Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Carmy texts; Now's good.

And just like that, his phone is ringing. He still almost can't answer it, mostly because he's losing feeling in his fingertips from the nerves.

"Carmy," says Chef, and Carmy will never, ever get used to hearing his family nickname spoken that carefully and kindly in that voice. He'd thought it'd be less distracting than 'Carmen,' but nope. Much worse. "How are you feeling?"

Carmy draws in a surprised breath, and then laughs, ruefully.

"I never know the answer to that. A little guilty for playing hookie, maybe? Aren't you supposed to start being good on the first? Get those resolutions going."

It feels like lying around his apartment in his pyjamas, eating Syd's soup, is getting away with something somehow.

"I wouldn't frame it that way. You're doing exactly as your told. Taking care of yourself is an important responsibility. So I would consider this as you being very good for me."

Heat pools in his stomach. Carmy thinks of the moment the hot butter hits the lemon juice in a perfect sauce. It's the same feeling of something blooming, spreading, changing;

"Okay, so this was part of it?" Carmy blurts out, energy making him scramble out of bed and head (for lack of anything better to do) to the kitchen; "Both times, I mean."

Because last night had been the second time, he'd realized belatedly, that Chef had given him the same set of instructions. Go home, eat, shower, sleep, etcetera. The full maintenance package. He hears Chef's breath hiss down the phone line.

"I owe you another apology for that. It was incredibly inappropriate to do without consent." Carmy makes a frustrated noise, as sets the kettle on the heat, humming in approval when Chef moves past the over-apologizing and onto admitting; "But yes, I wondered afterwards whether you listened to me."

He doesn't ask it as a question, carefully, but Carmy answers anyways;

"Of course I did."

Silence, down the phone line, except for a hissed in breath that makes Carmy's own stutter.

"That's good, chef."

It feels good, too. He'd noticed it the first time too. How soft and warm he felt, the morning after. At the time he'd chalked it up to being fed, hydrated, slept, and not covered in kitchen grease. But, he'd taken that lesson, and had a few more good nights' sleep of his own accord during the nights between their amend/prep sessions, and that feeling had never come back on its' own. It's definitely to do with Chef.

"Wow," he says, and shakes his head to clear it, "okay, this is still really fucking intense, by the way."

"That's normal," says Chef, seemingly remembering himself and returning to his more normal the conversational tone. Carmy had never really been able to put a finger on the difference until hearing it down a phone line, but stripped down to just the sound he can focus on it a little better. Chef is slower, deeper, calmer. David, chattier, friendly but in a tart New York nerd kind of way, is talking now; "I have a soft-spot for Rice, but you're right that those kinds of materials are pretty removed from reality. But I'm sending across a couple of actually educational resources, for you to get started on your own figuring it out."

Oh. Carmy can't help but feel kind of a pang, at that. He'd kind of thought Chef was offering to teach him? He wonders if this is another 'halfway back to Muskegon' chicken out, then. Chef as good as admits it;

"I'm doing some smothering of my better angels on this on, Berzatto, so you're going to have to let me build you a bunch of life rafts, escape hatches, and safety failsafes. You don't have to use, them, ever, but it is important to me that you never feel like I personally am your only pathway into this thing you want. You know you can be kinky with other people? You know you get a 'no,' a veto, safewords, and in fact all the autonomy you don't explicitly surrender to me."

"Okay," says Carmy, patiently, who is starting to get used to these guilt spasms- and kind of likes that they still hit now and again, if he's being honest with himself. It's good that he gets it. "The flip side of that being, if I came to you and said, 'please chef, I don't want to have to think right now, please I'll do anything' you'd know what to do about that?"

"I'd know what to do to you, yes." A pause, while Chef collects himself. Carmy too, for that matter; he leans into the counter while the kettle works, shutting his eyes and bending a little over the counter for support. "But I still want you to do the reading. Or at least watch a little porn. This is like cooking for someone, it helps to know if they hate cilantro or they've always wanted to try uni. There's some stuff I can guess about your preferences, but that'll be no replacement in the long run for you knowing and being able to tell me."

Ah, okay.

"What can you guess about my palate?" Carmy asks, curiously, reaching up to rake a hand through his hair, at Chef's tart answer;

"Your literal palate, in this case; that you know that heat for heat's sake is objectively bad cooking, but you still lick hot sauce off your fingertips if you're given the excuse."

Which happens to be completely and utterly true, to the point that his family has made fun of him for it for years. Carmy is 100% sure he, Chef, and a bottle of hot sauce have never been in the same room together.

"How did you-?"

"Masochist," says Chef, with satisfaction. "I bet you loved every second getting those tattoos?

He had, in fact, which almost makes him spontaneously combust that Chef knows it. Carmy makes a pleading sound; this feels like what he imagines it would be like to being stripped at knifepoint.

"Fuck," breathes Chef, down the line, "when can I see you?"

The question is so direct and so perfect that it makes him shut his eyes tight.

"Tonight?" Proposes Carmy, breathlessly. "I'm back in tomorrow, then all week until Sunday."

Hesitation down the line, then Chef says, reluctantly;

"I want you to have longer than that to read, and to think this over. Could you cut out of prep for a lunch?"

Carmy hesitates a moment, and then admits;

"That'd be hard if I'm skipping today."

"Breakfast, then? The day after. Come to my hotel, I can give you a ride to work after on my way out of town."

He's leaving? Right, he does technically not live here, but Carmy obviously doesn't do well enough to disguise how unhappy he is to hear it. Could breakfast in a hotel include a trip up to his bedroom? Somehow he kind of doesn't think Chef is the type to sandwich a quick fuck in before work.

"I'll be back Saturday," continues Chef, conversationally, "free Sunday night, if you are, and if you still want. Breakfast between now and then would give us time to negotiate what that would look like.

"Jesus, fuck, yeah," breathes Carmy, and tugs his hair, hard, to focus- then wonders if that's a masochistic thing too, apparently like tattoos and hot sauce? Probably? Will Chef pull his hair? "I mean, uh- yes, breakfast the day after tomorrow would be nice, chef."

"I'm at the Four Seasons. Eight am, Berzatto, in the lobby restaurant. The reservation will be under Fields."

"Yes, chef."

"Good, chef. See you then."

He hangs up, right in time for Carmy's teakettle to let out a piercing whistle.

---

David makes his way down to the hotel restaurant, and finds Carmy waiting for him at their table, even though he's his usual five minutes early.

"I like this," says David, unabashedly, "good. Thank you."

Carmy snorts in mock-indignation, but is nevertheless grinning when he gets to his feet. His smile aside, David senses he is nervous nervous, for which David can hardly blame him.

"I did work for you."

"You did, but as you've pointed out," he reaches out to take Carmy's hand, startling him into a jump, but making a quick point by rubbing a thumb over the heel of his hand, searching upwards for the place where the skin turns to scar. "You don't any more. Nor am I going to behave like the prick you worked for."

"Okay," says Carmy, jumpily, drawing his hand away. David thinks there is a sensitive spot there; subjects to pursue later, "and this is going to be the conversation where we get the new rules on the table?"

"Exactly," says David, and sits, taking in Carmy as he does the same. Nice slacks and a button down. Hair tidyish. Nice black boots, albeit badly salt stained. He's put in a real effort, despite having work after this. It makes sense, in the context of showing respect to the restaurant, but David also just lets himself enjoy the feeling. "But first, it's the conversation where I give you this."

He slides a piece of paper across the table.

"This is my friend Mark. He's a solid guy, he'll answer any questions you have that you don't want to bring to me. He'd be happy to get coffee so it doesn't feel weird to call him out of the ble with something sexual. He'd also be happy to introduce you to some kinky people I don't know, if you'd like another degree of separation."

"Wow," says Carmy, and shakes his head, "I didn't think there'd be this much HR involved in trying to fuck."

David chokes on his water, and glowers at him, not succeeding in wilting Carmy in the slightest, which is a relief. His grin stretches wide, and unafraid, and unrepentant.

"I don't think I'm anywhere near forgiving myself, and therefore I'm likely to continue to be insane about this in the medium term."

"I have been reading. Could I have a 'you're over-apologizing' safeword, please?"

David blinks, and can't come up with a single credible reason why not, except that it kind of offends his dignity with regards to his own tortured spirit. Which is not a reason.

"Red, yellow, and green are taken," says Carmy, innocently, as he picks up the menu, "we're looking for something boring; how about beige?"

Brat. David suppresses a smile.

"All right," says David, in the game, now. "I think we can jump straight to what you liked about what you've read at so far?"

Here, Carmy panics. Not badly, but enough to look down suddenly and reach for his water, drinking fast and then looking around for their waitress.

"Here?"

"Abstractly," proposes David, leaning his elbows onto the table and leaning in. They're in a back booth of an empty restaurant, with no one remotely in earshot and soft jazz piping in from above. "Actually, why don't I start? I think it would be a good idea to give you kind of a unifying theory."

"Please," says Carmy, with a fervour that makes David wince in sympathy. He pauses, briefly, and decides what he wants to order, nodding at Carmy to do the same. Once he's decided, the menus are put down, and they've both been served their coffees and ordered their meals, David draws in close again and pitches his voice low enough to keep the conversation intimate.

"BDSM is a category of behaviours, mostly sexual or in the context of relationships, that involve the consensual use of bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism. Basically, I tie you down, I punish you, I tell you what to do, you do it, I hurt you, you like it."

David had not known until just these last few days that Berzatto was this much of a blusher.

"I, personally, enjoy all of the above. I'd like to invite you to come to my hotel room next Sunday to have what's called a 'scene.' Today, we'd pick a couple of things that interest you. I'd go home and pick up some supplies, and book a suite with privacy for this weekend."

"Yes please," says Carmy, elbows on the table, leaned in to be just as close. He looks hypnotized.

"The other thing that's happening, is that I'm attracted to you, and it's making me pushy, which you're responding to, because I suspect you're going to enjoy playing with submission."

"Okay," says Carmy, nodding carefully and sitting back in his chair, putting a little more distance as he ponders that. "Okay, then, can you talk a little more about that part?"

It doesn't surprise David, exactly, that this is where he starts.

"Dominance and submission is the consensual surrender of power from one person to another. A dominant person, slang is 'dom' or even just 'top,' takes on some amount of control over a submissive, sometimes 'sub' or 'bottom.'"

"And you follow rules together. Is there a set system? Like in the castle?"

It takes David a second to clock that this is an admission; he was right when he guessed Carmy had read the A.N Roquelaure (Anne Rice's kinky smutty pen name) books. In a time before the internet existed, and BDSM was traded back and forth in the purely physical realm, one major transmission vector had been the erotic novel. There had still been enough shame in it too, that even the trashy vampire novel writer had had to hide her identity. Though in fairness if David is remembering right, that's the one where Sleeping Beauty is sexually tortured by a live cat.

