not a lot, just forever.
carmen's opening up, but he wishes you'd do the same.
warnings: fluff + angst. fem!reader who is also a big reader (mostly poetry) and occasionally journals. unestablished relationship (friends to lovers, mutual pinning.) very touchy-feely. writing is overly detailed and so painfully poetic you might vomit.
word count : 2.4k
hey. i think i left my book at ur place. 11:15pm.
sorry, just got home. i can bring it over now 11:36pm.
oh yeah that'd be great! thank you. (sorry for the inconvenience) 11:38pm.
no worries 11:41pm.
lmk when ur here. xx 11:45pm.
Carmen had some idea of what that meant: xx. He knew what it meant when girls signed notes with xoxo in replacement of red kiss marks and strokes of long acrylic nails through their secret lovers hair—not that he ever received one, no. But your occasional visits practically felt just as intoxicating. If the order was x-o-x-o, and the worded statement being hugs-and-kisses, then xx must've been hugs, right? Two hugs. Like the one you shared the first time you met at Natalie's baby shower. He smelled like authentic Italian cologne with a hint of cigarette smoke diluted by dish soap and warm water. His grasp was hesitant, but ever-all-consuming once his shoulders relaxed. It was like metamorphosis. The way he wrapped his arms underneath while you tossed yours up around his neck, his gold chain feeling cold and hard against your skin, unlike the rest of him.
He was an under-hugger. He kept the ones he cared for unsuspectingly close to him. Such physical touch felt familiar. Maybe you'd just remembered stories and inside jokes about him through Natalie so well his tenderness and anxious nature was fitting to the idea of him you had in your head.
That was almost 6 months ago. And surprisingly, you'd become pretty good friends. Not that either of you really did friends at your age...but somehow it worked. You'd come to realize that he was so much kinder than anyone painted him out to be. And yet, you never really talked about yourselves.
Not in a way that really mattered, anyway.
The articles you'd written, the interviews you conducted with snobby assholes, the dozens of freelancing jobs with horrific schedules you had before, what you loved about writing and what you hated about the world around you—those were topics of discussion. Carmen's favorite restaurants he ever expanded his career with, the odd relationship he had with his sister that flipped like a rusty switch after highschool, candle scents he loved and bought over and over again despite their poor quality wicks, the first time he got drunk and how he swore he'd never let another drop of alcohol touch his tongue—those were normal methods of late night conversations.
But what about your dream to publish a novel? Or the memoir you read that completely changed your views on love as a whole. What about Carmen's uncle being his only friend his entire life? Oh, how he would've become a starving, broken artist if he ever believed he had enough talent for it. Hell, what about the girl you met in middle school who mysteriously moved away and shared all her secrets on the true meaning of life, death, and everything in between? Why didn't you ever talk about those things? Maybe it was too close, too personal. If he knew you too well, maybe he'd see you as you saw yourself.
Carmen had been thinking about those colored pencils you bought him for his birthday and can't get himself to tell you he uses them every day. Not just to illustrate his dishes...but you, sometimes. Your hair, your smile. He used that photo you begged him to snap of you staring out your window melodramatically with a bowl of pasta carbonara and a glass of bubbling champagne in front of you as reference. How could he ever show you the endless amount of pages containing the essence of your existence in that goddamn sketch book?
Questions. Questions. Questions.
Thoughts of potential ate away at your patience with every pacing step you took around your bedroom.
Answers. Answers. Answers.
—
"Do people even have deep conversations over pasta and wine anymore?" You trace the pad of your middle finger against the rim of your glass, your elbow propped up on the counter so your chin can rest in your hand.
Carmen draws his eyebrows together, the little crinkle in his forehead showing. You glance up at it and struggle to stifle a growing smile. He cocks his head before barring his bottom lip behind his teeth, picking at the skin with the tips of his fingers. That signature pose; where his left arm is crossed against his chest and his hand holds the elbow of his right arm. It's a habit you almost immediately picked up on. It told you time and time again that he was nervous.
Thinking. Contemplating.
