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answer2jeff · 4 months

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when it rolls in like thunder:

chapter 1.5 — anyone else but you.

DISCLAIMER: half chapters are much shorter and used as wholesome, or not ;), fillers for the series! they're essentially palate cleansers so you can be emotionally prepared for more angst + hurt/comfort in the full chapters. however, you won't need to read these half chapters to understand context in full ones.

husband!carmy x hispanic!wife!reader

teaser. chapter 1. next chapter.

warnings : reader occasionally speaks some Spanish that Carmen hasn't picked up on. he thinks it's endearing. nothing else really. just very fluffy and touching. just good ol' sappy carmen and his wife going out for the day before the honeymoon!

authors note : this series is not doing well and it's kinda killing me inside but that's okay! just for funzies. also, the end is mostly dialogue. got a little lazy. sorry!

word count : 3k (not as short as i thought it would be ngl..)

highly recommend listening to the series playlist.

song(s) for this chapter : anyone else but you, & everyone adores you (at least i do)

"14.56? You're kidding me!"

Your eyes scan over the rainbow assortment of fresh, boxed fruit, the overpriced strawberries immediately grasping your attention. But not necessarily in a good way. Neither you or Carmen can totally remember who's idea it was to walk to the farmers market in this dry heat. It's not like you don't enjoy long walks, but it comes with cons. Pollen irritates your nose and the wind always messes up your hair.

You tug at Carmen's shirt, which, for once, isn't a tight-fitting pure cotton tee. It almost looks a little big on him, the sleeves rolled and cuffed perfectly so they still hug his arms. It's collared too. That ring on his finger makes your knees weak. He smells like the cologne he used to snag from Mikey's bathroom as a teenager. Richie got him his own bottle for Christmas the year after his passing and he's been wearing a spray or two on his neck and the insides of his wrists every 'special occasion' ever since.

And a hint of cigarette smoke. But you like it.

You always have.

He looks good. Fresh. Clean. Yours.

"Wow. I mean—" Carmen lets out a breathy chuckle that isn't quite loud enough to be a laugh, "it's a massive box. And it's strawberry season: May."

Still, despite his persuasive tone and the big hand that sits in the back pocket of your jean shorts as he stands beside you, it's not enough to convince you it's reasonable.

"But—"

"And we're at a farmers market, like, 10 minutes away from our place. Convenience costs money, baby."

Carmen peers down at you, retracting his hand from your rear and teasingly pushing your head into his shoulder. You pout. You don't want him to be right. The dramatics are fun.

"Pero, que es eso? Quieren que yo pago casi quince dólares para unos pinche fresas?" You throw your hands up, directly pointing to the tempting, fresh, and beautifully red fruit.

Carmen only nods. Even after 2 years of accidentally eavesdropping on your conversations, filled with the Spanish slang and sometimes vulgar language you've been using your whole life, he still hasn't quite learned much. Most of the time, he's too anxious to ask you what you're saying. He worries it'll make you stop doing it in front of him.

Until he comes to Tina, desperately. She'll ask him for the details but he can only remember bits and pieces of your one-sided conversations with him. She laughs for a moment or makes her eyes go theatrically wide just to fuck with his head. But eventually, she tells him the truth.

You only know this because Tina immediately started cracking jokes after she spent 15 minutes crying over your engagement, and then another 25 over your official elopement. 'Sacaste con un puré, gringo, mi vida! He needs patience!' she'd say to you whenever Carmen did the most minuscule thing that not-so-accidentally set you off.

"Mi amor," you turn to him, pinching your fingers and widening your eyes to make sure he's really paying attention, even if he doesn't understand you, "podemos comprar la misma cosa en Walmart, or algo así!"

The look in his eyes suggests that he didn't catch most of that. The only words he picked up were "mi amor" and "Walmart," obviously. He just assumes you're continuing your pointless bicker. But he doesn't have the heart, or even the want, to stop you.

He does love the way your nicknames for him roll off of your tongue. It warms something in him. Almost as if he believes your words capture your feelings and fully encapsulates him better than boring English ever does. They're smooth and they stick to his brain hours, or even days after they're spoken to him. In fact, he's been pretending he didn't faintly hear you whisper into his curls as he drifted off to sleep 'te amo con todo mi alma' last night, all fucking morning. It's the only full sentence you've ever spoken to him that he's been able to engrave into his memory.

"Uh-huh," he chuckles as he nods his head slowly, his dimples cinching in near the corners of his mouth. His skin looks a little tanner and brighter than usual. The veins in his eyelids are nearly invisible now, and the little moles that are scattered around his face and body are so much darker now. You thank the spring, nearly reaching the tips of summer, sun for bringing some life back to him. But you're not done complaining. So, you try not to smile in awe of your husband.

