Archive of Our Own ^beta

i. cefalú, sicily.

It’s cooler than expected. The wind is light, not blustery, not like the kind that sweeps the streets back home. He feels the sun brush against his face, a warm touch that mingles with the breeze across the back of his neck, and he understands why they call it beautiful.

He’s still not too sure what he’s doing. Tuesday of last week, he’d been up to his elbows in files, extending office hours to his breaking point, and snapping a little too unkindly at office staff. Three days later, somebody had told him to take a week off. Two days ago, he’d booked a flight to Palermo, telling himself to not care about the cost for once.

The same someone who’d told him to take a short break from work—one of his fellow ADAs—he’s sure they’d been blathering on about nice vacation spots too. I hear Europe’s great around this time of year, eh? But don’t get me started on the exchange rate! He hadn’t paid much attention at the time, but now, he supposes something had gotten through after all. Otherwise, why pick a place he’s barely even heard of?

But Rafael has to admit. Sicily really is lovely in May.

The sea, the sand, the rocks and the roads. He passes the time looking out the window, watching the light hit the curving edge of the coast-line as the train speeds off, a steady rumble under his feet, and an ease that hasn’t quite settled in yet.

Rafael keeps touching the pocket of his coat, as if he’s expecting someone to call, but has to remind himself that he’d turned his phone off, has to remind himself that he’s not in his office right now. His fingers keep curling around a phantom pen. He’s only going to be gone for two days.

He pulls out an old paperback instead, crumbling and dog-eared, and gently pages through it for the next half an hour. Every time he thinks he’s almost done with this Bachman novel, something else tugs him away. Maybe this time he’ll be able to finish it for good. Move on to something a little less grim. He gets enough of that on a daily basis already.

The streets are small and winding in Cefalù. Rafael takes his time, one step after the other, taking in the easy air, the paved roads, and the old brick walls that have turned a burnished tan colour after years of sun and salt-air. There aren’t as many people as he thought there’d be, but then again, he’d avoided coming during the summer for exactly that reason.

Checking into a place off the centro storico, he spends some time looking up food choices in the area on the free Wi-Fi, before decided to put it to the wind. He’ll walk around. He’s sure there’ll be a copious amount of cafés around. Somewhere with coffee, definitely. Somewhere near the sea—but then, everything here is near the sea. He can see the granite that towers over the coast, the cliff that looms high above the town, much higher than anything else for miles.

He wonders if he’ll make himself go up it while he’s here. The brochure he’d skimmed off a news-stand on the way to the hotel had mentioned hiking trails and the loveliest of scenery.

Maybe after, he decides. He’s here to relax, to take a break. Get his mind off things. Everything.

The smell of something savoury battles the ocean air for his attention the second he gets onto a crowded street. The sound of people chattering as he walks amongst the crowd is loud, but not so loud that it’s disturbing. Rafael winds through the throng of locals and tourists alike, until he comes across a small place with a display of fresh pastries in the window, all soft golden swirls, cream-topped buns, and fresh fruit.

He’s about to step in when someone walks right into him, and he’s surprised neither of them fall over from the sudden collision when he staggers back a step. “Oh—scusa! Scusa ta—wait. Barba?”

Rafael glances up—and he does have to glance up, to his constant displeasure, because Carisi has always had a couple of inches on him—and Carisi is standing right there, looking bewildered by the fact that he’s just run into someone he works with, thousands of miles away from where they actually work.

Hold on.

“Carisi?” Rafael tugs his sunglasses off, and it’s not a trick of the light. The man’s still stood in place, a loose blue t-shirt hanging off his frame and worn-out knee-high khakis below, looking more casual than Rafael’s ever seen—and he guesses that it’s the same the other way, too. No doubt Carisi’s rarely seen him out of work attire. “Of all the places.”

“I could say the same thing.” Carisi smiles, and it’s just as blinding as the sun reflecting off the water. Rafael wishes he hadn’t taken his shades off. “What’re you doing in Italy, Counselor?”

“We’re not at work, Carisi,” Rafael notes, the title a little too formal for the circumstances they’re in right now, and Carisi flushes a little. He must still be in work-mode, too. A little reassuring to see he’s not the only one who has to catch himself sometimes. “I was... persuaded to take some time off.”

“Of all the places, though,” Carisi echoes, stuffing his hands in his pockets, “that’s a pretty amazing coincidence.”

“What, that you’d be vacationing here?”

“No,” Carisi answers, a little amused. “That you’d be. I live here. Well,” he adds, “during summers when I was a kid, I used to. Haven’t been back in a while. Liv said it’d be fine to take a weekend off. My grandad on my Ma’s side, he still lives up here. We showed him how to Skype, but it isn’t the same, y’know?”

“Yes,” Rafael agrees, to the long spiel Carisi reels off without any pause, still taking in the completely chance encounter that they’ve just had, in a country he’s barely made contact with, in a place that just happens to be the other’s family locality. He sidesteps to let someone with two bursting-at-the-seams grocery bags pass, before saying, “So, you’re here for the next two days, then?”

“Yeah. Flying back Saturday afternoon,” Carisi says, sounding a little put-out, but who wouldn’t be, being in a place like this for only a weekend?

Rafael is suddenly reminded of how little time he has here as well.

“Hey, so, Barba,” Carisi says, “you want me to show you around a little? Since you’re here for the first time and all.”

A very large part of Rafael is tempted to say no. He nearly does say it immediately upon hearing the offer—it’s a nice sentiment, but he’s here to take a break from work, not get dragged around to see a bunch of historical sites that he really couldn’t be bothered to go look at on his own—

“Then again, there really isn’t much to do here, to be honest. The night-life’s pretty quiet around here, and people mostly come here for the food. And the sea.” Carisi’s voice takes on a fond tone when he mentions the ocean. It’s not anything he’s heard before. “It’s definitely my favourite part of this place.”

“Mine as well,” Rafael says, and Carisi’s gaze focuses on him. “Reason I picked the place, really. Besides the food, of course.”

The corner of Carisi’s mouth quirks up a little. It’s not a full smile, not like the one from before. But it’s a little more subtle. The low tide, coming in. A reminder of the waves ahead. It draws all of Rafael’s focus to it, and he doesn’t know why. “Y’know, you get the best view from La Rocca. I’ve gone up there a million times, and every one feels new. But I’ve always liked seeing the sea up close even better, from the docks.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to show me, then,” Rafael says, mouth moving faster than his mind for the first time in a long time, “since you’ve mentioned it.”

Carisi’s smile is back in full force. “Great. And, hey, were you gonna get lunch? ‘Cause this café’s nice, but I know a really great place. You gotta try the cannoli while you’re here.”

Rafael isn’t too sure what he’s just signed up for, but he’ll take it. “Lead the way, Carisi.”

Carisi’s right. The food is pretty amazing at the little café they go to, just a few streets away in the open air, and they spend the time in surprisingly companionable conversation. “Growing up here must have been nice,” Rafael comments, and Carisi hums his assent, “how old were you?”

“Eighteen was the last full summer I really spent here. After that, it was the Academy, and then I didn’t have summers anymore, just a couple of free days here and there.” Carisi picks at his pastry. “It’s nice to be back. My parents are somewhere in town, and so’s my eldest sister—Gina, and her daughter.”

“Huh. Surprised they’d let you wander off on your own.”

Carisi snorts. “Trust me, I’ve gotten lost more times than I can remember. Living this near old ruins? Really ain’t the best place to leave a kid unsupervised. Pretty sure all the neighbours still remember me as the kid who just got yelled at all the time by his grandma.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised, you’re still getting yelled at all the time by Liv.”

Rafael takes a sip of his drink, a light lemonade, and watches Carisi’s expression turn indignant, before it rechannels into something more beguiled. “Funny,” he says, “but I’m pretty sure Amanda’s taken over that role now. ‘Sides, Liv’s warmed up to me, hasn’t she?”

The last bit is said jokingly, but Rafael’s much too perceptive to let the little twinge of uncertainty slide. “She has,” he says genuinely, and Carisi taps his fingers along his glass absently, not sure what to say to that, “and what’s this about Rollins, then?”

“Oh, y’know. Carisi, go home, I don’t need a ride back, I still have two hands. Carisi, get out of my kitchen, I’m eating fine,” he imitates, and huffs good-naturedly, smiling a little at the thought. “She’s goin’ through TV-dinners three times a week. ‘Course I gotta go over and check on her.”

“And you and Rollins are—”

“Whoa, hey, no.” Carisi shakes his head immediately, a tinge of red creeping up his neck. “Geez, does everyone think we’re—I mean. We’re not—we’re just friends. I just wanna be there in case anything happens. For the baby.” Rafael watches as Carisi’s smile turns a little uneasy. “And—well.”

Rafael leans over the table, and catches Carisi’s gaze. “Did she turn you down?”

Carisi barks out a laugh, and runs a hand through his hair, pushing back the unruly strands that have gotten loose in the breeze. “Nah. You can’t really turn down someone who’s not interested in the first place.” He pauses momentarily, while the waiter at the next table buses away dirty plates, and then adds, a little softer, “Anyway, she’s not really my type.”

The hitch in his voice when he says the last word is enough confirmation for Rafael. It’s a surprise, definitely, but he’d—he can’t say that he had been hoping, but—maybe. No, forget it.

He leans back, and picks up his drink again. “I see,” he says neutrally, and Carisi doesn’t reply to that, seeming just a little distant. “So, tell me. What else is there to see around here?”

They meet again an hour later, but this time by choice.

“Now,” Rafael asks, when his precipitous personal tour guide ambles up to him with a wide grin, handing him a map of the area for his own convenience, “where to, Carisi?”

Carisi’s eyes are bright, even behind his sunglasses. “Everywhere,” he says.

They take a trip through several streets lined with the sand-coloured buildings that make up most of the town, where modern tourists seem out of place amidst the medieval sights that have stood for years on end. But where those following their own paid-for guides stop at designated stores and mildly crowded fountains, Carisi points out little places he knows himself—a little ice cream parlour off the town centre, the bright and lively market, a book-store with more Italian tomes than English ones, and a tiny pen shop with barely enough room for four people where Rafael ends up giving in to temptation and buys a nice Visconti to mark the trip with.

In the centre they visit the small but interesting museum that’s there, the Mandralisca. “I’m not really one for art, but it’s nice, seeing a little bit of history,” Carisi says, as Rafael inspects a vase depicting a fisherman and his wares, before moving on to a display of some ancient coins.

Throughout the afternoon Carisi manages to persuade him into attempting a variety of dishes at a few different places, most of them seafood or pasta, or both, and it’s reluctantly that Rafael admits that it probably had been a good idea to tag along with a local with some knowledge of actual Italian food instead of relying on unreliable online reviews for overpriced places.

Eventually they get to the one part of the town Rafael’s been wanting to see for himself. Stepping through the preceding parvise, the two towers of Cefalù’s ancient Norman cathedral loom over them, mullioned windows and dusty-brown bricks visible even from much further away.

“Y’know every cathedral’s got their own legend,” Carisi mentions as they make their way up the steps. “A long, long time ago—”

“If that’s how you’re starting this, I fear for the ending.”

“—there was a king called Roger,” Carisi continues, ignoring Rafael’s quip, “and when he was coming back from across the ocean, from the south of here, he got caught in a storm. A huge one. And he thought he wasn’t gonna make it.”

“I’ll make a guess that he did.”

“He vowed that if he got out of the storm safe, he’d build a church wherever he landed and dedicate it to the saints. And Jesus, of course.”

“Of course. As one does.”

“Then, when the storm stopped, he landed here. In Cefalù.” Carisi sweeps his arms out. “The end.”

“Wonderful story,” Rafael says, “I didn’t even drift off once.”

Carisi side-eyes him. “It could’ve been worse,” he says solemnly, “I could’ve started describing the architecture.”

