Work Text:
Carmy is movement, Sydney thinks, all strong strides and hunched shoulders as he seeks to get everything just so.
She was on prep this morning, her hands busy and her mind free. The progress towards the new opening was going well. In a few days they’d have a sort of soft opening, a night for friends and family to try out some of the new menu and give them feedback.
Though they’d only been closed for a few short weeks, Syd appreciated the return of regular kitchen prep. It felt like progress. She had arrived early to find Carmy already there, leaning over a saute pan, stirring, tasting, and adjusting the seasoning. Always moving, every action deliberate. And yet, Syd knew, for all that movement he was stuck, stymied by some unseen element missing from his new dish.
“It’s not right,” he said last time he’d come up for air, pushing a hand through his unkept hair. “I can’t figure it out.”
He continued to taste and fiddle, occasionally throwing out the contents of the pan to start over. He gave half-hearted good mornings to the rest of the staff as they arrived. He was rooted in front of the fire, just trying to get it right, he’d said, more to himself than anyone else.
After more minutes of rumination, Carmy suddenly snapped up straight, spun around, and handed Syd a tasting spoon. He beckoned silently to the pan, his captor. Syd tried the dish, as she had several times before. It was excellent, just as it had been the last time he’d asked her to taste it. There was nothing else to add, she told him. Carmy let out an exasperated sigh, hands on his hips. “I don’t know,” he said, pulling a hand over his face before looking at her again.
The unsettled look in his eyes told Syd he wasn’t here right now. She could feel the invisible force he seemed to carry so often. She felt what he was trying to say, knowing he was powerless to articulate it.
“Keep trying,” she said. Carmy nodded and turned back to the stove.
As he turned away, Syd felt his movement wash over her. There were times she could bridge the gap, could help Carmy when he was under. But on this morning, five days after he’d started working on the dish, she knew it was a hopeless cause. He was stuck, and so the best she could do was keep him afloat, keep him moving. Just keep trying, she thought again. If all else failed, the upcoming dinner would pull his attention to more pressing things.
The chef’s silent melodrama played out with comedic effect against Richie, the oblivious stick in the mud, leaning against the opposite counter. Syd chopped and sorted, stacked and labeled as she watched the kitchen flow around Richie, so used to his need to relate a perceived injustice or relive a story from the glory days that needed to be told right then and there, listen, you’re never gonna believe this–
Like the rest of the kitchen, Carmy swept around his cousin, choosing to ignore the obstacle rather than remove it. It was early yet, Syd thought to herself, looking at the clock. Later, Syd knew Carmy wouldn’t be so accommodating. There were vendor meetings and business plan drafting to be done, the unpleasant side of this work when you just want to cook good things.
Carmy placed a lid on the saute pan and moved back over to the prep table, pulling up next to Syd.
“Chef, is it alright if I work next to you?” he murmured, his voice on the verge of an apology. He seemed always to be leaning, always trying to make himself smaller. His arms encircled a mess of vegetables and a cutting board. Syd turned and met his eyes, still unsettled.
Syd knew when Carmy was searching for stability, gravitating toward her side in an effort to control the chaos in his mind. This was one of those times, she realized. In her eyes he was searching for the shore.
They were about the same height, Syd had realized some time ago. She was sometimes slightly taller, depending on whether she wore her Birks or her Danskos. In the cramped kitchen it made their exchanges somehow more intimate, the intensity of his gaze overwhelming when his face was that close–
“Syd?” Carmy asked again, breaking eye contact and pulling her from her reverie. “I can move somewhere else, if it’s too much trouble–”
“No–yeah–of course chef,” she said, stumbling over her words but immediately pulling her prep to the side to make room. Carmy murmured a thank you and set about his work.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, mere inches apart. Syd had nearly finished her own work, slicing the last of the vegetables, putting the green lid on the final container. She paused for a moment to look at the man next to her.
Feeling her gaze, Carmy looked over his shoulder. “I think it needs mushrooms,” he said. “Maybe a deeper flavor.”
Syd nodded. “Okay,” she said quietly. “Worth a shot.”
