Title:
By Its Cover
Author:
Christi
Rating:
R, because, uh, it’s SVU and there is a large ick
factor in the storylines and this details a few of th
Category:
L&O: SVU Munch/OC, angst, romance
Author’s
Note: Um, I’m not sure when or why it happened, but for some reason, SVU has
taken over my brain t
--
John
Munch had been a cop for a long time. Longer, perhaps, than he thought was
really good for anyone. And being on the SVU squad…well, it was a whole
different level of commitment.
Probably
one that deserved a nice white jacket, if he was honest with himself.
He had
thought he was done with late nights acting as a chaser to really bad days.
Instead, the days had gotten worse, which in turn meant the nights were longer.
Because
on the very worst days, the filth of the job felt like a tangible film hanging
on to his skin and his clothing. Munch knew that if he went home, all that rage
and disgust would eventually slough off and r
Because
he couldn’t face having his home any more haunted than it already was
(failures personal and professional clinging to every surface), John Munch knew
that it was better not to go straight there after work.
At least
the streets of
This
particular evening found him perusing a used bookshop (curiously bright and
airy for someplace so small), hoping for something more interesting than dinged
dime store novels and not having much luck. At least, not until she came out
from behind the counter, offering him a beat-up volume of philosophy and a
tentative smile.
The
philosophy was right up his alley—sixties revolution mixed with conspiracy
theories and the occasional diatribe on old Aristotelian ideals that didn’t
exist anymore (if they ever really had to begin with, which John doubted).
Surprisingly though, it was the smile that caught his eye, open and bright.
Had he
ever smiled like that?
Fingering
the slightly worn binding of the paperback, he studied her carefully. Her youth
should have been out of place when surrounded by the long forgotten books
lining the walls, but somehow her haphazard ponytail and earnest eyes se
A shrug
was her first response. “I’m good at my job. Besides, you looked like the
type.”
It was an
intriguing answer. “What type?” he asked before he could help himself.
“The
government has a secret satellite to listen to our cell phone conversations.
The world’s economy is secretly run by three men locked in a white room
somewhere. LBJ headed up the conspiracy to kill Kennedy,” she said by way of
explanation.
Because
he didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended, John said the first thing that
came to mind. “Well, he did.”
Her
laughter was even better than her smile, and for the first time since seeing
that little girl broken and bloody so many hours ago, John began to feel human
again.
“I know.”
--
There was
a lot about the job to despise, but John had never gotten over hating the
tedium of stakeouts. It always se
Luckily,
one tiny book light didn’t give off enough light to be noticed in the gray
predawn, and John made it a point to glance up every five paragraphs. In the
pages of philosophy, he could almost forget that this was the third night
straight they had spent cooped up in this too-small car, with nothing but the
too strong smell of day-old takeout and Fin’s snoring to keep him company.
He could
almost forget that they were waiting (in vain, he theorized) for the leader of
a brutal prostitution ring to make a move—even if that move meant watching him
haul yet another dead girl to the Hudson for dumping.
Three
pages from the end and he took to glancing up more often, not quite wanting the
book to be over. It wasn’t that the book was particularly brilliant or said anything
he hadn’t read before, but it had been a more than welcome distraction from the
reality of use and abuse he knew.
Two pages
from the end, John looked up to see the pimp
“Hey.
Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Sorry to
disappoint, but you’re not my type,” Fin croaked before pulling himself a
little more upright. “What’s up?”
Munch gestured out to the figures moving in the
mostly-dark. “He’s on the move.”
Fin nodded and proceeded to get a little more situated,
clearly ready for the struggle sure to come. “Let’s go.”
As Munch started the car, neither one of th
--
He hadn’t
known that he was going back until he was walking through the door some two
weeks later, the slightly musty smell of old books mixing with coffee and l
“Finished
the book?”
He didn’t
want to go into the details of that three-day stakeout, which had ended with
another girl dead and another man wholly unrepentant—not in this place filled
with respected books and friendly smiles. “Yes, thank you. Have anything else
along those lines?”
“Sure.”
She was silent for a long moment, watching him so intently that he had to curb
the impulse to shift on his feet. “But you don’t want to read that.”
John
couldn’t help but peer at her over the rim of his sunglasses, amused at her
easy declaration. “I don’t?”
“No.”
After thinking for one more moment, she disappeared down a row to the left,
coming back with an old hardback (the pages were brittle, but whole, yellowed
but beautiful) and handing it to him confidently.
“Collected
Plays of Anton Chekhov?” he read out incredulously. “I think you may be
losing your touch.” John had learned Russian because he still r
Obstinate
brown eyes held his own. “Trust me,” she insisted. “Most things don’t se
He
honestly wasn’t sure if that theory was completely laughable or made a strange
amount of sense, but after this past week, he was hardly in a position to turn
down any hope at a new perspective. So, he accepted the book and gave in to the
urge to tease (flirt?) a little. “Do people ever get to pick out their own
books in this store?”