Rafael side-eyes him back. “Could you?”

Carisi clears his throat, and bounds up another step, before starting in a voice that’s entirely too tour-guide-like to be genuine, “Cefalù's cathedral is stylistically similar to the Saint Etienne in Normandy, featuring early Gothic accents in a solid Romanesque structure whose—”

“Alright, alright,” Rafael interrupts, a little horrified. “I’m shocked to find out you even know any of that.”

He gets a shrug, and a lazy grin. “I don’t, actually,” Carisi admits slyly, hands in his pockets, “got that off a Sicilian travel magazine. Usually works when I want my sisters to stop bickering.”

“You would be the type,” Rafael sighs.

The inside of the cathedral is breath-taking. Tall granite columns divide the interior into the shape of a cross, and towards the chancel there are rows of oak pews. In the sanctuary, high above, an incredible blue-and-golden mosaic of the Christ Pantokrator features, one hand raised in Benediction, and in the other hand, an open gospel.

He isn’t able to make out what it says, and he voices the thought, though not too loudly.

“John 8:12,” Carisi murmurs next to him, voice carrying quietly in the reverent silence of the cathedral. “I am the light of the world. Who follows me will not wander in the darkness but will have the light of life.”

Rafael doesn’t reply. He stands in the back, just wanting to observe the place. Take it all in. See how stunning it is, and capture it for his memory, and then recollect it when he needs to.

There’s something about churches. The quietness can be unnerving to some, but here, it is something reflective of those who stand beneath the arches and lift their eyes to the firmaments. It is the centuries of history that underpin every visit, and every service. It is the reminder that there still are places where people can escape to. Not to run away from their problems, but to face them.

Carisi makes the sign of the cross, and gazes up at the mosaic himself. “Whenever I come back here, I visit every day,” he says, voice soft and fond, and Rafael is suddenly very conscious about the fact that he’d stopped considering himself a Catholic years ago. Religion wasn’t something he could reconcile with a lot of the things he believed in. “You don’t get places like these back in New York.”

“You don’t,” Rafael agrees.

“I used to wanna be a priest,” Carisi says, and the thought is so ludicrous to Rafael that he nearly breaks the silence with a choked laugh, but his drilled-in manners make him hold it back. “I know, I know. But it seemed right, at the time. It felt like a calling.”

Rafael wants to ask, what happened—but he knows what’s happened, obviously, Carisi had joined the force. He’d become a cop instead. Something far different from being a member of the clergy.

He settles for, “But?”

Carisi glances over, and the corner of his mouth quirks up in a sort of, ‘well, what can you do’ expression. “I’ve got enough relatives lining up to do that job. Don’t think they’d need another.”

Rafael’s aware that it’s not the real answer to the question. But he won’t push. “None of them your sisters, I’m guessing.”

“Nah,” Carisi says, and he’s smiling. “Not interested.”

On their way back from the cathedral, Carisi springs a question on him that Rafael hadn’t really been expecting—but, in retrospect, should have.

“D’you wanna come over a little later? My Ma’s asked if you’d like to have dinner with us.” Carisi looks a little embarrassed, and he rubs the back of his neck absently. “If you don’t have any other plans.”

“You told your mother about me?”

“She asked where I was goin’ when I went home to tell her I’d be gone the rest of the day. Said I was gonna head out with a friend. Then, she reminded me that I don’t have any friends left here.” Carisi shrugs. “She can be blunt.”

“I can tell.” Rafael can’t help but laugh at the understatement, just a little, and Carisi’s eyes are on him again, as if the sight of him laughing is so rare that he’s got to see it it every single time before the day is up. “She seems... nice.”

“She’s the best,” Carisi says, quickly beaming. “And you really can’t beat home-made pasta, Barba.”

“You’ve said that about every dish you’ve attempted to make me have on this trip, Carisi,” Rafael says,“but I suppose I’ll take your word for it.”

“Good,” Carisi says, and it’s not a surprise anymore when Rafael realises that good is exactly how he feels right now, about all of this, about being right here, right now. “Meet you ‘round six?”

Carisi’s mother turns out to be a real force of nature, a woman who bustles Rafael right into the kitchen the second he steps into the house after Carisi, exclaiming about her surprise that one of her son’s co-workers would be in the same town at the same time as him. Rafael, who’s already had this conversation with Carisi himself, just smiles and nods and hopes that he doesn’t look too awkward to be here.

He introduces himself to Carisi’s grandfather, a thin old man with a genial disposition, and Carisi’s sister Gina, who sounds exactly like Carisi when she speaks. Her daughter chooses not to say a word, on the other hand, and Rafael is inwardly grateful that he doesn’t have to socialise with a six-year-old tonight.

Dinner is a casual affair, with plenty of conversation to go around without Rafael even needing to say anything, and it’s only when it turns to how his trip has been that he speaks up. The entire time, Carisi sits on his left, whispering translations when some strand of Italian goes right through his ears.

The whole thing is enough to tire him out after an hour or so, but he’s glad that Carisi gets the hint, and offers to show him the coast before the sun goes down around eight, since it’s only about seven-thirty now.

“Thank you for having me,” Rafael says, shaking hands one after the other while Carisi holds the door. “Your home is lovely.”

“It was no problem.” Carisi’s mother waves them off. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Barba!”

They make it a ways down the path, towards the coast, when Carisi suddenly laughs, and says, “I honestly thought you were gonna leave halfway through dinner. I’m amazed you stuck it through so long.”

“They say manners maketh man,” Rafael tells him. “Something you might not be aware of.”

“Say that again, but in an English accent, will ya?”

Rafael doesn’t. “Good try,” he says, “but no.”

“Well,” Carisi says wistfully, “you’re no Colin Firth anyway.”

They continue on down to the beach, the sounds of the sea getting louder as they approach, but Carisi doesn’t go right down to the shore. Instead, he motions for Rafael to follow him as he cuts across a couple of alleyways to come up right to the edge of the coast, where a dock stands.

“You get the best view here,” Carisi explains, and he nimbly steps over the strewn ropes and bits of washed up seaweed. “And y’don’t get sand in your shoes.”

It’s a rather good argument. Rafael doesn’t quite enjoy the idea of having gritty socks for the rest of the weekend.

The sea crashes around the rocks, and the stone foundations of the old pier. Rafael isn’t afraid he’ll fall in, but the waves do look strong. Carisi doesn’t seem to mind it any attention, though. He leans against the brick barrier, eyes towards the horizon, the slowly setting sun. Rafael stands beside him, and wonders what he’s thinking about.

Then, Carisi turns, and asks, “What’re you thinking ‘bout?”

Rafael scuffs the sole of his shoe against the dock, steady grounding. “That it’s been a good day.” He doesn’t mention that he’d been just about to ask the same question.

Carisi nods. “Yeah. Same.”

They stand in precarious silence, though it isn’t in the slightest bit quiet. The sea and all that stretches out ahead roars in their ears, the gulls shrieking above. The sound of a nearby party of people on the beach, though it’s far enough that it’s more of a dull noise in the background, compared to the thunder of the water all around them.

Blue-green, green-blue. Washes of foam, disappearing into the bay. The colour of the sky, the colour of the underworld beneath them. The colour of Carisi’s eyes too, Rafael thinks distantly, and it’s a faraway thought that doesn’t register until he looks at Carisi, who hasn’t been facing him for the last ten minutes.

Rafael doesn’t ask himself how he knows.

Instead, he shifts closer, placing his hands in his pockets—the wind’s started to pick up, and it’s always colder near the water—and says, “Thank you, Carisi.”

“Hey, don’t mention it.” Carisi looks at him, and smiles. His hair is blowing into his face. “Glad you enjoyed being here.”

“Probably wouldn’t have, if not for you,” Rafael murmurs.

The waves kick harder, drawing their attention to the beginning drop in temperature of the evening. Carisi doesn’t say a word, but he shuffles closer, and Rafael will tell himself, later that night, that it had just been because of the chill. The sun dips, and kisses the edge of the sea, colouring it in orange hues.

Carisi’s arm brushes against his. Rafael doesn’t move away.

Above, the new moon laughs at them for standing so close, but looking out so far.

It’s on the train-ride back to Palermo Centrale the next evening that he fishes out his paperback, stuffed in between two shirts and a souvenir key-chain that he’d been pressured into buying from a stall before they’d left the market, a day ago.

Rafael thumbs the novel open. It’s bookmarked in the exact same place he’d left it on the ride over.

ii. san francisco, california.

“You go,” he says, because he really isn’t going to give in this time. Every single visit he does, and it always ends in a terrible hangover and a lost item of clothing, some way or another. “Not this year, James—”

“Jesus, Rafi, loosen the fuck up,” his cousin Marcelo tells him, from the other side of the couch where they’re sitting, as he tosses the remote onto the coffee table. “You’re only here for two more days, just go.”

“He does this every single time,” James says, long-suffering, and he points towards the guest room, where Rafael’s bag always ends up every time he comes to San Francisco. “Go, put yourself in something presentable.”

“Remind me why I still open the door when you knock?” Rafael doesn’t wait for an answer to that question, trudging off to his room to pull out the least-wrinkled casual shirt he owns from his suitcase.

He hadn’t packed much; he’s here to visit his cousin mostly, who keeps some of Rafael’s stuff here for whenever he can drop by—and of course he’d conveniently forgotten that Pride would be happening around this time, and of course his too-brash classmate back from his university days that he’s never been able to shake off comes over just to drag Rafael along to a bar just as loud as he is. As always.

“Yeah, that’s right,” James calls from the hallway, “pretend you just hate going out with me, because it’s not like you’re the one who gets bought drinks.”

“You’re still going to get on my case for that?” Rafael straightens his coat, and walks back out. “If you wanted a drink, you could just ask, Jamie. Or, another amazing idea: find a better place to go.”

Besides, that last time nearly five years ago had completely been on the bartender, who’d flirted aggressively the entire night before they’d slipped into a back-room of the bar. And that had been before the second drink, too. Besides, who’s Rafael to turn down complimentary rum-and-cokes?

James snorts. “You’re still insufferable. We’re not going to the Castro tonight. There’s this new place near, though—you remember Marzia, don’t you? She’s got a friend who’s just started his own business. Great guy, really great.”

“Wonderful,” Rafael mutters dryly, though by now he really is itching for a good drink. “This new place better have Macallan 18.”

“Now, Rafael, my friend, my man,” James says, shepherding him to the door, and waving a quick goodbye to Marc, who seems content enough to watch the rest of the basketball match that’s on right now, “when have I ever let you down?”

“Every day since the day we met,” Rafael’s voice goes, just as the door swings shut.

It’s not terrible. A glass finds its way to his hand within two minutes of entering the establishment, and it’s thankfully what he’s been wanting the entire time he’s been in the city—a stiff drink with no chance of anyone messing it up. The bar isn’t too loud, despite the week’s celebratory nature; he guesses that it’s still too new for anyone to know of it properly. There’s a small group of people along the other end of the counter, and tables and booths are occupied along the way.

Much less over-enthusiastic, thankfully, than the kids who find their way to the popular stops around this time of year, not yet schooled in bar etiquette. He prefers it this way. Calm, cosy.

Rafael lifts his drink to his lips, idly watching James sneak a hand up the sleeve of one of the bartenders. James has no sense of subtlety—has never had a sense of subtlety. Rafael has known him since they were placed in the same Conflict of Laws class, and had both sat down in the back to poke fun at the lecturer’s awful humour in muffled voices. They’ve met up less and less, ever since James moved to California in 2006 for a high-profile job, but things still haven’t changed.

James is still unsubtle, and Rafael is still nursing expensive liquor with a vengeance.

“So,” James says, settling back down onto the stool beside Rafael’s, “how’s things over there, bigshot? Still gunning for that DA’s office? Still living alone? Still making less than me?”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” Rafael says, too used to the antics to even roll his eyes. “Though, I’m still much better dressed than you, so I have that, at least.”

