Work Text:
The first time Olivia sees Alexandra Cabot at the bar, she does a double take. They’ve only ever crossed paths at work, and seeing the ADA at her regular spot on the Upper West Side past midnight is disorienting to say the least. There are plenty of bars in Midtown where the high society lawyers gather that are nothing like Olivia’s neighborhood bar, whose amenities begin with ten stools covered in cracked pleather and end with a couple of faded pool tables.
ADA Cabot notices Olivia before she can turn around, and the latter has no choice but to wave her over. It’s awkward at first – they’ve never seen each other outside of the station or a courthouse – and they make polite conversation as the bartender whips up ADA Cabot’s Manhattan.
“So do you live nearby?” Olivia asks, then backtracks. “You don’t have to tell me, I mean. I guess I just usually don’t see people from work around here.”
ADA Cabot waves a hand. “No, it’s okay. I live nearby, yeah. I took the train home tonight and really needed a drink, so I stopped into the first bar I saw.” She smiles nervously before thanking the bartender as he sets down her drink. “How about you?”
Olivia nods, motioning behind her with her thumb. “Just a few blocks. Easy stop on my way home after a particularly shitty case.”
It’s quiet for a moment as both of them sip their drinks. Olivia watches ADA Cabot look around the bar. She runs her hand through her blonde hair and sighs.
“Yeah, I can’t say I’m happy with how this one worked out,” she says quietly, stirring her drink. She looks up at Olivia. “But I didn’t become an attorney thinking it would be roses and sunshine all day.” It’s said like a challenge, and her tone surprises Olivia.
“Didn’t think so,” she says. “Neither did I. Special Victims is no joke.”
ADA Cabot bites her lip. “No, it is not.”
The conversation stalls a little as they try to pivot from shop talk and quickly realize that they couldn’t have less in common. ADA Cabot is upper-crust society, a Harvard graduate with a family full of lawyers and judges and (Olivia guesses, based on how she skirts the question) and an apartment on Central Park West. Olivia demurs when ADA Cabot asks about her family, instead fast-forwarding to her first few years on the squad in the Bronx and her most recent career with SVU.
After her final swig of beer, Olivia inches off her stool, hoping it’s not obvious that she’s itching to leave. “It was, uh, nice running into you,” she says kindly, and ADA Cabot tips her drink as Olivia walks away.
—
The second time Olivia sees Alexandra Cabot at the bar, it’s Alex’s doing. She has convinced herself that it’s not that weird to go to a bar more than once, and just because Detective Benson was there the last time and lives down the street doesn’t mean that it’s her bar.
Maybe it’s a Wednesday night and she’s risking looking kind of crazy, but she’s annoyed about a bad meeting with the DA and needs a distraction. Detective Benson just happens to be a really nice-looking distraction.
Alex has always prized her professionalism and privacy above everything else, so some aspect of this feels wrong, even though there’s no formal rule against grabbing a drink with a detective… that she knows of. She’s heard Munch and Stabler both talking about hitting up the cop bar off of Bowery multiple times, and she’s known Jack to go out with a few of his detective buddies now and again.
Olivia looks up almost immediately when Alex enters, and their smiles are a little more familiar this time, quicker to open up now that Alex is no longer investigating Olivia’s department and they have a few joint convictions under their belts.
“Hey,” Olivia says good-naturedly, motioning to the stool next to her.
“Hey, Olivia,” Alex says without thinking, then freezes when she meets Olivia’s eyes. She’s been on a strict Detective Benson rule since day one, though it hasn't kept her from admiring how pretty her first name is. She had not been expecting it to slip out in real life, however.
Olivia gives her a crooked smile. “Hi, Alexandra,” she says, and Alex can’t help but laugh.
“Alex, actually, thank you.” A Manhattan lands in front of her before she can even lay eyes on the bartender. She raises an eyebrow at Olivia.
A full smile from the cop this time. “Heard about your meeting with Branch. Told Mike to have one ready in case you came by.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Alex says to the young bartender, and he gives her a thumbs up as he bustles by. She turns back to Olivia. “And thank you.”
Olivia brushes it off, but her eyes are twinkling. “I get it. Cragen nearly bit my head off the other day and I stewed over it for, like, three hours when I got home.”
Conversation flows more easily this time, though they stick close to topics of work and lighthearted jabs at their colleagues. Olivia has a fit of the giggles at Alex’s impersonation of Munch, and soon she catches Alex staring as she catches her breath.
“Do I have something on my face?” she asks, trying to catch a glimpse of her reflection in the bar mirror.
“No, no,” Alex rushes, then decides to test a theory she has. “You’ve just got a great laugh. Sorry.” The bar is dark, but Alex thinks she can see Olivia blush.
When the night comes to an end, Alex slides off her stool and notices how Olivia’s eyes follow, pausing on her legs as Alex flexes them into her stilettos. Her theory is proven right.
—
The third time Olivia sees Alexandra Cabot at the bar, both will swear it’s a coincidence, and neither will admit that it’s a Friday night and of course they came to the same place, looking for the same thing.
Stabler drew the weekend on-call shift, so for the first time in a while, she has nowhere to be tomorrow. And Alex has shown up wearing extremely tight jeans. Olivia decides that tonight she deserves a second beer. Maybe a third.
She and Alex have been running into each other more at work, sometimes unnecessarily. On Tuesday, Olivia had ridden the elevator two extra floors just to finish hearing Alex tell a story about Judge Petrovsky. And she swears that Alex waited for her to finish questioning Toscu on Thursday afternoon just to ask if she wanted to grab a coffee in the breakroom. She’s been surrounded by mostly men for so long that she forgot what it was like to have a female colleague, and it’s nice to be able to talk to someone who understands her work on a different level. That’s what Olivia tells herself this is: a nice, professional friendship.
