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Barba kissed his way up Carisi’s back, smiling against his shoulder blade when he felt the other man stir. “Good morning,” Barba said, his voice low.
“Morning,” Carisi said, and Barba could hear the smile in his voice, even if he couldn't see it from his angle. “Are you gonna give me a proper kiss at some point?”
“Maybe,” Barba said, his smile widening at the impatience in Carisi’s tone. “But first—”
He sucked almost languidly on the juncture between Carisi’s shoulder and neck, leaving a blood bruise directly over Carisi’s soul mark.
Carisi sucked in a breath but didn't interrupt. It was their usual morning ritual, when they had time at least, when Carisi wasn't called out of bed at ass o’clock in the morning for a case, or Barba didn't have an early meeting — Barba leaving his own mark over the soul mark that would forever brand Carisi as belonging to someone else, as if he could replace the mark, or at least hide it. Carisi would gladly have returned the favor, covering Barba’s mark with one of his own, except for the simple fact that Barba didn’t have a soul mark.
When he was satisfied, Barba scooted far enough away from Carisi that he could turn over, smiling at Barba, his blue eyes lighting up as they always did when he looked at Barba. “Morning,” Carisi repeated, pulling Barba to him and kissing him.
“You ready for your interview today?” Barba asked, skimming his fingers lightly up Carisi’s side, his smile turning into an almost predatory smirk when Carisi shivered at the touch.
“As ready as I’m gonna be,” Carisi said with a slight grimace.
Barba leaned in and kissed him again. “You're ready,” Barba said confidently. “The Brooklyn DA’s office would be lucky to have you.”
Carisi rolled his eyes but he was smiling. “You're a little bit biased.”
Barba considered that for a moment and shrugged. “Maybe,” he allowed. “But my bias doesn't diminish the fact that you are an accomplished detective who passed the Bar on his first try.”
“You passed the Bar on your first try, and you also went to Harvard,” Carisi said, his nerves only betrayed in the slight pout to his full lips. “Not sure Fordham Law and a stint with the NYPD really compares.”
“And I didn't say you compared,” Barba said, smirking. “Just that they'd be lucky to have you. They were far luckier to have me.”
Carisi rolled his eyes again and jokingly pushed Barba away from him before sitting up in bed and running a hand through his hair in a futile attempt to make it lie flat. Barba tracked the motion with his eyes, smiling slightly. Though they had been together for a few months now, he hadn't yet tired of watching Carisi do all the small, mundane activities that comprised their relationship.
He wasn't sure if he ever wanted to.
“You wanna shower first or you want me to shower?” Carisi asked, stretching, though he broke off to give Barba a dirty grin. “Or you wanna shower together?”
“Tempting,” Barba said, sitting up as well. “But I'll let you shower while I make coffee.”
Carisi’s face lit up at the word ‘coffee’ and he leaned over to kiss Barba once more, though he hesitated, something genuinely nervous in his expression. “You sure I'm ready?” he asked doubtfully.
Barba reached up and cupped his cheek. “I’m sure,” he said firmly. “Besides, it's just a job interview. It's hardly going to end up being that life-changing.”
“Hey, you never know,” Carisi said with a grin before he disappeared into the bathroom.
As it turned out, you never do.
Barba had expected a text message at least from Carisi when he was done with his interview, but his phone remained silent, and as Barba glanced up at the clock in his office, he was beginning to get a little worried.
Just when he was about to call Carisi himself, a familiar knock sounded on his door and Barba huffed a relieved sigh. “Come in,” he called, standing to greet Sonny, who was the only one allowed to knock on his door without some intervention from Carmen. “Hey, how’d it—”
He paused mid-sentence when Carisi stepped fully into the office, his expression drawn and pale and his eyes suspiciously red. “Sonny?” Barba asked, as gently as he could manage. “What happened?”
“I—” Carisi broke off, and Barba stared at him, concern edging into panic because he had never seen a look of such anguish on Carisi’s face. “I met her.”
