Chapter Text
0. Prologue: Damn September Nights
September isn’t his favorite month. Well, to be fair, he actually fucking hates September, and the night has just turned particularly awful.
He perceives someone stepping right beside him to join his smoking break and he doesn’t have to turn his head to know it’s his cousin, tall and lustrous in his black suit, taking a cig from inside the box he’s holding in his hands.
“Syd?” Richie blurts out the question unceremoniously, after a few seconds of soaring silence, joint now between his teeth, a wary look on his face.
Carmen takes a drag of his own just to exhale the smoke through his nostrils and into the chill that announces the unequivocal arrival of fall. He allows the heat of the smoke run across his body before responding, almost nonchalantly “Off for the night.”
His cousin side-eyes him “Hot date?” the question lashes out like a blade cut and Carmy shrugs, breathing in the smoke without sparing him a look, keeping his expression muted as per usual, fighting the memory of Syd wearing the copper sparkly sweater –the one she had bought last month for “special occasions” –, and her flushing cheeks when Tina asked her if she was seeing “al chico ese del Volvo” tonight.
“Who’s the boob she’s dating, anyway? Huh?” Richie scorns in his usual, ever-tactless fashion.
“Greg.” The name has a bland – bitter – taste in his mouth. His eyes are still fixed on the cerulean horizon beyond the back alley of the restaurant.
“Greg.” Richie scoffs, his tone loaded with disdain “What kind of asshole–name is Greg?”
Carmen sighs, unable to even care to answer. A part of him wants to appreciate his cousin’s efforts of unpleasant empathy, whilst the other is tempted to tell him to fuck off – he’s kinda always down to tell Richie to fuck off. But he doesn’t find it in himself to utter a single word. In fact, Richie can shit all about Syd’s mystery guy for all he cares.
And so he does, snorting out of utter contempt, joint now placed between his fingers as he exhales a thick cloud of smoke “’Bet he’s a jerk” he mutters under his breath.
Carmy takes yet another drag, long and weary as he glares up at the sky “God, I hope he isn’t.”
He doesn’t fight the words; he doesn’t even care enough to listen himself as he exhales them. A sturdy cloud of smoke forms before his face. The echo sinks between both men in the aftermath but he’s far from giving a fuck about having said it out loud, even if it was to Richie, of all people.
To his surprise, his cousin says nothing. Not immediately, at least.
A couple seconds slither forward before he hears Richie’s voice over the quiet dusk “Fuck me… guess you’re just really far better than I am, because.’ I’m betting she’d be out of it if he was.”
Carmy doesn’t answer to that, but he still thinks about the possibility of Syd going out on a date with a jerk, not really sure as to why he’s entertaining such a thought when all his brain is begging him to do is to stop fucking thinking about it. He can feel the waves of anxiety creeping under his skin like a thousand-feet worm. He does continue to picture it against his better judgement “I guess she’s had her lot for one day with us.”
If that Greg’s in fact a jerk, surely, she’ll know how to deal with it; she’s got experience in that area, thanks to The Bear – not that he’s proud of that –, but he’d dread much less if he believes he’ll at least be decent. It’s only then that he notices he’s clenching his left fist, absent-mindedly shaking it.
Richie snorts and Carmen lets silence take over for a second time, clinging to it to try and ease the erratic beating of his heart pounding inside his head. Once he’s steady enough, he breaths all his dread in, feasting in his own misery – an old friend of his, anyway. There are worse acquaintances to make.
He has developed this defense mechanism in which he manipulates himself into believing it can always be worse than it already is; if he’s life’s metaphorically and most-literally on fire, it could definitely be worse; at least the restaurant’s going on, the goddamned debt to Uncle Jimmy is decreasing as weeks pass by, and everyone seems to have forgiven him for his multiple transgressions during Friends and Family. Even Richie.
If he’s newfound capability – questionable at best – for romantic pursues has been proved as deeply fucked-up and was now only deteriorating as he stands there in the dirty back alley of the restaurant, well, at least he hasn’t irrevocably hurt any other perfectly wonderful person in the last four months. His count remains only in Claire, who, by the way, hasn’t even wanted to spare him a thought, or a single syllable since the night of the opening –not that he blames her at all. The fact that he’s partly thankful for it it’s enough proof it’s for the best. If he needs to be completely honest, he wouldn’t have any idea of what to tell her if she answered his texts or his phone calls. “Sorry” isn’t only lame. Seems just downright rude as fuck. So, if his ex-girlfriend hates his guts now, at least that means he doesn’t have to be faced with the fact he hurt the only person who seemed interested in giving a fuck about him outside the restaurant. But then again, what does that even mean?
And, to wrap it all up, if his business partner – who, by the way has just recently started trusting him again after the number he put her up to – is now going out on dates for a change, leaving at a perfectly reasonable hour while continuing to meet – exceed in her position as CDC, exposing an overly-enthusiastic attitude towards the subject of, well, dating a mystery guy who drives a fucking Volvo, it can always get worse. He’s just struggles to find a worse scenario.
At least she’s still here. At least she’s not fed up with your never-ending crap of outbursts and incompetence, you half-witted bastard, blurts out that vicious little voice in the back of his ever-fucked mind. The thousand-legged worm slithers inside him again, and he must be doing a pained expression because his cousin reaches for his shoulder, snapping Carmen out of his pathetic ruminations “Hey, you good?”
He nods, breathing another long drag into his lungs “Yeah…” he breaths out through the nostrils “Good” he concludes, and he wishes to sound more convinced, at least, if he’s unable to be convinced. Why can’t he, though? It’s a Saturday after service, and he’s free for Sunday. Not that it meant anything, really.
“Greg” Richie jeers again dismissively “What a boob.”
Carmy says nothing as he drops the cigarette to the ground, stamping his foot on it to turn it off “We better be back inside before they set the kitchen on fire” he says, not really concerned at all, walking back to the door at Richie’s quiet nodding.
“Yeah, fuck Greg” he hears the vicious voice in the back of his mind. One that very much resembles his own.