Work Text:
“Jesse, don’t do that,” he hears before the door swings open and Sonny’s eyes meet his, red-rimmed and tired. “Rafael,” he says, surprised, then steps aside and motions the other man in.
Rafael steps over the entryway, closing the door behind him, and follows Sonny into the main living room of the house. “Thought I’d bring you and the girls some dinner tonight,” he says with a smile, setting the takeout boxes on the table. “Something better than pizza, that you won’t have to cook.”
“Uncle Wafi?” Jesse says shyly, peering at him from around the corner in the hallway.
“Hi Jesse.” He waves at the little girl, smiling. It’s been a long time since he’s seen her–since he and Carisi broke up three years ago. Back then, she was a tiny preschooler who was lively and loud and adored her Uncle Sonny.
Back then, he adored Uncle Sonny, too.
But life brings nothing for certain but change, and now he finds himself standing in his ex-lover’s apartment, trying to figure out a way to comfort Sonny at one of the worst times in his life. Jesse’s mother is currently in the ICU due to a gunshot wound, and while she’s still alive, they’re all anxiously holding their breaths that she stays that way.
“I wasn’t sure if there was anything else you’d need right away,” he hears himself say, walking toward the couch where Sonny is sitting. He takes a seat next to him, and he can see the man’s jaw is trembling. Instinctively, he leans forward, into Sonny’s space. “You can’t do this in front of them, Dominick,” he whispers, hoping Jesse isn’t able to hear. “They can’t see you fall apart, or they will too.”
Sonny’s eyes dart up to his, and he gives a curt nod, indicating his understanding. “I just left the hospital,” he says, wiping roughly at his eyes. “Got here an hour ago…they told me she needed rest, I needed to go.” He lets out a long, shaky sigh. “I don’t know what to do.”
Rafael glances around the tiny apartment, at its semi-organized messiness, then back at Sonny. Sonny, who he used to think was capable of making it through just about anything, because of his ability to remain optimistic, to see the good in people. Sonny, who he used to envy for his ability to give so easily of himself to anyone in need. “You’re going to go to the bedroom and shut the door,” he says evenly, “and then you’re going to take a shower and relax. After that, you’re going to lay down and take a nap, because I know you haven’t slept since this started. Then, when you wake up, you’re going to come out here and eat the dinner I brought you, and we’ll talk. If you want. If you don’t, that’s fine…the talking, I mean. The rest isn’t up for debate.”
Carisi’s tired blue eyes widen. “Are you sure? You’ve always said kids make you nervous–”
“And if I have an anxiety attack, I’ll send one of them to tell you,” he retorts in his usual style, bringing a much-needed grin to Sonny’s face. “Go on, now. You don’t have all night here.”
Sonny follows the instructions, hauling his ass off the couch slowly and awkwardly (as Rafael notices that time weighs in even on the pretty ones), and heads toward the bedroom. Rafael stands and walks to the hallway entrance to watch him, and when Sonny enters the bedroom, he smiles at Rafael, then closes the door.
Jesse is still standing in the hallway. “Where’d Uncle Sonny go?” she asks softly, and Rafael kneels down to her level.
“He’s going to rest a little while, and I”m going to stay and take care of you for awhile,” he tells her, smiling, and she slowly returns a smile back. “Now why don’t you show me where your sister is? She’s awfully quiet.”
Now Jesse giggles. “Cause she’s reading to Frannie,” the little girl tells him, then skips down to the opposite end of the hallway. He follows her into the last room.
A tiny preschooler who reminds him exactly of Cindy Lou Who is sitting on the floor, leaning against Frannie’s wide side. “‘Whee! Say D an’ E, F, K, G,” the little girl says, pretending to read the book. She suddenly stops to look up at him, blue eyes larger than her sister’s. “Who you?”
“That’s Uncle Wafi,” Jesse tells her. “It’s time for dinner, Billie…Uncle Wafi brought us somethin’ good to eat!”
