Work Text:
He’s staring.
Rafael knows he’s staring, and he knows that he should stop, should shake himself out of it and stop standing in her doorway like an idiot. He can’t quite manage it though, because Olivia is wearing a dress.
It’s not that he’s never seen her dressed up before, but not like this, not really. This is a dress , one that hugs her curves and leaves exactly the right amount to the imagination, and up until this exact moment he never would have thought about it as something that a person would wear out to dinner with a friend. She’s redone her makeup since he saw her this afternoon too, her hair pulled back away from her face, and Rafael realizes that the ache in his chest is being caused by some combination of the simple act of looking at her and the fact that he can’t seem to manage a full breath while doing so.
“I feel underdressed,” he jokes, and Olivia looks back at him over her shoulder as she heads towards the kitchen, which is just about enough to stop his heart.
“First time for everything.” She looks over him from head to toe, and he chooses to blame his slight dizziness on the fact that he still can’t quite get a full breath. “You look good.”
“Just trying to keep up with you. Apparently,” he adds after a moment, wondering if maybe she’ll clue him in to what exactly is happening.
Stop it. There doesn’t have to be a reason. Maybe she just felt like dressing up.
“Where’s Noah?”
“Lucy’s taking him to a movie.”
“Oh. That’s nice.”
“He’s been wanting to go all week. This seemed like a good opportunity.”
She’s been puttering around in the kitchen, doing something that he can’t see, and she hasn’t looked at him since the once over. He decides he should probably address what he’s pretty sure is the elephant in the room.
“I’m sorry if I made things more complicated between you and Carisi on this case.”
“It’s fine. Everything turned out alright in the end.”
“I know, you guys did a good job. I just… It’s what I would have done and I agreed with Carisi that it was the right thing to do, but it still felt like I was sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. I’m sorry about that.”
“You know I’m not upset with you for helping Carisi when he’s the one who asked for your advice.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “You can’t just accept my apology?”
“You never would have apologized when we worked together.”
“I might’ve.” She glances at him quickly, and he fights the ridiculous urge to move so that he can duck and twist his way back into her eye line. “Things are different now.”
“I’m well aware of that, Barba.”
The words drop between them with an almost audible thunk, and Rafael winces. She’s finally looking at him, but her expression is blank, and he fights to keep his own face from giving away too much. After a few seconds, she sighs, shaking her head.
“It doesn’t really matter. The better Carisi gets at disagreeing with me and supporting his point, the better we both are at our jobs. I’m not going to hold him asking you for advice against either of you.”
It does matter though, because there’s something off between them. Not all the time, but any time he gets near the precinct or the courthouse, it’s like they lose their footing; it’s not just about any involvement he might have in their cases either, because the other day he’d picked up Noah to watch him for the afternoon and Olivia had looked at him like he was a ghost, even though she’d been expecting him. He’d think they were on solid ground, and then he’d show up at his former workplace and it was suddenly like he was running on sand or trying to scramble up one of the snow piles he’d climbed as a kid. He could find his footing given the chance-- everything always went back to normal between them within a couple days-- but those moments of precariousness left him breathless and unsure.
Rafael doesn’t like feeling precarious with Olivia.
He’d thought that if he tried talking about it, they could work through whatever it was, or he could at least figure out what it was in the first place. But maybe he’d made a mistake in even bringing it up, because now Olivia is just staring at him from across the apartment, and he’s no closer to understanding what keeps happening between them. And she’s still wearing that dress.
“So, dinner?” he says, running a hand through his hair with a laugh. Obviously this isn’t getting resolved tonight, and he wants to enjoy the dinner he’s been looking forward to for weeks.
But Olivia is still just looking at him, her expression having shifted again to the look she wears when she’s trying to see right through him. He fights the urge to squirm, not wanting to give anything away when she’s being so inscrutable, but it feels like she’s trying to pry his ribs open. It’s his own fault, for gesturing towards the occasional awkwardness between them instead of sticking to any number of safe topics, but it’s absolutely unfair for her to act like there’s nothing happening and then look at him like this.
