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“Yes, Rita, I understand that your client—”
Barba broke off, rolling his eyes as Rita Calhoun squawked in his ear. He chanced a glance back inside the bar where Carisi was patiently waiting for him to finish his phone call, because even though Barba had promised Carisi an evening without work, it was a promise they both knew neither he nor Carisi could keep. He made a rueful expression as he watched a man approach Carisi at the bar. Carisi got hit on all the time when they were out, and while he always politely pointed out that he was with his boyfriend, Barba still didn’t have to like it.
Besides, Carisi always got equally perturbed whenever anyone hit on Barba in front of him, and was far more likely to spend the rest of the evening sulking, to Barba’s eternal delight.
This time, however, Carisi’s attempts to dismiss the gentleman in question didn’t seem to work, as he took Barba’s vacated seat and seemed to ignore the tension that Barba could clearly see tightening Carisi’s shoulders, seemed to ignore the way that Carisi leaned away from him.
And definitely ignored the way Carisi swiveled around, eyes wide and almost panicked as he searched for Barba.
“Rita, I’m going to have to call you back,” Barba said abruptly, not even waiting to hear her response before hanging up and heading back inside the bar.
He wove his way over to Carisi and didn’t hesitate before sliding an arm around Carisi’s shoulders and kissing his cheek. “Sorry about that,” he said, just a little too loudly, and the smile that he gave the intruder still sitting in his seat was ice cold. “Sonny, who’s this?”
Surprisingly, Carisi didn’t seem relieved to have Barba there. His shoulders remained tense under Barba’s arm, and he looked — cornered, for lack of a better word. “Uh, this is Brian,” Carisi muttered. “Brian, this is Bar—Rafael Barba. My boyfriend.”
Brian looked Barba up and down, his expression calculating, and then gave Barba a horrible smile. “Rafael,” he said coolly. “You must be the new boyfriend.”
That more than anything told Barba who this must be. He had known when he got involved with Carisi that the other man was less experienced than he, at least with men, and that he’d had only one serious boyfriend, and that it hadn’t ended well.
And from one short sentence, Barba was beginning to understand why.
He chanced a glance at Carisi, who still looked like he would rather be anywhere else, and rubbed his shoulder surreptitiously in what he hoped was a comforting way. “I don’t know if I’d say ‘new’ boyfriend,” he said, smiling at Carisi like it was their own personal inside joke that Brian wasn’t privy to. “We’ve been together for over a year, after all.”
That simple statement — and only a slight exaggeration, depending on how loosely one defined ‘together’ — was enough to sour the look on Brian’s face. “Well, good for you,” he said with a sneer. “Of course, it’s a miracle that you’ve put up for him for that long.”
Barba’s hand stilled on Carisi’s shoulder. “Excuse me?” he said, dropping any pretense of civility, and Carisi flinched, shrinking in on himself as if he might somehow manage to disappear.
“You know what I mean,” Brian said, with a false smile that didn’t at all meet his eyes. “You know how Sonny can be. All that overbearing enthusiasm and that unrelenting mouth he’s got on him. I mean, have you ever heard someone talk so much in the bedroom?” He laughed, though he was the only one who did. “Although, who knows, after a year, maybe you’ve gotten him trained properly now.” He cast a critical eye at Carisi. “You’ve certainly gotten him to dress better than I ever managed.”
Barba was waiting for Carisi to interject at some point, to playfully protest that he had dressed just fine before he started dating Barba (and then Barba would shoot back that he had only started dressing well to win Barba over, so it was on Barba’s behalf either way, their banter continuing from there), but Carisi made no attempt to join the conversation, instead staring determinedly at the ground as if he was deaf to the things his ex was saying about him.
But Barba was not nearly as willing to pretend. “I haven’t ‘gotten him’ to do anything,” he said, his hold on his calmness starting to fray. “Perhaps Sonny realized that you weren't worth the same effort he’s given me.”
Brian’s face flushed an ugly red color and he slid off the bar stool to stand a little too close to Barba. “What are you trying to say?” he practically snarled, thrusting his face close to Barba’s.
