Изначально, я думала, что начну рек-лист по
Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. с первой (и одновременно самой большой из существующих) серии фиков - там уже за 100 кусков и вроде обещают еще. Но, I blame vodka, мне жутко хочется написать про потрясающего автора, которого я открыла благодаря Спецкорпусу —
etothepiiДа, она пишет и по другим фандомам. Нет, еще не читала.
По Law & Order: SVU у нее есть три работы, каждая из которых абсолютно потрясающая. И они все разные, разные, Карл!
In Vino Veritas - моя самая любимая, наверное, потому, что опять таки
Drinking, смешанное с ангстом из-за
Internalized Homophobia.
Скажем так - это лучшее, что я читал по теме признания-осознания-принятия ориентации. Лучшее. И одновременно - лучшие описания моментов, когда возникает непонятная духовная близость, да, пьяная, но при этом абсолютно потрясающая, основанная не не том, сколько ты выпил, а на том - как ты позволил себе раскрыться.
не ставить кат было бы милосерднее, но я хочу поцитировать много и со вкусом, так что пусть будет. Тут чуть ли не кусочный сюжет, немного так совсем, но этот не тот тип фика, где могут быть спойлеры, так что... By the time the sexy cops arrived and Sonny had talked people into taking several more shots of tequila with him, it had stopped being weird. This Barba was relaxed and friendly and Sonny kept having to sit on his hands to keep from reaching out and running his fingers through Barba's hair, just to see what it felt like. They'd gone through another handle between everyone and right now, watching a stripper in a police hat and a speedo give Sam's fiance a lap dance was equal parts awesome and annoying.
Barba's shoulder pressed warmly against his own. Sonny let his head loll onto it. Tony's bachelor's party had started more boring than theirs, but they were working on that and now, even the fancy lawyers were starting to properly unwind. Sonny felt a warm glow of accomplishment.
"Are you okay?" Barba asked in a soft voice that sent a warm thrum down Sonny's body. "You look like you're a little uncomfortable with," he waved a lazy hand at the stripper, who winked at them and twirled his gun on his finger.
***
Barba laughed and in that moment when his face lit up and their eyes caught, Sonny could feel a pull, magnetic, that drew their mouths together.
They startled apart a moment later, Sonny barely registering the warm press of Barba's mouth against his, when the room started to laugh and clap. But it was only the end of the song and the stripper, wearing a saucy grin, asking who was next. No one was looking at them.
***
Everything after beer pong was a blur of disjointed memories in no particular order – the sudden pain of the counter top in his side, the burn of liquor going down his throat, drunken play-fighting, the splash of someone shoving him into the hot tub and plastic under his hands as he climbed out.
And again, a mouth, hot and wet against his, followed by bare skin beneath his fingers and the puff of warm breath against his face.
All in all, a fucking fantastic bachelor's party.
***
"You know, I think I saw that guy doing lines in the bathroom," Barba commented, nodding at the man that had just passed them with a brightly-colored drink in a tall glass. They'd taken seats at table near the bar where they had a good view of the party without actually being in the middle of it.
Sonny groaned. "Should I stop them? Technically, I'm still a cop."
"Not our jurisdiction," Barba said cheerfully. "I'd advise against it."
"Thank god," he muttered and made eye contact with the bartender again. He held up two fingers and gave a hopeful grin. The bartender nodded and grinned back. Several minutes later, in a brief lull between customers, he dropped by their table with two more drinks and a business card he handed to Sonny with a wink.
***
Sonny reached behind himself but his fingertips didn't even brush against the zipper's tab. He tried again with his other arm, but no luck. Behind him, Barba leaned against the door and laughed like a fucking hyena as Sonny twisted and turned to try and get the zipper within reach.
"Stop, stop, I can't breathe," Barba gasped between laughs. "Your face. You are so confused. Try again, please. I'm going to record it."
Sonny shoved him, then turned his back. "Here, you do it," he demanded.
