you’re writing for carmy now omg i’m frothing at the mouth 😭 i love the trope where reader is quiet in bed and needs to be coaxed a bit but… i feel like it would be kind of hot if reader was the one coaxing carmy? 👀 no worries if you’re not feeling this one!
ty for requesting! — you teach the bear how to use his voice in the bedroom (new relationship, inexperienced!carmy, experienced!reader-ish, smut 18+)
bug's summer fic fest (ꈍᴗꈍ)
Carmy never notices when he’s quiet. His head is always so loud in comparison — it’s easy to forget he isn’t saying anything out loud when his mind’s constantly racing. He doesn’t mean anything by it, though. He’s just chronically observant. And painfully silent with it.
He lays on his back, pressed between unmade sheets and your warm body. The covers bunch at your bare hips as you roll in languid thrusts over his lap. A satiny summer breeze smooths over your burning skin from a cracked-open window. Every time the curtains billow, more of the moonlight peeks in. It drips in silver shades over your naked skin and your pretty face, now twisted in a look of undeniable pleasure — brows scrunched, eyes closed, mouth wide open.
Carmy’s tattooed hands rest impatiently on your hips. His fingers dig into the plush of them as he rocks you back and forth over his cock. You make pretty noises for him every time your clit brushes his coarse thatch of pubic hair, so he angles his hips just right to make sure you keep hitting that spot.
“Carmy,” you moan in a whimsical sigh that makes his chest swell. “Just like that. ’S so good like that. Please don’t stop—”
His face, made of dark shadows and sharpened edges, is pinched in a look of acute concentration. A distant feeling of deja veux swims in his stomach. It makes him wonder if he’s seen this in a painting before. One of those Renaissance types. The kinds that are harrowingly realistic and always heart-wrenchingly beautiful in a way.
It makes him want to draw you. Just as you are now. Head tossed back, mouth gently agape, lashes fluttering over glowing cheeks. He wouldn’t be able to do any of it justice, but he tries to memorize the soft lines of your face, anyway.
Your hips slow to a stop. Reality hits him hard.
“Woah, woah— Hey,” Carmy mumbles in protest, brows pinched in confusion when he comes down from the clouds. Through labored breaths that make his sweaty chest rise and fall, he wonders, “What happened? Why’d you stop?”
His icy blue eyes dart over your face, searching for any sign of harm. In true Carmen Berzatto fashion, he immediately thinks he’s done something wrong — that he got too far in his own head and hurt you in some way without realizing. The anxiety is fleeting, but he feels the pinch of it anyway — right where your palm rests flat on his chest, just over his pounding heart.
“Are you okay?” you ask him, similarly panicked. Your bare chest sparkles with a thin layer of sweat and catches the moonlight with every uneven inhale.
You exhale a small sigh of relief, growing sheepish under his unwavering gaze. You feel a bit silly for stopping now. “You just aren’t… You aren’t really, you know… saying anything,” you answer shyly.
“Am I supposed to be saying something?”
You giggle quietly to yourself until you realize he’s being genuine. Your smile ebbs as you stammer, “Well, no, it’s just— Some people usually moan, I guess— When they feel good.”
Carmy nods firmly in reassurance. “I feel good.”
“Okay…” you nod back, slower and more unsure.
“I promise,” he tells you, tattooed hands squeezing your sides. He shifts nervously on the mattress, similarly victimized by your adoring stare. “I just… I just like watchin’ you, I guess…”
A shy smile quirks the edges of your mouth as you peer down at the boy beneath you. “You’re sweet, bear,” you coo in a honeyed murmur.
“You’re sweeter,” Carmy insists. You think you see the faintest hint of a grin on his lips, but it’s hard to tell in the low light. “Wanna taste?” he teases a second later.
Wordlessly, you bend down for another kiss, far too chaste for his liking. He almost says something about it until you roll your hips again. The words of protest disappear when he inhales sharply through his teeth.
“Does that feel good?” you ask him.
He nods silently, squeezing your sides in a feeble attempt to move you faster on top of him.
“Tell me.”
“Feels good,” Carmy obeys through gritted teeth.
The subtle assurance makes you moan — a pretty, breathy thing that spills accidentally from your opened mouth. All he can think about is getting you to make that sound again.
“Do you like it when I talk to you?” he wonders aloud, very innocuously curious.
You nod, brows furrowed as you grind over his lap. The bed frame squeaks quietly when you roll your hips forward. When you roll them back again, he can hear the faint sounds of your wet pussy — the quiet schlick-ing of his cock fucking into you. The two noises play one after the other in rhythmic tandem. The sinful sounds of sex.
