Those Who Hear Not the Music Think the Dancer's Mad
Fandom: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
Category: Pre-slash
Archive: Sure, but ask first.
Feedback: Yes, thanks
Pairing: Casey/Olivia
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Season 5 "Loss" et al. If you don't know who Casey Novak is
there's not much in it for you.
Disclaimers: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and its characters belong to Dick Wolf et al. No infringement on any copyright is intended and no
profit is being made.
She never told anyone. Those rare nights when work let up enough for her to
actually leave the office at a decent hour and she didn't stay to cover for
someone else she went out. Not the expected bar with friends, not even the
movies. She dressed in her tightest most revealing clothes, jeans like a
second skin, tight tank, usually black that barely covered her breasts when
she took a deep breath, and shoes with just enough heel to accentuate to the
curve of her calves. The change in clothing would raise eyebrows enough,
but then there was the makeup. Eyes and lips. Kohl eyeliner drawn with a
brush not a pencil and lips, lips that got instantly redder, deeper, lips to
touch even if it wasn't with other lips.
She reveled in the anonymity of New York's bars as an occasional hedonist.
Not obnoxious, not drunk, not stoned, the only liquid that passed her lips
was water; water to hydrate as the hours passed to the sway of her body.
She danced alone together with any partner who tried to claim her, and none
could keep up, then she danced alone: just danced out days of anger and
frustration and pain. Those around her danced to tease, to excite, a
primitive rite of mating if only for an night. Her moves were less
controlled but more honest, graceful in their lack of guile. She danced for
herself.
Of course the other patrons, those who were moving their bodies in what was
usually called dance but palled beside her movements, noticed. The part of
the brain trained on beauty noticed first, but a deeper part noted the plea
in understanding to every syncopation of the endless rumble of bass. A
racial memory stirred and watchers saw temple maidens placating a god but
even then she had moved beyond placating to dance that was adoration and
anger together. Some were intrigued and watched for a time, and then moved
away knowing they had seen something remarkable but that they couldn't
understand. Most tried to ignore her outright. It was uncomfortable for
most people to see a woman dance who needed nothing but her own movements,
as if even the music was optional.
The feeling of all eyes on her, even when they weren't, lead her to chose
her locations carefully, and to rarely visit the same club more than once.
Escape was never as fun if you always knew where you're going. Her only
criterion was the necessity of dancing undisturbed, as on her last outing
she had been eighty-sixed for catching a groper in a wrist lock. She needed
hours to pass under the sound of electric drums and the smell of sweat
without unwelcome excessive touch and selected a club in the village that
attracted women exclusively, her intent on movement alone.
It met her needs. The dj spun well and the floor was crowded enough to keep
her from being the absolute centre of attention. Not that she wasn't
regarded with some danger by the regulars; they watched closely, marveled
and the more insecure were either jealous or threatened at the ragged
movement of her arms and hips. The brave moved closer and tried to join her
and she would permit this only for a short time. Her movements were not
easily shared. After a time the others on the dance floor were continue to
only glance in her direction, stunned by her stamina and wonder what lay
behind such an outpouring, even if they couldn't catalogue all the emotions
behind it.
The lurkers leaned against the bar, content to watch everyone, but one kept
her eyes on her, stunned at first, to see something so different from the
usual persona, the firmly upright woman she saw so often. She had come to
the bar to lurk, to look, not to see the spectacle she was witnessing. Yet,
she had seen and was uncertain of her course. The varied images of her body
contorted to the music were burned into her yet it felt wrong somehow to go
and speak to her. She chose not to. Olivia left the money on the bar and
cautiously slipped out onto the street, and Casey, still dancing, never knew
she had been there at all.
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