The laughter slowed, then stopped altogether. The atmosphere in the room shifted.
Sonny's spine tingled as Barba cupped a hand over Sonny's shoulder and he felt the brief of the zipper being grasped. His heart pounded and the room wobbled. Sonny was reminded, vividly, of senior prom night and the sound Maria Fernandez's dress had made as he'd pulled her zipper down. He hadn't thought about her in years.
Barba slipped soft, uncalloused hands under the straps of the dress and pushed it off of Sonny's shoulders from behind. Sonny heard him take a slow, deep breath. His hands followed a path down Sonny's arms and settled at Sonny's waist, fingers brushing just barely against his hipbones. They curled slightly.
Sonny turned around.
He and Barba looked at each other. Sonny wet his lips with his tongue. His breath caught as Barba's gaze lowered, eyes half-lidded, to Sonny's mouth. Barba's lips parted and his mouth tilted up a fraction, slow and gentle.
Sonny could feel the pull between them unfurl in his chest, caught between them like a held breath, made up of the anticipation and certainty that if something was going to happen, it had to happen right now, at this very instant, and that if he didn't want it to happen he had to break it and look away, but instead he was leaning closer and lowering his head and –
Their mouths slotted easily together in a warm, brief press.
Sonny had only a second to savor his enjoyment and another glimpse of Barba's mouth, wet, before they were kissing again, deeper this time, such that Sonny could notice the lingering taste of alcohol in Barba's mouth and on his tongue. He made a pleased noise against Barba's mouth and Barba's fingers clenched against his hips, making him jerk in something that was either surprise or pleasure.
***
Sonny sat in the seat next to Rick, not looking at him. He opened the bag of chips for himself. "Yeah, no problem. How's it going?"
"Uh, okay, I guess," Rick said hesitantly. He still sounded pretty freaked out at being there.
Sonny nodded. "That's cool," he said casually. "You wanna just hang out for a bit? I know the girls were kinda hounding you for a statement, but you don't actually have to say anything if you don't wanna. Just relax. You're not in trouble here."
They sat in silence for several minutes. Rick still looked like he was fantasizing about being anywhere but there by the time Sonny finished the chips, so he pulled out his phone and started playing one of the games Fin had shown him, a zen, peaceful little thing with birds and hills. By the time the repetitiveness of it started to get on Sonny's nerves, Rick had forgotten to be scared and was watching his screen with some curiosity.
Sonny started up another game. Eyes on the screen, he commented, "I know you're not gay, but you know Ken is, right?"
"Yeah."
"Y'know he got into Berkeley too? That's pretty far away." In the reflection of the screen, he could see Rick's eyes quickly look at him, then away. "And a three hour time difference, too."
"Yeah," Rick said. He wasn't looking at Sonny or the phone screen anymore.
"Yeah," Sonny said. He waited a beat. "Sucks, huh."
Rick nodded a little, then seemed to catch himself. He tensed. "I'm not gay," he said.
Sonny glanced at him and then deliberately back to the phone. He started up another level. "Yeah, I know," he said. "I'm just saying, he is. There's a lot of gay guys in Berkeley. And he'll be in college. It's not the same as high school, you know, where you've got a curfew and parents breathing down the back of your neck every time you want to go to a party."
"Ken doesn't really go to parties," Rick said. "He's not... they don't really like him at school."
Sonny shrugged. "You think he'd fit in better in college? A lot of people, they remake themselves in college. Y'know, like when the plain looking girl gets a makeover and suddenly she's the prettiest one at the dance."
"Why are you telling me this?" Rick asked.
Sonny slept his phone and put it in his pocket. He looked at Rick, who looked back, confused, suspicious, and maybe a little bit hurt. But mostly he looked scared, like he was holding a fear he didn't know how to recognize and didn't know how to put into words. But Sonny recognized it and he even knew what it felt like, so terrifying and choking that it was better not to think of it at all. It was better to pretend it didn't exist.
