#Carmy berzatto x oc

[queers-gambit]

Silence

prompt: ( requested ) anxiety plays tricks on your mind, making you mistake your boyfriend's stress for anger - at you.

pairing: Carmen 'Carmy' Berzatto x female!reader

fandom masterlist: FX's The Bear

word count: 2.5k+

note: it's short but to the point.

warnings: cursing, hurt and comfort, depiction of mental health: anxiety, slight self-destructive thoughts.

Silence could be a good thing.

Libraries were silent for ample focus. Theaters were silent during the showing. Sometimes, long drives were peacefully silent.

Silence could also be a bad thing.

Demanding an explanation and the silence stretches. The silence before a doctor delivers life-changing news. Asking someone if they're okay and they don't answer.

When your boyfriend, Carmy, had returned from work that evening, he slammed the front door, dropped his backpack, toed out of his shoes, and stormed around the apartment silently. He didn't greet you, didn't offer a kiss, nothing - just breezed past you as if a pile of dirty laundry he's ignored for the past two weeks. You watched him from the kitchen, sipping a glass of wine, worry sprouting in your gut and chest. It was obvious something was bothering him - but couldn't fathom what it was that made him ignore you; to make him not look at you one single time.

It was like you weren't even there with the way he projected his moodiness. Even on his worst days, he always always always greeted you with a kiss; but the lack of affection hallowed your chest into a pit, wondering what you had done to make him avoid you.

Suddenly, the silence was eerily deafening, coiling your stomach and pumping lead through your veins; no TV or radio switched on to fill the void and create passive, background audio. Carmy was obviously upset about something, but the fact that he didn't even look at you made you think he didn't want to talk. This worried you because before dating, you and Camry Berzatto were the best of friends; talking about literally any and everything you could think of. He came to you with every single grievance, every frustration, every slice of drama - so why wouldn't he now?

Unless... Unless you were the cause of his annoyance? The idea made the pit in your chest stretch to your gut - anxiety rapidly spreading, confusion warping rational thought into something darker and self deprecating. The idea of upsetting Carmy - or anyone, for that matter - was enough to bubble nausea and turn your skin clammy. Muscles tensed, eyes darted, and your mind was plagued with every single thing you had said or done in the past 16 hours.

However, your memory couldn't pinpoint any moment you could've upset him; things had been normal and easy-going lately, there being no clear indication you were the culprit of Carmy's anger. However, there didn't need to be anything clear because your mind was fully convinced you were the bad guy now.

After swallowing a gulp of wine, your eyes adverted to give him privacy and begin on dinner; being obvious that his phone was much more important than you right now. Unfortunately, when it came to picking which sauce to dress your meal with, you were forced to slowly enter the living room where your boyfriend had taken refuge.

"Hey, baby?"

"Hmm?"

You tried not to be offended by his lack of verbal acknowledgement, but your intestines flipped and grew heavy. "Uh, just wondering, you want the marinara or Alfredo tonight with the - "

"Doesn't matter, you choose."

"I mean, which would you prefer?"

"I just said it didn't matter," he repeated with a hardening tone, "it's not like it's a difficult decision to make."

You didn't want to make his attitude worse, so you backed off silently and returned to your task. Yes, yes, Carmy was the professional cook between you but that didn't mean he wanted to come home and continue the act. So, you learned a few new recipes to keep meals interesting - a feat your boyfriend didn't seem to appreciate or even recognize most days. Tonight especially.

Tension tangibly filled the apartment the longer the silence stretched. Your mind conjured a hundred questions at once, begging your mouth to run rapidly if it meant getting answers - yet your logic stuck the words in your throat, refusing to let them fly, and even shoving them deep down for your soul to hold.

You poured a second glass of wine, throat thickening with silent emotion. There was always the worry in the back of your mind that Carmy would one day realize you didn't fit into his life and would break up with you. Or that perhaps, his irritation tonight wasn't due to anything you did specifically, but instead, was attested to your normal behavior and quirks - like the want to talk throughout the day.

Blinking the moisture away, you remembered Carmy hadn't answered a single one of your texts the entire day - a normal act for you, but maybe one that now got on your boyfriend's nerves. You dished up dinner, standing in the open kitchen with two plates and feeling silly for the nerves prickling your skin. You barely noticed the slight tremor in your hands. "Dinner's ready, Carm," you alerted, leaving the plates on the kitchen island you normally ate at; distracted by the need to pour a glass of water.

When you turned, your heart stalled in your chest when you noticed his plate missing - locating him in the living room, again, and it being obvious he didn't intend to eat with you. Now you knew for sure, you had indeed done something. So, you gingerly took a seat and tried to take up as little space as possible; shying in on yourself, eating silently and quickly so you could do the dishes right after.

Sure, there was usually the rule that the cook didn't clean, but there was no way you were gonna ask Carmy to do the simple chore; afraid of pushing him over whatever edge he teetered at. After storing any leftovers, you started the dishwasher and retreated to your bedroom with another glass of wine and the intention to get a bath. You felt like a glaring inconvenience all of a sudden, regret inking your blood and reprimanding yourself for being so - so - so... Clingy?

Is that what it was? Did Carmy think you were clingy? Perhaps texting him throughout the day without him ever answering was the final straw of annoyance he felt toppled the haystack. You wanted to apologize and eliminate the tension, but couldn't necessarily understand what you were sorry for; thinking you were simply paying attention to him, being attentive and interested in his everyday life.

Maybe you needed to apologize for being suffocating? Was that it? Your love was suffocating him? Was he feeling pressured by you? Did he think you two too comfortable in this relationship? Was your wall of texts an indication you were more serious than he? Oh, God, was that it - did Carmy think you were getting too serious, too fast?

Granted it'd been a few years of dating, a lifetime of friendship before that - so how much more serious could you get? Why would your attempts of communication rub him the wrong way? How could the pair of you ever manage to fall off from the same page? Make him think you were pushing for something more? Didn't he know he was enough for you? Didn't he appreciate your presence? The want to be closer? Your desire to maintain the friendship your relationship was built off of? The appreciation you had for him? The support you wanted to offer?

You soaked in epsom salt for the better part of half an hour. Draining the tub, drying off, and changing into pajamas were done silently; feeling almost fearful to venture out of the bedroom to return your wine glass to the sink.

So you decided to just get in bed, figuring if Carmy was so angry at you that it resulted in him ignoring you, he wouldn't want to sleep beside you, either. With your thick framed glasses on, you nestled into bed with your newest novel, trying not to let your mind go into overdrive as your need to fix whatever was upsetting Carmy was overwhelming. Yet there was also the nagging idea that trying to fix whatever was 'broken' would've made things worse - again, resulting in you doing nothing and giving Carmy his space.

The silence haunted the apartment like a ghostly presence; leering over your heads, embracing you uncomfortably.

When the bedroom door opened, you masked your surprise and just read the same paragraph three times in a row - distracted by your boyfriend milling around, preparing for bed. Your eyes widened in shock when the bed dipped and shifted, jostling you as Carmy got into bed beside you, but you still didn't look up from your book.

"What're you reading, sweetheart?"

His mood swings often gave you whiplash. You glanced at Carmy, finger holding your place to let you fold the book over and present the title on the cover. You worried that anything you said and did could make this tension fester, so, you remained silent and went back to reading.

"Is it any good?" He pondered, watching your profile. You nodded mutely, lips slowly rolling between your teeth in a show of anxiety Carmy could now recognize. "Hey, hey, you all right, babe?" He asked softly, sounding mildly confused - perhaps even alarmed.

"Yeah, 'course," you mumbled.

"Well, how was work?"

"Fine."

"You sure?"

"Mhm."

There was a brief pause, then Carmy gently pried, "C'mon, baby, what's wrong? Why're you so quiet?" He chuckled gently, "Usually so talkative in the evenings."

You offered him a bewildered look with slightly pinched brows, swallowing nervously and slowly shutting your book to trace the spine mindlessly in an effort to distract yourself. Typically when anxious, your hands needed stimulation, something tangible to do and feel when your mind numbed with nervousness.

With a great deal of bravery, more than you thought was necessary to muster when talking to the person you love, you asked softly, "Are you mad at me, Carm? I mean, did I do something? T-To upset you?"

"Wait, what?" He asked in confusion. "Nah, baby, you didn't do anything, why would you even ask?"

"'Cause you've been ignoring me...?"

He scoffed, "Ah, 'cause I didn't answer your texts?"

"That, and you've been ignoring me in favor of your phone since you got home. Slamming doors, brooding in the living room, didn't eat dinner with me - got a little snappy when I asked what sauce for dinner? Feels like I did something but I don't know what, so I don't know how to fix this."

Carmy sighed, leaning back to the mound of soft and fluffed pillows you had stacked on your shared bed. "Shit," he breathed, huffing a dramatic sigh, "didn't even realize I was doin' all that, baby."

"If you're mad, just tell me what I did - "

"No, no, hey, hey, hey, hey," he rushed, turning on his side to look at you, elbow supporting his weight; clocking the glassiness coating your eyes. "You didn't do anything, baby, I swear. There's nothing for you to fix 'cause you didn't do nothin'. I just - I've been havin' a shit day, didn't realize I was bein' mean to you let alone that you'd take it to heart."

"Kinda hard not to when I'm the only one here."

"No, right, I get that," he sighed. "I'm sorry, baby, I know you get anxious when I shut down like that, but I promise, I'm not mad at you."

"Well, who else would you be mad at? I thought you were annoyed 'cause I was texting you all day. Thought I was, I don't know, being clingy or something since you didn't answer me."

Carmen frowned, "Sweetheart, no, hang on, listen to me. You didn't do anything to upset me, okay? I didn't answer you 'cause I dropped my phone in the sink and it got all glitchy, I couldn't answer you. I tried to fix it when I got home, but I think I fried it - should just get a new one. It was just one of those days that everything went to shit, it all built up, got the better of me."

You nodded, still looking dejected and making a shot of guilt plunge his heart. "You usually talk to me when you're upset," you pointed out softly, "and when you didn't say anything, I thought I was the reason you were upset. Figured you wouldn't talk to me if I did something to cause your attitude."

"No, hey, I'm sorry, c'mere, baby," he opened his arms and curled them around you when you shuffled into his chest. "Shit, I'm really sorry, I didn't even realize what I was doing - but Goddamnit, that's no excuse, though. I don't mean t'take my shit out on you, you don't deserve that."

"I just got a little nervous, maybe let my anxiety get the better of me."

"That's okay," he promised, kissing your forehead, "I can understand why. I was a dickhead, being snappy and ignoring you when all you do is support and love me. I'm real sorry, sweetheart," he sighed against your skin, tightening his arms to keep you cocooned in his warmth. "You know, you can always talk to me - don't gotta shut yourself down and avoid me."

"Do you even hear yourself? Should take your own advice."

"Yeah, I should," he smirked. "Hey, promise I'll do better not to shut down like that."

You nodded in acceptance, wondering softly, "Do you wanna talk about it? Whatever happened today?"

"Uh, nah, you know what? Think I owe you some cuddles, maybe a dessert? You know, to make up for my bullshit attitude."

"You don't have to - "

"I got you all worked up, feels like the least I can do."

With a hum, you smirked, "I won't say no to a slice of cheesecake."

"What baby wants, she gets," he grinned, a hand caressing your cheek to direct your eyes up to his. His thumb swept back and forth under your eye, "Still sorry about today. I didn't mean to be such an oblivious dickhead, I swear."

You nodded, "I know, baby. Just don't shut me out next time. Had me worried when you didn't even kiss me when you got home."

"A heinous crime on my part," Carmy smirked. "Should I remedy that?"

"I'd be offended if you didn't."

He chuckled and pressed his lips to yours in a soothing kiss, hand sliding to the back of your neck. It was a slow and languid kiss, something he took his time in engaging; lips sticking together, moving in-sync, creating chains of saliva when he pushed his tongue against yours. "Yeah," he mumbled, "I'm the dumb fuck who had you thinkin' I didn't want this from you." He pressed another kiss to your waiting lips, "You're intoxicating, baby - always want your kisses. Yeah? Always. The day I don't, take me out back like Old Yeller."

You wanted to voice that he wanted your kisses now until one day, he simply wouldn't - but refrained from doing so because you knew it was just anxiety talking. So, instead, you chuckled at his comment and leaned in to initiate your own kiss.

requesting rules and masterlist

FX's The Bear masterlist

[thecapricunt1616]

capriiiiiii can i pretty please request something with carmy and a gf who is dealing with being stiff / sore and tired. i acc just need him to take care of me. maybe cook me a meal. :(( ily

My loveeeee Hello I'm sorry this has been rotting away I've been dealing with such writers block I hope this doesn't suck aaa! I'm sorry I haven't been writing as much / around tumblr this week i've been busy with other things but I hope to write more soon <3 I finally got my new laptop so i'm going to try and cook some stuff up really soon! Warnings for btc: None really, pure fluff & happy carmy!not edited sorryyyy WC: 1638

You had helped Sugar set up her nursery last night. All the moving of large boxes, and helping build the crib, changing table, and dresser, you were wiped out to say the least. You got home around 4 am, and  When Carmy had left for the restaurant that morning, you were still crumpled on the couch where he’d left you, snuggled in a blanket and softly snoring. When he came home that night and nudged you, you jumped like a sleeping cat 

“I’m awake!” You said quickly with an unintentional snore, rubbing your eyes tiredly. 

“Brought you a sandwich and some fries. Back still hurts?” He asked softly. 

You whimper gently as you stretch out your sore muscles, sitting up once again in the dark living room. “How’s work?” You mumbled with a yawn, taking the takeout container as he plopped next to you and planted a kiss on your head. 

“Doesn’t matter, m’here for you baby, why don’t I get you a bath set up mm?” He flicks on a lamp and you blink a few times as your eyes get adjusted to the light.  

“You’re too good to me, you know that right?” You gave him a peck on the lips. He smiled a bit and rubbed your side 

“I can’t even count the amount of back massages you’ve given me after a long week. I’m just repaying the favor.” He watched as you took a bite and sighed in relief, your stomach growling- likely in thanks as you hadn’t moved from your spot all day long in your blanket nest. 

“This is really good, Bear” you mumble as you chew. He hums happily at your approval, giving you one more kiss to the temple before getting up. 

“Good, I put a piece of princess cake in the fridge for you for after your bath if you want” he said on his way to the bathroom, and you could cry at the bliss that was being taken care of. 

He makes sure to clean out the tub with bathroom spray and rinse it fully, before starting the water at the very hot temperature he knew you liked after plugging the tub. He got one of the little herb sachets with different flowers and herbs and hung it over the faucet so it infused into the water, causing it to be a pretty light pink color.

From the bathroom closet he grabbed your little bath tray and set it up for you, as well as the little bath head pillow that suctioned to the tub for you to rest back on, and got those set up before taking out the waterproof electric candles and setting a few out for you for a comforting ambiance. After he put a good amount of the muscle relaxing herbal epsom salts in the bath for you, as well as plenty of bubbles the way you liked and agitated the water for you, he popped your favorite fluffy towel in the warmer. 

He cut off the water and went into the bedroom, grabbing your fluffy bathrobe and a comfortable pair of panties for you as well as the book you were currently reading from your nightstand and got them all set up on the bathroom counter for you, as well as your hair brush. He opened the bottom drawer where you kept all your sheet face masks, and picked out a bedtime one and set it on the bath tray for you next to your book. 

By the time he came back out to let you know your bath was ready you had already finished eating and were once again slumped on the couch, you figured you had pulled or overworked something in your back because even holding yourself up was proving to be exhausting very fast. “Did you want some wine my love” he crouched down next to where you were snuggled on the couch, brushing your hair from your eyes gently. 

“Yes please” you said softly. He planted a gentle, lingering kiss on your forehead before going to the kitchen. He got your favorite wine out of the fridge, popping open the bottle and pouring you a glass. He brought it to the bathroom and put it in the little slot on the tray made for wine glasses, before coming back to collect you. 

“Alright, up” he held his hand out to you and wiggled his fingers for you to take it. You sighed softly knowing moving meant pain, but when you grabbed his hand he lifted you to your feet with little effort, being sure to steady you with his other hand on your hip since you weren’t expecting it. 

“Woah” you giggled, the action having woken you from your tired state and following him to the bathroom. When you saw the state of it, you pulled him into a tight hug, kissing his neck gently. You didn’t want him to see the fact there was tears pooling at your eyes, since he hated when you cried. But the fact that he had a nearly 14 hour day, and came home to you- and still went out of his way, above and beyond to take care of you. To make you feel loved, cared for. You’d never had another partner who was so attentive and went out of their way for you how he did.

“Love you…” you muttered before pulling away with a sniffle. He cupped your cheeks, giving you a gentle kiss 

“Your towel is In the warmer waiting for you baby, I’ll get your pajamas set out for you” he gently tucked your hair behind your ear and rubbed his knuckle over your cheekbone before heading back to your bedroom, leaving the door cracked behind him. You noticed after he left that your skincare was all set up for you as well as your favorite body lotion and its matching body mist which just made you smile even more. 

After undressing you sit in the warm bath, sighing in relief as the hot water did wonders for your sore muscles, resting your head back on the comfortable pillow as you sip your wine and hum contently to yourself. For a while you just sat, reading your book and sipping your wine and after about 30 minutes when the water had gone lukewarm, and your glass of wine had been finished - you decided to drain the tub. 

Carmy heard you getting out of the bath, so he went and got your pajamas that he’d been warming in the dryer for you and got your side of the bed all made up after filling your reusable water bottle with iced lemon water.  By the time you had gotten your lotion on and did your skincare as well as brushed your teeth, the house had already been shut down for the evening. He had made sure to clean up the kitchen and living room, as well as shut all of the shades and get your coffee pot set up for the next morning like usual. 

“Hey pretty girl” he takes your hand, kissing it gently “got some warm pajamas for you, house is taken care of you just have to get in bed” he motioned to the bed where your pajamas were nicely folded for you. 

“And you say you aren’t romantic” you mused, causing him to chuckle a bit as he wrapped his arms around you, kissing the top of your head 

“What can I say, I guess you bring it out of me. Get your pajamas on I’ll rub your feet for you” he said and you hum happily, closing your eyes and planting a kiss on his neck

“Can I be babied like this all the time?” You joked, he huffed a laugh, handing you your pajamas. 

“The days that I’m not too wiped out from work, I can try” he plopped down on his side of the bed with a soft grunt of relief after being on his feet all day. You slipped out of your robe, and his eyes rake over your frame as you unfolded your soft, fluffy nightgown and slipped it over your head. “Mm mm mm” he said jokingly. You giggled as you crawl on the bed, resting your legs over his lap and wiggling your manicured toes teasingly. 

“Get to massaging this isn’t a free peep show” you said and he took your ankle, bringing it to his lips and giving it a chaste kiss

“What- so you can put me to work, and I can’t even eye the goods?” he joked as he put your leg gently back in his lap and grabbing the massage oil that he’d put on the nightstand and warming some in his hands before starting to massage your foot. You hum happily, lips curling into a small smile and your eyes fluttering shut in bliss. 

“Mmmm, keep doin’ that and I’ll let you see whateeever you want” you said happily, your voice nearly a purr from how expertly he was massaging your calves and feet. “Can I turn on Big Brother?” you asked and giggle at the way his face lit up

“You really waited?! Fuck yeah I wanna see whats up put it on” he said and you smiled, shaking your head jokingly as you turned on the TV. He had whined before about not wanting to watch ‘trash reality tv’ all the time, but over the course of the many nights he came home and you were watching it - he had eventually starting asking you to wait for him to watch ‘your show’ together, and you would tease him and tell him how you thought he said it was boring and gossipy, just to get his cheeks to go that cute shade of pink.“Of course I waited, it’s our show now”

[cloveroctobers]

FALSE STARTS — CARMY BERZATTO [Summer Writings]

A/N: Getting down to my final collection to these summer writings…I strongly debated if I wanted to even write for carm this time around, the man is always going through it…not saying that I won’t ever again because I ofc have love for the guy but whew!!! Never giving up on him but—you guys get it? You just have to let some things sink in after watching the seasons…so here’s something possibly short? Knowing me my definition of short is not always reliable kinda like Carmy’s mental state—OOP. Too much?

WARNINGS: Added a OC, another berzatto again to the mix because I can also see Kyle being on the show and I’ve got a soft spot for him as well SORRY! I feel it in my spirit for smile 2 that it’s NOT going to end well but let’s be delusional! Slight reference to that horror movie in here as well, Still x reader based but you just have a name since I didn’t want to write in 2nd POV, along with some background for you and Carmy’s friendship, language, mentions of s**c***e & some spoilers for season three if you’re not caught up yet!

SYNOPSIS: Carmy runs into more than just his past and blood, forever learning what his next steps are, if his head will let him that is.

*GIFS BELONG TO: @emziess + @andrew3garfield !

☯︎.☘︎ ݁˖˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ ☯︎.☘︎ ݁˖˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ ☯︎.☘︎ ݁˖˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ ☯︎.☘︎ ݁˖˚ ༘

The last thing Carmy expected was to see, Joel Berzatto at the pick up window during the lunch rush. Carmy’s been on autopilot the second week into the grand opening and he was already frustrated with the new hires. They didn’t have what it takes and Carmy didn’t have the patience to teach them, especially when they didn’t put in the effort to learn.

All they cared about was a paycheck.

He couldn’t teach what should have already been known.

Carmy already shocked himself, not blowing a fuse, deciding to just head out back silently with a carton of cigarettes. He vowed at some point he was going to quit these things and faught hard about the stick that was perched in between his lips. He’s pacing along the rocks and dirt on the side of the bear, back of his lighter racking against his fingers as he took a two minute break.

There was no time to make it five.

