Walking Seperate Paths - Chapter I

Title: Walking Separate Paths
Author: Tara
Rating: R/NC-17 (m/f, m/m)
Pairings: Benson/Stabler, Stabler/Beecher, Beecher/Keller, Keller/m
Summary: This is technically an AU: We know that OZ is definitely in NY, and Stabler’s wife Kathy hasn’t left yet. This is set around OZ Season 5. A child prostitution ring leaves Elliot with new answers to his own origins, and redefines a new meaning for family. I suck at writing Summaries, but this is one of my better pieces of fanfic, so enjoy.

CHAPTER I

Augustus Hill:

“Sometimes, watching the future arrive is only a substitute for needing the past to subside. When we look back to watch, everything is always a blur, unless you know where to look. It’s not even a question of knowing where to look, it’s knowing WHEN to look for. The beginning always has more answers than the end, my friend. Watching tomorrow will never be as endearing as reliving yesterday.

On April 2nd, 1964, in a tiny town on the outskirts of Washington D.C., a seventeen year old girl with no money, and even less than no skills, gave birth to twins, boys, born no more than 7 minutes apart. She turned her face from her sons, not a single tear shed for the boys she would leave, for the lives they would have to face, separate and apart from the other, never knowing that for each of them, true blood and bonds existed.

What is evil anyway? Is evil taking the easy road when you could take the harder road, the road less traveled? Or is evil the sly manipulation of others, the possession of soul and mind? What is good? Is it always making the ‘right’ choice? Is it selflessness? Or is it just the fear of feeling good, or of giving in to thoughts and fantasies that make us individual, and human?

I don’t know. I have nothing but time to think about this shit and I don’t know. I can’t afford to be a fucking philosopher. I have survival on the mind. A little bit of good and evil, don’t you think?”

Manhattan, the Present: 7:46 p.m.

“Look, you stare at that clock any more and I’m going to have to say something sarcastic, maybe even a little cliché, just to try to grasp a bit of the attention you should be paying this case file.” Munch leaned back in his chair and threw his pencil across the desks. It landed with a solid “thwack” on Finn’s side of the space, landing neatly in his nearly finished mug of coffee.

Fishing the sugar and coffee covered pencil out of his mug, Finn spared Munch no more than a passing glance.

“You know, time’s always important to those of us that ain’t got much left.” Finn smirked, and threw the pencil back expertly to land in John’s empty, albeit unclean mug.

“You know, when I was your age, we had so much more respect for our elders. We understood their experience came with age, and wisdom, and maturity.”

“Right, and I’m sure that’s exactly what you say when you can’t get it up for your honey at night. I’m out of here in 15, and I have a date, which is more than I can say for your wrinkly ass.”

Munch glared. “I date.”

Finn smiled. “I’m sure you do. You check out retirement plans with the honeys in your spare time?”

Neither of them noticed Benson’s smirk and wink to her partner, or her partner’s smirk and wink back. Both of them backed up from their desks as slowly as possible, knowing full well that if they were the first ones to leave, any night shift work would be left to their erstwhile bickering counterparts. Past experience had taught them that once started, a Munch/Finn verbal smack down could last forever. Closing their lockers quietly, and pulling on their coats, they backed quietly out the door. They were halfway down the hall before Elliot spoke.

“You’d think that they’d learn one of these days. They never do.” He yawned, stretching his arms above his head as Olivia pushed the elevator button. “At least this means I won’t get chewed out for coming home late. I’ll be able to make dinner, at least. Kathy and I have been talking about trying to make more commitments towards coming home early and stuff, and I know she wants me to sit down with her and talk to Maureen.”

Olivia gave her partner a sidelong glance. “What about?”

“I don’t know really. I think it might be college stuff. She still doesn’t know where she might want to go, and what she’s sure about doing. We might be able to give her a push in the right direction.”

“Ahh, and in your case, that means steering her as far away from being a cop as possible, am I right?” Olivia rested her eyes on her partner, leaning on the handrail in the elevator, but careful not to touch it.

