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Carmy hasn’t slept lately, and maybe if he had this could’ve all been avoided. But the restaurant has been packed ever since Marcus had been featured in Food & Wine and their vendors are giving them shit again and with the end of the month coming up there’s a thousand bills coming in, which means he’s been leaving a lot later to get a headstart on prep and getting in a lot earlier to try and help Nat with anything he can which, as she affectionately jokes, isn’t much.
This means that, for the past three nights, Carmy’s crashed in the office and slept a total of maybe six hours. Which, in turn, means that tonight he keeps fucking up. So far, he has sliced his hand three times, accidentally dropped a container of Marcus’ violets all over the floor, has let two dishes go dead because he hadn't noticed them sitting there waiting for plating, and nearly added caviar to a dish that does not include it. He glances at the clock. It's only been three hours of service.
“Jeff, cover my station?” Tina says.
“Chef,” he responds, and by the time he turns to her, she's already walking towards the pastry station to help Luca and Marcus plate four miniature cakes for one of Richie's birthday surprises—and are quadruplets seriously a thing in the 21st century?
Carmy rushes to Tina's station, Jessica’s voice calling out for four cavatelli, two scallops and three wagyu as he reaches for the pot—
“Fuck!” He screams, quickly pulling his hand away from the handle as pain shoots up his hand. He glances at it; the skin on the tips of his fingers and his palm are bright red.
“Chef, are you alright?” Syd asks from the wagyu station, voice concerned but focus locked on her work.
“Fine, Chef. Thank you.” Carmy calls back, dropping the pasta into the pot and quickly pulling a glove on his burned hand. It fucking hurts and—fuck, how much time has he lost already? His hands are shaking but he manages to plate the cavatelli in a decent amount of time, spooning the last plate just as Jess calls, “Pick up wagyu, please. Waiting on four cavatelli, how long?”
“Ten seconds, Chef,” he calls back, drizzling truffle oil on top of the pasta, around the sheet of parmesan. He grabs the tweezers for the basil, hisses when his burn lights up with a fresh wave of pain. Shit. It fucking hurts and his hands are shaking and his eyes keep going in and out of focus and—fuck, have the lights in here always been this bright?
“Chef, do you need a minute?” Jess calls amid her organized instructions. It feels like he's hearing her from another room. He blinks hard.
“Carmen, do you need a minute, Chef?” She asks again, louder, firmer. Almost familiar. And this time it cuts through his daze like a knife.
Guys, why don’t you all stop for a minute? I’m gonna let Carmy catch up.
Carmy nearly flinches at the sudden memory, but instead he grabs the tweezers with more conviction, ignoring the pain in his hand.
“No, Chef.” He says, placing the basil leaves neatly on the dishes in front of him. Why are you so slow?
“Sure?” Jess asks, her voice getting mixed up with the noise from the kitchen and the phantom whisper in his ear.
Can you handle this? Is it too much for you?
“I can handle it, Chef.”
“Heard,” she says and moves on.
And Carmy does handle it. He fires another two cavatelli and then Tina comes back and he goes back to the plating station. And his hand hurts like hell and he feels like he’s going to throw up or pass out any minute, but Carmy can do this. Because he has done this before, and he’s done it well. At Empire he’d go in every single day, sleep deprived and in pain and he would do his damn job, and it didn’t matter if he was nauseous or hungry or dizzy or if he could taste blood in his mouth from biting his cheek all night or if he reopened the cuts on his hands nine, ten, eleven, twelve times. He went in. He did his job. He did it well.
He could handle one night with a burned hand. He has done it before.
So he grabs the tweezers and he ignores the pain and he plates and he garnishes. Over and over. Wagyu, scallop, cavatelli, duck, crab, over and over and over and over. His hand is on fire. There’s black spots dancing on the edges of his vision.
Go faster, motherfucker.
“Hands!”
The voice in his ear forces him into a state of thoughtless precision that allows no room for mistakes. Faster and faster. Over and over and over and—
“Beautiful pace, Chef Carmen!” Jess’ bright, chipper voice praises as he finishes up wagyu. Scallop. Cavatelli. Duck. One after the other. Is she mocking him? Is he going too slow? Six duck, two by two by two.
His eyes unfocus. He blinks hard.
Say fucking hands.