“Carmen,” a voice greets, making his bright blues turn to the voice.

It’s Joel.

Michelle’s younger brother.

He’s got a bag to go, bunched up underneath his fingers and his badge on his waist glimmers from underneath his earthy toned attire for work. Carmen reminds himself to blink, coming to terms that this is indeed his family—on his father’s side—at his place of business.

“Joel?” Carmen echoes but it’s more of a question.

Joel snickers as there’s still a great distance between the two family members, “yeah I was wondering when I was going to get caught red handed.”

Carmen clears his throat after removing the cigarette from his lips, “you’ve ordered something to go?”

That’s obvious but he’s trying to fill up the silence, which is always so loud even in the city.

Joel scratches at his brow, a small smile playing on his face, “‘Course I did. I was in the area and my partner wanted some other shit, he’s vegan or vegetarian and I knew that would be a disappointment so I snuck over here to get my money’s worth.”

“Yeah?” Carmy’s eyes flick back to the bag, “what’s your poison?”

Joel laughs, “can’t ever go wrong with a classic, am I right?”

Which only meant one thing: Italian Beef with extra peppers, just how he always got it, even when they were younger. Joel was older than Carmy, more around Nat’s age but he always found a way to bring up something to talk about once Michelle, Mikey, and Richie brought the house down with their boisterous voices.

“I’ve mentioned to Sugar that Sam and I can’t wait to try out the dinner menu but it hasn’t been the best time…” Joel hints, almost as if he’s apologizing for not showing his face.

There was tension at the beginning.

Joel was this big detective.

Always the persistent one and trying to solve something. It only made sense that he chose this profession but Joel did piss the family off when he tried to come up with this conspiracy theory that Mikey didn’t kill himself and that someone else pulled the trigger. His perspective? It was probably someone who Mikey bought those painkillers off of and in Joel’s mind, he thought he was doing the family a good service but instead he had his own denial about Mikey’s passing as well.

There’s been two big death’s in Joel’s life that he had to face before with his fiancée who took her own life as well. A psychologist at that. That happened years before Mikey…and Carmy can only imagine how fucked he’s been in the head too and maybe detective work gave him some sort of solace—in a twisted way.

They were family after all and grief is handled in different ways they say!

Carmy picks up on the name referred to and questions, “Sammy? You guys are still together?”

Joel snickers but doesn’t seem offended by any means, “Yeah, can’t seem to get rid of her.”

He jokes but Carmy knows that would be the last thing Joel wanted.

“She always tells me to send her love whenever I do stop by for lunch…we just don’t want to disrupt anything you guys have going on.” Joel admits and that actually makes Carmy frown.

He clenched his eyes shut for a moment with a shake of his head, “she wouldn’t—you guys wouldn’t. You’re both family too…it’s just been a lot.”

“Yeah but at some point I think we’ve got to stop making excuses,” Joel shrugs, “No pressure on our end. You should stop by the house one day, Samora would love to see you. It’s been awhile you know?”

Carmy nods.

It has.

Samora’s been one of Carmy’s oldest friends.

The friendship happened to be one of those, catch you when I catch you type of things, or if seeing someone mutual and he so happened to come up, she always related her love for him. That’s just how they operated, even if was at a distance and there wasn’t any bad blood.

Life went on.

Separately for them.

And she’s apparently been going strong with his blood cousin, Joel, for who knows how long? Carmy can’t believe he’s almost forgot what it felt like to have a friend like her.

“Yeah, I should.” Carmy agrees, “Nat’s got your number right? I’ll have to get it from her and reach out to see what’s best for you guys?”

Joel raised his brows at this.

He didn’t think Carmy would even respond to that. Carmy’s always been the kind of guy that found the nicest corner in the room and chose to stay there, it was what he was comfortable with: seeing all sides of the room and the nearest exit.

“Well Sam’s mostly working out of the house now, business picked back up for her in the last year, thankfully.” Joel answers with an inhale, “I’m the one that’s mostly gone all the time not getting the chance to really live in the house but…whenever you want. We don’t mind pop in’s—usually.”

Carmy nods, “cool—uh? I got to get back in there but I hope you enjoy the sandwich and maybe fucking try something else huh?”

Joel’s always been the sandwich and chips kind of guy. Easy going. Compassionate and soft spoken. Carmy’s only ever saw Joel pissed one time as far as he can remember. Of course when carmy brought up the interest of taking cooking seriously, Joel offered a listening ear and would admit he hardly knew what kind of fancy dishes Carmy was talking about but once he brought out the sketches? Sold! Joel couldn’t be more thrilled to see Carmy finding something to be passionate about.

It took time but he did it.

Joel picks up on Carmy’s teasing tone and points the bag at him, “I don’t tell you how to run your business, Carm. So don’t get in between a man and his favorite hoagie.”

A crooked smile appears on Carmy’s face at that as he slowly starts to retreat, “alright, fair enough.”

“Keep it up, bear.” Joel tells Carm, “beginnings can be rough but everything looks phenomenal…from what I can see anyway.”

Did it feel that way?

Carmy couldn’t tell you.

A week and three months it took for Carmy to show up to the familiar Greystone. It was after the review came in and Carmy was back on mode: disconnect, taking a much needed walk that led him right back to the usual busy area where the home sat; that had history there. He’s not positive how long he’s been standing there, peering up at the picturesque home beyond the fence.

Eventually he works up the nerve to stand at the front door, head just kissing it as he debates about knocking. His stomach feels like an off track dryer machine and his head is telling him that he has no place showing up to this house. Samora wouldn’t want to see him and Joel was just talking back then, never expecting Carmy to take up the invitation.

Carmy’s got the number from Sugar and found out where they stayed. It was the same address of where Sammy grew up, a home from her great grandparents that was passed all the way down to her. Legally she got the greystone since her foster turned adopted siblings weren’t biologically in the family and only one of them seemed to put up a fight about it anyway, only wanting the cash and not caring about how significant the home was.

He remembered that.

And so, he knocks.

He’s heading towards the gate by the time the front door swings open but the sound of the woman calling out his name, stops him in his tracks. He exhaled, dropping his hand from pulling the gate back, lifting his head before turning back to the woman on the stoop.

“It is you! Well don’t just stand there, get up here you little turd.” She’s waving her hands along and Carmy moves.

They’re face to face and it’s been ages.

Both of their eyes traces over one another’s faces but Samora is the first to yank him by the shoulders into her arms. He’s tense but finds himself placing his chin into her own shoulder, shaky hands going to her spine. Samora’s hugs have always been tight but Carmy’s never had a problem with pressure.

Much.

“Damn, I hope I didn’t get paint all on your fresh suit. What’s that? Givenchy?” Samora pokes fun as she playfully flicks the tip of his nose.

Carmy smacks her hand away realizing that she is in fact covered in paint all over her shorts overalls and there’s a dry paint swatch right on her left cheek. A awful chartreuse color, which she always seemed to like the brightest of colors others like to hate on.

In a sense Samora tried to see the good in most things.

“No,” Carmy feels a small smirk appear on his own cheek, “you’re good.”

And she welcomes him inside.

The once old home has been refreshed and Carmy can’t tell you the last time he’s been in here but the changes are evident. The first set of walls were now white, making the short entry way feel bigger and as they both turn to the right towards the living room, the view of the front porch at night feels like many summers ago when they both would sit out there, him on his back, arms tucked behind his head and Samora right beside him cross legged as she stared out towards the traffic lights.

They could sit out there for hours together, comfortable in silence or Carmy listening to Samora curse up a storm when she got confused trying to learn chess with a board her great-grandfather made. A slab of wood with a built in drawer to keep the pieces on the side, it would get stuck sometimes but she always handled with care.

“Carmen Berzatto…can’t believe you came to see little ‘ol me…unless you’re looking for Joel?” Samora says over her shoulder, still waving him along through the dinning room towards the grand kitchen.

He awkwardly stands off to the side in the kitchen while Samora lets out a yawn with a shake of her head before moving forward with searching through the cabinets. “I uh—not necessarily.”

“He’s at work anyway, getting buried into another one of his insane cases that he’s not supposed to tell me about but we all know how I am—I’m going to find out regardless.” Samora places two shot glasses down, noticing that Carmy had moved closer to the island counter now.

He did know actually.

They went to school together, been through a lot of typical high school bullshit together. He always felt like the sidekick, whereas he was the shy and reserved one, Samora had other friends that she didn’t mind putting to the side to hang out with Carmy for. Her response would be whenever Carmy asked why she kicked them to the curb to be around someone boring would be, “I know who my lifelong friends are, surely.”

“Surely,” was always Samora’s word and, “Duh,” happened to be Nat’s.

Sophomore year when Konstantinos “Tino,” Pappas found his next target in Carmy and thought it would be funny to sic his Rottweiler on him one day (he had asthma and could barely run a mile but loved skateboarding) when he had to walk home alone after school one day, he glossed over it, saying that he just tried to hop the fence as a shortcut to get home and got stuck on it instead.

He didn’t mention the dog snatching his backpack, or the nasty nip mark on his lower back, his shirt ripping after it got stuck on the spikes, and colliding face first with a sharp rock, that left a faint knick on his cheek until this day, if you got close enough to see it you would notice. Donna believed Carmy’s lies although she knew Carmy was a more take his time kind of kid but all she wanted to do was get back to her daily cocktail, Nat was concerned but Carmy also brushed her off, saying he was fine, and when Mikey saw the marks, he hammered him with questions, leaving a teenage Carmy to grow sick of his big brother being on his case so he shut him out too.

And what did Mikey Berzatto do?

He went right to a sick Samora to find out what she knew. She had been home for the past three days, down with a fever she caught from her new foster sibling and swore that she would find out. Shook on it with the older Berzatto, who bid his farewells of how good she is to his kid brother, which meant she would always be good people in Mikey’s eyes. And when she did find out? She came right back to school that Monday, noticing the laughter from Tino and his friends down by their locker with a whole camcorder of the incident, which wasn’t far from her’s and Carmy’s.

Carmy lifted his hand to greet the teen but when she was on a mission? It was tunnel vision. She didn’t care if there were teachers at the end of the hall, she snatched the camcorder from one of Tino’s friends, shoving him out of the way, before getting to Tino. A fist met his eye that day and that resulted in a suspension and detention after learning what Tino did.

If you thought Carmy was pissed before about Nat’s overbearing nurturing ways and Mikey bugging him about the marks, then you can only imagine how annoyed he was with Samora after that. That resulted in a stupid fight and with Samora even dating Tino for two whole days—the goal was to break his heart anyway.

Teenagers? Am I right?

“Check this out,” Samora grins as she pours this green liquid into the shot glasses and makes sure to get a piece of cucumber? floating at the top to decorate it with, “I’ve been experimenting and since Joel can’t be my rodent of a taste taster tonight. I present to you chef Carmy, Cold Cucumber green Gazpacho. A chilled soup—as I’m sure you are aware of—since you know how I feel about soups in the summer.”

“…you want me to try this?” Carmy picks up the glass, eyeing it.

Samora dips her head, “surely and if you don’t do that pinched lip thing, then I know it’s trash.”

Carmy flicks his eyes to her with a frown, “what’re you talking about?”

She folds her first four fingers over her thumb, tapping them together, “I don’t know! It’s a thing! You do it when you’re yelling too but at least I know you’re focused so, go on.”

Carmy shakes his head with a slow close of his eyes. He didn’t know what she was talking about at all but he can’t say he was surprised she picked up on this, she was an interior decorator after all.

Detail was always crucial.

“That’s,” Carmy starts after seeing Samora toss her head back not long after himself, “fresh.”

Samora grins, “not bad for a beginner, huh? Easy peasy and quick! Make sure you shout me out if you make this an appetizer or something at the restaurant, will ya?”

“You got it.” Carmy comments making a mental note to do something green next time on the menu, savoring the smooth and freshness with a hint of a zing dish as Samora carefully places the bowl back into the fridge.

Sighing she turns to rest her elbows onto the counter, “Now…bestie Carmy Berzatto…what’s wrong?”

His eyes shift, “N-Nothing. I saw Joel the other day and he brought you up—

“How long ago was that?” She interrupts.

He fires back, “…awhile? Does it matter?”

“No…you know I don’t sweat the small stuff.” She blinks, “Long as I knew you were thriving then that’s all I can wish for but I know my friend and I’m sensing that you’re not okay. You’re avoiding.”

Carmy’s tapping his finger along the side of the glass but Samora doesn’t relax her burning stare, “what—

“Did you see your niece yet?” Samora quizzes and he quickly closes his eyes, running a hand through his hair, she can tell he’s mentally cursing at himself, “she’s a beautiful baby. I had groceries sent to Nat and Pete’s the other day—

“Is this your way of reminding me of how shitty I’ve been at communicating and being present because I don’t need it. I already feel that.”

Samora sticks her tongue in her cheek and pushes back, “No shock there, Carmy. I know you. So what exactly triggered you today that made you finally come here to see me?”

Carmy starts chewing on his lips, eyes not connecting with Samora’s as she tilted her head to the side, waiting. It feels like forever to get an answer so Samora moves around the island, squeezing his shoulder, “let’s go up to the roof, maybe the fresh air and not the fumes of paint will help ease you into it. Thanks for knocking by the way, I may have seen a glimpse of the other side because of it before you got here.”

“What?” Carmy spits out in concern as she pulls at his wrist.

Samora laughs, “if you tell Joel, I’ll have to keep you here and bury you in the front yard.”

Carmy blinks with a roll of his eyes.

They’re on the rooftop, there’s less cars as the night carries on. Carmy’s lost count of how many times the street lights flick from red, yellow, to green and back again. Samora allows carmy to take his time, one leg curled up underneath her with her head thrown back staring up at the twinkle of stars on a hot summer night. There’s barely a breeze but they’re alright.

“I saw the shit stain tonight.”

Samora tossed an arm over her forehead, leaned back in the comfy cushioned blue lounge chair, “yeah? There’s plenty here in chicago, so which one? Don’t tell me you saw the walking jump-scare, Tino?”

“Who?” Carmy presses but Samora can tell he’s not going down that path of the past.

She fans her hand to tell him to continue.

“This guy. One of the best chef’s I worked for in New York, he was at the funeral. There was a funeral for this restaurant, Ever.” Carmy begins to tell his old friend, mindful that she’s been out of the loop.

Samora looks around the night sky and snaps her fingers with a nod of her head, “yeah um, Chelly—mostly Stevie said something about a strict chef you were working with but of course it was vague, which leaves me to believe that you didn’t tell chelly much but she’s great at reading in between the lines much like myself.”

Carmy doesn’t tell her exactly what Chef David said to him a hour ago but tells her what his words made him feel yet again. Small. Incapable. How he has to triple check everything, take charge with no regard for his team that’s supposed to be family, and ultimately that he shouldn’t have a team because he was better off alone. How he should be grateful to be where he is now because of all that Chef David taught him.

“Oh nooooo, Chef charred asshole better be lucky I wasn’t there,” Samora mumbles, “He sounds like a narcissistic dick of a man who gets off on attempting to morph you into him and to me? That doesn’t sound like a brilliant or best of the best chef or even a person! it sounds weak and miserable.”

“It’s what I signed up for.” Carmy almost argues and Samora sits up.

She knows this stems from much more than what he experienced in that restaurant in New York.

“I haven’t been around you in a while but I’ve always been on the sidelines. You accomplished all of these things because you knew you could—you fought. You worked hard and earned this.” Samora reassures, “but these false ideas that you have because of what someone else caused shouldn’t diminish anything that you’ve done and continue to do.”

Carmy pulls out his phone and a pack of chewing gum, “tell that to my brain then. The review is up, Sammy.”

Samora’s eyes meet Carmy’s as he shoves a square piece into his mouth, elbows on his knees as they start to bounce, head dropping just a bit. She reaches for the phone, giving him a side eye since there’s no passcode on it, and is brought right to a webpage.

~THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE~

Reviewed by Ad. Shap

Carmen doesn’t have to look at Samora’s face to take in her reaction. He ultimately knows it’ll be different from what the blue in his brain says. There were many things wrong with the review, mostly wrong than good and that’s why he needed someone from the outside to see before seeing how the crew digested this.

Samora usually does this humming when she’s reading or thinking about something and that doesn’t seem to change. When she’s finished she puts the phone face down on the outdoor table and folds her fingers together as she sits back.

“Well…That was reminiscent to my short lived cookie career.”

Carmy widens his eyes as he sets them back on his friend.

She shields her face instantly, “whoa turn down the opacity on those things will ya?”

“Your cookie business failed.”

“Um, no. Fuck you for that by the way,” Samora glared, “I view it as that wasn’t the way the chapter was meant to be told. I wasn’t heavily devoted to culinary like you. Nobody is that I know of. It was just a hobby for me but you turned your craft into something much more: breathe, sleep—well—you let it consume you pros and cons. Surely these reviews are deeply important because impressions are…tricky but not everything is the way you see it.”

Carmy scoffs with a rub to his lips in annoyance, “what the fuck do you mean it’s not the way I see it? It’s my business and I’ve been backstabbed by a prick I worked with—

“Carmy—

“I can’t be a screw up! I won’t be. I’ve been at this for so long and I’m more than tired and shitty in the head but not enough to throw it all away no matter what some four eyed fucker with a typewriter for a laptop says!” Carmy is on his feet now pacing, “I picked up what Mikey left behind, I put in the time and the effort, I removed parts of myself to be untouchable—

Samora shakes her head, “you’re not though and some part of you knows that. None of us are unbreakable, babe. You just…start over as many times until it feels right.”

“See I don’t—

Carmy swallows the lump in his throat to speak clearly, “that’s the problem, I don’t think I know what feels right or if I ever did. I just know circumstances.”

Samora inhales as she gets to her feet too, “okay then. Take everything that you bottled up and let it out there.” She points over the edge of the balcony, “you have to try to acknowledge the good and let some things go or you’ll forever feel stuck instead of moving forward…but I’m no therapist just a decorator who’s still annoyed that you didn’t reach out to revamp the bear—but that’s another conversation, just a friend who knows a little something something that’ll help.”

“Uh, something something?” Carmy repeats feeling his heart race as Samora waved her painted hand out for Carmy’s tatted one.

He takes her hand as she leads the way to the balcony but not close enough to trigger any vertigo. Carmy always loved the view at Samora’s compared to his own childhood home, which contrasted with no view at all—his bedroom didn’t have any windows, just a closed in space—and he was stuck hearing the common yelling between Donna and Mikey.

Carmy could see the top of a neighbor’s red brick building (thanks to how many floors the greystone had) across the street, along with another home to the left and a row of other houses to the right. Behind the house across the street sat the changing color of lights and beyond that was the liveliness of Chicago in the distance, the farmer’s market he personally loved and had Tina make the runs to, other great eateries, and music spots also weren’t far from Samora’s.

The woman rests a hand right in the center of his chest and Carmy can feel himself panting, “No one ever has to know if you have it all figured out…nobody truly does. Put down some of those dishes bear, out there. Not to hibernate but to be the best version of yourself for you and not what anyone tells you, you should be.”

His eyes burn and he feels like he might let some tears fall some more tonight and he finds that comfort in Samora. Something good from his past that was still present although his version is always different, he doesn’t mind much if she see’s any water that slips from the corners. He knows she won’t say anything about it, and her hand doesn’t move from his chest as she’s almost coaching him how to deal with just a portion of his bullshit.

He couldn’t figure it out for himself.

Yet he was willing to learn.

The scream curdles from the back of his throat, bursting through his lips into the night. He curls into his stomach some, the weight present, the firmness of Samora’s hand on his chest, and his face is hot in the summer air, turning pink as he fights to breathe through his screams. Samora is right there with him, her screams were much more melodic, like she’s had the practice while Carmy is testing it out.

His screams have been buried just like everything else he’s bottled up for years.

After, his throat is raw and voice hoarse as he sniffs, he abruptly turns to Samora, pulling her into another hug. She isn’t tense against him, small laughter falling through her own lips while Carmy hold’s onto her.

Calming down.

“love you,” he manages to get out while Samora scratches his back.

She knows he means it and it’s probably something he needed to hear back as of lately.

Samora sighs, “love you too, turd.”

Carmy rolls his eyes, pulling back to meet her stare and she winks at him.

“…if I didn’t love the both of you, I might be highly concerned at whatever the hell that was.” Joel announces his arrival after a few moments of silence.

His arms are folded but he’s got that Berzatto sly grin on his lips as Carmy slowly lets his hands fall from Samora’s forearms. The shorter haired man makes his way over to the two, hands going to both of their shoulders as he peers back and forth.

“You made it.”

“I—yeah.” Carmy clears his throat with a shake of his head, “I did.”

“Good,” Joel dips his head but it feels more like a question than a comment.

carmy shrugs.

Samora claps her hands gaining both cousins’ attention, “let’s have some of Mora’s Mosa’s as a celebratory of the night—was the work day alright for you, love?”

Joel awkwardly nods his head back and forth as a way to show that it was so-so.

“Works for me!” Samora yells, “to the kitchen!”

“It’s midnight, honey.” Joel tells Samora who twists her lips to the side, “and I’m sure Carmy doesn’t want any of that green shit you had in the fridge.”

Samora gasps, “damn, who knew my boyfriend would be my biggest critic?”

“Oh c’mon, don’t get sensitive on me now!”

She shrugs his hand from her shoulder while Joel’s low lidded eyes sends a look to Carmy who raises his hands in surrender.

In a hoarse tone he replies, “I actually like the gazpacho so…you’re on your own with that one.”

“Woooow, okay.” Joel breathes out a laugh, then bites down on his bottom lip while Carmy moves to grab his phone and fallen gum pack.