“No.” His face was petulant, and he was almost pouting. Olivia had to restrain a laugh. It was good to see him like this, relaxed and happy. It was a rare moment, and she loved to see him pout like a child. She allowed herself a brief moment of fantasy. Elliot was tall, but not too tall, and his body was beautiful. They’d trained side by side in the gym once or twice, and she couldn’t help but be attracted to him. She admitted her attraction to herself, but she also pushed it deep. El may have marriage trouble right now, but he was a family man at heart, and even though she had seen an appreciative glance from him once or twice, she knew better than to push the issue. There was something about him though, and once, when completely caught off guard, she realized it for what it was. Presence. Elliot had presence, something carefully guarded, and full of control within his body, but she had seen him in rages, and knew that something lurked beneath the surface of the man she knew, dormant…waiting. She jerked, finally realizing that he’d asked her a question.

“What? Sorry, El, spaced for a sec.”

“Just wanted to know what was going on with you tonight. I’d invite you over for dinner, but Kat wants to nip this Maureen thing in the bud, and I promised her I’d get off on time for change.” He smiled, eyes narrowing for a second as they hit that lurch in the car that signaled the end of the ride.

“Not much. Have a beer maybe, crash out in front of the TV for the first time in what, ever?” She mocked his cocky attitude, and for a moment she avoided his eyes as he laughed, smirking at her.

“Ah, yes, you and the TV, great times to be had. Sounds like something I may have actually done once or twice for fun. See you tomorrow, ok?”

Goodbyes were said, and Elliot chuckled to himself as he stepped off the curb by the precinct and headed towards his car. Yup, he’d done the whole TV and beer thing alright, before he’d become a parent. Classic brooding routine. He turned the car in the direction of the Midtown tunnel. Best to clear his mind now before he went home anyway. He never took work home with him and he wasn’t going to start now.

Queens, 3:03 a.m.

There was something singing. No, it was bleeping, maybe beeping in his dreams. He ignored it and burrowed his head under the pillow, vaguely realizing that Kathy had thrown her legs over his own. Somewhere his subconscious smiled. He had always given off so much body heat, and his wife loved to take advantage of that, even in sleep, by draping her chilled body over his own.

The beeping stopped, and for a moment, he slipped back into REM sleep, only to be awakened by the rather rude realization that it wasn’t his imagination. Something WAS beeping, or rather, ringing. He pulled away from Kathy for a moment to reach blindly towards his night table. It was his cell. He scrubbed his hand over his face to wipe some of the sleep from his eyes.

“Stabler.”

“Elliot, man, you have to get down here. We just caught this one. Homicide. Body’s in the muck under the Verrazano. The Captain wants everyone on this right away. This is definitely us. Child, male, under 13, maybe. You there? Stabler? Hey, you awake?”

Elliot groaned inwardly. These were the times that hurt most. His wife had curled into herself, in a protective ball of pseudo-comfort on the other side of their bed. He swallowed, the bitter taste of sleep in his mouth.

“K, Finn, I got it. Verrazano, homicide. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Manhattan, 3:07 a.m.

Olivia slowly pulled herself up from the mattress. Moving inch by inch, she quietly maneuvered herself into a vertical position, and rose from the bed as slowly as possible so as not to wake its other occupant.

Cassidy turned, almost as if he had inwardly realized her lack of body heat, and flung his arm out over towards the side of the bed she had just vacated. The sheets turned and twisted on his body, the opalescent light from the fire escape outside of his apartment bathing his body in blues and grays. The groove between his pectorals was more defined, the sleeping lines of his face a study in shadows and lights. The light gave his body an ethereal hue, the darkness of his cock, soft against his muscled thigh in the moonlight, light gray in contrast to his pubic hair, dark blue on his pale blue skin.

She dressed quickly, the routine almost automatic. She never slept in a bed that wasn’t her own. It destroyed her sense of reality, of comfort. She knew that she had probably screwed herself over, coming here, to Cassidy’s. She’d known after he’d left that technically her reasons for not sleeping with him were obsolete, but she kept coming back somehow. She never let on to anyone, not even Elliot. She’d known he would disapprove. She needed it sometimes though, needed to feel loved and caressed and touched. She needed the pain, and the pleasure that Cassidy could give her.

