#in my defense i woke up early and ended up vomiting yesterday's dinner as well

[chappellrroan]

caved in and ordered meds and vicks

[therandomfics]

DISTANCE: 6

Waking up with a splitting headache was less than desirable, but waking up with a splitting headache and a sudden reminder of the previous day’s events was enough to make you nauseous. You’d only slept once Sonny had given you two Unisom and sat on the bed until you finally went to sleep. He wasn’t in the room when you woke up, wanting to respect your privacy after going through the trauma of yesterday. You lied there for some time, staring at the ceiling and gauging the amount of pain that you would be in when you sat up. Your face was puffy and hurt, along with the rest of your body if you were being honest, but you had the satisfaction of knowing you were safe. Sonny Carisi was in the next room and if anyone advocated for you well being, it was him. 

“Sonny?” you called out, sitting up and pulling the blanket around you. Amanda and Olivia had done well in finding you suitable clothing; a pair of leggings and long Yankees shirt that hit just above your knees. 

He opened the door and came in, hovering a few feet from the end of the bed. “How you feelin’?” 

You shrugged and touched your face were a large bruise was forming. “I’m alright, I think. What happens now?”

“Funny you ask. Keller was released on ROR.” It was obvious he was annoyed at the result of your attacker’s arraignment. “He has no priors and he’s claiming that you invited him over and then got mad about another girl he met at a party.” 

“What?! Are you serious?” you shrieked, jumping up from the bed and instantly regretting your decision. You sat down and sighed, rubbing your lower back tenderly. “That’s a lie! That’s complete bullshit.” 

“I know, doll, I know you didn’t invite him over. CSU got your phone and gave it to TARU. They’re gonna prove that you didn’t have any correspondence with him leading up to his visit. They’re also gonna take his phone, well they have it already,” he said with a small shrug. “Anyway, it’s gonna be already, Y/N. I promise you that.” 

You exhaled slowly and stood up again, padding over to him and immediately wrapping your arms around his torso. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t left you,” you lamented, burying your face against his chest. He wrapped his arms around you and kissed the top of your head as gently as possible, trying to avoid putting any pressure on your bruises. 

“The ADA wants to meet with you to go over a few things later today.” 

“Sure. Do you know when I can go get my things from Kristin’s?” 

“CSU is done, so you can go anytime, but I’d prefer if I went with you and we did it sooner rather than later,” he insisted, his grasp on you tightening slightly. “Or I can just so myself, honestly, Y/N.” 

You shook your head gently. “No, that’s fine. Let’s go see the ADA and then go get my stuff, and then come back here.” 

The ADA in Brooklyn was an old friend of a former ADA in Manhattan, and he seemed to know Sonny, too. He was in his mid-forties with salt and pepper hair, sharp dressed and quick on his feet from what you could tell. Sonny told you on the way up that his name was Raymond Burnette and he was one of the best ADA’s he’d ever met. 

“Do you mind if I call you Y/N?” he questioned, sitting at his desk after shaking both yours and Sonny’s hands. 

“No, not at all, thank you sir.” You sat down as well, crossing your legs and folding your hands in your lap. 

“Keller’s claiming it was a consensual meeting and that you got angry about a woman that he met at a party, tried to break up with him and then tried to frame him for attempted rape,” Burnette  explained, looking at the file he had collected for your case. 

You shook your head. “I was irritated that we had gone to a party together and he’d ended up with another girl, but I left that party early. He and I were never dating, or anything more than friends. Yes, we had kissed one another but we never did anything beyond that.” 

Sonny’s face was twisted into the most horrific scowl you’d seen; clear that he was fighting the urge to lash out himself. 

“TARU has your phone and Keller’s, too, so we can confirm some things from that. Tell me about how he got there, Y/N.” 

“My former roommate, Alex Herron, he was friends - is friends - with Ryan. Alex was home when I got home and I’m not sure how or why, but Ryan showed up and was knocking on the door to my room. He said that Alex let him come over because he was tired of me ignoring him. I knew he was angry and I was uncomfortable. Alex had left, according to Ryan, and I was alone with him,” you explained, taking a shaky breath. You paused for a moment and closed your eyes, trying to articulate your story without becoming overly emotional again. 

