Title: Crossing Lines
By: nancy
Fandom: Law & Order: SVU
Pairing: implied Fin/Sebastian Ballentine
Rating: R
Warnings: implied rape, dark!fic, spoilers for Pure
Summary: Elliot comes very close to crossing a line within himself. Fin has no such line.***
It was late, too late, almost three in the morning, when Elliot let himself in to the holding area. The bullpen was empty, the squad gone home to empty or full beds, depending. There weren’t even any uniforms around, despite the fact that they never stopped working. No, it seemed that tonight, the SVU unit was a ghost town, completely surrendered to the monster that dwelled there until transfer the following day.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t face the empty bed waiting for him that he had gone back to work. No. There was too much going on in his head, too many thoughts, too much hate in his heart to be alone just then. He knew what waited for him at the empty apartment and it was just more of the same that he faced every day and night since the separation. Since before then, if he was being honest.
Himself. That was what waited for him.
Hidden in the shadows, Elliot stared at the man who’d caused so much pain and misery to women, girls really, over the last decade. He was small and didn’t seem physically capable of holding down and raping over a dozen girls, even with help, even with the girls tied down and restrained. It was the eyes, though, that told Elliot just how capable the psychopath was. He’d seen the horror in those bottomless pits, the violence and cold nothing that had replaced whatever heart the man might have had at some earlier point in his life. Despite his size, Elliot knew that Sebastian wasn’t going to have any problems in prison. There was something of pure evil in the man that would warn the others off.
Staring at the open cell that was only partially lit in deference to the time of night, Elliot’s gaze roamed over the slight form on the cot. He’d given up on trying to make sense of what made people into the unreasoning facsimiles of normality. Given up on trying to figure out what caused them to discard any shred of decency and compassion and empathy. There was no making sense of it, no matter what reasons or excuses could be made for the pain and suffering and violence and mayhem caused by those like the man who rested so easily in his cell.
“Are you just going to stare at me all night?”
The voice was low and easy, without fear, and startled Elliot enough to stiffen.
Sebastian pushed up on his elbows and glanced towards the shadows that covered Elliot as he continued, “Did you want to ask me more questions? I can’t think of anything that my whore of a wife didn’t already tell you.”
The words slipped out before Elliot could censor them... “How’d you know I was here?”
A faint smirk surfaced on Sebastian’s face and he said, “I’m psychic, remember?”
“Bullshit,” Elliot replied, just as easily. “You bought a cd-rom and learned how to read people with the best of them.”
Sitting up the rest of the way, Sebastian shrugged and said, “Maybe. But I knew you’d be back here tonight and no cd-rom could tell me that.”
“Human behavior,” Elliot dismissed.
Sebastian looked pointedly around the empty squad room. “You’re the only one here, Elliot. Why is that?”
Standing and walking over to the bars, Elliot countered, “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the psychic.”
There was something disturbing about looking into those dark eyes and seeing only himself reflected in them. Sebastian stood and walked over to the bars as well, meeting with and looking up at him sans any fear. “I think you’re here for something you perceive as justice, Elliot. Maybe revenge on the part of all those girls’ part. I think you’re here because you don’t know what else to do. You know prison’s not going to do anything to me. You know that I’m going to have a field day there, instead of being punished and made to suffer the way you think that I should be.”
And it was true. So fucking true. The man staring back at him wasn’t going to be anyone’s bitch. No one was going to make him feel what those girls had. No one was going to hurt him or get close enough to give him the rape he so richly deserved.
“Do it,” Sebastian whispered, eyes wide and guileless in the near-dark. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To punish me as I should be punished? To tie me down and rape me, take my virginity the way I did all those girls. That way, you can see my eyes, and through my eyes, when I’m in pain and helpless beneath you. Do it, Elliot, you know you want to.”
Elliot swallowed heavily. His control, such a slender thread these days, faltered and his hand whipped through the bars to grip the back of Sebastian’s neck painfully tight.
I’d be you.
It was the answer he’d given to Gordon’s question of what he would be without people and responsibilities to control him. Liv had shot Rickett to save Elliot from crossing the line and killing the man in a rage. Fin had covered for him for busting into Ballentine’s apartment without a warrant. His friends knew that he was on the edge. They all knew that he was ready to snap and were doing everything they could to protect him from himself.
