This might be a real story sometime; it might not. People are finally catching up to my Grosse Pointe quarantine fic(Which, incidentally, is the thing I wrote the most cause I liked it since I was about twelve.) Maybe this could be one of those. Friends "The One Where The Plot Bunny Grieves" [link]

Ok, be gentle people, first show-related fanfiction I've written in forever.

The Bear, pre-series. Eventually part of a story called "Three Important Meals Carmy Made That Never Got Reviewed"

Carmy was stressed and Donna was going through another one of her bad patches. When Donna was hungover, she liked to try to eat ice cream bars or popsicles(She didn’t usually have much appetite, though and never ate more than a bite or two. Probably trying to settle her stomach, he realized later, though the walls of the apartment were thin enough that he could hear it didn’t work.

His mother looked tired, but not in a bad mood, despite the headache that made her wince. “You don’t have to worry about me,” but her voice wasn’t steady so it kind of said the opposite

She mumbled good morning and he watched,already known for the big, serious blue eyes.”You can’t start your day that way,” Carmy argued. “Breakfast is important….they said so in school.”

Bobby said “Since when do you pay attention in school?” and made Sugar snicker, a moment of unity between them.

Carmy stuck to his guns. “Well, that part makes sense.” He clambered up on a kitchen chair and checked the bread box and then somehow found a package of cinnamon that Donna couldn’t remember buying, and not like she couldn’t remember stuff that year, more like it had been, maybe an actual fucking wedding present.

But Carmy made that cinnamon toast. Like he was splitting atoms or doing magic. He was so committed and serious that the other kids couldn’t make fun of him and that Donna found some long-buried appetite and ate half.

Another part of my "The Bear" backstory:

One Christmas, Sugar got an Easy-Bake oven. Carmy couldn’t remember if it was something she’d longed for but never got for other Christmases or if some relative had just sort of forgotten that his sister was at the end of Fake Oven Age and kind of at the beginning of Shoplifting Age. Maybe somebody was trying to stop time a little bit, which might have made Sugar roll her eyes and make some withering comment, except maybe she was into it, just a little, and dutifully mixed up the wet-looking, brownie-like “Cake” made with the power of all those lightbulbs or whatever. They guessed it tasted good, but after what the commercial showed, some disappointment was inevitable. “Girl presents are so fun.” Sugar complained. “Not only is the cake not that good, but now I get to wash dishes.”

Carmy wasn’t even listening…just went to that place in his head that he he went to sometimes, holding two little packets of cake mix. “Do you trust me?”

“No!”

He looked so disappointed that she said “I was just kidding,..I’m sure what you do will be fine.” She still had an eye on him as he dug out two big sandwich bags and opened up the white cake mix, too. He mixed it all together together, without anyone telling him to do it, as far as the rest of the family knew. And it was a decent-tasting tiny marble cake, if not as perfect as it would be in a movie.