Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Carmy’s memory is filled with vibrant explosive detail between long, unspooling stretches of fog. When something gets caught, though, it’s there to stay. It’ll resurface in every sense available, the sight of the long red talons his mother would get before every Christmas, the sound of Mikey and Richie’s voices rising through the floorboards after they finally returned from a night of drinking. 

He thinks most people have memories like that, so vivid you can feel them under your skin, but he doesn’t know how many people can taste them like he can. 

-

New York tastes like bile. Every dish he’s tried, every piece of perfectly seared fish, every sauce that struck the impossibly thin Goldilocks zone between too tight and threatening to break, they all end up the same. Some nutrients get through, most don’t, definitely never enough.

He can let it lay on the back burner for as long as he needs it to. Because when he enters the kitchen, buttons his jacket, none of it matters. He is this kitchen’s keeper. The metaphor gets mixed when it squirms under his grasp and tries to kill him instead. But it doesn’t matter. He spins gold, he weaves perfection, and he does it all in the blink of an eye. Some massive, unruly part of this beast is his, and no one can strangle it down like he can.

No one can take what Chef does to them like he can. He is calm, his hands are not shaking, yes, chef, I’ll be what you want me to be . Cloth meets cloth, Chef leans down to murmur in his ear. He doesn’t know if the breath on his skin makes him want to vomit or punch Chef in the nose, but he doesn’t even let his focus break. 

This is worth it. He thinks it’ll kill him if it hasn’t already, but this is always worth it. 

-

12:34

He’ll still remember that years later.

It’s been years since Sugar gave up on contacting him, even longer since everyone else has. Even though his every urge begs for him to let it drift off, prove himself wrong when he’d promised they’d see each other again, this isn’t a normal call. It’s past midnight for him, and they’re only a time zone apart. The desperate ‘CALL ME’ starts to whisper that a heavy shoe is coming.

“Carmen,” she sobs, struggling to choke air down, “…It’s Mikey.”

It’s so silent for a moment, his tongue numb, the world asleep. 

His voice comes out distant, someone else’s, “What?”

“He’s- he’s gone. He fucking… and I just- I need you to-”

She’s cut off by a tap and a clatter.

And then it’s impossibly loud, and the fennel on his tongue tastes like spoiled milk, sour and sharp. He is Mikey’s shadow, and neither of them can move, dead and trapped. Tremors wrack through him, but it barely registers as his head gets so so loud, and he can’t get out, and he can’t go back, and he’s nothing, and he needs him, and everything has been for nothing, and nowhere is ever going to feel like home again, and it feels like he can’t see, and his big brother, everything he knows, is dead. 

-

It’s the smell of burning that makes him able to feel his hands again, able to see them trembling. For a moment, he just blinks down at the pot, trying to pull himself further out of his head and away from the desperate urge to burn something more. He feels sick and inhuman as he clicks the burner off. 

The walls, lights, everything around him feels too clean, too normal. There should be something wrong, something seeping through the corners, but everything outside of him is the same. It tries to close in on him, that gut-churning normalcy, but his eyes frantically trace the corners of the kitchen until his back hits a stove. His deadened limbs carry him outside.

It’s too slow and too fast at the same time, making him dizzy. Purging stomach acid and water is overwhelmingly familiar to him, but he can’t scrape himself together enough to be prepared for it. Liquid hits his shoes, leaves a small stain on his pristine white jacket. His ragged gasps feel far away, buried in the heartbeat in his ears. Everything does.

He’s pinned against the brick wall for a while by the horror pooling in his gut. Is Mikey going to be buried? How did he even die? He doesn’t get what happened. He doesn’t get it. Could he have fixed this? Why hasn’t the world ended? Why are people still living? He seemed okay. He always seemed so good and normal. Why did he never want to talk to him? Why did Mikey hate him? He wants Mikey. He wants to go home to him. He wants to taste braciole. He needs to be normal again. He needs to talk to Mike. He needs to get out of his skin.

At some point, the cold pricks into him, and he manages to drag himself back inside on unsteady legs. It feels like pulling dead weight forward, slow and unrelenting. Maybe he’s dead weight in and of himself. He gets rid of the dish, fish and fennel in the trash, plate sat neatly by the dishwashers’ station. The movements start to bleed him out.

For almost a minute, he can’t convince himself to touch his phone, like the second he does, she’ll call again and tell him worse and worse and worse. Eventually, he traces his fingertips over the side, testing the waters, before he slowly takes it in his hands and slips it in his pocket.

He can’t scrape together the energy to change out of his chef jacket, to even open his locker. The walk home carves him out. The air tastes like fennel and rot. Even though he knows the way home, he feels horribly lost, almost begging for the streets to change on him, for something to affirm that the world is different, that he is different.

He only notices the tear tracks down his cheeks when he gets into the elevator of his apartment, dampened vision blurring under the fluorescent light. His head is aching, and he wants to taste Italian beef instead of stomach acid. He pinches his thumb and forefinger across his eyes before leaning his head back against the wall.

He feels like he’s going insane. He should tell Mike.

Chapter Text

He paces through his shitty hotel room. Everything’s so thin that the poor bastard below him can probably hear the endless thudding back and forth and back and forth. The soft padding of dress shoes on stiff carpet has been going for hours now. 