Carmy then turns to watch the two bicker like an old married couple but it doesn’t get loud at all. Joel does talk with his hands to get his point across and Carmy can pinpoint the exact moment Samora cracks, the corner of her nose twitches with amusement before Joel tests the waters, gripping her hips to place a tender kiss on her lips, which Samora seems to kiss back before they break apart. Smiles on both of their faces before they turn back to Carmy who’s attempting to sneak off down the steps.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” Joel asks, “you think you can just go off when you and I didn’t get any one on one time?”

Carmy taps his phone against his hand, “It’s getting late, don’t want to impose any further.”

Joel rolls his eyes, tossing an arm across Carmy’s shoulder, “shut your trap, you’re home, man.”

And with that Carmy is led back into the house.

He doesn’t think he’s slept long, but when he checks the time on his slowly dying phone, it’s already later into the next morning.

8:37am and he has no idea what this day is going to look like but it’s a Sunday…maybe for once he doesn’t have to. One of the rooms he’s tucked in belonged to one of Samora’s adopted brothers, Jacobi, Carmy guesses since there’s still a large crack against the ceiling thanks to a lighting strike that occurred way back when they were all kids.

He sits up for a while, taking in the view one last time before he starts to make his exit. He’s walking down the path towards the gate and stops as he hears the front door open.

“Don’t be a stranger.” Samora tells him as he turns to face her, the woman hugging her robe to herself as she’s sitting on the front step.

Carmy stretches a small smile on his dry lips, “Never that,” he jokes, “thanks for always being here, Sammy. Dunno if I ever told you that enough…probably not since I’m always in my head but uh—give Joel my thanks too for me this time.”

Samora dips her head and says, “Surely.”

Carmy scoffs as he pulls the gate back before putting his palm up in the air, “see you soon.”

“After while, crocodile.” She kisses her fingertips before waving them at him.

Samora watches Carmy go, hoping he starts putting the pieces together instead of forcing it all apart like he’s always been accustomed to.

When Monday comes along, his hands are resting along the trimming of white counter as he’s slightly shifting his head back and forth at all the greenery situated in front of him.

“Morning Chef,” Marcus greets first as he’s followed in by Tina.

Carmy nods his head in greeting.

Tina’s eyes immediately go to all the herbs and vegetables, “Jeffery, what’s all this?”

“Something new, green, for the menu.” Carmy informs, “I realized we haven’t had family dinner in a while and i want all of your inputs for what we’ll have tonight.”

Tina and Marcus share a glance, having a feeling that this had something to do with the new review. They all briefly talked about it in the group chat over the weekend.

“Okay, cool. We’re gonna just go put our stuff down.” Marcus points and Carmy keeps his eyes on the ingredients.

“Take your time, Chefs.” Carmy calls out after some time as the two have already started making their way towards the lockers.

He closes his eyes, trying to slow the rising beat of his heart, deeply inhaling as he ignores the contrast of oxygen between his two nostrils, that was another problem he’s gotten used to, his eyes open just in time to meet the green again as the back doors swing open, revealing the rest of his team gradually.

Carmy had work to do and he’s never been afraid of hard work.

☯︎.☘︎ ݁˖˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ ☯︎.☘︎ ݁˖˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ ☯︎.☘︎ ݁˖˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ ☯︎.☘︎ ݁˖˚ ༘

Continue with my summer anthology writings & prompts here.

[soulc-hilde]

Welcome to the Wild

Pairing: Carmen Berzatto x OFC! Caden

Synopsis: No longer about her future, Caden spirals as the rug is once again pulled from underneath her feet. Living her days in a silent shell, she forces herself into her work. Noted as the restaurant's Mute Pâtissier, the stuttering eyes of her boss always finds themselves attached to her. Studying her. Like some animal in the wild.

Divider by @strangergraphics-archive

“Honey, how are those buns comin’, love?” Mickey’s deep voice calls over the chaos of the kitchen.

In the far corner, blocked off from the madness was his sole baker, prepared for war and unbothered with the onslaught of orders. She pulls out the third baking tray of rolls and places them inside the rack before turning to coat a tray of recently cooled ones with honey butter. The perfect, golden rolls absorb the butter. Droplets run down its sides slowly, the bread appearing like a professional photograph.

“First three trays are finished,” she calls back, not a pause in her pace noticeable.

The Berzatto nods, a grin taking over his chiseled features as he watches her work. “Atta’ girl,” he compliments, hustling on with the service. Afterwards as the staff gathered for Family, everyone talking and laughing, Caden looks over at the man who seemed to bring ease into her life.

“Why that name?” She asks, quietly. He looks over at her, stumped at the question.

“What name you talkin’ about, Honey?” He retorts, eyebrows scrunched. She nods his way, “that one. Honey. Where’d you even get that from?”

This time he looks down at his plate, fork shuffling the food around. “Because you’re a good kid, ya know?” He tilts his head up, looking at her.

“You try to push people away, scare ‘em off, but you really just want a family. You want someone to love your sweet soul just as much as you’d love them.”

Caden scoffs, playfully, shaking her head. “The day that someone can look me in my eyes and say ‘I love you’ and mean that shit, pigs’ll start flyin’.”

She swallows a fork full of collard greens and a bit of turkey tail in the mix, eyebrows scrunching happily. Mickey looks at her, his shy gaze steeled as he stares through her. The once mute kid Tina brought to his office like a lost kitten has become the rambunctious, scatterbrained little sister he never asked for but appreciated.

He chuckles, “just be happy it’s ‘Honey’ and not ‘Squirrel.’ kiddo.”

She sends a playful glare, chubby cheeks stuffed with food. “Hey, my ADHD ain’t a joke,” she tries to scold yet her words come out jumbled and slurred.

He smiles, leaning forward, ear facing her, “what was that? I couldn’t hear you over those stuffed cheeks, Squirrel.”

“Go to Hell,” she mumbles, going back to her food, ignorant of his eyes watching her with a soft gaze.

---

No one really goes into details about the hero of the story dying and how their loved ones, their supporters, deal with it. For Caden, Michael's death wasn't that big of a shocker. No one lives forever unless you're the Devil's favorite. Mickey was the most stereotypical older brother anyone could ever meet.

The stand-in father. Believes everyone is better off without him. The one who puts up with his abusive mother's shit, not because he's an enabler but the little boy who watched it all go to shit just can't let go.

God, she missed him. Despite having her own older brothers, Caden was doomed from the start, as if neglect and trauma was all she was destined for. No friends, a negligent mother, an ill father, and avoidant brothers.

But, Michael was her brother, though.

When Tina brought her to The Beef, all the poor girl had was a backpack of clothes, her grandfather's saving, and desperation. Michael took her in, watched her bake and turn the pastries she once drew into a reality like some magician.

If only she knew how much she reminded him of Carmen.

"Those two'll bitch each other out, but they'd be one hell of a front." He'd think with that smile he'd carry as if everything was gonna be okay.

Maybe she shouldn't have answered her phone that night. She should've declined his offer, make up some lame excuse like homework.

No. Even if that was the last memory of him she had, she'd much prefer that they were together rather than apart.

---

"Cousin," Richie's microphone for a voice rings off the kitchen walls. "You may already know some of these guys, seeing as they've been here longer than me. Tina, Ebra, Angel, Manny, and finally, the soul of the team, Honey."

Caden side eyes the men, lazily looking at them for a moment before sending a nod toward the short, curly haired one. Just as quick as she turned, she resumes back to her station, sorting her spices and chocolates. Behind, Richie simply waves her off, blowing a rasberry.

"Don't mind her. The name's sweet, but, uh, she's kind of dark." He warns the younger man. Ebra leans over, "her name's Caden. If you're a smart boy, you'd call her that."

Richie scoffs, "c'mon, this is Carmy, we're talkin' about. Mikey's little brother? It works out, perfectly, the Bears and their honey."

Walking past, Caden smacks her hand against the back of head, beelining for the walk-in. The man winces, rubbing the heated spot with a grimace, glaring at her back.

Inside the walk-in, she glares at the bananas, aggressively picking them off the shared stem. Why the fuck would he say some shit like that? Makin' it sound like some damn affair happened between her and Mike.

She'll fucking kill him if he keeps going. Marching back to her corner, her blank eyes fall onto the man, or Carmy's, blue eyes. He was obviously watching, waiting for her to walk out.

He walks over as she begins chopping a peeled banana into perfectly symmetrical slices. "I'm, uh, Carmen," he practically whispers, fingers pinching at his bottom lip.

"I'm sorry... uh, about, about Richie. He's an asshole, doesn't know when he's gone too far," he continues.

She nods, lost amongst the rhythm she subconsciously follows with every cut. "Have you, uh, have you ever went to culinary school?"

Her hand comes to a stop, her attention now focusing on him. Rather than snap, she curls her plump lips inward and bites down before shaking her head.

He nods, shrugging, "i, I was just wonderin', ya know? With the way you, uh, take, take care of your station, it's, uh. It's experienced."

"OCD," she whispers.

Her eyes return to the cutting board, hands frozen in place to memorize the exact width she had cut. Finishing the first one, she grabs the second, mimicking the actions of the first time, not a step different or seconds behind.

Laying the bare fruit beside the chopped pieces of its twin, she places her hands in a starting position. Left hand gripping the fruit, index and thumb pressed gently against her cutting mark that matched exactly to the ones beside it.

Carmen watches, fascinated, as the embodiment of silence works in an ongoing loop of repetition, shutting him out from her world. Her fucked up world of madness.

"You enjoyin' the show or some'?" A voice questions him, snapping the man from his thoughts.

Turning to face the intruder, his eyebrows raise with panic as Tina glares up at him. The corner of her top lip is pinned up, teeth bared as if she was prepared to mame him.

"Uh, no, not. It's not, it's not like that," he rushes to his defense. Her eyebrows raise, expression shifting to one of aghast. "Oh, so, you don't think she's beautiful? Talented? What, you too good for this place?"

He jaw jolts, brain short-circuiting as the older woman rapidly fires assumptions his way. He knew coming through the restaurant as a nobody was a risk. He may have been Michael's baby brother, the star in his eyes, but they only knew Carmen by his words. To them, Carmen was a fantasy character. The kid that stood in front of them was just a stranger, the stranger who was also their new boss.

"Tia," the woman calls, finished slicing the bananas. She turns to glare at the two. "Do you mind? I've got a system going on, right now. Take the playground shit somewhere else, yeah?"

Unlike the staff built up of Chicago natives and ethnic backgrounds - Latino and Italian being the majority, she didn't yell. Regardless of how far she stood from anyone, she never even raised her voice in a way to project her words. She just talked, casually, and if you heard her than you heard her.

If you didn't? Well, tough shit cause she won't repeat herself.

Her voice was mellow and naturally rested at a low octave. Her accent nowhere near the Chicago accent, it was more of a general midwest/southern accent. Her words relied heavily on the southern part of her dialect. It was as if she was a puzzle that just kept scrambling, creating greater confusion than understanding.

"Yeah, system, mija," Tina nods, a condescending smile taking over. "Don't fuck," she points at Carmen, finger just inches from his face. "with the system. Cocotazo."

She walks off, leaving the younger chefs to themselves.

---

In the beginning, he believed that Tina was fucking with him. "The system" was a fucking mess. It was about as sloppy and greasy as the restaurant itself. As the thoroughly trained professional he is, Carmen decided that things were to take a change for the better. The first being to go?

Every fucking red flag that dressed the staff like some high-end jacket. And God, did they fucking complain. Turn into children with their stomps, glares, and petty insults aimed at him no matter what he did.

Just simply asking for the chefs to keep up with proper hygiene outside of the typical washing hands with soap for 20 seconds resulted in a 'fuck you' and 'don't fuck with the system.'

Well, fuck me for not wantin' to deal with sick customers, he scoffed at the thought. A breath-filled chuckle releases beside him. Quickly, he looks over to meet eyes with Caden. She leant her right shoulder against the doorway of the office, face seemingly blank but her eyes hummed with warmth.

"I wouldn't wanna deal with these bitches on a regular, much less because they got sick from us," she states, referencing to the statement that rang through his mind.

He straightens, "oh, oh? Di-Did I say that out loud?" She nods, "yeah, you did." She steps further into the office, closing the door behind her. "But that's not what I'm here to talk to you about. Well, actually, it has some connection."

"Okay, uh, here," he stands, leaning over to push out another small metal foldable chair. "Take a, uh, seat. Take a seat." She nods, settling down beside him. "So, what did you wanna talk about?"

Please, don't say you're quitting. Please, don't say you're quitting, his conscience pleas.

"Staff," she starts off. "I love those assholes, but even when Mikey was here and runnin' the show, it was fuckin' chaos. They think they're functioning well because Mikey never corrected them, but we both know they're not."

His eyebrows raise with surprise. "Oh?" he whispers, sitting back in the wheeled chair, fingers pulling at his lips.

"Mh," she nods. "And don't even get me started on the bakery. Before Mikey died, we were workin' togetha' on how to make the bakery faster. Which meant better equipment and shit," she snorts.

"We don't have the money, though. Which leads me to the next suggestion," she leans forward. "We're gonna have to start hirin' some help."

Taglist: @spiderstyles04 @lostinwonderland314

[smokietaylor]

You’re better than this (Carmen x Reader)

Carmy hires you to work at The Beef right after you graduated from culinary school. You know nothing about Carmen’s background other than he is a guy that gave you a job and you can finally start working in a real kitchen. Things get heated between the two of you. There is a reason that Carmy is being so hard on you that you will come to know later as the two of you argue.

NSFW Content

18+ only Minors DNI

Word count: 1,714 (and counting, current work in progress)

READ MORE HERE

[aestheticaltcow]

What Happens in Vegas Doesn't Always Stay in Vegas... Part 4

Carmy and Richie's pilgrimage to Washington DC... was it a mistake? Will Carmy do something regrettable? Will Richie do something equally as stupid?

The Masterlist

Previous part

Part 4 - DC in October

“Are you sure you even want to go Carmy?” Richie questioned for the thousandth time that day. Carmy rolled his eyes and pulled the sleeves of his navy blue sweater up. The two sat in the airport that afternoon. Carmy shrugged “I don’t know.” he answered lazily, looking over to Richie “Cousin, we could just go home- she probably wouldn’t notice you not being there.” “She would.” “Are you trying to win this girl back or somethin’?” 

Carmy never answered Richie’s question. He laid back in his hotel room’s bed. He should have just blown off the wedding; Ellie couldn’t actually want a shitty ex fuck buddy at her wedding. He stared at the ceiling and contemplated his life decisions up to this point. What if he’d gone to Europe to chase Ellie? What if he’d kept texting her? What if he’d reached out to her more? He should have done better. Unfortunately, that was something he couldn’t go back and change. In a mere 24 hours, Ellie would be Mrs. Ellie Aurbey, and he’d never be able to hold her again. 

Richie and Carmy stood at the bar in casual suits at Jack and Ellie’s rehearsal dinner, “What the fuck is a German hooker?” Richie laughed, staring at the wedding bar menu. Carmy shrugged, “We should leave. There's too many cops around here.” Richie looked around as he fidgeted with the menu in his hands. “Don’t worry, handsome. We don’t like it either.” a woman in a dark purple dress commented as she approached the two men. “Now this is a site for sore eyes, Carmen Berzatto in a suit at a wedding for Ellie.” Carmy rolled his eyes “Hi Jenny. Long time no see.” “So, is it true? You two got married in Vegas?” Carmy nodded “Yea. We got divorced over the summer, though.” “When Andy told me you two did something crazy- getting married wasn’t even on the list.” Jenny laughed playfully, pushing Carmy “Who are you, handsome?” she bit her lip, turning her attention to Richie. Carmy chuckled “Careful Cousin, she’s kinky.” 

Carmy was alone on a balcony, staring out at a rose garden. “Didn’t think you’d come, Carmen.” Carmy looked over his shoulder to see Jack standing by the door. “I’m surprised you let her invite me.” Jack chuckled “You think I could have prevented this?” Carmy scoffed “True. She’s a strong-willed woman. I’ll give you that.” Jack stepped closer to the fence surrounding the balcony “Thanks for making the divorce easy. I would also like to apologize for arresting you. I just wanted to kick your ass when I found out.” Carmy nodded in acknowledgment of his apology. “You’re a lucky man, Jack. Ellie is a great girl.” 

“You were right… that Jenny girl was kinky.” Richie laughed as he and Carmy walked toward the elevator the next morning. Carmy shook his head disapprovingly, “You wrap it?” “Of course. Don’t need two child support payments.” 

As Ellie walked down the aisle in her pearly white satin off-shoulder gown, a veil that was practically a mile long decorated with subtle spider webs. Carmy smiled as he took in the sight. This was the wedding Ellie deserved, and he was envious of Jack in that moment. While the idea of a big wedding was Carmy’s worst nightmare- he’d do anything to make Ellie smile like that. 

Their vows were sweet and short; Ellie laughed at Jack’s retelling of their first time meeting and blinked away tears when he promised to love, protect, and honor her until his final breath. “Do you, Elenor Sydney Marks, take Jackson Daniel Aurbery as your lawfully wedded husband in sickness and health for the rest of your days?” Carmy quietly slipped out of the hall before he could hear your answer. Coming here really was a mistake.

“Well, she’s married,” Richie said when he found Carmy outside smoking a cigarette. Richie followed in suit, “You were right. We shouldn’t have come to this.” “You love her or somethin’ Cousin?” Carmy shrugged “I don’t know… Seein’ her over the summer just like - I don’t know.” Richie patted Carmy’s shoulder.

“CAB, you leavin?” Ellie asked when she finally found Carmy awkwardly standing in the corner, waiting for Richie. “Yeah- gotta get back to Chicago.” Ellie nodded and smoothed down her dress “Thanks for coming, Carmen. If you’re ever in DC, come by.” Carmy nodded “Of course, El. You look beautiful, by the way… also now I know your last name.” Ellie smiled “Bye, Carmy.”

Richie stood back and watched Ellie and Carmy’s interaction. Carmy looked like a kicked puppy as he walked away from Ellie, “You okay, Carmy?” he shrugged in response “Don’t worry, kid. She’s just the one who got away.” Carmy chuckled, shaking his head. “Maybe I’ll get married one day. I wish it were to Ellie, but she’s happy with that guy, and I’ll be happy with another girl.”

[thatone-brightstar]

Before You (Carmen Berzatto X Fem!OC)

It was Isaac before Carmy, and it was Ross before you.

Read part I.

Part II: January.

words: 3.4k

a/n: Thank you all so much for 200+ followers!!! Idk what to do in these situations but I'll celebrate by giving you more Carmy content! Slide into my dms with your prompt ideas and I'll gladly do my best to write what I can! Also: Image does not represent OC's skin type, just needed a summary pic. WARNING: Smut ahead, p in v unprotected sex (birth control is present but not mentioned), minors DNI but you'll do what you want so don't say I didn't warn you

This was not how she expected her New Year to go, dress hiked up to her hips, nails digging into his neck and shaking thighs painfully wrapped around the man continuously slamming into her. The lewd sounds he makes reverberate inside the small depot, echoing back into her dew covered skin and fueling the shivers traveling up and down her spine. Ross has always hated her name, but the way Carmy says it- blissed off his mind, crimson cheeks and pink pouty lips rounding over each syllable and followed by a breathy ’fuck’- god does he make it sound devine. 

Her nails drive deeper into his reddened flesh and the pain of her grip tightens his fingers over the plush skin of her parted thighs. The flimsy fabric that barely covers her navel lets him see himself lost with each thrust, sight replaced with a gripping sensation, choking him with his own air.

There was something cathartically thrilling about their… situation. The sneaking around, the lingering stares each time she crossed to the depot and the tauntingly short uniform that made him visibly gulp. It all brewed thick inside his gut like he’d never known, the warmth of her lips weeks before had shaken the loose earth over his buried desires and there was no way he would get his fill from just the one time. 

Unbeknownst to them, they had fallen into a clandestine rhythm. After closing, Ross would get in her car, drive a few blocks away and wait for Carmen in the warm comfort of the vehicle. Her pulse always quickened in anticipation around the ten minute mark, when she’d spot him in the rear view mirror, blowing smoke into the wind and hair disheveled after a hectic service. The drive to his felt longer each time, anticipation thick and pulsing in the empty space. They could never reach his place though, once she parked on the narrow alley beside his building, his fingers would wrap around the side of her jaw and her breath would be stolen by hungry tobacco scented kisses. She enjoyed the feeling of his needy hands circling her hips and pulling her over him, before his mouth attacked the frail skin of her throat.

But tonight felt different to her. The frustrations of a shitty service had Carmen on edge and he didn’t even give her a chance to leave as she popped her head into the empty kitchen to say goodbye. Instead wrapping his grip around her wrist to drag her into the small room and pinning her against a shelf with the strength of his panting chest. His usual doubtful behavior is replaced by strong and steady thrusts, ones that have the glass olive oil gallons behind her vibrating angrily. Her worry of them braking only lasts a few seconds, soon being pushed out of her mind by the constant pattern of his movements and the tightness inside her that’s beginning to burn.

“Fuck- Ross-” He moans into her neck as he speeds up his slams, breath blowing cold over the sweat on her skin.

The relentless strike of his hips on the base of her thighs paints the sensitive skin with a light shade of pink, causing a hiss from her when he readjusts his grip over the slick flesh.

“S..sorry- you good?” Carmen asks with slight concern, slowing down his movements and gulping the dryness in his mouth.

“Ye-yeah-” She reassures with a panting grin, eyes slightly glossy and mascara staining her bottom lashline. “Keep going, I like it…” 

“Oh.. yeah- right okay.” Her bluntness gives him a blush that matches the underside of her thighs before resuming with a brutal blow, ripping a gasp from her lungs and making her breasts jolt with force.

