The Bear Brain Rot - Tumblr Posts
brain? rotted all day, chef
im just always thinking bout carmen and sydney and the bear and the whole staff because it’s just who i am now.
so i have in my head that im a decent writer and maybe i should share some of my writing with more than my five friends. and im just putting some of these thots down so maybe itll encourage me to actually do it. it would actually be so much better than this i hope, but heres some half baked part of it.
what if claire didnt happen and it was someone else? (cause i still love the idea of carmy learning how to be a soft bf eventually) a friend of syds. they met at CIA, became friends because theyre both from chicago. shes a bit aloof, changes her mind about what she wants to do with her life on a whim. shes been fondly nicknamed birdie by her family for always being ‘in the wind’. (? this is because i dont wanna name her but dont wanna use y/n and might switch around POVs idk yet.)
anyways - her and syd have kept in touch casually, she ends up back in chicago for some family reasons and decides to look up her old friend to check in on her, this new spot syd’s been working on with some partner that she’s explained as being sometimes an asshole but a genius in the kitchen.
birdie meets this partner amid an apparent meltdown over something she isn’t clued in on, maybe she shouldve called syd first before dropping in to see if her friend was busy, but she was in the neighborhood running another errand so she doesnt see the harm. sydney looks surprised, confused, and apologetic in the span of a few seconds it takes for her to recognize her friend when she stepped in past the paper covered front door.
“birdie?” - “syd! hi, sorry, I guess this is a bad time?” - “No, well, yeah, but it’s - it’s fine. what are you doing here? and why aren’t you in new york?” the two exchange a few words when sydney closes the distance between them, offering a brief hug and not offering to introduce her to the chaos that she walked in on. birdie cant help but look though, to take in the scene. and when she does she realizes that agitated partner of hers has frozen in place for just a beat and his gaze is zeroed in on them -or on syd. its almost unnerving. how can someone be so fucking intense? maybe it was the way his brows were still furrowed or that the blue in his eyes stood out like a beacon. either way, it has her casting sydney a knowing look, ‘partner’ hm, shed put a pin in that to ask what was up with him later.
meanwhile syd returned that look back to her friend, because while she knew most of carmy’s looks, she’d never seen him look at anyone how he was looking at them now - or rather, how he had been staring at birdie. it must’ve only been a few seconds -but felt like a lifetime- before he dragged his attention back to fak and the reason why he’d been popping off in the first place. and before things exploded again, sydney was herding her old friend back outside with suggestions to get together that night. when it wasnt a bad time.
and thaaaat is where my brain is at, simmering away at this idea. and whether or not i should turn it into something. or just let it rot away. id probably get in some first person pov, or ‘you’ pov. and from carmys end, too. a little back and forth? because i love men written by women and i am really good at that. and maybe ill come up with some better nickname for the girl or maybe not. idk
i guess this part here will be a little bit of a master list for the fic i have named ‘strange currencies’ but not really for now. until i figure out whats going on here.
i went ahead and did a lil something here (ep 1) from carmys pov of his day up until this point heres ep 2, a bit of ‘birdie’ and then some syd/carmy pov. and ep. 3 is out, with some birdie and syd love
strange currencies | carmy x fem!character
maybe take a peek at this first, a little something of an intro to whatever this is going to turn out to be.
|| summary ; in the middle of a stressful afternoon for carmy, sydney gets a surprise visitor. - this is from carmy's pov to start us off. additional parts will switch between him and the fem!reader pov
|| setting/timeline ; this picks up during the remodel of the beef into the bear, probably a few weeks in give or take. and who knows how far it'll go. Ill be sure to add notes if the timeline skips ahead or goes back. I also don't think there will be many season 2 spoilers, I may mention some things/scenarios that do come up but i don't plan to add anything that would ruin s2 for anyone. || warnings ; swearing, arguing/shouting, carmys pov, general stress, not proof-read or anything special
|| word count ; 1,096
An alarm is going off and it won't stop going off for what seems like forever. 'Is that in my head?' Maybe, probably definitely. Carmy was dreaming, though some would call it a nightmare, about The Bear, the renovations, the absolute clusterfuck it had all turned into.
That fucking alarm did not stop.
'Riche would you cut that fuckin' thing off I can't even hear myself think!' That was Jimmy, fucking Jimmy.
'It's go fast boats mojito, all one word.' Richie's triumphant when he gets off the phone.
Sydney and Sugar sigh in relief, Jimmy seems to relax, too, 'Now, can I tell you a story of a complete and utter failure?'
Carmy doesn't understand why any of them seem chill when he can still hear the alarm blaring, echoing between his ears, and it should drive him crazy but he doesn't mind it.
