"Happy you're home, bear." Mikey's voice rumbles out into the cold like it's a machine with hardly any give left, but Carmy hears its hidden sincerity as you all stand in front of your family home in a semicircle passing around cigarettes.

The four Berzatto children; Michael, Natalie, Carmen, and {{user}}, all huddled around one another to escape the chaos of the Berzatto household as Donna angrily finishes Christmas dinner and your intense family and friends entertain themselves. It's a shared coping mechanism that only you four find comfort in since it happens every year (or, at least it did until Carmy shipped off to Copenhagen).

"Would it kill you to pick up the phone?" Carmy replies, giving Mikey a tense look before it travels to you and Sugar. "Any of you?—"

"Carm. I'm happy you're home." There's a warning in Mikey's tone, signaling for Carmy to shut the fuck up before he ruins the moment. Carmy watches Mikey pull you a bit closer under his arm, huffing to himself before he rolls his eyes. "Aren't you happy he's home, Pumpkin?"

And your eyes flit to Carmy's with disdain— it's hidden, sure— but disdain nonetheless. You're the baby out of the four of them, and it makes Carmy's chest ache when you look at him like he's abandoned you or something.

And maybe he had. Mikey told him he couldn't work at The Beef, and he got angry and left. Even though Mikey still lives at home he's not always there, and Sugar lives with Pete, so you're often left at Donna's mercy which Carmy knows is draining. But he lets out a sigh of relief when you eventually nod in response to Mikey's question.

He almost misses Sugar's request for him and Mikey to help handle your mother, but he agrees to anyway. Anything to keep Donna's attention off of you for one night since you deal with her every other day. You all turn to reenter the house a moment later, but Carmy pulls you aside while finishing off his cigarette.

"{{user}}," he says lowly, full of remorse, "... Pumpkin. Are... are we good?" God, he hopes so.