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As Carmen Berzatto stands outside the Original Beef of Chicagoland, he’s hit with only one thought.
I really want to burn down this fucking restaurant.
The call from their family’s lawyer telling him he was now the rightful owner of his brother’s shitty restaurant was only the second worst call he received last week.
The first being the call from Sugar about the bullet through Mikey’s head.
Carmy hasn’t seen this place in a while, hasn’t seen his brother in even longer. The place is closed, but he can still make out figures working in the kitchen, one of them he imagines is Richard Jerimovich, his brother’s piece-of-shit best friend. For someone who gets into completely avoidable and shitty situations, you’d think he’d learn to shut the fuck up, but no.
He pushes open the door to the restaurant, because there’s no use prolonging the inevitable, and weighs how well he could pull off burning the restaurant for an insurance scam. He doubts this place even has insurance.
And so, for the first time in 12 years, he steps foot in the restaurant his older brother essentially banned him from.
“Hey, we’re fucking closed! Can you not read, dipshit?” Richie says in a Chicago-Italian drawl, even though the shit is Ukrainian. Richie steps out of the kitchen, his back against Carmy as wipes his hands on a towel and throws it against his shoulder. He turns, and Carmy can see the exact moment that Richie recognizes Carm by the scowl that appears on his face. “Well, guess who finally decided to show face. Can’t come to the funeral, but you come to his restaurant? Why? You come to collect a part of his life insurance, Cousin?” And it hits deep for no reason, because yeah, Carm didn’t go to the funeral, but Richie knows damn well why he never came to the restaurant.
“Nice to see you too, Richie. Always a pleasure.” Carmy stuffs his hands into his jean jacket pockets and looks away, surveying the damage to the restaurant. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to look at the scumbag that probably knew his brother better than he did. Or maybe Carmy’s just always been this awkward.
“What the fuck are you doing here.”
No use beating around the bush, right? “Michael left me the restaurant.”
“What?” Richie smiles, like Carmy’s told a funny joke, and cups his hand around his ear. “Say that again ‘cause it sounds like you said Mikey left you,” he wiggles his finger at Carmy, “the fucking restaurant.”
“Sorry, Cous.” Carmy shrugs his shoulders and makes his way behind the counter and towards the kitchen, pushing through Richie in the process. He doesn’t feel sorry for Richie, never has. He feels more pity for himself, having to exit the professional chef life and work out of this shitty barn. Yet, when he steps into the kitchen, he’s hit with this wave. Wave of what, Carmy has no idea. He’s never been the best at understanding his feelings, but he just feels this intense emotion. That strong security from finally entering a place he’s familiar with. Not only that, but entering a place he knows he’s good in. Seeing and hearing the mincing of garlic, the roasting of beef, the sweet smell of his family’s ice cream machine. He’s incredibly familiar with it, but not at the same time. This isn’t his place. It’s Michael’s place. This is the place Michael gave his life for, both figuratively and literally. This place took his spirit, and then his life.
He can’t be here right now.
“Where’s Mikey’s office?”
“Find it yourself, Cuz.” He spits out, before stomping off in Richie fashion. It isn’t as much of an insult as Richie thinks it is, since Carmy correctly guesses that the door with the closed blinds is probably Mikey’s. It’s also the only door that’s closed in the entire restaurant.
“Who the fuck are you?” He hears someone ask, though he’s too out of his own head to see who said it. All the other chefs stop whatever they’re doing and look up, though there’s only about four other chefs in the kitchen, excluding Richie since Carm’s never actually seen Richie cook anything before that didn’t taste like an over-oiled, greasy heart attack. Carmy doesn’t even know what the fuck these chefs are supposed to be prepping for since the restaurant is supposed to be closed.
“Hi.” He waves half-heartedly, his eyes scanning a burly black guy in a beanie, which is weird, because just wear a hairnet at that point.
“Carmen Berzatto.” Carm recognizes who says his name, but he feels a little guilty when he doesn’t remember her name. The woman who’s worked with her family since the restaurant’s early stages; Mikey’s known her for decades, and Carmy should know her name, but he doesn’t. “It’s been a while.” She doesn’t move to give him a hug which he is forever thankful to her for. He’s never been one for long hugs. More like handshakes and gentle pats on the back. It seems like she remembers him a lot more than he remembers her. He remembers from their short interactions when he was allowed in the kitchen of the Original Beef that Mikey’s very fond of her.