"Ó sea, que, are they gonna make me grow a magical straw-baby?"

"What, like—like how people say you'll grow a watermelon in your stomach if you swallow a seed?"

"Yeah! Like that!"

"I don't know, peach. Maybe?"

"It's not worth finding out."

"Yeah. Definitely not."

Despite this, you guys buy the damn strawberries.

You continue walking through the market and stopping at every other intricate little selection of produce, picking up ingredients for tonight's, tomorrow's, and the next day's dinner. You're still snacking on the overpriced strawberries, the entire carton in hand. Carmen occasionally lets you pop one in his mouth. He contently bites right before the stem and swallows. They're perfectly ripe, sweet, and juicy. And unfortunately a tad bit sticky. In the end, they're worth the aggressive price tag.

Finally, you stop in your tracks at a flower stand. Bouquets tied together with white ribbonYou're immediately drawn to the vibrant red of the roses and the pure, angelic white of the mums. Oh god, and you're convinced the baby's breath tucked in neatly between each gap that couldn't be closed by blooming petals could remedy the need for plant life in your living room. The fantasy makes you feel like you just can't leave without taking some of these gorgeous flowers with you.

"Mm—" you point, your mouth full of mushy strawberries, "those look really nice."

For a moment, Carmen hesitates. Those flowers will shrivel. They will lose their once attractive and captivating saturation of color. He's not even sure if they'll last more than 72 hours, given how bloomed the petals are. But you still have those clay vases from your engagement party. And he still loves to make you happy. Despite their fleeting nature, your appreciation for his gestures will last forever. Even if their lifespan doesn't.

Carmen's had this tendency for longer than either of you can pinpoint. Having money he doesn't need, money he doesn't use, has led to him making some questionable decisions. All in good faith. But impractical nonetheless. Take, for example, that time he bought you a Cartier love bracelet for your 1 year anniversary.

Yes, you heard that right. Cartier. The gold and shiny flat bands that required the disassembling and unscrewing of 18 karat gold bolts with a miniature fucking screwdriver. Oh, and this was even after you and him agreed to 'no gifts,' as you were already planning a trip to Copenhagen. The reaction he received from you wasn't quite what he expected. Tears streaming down your face and the kiss on his cheek to compensate for the lack of a proper gift for him was not part of the thoroughly walked through plan he wrote in his head. But your happiness is his, in the purest and pathetic and shameless way. He realized this the moment he screwed that last bolt and secured the thin piece of gold against the circumference of your wrist.

It's around 4pm, and the glistening sun is just slightly past its highest peek. Bright transparent blue and green spoons made from hard plastic swirl around in the cheap, (and definitely not authentic) gelato you share. Outdoor seating wasn't the first option, now that spring was slowly evolving into another scorching hot Chicago summer, but the AC of the parlor was sure to give you hypothermia.

"Fuckin' hot out here. Can't see," Carmen mutters, taking a small bite of the creamy pistachio mixture. He squints at the blinding beam of the sunlight. You felt a little guilty for letting him sit right in the direction of the sun. But he insisted.

"Did y'know blue eyes are more sensitive to sunlight?" You raised your brows, wiping the corner of your mouth and licking the gelato residue from it.

"Seriously?" Carmen leans forward, putting his hand above his eyes as a makeshift visor. His hand reaches out to adjust the heart shaped sunglasses that started to fall off of your head.

"Here," you hand them to him, feeling bad that you'd completely forgotten about them.

"And yes, seriously," you nod, hovering over the table and adjusting the sunglasses so they'd rest perfectly on Carmen's nose before sitting back down, "It's because blue eyes have less melanosomes compared to green and brown eyes."

A simple, "thank you, baby," would've sufficed, but kisses your lips, gently cradling your jaw and barely letting a breath of air slip through the empty space between your mouths after the 3rd kiss. Alas, you remove your lips from his and sit back down.

"Is there, like—"

"An exact number?" You finished his sentence.

"Yeah."

"Yes, actually. Blue eyes have 3 in each, green eyes have 5, and brown eyes usually have around 9 to 12 depending on how deep the color is."

You smile, shrugging your shoulders as you try to remain humble. It's impressive, he has to admit. Carmen's always been fascinated by your knowledge of pointless information. He wishes he could store and retain so much of what you know. But for now, he'll just admire you for it. He'll contemplate his lack of ability to remember things like patterns and bullet pointed facts that didn't relate to culinary arts later.

"Huh," he crosses his arms against his chest, his button up shirt squeezing his flesh and showing his slightly faded tattoos "kinda makes sense."