Carmy racks his head for something to say in the not-so-silent meanwhile. You watch him get lost in his mind and cup his cheeks between gentle palms. “Don’t think so hard about it, bear,” you say with a wavering smile. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s okay.”
You duck down to kiss him again. The angle shifts. Carmy bends his knees and fucks up into you, mercilessly and without warning. Your mouth hangs open in another weak moan that fans across his chin.
“That good?” he pants.
“Yes,” you whine. “Carmy— fuck— You’re so deep…”
Babbles spill from your mouth in thinkless slurs. They tumble from your swollen lips with an admirable effortlessness, which Carmy has never thought himself to possess. He tries, anyway, to talk to you with such sinful ease.
“You’re huggin’ me so tight,” he mutters through a clenched jaw. The very first thought to come to mind as the velvet confines of your cunt pulsate around him, squelching quietly in time with his thrusts. “Can feel you throbbin’ around me, babe— Shit— It’s like a fuckin’ heartbeat.”
Your whine fills the quiet bedroom, adding to the symphony of bed squeaking and skin slapping.
Carmy shifts his hips upward. The new angle allows his cock to reach a spongy depth inside you and pins your swollen clit against his happy trail, which now glimmers with a layer of your honey.
“Right there?” he pants.
You nod wordlessly until the words catch up to you. The tip of your nose brushes the bridge of his. “Yes,” you whimper.
His brutal thrusts pick up pace a second later, never wavering in their wicked pursuit. “Let me hit that spot,” Carmy mumbles to himself like a man crazed. “Let me hit that spot, let me hit that spot.”
Pleasure swells within you, overwhelmingly so. It’s a warm and sparkling feeling in the pit of your stomach — a tightening coil, a fraying rope, a dam about to burst. The intensity of your inevitable orgasm frightens you.
“Carmy…” you whimper.
“I know,” he nods sympathetically, right before he plants his feet on the mattress. He strengthens his thrusts, which have slowly started to lose their rhythm. “It’s okay. C’mon. Cum for me— I can feel you fuckin’ drippin’ on me, baby— C’mon.”
Your jaw clenches to fight back the scream clawing at your throat. It comes out in a pitiful whimper instead when you tense over his lap. Your orgasm washes over you in waves that leave you shaking, thighs trembling on either side of his hips.
Carmy goes accidentally silent once more as he watches you, swelling with pride as you reach the height of your pleasure. His light eyes flit over your features in a feeble attempt to memorize them — the furrow between your brows, the wrinkles beside your shut eyes, the spit-slicked sheen to your kissed lips.
You’re painting brought to life. A heavenly thing he can’t believe he gets to touch with unworthy hands.
“That’s it…” Carmy murmurs lowly. The words bubble in his throat and fall from his mouth mindlessly. He doesn’t even have to think about them now. It just feels right to praise you like this. “That’s it. There you go. So pretty… Always so pretty for me.”
As your body racks with aftershocks, you seek refuge in his arms. Your weight rests entirely upon him as your tense limbs slowly relax, but Carmy doesn’t mind. He just wraps his tattooed arms around you and holds your trembling body closer.
“I got you,” he promises through labored breaths, chapped lips brushing your temple with every word. “I got you. ’S okay. You did so good for me, baby. Thank you.”
You don’t have the words to tell him that you should be the one thanking him.
Hi Jade ! I loove your sunshine!readers, could I request one for Carmy ? Maybe someone calls her to get to the restaurant when hes feeling anxious to calm him down idk if thats good lol love ya !
ty for requesting <3 fem, 1.4k
Is it The Beef or The Bear? In your head, despite the wishes of everyone who works there (except for Ebra, who seems to have mixed opinions), you always call it The Beef. But the sign brags otherwise, and when you push open the doors, nothing inside is left to remind you of the old restaurant. It was a total gut.
“Hi, gorgeous,” says a familiar, warm voice.
You almost walk straight into her table, distracted looking for brown curls through the kitchen door’s little window. “Hey, Tina.” You grin at your second favourite chef. Your most favourite Sous. “You taking a break?”
She offers you a round butter cookie from a sleeve of them. Her cup of coffee billows with steam. “Uh-huh.”
“Hiding from a meltdown?” you ask, taking a cookie, fingers oily with butter, sugar grains falling to the floor.
“It’s not like that,” she says.
Well, what is it like? you think.
Richie’s text wasn’t exactly descriptive. Need ur help with the little Bitch, he’d said. Then, when you didn’t answer, ASAP!!!!
You figured it must’ve been another rant. He’s prone to these… episodes of anger where he doesn’t realise he’s spinning out and hurting people who really care about him. You try to bring him out of it, but he’s a Berzatto. They’re all the same, sort of. Everything that’s wrong with them has been stamped into them a long, long time ago.
