Chapter Text
He’s taken 8 days off in his over 3 years working at EMP. 6 days when an ulcer (assumedly caused by stress) scraped out a small but agonizingly painful hole in his stomach and the other 2 when he left for the funeral, calling out sick which never felt like a lie.
He’s not sure what happened. The last time he saw Mike was after Christmas dinner, after a tarp had been duct taped to the remains of the front walkway. Mikey sat on the stairs looking over it, breathing in drywall.
He stayed still until Carmy hit the step he was sitting on, “You heading up for the night?”
He paused for a moment before admitting, “Got a hotel. Just gotta grab my shit.”
“Alright,” he murmurs barely above a whisper, tapping a fist softly against his leg, “Well, y’know, if I don’t catch you again, good night… I know you’ll do good at whatever’s after Copenhagen.”
“Thanks, Mike,” he whispered.
“Love you, Bear.”
“Love you too, Bear. Good night.”
And he can taste the dust settling on his tongue.
And he stares into the mirror, hundreds of miles from home, a lifetime deep into New York. There’s no blood under his skin, just in the bruised bags under his eyes. You’re not going to throw up again , he tells himself. Whatever he once was has been butchered from him, the offal long gone since then. His knuckles grip the sink, hard and shaking and revealing the outlines of off-white bone.
It wasn’t that long ago that he felt Mikey’s hand on his shoulder or the small of his back. It wasn’t that long ago that he felt the best he ever had, when his life really started.
He lets out a long, sure breath and straightens up. Everyone thinks he’s weak. It’s not hard to knock him down, but he will keep raggedly pulling his dead weight off the floor every fucking day. He showers, gels his hair back, does a lot of things he won’t remember doing. It all floods through him until his hands are shaking, and his head is foggy, and he feels Chef’s presence before he hears it.
“Refire. Do you not know how to cook duck?”
“I-”
“Don’t answer that. You’ll get it wrong.”
The suffocating silence of this place shies away from that imposing tap on the linoleum. It stops, and Carmy holds his breath. Chef watches him move, the strong tremors ripping through his hands. All he hears is the soft clink of the plate on the metal counter.
“Hands,” he calls.
“What’s wrong with you?” Chef whispers back.
“Nothing, Chef.”
“That’s why you’re shaking? Because your word is better than what’s in front of my face? You can’t even hold tweezers right. Say ‘I don’t know how to plate.’ ”
“I don’t know how to plate, Chef,” he says with full confidence.
“You’re right. You’re nothing. You hit your embarrassingly low peak months ago, and you have been getting slower and shittier since. Do you want me to put you on the mandolin tomorrow? Slice your fingers until you’re not so fucking distracted?”
“No, Chef. I’m not distracted.”
“Then prove it to me. You sound like you’re stoned to shit. Is it drugs? Scoring a little more than cigs to take the edge off?”
He struggles not to choke on it, “No, Chef.”
“Oh, did I strike a chord there? Getting to be a little too much or am I just getting closer?”
“Neither, Chef.”
“Then why are your hands shaking?”
He swallows down the acid that burns sharper up his throat.
“Answer me.”
“Low blood sugar,” slips out.
He’s sure it’s not a lie, and it’s the closest he can get to not being pathetic with so little time to think.
“You planning on passing out on me any time soon? Need me to get you an apple juice?”
“No, Chef.”
“Alright, then whatever the fuck is happening to you needs get good or go away. With how horrible you’ve managed to get in so little time, you’d be better off killing yourself than trying to find another job.”
The stall of his trembling hands. And then the sound that will always kill him, that tap of expensive dress shoes on linoleum growing quieter and quieter until it disappears down some corridor.
The world goes on. Everything around him is normal, but he can taste rot and fennel and hear a single gunshot.
“Chef, cover me?” He mutters, burning panic lighting a fuse.
“Yes, Chef,” she answers simply.
He calls “Behind, behind,” until his jaw tightens, acid-rotten teeth grinding together.
The blood drains out of him. His old birkenstocks pad frantically, unsteadily. He can barely place a hand on the brick outside before a heave bursts uncontrollably up his throat. Stomach acid and water splash on the dingy concrete. His heart thrashes hard against his ribs, lungs shrinking away from it.
His every muscle goes dangerously tense, shaking with the effort, and his lungs are frozen. When he folds over himself and static rolls through his vision, he forces air down. He feels the claws breaking down his ribs again, but he forces one gasp down then the next.
And then, the door opens. Carmy doesn’t turn around, feels like prey.
When it closes, Chef speaks, “I’m going to ask again. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Nothing, Chef,” he rasps, kneading the heel of his palm into his chest.
“If you can’t figure it out yourself, then let’s see: Your hands shake, you can barely speak clearly, you’ve been losing weight faster than some insecure high school girl before prom, and right now, you’re having some kind of nervous breakdown when you’re supposed to be in there, doing your fucking job. Do you want me to go on? Because I really can.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“I’ll decide how much time I should give you to fix it.”
“He left me the restaurant.”
“Don’t waste my time. You take some days off for this or you get bad enough for me to fire your ass. Catch me up quick,” he snaps his fingers demonstratively.
Carmy spits out acid before lowering to a crouch. It makes him feel a little less like he’s about to pass out.
“Older brother killed himself. February 22nd,” he murmurs lowly off into nothing, “I always wanted to work at his little fuckin sandwich shop, but he never let me, and he promised we’d-we’d start something on our own instead… I wanted to show him what I did here, everything I learned. I knew I wanted to at least talk to him, but I didn’t want him to see me like this. This shit, you specifically, I think it’s killing me, and Sugar’ll be an only child.”
“Christ… the brother is rough, but you need to either get over ‘this shit’ or see a shrink about it. You’re needed back inside.”
He shakes his head slowly, his voice breaks, “I can’t go back in.”
“What do you mean?”
It slowly rolls out of him, as foreboding and inevitable as thunder, “I need to go run his restaurant.”
“No, Chef. You need to finish your shift. I know you’re not the brightest bulb, but I’m sure the importance of a CDC had to have gotten through to you by now.”
Carmy stands and stares up at him, calculating eyes meeting his weary red-rimmed ones.
He whispers, “I can’t handle it, Chef.”
“You’ve handled it for years. You know I just say that shit to get more from you.”
“I’ll clean out my locker.”
Chef follows silently, almost calmly behind him.
He whispers, “Carmy, listen to me. You’re dedicated, you’re driven. What the hell do you think you’re going to do with a sandwich shop? Every skill, every idea you had while you’ve been here will weaken. All of the bullshit you had with this will have been for nothing. You can still make more, Carmy. You got yourself here, now make it worth it. Don’t waste it on sentimentality.”
His hands stall again, rubbing his thumbs aimlessly on his backpack. Everything drowns out.
He slowly shakes his head, “You need a new CDC.”
While Carmy sits down on a bench, Chef stays still, towering and nauseating, until he turns and walks out. The taste of bile is just as strong as when he moved here. He wills himself to stand, but the air of this place is often too stiff to break.
After Chef walks past the locker room again, he wrenches himself up, stuffs his belongings into his backpack, and texts Sugar, ‘I need to come home.’