Letting out a laugh or two, you take another disappointing bite of the fake gelato monstrosity. It's not that it doesn't taste decent, but the texture is off and the crystallized ice that formed around the sides is unappealing for the price. Carmen had doubts since the moment you dragged him in by the hand like a greedy kid spotting a candy store. But he didn't say anything. What's the point of using his knowledge and skills to crush making you happy? It wasn't necessary at the time.

But, much to his pleasure of being correct, but his dismay of your disappointment, you aren't the biggest fan of it in the end.

"This isn't great," you swallow, shaking your head and dropping the spoon back into the paper cup in defeat as the green and nutty mixture went down your throat for the last time.

"It's not real," Carmen joins you, just to end up dropping his spoon in the same unfulfilling manner, too. "Most gelato places aren't. Gelato's dense. Not fluffy."

You nod, pushing the cup to the side and interlocking your fingers into his. His calloused fingertips gently caress the back of your hand and go over every little vein and mole that shines through your soft and soothing skin. He's become pretty fond of the whole hand-holding thing. Especially with that pretty rock on your finger. It's delicate. You're delicate. You're his.

"You've been doing that since the day we met, y'know," you hold onto his hand tighter, smiling and snatching your sunglasses back from his face with one swift motion before he can protest.

"What? Explaining shit about food you don't care about?" Carmen chuckles, his teeth showing. Sometimes he was embarrassed of his info-dumping, but he's learned to not be so shameful of it. You find it interesting. He doesn't really notice that he does it anymore.

"Yeah. But it's cute. It's what made me wanna keep talking to you. You don't do it to make me feel stupid, or something. You just.."

You paused to think.

"You know a lot about what you do, Carm. You're passionate."

Ah. The day you met.

Around 3 years ago, you'd just moved to the bustling city of Chicago after writing and successfully selling a beautiful script to an indie short film, which ended up being undeserving of your work due to the poor execution of dialogue. It didn't even end up showing at the film festival you were practically forced to attend. Even after co-writing and directing film projects and not-so-popular cinematic pieces, you hadn't tasted the pleasure of success. You dreamed to write something all on your own and conjure up a moving script of the century. You figured moving to a brand new city would get the creative juices flowing. Eventually, it did, but it took a boring circle of friends and a couple sleepless nights before you were successfully back and thriving in the industry.

You decided celebrating with an appletini or two at a shitty Karaoke bar down the block from your apartment was the best option. And thank god you did.

Carmen caught your eye the moment you detached yourself from your social circle to smoke a cigarette or two outback in the alleyway to melt the anxiety that started to consume you once you got a little tipsy for the first time in months. The tattoo on his hand and the way he crouched down on the asphalt beside Richie who complained endlessly about the complexities of his divorce was intriguing.

You butted into their conversation and lit a cigarette of your own, politely greeting them. Richie didn't say much. It's like he knew it would be Carmen's opportunity to function like a normal person and have a pleasant conversation with a random bar girl in black pantyhose and combat boots. The two of you discussed moving back to Chicago, discovering that Carmen actually grew up there and started a new life of culinary exploration and expertise, while you just needed a sense of control and escapism.

After the conversation had reduced to mundane small talk, visibly making both of you tense up, you finally got his name: Carmen Berzatto. His use of his full name was a little displacing. It made you wonder if you should've known who he was, considering his surprisingly humble background check. You couldn't help but want to know if there was more to him than his career. More than his cigarettes and his tattoos and his weird love-hate relationship with his family friend he called 'cousin' for no real particular reason.

More than the restaurant he'd been trying to revive.

That night caused him to come to the realization that he didn't actually know if there was more to him. Ever since that conversation and its rude interruption of Richie's right hook into some random guys face landing him in a cell overnight, he's been forming into a real person instead of the outer shell that is his job as a chef. He asked about your films, your projects, what made you start working in cinematography, and who your inspirations were. You answered completely honestly and wholeheartedly with every question, never making him feel a burden for his curiosity.

You could tell he was nervous with the way his voice shook and his breath went uneven with every look.

"I was kinda scared to talk to you when you came up to me," Carmen smiles, running his free hand through his dry and defined blonde curls. You squinted in disbelief.

"What? Me?"

"Yeah. I don't know, I–" he shrugs, leaning forward to get even closer to your again "you were cool right off the bat. You still are. Possibly a lot cooler than me."

You roll your eyes playfully, refusing to take the compliment in a fit of flattery. Constantly being humble around Carmen was kinda hard. Especially with the way he unintentionally showered you with compliments that were really just state of facts to him. But he didn't want you to be humble. He wanted you to own that shit.

"And you're beautiful. So, so beautiful. I think that scared me a little, too."

"I think I might've been more nervous than you were. I was just so determined to talk to the hot guy with tattoos and a blue apron over a slutty white t-shirt that I tried desperately to hide it," you joked, laughing harder at the sight of an eyeroll of his own.