“Who?” Barba asked, confused, before it hit him like a perfectly placed punch to his stomach. “Your soulmate.”
Carisi nodded, just once, and Barba sank back into his chair as if the sturdy leather might somehow convince him that his entire world wasn’t falling apart. “When?” he asked, finally, his voice hoarse.
“At my interview,” Carisi whispered, and Barba closed his eyes briefly, because of course , it would be the thing he had set up for Carisi, the strings he had pulled and the line he had very nearly crossed on behalf of his— on behalf of the detective, that had caused Carisi to finally cross paths with the woman he was destined to be with forever. “She’s a paralegal in the Brooklyn DA’s office.”
“A paralegal?” Barba said, his accompanying sneer more rote than anything. “Setting your sights a little low, aren’t you?”
For a brief moment, something tightened in Carisi’s face, and he shook his head. “You know I didn’t choose this,” he said quietly.
And Barba did know. But it didn’t make it hurt any less.
“I don’t know what to do,” Carisi continued, his voice still quiet, pained, and Barba wanted so badly to hold him, to wrap his arms around him and give him what physical comfort he could. But he didn’t. “I still love you, but—”
“But it’s your soulmate,” Barba finished, his tone hollow.
Carisi nodded wordlessly, and Barba looked up at him, at the man that he loved more than any other person he had ever met, and said the words that he knew he needed to say, even if it was the absolute hardest thing that he would ever have to say in his life. “Then you should try being with her.”
For a moment, Carisi just stared at him, but then he shook his head, almost violently. “No,” he snapped. “No, that’s not — Rafi, that’s not what I want —”
“You don’t know what you want.” The words came out harsher than Barba intended them, and Carisi flinched, but Barba didn’t stop, knowing that if he so much as paused, he would take it all back, he would beg Carisi to ignore his soulmate, to sacrifice everything if it meant staying with him. “Besides, it’s better this way. Neither of us have disclosed yet, and since no one knows about us, it’s not like we’ll have to tell anyone.” He did pause then, to swallow back the sudden emotions that welled in his chest. “This way, it’ll be a clean break, and you can get your happy ending.”
Carisi shook his head again, but something in his expression hardened, and he lifted his chin slightly to deliver his words like a challenge: “If that’s what you want.”
As much as Barba wanted to tell him that what he wanted is for Carisi to be his forever, the mark on his shoulder be damned, Barba just nodded, slowly. “It is,” he said softly, the lie hurting him almost as much as anything else.
But it didn’t hurt quite as much as watching Carisi turn on heel and leave without another word.
And certainly not as much as returning home that night to find all of Carisi’s things gone and the extra key that Barba had given him sitting on his counter.
Barba set his briefcase down in his suddenly empty-feeling apartment and made his way almost blindly to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of scotch. And as he sat down on the couch, alone again, just as he would always be, he tried to pretend that he wasn’t crying.
For his own sanity, Barba avoided Carisi as much as possible over the next several weeks, making sure to keep their every interaction strictly professional. Gone were the days when Carisi would swing by his office with the flimsiest of excuses about dropping off a case file. Gone too were the days when Barba would linger at the precinct.
It just hurt too much.
Which was why Barba was surprised when Carisi showed up at his office one day out of nowhere. Carmen poked her head into his office, her expression carefully neutral, and Barba wondered for a brief moment just how much she knew when she told him, “Det. Carisi is here to see you.”
“Send him in,” Barba said, though his shoulders tensed as a sudden burst of longing exploded throughout him, magnified fourfold when Carisi stepped into the office. “Detective.”
“Counselor.” Carisi matched Barba’s tone carefully, and he wasted no time with small talk, instead crossing to Barba’s desk and setting a file down on top of it. “I’ve been doing some research on the Sam Dalton case, looking at relevant case law that would be applicable to argue against the motion to suppress. There’s this case in Delaware with a white supremacist group that claimed First Amendment protections.”
