Chapter Text
Sonny was late. He was crammed into an unconditioned car of the C train like cattle, and he was very, very late. He glanced up to where his hand was wrapped around the bar just above his head, rolling his wrist so that his Apple watch lit up. He nearly groaned at the time.
It was rare for him to oversleep. He’d always been a morning person, and usually woke before his alarm, but he’d been out half the night with Fin, staking out an apartment building that they believed was being used as a brothel. It had been nearly three in the morning by the time he’d fallen face first into his bed.
It normally wouldn’t be a big deal. The lieutenant knew they’d been on the stakeout and would be lenient if he showed up an hour or two late, but this morning he wouldn’t be dealing with the lieutenant.
Finally, the train reached his stop and he fought his way from the center of the car and through the doors just as they threatened to close. He practically ran from the station to the courthouse, sweat pouring down his back and forming on his brow.
“In a hurry this morning, huh, Detective?” The guard at the security checkpoint commented with a grin, handing back his gun, while Sonny collected his wallet, badge, phone, and keys from the small bowl that had gone through the x-ray machine.
He worked to cram all his belongings back in his pockets, fixing his badge to his hip and returning his gun to its holster even as he hurried for the elevator. By the time he found the right courtroom, he was out of breath and had sweat through his shirt.
Barba, on the other hand, was the picture of calm, seated in the front row of the jury box, feet propped up on the railing, writing on a legal pad he had pressed against his thigh. An anthora coffee cup sat on the rail next to his feet. Sonny assumed that by this point the cup was empty which only made things worse. “You’re late,” the counselor said without even looking up.
“I know, I know.” He was still trying to get his breath back as he rushed up the aisle. He really should take Rollins up on those offers to go running with her in the mornings. He was a great sprinter, easily taking down a perp quickly, but clearly endurance was not his thing.
As he cleared the gallery and approached the jury box, Barba finally looked up, giving him a once over with that scrutinizing gaze of his. Sonny ran his hand over his hair that he hadn’t had time to fix, and then down his suit jacket in a futile attempt to rid it of wrinkles.
He felt inferior to Barba on a good day, now standing in front of him completely disheveled, he wanted to crawl into a hole. Barba was always so put together, so stylish, and Sonny had done his best in the past few years to emulate that, but had clearly failed today.
“Did our appointment interrupt your walk of shame?”
Sonny felt his cheeks burn and suddenly felt the need to assure Barba that he hadn’t spent the night in someone else’s bed. “No, I overslept and I—”
“I honestly could not care less, and we don’t have time for whatever excuses you were going to make. We now have exactly,” he checked his watch as he dropped his feet to the floor, “one hour and twenty-three minutes until my motion hearing, so I’d like to at least get some work accomplished.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Sonny mumbled, climbing up onto the witness stand. He was an accomplished detective who faced down hardened criminals every single day—He was a member of the New York Bar for Christ’s sake!—and somehow Barba managed to make him feel like a kid who’d just gotten detention.
“Did you review the case notes?” Barba asked, approaching the box, legal pad in hand.
“I know how to do my job, Barba.” He was starting to get frustrated. Yes, he’d been late, but he was working on very little sleep and wasn’t in the mood for Barba’s condescending attitude. He’d used the streetlight shining through the car window the night before to review the case, his eyes straining at the effort. He would have liked to use the dome light, but that would have drawn too much attention.
Barba shot him a look like he didn’t quite believe him, but held up his free hand, his gold pen twined in his fingers. “I was just asking. Now, you’ll be my second witness, after the victim since you took her disclosure…”
They used their full time, Barba making him run through the details and then coming at him aggressively like the defence would on cross, working right up until Barba had to leave for his motion hearing in a courtroom down the hall.
“Don’t be late tomorrow,” Barba warned him before hurrying out to make his hearing.
Sonny just rolled his eyes, picking up his jacket that he’d taken off sometime during their prep, and not bothering to put it back on. This time of day, his walk to the precinct would be plenty warm without it.
On his way out he waved to the guards at the door and stopped at the coffee cart at the bottom of the stairs, finally getting his first hit of caffeine for the day. He wasn’t an addict like certain ADAs that he knew, but it was still a necessity in his line of work.
He’d just turned toward the precinct, hoping for an easy day of paperwork, when his phone buzzed in his pocket. The screen showed his lieutenant’s name. So much for an easy day. “Yeah, Lieu.”
A couple of weeks later, Sonny entered Barba’s outer office, a tray of coffees in one hand.
“He asked not to be interrupted,” Carmen said without greeting.
“Aw, c’mon, Carmen. I brought you a coffee.” He flashed a grin and held out the tray. “Yours is on the right. Besides, it’s important.”
He’d discovered a long time ago that getting in good with assistants and other admin staff always tipped things in his favor. He’d learned Carmen’s coffee order during his first couple of weeks with Manhattan SVU, as soon as he’d discovered what a hard ass Barba could be. He knew Carmen was the gatekeeper and that she was great at it. It helped to be in her good graces.
