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Sonny is entranced.
Barba rises from his seat at the bench, his bench, and as he moves to the gallery it seems the courtroom is his ballroom; Sonny watches, eyes wide as Barba begins his closing argument, and he's magnetic. All attention in the room is laser focused on him, and it makes Sonny nervous but Barba, he seems fanned by it; his speech is so articulate, weighty, pithy, that if Sonny was a lesser man, or if Barba was a different man, a stab of something akin to jealousy would strike between his ribs, because unlike Sonny, people listen to Barba. Like himself, a dozen jurors sit entranced, soaking up his every word, his genius, and by the way their eyes eagerly follow the cutting motion of his arm as he gesticulates pointedly, Sonny has no doubt the perp will be indicted.
Sonny could never be jealous of Barba, because all he feels towards him is admiration.
Barba's passion bleeds from him — seeping into the every scratch of tile in the hall and setting alight, a crackling fury that vehemently asks the jury, 'How could you believe this man is innocent? How could you not believe he should go down for this?' He burns brightly, with a righteous amber flame, and if Sonny wasn't so completely and utterly enraptured by his presence, he'd wonder how Barba is still burning.
When Sonny joined SVU, he hadn't known the true extent of the twisted perversions that plagued humanity. He'd seen the doubt in the Lieu's eyes when he'd called himself experienced, and the laughter in Rollins's, and he'd naively, stupidly, thought they were wrong: thought he could prove himself as time passed — the year he'd spent at homicide was the toughest of his life, and it was too dark to bear any longer. It was the end; every case was too little, too late for every vic, and he could never do anything to scrub clean the worst outcome of a case because it had already happened. Sonny was so sure Manhattan SVU would let him finally help, prevent the horrors that'd etched onto his eyelids after months of torture. He was so sure that any vic was better than a dead vic.
Sonny is not so sure anymore.
It has been six months since he joined, and that should mean he's had six months of improvement, of success, pulling children from hell and capturing the devils themselves. Six months of helping. Instead, Sonny finds it has been six months of agony. Six months of looking the devil in the eye and seeing the sick satisfaction of sin staring back at him. It has been six months since he uncovered a battered, bruised and broken girl, with wide blue eyes that reflected only terror and shone the same wet gleam as Bella's when she was young. But Bella hadn't had the ugly, purple bruises that clung like parasitic leeches to her ghostly skin, nor had she had the blood claw its way out of her lungs as she sobbed and hacked, nor had she felt her malnourished body collapse under itself, limp from the weight of her hell.
Sonny had scrambled to her side, desperate to do something, to help, only for her blue eyes to widen further in fear and brim with tears as she recoiled, horrified, shaking violently, traumatised at the sight of her own savior's face.
It has been six months, and Sonny has watched it happen everyday since — watched bruises bloom dark as coffins, watched children's fragile minds splinter in their torment, watched the fractured bones of different girls combine to make one fragile, irreparably broken body.
Sonny realised, then, that all vics, in a way, are dead vics. These children, they'd sobbed out their spirit, hope cascading from their heads and flowing away, until all that's left is an empty shell of who they once were. An oyster of suffering.
As the weight of his exhaustion settles onto his bones, Sonny recognises the feeling that's been crushing down on him since he joined. The all-consuming urge to run, again, to leave SVU for an easier borough, just like how he swapped homicide for an 'easier borough'.
His efforts at SVU have gone to waste. He hasn't helped anyone, not really, and he's not sure he even has any spirit left himself. There is no easier borough, and it's pointless to do anything, because for every victim 'saved' there's another simultaneously snatched.
Maybe Sonny should just quit.
But then Sonny looks up, and Barba is there, commanding the room with a heat that ignites, and he feels his blazing spirit spark his own.
Barba is passionate. Barba fights, has been fighting and will keep fighting for these victims, no matter how futile anyone deems the battle. It seems despite the tragedies he encounters, Barba has never thought his help is pointless. In fact, the opposite must be true — he knows how important he is, his power to advocate for victims. He can't have ever doubted himself like Sonny does, because the confidence that radiates from him metamorphoses Sonny into a vessel of reverence, and he can't ever imagine any version of Barba without it: without flame, without fire. As he sweeps over the gallery again, the intensity of his passion rages and consumes the room, until it crackles ardently in the jury's eyes too.
Barba makes people believe.
Barba makes Sonny believe.
He only wishes he could feel that induced passion naturally.
Then Barba turns, and the hall is a ballroom again; every movement is a dance of elegance, a flourish transformed for the courtroom, and everyone is hanging onto his every motion, enamoured and unable to look away. Sonny catches a fleeting glimpse of his gold-flecked green eyes, and Sonny feels the pull of his own lips that has been so foreign to him for six months, and he's happy he chose the seat closest to Barba because from here he can bask in his glory, and although he certainly doesn't need him personally, maybe Barba can bask in Sonny's admiration.
Maybe Sonny can fuel his fire. Help, somehow.
Never has Barba not been perfectly composed, and today is no exception — every midnight hair is swept meticulously into place, shining in unison against the honest gleam of warm, bronze skin. Subtly adjusting his violet patterned tie, the weaving of the luxurious threads he grasps is almost visible in glow of the brightness he emanates. They must feel heavenly against skin, and momentarily, the urge to reach out across the barrier, to touch and caress its fibres overcomes Sonny. The tie is adorned in pale lilac stripes that perfectly emulate the shade of his silk pocket square, delicate, and folded precisely against the left pocket of his ink black suit: against his heart.
Damn! That's the second time Sonny has lost himself in thought, and now he's missed most of Barba's closer — the melodic rhythm of his voice is building, and after watching so many of his performances Sonny can tell by the specific way the cadence of his words is flowing that he's about to deliver the final damning blow, the seal of punishment and justice. His eyes dart up, eagerly, with the anticipation of Barba's power and passion oozing from him, and for the second time his piercing gaze falls on Sonny, but now it softens almost imperceptibly, and it's not the fire going out but somehow it seems to burn even brighter, like he's seen Sonny's admiration and it means something to him. Like Sonny has helped. He feels the heat and strength again, but this time he also feels the warmth, the empathy that resides behind those compassionate green eyes. In an instant, he sees how he was wrong — Barba has a softness that means the fire must've once withered, faltered from a relentless fury into ashes, but instead of giving in Barba's ashes rose again, and only made him stronger, rebuilding and enhancing his glorious Phoenix.
Sonny sits, entranced, in the gallery as Barba's aura emboldens him.
Sonny could be like him too.
Fight like him.
He's still smiling at Barba, and now, Barba smiles back.
Sonny is sure of it now.
He doesn't have to run.
He can be like Barba.
He can rise again.