Season 1 Richie Moments That I Can't Stop Thinking About

Verified Lover

Track 1 - Blue Check Heart

Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto x Orginal Character

Carmy gets his blue checkmark on Instagram and immediately breaks Natalie's 'rules'.

The Bear MasterList

Directory

Carmy was in the office, absent-mindedly scrolling through his email when he saw confirmation from Instagram. After an initial wave of confusion, he read it to see his account had been ‘verified’ - whatever that meant. His eyes skimmed the body of the email before going back into the kitchen to see Natalie on her laptop at one of the free stations.

“Hey, Bear.” she smiled when she noticed Carmy approaching her.

“Yo. What does being verified on Instagram mean?” Carmy asked as he pushed his hands into his pocket, peering over her shoulder to look at the spreadsheet Natalie had been working on.

Natalie laughed, “How is it that a 26-year-old doesn’t know what being verified on Instagram means?”

Carmy rolled his eyes, “Sugar. What does it mean?” 

“It just means you are who you say you are and that your account has some perks. I verified your, Syd's, and The Bear’s official accounts. In theory, having The Bear verified means it’ll be easier to get bigger names to come to The Bear.” Natalie explained without looking up from her screen.

“Got it.” Carmy nodded and began to walk away.

“Also, be careful with what you like. We don’t want our head chef looking like a pervert or overly politically charged—just be normal. People can see what you like and comment on,” Natalie warned. Carmy waved off the comment. He only followed 20 accounts, and most of them were fellow chefs. 

~

Later in the day, Carmy couldn’t help but notice two of the college-age bartenders doing some synchronized dance behind the bar. Carmy watched for a moment before one of them noticed and immediately stopped before shyly looking away. The other noticed her stop, looked over, and saw Carmy standing by the kitchen door watching them. “Sorry, Chef Carmen…” she said, taking her phone from where it had been propped and shoving it in her back pocket.

“Why is my staff dancin’?” he asked as he approached the bar.

“Lola Lousie put out a new song, and the dance is fun.” one of the girls explained. Based on Carmy’s face, the other jumped in, explaining that it was the ‘hot-girl summer I publicly dumped my lying cheating ass hole boyfriend’ anthem. Carmy nodded, still confused about the entire thing.

“Prep work done?” he questioned. 

“Yes, Chef Carmen,” they answered in unison. Carmy nodded and walked back to the kitchen. As the shift passed, Carmy kept hearing the name ‘Lola Louise’ and how ‘iconic’ her new song and video were. Carmy ignored the chatter and focused on cooking. 

~

Lola Lousie, the topic the waitstaff couldn’t drop. Carmy could ignore it until one of the waitresses held up Richie, talking about her new Instagram post. He threatened to ban the topic if it continued to be distracting. 

Curiosity killed the cat. That night, in bed, Carmy found himself scrolling through Instagram when he finally tapped the search button and found himself on Lola Lousie’s account. Carmy inhaled deeply. She was gorgeous. She had long, silky brown hair with dazzling emerald green eyes. Her soft, pillowy, plump lips were sculpted in the most endearing, playful pout. He swiped through her feed and became more intrigued by this woman. He scrolled through selfies and magazine covers. He chuckled when he saw a picture of a German Shepard with lopsided ears ‘wearing’ a pair of Prada sunglasses captioned ‘I thought boys didn’t steal their mom’s clothes... I stand corrected.’

When Carmy got to the original dance video, his bartenders had been trying to copy he couldn’t help but feel like a bit of a creep. He understood how the song was a ‘hot girl summer I publicly dumped my lying cheating asshole boyfriend’ anthem but watching Lola Lousie move the way she did made his pants feel a little tighter. Pop music wasn’t his thing but the girls were right. He could see how a song like that could be considered ‘iconic’. He liked a couple posts before tossing his phone to the side and calling it a night. 

~

“Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” Natalie scolded as she entered the office that morning. She hit Carmy’s shoulder with each ‘oh my god’. Carmy removed a headphone and blocked her hits.

“Sugar- what the fuck?!” he exclaimed as he pushed back from his desk and rolled back to create some space between him and his sister. 