He’s been better since Nat steel armed him into AA, but still. You tilt your head to one side, sugar cookie between your fingers, listening for the goings on in the kitchen. “Sydney’s here?” you ask. “I thought she was sick.”
“Sydney gets sick, but she doesn’t take sick days,” Tina says with a loving shrug.
You smile at her in brief goodbye for now and make your way to the kitchen, where you push in quietly. All their ‘Behind!’ and ‘Corner!’ and ‘Hands!’ makes you laugh, and you can’t take it seriously so you don’t, but you’re not trying to be dangerous in there either.
“Hello?” you ask.
Sydney and Richie look up from a cramped notebook at the table nearest to the door. There are employees you're unsure of prepping vegetables along the wall, but Carmy isn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Fucking finally,” Richie says, before rubbing his face regretfully. “I’m sorry, it’s just– I texted you an hour ago, babe, you’re letting me down.”
You laugh. “Sorry, babe,” you tease. “I have a job, just like you.” Your hands are cold where you tuck them under each armpit, crossing your arms. “Hi, Sydney. You feeling okay?”
“No. He’s stressing me out.”
“Which one?”
“Both of them.” She looks like she might rub her face too. “I need him to be in here right now, he should be doing this, but he keeps walking away and– and not saying where he’s going.”
“He is stressful,” you agree, though usually Carmy’s stress tends to bounce right off of you, “I’m gonna find him and strap him down for you.”
Sydney just frowns.
“I’ll see what’s up,” you say more seriously. “In the office?”
“Out the back,” Richie says. “Smoking like his mother. He’s a fucking steam train lately.”
It’s like they want to worry you. You give them grateful nods, sorry nods, and start to make your way out of the main kitchen, past the dishwashers and the dessert station to one of the back doors. Carmy isn’t your responsibility. You don’t have to apologise for him, you don’t have to mother him, he should commit to his responsibilities all on his own, but… it’s hard. You like apologising for him because his behaviour isn’t always on purpose, and he struggles with commitment for similar reasons. There’s this aching, stagnated grief in him that’s reawakening, there’s the stress of the restaurant, his business, the scars of the last ten years, and before that. You know it isn’t your job to come here and make him feel better, but isn’t it? When you love someone, it’s half the deal.
Carmy shouldn’t yell at his friends, or employees. He shouldn’t chain smoke, and he shouldn’t be sitting on the low wall by the dumpsters shaking so hard with his head so low that you can see the first notch of his spine in his shirt.
“Carmy?” you ask.
His head ducks further down. You can hear him breathing, not too hard as to alarm you, and yet unrelaxed.
You smile without thinking. You hate seeing him like this, but looking after him is a pleasure. “Hey, Carmen. Can I sit with you?”
He forces his face up. “What are you doing here?” he asks.
Trying to make sure he doesn’t tear another chunk out of Richie. “It’s my lunch break.”
You perch on the wall beside him and snap your nearly forgotten cookie into two pieces, one side bigger than the other, which you offer him.
Carmy takes it. Looks at it without expression, though that slowly turns to a dry ire you’ve felt directed your way a hundred times. “What the fuck is this?”
“Cookie.”
“I don’t want this.”
“Could you just eat it?” You put your own half in your mouth in its entirety, all aligned to your teeth. It shatters into sweet, soft crumbs between your teeth. You talk with a hand over your mouth, “It’s not gonna kill you.”
Carmy looks at it for a long time before he eats it.
You watch him. He’s more tan than you’d think, that Italian gene kicking in, skin clinging to whatever sunshine it finds. He spends enough time inside that you’re surprised it can muster the energy. He looks better with it though, his curls look gold toned under the sun, and his clenched jaw doesn’t seem so harsh.
“What’s wrong?” you ask eventually. Almost conversationally.
“Nothing.” His hand shakes on his thigh. He turns his palm down to clasp his knee.
“You sure?”
“No.”
“That one’s my favourite.”
“What?”
You poke toward a tattoo on his hand. It’s a simple flower, same style as most of his tattoos. “I like it ‘cos it’s just a flower.”
“My least pretentious,” he guesses.
“Something like that.”
He tips his head back.
“Richie texted me. He thinks I’m gonna… like, I’m gonna calm you down, I guess.”
“You always do,” he says.
You give him a long, smiley look. “So you’re in love with me?” you ask warmly, pushing up into a knee to wrap your arm behind him, hugging him before he can move away. “You’re totally fucked for me, Berzatto, that’s fucking crazy.”
“Fuck off,” he laughs.
You rub his arm, his skin hot in your hold. He touches your waist very, very lightly. “What am I supposed to do, anyway? I can’t cook. You and Syd are on your own.”
