My SydCarmy fics MASTERLIST

Carmen Berzatto just stood there in front of her and didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. -Copenhagen He was reduced to a bunch of boneless matter with a heartbeat that only existed because she laid her dark eyes on it. -Après ce, la liberté

At that moment, she realized that her favorite place on Earth was right there, standing 334 feet above the ground, nestled in his chest. -Ponte degli Innamorati

I have recently been immortalized as an Ao3 bot here’s all you need to know about it.

🐻 Slowburn >>> They win a Michelin Star and Carmy confesses his love for Sydney.

🐻 Larrabe >>> Syd moves to her own place, they win a Michelin star and “celebrate”. Luca and Claire also make an appearance here.

🐻 Pasta >>> Carmy & Syd cook together, then eat each other and then there’s this invisible string they discover has always linked them in a sense. Mikey is also mentioned here.

🐻 Heart >>> Carmy goes to therapy to get in touch with his true feelings and Syd tries to deny hers, which explains her ❤️ tattoo.

🐻 Hint >>> C reflects on her breakup with Carmy.

🐻 Sunset >>> Carmy must make a choice. Are actions ultimately more important than words?

Hunting the northern lights and watching them dance and flicker in the sky, while lying on his back, in his bed, inside his Igloo, was one of the most rewarding experiences he ever allowed himself to indulge in.

Turns out that when he opted out of the suffering, he was pretty damn good at amusement and enjoyment. As a matter of fact, that Aurora Borealis sighting in particular felt a lot like happiness to him. Only one thing was missing to feel perfect. More like, only one person. Maybe two.

The same thing happened the night before, when he was lying on a frozen lake in the middle of a snowy forest, and the northern lights came over him like a huge luminous tent in every color and kept going for about 30 minutes straight. The feeling of just lying there in complete silence with the Aurora Borealis serpenting above him, reminding him he was still alive, there was still hope, and nothing was set in stone, because it all could change in an instant, and it all usually did, for better and for worse. That had been a constant in his life, but that was also a positive thing, actually. A liberating thing.

Carmy found it impossible to describe how it felt to be so free outside a kitchen for the first time in his life, alone and loving it. He could see how those green and blue lights were also shedding light on his very soul at that moment. What he saw in the sky above that lake represented for him all that he had missed out on by not taking risks, by using his chef's whites as armour and his knives as shields. He had made something sordid out of something wonderful by depriving it of the one thing that made it worth it.

Syd had connected him back to that silver lining; he was now ready to really see it, fully.

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

I've been getting some DMs about this one. Thanks, btw!

Sinopsis: In this AU Sydney becomes the first African-American Female President of the USA and Carmy is her fixer. Same Scandal Olitz dynamic but in reverse, where Carmy would play Olivia Pope's role and Syd would be the cheating spouse.

Syd is married to Luca, they go way back. Luca is bi and Syd is an ally, he's in the closet, though, but not with her (kinda bc since he got to the WH as VP, he's pretty much celibate). Coincidentally that was when Carmy and Syd started their affair but Carmy did not wreck an unhappy home, he didn't save her from a loveless marriage. Syd and Luca were perfectly content, they would have used the word "happy", even, before Carmy showed up and Syd fell down bad for him and Carmy started to worship the ground beneath her feet, two years before they let it rip, because God knows they tried to fight it every step of the way.

Carmy's ex is the C person (kinda bc before Syd he was a serial situationshipper).

Luca loves Marcus, but Marcus is also in the closet and they don't wanna commit professional suicide, Marcus is Secret Service, Syd's bodyguard and even more careful than Luca, but Luca's love is not unrequited.

This is a love story, BUT it's not about romance or even about adultery. I intend to cut deeper.

The underlying sentiment of the plot that I wanna explore has more to do with loyalty and that thin line that separates betraying others from self-betrayal, than with anything else.

In Part I, Opprobrium, I'll only get as far as the Election.

I'm writing this fic not to arrive to conclusions about any of that, althought I might stumble upon them. Who knows? What I'm interested in is: it raising existential questions, such as: If we can't be loyal and true to ourselves, how the hell are we gonna be loyal to others? In what capacity? Is it even possible? How could we tell? And especially in the political field, where "fixing" the truth to comply with political correctness is a must: How can we even begin to be true to ourselves and others and live up to any meassure of loyalty, self-loyalty or the other kind, if we do that for a living?

