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Rafael stretched and glanced at the clock, surprised — but not that surprised — to realize that several hours had passed since he had barricaded himself in the guest bedroom that doubled as a study to get work done. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have bothered with the study since he had an excellent little ‘garden view’ office in the Fordham law building — which he was fairly certain used to be a janitor’s closet — for when he really needed to get work done, but when he had packed up his briefcase that morning, Sonny had given him his biggest, saddest puppydog eyes and said, “You leaving?”
“Just for a few hours,” Rafael had assured him. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”
“I always notice when you’re gone,” Sonny had told him, accompanied by those stupid dimples, and what little that remained of Rafael’s willpower had crumbled.
“I can work in the study,” he had offered, and the way Sonny lit up at that suggestion sealed his fate.
And Sonny had even been good, only popping in once to foist some zeppole on him and kiss the top of his head before leaving again.
Which honestly made Rafael feel slightly guilty for neglecting him for the majority of the day.
He stood, glancing over his lesson plan once more before leaving the study and making his way into the kitchen, where he expected to see Sonny hard at work wearing his ridiculous apron and cooking them some absurd dinner or something.
Instead, he was greeted by towering stacks of dishes and bakeware that looked liable to topple at any moment, and Sonny’s superb backside as he balanced on top of the counter to empty the small cabinet above the refrigerator.
He admired the view for only a moment before quickly crossing over to him before Sonny could topple over like one of his stack of dishes. “Hey!” Sonny said cheerfully, passing Rafael the cracked baking dish that had apparently been what he was after in the cupboard. “You done with work?”
“As done as I’m going to be,” Rafael told him, setting the dish on the counter before helping steady Sonny as he clambered down. “Dare I ask what’s going on here?”
Sonny dropped a kiss onto his lips before reaching past him, grabbing the baking dish and setting it triumphantly on top of the larger of the two stacks. “I’m KonMari-ing the kitchen.”
Rafael blinked. “You’re what now?
“KonMari,” Sonny said brightly. “Y’know, Marie Kondo.” When Rafael just stared blankly at him, he laughed lightly. “She’s got this show on Netflix, Tidying Up, and, uh, I binged it.”
Rafael raised an eyebrow, glancing around the kitchen. “And this is your idea of tidying?” he asked.
Sonny laughed again. “This is just step one,” he assured him. “Step two is purging the things that don’t spark joy.”
Rafael nodded slowly. “I see you’re really handling this union-mandated vacation time well.”
Sonny’s smile disappeared, replaced by a scowl. “It’s bullshit and you know it,” he said bluntly. “And if I ever find out who reported SVU to the Detective’s Endowment Association—”
Rafael held his hands up defensively. “Hey, it wasn’t me,” he said. “If I was going to report you, it’d be when you had to work your fourth overtime shift in a row on our anniversary.”
“Fair enough.”
Rafael again glanced around the kitchen and decided now was a good time to change the subject. “So seeing as how it looks like you’re going to be tidying up for awhile, want me to order some take out?”
“Thai, from that place?” Sonny suggested, surveying the kitchen as if he wasn’t entirely sure where to start. “And this could go faster if you helped.”
Rafael snorted. “Yeah, ok. Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass on assisting with purging our perfectly good dishes due to lack of joy.”
He pulled out his phone to order food but before he could so much as pull up Grubhub, Sonny had already stuck his lower lip out in a pout. “You’re the one who’s been on my ass that we need to do a better job of storage.”
“I’m on your ass about more than just that,” Rafael muttered somewhat distractedly.
Sonny rolled his eyes and stepped forward to pluck Rafael’s cellphone out of his hands, ignoring his small noise of protest. “That’s not my point and you know it.”
Rafael sighed but made no attempt to grab his cellphone back, having tried and lost this particular battle more times than he cared to dignify by thinking about it. “I’ve only brought it up because we happen to own a lot of things and we need to find better ways to store them, ways where they aren’t liable to bust open the cabinets in the middle of the night,” he said. “Not because I think we need to get rid of every baking dish or sugar bowl in our kitchen.”
He leaned in to kiss Sonny lightly, using it as an opportunity to grab his cellphone back and start to head towards their bedroom, Sonny hot on his heels. “Why do you suddenly care about the dishes?” Sonny asked. “You don’t even cook! Seriously, if you can tell me the last time you used that baking dish, I will give you the best blowjob you have ever gotten in your life.”
“I admire your confidence,” Rafael said dryly, sitting down on the bed and pointedly not looking at Sonny. “You want potstickers?”
“The hell kind of asinine question is that? Of course I want potstickers. And you’re evading the question, Counselor.”
Rafael glanced up at him, small smile curving the corners of his mouth. “You haven’t called me that in awhile. It still has a much nicer ring to it than ‘professor’. I’ve missed it.”
He reached out to pull Sonny to him, but Sonny deftly stepped away, still scowling. “No, you’ve missed the lawyer sex. I prefer the professor sex. You have less layers I have to take off, and you get significantly less angry when I accidentally pop the buttons on one of your cardigans than your dress shirts.”
