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They had rules.
“The first rule—” Barba started, his voice hitching slightly as Carisi nipped lightly at the underside of his jaw.
They were standing just inside the doorway to Barba’s apartment, where he had never expected to be, his breathy voice not sounding anything like he had expected, and the tall man in front of him never who he had expected to bring home from Forlini’s that night.
“—Of Fight Club is we do not talk about Fight Club?” Carisi finished with a smirk, tracing his fingers lightly down Barba’s sides.
Now that, Barba had expected.
Or at least, he should’ve.
He glared at Carisi. “The first rule,” he repeated sternly, or at least as sternly as he could when Carisi was smirking at him like that, “is no joking. No mockery. No talking of any kind, really.”
Carisi snorted lightly, gripping Barba’s hips and pulling him closer. “Well that’s good,” he murmured, bending to kiss him, “because without mockery I don’t think you even can talk.”
“And none of that,” Barba snapped. “This is not about that. This is sex. No talking, no emotions. Just sex. Physical release because we have difficult, demanding jobs and picking up strangers in bars is exhausting.”
“You’re not wrong about that,” Carisi muttered.
“The second rule: no telling anyone. Not Rollins, not Fin, not your little friends at night school—”
“What about Amaro?” Carisi quipped.
Barba’s eyes narrowed. “What did I literally just say about mockery?” he asked sharply. “This is not a joke to me, Detective. I will walk away from this so quickly—”
Carisi looked very hard like he was trying not to laugh, and Barba sighed. “What?”
“Just — this is your apartment, so technically I’d be the one to walk away—”
Barba pushed Carisi away, his glare deepening. “Get out.”
“I’m sorry,” Carisi said, and when Barba’s expression didn’t change, he took a step closer, reaching out to again rest his hands on Barba’s hips. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, slowly drawing Barba closer to him. “This isn’t a joke to me either.”
For a moment, Barba was tempted to repeat his order for Carisi to leave, but Carisi’s thumbs were rubbing gentle circles over his hipbones and more importantly, he’d been sporting a semi since Carisi had slung an arm over the back of his seat at the bar, so he settled for looking up at Carisi and asking, “So we have an agreement?”
“Yeah,” Carisi said, bending to kiss Barba once more, all gentleness gone as he bit down on Barba’s lower lip. “We have an agreement. And luckily I’ve always been very good at following rules.”
“Carisi,” Barba sighed, his exasperation somewhat curtailed by Carisi’s thigh slotting between his legs with just the right amount of pressure.
“Last one, I promise,” Carisi said with a light, breathy laugh.
Needless to say, the rule against talking was the first one to go.
But the other rules — those stayed. Through the various ups and downs at SVU, through Amaro’s departure, Carisi passing the Bar, Dodds’ death, the death threats — no matter what was going on in their lives, they left it at the precinct, or in the courtroom. It never came into the bedroom.
That was reserved for the sharp snap of hips, for fingernails dragged down backs and dug into hip bones hard enough to bruise, for the quiet chorus of grunts and moans and the other sounds that neither man could admit to making and still face the other in public the next day.
In the beginning, when they had finished, Carisi would try to linger, pressing a kiss to Barba’s back between his shoulder blades or wrapping an arm around his waist. Barba would shrug him off with a pointed, “You should go.”
After a while, Carisi stopped trying.
They might have kept it up forever, rules — save for the first — intact. Might’ve, were it not for Tom Cole.
Were it not for Carisi showing up on Barba’s doorstep with blood still flecking his neck and hairline.
Were it not for the dead look in Carisi’s eyes as he pushed Barba onto his bed, when he thrust into him, when he raggedly whispered, “I love you” against the taut skin of Rafael’s neck.
Were it not for Carisi crying as he came.
For the first time, Rafael broke the rule about cuddling, barely giving himself time to catch his breath before he rolled over, tentatively draping an arm across Carisi’s heaving chest. “Hey,” he whispered, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb against Carisi’s skin. “Are you ok?”
