then Elliot thought she died, he thought she was going to bleed out on a grimy, insignificant public floor, and everything he’d done to keep his heart intact fell apart and he finally shattered. And when she didn’t shoot him when she should have, when he made peace and felt grateful that at least if he died it was at the mercy of a guardian angel, he realised how important she was to him. He realised Olivia did more heavy lifting with the stability of Elliot Stabler’s sanity than his own wife—and in a stupid panic he pushed her away.
And she said “Okay”, because everyone has their limits, and she’d let him bend hers time and time again until finally she snapped.
Dani keeps up her pace, continuing to kiss his jaw, leading towards his lips to recenter his mind and be with her, but Elliot is busy imagining Olivia. Those walls he’d had up for so long, the denial that kept him from destroying everything in his path, it slipped, and he allowed himself for the first time in too fucking long to just…relax.
“Liv…”
A three letter confession. One syllable declaration. As pleasure swirled his belly and bubbled like a cauldron, his lungs emptied what had been caught for far too long. A breathy secret now out in the open, and there’s no way for him to untell the story just begun.
Dani flinches ever so slightly—the faintest flicker of her head as she jerks back, a furrow of her brow as she registers what he said—and then recovers quickly, shrugging off the blunder with a nonchalance that Elliot’s not accustomed to. While she seems accepting, Elliot’s mind immediately starts reeling.
“That’s it, let it out. I’ll be whoever you need tonight.”
Elliot’s eyes blow wide and he grabs Dani’s wrist to stop her movements. He stares at her with an incredulous expression, mouth twitching as he searches for the right thing to say. She looks equally as confused, releasing her grip around his cock and pulling away with a delicateness reserved for trying not to spook timid deer.
“You…I said another woman’s name.” Elliot’s voice is low, almost quiet enough Dani needs to ask him to speak up. Thankfully, she heard him; why did she have to hear him?
“I didn’t take it personal.”
“No but—” Elliot runs a hand down his face. The uncomfortable feeling of his hard cock throbbing for affection makes him pause, as the weight of the situation comes down on him like an avalanche. She’s unbothered, that tough exterior he appreciated about her so unflinching even in a moment like this, something that has Elliot’s cheeks burning red and his heart lodged in his throat. He takes a deep breath as he runs his hand through his hair. “Dani, why would you be okay with that?”
Silence, at first, before she scoffs, almost as if he’s the strange one for wondering. “Look, I’m not disillusioned, ‘kay? You were with your wife almost, what, 20 years? And I’m guessing I’m the first woman you’ve been with since—”
“What does my wife have to do with anything?”
Dani wrinkles her nose and crosses her arms over her chest. “You said her name.”
Silence. A longer silence. The kind of silence that feels infinite. All Elliot can hear is the thunderous racket of his heartbeat, and the echo of Dani’s words. This is part of the problem, Elliot’s inability to open up and let people in, because the best he can do is offer fragments at random intervals, enough to let people feel close, but never too much that he’s left vulnerable. He’d mentioned his separation, but he rarely ever said Kathy’s name. He mentioned his old partner being on assignment, but he rarely ever said Olivia’s name. He’d mentioned having important women in his life, but he never clarified who was who.
Dani assumed. Elliot had said a woman’s name in the heat of the moment, and she’d come to the reasonable conclusion that if he were stupid enough to slip up like that, he must have been yearning for the love of his life.
Dani also assumes, based on his silence and the sheer look of dread washing him of any colour, that no…“Liv” is not his wife.
“Oh—Oh, Elliot…”
~ 🚔🧁 ~
When Elliot finally returns home, the first thing he thinks about is finding something easy to eat. He can't be bothered to cook anything that requires too much work. It's already well past midnight, and he's exhausted. Thankfully he has some instant noodle cups and a box of doughnuts, perfect to fill his belly without too much fuss.
He empties two chicken and mushroom noodle cups into a bowl and pours boiling water over the hard block of dry noodles, watching as they break apart and seamlessly swim in the broth. He was going to settle for one cup originally, but then his belly emits a vicious growl, and he realises just how hungry he actually is. He then takes himself and his food to the living room couch, placing the bowl and plate of doughnuts on the coffee table before collapsing with a heavy groan, exhaling all the stress filling him.