"Is that, like—" he breaths a chuckle, but it comes out more as an accidental huff than anything. Smug bastard, he is. Especially when he drags his gold chain across his neck as it loops around the finger that once picked at the dry skin of his mouth.
"Your way of..asking me for a deep conversation over wine and pasta?"
Ah. He's called you out. The one thing he couldn't shake was his annoyance when you were so completely and utterly vague about your wants, your needs, your desires. Hell, Carmen Berzatto would wrap a lasso around the moon, or any planet you put your claim on, and drag it down so it could be yours and only yours. Only if it meant you'd stop feeling so complacent. You knew this. At least to some extent. His little favors buttered you up until you a mushy mess of adoration. What really scratched at your urges and your patience was how blissfully unaware he was of his show of affection toward you. Part of you feared that if you ever told him how much it caressed that bruised, fruit fly infested, rotted spot of your heart so gently it felt like a kiss, despite the sting, he'd stop.
"Y'know what? Yeah. I'm asking."
You shrug your shoulders and stare down at your nearly finished bowl of penne with vodka sauce. Stabbing a stack of pasta onto your fork and the clinking sound of the metal banging against the ceramic bowl seemed to fill the silence before Carmen finally spoke again, though with much hesitation.
"Okay," he barely whispers, nodding his head and fumbling to take a seat in the barstool underneath the counter. Sitting across from you gives him the constant justification to just look at you.
Starting off this session with a question was quite a kicker.
"Y'know Sade Zabala? Author of that book you brought back for me."
Carmen blinks slowly. He pretends to dig deep in his memory to identify the name, wondering if you'd ever mentioned her. But he fails, pulling his lips taught, so as to say 'I've got nothin.' The sound of your dramatic sigh and the 'tsk' sound of your lips separating makes his palms sweat.
"She's a wonderful writer. A poet. I mean, really, her book Coffee and Cigarettes was one of the most gut-wrenchingly beautiful and altruistic collections of.. of love, pain, rejuvenation—all of it."
If he was completely honest, he doesn't have a clear image of what those words meant. But it doesn't seem to matter what comes out of your mouth or how you phrase it. Your use of specific language fascinates him. There is nothing else he can do in this moment but nod and allow the corners of his lips to curl into a smile strong enough to make the apples of his cheeks go pink.
"I'll tell you one line of one of the greatest poems she had ever written in that book. In the humble opinion of yours truly, of course."
"Sure," he assures you. "Of course, of course."
"Tell me every terrible thing you ever did, and let me love you anyway."
Saliva pools in your mouth as you speak the quote, the taste of every vowel washing down your throat as if you dedicate them to Carmen himself. Which, in bare and naked truth, you do. The only thing you could ever ask of Carmen was to let himself tear himself open with the hope and belief that you would crawl into his fears and convert them into profound discoveries. And the trust that you would not stitch him up with your own hands, but rather clasp your fists around the circumference of his wrists as he carefully closes the wound his trajectory of life has created.
"Wow." Carmen's eyes go another centimeter wider, the language still processing in his mind. He interprets it over and over again.
"I know. And—" you set your fork down so you can have complete focus as you recite your following question, "I was just wondering what you'd say if someone told you that, y'know? What would you tell them?"
Vulnerability, he thinks. Fuck.
"I mean...fuck that's—that's a good question. Um.." he chews on the flesh of his bottom lip once again, looking above at the warm glow of the light that hangs over your island counter as if he'll find the answer up there.
"I don't even like the good stuff about me, so. I'm not sure how to, like, articulate that? Is that the word?"
Now the quickening pace has started.
"And what do you think the good stuff about you is?"
Probing questions like this are somewhat too-close-for-comfort inquiries for friends. But Carmen would be stupid to mind it. He relishes in it, actually. With much guilt. But it's tainted with the secret pleasure of being cared for by someone he so deeply valued the opinions and thoughts of.
Since the first day you met, Carmen knew he would never go to anyone else for some piece of mind. For some sanity. Or even just for someone to explain the method to his madness. You understood it—what he believed.