There may be some damage here to undo.

"Not exactly. Or- yes, it exists, but it's not a tradition I'm personally a part of, so I can't top from it. I can and will introduce you, eventually, but that would be an 'also.' Tell me about your restaurant for a second, our waitress is coming over."

It takes Carmy a very long, bewildered second to process what he's just said and mentally switch tracks. David watches him struggle with it, and feels more than a little satisfaction. He's clearly terrible at it, but tries very gamely;

"I took your advice, and I talked to Syd about where she sees the place going."

"Oh?" asks David, eager to know more- he's still rapidly working to reassemble his thoughts around Berzatto's professional status and his business. He'd made a lot of assumptions when he started visiting the Bear, and while some of them have born out to be true, a significant portion of them have been completely incorrect. It's time to gather more data. "What did you come to?"

"She wants to have a meeting with our other, uh, people-" David makes a quizzical face at him, "-like my sister Sug, and my cousin Richie, and my uncle Jimmy."

Sug, Natalie, the sister and thereby likely co-owner, which means these are likely;

"Your investors?"

"Oh, no, Jimmy is the only one with any actual money. Sug's management and Richie's front of house."

Pieces click into place;

"That's the maitre d'?"

The one who had gone from greeting him warmly to the point of obsequiousness to all of a sudden glaring daggers, between his first meal at the Bear and his second.

"I'm sorry about him, he's-" says Carmy, and then pauses as their plates are laid in front of them. Carmy is having a french toast, which turns out to be made from a raisin brioche, served with jam and clotted cream, fresh strawberries.

"Could we have pot of black tea, please?" David asks the waitress, on a whim, as it hits the table, which makes Carmy laugh, to the confusion of the girl. His own breakfast is eggs benedict, with a light salad. This is the one good breakfast he's going to give himself this month; he intends to enjoy it.

The waitress goes, and David gets back to it.

"All four of you run this place as a cohort? That's a lot of voices."

"It can be," agrees Carmy, and then changes the topic back, "and I don't always know how to talk to them about this stuff."

"Well, at Empire, when I ran stakeholder meetings I was dreading, I made everyone start by talking about a meal they liked. It got them in the mood to be sentimental about food," which you want, when you want to pull rank as a chef, though David thinks that's a little too Machiavellian to say to Carmy- who has lost focused anyway, and asks now that they have privacy;

"So what are your rules?"

"It would be a set of rules we decide on together. I can let you know my preferences based on experience, and I can show you a range of kinds of play so you can decide where you feel best."

They pause here for a moment, because Carmy has taken a bite of his french toast and appears to be focusing on it. David watches him taste, and determines to cook for him as soon as he possibly can.

David swallows his own bite, and reaches for his water, then spies the waitress coming their way with the tea.

"Back to your business partners. Do you have someone with decision making power?"

Carmy shakes his head, not really, and David suspects he has identified the second biggest problem. The waitress leaves them with a polite word, and their tea steeping, and once she's gone Carmy asks, insistently;

"So this is all basically just like being in a kitchen, right?"

David opens his mouth to explain why it isn't, then comes to a screeching halt mentally. Protocol, authority, sadomasochism...

"Okay, so, brigade culture would be one example of a similar structure, without a sexual overtone. Which kink usually has."

That hits the way he'd hoped it would. Carmy leans into the table a little more. Cutlery shifts, and David moves to pour a cup of tea. One sugar, a splash of milk, and he presents it carefully to Carmy's side of the table, for him to round out his flavours.

"You would have called this trite."

"It is. But trite can be nice, when you're off the ice."

That makes Carmy smile. He doesn't wear the expression often, and David feels briefly grateful.

"How are your eggs?"

"I like any benedict, no matter whether they use stabilizer," though he is, of course, judging them for it. "Florentines, imaginative variations. It's a soft spot."

Carmy rolls his eyes at that. Complains, not with any real heat;

"You would have thrashed me if I'd dared cut a hollandaise."

"Obviously," says David, remorselessly. "You're actually capable, and know better. They can't help that they're not, and don't."

It's the first time he's managed to give Carmy a compliment that didn't make him look wide eyed in shock. Maybe they're starting to sink in, cumulatively? David considers this to be small progress. So too, the gentle mockery he gets back for it;

"I'm relieved, in a way, that you're still at least a little insane."

David takes a sip of his coffee, and with a shake of his head, marvels;

"I did remember, you gave it right back to me, to my face, more than once. You were absolutely fearless."

Carmy's expression falters, ever so slightly.

"I mean, by the end I was afraid."

David hadn't put that fine a point on it, but thinking it over now he suspects he's right. He remembers actually liking trading barbs with the young cook on his way into the pantry after his brawl. He'd been totally unrepentant, had practically rolled his eyes as he picked up the first of the few thousand forks and started polishing. That person had gone away over the next two years, sanded down into a pale, quiet thing, that David had for some fucking reason thought was better?

"I was such an idiot," he says, and shakes his head, then shuts up as he's cut off;

"Beige," another brusque dismissal. David is going to need to get used to that; it's very jarring. Makes him want to introduce Carmy to Ryan, which is a frankly weird impulse to have. "So what do we do to negotiate?"

His determination is flattering. David gives him a smile like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and asks, then;

"What do you imagine, when you imagine giving it a try? You have been picturing it at this point, Carmy." No answer, but no denial either, and a tell-tale reddening of his ears. "I think I'm going to have to insist you tell me, chef."

"I- I don't really know how." Which makes David lift a chastising eyebrow. "Like, I don't have the actual vocabulary for it. But like- like the first time. Where I can't move. Where I've already lost, and you can- you can just do anything to me."

David grins outright, without bothering to hide one iota of how badly he wants that, quick and sudden and apparently scary enough that Carmy drops his cutlery. Not, he thinks, in a bad way.

"What else?" he says, and takes another bite of his benedict as he listens to Carmy obligingly telling him how best to take him the fuck apart.

Chapter Text

"Okay," says Carmy, holding his teacup in both hands and pressing it against his mouth, doing a bad job of hiding the way his expression is twisting with nerves, "okay, so- so, uh."

Almost, David takes pity and saves him with a suggestion, but he sits in the silence for a few beats longer and is rewarded when Carmy finally musters;

"The voice. The yes chef voice."

Ah;

"Pure D/s," supplies David, for context, "do as I say, because I say so?"

"Please," says Carmy, with a little nod, and then another gulp of tea.

"Now, contrary to virtually everything depicting the act out there, this can be done with or without sex," says David, bracingly, because this is a nuance that a lot of newcomers have trouble with, in his experience.

"With, please," cuts in Carmy, quickly, zero ambiguity there. "But I also really, really want to know what you want, chef?"

He's sweet. David has an easy, immediate, specific answer, but he doesn't offer it yet- holding up a quick hand to ask for patience and starting with;

"My last sexual health test was nine months ago."

"Uh," says Carmy, and freezes, which ordinarily David would think was him trying to lie badly about being irresponsible, except that people with severe counting difficulties also tend to have a hard time remembering other numbers, like dates and times. Turns out he's right;

"As I started dating my last partner. With like, no one but her since, and she was tested at the same time, so pretty- pretty sure."

"All right," agrees David, with a small smile, "we'll use condoms, but that's good context. Now, I do get cold sores."

"What?" says Carmy, still blinking through trying to remember, and honestly it seems like a little more embarassment. David momentarily feels their difference in age, and reminds himself to move slowly, speak softly, and keep his hands where Carmy can see them.

"Cold sores, HSV-1." Touching the corner of is mouth, with an index finger. "I take medication to control them, but we can't kiss and I can't go down on you during an outbreak."

"Oh," says Carmy, getting even quieter, David isn't sure why, until; "I hadn't really imagined that you would, uh-"

"Have oral herpes?" David asks, a little tartly; this is a subject of mild annoyance for him, because there's so much avoidance, ignorance, stigma and silliness about it. Most poeple have cold sores, which are herpes. Most other people just don't have the emotional wherewithal to treat it like the STI it can be without adding useless, complicating shame to the situation.

"Give head," says Carmy instead, and David actually snorts at himself, shakes his head, and looks up in quick apology. Apparently they're still at least a tiny bit in their old patterns.

Also, apparently he was right about there being some damage to undo, re Carmy's understanding of kinky sex.

"I like control," says David, cheerfully, and with that, "Back to your question; I would like to add a blindfold, and some light restraints."

"I can see how that'd change your relationship with a blow job, I guess."

"I meant on Sunday- but yes, you have it exactly."

Although David isn't old luard leather himself, he isn't immune to the aesthetic, and there's something about Carmy's tattoos and jeans and tight white t-shirt that kind of beg for black patent trimmings. David has a plan already, but does not offer further detail. Nor does Carmy ask for it, overwhelmed as he plainly is.

That's enough of his own agenda for today, David decides, and checks;

"Do you have any other questions for me?"

"Hundreds," sighs Carmy, and sets down his fork and knife, having absolutely cleaned his plate, "but I can't think of any of them."

"And you have work," agrees David, glancing up towards their server, who starts her way over to them; "Any other news at the restaurant?"

"Just that I have to give a demo at Tina's son's culinary program, and I have zero idea what I'm going to do," confesses Carmy, as the server arrives to clear, and accepts David's word to charge it to his room.

"You have the best ravioli I've ever tasted," is David's opinion, and another opportunity to slip in a sincere compliment, jolting Carmy into a shocked glance his way even as he climbs into his jacket.

"That story gets bigger every time you tell it," he accuses, and jams a hat on his head. Chicago winters are no joke, David is pulling on his own leather gloves.

"The first time I had the recipe I told you it was spectacular. You hadn't made that batch. New Years Eve, I tried yours, and that was my assessment."

Carmy looks very much like he'd like to tell David why he's wrong, but can't find the words. Instead he just ends up staring up at him, anxiously, and David remembers he'd promised to drive him to work.

"Just let me check out, they'll bring the car around.

---

In the front seat of David's car, Carmy turns to his foursquare breathing for comfort, and reminds himself not to hitch his salty boots up to brace on anything matte, black, or leather.

Carmy has never driven with Chef before, and can't quite get over the feeling of being trapped in the car with a crocodile.

He's thinking about lying to him. Any other news from the restaurant? Oh, just a culinary demo, no big deal. Not like his universe has casually turned sideways on its' head. Not like everything is going to be different, as of today.

"You think ravioli would be better for the demo than some kind of protein?"