Carisi stiffened. “Fine,” he said shortly, sitting up and pushing Rafael’s arm off of him.
Rafael watched him as he stood, his chest inexplicably tight. “You don’t have to go,” he said quietly. “I mean—”
He wanted to tell him that he had heard him, that he had heard what Carisi had whispered, that even if he couldn’t return it in that moment, he was beginning to feel it, too. That with time, maybe he could—
“I should,” Carisi said, not looking over at him. “I gotta—” He broke off, shaking his head slightly. “I gotta go.”
“Sonny—”
“Don’t.” For the first time, Carisi looked over at him, and Rafael swallowed against the look on his face. It wasn’t angry, or sad, or even as terrified as Rafael had been for half the day after he had heard about the shooting.
It was empty. Blank. Void of Sonny’s dimples and laugh lines, of even the wrinkle that creased his brow when he was worried.
It was as empty as Rafael had always intended this to be.
And he hated it.
“Don’t pretend like this is something that it’s not,” Carisi said, and Rafael swallowed, hard.
“Sonny.”
But he left.
And it took a few weeks of awkward avoidance, of stilted conversations, of Carisi refusing to so much as make eye contact with him for Rafael to realize that he wasn’t coming back.
The rules allowed for either of them to break it off without a word of explanation.
They didn’t allow for heartbreak.
They didn’t allow for Rafael sitting in Forlini’s, fifteen minutes before last call, staring at the door as if he could somehow force Carisi to appear.
He didn’t.
And Rafael swallowed against the bitterness of his scotch and his loneliness and he went home alone and pretended like the next day would be different.
It never was.
When Rafael left the DA’s office over a year later, he assumed that was the end of it. Whatever had been between them, if indeed there ever was something, had long since disappeared, and it was easier for him to leave everything behind, to focus on what was ahead.
Easier.
But no less painful.
Which was why he was surprised, to say the least, when a knock sounded on his door several months later, long enough that he had stopped even bothering to go to Forlini’s, stopped pretending that Carisi was going to walk through the door or back into his life.
Part of him knew, when he opened the door. Knew who would be on the other side. Knew how his night was suddenly going to go.
“Well,” he said, holding the door open and looking Carisi up and down quickly, looking for obvious injuries, for a reason why he would again show up at his door. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
When in doubt, fall back on the cliche.
Carisi said nothing, just looked at him, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumped. And something in Rafael’s chest tightened at the sight.
He took a step back. “You might as well come in,” he said roughly.
It was the only invitation Carisi needed. He crowded Rafael against the door as if no time had passed between them, as if this was still what they did every other weeknight, his hands falling back to their usual position on Rafael’s hips, his mouth opening against his with a sigh.
“Raf,” he whispered, low in Rafael’s ear, his voice rough.
It was all he needed to say.
Wordlessly, Rafael pulled him inside, nudging the door shut with his hip, unwilling to take his hands away from Carisi, even for a moment.
Their clothes were mostly lost somewhere between the door and the bedroom, lost in a flurry of kisses and touches until they both stood naked in Rafael’s bedroom where they hadn’t been in over a year.
Carisi all but shoved Rafael onto the bed, grabbing him roughly by the hips and turning him so he was on his hands and knees. Rafael’s head fell forward and he took a shuddering breath, resting his forehead against his mattress as Carisi bent and licked a crude stripe over his asshole. Rafael’s hands clenched and twisted in his sheets, his back arching against the feeling, at once familiar and foreign.
His back arched further still as Carisi repeated the motion, more insistent this time, pressing against his hole. Rafael’s hips canted forward, seeking friction, his cock almost painfully hard. He let out a sound almost animalistic in nature and Carisi responded in kind, biting down sharply on one of Rafael’s ass cheeks, his fingers digging bruises into Rafael’s hips.