Barba took the case file but didn’t open it. “What are you really doing here, Carisi?” he asked tiredly, well aware that this was the closest they had been in weeks and well aware that it still wasn’t close enough.
Carisi blinked. “I know my legal expertise leaves a lot to be desired—” he started, but Barba shook his head.
“You’re not actually here to dispense legal expertise.” Barba said the words flatly, and Carisi flinched, reaching out to steady himself against Barba’s desk. “So what do you want?”
“Am I not allowed to want to see you?”
Barba closed his eyes for a brief moment, struggling to keep his expression neutral. “Outside of a professional capacity, no.” Carisi’s eyes flashed but Barba continued before he could interrupt. “We can’t do this. I can’t do this.”
Carisi took a step towards him. “What, so you and I can’t even be friends? I didn’t ask for this, Rafi, and—”
“And you and I were never friends to begin with,” Barba interrupted, his jaw set, trying desperately to tamp down the simple fact that he missed Carisi more than words could possibly say. “So unless you need something, Detective—”
He wasn’t surprised that Carisi stormed out, a hurt look on his face.
He wasn’t even all that surprised when Carisi exploded at him in the courthouse hallway a few days later, ostensibly about the case, though Barba knew it went much deeper than that.
Barba didn’t blame him.
Besides, it almost made him miss Carisi less.
Almost.
After that moment, whatever had once been between Barba and Carisi was broken, past the point where Barba thought it could ever be fixed. And while Barba told himself that this was what he had expected, he kept waiting for the pain to fade, assuming that months of ducking Carisi would dull the heartache. After all, he knew that Carisi was with his soulmate, and based on what he overheard from Fin and Rollins and Liv, they were happy.
He caught snippets of teasing, of long-running jokes — something about a Miss 34B and portabello fries — but instead of time making the jokes sting less, it just seemed to hurt even more, even though the knowledge that Carisi was moving on and living his life was what Barba had thought he wanted.
Instead, it broke his heart all over again every time he thought about it.
What made it worse was knowing that Barba couldn’t move on, not really, since he had nothing that he could move on to. It wasn’t like people were falling over themselves to date someone who wasn’t their soulmate, especially someone without a soul mark, especially someone as old and bitter and caustic as Barba.
He’d always known this was how his story would end, that he’d be alone because apparently that’s what nature had intended for him by leaving him without a soul mark and without a hope for love. But he’d had a taste of what it would feel like to belong, to have someone — not just someone, to have Carisi, to love Carisi.
And that made it hurt all the more.
Still, Barba thought he’d done at least a passing job of hiding it, even if it meant spending more and more time away from SVU. But apparently, he hadn’t done as good of a job as he’d hoped.
“Did something happen between you and Carisi?” Olivia asked bluntly over drinks one night at Forlini’s.
Barba paused, his drink halfway to his lips. “What?” he asked, feigning ignorance in the wild hope that Liv would drop it.
She didn’t. “Did something happen between you and Carisi?” she repeated, watching him carefully as he threw back his scotch in one gulp. “Something that I need to worry about?”
For one absurd moment, Barba considered just telling her and being done with it, but there was no good that would come from that, save to inflict on Liv the pain he’d spent the past few months learning to bottle up. “There’s nothing you need to worry about,” he said instead, choosing his words very carefully, and not just because of the scotch burning in his belly. “We had a...disagreement. And Carisi made his choices and I’ve made my peace with that.”
Olivia relaxed slightly and reached out to pat his arm. “I know you were hoping he’d go the ADA route,” she said, and Barba had to choke back a laugh that she was so far off from the truth. “But I think Carisi’s still trying to figure out exactly what he wants.”
Barba huffed a sigh and told Olivia, with complete honesty, “Whatever happens, as long as Carisi’s happy, that’s all that matters.”
It was probably edging things too far into personal territory, and Olivia paused, tapping on the stem of her wineglass with one finger before she told him, “I don’t think he is happy, though.” Barba stared at her, too surprised to say anything, and she continued, “I think that Carisi is acting like he’s happy, but something has been off with him for awhile now."