Noting the same suspicious glare in Billie’s eyes that he’d seen on her mother’s many a time, Rafael doesn’t waste a moment to convince her. “That’s right! It’s really good dinner! And I bet you’re hungry, huh, Billie?” He starts to reach for her, but the little girl gets up on her own. “Why don’t you girls wash your hands, and I’ll get the food on the table, okay?”
“Okay,” Jesse tells him, and takes her sister by the hand, leading her out of the bedroom and into the bathroom next door.
He heads into the kitchen, ready to unpack the bags and spread out the feast he can’t wait to enjoy.
***
“What dis stuff?” Billie pokes at the rigatoni with her fork, as Rafael and Jesse dig in heartily. “Dis yucky.”
“It’s good,” her big sister tells her, stabbing a piece of italian sausage with her fork. “I like it, Uncle Wafi. Thanks for bringin’ us dinner!”
This child has changed a lot in the last three years, he thinks, remembering a time when the only noodles she’d eat were from a blue box mac and cheese. Now she’s enjoying caesar salad, the rigatoni with sausage, and artisan bread, one of Sonny’s favorite meals. “Did you know this is one of your Uncle Sonny’s favorites?” he tells the girls. “He used to eat this all the time when he lived at my house.”
Jesse giggles. “I remember your house, Uncle Wafi! Before you went away!” Suddenly she grows quiet, and her brow furrows in worry. “Is he gonna move back with you?”
Rafael shakes his head and smiles, despite the fact his chest immediately tightens. “No, honey. He lives with you girls and your mom now. I think he likes it here a lot.”
Jesse grins at him. “Yeah! I think so too! And I like it, too, ‘cause he always reads with me and tells me funny stories and…and he makes me laugh! Usually,” she adds, taking another bite of her sausage.
“I no wike dis stuff,” Billie says again, spitting a piece of sausage out of her mouth onto her plate. “Yucky…it bited my mouf!”
“It bit your mouth?” Rafael repeats, confused, watching her trying to wipe her tongue off with her hand. “Oh!” he suddenly says, chuckling. “It’s too spicy for you! Hang on, Billie.” He gets up, grabs a couple napkins and some milk, along with a new sippy cup. “Try this, honey,” he tells her, handing her the new cup of milk and dabbing her chin with the napkin. After several sips, she puts down the cup and lets out a loud sigh. “Better?” he asks, trying not to laugh.
She nods. “Bettuh. I no eat dis yuck stuff.” She pushes her plate away.
“Fair enough.” He’s not about to make a kid eat something that burns her mouth. Handing her a piece of bread, he says, “Start with this. I’ll find you something else.”
“She likes peanut butter banana burritos,” Jesse volunteers, and Rafael turns to look at her, once again completely lost. “You put peanut butter on the tortilla,” she explains, “then lay the banana in the middle. Uncle Sonny makes ‘em for breakfast and she eats one almost every day!”
Following Jesse’s instructions, Rafael makes a new meal for Billie, who happily digs in as soon as it hits her plate. He and Jesse make impressive work on their own meals, and when everyone’s done, Rafael puts a plate aside for Sonny, wrapped in the fridge, then leaves the rest to clean up after the girls go to bed.
***
“I want Unta Sonny wead me,” Billie tells him as he’s getting her into bed. “I no want you.”
“That’s not nice, Billie,” Jesse admonishes her sister, who’s sharing a bed with her this evening. “Uncle Sonny is takin’ a nap, and Uncle Wafi is tryin’ to help.”
Billie scrunches her face up angrily. “I want Unca Sonny wead me!” she demands.
“He can’t do that right now, honey,” Rafael tells the toddler as gently as he can, keeping his fingers crossed that she doesn’t wake Sonny up. “Maybe your sister can read to you. Would you like that?”
Billie looks at Jesse for a moment, who’s already reading a beloved copy of The Boxcar Children. Then she looks back at Rafael and says, “I want Momma wead.”