In his memories, Carisi was gentle with him, never urgent, never like this. But Rafael would gladly forfeit all those memories for the feeling of Carisi grabbing him by the hair and tugging his head back before shoving two fingers into his mouth. He didn’t even need to utter a word and Rafael was already sucking on them, swirling his tongue around the two digits, wetting them with his saliva.
He was half tempted to tell Carisi that the lube was still in the same drawer of his nightstand.
The bigger half of him wanted this as badly as Carisi did. Wanted the pain that preceded the pleasure.
Deserved it, maybe. After everything.
Carisi pulled his fingers out of Rafael’s mouth, pausing only to press a kiss against Rafael’s back before sliding his fingers between Rafael’s ass cheeks. The kiss was fleeting, quick, an afterthought even, but it grounded Rafael, reminded him that this was Carisi slowly pressing his fingers inside him.
Whatever else might happen that night, it was him and Carisi.
And nothing besides that mattered.
Carisi was more rough than he would normally be, by Rafael’s estimation at least, but he welcomed it, pressing back against his fingers, gasping as Carisi’s fingers rubbed against his prostate, his own fingers scrambling for purchase in his sheets. Carisi was insistent, firm, and Rafael could feel his orgasm building, spurred on by how many months it had been since he had been touched like this.
Been touched at all.
When it grew almost unbearable, when every muscle in Rafael’s back felt taut like a bowstring ready for release, he ground out in one single syllable, one single sigh that said everything and nothing at once, “Sonny.”
It was all he needed to say.
Carisi let out a low noise that might have been a growl, pulling his fingers out of Rafael to circle the base of his cock, pressing against Rafael’s opening. The logical part of Rafael knew that he should insist on a condom, that it had been months since they had been together. But some other part of him knew, knew that there hadn’t been anyone else for either of them.
Knew, and trusted, and gave no protest when Carisi pushed inside, just closing his eyes, his mouth falling open in a ragged gasp, his own cock hanging painfully hard between his legs.
Carisi gave him only a brief moment to adjust before pulling almost completely out and rocking back in again. His thrusts were brutal, lacking rhythm or finesse, but every movement felt perfect. Perfectly painful, perfectly timed, perfect.
Everything Rafael had spent the last year missing.
Carisi leaned forward, bending over Rafael’s back and nipping at the muscles of Rafael’s shoulder with his teeth. It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, and probably wouldn’t even leave a mark come morning but still Rafael cried out, the noise turning high and breathy when Carisi twined a hand in Barba’s fair, pulling hard and revealing the column of Rafael’s throat.
When Carisi pressed his lips against the smooth skin there, Rafael let out a stuttered cry, thrusting blindly against the air, and Carisi finally took pity, letting go of Rafael’s hip with the hand not twisting in his hair to instead grab Rafael’s cock. His hand was rough, rougher than Rafael remembered, but it didn’t matter. It took only a few strokes before Rafael cried out, tensing beneath him before shuddering as his release splattered against his stomach and the sheets underneath him.
Carisi gave a half dozen uneven thrusts before coming inside him, wrapping an arm around Rafael’s stomach and holding him still as he emptied inside him. For a long moment, they stayed like that, Rafael panting and feeling Carisi’s breath in rough gasps against his sweat-drenched skin.
Then Carisi let him go and Rafael slumped forward, all but collapsing against the bed. For a moment, he lay there, limp and pliant, but then he groaned softly and rolled on his back, sore in a way that he would undoubtedly feel in the morning. He reached out automatically for Carisi, pausing when he felt nothing next to him, and he turned, propping himself up on his elbow to watch as Carisi searched for his boxers on the ground. “Hey,” he said, his voice scratchy. “What’re you doing?”
“Leaving,” Carisi said shortly.
Rafael’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
Carisi jerked his shoulders in a shrug, not looking back at him as he pulled his pants on. “You know why.”