Barba didn’t even blink, though he was briefly gratified to find that Brian was no taller than he was. “You know exactly what I’m saying,” he said. perfectly calm. “And unless you want the half-dozen NYPD officers that I can see sitting in here getting curious about why you’re standing this close to a Manhattan ADA, I would take a step back.”
Brian made no move to step back, and in fact made as if to take a step closer to Barba, which was when Carisi finally stirred, standing up and carefully slotting himself between Brian and Barba. “That’s enough,” he said firmly. “C’mon, Rafi, let’s just go home.”
As much as Barba desperately wanted to continue this confrontation, to ask Brian where the hell he got off talking about Carisi that way, he could also read the tension radiating off of Carisi in waves, and if nothing else, diffusing the situation was the right thing for Carisi, and that was frankly what mattered.
So he put his hand on the small of Carisi’s back and steered him towards the door.
And he was a little proud of himself for not looking back.
As soon as they got outside the bar, Carisi’s shoulders slumped, more with exhaustion than relief, and Barba chanced a glance up at him. “So that was something,” he hazarded.
Carisi didn’t smile. “Sorry about that,” he said, avoiding Barba’s gaze and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I mean, obviously I don’t have a lot of experience running into ex-boyfriends but even I know that was awkward.”
“Awkward?” Barba repeated. “That’s not really the word that I would use.”
The word Barba would use wasn’t appropriate for others to hear, and Barba jerked his head down the street from the bar, away from the crowd of smokers outside. He and Carisi walked down the street in silence until Carisi volunteered, “He’s not a good guy.”
Barba shot him a look. “I gathered that,” he said dryly. He avoided asking what, exactly, if anything, Carisi had ever seen in him, figuring now was not the time to bring up past indiscretions, so to speak.
But Carisi, as always, seemed to read between the lines of what Barba didn’t say and shrugged. “He wasn’t like that when we started dating,” he said, a touch defensively. “But as time went on…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I don’t know, I guess there were some things he just didn’t like about me, and they added up.”
“Things like what?” Barba asked.
Carisi shrugged again. “He didn’t like that I was so much taller than him,” he said, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the ground. “He really didn’t like the fact that I was bisexual — he’s a gold-star gay.” Barba’s lip curled, but he swallowed his retort when Carisi continued, “He didn’t like how much I talked, the way I talked, my accent.” He shook his head ruefully. “He’s even the reason I grew the mustache. He didn’t like how young I looked clean-shaven.”
“I knew I should’ve punched him when I had the chance, if just for the mustache,” Barba said darkly. “Was there anything he did like about you?”
“Honestly?” Carisi laughed, but it was hollow. “No. But he told me that he loved me, and at the time, that was more important. Besides, he wasn’t totally wrong.” It seemed to take him a moment to realize that Barba had stopped in his tracks and was staring at him, an incredulous look on his face. “What?”
“He’s not wrong?” Barba repeated, deathly quiet, something like fury settling into the lines of his face. “In what world could anything that man think be correct?”
Carisi jerked a shrug, not meeting Barba’s eyes. “I just mean, I know that I can be a bit obnoxious. Even you’ve said so.”
He said the last part defensively, as if it was somehow justification for everything Brian had said, and Barba sucked in a breath, taking a moment before answering. “If you think that our banter and my teasing you is on the same level as that, we need to have a very different conversation.”
Carisi shook his head quickly and gave Barba a small, almost nervous version of his usual smile. “Of course not,” he assured Barba, who continued as if Carisi had never spoken.
“Because everything that pendejo disliked about you is everything that I do.”
Carisi stared at him. “It is?” he asked, seemingly before he could stop himself.
Barba took a step closer to Carisi, looking at him seriously. “Yes, it is. I like that you’re taller than me — you’re a more comfortable body pillow that way. Your accent, I’ll admit, took awhile to grow on me, but you know as well as I do that there’s nothing I like more now than the way you say ‘Rafi’. And obviously I greatly prefer you without the dead animal you refer to as a mustache gracing your upper lip.” Carisi did smile at that, an actual, genuine smile that caused his eyes to crinkle just the way that Barba liked, and Barba smiled as well. “And that — that I like most of all. Your smile and your warmth and everything about you that makes you you. Because I do love you, and that’s what love should be.”
