Unusually Rafael and Olivia were alone in her apartment, Noah was on a sleepover with his best friend. Because of this they were sprawled on either end of the sofa well on their way to inebriation. Olivia had changed into comfy clothing before coming over and Rafael was in low hanging sweatpants and a t-shirt.
It had been a very long, very emotional week filled with cases more horrific than usual. They had started off decompressing with take out and a drink. It had escalated quickly and more alcohol seemed a great idea.
Rafael had been nursing a very large scotch for nearly an hour as Olivia bemoaned her terrible love life and told him all about it in great detail. He kept thinking that he should stop her as she would regret it in the morning, if she remembered. He had tried half heartedly but hearing about a romantic history nearly as bad as his was guiltily pleasing.
Eventually Olivia ran out of steam. Unfortunately for Rafael she gave him a scrutinising look and continued to stare at him for quite a while. Feeling very uncomfortable Rafael broke the silence with, "Why do I get the feeling you're trying to see inside my brain."
Olivia quietly said, "I am." She continued to stare at him, as if by doing so she could know his every thought, which worried Rafael immensely.
He decided that withdrawal wasn't cowardice and headed unsteadily to the kitchen to top up his scotch. Olivia had half a bottle of red wine on the coffee table so she was okay. The previous very large scotch was supposed to have been his last, but he had a feeling he was going to need another.
When he flopped back onto the sofa he found that Olivia was still staring at him. Before he could say anything Olivia asked him,
"What about your past. I've just regaled you with the horrors of my romantic history, tell me all about yours."
Olivia looked almost as shocked as he did at her words and obviously didn't know what to do about it. Rafael relied on snark and countered with,
"You did, and entirely unsolicited, if I had wanted a detailed account of your love life I would have asked. Oh that's right, I didn't."
Olivia had downed another glass of wine during his reply, which had bolstered her drunken resolve. "That may be so, but now you know all my dirty secrets so you have to tell me yours. It's only fair."
Even drunk Rafael could see the holes in her logic. He looked at her and smirked. "Only if you promise not to ask me to take impossible cases for a month. So I can get some sleep and stay in the DA's good books." She would never agree to that, he was safe.
Olivia considered his proposal for a few minutes and decided it was worth it. Something she wouldn't have done had she been sober. "Okay, I won't try to force any cases on you for a month. Agreed."
Rafael was shocked, he hadn't expected her to agree to his terms. Now he would have to tell her what she wanted to know. That's when the panic set in.
"But...why would you...but...you weren't supposed to...agree." He muttered, in complete shock.
Olivia was having so much fun. She had managed to make him almost speechless. That was a victory she was never going to let him forget.
Olivia gleefully said, "Ohh, but I did. So, come on Rafael, spill all the juicy details." She did feel a spark of guilt at the look on his face but was now too invested to actually think about what she was doing.
Rafael was suddenly a lot nearer to sober thanks to the adrenaline running through his veins, along with the terror. He was a very private person and there was a reason that she didn't know much about his love life. Olivia was the first friend in decades that he had opened up with to the extent that he had with her. He was desperately trying to find a good reason not to tell her anything. Sadly for Rafael the alcohol and panic were not aiding him in this.
Olivia in frustration chucked one of the small cushions at him. "You agreed to the terms. You are supposed to do what we agreed. "Dish. Now."
Rafael realising that somewhere along the way he had finished his scotch decided he needed another in order to comply. As he headed for the kitchen he said, "Okay, okay. Stop being so demanding. I'm going to need more alcohol for this."
Olivia called out, "Bring another bottle of red if there's any left, will you."
He returned carrying an open bottle of wine, he also had the bottle of scotch. "Just in case." He said as he put them down on the coffee table." Olivia nodded and poured herself a glass whilst he filled his with scotch.
While he had been in the kitchen Olivia had been thinking. "Why are you so worried about telling me. You can't have a history as bad as mine, plus with the amount of alcohol we've had neither of us will remember this in the morning."