“You already… already did enough.” He grabs your waist where you wobble on the brick wall, grit biting your knees, his hand comparatively soft.
“Such a crush on me,” you tease in a whisper, his hair crushed under your cheek.
You’re tempted to kiss his temple, but affection with Carmy is like oil and water sometimes. You give him a last protective squeeze and sit yourself down again.
“Carm,” you say, “you know you can call me, right? Like, if you don’t feel okay.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“Or text me. If that’s easier. It’s hard to say hard things out loud.”
He laughs again. “Sorry.”
“I know, I don’t– I don’t seem like I know what you’re talking about, I get it, but I do understand. N’ even if I didn’t, I don’t mind listening. Or laughing at you.”
“What’s that about?”
“The laughing?” you ask. “You tell me.”
His hand slides behind your back in half a hug. “Guess it’s funny.”
“Can I change my mind about the tattoo?”
“The flowers not your favourite?”
“No. You know which one I like best?”
His thumb rubs into your back. “The snail.”
“Absolutely the snail. You’re so fucking silly sometimes, I’m supposed to take you seriously when you’re yelling and red in the face with a snail on your arm?”
You can’t see his face with your cheek to his shoulder, won’t know that he’s smiling at you with a rare aura of peace. Can’t see the wanting, either.
carmy! i have a request, it’s so basic but everything you write is golden. him and r are pining coworkers, and maybe someone else yells at her or upsets her or whatever and he’s like but i’m the only one allowed to shout at you and he hugs her (because you know… arms 👀)
—Carmy tries to make you feel better after a customer upsets you. fem, 1.5k
“Fucking asshole,” Richie mutters as the door swings closed.
Carmy would cringe if he had the energy, or a lack of self-awareness —it’s not as though he doesn’t swear like a starved sailor every other sentence.
“Who’s the asshole?” he asks, feeling down his side for the bump of a box of cigarettes he doesn’t find.
He’s taken to hiding them in the office. He’d love to pretend it was an act of lent, but in actuality, he never told Ritchie that the box of cigarettes left near the burner, that gave them their C-army rating, wasn’t Richie’s at all, but Carmy’s. He isn’t ever planning on having that conversation, so he’s trying not to carry a box around and leave it somewhere stupid again.
“Fucking– you didn’t just hear that guy?” Richie asks, scowling.
Carmy scowls back. “Yeah, that’s why I’m asking. What the fuck do you think?”
It’s slightly too much aggression off the cuff, but Richie brings it out of him. “Some asshole just came in here and started shouting like a motherfucker because he forgot his stupid napkins. I thought Sunshine was gonna cry her eyes out.”
Carmy clocks back in fully. “What?”
Sunshine is the mildly sarcastic nickname Richie gave you before Carmy ever step foot in The Beef. It’s not that you’re moody, but you’re always tired, and you give these little shy smiles out to anyone who asks how you are. I’m fine, you say every time, followed by something deflective like, I’m just tired. Lack of vitamin D from working in this place.
“Where do scumbags get off, making girls cry like that?”
Carmy's eyes widen. “She’s crying?”
Richie is capable of seriousness, despite himself. “Yeah,” he says, his anger swapped out for a low remorse, “I told her to go sit in the office until she’s feeling better.”
Carmy pauses. “Should I go look in?” he asks.
“Duh, Carmen. You’re the only one who can make her feel better. Which I resent!” He brings a rag end from his shoulder to wipe his forehead, which is gross, but whatever. “I’m fucking excellent at being a shoulder to cry on.”
Carmy doesn’t know what that means. Richie says it like it’s obvious, but since when is Carmy the only person who can make you feel better? You’ve known everybody here far longer than you’ve known him, and sometimes Carmy thinks you probably don’t want a thing to do with him, does anybody in the kitchen? You’re smart, and you’ve been working here as long as anybody, started when you were genuinely too young and learning everything you know from the other. You have potential, like everybody here. You just didn’t get the right training, and you’re defensive (again, like everybody here).
Carmy’s almost positive you’re gonna tell him to fuck off when he knocks the office door. He doesn’t know why he does it, nobody knocks in this shithole, but he does. Maybe he’s buying time; you’ll be feeling better when he pushes the door fully open, and he won’t have to navigate the treacherous depths of his feelings for you while he’s so busy trying to work himself out.
You sniff, muffled, like a sleeve is held over your face. “Hello?” you ask.
Carmy gets a burst of energy and doesn’t ask before stepping into the room. You can’t say no if he doesn’t ask, and you don’t, looking at him from the rickety office chair with distrust, and then sheepishness.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t be in here.”