She
grinned, completely unapologetic. “Only the people I don’t like. Besides, it’s
a great book. At the top right corner, you can smell the dried vodka someone
spilled.”
Information
like that couldn’t be resisted, and soon his nostrils were filled with the
sharp scent. “Scratch and sniff literature, hmmm?”
“Didn’t
you know? Good books appeal to all
the senses.”
--
There
were days and days of tapes to watch, because the bastard had kept th
Staring
at the boxes set up in a tiny room, John sighed and settled in. Just as he was
getting started, the Captain poked his head in.
“All set?”
he asked, before seeing the extent of the video evidence. “Jesus. This is…John,
we can get someone to help you with all this. It’s going to take forever.”
He wanted
to take him up on it—but the inevitable image of Elliot not being able to look
his little girls in the eye or Olivia crying herself to sleep danced across his
vision.
“No,” he
said, resigned. “I’ll be fine.”
Taking
him at his word, Cragen shut the door and Munch, after one more second of
hesitation, pressed play.
After the
first hour, he found it hard to eat.
After the
first day, he found it hard to sleep.
After the
first week, he was once again wishing for the tedium of retir
So
instead of watching C-SPAN and yelling Yiddish and Russian obscenities at the
politicians with their sleaze and thinly veiled agendas (hey, everyone had to
have a hobby) or enjoying a good episode of The
Daily Show like he normally might before bed, John read.
--
After
finishing The Seagull and following
it with Uncle Vanya
and The Three Sisters in quick
succession, Munch wasn’t really sure if she had been right. He did, however,
experience a curiously strong sense of patriotism for the next few days—as
screwed up as
Naturally,
it was only polite that he go back to the store and tell her that she had been
right after all. At least, that was what he had managed to convince himself.
When he
saw that she was in the process of closing, he fought down more disappointment
than he should have felt and turned to go. But she had seen him through the
window and waved him in.
He
probably shouldn’t have taken her up on the invitation. But as John walked in
and heard the soothing sounds of sixties rock and water splashing against the
wood floors as she mopped, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Still, it
had to be said: “You shouldn’t just let strangers in like this, you know.”
Instead
of being annoyed like some might have, she shot him a look of pure amus
“Close
enough,” he grumbled, sitting on a stool to stay out of her way as she mopped,
bare feet tapping in time with Fortunate
Son.
All she spared
him was a cursory glance over her shoulder. “I could throw you back outside if
it would make you feel better.”
His
silence se
John
laughed wryly. “No. But you were right, it helped.”
“Good.
Chekhov is great for putting things in perspective. Tolstoy is usually my last
resort, but you didn’t se
“Isn’t
Tolstoy the one who wrote eight hundred page books?”
“Quite a
few of th
The
thought of that much unrelenting angst made his head swim. “You’re right. I
wasn’t that desperate.”
She
laughed, and when the chords of A Hard
Day’s Night filled the room, she began dancing with the mop. “Glad to hear
it. Need something new now?”
“Yes, I
would appreciate that,” he admitted, regretting the inevitable turn to busi
Instead
of going to fetch some obscure book, she merely continued doing The Twist with
the mop. “No probl
He leaned
back against the checkout counter, feeling his muscles unwind one by one.
“Sounds fair.”
Forty-five
minutes and an entire CD later, she handed him a collection of Lewis Carroll’s
poetry. Before he had managed to ask the obvious question, she had freely
offered the answer.
“It only
makes sense if you don’t think about it too hard.”
--
Their
next case was run of the mill compared to some, a twenty-something-year-old girl
pulled into an alley on the way home from her second shift job. Traumatized and
mad as hell, but alive, which was more than a lot of their victims could say.
Still,
there was something about this particular case that was eating at him. John had
always felt more for these cases anyway—maybe because the rage and hurt and
pain wasn’t reflected in some inanimate crime scene (to be photographed and
then straightened as good as new), but contained in a living, breathing woman.
But this
wasn’t his normal level of attachment. This was…something else. He wasn’t sure
what, exactly.
Waiting
in the bullpen for Elliot and Olivia to arrive with their lead suspect, Munch
paged through the latest book, somehow getting drawn into the seven rambling
cantos of Phantasmagoria.
It wasn’t
until they actually walked through the pen to the interrogation room that Munch
realized the probl
Fin
passed by at the most inopportune moment, no doubt seeing the lovely new green
shade to his complexion. “Hey, you all right, man? Look like you just saw a
damn ghost.”
Considering
the po
His
partner held up both hands in defense. “Hey, just trying to help. What bug
crawled up your ass and died?”
“It’s
nothing. Drop it,” Munch insisted, slamming his book into a drawer and
practically running to the viewing room, where a man about his age was being
put through the wringer by Elliot and Liv’s
undefeatable tag team. “He confess yet?”
John managed to ask the somewhat startled Cragen.
