Summary: Friends, lovers, you’re not a fan of labels. You just like Syd and she likes you so whatever happens happens...
Menu: Sydney Adamu x Black Fem Reader / 1.7k words / MDNI / soft smut (kissing, touching over clothes, and a little fingering) / mostly fluffy fluff
Author's Note: I’m on S5E6 of The Bear and got inspired to write this because I adore Syd so much and I’ve always wanted to write for her! No real spoilers below, just Syd and you testing the boundaries of your friendship yet again. 💚
“Promiscuity” feels like such a dirty word. You like “intimacy” better.
You like to be intimate with people you’re attracted to and who are attracted to you. Promiscuity has a layer of filth to it, a lack of care, maybe. To be promiscuous means to maybe be selfish about your pleasure. And in most ways, yes, you agree it’s important to honor yourself and your desires. But for a lot of people, that can look like just having an orgasm and getting the fuck out of there, the other person be damned. Intimacy doesn’t have to result in an orgasm. Intimacy is a bonding dance between two individuals, sharing a moment together. Emphasis on together.
It’s why you never felt ashamed to be intimate with Syd and others, if you pleased. It was never at the same time, no threesomes or anything like that, but it wasn’t a secret that you shared a closeness with her and another coworker that blossomed in its own special way. One by one, you realized that your relationships with them were more intimate than merely “coworkers.”
And one by one, you decided to explore those relationships. Especially Syd. You like to take your time with her. Because, after all, intimacy is not a race to the finish line…it’s the deliberate discovery of pleasure. It’s playing hide and seek, it’s pulling petal by petal, until the rosebud reveals herself to you in all her beautiful vulnerability.
Syd was more stressed than she was letting on. She wasn’t necessarily hiding it but she was muting it. Her eyes would flit from yours when she tried to wrangle her jumbled thoughts into a bundle to effectively unravel them into coherent sentences that made a little bit of sense. She would walk away from you if she needed a minute to collect herself and cool off from the heat of the kitchen that was exhausting her. Or she would literally scream to the top of her lungs outside in the alley when she thought no one could hear her. Of course you did, though. Everyone did.
But it was only you she apologized to for the outburst. It was you she pulled into her office later when the tables were finally settled and she could breathe for at least three minutes. The space is small and cramped with her messy desk and open cardboxes spilling with uniforms. You sit across from her and her knee keeps bumping yours when she gestures with her hands or does a little wiggle in her seat from that gesturing while trying to explain to you that she was going to fucking quit if one more thing went wrong tonight.
“You’re gonna leave me in this madhouse sober? Girl, you and our talks are my medication…I’ll nut up if you quit,” you remind her and make her giggle before she smears a palm down her face. Trying and failing to get rid of her pretty smile as she rests her elbow on her desk and just looks at you. Shaking her head a little before you chime, “What? Am I lying?”
“No, no. You’d never lie to me…and I kinda hate that,” Syd murmurs and nudges her knee to yours on purpose. The contact is warm and sweet or at least it makes you feel that way because it makes you smile. It makes you reach out and teasingly squeeze her knee in response.
“Why?”
“Because…I don’t know…maybe I need someone to pretend that everything is okay and that we’re not losing our fucking minds every day. I need you to do that for me, instead of…being so, um, sincere.”
You pause for a moment as you recline in your chair that squeaks and fold your hands across your belly under your apron. “You want me to make you feel better…that’s not a crazy thing to want,” you agree with her and watch her shrug, a few of her long braids falling over her shoulder.
“Kinda feels like it. Or, I, I guess…I guess it just feels weird to crave that relief? Like…this is what I wanted…this stupid, fucking restaurant. I chose this. Am I stupid?” Syd mutters but makes herself laugh and you do, too.
“No, you’re not stupid. Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” you say but smile at her because she isn’t taking her eyes off you. Matter of fact, she’s staring at you like she’s waiting for you to say something important or do something to do the thing she’s reluctantly requesting…make her feel better. You don’t want to break eye contact because something about this feels different than usual?
Syd is your friend and has been since before she and Richie hired you as their lead server. But you’re not ignorant of how over the years, there were glimmers of flirting in how you both spoke and briefly touched each other. Hearing the longing in how she called you “gorgeous” when you debuted a new dress to go out to the club with her. Keeping your arms around her waist as your thumbs caress her spine when you hug each other and she leans into you. She’s your friend but your friendship is indeed…different.