“I know you already told all of this to SVU, Y/N, and I’m sorry but I need to hear it straight from you,” the ADA consoled. 

You nodded and waved your hand dismissively. “It’s fine, thank you. When I realized Alex was gone, I pretended to text him about dinner plans, but instead I reached out to Sonny. I told him I was uncomfortable and alone with Ryan, and thankfully he was able to come to my rescue.” 

“The defense may see this as premeditated,” Burnette commented with a frown. 

“Do you think it’s possible it was premeditated, but between Alex and Ryan?” Sonny asked, brow pinched in anger. 

It suddenly occurred to you that it was possible, however disgusting that was. “When will I get my phone back?” you asked suddenly. 

Sonny reached over and placed his hand on yours. “Today. TARU copied everything on your device.” 

“Let me look over the information TARU and CSU found. Thanks for meeting with me today, Y/N. Sonny, good to see you again.” 

When you got your phone back from TARU, you were not very surprised to see that neither Kristin nor Alex had bothered to reach out to you to see if you were okay. You pointed this out to Sonny, who had white knuckles already as he drove to Brighton Beach to gather your things from the apartment. 

“Maybe it’s nothing,” you offered with a shrug. 

“Maybe it’s something,” he countered and glanced over at you. “I’m sorry. Let’s just get your stuff and go back home, alright? I’m really angry right now and I don’t want to come off as insensitive.” 

Your room at the apartment was a mess, from CSU and from the actual crime itself. Sonny helped you pack your clothes into your suitcase and the few items that you had of personal value into an ottoman cube, letting you do another once over to make sure you weren’t missing anything else. The wall where you’d been pushed so many times was dented, the shape matching the width of your shoulders. 

“Stay with me,” Sonny insisted, his hand grabbing yours for a moment. “I don’t know how you feel and anything I say could be a cliche. I just want you to know that I’m here and I’m gonna stay here.” 

“I know, Sonny. Let’s please go.” 

On your way out, Kristin and Alex were on their way back in. Alex avoided eye contact, but Kristin stared right at you and rolled her eyes. 

“Amazing, the little drama queen came back,” she spat, a grotesque smirk on her face. “We all know what you did, Y/N. Ryan told us what happened. I can’t believe you’d be such a bitch.” 

You opened your mouth to speak but Sonny shook his head. “Don’t, Y/N. You’ll make things worse.” He encouraged you out of the apartment with the gentle pulling of your hand, slamming the door behind him once you were on the walkway outside. “If he’s gonna call them as character witnesses I wouldn’t be worried at all. Trust me when I say they definitely possess the traits that a jury would frown upon.” 

“I just wanna go home, honest,” you replied with a sigh. In the pit of your stomach, though, you weren’t really sure where home was. Forgiving someone in the midst of a tragedy was easy, but when things calmed down, you weren’t so sure you’d be so tolerant anymore. 

A few weeks passed before your case was taken to court. The day of, you felt the undeniable urge to vomit on several different occasions. Burnette had prepped you several times and Sonny had done his part as well, insisting that everything would be fine. There were so many pieces of evidence submitted, so many questions to prepare for, that you were worried you’d get overwhelmed. 

Olivia had called you and spoken with you the night before, adamant that you would do well on the stand, and that telling the truth was the only option so she wasn’t worried about what would happen. 

When you took the stand, you looked to Sonny whose eyes locked with yours, and then took your oath before the jury. 

“Tell me, Miss Orlov, how did you meet Mr. Keller?” Ryan’s lawyer asked you, offering you a smile that you dismissed. 

“Through mutual friends. I was renting a room from two friends and he asked if he could borrow my phone charger,” you explained calmly. You could feel Ryan’s eyes burning into you. 

“What happened the first night you met?” 