Chef hums, and takes the highway on-ramp with a confidence and competence Carmy doesn't usually associate with people who drive for too long in New York.

"Meat's a crowd pleaser."

It's funny, Carmy is having to get used to understanding what Chef means by the things he says. He used to be so easy to understand, when everything just had profanity attached to it and was awful. Now Carmy has to wonder, is crowd pleaser passive aggressive? Lowest common denominator?

"I was kind of thinking, emphasize the sides, you know? These young guys come in with tunnel vision on a perfect sear then serve you mashed potatoes that could be wallpaper paste."

Chef laughs, which is another thing for Carmy to get used to.

"You're a young guy."

"I'm thirty four."

"At fifty four, thirty four is young."

"Yeah, well, I'll have a decade on everyone in the room, chef." Although as he says it, he remembers this is the same school where he sent Tina and Ebra, so maybe not.

"Well, that would be a good deed. Too many unmounted sauces out there in the world."

Carmy watches the sound barriers on the side of the highway whisk by, for an excuse to look hard right and try to collect his thoughts. This is embarassing, but he probably needs to say it, before they can do this safely;

"I think I'm gonna be really sensitive to criticism with you. For awhile."

"I know," says Chef, quietly. "I'll be careful, and you'll have safewords. We can add one for 'you're being a nitpicking asshole, chef' if you like."

"Fennel?" proposes Carmy, and then bites the inside of his cheek, hard. He hadn't meant to bring up old wounds.

"Your third last week," Chef recalls, and Carmy feels his ears and the back of his neck go red. Hopefully Chef is watching the road, not him. "Paupiette a hamachi. The dish I stole."

Carmy remembers, and is a little surprised Chef does. Usually he isn't quite this specific about the terrible shit he said and did, and funny that now he's getting more specific. He looks over for an explanation;

"I keep notes," Chef reminds him, and he is indeed focused on traffic, which gives Carmy an excuse to watch him without being caught. The twitching muscle in his set jaw. The slow, steely way he talks. He's controlling anger, Carmy realizes, but not at Carmy, rather at himself. Anger, and maybe shame.

"You didn't steal it," Carmy corrects him, and then corrects himself; "or, I guess you stole the project while I was still developing it, but you were my chef, you're obviously allowed to. It's not like I invented paupiette. I think what bothered me about it was just that you made it worse."

Chef sighs, and tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

"I don't like blood orange."

"Oh, fuck off." It can't be that simple. Of course it's that simple. "How are you this good at what you do and this picky?"

"I'm- I was that good at what I did because I'm this picky."

"Okay, but there's a difference between 'this isn't to my preference,' and 'this isn't good.'"

Some days it was like he hadn't known the difference. Chef shrugs, and steals a quick glance over at him.

"I was trying to get you to quit."

Right. His imagined succession wars. It does lend context to Chef's tendency to come up behind him and say things like 'fuck you' out of a clear blue sky.

"Was paranoia a side effect of any of the stuff you were on back then, by any chance?" Yes, says the way he flinches. Or maybe Carmy is just an asshole for asking. Also; "That was my exit."

"Shit," breathes Chef- although in this moment he feels more like a David. Shoulder checking, then merging right quickly enough that Carmy finally sees a little of that New York in his driving. They don't make it off. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, we can take Taylor."

"No, I mean for-"

"Beige."

David shuts up midsentence, and hunches forward over the wheel, almost imperceptibly, but Carmy is honestly staring. He's still composed, but he's working at keeping it now, and he doesn't answer back or try to explain more. He doesn't say anything, until they're safely on the next exit ramp, and even then he only clears his throat and asks;

"Right at the light?"

Carmy hums, and lets David drive in silence, until they finally reach the Bear. David pulls up out front, parks, and asks;

"I can't tell if you still want to do Sunday."

Which makes Carmy start, and stops him with his handle on the car door.

"Of course I do."

David's face contorts, in an expression Carmy doesn't totally recognize (he isn't great with faces)but seems to convey at least some amount of surprise. Which makes Carmy think he should clarify;

"I can be pretty mad at you and still want to fuck you, David. Sometimes it even helps."

"I guess that doesn't actually surprise me about you, Berzatto," he answers, though Carmy gets the sense he's putting on a brave face. "I think your maitre d' cousin is watching us through the window."

Shit. Carmy closes his eyes in a wince, and doesn't turn to look. They're just saying a goodbye, having a completely normal conversation, nothing to see here Richie.

"It was hard to disentangle the things you said that I should believe because you were the best in the world, from the things you say you said because you were sick."

"Not sick; using," corrects David, and at least his self-compassion is apparently calibrated to match the patience he extends others. He really would be unfuckable if he were a hypocrite. "And, not really your aesthetic or sensibility. Empire was about technique, and at heart it was incredibly conservative. That was the other problem with the blood orange; it looked like nothing else."

Oh, well that makes sense, and also kinda fuck him? No, a lot fuck him.

"If you had fucking said that I would have got it you absolute fucking prick!"

"I was trying to get you to quit!" David finally snaps back, voice not raising, exactly, but tightening up in response to Carmy's own elevated pitch. "I saw your tape. I was counting on your notice. You lasted longer than I thought you would."

Don't fucking stop, Carmy had written, black on green at the top of the expo. But it hadn't been anything to do with Chef.

"Fuck you, buddy. I didn't quit because you're a baby about pepper. I got the call I needed to come home during that argument."

David's expression twists again, and Carmy wonders whether that look on his face means confusion, maybe?

"What do you mean?"

He really doesn't know then;

"For the funeral. Then, that I'd inherited this place." Tilting his head back over his shoulder at the Bear, and speaking of which; "I'd better get inside. If Richie comes out here to check on me he might take out one of your mirrors."

"Wait," says David, then shakes his head and corrects himself, "no, I mean. Of course."

Carmy bites his bottom lip, and decides that he actually would rather wait. Just for a minute. Just until David isn't asking if they're still on for Sunday, any more. He's mad at him, but he doesn't really want to hurt him.

"I'm trying to say it's all right," explains Carmy, since his message doen't seem to be being received, "You being particularly bitchy that week made the decision to leave easier, but I'm tougher than you think I am."

"It has nothing to do with you being tough. This is about me being wrong."

"Okay," says Carmy, and doesn't beige him this time, since if he does he knows he'll drive away, and Carmy still kind of doesn't want to leave it on this note. But nothing he can think of will make this any better, so after a long few seconds he makes himself get the door open and get up onto his feet. He bends back into the vehicle, briefly, to make sure; "See you Sunday?"

"Sunday," agrees David, sounding so relieved that even Carmy picks up on it. He shuts the dore, and David drives off, possibly partially at the sight of Richie- who is admittedly now leaning out the Bear entrance and glowering.

"The hell was that?"

"Nothing," says Carmy, jogging in out of the miserable cold and shutting the door behind him. The others are waiting, so he apologizes, quickly; "Sorry, we took the wrong exit."

"Who was that?" asks Sugar, even as she pulls out Carmy's chair for him, next to Syd and across from Jimmy and Computer.

"His fucking speed freak boss, who kicked the shit out of him."

Carmy catches sight of Neil moving through the kitchen, dressed for grimy work, with a disassembled range hood off to one side. Good, that thing had been grinding.

"Wait, I don't know this story," says Jimmy, leaning forwards, and Richie opens his big mouth to tell it, so Carmy cuts in sharp;

"Cousin! Do I smell coffee?"

Lured off by the prospect of doing hospitality at someone, Richie bares his teeth at Carmy as an order to tell their uncle the truth, before trotting away to go pull him an espresso. Carmy isn't out of the woods though, Jimmy is still waiting for an answer, and Sugar cuts in with one;

"Not that last guy you were working for, Carmy? The one who burned your hand?"

"He didn't burn my hand, I burned my hand," admonishes Carmy, quickly. People do have their chefs burn them in kitchens. David would never. "He just liked to fuck with me. It was fine. It's a full contact sport."

"It sounded a lot worse than that, Bear," says Sugar, softly, in her cotton ball voice. Carmy suddenly understands exactly why it drives their mother insane, and also that if he handles this wrong he's going to sound exactly like their mother.

"He's making amends," he says, not meaning to violate David's privacy but aware that Sug and Richie's shoulders both drop immediately. "We're talking it out. He has good advice?"

"I'm sorry," says Syd, sharply, "are we taking advice from Chef Fields now? I know you've been spending a time with him, but Carmy."

"Chef Fields the three star restauranteur and celebrity chef?" Jimmy checks, in his defense.

"Chef Fields of the conservatively estimated net worth of several million dollars?" Computer adds, dryly, which Carmy honestly hadn't known but doesn't surprise him in the slightest. Chef has written a few cookbooks, and has a pedigree you can trace back to Escoffier.

"'Good decaf'? says Richie, in confusion, "Who's leaving notes on my coffee bar?"

"We aren't losing money," Carmy interjects, ignoring Richie entirely, "and I'm not saying he's telling us how to run the place. But he says he can feel that something is wrong here, and I think we all can. And he says he thinks it's because we've set our menu at where we can achieve it, barely, but maybe not sustainedly. Not for the team and the space we have."

Somber silence from the room. Richie, coming back to the table, sets Carmy's coffee down in front of him and then settles in next to Jimmy. He clears his throat, and goes first;

"My guys say standards are slipping."

Carmy feels his stomach churn, but Richie holds up a forestalling hand.

"Jess especially talks all the time about needing to reframe. About unrealistic targets being inherently demoralizing. And- not to blame you guys, but it doesn't help that the kitchen still can't hit their chit times."

He winces as he says it, and turns to Syd, who grits her teeth, and grins, and nods her head.

"We were doing okay when we had Luca, but without him it's been a lot harder. And-"

-and she shoots a guilty look at Carmy, who says it for her.

"-and I'm stepping off the line."

Silence, from the room, shocked and sour. He maybe shouldn't have said it so casually. He hurries into; "I'll still be here. But I can do prep in the daytimes when the place is quiet, and whatever else Syd needs. But I need some space from service."

The room gets really quiet, at this point, and it occurs to Carmy kind of belatedly that Jimmy might feel some kind of way about this, or even Sug or Richie. For a second, the room feels like a coiled clock-spring of tension. Carmy recognizes the calm before a full Berzatto storm.

"Good," says Computer incongruously, brightly, "because we all agree that mental health comes first!"

It's such a weird, underhanded save that Carmy actually laughs- at a joke about his own brother's suicide, he's going to hell? But the jolt of perspective works, and immediately Richie and Jimmy are falling over themselves to congratulate him on doing the right thing.

"You're making money," Jimmy reminds them, when some of the chatter dies down, "not a lot maybe, but enough to call yourselves stable, and enough to have your investors moderately happy."