She was almost to her car when her phone rang. Catching the handle of her rather impractical purse between her teeth, she rummaged for her phone.

“Benson. Yeah, uh huh. No, you didn’t wake me. I’m good. Fill me in when I get there.” Hanging up, she tossed her phone in the passenger seat. Leaning over to the back seat, she grabbed her emergency stash of clean work clothes, and changed again for the second time in 10 minutes.

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Oswald Maximum Security Prison, Albany, 3:15 a.m.

Watching him breathe was like art. His muscles would tense and relax, underneath the constantly moving network of skin and bone. His pulse was a rapid beat against the skin of his neck, and Toby had to smile. He could almost smell the scent of his skin from here. He knew it intimately, would probably remember that scent, that taste, for the rest of his life. Toby shifted, watching the flash of light from the hacks as they strolled by for the second time that evening. He looked at his watch. 2:15 a.m. Maybe it wouldn't happen tonight, maybe he had been wrong about the timing. Hopefully he was wrong about everything. Hearing the groan from Chris' bunk quickly changed his mind.

He sighed, quietly moving out of his own bunk and pulling the novel from under his pillow. Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle." It was fitting, he guessed, in retrospect. He settled down in the chair next to the head of Chris' bed, watching him begin the nightly routine. First the breathing change, then the tossing and turning would tangle the bed sheets between his legs and arms, pinning his body to the mattress. The crying would begin sometime after the cold sweats and harsh breathing had subsided. Toby knew better than to disturb Chris. The most he could do was watch, and wait, for some sign of what was really wrong, so that they could work through whatever it was together. What did he have to lose, anyway? All he had was time. Dragging a hand soothingly across Chris' scalp, he settled in for a night of struggling to read by the dim light.

November 7, 1972

They were making the noises again. Chris pulled the sheet up close to his chin and tried to think about everything, anything that could block out his mother's voice making those sounds. No, not his mother. His foster mother. She made no secret of the fact that all Chris was to her was a burden. If it wasn't for the check that she received every month from the Government, she swore she'd have kicked him out years ago.

Chris knew about the Government. The Government took boys away and put the bad ones in jail. His foster mother said so, and so did the older boys at school. One of the high school boys had been put in a horrible place that the Government kept for bad boys. Chris didn't want to be a bad boy. He never tried, really he didn't. Things just happened wrong for him somehow. He didn't know how to explain it. The teachers picked on him and the kids in class made fun of his outgrown jeans and holey T-shirt.

He turned, his face digging into the lumpy mattress underneath him to try to block the sound. He stiffened, feeling the muscles in his neck protest against the movement, each turn to try to get comfortable more painful than the last. He'd long ago given up on the idea of pajamas. The only pair he had didn't fit anymore, and the rough material usually chafed against the welts on his back and behind. He was very careful about making his bed up at night, making sure that he had at least two sheets. One went down on the face of the mattress itself so he could lie on it, and the other protected his back from the itchy wool of the thick blanket.

Tonight he'd been bad. He'd spilled his noodles on the floor. He hadn't meant to, and he'd jumped down right away to clean them up, but HE had seen. Large and lumbering, he was a force for any 8 year old to reckon with, and his belt was wider than Chris' arm. Deaf to Chris' pleading, and Chris' mother's yelling, he'd slammed Chris into the floor with his hand, beating him with the belt, working Chris' pants down around his ankles.

He'd tried to curl into a ball, tried to protect himself from the beating as it happened, but his fear and pain finally wore through his resolve, and he'd lost the remainder of his noodles as he threw up on the floor. This had only made HIM angrier, and he'd dragged Chris to the bathroom by the nape of his neck, swearing as he passed HER, lighting a cigarette as though nothing was going on. He was thrown into the tub, and held under the cold water as he tried to surface for air. He'd nearly passed out, when the hands that held him under suddenly let go, and the pressure on his chest lifted. He was half naked and freezing, trying to pull air into abused lungs.