“Ouch, Rafi,” James says, “I got you that shirt.”

“Which is why I only ever wear it around you.”

James laughs. “I don’t know why I even try. Hey, Rita says hi, by the way. You didn’t tell her you were coming here?”

“She didn’t ask.”

“She didn’t ask? That’s your excuse?” James tsks. “I’m not even going to tell her you said that. Come on, last time you said you’d both come down together.”

“Change of plans,” Rafael responds. “I only said that because I thought she’d be available. She’s got a big case. Some baseball player charged for assault. You know how she gets.”

Rita’s probably holed up in her office, sorting through files, going through just as many cups of coffee Rafael does in a day. Probably balancing her phone and her laptop on one knee, and the rest of the world on the other. Rafael takes another sip from his glass; abruptly, he misses her company too much to even think about it.

“Yeah, she’s just said,” James comments, glancing at his phone. “She wants you to bring her back a bottle of that whiskey. And a souvenir.”

“The alcohol isn’t enough?”

“Nope. Hey, get her a Giants cap. That’ll be perfect.”

“You mean that’ll be the death of me.” Rafael pictures Rita getting the cap, and her face when she sees it, after having to handle the press for this case this past month, and he can’t help but laugh. “I’ll get it.”

“Take photos,” James adds, grin turning wolfish, because of all the people in the world who know Rita as well as they do, he’s the one who takes pleasure in her suffering the most. It’s the product of old Harvard rivalries, two a.m. fisticuffs over who’d get the last bit of coffee in the pot, and a race between the two to get the first job offer before they’d even graduated.

Rita had gotten the offer first, but James still counts the coffee as a victory (it had been finals week, and they’d all been living in the same flat, and Rita had stormed her way to the nearest convenience store right after, wearing nothing but Rafael’s Harvard Law hoodie and a pair of thin pyjama pants. James had watched her go from the window, snickering).

“Anyway, I’ll leave you to your lonely, depressing thoughts as usual.” James slips off his seat. “She’s just bet me that I can’t get five phone numbers by midnight. I’m going to collect that hundred bucks with absolute joy.”

“She’s going to win,” Rafael calls, just to mess with him, and James waves him off with a snicker as he trots over to the corner-most booth.

He feels a little more relaxed, by the time he gets a second drink. A little warm, but he attributes that to the liquor more than the actual temperature. Still, he doesn’t mind undoing one button, just to feel a little less stuffy.

There’s a sudden burst of laughter from his left, and someone’s declaring a toast to something, probably studies, or work prospects, looking at how young they seem to be. Rafael remembers when he’d used to go down to places like this with friends to drink the night into oblivion. He doesn’t quite miss those days, but they were memorable.

He’s still watching the group indifferently, when a voice catches his hearing, sounding too familiar to dismiss. Rafael tilts his head, and attempts to see past one of them, only to catch sight of—

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says to himself, because it’s been a year since Italy, at least a year, and here Carisi is—right across from him in a bar in the middle of San Francisco. It’s another one of those amazing coincidences, he thinks, just as he catches Carisi’s gaze.

He watches Carisi’s expression change with the rapid recognition that follows, and Carisi peels himself away from the group with a quick word. Carisi approaches, not hesitant, but a little wary. Probably because Rafael’s sitting at the bar alone, and habitués usually know to leave someone alone when they’re just here to enjoy a drink, and—god, Rafael realises, a little too late, Carisi’s a regular.

“Hey, Barba,” Carisi says. There’s a spot of glitter—glitter, of all things—in his hair that he doesn’t seem to have noticed, where it’s falling down into his eyes slightly. His shirt is a tasteful dark colour, and his jeans are much too fitting to be his. “Of all the places, huh?”

“I could say the same thing,” Rafael replies, recalling their exact conversation from a year ago, in a place even further away from home than here. Carisi’s smile grows wider; he definitely remembers as well. “Well. This does look rather incriminating, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” Carisi glances back towards his group of friends, who are pretending that they aren’t sneaking glances at the both of them. They’re just about as good as hiding them as James is. “I’m on a trip with some ex-classmates of mine. From Fordham.”

“Well, since we’re comparing schedules. I’m visiting a cousin, actually. Old friend of mine came by to drag me out here tonight.”

“Oh,” Carisi says, “so—you’re not actually—y’know?”

The man’s terrible at articulating, but Rafael does get the gist of what he’s attempting to ask, even if he is too embarrassed to ask properly. “Carisi,” he says, “if you haven’t figured out that I’m not straight even by now, I don’t think you’ll get to keep your gay card after tonight.”

Carisi blinks, looking a little taken aback—but he recovers so quickly (that Rafael’s actually a little impressed) to quip, “Do I get to hold on to it if I get you to buy me a drink?”

Rafael raises an eyebrow. That’s a side of brazen that he’s never seen before. It might just be the alcohol. Or it might just be a challenge. It could be both. “Sit,” Rafael says, “and if you keep being this surprising, I might have to buy you two.”

“What’s the surprise?” Carisi sits, and leans back against the counter. “I sorta figured you had a clue back then. Even though y’never mentioned it after.”

“The surprise is you have a backbone, Carisi,” Rafael murmurs, and he passes Carisi the drink that he’d promised. “And that you’re not afraid to show it.”

“Cheers to that, eh?”

Carisi drinks like he was born in a distillery, easy and unaffected, and the flush that’s already present on his skin reminds Rafael of the eternal tan Carisi had seemed to sport under the cover of the warm sun.

He can’t admit it to himself—but he can, and he should, but the fact is that they work together, more often than not these days, and neither of them can afford the talk that comes with something like this. Carisi is tremendously attractive, and he’s known this since Italy, and even before, but he’s never known it like this. Carisi’s dressed to look good tonight, and it’s showing.

Rafael knows he’s looking. He also knows that Carisi’s looking right back, and he also knows that Carisi knows that he’s looking. Let him know, thinks Rafael, as they continue to drink together. No harm, no foul. Just friendly, plain appreciation.

“Which one’s your friend?” Carisi asks, after a while. Rafael scans the room and locates James still in the corner of the bar. “Or is he, uh—busy, right now?”

“Purple shirt, right-hand corner.”

Carisi glances over, and nods. “Ah,” he comments, and Rafael notes the amusement in his voice, “he always that... straight-forward?”

“Attempting to collect on a bet. But yes,” Rafael confirms, smiling a little, “he is. All the time.”

“Do I have anything to worry about?” Carisi jokes, but he falls silent when Rafael just contemplates the thought.

“You’re definitely his type,” Rafael says, “but he knows to back off, usually.”

James isn’t the only one being too forward, tonight. Rafael wants to bite his own tongue off, but he knows that it’s loosened exponentially with the drinks he’s had. Still, Carisi just smiles, and says, “Well, hope he wins that bet.”

“He usually doesn’t.” Rafael peers at the bottom of his glass. “But anything can happen.”

The words hang between them, a long pause. Anything can happen.

Rafael almost wants to see what can, tonight.

“So,” Carisi says, after the moment’s passed, “how long you here for, Barba?”

“A week.” Rafael’s been here for about three of those seven days, now. “And, no, I’m not taking part in any of the festivities, if that was your next question.”

“Nah,” Carisi responds easily, “I know y’ain’t the type. You’d rather spend time alone, or with the people you know, rather than a bunch of crazy-loud people wavin’ rainbow flags.”

Rafael frowns. That—that had actually been rather accurate. “What gave you that impression?”

Carisi shrugs, and takes another sip. “You’re not the only one,” he answers, and Rafael’s eyes slide across the counter-top, where Carisi’s friends still are. “Yeah, yeah,” Carisi adds, noticing where Rafael’s gaze has gone to, “I mean, I know ‘em, sure. But I’m only really here ‘cause I owe one of ‘em a favour.”

“Which is?”

“Making sure the rest of ‘em keep in line,” Carisi says impassively. “He thought bringin’ a cop along would make sure no one did anythin’ stupid. Or, well,” he adds, changing his mind, “too stupid.”

“My condolences,” Rafael tells him.

Carisi snorts, and clinks their glasses together. “Hey, least I’ve got you tonight, huh?” he says, grinning a little. “And you’re definitely capable of taking care of yourself.”

“Thankfully,” Rafael murmurs, though he’s not sure he can even live up to that statement these days. Making sure you get through each day and taking care of yourself are two completely different things.

He buys Carisi that second drink, for keeping his end of the one-sided bargain, and just because he can, and he spends the minutes after that watching Carisi’s mouth curl around the rim of his glass every time he lifts it to take a swallow.

“You still haven’t done anything with that Bar qualification,” Rafael comments, wanting to focus on anything other than Carisi’s features, at the moment. “And I know a couple of people have been asking since the Grayson case. There’s interest for an ADA with experience in the force.”

Carisi looks resigned, and he sets his glass down. “I don’t think I want it,” he admits earnestly, “I did, don’t get me wrong. But now—” He pauses, and rubs his cheek absently, resting an elbow on the counter. “I don’t think I can leave that behind. Not after all this. And not after—Dodds. You know.”

Rafael gets that. “I know,” he says quietly. “I do.” He knows why Carisi has been pushing himself twice as hard, over the past year and a half. Rafael’s been doing the same, and has been, ever since he’d gotten to where he is now. He’s worked too hard, and too long. Everything that he’s worked for is what keeps him going, each and every day.

The world’s given him a lot of things. It is only fair that he gives back twice as much in return.

He’d seen that same kind of want in Dodds. They all had. Mike Dodds, who’d spent his last hours living up to his name. Being the man he’d always worked towards being. Mike Dodds, whose smile looked determined even on a blown-up poster propped up against the wall of a crowded bar, while his squad murmured toasts into the bottoms of shot-glasses.

Rafael vaguely remembers the conversation he’d had with Carisi that day, between shots and a couple of pushed aside mentions of trouble seeking him out. Not much had been exchanged, but there had been an understanding reached.

To tomorrow, Rafael had said, and Carisi had replied, for today.

Carisi glances over, the overhead lights catching in his eyes. It makes him look more tired than he is. Or maybe just tired of hiding just how worn out he is. Rafael’s seen that look more than enough times in the mirror.

“Yeah,” Carisi says, shifting a little closer. “Yeah.”

Their knees touch, under the counter. A little bit of solidarity, a little bit of something else. And Rafael drinks a little bit more, if only to be able to forget just how honest he’s been tonight when he wakes up in the morning tomorrow.

An hour later, Carisi’s friends are calling him to go, wanting to head off to another place. By then, the both of them have run through enough conversational topics to be satisfied on the talking end, but still Carisi straightens up, looking somewhat disappointed that he has to leave already.

Rafael’s a little disappointed too.

“Goodnight, Carisi,” Rafael tells him, and Carisi waves a little, smiling, but it’s marred, and Rafael frowns. “Hold on—you’ve got something—”

He reaches over, and very gently brushes off the little speck of glitter that’s on Carisi’s cheek, just at the corner of his mouth. Carisi stays very still, and his lips part, just slightly, when Rafael’s thumb just barely touches his skin.

When he pulls his hand back, it’s reluctantly, and the look on Carisi’s face suggests that he might have wanted him to keep it there, that he might have liked him to hold him closer instead, and pull him in, and—

But, before Rafael can turn back to the counter, Carisi says, “Sonny.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Sonny.” Carisi shrugs a little. “You can keep calling me Carisi if you wanna, but we’ve kinda run into each other enough to cut back on the formal stuff, right?”

Rafael considers this. “Perhaps,” he says, “the next time we accidentally meet again anywhere that isn’t New York.”