"Very happy for you to consider putting more focus into the sandwich shop," adds Computer.

"Averaging out to pretty happy. If there ever was a time to rearrange the team, it's now. Including, Carmy, if you were to transition into putting more work back into the sandwich shop?"

Which, Carmy shakes his head, no.

"We need to get Ebra into these meetings."

"I invited him," answers Computer, "He pretends not to get my emails when it's anything to do with this stuff. He knows we should do it, he knows he needs more resources, but he's being very clear- he doesn't want to be the one to do the expanding alone, Carmy. He's already barely equipped to run the shop he's got."

"Okay," says Carmy, stomach sinking; "then it's on me."

"Not necessarily," cuts in Sugar, quick and certain, and Carmy jolts. He'd been kind of thinking about it as black and white, but maybe it isn't? "We can hire someone else for that job, Carmy. We might not be able to keep up extra repayment for the next six months or so, but I've been wanting to talk to you about that. If we were re-investing more of our profits into the business, I think we could begin to really focus on what this place needs."

"Yes," says Computer, "for instance a sandwich shop expansion."

"Or, a menu redesign," inserts Syd, competing for air at the table.

"Okay!" says Carmy, sharply, holing his hands up. Miraculously, everyone quiets. "Okay. So, the good news is, that since I'm stepping off the line at the Bear I'll have more time to figure out the Beef, Computer."

Begrudging silence, and a terse nod from Computer, who can tell he's on thin ice by the hard stare Jimmy is giving him.

"And the Bear?" asks Sugar, voice a little tight. Sometimes Carmy forgets this pace is important to her too, now.

Syd is the one who clears her throat.

"Carmy is going to start being a more traditional EC, while I'll take back all the job duties that normally fall to the CDC."

"And as part of that transition," stresses Carmy, "we're all going to talk together about what kind of restaurant we want this to be."

Silence, from around the room. That is why they'd called this meeting, after all, and it's a little late to be getting to the question.

"David's actual advice," says Carmy, and then flusters, realizing that he has just very much called him David in front of the group, "was that everyone begin by talking about their favourite meal they've ever eaten in a restaurant."

That hushes all of them, which is a relief, as the volume in the room had been creeping up, in true Berzatto fashion. He remembers the development meetings where David would start them off this way, and knows it's his job to go first, while the others get a second to think, so;

"Mine was garlic bread, roast tomatoes, burrata, fresh basil, and balsamic with olive oil. It was this place at the side of the road in the Napa Valley, and the lady who ran it was Sicilian and grew her own vegetables, and it was her next door neighbour's cheese. It was the valley, and I was out wine tasting, so we were all buzzed and it was a million degrees and she served it with these glasses of red that turned almost jammy in the sun, but it felt just- good. It fit? If that makes sense?"

"Roast beef, potatoes, yorkshire pudding, peas and carrots, and gravy," says Sugar, first and suddenly, "at the steakhouse mom took me to when I graduated. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I've had that a hundred times, in different cafeterias and friends houses, and restaurants, but I didn't know that meal could taste that way."

"The, uh," says Computer, and then hesitates, like he's maybe not totally part of the family. Richie kicks him into continueing. "The Nanking Pork at the Orange Garden. We'd go every Christmas, like a family tradition."

Carmy doesn't know how old his Uncle Computer is, but the Orange Garden has been open since the 1920s, and makes, in his opinion, the best American-style chop suey in the fucking world. Richie even moans a little at the mention of the place, which makes it his turn.

He picks at his napkin a little, then outs with it, with a snort;

"The, uh- Napolitano at Tony's place."

A cousin of a cousin, who Carmy is vaguely aware of and never sees because they both work in restaurants. He's never had the time to go actually try it. Maybe now he'll get the chance?"

Syd, when she decides it's her turn, goes quietly;

"Paupiette a hamachi."

Carmy, all of a sudden, kind of wants to throw up. He meets her eyes, and knows she means David's, but the fixed stare she gives him.

"Well," says Jimmy, sparing him dealing with it, "here. During friends and family."

When their menu had been shaggy, when their menu had been chaotic, when their menu had been component-heavy and overburdened with whimsy and nowhere near the perfect, subtracted, elevated, impeccable thing Carmy has killed himself to make it into.

"Okay," he says, licking his lips and trying to swallow the sudden dryness out of his mouth, "so, what do we see?"

Silence, from the table, as they consider.

"Traditional, a lot of classic recipes," says Syd, thoughtfully, "but always executed beautifully, like very single one of these that I recognize has their thing down to an art."

"In a lot of places that mean something to the neighbourhood," says Richie, thinking of the social impact, of course, "like, legacy. Family. Places where people go to celebrate their graduations, their Christmases."

"No Michelin stars," points out Sug, then when Syd shakes her head, "Almost no Michelin stars. Was that part of what was important to you?"

"No, honestly," says Syd, "My dad already won't eat here. He's proud of me, but it makes him uncomfortable. I'd just never had fish with blood orange, before, and it lit my imagination on fire."

Carmy chokes on his cofee, and looks up, flabbergasted. The rest of the table turns to him, and he explains;

"I made that."

"Yeah, dude," says Syd, irritated- she doesn't know about the fennel. It was three weeks after the dish was designed, before he'd headed home for good to bury his big brother. He'd faked... seven, eight, fennel allergies, to be given the chance to plate his dish the way he wanted to? No, less then that, two or three at most.

"Okay, so we also all like Carmy's cooking," says Jimmy, with calm pride. "So what are you telling me, Bear?"

"I don't like that our neighbours don't celebrate here," says Carmy, in a rush of sudden confidence. "It's nice to feel perfect, but it's better to be part of a family. I want to find a way to make ourselves the place the people we grew up with come for their graduations, their birthdays, their anniversaries. I want food they've never had before but are excited to try, mixed in with food they've never had like this before."

"We can do that," says Syd, thoughtfully, "family style, right?"

"Tasting menu at the bar?" returns Carmy, and stops when Jimmy forestalls him with a raised hand. He had been the one they'd promised a star, Carmy remembers. A meeting a lot like this, where Syd had pumped up the prestige, the reputation, and Carmy had been all fuck this, fuck them, fuck their bullshit star system. He'd felt that way right up until the walk-in.

Jimmy, who again, is really the one they need to sell this on, asks;

"Not to rain on the parade, but just for my own edification- what will this do to profit margins?"

"They'll go up," says Sugar, immediately. "Fine dining is very costly to run, compared to what they're talking about."

Jimmy exclaims in despair, and orders them;

"Do it, do it!"

And that, just like last time he'd expressed out loud what he needed, is that.

Chapter Text

Usually, a week of anticipation would be distracting, but honestly there's so much going on at the Bear that he can't really let the anticipation eat him. Now that he's not on the line Carmy is frantically working to make himself feel like he's still useful, and that means knocking out the thirty little things they've all of them been putting off until they get time to deal with it. He calls the window guy, the microgreens guy, and figures out how to correct their hours on google.

He feels like a useless piece of shit, but for some reason people keep thanking him? But that's probably just because his entire job function right now is turning up having done them a favour. He gets in early and scrubs everywhere the haven't had the chance to scrub, and leaves before the noise starts to pick up whatever they need picked up for the day. They're working; he's at home and asleep in his own bed every night before midnight.

Fuck does that part feel good, though. Carmy is sleeping sometimes twelve hours a night, which is a stress reaction he recognizes in himself after the ends of marathons; coming back from Copenhagen, leaving the French Laundry, leaving Empire... Any time he's burnt the candle at both ends for a spell, there's this price to be paid on the other side. He tries not to feel ridiculously guilty about it, and just doubles down on his determination to do everything he possible can to be useful.

Last but certainly not least on his list is this classroom presentation, the Thursday before. It's weird, just weird not to be in the restaurant working on a Thursday night, and he's badly missing his routine already. In all honesty, he'd forgotten about the demo in the chaos of the change, at least manages to get there on time thanks to a helpful series of texts escalating to phone calls from Tina, Syd, and Luis.

He makes it, admittedly not early enough to meet with Luis, as he's planned, but early enough that he isn't rushing in, and that he has a few seconds to find the professor and sit to one side, while students mill in and start to get ready for class to kick off.

"Carmy Berzatto," he introduces himself, waving a hand and remembering belatedly, it's scarred. Good first impression. "Happy to be here. Wanted to start by asking, uh- what uh. You guys know your pantry here better than me. Hook me up. What do you guys want to know how to cook?"

"Steak!" calls out the first guy in the first row, loud and excited, "Perfectly!"

Perfectly! Carmy thinks of David, not just because he called it, nods, and looks around the room.

"We can do that, let's see what we got for cuts..."

There's a fridge at the front of the room for exactly this purpose. When he opens it, the first thing that jumps out at him is tenderloin. Carmy picks it up- then pauses, as he takes in the package underneath it. There are good cuts of beef that sell on their name alone, then there's the stuff you have to find a way to work with, the stuff that needs a little more thinking through, the stuff that doesn't necessarily even make it out to a customer.

"Anyone know how you really get a job in a restaurant?"

Asks Carmy, swapping packages, taking up the cheaper cut and then going digging for some good sides. Carrots, mushrooms, and why the hell not- they can fit in potatoes.

"You stage," calls a girl from the mid-back.

"Perfect," says Carmy, and "do you know what you're most likely to cook your first day of your stage?"

"Stocks, sauces, and other standards?" asks a guy, more than answers, which Carmy wants to give him brownie points for trying,so he lets him have another crack at it;

"Before that," says Carmy, and holds up his meat of choice, "here's your hint."

"Oh!" Same guy, eager to redeem himself, "The family!"

"That's right," says Carmy. "And believe me, you're not getting that job if you fuck up the family. Who knows where we can find some red wine? Great, get up here, you're my first volunteer-"

Carmy likes demoing. For all that he sometimes has stress dreams where he has to do it for a tv audience, it's easier and even enjoyable with a trained room of eager listeners. They've all de-glazed a pan a hundred times by now, so he calls them in to crowd around close and listen as he coaches the girl he has handling the pan through how to use sound to guide her tempo.

It comes out good. No yorkshire pudding, like Sug had had with her favourite meal, in deference to time, but as the young chefs pass the bavette around and their eyes widen with the first taste, Carmy sees the moment she was talking about. 'This meal tastes like this when it's done right?'

Oh, speaking of which- the restaurant, Syd, and the reason she sent him here.

"If anyone wants a stage after they graduate, the Bear is always looking. We'll make sure you get as much training out of it was we can give you, for the time you give us."

"How do we apply?" asks Yvanna, she of the pan-sear.