Rafael’s thoughts were still hazy, but he blinked twice, trying to force himself to put together a coherent thought. But when his thoughts caught up, they weren’t the blissful ones he’d envisioned. He felt bitterness like bile in the back of his throat and before he could stop himself, he lashed out accordingly, falling back on old arguments, old hurts that had never quite healed. “I haven’t seen you since I left the DA’s office,” he said coolly. “So what happened now? Another perp get the jump on you? Another criminal strolled free? Or, let me guess, your plan to finally convince Rollins to get together with you didn’t work out—”
“She’s pregnant.”
Carisi’s voice was tight and Rafael almost flinched against the barely controlled fury he heard there. “Rollins?” he asked, unncessarily. “Well that at least explains a lot.”
He could see Carisi’s jaw clench, could see the flare of anger in his eyes and so he was almost surprised when Carisi said calmly, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Rafael shot back, suicidal to the end, unwilling or unable to let it go.
“You don’t get to do this,” Carisi ground out, and Rafael’s lip curled.
“Do what?”
He delivered the words like an ultimatum and Carisi recoiled, a muscle working in his jaw. “Pretend like you get to have an opinion on my love life.”
For a moment, Rafael swelled with anger at that, with the desire to demand who the fuck Carisi thought he was, when not even five minutes ago they’d been making lov—
No.
Fucking. They’d been fucking.
And that was it.
That was all it would ever be.
Rafael clenched his jaw and breathed out through his nose for a moment before saying stiffly, “I’m well aware I don’t get to have an opinion on your life. Love or otherwise. But you and I were friends once—”
Carisi laughed bitterly. “Friends? Is that what you’d call it?”
Rafael lifted his chin slightly. “You tell me.”
For a moment, Carisi just stared at him. Then he looked away, and shrugged jerkily. “Whatever we were, it doesn’t matter now.”
“It doesn’t matter?” Rafael repeated, his voice higher and angrier than he had intended, his frustration and anger and heartbreak over the last year coming to a boiling point. “You were the one who showed up on my doorstep. You were the one who invited yourself over here tonight. You were the one—” He broke off, bitterness again welling in his chest. “You were the one who stopped this the first time.”
Something like pain tightened Carisi’s expression and he shook his head, grabbing his shirt off the ground and shrugging it on. After a long moment, he looked again at Rafael, his pain again hidden. “The first rule—” he started, though he voice broke and he shook his head briefly. “We don’t talk,” he said, his voice low. “Not about this. Not about anything.”
“Fuck the rules.”
Rafael didn’t deliver the words angrily, or bitterly. He said them plainly, simply. Honestly.
Carisi’s lip curled. “Exactly what I’d expect you to say. You don’t care about rules or laws anymore, do you?”
It was a low blow.
Rafael closed his eyes, just for a moment. “Sonny…”
“I shouldn’t have come.” Sonny’s voice was low, and Rafael flinched.
“That wasn’t—”
Sonny didn’t let him finish. “Don’t worry. I won’t be back.”
Again Rafael bit back his instinct, which in this case was to protest, to argue, to fight with every bone he had in his body. Instead, he flopped back against his bed, staring up at the ceiling as Sonny let himself out of his bedroom. “Fine,” he said bluntly. “It was nice to see you too, Detective.”
He could barely see out of his periphery but it looked like Sonny paused, for just a moment, in his doorway.
But then he was gone, and Rafael closed his eyes against the tears he felt welling, hot and painful.
Sonny was gone. Again.
He was alone. Again.
And every rule they had come up with for whatever it was between them, every rule lingered, still intact, against every one of Rafael’s instincts.
So he lay there, silent, until his tears had disappeared. And then he sat up, and numbly began getting ready for bed.
Maybe it was time for him to finally acknowledge that the rules — meticulously curated all those years ago to keep emotions in check, to keep him from hurting Carisi or worse, himself — had only ever done the opposite of what he’d intended.
And in the end, the rules didn’t matter.
Because after all, they had already both broken the rules.
The only hope Rafael had left to cling to was that Sonny might be willing to break them again.