Ross’ fingers tangle in the sweaty strands of his hair and pull him down to her awaiting lips, licking and nibbling over the delicate skin while his hands dent the muscle of her legs and his actions grow faster each time. With a string of groans pouring from her chest, she does her best to chase his hips with her own, striking a perfect spot each time. Her feet hook tightly at the base of his spine and this restricts his actions into shorter and faster shoves against that specific, beautiful spot that seems to split her in two.

An almost filthy cry bursts out when her orgasm shoots up from deep in her core, sparking in each nerve ending in her body and his hand flies quickly up to it to drown out the obscene sound. The remaining force in his last thrusts carries her back down into her body just in time to feel his fingers dig into her bruised skin. A throaty groan blows heavily over her collar bones before he slumps down completely with heavy inhales. She likes this part, when his shoulders lose tension and the beating of his heart doesn’t palpitate as hard against her chest. 

He pulls out with a soft hiss but rather than make an effort to step away from the momentary comfort she provides, Ross feels his thumb brush gently over the red dents he produced; a clear contrast from a few minutes before. She tries to remain quiet so as to not ruin the moment he seems too caught up in, but his tender touch pulls an invisible string deep inside her and the fear of unwillingness to anything remotely close to a relationship triggers her mouth before she can stop it.

“You’re gonna leave a mark…”

“Hmm?” He pulls his head up to meet her eyes, bright pools of aquamarine absorb the little saliva left in her tongue and she swallows drily again and again.

“Your fingers…” She clears her throat. “They’re, uh, they’re gonna leave a mark.” Though that’s not really what she originally meant.

**********

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me!” 

“No!” Ross groans towards her friend, trailing behind her as they both cross the entrance to the back of house.

The regularly hectic movement in the kitchen seems less so as service isn’t due for another few hours. There’s a thin layer of peace visible in the rounded backs of a few cooks as they ingest family, elbows glued to the long stainless steel tables. Ross moves to the water filter beside Frank’s station, ignorant to the glance he throws her way, but very present in Meg’s eyes as she gasps.

“Wait, was it Frankie? D’you finally cave?” Meg whispers beside her.

“Ugh, gross no. I’d rather stick hot coal in my mouth…”

“Okay, then who?”

Ross rolls her eyes once again. “I’m not telling you, alright?! So just- hop off my dick.” 

“Oh c’mon, he had to be good if he left bruises like that…” 

Meg leans down to inspect the lilac dents peeking ever so slightly from under the hem of her uniform. A hiss leaves Ross’ mouth and she immediately reaches down to swat her friend’s pointed finger off the darkest spot.

“All I’m sayin’ is, every artwork needs the artist’s signature.” Meg grumbles beside her. 

“What artist?” The cook intervenes as he pokes around his own plate.

“Ross has a new boy toy and she won’t tell me who it is…”

She keeps her eyes trained on the slowly filling bottle, trying hard to tune out the teasing from the two idiots behind her.

“Y’know she won’t shut up ‘till you tell her, right?”

“I’m just hoping for her batteries to run out.” She assures with a flat smile, taking a sip from her bottle and leaning on the table in front of her.

“I thought you’d be more interested…” Meg teases, picking a piece of dried tomato from his plate and nibbling it through her smile.

She can see a slight tension in his jaw before he shrugs, eyes heavy on his dish. “We’ll find out eventually…” He answers under his breath, the words making Ross’ brows furrow.

“Meaning…”

Frank sighs and pushes his forearms off the table, finally looking up at her. “I mean- c’mon Ross, we know your type- plus, if it was one of these motherfuckers-” his fork drags pointing at the few cooks in the room. “-which it probably was- you know none of ‘em can keep their fuckin’ trap shut.”

If his comment struck a nerve, left it beaten and pulsing in agony, she doesn’t let it show. Instead, she rolls her eyes one more time and gulps down her water, drowning the many colorful swears with his name written on them. A prickling sensation covers her skin, the grip on her bottle going loose when she catches his persistent gaze falling heavily on her from across the kitchen. It washes over her for a few tender beats, and the water in her bottle no longer seems sufficient to cool the heat his strong stare ignites in her stomach.

Carmy doesn’t mean to stare, his eyes had just wandered, obliviously guided by the source of her vibrant voice, the private conversation not so private in the confinements of the blinding white room. A strange sensation flourished in his chest when Megan mentioned the bruises he had previously apologized ardently for and could hear Frank’s slight annoyance  at them.

He doesn’t dislike Frank per se, he finds him irritating and obnoxious at times sure, but not to the point of hate. Right now however- as he appears completely entranced by her- Carmen can’t help the irritation beginning to course through him from the words he overheard. He knows they’re bullshit- the idea to expose her in such a way had no space inside his mind, Carmy isn’t like that- and with his own eyes roaming her tense features, he hopes that in the few seconds he allows himself to sneak a look, she can catch that. The unspoken assurance that she can trust him to keep whatever they have going on a secret.

“- are you even listening to me?”

Her friend’s voice demands Ross’ attention and he drags his eyes away, setting them back on the paper thin sweet potato slices gliding off the sharp edge of the mandolin.

“What- yeah, um… something about… your hair?”

“No dumbass- your psych exam, how’d it go?”

Despite his heavy attention to the task at hand, his ears can’t help but to tune back into the conversation as her sigh floats thick in the air of the kitchen.

“Failed it again… which is- fine-” She groans and reaches her hands to rub up her face in frustration. “-but that blows my second try so I only have one left or I’ll have to redo the whole course.”

Meg frowns up at her and reaches a hand to stroke over her arm. “You’ll do fine on the last one, I’ll help you study.” She offers with a kind smile. “Next one’s the good one… you’ll see.”

“Yeah… I guess'' Ross replicates her friend’s expression and takes another sip from her bottle, only half heartedly believing her.

“Yeah- we’ll both help you.” Frank adds, reaching his own hand beside Megs, a sly expression turning hers into distaste.

“Chef-” Three heads turn to the far left to see Carmen’s usual serious expression, making Frank immediately straighten his posture. “If you’re done fuckin’ around, that duck amuse in the walk in isn’t gonna confit itself-”

“Yes, Chef- sorry.” 

“Thank you!”

Frank briskly picks up his half finished plate and disappears around the corner with a quick step, barely having time to throw them an irritated expression. 

She feels it before seeing him. Only a wisp of white and blue flashes in her peripheral vision before he disappears behind her, the warmth of his extended digits pressing gently on her lower back and a soft ‘behind’ blowing on her exposed neck.  Ross turns just in time to catch the artist’s eyes lingering on her for a sliver of a second, but it’s more than enough to spread a tingling sensation over the blossoming bruises. She doesn’t notice the change in rhythm inside her chest or the soft sigh that he pulls from her as he moves further away.

Meg’s voice is barely audible behind the thin ringing in her ears and it’s only then that Ross notices she’s been staring down the empty space of the corridor, Carmy long gone.

“What the fuck was that?”

It’d be a blatant lie to say she knew either. The way her hands had suddenly gone all clammy and her stomach had dropped to her knees with a simple touch was not characteristic of her usual hookups. The day prior’s fear resurfaces again and the erratic beating takes another definition as she swallows hard and turns to Meg with a thin lipped smile.

“That was um… the artist.”

**********

Roslyn never wanted a relationship, she didn’t need to be in one to know they were shit. All the effort it took to maintain a façade of contentment and joy just for it all to crumble down into nothing, made every cell in her body recoil in disgust. Besides, nothing ever made her believe in the fairytale and every couple she met while growing up seemed completely tired of each other's company. Why would she ever want to put herself through that most ancient form of torture? For what, just to not be alone? 

Big whoop. She’d been alone most- if not all her life- and from the vast experience could confidently say it wasn’t as bad as people made it seem. Her own company was a hundred times better than some of the questionable creatures she found herself roped with.

Yet, despite all the reminders and admonitions that she ‘wasn’t made for that kind of thing’ and to ‘just leave what isn’t for you alone’, Ross could not contain the tumultuous thoughts banging heavily around her skull. 

The shift had gone by quickly as she spent more than half of it in her head, finally clocking off autopilot once the crisp air brushes past her cheeks at the employee exit. The air comes with the lingering wisp of tobacco. Ross tries to disguise how accustomed she’s grown to the smell, breathing in deep and walking slowly in his direction. She throws a nod to her right, where Carmen stands leaning on a tree.

“Hey…”

“How was your shift?” He asks a bit awkwardly, pushing himself off and dragging his feet beside her.

“Fine, I think-” Ross stops abruptly.”-hey, is it alright if we like, don’t do anything tonight-”

“Oh shit- no I wasn’t here for-”

“It’s just, my head kinda hurts and-”

“Yeah, I get it- I wasn’t-”

 “I also haven’t eaten so-”

“-I can make you some…thing.”

The silence is filled by tension as his words linger heavy in the air. They slipped past his mouth without contemplation and now weigh more with each second she doesn’t respond. Words turn to dust in the back of her throat- scratchy and uncomfortable- while she tries to come up with a lie on why she wouldn’t find it absolutely appealing to be cooked for.

“It’s okay, you spent the whole day cooking- you don’t have to….”

“I don’t mind it.” He’s soon to assure, keeping his eye contact despite the sharp shake of his head.

Her fingers grow sensitive at the constant assault of her nails, she huffs out a small breath of air and looks up at him. She can only hold Carmen’s strong stare for a few seconds, eyes wavering instead on the treetops above his head.

“No one’s ever really made me dinner before.” Ross delicately whispers her confession.

His offer’s dissected in her head for what feels like an eternity while he just waits in place, knuckles cracking at his sides. A slow smile finally covers her face, nodding gently to him.

“Okay…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

He offers what she has come to know is his soft smile, at least what she can see of it under the dim lighting of the street lamp. The clouds of vapor emanating from both their chests pull her from the unintentional staring contest and she makes a following motion to him with her head.

“I-um- I left the car that way.”

“Right- yeah- okay.” Carmy’s nervous stutter widens her grin.

They begin to walk the few blocks in silence, he’s concentrated on the surrounding ambience- second cigarette in hand- while she attempts to ignore the alarms she has strategically set out, all in the name of self-preservation. 

‘It’s just dinner’, she repeats to herself. ‘It doesn’t mean anything’. 

“Can I ask you somethin’?” He speaks out, pulling her from her head. “And you can totally tell me to fuck off-”

“Probably will, but shoot-” She adds with a light laugh, tired eyes concentrated on their path.

He contemplates his words for a second, the dim roar of tired engines penetrating their small bubble of peace. 

“So you really hate your job-”

“Ooh, hate is not a strong enough word-”

“-Okay, so you loathe your job-”

“There you go…” Her humorous smile triggers his usual small one, the tiny dimple on his left cheek guest starring just briefly but she takes a short second to admire it fully.

“Why do you stay?”

Ross contemplates his question while she plays with the strap of her bag, debating between the option she’s always used to deflect any sort of question, or to undust and pop the lock on the box where her truths lay hidden.

“Well you see, I have this horrible habit where I have to eat and-”

“Oh, fuck off- I’m serious.” His laugh is brief but genuine and it shudders something deep within her- it vibrates through her ribs and changes the tempo in her chest- an earthquake came and gone. 

A slight sense of panic trails behind her external joy, looming just out of sight but present still. She sighs and gulps the tightness down, turning to the empty street before them.

“I wasn’t supposed to be there this long.” Ross finally confesses loud enough so he can barely hear her. “I'm majoring in psychology…”

“So this is temporary?”

“Yeah…” She sighs again, picking at the gel polish she gets specifically to avoid the bad habit. “It’s supposed to be, but I’ve been trying to get my license and failed my exams twice. I only have one more chance before I have to retake the course all over again.”

He’s silent for a while, staring at the grimey ground and searching his head on what to say. “I was always shitty in school… but maybe I can like, try and help you study? Some say it helps explaining it to someone else.”

Carmy’s voice falls into a whisper with the last sentence and draws her gaze away from her fingers and up to his concentrated one.

The way his attention falls solely on her- eyes never straining far from her own- heightens her senses and chills her skin past the warmth of her coat. All she can muster is a thin smile, because anything bigger would trigger the lever that’s already too tight. 

“So psychology?” He changes the subject.

“Yeah, the-uh- child kind.” She awaits the usual taunt that comes with her answer- the ignorant thought that ‘why would children even need a psychologist?’- but it doesn’t. When she looks in his direction, it isn’t there either and she can’t decide if what he’s giving her is worse.

“That sounds pretty cool.” He says instead.

Ross’ brows twitch up momentarily, awe visible only for a few worthy moments. “Yeah it… it is.”

And says nothing else. 

‘Don’t read too much into it’ Ross repeats to herself, as many times as needed to push out the ridiculous thought of anything more than what it is- just a casual thing- out of her head, on the drive to his place.

**********

Part III.

Taglist: @pearlstiare @teteminne, @beebslebobs, @harrysmatcha, @yum-yahgurt, @pussy-f41ry, @kirakombat, @redsakura101 , @hobisunshine13 and that’s it lmao

[drabbles-mc]

Home for the Holidays?

Carmy Berzatto x OC Kalia Mason

For @storiesofsvu Holiday Bingo 2023!

Warnings: 18+, language, smoking, pre-canon, light angsty moments

Word Count: 7.7k

A/N: i have a whole longfic planned for these two that takes place way after this, but this little piece of their backstory has been bouncing around my head for weeks so i'm glad to finally be able to finish and post it!

The Bear Taglist: @garbinge @withmyteeth @darqchilddaydreamz @hausofmamadas @ashlingnarcos @narcolini @justreblogginfics (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

“No, no, I’m not,” Carmy shook his head as he paced back and forth in the alleyway behind the restaurant, “I’m not having this fuckin’ conversation right now. Mi—no, you’re not listening. You never fuckin’ listen I can’t talk about this right now.”

He pulled an aggressive drag from his cigarette as he listened to Mikey going off on the other end of the line. He’d been so engrossed in his argument that he hadn’t even heard the back door of the restaurant open and shut, didn’t catch the dull sound of heels against the blacktop. Turning around to start pacing back in the opposite direction again, he stopped himself short, mid-headshake, when he saw that Kalia had stepped out back as well. He didn’t say anything as he stared at her, now only halfway tuned into the conversation that he was having with Mikey. His brows separated, easing apart rather than being pinched in exhaustion, but the tension in his jaw still held.

Kalia didn’t say anything to him either. She walked up to him without a word and he handed his cigarette over to her. He watched her bring it to her lips, her actions much smoother and calmer than his had been just a few moments before. She folded one arm across her chest, holding her hand out for him to take the cigarette back. He did, noticing but not commenting on the slight smudge of pale pink left on the filter from what was left of her lipstick by that point in her shift.

The whole exchange only took a handful of seconds, but with how quickly conversations moved with Mikey, or any of the Berzatto’s, it was more than enough time for Carmy to lose his footing in the exchange. He realized that as soon as he dialed back into what Mikey was saying, flinching at the whiplash of it all.

Regardless of how much or how little he’d missed, Mikey had clearly picked up on Carmy’s lack of response and made a comment about it. He was still staring at Kalia when he snapped at his brother and said, “No, I’m not fuckin’ listening because you’re not listening to me either. I, I can’t, I’m not talking about this.” He sighed. “No, I’m not. I’m not. Know what I’m doing? I’m hanging up. I am, I’m hanging up the fuckin’ phone.”

Kalia’s eyes widened at the statement, although she couldn’t pretend that she was overly surprised by it. What was a little more surprising was the fact that he actually followed through. As soon as the last syllable left his lips, Carmy pulled the phone away from his ear and ended the call.

He let out a sigh as he shoved his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just tilting his head back and looking up at the sky like it was going to give him some calm, or clarity, even though in all his years it had never done anything of the sort.

Finally, he turned back to Kalia. He took another inhale of his cigarette because saying, “Hey.”

She laughed at the stark difference in pace and tone between his phone conversation and how he was speaking to her. “Hey.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Do you want me to ask about that or just…?”

He couldn’t help but to let out a chuckle when he saw the look on her face as she asked. Light-hearted but not cruelly so. Shaking his head, he finished off his cigarette and dropped it to the ground. “Fuckin’ Mikey.”

She tilted her head. “What’d he say?”

He sighed, leaning back against the wall of the restaurant. “He was asking about Christmas.”

Raising her eyebrows, she just managed a soft, “Oh,” not sure what else to say.

Things had been so new with them the previous Christmas—they had still been in a bit of a limbo. There hadn’t been any expectations, or any real discussions about the holidays. Carmy hadn’t seemed like he wanted to talk about it, so Kalia didn’t waste energy trying to pry. The stakes were different this year, though. She’d been meaning to get around to asking what his plans were, so it seemed like there was no time quite like the present.

“Never calls me any other month of the year to see how I’m doing. But, but sure, yeah, of course. Because he just wants to give me a fuckin’ hard time about it.”

“Are you going home for Christmas?” she asked. It felt like the answer should be obvious but she also knew him well enough to know that acting logically wasn’t always his strong suit. It wasn’t his brother’s either, apparently.

“N—I don’t know. I don’t fuckin’ know,” he muttered, leaning his head back against the wall.

“Do you want to?” she asked. The laugh she let out was more nervous than it was humorous. “Because it doesn’t really seem like you want to.”

He chuckled, unable to stop himself. He knew that she was right, but he also didn’t have the time or the energy to get into all the intricacies of Christmas with the Berzatto’s on their ten-minute smoke break.

“It’s gonna be a fuckin’ mess if I don’t go.” He paused, letting the footage play back of years past. “It’s a fuckin’ mess when I’m there too, though, so who knows.”

She let a few seconds of silence pass before making her offer. “If you don’t want to go, you can always come spend it with my family.” She laughed. “Or if you want a break altogether and want to spend it alone, I get that too.”

He smiled as he stared at her. There was some appeal to the idea of spending Christmas by himself in his tiny apartment. He didn’t even have a tree or a string of lights up—it looked the same way it did the other eleven months of the year. But it would be quiet, calm, things that his childhood home in Chicago never were even on the best day.

He’d only met Kalia’s family once, and he didn’t count it, really, because of the circumstances. He’d just been one face in a sea of many that day. Most of her relatives probably wouldn’t remember that he’d even been there, but Kalia remembered. That was all that really mattered to Carmy anyway. The only other way some of them knew him was based on whatever stories Kalia told them about him, or if he was passing through in the background of a videocall between her and her parents. The notion of going there for the holidays was kind of nice on one hand, but on the other hand it was absolutely terrifying.

Kalia saw him locking up and shutting down in real time. “You don’t have to decide right now,” she said with a laugh. “Just something to keep in mind. An escape route, if you need it.”

His shoulders noticeably relaxed as he nodded. “Yeah, yeah, right. Okay. Thank, thank you.” He cleared his throat as he forced himself off the wall. Gesturing towards the door, he said, “I gotta get back.”

Kalia smiled, nodding. “Go ahead. I still got a couple minutes before I gotta head back in, and,” she rolled her eyes with a laugh, “I’m using every single one of them.”

Carmy smiled and gave her a nod but didn’t say anything else. He walked past her, reaching out and brushing his fingers against hers, letting them catch for half a second as he passed. There was a smile on his face about it until he was back inside the restaurant and the door swung shut behind him.

He purposely ignored the slew of texts and calls from Mikey. He ignored the texts from Nat, too, although there were far less of those. The brunt of her wrath would come when she saw him in person next, whenever that was going to be. Every Christmas he always wanted to blow them off but he hadn’t ever found it in himself to follow through on it. He’d always string together a list of reasons why he had to be there. Always. Plus, if he was honest with himself, he never felt like he had a good enough external reason to bail, something outside of himself. But now it seemed like he did. He’d have to think about it.

It was a few nights later when he let himself into Kalia’s apartment. It wasn’t often that their days off synced up, so they made do by just stopping by the other’s apartment when they had the time, and more importantly the energy, before or after their shifts. It took some doing, but they’d figured it out.

“Hey,” he called out as he toed his shoes off just inside the door. He didn’t hear her respond as he walked towards the kitchen where he could see that the light was on, but he still had the feeling that she was awake. Turning the corner, he started speaking up again. “Lia? You—” he stopped short with a laugh when he got a good look at her.

She was leaning back against the counter right beside the stove with a pot in her hand, separated from her palm by a potholder. She was holding a fork in her other hand, and was currently halfway through eating another forkful of macaroni and cheese.

“Hey,” she mumbled through her mouthful of food as she tried not to send it flying everywhere.

Walking over, Carmy peeked into the pot in her hand. He knew what it was already before he even looked, but he still asked, “What’s going on here?”

She swallowed what was in her mouth so that she could laugh. “Mac ‘n cheese.”

His eyebrows lifted just slightly as a smile stretched across his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Want some?” reaching over, she opened the drawer that housed her silverware and pulled out another fork. “I’ll share.”

He shook his head but still took it. “Sure.”

“I upgraded, you know. No more of the single-serve cups that go in the microwave.”

He laughed as he took a forkful from the pot. “Upgraded to the box?”

“So as not to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

It was a comment that, coming from someone else, he would’ve taken to heart. If it’d been Mikey, or Richie, or anyone back home really, he would’ve snapped back. It would’ve been an argument. But it was hard to jump to being on the defensive with Kalia. It wasn’t that they never argued or got after each other, but she hadn’t ever been the type to make that her default. It was foreign, but it was good.

“Yeah, because everyone knows that boxed Easy-Mac is much, much better than the cups.”

“Obviously,” she said as she gesticulated with her fork.

Carmy smiled, talking through the forkful of macaroni he’d just taken. “Obviously.”