"Email your resume to the restaurant. Mention you attended this class if you want, but we'll consider anyone if you know friends who are looking."

One or two smiles from the class, and Carmy hopes he's done what he came here to do- accepts the friendly applause with a wave as the teacher plays him out, and then heads for the hall at speed so he can go get the fuck out of here before anyone asks him what his own restaurant's email is. Why doesn't he know it!"

"Chef!"

Oh God- but it's just Luis, grinning and jogging to catch up. Luis knows Richie, Ebra and the other guys from the Beef better than he knows Carmy personally, but he also knows, like Carmy does, how family works. This is Tina's kid, he grew up around Richie and Mikey, that makes him a baby cousin Carmy just hasn't spent too much time with.

"Hey," says Carmy, "you're in a good program. Everyone up there knew their stuff."

Carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, meat, one volunteer each, and none of them making obvious mistakes beyond the nerve-induced knock over of a bottle of vinegar.

"Thanks, chef," answers Luis, who technically is no longer a kid. He's taller than Carmy (unsurprisingly) though still a little bit of a gangly adolescent for all that Tina has been telling them the fallout of his twenty first birthday party last month. Carmy is a little surprised he isn't still hungover. "Are you headed back to the restaurant?"

"I am," says Carmy, and on a whim, thinking of the times over the years that his teachers have opened doors for him that they didn't have to, "you doing anything? Want to come see your mom, see the back of the shop?"

"Please!" blurts Luis, beaming so wide Carmy knows he's made the right call. A couple of Luis's classmates are watching, so Carmy claps him on the shoulder and gives him a quick shake, then pushes him forward in the direction he thinks he parked in.

Two hours later, his staging paperwork is signed, and he's jumped in on the line mid-shift to take some of the pressure off of what has turned out to be a motherfucker of a Thursday. Luis is parked next to Marcus copying his movements exactly, while Tina is weeping into the pasta water, and Syd is looking extremely pleased with herself and with Carmy.

Carmy considers asking if she'd prefer he jump in and help too, but Luis does seem to be easing the pressure off. Plus, when he even thinks about asking, Syd gives him a long hard look and glances past him at his office, a not so subtle hint to fuck off and not start back seat driving now.

In Al-Anon you never make it a day without a slip, do you? Carmy heads to his desk, figuring he can use the time to start catching up on paperwork.

Instead, he texts David.

Did you keep records of what people cooked for family, at Empire?

Nothing, for a few seconds, then typing.

Sure. What date do you need?

Of course he does. Of course, also, he assumes Carmy is asking for a real reason. Carmy thinks of all the information David has referenced being able to pull from notes, and thinks of the Chicago Tribune review where they couldn't figure out which duck dish the Bear had served to the critic when he'd been in. The photo of the pan sear next to the description of the oven roast still drives Carmy a little nuts, when he thinks about it. He sends;

I need to get organized.

The papers he's meant to be progressing on are sitting in a pile in front of him. He picks up the first one, an invoice that he thinks he paid- but the receipt is in his kitchen at home, and he needs to match them to be sure so he sets that aside for now. Underneath it, maintenance stuff he needs to just ingest into Sug's spreadsheet as soon as he has a second, but that would mean booting up the computer...

David's text saves him from doing;

If you don't have your system yet, yes, you'll want one. Aren't you open?

Oh right. Carmy chews the inside of his cheek, and deflects;

Is Sunday still good?

Should they check, maybe, three or four more times each? Carmy doesn't know why he's being hard on himself or Chef for that- he knows why they keep asking. It feels fucking impossible that this is real.

3 pm at the Sonestra. I'll feed you dinner here, so jeans and a t-shirt are fine.

Which is nice of him to say- Carmy definitely has clothes, and has restaurant clothes. Ordinarily his impulse would be to dress up just a little nicer, even if they are just hanging out in a hotel room to fuck. But if chef is going to be specific, Carmy knows to listen. Thinking it might be better to disobey only ever means you haven't fully understood, with chef.

Although, blood orange, he is wrong sometimes. Carmy grinds his back teeth, likes Chef's message, and cuts the flirting to try yet again to focus on his paperwork.

He actually does end up working Friday. It feel s like an end to a reprieve, which makes Carmy nervous. He's only been free for four days, and already the feeling of going back closes around his throat like a vice.

"Not as a slippery slope thing," says Syd, insistently, "just because we're still so fucked."

Tina is out sick, is what's fucking them. The winter has been hard and cold, and she looked grey yesterday, so Carm had been half expecting it. Luis is in, but he isn't all the way trained yet, and so Carmy works near him and helps out where needed, flitting from station to station and lightening wherever he finds the heaviest lift.

By the end of the night, three things are very obvious; they need a new menu, and they need to hire Luis, and Carmy can no longer work the line. The first problem is already aligned for soution. Carmy leaves the second one to Syd, who seems to be already on it, and takes the third home in privacy to lick his wounds and sleep it off.

Saturday he's kind of expecting the call to come in that night, so he doesn't want to burn the candle at both ends and be fucked up for tomorrow (tomorrow!) so he takes the daytime to himself to lie around and sketch. Carmy doesn't consider coloured pencil on page to actually be working, per se, and all the dishes that are going to convert from the nine-course to their new menu do need serious replating and rebalancing.

Hamachi; not paupiette, but crudo, with a sweeping slash of blood-orange drawn across it like a knife. Ravioli- not two, but a bowl, dressed and steaming, with soft yellows and creamy greens, golden browns. Beef- which they should be fucking known for- cooked rare and, why not, served on Syd's risotto, with lemon and asparagus for that pop of acid. Hands, at a prep station, working on peaches-

Carmy puts his pencil down, and looks at his phone. The restaurant has not called him. Feeling guilty for doing nothing while they're working, he heads to his email to find that list of other useful things Syd promised she'd send him.

Okay, so the encouraging news is that he hasn't been doing nothing all week; Carmy had preemptively banged about two thirds of this out on his own because they were bothering him already. It's a surprising pleasure, to see a to-do list shrink. Then, grow again, as Carmy realizes that Syd has sent three more follow up emails with more ideas. When he looks at the pad of un-done items he's scratched out by hand, it reads as follows;

-3 snacks / 3 apps / 3 mains / 3 desserts? (+seasonal app / main) (+ optional 5 course tasting menu- book ahead?)
-Recruitment pipeline for FOH stages???
-Find **AFFORDABLE** protein solution
-Find **SUSTAINABLE** fish solution + supplier who does not constantly fuck us

Since very little of that is do-able at 9:45 pm on a Saturday night, Carmy just heads up into the kitchen to get creative with some masking tape and a 3X4 grid. Beef and ravioli go into places one and two for their mains, and the hamachi crudo into row two- then, thinking of Syd's scallop, which deserves prize of place in the appetizers, he takes it back down and goes back to bed to go sketch it as a snack and not an app. Hamachi sashimi, with red spiral circling it like a mistake on the plate.

Carmy wakes up some time later when he rolls over onto drawing pencils, shoves them out of bed, and then wakes back up and it's Sunday.

Fucking finally.

---

David spends Sunday morning losing his god damn mind, not least because he's half sure Berzatto won't show. He wouldn't. Carmy shouldn't, not if he has any self-preservation instincts.

He does not, apparently, and therefore turns up five minutes early exactly, with a brisk knock that David recognizes as his immediately. Dismissing his last jangling nerve, he answers the door to his suite and finds Carmy standing there looking more scared than he feels.

Which helps, honestly. Immediately, David takes the lead;

"Hey, come on in," while he reaches for a coat hangar, and then apparently surprises Carmy by taking his jacket, with mitts and a hat and scarf shoved up one sleeve, like he's used to family coat cupboards or staff lockers. Of course he is.

"How was your week?" It's been slightly less than that, actually, but feels like longer to David, who has never liked waiting.

"Interminable," says Carmy, hands shoving in the pockets of his jeans, and David is more than a little pleased to see them paired with a crisp black t-shirt that shows off his arms and his ink. He's in black slacks and a back button down, with sleeves rolled up, because he'd wanted the edge- he feels it working. Feels Carmy look him up and down, and colour ever so slightly.

"You look perfect," says David, before he can overthink it, "I'm not going to jump you straight away, there are a few more things we hould go over first. Could you eat something light while we talk?"

"I... don't know, at this point, honestly," says Carmy, "I'm mostly working really hard not to pass out?"

"Tea?" proposes David, with a sympathetic wince, and then leads the way to the kitchenette. It's actually reasonably impressive- it's one of the places his books the suite here, so he can keep up his diet as much as possible while he travels. "What's the nervousness?"

"Oh, I don't know. That this is the part where the cameras jump out and you start pointing out how pathetic I am for falling for it?"

David thinks this is meant to be delivered as a joke, but it just kind of comes out as an anxious question. He pauses at the sink, while water runs into the electric kettle, and swallows down the impulse to begin apologizing again.

"You aren't pathetic."

"No, I know, just-"

"You do that every time you characterize how I used talk about you. Frame it like it's real, and I noticed. If you're going to believe my perspective, I'm telling ou now, in black and white; you are in no way pathetic, Carmy."

"Okay!" Actually half-raising his voice, he's so uncomfortable with the compliment. David lifts his eyebrows, and Carmy subsides, immediately muttering; "Sorry, I just- I don't actually believe you're blowing smoke up my ass, but I do think you've lost some objectivity."

What was it he'd said in the car the other day? David tries to mimic his phrasing;

"Just because I want to fuck you doesn't mean I'd lose perspective on cooking. Sometimes, as you point out, it helps. I have a lot of fantasies about really punishing sex on kitchen floors."

That shuts Carmy up for long enough to get their teapot ready. The tea, David also brings from home, and he scoops a couple of spoonfuls into the pot while Carmy internally combusts over that mental image. David gets two mugs down, sets them by the pot while it steeps, and turns to face him.

"Before we get into that, we need to talk about trauma."

"Beige."

"Uh uh," says David, narrowing his eyes, "I'm not apologizing, and I'm not even necessarily talking about trauma I've inflicted on you. It can be stuff from your own life that I have no way of knowing about. I, for instance, cannot be choked when I switch."

He likes conveying this, this way; model what you like to see. Normalize the conversation.

"You switch?" asks Carmy, in shock, somwhat detracting from the point of the lesson. David winces.

"I used to. Don't think I'm in the frame of mind to at this point in my life. But my point is, you may have things that won't work for you, for your own reasons. Even old injuries, like bad knees. Your body's context."

"How would I know?" asks Carmy, which David assumes means none of it is hugely obvious, red-letter MUST AVOID material. In his experience, you know.

