Work Text:
Carm
Carmy
Carmen
ARE YOU AWAKE??
Yes, Sydney. I am awake.
THANK GOD
It's 2am…what's wrong?
DID YOU TURN ON THE WATER TO DRIP IN THE SINK IN THE BATHROOM BEFORE YOU LEFT WORK SUNDAY NIGHT?????
????
No. I was a little distracted for some reason
FUCK ME. GODDAMN IT. I’m going in.
The fuck, Syd?
Did you not see the forecast? Or, I don't know, go outside at all lately?
Yeah, it's cold as shit
The pipes, Carmy. The employee bathroom has pipes on the outside wall. If we didn't leave a drip of water, the pipes could already be frozen since we were closed because it was Monday
They could burst and I am NOT FUCKING DOING THAT AGAIN
???
Another Sheridan thing, in the garage, I don't wanna talk about it
Okay
I'm gonna go check. I’ll talk to you later
WHAT… SYDNEY, NO
Why are you yelling at me now?? I'm gonna go fix the problem
AT 2AM BY YOURSELF WHEN IT IS -10 OUTSIDE?? -30 WIND CHILL?? BE REAL, SYDNEY
It's fine, Carmy. Go back to sleep
I WASN'T SLEEPING
And the pink line stops at 1. How are you even going to get there?
I think there's a 24 hour bus that goes to the red line??
The fuck, Syd. Jesus Christ. I'm coming to get you
What? No, Carmy, you don't have to
Yes, I do. I'm already in my car
Bullshit
…
Now I'm in my car. I'll see you in a few
You don't need to do this
Yes, I do
Thanks, Carm
Carmy pulls up outside of Syd’s building and parks in front of the fire hydrant. He texts Syd that he's outside and turns on his hazard lights. It's so cold out that his car has just started to warm up now, even though it's been running for a while at this point. The front door of her building opens and Sydney stumbles out, bundled in as much winter gear as he's ever seen her in, holding a backpack and what looks to be a tightly rolled sleeping bag under her arm.
“Uhh…are you moving in?” he asks when she opens the passenger door.
Syd quickly climbs in and slams the door. The sound echoes lightly outside the car in the eerily quiet cold air. “Fuck, it's cold. I don't know…it just seemed prudent.”
“So you are going to, what, sleep on the office floor in a sleeping bag to make sure nothing happens to The Bear?”
“Honestly, I probably won't get much sleep anyway.” Carmy turns off his hazard lights and shifts the car into gear. “And if the pipes are fine, I won't need to.” Syd reaches over with a mittened hand, placing it on Carmy's arm. “Thank you for picking me up. You really didn't need to…I would have made it work. But it is very nice of you.”
“Syd, you were freaking out. I was starting to be concerned that you were going to get so worked up you would wander off and end up frozen in a snowbank somewhere.”
“We have barely had any snow this year. Is it possible to freeze in a four inch snowbank?”
“In this weather…and, you know, anything is possible,” Carmy laughs.
“I guess so,” Syd laughs in return.
There's still a few cars on the streets of Chicago as Carmy drives them to The Bear, but not many, so the streets pass quickly. The extreme cold has quieted the sodium light of the city and in some ways it makes it seem displaced in time. Could be now, could be 1990, could be 1932. They are both quiet until Syd breaks the silence.
“So…why weren't you sleeping?” she asks.
“How's that glass house you live in these days? Heating bills must be a bitch.”
“Okay, alright,” Syd lets out a chuckle. “Fair enough.”
“Just, you know. How about you?”
“Same,” Syd says as Carmy pulls into his usual spot behind the restaurant. They brace themselves against the cold and exit the car, Carmy grabbing Syd’s backpack before he opens his door. They hustle the twenty feet to the back door of the restaurant. He lets them in and quickly closes the door behind them. Syd has flipped on the lights and is already checking out the flow of water in the kitchen sinks, still wearing the too-large, ankle-length coat that in the light of the kitchen seems like it's probably her dad’s in the way the fabric swirls around, enveloping her.