After a very large 'sip' of scotch Rafael replied while staring at his drink, "I have a hard time trusting people with private information, so talking about stuff like this is difficult. Also, you have no idea what bad is."
After what he said Olivia felt a lot of guilt through the haze of red wine. So much so she said, "You don't have to tell me, we're drunk off our asses I shouldn't have even gone there."
Rafael felt relief at first then disappointment. That was when he realised that he did want to reciprocate and show Olivia that there were people with worse love lives than hers.
"No, no, I agreed I knew what I was agreeing too. I just misjudged your need to know. Just give me a minute to get my thoughts together."
Olivia was going to protest until she saw the determination in his eyes. She felt humbled that he would trust her with this. So she sat there sipping her wine as he marshalled his thoughts.
She was on a new glass of wine by the time he started talking.
"It's not that I don't trust you, I just want to make clear that nothing I say is to be spoken about to anyone else." The look he gave her made her realise how much he meant it.
"Of course not. I wouldn't gossip about private information." She said looking him in the eye.
"As I said I trust you. Just as a lawyer I can't help but need clarity." He paused for a while.
"You think your history is bad, compared to mine it's great. I already told you about my crush on Lauren, we didn't date though. I was the geeky know it all, teachers pet, who made everyone else look dumb. I only ever asked one girl out in school and the shock on her face that I had had the temerity to even think about asking her out chopped any confidence I had off at the knees. I just looked and pined."
"Then in high school a beautiful girl moved in two doors down from me. Her mother and mine became fast friends so we ended up having to spend time together. I expected her to ignore me at school but she didn't. I managed to get my nerve up and ask her out, expecting rejection, I was over the moon when she said yes. You know her name, Yelina.
I was a couple of years ahead in school, another reason I wasn't popular. Without Alex and Eddie as friends I don't know how I would have survived. So anyway, I got the scholarship to Harvard when I was 16. Yelina and I had been dating for a year when I left for Harvard, I thought we would marry once I passed the bar. I had to work to pay my living expenses so I couldn't come home often. The first time I came home was after four months. I knew things would change but Eddie wouldn't even look at me, Alex was acting oddly. Yelina was just the same so I was happy. I was home for two weeks and I had a great time until the day I left to go back to college. Halfway to the train station I realised I had left the book I was reading at home. It was for one of my courses so I had to go back and get it. As I was leaving with the book I saw Alex at Yelina's front door. The door opened and Yelina threw her arms around Alex and kissed him, then pulled him inside. Neither saw me and I didn't have time to confront them. So all I could do was head off to get the train back to Harvard."
By this time Olivia was desperate to comfort him but felt that if she said anything or touched him he would stop. She felt awful for him but she didn't want him to stop.
"I spent the trip back going over every phone call and letter. Looking at the last two weeks with different eyes. Eddie not being able to look me in the eye now made sense, as did Alex acting oddly. What I couldn't get over was how Yelina had acted as if nothing had changed. She had lied to me, a lot I now realised. I wasn't even 17 yet and dealing with living away from home, studying. The betrayal hit me hard being so young. My best friend and my girlfriend had both lied to me and she had cheated on me with my best friend. He sighed and took a gulp of scotch.
Looking up at Olivia he continued, "I was gun shy after that. I did get propositioned by some of the girls at Harvard, previously I'd just told them I had a girlfriend. Even after I found out about Yelina and Alex it was easy to say no to them. It was obvious that they just saw me as an interesting novelty, the poor latin scholarship guy. A rebellious thing to do to annoy their rich white parents. I just buckled down to my studies and tried to prove to everybody that I deserved the scholarship. After that it was law school and passing the Bar. I didn't have time for anything else and I definitely didn't want to end up being cheated on again." He stopped for a minute whilst he refilled his glass.