Just in case, though;

"You picture doing what we're talking about doing, and if any part of it feels bad in any way, you tell me so we can adjust it."

Carmy thinks about that, and nods.

"Just the criticism stuff, then, I guess? I don't think I'd be able to cook for you, at all, either."

"That's fine. I prefer to be the one to cook."

Carmy, for whatever reason, blushes hotly at this. David can't tell whether he likes the idea or doesn't, but doesn't want to pry and risk picking a culinary argument right this second.

Instead he picks the much nicer topic of conversation;

"I have something weird I have to ask you. My sponsor already knows who you are- I told him the whole story back in September." When he was just coming over, helping prep, and occasionally answering questions. "I'd like to be able to talk to him about this, but I don't want to out you?"

"Oh," says Carmy, still blushing, "uh, well, I mean. You're a lot more famous than me, if you trust him with you then it's probably fine, right?"

"Thank you." Which brings him to at least one of the reasons he'd asked; "Who do you have, who you can talk to about this?"

Which gets the gape-mouthed reaction David had half been expecting. He doesn't, does he?

"Al Anon does sponsors," says Carmy, once recovered, "but I've never signed up for one. I don't think I'd know how?"

"It's up to you. It could just be a friend, or person you trust."

At which point, Berzatto's tolerance for the emotional stuff apparently runs out entirely. Carmy crosses the room in three long steps and kisses him, which is more pleasant than his saying 'beige' about it, and no less arresting. He does not want to talk, says the impatient grab of his shaking hands at David's shirt, and the urgent noise he makes as they collide for the kiss. As nice an idea as that is, no. David grabs onto him, catching both his strong arms and taking control of his momentum, just like last time. Instead of a counter to throw him over (the kitchenette is cluttered, and the counter-banks are too shallow for it, anyway) David wrestles him directly down to his knees.

Carmy drops, and then looks up from where he's kneeling, seemingly surprised to find himself there but not moving to get up, even as David himself straightens. He fists a quick hand in those curls to get him to stay, the turns Carmy's face up properly to look at him. Trusting, is the word for that expression. Or maybe not exactly trusting- accepting? Passive?

"You're incredibly sweet, actually, but you're being impatient," says David, and cards a hand through his hair. He watches Carmy almost spontaneously combust in discomfort at the praise. "Come on, drink your tea, when it's done we can take each others' clothes off. But there are a few more details I need to get out of you, Berzatto."

"I hate this," grouses Carmy, but clambers to his hands and knees and then up to his feet, dusting himself off and then going to wash his hands at the sink, while David pours the tea. The smell of peppermint centers him- and he swears he sees it have the same affect on Carmy, who genuinely appears to soften as David hands him his cup. He does not like safety rails, but he does like being taken care of.

Good to know.

"Do you have any injuries?"

"No!"

Hasty, frustrated, waving it off. David actually has to bite back a laugh at that one, because that isn't a Carmy thing as much as it is a chef thing;

"Are you sure? Your arm looks pretty badly burnt."

---

Oh right. Carmy looks down at himself, and frowns. He'd drawn a pan out of the oven too fast on Friday when he'd been helping out, and the blisters are freshly burst. The area, come to think of it, is quite painful. He's just so used to arm and hand burns at this point that they don't even really register any more.

"Well, except for that." A sudden, miserable, realization; "Shit, I'll get your cuffs all gross. Shit! I'm sorry."

Chef'd wanted to do bondage, and there's no way to put a leather cuff around Carmy's wrists right now without his leaking lymph all over it. He hadn't done it on purpose, but it still shouldn't have happened, it's still maybe going to ruin their plans.

"That's fine," says Chef, cheerfully, "we have a couple of options we can pivot to that won't put pressure there. But this makes me feel like I need to pry; your body feels okay, you're not light headed, you ate a real breakfast this morning?"

"Oh, uh, none of the above," says Carmy, with what is perhaps undue honesty, considering it takes him further away from his goal of getting this to start. Except he hasn't eaten, he is dizzy, and (as usual) everything kind of hurts. Chef nods, like he half expected this, and turns away to the fridge, which makes Carmy want to actually cry in frustration. "Please, chef!"

David hesitates, with his hand on the fridge door, then looks back over his shoulder at Carmy and orders him, casual as telling him to chop onions;

"Take off the shirt."

Chapter Text

Take off the shirt.

Instead, Carmy just kind of freezes. Instead of telling him off for being useless, David opens up the fridge to get out one half liter with a salad in it, then another, and a squeeze bottle of what turns out to be salad dressing.

He'd said earlier that he thought he wouldn't be able to eat for the nerves, but then Chef gives him a little push and Carmy finds himself sitting cross legged on the floor, with his back against a counter, with a fork in hand. Carmy blinks in shock at the suddenness, and looks down into his tupperware to see what chef has made. Three quarters greens, but chicken and lentils, slivers of hot pepper, seeds. Healthy.

Carmy looks up, and wonders for the first time whether David might seriously have something wrong with his heart that could actually mean he's in any kind of medical danger?

Not that it's not nice to have a healthy meal- and not that it isn't delicious, when he digs in. Well-balanced and he can feel some atrophied part of his brain thanking him for not just tasting via spoon in passing but consuming a whole (albeit light) meal.

"Holy shit that's good," says Carmy, when he's about half way done and has finally swallowed and had a breath, "I can see why you don't want to rely on anyone."

You can't get health food that tastes like that just anywhere, is what he means, but David gives him a funny look. Carmy replays it in his head, and guesses they may have that part of their personality in common too.

"Eating, getting a good night's sleep, all that, reduces the likelihood of your dropping," he explains, back to his Chef voice. It takes Carmy a second to remember what that means.

"The hangover?" He's been reading. Some people apparently have an adrenaline crash after they do this stuff. Carmy can indeed relate.

"That's right. Good work." He shouldn't get such a thrill at what is essentially praise for doing his homework, except Carmy also supposes he should technically and that is also kind of the point of his being here?

Why hadn't he taken his shirt off? Should he now, or is it too late?

He finishes his last couple of bites, and looks up to find Chef still enjoying his meal, at the pace of a man who didn't grow up in a household with as many other, older kids as Carmy's had. Are they still table manners when you're leaning against a counter, eating out of a kitchen container?

Very carefully, Carmy shifts over off his butt and onto his knees. Chef doesn't openly look his way, but Carmy knows very well what it looks like when the man is watching you closely when the man is pretending not to be paying close attention. Usually that would be the prologue to an excoriating lecture.

Fuck it, he's following orders. Carmy grabs the hem of his shirt, and before he can lose his never, flips it up over his head and peels it off, then tosses it aside and in the direction of the living room door so he can remember to go get it later.

Chef actually pauses mid bite, now watching openly. Looking him over, openly, and making Carmy's ears and face and even chest burn with the directness of that gaze. He's very rarely been looked over so openly, if ever.

"How do you find time to stay in that kind of shape?"

"I go to the gym whenever I get too anxious."

Carmy, who is always fucking anxious, knows he's in really good shape.

David makes a mild little sound, that Carmy thinks means he might actually be pleasantly surprised, and sets his food container down on the counter. He takes one last proper, head-to-toe look over Carmy, the kind that makes him feel naked and shaky, and then takes a step forward, and another.

Carmy shuts his eyes, holds his breath, and almost jumps out of his skin when Chef does that thing again- just runs a hand through his hair like he's tidying it and insodoing turns Carmy's universe on its' axis. He lifts up on his knees, into the touch, and opens his eyes at the sound Chef makes, all soft and thoughtful. Carmy smiles, and earns a soft;

"What?"

"I've only ever heard you make that noise over produce delivery."

Chef snorts, and fists his hand in Carmy's curls at the nape of his neck, not tight enough to hurt but more than tight enoughto make him sit up straight and pay attention.

"Potential."

Carmy opens his mouth to argue, and Chef gives him a soft little tug side to side, just enough to kind of jostle. It's also enough to make his eyes close and his mouth drop open.

They've been circling this since they first started working together, Carmy thinks, wildly, and turns his head to press in close against Chef's leg, forehead touching just below his hip, breath shaking on the exhale. Those slacks feel as nice as they look, because of course he puts money into his clothes. Just as he wonders if this is more than he's allowed to do, Chef's voice is there;

"Good, chef."

Oh fuck. Carmy hates the way that melts him, but can't do anything about it except make an agreeable noise when Chef proposes;

"As much as I do like the thought of fucking you on a kitchen floor, Berzatto, I want to finish my tea and I have a gift for you in the livingroom."

A gift? Carmy pulls up out of his nuzzle, and wonders exactly how he gets from here to there? The situation is so abnormal it's actually dizzying.

"I'll get the tea," better to be useful. He struggles to his feet, accepting Chef's helping hand only reluctantly. At full height, it's a little surprising to find himself this close to him. He hasn't really come any nearer on the floor, but suddenly they're as close to eye to eye.

"How do you think you would feel if I'd told you to crawl?"

Carmy's knees almost buckle at the thought. CHef catches him by both elbows, and laughs as he does kind of lurch from it. Chef nods, and waits until he's steady;

"Go wait for me. I'll get my toy bag."

"Yes chef," says Carmy, and goes to take their tea out to the roomier, softly carpeted space. The room is extremely tasteful, Carmy supposes, and warmly lit- and warm. He'd found it a little uncomfortable when he first came in, damp from hat and coat, but now that he's shirtless he realizes it's probably for his benefit.

He sets the tea down, carefully, and catches sight of himself in the mirror over the mantel. Almost, he doesn't recognize himself- not that he's changed physically, but in the sense of what the fuck is he doing here? This isn't him. Carmy is a wallflower, Carmy can't get or keep a girlfriend, but only because he's an idiot, not because he's gay. Carmy kind of doesn't care as much about sex as much as other guys his age do, he is very much not the kind of guy who has sadomasochistic sex with hot older men!

Or maybe, it occurs to him, this is happening because he cares about having sadomasochistic sex with hot older men the same way that other men seem to care about pussy?

Older women... oh, okay, yep, that too. Well, that's kind of a relief, this is already a lot of self-realization for one day, and it somehow feels easier to expand his sexuality rather than inverting it.

Well, it's useful to understand the exact cause of the idiocy that has brought him, half naked, to Chef David Fields' hotel room. Even after everything.

"So, 773 is the Chicago area code," says Chef, returning from the bedroom doorway with a black leather duffel bag that Carmy doesn't think he's ever seen him carry before. No wonder, with what comes out of it; Carmy can't even begin to make sense of the shapes of the leather. Is it a weird belt?

"Hold your arms out," says Chef, and approaches him, "and tell me which of these you got first?"

