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thebarsondaily · 6 years

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Winter Wonderland

for @motherbearof03

Title: Winter Wonderland Author: cool-veggiesword Rating: K+ Summary: Liv makes a stop at Rafa’s apartment for Christmas Eve and things resurface. Set somewhere in the latest season if Christmas had happened before Liv met Sheila. A/N: Hi, it’s me again! Merry Christmas to you and your family! I couldn’t figure out how to incorporate mom talks with the rest of your requests and I’m super new at writing Barson, so I’m so sorry if this isn’t really what you were expecting (or is terrible)! But I still hope you like it. (P.S. Please excuse the random Christmas penguin ^^;;;)

He looks almost cute, a small floppy strand of hair astray on his forehead, and she almost wants to brush it aside, see where her treacherous fingers lead her. He’s wearing the blue checkered shirt again, something that would look especially heinous on someone else but looks especially wonderful on him. His suspenders are positively snappable, his shirt endearingly wrinkled at the cuffs rolled up around his elbows, and a sliver of his collarbone and chest peeks out from his form-fitting button-down, a tantalizing stretch of skin she has to drag her eyes away from. So she reaches out for the doorframe, keeps her hands busy holding it when the door widens and she can see more of his confused, wary face, a growing spark of recognition and an almost unnoticeable hint of affection in his eyes.

“Hey.”

“…Hi?”

He doesn’t ask her to come in, just stands aside so her coat brushes against his chest, her fingers narrowly brushing his hip as she strides past, one of their routine in chaos. They turn to look at one another, a small split-second glance igniting into a fire.

“What is it, Liv?”

“Well, I was wondering what you were doing since it’s Christmas Eve…but I should have known you’d be working.”

He gives her a long look, somewhere between annoyed and contemplative; he’s always had the most expressive of eyes, and the most tender of voices when he wants.

The files in his hand do everything to make him look very much at home and very much himself. And inside, she places how much his apartment suits him: like his office, towering ornate dark bookshelves against beige walls, brown leather and ivory-coloured couches, hardwood floors, just a hint of grey and white marble in the countertops, a contradictory intense but business-like atmosphere. He doesn’t have much in the way of decoration, everything functional and stately, no fruit baskets on the kitchen counter but essentials in the corners, one or two political magazines neatly stacked - she doesn’t know if he cooks really. Liv imagines the few small statuettes must have been from his mother, a large cross, a Christmas penguin, some other unrecognizable things that she refrains from commenting about that look far too gaudy even for him. Who would have thought. And like mother like son.

The pad itself would have looked almost haughty and ostentatious for anyone else but Rafael; the man could have worn a clown suit and made it look dapper and she wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. An image of shark-patterned socks and dazzling pink stripes makes her hold back a smirk. Today marks the first time she’s been in his apartment, the first time she might really know him.

The bay window leading to a deck catches her attention briefly, and she wonders if on rainy days he sits in that chair and just looks out, listens to the pitter-patter on the glass, wonders what his profile would look like in the dark of night and the reflection of the moon hitting only one side of his face and the other side cast in shadows. For someone who manages to be so threatening in the courtroom, his other side is enthralling, like the outward puff of his cheek as he smiles, smirks, in innocent pretension, or sarcastically, or gently, just for her.

“Well you know, crime doesn’t stop, even if that’s what the road signs want.”

He’s sunk down into the single armchair next to the window while she’s been ogling, stretching his legs out onto a small coffee table in front of him, but she grabs the files she can reach out of his hands and tosses them onto an opposite couch, much to his slightly appalled look. There goes not ruffling his feathers even more than she already did on the regular.

“Come on, Rafa. I came here to spend time with my best friend, not watch him work.”

“What about Noah?”

“I’m having Lucy watch him for a couple hours but since it’s Christmas Eve, I shouldn’t be gone for too long.” She looks at him apologetically.

“Why don’t you bring him with you next time?”

Once she would have thought her friend was hard to decipher, and that it would be contradictory for him to care so much. Once she would have thought it too forward for even him to ask to meet her son. But these days there is buzzing again in her head, and she’s not sure what this feeling is when his first instinct is to ask about the boy, sunlight of her life, but even more so when he, famous for his brash, unforgiving, sardonic way of looking at the world, would suggest spending time with a child so honestly, so casually, maybe only for her. But then again, Noah had that effect on people.

The thought crosses her mind that maybe he would make a good father but she pushes it away, not wanting to dredge up the memory of someone who could have been Noah’s father, someone who was, the knowledge she has in confidence of Rafael’s own situation.

This unspoken yet certain confidence builds the trust between them, but she remembers when it was torn. To be heartbroken is to love. To hurt is to have been loved.

She looks down at her hands to avoid his searching gaze.

“Well, thank you for saying that.”

“You don’t have to stand on ceremony with me, you know?”

“Sorry. Long day.”

He pauses for a moment and she can sense him debating this with himself whether to pursue or to fold; he’s the one who is always by her side, asking her if she’s okay, but disguising everything of his own under a veil of sarcasm and complaints and retorts when she reaches out to him.

“One or two shots?”

She ponders if he can see her face light up in amusement as he stands up to pour them some scotch, thinks perhaps this ease and banter could - no, should - become a regular thing.

