Chapter Text
Everyone who knows Sonny knows that he’s protective. It’s no secret, what with the way he’s the first to volunteer for dangerous calls, jump in front of victims, shield people from the horrors of the job. He walks closer to the street on the sidewalk and sleeps on the side of the bed closer to the door. Every morning he walks Rafael to work and every night walks him home (although that’s more because he’s a sap than because of the perpetual threats to Rafael’s life). He needs to protect people, mostly because no one ever protected him from the words and fists hurled at him from the time he was old enough to attend Staten Island public school.
He needs to be the hero, always has. Rafael thinks he would have learned when Sergeant Dodds’ hero complex got him shot in the stomach, later killing him in a sterile hospital room. That had crushed Sonny for days into bed confinement while the grief ripped through him like a tidal wave. Or maybe that just made it worse; no one had a bad word to say about him once he died, and Sonny seems more worn down with every passing day. It gets harder to drag him out of bed.
Funnily enough, Sonny had been up at the crack of dawn this morning. He was almost lively, waking Rafael up with a kiss and a cup of coffee just the way he likes it. He was clumsy getting dressed with the same sloppy knot on his tie before coming to the edge of the bed to have it fixed. Once he started wearing “big boy ties” instead of clip-ons, he’s gotten better, but it’s still more messy than it is proper. Just like the man himself, the ties are a beautiful disaster.
The day was primed to be a good one, even tame at work, until Liv had called to ask him to come pick Sonny up from the precinct. Unusual enough on its own, the quiver of her tone added to the panic of such a request and had him rushing out of work and to SVU. He had too many ideas what could be wrong. Injuries? No, he wasn’t at the hospital. Another death? No, someone would’ve called him. A bad case? No, Sonny wouldn’t be that shaken up. It’s the fear of the unexpected that makes Rafael’s heart pound in his chest as an unsteady drum until he finally makes it all the way to the bullpen.
He was directed to the break room, and he can’t forget the look in Sonny’s eyes. Hollow. Dead. Traumatized. Blood speckled like dulled rubies in his hairline and the collar of his shirt, still fresh enough to reflect the barest amount of fluorescent lights bouncing off ugly green walls. He jumps when Rafael says his name. Tears begun to pool in his eyes while he stuttered out the way he stared death in the eyes and said his final prayers in a half-finished house while the victim screamed behind him.
In the back of his mind, Rafael always knows Sonny might not come home one day, but that incident was the first time it became real.