“True,” Rafael mused, reaching out for Sonny again, grinning when Sonny let him pull him in this time. “But you know what we haven’t done in awhile that we should?”
His fingers crept under Sonny’s shirt and the breath seemed to catch in Sonny’s chest. “Let me guess, something about my handcuffs around your wrists?”
Rafael’s grin turned feral. “Good boy,” he practically purred.
Sonny caught the wrists in question and held them in place. “You know what else we haven’t done in awhile?”
“What?” Rafael asked, his voice low.
“Cleaned out the cabinets in the kitchen.”
Rafael’s grin disappeared and he yanked his hands out of Sonny’s grasp. “Hilarious,” he muttered, tugging his cardigan off before standing and brushing past Sonny to hang it in the closet.
“Or it doesn’t have to be the kitchen,” Sonny told him, following him to the closet and resting his hands against Rafael’s hips as he grabbed a hanger. “You could start here! Go through your clothes. Or, hell, you could just start with your ties, since you barely even wear a suit anymore these days. Not to mention there’s, y’know, no reason anyone would ever need to own as many ties as you do.”
“Objection,” Rafael murmured lazily, and Sonny rolled his eyes before kissing his shoulder.
“Withdrawn. But c’mon, you can’t tell me that you can’t afford to get rid of at least a few ties.”
Rafael sighed. “If it’ll make you happy,” he grumbled, “I suppose I could afford to get rid of a few.”
Sonny grinned. “Remember, though, it’s about making you happy,” he told Rafael, watching as Rafael brought his entire tie collection to the bed and looked at it critically. “Keep the ones that spark joy, get rid of the ones that don’t.”
Though Rafael rolled his eyes, he nonetheless started divvying up his ties into two piles. Sonny perched on the edge of the bed, watching as he did, something like surprise flitting across his face with the ease at which Rafael made the separation. He hesitated over very few ties, and even when he did, his hesitation was momentary at most.
After hardly any time at all, Rafael took a step back and looked at the piles critically. “There,” he said, with satisfaction. “That’s the keep pile, that’s the get rid of pile.”
Sonny stood and moved to stand next to him before looking from the piles to him, eyebrows raised. “Seriously? You sure?”
“I prefer not to overthink my decisions,” Rafael informed him, somewhat dryly.
“I mean, maybe you should. After all, do you really need two blue-striped ties?” Sonny asked, picking up two such ties off the top of the keep pile.
“Yes,” Rafael said, snatching them back. “I’m supposed to be keeping what sparks joy, aren’t I?”
“And identical blue-striped ties spark joy?”
Rafael knew he was teasing, but he still gave him a look. “Firstly, they’re not identical. Secondly, yes.” He held up the first one. “This tie is the tie I was wearing when — well, you remember that whole thing with the belt in the courtroom, right?”
Sonny chuckled. “Of course. Biggest regret of my life not being able to witness it first hand.”
“Exactly my point. And this one—” Rafael’s expression softened. “This is the tie I was wearing when I met you.”
Sonny’s brow furrowed. “That’s not true,” he said. “I remember the tie you were wearing because, well, I don’t think I could ever forget thinking how gorgeous you were.” He paused. “Or how you managed to insult me within fifteen seconds of meeting.”
Rafael smirked. “I am talented that way. And I suppose you’re technically correct, I didn’t officially meet you while wearing this tie. But Liv and I shared an Uber back to the precinct that day — we had gone to see Lil Tito in lockup, and I was dropping her off before heading to One Hogan Place — and I saw you walking into the precinct and I remember asking her who that was, and…”
He trailed off and Sonny’s grin softened. “Just like that, huh?”
“Yeah,” Rafael said, tossing both ties back on the ‘keep’ pile. “Just like that.”
Sonny ducked his head for a moment before clearing his throat. “So, what, is the keep pile your ‘win’ pile and the purge pile your ‘loss’ pile?”
Rafael shrugged. “For the most part, keeping in mind that I did wear several ties more than once. But the losses that stuck out…” He smoothed a hand over a rust-colored paisley tie. “Like this one. This is the one I was wearing when Micha Green testified before the Grand Jury.”
“Micha Green?” Sonny repeated, brow furrowing again. “The singer?”
Rafael nodded. “That was when she lied to the Grand Jury about what her boyfriend did to her, and then he killed her.” He clenched his fist, watching the silk scrunch in his grasp. “It’s always the ones you can’t save…”
Sonny slid his hand lightly down Rafael’s arm to rest on top of his fist, and slowly, Rafael relaxed. “I get it,” Sonny said softly.
“But not every loss ended up in the purge pile,” Rafael said, after a long moment, and he snagged a different tie from the keep pile. “This is the tie I was wearing when I met Rita Calhoun at Forlini’s after she and Liv helped a mother flee the country with her infant after her rapist won visitation rights.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t put him away, but this tie reminds me that sometimes, there are other types of justice in this world.”