“So far, so good,” she tells him.
Carmy heads for the employee bathroom and flips on the light. He moves to the sink and turns on the tap. “Hey, Syd? The water’s not working in here,” he tells her when nothing comes out of the faucet.
“I fucking knew it!” she tells him, triumphant. Carmy is taken in by the joy that overtakes her face. Her competence is one of the most attractive things about her to him. “Where's my backpack?”
He slips it off of his shoulder and hands it to her. “Can you go grab Nat’s space heater out of the office?”
“Uh, sure,” he tells her as he moves to step out of the small room.
By the time Carmy gets back with the space heater, Syd has taken off her coat and has a hair dryer of all things in hand. “I couldn't find our heat gun,” she shrugs. “Can you plug that in and turn it on high? Face it towards the sink?”
Carmy nods and does what she asks.
“Faucet is still turned on, so we'll know if it starts to melt at all.” Syd plugs in the hair dryer and adjusts the settings before turning it on. She aims it at the pipes and the wall under the sink. “Better to do this slowly, so we don't like, start a fire or something.”
“Makes sense,” he replies, over the low din of the dryer. “How long will it take?”
“Depends on how frozen it is, I guess.” Syd sits down, taking care to keep the dryer aimed where she wants it. He slips down beside her, close enough his shoulder and thigh press against hers. He starts to wonder if they are only talking about frozen pipes in the employee bathroom at their restaurant.
“What else can I do?” he asks.
“I mean, this is pretty much it for now,” she tells him. “If you want to go home…”
He interrupts, “Sydney.”
“What?”
“Don't be absurd.”
“I'm not.”
“You are. I'm not leaving you to take care of this on your own.”
“Okay.”
“Okay “
“Fine.”
“Sure.”
“Whatever.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Why’d you kiss me in the walk-in the other night?” Syd asks, out of nowhere, but not really. It's been hanging around them both since Sunday night, under their skin, keeping them awake.
“Because I couldn't help myself,” he replies. “You were so frustrated with me and so beautiful and I just really wanted to.”
“Okay,” she says.
“Can I ask though,” he asks. “…why did you kiss me first?”
“I guess…pretty much the same reasons.”
“Okay,” he says, picking up her hand that's not pointing the hair dryer at the frozen pipe in the wall, sliding his fingers over her palm before twining their fingers together. “So…why’d you run away?”
“We were at work.”
“We were the only ones still here.”
“It was late.”
“Hmmm.”
“And I was scared.”
“Of what?” He presses himself more closely into her side.
“Fucking things up,” she replies. “Everything.”
“Okay.”
“Aren't you? A little scared of that too, I mean?’
“Maybe, a little. But not as much as I am of never knowing for sure, not trying. You know?”
A small stream of water starts dripping from the faucet, startling them both.
“It's working,” he says.
“Of course it is,” she replies. She turns off the hair dryer, lays it down on the floor beside her.
“It's gonna work, Syd,” he tells her, pulling her sideways into his lap. He kisses her, and she kisses him back, so thoroughly that it's a full five minutes before she can break off to respond.
“Of course.”
Richie sounds exactly like Eva when he wakes them up with his screams a few hours later (they won't tell him that, though). He finds them entwined, sleeping fully clothed on the floor of the employee bathroom at The Bear, the open doorway of the small room leaking all of the built up heat from Nat’s small space heater, a steady flow of water from the faucet falling into the sink.
“What the fuck is this?” he asks. “I came in early to check the pipes…”
“Syd fixed them,” Carmy says proudly as he sits up, rubs his eyes.
“And this is…” Richie gestures between them.
“Working,” Syd says simply.
“Nice goin’, cousin. Fucking finally. Welcome to the family, Syd.” Richie gets a gleam in his eye, as if it was his doing. “Took you two Bozo buckets long enough to get lined up.” He claps, “As you were!” then steps away to get started on his day.