Carisi laughs, bright and hopeful. The chances are pretty impossible. He knows that. They both do. But this whole thing has been chance, a strange fork in the path, a hand from fate pushing them both into this syzygy. “I’ll hold you to it,” he says, and Rafael feels the bite of anticipation in his veins. “G’night, Barba.”

“Goodnight, Carisi,” Rafael repeats, and he watches Carisi walk away.

“Rita’s going to be pissed,” Rafael tells James, when they’re walking back to Marc’s apartment somewhere past midnight, “make sure you take her money before she changes her mind.”

“Yeah,” James sighs, completely drunk and seemingly attached to Rafael’s shoulder, a fantastic impression of a very inebriated limpet, “she’ll be so proud.”

“I have a feeling that you’ve forgotten what the word ‘proud’ means.”

“Nah, Rafi! Proud of you,” James emphasises, “that you’re finally getting back out there again!”

“I’m not,” Rafael says, somewhat confused by this turn of events.

“Don’t—don’t pretend, Rafi. I saw the way you were looking at that guy—’n he had that look like you’d hung the stars in the sky or some shit.” James waggles a finger in Rafael’s face. “Don’t let that one go.”

“Mm,” is all Rafael says, and James seems to take that as a satisfactory answer, and moves onto talking about how wonderful the decorations are this year, which Rafael hadn’t noticed in the slightest.

Rafael carries him all the way back to Marc’s apartment, and lets him topple onto the couch, completely dead to the world by the time he lands on the cushions. James has a free pass to kip on this couch anytime Rafael’s in town, and he’s never shy about using it, so Rafael leaves him and heads off to the guest room.

He changes, and washes his face. When he looks into the mirror, he sees a tired face. Someone who’s really getting too old to be doing this—someone who keeps denying a good thing every time he sees it, just because he thinks the world might not let it last.

But good things are there to be enjoyed while they’re there, and good things are never forever.

He’d known that even in university. He known that as he’d spent lazy Saturday evenings lying on the couch, his head on Rita’s thigh, her hand running through his hair, just as slowly as the breeze that blew outside their window. The radio blaring, but neither of them hearing it. Rita’s voice, saying that they were better off as friends. His own voice, agreeing.

They were better off as friends. As rivals. Not lovers. All the years that have gone by just prove it.

Still. It was a good thing that hadn’t lasted. But it was still worth something.

There’s that pesky little spot of glitter again, stuck to his finger now. The feeling of skin under his own suddenly comes to mind. Carisi’s eyes, that sea-foam blue-green, and that brilliant, blinding smile that was more ardent than the sun reflecting off the waves could ever be.

Rafael flicks it off, and dries his hands. Another two days, and the illusion of a vacation will be up, and work will call, again and again.

He turns the lights off.

iii. paris, île-de-france.

Rafael doesn’t know what he’s doing here.

Scratch that. He does know. He knows exactly why he’s in France. It’s because two months ago, his mother had taken his face in her hands and told him that before she kicked it for good, he’d better take her to the one place she’s always wanted to go, and that he’d better do it soon. He’d looked her straight in the eyes, said yes, and booked the tickets for the week after.

(He really—he just worries, every time she says something like this. He knows it’s a nonsensical worry, that his mother’s in better health than he is, almost, but. Still. Ever since his abuela passed, there sits in a corner of his mind the not-so distant thought that maybe this might be the year, that he might be alone for good when the time comes, and what if it’s today, or tomorrow, or next week?

Rafael isn’t quite ready to acknowledge that, yet.)

What he isn’t sure about is what exactly he’s doing here, standing in the middle of a tourist trap while his mother enjoys an evening in a restaurant somewhere without him. He hadn’t been too thrown off when she’d told him to go off on his own, but he probably should’ve prepared ahead for the possibility that she would’ve.

The Eiffel Tower stands before him, big and bold and looming, and it’s beautiful. It really is. Rafael stands amidst the throng of people on the Champ de Mars and takes it in for a moment. The skies are darkening, the firmaments preparing for the day’s rest, and the Tower’s lights only serve to illuminate it further, set against the backdrop of a million unknowns.

For once, Rafael is content to be one of those unknowns, and wander through the lawns.

He passes a street pianist, with a set-up smack dab in the middle of the park, and walks alongside a family of five for a few glancing moments before angling away to occupy one-half of a bench for a number of minutes, the other half taken by a woman fiddling with the brightness settings on her camera.

She leaves, once she’s figured it out, and her seat’s taken almost immediately by another passer-by.

Rafael takes a sip from the coffee he’d bought off a vendor somewhere off the park. It’s still hot, just enough to warm him to the bones when he has a second swallow, heartier than before. It burns his tongue a little, but it’s good, and strong, and reminds him of other places, far and near.

Maybe it reminds him of a hole-in-the-wall in Italy. Or maybe the thick brew that was a constant variable throughout his university years. Perhaps it reminds him of home, the paper cups that stack up in his office with the passing hours. Home.

He calls it home, but the fact of the matter is, there’s still something keeping him from settling. Something that keeps snapping at the heels of his shoes, making him trip from place to place. Heading off on wild trips like these. Turning down dates. Taking on too much work. Making the worst of enemies in the best of places. Watching as everyone else slows down, and stays, while he takes another three steps forward.

He thrives on it all, really. For a lonely soul, he’s having such a nice time.

The woman with the camera troubles is having another mishap, it seems. Rafael doesn’t pay her too much mind as a man approaches to point out that she’s left the cap on the lens. A true good Samaritan, it seems. Rafael probably would’ve just enjoyed her confusion from afar.

She says her thanks, and the man replies cheerfully, turning to wave her off. The light catches the lines of his face, impossibly. Undeniably.

Rafael pauses, sets his coffee on the bench, and thinks about the novel he’s stowed away in his suitcase. Something that isn’t Bachman, finally.

Early on in Palahniuk’s book, there is a recollection of Mrs. Casey, who decorates her signature Easter eggs with a thin embroidery needle dripping spidery lines of candle wax. She enlists her son into helping her, and tells him to draw whatever comes to mind. Drop by drop. White on white.

Invisible. A secret, recalls Rafael.

Rant Casey doesn’t know what to draw. She tells him, “Something’ll come.”

The air is cold enough that pure breath appears in wisps, thin little lines across the lights in the background. Spidery lines across the air. Almost invisible. Almost a secret, like the way Rafael imagines capturing the scene before him, a pretend camera in his hands, a pretend photograph of something that is very much not pretend.

Rafael doesn’t know what to say.

Something’ll come, he thinks, and he stands up, coffee half-forgotten. He opens his mouth.

Rafael calls, “Sonny.”

Carisi turns, and the first thing that Rafael notices is the way he’s flushed in the cold. Cheeks tinged pink, a scarf wrapped around his neck to keep him warm. His breath appears in soft twirls, like the soft, slow dance of smoke from a cigarette. Just as sweet. Just as dangerous.

“Rafael,” Carisi says, and there it is—there it goes. This becomes the start of the show. “Of all the places,” he adds, and the smile he wears inspires a thousand painted Piranski eggs. Just as invisible. A secret Rafael wants to keep, just for himself. The same smile that he’s been able to draw from memory for years now.

He’s suddenly painfully aware of why he’s never settled.

“Yeah,” Rafael says, throat a little dry, “I could say the same thing.”

Carisi becomes Sonny, all in one single, tumbling moment, and the seeds of some new hope are sown. “Guess we’re past the formalities now, huh?” he comments, hands in his pockets.

“I guess so,” Rafael answers.

They’re still standing a good five feet apart. To make it look a little less ridiculous, Rafael picks his coffee back up (he’s not going to waste a perfectly decent drink) and walks over, stopping when there’s just enough space between them to have a proper conversation without having to speak over all the background sound.

“Well,” Sonny says, and he chortles. “This is getting a little weird, don’t y’think so?”

“Incredibly strange,” Rafael admits, grinning despite himself. “It must be meant to be then.”

“Must be,” Sonny replies, “must be, then.”

There’s a moment, before Rafael clears his throat, taking another sip of his drink, and Sonny coughs too, pulling a hand out of his coat pocket to tuck a stray bit of hair back. “So,” he starts, “this another sudden, unplanned holiday of some kind?” He motions toward the path, so they start walking, just casual steps, not really heading anywhere.

“Close. My mother wanted to come here, so I came with her.” Rafael thinks about the way she’d ushered him out the door, obviously intent on meeting with her own friends. Probably forgetting that Rafael doesn’t know anybody himself, here. “And now I’m here, traversing the city for a few days. And you?”

Sonny beams. “My little cousin’s getting married,” he says, and it’s the way his voice shines with pride that makes Rafael feel fondness, even though he barely recalls Sonny’s other sister, besides Gina, whom he’d met in Italy, and Bella before that, during that one case involving her now-husband.

“Not another sister? I assumed you were all taking turns.”

Sonny doesn’t look impressed. “Theresa’s not really interested. But my cousin—she’s the youngest of the cousins, so it’s pretty special for us. She wanted the wedding to be somewhere nice. They’ve been saving up for this a real long time now.”

“Give them my congratulations,” Rafael tells him sincerely. “Family and friends?”

“Yeah, but it’s really only close family and friends. Our family’s pretty huge. She and David didn’t really want a million people coming. Would’ve been too pricey. And too big.” Sonny shrugs. “Pretty sure they might’ve offended a few distant relatives, sending out invites. Callie didn’t really mind, though.”

Rafael snorts. “They’ll probably want invites to the next one, then.”

Sonny laughs, amused. “That’ll be another cousin’s, then. Or mine, I guess. If I ever.”

“Not looking to play house?”

“Nah. Think my generation’s gonna have enough babies to make it count.” Sonny tucks his scarf tighter around his neck, shivering a little. “And I—I know it’s been legal a few years now, but. Guess it just isn’t time yet. My parents have only known for a couple of years, anyway. It’d give ‘em way too big of a shock if I went and did anything big right now.”

“No man in the picture yet, huh,” Rafael murmurs.

“No,” Sonny says, turning his open, honest gaze towards him. “Not yet.”

Rafael meets his eyes. “Hmm,” he says, no more than that, and Sonny says nothing either.

They continue to walk. The path is coming to an end soon. Rafael’s going to run out of things to say, the wax slowly running out on his needle, and he’s wracking his head to come up with another thought that doesn’t involve him straight-up making a fool out of himself, when Sonny says, “I’m here alone too.”

Rafael looks questioningly at him, and Sonny continues, almost a little hesitantly, “I’ve got a plus-one on my invite. Y’know, favourite cousin perks. But, well. Who’d I know that’d come to Paris for a wedding for someone they barely know? Amanda’s gotta take care of Jesse, and Liv, geez—imagine Tucker’s face if that ever happened—”

“The point, Sonny,” Rafael cuts in through his rambling. “It’s in there somewhere. Hopefully.”

“You’re here alone, I’m here alone.” They’d stopped strolling at some point, Rafael doesn’t know when, but Sonny’s looking at him, the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Let’s be alone together, if you’re up for it. I’m promising free food and an open bar. And good company.”

“Are you propositioning me, Carisi?”

“Call it convenience, Barba,” Sonny returns, but it’s good-natured. “So, whaddya say?”

The first thought that flashes through Rafael’s mind is what his mother is going to think about this. The second is the echo of the expectant look on Sonny’s face, and the third is just Rafael wondering whether he packed anything formal enough to be wedding-appropriate.

“You’ll make it worth my time?”

“Promise,” Sonny answers, sincere.

“Open bar?”

“Definitely,” Sonny says.

“Nosy relatives?”

“Now, that one I probably won’t be able to keep my word on, but take it from me.” Sonny winks. “Only the nice ones are coming. About thirty of them. That’s not including the kids, by the way.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Rafael says. Not at all. But—well. What does he have to lose?

(Nothing at all. What does he stand to gain?

Everything in the world.)

“So,” Sonny says, looking a little nervous. “You in?”