“I get that, too,” Sonny said quietly. He glanced over the keep pile, frowning when he picked up a silver number. “Isn’t this the tie you wore to Mike Dodds’ funeral? Why are you keeping it?”
Rafael shrugged. “As depressing as funerals normally are, that day meant a lot to me.”
Sonny arched an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because that was the day you looked me in the eye and you told me that I was safe with you,” Rafael said softly, running his fingers lightly over the silk. “And that was when I knew that I was. That I always would be.” He shrugged. “And that was the day I knew it was you. That it would always be you.”
Sonny reached out to gently tilt Rafael’s chin upwards, and he looked at him for a long moment before kissing him lightly. “Sorry it took me so long to figure out the same thing.”
Rafael smiled slightly. “You got there in the end. Which is the important thing.”
“Yeah, me and all my bakeware got here in the end,” Sonny quipped with a small grin, but Rafael just shook his head.
“Yeah, your bakeware did get here, and while I’ve never laid a finger on it except to do the dishes, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t care that you want to get rid of it.” Sonny opened his mouth as if to argue but Rafael didn’t give him the chance. “I mean, that baking dish? The one you said you’d trade a blowjob for me remembering when I’ve used it? I haven’t, and there’s a very real chance that I absolutely never will. But you have. You made me lasagna in that dish the second night after you moved i because you couldn’t figure out where any of my baking stuff was and it was the first thing you could find in the boxes you hadn’t yet unpacked.”
“How—” Sonny’s voice cracked. “How do you remember that?”
Rafael shrugged, feeling his face heat slightly. “I just do.” Sonny stared at him for a long moment before he turned as if to head out of their bedroom. Rafael caught his hand, holding him in place. “Where are you going?”
“To put everything back in the kitchen,” Sonny told him, his voice low.
Rafael blinked. “What? Why?”
Sonny shrugged. “Because I love you,” he said simply. “Because you’re what sparks joy in me, far more than having a decluttered kitchen ever could.”
“I thought you wanted to clean out the kitchen.”
“I do and we still will,” Sonny said firmly, turning back to him and pulling him close. “But we’re gonna do it together.” He leaned in and kissed him before adding, “Because your sentimental ass is gonna find joy in the sugar bowl or something, and I don’t wanna throw anything like that out. “
Rafael just shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Sonny said. “And I just want to make you happy.”
“You already do.”
Sonny grinned. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
Sonny’s grin widened. “Do I spark joy in you, Raf?” he teased. “As much joy as that sugar bowl?”
Rafael rolled his eyes. “Hilarious,” he said dryly, kissing Sonny once more before pushing him away and telling him, “I’m going to shower before the food gets here.” He turned and headed toward the bathroom, pausing in the doorway. “Oh, and Sonny? Definitely don’t throw that sugar bowl out.”
It was Sonny’s turn to roll his eyes. “You know that I was just kidding about that—”
“Don’t worry, it sparks no joy in me,” Rafael assured him with a laugh. “But I suspect it might spark some joy in you.”
Sonny blinked. “Well that’s cryptic.”
Rafael just laughed again before disappearing into the bathroom.
Sonny stared after him for a long moment before shaking his head and returning to the kitchen when he surveyed the damage done and sighed. He opened the cabinets and started returning things to their previous places as he heard the shower turn on.
When he got to the sugar bowl and little creamer pitcher, he paused, staring at it critically as if trying to figure out why the hell Rafael thought it would bring him joy.
Sure, the stupid thing had probably witnessed a great number of bickering fights about Sonny’s sugar intake from its spot on the counter before he had put it away in the cabinet after he stopped putting sugar in his coffee — at home at least, but when Rafael wasn’t there to watch, he added whatever the hell he wanted to his coffee — but that hardly seemed likely to spark much joy.
He stared at it for a moment more before shrugging and lifting it to return it to its spot on the shelf. As he did, he accidentally dislodged the lid of the bowl, which fell and hit his head. “Shit,” he swore, setting the sugar bowl back on the counter and grabbing the lid with a scowl.
A scowl that disappeared when he saw the small velvet ring box sitting in the sugar bowl.
He lifted the ring box out of the bowl, smile breaking across his face as he flipped it open to reveal the simple golden ring. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed, shaking his head with something like wonder, because of course the damn sugar bowl was the one place Rafael knew Sonny wouldn’t look.
He was tempted to go straight to Rafael, to make him propose properly then and there, but as he glanced up toward the bedroom, he could just hear the strains of Rafael singing in the shower: “Sugar pie, honey bunch, you know that I love you — can’t help myself, I love you and nobody else.”
Sonny rolled his eyes, but he was beaming, and he carefully set the ring box back in the sugar bowl before replacing it in the cabinet. “Son of a bitch,” he repeated, grinning up at it like an idiot.
As usual, Rafael was right.
The damn sugar bowl sparked a lot of joy.