#gave raf shorts cus yeah

[rmtzcoconut]

Slight redesign

[ahumanfemale]

42!!!

The star-crossed lovers AU… which has been the bane of my existence for WEEKS.  Luckily @butihavejoy stepped in and gave me this idea.  I hope you enjoy, anon.   - xoxo, ahf.

“You know I don’t believe in this, Sonny.”

“Don’t believe in what?  The stars?”

Rafael rolled his eyes.

Hard.

It’s possible he may have pulled something.

“Just because you spent your afternoon interviewing a psychic doesn’t mean you’re suddenly cued into the cosmos,” he shot back, shaking his head.  “And besides, you’ve already talked to her.  What difference will talking to both of us make?”

“You’re not curious?” Sonny asked excitedly.  “I mean, come on.  A real life psychic told me to bring my boyfriend in before the witching hour for a glimpse at our future.  She knew about us!”

“No, she knew you were dating a man.  Which probably wasn’t as difficult to decipher as you imagine, considering the way you walk.”

Sonny whips around.

“Excuse me?”

“You treat any distance longer than six feet like a catwalk, Sonny.  She’d have to be headless not to have her suspicions.”

“Whatever, I’m not starting this fight because you’re just trying to distract me.  Come on, this is the place.”

Sonny led them into a small storefront that frankly, Rafael would have been able to design himself using only the vague cues he had from gypsies in movies.  A sentiment he belatedly realized was probably racist as he stepped through the beaded curtain and was slapped in the face with the smell of intermingling rose and patchouli.  The decor was just as he’d expected - fading silver outlines of celestial bodies on dusty black velvet, artistic renditions of the Tarot hung on the walls.  Stevie Nicks and Jefferson Airplane looked out at him from aging concert posters and he barely had time to suppress his grin before a voice rang out in the silence.

“Detective Carisi!  You’re here.”

“Hey, Estela.  Yeah, I had to,” Sonny replied, affable as always.  Rafael had lost track now of the number of elderly people who had melted under his easy demeanor.  “Estela, this is my partner - Rafael.”

The woman herself seemed nice enough - aging, white haired with shocks of black threaded throughout.  

“Rafael!” she cried, pleased as she shook his hand.  “Your detective has such strong feelings about you, I feel like I know you already.  Please, sit with me.”

It was the last nice thing the woman had to say.

Not that she was rude.

It was just that the two of them were fundamentally incompatible, as it turned out.  As a Pisces, Sonny was a romantic dreamer who at his best was a living, breathing, fairytale prince and at his worse was an inconstant, indecisive flake who would chase after the next individual to catch his eye as soon as he felt neglected in any way.  Of course, none of that took into account the fact that Sonny Carisi was as monogamous as the day is long, or that he would sooner gnaw off a limb than cheat or be the other man.  

A fact that Rafael felt comfortable keeping to himself when Estela started in on him.  The loud, overconfident Leo who preens under attention and enjoys the melodrama.  Rafael was doomed to forever alienate his precious Sonny, who would only ever need emotional care that Rafael would never be able to provide.  He would demand fawning that Sonny wouldn’t be able to give, would require grand romantic gestures instead of the lovesick mooning Sonny would give in every spare moment.  

Fatally incompatible, Estela had said with a sad smile.  

Doomed to fail.

His mood turned dark after half an hour and Sonny was quick to sweep him out the door then, tuned in as always with how Rafael was thinking and feeling.  Always the Pisces, Rafael thought bitterly as they stepped back out of the shop and into the bitterly cold drizzle of late fall.  The two of them didn’t say much as Rafael hailed a cab and Sonny held the door for him to get in before shutting it and jogging around the side of the car.  It wasn’t until they were both buckled in and the driver had taken their address that Sonny spoke, amusement in his tone.

“Why didn’t you correct her?”

Rafael turned, surprised.  

“Correct her about what?  Her chosen career path?  Because I doubt that was something she wanted to hear.”

“You let her believe you were a Leo,” Sonny told him knowingly, grinning as the cab merged into traffic.  “Don’t get me wrong, the ego and the flare for the dramatic is spot-on.  But your birthday is in late October - you’re a Scorpio.”  

“Am I?” he replied blandly, looking out the window.  

“Yeah.  You’re too calm and cool to be a Leo.  You get off on being the mysterious one in the room, not the center of attention.”  

Rafael scoffed.  “Oh, good.  Now you’re an expert.  Thinking of another career change already?  You haven’t even given that law degree a spin around the block.”

“Now see, she was right about me being a Pisces though.  I’m dreamy and intuitive,” he continued, as though Rafael hadn’t even spoken.  “Which, if you really were a Leo, would be a bad thing.  Leos are loud and harsh and can’t take care of my sensitive emotional needs.”

“Are you even listening to yourself right now?”

“But see, I know for a fact that you’re a Scorpio.  And I know that you know that, because there’s no way you’ve gone through almost fifty years of life without knowing what your sign is,” Sonny deduced and he only barely avoids the desire to flinch against the mention of his age.  “Which means that you didn’t care what she thought enough to correct her, because you were pretty sure of us already.”

At this Rafael does look away from the window, small smirk in place.  

Sonny may be too smart for his own good.

“You seem confident in yourself,” he mocked gently, only because Sonny wouldn’t know what to do with outright praise.  

“I am.  Because I’m pretty sure of us too,” Sonny replied and reached for Rafael’s hand.  “I also did some googling after the first time I saw her, which is how I happen to know that we are - in fact - astrological soulmates.”  

“You’re ridiculous.”

“No, it’s true.  The most compatible two people could ever be.  What with our wits and moods and active fantasy life,” he said suggestively, waggling his eyebrows in a way that Rafael both loves and hates.  “The sex is off the charts, by the way.  If ever the moody, animalistic Scorpio can find it in him to not be so rough with me anyway.”

He arched a single brow.  

“Is that a complaint?”

Sonny grinned.

“Not even close,” he amended and gripped Rafael’s hand tighter.  “It’s just��� this was supposed to go a little differently.  She was supposed to know you were a Scorpio, because she’s psychic-”

“Psychics aren’t real.”

“- and then she was supposed to give you the soulmate speech.  That way when I asked you to marry me it would be in the middle of a ‘true love’s kiss’ kind of moment rather than me and you arguing about astrology in the back of a cab.”

Rafael’s head jerked up.

“What did you say?”

“I said I want you to marry me, Raf.  And don’t act so surprised, like you didn’t know a good Catholic boy wouldn’t want to put a ring on it eventually.”

He wanted to scoff, to make some snide comment about his being a far cry short of a blushing bride, but it wasn’t there.  He kept looking for sarcasm and came up empty.  The only thing he could find with those desperately questing fingers was something approximating joy - a feeling that threatened to overwhelm him as they rode in silence, save for the road noise of the cars around them.

“Well?” Sonny finally asked, nerves getting the better of him.  “Are we tying the knot or am I packing my stuff?”

“I’m in charge of the wedding and everything it entails,” Rafael found himself saying.  “You couldn’t coordinate colors to save your life and I refuse to serve beer.”

“I can coordinate colors.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Yeah, alright, fine.  My proud Leo just needs to be in charge, doesn’t he?”

Rafael rolled his eyes again.

Hard.

He’d definitely pulled something because there was an odd burning behind his eyelids.  

“Shut up and kiss me before I change my mind.”