um…hold onto your hats, y’all…had to split this in two parts because it grew into a monster. next part is queued to come right after this, so it’ll be up in a few hours!
Everything was muffled and chaotic as you struggled to suck in a breath. You felt like a fish out of water as you gasped wetly. You coughed and felt the saliva pool around your mouth and trickle down your cheek towards your ear. You could not breathe. Why couldn’t you breathe? You blinked—when did you close your eyes?—through slitted eyes and struggled to comprehend what was over you. Your body rocked as someone pressed against your torso. Someone else was by your head and you felt warm drops hit the side of your face. Another gasped breath. Was it raining? No, the sky above you—that was sky, right?—was a brilliant blue. It was so blue. You closed your eyes and felt something press against your cheek urgently. You struggled to shake off the intrusion. You were so very tired all of a sudden. You weren’t sleeping. This was a good place to sleep. Everything faded even more, but before you were pulled down into darkness you heard frantic yelling.
“Nick! Nick!”
Everything faded to black and sound cut out abruptly.
fifteen minutes earlier
“…doesn’t suspect anything, Carmen said.”
You tuned back into the conversation and shook your head to refocus your gaze on Sonny. You looked up at him in time to see him throw a dirty look Matty’s way. Matty stared ahead at the menu written on the wall. You knew he was pretending to read it in order to avoid Sonny’s accusatory glare. You all had been coming to this coffee shop for ages and although they had begun to introduce holiday drinks recently to combat the big chains, Matty always ordered the same exact thing. Black coffee, medium roast with two sugars. No cream.
“That’s good.”
You licked your lips and replied to Sonny as you jiggled your leg impatiently. You had twenty minutes to get your coffee and some kind of pastry before you had to go into work and the line was longer than you had expected. Maybe the holiday drinks were really helping to improve business.
“I’m going to get a snack,” you announced suddenly. You dragged your legs off of the chair they were resting on across from you and put the bookmark in your book before stretching your arms over your head with a small groan.
Sonny looked up and tracked your movements, placing the pencil along the inner seam of the page he was writing on before absently tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear. There was a nice breeze that was keeping you cool as you both sat on the back patio, but you still felt the skin across your nose getting a little warm and tight. It was probably a smart idea to grab some more sunscreen and you made a mental note to slather some more on Sonny’s face, too. The water in your glass was nearly gone and you wiped the droplets of condensation with the back of your hand then traced it across the back of your neck before standing to your feet.
“I’ll come with you,” Sonny volunteered hastily, jumping to his feet as well.
“Stay. I’ll bring it out to you.” You waved him away. “And some sunscreen,” you added with a knowing look. His expression was tight, pinched at the edges of his eyes and mouth, and you contained your little sigh of exasperation at the determined look on his face.
“I want to get some air conditioning, anyway,” he dodged as he headed to the back door. He pulled it open for you with an expectant look and you gave him a tight smile as you stepped past him into the cool house.
SVU addict 