Friends to Believe In

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine.

This fic is rated T for semi-graphic descriptions of child sexual abuse. Don't like it, don't read it.

You're going to have to bring in Lennie and Van Buren, okay?

The words had rung in his head a hundred times since Cragen had said them. The man had offered to do it, but Mike had turned him down. It was his horrible secret, he had to be the one to tell it.

He couldn't look at his partner or his Lieutenant. He closed the blind in the interrogation room and stood staring at it, trying to work up the courage to speak. He thought for sure that they must be getting impatient, and wondered why they hadn't said as much.

"Mike," Van Buren said finally, and he was surprised by the kindness and concern in her voice. "What is it?"

"Father Joe," he said before he could stop himself. "I think he had something to do with Marino's death."

He didn't have to be watching to catch the look that passed between the other two; he could practically hear it. "Based on what?" she asked.

Mike drew a deep breath. "He...he's not the sweet old man he came across as. He had a reputation in the parish."

"A reputation for what?" Lennie pressed, in a tone that suggested he both suspected the answer and was hoping he was wrong.

"For messing with the boys in the church," Mike said bluntly, and he knew by Lennie's sharp exhale that the man's guess had been right on the money. "And yes, that included Billy Marino."

"Mike." That was Van Buren again. "Do you know for a fact that he abused Marino? Or anyone else? We can't investigate based on a reputation."

He swallowed hard, bracing a hand against the window and leaning his head up against it. "I know what he did to me," he whispered. "There, okay? I said it."

He braced himself for the onslaught of follow-up questions, but they never came. "Okay," Van Buren said softly. "We'll look into it. But you have to keep an open mind, Mike. You've already been shutting down lines of thought before they get started on this case. I know you want to believe the best of your friend, but we have to work this like any other case."

She touched his shoulder lightly, and he felt warmth, comfort, spread through him. "Take a few minutes," she said. "Come out when you're ready."

He heard the door click and then a silence. He finally broke it. "I know you're still there."

"I didn't expect you not to," his partner replied. "Are you okay, Mike?"

He sighed, and then lowered his hand and finally turned away from the window to face Lennie. "I won't say it's easy. Seeing him again after all these years - I thought he was really and truly out of my life. Just having to talk to him, having him talk to me like we were old friends - I wanted to be sick the whole time we were in his house."

"If we have to interview him again, I can grab one of the other guys," he offered. "No one would force you to deal with him again."

"I appreciate it, Lennie," he sighed. "But I need to do this."

"Okay. But you need anything, Mike, let me know, got it?"

The younger detective was suddenly choked with emotion. Lennie's words had come across as brusque, an order, but the care behind them was unmistakable. "Thanks, Lennie," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut against a sudden desire for tears.

xxxxxxxxx

He stood on the roof of the precinct, staring out at the city. He heard the footsteps behind him but didn't turn around.

"Mike?"

"What are you doing up here?" he asked his partner a little sharply.

"Me? I was looking for you. What are you doing up here?"

"I needed some air," he replied, still staring at the skyline. He didn't want Lennie to see the tears in his eyes.

He heard his partner walk up behind him until he was standing just a few feet away. "He's going away, Mike."

"Fifteen years!" he exploded finally. "That's less than a year for every kid! Not to mention he killed Billy Marino as surely as if he'd pulled the trigger himself. Who's going to pay for that? Who's going to answer to a wife without a husband, to those kids growing up without a father?"

A hand gripped his shoulder, squeezed gently. "Talk to me, Mike," he said softly.

"Why?" he snapped bitterly. "Why the hell do I have to keep talking about it? First that defense attorney with her damn subpoena and now you!"

"You don't have to, Mike, not if you really don't want to." Lennie replied softly, refusing to rise to the bait. "That was an invitation, not an order."

"I'm sorry." He deflated quickly. "I'm just not used to people trying to help me. When it happened, my old man wasn't around enough to realize anything was wrong. And my mother - I got home that night shaking; I'd had to stop on the way to throw up. I wanted to curl up in bed, pull the covers over my head and never get up. And as soon as I walked in the door, she asked me why I was late, and then she slapped me before I could even try to respond. The she told me to go get her something to drink, and I did, I didn't have the strength to fight her, and she got drunk, really drunk, and she beat me with my father's belt, and I was almost grateful for it, because the pain in my body took my mind off what he did to me."

"It's okay, Mike," Lennie said softly. "You have every right to be angry."

"He said he was sorry to the people he offended," Mike spat. "Offended. He all but raped me, and he categorizes that as offending me? I still have nightmares about what he did." He was sure Lennie could feel that he had started shaking, but he couldn't bring himself to push away his partner's hand, to reject the comfort he'd craved for so long.