Since he silently flew to Chicago last night, he’s smoked almost a quarter of a pack by himself. It makes him feel more nauseous than before, and even though he hasn’t vomited yet, it feels like an inevitability. In an effort to fend it off, he’s tossed his pack of Sapphires in a desk drawer (his struggle with object permanence helping him out this time), but the feeling of ants crawling through his bloodstream hasn’t even faltered.

So he’s been pacing. He can’t be seen outside. He thinks if he tries to put the tie on now he’ll suffocate. The suit jacket is sat neatly on the bed, waiting for when his skin stops burning. His button-up isn’t done all the way, but it’s tucked neatly into his sleek black dress pants. He didn’t sleep last night. He’s been pacing for almost 2 hours now. 

Some part of him just wants to talk to Sugar. There’s this clawing urge sometimes to bury himself in Mikey, talk about him to whoever will listen, think about him day and night, let himself be consumed by the unrelenting ache in his chest. He feeds into it when Sugar calls him, texts him, tries to get him up to speed, spells out addiction and suicide like they shouldn’t stun him. 

It’s hard because there’s this beast ripping through his organs, gnawing on his rib cage, howling painfully to be left alone with the big brother that raised him. But there’s also the calm, insidious voice in his head that sounds so much more logical when it explains that Mikey didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to work with him, didn’t consider him worth confiding in. The more it drones on, the clearer it feels to him that Mikey didn’t want him there. 

Irrationality grips him again, fueling the calm voice further. He doesn’t want to see anyone. Shame crawls up the back of his neck, but he can’t face his mom, can’t look Richie in the face. No matter how much he wants to trace his fingers over Mikey’s casket, it is an undeniable fact that he is a coward. He cannot go in. He cannot handle the reality staring back at him.

So the funeral starts in 45 minutes, and it’s a 20 minute drive. Minutes tick by like the click of a lamb's hooves to the slaughter. He wants to go. He shouldn’t. He can’t do it. Mikey hates him. Mikey should blame him for being so stupidly fucking oblivious. Maybe he could have done something. Could have been there at least. Or maybe Mikey was right. Maybe Carmy’s problems are just too loud, always have been, and he would have made things worse. He wants to do what his brother wants. Always , always. He could never not do what his brother wants.

He feels dead.

The thought hits him suddenly, sharp and strikingly vivid. 

He can’t think of a more effective hell than this shitty hotel room while he waits for his brother’s funeral.

In the past couple months, almost 40 pounds have been carved off him. Even before his brother, the steady hand on his shoulder, shot his head off on the State Street Bridge, the razor-thin edge to his urgency had dulled, a daze closing in on him. Maybe he hasn’t been sleeping or eating well. Maybe it’s gotten exponentially worse since Mikey.

The endless thudding feels like shaky proof that he’s not really laying on the floor of his New York apartment, tasting like rot and seeping febreeze from the neighbors, not actually following close on Mike’s heels, like he’s always done. 

When he was maybe 12, there was a power outage that struck their neighborhood for days. It never occurred to them that the basement freezer was completely useless during that time. When they were snowed in, Mikey dipped into the preserve of raw meat they kept down there. The strangest part is that the chicken looked perfectly fine, drawing them in, but beyond the veneer of breading and capers, that taste took hold, promising days of food poisoning.

He remembers the taste of rot in that vibrant explosive detail he can never shake off. It sits suffocatingly on his tongue as he imagines Mikey’s face in his closed casket, shapeless viscera and graying skin. 

That’s finally the tipping point, bringing his knees to the tile. He shakes apart in the tiny bathroom while stomach acid and water violently tear their way up his throat. The nausea worms into him, gripping his throat and not letting go. At first, it’s the bile stinging in his sinuses that brings tears to his eyes, but it doesn’t take long to avalanche into sobs that wrack through him, steal his breath.

His chest shivers, and he kneads at it desperately. It stabs into him, lungs shriveling. All he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears and his own gasps. His other hand grips hard into his hair. It’s too much. His eyes squeeze shut as he buries himself in Mike, suffocating in him.

Eventually, he resurfaces, and the horror bleeds out of him. He backs away into the wall, red-rimmed eyes tracing the spots of stubborn mold tucked away behind the toilet. He breathes slowly through his mouth, one hand squeezing the other, tight then soft then tight again. The world drips slowly, his head emptying and subtracting down to keeping himself steady.

Tracing fingers over the doorway, his legs drift, and he has to focus to not let his knees buckle. Checking his phone reveals that the funeral started 5 minutes ago. So his hands are tied. He can’t go. He can’t keep letting his problems leech away Mikey’s time. Before it makes him sick again, he sits on the bed and breathes slowly in then out then in.

-

When his stomach is barely settled enough that he can drag himself down to the parking garage, he drives to the church. He sits at a stop sign, traces his eyes over the sculptures and spires. His AC is turned frigid, soothing out the frantic heat that tried to overtake him when he tightened his tie. Leaving the top button undone is the only thing keeping him breathing. When someone would roll in behind him, he’d circle the church until he was back where he started, silent and alone.

After hours of staring, breathing, and plunging into himself, those towering doors open, and people stream out as if from a wound.

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.’