She gave him a skeptical look, but rounded her desk, grabbing the coffee cup from the tray as she moved toward Barba’s door. She knocked on it lightly before pushing it open and ducking her head inside. “Mr. Barba, Detective Carisi is here. He says it’s important.”
Sonny didn’t hear what Barba said in response, but Carmen swung the door open further and motioned for him to go through it.
“Whatever this is, Carisi, I don’t have time for it,” Barba said before Carmen had even closed the door behind Sonny. He was at his desk, striped shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark suspenders over his shoulders. “I have to figure out a way to get the judge to keep this DNA in since you and your colleagues can’t seem to do your jobs properly.”
“That’s why I’m here actually.” Spurned forward by a sense of purpose, Sonny placed the tray holding his and Barba’s coffees on the corner of the desk, rounding it to look over Barba’s shoulder. “I was up last night, looking at the case law. I think I found a precedent for you to use.”
He flipped through the pages of the law volume that was at Barba’s elbow until he found what he was looking for. “See? NY v. Kramer.” He tapped a fingertip on the page.
Barba simply looked up at Carisi, eyebrows raised at his brazenness and Sonny took a step back, suddenly aware of the way he’d invaded Barba’s space. “Anyway.” He moved back around to the other side of the desk, dropping into one of the visitor’s chairs. “I think that case will work.”
“Kramer isn’t relevant here.”
Sonny’s hand froze where he was pulling Barba’s coffee from the tray. “Why not?”
“Because,” Barba took the cup from his hand. “In Kramer there were extenuating circumstances. There was a life at stake when the cops broke down the door. They weren’t just being overzealous.” He shot him a look.
“Okay, but don’t you also think that—”
The counselor let out a loud sigh. “I don’t have time to play professor today. I know you enjoy these little debates where you get to practice your skills, but you’re not a practicing lawyer, Carisi. If I recall correctly, I called in a favor at the Brooklyn DA’s office and you turned it down. You wanted to be a cop, so be a cop and go find me a way to get to this DNA that doesn’t make it fruit of the poisonous tree.”
“I—” Sonny started, but Barba was done with him, having lowered his head and resumed writing on his notepad. He took his own coffee, tossing the tray in a trash can on his way to the door.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Barba said as he walked out.
Sonny said a quick goodbye to Carmen as he went through the outer office and back into the marbled hallway. His face burned and he didn’t know if it was from embarrassment or anger. Probably both.
He’d spent hours the night before combing over case law and Barba had shut him down in a matter of seconds. He honestly didn’t know why he bothered.
No. That wasn’t true. He knew exactly why he bothered, but he refused to think about that right now. He had work to do.
Back at the station Sonny combed through all of the files they had, desperate to find something that would fix their screw up. Well, it wasn’t even technically his screw up, but that didn’t stop his need to fix it.
After going through the files a second time, he shoved them across his desk with a frustrated groan.
“I told you there’s nothing there.”
“Not really in the mood for ‘I told you so’s’.” He picked up his coffee mug and frowned when he saw that it was empty. It was probably for the better. He was going to have a hard enough time sleeping that night as it was.
“I don’t know why you let Barba give you so much shit,” Rollins said, sipping from her own mug, almost as if to rub it in that hers wasn’t empty.
“Who said Barba was giving me shit?”
She just sent him a look that said ‘give me a break.’ “Sometimes I think you like it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The little digs, the snide comments, I think some part of you enjoys it.”
Sonny scoffed, pretending to be interested in whatever was on his computer screen. “Yeah, I love being insulted.”
“Hey, no kink shaming.” Rollins held up her hands.
“Seriously?” He wasn’t in the mood for this.
“You’re telling me you didn’t spend all night looking for a precedent for this case just to impress him?”
“No,” he was adamant. “I did it to try to save our case.”
“If you say so…” She went back to her own files.
Sonny checked his watch. It was getting late; he should go home. It’s not like he was going to manifest something to save their case. But instead of standing and throwing on his jacket he sighed and pulled the case file back in front of him.
He’d read through the first third for probably the fifth time when he looked over at Rollins. “I don’t feel the need to impress Barba.”
“I said okay,” she said without even looking up.
“It just gives me a chance to work my lawyer muscle.”
“I don’t think that’s the muscle you’re trying to work.” It was said with pure nonchalance, still not bothering to look over at him.
Sonny felt his cheeks burn. “I don’t want to sleep with Barba.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t.”
“Sure, and he doesn’t want to sleep with you either.”
This caught his attention. “You think Barba wants to sleep with me?” He went for an air of mild curiosity, he failed.
Rollins finally looked over at him. “Y’all have been making eyes at each other since you showed up here. You just need to go at it and get it over with.”
His mouth opened, but he found that he didn’t know what to say to that. Sure, Barba was attractive, and Sonny liked it when the counselor thought he did a good job, and maybe he thought about him a lot. Like, a lot. And maybe sometimes that thinking happened when he was in the shower, but that didn’t mean—
“Do me a favor,” Rollins interrupted his spiral. “If you’re gonna make this happen, do it in the next six weeks. I’ll win fifty bucks from Fin.”