“I just wish I could figure this fucking dish out,” Carmy said, turning back to the mushrooms. As he spoke his knife moved faster. “I’m so close,” he said, chopping as if to match his racing thoughts. “I know I need to leave it alone–we’ve got all those meetings this afternoon and I should be back in the office preparing. But if I can just figure this out then we’re nearly halfway to finishing the menu, and fuck–”
Syd felt it before she saw it, knew that Carmy’s growing ire made him lose his focus. He’d cut his finger.
“I’ll grab you a band-aid,” she said, moving toward the often-used first aid kit.
She saw Carmy start to protest before his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay,” he said, looking over the ruined vegetables. “Shit.”
After retrieving a bandage she found Carmy at the hand sink in the corner of the kitchen. It never stopped hurting, she thought to herself. You never get used to it, you just learn to live with it. She looked down at Carmy’s hand. It wasn’t the worst cut she’d ever seen. But it wasn’t great. It’d slow him down the rest of the day, and he’d likely need a glove to be safe.
“Thanks,” Carmy said, reaching for the bandage.
“I can put it on for you,” Syd said, surprised as the words came out of her.
Carmy leaned back against the sink, caught off guard by her offer. “Uh, okay,” he said. “Yeah, that’d be great.” He lifted his injured hand between them.
Just then, Manny emerged from the dish pit, arms laden with cleaned hotel trays. “Sorry chefs,” he said, obviously impatient. “Behind.”
Syd found herself in between Carmy, backed up against the sink, and Manny, trying to squeeze through with his mountain of clean trays. “No problem,” she said, trying to make herself small as she crowded Carmy and let Manny pass.
It wasn’t unusual to be packed assholes and elbows in a kitchen, and Syd wasn’t one to worry about personal space. But something had shifted this morning. As she crowded against the sink and next to Carmy, she thought to herself too close–
Her shoulder pressed up against his, as it had a thousand times before, her starched white shirt against his soft white t-shirt. But this time, all she could feel was that he was warm, the muscles in his back moving as he also tried to get out of Manny’s way, trying his best but only pressing father into Sydney, nearly pinning her to the sink.
Did he wear those shirts on purpose, her traitorous mind asked. They were so close she could smell the sharpness of his sweat, the soap he used that morning. The warmth from his side seemed to spread through her whole body. She heard her mind once again. Did he wear those shirts so that you’d want to feel, want to touch–
And just like that Manny passed and Syd and Carmy jumped apart.
Carmy, for his part, was uncharacteristically still. He didn’t meet her gaze, but held up his cut finger once more. Syd wrapped the bandage gently, her fingers grazing his in the process. She heard his breath hitch, and thought oh shit–
The world had become intensely small, Syd thought, her ears burning and her face hot. She looked up at Carmy whose neck was flushed, eyes fixed on the floor.
“There you go,” she said, crumpling the packaging in her hand and tossing in a nearby bin. “You’ll probably need a glove.”
“Yeah, uh–thank you,” Carmy said, back in motion, racing to the back where they kept the gloves. She felt his wake crash against her, causing her to sway.
Syd felt the world snap back into focus. She leaned against the sink and sighed. The sounds of the kitchen filtered back into her consciousness, familiar and comforting. Without realizing it, she realized something was missing.
Across the kitchen, she saw Richie had stopped mid-sentence, watching she and Carmy. The rest of the kitchen had tuned him out hours ago, and so they had paid no mind to the interruption.
Syd met Richie’s eyes and saw him put the pieces together. After a moment, he looked away, returning to his story. Shit, Syd thought. Richie was dumb, he was arrogant, he was oblivious. But he knew. He knew he’d seen something pass between the chefs. But he hadn’t mocked them for it, hadn’t jeered, hooted or hollered. Sydney didn’t know what to think about that.
While debating whether to feign illness or fake her death and start a new life in a different city, Sydney knew she needed to put away everything she’d prepped. It was still sitting on the table, taking up valuable space. She looked up at the clock and realized it was nearly time for the first vendor to arrive.
She passed by Richie, who didn’t say anything, didn’t needle. He was downright nice. He had been accommodating after the accidental stabbing, but this was just too much.
