Archive of Our Own

For the first time in his stupid, miserable life, Carmy understood what it felt like to have joy thrumming throughout his body, so fucking light that some days he was surprised that he wasn’t floating. He would never have admitted this to Mikey if he were alive, but Carmy found that the sun was brighter, the Chicago winds and winter weather weren’t dampening the smile that constantly seemed to be on his fucking face, even Richie wasn’t pissing him off too badly. Something that freaked out his cousin as much as it delighted Sydney and Natalie.

He was good. He was happy.

His side of the street was clean.

His therapist reminded him constantly that Carmy was the one doing the work, putting in the effort, but of course, it had been Sydney that made this colossal difference in his life.

He thought – giddily, lightheaded – that he had the same effect on her.

“You do,” she told him shyly one night, in the dimming light of their kitchen, having given up on the pretence of cleaning to push herself into his arms. It was late, but Carmy no longer minded how late he could stay in the restaurant. It felt right to end his day the same way he started it – with Sydney.

It had been – almost – six months, and sometimes Carmy still had to remind himself to control himself, to hold back from ruining this fragile happiness. He never wanted to be too much, too intense, too burdensome for her – plus the number of times he had turned to google had assured him that it was too early to ask her to move in together. Or propose. He needed to chill. Hold back.

No, Carmy was focused on living in the moment, he was enjoying everything he could in his life, throwing himself at everything else to make sure he didn’t fuck it all up. He had heard that shit his whole life, after all. Weird, quiet, shy, intense, too much – always too much – and above all, alone.

He thought he was doing a decent job. The restaurant was thriving, Jimmy had relaxed, more content with the lack of dystopian butter in his life, everything with Natalie, Pete, their daughter – all good. He was reading some of Sydney’s books on leadership, and it was helping him manage the kitchen, the people that look to him for guidance. He hadn’t lost his shit in months. He occasionally managed to face Mikey’s grave. And everything with Sydney was fucking indescribable, he felt so fucking solid.

Then, one day, he found himself scrolling through TikTok at the wrong time.

Sydney had been the one to make him join, grumpy that she had to text him videos she found. Carmy had rolled his eyes and scoffed at the whole thing, even though he secretly loved it any time that Sydney pulled him further into her life, her mind. He watched every video she sent him.

He was taking a quick breather halfway through his run – because he was a runner now – and while it was accident that he opened TikTok, twenty minutes of scrolling later, he was the bigger problem. It started with a single video of a woman, openly cringing at her boyfriend while he rides a bike.

New ick unlocked

Carmy had no idea what the fuck an ‘ick’ was, had never heard Sydney talk about it, so he told himself that it wasn’t something he had to think about any more deeply. He told himself this at least two more times. In the moment, that is, because by the time he had reached his apartment the count had surpassed fifty. He had lost count of the number of videos he had watched, the varied relationships that were in trouble because the guy was stupid enough to run down the street wearing a backpack. He had even googled it, found one or five articles that detailed ‘The Ick’ phenomenon, and how it could be a threat to relationships.

He got into the shower, thinking about this, and by the time he had gotten dressed he was writing a list in his head of his own potential ‘icks’ in one of the notebooks Sydney had bought for him.

List of Fucking Icks That Might Drive Syd Away

• Shit with family
• I used mostly used to smoke
• No bed frame
• Own backpacks
• Too much denim?
• Apartment “looks like a morgue”
• Debt
• Temper
• General shittiness
• Panic attacks, nightmares – fuck, does she feel like a babysitter??
• Still figuring out the right meds
• What if I’m a traumatized piece of shit for the rest of my life would she even stay with me? She wants kids, I’d be a fucking terrible dad

It was only the blare of Carmy’s ringtone that knocked the pen out of his shaking hands. Fuck, he was nowhere near done with all the things he could write on this list. There was a panic attack building in his throat as he went to answer the phone, his mind still rustling through his shitty, shitty history for more examples. How bad was it? Could he still fix things before she saw some of these videos and realized she was dating a fucking loser? What if her friends had seen this shit? What if they were telling her about it?

“Carm?” Sydney’s voice echoed over the line, sounding alarmed. Fuck, it was early in the morning, and he was already stressing her out.