“Fine.” Rafael adds, before Sonny can start cheering, by the looks of it, “I suppose I’ll have to go rent a suit then. I didn’t quite expect a dinner invitation while I was packing.”

“S’alright, I’m sure you’ll look good in whatever you’ve brought. You’re always dressed up real nice anyway. Even now.”

“Am I?”

“Course.” Rafael doesn’t mistake the once-over Sonny flashes, and it’s delightfully flirty, the way Sonny adds, “you’re gonna be the best-dressed date I’ve ever let my parents meet.”

“We’ll see how that checks out, then. Where are you staying?”

Sonny rattles off the name of a hotel somewhere near the city centre, and Rafael recognises it immediately, because it had been one of the places he’d looked up when choosing where to book a room, and it’s not too far away from where he’s put up. He tells Sonny that, and Sonny looks relieved.

“Won’t have to trek across the city looking for ya, then.”

“No need. I’ll come find you,” Rafael says, and he gets Sonny’s room number before Sonny heads off to meet back with his family. It feels a little illicit, almost. Trading room numbers and awaiting visits. Arranging times to meet.

Well. It’s about time Rafael had a little fun himself.

“Right.” Sonny nods, and puts his hands back into his pockets. The chill is more evident now, and Rafael really has to wonder why his mother wanted to come here when she knew the temperature would be terribly unwelcoming to foreigners. But Sonny wears the cold like it’s a good friend, around his shoulders, with a hand to his cheek, and it’s left him rose-tinted across the skin. Rafael decides he rather appreciates the chill now. “I’ll see you, then?”

“You will,” Rafael says, tucking his own jacket around himself. He longs for the feeling of indoor heating, and another hot coffee to replace the one he’s already drank the evening through. It would have been even better with another man to warm him—but Sonny is stepping away, waving cheerily, and Rafael waves back.

He finds himself leaving the shadow of the Eiffel Tower feeling much more purposeful than he did coming in.

Perhaps the trip will do him some good, then. He’s seen the movies (even if he won’t admit it to some). Anything can happen in Paris.

Just about.

He manages, after all, to pull together an outfit that’s worthy of being worn at a wedding. He even attempts a nice Eldredge with his subdued grey tie, just for of the occasion. And because he can.

It’s the first thing Sonny notes when he opens the door to his hotel room, a few hours before they’re meant to head off to St. Joseph’s. “Shit,” he says, looking a little beleaguered and scruffy, tie still hanging limply around his neck and shirt still unbuttoned in the collar. “I can’t top that.”

“It’s your lucky day,” Rafael says, as he steps in. “I’m exceptionally good with knots.”

“I’m findin’ it hard to see you as a Boy Scout.”

“You do realise the internet wasn’t invented only in the last ten years, don’t you?”

“Nice to know I ain’t the only one browsing YouTube for menswear tutorials in my free time.”

“Heathen.” Rafael sniffs. “Ties.com.”

The room is impeccably neat—Rafael almost wants to to ask if a cleaner’s been through before he has, but then he notices that Sonny’s belongings are all precisely laid out either on the bed or across the little room desk. It’s a strange contrast to Sonny himself, who seems not at all the kind to care about something like this. “I’m surprised that someone this tidy can’t tie a tie.”

“Was that a pun?” Sonny’s buttoning up his shirt (unfortunately ridding Rafael of the sight of that lick of skin that had been showing) and attempting to scroll through his phone at the same time. “It was, wasn’t it? And I’m really not that tidy, y’know—it’s just that, uh. I like to clean?”

“Good, now I suppose I have a reason to invite you over. Kitchen floors need scrubbing.”

“And not for any other reasons, huh?” Sonny shoots him a grin.

“You would think,” Rafael shoots back, but the words end up hovering somewhere between teasing remark and a little more than that. Sonny ducks his head to avoid meeting Rafael’s eyes for a moment, and Rafael averts his gaze to the tourist booklet on the bedside.

“Anyway. This good?” Sonny finally asks, fidgeting with the bow-tie he’s just completed tying, as if it’s the first time he’s felt the tight loop of one around his collar. It probably is. Rafael wouldn’t be surprised if he’d just watched the tutorial fifteen minutes ago.

He imagines Sonny scrolling through his phone, his face contorting in that slight frown like it does when he’s trying to figure something out. Attempting to follow the instructions a couple of times, before settling on the least terrible knot he can do. The image is endearing.

Rafael steps forward and reaches up to bat Sonny’s hands away. He allows the slightest quirk of a smile to appear when he notices how haphazardly it’s been pulled around Sonny’s neck. “A little too tight, there?” he murmurs, smile growing when Sonny looks a little embarrassed at being caught out. “Good try, though.”

His fingers hook into the fabric and undo the tie, tugging it out enough to redo it, quick and learned motions that he’s repeated many times over, but never for another person before. He finishes, and settles it with a light adjustment, before patting down Sonny’s lapels.

“Haven’t really attended any events to need to know how to tie one properly.” Rafael’s hands have remained on the front of Sonny’s jacket, thumbs absently stroking over the edge of his collar. Sonny leans in, and his gaze drops. Rafael follows his eyes, from the floor right back up to Rafael’s own face, and the once-over is unmistakable. Something in Rafael’s throat catches. “Maybe you could teach me, sometime.”

“Maybe I could.” Rafael says. “Sometime.”

The space between them doesn’t narrow.

Sonny pulls away first, smiling like he knows a secret. “You wanna head out?”

Rafael thinks he knows what that secret is, too.

The wedding isn’t over the top, or any kind of extravagant that Rafael would have expected, given the location. It’s simple, just close friends and closer family, and it’s barely more than fifty people all in all. It’s traditional, but not too, and Rafael appreciates the fact that he doesn’t end up having to socialise with anyone at the church beyond an introduction as Sonny’s plus-one, before the ceremony begins.

The clichés just keep stacking up, don’t they, thinks Rafael. Wanderlust and worries and wedding invitations. It’s something right out of the pages of a rom-com script.

But not one about them. As they’re leaving St. Joseph’s, Rafael recalls the way the young bride had put her hand over her groom’s arm, the kind of touch that spoke volumes about how days like these were rare and few. He’s just a side character in their story today.

His own is still in the works.

Sonny leans over and says, “Ready to party?”

“God, no,” Rafael says.

“Awesome.”

“Remind me again why I said yes?”

“Free booze.”

“Ah. Right. Lead the way.”

It’s a moderate venue, decked out in the same simplicity that seems to be the theme today. There are a couple of teary speeches, terrible jokes, and some singing. A toast or two. Sonny’s eyes start to shine about thirty seconds into the first dance. Rafael discreetly pushes Sonny’s napkin closer to him, and receives a little thanks in return.

The music starts up again right after, now something light-hearted and poppy and soul-crushingly sweet. It’s the kind of music Rafael despises, and Sonny, upon seeing the minor distaste on his face, attempts to persuade him into a dance.

“Absolutely not,” Rafael says. His refusal only serves to make Sonny try another three times to get him on the dance-floor. He’s only slightly tempted when the music switches over to something slower, and Sonny gets his look on his face like he’s always wanted somebody to do this with. Maybe he has had somebody to do this with. Maybe he’s thinking about them.

Or maybe, Rafael is just inventing excuses to avoid having people’s eyes on them.

A couple of drinks later, Sonny sets his glass down and murmurs into his ear, “Wanna get outta here? Leave the fun to the newlyweds.”

“You don’t want to stay? What about your cousin?”

“I’ve seen her more in the last five months than I have my whole life. And I got dragged along dress shopping ‘cause none of my other male cousins were available. Or wanted to, for that matter.” Sonny shrugs, and motions towards the door. “How about it?”

Rafael considers it for less than a second, before making a decision. “Yes.”

They don’t slip out unnoticed—one of Sonny’s sisters catches them before they reach the door and Sonny tells her they’re just going out to get some air—but the moment they’re out, Sonny’s loosening his bow-tie and letting out a hard breath. “Are these always supposed to be that stuffy?”

“Suffering and dressing well go hand in hand.”

“Never again,” Sonny vows, and he stuffs the offending tie into a pocket.

The venue is close to the Seine, a tremendous river that flows right through the area, and the French have taken advantage of the fact by placing bars and restaurants and other stops along it. It’s incredibly scenic, and Rafael’s feeling rather warmed by the drinks and the sight it presents. Feeling otiose enough to walk down the streets and pass more merriment without wanting to make a move anywhere else in a hurry.

“S’nice, isn’t it,” Sonny remarks. He looks to be feeling the same kind of idleness, the kind that makes you slow your steps and just walk without an immediate purpose.

“It is.”

The river seems still, at this time in the night. The commercial lights begin to dim as they walk ahead, and soon, it’s just street-lights that illuminate them, oranges and yellows that dance across the pavement in a way that’s all too reminiscent of the event they’ve just given the slip to. A faint strand of music can still be heard, coming from one of the bars along the bend of a bridge.

Something old, a song from the past. The scratch of some borrowed LP. Something blue, in the way Rafael feels when he thinks about the fact that nights like these are just as rare and few as the mornings before them.

Sonny turns, still stepping along the sidewalk. “C’mon,” he says, and Rafael knows exactly what he’s asking. “Nobody’s watching.”

Rafael shakes his head. “This is ridiculous,” he says, but he’s already holding out a hand, beckoning Sonny to come closer. “You do know how to waltz, don’t you?”

“’Course I do.” Sonny looks at him like he’s being an idiot. “You don’t grow up in a house with three sisters and not learn to dance.”

“I didn’t, and I’ve still learned.” Rafael waits for Sonny to take his hand, before sliding his other over Sonny’s hip. Sonny’s gaze flicks downward momentarily, before he lays his own hand over Rafael’s shoulder. The contact makes him shiver. He hopes Sonny hadn’t noticed.

“Not from your sisters, I’m guessin’.”

“Nope,” Rafael says, and then, just because he wants to see the look on Sonny’s face, he says, “Rita Calhoun.”

Sonny nearly trips over himself, and they’ve barely even moved. “You’re kidding.”

“We went to Harvard together.” Rafael smiles briefly at the memory of her loudly decrying every single time Rafael messed up a move, and James crying through his laughter as he hit pause on the cassette player for the twelfth time (“You should probably stop laughing,” Rita had said, “because you’re next"). “She was brutal.”

“I’m sure she was.” Sonny shudders a little. “Is, I mean.”

The second of silence that lapses after those words is enough for them to catch the little bit of music that’s playing from afar once more, and Rafael realises just how silly they look, just standing there in position, but unmoving.

He coughs, and Sonny takes a step forward, just as Rafael does, and their shoes end up knocking together. “Shit—sorry,” Sonny says, just as they attempt again, but that ends up with Sonny stepping on Rafael’s other shoe, “I’ve always been bad at this.”

“Alright,” Rafael acquiesces, “maybe next time, when we’re both better coordinated and we’re not standing in the dark, we can possibly try this properly.”

Sonny laughs, but doesn’t move just yet. His hand is still warm in Rafael’s. “I’ll hold you to it.”

They separate, carefully stepping away to avoid anymore oxford clashes, and take a moment to themselves. They’re both quiet, until Sonny says, just to break the silence, “I can’t believe it. Y’know. We’re in Paris.”

“Together,” Rafael murmurs, and Sonny glances over.

“Yeah,” he says, “I couldn’t imagine it any other way, really.”

The night seems to stretch on. Rafael doesn’t want it to end, but they’re running out of conversation to make, conversation that doesn’t come back to the one thing they keep skirting around, and have been, for ages.

“Would you,” Sonny starts, hesitant, “d’you want to come up to my room for a drink?”

The meaning behind those words hangs between them for what seems like a lifetime. Rafael’s not obtuse. He recognises it for the move that it is.

And he more-than-well recognises the temptation that would will him to accept.