The alarm. The alarm, the alarm, the alarm. "Shit- oh, fuck-" Blue eyes fly open, arm flinging out to reach the clock on the bedside table, hand slapping the snooze button in the dark. 6 AM. Carmy might've been bright-eyed but he was never bushy-tailed in the mornings. Not when he rarely went to bed before midnight, not when he slept for shit most nights. The dreams never stopped. Some of them even lead to him sleepwalking, which is totally fucked. Who does that?
His morning routine was simple, straightforward. That was one thing Carmy could generally count on despite the shitshow that was everything else lately. Wake up, shower, get dressed, try to eat something, brush his teeth, attempt to tame his hair, then promptly fuck it up before he'd walk out the door by the sheer number of times he ran his fingers through it. Everything else that happened after he left his apartment had become a totally different story. Actually, everything else, since he'd come back to Chicago, since Mikey, had felt like a derailment from the life he had figured out for himself.
It was no surprise that Carmy wasn't alone at The Bear for very long before Sydney showed up, Sugar a short time after, then the rest of the family filtered in as the morning ticked on. He stood next to Syd in front of the three calendar months they'd taped to the wall. Their schedule that's surrounded by permits, checklists, edits in the margins, so many fucking sticky notes, and "motivational" add-ins like 'fuck my fucking life'.
A six-month project that they had to squeeze into three. A timeline that was confident - cocky - actually crazy.
Every second counts.
To everyone except Richie apparently, who doesn't roll in til after noon. "Yo, what's goin' on ya fuckin' replicants?" Still wearing one of his many 'The Beef' shirts, in his track pants and stupid sunglasses. Carmy's jaw tenses, biting back a retort before greeting him with a lackluster "Cousin" as he passes by and into the office to talk to Sugar. Permits, so many fucking permits. And money. How did everything cost so much god damn money? Blue eyes linger on the half-assed 'budget' he'd written in sharpie on the inside of an empty pizza box a couple weeks ago while his sister reminds him of the million and one things they needed to do before they could ever start with the real renovations.
The facelift that Fak keeps insisting is not only a facelift but an actual gut based on all the shit they might have to actually tear out to make this place into what he and Syd envisioned it could be. The project that he'd very stupidly said they could do in six months, which really needed to be done in three because if they weren't up, running, and turning enough profit within eighteen months they were fucked.
"That's a CP," Sugar and Syd had told him in near unison when he'd asked what they could do about the timeline he had given Jimmy. "What's a CP?" - "A Carmy problem." - "Right, fuck - okay, heard."
Sydney appeared in the doorway doing her best to not look pissed off, but it was clear she was flustered by the way she spoke, "Carm- can you, like, I dunno, come fucking do something about Richie? He' won't stop arguing with Fak and just getting in the way." "Yeah, yeah, I'll be-" Before he could finish his sentence Fak's voice echoed through the restaurant, "MOOOMM!" Sugar cringed, letting out an exasperated sigh as she got to her feet and the three of them went to see what they were yelling about.
Some shit about moving lockers and scraping the paint from the walls, and who the fuck knows what else because Richie and Fak were all but shouting over each other. Marcus held his hands up in mock surrender because he didn't know what the hell to do about them. Sugar tried interjecting and Richie's going on about 'Alphas' and pheromones and "Cousin - What the fuck do you even know about pheromones?" Carmy's brows were furrowed, hands gesturing in annoyance as he spoke, "Seriously, can just one of you explain what the problem is here?" His attention slid to Fak in hopes he could get a straight answer out of him but it's not even a beat before he's opening his mouth and Richie is talking over him again, then they're both shouting over one another and "Both of you shut the fuck up!"
And they did. Everyone did, actually. But not because they had been told to, it was because the front door had opened and someone had stepped inside. A few emotions flashed over Sydney's face as she took in the stranger, "Birdie?" - "Syd!" Or maybe not stranger? Carmy turned to see who it was, blue eyes narrowing on the pair, briefly flickering over to the girl Syd was talking to, hugging, even. So they knew each other, might've even been friends.
He didn't know her, couldn't know her, right? But something familiar about the girl tickled some dark, forgotten corner of Carmy's brain. Birdie. Birdie, birdie, birdie... Then their eyes met, seconds ticked on for what felt like an hour, and Oh.
He blinked at her, seemingly checking back into himself, then ran a hand through his hair before he shifted his attention back to Richie and Fak because there was no fucking way that was the same girl. Although, Syd had mentioned New York, and how many girls that went by Birdie could there be?
Carmy didn't know, and he definitely didn't have time to think about it. Not right now. Maybe not ever.
a/n; this was fun, let's do it again sometime soon. hope whoever does take the time to read this enjoys it, and ill see ya on the next one. (which will be done from the fem!readers pov) ps. ive been writing for fun for a long time, but this is my first time posting anything like this for more than my five friends that i enjoy writing with, so hopefully my formatting will get better as i figure out tumblr for this.