In other words: A phylosophical mess, throwing some smut into the mix to make it lighter and more palatable at times, but not cutting down on the harder to digest parts in the process. I don't wanna spare the reader, or myself, the conflicts and oxymorons that the characters will go through to reach their final destination, which is not necessarily living happily everafter. It's much more realistic than that.

Thanks for your feedback so far, I'm listening to every voice and every advice but can't make any promises because this is a WIP and I'm letting it write itself, plus it requires a bunch of research and drafting before I even begin to actually sit down and write the chapters. Ch3 is still in the oven.

The only promise I can make and keep is that it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

See you on Ao3.

❝The symphony of the pan making the caramelized lamb sing a sweet song that only Carmy and her knew the melody of was soothing in the midst of all the mayhem. “You good, chef?” Carmy asked, as he instructed her, to hear the music that came from the pan being embraced by the fire, under her command. She followed his guidance and then smiled for him. Syd could hear the music alright. But what she loved the most was his voice, reassuring her. Holding her without touching her.❞

Chapter 1

A/N: for @post-woke, sorry for the delay ;)

She found this feeling deep inside her, completely uncontrollable and relentless, taking hold of her when he told her that he was out, and it began to grow upward from the inside out, emerging full force, looking for the light.

She didn´t let it out, though. Her sense of self-preservation wouldn´t allow it.

Keeping it stealthily guarded had more to do with her fundamental decency as a human being than with not taking risks with such a volatile piece of shit; she wouldn't be caught dead begging Carmen Berzatto to stay.

But none that stopped her from feeling how she felt for him, of course. Regardless, he didn´t have to know that, and she made sure of it.

When she first started working for him at The Beef, she felt as if she had never stepped into a kitchen before; she wanted to prove herself to him, but all her expertise and even talent seemed to pale entirely, compared to his, even when he kept complimenting her dishes, and telling her that he saw her vision to make the business grow, etc., she still felt like that new kid on the block who had just come out of her shell and was blinking her eyes to the world for the first time, blinded by his light. The light of the three stars he retained at Eleven Madison Park while being the most excellent CDC at the most excellent restaurant in the entire United States of America, where she feasted on the best meal she had ever had, and where she went, even when she was broke, just because of him. After almost 2 years of working by his side and becoming his business partner, she still couldn´t shake that creeping impostor syndrome that messed up her sleeping schedule and made her wish never to fall asleep at all to avoid all the fucking nightmares that haunted her pretty much every night, whenever she wasn´t trying to stay awake coming up with new recipes that she figured he´d called: “Fire”.

Working with Carmy felt like diving for pearls, and that´s not as romanticized as it sounds, because the reality of the extinct art of diving for pearls is that it literally requires swimming in a sea infested with sharks, sting rays, and poisonous sea snakes. The divers would plunge with their little and useless shark charmers, that provided amulets and other trinkets to assure their safety from shark attacks. In her case, her charmer was her father, but nothing he could do now that Carmy was letting go of her hand to start a new chapter of his life that simply didn´t include her, could remove this sense of: What now? Is this openness or emptiness? Is this a new chance of starting over and getting it right, or a new failure that piled up, reaching new heights?

She felt that Carmy just wanted to push westward and ride into the sunset, without her, and that, quite frankly, she should be thankful for it. But in the center of it all, there it was the undeniable truth. Her only truth, that she didn´t approve of, and yet the spirit of such truth gathered up all of her without asking for permission, took off the attic of her mind, and the porch of her notebooks, pulled out the basement of her untold secrets, made single spacious maneuvers in her kitchen, and created harmonious and disharmonious dishes that begged to be tasted by his tongue and approved by his impossibly sophisticated palate. And now that she had finally nailed his perfect score, he was leaving her.

(not a fic per se although it looks like it, but it’s literally what I really wish happens after the wedding) #Manifesting

Raspberries

Context: Post-Tiff’s wedding.

Syd drinks too much and since she doesn’t drink often, can’t hold her liquor and so she’s in for a major hangover.

Carmy is now a gent since he almost lost her to The Poacher Shapiro, so he’s behaving like a Golden Retriever and cannot possibly leave such a beautiful damsel in distress like that so he drives her home after the party and also after mentioning multiple times how beautiful she looks in that dress, that is now printed in his brain forever, by the way.