But—and here it comes. Here Rafael goes again. Easy to say yes to the small things, but unable to make any decision larger than the situation that encompasses present time.

That’s patently untrue, he tells himself. He’s made enough big decisions in his life, about his family, his career, his education.

(But, never about anything like this.)

He doesn’t realise that he’s left the question without an answer until Sonny just nods rapidly, and says, “Right, okay. M’sorry, I should’nt’ve asked.”

“Sonny—”

“No, I mean, I get it.” Sonny shrugs, and nods again, before striving to put a smile back on his face. It falls a little flat. “I think I should probably get back. Callie’s gotta be wondering where I’ve gone off to.”

“Sonny—” Rafael tries again.

“Thanks for tonight,” Sonny says, softer. “And—thanks for coming along. I know you didn’t have to, but—it was fun.”

Rafael doesn’t try anymore. “I’ll see you back in New York.”

“Yeah. G’night, Rafael.”

“Goodnight.”

The light traces the line of his shoulders as he walks back the way they came from.

Rafael presses his palm to his face, and curses. God. He’s an idiot—Christ, he’s just—Rafael’s just fucked it up, hasn’t he?

“It’s all on you,” he says aloud. The river answers with the soft sound of waves. “You, Rafael Barba.”

Two travelers, who keep meeting. Do you call that coincidence, or is it just stupidity, after the third time?

Yes, Rafael reckons, on his way back to his hotel, it is indeed ridiculous at this point that after the third time they meet in the same place, that they do not arrive at it with one another, and yet still they leave apart anyway.

In the morning, Rafael washes, tidies, and heads downstairs to meet his mother, where he nurses a cup of coffee over the ache in his chest he’s sure is an early sign of heart disease, or too much caffeine in too short a time.

His mother looks him over once, places a hand on his arm, and gets him another coffee. It actually makes him feel better after a while, which by then is enough time for his mother to begin talking about what she’d been up to the night before, while Rafael had spent his attempting to learn the way Sonny Carisi held another man’s hand while he side-stepped him across a cobbled street, in the short time they had. It could have been his last chance. It could have been just his first.

(It’s definitely not the caffeine, thinks Rafael. Not this time.)

iv. manhattan, new york.

It’s an awful wet-grey, the skies are, today. The streets are packed to the brim with moving bodies, and just as many umbrellas. He narrowly avoids a puddle as he turns a corner, and watches the rain slip and slide off the windows of cars, of buildings, of countenances.

He likes the rain. It’s true, he really does—but he likes it more when he’s inside, and not when he’s attempting to traverse the gridlocked city on foot, trying to not get his new socks wet.

Taking a cab would have been incredibly stupid. The traffic’s backed up as far as the eye can see. But then again, dry seats. Rafael probably could have afforded to take his time today. He doesn’t have any too-pressing matters to attend to. A late meeting with the mayor, a couple of subordinates to reprimand, and the ever-present pile of paperwork that only seems to grow each day.

Rafael’s almost at the precinct, walking down the slightly less crowded street as quickly as his feet can take him without slipping, when he remembers that he’d forgotten to get coffee before taking off through the rain, and he swears under his breath. Of all the things.

Lucky for him, though. The little food stand that’s always parked on the curb never packs up, even when the skies are draining nearby lakes to pour over the heads of scurrying citizens. He’ll take it, he decides, and makes a detour.

There’s one other person braving the rain to get his morning sup, and he’s being handed a bagel just as Rafael ducks under the little awning. “Thanks,” he hears, just as Rafael asks, “A coffee, please,” and they both turn.

It shouldn’t be, really—but Rafael is still inordinately pleased to see Sonny Carisi standing there beside him, one hand holding his wallet and the other curled around a warm bagel, the handle of his umbrella pinned to his side with his elbow, holding it up precariously. Still pleased, even though they still work together occasionally. Even though he still hears from Liv often about how the squad’s doing.

Rafael has spent days and nights wondering about things that could have happened and remembering all the things that never did. In Paris, in San Fran, in Italy. Days and nights have turned into weeks, and those weeks into months, and those months into years, and now it seems like a lifetime ago since they met.

A lifetime ago, they were both much younger than they are now. Sonny doesn’t quite have the same gait he used to have, has more lines on his face and a harder look to his eyes, but his smile hasn’t changed in the slightest.

Still as blinding as the first time Rafael realised it.

“Rafael,” Sonny says in greeting, as if they’ve accidentally run into each other in some other part of the world again. They still use each other’s surnames at work, and probably always will, but Rafael hasn’t heard the syllables of his name in Sonny’s voice since the last time they left each other in a faraway country.

It still sounds just as new.

“Sonny,” he says, instead of Carisi, and the smile on Sonny’s face stretches so wide that it looks like it might just split his face into halves. The words come much too easily, this time. Their own personal greeting. The words they’ve both remembered for years, now. “Of all the places.”

“I could say the same thing,” Sonny says, the words still feeling like the first hello after a long goodbye, and the abruptness of the desire that floods Rafael to kiss him is completely overwhelming. But he refrains, disappointingly so. Kissing a co-worker in the middle of the street under torrential rain probably wouldn’t be the most appropriate thing to do, not when he’s running for re-election this year.

And Rafael’s not one for inappropriate, sudden bursts of romance. Not after Paris.

Though, this could come close, he thinks. “Heading to the precinct?”

“Yeah,” Sonny answers, motioning for them to continue walking, and they do, falling into pace with each other easily. “Something for us?”

“Not specifically,” Rafael answers, “I’ve just got to speak with Liv for a moment. Couldn’t be done over the phone.”

Sonny hums, the sound barely audible over the rain. “Not too sure she’s in right now, but if you don’t mind waitin’ on her—”

“Well.” Rafael shrugs. “If you’re there to keep me company, then, maybe.”

There’s a quick smile that Rafael catches, and tucks away for another rainy day. “Well. If you don’t mind.”

“I’ve never minded,” Rafael murmurs.

Sonny smiles, not taking his eyes off the street as they make their way across a particularly wet crossing. “Neither have I,” he replies. “How’ve things been?”

“One of my ADAs is becoming a regular problem. Mayor’s office is still being unreasonable about funding. I’m still heading to SVU every other month even though I technically no longer need to. It’s raining.” Rafael sighs. “Same as always, isn’t it?”

That gets him a guffaw. “Well, if it makes you feel any better,” Sonny says, “the new kid, Ormiston, ran into a newsstand and knocked down six people chasing a perp down four blocks last Tuesday evening. Sprained an ankle and earned a whole bunch of bruises.”

“Him, or the perp?”

“Him,” Sonny says, amused, “and he didn’t even get to cuff the guy, in the end. The other new kid—Leonard—did.”

“Are they really so young that you’re calling them kids? What does that make me?”

“C’mon, you’ve seen ‘em! They’re fresh recruits. Barely seen a thing yet.”

“Unlike you?”

Sonny raises an eyebrow. “Hey, I’ve got a few good years on me now.”

Rafael smirks, not even needing to look at the badge on Sonny’s hip. “I’m more than aware of that. So. When did you pass?” he says, and he watches Sonny flush with pride when he hears the words. Definitely recently. He wouldn’t be this happy about it unless it was.

“A couple of weeks ago. Would’ve mentioned it, but I’m still gettin’ used to it,” Sonny admits, “but it’s great. Didn’t think I could, really.”

“You should’ve,” Rafael says. “I thought you could. So did Liv. I’m sure Fin’s bawling his eyes out as we speak.”

Sonny laughs, apparently amused by the image Rafael’s words conjure up. “Yeah, well. He did say he was proud.” He pauses. “You really thought so?”

“How many cases have we worked on together? I’ve seen more than enough to know that you’d be a good sergeant. And Liv trusts you.” I trust you. The words go unspoken, but by Sonny’s smile, Rafael knows that he’s gotten the message.

They hit the steps of the precinct, and they shake their umbrellas off before slipping inside. Sonny hits the button for the elevator for him, and Rafael steps in right after he does.

It’s strange how easy things have gotten. It’s even stranger to think back now to days where Rafael hadn’t even wanted to tolerate his presence in the precinct, dismissing his ideas as showy and unsubstantiated (at times). But things change.

Things change, which is why Rafael has taken years to get to this point again. Where he turns to Sonny and says, you’re alone, I’m alone, let’s be alone together, in something reminiscent of what Sonny had asked him all that time ago.

But then the elevator pings, and the doors slide open.

Rollins spots them first—and even though Rafael’s known them all for years now, she’s still Rollins to him, because anything else would just sound strange to him—and she grins. “Look who’s decided to visit this month. Morning, Counselor.”

“Rollins. Good to see you.”

“Hey, Sarge,” Ormiston calls, sounding a little tired, from where he’s sitting at his desk. He spots Rafael beside Sonny and nods at him too. “Morning, Mr. Barba.”

“Your ankle healing up okay?” Sonny asks, leaning against his own desk, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah,” Ormiston says. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that I’m good enough to be pulled off desk duty, Sarge, so, maybe—”

“Geez, Rollins Jr., slow down there,” Sonny says, and Rollins snorts, giving Sonny a look that spells his impending doom, most likely. “You’re not getting off that easy. The second you can jump without wincing is the day you get to come back to active duty.”

“I resent that, by the way,” Rollins tells Sonny as she passes him on the way to the coffee-maker, and Sonny just grins at her. Rafael’s heard the stories of how insistent Rollins had been to get back to work, even while pregnant, and even a week or two after having the kid. He isn’t surprised, she’s always been a determined woman.

Ormiston looks disappointed, but he nods, understanding. Not too hard-headed, then. SVU’s always had a problem with attracting the worst tempers, the most stubborn and the constantly defiant.

Sonny doesn’t quite fit into any of those categories. Maybe stubborn, but not to a fault. He knows when to back down, knows when it’s better to give than to take. He’s not terribly defiant—but Rafael’s worked enough cases to have seen Sonny stand his ground when the rest of the squad is saying the opposite.

Rafael takes a sip of his coffee, and pretends to not eavesdrop on Rollins and Sonny idly discussing weekend plans. “Jesse’s gonna love it, I promise,” he hears Sonny say, just as he comes back over with his own mug.

“She’s seven, I’m pretty sure she likes all video games at this point.”

“C’mon, classic NES? She hasn’t seen a thing yet.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Rafael acutely remembers the moment he’d walked into the precinct and gone, oh, there’s a baby, the second he’d seen Rollins’ new sprog in her arms, everybody else encircling her as if they’d never seen one before. The child is seven years older now, and only serves to make him feel much older, now that it can say complete sentences such as ‘can we play more Mario Kart next week,’ and ‘when is Uncle Sonny coming over again,’ according to Uncle Sonny himself.

Sonny comes over to where Rafael’s standing when he’s done coaxing Rollins into letting Sonny set her kid up on a playdate with one of his nieces. “Hard work, being Sergeant,” Rafael comments dryly, getting a laugh from the man.

“The hardest,” Sonny says, “organising playdates and making sure the kids behave? And that’s not even including Jesse.”

“Hey,” Ormiston calls, “heard that.”

“I know you did,” Sonny calls back.

It’s then that Liv walks in, and she spots him immediately. “Barba,” she says, pleasantly surprised (as always). “What’s the occasion?”

“Work,” he says, not wanting to divulge more in front of people who don’t have to know, and Liv nods. “May I?”

“Sure, sure. Go on in, I’ll be there in a sec.” She disappears into the back for a moment, probably to retrieve something.

“I’ll see you later, then,” Sonny says in goodbye, and Rafael presses his hand to his arm in a gesture that says, you will, before letting it fall as he walks away to Liv’s office.

He keeps his word.

A week later, Rafael shoots off a text that says, Drinks, soon? before he can talk himself out of it, and a reply comes only minutes later: Tmrw after the hearing?

Sounds good, he answers, I’ll meet you after court tomorrow.