There’s karaoke that night, and while neither Olivia nor Alex participate, Olivia starts reviewing each participant like it’s the Olympics, and she’s rewarded with Alex collapsing into her with laughter. She puts her hand around Alex’s waist to steady her on the stool, and, acting on a hunch, leaves it there. Taking a sip of her Manhattan, Alex winks at Olivia and leans ever-so-slightly into the grip.
Olivia closes out their tabs after four drinks each, and makes the split-second decision to grab Alex’s hand and take her to the pizza place two doors down. They take their dollar slices to go and meander north as they eat. Soon Olivia realizes that she’s accidentally taken them to her apartment.
“Oh — this is where I live,” she says awkwardly, watching Alex’s eyebrows approach her hairline. “Sorry, I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where we were going. Do you, um, need a cab or anything?”
Alex shakes her head. “I’m not far,” she says, carefully stepping backwards. The spell has been broken and the streetlights seem to set an alarm off in Olivia’s head that she definitely should not be drunk in front of her ADA. She wishes Alex goodnight and rushes inside.
—
The fourth time Olivia sees Alexandra Cabot at the bar, they fuck in the bathroom.
In her defense, it’s been a dull week: every case is cold, deadlocked, or stalled in some way or another, and she and Elliot have been squabbling over every detail trying to make something make sense. Alex has been in court every day, on part three hundred of some hotshot trial, and they haven’t seen each other in nearly two weeks. Neither of them has spoken about their drunken night together the previous month, and Olivia figures it’s because there’s nothing to say, since nothing happened. They’re just work friends. Professionals.
Tonight Olivia is on call, so she just orders a seltzer and makes small talk with Mike as he putters around behind the bar. When Alex pulls up next to her wordlessly, every single hair stands up on her body. Alex orders a Manhattan but doesn’t touch it when Mike sets it down.
“Shitty week,” Olivia says to her seltzer.
Alex nods, leaning against the bar to face her. “Shitty. Week. I’ve missed seeing you.”
The directness of her statement sends a spark right to Olivia’s core that she hadn’t been expecting. Correction: had possibly expected but hoped she was strong enough to resist. She takes a deep breath and shifts slightly, bringing her eyes up to Alex’s.
“Yeah, me too,” she says, letting herself smile. “Elliot isn’t as talented at the verbal sparring.”
Alex laughs and finally takes a small sip of her drink, not taking her eyes off of Olivia.
The air hangs heavy in between them, and Olivia excuses herself to the bathroom. The door has barely shut when Alex slides in behind her, clicking the deadbolt.
“What do you think would have happened if you’d let me in that night?” Alex asks breathlessly.
Olivia looks at Alex, a vision in her signature pencil skirt and a pair of Jimmy Choos that give her a three full inches on Olivia. She pulls Alex towards her by the edge of her blazer.
“This,” she breathes, and kisses Alex, softly at first, then deeper as she feels Alex pull her closer.
Alex sighs into their kiss, and they move slowly, exploring each other’s mouths. But then Alex nips Olivia’s bottom lip and it just does something to her. She takes a fistful of Alex’s hair as their kiss becomes open-mouthed, her tongue licking its way into Alex’s mouth. Soon they’re both breathing heavily, and Olivia finds herself being pushed up against the bathroom door as Alex’s mouth moves down her jaw and onto her neck, nipping at the tender skin there.
“Still what you had in mind?” Alex whispers into Olivia’s ear, sending shivers down her spine. Olivia nods, pulling Alex into her by the seam of her skirt, smiling into their next kiss when Alex bucks into her almost unconsciously.
“Fuck.”
It’s not the first time she’s heard Alex swear — they’ve pissed off the IAB enough while she’s been ADA, anyway — but not like this, all husky and low, spilling from her lips like a secret. Like something just for Olivia.
But Alex doesn’t loosen her grip from where she’s got Olivia pinned, slowly biting bruises down her neck and across the skin exposed from her v-neck shirt. Olivia shivers at the feeling; it’s been too long since someone has touched her with such unabashed want. She can’t help but surrender to it, and soon Alex’s hands are slipping under the waistband of her slacks, confident fingers deftly undoing buttons and zippers and pushing aside her underwear and making Olivia gasp until her lungs feel full to burst.
Alex fucks her with the same precision that she brings to work: fingers in all the right places, slowly dragging Olivia to the brink like she’s coaxing a confession out of her.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” she says, her breath wet and hot against Olivia’s ear.
She teases Olivia’s clit between her fingers, tells her how good she’s doing, how beautiful she is, and Olivia unravels around her not long after, panting into Alex’s mouth as she comes down. When she opens her eyes, Alex is watching her carefully, looking infuriatingly composed for someone who just fingered her up against a door with a bunch of Rage Against The Machine stickers on it. But then she smiles, her lips curling into something downright mischievous, and Olivia feels herself grinning as she pushes Alex onto the sink, bunching up that silly grey skirt and burying her head between her thighs until the DA is whimpering above her and her stilettos are forming bruises behind Olivia’s shoulderblades.
Mike has already generously refreshed Alex’s drink when they return to the bar, and winks at Olivia when he drops a new ice cube into her seltzer.
Her pager goes off not long after; a body in FiDi. Alex’s eyes drop to her lips, but they keep their goodbye to a nod.
—
The fifth time Alex sees Olivia Benson at the bar, she doesn’t even cross the threshold. Olivia is leaning up against the ATM adjacent to the door, and looks up when Alex pokes her head in. With a wave to Mike, Olivia joins Alex out on the street, throwing a broad smile her way, the kind that’s so rarely given that Alex has started counting them up like loose change for a rainy day.
When they reach Olivia’s apartment, she lets Alex inside, holding open the door like they’ve been doing it all their lives.