But there were criminal charges on the line here.
"Because," Sonny said deliberately. "I know you're not gay but Ken is, and he's going off to college real soon. And when he's there, he's going to find people who accept him for who he is, and accept themselves for who they are, and he's probably going to get himself a boyfriend, someone who can go outside and hold hands with him, and go on dates with him, and introduce him to his parents, the whole nine yards. And you're going to lose him, because you're going to be just his straight friend who he maybe fooled around with back when he was a kid."
It wasn't something Sonny thought about. It was done and it didn't matter. But sometimes, a part of him still missed Sam, missed the moment when he was half-awake and there was a another body next to him, before he realized what had happened and the fear, reflexive, shot him awake faster than caffeine ever could.
Sonny wasn't gay. He really, really wasn't. But sometimes, when he'd been with Sam, he remembered wishing that he was, wishing that maybe he could be brave too.
Rick burst into tears.
Fuck. Sonny shot a helpless look around the room, then gave himself a mental shake and put his hand on Rick's back, rubbing gently. "Hey," he said softly. "Hey, it's okay. It's gonna be okay."
"No it's not," Rick said between breaths. He was rubbing away his tears with the back of his hand, but Sonny could tell that wasn't going to work for long. "They're gonna kick me out. I'm gonna get kicked out."
"That's not gonna happen," Sonny reassured. "They're not allowed to do that."
Rick just shook his head and cried harder. Sonny put his arm around Rick's shoulders and Rick curled into him, still crying, arms pulled defensively to his chest. He pressed his face against Sonny's shoulder. "They're going to hate me," he sobbed. "I don't – I don't want them to hate me."
"I know. I'm sorry."
Once the dam burst, Rick had a lot to say. That everyone would hate him, that Ken would forget him while he was in college. That his parents wouldn't pay for his tuition and that he wasn't good enough for Berkeley but Davis was so far. That they should have gone to Ken's place, that they should have gotten a hotel room, that they never should have done it in the first place. That a year was so long, that he was going to lose all his friends, that he wished he could have been normal instead.
He had a lot to lose and he was going to lose most of it. Sonny sort of regretted being right.
He let Rick cry himself out on his shoulder, until the sobs became hiccups became miserable sniffles. It took a really long time.
"Yeah," he said softly, patting Rick on the back. "I know it's scary. But it's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay."
***
"Does this have anything to do with the personal stuff that had you so down a while ago?" Amanda asked.
He sighed. "Yeah," he said. "There was a guy. We had, you know, a thing, I guess. But only when I was drinking, and I guess he wasn't into that, so he called it off."
"I can't imagine why," she said dryly.
"I don't want to be gay," he said morosely. "But I want – him."
She patted him on the shoulder. "Well, I'm here for you," she said. "And the others will be too. Nothing bad's gonna happen, Sonny. You don't have to freak out over it."
"Yeah," he breathed. "I'm working on it."(You) Take My Breath Away— "There's no sexy way to strangle someone with a belt," Rafael corrected. He had no idea where Carisi got half the ideas in that head of his. Not that they were all bad ideas. Just most of them. And the rest, they were – out there. Different. "Sure there is," Carisi said easily.
Это джен. Серьезно. Не смотрите на категорию и M/M, проставленное в ней. Это джен. Это потрясающий джен со стояком, эротическим удушением и мыслями о поцелуях.
When the Light Shifts - единственная работа, которую стоит читать таки познакомившись с каноном полностью, по крайне мере с 16 сезоном, до 17 серии включительно.
Это очень светлый, мягкий и радостный пре-слэш. Действие, в основном, происходит в один свадебный день, и оказывается, что люди, могут оказаться совсем не теми, какими ты думал они есть. Так что - свадьба сестры - лучшее место для первого свидания (пусть даже изначально это было просто "Yeah, my plus one fell through so there's a space open. You can come with me").