“No, no, you can come in here,” he says. He has a bad habit of pausing too long and looking too close, hands clenched in front of himself. “You can come in here. Some asshole made you cry?”
You shake your head with tears still wet on your cheek. You’re at home in the office, all the chaos and posters and paper trails a match for you dishevelled appearance. You’ve pulled your foot onto the chair, showcasing a shoe that’s falling apart and two pairs of socks pulled to uneven heights. Your hands are a riot, none of your jewellery but a mismatch of different coloured band-aids over a multitude of wounds. And your face glows with tears, shitty light of the desk lamp casting yellow onto your teary cheeks, your lips bitten raw.
“I’m fine,” you say.
Carmy doesn’t know what he was expecting, but he was hoping for a better confession. “Over napkins?”
“Said I’m s’posed to put napkins in the bag,” you say, a monotony to your voice that’s forced and weak at once. “‘Cos I’m a fucking idiot, right, who doesn’t put napkins in the bag?” You sniffle. “Whatever. Richie said he can’t come back.”
“He can’t,” Carmy says quickly.
He fails to follow it up. There’s an idiot in the office, for sure, and it’s not you.
Your mouth crumples and you look away from him, something achy about you as another tear falls down your cheek to curve into the skin above your top lip, making a home at your cupid’s bow. “I’m fine.”
“You can be upset,” he says. “This job’s… hard enough, without people making you feel like shit for shit you didn’t do.”
You respond to his warm(ish) tone with a small smile. Your tear slips down your lip. Carmy wants to wipe it off.
“What can I do?” he asks finally.
He wishes he could make you feel better without asking, and there are parts of him that want to turn tail and run, too, but Carmy stays standing in front of the half-open door watching as tears make their way to your chin. He doesn’t know why you’re still crying.
Maybe he does. Carmy doesn’t usually cry. He just watches things go wrong without stopping them, or keels over in the alley for long, too fast minutes as his heart pumps a bruising rhythm against his ribs.
“I’m fine, Carmy,” you say, wiping your face roughly as you stand from the chair.
He scratches a hand through his hair. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“You don’t have to anything.”
“Richie said I’m the only person who can make you feel better.”
“You’re just the only guy who ever shouts at me,” you tease, sniffling softly as you do.
Carmy shouldn’t yell at anyone, but he does. You’ve never cried. He wouldn’t yell at anybody if he thought it would make them upset like that, it’s just that yelling’s like talking where he comes from, and the kitchen doesn’t help.
“So what? Am I supposed to beat that guy up?” Carmy asks.
You laugh through what he hopes to be the last of your tears, scrubbing at your cheeks ineffectually. “Like you could beat somebody up. You’re all bark and no bite, Berzatto.”
Sure. And he’s a loser, he’s more than aware of it; Carmy knows fifty seven different ways to prepare corn for eating and he doesn’t know a single way to make girls feel better, so he tries something he saw on TV.
“Come here,” he says, holding his arm out insistently. “C’mere.”
He leans in to grab you. You hold your arms out, but you still when he touches you like you're shocked. He’s a little shocked too.
“Richie knew the guy, right?” Carmy asks.
“He said he’s banned for life.”
“Okay, great.” Carmy feels up your back slowly. Your arms are hesitant behind him. He’s the braver one for once, feeling at the dips and slopes of you with a greedy hand.
You smell… really good. He has a good sense of smell, can pick apart a meal's ingredients by scent alone if he’s awake enough, so he can tell you’re wearing that little solid perfume you keep in your cubby, gentle enough to not bother anybody in the kitchen, ever so slightly milky and sweet. He can also smell the salt on your cheeks. So weird to be able to smell your tears.
Carmy pats your back and leans away. Your hands fall to your side.
He wipes your face hesitantly, pinky to your soft cheek, until your tear stains are dry and you’re looking at him steadily.
“That was really weird,” you say.
He panics, stepping away from you, “Fuck. Fuck, sorry.”
You shake your head. “No, I’m just kidding. Thanks, Carmy.”
“Dick,” he says.
You smile brightly. Okay, his heart fell into his ass when you said it was weird, but you can tease him all day if it makes you feel better.
“I better go tell Richie I’m okay,” you say. “Don’t you have a stock to reduce?”
“Oh, you mean your stock?” he asks.
Your smile makes him wanna grab your wrist, and it makes him wanna chase after you. You slink out of the office, waving a quick goodbye with your fingers, and Carmy stares at the place you’d been sitting while you cried for a couple of seconds to get a grip.
He puts his hand on his chest and feels his pulse racing.
“Fucking asshole,” he mutters, not sure if he means the customer or himself.