“I invited him to watch a movie with me while his phone charged. Our friends in the living room were..” you paused, remembering Olivia’s comments about honesty. “They were in the process of having sex. Ryan was their designated driver and couldn’t just leave them there, so we hung out.” 

“And,” the lawyer encouraged you along. “What happened at the end of the night?” 

“I bid him goodbye and he kissed me, then invited me to a Halloween party with him.” 

“Did you and Mr. Keller have any conversations between that night and the party?” 

“Yes, sir, we did. We texted one another periodically.” 

“So it’s safe to say that you were building a relationship?” 

“A friendship, yes. I’d just recently been through a break up and had no intentions of a romantic involvement.” 

“And yet you let Mr. Keller kiss you the first night you met?” 

You shook your head. “I didn’t let or not let him do anything. It happened. Yes, I was surprised but, I wasn’t angry.” 

He nodded and paced back and forth, in front of the stand. “Y/N, can you tell me what happened at the Halloween party?” 

“Yes, sir. We went to the party together. I’m not much of a drinker, so I ended up outside for a long while. Ryan ended up drunk and high, and I didn’t want to be apart of that situation. I also ran into someone I used to be close with and felt like it was better that I left the party altogether. Ryan sent me a text message later that night, a picture of him with a girl and they were engaged in intimacy.” You swallowed hard, wondering if the jury believed you or if they were indifferent. 

“And that made you angry.” 

“No, it did not. I recall giving Ryan a solid thumbs up.” 

The back and forth was exhausting and you were frankly quite irritated, wanting nothing more than to step down from the stand and slap the taste out of the lawyer’s mouth. It was disgusting that people could defend predators. After some time, and many objections, Ryan’s lawyer got to the deeper part of the story. You explained that Ryan had shown up at your apartment and was let in by your roommate, who promptly left you alone with Ryan in the apartment. You explained the physical altercation and the sexual assault. 

During cross examination, Burnette asked you questions that shed more light on the situation. 

What was the conversation like leading up to the physical altercation? Did you ever tell Mr. Keller no? Did you fight him off? What injuries did you sustain? What made you want to send a message to Detective Carisi? What is your relationship to Detective Carisi? What is your relationship to your former roommates, the mutual friends of Mr. Keller? 

Once court was adjourned, Sonny took you out to eat dinner down the street from the apartment. It was your favorite place, the one you’d spent nearly every Friday night at when you were together. You ordered your favorite meal and tried to enjoy some form of normalcy, although even being there wasn’t normal anymore. You ate quietly, conversation was too exhausting after a full day of constant questions and listening to the lies and fabrications of Ryan and his lawyer. Your head hurt, you were tired, but your mind was racing. 

Suddenly, but not unexpectedly, you felt yourself crying, tears streaming down your face and causing your mascara to run. You were silent for the first few moments, a last minute attempt not to ruin Sonny’s dinner. 

“Babe, what’s wrong?” he asked softly, placing his hand on yours. “Talk to me.” 

You only shook your head and sniffled, before excusing yourself from the table. Splashing water on your face and patting it dry with a paper towel, you looked at yourself in the mirror. When did things become so screwed up? Sonny’s life was turned upside down because of you. Your life was turned upside down because of Ryan. And Ryan probably wasn’t feeling any sort of consequences at all, considering he was free to roam the streets as a sexual deviant until the trial was over - and even then, there were no promises. 

Your phone rang with an unknown New York number. Usually you’d ignore it, but you weren’t sure who might be calling anymore - anyone from SVU or the DA’s office could be trying to contact you. 

“Hello?” you croaked, clearing your throat. 

“You’re making a big mistake.” Unfamiliar voice to match the unfamiliar number. 

“I think you’ve got the wrong number.” 

“Enjoy your dinner, Y/N. Fazolia’s has a pretty good tiramisu.” 

The line went cold and you rushed out to the table where Sonny sat, tossing your phone on the table. “Someone’s watching me,” you declared, frantically looking around the restaurant to try to find any familiar faces with no luck.