They fell into comfortable silence after that. Part of Carmy wanted to go and shower off the day, wanted to leave his t-shirt and jeans in a heap on the floor of Kalia’s bathroom to be dealt with in the morning, but he couldn’t manage to peel himself away from her. Not even an hour before, he’d had the executive chef breathing down his neck making him want to run into oncoming traffic, but that felt so far away now. Kalia was standing there in her flannel pajama pants and an old t-shirt that had more rips and stains than any shirt or apron Carmy had worn in the kitchen over the years. Her socks were fitting for the time of year, fuzzy, warm, and decorated with snowmen. Her apartment overall was much more festive than Carmy’s was, but that was a low bar. She looked so comfortable. All the time she looked so comfortable, even when shit was hitting the fan. He wondered how she stayed like that all the time. Maybe it was a family thing, because lord knew that him and his family couldn’t stay calm if their lives depended on it.

“Your parents wouldn’t mind if I came for Christmas?” he asked as he tossed his dirty fork into the sink.

Kalia tried not to look too excited, not wanting to get her hopes up too high. “They wouldn’t mind at all. They, you know, they really wanna see you.” She laughed as she scooped the last bit of macaroni onto her fork. “At this point, they probably think I’m keeping you hidden in my basement or something.”

He chuckled, finding a spot beside her leaning back against the counter. “Did you tell them your apartment doesn’t have a basement?”

She rolled her eyes. “Shut up.” There was a pause. “But yeah, if you wanna come with me to my parents’, you can. My car seats at least two.”

“Two plus whatever is living in your back seat,” he replied with a tiny smirk, recalling all the times she simply just tossed whatever was on her passenger seat into the back on the occasions the two of them would go to or from work together.

“You can just walk, you know,” she shot back with a laugh as she moved and set the pot in the sink to soak, too tired and lazy to wash it right in that moment. “Or I can strap you to the roof like a deer.” She walked back over, gently toying with his hair for a moment. “Curls instead of antlers.”

He shook his head, eyes dropping to the floor as he tried not to look as amused as he felt. Taking a deep breath, he looked back at her. “I’ll let you know in a couple days?”

She nodded. “Let me know in a couple days.”

Neither of them brought it up again in the wake of that exchange. The rest of the night went by. Kalia told Carmy the highlights of what had gone on in the dining room during dinner service. Front of house and back of house never had the same brand of chaos and stress going on, but both ends of the house were always kept busy. That was for certain. Carmy listened as he got ready to finally turn in for the night. Kalia was already in bed, sitting with her back against the headboard and blanket pulled over her legs. She had her phone in her hand and Carmy was shuffling around the room but none of it was enough to break the flow of their conversation. Not even when Carmy slid into bed under the covers beside her, blanket draped over him while he had his elbow propped on the pillow on his side of the bed, head resting in his hand as he listened, as they talked.

It wasn’t until two days and three phone calls with his siblings later that Carmy came to a decision. He didn’t know how to start the conversation with Kalia, so instead of getting into all of the reasons why, he just asked, “What should I bring? To your parents’ house, I mean. What should I bring?”

She paused the search for her car keys in her purse when she processed what he’d said. “What should you bring?” she repeated back, smile growing wider with each word. “I don’t…you don’t have to bring anything. You’re bringing me.”

He was watching the sidewalk pass beneath their feet as they walked to her car together. “No, no. I gotta bring something.” He paused, thinking about the types of things people typically brought to gatherings like this. “Wine? There a wine your parents like?”

She shook her head. “My parents don’t drink. No one, um, no one really does when they go to their house, either.”

Carmy raised his eyebrows just slightly. It wasn’t that it was strange that her parents didn’t drink, per se. But he just couldn’t fathom a gathering of his own family with no alcohol involved. He wondered if that would make everything worse.

He realized that he’d been silent for just a few seconds too long for it to be comfortable. “Heard. Right.”

“You don’t have to bring anything,” she emphasized again, “but I’m sure if you wanted to help with prep and stuff my mom would appreciate it. She always,” Kalia rolled her eyes as she unlocked the doors to her car and slid into the driver’s seat, “she always leaves the prep up to my uncle. And he always thinks it’s gonna take way less time than it really does. Which, you know, isn’t a big deal. We just eat a little later—that’s fine. But,” she turned the key in the ignition, “I’m sure he’d love a helping hand, too.”

“What do you guys do?”

“It’s kind of like a hot-pot situation, but not quite. If you see it you’ll get it. Actually,” she laughed as she drove down the road, “we usually do it for New Years but I’m working New Years this year so I convinced them to do it for Christmas instead. It’s like my favorite holiday meal of the year.”

They let the conversation end there, the music from the radio filling the car instead of their own voices. Part of Kalia wanted to ask Carmy what had him making that decision, but she stopped herself. If he wanted to talk about it, he would. And even the things that he did want to talk about, it was rarely something as straight-forward as simply sitting across the table from her and talking about it. It was a lot of off-hand comments and half-stories, a lot of interjecting things into the middle of rants. It was just on everyone else to try and keep up and keep track of it all.

Christmas snuck up on them faster than they realized. Even when they had been discussing plans and logistics, it had felt like some far-off thing. Then, in the blink of an eye, Carmy heard the sound of Kalia letting herself into his apartment on Christmas morning.

“Just me!” she called out as she undid the zipper of her jacket.

Carmy appeared, walking out of his bedroom with a bottle in his hand. “Hey.”

Walking over to him, Kalia couldn’t stop the warm smile that spread across her face. Carmy had on one of his nice sweaters and a fresh, dark pair of jeans. His hair was a little tamer than usual, but not so much that he didn’t look like himself anymore.

Leaning in, she kissed him quickly on the lips. “You look good.”

Carmy looked at her, feeling a little less nervous when he saw how relaxed she seemed. “You too.” Even though her jacket was covering most of it, Carmy still knew what sweater she was wearing—the fuzzy white one that went off both her shoulders.

He was still busy staring at her when she gestured towards the bottle he was holding. “What’s that?”

“Oh,” he held it up so she could read the label, “I just, um, it’s sparkling cider. Is, is that okay? I can leave it if—”

“That’s good,” she stopped him short, nodding and smiling in approval. “They’ll like that.”

His body visibly relaxed at that, shoulders loosening. “Alright, good. Yeah.”

“You need a few more minutes or—”

“I’m good,” he answered her question before she even finished it. “Let me just—my shoes, and, and yeah.”

“Take your time,” she spoke after him as he took off to grab his shoes and jacket.

The drive didn’t take as long as either of them thought it would. It was still enough time for Carmy to reach the brink of driving himself crazy as he sat jittering in the passenger seat. Kalia could only look over at him so many times while she was keeping an eye on the road in front of them, but even in her peripheral she saw him, numerous times, go to reach for the pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket and then stop himself. She wanted to tell him that it was okay, that if he wanted to have one she wasn’t going to kick him out of the car. But he knew that already—she knew that he knew that. Instead, she took one hand off the steering wheel and rested it on his leg. It got the bouncing in his foot to stop but then it just shifted upwards and into his fingers that began to drum against the windowsill.

“It’s not, you know, it’s not like it’s some big to-do. It’s just,” she shrugged, “Christmas. We get together and eat food. No crazy heaps of presents of anything.” She turned and looked at him for a brief moment. “We do secret Santa.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “Yep. We were all broke for a while. Some of us,” she lifted her hand from his leg and pointed at herself, “still kind of are. So it’s just easier that way. Less pressure.”

“Who’d you get?”

“My mom.”

The idea of that happening in his own life was enough to make Carmy’s stomach twist into a knot and it wasn’t even really happening to him. He pushed the feeling down as well as he could. “Wh-what’d you get her?”

“You!” she replied with a laugh. She shook her head. “Kidding. Kind of. But she is so excited to meet you.”

“Shit,” he said without thinking better of it. He froze up as soon as the word came out of his mouth, afraid of what was coming next.

Rather than anger, Kalia just met him with amusement. “She’s not scary. My dad isn’t either, really. My uncle is the one you should probably be worried about.” She paused, switching lanes on the highway. “It was funny, though. The first time I tried to tell her I was dating you, I said I was seeing the chef from the restaurant. And, and I had no idea why she got so mad about it, you know? She didn’t know you.”

“She got mad?”

Kalia could hardly talk through her laughter. “Yeah. Because the last time I talked to her about a chef,” she shook her head, “the chef from the restaurant, I was telling her about your asshole boss.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Now Carmy was laughing too. “She thought you were dating—”

“Yeah,” she cut him off with a laugh and a nod. “So, you know, no matter what you’re going to be better than who she originally thought I’d be bringing home on the holidays.”

“Jesus,” Carmy said as he shook his head, running his hand back through his hair. He had to admit, though, he felt a little better.

When they pulled into the driveway at her parents’ house, Carmy couldn’t stop himself from noticing the other cars in the driveway. Not what type of car or even what color, but just the fact that their driveway was full. He could feel the panic starting to creep back up his spine and out through his limbs. Kalia hadn’t even put her car in park yet and all he was picturing was all the years at his mother’s house, a full driveway, so full that they parked their cars on the sides of the street. The house was even fuller. Every year. So many people and so much noise. So much yelling.

“You ready?” Her voice, once again, pulled him out of his thoughts.

He turned to look at her, nodding although he didn’t know how much he believed it. “Yeah. Um, yeah. I’m, I’m ready. Are you?”

“Come here.” Still buckled in, Kalia leaned over, hand resting on the center console of her car, and kissed him. “They’re going to love you, Carm.”

He let out an unsteady laugh. “Let’s hope.”

Carmy trailed right behind her as she walked up the driveway. He watched her as she knocked on the front door, but that the formality was basically pointless because she was turning the knob with her other hand and pushing it open even as she knocked. She hardly had one foot inside the house and she was calling out, “Hello,” and, “Merry Christmas!” He followed close behind but didn’t say a word, just looking around the house instead.

“Hey!” a man called out as he poked his head out form around a corner. “Look who it is!” He walked over and wrapped Kalia in a tight hug, paying no mind to the knife that he was holding in one hand.

She laughed as she hugged him back. “Careful waving that thing around.”

“Not waving,” he said as he stepped back. Diverting his attention, he looked at Carmy. “You’re the guy, huh?”

Carmy’s eyes went wide, a scared fawn in the headlights. The man’s words didn’t sound threatening or accusatory in any way but Carmy still felt like he was on trial. There was only one correct response to that question and yet he still couldn’t spit it out.

Luckily Kalia stepped in to cover for him. “Can you try that again without the knife in your hand?” she asked with a laugh. Slipping her hand into Carmy’s, she said, “This is Carmy—the guy who is going to make sure we don’t start eating dinner at ten tonight.”

“That only happened once!”

“And I will never let you forget it,” she joked. Looking over at Carmy, she said, “Carm, this is my Uncle Rich.”

“N-nice to meet you,” Carmy said, pulling his hand from Kalia’s so he could shake her uncle’s.

“What’ve we got here?” her uncle asked, breaking off the handshake so he could gesture to the bottle that Carmy was holding in his hand.

Suddenly Carmy was overcome with the urge to throw the thing right back out the front door they’d just walked through. He didn’t want to hand it over, didn’t want to show it, afraid that it was going to be met with ridicule or disdain of some kind.

He fought through it, holding the bottle out to the man in front of him. He somehow managed to keep his hand steady, too. “Just, um, just some sparkling cider. Lia mentioned that you guys don’t really—”

“Alright!” he exclaimed, taking it with the hand that wasn’t holding onto the knife. “Good man.”

Then, like he was letting everyone know that the introduction and conversation was over with, Kalia’s uncle turned on his heel and headed back to the kitchen. When the man rounded the corner back out of sight, Carmy let out a breath that he hadn’t meant to start holding.

“See?” she said as she crouched down to start taking off her shoes. “Not that bad. He’s the…most…out of everyone. You’re gonna be fine.”

Carmy didn’t know how much he believed her, but there was nothing left to do but take her word for it now. He leaned down to unlace his shoes and at that point he knew that he was in it. He was trying to figure out what to say in response to her reassurance when she grabbed his hand and started pulling him deeper into the house.

It couldn’t have felt more different than being home. It couldn’t have felt more different than being around his own family. He’d hardly been able to spit out his own name to Kalia’s parents when he was introducing himself because of all the panic lodged in his throat. There was no way that her mother and father didn’t see it, didn’t hear the strain in his voice. They didn’t say anything, though, didn’t even give him so much as a sideways look about it. They were so kind, gentle even. Carmy knew that he would get around to appreciating that at some point.

He maneuvered his way through an initial round of small talk with the rest of Kalia’s family. He wasn’t graceful about it, and he needed ample assistance from Kalia, but he got through it. It felt foreign and uncomfortable but then he felt the way that Kalia was leaning against him as they all spoke gathered in the living room. Some people were sitting, others standing or half-perched on the arm of the sofa. There were snacks on the coffee table and gift bags under the tree. Music was playing at an appropriate volume and the conversations were loud but they weren’t deafening, weren’t at a volume that would raise anyone’s cortisol levels. It was all lovely and pleasant and yet Carmy had to make a conscious effort to not hold Kalia’s arm in a vice grip.

“Alright.” Her uncle interjected himself into all of the conversations that were happening as he entered the room, a stack of cups in one hand and the bottle of sparkling cider that Carmy had brought in the other. “First round for everyone is on Carmen. Don’t worry,” he jokingly reassured everyone as he passed around cups, “I already tried it—it’s good.”

Carmy could’ve sworn he felt his knees knock together out of nerves—it didn’t matter that everyone seemed perfectly happy and perhaps even excited about it. He felt like he was on trial. He worked through it as he took the cup that Rich handed him, watching him fill it with a generous amount.

“Kali said that you’re my hired help for the night?” he asked as he watched Carmy take a sip.

Carmy nodded, forcing himself to remember not to talk with his mouth full. That was the last thing he needed. “Yeah. I, I’ll even work for free,” he joked and hoped it sounded more confident than it did in his head.

It was passable at least, because Rich laughed as he set the bottle down on the coffee table alongside the rest of everything and motioned for Carmy to follow him. “Dangerous words but come on, then.”

Even though she had been right next to Carmy the entire time and saw everything, he still turned to Kalia and gestured towards her uncle, towards the kitchen. “I’m gonna…” he trailed off, letting the hand gesture finish the sentence for him.

She laughed and nodded. “I heard.” She paused, taking a moment to search his expression. “Want reinforcements?”

He didn’t hesitate to nod. “Maybe. Maybe, yeah,” he answered, laughing despite the nerves.

“Sounds good.”

“What?” Rich said as he watched them both walk towards the kitchen. “Don’t trust me around the kid with a knife in my hand?”

Kaila shook her head as she found a seat on the opposite side of the kitchen island from where the two of them would be prepping everything. “I don’t trust you around anyone with a knife in your hand.”

Carmy was listening to them, sort of, but most of his attention was focused on everything that was laid out on the island in front of him and the other counters in the kitchen. It was chaos, but it was organized chaos. Real organized chaos—not the chaos that Donna spent year after year trying to play off as organized. Even though Carmy had just set foot into the kitchen, he could see the underlying threads of order to it.

“What do you need help with?” Carmy asked, eyes still fixed on the cutting boards in front of him as he started to push up the sleeves of his sweater.

Carmy couldn’t see it, too busy trying to think his way through the next step, but Kalia was across the island from him, smiling. And Rich was standing to the right of him and also smiling. Rich reached behind him and pulled a knife out of the block and handed it over to Carmy. “Dealer’s choice.”

He was about to answer when he took a good look at the knife that was in his hand. “Oh, shit,” he said before he could stop himself. He glanced across at Kalia. “Your parents—”

“Fuck no,” Rich cut him off with a laugh. “I keep these here for me.”

Carmy looked at Kalia for confirmation and she nodded as she sipped on her cider. “It’s true.”

For the first time all night Carmy felt at ease for a moment, as close to calm as he ever really managed to get these days. “Alright. I’ll, uh,” he gestured with his free hand to the cutting board that still had a huge piece of meat that needed to be sliced through, “yeah.”

Rich slid the cutting board so that it was in front of him. “All yours.” He grabbed a fresh cutting board to move onto the next thing. Out of the corner of his eye he watched as Carmy got right to work. Instantly zeroed in. He chuckled, waiting for Kalia to look at him. “Gotta bring him every year.”

She laughed and propped her elbows on the edge of the counter. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She sat and watched the two of them work. They were doing their own thing but somehow still in tandem with each other. She had never mentioned it to Carmy, but her uncle had spent most of his twenties and some of his thirties working in a kitchen. Never at the caliber that Carmy was currently operating at, but it wasn’t nothing. She never said anything, but as the minutes ticked by she had the feeling that Carmy could tell. Neither of them spoke about it but they each knew.

There was no ever truly being relaxed for Carmy. However the way he felt in that moment almost felt like he was cooking in the kitchen of his apartment, or Kalia’s. Not the same stakes of cooking at the restaurant, not the suffocating tension of being back in Chicago in his mom’s kitchen, or Mikey’s. He was listening to the way that Kalia and her uncle were chatting, the way that they would rope him into the conversation just enough to keep him included but not so much that he had to stop what he was doing. A precarious balance.

Carmy was listening to the two of them going back and forth about something that had happened at Christmas the year before when he felt his phone buzzing in the pocket of his jeans. He quickly wiped his hands on the towel hanging off the edge of the island before pulling his phone out. The world came to a screeching halt around him for a moment as he read his brother’s name on the phone screen. It shouldn’t have been surprising. If anything, the only surprising thing was that it had taken so long for someone back home to call him. His money would’ve been on Natalie.

He must’ve been standing there for longer than he realized, because Kalia spoke up, “Hey, you okay?”

Carmy cleared his throat, nodding as he rejected the call and put the phone back in his pocket. “Yeah, yeah I’m good.”

She wasn’t convinced, brows coming together for a moment. “You sure? If you need to—”

“I’m good, Lia,” he kept his voice quiet, not forgetting where he was, but firm enough to make it clear that he didn’t want to get into it all because of where he was. “Just Mikey.”

That answer didn’t do anything to quell her concerns. She knew that there was no such thing as just Mikey. She hadn’t ever met Mikey, or anyone in Carmy’s family for that matter, and she knew that there was a reason for that. He didn’t talk much about his siblings or his mother but there were a lot of moments when he managed to say plenty about them without have to speak much at all. Like the look in his eyes when he saw who was calling.

She knew it wasn’t the time to try and talk about it, so she conceded with a nod. “Okay.”

“Wanna grab stuff for the table, Kali?” Rich inserted himself back into the conversation, diverting it to a new direction with ease.

She hopped up from where she was sitting. “Sure thing.” She slipped behind Carmy to grab the bowls from the cupboard, fingers gently trailing over his back as she passed by him.

The kitchen fell silent once more when she walked out. Both Carmy and Rich went back to finishing up the last of the prep. Carmy was holding his breath as he moved the knife, waiting for the man beside him to say something, to start an argument. He wouldn’t have blamed him. He was used to it, anyhow.

Carmy was tense and braced for a cutting remark, thinking that was why Kalia had been kindly invited to leave the room. He heard the man next to him take a breath and he pinned his lips together in a flat line as he got ready to just get through whatever was coming next.

“Grab a couple bowls out of the cabinet behind me?” Rich said, no angry inflection to his voice at all. Carmy didn’t respond right away because he was still waiting for the hammer to drop. The only thing that got him into motion was the fact that Rich turned and actually looked at him. “Just need two more so we can bring these out. Big ones,” he said, gesturing to the last of the food they’d just finished prepping.

Swallowing past the panic, Carmy nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

He turned and went to the cabinet to grab everything. He had a bowl in one hand and just as he was going to grab the other from the shelf, it slipped from his grip and landed on the floor. It wasn’t a terribly far drop but it was enough to cause it to break, fracturing into pieces scattered across the floor.

“Shit, shit,” Carmy began stammering as he set the other bowl back on the shelf before he accidentally dropped that one too. He was too busy letting out a string of fuck’s and so sorry’s to realize that he was the only one who was worked up about what had just happened.

Kalia had heard the sound and spun on her heel immediately to go and make sure that everything was okay. “Hey, all good?”

“Sorry,” Carmy repeated over again as he stood up, a few of the larger pieces of ceramic in his hands. “I, I just, I fuckin’ dropped—” He stopped short, still shaking his head as he placed the pieces in the trash. “I’m sorry.”

Kalia’s heart clenched inside her chest, knowing that his reaction to such a small, fairly common, accident had to do with much more than what had just happened. “Carmen, it’s fine.”

“Yeah,” her uncle piped in, calm as ever as he brought over the broom and dustpan. “No big deal. Hey,” he chuckled, “least we didn’t have any food in it yet.”

Carmy forced out a short chuckle, not quite accepting that he was getting off the hook that easily. “Right.” His hands were all but trembling against his sides as he looked across the kitchen at Kalia. He didn’t want to step out but he also didn’t want to combust in the middle of her parents’ kitchen. He nodded towards the door. “I’m, I think I’m gonna just, real quick.”

She nodded. “You’re good.”

Rich didn’t say anything until he was done sweeping and putting the last few pieces of the shattered bowl into the garbage. By that point Carmy had slipped his shoes back on and stepped out the front door. He looked over at Kalia, silently but with a look on his face that asked the question for him.

“Christmas is hard. F-family is hard.”

He gave a nod of acknowledgement but didn’t say anything else about it. “Seems like a good kid.”

Her face softened into a smile. “He is.”

He pointed towards the door with the handle of the broom. “Go ahead. I’ll set the rest of this up.”

She gave him a quick hug to say thank you before she followed the same path that Carmy had just taken. She was pulling her jacket on over her shoulders as she stepped outside. Carmy was sitting on the front step of her parents’ house, one hand holding a cigarette and the other pressed to his forehead like it was the only thing stopping his head from rolling clean off.