“Yup!” he said, trying to sound cheerful and chill, and not like a grown man with jeans in his oven and a panic attack coming for him with a knife.

There was a long pause. “Are you okay?” Fuck, did he sound that bad? Or was she so used to him fucking up that she knew to assume something was wrong.

“Yup!” He was sweating, shit.

A longer pause. “Ooookay, we did say we’d meet at–”

“Yes!” he almost shouted, “Totally, on my way, traffic is shitty, sorry.”

“Traffic,” came Sydney’s voice, sounding unimpressed.

“Uh-huh,” Carmy managed, trying to yank on his coat and shoes, strangle the panic creeping up his throat, all while still on the phone.

“Carm, I have your location, you’re still at your place, are you good?”

God, did she sound annoyed? Constantly late, he should add that, he thought wildly, shoving the notebook in his back pocket. “Um, ye-yeah, just outside, there was an – well an accident – I’ll be right there.”

“Okay, sure. See you soon, then?”

“Absolutely,” he croaked.

“Love you.”

“I love you!” Carmy rushed out, hanging up the phone so he could try and remember how to breathe. His decision to postpone his panic attack was a stupid idea, and he had no idea why he was so confident it would work. Tripping and stumbling down the stairs, his vision vibrating, his ears popping – Carmy crashed into the wall in the lobby, nearly cracking his head open. Was he about to die? He couldn’t get any air in, he couldn’t remember any of the techniques his therapist had shown him. But he couldn– no, no, he coul–

“Hey, hey, Carmy, I’m here.” Small, elegant hands grasped his cheeks, taking on his weight as he wobbled from foot to foot. Their foreheads were pressed together, her eyes carefully on his face. She had one arm wrapped around him, placed the thumb on her other hand on his neck, fuck, he could feel how fast his heartbeat had gotten. “Breathe with me.”

“S-s-s…” he stammered out, trying to draw in air for her, trying to ignore the weird looks people were giving him. That was definitely an ick, not being able to be in public with him without Carmy making a fucking disaster of himself.

Her hand spun soothing circles on his back, her voice was so fucking gentle he bizarrely wanted to cry. “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. Try and breathe with me, match my pace, and then maybe I’ll tell you about the concussions that Neil and Teddy gave each other an hour ago. Richie drove them to the ER.”

The Faks doing something stupid, Carmy tried to focus on that. That was normal, bodily injury and clumsy Faks obliterating any hope of a quiet morning at The Bear. Normal.

“I’m with you, Carm, I’m with you.”

Finally, Carmy found a shard of calm to latch onto, taking in a deep, shuddering breath into his sore lungs. “And I’m with you,” he choked out, still worried about crying in front of her, in front of whoever was in the lobby.

Sydney looked at him for a long moment, and then shifted her body so she could pull him into a hug, her arms around his neck, his face hiding in her neck. She rocked them slowly, leisurely, as if they didn’t have a mountain of fucking work to do, and Carm had meetings at the bank and with some potential suppliers that afternoon, fuck he was already abandoning her today, now he was just making it worse, he fucking made everything worse, why would she want to be with him, he was nothing but ‘icks.’

It took another few minutes before he was able to pull away from her, something else to add to the list.

“Sorry,” he muttered, scraping his sleeve across his face.

Sydney winced. “Carmy–”

“It’s just Mikey shit,” he interrupted, in case she was about to break up with him. Or worse, ask him to explain what was going on his head. “I’m good. We should go.”

“Carm, hold on–”

“Later, okay?” he lied, yanking the door open to let her out. She peered into his eyes, looking like she was struggling with her words (another fucking ‘ick’, probably). She gave up after a few long seconds.

“Later, Carmy,” she said firmly, her eyes very clear.

Work was a nightmare, and Carmy was basically only there for prep. He hadn’t cracked a smile at the image of Neil and Teddy bending down to pick up something Tina had dropped, only to smash their heads together. He could barely look Sydney in the eye, because what the fuck else could he do? He would look like a fucking psycho if he asked her to list all the things he did that might count as ‘icks’ – what if that counted as an ‘ick?’ But the idea that one small thing could turn her off him forever made him feel like he was melting, that he was shattering in slow motion. It was obscene, the way his brain fucking worked, he couldn’t tell her the truth.

