A/N: This is just a short little drabble but I hope you all enjoy it anyway!
It wasn't love, or infatuation or even overwhelming attraction at first sight. Nothing about the feelings that Sonny Carisi had found himself steadily developing for his co-worker were by any means superficial.
That wasn't to say she wasn't physically beautiful; he was well aware that she was. But what took his breath away was not her silky straight locks of blonde hair or her ocean blue eyes. It was the way she would tilt her head to the side - so subtly that he wasn't even sure she noticed she was doing it - when he would crack a joke that she would pretend not to find funny. It was the way her eyes would crinkle at the sides when something made her particularly happy, and how invested she would get in her favorite reality television shows despite telling him time and time again that she knew how staged they were.
He admired her passion. How dedicated she was to her work and the contrast of how gentle she was with their victims to how assertive she was with their suspects. He was thankful that he had the opportunity to see the real Amanda Rollins. Not just the stoic facade she tended to often put on for the public. Because underneath it all, when her chuckles weren't bitter and her words weren't dripping with sarcasm, he knew she had one of the kindest hearts he knew.
That was what drew him to her. From their road trips in pursuit of suspects and serial killers to the moment he sat by her side and held her hand during the final stages of her pregnancy, every moment he spent with her, he could feel himself growing more attached. Falling deeper in deeper into something that wasn't quite love, but also wasn't anything tangible or anything that could have been easily put into words. And every time he remembered that...to her...he was just a close friend, he could swear he could feel the physical pain of what was only a metaphorical punch to the stomach.
He'd attempted to see other women - and it was usually successful for a short period of time - but something always went sour after a few weeks. It was as if he needed to subconsciously find their faults because no matter how great they may have been in reality, they paled in comparison to the one woman who he had built up in his mind to be his perfect person. He knew that he was self-sabotaging, and he could feel himself doing it, but something inside him made him powerless to stop.
Maybe the feeling would eventually pass. Or maybe...he worried...he would just end up alone, wallowing in the feelings he knew better than to express knowing there was such a slim chance that she would ever have the same feelings for him that he had for her. He had never considered himself to be insecure...but something about Amanda Rollins was so high above him that, in the back of his mind, he knew he didn't stand a chance.
Sometimes, however, when they would catch each other's eye from across the room, or when she would watch him bouncing Jesse up and down to quell her fussiness when she would start to cry, he could swear he recognized the look in her eyes. It was the look he knew that he had given to her so many times since he'd found himself falling for her. The look that silently said all of the things he didn't have the courage to say aloud.
And every time he would catch that look, he thought about speaking up...telling her all of the things that he had been bottling up for years...asking if his feelings were really as one-sided as he imagined. But he always lost his nerve when she would simply smile and look away, and a part of him - the rational part of him - knew that there were some things that were simply better left unsaid.