She sat down next to him. Rather than saying anything, she let her leg fall so that it was resting against the side of his. They sat there in silence at first, just staring at the house across the street with it’s countless lights and so many inflatable decorations on the front lawn, the cords for them alone must’ve been a fire hazard.

Carmy offered the cigarette over to her out of reflex, exhaling a stream of smoke as he held his hand out to her. She smiled and took it, going back to looking across the street as she said, “Do you want to call them?”

He shook his head. He watched her bring the smoke to her lips before saying, “No. No, no I don’t think—no.” He paused, clearing his throat in an attempt to dispel his own awkward feelings. “Sorry about the bowl.”

She smiled at him as she handed the cigarette back. “It’s fine. There’s usually one or two fallen soldiers every holiday.”

He nodded, heart rate still spiked. “Right.” He took another drag. “They seem nice—your family.”

“Yeah, they’re alright,” she joked.

“Your uncle calls you Kali.”

She nodded, leaning against his side. “He does.” She tilted her head so that she was looking at him. “What about it?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just, I always—just something I noticed.”

“Well, when my sister was around having Luci and Lia would’ve been, I don’t know, borderline cruel?” she laughed. “So he settled on Kali for me. Besides, my uncle called you a good kid. So we’re both doing alright.” She watched as he smiled for a moment and snubbed out the last of the cigarette. “You okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah. S-sorry. About all of that. And this.”

She placed her hand on his leg. “Wanna go eat?”

“Yeah.” He slowly stood up and offered her a hand to help do the same. “Thank you.”

She brushed off the backs of her legs. “Of course. You know—”

They both gave pause when they heard Carmy’s phone going off again. She saw him hesitate before taking it out to see who was calling even though they both already knew. Natalie’s name was lighting up the screen now. Carmy was picturing what his mom’s house was probably like at that point, certainly not as quiet and happy as what was waiting for him on the other side of the door that he was currently standing in front of.

“Do you wanna answer? Talk to them for a minute? I can, you know,” she gestured to the house.

Carmy thought on it until he missed the call. It was only then that he shook his head. “No. No it’s fine.” He shut his phone completely off. “I’ll figure that shit out later.”

There was a brief moment of hesitation but she nodded. “Okay.”

He watched her reach for the door. It took a couple seconds to for him to make his thoughts translate into motion, but once he did, he reached for her hand that wasn’t on the door. He pulled her back just enough to stop her from opening the door. When she turned around to ask him if everything was alright, he pulled her in and pressed a kiss to her lips that quickly turned into a kiss on her cheek as he wrapped his arms around her in a hug. He hooked his chin over her shoulder, squeezing her tight to him as he shut his eyes for a moment. She returned the embrace, matching his energy with one hand splayed across his back and the other resting on the back of his head.

When he pulled away, some of the tension was gone from his shoulders. Despite the gap between them, his fingers were still tangled with hers. He offered a small, almost embarrassed smile. “Thank you, you know, for, for all this.”

Her smile was wide, bright. Nodding, she leaned in and kissed him quickly on the lips. “You’re always welcome here.”

That was the last that either of them said about it before heading back into the house. As soon as they opened the door they could hear the sounds of bowls being passed around and set down on the table. Everyone was talking and laughing, all of the conversation condensed into one space now.

No one batted an eye when the two of them stepped into the dining room and found their seats at one end of the table. They got pulled right into the conversation like they had been there the entire time. Carmy’s leg bounced lightly underneath the table as he looked at all the food spread out in front of them all.

Managing to get himself out of his head for a moment, he accepted the bowl that was being passed to him. Kalia’s uncle nodded as he handed it over, following it up with a pair of chopsticks. “Know how to use those?” he asked with a laugh.

Carmy chuckled as he nodded, smile coming easier than he thought it would. “I do alright, yeah.”

“Good,” he remarked as he sat back down. Laughter was tinging his voice as he said, “Be a shame if you did all that work and you couldn’t eat any of it.”

“Yeah,” Carmy agreed, laughing along with him, “that’d be rough.”

He was so focused on the sound of everyone laughing and talking that he almost didn’t realize the way that Kalia placed her hand on his leg again. He didn’t notice it until he felt himself stop jittering. He turned to look at her, about to reassure her that he was fine, but she was already wrapped up in a conversation with her cousin. Carmy smiled, putting his hand on top of hers as it rested on his leg. She didn’t miss a beat in her conversation as she gave his hand a gentle squeeze. He felt a little more of the tension drip out from his shoulders as he settled into his seat, wrapping his head around where he really was.

[nuka-cherries]

Sweet Like Honey

Fandom: The Bear (2022) Pairing: Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto x Aurora Saltillo (oc)

A double Michelin star(s) award winning pastry chef, Aurora Saltillo is adjusting to a complicated world without her mother and without Mikey. Just when she is barely starting to see process in The Beef, Carmy takes over and enters her life again.

Carmy, the same rival from culinary school. Carmy, the same cold-hearted bastard from New York City who took her dream job. Carmy, the same one who ultimately broke Mikey's heart.

Simply said, Aurora can't stand Carmy; Carmy can't stand Aurora. And now, they have to work together.

It only gets more complicated from there. \\\ Latina OC.

Lindsey Morgan as Aurora Saltillo.

Thank you @thatone-brightstar for the cheering! ily!

Spotify soundtrack here!

AO3 Link here!

Lindsey Morgan as Aurora Saltillo | Ming-Na Wen as Ming Saltillo     

Aurora Saltillo contemplated every decision she had made up to that point in time. 

Carmy was not a bad person. But when he got serious, he got serious. For Aurora, cooking and baking was fun. It was her joy. She made her own quinceañera cake when she turned fifteen. She catered meals for her family. Growing up with a Mexican biological mother and a Chinese adoptive step mother, she fully embraced both cultures and proudly incorporated both into her cooking. 

That was, until she disappeared for two years following a personal crisis and a major breakdown after her mother’s diagnosis. And COVID. Can’t forget that. At least at The Beef, no one questioned her disappearance. They were there for her, unlike the culinary scene in New York. The Beef had her back. 

Between losing her mother a month before Mikey’s suicide, there was too much going on for her to process anything. 

Now, the kitchen was cleaned up and it has calmed down. Well, more like it had burned out. 

Today was a fucked up day and those did not happen very often. 

Aurora was too amped up on adrenaline to cry in the freezer. She was too devoted to Mikey to leave. Mikey should be in the kitchen, cooking with them, calming everyone the hell down and cracking jokes and being silly.

So, she numbly took a step back, looking at the recipe for pure disaster.

One energy drink, two stars, three major breakdowns and four tragedies later, Aurora found herself here. In the middle of the aftermath of an angry kitchen. The online orders got fucked up. Everything got fucked up.

Syd walked out. Marcus walked out. Everyone was angry. Richie was bleeding. Everyone was pissed off. But ultimately, the day was over and they could all go home and leave the stress behind. 

Syd was not answering Aurora’s texts. Marcus sent her to voicemail.

It was a fucked-up day.

But at least there was tomorrow.

Aurora had cussed out Carmy in the kitchen once the last order was done. She kept it together. Then the onions had to happen. She fucked up an onion. She almost walked out. But she remembered where she was. She remembered who she was. 

And she cussed Carmy out to the point even his ancestors must have felt the shame.

She was angry. They were both angry. Frustrated. Hurt.

Richie tried to lead her to the cooler and tried to have her sit there for twenty minutes. She only made it for five. She was too angry to even feel the cold. 

“Nothing smart to say this time?”

Here we go…

It was going to be one of those exits, it seemed.

“Plenty,” Aurora said flatly. “Today was a fucked up day, Carm.”

“Don’t need the reminder.”

He did.

“No, you fucking do,” Aurora said. “You had two amazing chefs walk out on you today. Be lucky you didn’t lose three.”

“You were going to walk out too?”

“I was tempted.”

“Well, chef of the year goes to you.” Carmy exhaled the smoke.

Somehow, that was what got to Aurora.

“You know what? Do me a favor—no, do us all a favor—and go home, get the fattest fucking blunt, smoke it and chill the fuck out,” Aurora snapped. “Today was a fucked up day and your shitty attitude is what drove everyone apart. Mistakes happen! It happens! But you’re too much of a fucking egoistical perfectionist to realize it.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

Aurora ran out of steam. She let out a huff. “Fine.” She turned on her heels and began to talk to the train station.

“Wait.”

“What is it?”

“Marcus’s donut. It was…” Carmy trailed off. “It was good.”

A really weird olive branch.

“Of course, it was. Marcus made it.” Aurora tightened her coat. “Goodnight, Carmy.”

On a rough day like this, Mikey would have hugged her. Told her it was okay. He would have reassured her that everything was fine and to cool off in the cooler so she could get cooler.

Boy, did she sob at Mikey’s funeral.

She was broken. Everything was broken. Her best friend, lost and gone. The one who called her Rora. The one who called her the Little Lion, who liked to roar. Marcus held her in his arms for comfort and so she would not collapse again. Her mom, widow, held Richie’s arm.

She did not connect the dots about Carmy being the same Carmen from New York City, nor the same asshole from culinary school while at the funeral. She was too busy crying. She couldn’t compose herself for Richie’s sake, as much as she tried to tell herself to do so. All that was on her mind was Mikey. All she could process was Mikey. All she could think of was Mikey on the cold table. 

Richie didn’t blame her either. 

At his apartment after the service, she curled up with him on the couch on his lap, held each other in silence. Watched the Blackhawks game on low volume. Both of their eyes were swollen from crying. Throats numb from the sobs. He merely held her. Mourning for the same man who should have been alive. She fell asleep like that.

She woke up to Richie talking to Marcus in the middle of the night. About how he was worried about Aurora. About how he was in shock and felt like an endless nightmare.

Mikey stressed about The Beef. She knew that. She was the one sitting on Mikey’s desk trying to crunch the numbers on her calculator app on what supplies they could get in bulk from the dollar store. The Lion Perch, as she called it. She was an optimist. She was the one who was trying to fix it all alongside him. 

She was the one who was with Richie when they identified the body too.

A month later, she returned to work at the Beef to Carmy trying to fix everything. The same Carmy who took her dream job. The same Carmy who despised her in culinary school. 

Just like in New York City, Carmy was making it worse.

Her mom was in the kitchen watching the telenovela when Aurora got home.

“Ma, I’m home!” She loudly greeted.

“Hey baby!” Her mom greeted. “Dinner is ready. I made sesame beef.”

Aurora loved making dinner. It was one of her favorite meals to make, next to breakfast. But sometimes, her mom took over and unexpectedly made it. She said it was to vary the flavor. But Aurora knew it was to try to take the weight off her chest.

But her mom cooked something. She actually cooked! 

This was a win. This was a big win. Her mom rarely cooked after her mama’s funeral. 

“Fuck yeah! How was work?” 

“Shit,” her mother said simply. “But I survived. What about you?”

It was horrible. I miss Mikey. I miss mom. 

Instead, Aurora shrugged and laid her head on her mom’s shoulder. “I made it through.” She sat down at the kitchen table. “Come on, ma. I do not want to miss this part.” She gestured to sit next to her. 

At least there was tomorrow.

[queers-gambit]

The Business That Pays You

prompt: ( requested ) not all disabilities are visible. being accosted for something out of your control angers the watchdog - your boyfriend, Carmy. additional request: protective Carmy.

pairing: Carmen 'Carmy' Berzatto x disabled!female!reader

fandom masterlist: FX's The Bear

word count: 4.5k+

note: it's not the best, it's short, doesn't really focus on Carm being protective but it'll do for now.

warnings: incredibly niche, depiction of invisible disabilities from author's personal experience, need and use of medical equipment, author doesn't pay for therapy and projects hard in this, cursing, Lord's name in vain, strangers picking fights.

Your mother raised you to be poised, collected, personable. Your mother indeed raised a lady; someone was independent, who valued morals and education, who showed equal respect to both custodian and CEO. Your mother instilled a set of beliefs that you refused to dismantle; becoming someone who knew right from wrong, to be helpful, kind, compassionate, empathetic.

Your mother, however, did not raise you to be a bitch. She did not raise you to take other people's shit, she did not raise you to take life for granted; to walk away from confrontation as much as she taught you to stand up for yourself.

People saw you and made snap judgements; thinking they could manipulate and control you, offer harassment and instill a sense of fear in you. Your mother raised you to only fear the wrath of God, not the opinions of privileged, foul-mouthed nobodies who couldn't understand a Goddamn thing you endure. She did not feed you from silver spoons; you had no preconceived notions about life's realities, but instead of becoming pessimistic, you were extraordinarily optimistic because the world had enough negativity in it.

However, despite the strength your mother built in you, that did not mean you were indestructible or any less human than anyone else. You weren't some robot who could turn emotions off and operate mechanically, you had a heart despite how your mother tried to program it to keep you safe from emotional turmoil.

The world could tear anyone down, she didn't want you defenseless against forces that would take advantage of you; she understood there was often no say in how life played out, so, if she could, she wanted to prepare you for what you could control.

All that to say, your mama didn't raise no bitch - but that didn't mean your feelings couldn't be hurt. While graceful, you had both bark and bite; traits that came in handy when defending yourself against wrongful opinions that drained your energy. Since starting high school at 14, you were always the oddball out - the need for a medical aids making it that much harder to fit in amongst able-bodied peers. Since that age, you were accustomed to every Tom, Dick, and Harry voicing their opinion about you; constantly wondering what was "wrong" when you seemed perfectly capable to their naked eye.

They had no business being in your business. No right to know what medical complications you endure, nor the diagnosis bestowed or any explanation for why you needed medical equipment. Didn't stop anyone from voicing their questions, though, feeling some kind of sick entitlement to answers only you could provide.

You were human, why wasn't that enough? You were a person with real feelings, someone with a heart, someone who bled red and had a thick desire for friendship, love, and acceptance.

One look at you and people would think you're perfectly normal, until the days your chronic medical condition flared its ugly head and forced you to rely on mobility aids. You looked normal, but the truth was, you body was in a chronic state of malfunction and sometimes, you needed braces on your ankles, knees, wrists - shit, even your hips! They couldn't tell by looking at you, but the pain was insurmountable. They couldn't tell by looking at you, but you were at a constant disadvantage. They couldn't tell by looking at you, but life was a never-ending nightmare of confusion that made everyday a little extra complicated.

No, nobody could tell - until you were on the ground. Until you had a dislocated joint. Until you lost control of your body and were forced to operate with limited energy and capability.

As you got older, you learned new tips and tricks that could help navigate life a little easier. You made sure to prioritize your rest, drank two liters of water a day, tried to keep a balanced diet, always took your medicines, and exercised to the best of your limited ability. You did whatever was in your power to help yourself, but most people didn't see it this way.

A lot of people just saw you as an inconvenience, someone who complained a lot and held no stake in this life.

One of your newer accommodations was actually more of a necessity. A qualified rheumatologist recommended you get a cane to help keep your balance and prevent unfortunate injury - being a common occurrence for you. So, a cane was added to your inventory and holy shit, did you hate it. You were used to your disability being invisible, allowing you to just skate by under most radars, but with this mobility aid, you couldn't deflect anymore. You were victim to gossip, a spectacle for people to stare at, a curiosity people questioned without real regard to your emotions.

They figured since you were sick and had been for so long, you were at peace with what was "wrong" and wouldn't be triggered by their jarring questions. You hated it, being asked what was "wrong" with you, why you needed a cane when you appeared fit, how you split your lip or sprained your ankle, why you didn't play anymore sports and spent your free time at a hospital - not considering it wasn't a choice you made willingly.

They considered you selfish for prioritizing yourself; telling you that the world was cruel and unfair, that you weren't special, that you didn't deserve "special treatment" because your disability wasn't directly in their face.

They questioned why you wore braces one day and not the next. They wondered how you got sick to begin with. They wanted to know how bad it truly could've been if you still appeared well-enough.

Many thought you were lying about your disability, not understanding what a "flare up" meant; where your body had lulled into a state of homeostasis before being rattled into painful action. They didn't consider that your "normal" was probably on par with their "worst days". Their questions irritated you, yes, but their assumptions just straight up pissed you off - thinking their hour of Googling was enough to compete with years of attending specialty appointments with qualified physicians.

As a direct result, you developed the philosophy that you can't know something if you don't ask questions. However, now you just hated having the responsibility of teaching them thrust upon you when already being the patient - thinking it shouldn't be your role to play.

You already didn't ask for this illness, you certainly didn't ask to be the one that had to make people understand that you were still viable and worthy - like every other human being. You didn't think educating the ignorant should be your duty, but yet again, who better could understand and put everything in words? Who else could convey your situation, explain how you felt, narrate what you endured?

So, for years, you developed a sort of passive attitude, figuring if someone was curious enough to ask questions, the least you could do was answer truthfully to avoid speculations and assumptions. Perhaps it would make the next chronically ill / disabled person's life a little easier by lifting the burden of education from their shoulders. There was no use in feeling bitter anymore, this was your reality and there was no escape; so, your attitude softened and you became a little more open and forthcoming in your tribulations.

Something Carmy admired since the first day he met you.

It was natural for you to feel skeptical when a desirable, able-bodied, very attractive and talented chef took a sudden interest in you; fearing he had some weird kink or wanted to get his jollies by dating "the sick girl". He proved you wrong around every corner, and after keeping him at bay for several months, came around to the idea of going on a real date. This time, when he asked questions to better understand you, your answers were honest, raw, open, and detailed - wanting him to get the full picture to avoid surprise later down the line. It was the least you could do: giving him a look into what dating you would look like, providing every opening to let him run away.

If anything, it made Carmy cling to you tighter.

He impressed you by how easily he accepted your truth. Next thing you knew, the label "sick" or "disabled" was all but vanished from your mind; Carmy making you feel simply human and as if your state was more than enough for him. He treated you with compassion, and if you had a flare-up in front of him, he remained calm and level headed in order to best care for you. Didn't mean he wasn't afraid or startled, but he was at least capable to help in the moment and ensure your safety. That was something Carmy made you feel: safe.

Safe, understood, like you were enough. As if your condition didn't deplete you, but added to who you are.

Carmen Berzatto - or Carmy - was truly one of a kind. A man of rare stock and breed, someone you confided in and trusted; someone who never needed you to be anything more than what you already are. Yes, you were disabled, but Carmy made you feel alive, passionate, and excited to tackle each and every single day; a sensation you have not known since childhood. Since before your illness took over your life.

However, there were some days that even Carmy couldn't save you from. After being assigned your cane, you were recommended to a physical therapist, who taught you the proper ways to best utilize your new mobility aid. Never have you considered there to be logistics behind such a device, but after a brief tutorial, you could feel the difference in use and developed a sense of gratefulness for the helpful tips.

"One last thing," the PT informed you before you could leave, "I'm not saying you will, but a lot of our patients who have invisible disabilities have reported they've encountered individuals who harass them for using their aids in public."

You didn't put stock into his words, just nodding and using your cane to hobble to your car and get back home.

You honestly didn't even think about the warning for weeks... Until one day, you were boarding the bus with your cane and boyfriend with the intent of heading to The Beef to pick out appliances for the renovations. Carmy normally would've drove, but his car was at the mechanics - leaving you both dependent on public transportation like your days in college.

You panted lightly as you climbed the stairs, feeling more tired than a normal day, but still smiling and nodding at the bus driver, swiped your pass, and limped down the short aisle to an open handicap seat Carmy pointed out to you. With a breath of relief, you relaxed slightly to try and relieve tension in your muscles, boyfriend standing beside you to let your head rest on his belly; the bus making several stops before your destination.

When approaching The Beef, you pulled the wire, heard the bus chime in acknowledgment of your stop, and stood from your seat with Carmy's helpful hand in yours; stomping your cane to catch your weight when it lurched while trying to adjust to your new position.

"All right, baby?" Carm checked, eyes wider than normal; able to recognize a flare-up was working into your system as your weakness grew more apparent.

"Yeah," you mumbled, ignoring the sweat dotting your upper lip as your adrenaline was engaged in order to keep you upright.

"Wow," a snotty voice leered slowly, seeing an older, dark-haired woman eyeing you with a curled lip, "bad enough you stole a handicap seat, but you're really using a cane, too?" She scoffed, "Way to lay it on thick. You look absolutely fine, you don't even need that - "

"Excuse me? Do I know you? Did I ask your opinion?" You snapped, the bus going quiet as patrons eavesdropped on the confrontation. Carmy readjusted beside you, his anger and confusion flaring.

"Well, look at you," she gestured, "perfectly healthy but trying to lie about the state of your health? That's so pathetic! You don't even need that cane! Way to steal it out from under someone who does need it, no wonder Medicaid's all backed up. It's 'cause of people like you thinking it's cute and will get them attention or special treatment that the truly disabled can't get their necessary supplies."

You barked a laugh, cutting off Carmy's ready response. He glanced at you in confusion, only seeing entertainment marring yor features. So, you sneered, "Wow, didn't realize I was talking to Superman."

"What does that even mean?" She sneered.

"Oh, sorry, just thought that since you had X-ray vision and all, you must've been him. You know, since you have such an extensive opinion on my disability and all."

"Wow," her eyes rolled as Carmy snickered, "Millennials are truly the worst - "

"I'm Gen Z, bitch," you cut her off, "and just because I don't look like it in your untrained opinion, doesn't mean my disability is any less valid. You know, not all of them are visible - some of us suffer on the inside and hide the outside really well."

"Something you might wanna learn to do - got a whole lot of ugly you might wanna cover up," Carmy scoffed, shaking his head. "C'mon, baby, don't gotta stand here and listen to this kinda bullshit."

"I just think it's shitty of you to steal equipment out from under those who genuinely need it!" The woman continued, making you pause in slight interest. "You're young, your sprained ankle doesn't warrant a cane - you're just using it for the attention, probably want people to feel bad for you. What? Your little boyfriend doesn't dote on you enough?"