Rafael feels the choking hand of fear and uncertainty wrap around his throat at that moment, gazing at Amanda’s youngest child and not knowing if her mother will truly return to her. He swallows heavily, trying to force himself to respond, but Jesse once again saves the day. She wraps an arm around her little sister.
“I know, Billie. Me too. But Momma can’t right now…remember? She’s at the hospital, gettin’ all better. We gotta be brave girls, like Uncle Sonny said, okay?”
Billie's big blue eyes, watery with tears, focus on her sister and she nods. “Tay. I be bwave girl wif you, sissy.”
Jesse smiles and nods. “Wanna come here for a snuggle? I’ll read you Boxcar Children, like Uncle Sonny reads to me. It’s good, I promise.”
Rafael watches the girls rearrange themselves; Jesse opens one arm so Billie can curl up next to her, and uses the other hand to hold the book, then starts to read somewhere in the middle of the third chapter. He stands and steps into the hallway for just a moment to wipe his eyes.
***
It’s close to eleven, and Rafael is sitting on Rollins’ couch, watching some documentary he found on Netflix about the legalization of weed. He was looking for something as far away from the reality of his day today that he could, and he thinks he found it. He’s able to employ his professional, logical brain, and focus on something with absolutely no connection to the evening he’s spent with two little girls and his ex-lover, all possibly losing the woman they love the most in the world.
It feels surreal to think about it. There was a time, before Drew Householder, that Rafael had thought that Sonny might just be his end game. He’d actually dared to imagine words like marriage and family in their story. He’d even allowed himself to look at rings. But then he got lost somewhere between what was moral and what was ethical, deciding he would far prefer to be a moral man beyond the ethics of what the law allowed. He’d sued an airline. He’d withdrawn a rape charge when he, one man, decided the truth could never be determined.
And then he’d unplugged a brain-dead baby that wasn’t even his.
He’d been like Icarus, flying higher and higher toward the sun, thinking he was mighty, he realizes now, and the inevitable crash had destroyed everything in its wake. A twenty plus year career in the District Attorney’s office; a golden-boy reputation. A tenuous relationship with his mother, and so many people whom he used to call friends. And Sonny. It destroyed his relationship with Sonny, and that had hurt him the most of all.
Truthfully, it hadn’t been his crash and burn that decimated the only love he’d known. No; truthfully, it had been when he fled, leaving the wreckage–and Sonny–behind him as he tried to remember who he’d once been. He first fled to Miami, then Cuba, connecting with family, some he’d never known, before returning to the states to repair things with his mami. They’d met in a bustling cafe in South Beach, where she’d forgiven him and held him as he sobbed on her shoulder. Then he rented a car and drove. From Florida to Alabama and Mississippi; he drove on to New Orleans and spent two weeks there. He listened to jazz in Preservation Hall and ate beignets at Cafe du Monde before heading north through Arkansas and Missouri. He was on the tip of Iowa when it was time for the caucuses and on a whim, decided to apply for a position to do some legal work. He got it and rented a small, one-bedroom apartment in Des Moines, then worked his ass off for as long as they’d have him. And he healed. He got better. He talked to Olivia Benson again, and eventually, he called Sonny.
And Sonny Carisi was nothing if not predictable. He’d already forgiven Rafael. Why? Because he loved him, and could never wish him anything but the best. Because that’s who Sonny was.
Since he’d been back, Rafael had made a point to invite Sonny to an occasional dinner out. He wanted to repair what used to be before they were involved–a friendship he’d valued. He also wanted Sonny to know that he respected his current relationship with Amanda. And over the last couple years, they had regrown a tenuous friendship, enough that Rafael had felt comfortable to bring takeout over tonight, to try to help Sonny in a moment of struggle.
The documentary about weed is winding up, and Rafael finds himself wondering if it might be better to give up scotch in favor of marijuana. Just as he’s pondering the pro’s and con’s, he feels the weight of an adult sink in on the far end of the couch.