Barba forehead creased. “Did he tell you this?”
Olivia shook her head and took a sip of wine. “No. But I like to think that I know my colleagues.” She favored Barba with a look before adding quietly, “I like to think that I can recognize when they’re hurting.”
Something in Barba’s expression twisted and he turned away to order another drink before Olivia could read too far into that. When he was able to meet her eyes again, Olivia’s expression was soft. “Whatever happened between you and Carisi, I’m sure that you can fix it. He was never happier than when you two…”
She trailed off and Barba stared at her, almost daring her to finish that thought, to give voice to what she knew or what she suspected. “When we were what?” he asked, a dangerous lilt to his voice.
But Olivia didn’t rise to the bait. “When you were close,” she said simply before finishing her glass of wine and standing. “So fix it, Counselor. For both your sakes.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
Barba hadn’t meant for the words to come out as honest and pained as they did, and Olivia paused. “You won’t know if you don’t try,” she said finally, shrugging her jacket on. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With that, she left Barba to his scotch and his thoughts, and a tendril of some feeling slowly warming his chest, a feeling he had almost forgotten.
A feeling like something close to hope.
So Barba tried.
It was hard at first — it hurt at first, just as much as it always had — but Barba had meant what he had said: he really did want Carisi to be happy.
So he started small, with just the occasional barbed comment aimed Carisi’s way, a hint of the old banter they had once shared. But even if the gesture was small, Barba would be blind not to notice the way that Carisi lit up with each word, the way Carisi was smiling again.
And Barba realized that while he’d been wrapped inside his own misery, he couldn’t remember when the last time was that he saw Carisi smile, really truly smile.
Then the Samra case happened, and the mounting pressure from all sides to solve the case without ruffling feathers at ICE or in D.C. But Barba was never one to avoid ruffling feathers, and besides, he finally got to work closely with Carisi again in a way he hadn’t let himself. And despite all of the mounting issues with the case and the witness and everything else, Barba finally got to remember how nice it felt just to be in the same room as Carisi.
Even if the same room happened to be at the Passaic County Jail in a losing effort to stop the deportation of an innocent man. And when he felt Carisi shift behind him as Barba unleashed the full force of his snark on the ICE agent, as he practically snarled, “Or what? You’re gonna deport me to Cuba? You gonna take him to Italy?”, when he could feel even without seeing Carisi roll his eyes, it almost felt like old times.
And maybe it was just because he was tired, to his core, not just of the case but of trying so hard to keep Carisi at arm’s length, but Barba thought that maybe they could have this. He knew he’d never have all of Carisi again, but maybe this, maybe being colleagues and even bordering on friends, could be enough for him.
In the aftermath of the firebombing of the mosque in Harlem, Barba managed to put all thoughts of it from his mind. Tensions were high and everyone was pulling doubles. Barba barely even saw Liv, let alone anyone else from SVU, over the course of the following week, and, frankly, it was for the best. Barba wasn't in the mood for working on whatever tentative friendship was regrowing between him and Carisi when he was busy responding to City Hall and the DA and countless reporters.
On the first night Barba was actually able to leave his office before midnight, he made a beeline for home, pouring himself a glass of scotch and changing into sweats in glorious anticipation of collapsing on his couch and not having to think for the next few hours.
He had just taken a sip of scotch and closed his eyes when a knock on his door startled him upright, the day’s tension returning instantly. “Who is it?” he called warily, because while it had been months since the threats had stopped, Carisi had done too good a job of convincing him that he needed to be more careful of potential danger.
And unidentified guests at this hour certainly qualified.
“It's me,” a voice called back, and Barba froze, his heart stuttering painfully in his chest because it had been so long since he had heard that voice on the other side of his door. “Uh, it's Carisi, I mean.”