"Yeah, well, look at us now. Married," Carmen smiles, gently pushing a strand of your hair behind your ear and exposing your decorated lobe with earrings Natalie gifted you for your birthday last year. "I'm glad you stuck it out. You always do. All the time."

Carmen gushes over your ability to 'always know what to say,' when you know deep down your life is just a constant cycle of 'figuring it out' and 'going with the flow' of inevitable highs and lows of life as you go on. Your brilliance is so organic. Everything about you has always been the purest form of excellence and love to him. Even when he barely knew you.

"Can I ask you a really stupid question?" You bite at the inside of your cheek, your hand releasing from Carmen's so you could clasp your palms together in a pleading motion.

"Sure."

You pause, swallowing the familiar lump that hasn't formed in your throat since the first time you told him you wanted every part of him in your life.

"When..." you breathe in sharply through your nose, "did you realize, 'oh yeah, I need to spend the rest of my life with her.' Was there any specific moment?"

Almost without a second thought, Carmen answers with a blush against his cheeks and his hand grasping yours again at the loss of physical contact.

"Probably the first time we kissed."

That response surprises you more than it probably should. That night in your apartment changed his course and perspective on love and life for the rest of eternity. He learned to slow down and let himself fail and pick the pieces of his mistakes back up.

"I love you, Carmy."

"I love you."

He says it back hungrily like he needs it to be branded into the ridges of your mind. And at this rate, it might've already been stamped into your memories of him.

current taglist : @lemmejustpulloutmylightsaber @fallinallinmendes @sexyyounglatinoboy @febris-amatoria

#carmen berzatto #carmen berzatto fluff #husband!carmy x wife!reader #carmen berzatto x hispanic!reader #the bear x reader #when it rolls in like thunder #carmen berzatto series #wow this took forever #hope u guys enjoy this little number #gotta keep my followers fed

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lady-charinette · 2 years

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Yor and Loid stumble upon some articles in the morning newspaper about a lethal assassin prowling the streets of Berlint assassinating well known politicians and officials. All of them have a history of political deceit and corruption, no doubt many enemies to face, but someone paying an assassin to outright kill them?

Loid sipped his coffee. "I'm worried over these news, this assassin seems dangerous. Perhaps we should install a new lock on our door."

'An assassin that killed the minister of foreign affairs? He had guards all over his mansion and the suite he frequented, how did a lone contract killer get to him?'

Yor stirred the coffee in her cup and helped Anya cut the edges of her toast. She tensed slightly at the news before schooling her features into a picture of motherly concern. "Yes, you're right. The streets may not be safe anymore, we might have to pick Anya up from school."

'Oh no! They found out about the minister not being on vacation!! Shopkeeper assured me things were taken care of but maybe there was a leak? No, I killed everyone on the scene, it was a planned ambush, there couldn't have been any witnesses to leak this to the media-'

"Yor?" Loid rose an eyebrow curiously at the almost imperceptible stutter in Yor's hand. "Are you alright?"

'She must be worried sick about this assassin. I'll have to ask Handler to have some more spies shadow the apartment. What if it's Thorn Princesses' work? Not even our spies could stop her if she decides to come too close to us.'

Yor's lower lip trembled, offering Loid a shaky smile. "Y-Yes, I'm sorry it's just- I'm very worried about Anya and you. If this mysterious assassin keeps killing these...innocent people...shall I pick you up and we pick Anya up together from school? That way we'll all feel safer."

'Yes, nobody can harm my family as long as I'm with them!'

Loid smiled, giving a reassuring nod towards Anya, who appeared to be sweating. The poor girl. "Don't worry Anya, we'll make sure nothing bad happens to you."

'According to the very limited data we managed to find on Thorn Princess, she has never targeted families or children before, so that's a relief. However, if my identity were to be compromised, I'm not sure Thorn Princess will spare my family if she decides to come after me. I'll have to hide my tracks well and keep a low profile until this dies down.'

Yor dug her nails into the flesh of her thighs, internally screaming. 'What if the master spy Twilight himself gets in my way? Surely he heard the news about the minister's death, if his agency somehow finds out I was behind his death, would they go after my family? No! I can't allow that to happen! I'll make sure nothing happens to Loid and Anya, I'll ask Shopkeeper to hold off on assignments for now until things die down. Until then, I'll have to keep both Anya and Loid calm.'

The fake married couple smiled at one another, the air thick with tension as they mulled over this morning's unsettling news, blissfully unaware of the inner turmoil of one 4 year old esper.

Anya stared wide eyed at both her parents, her brain vibrating with their thoughts and her own rising anxiousness about the safety of her family.

'If mama and papa fought who would win?!'

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