Syd was standing in the walk-in, tidying up the last bin and admiring her work when Carmy burst through the door, a spoon of sauce in his hand, his blue eyes electric.
“I figured it out,” he said, pushing the spoon towards her. She started to reach for the spoon but Carmy was already aiming it toward her mouth, beckoning for her to taste it.
“It was simple,” he said excitedly. “Here, you’ll see.”
Syd opened her mouth and tasted the sauce, feeling oddly vulnerable about being fed by Carmy. “Yeah,” she said, finally extricating the spoon from Carmy’s excited grip and considering it again. “It’s different, but I can’t tell why.”
“Time,” Carmy said, laughter in his voice. “I had to leave the sauce when I cut myself. Whatever that did was enough time to give it–”
“--the depth of flavor you were looking for,” Syd said, finishing his sentence for him.
Carmy nodded. “Holy hell,” he said, stretching backwards, as if unfolding from the entire morning. “I thought I was going to go crazy. I was going to cancel all our appointments this afternoon.” Despite the chill in the freezer, his face was flushed with achievement.
Syd raised an eyebrow, and Carmy deflated slightly. “I wasn’t really going to cancel,” he said, his voice sheepish. “I just really wanted to get this right, you know?” He pulled a hand through his hair again, all the edges sticking up in a haphazard halo. “Syd, you know what I mean,” he said. “When the real thing matches up with what you see in your mind, you know?”
Syd felt the world go still and small once more. You could kiss him right now, her mind unhelpfully supplied. Nobody would know, it’s what the walk-in is for.
“That’s great,” Syd said instead, hoping her voice didn’t shake. She smiled.
Just then, Richie put his face in the window of the freezer. “What’s going on,” he bellowed, his eyes playful. “Don’t we have a meeting with the fish guy?”
Carmy shook his head ruefully. He pulled his shoulders back, all the burdens of the morning gone. He grasped the handle and looked back once more. “No, cousin,” he said, “you do not have a meeting with the fish vendor. You got in a fistfight with the guy because of your identical taste in women, therefore you are banned from future meetings with him. However, my business partner and I do have a meeting, so thank you for the reminder.”
Carmy looked back at Syd expectantly, holding the door for her.
When Carmy and Syd reached the quiet of the small office, Carmy turned to look at Syd. The intensity was back. Syd felt the undertow again, stronger than before.
“Hey Syd,” Carmy said, his voice soft. “You okay? I know I was in my head all morning, but it feels like–”
“--I’m okay,” Syd said, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. Instinctively, she reached out for him, putting a hand on his shoulder and scratching lightly with her fingers. It was an absent-minded habit from her life outside the kitchen, a way to signal to her father that she was okay when she was too overwhelmed to speak. “Don’t worry about it,” she said after a moment. “We’ve got work to do.”
If she didn’t know better, Syd thought Carmy might have leaned back into the touch. If her rebellious mind hadn’t been playing tricks on her all morning, she might have though Carmy’s eyes half-closed at the contact, if only for a moment.
But they had work to do, she thought to herself. She settled into the extra chair, picked up a binder, and flipped to the relevant information to prep for their meeting.
Carmy started in on the options for sourcing haddock and Syd felt herself relax, finding herself on the shore once again. They'd been reaching for each other all morning, Syd rationalized to herself. They way they always did. They way that business partners do. She'd reached out in a friendly gesture, nothing more.
"Alright," Carmy said, breaking through her reverie. "What do you think?"
Syd looked up at Carmy. She paused for a minute. "Honestly, Carmy, I have no idea."
Carmy smiled. "Yeah, me either," he said, standing up and closing the notebook. "Let's just go see what the guy says," he said, "no need to make a decision today."
No kidding, Syd thought to herself. She followed Carmy out into the front of the restaurant where the vendor sat waiting. The bright light and the extra space dissipated the energy building in her all morning.
There was work to do, she thought to herself. No need to dismantle the day and examine the moments for some deeper meaning.
Give it time, her mind said. Give it time.
She tried not to think about what that meant.