Barba set his scotch down on his coffee table with a shaking hand and stood mechanically, wishing desperately that he hadn't changed out of his suit. “Just a minute,” he called back, looking around wildly to make sure his apartment wasn't in complete shambles. The last thing he wanted was for Carisi to think he had turned into a slob once he had left.
But as per usual, if only because Barba had no reason now to spend time at his apartment, his apartment was immaculate and Barba had no further excuse to delay him from crossing to the door. “Detective,” he said after he had opened his door, as coolly as he could manage. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Is there a problem with the case?”
“No, nothing like that,” Carisi said, his voice a little strained, and Barba frowned at him, trying to read in his expression what was wrong. “Can I come in, or are we having this conversation in the hallway?”
Though Barba stepped back to let Carisi into his apartment, he couldn’t help but shoot back, “That would depend on what ‘this’ is, don’t you think?” Carisi just nodded, a little distractedly, and shoved his hands inside his pockets as he stood awkwardly just inside Barba’s door. “Do you want a drink?” Barba asked, assuming that regardless of where the evening was headed, he could easily use at least another drink, if not more, to make it go down easier.
Carisi nodded again. “Yeah,” he said, his voice quiet. “Thanks.”
Barba grabbed his glass of scotch from the coffee table and headed into the kitchen to top it off and pour a second glass for Carisi, trying to keep his heart from racing, even if he was dying to ask why Carisi was there, when the last time they were together in his apartment—
Well, that didn’t really matter now, and Barba took a deep, steadying breath before re-emerging and pressing the glass into Carisi’s hand. “Here,” he said, his voice a bit rough, and he and Carisi both took a swig of scotch, though Carisi was alone in wincing at the burn of it going down. “So why are you here?”
Carisi fidgeted with his glass for a moment as if working up an excuse. “It’s over,” he said, finally, and Barba looked at him sharply. “I mean, between, uh, between her and me.”
“Your soulmate?” Barba asked, his heart beating so loudly that he could hear it ringing in his ears. He couldn’t dare to hope, couldn’t want this, because he knew that it was hurting Carisi and the very last thing he wanted was for Carisi to be hurting. “What happened?”
Carisi swallowed, hard. “Does it matter?” he asked quietly, draining his glass of scotch.
“It does to me,” Barba said, equally quiet, still not trusting to hope, not until he heard the story, not until he understood.
Carisi held his glass out to Barba, who took it as a silent request for a refill, and he was more than happy to oblige, heading back into the kitchen, unsurprised when Carisi followed him. “She ended it,” Carisi told him, and Barba stilled, halfway through pouring a generous two fingers of scotch and well aware that two fingers was rapidly turning into four.
“Why?” Barba asked, his voice ragged and pained. “Why would she end it? Aren’t you perfect for her?”
He hadn’t meant the words to sound as bitter as they did, as if he was still holding onto the hurt and anger from almost a year ago now (though he was, though he always had been. But the last thing he wanted was for Carisi to know that). Carisi just shrugged and took a hefty gulp of scotch. “I guess I was,” he said softly. “I mean, she’s everything I always thought I wanted, you know? So I can only guess that I was the same for her. I mean, she was so sweet, and she wanted, like, five kids, just like I used to, and she got along really well with my family…”
He trailed off, and Barba tilted his head slightly, the lawyer at him unable as always to ignore the most obvious of facts as laid out in front of him. “Like you used to want?”
Carisi’s eyes flickered up to his before he looked away. “Yeah,” he said roughly. “Yeah, I thought I knew what I wanted, but, uh, now I’m not so sure.”
Barba wanted so badly to question that, to ask what exactly it was that Carisi did want, but he couldn’t bring himself to, couldn’t open up that part of him that still clinged to some shred of misguided hope, not if it would lead to his heart breaking yet again. “So she ended it because she also realized that she no longer knew what she wanted?”
“No.” Carisi’s voice was firm, stronger than it had been this entire conversation, and Barba glanced up at him, looking for an answer in his expression. “No, uh, she said that even though we were perfect together, she wasn’t going to settle for having just a part of me. And that’s why she ended things.”