“Carmen Anothny Berzatto. I told you to be normal on Instagram, and what do you do the first day after being verified? Like six posts from some pop star that she posted over a year ago! Now you’re on a fuckin’ gossip page!” Natalie scolded, reaching over to hit his bicep. Carmy grabbed her wrists and scowled at her.

“Will you stop fuckin’ hittin’ me?! What the hell are you even talkin’ about?” Carmy challenged as he dropped her wrists, pushing her back gently. Natalie rolled her eyes and dug for her phone.

“Michelin star chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, LoLou’s next boy toy? Screenshots below.” she read from her phone before flipping it to show Carmy. “Carmy. I do not need you going around Instagram liking girls’ thirst taps- EVERYONE can see what you’re doing!” Natalie huffed before stomping out of the office, muttering something about Claire.

Carmy rolled his eyes at Claire's mention and leaned back in his chair, pushing his hands through his hair before pulling his phone from his pocket. “You never even liked your damn girlfriend’s posts, Carmen!” Natalie yelled from the kitchen, still frustrated with him.

Carmy sighed before he yelled back, “She wasn’t my girlfriend.” he got up from his chair and frustratedly closed the door to the office. “She wasn’t my fuckin’ girlfriend… just my friend who happened to be a girl…” he muttered as he sat down in his chair again. He unlocked his phone and saw an influx of notifications on Instagram. None of them were particularly interesting. All he’d done was like a few Instagram pictures, but it had turned into this mess. He rolled his eyes as he cleared the notifications, but one stuck out.  @ LoLou sent you a message request

“Any open tables tonight, handsome? I’d love to taste your food… or something like that.”

“Oh shit…” Carmy mumbled to himself, what did he get himself into?

Care and Comfort

CW:  Richie being Richie, swearing. Angst and fluff. Mentions of Mikey's death and addiction.

Word Count:  2070

AN:  Requested by an anonymous person!

February 22.

It’s a tough day.  You’ve been with Richie long enough now—two years—to know what the date means.  What it is the anniversary of.  You came into Richie’s life after Mikey exited it, but you knew enough of your boyfriend’s best friend. 

What a charming, larger-than-life man he was.  Mikey Berzatto.  Mikey Bear.  Charismatic.  Filled the room with his presence, his stories, his ability to make a person feel like the most important person in the world.

Also an addict.  Also, probably, a narcissist. 

So it’s a tough day for Richie.  Mikey’s suicide blew a hole in the lives of those who loved him, and Richie loved Mikey like a brother.  Two years out from his death, Richie is no closer to any real closure:  he misses his friend.  He loves his friend.  He hates his friend for what he did, all the shitty behavior before he finally made a choice that couldn’t be taken back.

February 22 is the day that Richie’s feelings break loose like a storm.  He rages, he goes sulky and quiet.  He gets mad at Mikey, and because Mikey isn’t there, he lashes out at those closest to him.

You, namely.

But you can handle it.  What sort of girlfriend would you be if you didn’t help him weather these hard days?  Because you know, deep down, the person Richie is angriest at is himself:  that he didn’t see it coming, that he didn’t do more to help his friend.

-----

Your first year together, Richie was snappish.  He tried to start fights with you all day, and you—not understanding him completely—were too bewildered to rise to any bickering.  Your confusion took the fire out of him, and he spent the rest of the day maudlin, full of apologies, rife with terribly negative self-talk.

This year? 

This year, Richie is just sad.

He stays in bed past noon.  He gets up around one in the afternoon, wanders out into the living room of your shared apartment, then promptly plants himself beside you on the couch.

“How are you feeling?” you ask, soft.  You glance at him, take in the red-rimmed eyes, the deep lines etched between his brows.

He answers with a grunt, a non-committal noise.

“Hungry?”

Another grunt, and this one sounds sort of like a no or a nah.  A beat later, though, you hear the snarl of his stomach, and you laugh softly at it.

“Let me make you something.”

That, at least, earns you a grumble, a string of unintelligible words, but he doesn’t object when you stand up and make your way to the tiny kitchen.

-----

You’re no Carmy, and you’re no Sidney.  You’re no Tina or Marcus or Ebra.

