A/N: I didn't have the best morning and I felt like Barba needed to be miserable with me, so here it is. Don't worry, I'm sure his day will get much better. Enjoy!
Hot coffee on your crotch wasn't the most pleasant feeling ever and somehow, he managed to make it his entire adult life without ever experiencing it.
Coffee got him through his honors classes in high school, his addiction flourishing during law school and beyond that, he just couldn't function without it anymore. Four cups during the day sometimes kept him alive enough to work through the tremendous amount of cases that came across his desk.
It kept him sane when detectives visited him three times a day with requests for warrants and changes that were made to initial witness statements. Coffee was his one and only true saving grace in his crazy world most of the time. It was his life force. It was practically his blood type.
Barba tried to hold back the tears of pain as the steaming hot liquid scorched his most private of places, effectively rendering him speechless and ruining his favorite suit pants in the process. The bagel he was trying to eat while balancing his brief case, his cell phone and his coffee all at once fell on one of his designer oxfords, coating the laces with cream cheese and also speckling his socks.
The sheer amount of willpower it took for him not to yell at the top of his lungs and wish death of every single soul who stared at him on the street corner was overwhelming. He was positive the vein in his forehead was this close to busting and he briefly wondered if he was dying. The pain was unlike anything he'd ever experienced before.
He should sue.
He should ring that little coffee shop for all the money they had for inflicting this much pain on him. Damn that coffee shop!
"Calm down, Rafael. You're being dramatic," he whispered to himself, kicking the bagel off his shoe and straightening himself out. He tried not to glare daggers at the retreating back of the man who bumped into him and chose to keep some of his dignity by walking away like nothing embarrassing or painful just happened.
Sure, walking down the sidewalk with a big dark coffee stain covering the entirety of his crotch region wasn't something he would live down for a while, but luckily, he had a spare suit in his office. If he could just make it there without further incident, he would be fine. This would be forgotten just like all the other horrible things that's ever happened to him in life and he would move on.
Except, life didn't seem to like Rafael Barba.
A loud clicking of a camera and shouted questions from a newspaper reporter about their current, high profile case stopped him in his tracks. He groaned, knowing his picture was going to be in the paper the next day and the whole of New York City who bothered to read the paper was going to see his wet stain.
"Mr. Barba! Can you te-"
The reporter stopped her question and looked directly at the stain, just noticing it before looking at him questioningly.
"No. Comment."
He ground out the words and marched past the woman, throwing the half empty coffee cup away in a garbage can lined by the street corner. He could feel people looking at him, some snickering and giving him odd looks, but he shook it off and proceeded as if nothing was wrong.
And it was a fairly quick walk to his building. He sighed happily when the building came into view, turning all of his attention on the huge amount of work he needed to get done that day. Interviews with two key witnesses, what was sure to be a three-hour meeting at SVU going over everything and he had a lunch date with Liv to go over her testimony.
"Sir!"
Barba paid no mind to the man who was probably talking to him, waving the construction worker off as he passed by their site. He also, at some point, was probably going to see Rita because there was no way she was going to get her client off the hook with that much evidence on him.
"Sir! Hey!"
Barba took a few more steps and stopped, the ground becoming liquid underneath his feet somehow. He realized, with horror, that he had just stepped into wet cement that was still pouring from a giant cement truck parked on the side of the street. The construction worker cursed in Spanish, words he understood and he had to agree with him.
He was a dumb ass.
And he was about to lose it.
With a rage, he flung his feet out of the wet cement and stepped onto the already paved sidewalk next to the patch he happened to step in, uncaring of who was around him.
"Are you kidding me?!"
Barba shook his feet off, the wet cement flying everywhere on his pants, and the surrounding area. People walking past him moved out of his way, not wanting to deal with the obviously agitated man. He could hear the snapping of a few cell phone cameras and distant laughter around him before he stomped off, just wanting to get the hell off the sidewalk before something else happened to him.
He pushed his way through the crowds of people milling about, some of the nicer dressed suits actively avoiding him and few familiar faces tried not to show their amusement at his pain. It was obvious he'd been through a hell of a morning and he was NOT in the mood to play around at that moment.
Unfortunately, with the hot coffee traumatizing his crotch and the heavy cement that was quickly drying on his ruined shoes, socks and pants, his mind was far too preoccupied to see that everyone gathered at the sidewalk was waiting for the crosswalk light to change, signaling that it was safe to walk across the road.
And this happened to be the crowd he pushed himself through in his haste to get to the office. Before he knew it, he was flat on his back, looking up at the sky while a few people came into view, asking him if he was ok and if he needed an ambulance.
Confused, he looked to his right and saw a yellow taxi stopped in front of him, the driver standing outside of his door and looking at him in concern.
Had he really just walked out into oncoming traffic?
"Barba!"
He looked up and saw the very familiar face of Olivia Benson come into view, Fin standing behind her with his eyebrow raised.
"Are you alright?"
Barba nodded and went to sit up, a few people around him helping him off the ground and onto his feet. He swayed for a second, the world spinning for a few seconds before his vision came back into focus. Liv moved to his side, a hand on his back and another on his chest, double checking that he could walk and that he didn't need to go to the hospital.
"I'm fine…I'm alright," he said, waving off the taxi driver's concern and walking all the way to the other side of the street with the rest of the people who took the opportunity to cross.
"Jesus, Barba, what the hell happened to you this morning?"
The ADA just whimpered and didn't say anything more, leaning into Liv as the two walked him all the way to his office, making sure nothing further happened to him that morning. He turned to Liv, exhausted and worn out and it wasn't even 8 a.m. yet.
"I'm taking the subway from now on."