Well, he’s not Mikey, so.
“It has been a while.” And all the sound in the kitchen evaporates. Like, even the stew stops boiling and the pots stop clanging together in the dishwasher. Everything stops, and Carmy feels that sense of familiarity just vanish. Because without that urgency of a kitchen, to Carmy, it’s now just a room full of strangers. Strangers that probably knew Mikey better than Carmy’s knew him.
“Oh,” he hears the burly guy whisper to no one, and then the kitchen returns to what it was doing previously, if not with a lot more awkward tension than needed.
Carmen works to side-step all the chefs, and they move around him with tensioned ease, like they know how delicate Carmy is and how easily he can just shatter. Well, fuck them, because he used to throw up in New York City everyday before beginning his day at the Noma, so he can handle a little stress. A lot of stress, actually. After dodging and weaving the hanging pots and pans and the chefs carrying dishes and not saying easy phrases like “behind” and “corner”, he makes it to the door.
He stands in front of his brother’s office and just waits.
The lights are off and the blinds cover the paneled window, but the door is open just a crack. Carmy finds it sickly indicative of his brother’s personality. Open, but truly unknown. Fuck that guy.
He shoves the door open, and it creaks eerily like some shit out of a horror movie, and for the second time that day, the kitchen holds its breath. So does Carmy, but he doesn’t notice. He moves his hand against the wall, looking for the light switch, but never taking his eyes off the darkness. In Carmy’s experience, taking your eyes off the darkness leaves you vulnerable for it to swallow you whole. He finally finds the switch and flicks it. And unsurprisingly, it doesn’t turn on. “Fucking Mikey,” Carmy mutters. He pushes the hair out of his eyes and heads into the darkness.
It’s dark, obviously, but he turns on his phone’s flashlight, thank God for technology, and catches Mikey’s desk in the flashlight’s ray. As he’s walking to his desk, his feet hit something solid, causing him to trip and fall, his knees hitting the thing he tripped on and his hands catching the edge of the desk, thankfully. He can feel his knees making a dent in what feels like a box, so he picks up his phone from off the floor, light still seeping out of the phone, and drops to carpet to sift through whatever the fuck this is. And to Carmy’s absolute delight, it’s a box full of tax shit that Mikey never completed. Fucking fantastic.
“You’re a goddamn mess, Michael Berzatto.” Carmy grumbles and kicks the box to the side. That’s for Uncle Jimmy to deal with when he sells it to him to turn it into a fucking Red Lobster or some other shit. He picks himself up and brushes the dust from off his ass. Carmy thinks of leaving, just getting the hell out of Dodge and pretending like he never came, when his flashlight picks up on something shiny that catches his eye. Curious, he walks closer to Mikey’s desk and turns on his light. He has to adjust to the lamplight for a minute, but he turns off his flashlight and picks up a framed photo from Mikey's desk. It’s of him, Sugar, and Mikey from way back when. They’re all crowded around the stove, Mikey with a spatula and an apron on him that says “kiss the cook”, seven-year old Sugar holding a bowl full of pancake batter, and Carmy wrapped around his brother’s leg, eyes shining with so much adoration the current Carmy could just barf.
And you know, Carmy was about to call him that night. The night. He swears, he could remember feeling something off. Something off in the weather, something off with him, just something wasn't feeling right. He was coming home after a long shift and a longer haranguing from his boss, but it wasn’t like that was unusual in and of itself. Carmy thought about Michael that night. Thought about what he was doing at the moment, was actually thinking of calling him too.
But he didn’t. And Michael shot himself.
Carmen’s always been the problem child. It wasn’t so much of what Carmy did was a problem, it was just more like he was the problem. He had always been the child that everyone had worried about, the one that got pity-invites to a neighbor’s birthday party, the one that was scared of speaking with his speech impediment and didn’t go to Homecoming because he was too afraid of asking anyone out. He stood out and also didn’t at the same time. Not Michael. Michael just stood out like a fucking star. Made friends easily, got invited to every single party, won class clown and most popular for his high school’s superlatives, and had girls drooling over him with just a wave of his hand. He oozed confidence. Confidence that Carmy never had. Still doesn’t have. No one ever worried about Michael. Maybe that was the problem.
