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It began with Barba’s hands.
And soon that is what Sonny’s dreams are made of.
While others chose liquid fire vices to burn away memories of a hard case, Sonny drew. Self-taught, the privileged few deemed his art beautiful. They carried such a likeness to their subjects many swore them to be photographs.
After arriving at SVU, he finds a muse in the form of ADA Rafael Barba. A man of such small stature yet reverberating with passionate strength, Sonny’s attention is wholly captured. What keeps him riveted are Barba’s hands.
It seemed such a shallow fixation, many would argue.
“What about his intellect?”
“His snake tongue that charms jurors to give favorable convictions?”
But as an artist, Sonny stood on the principle that aesthetics are important because beautiful things need to be immortalized.
And Barba’s hands, Sonny finds, are very beautiful.
So to forget the caged child who prematurely dies; to forget the girl that gets raped by her uncle, he draws pages and pages of hands. Hands in different state of motion. Hands both elegant and tensed with promised power. Hands with fingers, so sinfully long.
Hands, Sonny thinks would fit perfect in is own.
He draws and draws until one day, hands turn into a pair of eyes. Eyes that gleam of emeralds. With a fierceness that could tear into his soul. Eyes that see truth.
A truth that has lingered, pushed back into the caverned hollows of his mind, whispering, “You lie!”
He relents and agrees the fixation is shallow. But it is safe. Because men like Barba are dangerous to men like Sonny. Falling for the unattainable promises a hurt unimaginable.
But he is weak.
And with time, the walls get chipped and cracks form.
Cracks, Sonny can’t help but fall through.
Time passes and drawn eyes are joined by an aquiline nose and a proud mouth that perpetually smirks and knows prose like a lover. And when everything culminates into a face with distinct resemblance to the ADA, Sonny finally accepts his surrender.
He comes home with narratives painted in his head.
They manifest on paper from charcoal pencils that bleed his ache, his desperation, his love for the older man. Charcoal pencils because color could never convey the exact shade of green.
He fills pages with re-imaginings of each encounter.
A sneer was really a smile. A roll of the eyes is softened. It has warm affection...for him.
But soon his imagination starts to fail. Mere rememberings of Barba’s face falls short to produce a true rendering of the older man.
So he finds himself one day, standing outside the courtroom while Barba preps a witness inside. He is a giraffe, crouched behind a marble pillar, a laughable attempt at being inconspicuous. Still, with great care, Sonny snaps a few pics of the ADA on his phone.
A clearing of someone’s throat freezes him mid-snap. He turns to face his lieutenant, whose brow is raised and suspicious, mild amusement on her lips.
“Do I even want to know, Carisi?”
His answer is a sheepish grin, a guilty shrug, but he stays silent. Eyes almost pleading. Pleading for something he doesn’t know, but fears Liv will find words to address.
Liv has the heart to let the subject drop; tho she leaves with a knowing look.
His stealth grows with practice.
The amount of candid pics of the ADA, he accumulates, becomes staggering if not a little disturbing.
Some would call it obsession.
To which Sonny would be the first to agree. After all, his Ma often told him he had a penchant for riding on the cusp of obsessing over things he liked.
But this had grown to be more than a mere “like”.
Because he was now a man possessed. Possessed by love for the one who fought for justice so bravely.
The one with beautiful hands and green eyes.
And Sonny refused to be exorcised.
Most stolen moments are from squad conference meetings. But his favorites are during court days.
When Barba is in his element, strutting with a confidence that exceeds his small build. Where he performs his seductive dance of elocution.
Then the telltale smirk.
The jurors are beguiled.
And the opponent is annihilated.
Sonny sees all this, enraptured, as he sits in the back, when he can help it. Away from prying eyes of Liv or on occasion, Rollins and Fin. He sits in the back where he is safe to capture each moment.
And then he comes home, where the ADA becomes “Rafael”.
Not, Barba.
Not, Counselah.
Rafael.
It’s Rafael’s smile. Rafael’s nose. Rafael’s shoulders that touch a strong neck. A neck he’d like to---
Rafael. Rafael. Rafael!
His Rafael.
He makes a binder; a makeshift memory book, which he fills with his favorite pictures and drawings. And on the first page is the most treasured.
It’s a profile sketch of Rafael looking out his office window.
It had been an especially trying case of a burned and buried child and the monster that received an innocent verdict. Everyone had felt defeated, tho what Rafael felt as the persecutor, Sonny could not wish on his worst enemy.
It was brief. Almost a flash in his eyes. But Sonny saw, because Sonny always saw.
Pain and fear.
Alien emotions of vulnerability Sonny could not associate with the ADA, and it captured him so.
He managed to snap the moment before Barba shifted and turned his head.
Eyes briefly locked, Sonny likes to remember that Barba may have given him a small smile.
