Chapter Text
“Hey. Hey, what about me?” Carisi complained, maintaining his UC persona as Amaro exited the holding cell.
“Hey, shut up, you made us miss the game,” Amaro replied, seeming to Carisi to be enjoying his own continuation of the UC scenario just a bit too much.
Carisi slumped back onto the holding cell’s bench. It wasn’t just his UC persona who wanted to get out of here. His whole face hurt. Was it possible for eyelashes to hurt? Because it felt like his did. Whoever that guy was who’d pistol-whipped him (who was, incidentally, standing right next to him in this very holding cell; he was trying to maintain as much of a distance between them as was possible in such a small space) had got him good. And now he was stuck in this holding cell with no idea of what was going on in the squad room.
Leaning back against the wall, he moved the ice pack to another one of the many sore spots on his face and winced. Jesus, he hoped his nose wasn’t broken. He probed his teeth cautiously with his tongue; it didn’t feel like any of them were loose. He opened and closed his jaw a few times, pleased and mildly surprised to find that it seemed to be working as it should. Everything still hurt like hell, but he supposed he should be thankful for small mercies.
Just when he thought he’d been starting to earn the rest of the squad’s respect, this goes and happens. Since being promoted to Detective, he’d bounced around from precinct to precinct, from squad to squad, before landing at the 1-6. Everywhere else he’d worked, he’d never really felt like one of the team. He knew he could seem … over-eager. Abrasive, even. But it was just because he wanted so badly to bring down the perp they were currently chasing.
This squad seemed to get that, and he appreciated Sergeant Benson’s occasional (albeit often fruitless) attempts to point him in a more diplomatic direction (politics was clearly not his strong suit), because he knew she was just as dedicated to getting the bad guy as he was.
What he hadn’t expected that first day he’d strolled into the 1-6, zeppole in hand, was that he’d find himself a squad that really had his back. People who might, one day, become his friends. Something else he hadn’t expected was Detective Amanda Rollins. Or, more precisely, what he was feeling for Detective Amanda Rollins. He knew he had a bit of a crush on her. Alright, he had the mother of all crushes on her. How could he not? She wasn’t just easy on the eye, she was a damn good detective and he was learning a lot from working with her. He knew she found him annoying, but he’d felt like she’d been starting to thaw towards him recently – she had backed him over Amaro in that Glasgowman case a few months back.
Still, he knew better than to let his feelings show; he kept it professional at work, and if he had woken up a few nights sweaty and half-aroused, with an image of Rollins’ face lingering in his brain, well, no-one except him was going to know. He’d just keep his head down, work hard, and these feelings would fade in time. It was just a crush, after all.
He moved the ice pack around again, leaned back against the wall and resigned himself to being stuck in here for the foreseeable future. The holding cell door opened; he looked up hopefully. It was Amaro again, this time pointing at the guy who’d smacked Carisi in the face. “You’re up. C’mon.”
Carisi tried again. “So when do I get out of here?”
“When you stop being such a pain in the ass. Or when your lawyer gets here. I don’t see the first one happening anytime soon, so it’ll probably be option number two,” said Amaro, looking back over his shoulder at Carisi.
Yep, Amaro was really enjoying keeping up the UC scenario. Carisi sank back against the wall and spent the next thirty minutes trying not to think about how much his face hurt.
A clanking sound heralded the holding cell’s door opening once more, and Carisi looked up to see Rollins standing on the threshold. She pointed at him. “You. Your lawyer is here. I’m here to take you up to an interview room.”
Thank God. Carisi stood up, feeling slightly dizzy for a second, then followed her out of the holding cell.
Amanda led him to the break room. Once they were inside, she turned and looked him up and down. “You look terrible.”
Tonight just kept getting better and better. “Thanks, Rollins, that’s just what I needed to hear right now.”
Her face softened slightly. “Come on,” she said, “I’ll patch you up.”
“I’m fine,” he protested. “Just get me some aspirin.” The very last thing he needed right now was her hands on him.
“Carisi, you are most definitely not fine. Have you seen yourself in a mirror? You’ve got blood all over your face, and, for the sake of politeness, I wasn’t going to mention that bit of Kleenex hanging out of your nose, but if it will get you to sit down and shut up, I will. You look ridiculous. Sit.” She pointed sternly at a chair, the expression on her face brooking no argument.
Still, he tried. “No, really, you don’t have to …”
“Carisi. Sit.”
He sat.
Amanda went over to the first aid cabinet and pulled out alcohol swabs, antiseptic and gauze pads. She sat in the chair across from him, ripped open the pack of an alcohol swab and started dabbing firmly at the side of his nose.
He recoiled instinctively. “Ow! Take it easy, will ya?”
“Oh, stop being such a baby,” she scolded. “Come back here.” Despite the irritation in her tone, her touch was gentler when she resumed dabbing at his nose, and he found himself relaxing as she continued to wipe the blood away from his face.
This close to her, Carisi could smell the faint scent of her shampoo – coconut, he thought – and see all of the different shades of blonde in her hair. He could see the fine grain of her skin, the clear blue of her eyes. He started to lean into her touch, then caught himself. Get a grip, Carisi.
Amanda worked in silence for a minute or two, going through several alcohol swabs before moving onto applying some antiseptic. “Liv is really pissed with Murphy for hitting you,” she ventured.
Her comment immediately broke Carisi from his, well, he wouldn’t say enjoyment of her doctoring skills because, damn it, his face still hurt like a son of a bitch, but he’d been close to forgetting about that until about two seconds ago. “Wait, you know that guy?”
“Uh, yeah, he was lieutenant here for a while last year, before he left to go undercover. I guess we know now what his assignment was.” Amanda switched to a gauze pad to blot away the last of the blood; Carisi batted her hand away.
“So not only do you know him, he’s a cop?! That’s great. Just great. Why didn’t someone tell me?”
Amanda’s expression was apologetic. “Carisi, we didn’t know he’d be there. Really. It was as much a surprise to the rest of us as it was to you when Declan walked through that door.”
Carisi stood up and moved to the other side of the room. “So where is Declan now?” he asked, unable to keep the hint of sarcasm from his voice.
“Liv, Fin and I talked to him a little while ago; he’s still in an interview room, maintaining his cover. We did get a lead on where to find Ariel from Timmer, though. We’re heading out in fifteen.”
“Then I’m coming with you. At least we’ll have something to show from tonight besides me getting whacked in the face.”
Amanda looked at him skeptically. “Is that really a good idea? You should probably see a doctor, make sure nothing’s broken.”
“Just get me that aspirin and I’ll be good to go,” he assured her.
She raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, aspirin coming right up.” She went back to the medicine cabinet, found the aspirin bottle and brought it over to him. “Here. Meet you out back in five,” she said as she turned to leave the room.
He took the bottle gratefully. “Hey, Rollins?”
She turned back towards him, eyebrows raised in inquiry.
“Thanks for …” he gestured to his face.
She smiled, that big, genuine Rollins smile that transformed her face from merely beautiful to breathtaking. “You’re welcome. See you in a bit.”
Carisi tipped two aspirin into his hand. Then tipped out two more. If only aspirin could help him forget how it felt to have her hands moving over his face. Forget the blue of her eyes, the scent of coconut. No, there wasn’t a pill in existence that could ever make him forget her scent, her touch. He sighed, swallowed the pills, then followed her out the door.