Work Text:
“i forgot what it meant to have a family.”
rafael sighed, looking anywhere that wasn’t the space nick amaro was currently occupying. it had been ten months since the death threats had started. a week since mike dodds’ death. two days since nick had been on the receiving end of a phone call from a grieving olivia benson. it had been ten months. three hundred and five something days.
it had been longer for nick and rafael. two years. at first it was just sex. it was having a warm body in your bed and none of the commitments that it required. that’s what it was until it wasn’t.
it was just sex until nick got shot. until nick was in a hospital bed and rafael was yelling at a nurse on her second twelve hour shift that no he wasn’t a cop and no he wasn’t family. he hadn’t realized he wanted to be. he hadn’t realized it until nick was in surgery and rafael was pacing and tears were running down his face and olivia benson was staring at him and asking when in the hell did you get so close to my detective. he hadn’t realized.
after that it wasn’t just sex. it was whispering “if you ever do that again so help me god” into an unconscious man’s hair and quietly excusing himself from the room when zara came into the room. it was holding nick’s hand on the drive back to his place. it was holding him as he cursed himself and the job and johnny d and everything in his life that was falling apart. it was cleaning up the broken glass on the kitchen floor that nick was too ashamed to see. it was reminding him he wasn’t his father. it was rubbing circles on his back when he didn’t know why he was upset. it was anger when he found out it was because he had told olivia he was leaving.
rafael tried to understand. he knew he had only been someone nick called for drinks and for sex for a long time. but still. he didn’t understand why he hadn’t been told.
olivia benson hadn’t been up all night, holding onto nick’s shoulders as he leaned over the sink and choked up the vicodin that did nothing but make him feel worse. olivia benson wasn’t the one dealing with the mood swings and the psychical therapy. olivia benson wasn’t the one forgoing every moment of his free time to be in the presence of someone who would rather have taken a shot to the head than one to his liver. that was rafael. it was all rafael.
but rafael tried and nick tried and rafael packed up every belonging and spare grey hoodie of nick’s except the one that he kept back in a drawer at rafael’s apartment that nick had claimed as his own. rafael marked the boxes and tried to cut his losses but ended up cuddled up next to nick in the otherwise empty apartment on his last night in new york.
they didn’t make promises to stay together but they did. they called each other every night. rafael had the number of the referral nick was supposed to start seeing in california. he knew when nick didn’t go. he nagged him about it when that happened. nick would hang up annoyed and fuming but the next morning would send him a snapchat from the psychical therapist’s waiting room. rafael would smile.
they didn’t make promises to see each other as often as possible but they did. rafael flew out the second month of being apart and stayed for two weeks. it was so much better than hearing nick’s voice through the phone held in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other. the scratch of nick’s stubble against his thigh is so much better than staring up at a dark ceiling and imagining his left hand isn’t his own. it’s so much better.
they didn’t make a promise to spend christmases and birthday’s together but they spend every single one the same way now, curled up together on the california sand where it’s still warm, laughing about how it’s a blessing nick moved away from all the snow in new york.
they didn’t make a promise to tell each other when shit hit the fan and a gang member threatened to snap one of their necks on the steps of city hall, but nick had assumed that was a given. it had been twenty-four months. two years of late nights and skype dates and puppy dog snapchats that made it feel like they were less far apart. two years of plane flights and long weekends and days in bed because their time was short and that was their favorite way to spend it.
it had been twenty four months of that and for ten of those rafael had been hiding the fact that he was in danger. it had been ten months of saying everything was good in new york (aside from missing you, of course) and it had only been two days of knowing and nick was already standing across from him in rafael’s kitchen, fuming and trying to determine whether or not his anger was at whoever was threatening rafael, or at rafael for not bothering to tell him.
and it had been about thirty seconds after “ i forgot what it meant to have a family “ before nick stopped being angry and looked sad. it had been thirty seconds after when nick barreled into rafael and held him and kissed his shoulder through his clothes, thirty seconds after rafael let him hold him because it wasn't him that needed to be grounded, it was nick.
nick never forgot what it meant to have a family. his family was zara and gil and rafael. rafael didn't usually include himself as part of nick's family, but he was. having a family meant protecting them. rafael forgot that, but nick refused too.