He finally turned his head, and the anguish in his eyes almost tore out his partner's heart. Looking into those eyes, it was as if he was looking not at Detective Mike Logan, but at Mike Logan the preteen boy who'd had no one to turn to after suffering possibly the worst thing a child could endure. Not thinking, just acting on instinct, he pulled his partner into a hug.

Mike froze at first, startled, but then relaxed and allowed himself to be held, relishing the comfort he'd been denied years ago. Lennie rubbed his back as if he were comforting a child. "It's okay, Mike," he soothed. "You're okay now."

"He took my clothes off," Mike whispered, and for a moment, Lennie wanted to release the embrace and step away, to beg Mike to stop talking, because he didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to hear his best friend describe the horrible things that had been done to him. But he could feel that one of Mike's hands was clutching his coat, and he knew that the younger man's willingness to talk showed a level of trust that was hard-won, and he couldn't turn him away now. He couldn't betray that trust. He couldn't shut his friend down when he was finally ready to open up.

"He told me to do it first but I was confused, I didn't want to," Mike continued. "I was only ten, I had no idea where this was going. So then he undressed me, made - comments. Kept telling me how beautiful I was, and it felt all wrong, but I knew I'd get in trouble with my parents if they found out I disobeyed him. He asked if I was uncomfortable, and I told the truth...I said yes...he said that he'd take his clothes off too. I was so young, Lennie, I really believed for a few minutes there he was trying to do me a favor. Then he touched me, and he told me to touch him, and when I hesitated, he took my hands in his and made me do it. The whole time, I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream for someone to help me, and to this day, I wish I had, just because someone might have come and made him stop. It felt like it would never stop - he did everything but actually penetrate me. Then when he'd finally had enough, he dressed me like you would for a little kid and said he'd see me on Sunday. And he told me we'd sinned, and that we'd both be punished if I talked. For years, every Sunday was a question of whether I'd rather deal with my parents' reaction to my skipping church or go to church and have to see his face, preaching from the pulpit. He never got me alone again, but he'd look into my eyes and I'd be back in that room, with him taking my clothes off."

Somewhere in the middle of this, Mike had begun to cry, silent tears falling from his eyes as he spoke. Lennie hugged him tighter. "It's okay now, Mike," he repeated. "It's okay."

"When he looked at me - I thought I'd managed to move on from it, but when he looked at me when we first rang his bell, it was the same damn thing. I was ten years old again and back in that room. I kept my eyes away from him in court; it was the only way to survive that." He swallowed hard, hoping that if he couldn't stop himself from crying, he could at least keep himself from audibly sobbing. "I went to see him today. I needed to ask him why - I needed some sort of explanation for everything he put me through. He didn't say a word, just looked at me, and damn it, Lennie, I was ten all over again."

"I told you you didn't have to deal with him, Mike." There was nothing accusatory in the man's tone, only concern for what his partner had put himself through. "It wasn't a token offer. I meant it."

"I know you did. But I - I guess I was trying to prove to myself that I wasn't afraid of him anymore. Except it didn't work. Truth is, I'm terrified. Even after all these years."

"No sane person would blame you for that."

They stood there for a while, Mike still crying silently while Lennie held him and whispered comfort. "Come on, Mike," he said finally, letting up the long embrace. "It's late. You should go home."

"And what? I can not sleep here just as well as I can at home."

Lennie looked at him, eyes full of concern and compassion. "You haven't been sleeping?"

Mike shrugged. "It's no big deal."

"It is if I get stuck with all the paperwork because you're falling asleep on me. Go home, Mike. Hell, you ought to take a day and just get some sleep."

"Hey, Lennie?"

"Yeah?"

He took a deep breath and then put it out there. "I'm sorry for thinking you were like my mother. What you just did for me - she never would've done something like that, and I was her only child. I can't remember her ever holding me like that."

"Yeah?" Lennie gently patted him on the shoulder. "Well, you looked like you needed it."

God, did I ever. He felt better than he had in a long time. "Thanks, Lennie. I mean it."

"Anytime, Mike. What are partners for?"

The short scene in the beginning is a conversation that we know happened but is never shown. I figure Van Buren probably didn't know the extent of the abuse or she wouldn't have commented that the rumors might have been just rumors, so that's why I kept it deliberately vague.

The second part of this story is a scene that never happened in the episode but that I desperately wanted to see. Mike looked so upset that I just wanted to scream at the TV "Someone hug the poor guy already!" I don't see it as OOC so much as a side of the characters we only see once in a long while on the show. The description of the abuse is based partly on what a guest character in the episode describes and partly on bits and pieces from SVU episodes on the topic.

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