Carisi didn’t hesitate, wrapping his long arms around Barba and giving him a tight hug. “Thank you,” he said, his voice muffled slightly against Barba’s hair. He pulled back slightly to tell Barba, “And I am sorry that you had to witness that. I’ve never been very good about standing up for myself.”
“The opposite has generally been true in my experience with you,” Barba said, a little surprised.
“Well, it’s easier to stand up to you,” Carisi allowed, smiling. “Because you know how to dish it out as well as take it.” He hesitated before adding, “Besides, you would never just take something like that lying down. The great Rafael Barba would never cower.”
Even in the dim light, Barba could see that Carisi’s cheeks were flushed from embarrassment, embarrassment at Barba witnessing him in a weak moment, perhaps, or just for having a weak moment in general. Barba cocked his head slightly, debating over what precisely to say to reassure him and opting for honesty. “The great Rafael Barba routinely cowered for years,” he said lightly. “There’s always one person that you can never seem to stand up to. I’m just lucky that we won’t be running into mine in a bar.”
Carisi had gone very still, his brow furrowed, and Barba wondered if he was trying to reconcile his personal image of Barba with someone unable to stand up for himself. Barba mentally wished him luck — he’d been trying to reconcile the image for years, with little success. “Your father?” Carisi guessed, and Barba nodded, his expression turning cold.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I had been more capable of standing up to him when he was alive.” He shook his head, staring off into the distance. “15 years, and still—” He broke off, trying to stop his hand from curling into a fist. “According to him, I was never going to amount to anything. I wasn’t even 10 when he first called me un maricón, and that was just the beginning.” He knew Carisi wouldn’t know what the word meant, but figured his tone would translate well enough. “He never liked me very much either. But at least you never tried to change yourself to be something that your ex would like.”
“And you did?” Carisi asked softly.
Barba smiled wanly. “I’ve spent the last thirty years trying to become either a man who would actually be able to stand up to my father or else become a man he’d be proud of so that I wouldn’t have to stand up to him.” He shook his head. “Frankly, I don’t think I’ve succeeded on either end.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Carisi said, his usual confidence back in his voice, and it didn’t escape Barba that twice that night, Carisi’s confidence had only returned when Barba was threatened, and he filed that away for a later conversation. “You could stand up to your father now without changing a thing about yourself.”
Barba made a small, neutral noise, his own skepticism clear in his expression. “Well, it’s a shame that I’ll never get to find out,” he said, instead of giving voice to what he was really thinking.
Carisi looked thoughtful. “Maybe there’s a way that you can.”
“This is patently ridiculous,” Barba said, though his step didn’t falter as he walked with Carisi through Saint Raymond’s Cemetery. “Not to mention a waste of a perfectly good Saturday.”
Carisi’s arm brushed against Barba’s, and Barba had to resist the urge to put his arm around Carisi’s waist. He knew that here, in a Catholic cemetery, there were some gestures Carisi wouldn’t be comfortable with. “It may be ridiculous,” Carisi allowed. “But it might also help.”
Barba shook his head. “If the justice lacking in this world can be found in the afterlife, then my father’s in Hell, and I’m not entirely sure what good talking to a tombstone will do me.”
“Then why’d you agree to come?”
“Why indeed,” Barba muttered, though he gave Carisi a small smile, which disappeared when he saw that they were almost there. True, he had been to his father’s grave exactly twice, for the funeral and for the headstone placement, both at his mother’s behest, but he wasn’t sure that he would ever forget that particular stretch of tombstones.
He paused when he found the stone that echoed his own surname back to him, and he watched dispassionately as Carisi crossed himself and muttered some prayer for his father’s soul next to him. For all the good it would do. After a long moment, Carisi asked quietly, “Do you want me to give you a minute?”
“No,” Barba said, a little sharply, and while what he wanted to say was ‘I don’t know if I can do this alone’, he settled for saying in a softer tone, “You can stay.”