Sebastian’s tongue swiped along his lips, wetting them, and he whispered, “What’s stopping you? There’s no one here. You can open the cell and come in here, give me what I deserve. Even if the room was filled with people, they’d applaud you and you know it.”
Elliot’s hand tightened, forcing a wince from Sebastian, and he hissed, “Don’t fuckin’ tempt me, Ballentine.”
“I’m daring you, Elliot,” Sebastian murmured seductively, smiling. “Rape me. Get vengeance for all those girls. I won’t even fight you.”
It was a struggle and Elliot knew that he was an open book to the man before him. The man who stood so submissive beneath his hand. Those dark eyes were wide and almost eager as they stared back at him and took in the internalized battle. He could make those eyes fill with pain. He could make them leak tears from suffering. He could do so much to change that self-assured look. He could break the man and make it so that he never hurt anyone else again in his life and no one would ever look too deep into what had happened.
There was nothing to stop him, absolutely nothing.
Except himself.
Panting harshly, Elliot jerked his hand from Ballentine as if burnt and stumbled backwards, heart pounding in his chest. He landed partially on a desk, backbone jarred from the impact, and held on tight, feeling like his entire world was topsy-turvy.
Ballentine watched him from the bars, not moving, and commented, “I’m surprised. I thought you would do it, Elliot, I really did. I guess I misjudged you.”
Shaken with how close he’d come to crossing a line that he’d never thought to even contemplate crossing, Elliot’s stomach rumbled uneasily, ready with a moment’s notice to displace itself. Drawing in deep, slow breaths, feeling like he again had his hand on a gun that was ready to fire and shaking violently in his hands when aimed at Rickett, Elliot closed his eyes and got a grip on himself.
When he opened them again, he was calmer, if not back to normal. Standing, Elliot looked at him and said, “We’ll see how well you really do in prison, Ballentine.”
“Very trite, Elliot, I expected better of you,” Ballentine called after him, voice rich in amusement.
Ignoring the niggling voice inside that said he was doing the wrong thing by leaving, Elliot kept walking towards the exit.
****
“What about me? Did you expect better of me?”
Sebastian looked at the black man staring at him without any true expression on his face and swallowed nervously. Stabler was gone and he was alone with the detective that he hadn’t really interacted with. If they’d used him for the test, he’d have been screwed because Sebastian honestly couldn’t detect anything from the face in front of him.
“I think you and me got things to talk about.”
The cell door was opened and Sebastian backed away cautiously, not sure what this man was going to do. He opened his mouth to answer that, but was rushed and slammed against the wall. Pain echoed through his head when it connected hard and he gasped only to find something hard and rubber shoved into his mouth. His eyes widened in shock and he tried to spit it out, but the gag was buckled in place too fast.
This close, the black man’s eyes were huge and filled with a cold fire that Sebastian had only ever encountered in the mirror. A hand grabbed his cock and squeezed until agony ripped through him and he was screaming with it; barely a sound escaped, thanks to the gag.
“This is gonna be a one-way conversation, though. I ain’t interested in nothin’ you got to say.”
Sebastian’s eyes searched the room for help, but Stabler apparently wasn’t coming back, or hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to do so.
“Don’t be looking for Elliot to come on back and save you. By now, he’s on his way to Liv’s place where she’ll play mother confessor to his frightened boy. You and me, though, we’re grown-ups, ain’t that right?”
With that, a hard cock ground against Sebastian’s hip and a trembling started deep in his muscles. It was an unfamiliar sensation and he couldn’t place it as he continued to stare at the man who held him so easily in place. He was strong, a lot stronger than anyone Sebastian had come up against so far. Well, though who got close enough to touch anyhow.
“You got a thing for virgins? I can dig that. Matter of fact, I can totally get into it. Don’t gotta worry about disease. Don’t have to think about anything except the feel of tight skin breaking, bleeding, hurting. You and me, Ballentine? We’re gonna have a real long conversation and when they find your broken ass in the morning, you’re gonna keep your mouth shut. Because if you don’t, my buddies inside are going to make tonight seem like a honeymoon. Are we clear?”
As Sebastian nodded his understanding and heard the distinctive sound of a zipper being lowered, he finally figured out what that sensation in his gut was.
Fear.
***