He had almost forgotten about HIM, when he realized that the man was still there, chest heaving, belt in hand, staring down at Chris' private place, now covered in the beginnings of bruises that would take weeks to heal. The man smiled, a cold smile that would find it's way onto Chris' own face many years later. He smirked as Chris tried to cover himself with his hands, and left the room.

He got undressed slowly, peeling his wet clothes away from his body, when he heard the bickering start in the kitchen. He tuned them out, having developed an almost innate skill at avoiding the arguments. The other noises were harder to ignore, though. Later, he would probably wish he had paid attention to even a small part of that argument in the kitchen, because for Chris Keller, it was the beginning of the end.

Oswald Maximum Security Prison, Albany, 4:47 a.m.

Toby watched Chris relax, almost imperceptibly, into a more even sleep. Sighing, he closed his book and rubbed his hand across his eyes to try to pull himself together. He couldn't remember any of what he'd read, and he didn't care. Tonight, he'd watched his lover slowly add pieces to a puzzle only available to him in sleep. Something was definitely on Chris' mind, and had been for a while.

Slowly, Toby had to admit that this was something that was definitely out of his league. He'd been a rape victim for a long time, and a father even longer than that, and for the first time, he had an inkling of what might have happened to Chris. He just had no clue how to go about fixing it. Chris was a mystery, always had been. It was what added to his mystique. But tonight, Toby had heard him cry out for help, and curl as though to avoid someone, or something. His entire body had twitched, over and over again, and even Toby's calming hands on his head hadn't helped any. Tonight was the first time Chris had actually said something in his sleep, and Toby chilled thinking about it. He'd watched Chris' hands curl to cover his groin tightly, and distinctly heard him say, "No, Mom, please, I don't want to."

Toby pulled off Chris' wet shirt, waking him long enough to realize who it was. Chris grabbed his hands and pulled Toby into him, neither of them caring that Murphy’d probably chew them out the next day for sleeping together. Toby tucked Chris into his arms, like he had, so long ago now, with his own children, and they settled into sleep. Toby stayed awake for few minutes more, even as Chris' breathing even out into the deep rhythm of sleep. He had the barest idea of what was going on. He just needed advice, and that would definitely be a problem. Tomorrow Chris wouldn't even remember this incident; it had happened before with the same results. He'd woken up naked, tangled in the sheets, as a very naked and very enthusiastic Chris sucked him whole down the back of his throat. He'd bucked and squirmed, as Chris teasingly drew out his climax, making him forget his own name before he'd finally come.

Oh well, Toby sighed. He could try to make an effort talk to Chris, somewhere before the amazing head, or after the amazing anal. Priorities. That's what was definitely fucked up about this situation. Priorities. To fuck, or not to fuck, that was definitely the question. Sleep finally fell over them both, and contrary to Toby's earlier predictions, when Murphy passed by for the second time on his rounds, he passed on, his heart not allowing him to break the intimacy of the scene.

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Brooklyn, Verrazano Bridge 4:06 a.m.

“Whatcha got?” Stabler stepped under the line of police tape that surrounded the scene. After a brief flash of his badge at the attending cops on site, they led him to a small bundle surrounded by tarps covering the muck already covered at the scene. Elliot was grateful, because every step he took left squelching noises in the muck under his feet. Stepping on the tarp wasn’t that much better, but even though he still sank with every step, he didn’t have to worry about leaving his shoes behind in the mud. Spotting a black clad figure stooped over a pile of brush, he headed forward.

“Munch, where’s the vic? Munch?” Stabler had almost reached him when John stood up unexpectedly. Stepping into a scent he was familiar with, he realized that John had been quietly sick over in a corner.

“How bad is it?” he asked automatically, fear in his gut telling him that he didn’t want to know, but morbid curiosity propelled him to where the M.E. was crouched, studiously taking notes over a small, impossibly small covered bundle.

Before anyone could stop him, he had lifted the tarp, and his stomach had plummeted to his knees. He was vaguely aware of someone catching him before the world went gray.


TBC...