Hi luveline! I have a request: in a busy night at the restaurant reader cuts or burns herself and gets overwhelmed and carmen patches her up and calms her down 👉🏻👈🏻 pretty please I loveee your hurt/comfort fics <3
—Carmy looks after you and your burned wrist. fem, 1.2k
Carmy thought he had bad nerves.
You julienne onion at your station, ready to garnish their miniature French onion hot pots, your hand coming down slightly too hard. You’ve positioned the knife wrong in panic, thumb too far down the blade and claw of your other hand loosely tucked. You’re getting too stressed, and you’re going to get hurt.
He has too much to do, but not too much to call for your attention across the cutting boards. “Hey, hey,” he insists. You look up. “Slowly and surely. Thumb against the line of the blade, like this.”
He shows you the proper grip.
“I know how to do it,” you say, frowning.
“Just calm down.”
“You’re never calm.”
Carmy can actually be extremely calm, and especially when he cooks, but nobody at The Bear has true reason to believe him. He has yet to prove himself properly after his in-fridge meltdown. Maybe he can’t.
But tonight is busy, not make or break.
“Seriously,” he says, smirking because he knows you hate it, “take it slow. Well, slower. Check your grip and keep going.”
“Carmy, can you fuck off and let me cut these?” you ask. Clearly, your associates are rubbing off on you.
Richie chimes in, his official, nothing-but-business intonation in play, “Carmy, can you fuck off, please?”
Carmy doesn’t need to raise his voice. “Fuck you.”
“Fuck you, Carmen. Twelve, walking in five. Hands? We’ve gotta pick up some bucatini...”
Richie’s getting pretty confident in the back of house. Carmy’s happy for him, even if they aren’t speaking outside of the kitchen.
He’s about to swing around Daniela to help her on the stove when you burst forward toward it and take the reins. Your prep station is cleaned and your onions set aside; he can’t believe how quickly you’re moving, and he saw that chef who was taking questionable substances fuck up a carton of carrots in a good two minutes. Dude was fast.
He wants to say Baby, slow down, and he wants to examine how awkward ‘baby’ might be if he said it. He can’t think of another pet name that could garner success. Honey’s too old (though maybe, said with softness–), sweetheart too sweet. Doll is for uncles and bub sounds like it’s missing a syllable when he says it. Honestly, Carmy’s just desperate to call you something nice and have you listen, for once.
You grab a pan from Daniela’s hand. “I got it,” you tell her, not without sympathy. “We can do one each.”
“Thank you, can you–”
“Daniela, I need those lobster claws now. I’m serious,” Sydney interrupts, giving Daniela a rightfully impatient look. “I needed them five minutes ago.”
Daniela winces. Sydney waits. You, unbeknownst to everybody except Carmy, attempt to clean a smudge from the hot stove top for no good reason —Carmy could scream at you. He nearly does.
“Can you fucking stop?” he bites.
Sydney looks at him likes he’s grown a third head, but her reaction, while unfortunate and rather important considering their partnership, is the least of his worries. You flinch at his sudden rough tone and pull your hand back from the smudge, sleeves rolled and clean, skin of your wrist naked and waiting to be branded as you catch it on the side of your hot pan.
Your yelp is immediate.
“Fucking– Carmy!” Sydney says.
He’s not sure why he’s being shouted at. Maybe because he abandons the line at a time where doing so guarantees a ripple effect.
You’re freaking out. Carmy slides in beside you to encourage the pan off of the heat while you’re unable to tend it. “Daniela?” he says, loud and clipped.
“It’s okay,” you say. You’re wide-eyed and lying, it isn’t okay, the burn mark is a squeamish pink stripe against your skin and you're already crying.
Carmy takes your elbow. He wants to yank you to the cold faucet, but he’s measured enough. He has an encyclopaedia of kitchen safety.
He’s burned himself enough times. “Come here,” he says, though you’re coming anyway, wincing as he leads you to the back of the kitchen by the sink. He stoppers it and starts the cold tap, where he pauses. “It’s gonna sting.”
“It already stings.”
Carmy guides your arm under the stream.
He turns the faucet until it’s a fast running spray and encourages you to lean down to submerge the entirety of the burn in cold water. Your sleeve gets wet. He pushes it up.
“Carm, it’s fine.”
He shakes his head to readjust your arm. His hand is tender, but his fingers are trembling.
“Carmen,” you say firmly, quietly, “it’s okay.”
He realises suddenly that he’s not breathing. He lets out a breath, pulls another fast one in, and snaps the fuck out of it. “It’s okay,” he repeats, “the cold waters gonna draw out the heat. I’m gonna get the first aid kit.”
