Really Miss Seeing ADA Carisi In The Court Room Like This!!

Really miss seeing ADA Carisi in the court room like this!!

Truly the best part of the entire episode

Mild smut ahead...

Chapter 5 - Getting to Know You, all about you

And see each other they did. Over the next few weeks, Sonny and Larissa ate and drank their way through the city.

Sonny charmed her with details about his humble upbringing in a mostly female household, impressions of his brash father, and adorable photos of his nieces. He shared his journey from public school to Catholic university to police academy to Catholic law school. He was even vulnerable sometimes, expressing the inevitable disappointment in humanity that came with investigating homicide, sex crimes, domestic violence, and child abuse.

For her part, Larissa was a captive audience, always asking the right questions, or making him laugh with a bad joke or story of her own family’s dysfunction. She shared that where she was currently living, the beautiful brownstone where Sonny and Fin had originally questioned her, was actually the house she grew up in, but that her parents were no longer living there. In an effort to try to get her father to retire, Mrs. Vasquez decided they should make the permanent move to the family’s Hamptons house, spending much of their time there and only keeping a pied-a-terre in the city. Her father was reluctant to “throw in the towel and sit on the couch getting fat”, but her mother had him wrapped around her finger, she explained.

“Must be where you get to from.” Sonny smiled at her, as they walked. “I mean, I think I could be persuaded to do just about anything by a woman like you.”

Larissa smiled and brushed her hair behind her ears, but rolled her eyes, never sure how to take a complement.

She continued to explain:

“So now, it’s me, my little sister, who never knows where her money goes, and my older sister, who just separated from her husband, all in our old bedrooms. I do like the extra time with my niece and nephews though.” she ended the explanation on a high note, just in time, as they approached Sonny’s truck parked on the street.

He took a few steps ahead to meet her at the passenger door, opening it for her. She stood on the sidestep to climb in, but turned to meet him eye to eye. Between the step up and her espadrille platform, she was maybe even a bit taller than the detective now. She smiled at the closeness of their faces in this moment, green eyes darting between his eyes and lips. Almost whispering, she said, “Did you want to come in later for one more drink?”

Logistically, both of them should have known that this was a terrible idea, given the aforementioned “Full House” scenario Larissa had just described, but neither was thinking clearly. Sonny was a patient and gentle man, not venturing beyond a few passionate good night kisses in their time together. Every time the thought came up of having to disclose his relationship to a witness in the Nikki Staines case, he pushed it to the back of his mind, because their relationship wasn’t *quite* sexual in nature, but the desire had reached its peak.

“Yeah.” Sonny whispered back. “Yeah, that sounds great.” practically deserting her as he ran around the car to get in the driver’s seat.

The short ride to her place was nearly silent, a feat for Sonny. Despite this, it was comfortable and intimate, their fingers playfully intertwined on the center console.

When they arrived inside, Larissa guided Sonny through the familiar foyer. It was late and no one else was in the common areas. Whether it was to keep up the ruse of a nightcap, or if she needed the wine to calm her nerves, Larissa planted Sonny on the sofa and ventured into the kitchen.

She returned a short time later with two glasses and a chilled bottle of white wine.

“I hope this is ok. It’s the only thing at the right temperature.”

Sonny nodded, as she poured from the bottle. Geez, they probably have a wine cellar, he though to himself, insecurity creeping up, as it sometimes did. Larissa was never a snob, she was smart and hardworking, but little things sometimes made it obvious how different their lives and upbringings were, and he would worry if this was a dealbreaker.

“Cheers!” Larissa exclaimed, clinking her glass to his and taking a swig, breaking Sonny out of his distraction.

“Cheers.” He returned.

“Is everything ok?” she asked.

“Of course. I had a great time tonight.”

“I’m glad. Me too.” Larissa responded, turning towards him and inching closer on the sofa so their knees touched. She leaned in for a kiss, which Sonny reciprocated, his long fingers combed through her hair, holding it away from her face.

This dance continued for awhile, making out like teenagers, until Larissa climbed on top of Sonny, straddling his lap between her knees, sinking herself low, so there was as much contact between their clothed bodies as possible, forcing his hands through her hair, down her back, finally resting between her hips and the ass he had long admired, since first waiting in line at the coffee shop.

“And listen, Sonny” Larissa let out breathlessly, breaking their kiss. She looked him in the eye while mindlessly fiddling with his necktie between them. “I really appreciate you being such a gentleman these last few weeks, but I want this. I want...you.”

Before Sonny could respond in words, Larissa had moved on to planting her pillowy lips down his jawline and neck, sliding down his body until her knees were on the floor and she looked up at him wantonly, reaching for his belt buckle.

Sonny stopped her hand with his, using it to help her off the floor as he also stood up. “Riss, I want this too, but let’s go to the bedroom.” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close. The first use of this nickname felt so intimate it made her knees weak as they kissed again and she began to guide him to her room by his tie.

Season 22 Finale Week Fic Challenge starts today!

Post a short ficlet a day spanning Szn 22 until Finale Day! Any prompt, any ship. Missing moments, hopes for the finale, fix its! Anything goes!

Tag your fic #Season22FinaleFicChallenge !!

my worlds colliding 🤩

"These are their stories." DUN-DUN. ⚖️ ✨ | (a purely self-indulgent Law & Order AU)

Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

And breaking news from Ice! 🙌