So, they get to her place and he helps her get in because doors are like this indecipherable concept for Syd in her condition, especially the putting the key in the lock part.

And at some point he has to carry her because she falls asleep as soon as they cross her threshold. So they make it to her sofa, she lays there completely knocked out and Carmy who doesn’t wanna leave her alone in case she gets sick and needs someone to hold her hair or something, sits down on the floor, next to her feet, like an obedient dog, leaning his back against the couch and eventually falling asleep too.

Cut to Syd throwing up in the bucket he carefully placed next to her, anticipating the obvious next phase of her hangover. He wakes up to this view of Syd barfing and whimpering and feels for her, holds her braids in place and patiently waits till the vomits subside.

Then helps her up and takes her to the bathroom where she brushes her teeth and repeatedly rinses her mouth with raspberry flavored mouthwash for kids, she has never stopped using since PreK, which Carmy finds adorable.

She catches him smiling and trying to hide it.

Then Carmy helps her to get back to the couch and offers her some tea or his anti-hangover home remedy, which makes her feel nauseous again so he offers her a Tylenol instead and she accepts the pill and from her spot in the couch gives him directions to find the bottle in her nightstand.

Once she pops the pill and drinks a whole glass of water, he places an ice bag in her head and sits down next to her. She then cuddles next to him as if the temperature woulda dropped 10 degrees. He doesn’t know what to do but lets her do as she pleases.

She thanks him. He says “anytime”. She promises him this will not happen again. There’s this tension because they are too close. Too close.

Her head on his shoulder, his hand holding the ice bag in place on top of her head, her cuddle, too close.

She then tells him that she doesn’t need the ice anymore because the Tylenol seems to be kicking in and he obeys. Next thing he knows is that her hand is on his cheek, making him turn to see her, she’s looking at him, zeroing him and he’s nervous and scared and mesmerized by her eyes, entranced.

Carmy kisses her, ever so slightly, almost a butterfly kiss. She smiles against his lips. Now both her hands are cradling his face and he is mirroring her smile too.

Then she’s sick again and runs to the bathroom.

He’s right behind her and watches the whole raspberry mouthwash ritual again, with renewed amusement.

When they come back to the couch, his new favest place on Earth, they sit and she then lays down with her head on his lap. She rolls on her side and cuddles his lap. She loves how comfortable it feels. Carmy gently plays with Syd’s braids, her humming tells him she seems to enjoy this, and after a while when she turns to look at him and innocently ask him why he stopped his ministrations in her hair, he dives in for another kiss. Because of the awkward position they are in, the kiss is also soft and tender, mostly accessory to what his playful hands are doing in her hair.

When Syd feels better she sits up properly next to him, casually leans her side against her sofa and rests her head on her hand, looking at him, like studying his features.

“Is everything OK?”

“Yep, just wondering why haven’t you really really kissed me yet. I mean… clearly you want to. Right? Is it the vomit? Do I reek vomit? I think my breath is OK, it’s raspberry. Don’t you like raspberr-“

She couldn’t finish that sentence because Carmy’s tongue gets in the way of hers and tangles up in her mouth, his hands grab her face as he French kisses the fuck outta her. Several times.

Syd is breathless.

When Carmy breaks the kiss to let her catch her breath he makes sure she understands how much he loves raspberries.

“I love raspberries, Syd, especially when they taste like you.”

"Morning", she whispered in his ear as she cuddled and his eyes fluttered open. Legs tangling as she held him tightly and he groaned before slowly snapping out of his slumber.

"Morning," he said in a hoarse voice that she was getting used to and needed more than coffee first thing in the morning.

She rolled away from him and he brought her back to his chest, where she belonged, her breasts slipping from beneath the covers as her body came to rest against him again.

That´s an excerpt of a Mariya Moore Russell´s IG post that I took as inspo for a fic of mine.

And it´s exactly what Syd will do with The Bear now that it´s under her reign. What Carmy couldn´t. She will also get a star in the process. She will succeed in everything he failed at for all the right reasons.

That´s the thing.

Which proves Storer is basing Syd on the great Chicagoan Chef Mariya Moore Russell

She married a Chef and took his name, hence the hyphenated last name.

Check the tags.