She laughed with Natalie as his sister grumbled about Carmy’s dysfunctional math, and Carmy had to leave the room to pull out the notebook. How much did math matter? How would he be able to help their kids with math homework? Fuck, what about English homework? Sydney made fun of his handwriting all the time.

An hour before he was due to leave, his earliest meeting got cancelled, so he lied and told Sydney that it had been moved up and almost ran out the door. He moved the appointment he had with The Bear’s accountant and went straight back to his place. At the back of his head, he knew he should call his therapist.

Instead, he made further progress with his list and decided to be productive about it.

He would not lose Sydney. He had come close already, and it almost killed him. If he lost her now, what would he do? He was not prepared to spend another day in his life without watching her eyes light up, her bright and honest smile, how shy he could make her, how she kissed him and held him and laughed with him and at him and how he occasionally made her laugh and her dad just started to like him–

 When he was done, the list was messy with ink. Every spare piece of denim he owned were packed in boxes ready for storage or charity. There was a bed frame on the way, as well as random decorative shit he found on Amazon, a finance tracking book to prove he could be responsible with math and money, and some self-help books. His two backpacks were in a garbage bag. He didn’t own a bike, and now he never fucking would. He had plans to find a hobby so she didn’t have to put up with him all the time, some bullet points in case he needed to convince her he was worth it, because he would fix it, it would all be fine–

“Carmy, what the fuck is this?”

Carmy whipped around, frantically checking the time on his phone. She should be at the restaurant, The Bear was going to be open for hours, fuck, had his absence fucked everything up? Why was she in his shitty apartment with him? She should be at their beautiful restaurant that she had built, not here, not witnessing the messiest fucking breakdown of his life.

But no, instead she was in his kitchen, holding his list in her hand.  

List of Fucking Icks That Might Will Fucking Drive Syd Away

• Shit with family
• I used mostly used to smoke
• No bed frame
• Own backpacks
• Too much denim?
• Apartment “looks like a morgue”
• Debt
• Temper
• General shittiness
• Panic attacks, nightmares – fuck, does she feel like a babysitter?? Still???
• Still figuring out the right meds
• What if I’m a traumatized piece of shit for the rest of my life would she even stay with me? She wants kids, I’d be a fucking terrible dad
• Always fucking late
• Can’t go out in public, crybaby
• I abandon her all the time, I leave her alone
• Fucking clingy
• My shit puts her in shitty situations
• No fun
• Bad at math
• Write like a “drunk toddler”
• Her dad probably still hates me sometimes
• I’m a fucking burden

“Look, I can explain – I’m not a psycho, let me just–”

“A list of fucking ‘icks’ that will fucking drive Syd away?” Sydney asked, looking like she wasn’t sure how to react. Carmy would prefer anger from her, he would understand that better. He knew anger.

“Sydney, I–”

“‘Ick?’ Like from TikTok?”

Carmy paused, fidgeting under the weight of the incredulity in her eyes. “Um, I, um, I g-guess it’s – look, let me explain–”

Sydney snorted, her hand flying to cover her mouth when she looked back up at his face. “Sorry, sorry. I, um, I get this is about something more, maybe? And that’s definitely important. Totally more important. But – like, the internet trend?”

Carmy couldn’t swallow past the stone in his throat. “Yeah.” Just tell me, tell me what mine are. Tell me how close you could be to leaving me.

Sydney drew closer to him, a smile threatening the corners of her mouth. If it was anyone else, Carmy would have felt stupid, but if anything, he felt calmed. She wasn’t capable of cruelty, not towards him. Carmy couldn’t quite look her in the eyes, but let her grasp his shoulders.

Sydney found his eyes anyway. “Carmy. It is literally impossible for me to get ‘the ick’ about you. It’s also something fucking stupid that’s popular with people who didn’t like the people they were with, and were looking for an excuse to dump them, so. I like you. I fucking love you, so fucking much.” Dubiously, she looked around his apartment. “Please, this feels more like something that you are worried about you, maybe? Because I don’t feel like this at all, you are immune to ‘the ick,’ if that helps. If it was real, which it isn’t–”

“How the fuck could I be immune?” Carmy interrupted in a burst, a flare of fury that he still sometimes felt towards her. Everyone else in his life had always found it so easy to find him lacking, why couldn’t she? Why did she still want to be around him, knowing all this shit?