Still, you can hold your own as a home chef.  You had a mother and a father who cooked, who taught you how to fry a chicken breast, how to make a simple fresh pasta, how to roast a piece of beef or pork.

So you can’t do a Hamachi crudo or a lamb ragu, but you can do comfort food.  Food that sticks to the ribs and warms a person from the inside out.  For Richie, on this difficult day?  You make him breakfast for early dinner or late lunch. 

You slice up the brioche you got earlier in the week and find it perfectly stale for French toast.  You put cinnamon and a pinch of cloves in the egg batter, fry up the slices to perfection.  You fry some bacon to the crispness Richie likes; you make a pile of buttery scrambled eggs with goat cheese and chives folded in.

You finish it all off with strong coffee in the French press, which Richie used to scoff at as needlessly fussy but now can’t live without.

You don’t bother to plate it nicely.  This isn’t the Bear, and no one is going to give you a star.  This is food as medicine, and you heap everything on a plate and carry it—along with silverware and the coffee—into the living room.

Richie has gone horizontal as you cooked, stretched out on the couch with his face to the back, but the scent of the food makes him turn a bit and glance up at you.

“Said I wasn’t hungry.”  He sounds peevish.

“Just have a bite or two.”  You set the silverware down with a clink, and Richie heaves a sigh, rolls over, sits up.  He doesn’t quite glare at you, but it’s glare-adjacent.  A slight narrowing of his eyes as he looks at you.

“Didn’t have to fucking do all of this.”  His voice has a rough edge, but you know him well enough to hear the faint thread of gratitude underneath all the gruffness.  Richie never knows how to handle being taken care of.  He’s used to being the one taking care of others:  his daughter, his ex-wife when they were still married.  Mikey’s mother, after Mikey’s suicide. 

He’s the real-life version of setting himself on fire to keep others warm, so he is always surprised when someone else cares for him.  Even if it’s something as ordinary as making him a comforting meal on a day when he’s too paralyzed by grief to feed himself.

-----

As you had guessed not hungry wasn’t true.  Once Richie gets a few bites into him, his appetite awakens and the plate is cleaned of crumbs in an appallingly short amount of time.

“Good?” you ask, and he mumbles a sheepish “thanks,” so you clear away the empty dishes, take them to the kitchen, rinse them off.

When you return to the couch, though, Richie is sitting up straight and gazing right at you.  He waits until you meet his eye, and then he says, slowly and deliberately, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He clears his throat, seems embarrassed by himself.  So much of his bluster and cockiness is an act, a smokescreen.  Richie is often insecure, chagrined by his own behavior, and you can guess that he’s berating himself for being curt with you earlier.  For dozing in bed for so long when the two of you have so few days together.

“Really didn’t have to do all that though, sweetheart,” he starts, and you wave him off.  You sit beside him, and he lifts his arm automatically, the gesture for you to tuck yourself against him, but you shake your head.  You settle against the corner of the couch, then pat your lap invitingly.

“C’mon, Jerimovich,” you tell him.  “Let me scratch your head.”

Your first impression of Richie is the most lasting one, even two years in.  He puts you in mind of a shelter dog—kicked and mistreated in some prior life, yearning for affection, baring his teeth at the thought of being kicked again. 

And like a dog, the man loves to be petted.  It’s not necessarily sexual; it’s the simple fact of human touch, the feel-good chemicals that release in his busy brain when you skate your fingertips over his bare skin, when you press your own body against his, when you scratch your nails over his scalp.

Which is what you do now.  You let Richie settle in your lap.  He tucks one arm underneath him, but he wraps the other over your thighs.  Once he’s situated, you just…pet him.  Scratch his head.  Sometimes you press your fingertips in the small muscles that go tense and bunched at the base of his skull, but mostly you just pet him.  Let the repetitive motion lull him, and you feel him relax against you little by little.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you ask after a long stretch of silence.  The T.V. is on, some true crime cop show, but it’s muted.  The only sounds are those of city living:  faint doors opening in the hallway of your apartment building, traffic in the street, the occasional gust of wind against the window.

“No.”

A beat, and then you ask him to tell you a story about Mikey.  It makes Richie sigh, and he starts with the well-worn story about Bill Murray, but you interrupt him.