"I care a lot, I think. But that's not always practical. It hardly ever is now that I think about it."
"You do. You care so much." You soften your tone, hesitantly reaching for Carmen's tattooed hand that rests on the cold marble counter.
"Sometimes it freaks me out."
"Like, this whole thing, the—the restaurant, where my life is right now, it makes me crazy. But it also keeps me..."
"Human," you finish.
"Yeah, human."
Though it takes him a couple seconds for his digits to not second guess themselves, he gently takes your hand in his. The slow pace in which he intertwines his fingers with yours is enough to kill you.
"Can I tell you something?" Carmen asks.
"Anything."
"You take good care of me. Of everyone, really." . His thumb gently rubs your warm skin, the rough and calloused mounds over his fingerprints soothing you. A deep breath moves in and out from his lungs as he meets your eyes again. This time, he won't look away.
"It's like you were made to just be good."
You smile, but you're not convinced you're certain on what he means. "Thank you, Carm. But—good?"
"I don't know. You're warm. I'm—I'm not like that. I'm not warm."
This, this is where truths as bare as untraveled paws of loyal dogs that roamed the streets in search of security uncover themselves.
"What? Of course you are." You lean forward, feeling your heart pound so hard it could leap out of your body.
"I don't think I am."
To think—no, to know that Carmen Berzatto cannot share at least one feature of his layered soul he genuinely likes. God, that pains you. You could write a million sonnets listing every little thing you adored about your friend.
"Carmen, you—" you sigh, your head dropping for a fraction of a second. "You have such a big heart. You're not cold or...or out of reach, or anything like that, okay?"
Even with Carmen's tendency for rage and his tattoos that displayed yet another callback to his culinary career—his way of speaking: so gentle and unsupported, you're certain that he is something so much greater than just a chef. He took care of people too. His staff, his clientele, his family—of you. Whether it was home cooked meals when you were sick, or when you needed to complain about Natalie. Carmen listened. Not as her brother, but as your friend. You don't really remember when you started to regularly see each other during his leisure. Either at the restaurant, or a coffee shop next door to your complex, and eventually his living room.
"This is so fucking selfish, but—"
No, Carmen. You could never be selfish.
But you let him be hungry. You want him to be hungry. Starving for reassurance. Because you'll feed him until the empty space in his existence is filled.
"I just wish you'd look after yourself the way you take care of me. Like, fuck, hearing you look at yourself and point out all this shit that nobody notices—which I wish they fucking would—because I notice them and I still love those things about you is..."
Oh, what a beautiful mind you've always had. He'll always store all the love you can't have for yourself in his own heart. Your wit, your intelligence, your smile, even down to the way you have to readjust the grip of your fountain pen as you inscribe your thoughts into your journal
"Wrong." He completed his thought with just one word. "I don't like it. It makes me sad," he says again.
That breaks you. So much that a tear sure to be followed by many more wells up in your waterline. The glisten of the salty liquid in your eyes startles the wonderful man across you. You can see the immediate guilt in his face, his blue eyes filled with concern and regret. But you shake your head, holding onto his forearm as he raises his hand to your cheek to catch the falling tear. Fuck being friends. Fuck small talk. Fuck jokes and laughs and cigarettes and poor communication that just ended in silence.
This was here and now. There was no going back.
With that, you cupped Carmen's own cheek, leaning closer and closer to his lips before he desperately kissed you. His free hand anchored itself on your shoulder blade while yours crawled to the back of his head to burry itself in his golden curls. Your taste was everything. Salty with pasta with a sweet aftertaste that echoed from your fruity lip balm, followed by a final twinge of bitterness from your glass of red wine. He tasted of comfort, of acceptance, something you'd never felt against your tastebuds from the previous years of the dating pool. With every separation of your lips to swallow gasps of air, the further the two of you hovered over the counter in a needy attempt to get closer.
You didn't need answers. Not a lot from him either. Just him. Forever.
tags: @lemmejustpulloutmylightsaber @sexyyounglatinoboy @febris-amatoria @diorrfairy
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