“Hey,” Sonny says, a sleepy smile on his face. “The girls go down okay?”
Rafael smiles back. “Yeah. That Jesse, though…she’s really grown. What a great kid, Sonny.”
Sonny’s smile grows, almost as though Jesse is his own. “Yeah. She really is. Both of them are such good girls…Rollins is so hard on herself, thinking she’s not such a great mom. But all I see is two little girls who are incredibly loved.”
Rafael thinks about how involved Sonny has always been with Rollins’ kids. It used to occasionally be a bone of contention when they were together; Rafael would get annoyed, sometimes feeling that a little baby was more important to his lover than he was. Now, as he’s looking at Sonny, he gets it. Sonny is where he’s supposed to be. Maybe where he was always supposed to be.
“I’ve got your dinner in the fridge,” he hears himself rambling. “I brought you rigatoni and caesar salad from Sal’s. Jesse loved it, but I’m afraid the sausage was too spicy for Billie.”
“Oh?” Sonny chuckles. “Did she tell you it was yucky?”
Rafael chuckles in return, remembering the toddler’s face of disgust. “Actually, she told me it bit her. It took me a minute, but I figured it out and got her some milk. And don’t worry, she had a peanut butter banana burrito instead. I understand that’s your specialty in the mornings.”
Sonny’s already made his way to the kitchen and is heating up the food. He laughs. “Yeah, that’s her favorite. It’s easy and healthy, so I just figure why not?” Grabbing the plate from the microwave, he gets a fork, then looks over to Rafael. “You want any of this?”
Rafael shakes his head. “I ate with the girls.”
Sonny rejoins him on the couch, and they talk about everything that’s nothing–Sonny’s favorite ball teams, Rafael’s favorite musical of the season, how Sonny’s nieces are doing, and how Lucia is enjoying retirement, until at last Rafael forces himself to ask. “Do they think she’s going to make it?” he asks, immediately afraid he’s going to make Sonny cry.
But Sonny doesn’t. “Yeah,” he replies. “They think she will. God willing, you know? I mean, the girls need her, Rafi. There’s no one in the world who can take her place with them. She knows that, though, and she’s fightin’. When I saw her earlier tonight, she knew. She’ll make it,” he repeats, nodding to himself.
“Good, that’s good,” Rafael tells him. “You know they need you too, right? The three of them?”
Sonny’s eyes dart up from the plate to his ex-lover’s, and Rafael swallows hard. “Yeah,” Sonny says then. It’s quiet but firm.
“Yeah,” Rafael repeats.
They sit in the silence for a long moment. It’s big and it’s little, it’s everything and it’s nothing, the way it sometimes is with people who are the most important ones.
“So,” Sonny clears his throat. “What the hell is this that you were just watchin?”
Rafael looks at the TV, seeing the description of the documentary up, and laughs. He summarizes the program as Sonny finishes his rigatoni.
“If you need anything,” Rafael says as he stands from the couch, “you know my number. My hours are odd sometimes, so don’t hesitate to call anytime. I’ll get back to you if I don’t answer.”
Sonny follows him to the door. “Thanks,” he says, then sighs. “Really, Rafi. Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate this tonight…I needed it more than I realized.” Taking a couple more steps forward, he crosses his arms in front of himself. “You didn’t have to do this…why? Why did you?”
Rafael smiles fondly at the younger man. “Because of everything you’ve done for me. Because you’re my friend. Because I could. Because I care about you and Rollins and the girls.” He lets out a sigh. “Because I’ll always love you.”
It’s perhaps more truth than Sonny was expecting, but a soft smile creeps across his face. “I love you too, Rafi. Thanks.”
Rafael opens the door to leave. “Tell Rollins I’m…praying for her.”
Sonny nods. “I will.” He watches Rafael step out and head down the stairs of the walkup. “Thanks for the rigatoni,” he calls, and Rafael turns and grins, then nods, before heading into the street.