Chapter Text
As soon as he says it, Carmy knows he’s fucked up. He stands, tense, in the middle of the kitchen of the Beef. His legs are stanced, grounding him against the grimy tile floor. He is holding a quart container filled halfway with water, and his fingers grip the container so tightly his hands shake, and the water almost jostles out of the cup.
He stares at Sydney, his breath heavy and ragged. He tries to remember how the fight even started. How they got to this point. How he let it get so bad.
The rest of the restaurant is silent except for the frantic sounds of pots clanging and knives chopping and footsteps rushing from one station to the next. Carmy can feel the chefs’ gazes glancing off him and Sydney every so often, assessing the situation, but staying quiet; knowing not to intrude. Carmy wishes they did intrude.
They’d both said some bad things, but Carmy, like the fuck-up he was, had really taken the cake. And not like Marcus’s cake, either, but a cake that’s been overcooked and made with too much baking powder.
“If you want to fuck up my kitchen, get out and go back to fucking up your own catering business.”
For a moment, Carmy thinks that Sydney will actually do it. That she’ll turn around and leave. But he sees a rage in her eyes that wasn’t there a moment before—like he’d awakened something in her, like she was a pot of rice someone forgot to put the lid on and had started to boil over.
He sees her fist clench tightly around the metal spoon she’s holding, and Carmy wonders if she’ll throw it. He wonders if she’ll shout, if she’ll scream at him for his blunt-knife behavior; he’ll hurt you if you aren’t careful, but Sydney is a sharp knife, and she is precise with her cuts. Carmy’s anger shoots blindly, aiming to hurt even if he doesn’t know what he’s hurting. Sydney’s anger is targeted and cold; it is stainless steel and disinfectant and liquid nitrogen.
She doesn’t shout.
She inhales.
She opens her mouth.
She says, “You think you’re so tough.” Her voice is flinty. Her voice is quiet. Her voice resounds like crackling lightning. “You think you’re so—fucking—tough, throwing a hissy fit when you don’t get your way.” She bites the words out. “Listen to me, Carmen Berzatto; you are not tough. You are fucking bullshit. You are talentless. You are nothing. You are nothing, Carmen Berzatto, do you hear me?”
He does not hear her. He stopped hearing her halfway through. He is no longer in the kitchen of the Beef. He is at Eleven Madison Park, New York. He can feel Chef breathing down his neck. His hands have started to shake, and isn’t that weird? Shouldn’t he be living off the adrenaline and using it to feed his plating? There is a dull buzzing in his ears. He can’t hear Sydney, but her mouth is still moving.
There is no way Sydney would have known those were almost the exact words that Chef had spoken to him a year ago. Carmy, logically, knows this. Carmy is not logical.
He has to get out of this fucking kitchen. He has to—
“—take a smoke break,” he mumbles. “I gotta go.”
He sets his deli cup down on the counter, the water finally, finally sloshing over the sides. He flees through the kitchen to the back door, nearly bumping into Tina when he forgets to say “behind,” a muttered “sorry” tumbling from his mouth.
As he pushes open the door, he hears Sydney shout, “Oh, yeah, so you’re leaving again! Who’s fucking up the kitchen, now, huh?”
Carmy’s chest feels tight. He inhales, but it’s like there’s no room left in his lungs. He inhales again. He stumbles through the alley and slumps against the brick wall. He inhales. He fumbles in his pocket for a cigarette; fuck, he must have left them inside. So much for taking a smoke break.
You should be dead, says Chef.
The voice sounds like it is underwater, and in between gasps for air, Carmy forces out, “What?”
Did I fucking stutter? Repeat after me: I should be dead, Chef.
“I should be dead, Chef.” Carmy chokes on the words. He crosses his arms tightly across his chest.
You are a fuck-up. Can’t even keep your employees in line, says Chef.
“Yes, Chef,” Carmy responds. He blinks, hard. He still can’t breathe. He should really see someone about this; this is a fucking problem.
The worst part is that Chef’s right. The fight with Sydney…it was a mistake. Carmy shouldn’t have gotten so riled. He knows that. He knows he shouldn’t have brought up Sheridan Road. It was salt in her wound. It was taking the knife and twisting it. Sydney is worth more than that. She is worth more than Carmy. She shouldn’t have to deal with him being such a fuck-up all the time.
None of the chefs at the Beef should have to deal with that. They shouldn’t have to deal with what Carmy went through in New York. Carmy remembers, two days after he quit at Eleven Madison Park, one of the staff called him up and asked him why he was leaving. He remembers that he almost didn’t answer; he almost didn’t pick up because he was so deep in a haze of grief over Mikey’s death. But he did pick up, and he told the staff member that he was going to be one of the good ones. Even then, he had so much fucking conviction that he could make something good and meaningful and worthwhile, and here he was, fucking it all up.
You are nothing.
Carmy can’t tell who the voice belongs to this time: Chef, Sydney, Ma, Mikey, Richie…himself? He sinks down onto his haunches. Tears are dripping down his cheeks now. He brings his scarred hands up to scrub at his eyes. He is nothing. He is nothing. He is nothing.
And then the alleyway floods with light.