“A part of you?” Barba repeated, his voice cracking, and he tossed back his drink in one gulp in hopes of stopping the bitterness from again creeping into his voice. “She has your soul, what more could she possibly want?”
Carisi managed a small smile at that, a crooked smile like a pale imitation of the one he used to reserve for Barba. “My heart,” he said simply. “Because it belongs to someone else.” Barba stared at him, wondering wildly if he was imagining this, if he had in fact fallen asleep on his couch after that first glass of scotch and this was nothing but a dream, if— “Because I think it always has.”
Barba couldn’t stop himself then, as much as the logical part of him was telling him to wait, to ask more questions, to suss out motivations and explanations — he crossed to Carisi and kissed him, reaching up to pull him down to his level, the metaphor escaping him only because the taste of Carisi against his lips was everything he had ever wanted and everything he had been convinced he would never again have. Carisi kissed him back, one hand encircling Barba’s waist and holding him close, while the other— the other reached out to steady himself against the wall of Barba’s kitchen, because apparently the sheer enthusiasm of both men had pushed them towards the wall as if neither could trust themselves to stay upright on their own.
Then, just as quickly as he had started this, Barba pulled away, resting a hand against Carisi’s chest, wanting desperately to explore the plains and valleys of his body as he once had but not trusting himself. “Why didn’t you end things with her sooner?” he asked, his voice hoarse, and when Carisi just stared at him, elaborated, “If it wasn’t working, if you were unhappy, why—”
“I didn’t want to hurt her,” Carisi said, simply. “She didn’t ask for this anymore than I did, and I couldn’t just leave her, not when God or nature or whatever thought that for some reason we should be together. Not when she expected that what we had would last forever.”
Barba understood, of course — because of course Carisi would do something stupid and noble like staying with a woman he didn’t love if it meant not hurting her. Carisi's own feelings were always secondary to ensuring that everyone around him was happy, and Barba’s heart broke again to think of the months Carisi must have spent feeling sad and alone, without anyone who noticed.
Of course, there was a part of Barba that knew he should hate Carisi for putting him through all of what he had when they could have been together again a long time ago, but that part was miniscule compared to the parts of Barba that loved Carisi all the more for standing in front of him now and telling him this.
Even so, he couldn’t help but verify, even as he drew Carisi closer to him. “She was perfect for you,” he said softly. “Are you sure that you want to give that up?”
His unstated ‘Especially for me?’ hung in the air between them, and Carisi answered that question first by kissing Barba again, the kiss turning hot and filthy, their mouths opening and gasping against the other as both sought to make up for the missing months between them.
“I’m sure,” Carisi said, with far more confidence than Barba felt, even standing there in his apartment with the love of his life once again in his arms. “Because I don’t want perfect.” Carisi’s voice dropped so low that Barba had to strain to hear him, even though the apartment was so quiet that they could hear a pin drop. “I just want you.”
There were a million things Barba wanted to say to that, a million arguments the lawyer in him wanted to make against that statement, both practically and legally, but Carisi’s hand was on his hip and his lips were on his and Barba found that the arguments in his head were a dull roar compared to the utter ecstasy of once again being able to hold the man that he loved.
So he settled for saying, simply, “I love you. I never stopped loving you.”
And Carisi’s expression softened into that sweet grin that Barba had missed so deeply that it almost hurt him just as much to see it back as it had to think he would never see it again. “I love you, too.”
When Carisi kissed him again, it was more demanding this time, and Barba was unsurprised that Carisi was leading them towards his bedroom. It had been a long year, and truthfully, Barba wanted nothing more than to spend the next few hours forgetting about soul marks and soulmates and the fact that he had almost lost Carisi forever.
Because soul marks be damned, Carisi was the closest thing Barba was ever going to have to a soulmate. And for at least the next few hours, Barba was going to simply revel in the sheer exhilaration of having his soulmate back for good.