"Listen, lady," Carmy snapped, "we've been decently nice, but you're asking for us to get mean. Why don't you fuck off - you don't have the faintest idea what's wrong with her, I don't think you get to say what's necessary and what's not. You're not her doctor, you have no idea what the issue is, so, please, kindly refrain from imposing your bitterness onto other people. Mind the business that pays you, lady, and maybe you won't be so brash and cranky."

"Jesus, she sounds like my little brother when he needs a nap," you tacked on. "Talk about needing attention - throwing a public tantrum is definitely the way to do that."

"I'm just saying!" She defended, noting how the bus of patrons were glaring at her and shaking their heads, "You look perfectly healthy, there can't seriously be something wrong. You would look way worse if there was something real - "

"Jesus, fuck, use your X-ray vision, Superman, then maybe you'd see how brazenly wrong you are," Carmy snapped, your eyes rolling bitterly. You hobbling towards the door, Carmy's warmth at your flank assuring you he was following.

You offered stiffly, "And for whatever it's worth, I had a trained medical professional prescribe this cane as a mobility aid - I don't need some Karen on the bus offering unsolicited opinions."

"I am not a Karen!" She gasped shrilly, looking mortally offended. "You little brat!"

"Not doin' a damn thing to beat those Karen allegations, I see," Carmy chuckled, slinking an arm around your waist; feeling incredibly protective against these judgements. "You might wanna start minding the business that pays you - which certain, isn't us."

"Hope you have as shitty a day as your attitude," you wished her with a smile when the bus pulled up to the curb, easing yourself down the stairs and onto the sidewalk with Carmy's large hands splayed to ensure you didn't trip or fall.

"Jesus Christ," He cursed, glaring at the bus as it pulled away, "you deal with that kinda shit often?"

"More than I should," you shook your head. "Just - let it go, Carm, it doesn't mean shit. The opinions of one dumbass isn't seriously going to make me embarrassed to use my cane."

"Can't believe the nerve of some people," he shook his head, walking on the side of the street to keep you tucked into his side. "I'm sorry you gotta hear that bullshit, baby, Jesus. Only heard it once and I'm fuckin' pissed."

You weren't sure what you felt, but definitely prickly, irritated, annoyed, and very frustrated. Knowing Carmy was just as wound up helped you feel less alone, and the fact that he tried to protect you from the onslaught of rudeness made you a little fuzzy. Perhaps this world wasn't totally doomed...

However, it seemed that wouldn't be your only encounter with a loud-mouth Karen that day. After helping Carmy with certain designs and decisions at The Beef, he informed you that a health inspector was coming to run point and after, you could go home together and soak the irritated joints that were swelling to twice the size they should be. Richie promised to your two a ride home, revoking the need to utilize public transportation. You didn't mind the bus, but it was a helluva lot easier to get in or out of a car, plus it reduces exposure to nosy strangers, their stares, and any comments people might feel the need to voice.

You stationed yourself in the office with Sugar, helping her with anything she asked, and when you limped onto the main floor, you saw an unknown man and woman in pressed suits talking to Carmy and Richie.

You leaned on a counter and listened, cane stationed in front of you, sighing internally when the man eyed you with mild trepidation. You were so close to snapping, but didn't get the chance because he was asking decently kindly (as if you two were friends), "You okay, Miss?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, yeah," you nodded. "Is there anything I can do to help the inspection run smoother?"

"Do you work here?"

"My boyfriend owns and operates the place, I'm just here to help if it's needed."

"Right..." His head shook, shrugging, "Well, uh, no, ma'am, we're just about to finish. Say, if you don't mind me asking, what's with the cane? I mean, you look pretty young, why do you need it? I mean, is it even necessary?"

Carmy was at your side without you even noticing him approaching, arm sliding around your neck to dangle casually as his brows furrowed with mistrust. He asked stiffly, "What's it matter to you?"

"Well, I guess it doesn't, but I was just curious. You mostly see the elderly with canes, a little weird to see someone so vibrant using one, too. I mean," he eyed you up and down, "you look perfectly healthy in my opinion."

"I don't remember her asking for your opinion," Carmy snapped, arm tightening in irritation to keep you close to his side.

With a sigh, you pet his waist and revealed (a brief and condensed version of) your medical diagnosis, explaining what it meant and what symptoms you were forced to endure all day, everyday. "That good enough for you, sir?" You asked sharply. "Didn't realize medical doctors now did health inspections - bit of a step down, isn't it?"

"I'm not a doctor, I'm just pointing out, you don't look sick to me. I'm wondering why you would use a cane if there's nothing wrong? Look, I know about your illness - I have a niece who has the same condition and she's perfectly fine, doesn't need a cane - "

Carmy snapped, "The fuck are you trying to get at?"

"Carm - "

"No, no, fuck that," he deflected your words, "the fuck is this guy on? Where do you get the audacity to have an opinion on a stranger's health?"

"It's just weird and I'm familiar with the illness," he scoffed, your throat swelling with frustration and strangling any response you might've defended yourself with. Something in your chest warmed with anger, raising your heart rate and blood pressure.

It was as if Carmy could sense this, snapping at the man, "It's not just an 'illness', it's an actual disability, asshole."

"It's literally just an inconvenience, there's not something seriously medically wrong - you'd look a lot worse if there was. I mean, there are other people out there with your condition that don't need a cane or braces, and there's also people who need a cane more than you - "

"Disabilities can be invisible, you fuckin' dumbass," Carmy bristled loudly, making Cousin and the female inspector look over. "You got some nerve, don't you? Trying to have impose an unsolicited opinion on something that has literally nothing to do with you?"

"It was just an observation, sir - "

"That you didn't need to voice. You're being fucking offensive and insensitive, she answered your little questions - which is more than I would've done - so you can fuck off now. Nobody owes you - or anyone else - an explanation about their Goddamn health. It's personal and you're just an asshole for asking a stranger about it. Especially one that was just fuckin' standing here, minding her business - you literally came to her, outta your way, and started attacking her."

"I'm not attacking anyone - "

"We good over here, Cousin?" Richie asked with a growl, stalking over with a glare marring his features; female inspector silently following in obvious discomfort.

"Yeah, Cousin, just this dumb fuckin' asshole harassing Y/N about her cane," Carmy answered, neck and cheeks reddening from his anger. Richie and Carmy narrowed their eyes almost in sync, making the inspector hold his hands up in defense.

"The fuck he say?" Richie snapped.

"That she looks too healthy, how his niece doesn't need a cane and is, also, sick, oh, and that she doesn't need her cane - "

"Why? 'Cause you can't see whatever's physically wrong? So you think she doesn't need extra assistance 'cause you can't outright point at her disability?" Richie barked with anger, a vein bulging and pulsing. "Didn't know we had a doctor in the house, excuse the fuck outta us!"

"I'm not a doctor - "

"Oh, so, just a Karen who offers their opinion nobody asks for?" You finally chimed in after calming your emotions. "Or does that make you a Kevin?"

"No, I think Karen's accurate," Richie nodded at you, hands moving to his hips. "Always sayin' the wrong shit, imposin' themselves, right?"

"Accurate," Carmy snapped, dropping his arm to hold your waist.

"Look, I don't know why you're all getting so defensive! I'm the one with the experience, my niece is sick, too, I'm just trying to understand how you think you're different enough to need a cane," The inspector snapped, "I'm just saying, there's nothing actually wrong with her, my niece has explained the symptoms to me, so why use a cane? For attention?"

"Oh, this fuckin' guy!"

"The fuck did you just say!?"

"Dale," his coworker tried to intervene but was ignored.

"Oh, Jesus fuck!" Richie barked loudly. "Is he fuckin' serious? He bein' serious!?"

"'For attention'?" Carmy repeated over Richie, narrowing his eyes and bunching his brows, "Wow, that's fucking golden! Dude has one family member, had one conversation with her as a patient, and thinks everyone with that condition has the same disadvantages! The same fuckin' symptoms - you fuckin' poser!"

"Fuckin' bitch-ass-loser," Richie still ranted.

"Dumb fuckin' idiot. Who needs the attention now?" Carmy sneered.

"She's too young to need a cane and she doesn't even look - "

"Dale!"

"I think you might wanna fuck off outta here - right fuckin' now," Carmy seethed, "and be prepared when you see your boss next, we're gonna report your dumbass to your superiors. You're being condescending and rude, meddling in someone's health - which isn't remotely any of your business. She was nice enough to answer your stupid fuckin' questions, she even explained what was wrong, but you're still gonna shame her? 'Cause you think she looks fine and healthy?"

"Yeah, time for you to get the fuck out! The more I hear, the more pissed off I feel - get out, goodbye, fuck off, before I make this into a physical altercation," Richie growled, moving forward to coral the inspectors towards the door. He was yelling profanities, the male inspector trying to defend himself and his opinions; still trying to say you must've been faking the need for a cane since there was no way someone who looked like you could need it. The woman was apologizing profusely, but was drowned out over the Chi-Town accents yelling at one another.

When Richie slammed and locked the door, still mumbling to himself in anger, Carmy turned towards you and asked, "You okay, baby? Shit, I'm sorry about that - "

"Don't, hey, it's okay," You soothed.

"It's really not - I mean, Jesus Christ," he seethed, "what the fuck even was that? Twice in one day? Gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me."

"I can't say I'm surprised," you shrugged. "I was warned people get lippy when they see people like me, who don't outright look disabled but still need to use their aids."

"Fuckin' bullshit, that's what it is!" Richie raged in a rant. "How the fuck do you put up with that shit? I'd be swinging that cane around like a fuckin' nunchuck - Jesus - fuck these dickheads! Knock their dumb fuckin' opinionated asses out!"

You paused, slowly perking your brows as Carmy chuckled, "Ah, fuck, you just gave her an idea, Richie, Goddamnit. Am I gonna get a call from the cops to come bail you out after you go on a rampage with your cane as your weapon of choice?" He asked you.

"You might..."

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't, dollface," Richie smirked. "But seriously, babe, what the hell? Does that happen often?"

You sighed, admitting, "More than you'd think, more than I'd like to deal with. People don't believe what they can't see, so they can only go based on what they think they know."

"They don't gotta open their fuckin' mouths, though," Carmy shook his head, skin still cherried from his anger. "It's fuckin' rude - "

"People love having their opinions, baby, that won't change," you sighed, squeezing his waist. "But thank you, both of you, for coming to my rescue."

"You don't need rescuing," Richie sighed, hands back to his hips.

"Yeah, we know you had it covered, just fuckin' angered me hearin' that shit," Carmy scoffed. "You shouldn't be the only one defending your health."

"You want me to hit him with my car? Give him a reason to need a cane, too?" Richie offered, the two inspectors seen outside the window at their truck; exchanging heated words, arguing.

You paused to consider his offer with a hum, Carmy barking, "Hey, hey, no, no, no, bad idea, no hitting people with cars!"

"You're missing the point - it's giving that Karen a reason to use a cane, too, and for us to mock him that he doesn't look like he needs it."

"No."

"Bitch-ass."

When Carmy left you two alone to deal with something in the kitchen, Richie smirked and whispered to you, "I'm gonna hit him with my car."

"You're a good friend," you chuckled, his grin genuine as he offered his arm; letting you take it and limp back into the kitchen.

requesting rules and masterlist

The Bear masterlist

[thecapricunt1616]

Carmy x Newborn Anxiety

Can we just talk about the absolute panic Carmy would feel the first time his newborn does periodic breathing while asleep. If you don’t know what that is - essentially as humans we will just stop breathing for a little bit as infants. It’s completely normal, it only lasts 10 seconds at most usually.

But if Carmy wasn’t aware of this and was just standing above the crib watching his baby sleep as any new parent does and that kid stopped breathing he would literally be launched 0-100 anxiety attack and practically startle them awake in panic by shaking their leg to make sure they were still alive 😭😭 and he would literally come in the bedroom in tears like full choke sobbing being like “BABE. BABE. HE STOPPED BREATHING - I-IT WAS LIKE IT - HE JUST HELD HIS BREATH I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD BABE I THOUGHT HE DIED” and you’re just startled out of a dead sleep hearing “HE STOPPED BREATHING” and you’re LEAPING out of bed and panicking until you realize the baby is crying and fine and in Carmys arms as he comforts them and you’re just like

“Oh my god- Bear! You nearly gave me a heart attack!!! They said this at the hospital remember!!! We just need to count to ten and if he doesn’t keep breathing we need to call 911 - he’s fine!” And you’re just hugging him and kissing his teary cheeks and he’s just like

“They told us so much at the hospital I was afraid it was SIDS!” Like that man would be TEEERRRIFFIED he would be doing research and find that most SIDS angels pass between 1 and 6 am so he would literally change his sleeping schedule so he could watch them sleep. The whole time he’s sitting on his laptop in the corner googling the best ways to prevent it. And on their half birthday he just sobs his heart out because he’s so so happy the risk is gone like this man and his anxiety even if he’s been to therapy it would return full force during fatherhood absolutely but he would be the best dad because of it and never let anything hurt his babe. Ok. Brain rot done.

[soulc-hilde]

Money, Money

Pairing: Carmen Berzatto x OFC! Caden

Synopsis: No longer about her future, Caden spirals as the rug is once again pulled from underneath her feet. Living her days in a silent shell, she forces herself into her work. Noted as the restaurant's Mute Pâtissier, the stuttering eyes of her boss always finds themselves attached to her. Studying her. Like some animal in the wild.

Divider By @strangergraphics-archive

Mindlessly stepping into the kitchen from the back door, Caden was ignorant of her surroundings as she fumbled to take the helmet from her head. Freed at last, she fans one of her gloves over her flushed face when the sound of something boiling catches her ear. She turns around, lidded eyes stare at the unconscious body of Carmen. She quietly sighs, walking over, and gently lifts his right leg onto the bench beside his left one.

It's uncomfortable to lie like that, she justifies to herself.

The baker walks over to the locker room and begins to remove her jacket, swapping the green and black bike gear for the blue apron that lays on top of her white graphic ‘Eat My Boot’ shirt. As she leaves the corner, the bell rings at least two times. Heading for the door, Carmen jumps up behind her, a frazzled reenactment of The Undertaker.

His dazed eyes take a few to focus, squinting at the blurred figure strutting for the door. He hops to his feet, walking behind as the door opens. His eyes rest on Caden as the morning light lays across her face, onyx eyes turn into a warm brown similar to the chocolates she’d melt for her desserts. Curly, blonde edges peak from underneath the green bandana. He watches as she looks down at the cooler, face blank and unimpressed, but forced to take it anyways.

He snaps out of it, stepping closer.

“What’s that?” He rhetorically asks, glaring down at the blue cooler.

She sighs, “25 pounds of meat. He says, we couldn’t even afford half of what we needed.” Carmen shakes his head, “no, no, no – Fuck!”

“That’s what I said,” she sighs, pulling the tub with her to the kitchen. “There has to be a way… a, a mistake, maybe?”

Caden shakes her head, “call Lu, see what she says. If anything, she’s probably so far in debt with Mikey, there are no more loopholes.”

With that she steps into the walk-in, begrudgingly putting away the meat onto shelves taller than her. In the meantime, Carmen rushes into the office to call Luanne in hopes she’d at least give him this one chance.

“Yeah, yeah,” he nods. “yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. No, Luanne that’s, that’s… that’s really nice of you.” He pauses as she speaks, “uh-huh.”  

“Yeah. No, no, w-we’re really grateful to still be open after everything. Yeah, so listen, I, um… I’m still tryin’ to figure this place out, ya know, see how Michael was doing everything and I wanna get yer money. Yeah, yeah, no. Uh, I miss him, too. Yeah. Okay.”

“No, it’s good. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thanks, anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A’ight. Bye.” He hangs up, tossing the phone across the office.

Stewing with his thoughts and the obnoxious, old ass arcade games, he stands up. “Fuck!”

He marches for the games, “shut up!” He goes to pull at the overcrowded outlet extension. Tina charges after him, “no, no, no. Puta! Don’t unplug it.”

He stops, rubbing the center of his forehead with the back of thumb. “I know what that means, Tina.” She continues. “You unplug it, it won’t work again.”

Caden appears in the doorway behind the woman. “Guessin’ the call didn’t go good,” she sighs. He simply shakes his head in response, eyes catching the coin slots of the machines. He points, “when was the last time you emptied these?”

The women shrug, “don’t know.”

Carmen rushes to grab the key, opening each one, emptying the mounds of coins into buckets. Caden’s eyebrows raise as she watches. He turns to her, the ocean meeting the black sand.

She shrugs, “it’s not much, but it gets us goin’.”

She leaves, returning to help Marcus in the bakery. Well, more like do everything three times faster as he still has a bit to comprehend in terms of pacing. On the other hand, Carmen’s face stretches with a small corner smile, racing into the kitchen as he prepares one of the chucks of meat with his Japanese knives. Pot heated, ready for the red meat to drop within its cave.

Carmen trims the chuck of its fat with gloved hands and throws it away, he then seasons the meat before setting it to the side. He prepares the carrots, cutting them in halves before taking one and dicing it. Tina watches from over his shoulder, smirking, “you cut vegetables like a bitch.”

“Don’t wipe your hands on your apron, Chef,” he simply responds. Tina stops behind him, turning around, “Jeff?” “Chef.”

Unbeknownst to him, Caden watches from the corner of her eye, a subtle smile painting her round face. Like a tiny mad genius, she huffs.

He shakes some extra virgin olive oil across the bottom of the steel skillet before placing the meat inside, pressing down gently to start that nice brown sear as the oil hisses. Flipping the meat onto the other side after about five, ten minutes at the most, he flips it. The slightly charred meat with cooked remnants of seasoning practically sparkles against the yellow artificial light of the kitchen.

In another pan, he sautés some chopped onions, swirling them on a low-medium fire with a wooden spoon to prevent them from burning. He then adds in the diced carrots as well as celery with the onions, after a while of cooking those down, he adds in the tomatoes and beef stock, allowing it to boil. After bringing down the heat, he adds into a deep pan and coats the seared beef chuck with the sauce.

He covers the top with tinfoil, tidying up the edges and slides onto the top rack of the oven and letting it slow cook until they open for service. With his moment to breathe, he leans against the counter with a slouch, glancing at the clock.

10:25 a.m. He’s got some time to give Chi-Chi that jean jacket.

Caden was preparing another tray of honey buns and setting another on the rack to cool when Marcus glances at her. “How in the hell do you do that?”

“I’m sorry, what?” She looks back from the cooling rack, pulling down the protectant sleeve to keep them shielded from any contaminants.

“Like, how are you so fast?” He asks again, looking down at the raw down that lies flat and pathetic underneath his huge hand. “The mixer’s a piece of shit and broken, but when you do it, it’s as if you’re hands are the mixer… if that makes sense.”

She stares at him, “Marcus, kid, not a lot of shit you say, makes sense, but that’s okay.” She goes to wash her hands, speaking over the water.

“At first, I wanna say it’s all about experience. Regardless, if you went to culinary school like Car or if you’ve just worked within the food industry all your life.”

Hands wet and clean, she turns them upwards, digits facing the ceiling as she turns and grabs three paper towels with a pull and tear. She pats dries her hands before balling it between her fingers and using the material to turn off the water and tossing it into the trash bin. Rather than bouncing off the inner wall, the ball soars in a perfect arch, landing center on the empty trash bin.

“But, it’s more than that,” she continues, beginning to work on forming the next round of rolls.

“You need to find a repetition. A form of discipline that works with you. Not for, but with. Without that repetition, your skills become dull, or they become stagnant. You never progress.”

She lightly showers the cutting board with flour, covering the small ball of dough. She sets the cup beside her left and begins to roll with a circular motion, until it stopped sticking to the wooden board. Using the heels of her palms, she pushes the dough forward before picking up the top with her fingers and pulling it back down, molding it with the rest.

And the cycle repeats. Flour. Roll. Push. Pull. And finally, she places the collection on the parchment paper that lines the steel baking sheet. She covers them with another parchment paper and then two kitchen towels to let them rise.

“Once you create that rhythm, you begin to enter a flow. Whether that means you get lost within your work, you feel at ease – confident, or you learn somethin’ new along the way, you’ve made yourself a home within your space. Just like when you first came in, you were overwhelmed, felt like you were intruding, all that goes out the window.”

Marcus nods, a small smile of understanding brightens his face. She points at the shelves of dry and momentarily ingredients that were stored and labeled.

“That’s my system. Everything I do follows a system and no, it’s not like whatever fuck shit Tina and ‘em be doin’. Okay? That right there is Mikey and Richie’s mess that Car is now forced to fix. But here, in my bakery? Boy, yuh gonna learn somethin’ and yuh betta stick wit’ it cause I’on’t play.”

He laughs, nodding. “I got you, Chef. I got you.” She nods, eyes light with amusement, “ye hearin’ me?” He nods, “I hear you.”

She holds her hand out. He dabs her up and the two go back to the rolls. Marcus struggling while Caden empties the ovens and refills them with new trays.

Entering the kitchen, a woman stops, looking lost. She turns to the duo with a small smile, “uh, hi,” she waves. “I’m Sydney, I’m here to do an interview for the stagging position.”

Caden nods, shutting the oven. “Nice to meet you, Sydney. I’m Caden, the Head Baker. You’ll be speaking with the boss, Carmen. Follow me.” The two walk to the back of the dish room.

As they reach the back where Carmen’s voice echoes, conversating with someone of the phone, Caden sends a gentle knock. He hangs up, turning around. His face red and painted with lines of exhaustion lightens, his cerulean eyes meeting Caden’s dark ones. “Hey,” he breathes.

“Howdy,” she drawls. Her warm eyes softened at him, silently checking in. He nods in response, “yeah, yeah.”