Carmy fucking loved Mikey. So, when he said no to Carmy excitedly asking to help him run the Original Beef of Chicagoland, it broke him. Like, everyone thought Mikey was their best friend, but Carmy really knew that Mikey was his. So, when Mikey told Carmy that he didn’t want him working in the restaurant, that was it. He left, and he cut and he burned and he bruised and he cried and he scarred and he never looked back.
And it was fun sometimes. The self-loathing in his chest burned at him whenever he messed up a dish, and it was the best motivator for his greatest dishes. The euphoria was unmatched: the pounding heart, the scars that were accumulated after years spent in a kitchen, the sweat beading down his face. Carmy loved the kitchen. He just hated the kitchen world. Carmy guesses that Mikey also found that same euphoria in his addiction. It runs in the family, Carmy thinks. That’s why Sugar married someone so fucking boring; she didn’t want to end up like her brothers.
The tattoo on his right hand is supposed to remind him of his sacrifices. This is where all those slices led him. The top chef in one of the best restaurants in the world. All for fucking nothing. Because the truth is, he fucking hated it. Hated it all.
The truth is, is that Carmy was so fucking sick of his life. This restaurant was the excuse he needed to get the hell out of there. Maybe it was Mikey’s final blessing, his final “let it rip”. Or maybe it was Mikey screwing him over again.
“Hey.”
Carmy turns around from the desk chair and watches as that same woman slowly knocks on the door, despite it being open already. “Family’s up if you’re hungry, cariño.”
“I-I’m okay,” He chokes out. He didn't realize he was tearing up. He swipes a teardrop from off his cheeks and shakes his head. “Thank you though. Tina.” The name comes to him like from a dream, and he smiles as best as he can at her. Maybe it’s the room.
She nods and slinks away, leaving Carmy to stare at the photo in his hands, shaking. For someone who spent the better part of his life in a kitchen, he can’t get his hands to still for a moment.
He doesn’t remember that photo a lot, being so young, but he already has lots of memories like that: being a happy and wholesome family. He doesn’t remember where it went wrong. Maybe it was when Michael started using, or when he pushed him away from the restaurant, or when Carmy made it his ever-loving goal to screw Mikey over by being the better chef in the field he knew Mikey adored, but everything just left him here. Alone. Sitting in Mikey’s room and wishing, for the love of God, wishing, that Mikey would appear in the doorway and give him one of those blazing looks and wide smiles.
It’s the smell that reaches him before anything else. As a chef in the intense culinary world, it’s his taste and smell that are the most refined, they kind of have to be, and he definitely smells it at this point. Smoke. Something he’s so familiar with as a cook and an avid smoker – almost three packs a week from all the goddamn stress. He, at first, resigns to letting another chef handle it, seeing as there are like seven cooks in the kitchen even though there are no customers, but as the smell of smoke gets heavier and heavier, he finally turns around from the desk and spots bright orange flames peeking from across the office and the kitchen.
He doesn’t run, even though as he gets closer the fire gets larger and larger. He draws it out and drags his feet across the kitchen, tilting his head ever so slightly as he sees the fire grow. The sound of the flames flapping are almost deafening, and he wonders mutely why the fire alarms haven’t gone off yet. This is definitely some kind of safety hazard, at the very least a deserved D rating from the health inspector.
He slides his hands across the stainless tables, just watching the fire grow on its spot on the stove, until he finally meets it. Face to face. The insides of the fire are red, though his eyes are watering from the smoke. But he just watches, keeps looking at it like maybe it’ll tell him his fate. Maybe he was wrong, and the restaurant wasn’t the answer to all of his problems. Maybe it was this fire. Fire is supposed to be cleansing, right? Maybe, he needs this kind of renewal in his life.
And he gets it. You either have to wrangle the bear or let it rip you into pieces, and to be honest, the second option doesn’t seem that bad. Especially when looking at the difficulty of the first option.
He’s looking at the fire, and it seems like the fire’s looking back at him, and Carmen takes a deep breath. A deep, smoke-filled breath, and he has to quell the urge to cough it all out. And there’s that moment, when he’s looking into the fire where he knows that if lets the fire run free, the restaurant will burn down, and all his troubles with it. Everything will be gone. Maybe this was the opportunity he was looking for. To start fresh. To forget about everything, including Michael, and to let this place fall to the ground and never look back.
And then Carmen Berzatto puts out the fire.