“Hands!”
Carmy glances at the clock. His hand is on fire. His eyes keep falling out of focus. Only three more hours.
You can't handle this.
“Dragging two cavatelli, two duck!”
“Chef!”
“How long on scallop?”
“One minute, Chef.”
Two.
You suck at this. You're no good at it.
“Fuck! Sliced my hand. Chef, cover?”
“Coming, Chef!”
“Can I get an all-day on panna cotta?”
“Three panna cotta all-day, Chef Marcus!”
One.
You should be dead.
His ears are ringing by the time the last of the guests trail out, and Carmy’s barely aware of the staff getting ready to clean up when he hears the distinctive sound of a cambro hitting the ground.
He turns around.
The floor is covered in flour.
And perhaps if he had been sleeping lately and there weren’t dark spots dancing in his vision, or if he hadn’t been hearing David fucking Fields all night, or his stupid hand didn’t feel like it had been skinned to the bone, Carmy would’ve had enough control to stop himself from slipping at least long enough to go hide in the bathroom.
But he hasn’t slept, and he’s been hearing David’s words in his ear all night, and his hand feels like it’s been torn to ribbons, and so, when Carmy looks down at the floor, the image overlaps with the floor at Empire and he’s not at The Bear anymore.
And it’s unfortunate, really, that this exact thing has happened before, because if it had been anything else then maybe it wouldn't have triggered the memory the way it did.
But Carmy's at Empire. He's at Empire, and the pastry chef he had just hired had dropped a bag of flour, nervous on his first day working for the most sadistic chef in the country—not that the poor guy really knew that when he had applied for the job. Carmy’s at Empire and there's flour all over the floor, and everyone is desperately focusing on their own work as David Fields walks behind them. The pâttisier is staring in horror at the mess on the floor and he flinches when he sees Chef Fields, but the man passes him by without a glance, coming to loom directly in front of Carmy instead.
“Why do you hire fucking idiots?” He asks, like he always does.
“I'm sorry, Chef. I'll do better.” Carmy answers, like he always does.
“Is it an insecurity thing? Do you hire these useless amateurs just to feel competent?”
“No.”
“No?”
Shit.
“No, Chef,” he corrects.
Too late. Carmy has already pissed him off if the way Chef David straightens his posture even more than normal is anything to go by.
Carmy knows what's next before it happens. He knows because it has happened dozens of times before.
“Well, seeing as you insist on hiring people who clearly have no idea what they're doing, I'm sure you'll have no problem cleaning up their messes, right?” He says coldly, “Since you've made sure everyone in this kitchen is inept.”
“I’ll clean it up, Chef.” Carmy repeats quickly.
A beat. David Fields doesn’t like it when you turn away before he’s done talking. Except for the times he expects you to do just that.
Chef Fields raises his eyebrows, almost mocking, and leans expectantly, “Well?”
Carmy rushes to get it, scrambling to get the bag off the floor without letting it spill any further, but then the new hire comes to try and help him and Carmy feels a freezing wave of dread crawl up his back.
“I've got it, Chef.”
But the guy keeps trying to help so Carmy tries, “Chef, it's good. Please, get back to your prep.”
The hands don't stop moving. They don't stop sweeping into the… cambro? No, the torn flour bag.
“Chef, please, stop trying to help,” he whispers and means for it to sound commanding, but it comes out as a frantic plea instead. Because Carmy knows what happens if he doesn’t take responsibility for his staff. Knows what happens when said staff can't obey the simple instruction of get back to work.
“Carmen.”
Carmy startles. Shit. There's still flour everywhere. The new guy still hasn't stopped scooping the stuff into the bag. Carmy's well and truly fucked.
“What the fuck is going on with you right now?” David Fields asks, the voice coming from in front of him this time despite the fact that Carmy can feel him looming behind him. He hesitates. Stutters,
“I— I’m—”
Struggles to find an answer. Terror courses through him in a way it hasn't since his first couple of months working here. Chef David Fields doesn't like it when he stutters.
“Shit! Carmy, what happened to your hand?” He says.
Carmy frowns in confusion because, in his time working here, he's learned that Chef David could not care less about workplace injuries unless they affect the food. Which is why it’s so bizarre he’s taking interest in the particular small cut Carmy’s had for days on the webbing between his fingers, the awkward spot making it prone to reopening over and over.
