Work Text:
Grief has a delay.
No position is irreplaceable; after Barba left his role as Manhattan ADA, a newcomer quickly took over. Everything seemed unchanged—Carisi was still busy every day, spinning like a puppy chasing its own tail.
New cases kept coming. Panicked and terrified victims, grieving and furious family members, perpetrators who were either indifferent or full of regret, and defense attorneys wearing falsely shrewd smiles. Layer by layer, circle by circle, it wrapped around him, until he sometimes felt like the innermost part of a head of cabbage.
-
He stood alone in front of the vending machine, sighed, and felt like the days were going by faster and faster, without any real sense of them passing. After paying and taking two steps back with his hands on his hips, he saw a shadow approaching in the reflection of the glass—it was Rollins.
He turned slightly and nodded at her as a greeting, then stepped aside after retrieving his snack to make space. Rollins raised her eyebrows in response and looked at the machine with a picky expression.
“Damn it, out of stock again.” She frowned, exhaled, and crossed her arms. “I told them they should've pushed the restocking staff to be quicker.”
“Just make do,” Carisi grunted, tore open the snack wrapper, and held it out in front of Rollins.
She rolled her eyes. “Thanks, but no.” She turned away, leaned on the machine, and continued complaining. “Whatever. I think I still have two donuts at my desk.”
“How's Jesse doing lately?” Carisi asked, chewing as he spoke, mouth half-full. He was starving—he'd been running around all day and couldn't even remember his last meal.
“She's great. She really likes the toy you gave her.” At the mention of her daughter, Rollins' voice softened a lot. She raised a hand to rub her brow, giving a tired smile, and then her gaze returned to Carisi. “What about you?”
“Everything's fine, aside from difficult defense attorneys and a flipped sleep schedule—”
“—since Barba left?”
Carisi paused, a little dazed. “Oh. Barba.”
Rollins studied him, her eyes inquisitive and evaluating. “Have you two kept in touch?”
“No,” Carisi said.
-
In the end, Rollins patted his shoulder and told him to reach out if he ever needed anything.
-
Well then, Barba.
Actually, after Barba resigned, Carisi didn't think of him much. Partly because he was genuinely busy, and partly because he made himself stay busy. It was best to stay busy enough to collapse into bed the moment he got home, with no energy left to think about anything besides work.
He didn't want to give himself time to think about Barba.
How long had it been since Barba left? A week? A month? Carisi stared at his phone screen, fingers moving instinctively as he opened the message thread with Barba. The last message was from him: “Counselor, are you okay?” Barba hadn't replied.
Scrolling up, he could see that over the years, they'd gone from barely acquainted coworkers to somewhat familiar ones. They had chatted quite a bit over text—mostly work-related—mixed in with some cheerful emoji Carisi had sent on impulse.
He kept scrolling, then scrolled back down to the last message. He covered it with his finger. After holding down on it, the delete option popped up. He stared at it, hesitated for two seconds, then exited the thread and turned off the screen.
Honestly, he didn't feel much. Just like the day he first heard from someone else that Barba had resigned—he seemed to pause for a moment, then accepted it. The new ADA had handled the transition flawlessly. Nothing seemed out of place. He deliberately didn't think about what might be out of place.
Barba still hadn't replied, and Carisi hadn't sent another message.
-
It had been a hard week.
He should've been used to it by now—his entire career as a detective had basically been strung together by difficult fragments. But somehow this week felt harder to bear than usual. The bizarre and cruel methods used by the suspect in the latest case had made him throw up several times during fieldwork. His dreams were haunted by desperate, twisted faces, ending with the silhouette of someone in a courtroom.
He opened his eyes to find it was 3 a.m. Carisi grabbed the cup of water at his side and drank it all in one go. After a deep breath, he found only emptiness left in his emotions. He rubbed his face and thought back to that last figure—Barba.
He didn't need to think hard to recognize him. After all, the back of the ADA was the one he saw and chased most often.
It was the distance from when he followed Barba during court sessions as a trainee, taking notes while watching him step forward to speak.
Carisi instinctively reached for his phone, then put it aside, lay back down, and forced himself to go back to sleep.
-
How long does it take to realize—and admit—that you miss someone? Carisi almost scoffed at it.
But the truth was, it wasn't until the first and second months after Barba left that the sting started to slowly rise up inside him, seeping through the numbness from chasing one case after another. Like a tide creeping in, the bitterness and reluctance quietly spread.
Counselor. Barba. Rafael.
It was only when he crawled off the couch with a hangover that Carisi realized how drunk he had gotten. He groaned and pressed a hand to his forehead. The team had celebrated the close of a case the night before—God knows why he drank so much.
It took a while to find his phone, which had powered off long ago. He sighed as he stumbled up to plug it in. When the screen lit up, a cascade of notifications popped up.
First was one from Rollins: Next time you get that drunk, I'm not helping. You owe me lunch.
He smiled a little as he replied with thanks and a smiley face.
-
Scrolling down—an unread message from Barba.
Wait. Barba.
He knew his behavior when drunk was unpredictable—But to bother Barba? Panic kicked in. He forced himself to breathe deeply, then tapped open the chat window with Barba.
: Detective, considering you called me three times last night and didn't say a word, I suggest that next time you get drunk, you leave your phone somewhere out of reach.
: Also, I'm fine.
: Do you want to meet up?
No emojis, no unnecessary explanations.
It was the same tone he had heard countless times from Barba—subtle, restrained, sarcastic. He didn't want to admit how much he missed it.
Then he realized: Barba had replied to the message that had gone unanswered.
Carisi stared at those few lines, his head a little dizzy, unsure whether it was the hangover or something else.
He sat down hesitantly on the couch, phone resting in his palm, and suddenly his palm felt hot, even slightly sweaty.
He should've replied right away, but instead he sat there for five minutes, then ten, not knowing what to say.
He read the message over and over again, trying to extract any hidden emotion or implication, but Barba's words—like his suits and his tone—were always perfectly tailored, leaving no room for prying.
-
He let out a breath.
: Yeah, Barba. If you don't mind, I think I might have some things I'd like to talk to you about :)