"Once I became an ADA learning the ropes and doing my job took all my time. I barely had time to eat and sleep. So a love life was just a pipe dream, even if I would have liked to try again. Eventually as I got more experience as an ADA and I was being given less grunt work I had free time. I dated again but rarely got more than a few dates before my job caused too many rain checks and they gave up on me as a bad job… that happened so often I started to wonder if it was me that was the problem. Then I met a lovely woman, Kate, who was a doctor at one of the free clinics in the Bronx. We moved in together, I started thinking of the future. Then one night she came home and told me that she was moving out as she had been offered a job in Chicago. She was so matter of fact about it that I began to think she was a pod person. Her parting words were 'So sorry, you're a great guy and I'll miss the sex, but this is my career and that takes priority.' There was silence for a while before he continued, "That was roughly what happened every time I got involved with someone long term. They left because of their career, their family or they found they couldn't cope with the hours I worked. They always said I was a nice guy, the sex was great but…, Occasionally they would cheat on me, that was worse."
He bowed his head and quietly said, "My father used to say to me 'You're just not loveable. I don't love you, your mother doesn't think much of you or she would have left me.' When I said that she did love me and so did abuelita he just said, 'They are mothers they have no choice but to love their offspring. Look it up if you don't believe me, it's called Maternal Instinct'. I did look it up and when my abuelita found me crying she told me 'Yes there is Maternal Instinct but your father is using that to hurt you. Your mother and I love you to bits because you are a lovely, kind and loving little boy. Ignore your father, he is wrong. I am always right, aren't I.' I agreed with her but since then when a relationship ends there has always been that nagging voice in the back of my head saying 'Your father was right.'
That was when Olivia, who had been sitting there with tears pouring down her face couldn't stop a sob from escaping. Rafael looked up startled and started apologising profusely for upsetting her.
She shouted over him, "Rafael, stop apologising. It's not necessary, there is nothing to apologise for. I should be the one apologising to you for bringing up all that sadness. Also for the record, you are very lovable. Noah loves you, Franny loves you...I love you." Oops, she thought, I wasn't going to say that.
"That list is a real boost to my confidence. A four year old boy and a dog who both love everybody they meet and my best friend loves me. My life is complete."
Olivia wasn't sure if she was pleased or disappointed that he assumed her love was merely friendship. She would have to pack that away and give it more thought. Rafael was similarly thinking, 'she did mean love as in friendship...didn't she.' Also making a note to think about it when his faculties were working fully.
"Okay, you win! Your history is as bad as mine, verging on worse. I also want to make it clear that I wish I had won this, not you."
Rafael shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile. "I think that needs a toast. So, here's to lousy love lives." Clinking Olivia's wine glass he downed his scotch in one.
Olivia said "Cheers." She paused thinking then asked, "Are you still avoiding relationships?"
"Why, are you interested?" He said flippantly, his chuckle ending as he saw the look on her face. "Olivia, that was a joke." He was certain he had seen disappointment flash across Olivia's face. But that would mean that…."Okay I was only half joking." He admitted quietly.
Olivia's eyes went wide. "You mean that you...are attracted to me?"
Looking uncomfortable he said, "Yes. I'd have to be dead for me not to be. But I know that nothing can come of it. We're friends, I need my job, so friendship is great."
"Rafa, let me just say that I find you attractive too. So don't worry, we're both in the same boat. Also I too came to the conclusion that friendship was enough. Especially when the alternative would be one or both of us being reassigned."
"So, you were unable to resist the Cuban charm and sexiness, huh." He smirked.
Olivia grinned, "ADA Barba, caught by the Benson charm and sexiness, huh."
"Okay, okay. We are both irresistible. We just decided to put the jobs first. How noble of us."
"We are noble." Olivia slurred. "I'll drink to that."
She then downed her almost full glass of wine. After which the room started spinning. As she peered at Rafael he looked like he had the same problem. So she crawled along the sofa and landed in a heap against him and mumbled "The room is spinning, we should stay here."
As they drifted off to sleep both of them hoped they remembered everything in the morning, though neither were entirely sure why. A few minutes later the room was silent apart from the steady breathing of two friends sleeping off too much alcohol and too many confessions.