“No, tell me a story from when you were kids,” you clarify.  “Tell me about Baby Mikey, and make sure there’s lots of Baby Richie.”

He chuckles against you, and it sounds warm.  Genuine.  He’s never said it, and you’ve never asked, but you can guess that it helps him somehow, when you ask for Richie stories in the guise of Mikey stories.  How you gently try to frame him as the main character in his own life instead of Michael Berzatto’s side-kick and sometimes-stooge. 

Now, Richie tells you a story from his high school days, and it’s his own story, and Mikey is just a supporting character, but an important one—a supporting character before the crush of adulthood, before Papa Berzatto took off and left Mikey as the man of the house.  Before the Beef as it skidded into bankruptcy, before the arson attempts and shell games with Unc’s money, before the pills and the dealing out of the alley, before whatever darkness in Mikey swallowed him up and put him on that bridge with a gun two years ago to the day.

It's a funny story, some prank on some stodgy old teacher, and Richie chuckles as he tells it.  You can hear his own darkness bleed out of his voice, can hear him remembering the good ol’ days instead of wallowing in the bad ones.  You can hear him remembering his friend who was more like a brother—remembering him in all his bright promise and not as he left.

The story ends, and then you hear it:  a weak sniffle.  You lay your palm over the curve of his skull, hold him, and think that a cry might do him good.  Richie holds so much in; tears might be healthy, might help him grieve Mikey in a more healthy way—

“I know it, you know,” he says against your lap, his voice thick with unshed tears. 

“Know what, baby?”  You wonder at what revelation he is going to share with you, what understanding in his own psychology or Mikey’s has come to him.

“I fucking know I don’t deserve you,” he replies, and it surprises you.  You gape wordlessly above him.  It wasn’t what you were expecting him to say.

“All this shit,” he explains.  “My life’s a fucking mess, and every year, I fall into this black hole and you have to pull me out.”

You smile down at where he’s settled in your lap, and you feel a wave of love for him wash through you.  Your boyfriend, Richard Lawrence Jerimovich.  Rough around the edges and then some, but underneath all that trauma and hurt lies the biggest heart you’ve ever seen.  A heart of gold.  A man who wants desperately to belong, to be loved, to be needed.

“You’re putting a lot of weight on have to,” you tell him.  “I don’t have to.  I want to.”

He shakes his head.  “Shouldn’t fucking have to or want to.”

“It’s just life, Richie.  It beats us up.  What’s the point if we don’t take care of each other when we’re feeling a little more beat up than usual?”

“You take care of me more than I take care of you.”

You scoff, and you resume scratching his head.  Dragging your nails through his short hair.  “Bullshit.”

“You do.”

“You keeping score on me, Jerimovich?”

He grumbles at that.  “You’re not keeping score?”

“In love?  Never.”

As usual, the mention of love makes him squirm.  Makes him uncomfortable.  He’s perfectly fine saying it to you, says I love you easily and without a bit of hesitation.  Hearing it said back to him, though?  That’s entirely different.

You say it as much as you can.  You let him squirm and be uncomfortable and you let each mention of your love for him chip away at those rough edges a little more, revealing more of that big heart of gold.

“I love you,” you tell him, and sure enough, he squirms again.

So you say it again and again, over and over, until he finally surrenders to it, sighs and nestles himself in your lap, and he mutters it back to you as he allows you to comfort him, to take care of him.  To love him.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE YOU'RE A PINK PONY GIRL AND YOU DANCE AT THE CLUB

free my man. He did all of that and will continue to do even worse, probably

nothing is funnier to me than owen lars clowning on obi wan. obi wan was a war general. he was in charge of millions of men. he's a jedi master. he was on the jedi council. he was known as one of the greatest jedi alive. he was the sithkiller. and yet. this random moisture farmer who only wants to work his farm and protect his family is like no. your vibes are randic. fuck off. and obi wan does.

rasputin didnt become a fucked up sex wizard until he was like 30. your life doesn't end at 25 <3

He was as tall as he was tall, and his eyes were the color they were. To describe his hair one would say that he had some. His face had all the features you'd expect, and none of the ones you wouldn't. "There he is," people would often say of him, but only when he was there. And they were right.