[ CLOSED ] heart and my hands, don't fail me now

[emulsions]

Who: Carmy + Various
When: October, pre-event
Where: Nocwich, Horizon, Thorne
What: Catch-all
Warnings: Canon warnings

i'm pouring out myself
i'd give it all for the view
and only worry can bring me down;

(( plot with me discontinued ))

Comments

[emulsions]

[ Carmy perks up when the door opens and he returns her smile with one that's small but genuine. ]

Hi. [ He steps over the threshold, glancing around as he does to check it out. ] No, no, it looks great. It's nice.

[ Cozy, if you ask him. Lots of natural light, furniture and decor. It looks like a place that belongs to somebody who likes to be at home and has a reason to wanna enjoy it. Something more than a place you come home to and pass out on the couch with the TV on, you know?

He looks down at his feet to avoid stepping on any curious pets as he goes to the counter and sets down the box. That's...shit. That actually might be the cutest fucking dog he's ever seen. ]

Yeah? Hey, Mary. [ He leans down to give the puppy a cursory pat on the head before he takes off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves, and heads to the sink to wash his hands. ] What is she, a collie?

[carmesi]

( she helps him a little with the box, even if he does seem to have it fully under control, setting it further up on the counter once he goes to deliver attention to mary and then heads towards the sink.

wanda can't help but smile down at the puppy—that actually might be the cutest fucking dog i've ever seen—ringing loud and clear in her mind. a proud moment for her. )

Was the 'Lassie' from TV a collie? I think she is supposed to be something like that, maybe a mix.

( she turns around, leaning back against the counter, casual, and raises a hand. in that same moment, the puppy sits to attention, floppy ears moving comically with a tilt of her head. )

She is supposed to be a guide dog for the blind guy ( (matt's calling her his girlfriend to people, she demotes him to 'the blind guy') ) who shares this Horizon-space with me. She'll get there.

( to those guide dog standards, but likely won't. for now, she gets to be the most adorable. she glances over at carmy, all raring up to go with the cooking. )

Jumping right to it, huh. Where do you want me, chef?

( she's teasing him. )

[emulsions]

Yeah, a Rough Collie, [ Carmy answers with the casual confidence of somebody who's carried this extremely specific piece of information for years. Call it the consequence of being the quiet kid who went home and watched TV all afternoon while coloring his little drawings.

Blind guy sort of catches him off guard, though, not 'cause of...that, but because he really did just think the dog was, y'know. A random pet. Working dog, huh? That's cool. Something tells him there's a little more to it if this guy's sharing an apartment with her in their dreamscape.

His smile is an ironic twist of his lips, like he gets exactly why she's teasing him. It's just habit, he guesses. Pet a dog, wash your hands before you unpack the food.

Which he moves to do now. ] You tell me. Your kitchen, chef. What're we making?

[carmesi]

( it might sound like he's teasing her, but there is something earnest enough about carmy that has wanda taking his word for what it is: honest. it tickles her bemused, truth be told, and turns her attention then to the box that he's brought. )

What do you have there?

( but then she opts for a smile. )

I was thinking we could do sarmas, the minced meat inside grape leaves. You know those? And... maybe something you're more familiar with? A dish that you would like to make. What is a signature Carmy dish?

[emulsions]

Uh— [ Carmy shows her what he's taking out, setting them neatly onto the counter. ] Just the basics, fresh herbs, butter but like the good shit, black garlic...fennel. You know, from the farmer's market.

[ Things to get them started. ]

Oh, and—I brought you these. Giardiniera. [ He pulls out a jar filled with pickled vegetables: carrots, cauliflower, celery, bell peppers. ] Maybe you've had it before, if you've eaten around New York, but this is my family's recipe.

[ Since she showed him hers, he figured she might like to try his version of family pickles. As for a Carmy dish, he doesn't have to give it too much thought, since he was thinking about it on the way here, less 'cause he assumed he'd be cooking it and more 'cause that's just something he does. Think about food, what he wants to make. After the last time he and Wanda were together, he settles on something that feels important.

The next item that comes out of the box is a can of tomato sauce. One of the smaller ones. ] Family spaghetti. It's...not my dish, actually, it's my brother's.

[carmesi]

I don't think I have ever had black garlic in my life.

( has she seen it, of course? has she been curious about it? yes. but her time as an avenger was never a culinary adventure, especially when she spent most of that time as a fugitive. wanda keeps her smile, though, taking the jar with the pickled vegetables into her own hands. )

Gi-ar-di-nera— ( she knows she is saying it wrong, but she just grins at him. it's clear that his family is of italian descent. it is an aspect of americans that amuses her, how much they are a product of european immigration and how much they have pushed away from those roots.

but wanda gets the impression that carmy keeps close to those roots, through cooking. ) I will give it a try. Wait.