For a while, these pictures and drawings seem to appease.
But it's short-lived.
Because one day he is tracing drawn lips. Wondering how the real ones would feel against his fingers. Against his tongue. How sweet they would taste?
And dreams are soon filled with grasping limbs. Lips on skin. And hands.
Beautiful hands with fingers so sinfully long.
And he knows it’s not enough.
It’s a particularly easy day when Liv sends Sonny to pick up some files from Barba. He disguises the thrill that shoots thought his body at the chance of seeing the older man as eagerness to please his boss. He also has the mind to slow his pace when his body is reflexive in wanting to run out of the bullpen towards the ADA’s office.
But when he arrives he’s met with disappointment. And it’s sharp.
“The counselor isn’t in right now.”
He can’t help but glance towards the closed doors and thinks he sees movement in the blinds. But he gives it to wishfulness.
They chat with friendly familiarity as he accepts the files. And as the small talk ends, Carmen hands him a nondescript folded piece of paper.
Before he can question, Carmen sends him off with a firm “Don’t open it until you get home.”
Patience was never his strong suit, but Sonny feels inclined to follow Carmen’s orders. So he waits until he’s home. Waits until he’s eaten his last bite. Waits until he’s fresh from the shower and sprawled on his well-worn comfy couch.
And as he opens the paper and reads what's written, everything stops.
The script is familiar; Sonny has come to know it from studying over the ADA’s case files.
At first he can’t comprehend.
He reads it through once. Twice. Three times. Four.
And soon the words blur as he allows himself to understand and accept them to be true.
It’s a poem, signed with a simple “Rafael”.
A poem that strums at his heart, turns his chest heavy, and makes his throat hurt.
A poem he hears in the older man’s deep tenor, telling him “I love you”.
And a mantra starts, that rings in his head. “HE LOVES ME! HE LOVES ME! HE LOVES ME!,” as a frenzied euphoria overwhelms him.
He wants bang on the walls....scream out the window...call Rafael---
He cuts short because he can’t.
He won’t!
A call would trivialize the moment and he would not blaspheme his answer of “Yes I love you too” with a phone call. It needed to be done in person. So he practices patience for the second time that night, hoping Rafael will not think his silence is rejection.
His sleep is fitful, the poem tightly clutched in his hand fearing if he lets go, it would all have been nothing but a dream.
The next day moves excruciatingly slow.
It taunts him as his body thrums with unhinged energy. Knee bouncing and foot tapping is almost maniacal, as he tries his best to keep from flying off his seat while doing his paperwork.
But his mind is fogged, swirling with heady thoughts of words on page born from someone he thought he could never have.
So, he is blind to the flick of a wrist as a spitball is thrown at his head.
Jolting at the wet projectile bouncing off his ear, he looks up at Rollins, smirking.
“You on crack, Carisi? Cuz I can hear your foot tapping through my headphones!”
He rolls his eyes and retaliates with a pointed tongue out.
After all, there’s apparently children working in SVU, so when in Rome…
Two hours later, Liv finally gives him reprieve, telling the squad they could go home early for the weekend.
If he ran from the bullpen he can’t remember because he’s soon hitting the stairs two by three. His long legs make quick work until he’s standing outside Rafael’s office door, bypassing Carmen’s desk. The women in questions just smiles, as if she was expecting him.
Panting he can only nod back and proceeds to knock on the door. But the gravity of the situation suddenly hits him and he’s trembling, his hold onto the memory book he’s brought, slipping. The memory book that holds his pictures and drawings of Rafael. The memory book that has the poem on its last page with an addition on the bottom in his hand that answers Rafael’s declaration of love.
He quickly steels himself and tries to quiet the loudness of his heart as he hears a “Come in.” from the other side.
Entering, he walks wordless to drop the book in front of a sitting Rafael, before he can lose his nerve.
But he melts.
The older man paints an adorable picture, looking sweet with rumpled hair, sleeves rolled above elbows, as if he’s just awoken from an afternoon nap. Forehead creased in question as he peers at the book, Sonny motions him to open it. And as Rafael flips through the pages, Sonny prays this is enough to show Rafael how much he loves him back.
It’s a quiet few minutes, with the flipping of pages by fingers of hands that have bewitched him in the past and in this present, the only sound in the room. A room, Sonny thinks to be thick of tension and time, once again creeping so very slowly.
And when Rafael finally looks up, there is a shine of tears and unsaid sentiments that Sonny wants so desperately to be whispered in his ear.
“This is how you see me?” the question is pained with incredulity.
He wants to shout back,
“How else would I see you!?! You perfect wonderful man who I love!!”
But words are for another time. He’s waited long enough.
So he nods, running a trembling thumb across Rafael's bottom lip, the feel of it intoxicates, and answers with a kiss.
And the real thing is really so much sweeter.