“Liv…” he says, closing his eyes because surely that will make this easier, but he has no idea what he actually wants to say. He can hear Olivia’s footsteps, but he doesn’t open his eyes until he realizes she is walking towards him.
She’s moving with purpose, and he starts to shift out of her way, assuming that she’s headed for the door. She reaches him before he can move though, and he freezes as, without a moment’s hesitation, she brings her hands up to his face and presses her mouth against his. Her momentum and his shock means that he unbalances a little, scrambling to catch hold of her arms in order to avoid the both of them ending up on the floor and, more importantly, so he can kiss her back properly. He shifts to fit their mouths together more comfortably and Olivia makes a soft sound that makes his knees weak as he moves his hands from her arms to her waist.
When they finally break apart, Rafael is dizzy and both of them are gasping for breath. He leans his forehead against hers, reluctant to put too much space between them.
“Liv…”
“We had that argument earlier, and then I spent most of the afternoon realizing I’ve been trying to hold on to you all wrong. I’m so tired of wasting time and losing people, and I wanted so badly for you not to be one of them that I thought if I just acted like nothing had really changed, we’d be fine. But you kept showing up, at the precinct, at the courthouse, all those places that used to be ours , and it’s like I’m seeing you and your ghost at the same time, like everything is just slightly out of place. And I…” She falters for just a moment, brushing her thumb across his bottom lip, and he shivers, his hands tightening at her waist.
“You were the best partner I ever had. For the work, for me, for the way we made each other better. I loved working with you, and I miss it just about every day. But I don’t want things to go back to being exactly the same, and I don’t want to be scared like I was then anymore. You’re my best friend, and I just want you. So yeah, dinner sounds good.”
Rafael laughs, in complete disbelief that he’s found himself in this moment.
“Is that- Are you- The dress?”
“I thought maybe if I just acted like it was a date, you’d figure it out. You usually do.”
“Liv, you’ve looked fantastic every time we’ve ever gone out to dinner.”
She rolls her eyes, but then she leans in to kiss him again, one hand sliding back into his hair.
“Does that clear things up?” she asks, and he laughs again.
“Yeah, I think I’ve picked up on the subtleties.” He rests his forehead against hers again, closing his eyes for a moment as he tries to gather his scattered thoughts. “You don’t need to try to hold on to me. You’ve got me, as long as you’ll have me and however you want me.
“I wish I hadn’t needed to leave, because you didn’t deserve that, but so many things in my life had been shattered and you were already trying to jump in front of the debris. It was never about leaving your life though, Liv, not for one second. I can’t even imagine anyone ever having you in their life and not doing whatever it takes to make sure you stay in it.”
Olivia wraps her arms around his waist and tucks her face in against his shoulder.
“You’d be surprised.”
“I’d be flabbergasted.” He presses a kiss against her temple and then moves his hands to her arms so he can move her back enough to meet her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, whether you’re wearing nice dresses or not.”
“Yeah?” she asks, voice soft, and he shakes his head as she leans in to kiss him again. She presses closer, deepening the kiss as she swipes her tongue across his bottom lip. After a few minutes, she pulls away with a smile and a shuddering sigh.
“Okay, we should get to dinner before you distract me.”
Rafael grins, leaning in to kiss the turn of her jaw. “I don’t know, distracting you sounds like more fun.”
Olivia shoves at one of his shoulders lightly. “I’m sure it does, but I’m hungry.” She kisses him softly once more, then reaches to take his hand and lace their fingers together. “You can distract me all you want later.”
“Sounds like a deal,” he says, his cheeks starting to ache from the size of his grin, and he lifts their joined hands to press a kiss against the back of hers. “So, dinner?”
She rolls her eyes again, but she’s still smiling herself as she tugs him towards the front door.