“No, but
we’ve got enough to compel a DNA sample. The rest should fall into place.” The
Captain gazed at the perp, shaking his head. “Raping girls half your age…what
the hell is his defense gonna be? I mean, I may have
looked at one or two sports cars in my day, but this is taking the midlife
crisis too far.”
And there
it was, put into words exactly what had been eating at him. Because John (who
was definitely on the wrong side of fifty) was somehow already half in love
with a woman twenty years his junior, even though she had done little more than
smile at him.
--
He
arrived just as a throng of people were
“What was
all that?” he asked. She jumped a little, because she hadn’t seen him coming,
but when she looked at him, it wasn’t displeasure that colored her face.
“Oh,
that? Book club. We had a rather spirited discussion about Thomas Hardy’s view of women. At one point, I thought the girls
were going to start chucking Oreos at the guys.” Her color was still high, John
could tell she had enjoyed the spectacle. “Speaking of, try this.”
She
picked up a gingersnap (not even close to an Oreo, so how was that a ‘speaking
of’ situation?) and, to his surprise, fed him a piece. It crumbled a little on
his tongue, but the sweet
Strangely,
his verdict didn’t se
With that
question reality came crashing back and John r
This time
when she sighed, it was aimed toward him. “You thought about it too much.”
Considering
his disgruntled revelations over epic children’s verses, John thought that was
probably an apt description. “It se
After
careful consideration, she nodded. “Oh well. Can’t win th
The title
startled him, because he had told her a lot of things over their short
acquaintance—how he had met his second wife, what he thought of T. S. Eliot,
the details of a long-ago trip to Paris that were probably best forgotten—but
had never once mentioned being a cop. “How did you…?”
She
tilted her head, puzzled at his confusion. “You flash your badge when you open
your wallet. I’ve known since you paid for your book that first night. Was I
not supposed to?”
“No, I
just…” John wasn’t sure what to say, or why it surprised him so much anyway.
“It’s fine. So you know what the SVU squad is, then?”
Her
glance was downright exasperated. “I’m a sometimes single girl living and
working alone in
“You’ve…never
asked me about it.”
A shrug
was her first reply, and she picked up another forgotten gingersnap to snack
on. “Why would I? Generally when a man talks about his ex-wives before he talks
about his job, it’s a strong sign that the job is not a topic open for
discussion.”
And even
though in his mind he had gone there that night to break off a relationship
that they had never had, when he heard her reply, his hand (se
When he
kissed her, she tasted like cinnamon.
Before he
left, she handed him a book—Pride and
Prejudice. And when John d
--
It was a
slow day, which meant it was a good day. John had blown through his paperwork,
and at this moment was perfectly free to read his book while he waited for
something (and hoped for nothing) to happen. And even though it wasn’t his
style or his taste, he found that there was a reason that Jane Austen was still
loved two hundred years later.
Fin sat
down at his desk and out of the corner of his eye, Munch could see him
watching. “Something on your mind, partner?” he asked without looking up.
“Only
that you se
“Glad to
have eased your suffering, Fin. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do
for you while I’m at it.”
His
partner grinned. “Don’t suppose you’d tell me what’s got you so cheery.”
“No,”
Munch said, turning a page nonchalantly. “I don’t suppose I would.”
“Is it
something to do with all those books you been reading? What’s this one?” Before
John could react, Fin had plucked that book clean out of his fingers. “Pride and—yo.
You’ve always been a strange one, man. I let it go because it sorta worked for you. But I gotta
tell ya, this is taking eccentric a bit far.”
John
snatched the book back. “Rag on me all you want. But lay off the damn book.”
--
Their
first so-called date ended in the bedroom, where the feel of her skin against
his se
When it
was over, he couldn’t quite r
“I don’t
want another ex-wife,” he blurted out—wincing even before the sentence was
finished.
She
blinked, startled at his outburst for a minute, then after a moment of processing
the content of his outburst, slid over him until she was straddling his hips.
“Now,
John, I know I like to talk during
sex, but I’m pretty sure I don’t r
He was a
little amused, but…. “I’m serious.”
“So am
I,” she replied. “This is Lewis Carroll all over again—let it go. If you can’t
stop thinking this to death, it’ll never work.”
“What if
it doesn’t work anyway?”
She
shrugged. “We’ll deal with it then. But despite what you think of me, I’m not
fragile. I don’t break. And you….” She trailed off, uncertain.
“It’s
okay,” he encouraged her, running a hand up and down her spine because the
sweet skin was there against his calloused hand. “Go ahead.”
After a
little more hesitation, she finally came out with, “I know you see a lot of
really horrible things, everyday. You see people in pain, people causing it.
But you might have to accept that you’re not obligated to be miserable just
because they are. I mean, you certainly are within your rights to be, but it’s
not your only option.”
He held
her tighter. “I’m starting to understand that.”
She
smiled. “Good.” She kissed him and tucked her head under his chin, stray hairs
feeling damp and bristled against his mouth. “Did you like the book?”
R
“Understand
why I gave it to you yet?”
With her
warmth slowly seeping into him from above, it was hard not to.