See you :) is the reply he receives to that. He sighs, still undecided on the true appeal of emoticons, and decides instead to focus on the work in front of him.

It doesn’t work very well. He thinks about the impending meet-up all the way till it’s actually time, and even then he’s still thinking about a million different ways he could say something tonight that might end up meaning something else.

They meet after the tense hearing for one of their latest cases outside of the courthouse, on the steps. The wind’s blowing a little strongly; Sonny tugs his coat tighter around himself as they make their way through the streets, conversing about anything other than the case.

The warmth of the bar is much welcome, and they sit at the counter after ordering a couple of drinks. In the corner, the television is blaring coverage of some baseball game. Rafael tunes it out, and relegates it to background noise.

“We should’ve done this more often,” Sonny says, tapping his fingers along the side of his glass, “considering all things.”

“Yes,” Rafael says, “we should have.”

Sonny hums. “Do you think about—those days?”

“Of course I do. All of them. I think about Paris often,” Rafael pauses, before saying, softer, “and how many mistakes I made.”

Sonny doesn’t say anything. But when he does, it comes out sounding self-deprecating. “Saying yes?”

“Saying no.”

Sonny looks up from his glass, lips parted slightly, as if he wants to say something, but isn’t quite sure how to form the words. “Raf—” he starts, but his phone goes off, and he swears under his breath.

“Duty calls,” Rafael notes, and Sonny nods, still looking a bit taken aback. He looks like he doesn’t want to move from the spot. Rafael doesn’t want him to—Rafael almost wants to tell him to sit right there, while he tells him just why he’d said what he’d just said. Explain everything in the smallest number of words possible. Tell him just how long he’s known that Sonny’s eyes are blue-green, the colour of the sea.

But he doesn’t.

“Duty calls,” Sonny echoes, and he stands. “Thanks for the drink.”

“You’re welcome.” Rafael watches him collect his coat, and pull it on.

“See you, Rafael,” Sonny says. “And reply my texts more often, won’t ya.”

“Only if you stop using emoticons,” Rafael says, and Sonny barks out a laugh. “Which probably will never happen.”

“True,” Sonny says, and he throws his scarf over his shoulder. “I—we—I think we should talk. About that, soon.”

“About?”

“What you said,” Sonny says, and ah. There’s no avoiding that, now. Maybe Sonny is going to tell him how it’s just too late, how the years have passed and it’s really not a viable thing anymore. Maybe Sonny’s going to attempt to let him down easy. Maybe—

But Rafael just says, “We will.”

Sonny nods, reassured. “I’ve really gotta go. I’ll see you.”

“Right.” Rafael nods, and watches him go.

He takes a moment to finish his drink, before calling for another. He’s gonna need it, tonight.

Rafael isn’t sure whether he’s lucky or unfortunate that work piles on so heavily that neither of them manage to get back to that conversation, until two weeks have passed, and by then it’s so far out of their minds that they never do.

His phone rings late into the night.

Rafael’s inhaling another cup of coffee over a half-finished email that was supposed to have been sent off an hour ago, when he notes the caller I.D. with interest. It’s not someone who usually contacts him at this kind of hour. He sets his mug down and picks his phone up.

“Rollins,” he answers, curious about the surprise phone call, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Barba,” she says, voice sounding rough around the edges, and Rafael’s about to chalk it up to signal interference when she says, “Carisi’s in the hospital.”

Something seizes in his chest almost painfully. “Rollins,” he says again, pushing past the desire to ask how she knew to call him, pushing past the terror of finding out the severity of the situation, because why else would she call—he wouldn’t have been contacted if it were just scrapes and bruises. “What happened?”

“Guy had a knife,” she says, “and Carisi, he—he got jumped.”

“Wasn’t anyone covering him?”

“No, Barba, it was—he wasn’t on the job. He was on his way home. He got mugged,” she says, and Rafael feels a sudden surge of anger at the thought that it was just some low-life trying to get cash off some unsuspecting person, and Sonny had just come along. “And I called him but he wouldn’t pick up, so I started driving over and I found him just lying there—”

“I’m on my way,” Rafael says, and he hangs up.

He doesn’t bother putting any of his work away—he’ll get back to it later. He grabs his coat, shoves his phone and wallet into his pockets, and tells Carmen to close up behind him.

“I’ll cancel tomorrow’s meetings,” she says, concerned by the news, “get there safe, alright?”

Rafael nods, even though he knows he won’t be able to stop himself from asking the cab driver to break the speed limit and run every red light on the way there.

He can barely keep his mind straight as the cab weaves its way through traffic. Rafael should know how this feels; he’s had family members who have been in hospital before. He should know this feeling, and he should know how to leave it aside and focus on the facts—but he can’t, god, not this time.

The fear that this is going to play out the same way as all those years ago makes Rafael too tense to think about anything else. “Please,” he says under his breath, getting out of the cab when it pulls up to the drop-off point, when he walks up to the entrance, when he makes his way down the corridors to the emergency room, praying and wishing and hoping for the best, “please, please.”

Don’t leave me. Come on. Not before I can tell you that I—

“Liv,” he calls, spotting her standing by the counter.

She turns abruptly, and sees him. “Barba?” she says, taken off-guard by his appearance. “What are you doing here?”

“I called him,” Rollins says quietly from beside her, and Rafael gets a good glimpse of her; she seems to have washed up, but she’s still got blood on her clothes, and he suddenly feels a little ill, thinking about any of it being outside of Sonny right now, and trying very hard to not think about how much is left.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely, choosing to ignore Liv’s question just for the moment, “how is he? How long has he been in surgery?”

“An hour,” Rollins says, shaking her head. “I don’t know how long more. They haven’t said much.”

“Where’s his family?”

“They’re on their way, but—Rafael,” Liv says uncertainly, “Amanda called you?”

Rafael just looks at her, not saying a word, until she gets it. And he knows she gets it, because her eyes widen all the way, and she looks very pointedly at Rollins, and back at him, before pressing her fingers to her forehead. “This explains a lot, actually,” she says, “how long?”

How long? How long indeed, Rafael wonders. Is it how long he’s been pining, or how long they’ve known each other, or how long it’s been since they first admitted there was something between them?

“We’re not together,” he says, and it’s Rollins’ turn to look surprised now, because she’d probably thought that they were if she had to call him, “but I was going to fix that.”

“Oh,” Liv says, and her tone shifts softer. “Oh. Rafael.”

“But, wait,” he says, “how did you know to phone me?”

Rollins looks pained. “Someone had to call his family. And I had his phone. He keeps them all at the top of his contacts list, under the letter A, you know. A@Mom, A@Dad, A@Bella.” She pauses. “Your name was right between Gina’s and Theresa’s.”

Rafael closes his eyes momentarily, a tourbillon of thoughts in the front of his mind and on the back of his tongue. When he opens them, Rollins and Liv are looking at him with a strange mix of pity and understanding. “Don’t,” he mutters. God, he needs to clear his head. But he doesn’t want to leave. “Just. Don’t.”

“Rafael,” Liv starts, but he shakes his head, and walks off towards the waiting area.

It’s not too occupied, but there are some other cops, who are talking to a few others in regular dress, and Rafael guesses that they’re here for Sonny too. He catches sight of Detective Leonard, who blinks at him as if she isn’t sure that he’s standing there. Ormiston’s standing next to her, and he frowns at Rafael when he passes.

“Counselor,” he says, “you’re here?”

“Moral support,” Rafael says shortly, and he takes a seat in the corner of the room, avoiding everybody’s eyes.

Fin shows up a little while later, and sits next to Rafael without saying anything. Eventually, he comments, “Y’know, my son sat in that same chair for hours when Alejandro was in here, and they wouldn’t let him into the room ‘til Alejandro woke up.”

“Alejandro,” Rafael murmurs, “a friend?”

“Husband,” Fin says, and Rafael’s gaze flicks up to meet his. “Nah, nobody told me. You think I’m blind? Kid’s had a thing for you since he met you. I’m guessin’ it took you a little longer.” When Rafael doesn’t respond, Fin continues, “Wouldn’t blame ya, though. That moustache was pretty awful.”

That gets a laugh out of Rafael. “Yeah,” he says, “it was. He said he might grow it back, just to spite us, if nothing else.”

“Well, tell you what. If that happens, I’ll hold him down, and you grab the razor.”

Rafael snorts, and immediately feels a little guilty at being able to find amusement at something while Sonny’s being operated on. He exhales, and Fin places a hand on his shoulder.

“S’alright. You got us,” he says.

He appreciates the thought. He really does.

Later, Fin is replaced by Liv, who brings him coffee and an apology. “I wasn’t expecting it,” she says, “but I guess—I should’ve. The two of you got close. I thought it was just because of work.”

“No,” Rafael says, and memories of sunshine and moonlight hit him both at once. “I took a couple of days off in 2016. Ran into him in Italy, of all places. A year later, it was in San Francisco. And a while back, we were both in France at the same time. I ended up being his plus-one to his cousin’s wedding.” He’s never told anyone about any of these coincidences before. It seems so removed, now. The present caught up to the both of them much too fast. “We left early and went sight-seeing.”

“I still can’t believe it.” Liv takes a sip from her own cup. “When I got the call, I thought it was going to be Dodds all over again,” she admits, the one thought Rafael hasn’t been able to stomach this whole time. “But Dodds got shot, and Carisi—this is different. It will be different.”

“Yeah,” Rafael says, and he clears his throat, his words feeling a little thick. “Has the family arrived yet?”

“Almost,” Liv says.

That almost comes quickly after. Rafael’s still sitting there when he sees Liv at the entrance of the waiting room, talking to some people who have just arrived. He recognises Sonny’s parents, his sisters, and his nieces and nephew, all of whom Rafael seems to have encountered at some point in the past. It’s a little funny. They haven’t even dated, and he’s already met the family.

He isn’t sure if he should join them. After all, right now, what is he to them?

What is he to Sonny?

He doesn’t get to decide, because Gina’s spotted him from where she’s standing, and she waves him over. “Oh, Mr. Barba,” she says, “you’re here for Sonny too?”

“I am,” he confirms, acknowledging the rest of the family, who’ve noticed him as well by now. “I really do wish we could have met again under better circumstances than these. Have you been updated?”

“He’s stable,” Theresa says. Always the calm one, like Sonny said. She seems the most put-together of all of them, right now. “The blood loss wasn’t fatal, thank God. Amanda found him just in time. He’s gonna be out of it for a while, though.”

Rafael feels relief wash over him. “I’m glad,” is all he can say, nodding. “Truly.”

“Well. Thank you for being here for him.”

“It’s no trouble at all.”

Carisi Sr. claps him on the shoulder, and moves past him into the room.

“Come on,” Theresa says to the kids, “I’m sure there are enough chairs to fit all of us.”

Rafael silently sidles out of the room while they settle, and finds himself standing against the counter, checking his phone in lieu of making stilted conversation with Sonny’s family. He scrolls through his messages, all work-related. He checks his emails, all work-related. He opens Facebook, just to distract himself, and sees a message.

It’s from Sonny, sent three days ago. Dinner and a movie, Counselor? :)

Rafael rarely checks Facebook. If he does, it’s only ever to answer Sonny’s inane messages that he decides to send through this medium instead of using texts like a regular person. He hasn’t checked in three days. He’s an unbelievable schlemiel, he is.

He could’ve had this. They could’ve even planned this for tonight. He could’ve met Sonny after work, they could’ve gone somewhere together, they could’ve headed a completely different direction or taken some other crossing or turned onto a different street. They could’ve avoided this entire situation. If he’d just—

Rafael’s hand trembles. He ignores it, and types, I’ll never miss another day with you.

He sends it, and turns his phone off.

