Writing Exercise #3

These exercises have been both helpful and minorly frustrating.

Helpful, because they do get the juices flowing. It's liberating to just write and not worry about it. Not agonize over "Does this sound good?" and "How can I punch this up?" and "Will I be able to sell this eventually?" They're what I like most about writing: the creation. Taking one word and creating a little vignette out of it.

But they've also been frustrating because they are just flowing. They're coming and they're coming easy, which makes the difficulties I'm still having with The Witch of November all the more aggravating. Don't get me wrong, I think it's getting better, but it's not 100% perfect, and for a perfectionist? Yeah, you can imagine the irritation, heh.

Anywho. Jumping into the SVU-verse for tonight's exercise:

Prompt: warmth
Fandom: Law & Order: SVU (set in the early part of season 5)
Character(s): Casey Novak, Olivia Benson

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A deep shiver ran down Casey Novak’s spine. She didn’t think she’d ever feel warm again.

It was all too much. She hadn’t asked for this, and she certainly didn’t want it. Didn’t want to spend her days in a living nightmare, down in the trenches, chasing after the depraved human beings that made up this new world in which she found herself.

She poured a generous amount of whiskey from a newly purchased bottle into her coffee mug. She didn’t like whiskey very much and certainly didn’t like to drink her hard liquor straight, but she needed something to calm her shivering limbs and the dull ache in her head.

“Forgive me if I’m being forward,” said a soft voice from her office door, “but you don’t seem like the drowning-your-sorrows type.”

Casey looked up to find Olivia Benson standing just outside the open door, a gentle and friendly smile on her face. “I’m not,” she admitted.

“That’s a very dangerous habit to start, Counselor.” The detective crossed the threshold and eased down onto the leather sofa underneath Casey’s office window. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

As a matter of fact, she didn’t. Baring her soul was not something that Casey did easily, and she and Olivia had barely been working together three weeks. Plus the detectives hadn’t exactly been the friendliest to her, and Olivia especially had had moments of downright hostility. But as she met the detective’s eyes, the words tumbled from her mouth, unbidden: “I can’t do this.”

Olivia raised a single eyebrow, waiting for the young attorney to continue.

“I … I’m sure you heard, I came here from White Collar.”

The detective’s eyes reflected a sudden understanding. “Kind of a culture shock, huh?”

That? Was putting it mildly. “I mean, the worst quality in people I’m used to seeing is greed. The worst I saw in terms of crime scenes? Horrible, inefficient filing systems. This …” She indicated an open file folder on her desk, lurid photos from a rape kit done on a nine-year-old staring up at her. “This is a whole new level of … I don’t even know.”

For a long moment, Olivia didn’t say a word, seeming to consider her response, trying to decide what was best for the situation. In the end, she stood and grasped Casey’s jacket off the coat hook. “Come on,” she said, tossing the jacket to the ADA.

“Where are we going?” Casey asked, her brow furrowing in confusion and just a touch of apprehension.

“We’re going to get some coffee,” the detective answered, that gentle smile returning to her face, “and we’re going to talk. It’ll be a lot more productive than losing yourself in a bottle of whiskey alone in your office.”

Though Casey was unsure about opening up even more to the detective, she had to admit that Olivia had a reasonable point. So she shrugged on her jacket and followed Olivia out of her office.

As they walked down the hall, Olivia slipped her arm around Casey’s shoulders and squeezed, then let her go. In that moment, the shivering stopped, and in the next, Casey believed that the warmth she needed could come from something as simple as having a cup of coffee with a new friend