Work Text:
Amanda’s wine was mostly gone by the time Nick called.
Rafael and Amanda had both switched to scotch and Sonny had opened a bottle of what Rafael called their “Guest Red” for himself and Liv, telling her, “He keeps that just for you, you know? It should be Liv’s Red. I mean, Lieu’s Red,” he corrected himself with a frown. He was slurring his words a little by now.
“Oh, I know,” Liv grinned and picked up her glass. “The beer you like used to be Guest Beer.”
Sonny frowned and looked from her to Rafael and back. “That’s stupid.”
“I know, I said so, too,” she said. “You were the only guest he ever-”
“I’m going to feed you to the spider,” Rafael said.
“- bought beer for,” Liv finished, casting Rafael her most innocent look.
“The spider,” Amanda cut in from where she was re-filling her glass and then Rafael’s when he held it next to hers, “is actually an opportunity. I just thought of it.”
“To find a new apartment?” Rafael asked.
“Where they allow pets!” Sonny exclaimed. “We can get a dog! At last!”
“We’re not getting a dog,” Rafael said and sipped his drink.
“Frannie eats all the spiders at our place,” Amanda pointed out, nodding at Rafael when Sonny gesticulated wildly in her general direction, spilling red wine onto his sweats in the process.
“See!”
“I bet you a hundred dollars Frannie wouldn’t eat THAT spider,” Rafael said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “I mean it. Call a cab, go get her. I’ll wait.”
“She eats all the spiders-” Amanda said.
“Two hundred dollars. Five.”
“- at our place,” Amanda finished and cast Sonny an apologetic grimace. “Sorry. He’ll know when I’m lying, he’s a lawyer. Okay,” she relented, turning back to Rafael, “not spiders of ANY size. I won’t subject her to even having to see that thing in there. But most spiders she eats.” She nodded.
“I’ve killed every single spider you ever cowered away from up until today,” Rafael told Sonny. “So there. You don’t need a dog, you got me.”
Liv blinked. “We must never let you talk in court when you’re drunk. Ever. How is the spider an opportunity, though?”
“What?” Rafael, Amanda and Sonny asked in unison.
“How,” Liv repeated and nudged Amanda’s knee with her foot, “is the spider an opportunity?”
“Huh?” Amanda frowned, then went, “Oh! Oh right! Yes! Because you guys can call ‘Creepy Critter Castles’ and have them film your apartment. I watched an episode last night where some dude had a whole room full of praying mantises that he never went into for fear of them just devouring him. He’d just open the door a teeeeeny tiiiiiiiiiiny bit and throw in food for them. It was so gross,” she laughed and drained her drink.
“What’s Creepy Critter Castles?” Rafael asked.
“Don’t you dare,” Sonny told Amanda just as she replied, “It’s this show on Netflix about people living with scary, like, bugs or-”
“Did you know that exists?” Rafael asked Sonny, eyes wide with betrayal. “And… kept it from me?”
“You can watch that,” Sonny said, “while I’m hiding against our big fluffy dog in the new apartment.”
Rafael clamped his mouth shut and narrowed his eyes. Under the expectant watch of three police officers, he put his drink down to lean back on the couch and cross his arms in front of him, studying Sonny. “If we get a new apartment, I want an aquarium.”
Liv and Amanda exchanged a glance, then looked back at Sonny, who seemed to weigh his boyfriend’s words.
“No salt water,” he said. “No freaky shit.”
“All the freaky shit,” Rafael said.
They stared at each other for a moment, a contest of very, very intoxicated wills.
“You do realize,” Sonny said at last, “that if we just stay here, we’re NEVER using the bedroom again.”
“We won’t be “using” any room if you make me get a dog,” Rafael said.
“Oooooo,” Amanda winced and patted Sonny’s knee. “’s okay, you can walk Frannie any time you like.”
“He’s bluffing,” Sonny scoffed.
“Yeah,” Liv nodded and shrugged at the sharp glare Rafael threw her. “What? Y’are.”
“Spiders die eventually,” Rafael said a propos of nothing. “We just wait…” He trailed of, frowning, then picked his phone up off the coffee table.
“Are you googling how long spiders live?” Amanda asked.
“He is,” Sonny said, refilling his glass and Liv’s.