The night has given way to the morning sky by the time Sonny’s family is allowed to go in and see him. Rafael hangs back, knowing that he’ll get his chance eventually. He takes a trip to the cafeteria and brings coffee back for himself, Liv and Rollins, who look just as weary as he feels.

“Should’ve gotten him a balloon with a smiley face on it, or something,” Rollins says, as they’re standing by the window in the waiting room. “Might cheer him up. He likes ridiculous stuff like that.”

“You could steal a flowerpot from the nurses’ station,” Rafael suggests. “Not like they’d miss it.”

Liv shakes her head. “A District Attorney telling two police officers to commit theft in a hospital. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“I’m just full of surprises today, aren’t I,” Rafael says.

Rollins snorts. “I’ll just get the balloon when I bring Jesse. I’m just glad she’s slept through the whole thing.”

“Lucky girl,” Liv says softly. “Even luckier that her Uncle Sonny’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“I think we’re all lucky, in that respect.” Rafael notices Sonny’s family filing out of the room, and he motions towards them. “Think you can both go in, if they’re letting non-family see him.”

Rollins looks pensive for a moment. Then, “You go ahead,” she says, “I think we can wait a few minutes.”

Rafael just looks at her for a moment, unsure of how to respond. “Thank you,” he finally says, and Liv gives him a smile.

He’s sure that the two of them aren’t the only ones who’ve clued in to the situation by now. Sonny’s sister Theresa has always been scarily perceptive, ever since the time he’d been introduced to her, and he’s walking up the hallway, wondering what it looks like when he’s the first after the family to go see Sonny, when she catches his gaze, lingering behind while the rest of them go on ahead.

Theresa just nods when he walks over, and she says, “You’re gonna have to come over to meet the parents now, y’know.”

“The thought absolutely terrifies me.”

She grins. “You’re not a bad sort. I’m sure you’ll do him good.”

“I’ll do my best,” Rafael says, feeling a little harried now that he’s received a semi-talking-to from the eldest sibling, and isn’t he supposed to be way past this stage in life? What’s next, shovel talk from the father while he holds a shotgun in one hand and inquires after Rafael’s creditworthiness?

Theresa bids him goodbye, and leaves him there, standing in front of the room, mulling over too many incomplete, ridiculous, unnecessary thoughts.

He should just go in. Or go. He doesn’t even know if Sonny wants to see him, and he doesn’t even know if Sonny is well enough to have a proper conversation, and—really, at this point, he has to stop making excuses for himself.

Rafael pushes the door open, and steps in.

He doesn’t register how bad Sonny looks at first, bruised and pale, a cut on his temple—because Sonny is grinning right at him. “You came,” he says, like he hadn’t expected it at all.

“Of course I did.” Rafael moves towards the bed, almost afraid (of what? himself? that he’ll just make the same mistakes again?). “To do anything else would just be unfair.”

“To who?”

“You.” Rafael makes himself meet Sonny’s eyes. “You deserve better.”

Sonny’s gaze softens. “You’re enough for me,” he says, and he raises his left hand, beckoning him over. “C’mere.”

He goes, and when he gets to Sonny’s side, his hand is immediately taken into Sonny’s. Warm and firm, despite the slightest tremor from the injury’s after-effects. It’s strange—but Rafael barely remembers holding the hand of anybody else in the same manner. The gesture says, you’re here, I’m here, we’re here together, so let’s make sure we both know it. Rafael squeezes Sonny’s hand gently, and starts, “All these years—”

“Shut up,” Sonny says, good-naturedly. “I know, alright? I know. It doesn’t take a mugging for either of us t’realise that. Just—sit down or somethin’. Just stay.”

“Yes,” Rafael replies, and it’s all he needs to say. “I’ll have you know, though, your team will be insufferable, now that they know.”

“About?” Sonny raises an eyebrow. “The fact that we’ve both been idiots over each other for ages?”

“No,” sighs Rafael, “the fact that you have my name in your phone contacts with your family members.” When Sonny chokes out a laugh, Rafael adds, “A little early for that, isn’t it? You’d think there’d be a ceremony first, and then papers, and can you imagine the tax forms—”

“Geez, you’re awful,” Sonny wheezes, clutching at his side, “I’m gonna pull my stitches if you keep this up.”

“You’d better not.” Rafael leans closer. “We’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”

“Well, why don’t you start right now?” It’s a challenge. An easy one.

Rafael closes the gap between them, the first time either of them has done so, and kisses Sonny. A soft, chaste thing that calls back memories of wanting to do this on a dock in Italy, in the middle of a bar on the other side of the country, post-dance by the Seine, and a million other times in between.

It’s even better when it happens, because it’s not a figment of his imagination anymore. Sonny’s lips are warm, and his other hand has come up to press against the side of Rafael’s face, and Rafael wants to do this just as many times as he’s imagined it.

God. It’s happening. It really is—and he isn’t sure if something in his chest has just settled, or given way completely. It’s both at once, and Rafael wants to keep this moment in the palm of his hands for as long as he has memory left to cherish it.

But they’re in a hospital room, with dozens of people milling around outside, and it truly isn’t the right time.

“You’re going to pull your stitches if this goes anywhere else,” Rafael murmurs, and Sonny chuckles, drawing him into one more kiss, just because he can, now. “I think you’ve got more visitors outside. I’m sure Liv and Rollins are halfway to bursting through the door right around now.”

“Alright.” Sonny lets go of Rafael’s hand, with much hesitation. “I’ll see you, then?”

“You will,” Rafael promises.

“Good.” Sonny smiles, and this time, it seems less like a goodbye. This time, it’s the start of many more, private smiles to come, during moments like these, between just the two of them. “Good.”

Rafael lets himself out, and lets Liv and Rollins know that they can go in, before heading off to his place.

(And perhaps, he lets himself think that night, perhaps, in some time, he might even return to a decidedly not empty flat.

Perhaps, he might even come home.)

A month and a half down the line, he finds himself squeezed in between Liv and Fin at a couple of joined tables, while Sonny sits opposite him, subtly attempting to knock their shoes together in what seems to be a misguided attempt to get Rafael to lose track of the rather strange conversation that’s going on between the junior detectives, and strangely enough, John Munch, who somehow owns the bar that they’re in.

“Then, the guy turns to the other one, and pulls out a nail-gun,” Munch is saying, while Ormiston and Leonard stare in what seems to be either awe, or plain confusion about why he’s even telling them any of this, “and hits him right across the face with it. Frankly, I never understood why he didn’t just use the gun to shoot him, but I guess some people just have a flair for dramatics.”

“I feel like I should be regretting saying yes to coming here tonight,” Rafael says to nobody in particular.

“And miss seeing me?” Sonny says. “You wouldn’t.”

“You’d think that,” Rafael voices, “but really, I’m just here for the alcohol.”

“So am I,” Fin says, “speaking of, I’m gettin’ another round before Amanda shows up. C’mon, Carisi, gimme a hand.”

Sonny raises an eyebrow, but follows him anyway, and the second they’re gone, Liv sidles a little closer, and clears her throat. Rafael should’ve known. “Is this going to turn into an interrogation?”

“Not quite.” Liv motions towards Sonny. “Still on the down-low?”

“Somewhat.” But not quite. Rafael has only mentioned it in passing to a couple of people, Rita and James including, but he hasn’t found reason to go about shouting it from the roof-tops. He doesn’t have to.

The way their hands brush when they sit for coffee together, the way Sonny continually texts with the most inane things possible but still managing to make Rafael’s day just the slightest bit better, the way Sonny laughs when Rafael inevitably makes a crack at some poor sod on the news when he’s over for dinner and they’ve gradually settled into side-by-side television consumption in lieu of nothing else to do. Just comfortable conversation and gibes about increasingly ridiculous Florida man reports on NBC.

“Actually,” Rafael adds, “it wouldn’t matter if people found out, to be honest. It’s all disgustingly domestic anyway. Not even the slightest bit sordid. The New York Times would sooner run a piece on the previous mayor’s ex-wife’s son mingling with drunk socialists at his twenty-year high-school reunion.”

Liv laughs. “So. Does this mean your plans have changed?” She’s always known how ambitious he’s been. Fighting tooth-and-nail to get to where he is. Things like this can make or break careers.

It doesn’t even shock him, just how quickly he answers. “I believe so,” he says, and Liv doesn’t even need to notice the way Rafael’s gaze slides towards Sonny’s at the counter momentarily to know that he’s the reason behind it all. “A more than temporary one, I’m hoping.”

Liv smiles, that sly smirk she gets when she knows she’s guessed something right. “One more trip for two, then?”

Rafael doesn’t answer, because Sonny chooses that moment to return to his seat, drinks in hand. “To coming back to work!” Sonny says cheerfully, and he clinks his bottle against Liv and Rafael’s glasses. “And to being able to down a cold one.”

“Don’t think you’re off desk duty that easily,” Liv says, raising an eyebrow. “You’re technically still recovering. Psych eval results still haven’t gotten back to me either.”

“Alright, alright,” Sonny acquiesces. “No worries, Cap. I got it.”

The door to the place opens, the noise of the street outside filtering in for a moment, before Rollins trudges in. “Hey, y’all,” she says cheerily, “hope you didn’t start without me.”

“Too late, we’re all goin’ home, and you’ve missed the cake,” Fin declares.

“Hilarious. Scoot over, Katie. Atta girl.” Rollins takes the glass that Munch slides her with a grin and a nod. “Good to see you, Munch.”

“Same to you. Anyway,” Munch continues, turning back to the junior detectives, “has anyone ever told you about the JFK cover-up?”

The two of them shake their heads. Munch looks decidedly predatory at this.

“God rest their poor souls,” Rafael says, and the rest of the group nod in agreement.

As more conversation settles in, Sonny nudges Rafael under the table. “Hey,” he says, “take a walk with me for a minute?”

Rafael assents. They slip away from the group with a promise to return, and Sonny steers them down the street, their steps slow and paced. It’s not too cold tonight that they’re freezing their fingers off, but it’s just comfortably chilly.

If anything, Rafael doesn’t pull away when Sonny’s fingers brush against his. Instead, he lets Sonny’s hand slide into his, and pretends that he isn’t much too old for public hand-holding.

“You know,” Sonny finally starts, after a moment, “never thought I’d ask this, but—”

“Move in with me,” Rafael says.

Sonny stops, and blinks. “What?”

“We’re not getting any younger. And it makes sense, logistically—traffic, parking, travel costs. And, besides.” Rafael watches Sonny gape for a couple more seconds, before he continues, “I’d like to pay a lot less on rent than I do right now.”

“You’re awful,” Sonny says, but he’s grinning. His face is lit up in the dim evening light of the sky and the street-lamps, and the overhead glare of shop signs and glass panes. “Really. Who asks someone to move in like that?”

“Well. I just did.”

Sonny sighs, mock-despairingly. “Yes. Yes, I will. Alright?” And, oh God, he’s said yes. It’s the best combination of words Rafael has ever heard. “But you gotta at least let me finish my own question. Not that I’m gonna be able to top that—you’ve basically just stolen my thunder. But, I was gonna say... ”

Rafael waits.

Sonny reaches back out, and folds their fingers together, palm to palm, fingers interlaced. He pulls Rafael’s hand up with his, and raises it to his lips. A single kiss against the side of Rafael’s wrist. The promise of a lifetime. The words that don’t have to be said. “Stay,” he says, simply. With me. Here. Until time runs out.

(Stay now, because you always came close but never really did, all those other times.)

Rafael lets himself reach out with his other hand, placing it against Sonny’s cheek, the warmth skin against skin reminding him of the first time he’d brushed his fingers against the very same spot, such a long time ago.

He’d thought good things never lasted. He’s spent years of his life going through the motions, not realising that the best thing he’s never had is the one thing he’s always had, even if neither of them had realised it.

He was wrong. Good things don’t just last. They wait for you, too.

“I will,” Rafael says.

v. here, now.

He does.