“I have to go back–”
“No.” His and Syd’s kitchen will never prioritise the food over injury. “I’m gonna get the first aid kit, I’m gonna dress it. But you have to stay here for thirty minutes with your hand in the water.”
“A half hour, are you kidding?”
“Do I sound like I am?” he asks genuinely, not pissed nor bossy, fighting a tendency to be both.
“We’re right at the crest of the rush–”
“It doesn’t matter. You can’t prioritise the restaurant over yourself. It’ll fuck you up.” He feels the cold on his hand where he holds yours in the water, watches the water rise to the overflow. “Does it hurt?” He turns your hand to see the burn in better detail. “It’ll blister for sure. You’re gonna have to look after it.”
You wipe the drying tears from your cheek. It was a stupid question. “Yeah, it hurts. Fuck, it was so hot.”
“That’s why I told you to calm down.”
“I know that. Thanks.”
He doesn’t know if you’re sarcastic or genuine, can’t tell if you’re hurting or pissed at his instruction. You shiver when he lets your wrist go, but you keep the burn submerged, the faucet squeaking as he wrestles it off again.
“Maybe we could both try calming down,” you suggest.
“Maybe.” He squeezes his eyes shut quickly. When he opens them, you’re still squinting in your own pain. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll be right back.”
He pats your shoulder gently. His hand gets stuck to you, massaging tenderly at your shoulder and down your upper arm, your faces closer than they reasonably need to be.
“You okay?” he asks.
Your cheek tilts down toward his hand where it holds you, but you don’t let it fall. “I’ll be fine. I am fine. It’s just… busy.”
“I know.”
“Never burned myself like that.”
Carmy has, but you could guess that. “It’s fine. I know how to look after it.” Look after you.
His hand crests your shoulder. You let your cheek touch briefly to the back of it. “Okay,” you murmur.
Yeah, he’s fucked. The first aid kit can’t fix what’s wrong with him.
Oooooo carmy request: him being jealous of readers friendship w richie cos they re like buddys and he thinks she doesn't like him cos shes not like that w him
—you realise what Carmy wants from you. fem, 1.4k
Richie isn’t technically an upstanding citizen, but he’s a good guy.
“I’m telling you, sweetheart, you just need to be more aggressive.”
You’re sitting on a stool behind the counter filling the ketchup and mayonnaise bottles with the huge ones from the walk-in. Richie isn’t doing much of anything, which is fine by you; he’s good entertainment for a shitty job.
“I don’t want to be more aggressive, I want people to be nicer.”
“We don’t get what we want,” he mutters.
You frown expressively. “Aw, baby, we don’t get what we want. You don’t get what you want, huh?”
“What’s your problem?” he asks, though he laughs brightly. “You’re the fucking baby. You’re not doing that right.”
You point at your extremely slow drip of ketchup. “No, you think? I know I’m doing it wrong, Richie. Doing it right is a lot of arm effort. Have you seen my arms?”
“You’ve got muscle.” Richie lifts your arm up by the wrist. “Flex. Flex your arm.”
“I’m flexing. You can’t see that?”
“What are you guys doing?” Carmy asks.
He comes up behind Richie and they’re almost twins. Not in appearance —Carmy’s lighter facially and broader physically— but in stance, their mussed up aprons and the rags on their shoulders a uniform.
You flex. “Weight training.”
Richie drops your arm. “I’m showing her how to fill the sauce bottles.”
“And you didn’t know how to do that?” Carmy asks you.
“I’m the one that taught Richie.” You absolutely didn’t teach Richie how to do it, that much is obvious. Richie laughs heartily, and Carmy frowns, and you realise that Richie thinks you’re both laughing at Carmy, which isn’t what was happening. Not totally.
It’s hard to navigate The Beef without Mikey; Carmy is nothing like his brother, and Richie’s an asshole.
Carmy nods at you. You’re worried his lip is gonna curl like it does when he’s mad and you’re gonna get told to do something you’re uninterested in, but it’s Richie who gets punished. “Can you finish Sydney’s prep?”
“Why can’t she do it?”
“Her stomach thing. It’s just onions.”
Richie wants to argue, but can’t. He’s paid a wage to work. “Fine. But tell Syd I’m not her gopher.”
Richie saunters away.
“He’s not her gopher,” you tease when he’s out of earshot, to Carmy’s surprised delight. “God, Carm, don’t you know anything?”
Your Richie impression isn’t your best. Carmy must enjoy it, still smiling to himself as his attention is turned to the register, where he begins wiping down the keys.
“Is that really the way to do that?” he asks, gesturing to your sauce bottles.
You’ve turned the cap upside down, feeding sauce into the bottle one drip at a time. It would be quicker to remove the cap entirely and pour straight from the big bottle, but that sometimes requires three hands, the big jugs are that heavy.