—————————————–

He can’t remember when he gave Liv his address but all that seems moot now, when she’s sitting in his living room on the same ivory-coloured couch as him, their knees brushing (bless Mami for not relenting until he got it), shoulders bumping and fingers constantly brushing like newlyweds. Rafael watches the way her lips move as she animatedly recounts her latest Noah story, the way strands of her hair flutter softly against her cheeks, the curl of her fingers around a glass. He believes she’s not too obtuse to see it too, that unspoken trust and friendship there but something more over the surface, and under the surface.

She has that smile again, where she’s looking down, one side of her mouth upturned more than the other. He talks about his Christmas day tradition with his mother, feels the affection coming in waves from her. Of the two - actually infinite - types of smiles she has he can’t decide which he loves the most.

“Come on Rafa, some part of you must love some part of Christmas.”

I love how much you love it.

Then a silence he wants to fill, inexplicably.

“…My mother always makes me cakes…even when things got tough. This year she just wants to stuff me into a Santa hat though.”

Ah, there’s the other smile, the comforting, sympathetic one where she stares directly at him this time, her face crinkling with emotion despite his throwaway statement to break the tension. What he wouldn’t give to see it every day.

The touch of her hand on his knee sends a jolt through his chest, the sparkle in her eyes more warm than he expects. He wonders if he’ll ever stop watching that smile and seeking that connection, across the courtroom, in the meeting room when they work out a plan for a case, thinks that he’ll never even want to stop looking for it.

Her next words do break the tension successfully, soft and warm and…teasing.

“You know…a Santa hat would look good on you.”

He raises an eyebrow, doesn’t hesitate to jump to his feet; she’s reaching for her bag and taking out something.

“No.”

He’s halfway through opening a door when he feels her nose collide with his back, feels laughter bubbling out from her chest, forearms stretching over his back, palms messing up his hair when a Santa hat falls to the floor beside them. She tries to catch her balance, hands pushing against his shoulders, then gripping them. There’s that jolt again in his chest again, a tingling sensation creeping along his skin under his clothes where she touches him, her soft breath ghosting against his ears, making him shiver with the urge to touch her too.

“Really? You’re following me in here?”

He wonders fleetingly what she can read from his face, surprised to bemused to resigned when she follows him into his bedroom, and he’s suddenly self-conscious of the order of his book collection on the shelf, the not-very-modest size of the wardrobe storing his suits; there’s a suit for tomorrow hung up on its handles, and he’s suddenly wondering whether it would catch her eye, like his yachting outfit did.

But it must have been a flashback of that last time when she felt unwelcome in his office; this time she’s somewhere new, infringing on his space, and letting her hands drop. They’ve become closer than she’d ever imagined they’d become but at the back of his mind he knows something is lingering in the space between them. But they both feel broken, tired sometimes, couldn’t do this without each other. They are justice and compassion, pragmatism and idealism, can’t help but balance and influence one another.

“Talk to me, Liv.”

So he makes the leap this time, makes the connection this time.

“Rafa…I should have told you. And I know you were only trying to do your job and protect me. But will you trust me from now on, really trust me?”

Her voice becomes a whisper, almost fearful, hesitant to ask.

She sits on his bed, opening up at the sign of him relaxing, the vulnerable look in his eyes returning, like he sits on her desk but more intimate, - he pushes away - dangerous. He plops down next to her, in her corner, as always.

“I do trust you. And I trust your instincts, even though I don’t know if they’ll be right in the end.”

Hindsight is twenty-twenty after all.

“But at least now I know we won’t be done talking for eighty-five more years.”

There’s a quiver at his side when she’s grinning against his shoulder, flipping hair behind her head beautifully, and he’s at once amazed at his ability to make her laugh, and disbelieving at his audacity to bring both of those things up.

You’re my best friend. And maybe more?

“Right then, more scotch?”

He leaves behind the vow that he’ll come back to be by her side, the dent at the edge of the bed next to her where they reaffirmed their hopes.

———————————

“Liv? Hey, Liv…”

She’s curled up like a cat on top of his blankets, an inch of skin peeking out from under her blouse, her hands clutching the covers to her chest, relaxed, content, peaceful even, broken away from the stresses of both her past and present lives.

Rafael sighs gently, can’t keep the tenderness out of his voice.

“That heart of yours will get you into trouble some day.”

Not that his hadn’t already. Tonight, a kiss on the forehead is the only present he dares give her. Tonight, he wants to be her rook, punching through the darkness and bringing her the light.

“Goodnight, Liv.”

He contemplates taking the couch in the living room but dares to test the trust that is everything to them, that something floating above and under the surface, so he settles on curling around her on the bed, barely touching, and tries to be what they could be, what he hopes she’ll let him be.

————————————————

She wakes up to a note (“Don’t worry; I called Lucy. And I’m sorry too.”) on the nightstand, the lightest of touches on her back, the scent of him reaching her nose from behind.

…sorry that Lucy’ll have to watch Noah on Christmas, sorry that I didn’t understand back then…

To kiss him good morning would be the only present she dares give him, so she turns around and just does, traces her fingers down from the latch on his suspenders, wonders how he slept in them like that, wonders what the two of them could be to one another. Rafael - Rafa - stirs in her arms and she draws her fingers up to his face, meeting her eyes with his sleepy ones.

That buzzing feeling in her mind solidifies into something more familiar.

Definitely more.

Christmas would be indeed be enchanting this year.

#barson #olivia benson #rafael barba #& secret santa exchange #secret santa exchange 2017 #gift 1 of 1 #to motherbearof03 #from cool-veggiesword #submission

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