Chapter Text
Sydney and Marcus were gone because of how fucked up he’d been, but he’d figure it out. Show must go on, people must get their stupid sandwiches, so on and so forth. He could handle it. It was fine.
The Hell Day was yesterday. Today, everyone was stretched thin and stressed to hell and walking on eggshells around him. He really didn’t blame them for it. If someone were to measure the amount he managed to fuck things up in a single day, that would probably be pretty high up there.
On top of possibly losing 2 damn good chefs and the broken ticket machine and everyone acting like he could snap at any minute, he sort of did feel like he could snap at any minute. It was like the adrenaline still hadn’t worn off, and his outburst wasn’t even a way to purge the hissing and popping in his skin and in his head. Whatever was wrong with his stupid fucking brain that made him do that was still completely in there, and not even the guilt and exhaustion from all this could change that.
Even if it was strikingly out of character for him, nobody really questioned it when he decided to drive Richie home instead of spending a couple hours scrubbing the floors with a toothbrush past close and letting Richie ignore his suspended license for the thousandth time. Maybe this was an energy that couldn’t quite be lessened by anything other than time and getting into a screaming match with his cousin, but he’d rather not admit that’s why he did it.
It was never too hard to get into a screaming match with Richie. One too many comments about how after all these years, he still couldn’t cook for shit, and suddenly, he’s headed toward the other end of River North, not hearing a word Richie is saying, and yelling about something he isn’t really paying attention to. Either way, he can feel the hissing and popping, but he’s the one in control of it. Maybe.
It was all heat and hands clenched around the steering wheel and probably going a little faster than he should be through an intersection. Then, it was a bang so loud into his left side, it felt like his eardrums were going to burst.
-
Richie didn’t know what Carmy’s problem was tonight. Well, he figured it might just have something to do with grief and Hell Day and all the shit that’s always Carmy’s problem, but he didn’t know what any of that had to do with him. Sure, it was true that his calling was in front of house, so he didn’t really need to be there until open. It was also true that they were a fucking family here, and naturally, Carm wouldn’t get that after hopping off the grid for a good few years.
He was trying to actually get the concept of loyalty into Carmy’s thick skull when he saw headlights moving where you never want them to be.
In an effort to not die in something as anticlimactic as a car crash at the age of 44, Richie yelled something along the lines of, “Floor it!” and shielded his head.
The alert didn’t seem to reach its non-listening, bitchy little target, and the car bashed into Carmy’s door. After the impact, and his head and shoulder knocked against the right side of the car, it was sort of needless to say that he wasn’t quite sure what he expected, but this wasn’t it.
He didn’t think he had a concussion or dislocated his shoulder or anything, even if they were bruised to hell from that and his left arm now seemed to have a bit of glass in it. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but he could probably scrape by without a hospital trip. Upon clearing himself, he looked over to Carm to assess the damage, and… oh fuck.
With the sound of the other car’s tires screeching away from the scene, Richie saw Carmy slumped toward him with the slight rise and fall of his shoulders being the only sign he was alive. Through headlights and streetlights, Richie could make out the blood soaked into his hair and across his face.
Richie scrambled for his phone and told a 911 operator about the crash and Carmy and the selfish fuck of a hit-and-run driver at the speed only that level of adrenaline can achieve. She told him about the ambulances already on their way.
“Oh shit, he’s waking up. He moved,” Richie said as he put the phone on speaker and tossed it in the cup holder.
Carmen slowly righted himself and leaned back against the seat with a hand bracing on something to either side of him. Most of the left side of him was aching, his head and forearm most of all, and everything around him was spinning and tilting.
“Cousin, hey! You with me?”
“What’s-w-what’s … what?”
“And he speaks! It’s- you’re a little fucked right now, but we’ll get you unfucked. Alright? That sound okay, Cuz?”
Carmy nodded and closed his eyes again, the headlights beaming at him starting to make his eyes hurt too. There were sirens somewhere, but he couldn’t quite figure out if that was good or not.
“Hey hey, no falling asleep on me,” Richie begged as he placed a hand on Carmy’s good shoulder, “I can hear the ambulance coming, Cuz. We’re so fuckin close.”
-
By some miracle, Carm’s door still opened with minimal force, and two of the paramedics examined him and Richie while the third started moving a stretcher over. They insisted on running all the stupid concussion protocol on the both of them, even though Richie felt just fine (enough) and Carm had blood covering about half of his fucking face. He was trying to convince them that this was pretty unnecessary but couldn’t help being distracted by how bad Carmy was stuttering.
They wheeled him in and didn’t object too much to Richie riding along and insisting they look after Carm first and foremost. Just how much of a mess this kid was became a lot more clear in the fluorescent lighting of the ambulance. The only new detail that came to light was how his left arm was covered shoulder to wrist in reddish splotches, probably bound to become a whole chunk of bruise, but he could now see everything else with lurid clarity too.
He caught sight of the shimmer of glass in his cheek and the shapeless wound in his temple he couldn’t quite tell the depth of. Without another look, he turned his gaze to the ceiling before his heart started pounding any more from it.
-
Carmy remembers answering questions, and he felt like he was being pretty coherent, but their words came so easy and fast and clear while his were stuttering and hazy and warped. He got into the ambulance and felt the speed of it catch him so strongly off balance that he almost felt nauseous with it.
The shorter paramedic who had talked to Richie was trying to clean up his temple, but he just couldn’t manage to sit still. The taller paramedic who had asked him questions began talking about giving him some medications through an IV to keep any nausea and the pain down. He tried to tell them he just couldn’t take the pain meds, but if he managed to get past one word, he’d be blocked by the next.
“Cousin, Cousin hey, just listen,” Richie said as he stood up and leaned over to look at Carmy.
His brows were furrowed, and he covered his eyes, wholly unable to deal with the lights and the paramedics and the disgusting slickness of blood. The kid was shaking like his life depended on it. He nodded slightly to Richie.
“Just slow down, take a breath ’cause you’re gonna puke if you don’t just fuckin stop for a second.”
He tried to breathe, and the shorter paramedic preemptively pulled out an emesis bag.
“Even if you try, which I really fuckin doubt will happen, I won’t let you do what Mikey did. No one’ll let that happen.”
He couldn’t breathe, but he tried to anyway. Richie rubbed a hand on his good shoulder.
“You’re gonna be fine, Cuz.”
The shorter paramedic moved closer to Carmy, just in time to catch him heaving up bile. He spit out what remained in his mouth and leaned back with a wince.
“F-fuck,” he groaned. “Sorry.”
That’s around where his memory started to really cut out.