She nods, gesturing to the young woman beside her. “This is Sydney Adamu, the new hire for the stagging position, I told you about.”

Carmen nods, “I remember. Yeah, thank you.” She nods, backing out, eyes staying on him, “always.”

Y'all, we got Syd the Chef in here, let's go! I'm also kind of soft for Caden and Carmen but that's a whole other discussion

Taglist: @spiderstyles04 @lostinwonderland314

[smokietaylor]

You're not the boss of me (Carmen Berzatto x Reader)

In an alternate universe, you are the newly hired chef at Daniel's. Everyone seems warm and welcoming except one chef with icy blue eyes and golden curly hair. Tensions are high between the two of you to the point that every interaction you have is a fight. That is until you discover why there has been so much hatred towards you since your interview.

Fun fact: This premise is actually based on personal experience. Albeit an exaggerated version of the truth and set more to fit Carmy's character. But it's the truth nonetheless.

NSFW Content

18+ only Minors DNI

Word count: 7,228 (and counting, Current work in progress)

READ MORE HERE

[thecapricunt1616]

Actually Persephone from TB&HH

[thatone-brightstar]

Before You (Carmen Berzatto X Fem!OC)

It was Isaac before Carmy, and it was Ross before you.

Part I: December.

Part II: January.

Part III: February.

words: 3.4k

a/n: Welcome all to the second part of my TB & TF series!! This is a prequel to the first part, so if you haven't read that, you can either read this first then the other one or vise versa. Also, this is me kinda just adding personal experience to her story because as a hostess, I think we don't get credit enough for having to deal with some people's shit (sigh) however, she's her own character so feel free to relate however you please. Another thing, I wrote this before S2 came out, so any coincidence with the firework scene in Ep5 is just me being ✨psychic✨ Enjoy! XX

No amount of deep breaths could calm the blistering anger circulating through her system. Her quickening steps move across the dining hall of the stupidly ostentatious restaurant she has the misfortune of working at. From the elegant decorum and the expensive menu, she can pinpoint the exact type of diners the place hosts: terrible, horrible, shitty people. And while she’s completely against placing anyone under any category, New York socialites seemed to never want to leave the rooted stereotype of being pompous, rude and extremely annoying.

Her theory had been proven correct once more after spending the last 10 minutes getting berated for not seating a walk-in on one of the busiest nights of the month. 

“You should save a table of that size for these situations…” The insufferable trust fund baby spat at her and all the self composure in the world could not stop the words from leaving her  mouth.

“Maybe send us a heads up by telepathy next time and I’ll try and catch it…” She had mumbled sarcastically, hoping that the background noise would drown it out as she tapped meaninglessly around the tablet.

It did not. And now her mouth was coated with the metal taste of blood that had oozed from her bitten tongue. She usually wasn’t this easy to frustrate, it took more than a pretentious jackass to destabilize her mood- especially in her line of work- but the weight of the day crashed on tiresome shoulders and the little manbitch past the podium had just been the spoiled cherry on top. 

The smooth Jazz is replaced by the sharp sounds of metal clinging against each other once she pushes past the service doors, in direction to the back alley. Her presence pulls a few looks from the chefs, but with a hardened scowl and a rigid stance, only an idiot would be aloof to the irritation detaching off her in not so subtle waves.

“Yo Ross, baby-” One of the cooks shouts, but is soon silenced by a threatening look and pointed finger.

“Fuck you Frank- not now.” She spits back, without even stopping or wasting any more time.

The frigid winter air finds a worthy opponent in the heat cursing through her veins as she crosses the emergency exit and drops against the brick wall with hands around her face, fully embracing the cold. A muffled groan vibrates through her fingers and blends in seamlessly with the usual sirens and horns blaring from the street ahead. It doesn’t take long for the dropping temperature to catch up to her- numbing the balls of her fingers and painting the tip of her nose red- but her manager told her to take five to calm down and she would not oppose to stealing company time, even if it meant freezing her ass off.

Ross pushes herself off the grimy wall and begins to tread along the small alley to warm up while she tries to talk herself out of quitting for what feels like the fifth time that month. 

“Chill, okay? You’ll find shitty people everywhere-” Her voice swims around the reduced space, comfortable in the privacy of her own company. “Besides, next one’s the good one and you can say goodbye to this shithole wrapped in a Gucci sweater…”

The noise of the busy kitchen pierces her bubble when the door opens again, blinding her with the white light while a body passes through, then closing back again and leaving them with the dim yellow bulb fighting to stay lit. 

“Ross.” He greets with a single nod of his head as his eyes spot her in the darkness, pulling a beaten up package from his pocket and lighting the thin tube with one of those long kitchen lighters he always seems to carry.

“Chef.” She answers back with a similar nod. 

Her cheeks carry a crimson that goes beyond the freezing cold, embarrassed to think that he might have heard her little self pep talk and she’s thankful for the lack of lighting in the space. The sound of his steady exhales and the lingering scent of tobacco slowly make their way to her as she keeps her eyes on the ground, uncomfortable shoes rubbing away over the pavement in distraction. 

“You, uh, you good?” He clears his throat and shuffles against the wall, switching from one overworked foot to another. 

They’ve probably only ever crossed a couple sentences despite her working there for almost a year, but she tries to hide the doubt behind a nod. 

“Uh… y-yeah. Another day, another shitty customer.” She jokes in hopes to break the barrier of ice, though it seems to be thicker than she expected, because all she gets is another nod that has her wanting to scurry back inside. 

“What’d they tell you now?” He asks through another smoky exhale. 

“That he’s friends with the head chef and that he’d have my head if I didn’t give ‘em a table…” 

“That’s bull-“ He says, sucking in his cheeks and making the ember tip glow bright orange. “I don’t have any friends.”

“Yeah that’s what I told him too.” Ross adds and receives the wisp of a snigger in return. 

It’s small and almost unnoticeable- so tiny it could be confused with a cough- but it’s there. And the ice wall doesn’t seem as thick as she thought now. 

“So did you?” The chef asks again, cigarette halfway finished while she tries to keep her teeth from chattering. “Let ‘em in, I mean..”

“Like hell I did.” She responds before rolling her eyes. “But fucking Martin probably did…” 

He nods his head slowly in acknowledgement, then lets another soft breath blow through his nose, smoke and vapor invisible in the low light. “I can send ‘em a shitty stake if you want.”

Ross knows it’s a joke, no respectable chef in the building would ever ruin a $300 Kobe beef just to spite a shitty client, but the solidarity in his offer grants him her own smile. 

“Nah, I’ll just ask the bartender to pour ‘em the cheap stuff so they get a hangover tomorrow.” 

Despite wanting to continue the unforeseen interaction- mostly out of scientific curiosity- the cold seeping through the thin material of her uniform finally triggers her feet in direction of the door, a few feet away from where he’s finishing his cigarette. Her fingers stay curled over the handle, contemplating the words and if they have any space in the situation, but before she can convince herself otherwise, she calls out to the chef. 

“I know it’s a shitty day to work ‘n all… but Merry Christmas… I guess.”

He nods again, brows raised and eyes wide seems to be the default expression on his face, then a ghost of something she can assume is a barely visible smile hides behind the dying tube. 

“Yeah… you too.” 

**********

“Have a good night guys, happy new year!” She recites with a wave to the departing guests, the phrase already lacking meaning after constant repetition.

New Year’s dinner rush is a blatant copy of the week before, with the exception of the nice vibes that many seem to carry, influenced by the faux restart. However, it does move painfully slow, between kind guests and uncomfortable offers from the Wall Street wannabe bros who couldn’t take a hint. Every advance had to be deflected with a kind smile and by the end of the night her cheeks had grown tired from all the tension they were forced to endure. Thankfully, there were only a few tables left and she could finally switch the uncomfortable heels for her sneakers, which facilitated finishing her last tasks in record time.

“Hey, Ross-” 

“Yeah” She turns to Meg- one of the waitresses and her friend- while shuffling through the menus, but stops as she sets a small plate with an even smaller dessert over the wooden desk. “What’s this?”

“From the kitchen…” She answers with a teasing tone and a smile that makes her roll her eyes.

“Take it back and tell Frank to fuck off- I’m not sucking his dick for an eclair-”

“It’s not from him, idiot! Chef Carmen sent it…” Meg whispers leaning in as if sharing some long kept secret. 

“What? Why?”

Meg shrugs and pulls a tiny spoon from one of the pockets on her apron. “Probably heard you bitchin’ about some guest again.” Then she scoops a piece of the dessert and pops it in her mouth, groaning in delight. “Say what you want about that man, but god is he good with his hands.”

“Dude that sounds so wrong.” Ross chuckles before taking a piece for herself and can’t help but agree with the delicious taste of the pastry. “We’re still on for drinks, right?”

“Can’t-” Meg mumbles between spoonfuls. “Mom’s making me meet them at grandma’s after this. She says this is probably her last new year so…”

“Shit- I don’t wanna go just with Frank.”

“Why don’t you ask your chef.” She suggests teasingly, before picking up the empty plate. “‘New year, new you’ ‘n all that. He already sent you food ‘n plus you’ve had the hots for him for a while now-”

“I do not!” She bickers a bit too defensively, rolling her eyes at the disbelief in Meg’s expression. “I’m nice to everyone, not just him.”

With a sarcastic ‘Sure, kid’ and an exaggerated nod, Meg turns on her shoes and heads deep into the emptying dining room.

By the time she’s finally done, it’s an hour to midnight and almost everyone has gone home except Frank, who sits wrapped up in his own coat and sharing a cigarette with another cook. Her steps lose power past the door and stop altogether once she notices the lonely man leaning on the wall a few feet in front of her.

“Hey, chef-” The girl calls towards him, his head immediately snapping up in her direction, unlit cig hanging loosely from his lips. “You got any plans?”

Ross doesn’t wait for an answer, steps moving closer towards him. There’s a thin nervous expression harboring his normally closed off features as his eyes dart around her face and the two men ahead of them, slowly putting the smoke back in the box.

“So?” She asks again. “You got anywhere to be?”

“Uh… no but-”

“Great, c’mon. Let's go grab some drinks.” She doesn’t wait for a response before linking her arm around his and walking closer to the waiting men.

She can see the tightness locked over Frank's jaw but tries her best to ignore it, pulling the chef in the opposite direction from where they’re standing. 

“Night boys.” She calls out before turning the corner and out of their view. 

Ross lets go of his arm once they’re a few blocks away, the warmth of her touch immediately escaping through the frigid wind. 

“Sorry ‘bout that… Frank’s just a little too much and I don’t wanna deal with that right now.” She says while growing the space between them. 

“Yeah-no I get it- he gets on my nerves sometimes… too.” 

They can hear the faint noise that the wind carries from a few blocks away, the celebrating multitude that has crowded Times Square in anticipation of the ball drop only growing thicker by the minute. 

“So, um, you really don’t have anywhere to be?” She asks, nervous fists inside her coat pockets. 

“Just home.” He shrugs. 

“Cool- so, what do you say to that drink?”

He shrugs again, not in an ‘I’m too cool to care’ way but more of an ‘I suck with words’ kind of way, that triggers a soft smile over her freezing features. 

“Thanks for the dessert… by the way.” She thanks with a slow step so he can catch up beside her once they’ve renewed their destination. 

“Oh-uh- yeah, sure.” He stammers, hands tightly in his pockets. “Anyone piss you off tonight?”

“Someone pisses me off every night-” She jokes, the lightheartedness growing with each step further away from work. “Curse of the trade, I guess.” She adds with a shrug.

They can hear the music emanating from the bar before even seeing it. The regular spot sits at the end of the curve, seemingly untouched by the masses, though the dusty windows show the movement of bodies inside. After maneuvering their way through the dispersed crowd, they’re still able to find an empty spot by the corner of the bar where it’s easier to reach the bartender. Every screen in their view covers the transmission of the infamous ball drop- as if the event wasn’t occurring a  few blocks away- but she figures it’s more comfortable seeing it from the inside of a heated bar than in the crushing crowd of bodies freezing outside.

It takes her five minutes to grab the barman’s attention and another two to get their drinks, but when he pats down his pants in search of his wallet, she’s already pocketing down the change the man’s given her.

“I asked you, remember?” She says to him while passing his drink, noticing a soft tint over his cheeks that hadn’t been there at their arrival and her brows raise slightly, before choosing to ignore it.

Ross can feel the man shuffling and clearing his throat beside her and the anxious actions pull a thin lipped smile over her face. He seems very different from the person she has observed behind the kitchen- a baby deer almost- careful not to trip over his own legs. It’s kind of endearing to her, how the confidence he carries in the confinements of a kitchen switches off the second he’s outside of one, replacing it with silence and the constant cracking of his knuckles that has her asking:

“You don’t go out much, do you?”

He exhales in the form of a small laugh, then takes a drink from his emptying mug. “That obvious?”

She nods and turns to him. “Well we’ve been here for almost twenty minutes and you’ve said three words… max.”

“Five now…” He jokes and a grin forms on her face at the dumb joke.

Ross turns to him, shifting her body in the stool to face him completely, bare knee brushing against his clothed one. “Tell me the thing you hate most about your job.”

He takes a few seconds to respond, gaze lost in the multitude as a terrible rendition of ‘Sweet Caroline’ from the karaoke machine flows through the speakers. “I don’t- think I have one…”

“Nothing?” He shakes his head. “At all?” Another shake and a thin unnoticeable smile. “Chef Carmen-”

“-Carmy.” He corrects and the grin on her face grows a few inches wide.

“Okay Carmy, tell me you don’t hate people messing up your dishes or modifying your recipes?”

A grin slowly spreads across his static features as he looks down at his empty jug of beer and scratches over his brow out of habit. Then he nods in agreement. “I really fuckin’ hate that shit.”

“Right!?” Ross’ excitement pulls a snicker that has him agreeing to another drink, which he insists on paying for. “Like, I get it when it’s an allergy, right? You don’t wanna kill anyone. But Meg was telling me about some guy that wanted the ‘blanc’ but not the ‘beurre’ on his fish- and if 8th grade French doesn’t fail me- that literally translates to ‘white butter’!”

Carmy’s warm chuckle blends in nicely with the buzzing surroundings, causing a slight tint to graze her cheeks and hold a smile on the edge of her glass as she watches him.

“One of the waiters once asked me if I could just send ‘em a rack of ribs cause they didn’t like anything on the menu…”

“Jesus! As if you had a rack to spare behind that aged ham you got hanging in the walk-in…”

“You- you’ve been inside the walk-in?” He asks in surprise while she takes another sip off her second drink.

“That’s where I go to vent.” Ross shrugs with a soft grin. “Plus it’s soundproof so no one can hear me cry or lose my shit.”

He knew it wasn’t. He’s seen her barely hold her composure many times as she crosses down the hallway- hands tightly in fists- before hearing a muffled shriek from somewhere in the back; but he always assumed it came from the depot or the alley, never his walk-in. He wasn’t gonna tell her that, though.

Their drinks slowly drain while their attention falls heavy on the transmission from the TVs. With only ten minutes to spare, she can feel the growing excitement buzzing around the room as many inch closer to their loved ones, arms over shoulders and complicit kisses galore. For a second her eyes flicker over the rim of her glass towards Carmy’s profile, drinking in the strong shape of his nose and the many little scars she hadn’t noticed from a distance.

“I don't get it…” Ross says suddenly, turning back to him again. 

“Uh… context?”

“Right- sorry-” She clears her throat -as a way to order her ideas- and places the mug back on the bar, but doesn’t notice how her body leans in closer to him when she turns back around. “So, you’re like… the shit, right?” She starts, pulling a nervous chuckle from the man.

“Solid start.”

“Shut up-” She groans. “I mean it as in… anyone who knows anything about the culinary world knows who you are. These people, they pay big bucks for your food and they always leave boasting about how great it is-”

“No they don’t-” He tries to argue with a shake of his head.

“Yes they do!” She reassures, voice a little higher and eyes a little glossier. “They do. You have the skill- the reputation to open your own place, make it however you want it to be… why stay here?” 

There’s a look behind his eyes that makes her throat run dry, brows sunken over a concentrated gaze as he settles all his attention on her and everything seems to just vanish into white noise. It could be the confidence the alcohol carries that’s made her so vocal about her thoughts, but the rational part in her head warns that it’s not her place to comment on what she doesn’t know.

Ross shakes her head lightly and mumbles a soft ‘Sorry, nevermind it's stupid.’ before gulping her drink and redirecting her attention and posture back to the screens.

‘1 Minute to Midnight!’ flashes over every screen, bathing the room in an emerald green glow that bounces perfectly off her profile and catches Carmy’s attention. The playlist of 80s anthems and the growing excitement packed in the small room are loud enough to drown out the constant nagging voice in the back of his head. He sucks in a breath and moves impossibly slow in her direction.

“I’ve thought about it.” Carmy confesses loud enough so she can hear him over the chanting crowd.

Ten. She doesn’t expect him to be so close when she turns towards him. Specks of silver rim the outer edges of his eyes, wide enough that she can almost see her reflection staring back, stealing the breath from her lungs.

Nine. Betrayal in her body flicks her eyes down to his lips only for a brief moment and it has him questioning if he might have imagined it, before a teasing smile rounds at the edges of hers.

Eight. “Well when you decide to do it, call me if you ever need a bitchy hostess…” Ross whispers.

Seven. The air from his laugh blows softly over her cheeks, growing hot with the small distance. With a quickened pulse, she tries to settle her gaze on any other part of his face.

Six. ‘Just look at his eyes- shit no, not the eyes!’ ‘The mouth? No, that's even worse!’ ‘Jesus, you’ve kissed people before, why are you so fucking nervous?!’

Five. The turmoil in her head doesn’t bleed through to her calm expression, keeping a gentle smile that has Carmen letting out his own.

“Okay… ” 

Four. The bundle of words hangs from his lips, swinging in her direction and hooking around her neck to pull her closer.

Three. There’s a prevalent pulsing rippling from her chest that drowns out any other sound around her, as if a fish bowl had fallen over the two, blocking out any exterior sound.

Two. “D’you mind if I kiss you?” She asks, gently.

One. The TV behind him explodes in multicolored lights as the ball finally drops. Fireworks reflect back to him from the shimmer of her eyes and all he can do is swallow hard, nod and let her gravity pull him forward.

A soft “Happy New Year, Carmy” brushes over his lower lip.

Then the last thing he remembers is the sweet taste of coconut gloss followed by the smooth movements of velvet lips above his bumbling ones.

**********

Part II

Taglist: @pearlstiare @teteminne, @beebslebobs, @harrysmatcha, @yum-yahgurt, @pussy-f41ry, @kirakombat, @redsakura101 , @hobisunshine13 and that’s it lmao

[nolita-fairytale]

carmen 'carmy' berzatto masterlist

Thee Carmy x Reader 'Make My Heart Surrender' Universe (In Chronological Order):

comfort & chaos (prequel to make my heart surrender)

a series of vignettes: the five times carmen berzatto fell in love with you a little and the one time he finally told you. (completed)

october 2019 | covid & carbonara | heat waves | 2/22/22** | called you again | home**

the phone call (blurb - the phone call that gets reader to chicago in the first place)

make my heart surrender

after quitting your job at the restaurant you both used to work at, carmy asks you to come in and work with his pastry chef at his new spot, the bear. only, the longer you stick around, it becomes clear that you have unfinished business. will one week in chicago change your life, and his, forever? (completed)

tuesday | wednesday | thursday | friday (**18+ for smut) | saturday/sunday | monday | tuesday, again | the playlist

home (final chapter from comfort & chaos - **smut)

try a little tenderness (fluff & angst blurb)

cigarettes & coffee (fluffy blurb)

strawberries & cigarettes (fluffy blurb)

j is for james beard... and for jealousy (**smut oneshot | 18+ only)

your past and mine are parallel lines (fluff oneshot)

pov: carmy makes people magazine's sexiest chef alive list (fluff blurb)

bad moon rising (what if/angst-shot -- guest starring mikey berzatto)

sister-in-law (fluff oneshot -- guest starring natalie berzatto)

still into you (sequel to make my heart surrender)

you, syd, marcus, and carmy return to where it all began: new york city, prompting you and carmy to think a lot about your past... and your future together. (completed)

thursday | **bonus smut scene | friday | saturday | sunday | it's perfect, chef (**bonus smut scene)

don't want to walk alone

the long awaited wedding fic for carmy x reader in the make my heart surrender universe. this six part series chronicles the wedding planning, your (not) bachelorette party, the wedding, and the honeymoon as you build a life with your husband-to-be. (completed)

june/july | august | september | the honeymoon pt 1 | the honeymoon pt 2 | epilogue: november

granola blurb

carmy as your baby daddy

a social media au & headcanon series detailing your first pregnancy with carmy. created for the make my heart surrender universe, but can be read as a standalone work. this has been created in collaboration with @carmensberzattos & @allthefandomstogether , the graphic goddess. (completed)

part one | part two | part three | part four | give you my wild, give you a child (**smut-shot) | part five | part six | part seven

the social media au

scenes from the relationship & this story depicted as social media posts. won't always align with my other social media/moodboards.

part one | part two: first year of dating | part three |

extras/moodboards/headcanons/imagines:

your life as a pastry chef in chicago while dating carmy (moodboard & headcanon)

meeting mikey in another lifetime (headcanon)

pov: you're marrying carmen berzatto (moodboard)

honeymoon lingerie moodboard

christmas with carmy moodboard & blurb

The Bear: Unrelated to Make My Heart Surrender:

(nothing here YET but working on it)

so my darling | sydney adamu x male!chef oc

jealous!carmy & jealous!luca headcanon

stargazing with marcus brooks (blurb)

sneaking around with carmy (blurb)