Carisi said nothing in response, though he reached out and touched Barba’s shoulder, and Barba closed his eyes for a brief moment and resisted the urge to lean into the touch. When he reopened his eyes, he stared at the simple inscription on his father’s tombstone, infinitely grateful that his mother had chosen to omit ‘loving father’ from the stone. “Hello, Papi,” he said, his voice strange to his own ears. “I’d apologize for not coming to see you more often, but we both know that’d be a lie. Besides, I didn’t know if I could face you, even here, even if you were here.”
He looked sideways at Carisi, whose head was bowed, his hand still resting on Barba’s shoulder. “You used to tell me, in your kinder moments — such as they were — that you wanted me to have a better life than you. And I’m here to tell you that I do have everything that you claimed you wanted for me: an education, an at least once promising career, at the very least, even someone who loves me.” He paused before adding, “It just doesn’t look anything like what you pictured for me.
“I’m sorry if that disappointed you, knowing who I was, knowing what I was. You certainly took every available opportunity to remind me of that when you were alive. But what I know now that I didn’t know then is that I don’t need your approval. I’ve made myself successful and happy and all of that is despite you trying to force me to be what you wanted me to be. And frankly, if you never understood that, that’s your problem.”
His voice remained calm and measured, shaking only slightly at the end, and Carisi’s hand squeezed his shoulder gently when it did. Brave when Barba needed him to be, as always. Brave when Barba couldn’t be.
“I always wanted you to be proud of me,” Barba said, his voice quiet. “And part of me probably always will. But in the interim, I’ve found people who are proud of me, and honestly, their opinion counts a hell of a lot more than yours ever did.”
With that, he took a step back from the grave, his shoulders stiff, and Carisi’s hand fell from his shoulder. After a tactful moment to let Barba pretend that there weren’t tears in his eyes, Carisi cleared his throat and asked, “So do you feel better?”
“Why, looking forward to an ‘I told you so’ moment?” Barba asked, but his tone was light, teasing, and he was rewarded with a laugh from Carisi. “I don’t feel any worse, at least. Though admittedly it would have been more satisfying to say it to his face and to watch his reaction.”
Carisi laughed again, though this time it was almost rueful. “He’d probably hate me, huh?”
Barba gave Carisi a measured look. “I know how much you love to get people’s approval, but seeking it from a dead man is a new low, Detective.” Carisi made a face but Barba softened his words with a gentle hand splayed against Carisi’s back, just for a moment, as well as telling him, honestly, “He would’ve hated you, at first, but you’d win him over. You have a tendency to do that to us Barbas. You’d take him to a baseball game or something I never would and you’d bond.”
“I don’t think I could ever bond with someone who’s raised a hand to you.”
Carisi said it calmly, pleasantly even, and Barba flashed him a gratified smile. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I was mostly lying. You’ve won over two of the three Barbas; I think going for the whole set would have been overreach. Besides, he hated me too much to ever love someone that I did.”
Something in Carisi’s face tightened, and without hesitation, he put his arm around Barba’s shoulders, tucking him against his side. Barba looked up at him, surprised. “Here?” he asked.
“Here,” Carisi said, with confidence, and Barba was again struck by the fact that it was always for him that Carisi summoned the strongest parts of himself. Barba was going to have to work a lot harder to ensure he reciprocated. “You know, as much of a bastard as your dad was, I kinda have to thank him.”
“For what?” Barba asked with a raised eyebrow.
“You wouldn’t be you if it wasn’t for him,” Carisi said simply. “And I’m not saying that I’m grateful you went through all the shit you did, but I am grateful that you came out of it the way that you did.”
Barba was quiet for a long moment, digesting what Carisi had told him, his chest feeling strangely warm. “Well, I suppose in that regard, I owe your ex my thanks as well.”
Carisi frowned down at him. “Really?”
“Yes. Because if you two hadn’t broken up, you might still have that awful mustache.”
Carisi laughed loudly and pressed a kiss to Barba’s temple. “You know you liked the mustache,” he said lightly.
“Lying is a sin, Carisi, and we’re on consecrated ground,” Barba said in lieu of answering, his smile widening when Carisi just laughed. “Now come on. Let’s go home.”