The stress is so prevalent, like a parasite burrowing into his bones, devouring his marrow piece by piece until he’s too weak to hold his own. Now that he’s home alone, away from a temptress of his own persuasion, he’s faced to confront the maddening, deafening silence that has him in a chokehold. An empty home. A shallow partnership. A hollow heart.
He devours his meal mindlessly, slurping the noodles and drinking the flavourful water with a level of enthusiasm reserved more commonly for gourmet food. They're not exactly fancy noodles, it's an average brand he grabbed off the shelf during a late night grocery trip, but after hours of socialising, kissing, and awkwardly departing from a disappointing hand job, his starvation makes everything taste that much better. Even the act of breathing comes second to eating. This isn’t about savouring, it’s pure gluttony, the need to regress to something intricately primitive, to overpower what it meant to long for something.
For someone.
He’d always been a sporty kid, trying to convince his father or siblings to play football whenever the weather permitted. His family lived on a relatively strict budget, so between that, a growth spurt, and his active hobbies, weight never stuck to him. He used to run miles around his neighbourhood in the mornings, for fun. Kathy had called him a sadist the first time she saw him after one of his runs, courteously wiping the sweat from his forehead. He’d corrected her—“You mean a masochist”—and just like 2 well behaved, God-fearing catholic teenagers, they pretended not to know what such words meant. Then he joined the Marines, and their rigid routines also meant consistent exercise and no heavy snacking. Barely an adult with a baby, late nights feeding, living paycheck to paycheck, climbing his way up the police academy, he only had time to eat whatever was made for him, or was convenient. Marrying Kathy, she generally preferred healthy, home-cooked meals. All his life, food had been a necessity, not a pleasure.
Come to think of it, whether it had been some kind of divine irony or mere coincidence, Elliot realises in recent years the times he has enjoyed food, like really indulged and loved the taste of something…it was with Olivia. Their early mornings grabbing a diner breakfast, the quick stop for a greasy street-cart hotdog, the devious look to go halves on a sundae when they craved something sweet. Olivia has always been naturally slender, but she shamelessly enjoyed food for the pure love of how it tasted. She didn’t care about cream dripping down her chin, she laughed when someone caught her moaning into a burger, she proudly announced being “in the mood for something bad”, and Elliot loved that about her.
Noodles finished, doughnuts eaten, Elliot relaxes back and exhales heavily, rubbing a hand over the dome of his gut. He feels better, less guilty.
He thinks about Olivia as he tends to his digestion. He thinks about how he’d said her name while another woman touched him. He thinks about how beautiful she’d look if she was here right now, curled around him protectively, whispering sweet nothings into his ear while slowly working his length up and down. He imagines her head tilting as she lets her gaze fall down his heavy body, taking in the sight of what has changed, the many flaws he wished he’d fought harder to keep at bay.
“You’re perfect as you are, Elliot. I just want you, no matter what. Big, small, or somewhere in between.”
He shucks off his jeans and pulls his cock out his boxers, hissing at the friction of his own palm as he pleasures himself. His head tips back and he pants heavily, eyes slipping shut as he imagines her. Her floral perfume, her fruity shampoo, her low chuckle that always followed with a minxy grin. He imagined her lips inches from his own, teasing him with the illusion of a kiss, wanting to drive him batshit crazy for the love of watching him squirm. He runs his other hand over his taut stomach and pictures it as her, praising him for simply existing, for keeping himself well fed and strong.
He recontextualises Dani’s words, reshapes the drawl of her thick accent to fit with Olivia’s sweet song: “I love a man who knows how to eat.”
He growls out Olivia’s name as he cums, hips bucking harshly as ropes of white spurt against the lower roll of his stomach and drip down his hand. Returning to his reality, the mixed euphoria of an orgasm and a well-fed belly works fast to bring him exhaustion. He trudges off to his room and drops with a thud in his bed, not caring to get undressed or cleaned up. He doesn’t want to lose too much of the phantom still shaping his fantasies; the blurry version of Olivia pulling him under the sheets is the only Olivia he has.