( looking inside one of the drawers, she pulls out a small fork and a spoon, then finding a small saucer on the overhead cupboards. she opens the jar, scoops out a spoonful onto the saucer, and uses the fork to bring some of the pickled vegetables to her mouth. )

We had a similar thing in Sokovia. Torshi. Many countries share it— this is really good, though.

( it does remind her of home, in the way that one can taste that homely flavor in family recipes. it makes sense, then, that carmy insists that he will make the family spaghetti, a dish that was— his brother's.

smiling gently, wanda puts a hand over carmy's—he has many tattoos, she notices. with a solemn nod, she appreciates how much courage it takes to bring up his brother, knowing that carmy no longer has a brother. grief is strange, and wanda now has the hindsight to know that this kind of effort is not one she should reciprocate by babying him about his feelings. )

He was a cook, too? ( was, such a cruel verb tense, but loss is not something to be kept in the dark. she pulls away, hunching down to find some pots and pans for this endeavor. mary, the puppy, comes to sniff around, too, as if she could help. ) Let's make it. You can look inside the fridge for cold ingredients.

( wanda leaves it open, the space, in case he wants to talk more about his brother; the question was lobbed his way, soon tempered by lifelines to pull away from it if he preferred. )

cw: suicide ref

[emulsions]

Yeah? It's sweeter. Tangy, kind of.

[ It's pretty clear Carmy hasn't got any intention of using everything he brought. It's the equivalent of a handyman bringing his toolbox if toolboxes contained spice jars and extra virgin olive oil (the good shit, the best).

He watches her taste it. She likes it, yeah? That's good. There's a second where his brain stumbles over Sokovia—he swears he's never heard of it—but he's not exactly an expert on geography? Anyway, it's not important, and he moves on quickly to the spaghetti. The story behind that. ]

I guess? I mean, we all cooked, it was kind of a family thing, like holidays, Sunday dinners, that kind of stuff. [ And of course, there was The Beef. Can't forget The Beef, right?

He opens the fridge for some Parmesan cheese, thinks he's gonna give her a short and sweet answer and leave it at that, but then he looks up at her and he's reminded she's lost a brother, too. Somehow, it all comes tumbling out as he moves automatically through the steps of peeling garlic (plain, not black). ]

Um, but my brother, Michael, he had this spaghetti dish at the sandwich shop. I always hated it, it was oily and—and it had way too much sauce. It was a mess, you know? But after he died, I found...he left me a note. I thought he didn't, but he did. And—it's stupid, he put the fucking recipe on the back of it.

[ He made it that day. And...now he's making it again, if she's still into eating it after he overshared like crazy. ]

[carmesi]

( a family so immersed in cooking, how it brought them together. is it any surprise that one (or maybe more) of the children raised in that environment would become a chef? open up a restaurant? some things are inherent. wanda has often wondered how her life would have panned out if sokovia hadn't been stilled in time with all the conflict they had to endure.

what family traditions would have blossomed without fear of gunfire outside? what would she be doing, as a career? what would pietro, had he been given the chance—

carmy speaks some more about his brother, and wanda sets the pots and pans down in place over the stove, watching as he goes about the motions of preparing to cook almost automatically. michael — the brother now has a name. michael, who—from what she understands—took his life and left a note.

from what wanda can get from him, it seems like he expects her to say something about what he's just said. something to destroy the veil of it being sane or good or anything at all. )

It's not stupid.

( maybe that was everything michael had written on the note, but if it was or wasn't, that isn't the point. )

I think... ( she hedges over what she wants to say, knowing how personal and intimate this kind of memory he is sharing with her is. ) It's sad, of course, thinking this is how you got it, but... I think we should make it. That you should make it often, too.

( michael wanted carmy to have the recipe for a reason. wanda looks around an apron for herself, tying it up and standing closer to carmy working on the garlic. )

How can I help?

( she'll work on her sarmas soon enough, but first — maybe he wants to share more about this recipe, about his brother. )

[emulsions]

[ Everybody tells you that grief is complicated, but Carmy gets the feeling that it's always been a lot more fucking complicated with him than it is with anybody else. Most people, he thinks, would've gone to the funeral and given a eulogy and—whatever. Done the circuit. You know? The stuff you're supposed to do when somebody in your life suddenly isn't there anymore.

But he didn't. (He tried.)

Now he's got a recipe for spaghetti and a restaurant he's pretty sure he royally fucked up right before he was yanked here.

Guess none of it matters anymore. Not while he's...wherever the hell he is right now. In Wanda's kitchen. That seems like a simple way to think about it. ]

Uh— [ He pulls out thick, fresh stems of basil. ] Strip the leaves off these. What about you? [ He sets a pot onto the stove to boil. ] Sounds like you've got a few family recipes up your sleeve, too.