Sydney tugged his face closer to hers. “Carmen,” she whispered. “Do you remember a few weeks into me working at The Beef? When we had to do outdoor service?”

Carmy frowned. “Yeah?”

“Carmy,” Sydney whispered in an even lower voice, amusement starting to curl into a smile. “That day, I watched a toilet explode in your fucking face.”

Indignant, Carmy tried to pull back, but Sydney only followed. “The water was clean!”

Sydney smothered what would have been one of her loud, wild laughs that he loved so much. “Yeah, but still. A toilet. Exploded in your face.” She gestured with her hands as if he needed a play by play.

“Oh, fuck off,” he said, but fuck, he was smiling now too. He was breathing again.

“If I was going to get ‘the ick,’ about you, I think it would’ve been then, right?” Some of the lightness from before all this started to balloon in his chest, chasing away the tension of the day. “I mean, it’s still dumb, but consider yourself immune, because I watched you get covered in toilet water and I still make out with you, like, all the time.”

“That’s true,” Carmy hummed, tracing the edges of her smile, possibly glowing with the relief he felt.

Sydney laughed, loud and wild. “It is. You’re good, baby. We’re good, the only thing that could hurt our relationship is something like this happening and we don’t talk to each other.”

“Sorry,” Carmy said absently, having decided that he would prefer to put his exploding-toilet-stained skin closer to her, and his mouth to explore every inch of her entire being. “I’m not complaining, but why are you home early?”

This time, Sydney tried to pull back, likely to fix him with one of her stern looks, but Carmy was busy exploring the spot where her jaw met her neck, one that never failed to make her tremble. Already, she was leaning more heavily against him.

She stifled a gasp. “Carm,” she said, almost chidingly, before it faded into a moan.

“What?”

“Hm?” Sydney asked, threading her fingers into his hair, tugging.

“Why are you home early?”

“Oh.” Carmy moved back up to her face to give her a fighting chance at speaking, kissing in a random pattern. “Um, I, uh – wait, Carm – shit. The accountant – oh, fuck you – the accountant emailed. Confirmation. They emailed confirmation. Of your new appointment date. And the supplier called to, um, to – fuck, do that again – apologize. For, um, cancelling. So, I fucking sprinted here you dick, never do that to me again.”

“You’re right,” Carmy said distractedly, a wave of hungry possession sweeping over him. TikTok was stupid, this whole day had been stupid. He needed clothes to be gone, immediately. “Sorry, Syd, that was fucked up.”

“Carmy, we still have to–”

“Later,” Carmy growled, sweeping Sydney into his arms. “Much later.”

Very late the next morning, Carmy drank his coffee in the kitchen, waiting for Sydney to finish showering. They were meeting her dad for a spontaneous lunch, which Carmy was too grateful for to question the suddenness of it all. Her dad was bringing pictures, Sydney had shared with a sigh and an eye roll, definitely embarrassing ones. Afterwards, they had a timeslot to visit the Shedd Aquarium, a place Sydney had apparently dragged Emmanuel to constantly when she was a kid. He had emailed his therapist, asking for an emergency session, and later in the day the two of them would go through the hoard of online purchases to see what needed to be cancelled, and restore the rest of his apartment.

“Maybe a dresser for the jeans, Carm?” Sydney had asked innocently with dancing eyes.

It was a strange experience to have been so terrified of losing her just twelve hours ago, only to feel so incredibly centered in her life. He always felt safe with her, loved with her. Sometimes his panic and anxiety made him forget that. He should write it down. Sydney had suggested it would be better remembered as a tattoo. Carmy sipped his coffee, calm, only to nearly spit it out when he caught sight of the fridge.

She had taped his list to the fridge, blacking out every entry. In the remaining blank space, in thick sharpie, massive block letters, Sydney had written:

THE REASON CARMY COULD NEVER BE A FUCKING ICK

HE’S THE LOVE OF MY FUCKING LIFE

He immediately put down his coffee and set off towards the bathroom, losing clothes as he went. He was deleting TikTok, that was for fucking sure, Sydney could cope texting him all the videos she needed him to see.

But he could do that later.