“It's just a cut,” he says quietly, though now that he's been made aware of his hand he realizes it hurts way more than it should.
He looks down at the glove on his hand. Was he wearing a glove before? He's not sure.
The pâttisier’s hands reach for his gloved hand and— that's not right, is it? He hadn't held Carmy's hand, he'd been fired on the spot and threatened with a ruined career if Carmy didn't clean the mess fast enough. The hands remove the glove and it hurts, like his skin has melted onto the latex and is being pulled away with it. He winces at the pain but says nothing.
“You've been fucking working like this all service?” David Fields asks. He sounds angry.
Carmy's too confused at this point to be scared anymore. He frowns. Asks, “Service?” Because that doesn't make sense. Service isn't until seven.
“Fucking—dammit, Carmen! What were you fucking thinking, huh?”
That snaps him out of the confusion. He flinches again, because Chef David doesn't yell. He intimidates, he looms, and belittles and towers. He calls names, humiliates, criticizes, ridicules, but he never ever yells, so Carmy must have really, really fucked up now. He’s probably gonna get fired.
Oh God, he's gonna get blacklisted just like the pâttisier had been.
Dread makes Carmy choke on his answer again, but Chef's usual demand of answer me doesn't come so he ends up keeping quiet. It would be worse to interrupt whatever he's going to say next.
“Are you fucking stupid?”
And, at last, routine. Something he knows the definitive, unambiguous answer to. His shoulders sag in relief, partly because of the familiarity of it, but mostly because it means Chef’s about ready to walk away, go terrorize someone else for a little while. He replies without hesitation.
“Yes, Chef.”
“What? Carmen, what the hell are y—”
Why don't you say it? Say “Yes–
“Yes, Chef, I'm fucking stupid.”
The pâttisier gasps. A heavy silence, then,
“What did you just say?”
Chef’s voice is clipped with what Carmy can only imagine is anger, and it breaks the script.
A hand lands on Carmy's shoulder suddenly. He flinches, breath hitching, but doesn't try to move away or look up. Chef Fields rarely touched him but when he did it was always to intimidate, especially when he's towering over him like he is right now. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. Chef was supposed to berate him a little more then leave. This isn’t how it goes.
Carmy’s somewhat aware of the fact that he’s started shaking, but before he can process anything further the hand is gone; so quickly, Carmy wonders if it was really there in the first place.
“Carm? I'm gonna need you to open your eyes, mate. Can you do that?”
His eyes are open. Aren't they?
“Do you know where you are?”
Carmy’s stomach drops and dread freezes his blood and locks his limbs into place. This is wrong. This isn’t how it goes. He scrambles for the answer he thinks Chef might want.
“One of the best kitchens in the world, Chef.”
Instead of the answer he expects, which is some variation of then act like it, the voice gently answers,
“You’re actually at The Bear. It’s 2023. You’re okay.” Carmy halts for a second, just now noticing the voice has an accent. No one at Empire has an English accent, “Can you try opening your eyes for me?”
Carmy does try, and suddenly he’s in two places at once.
There's a cambro on the floor. Flour everywhere. A torn bag. David Fields is behind him but he can see Luca in front of him and hear Richie's voice somewhere to his left. His whole palm hurts like it's been burned even though it's just a cut and someone's holding it gently palm up, and that someone is both Sydney and the pâttisier— what had been his name? He can't have forgotten already, he just hired him.
He can hear laughter somewhere, and behind him Chef’s voice whispering mockingly,
Are you shaking?
Everything’s too bright. His head hurts. His hand hurts. The edges of his vision are spray painted black.
Carmy snaps his eyes shut.
“I don't know what's going on,” he whines. He shakes his head to try and make the world snap into place, but all it does is make him dizzy.
A voice calls for Nat, but Sugar shouldn't be here, and the voice is both Richie's and David Fields’. Another voice, the pâttisier, calls for black pepper, as if there'd ever be black pepper at Empire.
A wet whisper in his ear,
Take a break, sweetheart.
Carmy shivers, tries to pull back from Chef Fields’ breath, then feels himself fall sideways; the last thing he sees before everything goes black is a cambro on the floor and two pairs of hands rushing towards him.