You ruefully look away from her big, beautiful eyes to peek over your shoulder through the open door and into the chaos of the kitchen before you reach behind yourself to close it with a silent click. You see Syd perk up a little, sitting up in her chair and rolling her shoulders back as she gazes at you. Her knee bumps yours again the closer you roll your chair to her, inch by inch until your knee settles between her thighs without touching the center of her apron still cinched around her waist. But your hand touches her.
You cup her knee but not teasingly this time. A gentle squeeze as you set it there and use your other hand to carefully push away the braids on her side of her face that spill from under her scarf as you rest a palm on her cheek. Stroke your thumb to her skin that’s smooth and warm. Syd touches you, too. She places her hands on you, one on your wrist and the other on your shoulder as she attempts to pull you to her. Her eyes keep darting to your lips and you don’t want to make her wait since you can see this is the relief she craves. A quiet, tender reprieve from the loud, harsh kitchen trying to glare through the door with the clatter of pots and pans and shouts that are thankfully muffled some in her office.
You nudge your nose to hers as your lips graze the corner of her mouth, watching her eyes fall shut before yours do, too. Hearing her breath come out in a slight stutter as it washes over your lips that you press to hers. This isn’t your first kiss with Syd. A bottle of Sauvignon blanc and strawberry shortcake you baked and demolished together in one sitting at her first apartment led to that. Nothing more than a kiss, mostly…although it lasted for what felt like an hour or two as you both took turns laying on top of the other, feeling the warmth of each other through your clothes, and tasting the strawberry off one another’s tongues.
This kiss would be shorter but sweeter for now. A little reminder to your friend that you’re here for her in all the ways she needs or wants you. And that, no, you don’t need a bottle of wine to want her back.
She pulls away first because she’s trembling a little, but utters under her breath as she holds your face in hers now, “Ugh. I know someone’s going to burst through that door any minute now looking for us.”
“Looking for you, chef.”
Syd lets out a shaky chuckle at that and rests her forehead against yours. You slowly rub your hands down her back, feeling her bra beneath her chef coat and undershirt, and she trembles again. You can hear her holding her breath and you wonder if she’s trying to hold in a whimper. When you stroke the small of her back and put your lips on hers again for a little peck that lasts maybe a few seconds too long, she gives you that tiny whimper.
It makes a thrill flitter through you because it’s the same sound she made when you kissed her neck on her couch. When you palmed between her legs over her high-waisted jeans. When she unzipped those jeans and guided your hand into her panties to rock herself against it.
You remember making a similar sound when you finally got to feel her…so warm with prickles of hair made soft and slick and wet from you, sticking to your fingers that you moved, traced, circled, and pushed to feel each of her pretty, pussy petals...hear her delicious sound…try to make it louder, deeper. You’ve daydreamed about hearing it one more time, but you’d never pressure your friend into any situation she didn’t care to try again.
Syd teases you in a low tone that leads you away from your thoughts. “Like you don’t have tables? Richie is probably having an aneurysm right now searching for you. I literally can’t afford to pay his ER bill.” Makes you shudder with a laugh and your foreheads knock together a little before she says with a grin, “Um, ouch.”
“Oops,” you mumble and tilt your head up to plant a kiss between her eyebrows. “Better?”
The way she lets her hands fall from your face to scoop your hands into hers to hold on her lap makes you hum. Especially as she gazes at you with a calmness touching the brown of her eyes that you haven’t noticed in them for, well, weeks.
“I’m getting there,” she answers your rhetorical question honestly. Skims her thumb over your thumb knuckle. “Can we…hang out tonight, though? I know we’re right back here in the morning, but maybe you can, uh, stay over if you’re okay with that or up for it or—”
You cut her off sweetly and love the adorable smile she gives you because you don’t want her to doubt things. Not The Bear, not you, and certainly not herself. “I’m always up for it with you. Yeah? Always.”
Fic Masterlist / Divider by @cursed-carmine
I was tempted to make this a Syd x Reader x Richie fic if you couldn't tell, but I cut him out cuz I like it better with just Syd. But I think I wanna write for Richie, too, cuz oof!
Likes, reblogs, and comments appreciated if you liked this! Thank you for reading! 💚
my hands are shaking, i feel dizzy and i think i'm gonna leave this world soon 😵💫😵💫 my hopes were so low for a kolačić pride post, and yet HERE WE AREEE
