drabble; prompt: secret (take two)
pairing: rafael barba/olivia benson (from the eyes of dominick 'sonny' carisi jr.)
word count: 712 words
prompt from thebarsondaily [tumblr]

begin

"Carisi, are you tired of living?" Barba asks irritably as the camera clicks and whirrs.

"Sorry, Counselor." Carisi lowers his camera and grins. "But you see, my little sister, Bella, y'know, the one with the baby, has asked me take some family portraits and all for her, and I just bought this awesome new lens, and…" his voice trails off as Barba rolls his eyes and stalks past him, walking straight into the Lieutenant's office.

"…and I just want to test it out." He finishes lamely.

Amanda and Fin snigger from where they are sitting.

Carisi goes around snapping photos of everyone and everything that he comes across in the next few days. Coming from a big family where memories and togetherness are of utmost importance, he wants to make sure that his baby sister and his baby niece (and Tommy, he supposes) will have some really wonderful family photos.

It's a quiet night on call and he decides to look through his work of the past few days. Carefully plugging the memory card into his laptop, he shifts through the photos, feeling rather satisfied with his work.

There are quite a few candid photos of his colleagues. He snickers at one of Fin falling asleep on top of his case files, and another one where Fin was frowning at his photo being taken. He also caught one of Amanda by the coffee machine, scrolling through her phone and smiling – probably looking at photos of Jesse. There is also a photo of Dodds, looking very disgruntled as Chief Dodds pointed a finger at him.

(And he is proud of the artistic shots of files, chairs, whiteboards and the snack machine, no matter what Fin and Amanda says.)

He begins categorising his photos into folders, shifting and organising them, when he chances upon a photo of the Lieutenant and Barba.

Huh.

It is a candid shot; probably taken when he was in one of his "clicking away" moods. It was taken at the courthouse – he remembers the day, he was trying his hand at "architectural" shots – and the Lieutenant and Barba were standing on the steps. He had unknowingly zoomed in on them, and hence they were captured very clearly.

They were standing very close to each other. Barba's arm was wrapped around the Lieutenant's waist, and she had her hand on his shoulder. Her head was thrown back in laughter, and Carisi had managed to capture one of the rarest sights in existence – Barba, smiling.

Smiling, as he looked at the Lieutenant, and his expression was…

Well, even Carisi can figure this one out.

But wow. Wow.

"Lieu. Counselor." Carisi raps on the office door and sticks his head in. They both look up, as he hands some photos to them.

"These are taken from the street camera just outside the vic's house. Me and Amanda have looked through it and found nothing of importance, but maybe you want to take a look."

"Thanks, Carisi." Liv takes the photos, and flicks through them, as Carisi hovers.

"Anything else?" Barba asks, his tone snappy as per usual.

"Uhhh…" Making up his mind, Carisi extracts a photo from the folder he is holding. "Thought you might want to have this." He hands it to Barba and grins, before exiting the office and closing the door.

Sighing, Barba looks at the photo and does a double take. "When did he even…?"

"What is it?" Liv leans forward on her desk as Barba flips the photo at her, a slight scowl on his face. She takes the photo, and looks at it, saying nothing.

"Well, it's obvious he knows." Barba says tetchily.

"So?" Liv shrugs. "They'd eventually find out anyway."

"But Carisi, of all people. Did you see that smug grin he gave us?"

She smiles, reaching across the table, taking his hand and squeezing it. "It's okay, Raf."

He lifts her hand to his lips and brushes her knuckles with a kiss, while he picks up the photo with his other hand, giving it a closer look.

"I supposed it is a good photo." He grudgingly admits.

Liv laughs, and nods.

In fact, she plans to ask Carisi for a proper print, so that she can frame it up for her home.

end

note: has it been said whether Carisi's sister had a boy or a girl? I can't recall so I made it a niece.