“Make sure to deactivate pic-”
“I’m not scared of spiders,” Rafael said and looked at Sonny, “and we’ll be fine, it’s not that long.”
“If you’re not scared of spiders,” Liv said, “go kill the spider.”
“I’m not scared of spiders in general,” Rafael told her, “just like I’m not scared of people in general. If Jeffrey Dahmer was in my bedroom, I’d be scared of him.”
“That actually,” Amanda said, nodding at Sonny and reaching for the bottle, “makes sense. That spider is indescribably scary. And I’m not scared of spiders.”
Her phone rang.
“Hey Nick!” she answered it loudly and grinned. “Whatcha doin’? You got time to come to Barba’s and Sonny’s place, kill a spider? It’s big, though. We’re all scared as shit. First Barba said he’d kill it, but turns out he really is just Sonny’s bunny after all, and then Liv and I tried, but we have kids, so...” She listened, then showed everyone a thumb up and said, “Nah, bring him. We got booze!” She hung up. “Fin and Nick are coming, you got more wine?”
“He’s not JUST my bunny,” Sonny said.
“Isn’t he?” Liv asked with a smile.
“I am, really,” Rafael said, nodding solemnly.
“I bet Nick can kill the spider,” Sonny said, looking at Rafael. “He’s tough.”
“Yup,” Rafael nodded, tilting his head slightly to return Sonny’s look. “He is. You wanna watch him kill the spider? I might.”
“Same,” Amanda said and touched her glass to Rafael’s.
“I guess,” Liv muttered into her glass, “if Nick kills the spider, you can use the bedroom again…”
By the time Nick and Fin arrived, Amanda had put Creepy Critter Castles on Rafael’s and Sonny’s watchlist when Sonny had taken a quick bathroom break, Rafael bribing Liv to keep quiet with babysitting hours.
“I’m not even going to ask how… this all happened,” Nick said when he walked in, followed by Fin.
Sonny, who had opened the door for them, had to more or less cling to it to look like he was not swaying. “It all started with Rafael being all, ‘Awww schnookums, d’you need that big scary spider killed, you poor boy, here, I’ll do it’ – and then he chickened out!”
“You’re scared of spiders?” Nick asked Sonny.
“Smart,” Fin observed. “Spiders are the worst. Where is it? I’m not going anywhere near it. Is that Merlot?”
“It’s mine,” Liv said, lifting the bottle, “but you can have some.”
Nick sighed. “Where’s the spider?”
“Bedroom,” Sonny, Rafael, Amanda and Liv said.
“Which is…?” Nick asked.
“Oh,” Rafael said, getting to his feet. He was a TAD steadier than Sonny, but still rounded the couch just that bit too energetically, “let me show you.”
“I’d watch that,” Amanda told Liv in what to her might have sounded like a whisper, earning a snort from Sonny. Liv just nodded, not watching as Fin re-filled her glass after having done his own.
“D’you want anything?” Rafael asked as he stepped aside to let Nick face the bedroom door. “Book? Shoe? Glass? Glass of scotch?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “I’ll have a glass of wine,” he said dismissively and opened the door.
Despite earlier declarations, Rafael chose not to watch, but slowly walked back to the little group gathered on and around the couch, filling his glass once more and exchanging a long look with Sonny.
“How d’you even get spiders this high up?” Fin asked into the expectant silence.
“It’s a nuclear waste mutation from the sewers,” Rafael explained. “It probably opened a window while we were in the kitchen. How it fit through is beyond me, though.”
Fin nodded. “Bolt all your windows,” he said. “in the future.”
“I’m planning to,” Rafael said.
They each got to refill their glasses once more before Nick arrived, expression unreadable, and sat down next to Rafael, accepting the offered glass of red wine which he downed in one go.
“Well?” Liv asked at last.
Nick turned to Rafael. “You can sue it for squatting,” he asked, “right?”
“In theory,” Rafael replied. “You gonna serve it?”
Nick sipped his wine, thinking. “Well,” he said at last, “I work sex crimes. Not my department.”
“Same,” Amanda, Liv and Fin said.
Rafael sighed and lightly patted Nick’s shoulder. “‘s okay. I knew heroes didn’t exist anymore. My heart isn’t broken, it’s fine.”
“New apartment after all,” Liv said.
“Yes!” Sonny exclaimed. “With-”
“We’re not getting a dog.”
THE END?