“Despite what you might think, Carm, I’ve thought it through.”
“You sure?”
You could get defensive. When Carmy first took over the restaurant, you thought, What the fuck, Mikey. Leave your shithole restaurant to your world class brother and get your entire roster of staff fired in one fell swoop. But Carmy never fired you, hasn’t cut your hours, doesn’t treat you like an asshole. He is a jerk, that much is certain during busy dinner service, but he has yet to take it too far. (Ish.)
So you won’t defend your laziness, or expect him to like it. You get up from your stool and turn the cap right side up, tapping what’s yet to drip through the spout into the bottle. You set the cap aside, and you uncap the big ketchup to decant sauce until the bottle is full.
Carmy glances at you from the corner of your eye. He looks at you, looks away again.
You think he might like you. In the don’t have a choice, grown on him like moss way. He gets cagey when you and Richie are having fun, and he stares altogether too much, but he can be pretty when he’s smiling (or really yelling) and he has nice hands, and nice arms. He has a nice way of saying things. You don’t mind his attention.
There have been worse bosses to want to push you up against a wall.
Not that you think Carmy could. He whines like a bitch at you for stupid shit, but Carmen Berzatto shoving you into a wall for a rough kiss? That’s never gonna happen.
And yet… his frown tells a different story.
“Why do you get so weird about me and Richie?” you ask.
“I don’t get weird about you and Richie.”
You open the mayonnaise bottle and set the cap aside. “He’s nicer than you think.”
“Yeah?” He sounds vaguely depressed, which isn’t uncharacteristic. Seriousness colours his voice with a strange charm. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“He is, he makes me laugh. He makes sure I eat, he shouts at guys when they’re mean to me.”
“Who’s mean to you?”
“Carmy.” You give up on the mayonnaise and wipe your hands down your apron, to his ire. You’d prefer not to smell like egg and oil during this conversation, but it’s better than smelling like burnt chicken, sort of. “Richie’s a nice guy, whether you agree or not.”
“That’s great, I’m glad he’s so nice to you.” He sounds angry now, but he’s stuck as you are —walking away is losing.
You really don’t get it. “Is he not supposed to be nice to me?” you ask.
“He can do what he wants. You can do what you want.”
You laugh, and hope to diffuse the situation with a joke, “Okay, thanks for your permission, Chef.”
“Fuck off.”
He sounds less tense, but not fixed. And you might find it harder to keep up with him, constantly wanting to impress him, knowing you can’t, but you’re not out of touch. You aren’t a huge dick.
Carmy beats you to it. “I was kidding, about the bottles. You can do it how you want.”
“I wasn’t offended.”
“But you don’t– with Richie, you– I don’t know what I’m doing wrong with you.”
You look him up and down, lengths of his arms, tattoos and the cut over his elbow. His clean t-shirt, his neck, the strong line of his nose and his bright eyes.
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” you say, smiling at him, knowing your expression says lots of weird stuff.
Working here in the kitchen makes a busy atmosphere normal. Richie’s telling a story at the top of his lungs, Angel’s swearing about a dropped plate, knives scratch on boards and ovens hum. Being overwhelmed is something you’re good at, and big feelings don’t scare you.
“You’re jealous of Richie?” you ask, playfully pitying. “Get it together.”
“Fuck off,” he says again.
“Seriously? Richie Jerimovich. He’s telling Tina a story right now about how the last date he went on ended with her asking if he’d ever been abducted by aliens.”
“I’m not jealous of Richie.”
“No, I don’t think you are,” you say, taking a step too close, and refusing to take the step back.
Carmy doesn’t look mad anymore.
You wonder if anybody’s ever held his hand. You used to think he must’ve had a ton of girlfriends, he got so famous everywhere he went, but… He looks like he’s never been this close to someone before. Like you’re making him nervous.
“Me and Richie are friends,” you say quietly. “Is that what you want us to be?”
His hand twitches at his side.
“There, cousin, I cut the fucking onions. You happy?” Richie asks, and laughs as he steps back out to the front of house, unaware of the tension. “That’d be the day, right?”
“Yes, Richie, I’m happy you did your job. Thank you.”
“Was that hard for you, baby?” you ask Richie with a pout. “Here, let me kiss your poor hands.”
Richie gives you the bird with both of them.
You look to Carmy. Making fun of Richie together isn’t quite as good as holding hands, but you hope it’s a start.
Carmy catches on, can’t hide his grin, “There’s tylenol in the office if you need it, cousin.”
“Are your wrists feeling tender?” you prompt. “Or is that motion one you’re used to?”
Carmy laughs and the sound takes on the shape of his smile, nearly giddy.