Carmy points at his ribs. Mise en place, gone foggy with age and the ineptness of the friend who'd gouged it into him.

It's also his favourite. It sits a little under what turns out to be a harness, an actual bondage harness, like in the movies. It has adjustible buckles, and Chef works it for him, while Carmy blinks in shock into the mirror at the sight. Chef looks more than a little pleased with himself already.

The harness is the kind that tucks in tight around the shoulders, connected by flat straps across the back and chest. It sets off the muscles in his shoulders, and gives chef-

-yes, exactly, that, it gives Chef two perfect handholds to grab him by. He goes for the back one, and heaves Carmy up onto his toes hard and fast enough that he yelps in surprise.

"Good," says Chef, "I was half afraid I wouldn't be strong enough to really throw you around."

But he shakes Carmy like a ragdoll now, a feeling he absolutely, immediately just loves. Chef won't drop him.

"You're in good shape too," Carmy adds, belatedly, realizing he probably ought to have returned the compliment back there in the kitchen. Speaking of which, Chef's grip twists abruptly, forcing Carmy down.

He at least knows where he's going this time, and therefore doesn't put up a fight. He kneels.

---

"All right, chef," says David, deciding it's time to take control, "Tell me about the tattoo."

It takes him a second, but Carmy gets there.

"Mise en place. You know- well, of course you know. Partly it was that the kitchen kind of felt like it might be my place, finally. Also, I knew my mom would flip if it was anywhere she could see it. So its' proper place had to be-" he gestures, and then flushes as Chef snorts outright at the silliness of that. In Carmy's defence; "I was nineteen!"

"That's right, you started young."

"Not as young as you."

This is, David is aware, the first time Carmy has ever admitted to having read one single, solitary thing about it. It'd gotten to the point where David had wondered, but it's hard to know how to talk about ones' own celebrity without sounding like an asshole (even that sentence! It's factual, and it still makes him sound like a prick!) Avoidance works very well for David.

But okay, he would expect his CDC to know his career, and his public bio.

"Or," says Carmy, brightly, "instead of us talking you could let me blow you?"

"You impertinent little menace," says David, in pleasure, but nevertheless drags Carmy's head back by the hair and forces him up onto his knees, using his other hand on the harness to help make the heave safe and stable. He cries out, but comes as he's lifted, trembling to be pulled.

David lets go, and uses the back strap of his harness to drag him forward. Showing him that this time he will crawl, taking him over to the coffee table and back to the bag. He arranges Carmy kneeling next to it, and then lets him go, so he can start reaching in and drawing out the other pieces he brought.

Leather cuffs, foot and ankle, with a blindfold to match. A few lengths of rope, neatly wound. Carmy swallows, and David gives his curls another friendly tousle. Carmy, meanwhile, touches- a hand sneaking out low to curl in David's pant leg, near the ankle, like if he doesn't see it he won't notice, won't feel it pulling. He decides to allow it for now, and gets out the last thing in his toybag; a small first aid kit.

David knocks Carmy's elbow with his knee, and he correctly interprets this as an order to place his burn face up on the table. David drops to one knee behind him, looming his weight over Carmy's body while he uses a cotton bud to apply a little ointment.

"I didn't even really feel it," says Carmy, quietly, as he shifts imperceptibly to lean into him, where their sides touch.

"You don't, after a certain point," agrees David, absently, as he wraps the injury in loops of white cotton. "I wouldn't bother either, except I'm about to roll you around on hotel carpet."

He tapes it off, tightly, hopefully mitigating whatever infection risk. Carmy looks at it, then up at him imploringly, like he'd really like the bit with the carpet rolling to start, but is trying very hard to be patient.

Finally, it's David's turn to kiss him. He takes him by the front of the harness, lifts him up for it, and holds him like that, while Carmy struggles into a half-climb, grabs David's own shirt and shoulders, and only manages to half-right himself before he's swept up into the kiss. He smells good, like skin and soap, and tastes of the lemon and ginger in David's salad dressing and his peppermint tea. He cries out when it breaks, and clings on, back to trying to climb and cling, which again gives David the absolute pleasure of fighting him for control.

Carmy ends up on his back on the carpet, with David on top of him and holding him down with a leg between his, his hips half on top of Carmy's, and elbow pressing a light threat into his solar plexus to warn him he means it.

"Wow," breathes Carmy, at the ceiling, and David chuckles, bending down over him and going to find the place on his ribs where blurry words remind him of the importance of being in ones' place.

"I'm going to bite you," says David, low and hoarse, "I'm going to stop if you say no, or red, or if you hit my shoulders. I'm not going to stop if you cry out, I'm not going to stop when it hurts. Say 'yes chef.'"

"Yes chef," says Carmy, even as he tries to wrap his legs around him, which David decides to forgive since it means he can slide the rest of the way overtop of him and grind briefly in against him. God, but he wants to fuck him until he cries.

Instead, he slides down Carmy's body, and bites him right over that ink, digging his teeth in deep and making Carmy yip, then yelp when David's teeth deepen, and finally cry out when he grinds together. David can taste his heartbeat, slamming against his tongue. Heels drumming on the carpet, back arched, body in no way fighting to escape, just to process. He waits until Carmy is shaking from it, then lets go and lifts his head back up, for the pleasure of watching the relief, the release.

"Holy fuck," says Carmy, hoarsely, then swallows and adds, "chef."

David laughs, and isn't surprised at all when Carmy rears up underneath him, grabbing again, both legs wrapping around him and body arching up to get close. David shoves him back down, holds him on the floor by the throat, puts a knee on top of one of Carmy's thighs and presses deep into the muscle, so he really feels it. Carmy swallows, hard, and David relishes the feel of his adams' apple under his palm.

"Be good for me, chef," David orders him, and feels him settle down right away. Fuck, that's hot.

"What do I do to be good?" Carmy whispers back, like he's ashamed to have to ask.

"You grab onto the coffee table legs and don't let go until I tell you you can," says David, and reluctantly climbs off him. Carmy needs a little space to rearrange himself, to go to down to the narrow end of the rectangle where he can grip both wooden feet with his arms basically shoulder-width apart. David, meanwhile, returns with the rope, blindfold, pillow pack and a condom- though he keeps those last two in his pocket and out of Carmy's sight, just for the time being.

Carmy obeys, and David pushes off him, sliding down his body to come grab him by the belt loops. He drags Carmy down a few inches by the hips, forcing his arms to stretch up over his head, putting him a little more on display.

"Fuck," breathes Carmy, as David reaches for his fly. He pauses at what he finds, smirks, and then drops down to show Carmy the trick to taking down a button fly with your teeth. Pop, pop, and pop.

Carmy whimpers, and David jerks his pants down to snarl around his knees, which only turns that gasp into a cry. He kneels on the denim, uses it to keep Carmy trapped underneath him, while he grabs him hard by the harness. Carmy, despite the provocation, refuses to let go of the coffee table. He has his eyes closed tight, which reminds David, this is why he wanted the blindfold.

"Stay still," he orders, and drops the grip on the leather, letting Carmy's chest sink back down onto the carpet. David takes a second to look down and appreciate the panting, shivering splay of him, and then reaches for the leather mask and comes to slip it over Carmy's bright, blinking eyes.

Right away, he eases, like David had suspected he would. One major stream of information intake cut off, he looks far less overwhelmed in the space of just a few breaths.

Ease is a good look on him. David offers an anchor, pitches his voice low;

"I'm going to bite you again, Chef."

David really shouldn't like it as much as he does when Carmy sobs;

"Please!"

Chapter Text

David drapes his body down over Carmy's legs, pins him to the floor by a hard grip on his hips, and bites into a muscle that he believes is called an external oblique. Carmy would probably know, but David isn't opening his mouth to ask. It's hard to get muscle between his teeth, and not just fat and skin, but worth it for how much scarier it makes it feel. Carmy is letting out panting little cries, tossing his head to process, not protesting at all.

"Pants off," says David, and Carmy squirms to do so, kicking his jeans downwards, without giving up his grip on the coffee table, good little thing that he is. David grips the bite mark above his hip, and rubs into it with the heel of his palm, making Carmy grunt in surprise then relax under the petting. Nothing feels as good as having a fresh bruised worked like this. Even when David really presses, Carmy's cock just twitches between his legs.

He has a nice cock; half-hard now and thick. His body hair neatly trimmed, David thinks recently by the lack of stubble, and again, is touched at the effort. When David touches, Carmy just about jumps out of his skin. The coffee table jostles with him.

"Breathe, chef," says David, soothing Carmy's uneven gasps into someting like order. He gives his cock a light stroke, and hears Carmy's composure shatter anew. He sounds so fucking good when he's incoherent with shock and desire. But, loud; David strokes him again, and Carmy barely bites down in time to muffle himself.

It's a lot, but the first time often is, and David reminds himself that Carmy has about a hundred new things he's currently adjusting to. David, who is missing the instinct that would make another man want to go easy on him, doubles down. He opens the small packet of lube, so that when he touches Carmy again his hand is slick, warm, and strong.

"Wait!" blurts Carmy, hips straining, cock twitching in David's hand- he's close already? Not surprising, precisely- again, your first kink is a hell of a first- but David is happy to slow down to just holding him. He chuckles, as he sees Carmy wonder if that was rude, if that was an order, and murmurs;

"I'll allow that, since I assume you were just trying to warn me," teasing, with the tip of his thumb too, at the spot just under the head of his prick, just to make that little jolt rattle through him. "See, you do know how to be good for me."

Slowly, he strokes him, not enough to wind him back up too fast but jut enough that he can't really come all the way down. Just enough that he still feels it.

"Breathe," David reminds him, since he isn't, and once he's restarted; "Good, for me, is how you're calm and strong. Patient, and maybe a little pleading."

"Strong?" snorts Carmy, and David twists his thumb again, because if self-deprecation can make it in there then he hasn't done enough to make him stop thinking.

"Strong," says David, and with the hand not stroking him, reaches back up to grab that bruise on his side, give it a little twist and shake. He does it again, to the bite mark on the tattoo, then leans back down and goes for that tempting jut of muscle just below where his arms are still reaching up over his head. He bites, and Carmy chokes.

Yeah, he gets harder for the pain. David strokes him, quick and drirty, while he sinks his teeth in harder, until Carmy is making nervous, imploring sounds, until he's trying to stay still, to rock away rather than into the touch. Close again.
David eases off; unlocks his jaws, and slows his touch, to Carmy's panting.

"Strong," confirms David, and runs a thumb over the tip of his cock, where he's beading precome. Idly; "You need to get tested. I want to taste this."

"Mother victory pray for me," babbles Carmy, in that all-one-word cadence of instinct, familiarity. There's a good Catholic boy in there, David notes, and bends down to bite him again.

"I'm going to-" Carmy says, with David's teeth sunk almost together in the meat of his thigh, and, "please, chef, please, please-"

David snarls his permission, tightens his jaw a hair of an inch as he does, and feels Carmy spill over his fingers. A quick glance up reveals that he's still hanging tight to the table legs, exactly as ordered.

David grins, and slides up Carmy's body to come touch his hands, drawing them down and then drawing him in, when he allows it. He's shaking like a leaf, and David needs to get him water, but for the time being the most important thing is working his blindfold off and pulling him in to rest against David's shoulder.

"How are you feeling?" David wonders, after long seconds of quiet, broken only by Carmy's wracking shudders.

---

"Like Dorothy," says Carmy, at the question, and when Chef makes a confused sound, explains, with a swooshing gesture around the room; "Colour!"

Because that's really what it's like. Things that were frozen have thawed. Places that couldn't be touched have been trampled. Everything is different.

He needs a new tattoo.

He drinks, when Chef is there with water, a moment later, and blinks away the last of the stars in his vision to focus up and find they're sitting on the hotel carpet. He's naked, except for the harness (!!!) and Chef is fully dressed, tidying Carmy's come off his fingertips with a tissue. Carmy thinks about what he'd said, and abruptly has to sit forward and rest his head on his knees, as the universe is past technicolour and into spinning.

"Breathe," says Chef, for maybe the dozenth time, and Carmy has to laugh at how familiar it's getting. He can laugh enough to breathe, is the good news. He reaches down his body, finds one of the aching red places where Chef had bit, and almost loses his breath again at the feel of the red, throbbing skin. He's had hickeys, had his shoulders nipped hard enough to leave a scrape, but that's nothing compared to this mauling.

"Fuck, that's hot," breathes Carmy, earning a pleased little glance- okay, interesting, Chef likes praise here in a way he's normally indifferent to with his cooking. Carmy drinks the water that he has somehow ended up holding (???) and then reaches for that kleenex to tidy himself up, too. He's sticky, there's lube, his skin is covered in a fine sweat, and the sweat has attracted dust bunnies and carpet fluff, which he tries to brush off his arms and legs at least.

"Here," says Chef, now sitting in one of the armchairs, holding out a hand to him. Carmy crawls closer, and parks himself sat at Chef's feet, within reach to have his back and shoulders briskly tidied. He breathes all the way out, and rests his forehead on his knees again, letting himself be fixed up.

"Have you heard the expression 'friends of Dorothy?'"

He hasn't, and hums to say so between sips of his water.

"Old timey way of saying gay. 'David's a friend of Dorothy.'"

"What, like a slur?"

"No. More of a shibboleth."

Carmy smiles, and feels Chef's hand slide through his hair. He shudders in pleasure at the touch, and accepts the cup that Chef pushes into his hands now that his water is done. To his surprise it's full of cold peppermint tea. Recalls, they had intended to come back out here, drink tea, and talk a little more.

He tries not to feel too smug about that as he drinks.

"I never got the invoice for that forequarter," Carmy says, and then immediately curses himself; it's been bothering him, but it isn't exactly bedroom talk? Chef makes a non-committal little noise, so Carmy (despite himself) doubles down; "We're looking for a new beef supplier, I thought-"

"I'll get you the phone number."

Tone firm and final enough that Carmy finally looks back up over his shoulder, and finds Chef with an ever so slight frown on his face. Immediately, Carmy feels a pang, and leans forward to try to figure out if and how to apologize, but Chef sees his expression and explains;

"That invoice is paid, though." But no it isn't? Unless, yes; "I was hitting on you then, too."

"Jesus, I'm oblivious," says Carmy, and tilts his head over without thinking to rest on Chef's knee. Almost, he jerks away, but Chef's hand is there in his hair right away. Carmy breathes out, and arranges himself a little more comfortably, relaxing into being touched.

"No," says Chef, and then tweaks his ear, "well, maybe a little. But not in this case. It's an entirely new set of rules, and a lot to learn."

"I still don't actually feel like I know the rules," says Carmy, and lifts his head back up to look up at Chef properly. The man has undone his top two shirt buttons, and Carmy doesn't know if he's ever seen him look that casual. Even the t-shirt he cooked in was tight and immaculate enough to look almost like a uniform rather than a man at ease. Again, Carmy notes- he's bare naked, and perfectly comfortable, even though there's a Chicago winter raging outside.

"All right," says Chef, and meets his eyes; "In that case, let's clarify this for you."

Carmy shudders. Recalls (because he wants Chef to know he's trying);

"Calm, strong, patient, but pleading."

Chef smiles, and reaches down to grip him by the nape of the neck, which right away makes Carmy want to stop talking and turn this into the blowjob he'd threatened earlier.

"I want you to call me chef," says David, voice barely pitched above a whisper. Carmy shuts his eyes, to hear him better; "I want you to stay on the floor when I put you down, even if that means crawling. I want to take you over every time you try to kiss me, and to only let you have it when you've accepted that I get to make you wait."

Carmy fails to stifle a groan at that one, and a laugh, but he's getting the sense his impatience is part of the point, for Chef, who only smirks at him as he continues;

"I want you to let me make you come until you cry. Make you cry until you can't breathe. Tell you not to breathe until you're crying all over again. I want to- I plan to fuck you, right now, right here, because you're being so fucking good for me, chef."

Carmy puts his tea down carefully on the table, then climbs- up, over David's legs, and into his lap, in a straddle that doesn't come naturally to him but that Chef's hands help him into. Chef grabs him had by the harness before he can crawl all the way in close for a kiss. Held at arms length, Carmy leans forward, but doesn't push past the grip.

"No one likes a cook who's all talk and no cock, chef."

Chef, very suddenly, has him hard by the hair in back, has him hard by the harness, and drags him in close enough to almost, kiss, maybe just so Carmy can feel the fineness of his control.

"Three little bites, and you decide you can stand anything I can throw at you, huh?"

Which is so wrong it's almost funny.

"Three little bites, and I decide I need to try everything you've got," answers Carmy, voice gone dry and quiet, like he's surprised at his own forwardness. He is letting his control go, but also, the line is right there where he expects it. Chef's hand tightening in his hair when he tries to lean in. Chef's grip, jerking his head back, to bare his throat and make him whimper a little.

He tries to ride in closer with his hips, and when he presses, finds Chef half hard in his slacks. Carmy bites a cry down into a keen, at the feeling of Chef lifting up into him, like he's considering it. Carmy thinks of creating dishes for him, and the way he'd work by sight first, taking in a meal with his eyes before (and often without) deigning to take a fork to it. The bite he'd take, if and only if the plate was already good enough.

Chef bites. Or, technically, it's a kiss, but it's more teeth than anything, and that's exactly what Carmy wants from him. His hips jerk forwards and he feels David really settle between his thighs, grind up into him like they're about to fuck, which it occurs to Carmy that they are? Which makes the universe make even less sense than usual. He cries out, somewhere between desire and confusion, a little too loud for this hotel by the way Chef reaches up and presses two fingers over his mouth, while he turns to begin delivering stinging nips down Carmy's throat, along his shoulders. While his fingertips press-

Carmy just about has a stroke at the pressure between his legs, the sudden slick push of a fingertip inside him. He yelps, and not in a sexy way this time, by the rather less predatory and rather more confused glance David gives him.

"D-don't stop," stammers Carmy, and fucking hates that his voice breaks on him now, fucking hates the way David is slowing, is asking;

"Are you sure? We don't need to-"

Carmy seizes him and kisses him properly, patience be damned, which provokes Chef immediately into grabbing him hard, forcing two fingers in deep, and fucking them into Carmy with a ruthlessness and precision that he normally associates with kitchen work. Chef finds his prostate, and Carmy's bones turn to molten glass, apparently, because he collapses forward into Chef with a sound that he would be embarsased about if he could think.

Chef has, Carmy sees now, a tiny bottle of lube, maybe a few dozen ml, but enough to apply a second coat to his fingers while Carmy is still gasping and recovering against his shoulders- three push back in. Carmy jolts for it and welcomes the pain.

"Christ," he whispers, and has time to think that at least he doesn't stammer this time when David hooks his fingers hard and makes Carmy blurt out a sound into his shoulder.

"Shh, chef," intimate, teasing, as if he doesn't know full well he's the reason Carmy is getting loud. Carmy bites down- into Chef's shirt, he isn't nearly brave enough to go for his shoulder, and gets an approving hand running up and down his back, squeezing his nape again, while those fingers continue to pry him, his composure, his soul, entirely apart.

"Up," says Chef, which Carmy doesn't really absorb, until they're up, David's hands moving him, holding his harness and his shoulder, carrying him to his feet and then frog-marching him across the little livingroom and to the desk in front of the window. Carmy crashes into it with a yelp, and lands on his elbows, bent over the table with his nose up to the glass.

"There we go," says Chef, just behind him, from an angle familiar enough that Carmy's spine crawls. His hand is back, fingers pushing into Carmy again before his thoughts can get away with him, sending him spilling back down over the desk top. Carmy tries reflexively to hitch a knee up, and isn't surprised at all when Chef swats his thigh lightly as it raises, sending it back down and guiding him back to a symmetrical brace. Not quite the angles they'd be at, at the pass, but close enough that Carmy feels light-headed, looking back over his shoulder at the familiar loom of him.

Chef gets a condom out of his pocket, and then reaches for his fly with an air of such casual calm that Carmy turns around fast, feeling like he's caught spying. His body lights up in anticipation at the sound of the zipper, and he works very hard to keep breathing for the time it takes to roll the rubber on, apply the last of their lube to it, and then line up for the first push inside.

It's been a long time, for Carmy. The lube and the fingering make it easier than he remembered, but there's still that sensation of part of yourself being put out of place. His body fights him, but his breathing wins against the panic, and while it hurts it doesn't hurt anything as bad as the bites had.

"Holy fuck, Berzatto," breathes Chef, which makes Carmy feel ludicrously proud of himself for a second, before he kind of remembers who exactly it is he's giving it up for- but even that anxiety goes away when Chef starts fucking him.

It's like- it's like nothing else. None of the sex he's ever had before, certainly not with Claire or Mary, not even really with Nicky and his tattoo gun. It's like being in the kitchen, in the way the world narrows down to just the few feet around them, just the bark of the table against his elbows and his hips, just the feel of Chef behind him, controlling him.

Carmy knows he has to keep quiet, and bites his lips, bending down lower and letting his back arch, letting Chef pull his hips back into a series of bruising thrusts that make his legs quake and tears burn in the corners of his eyes.

"Fuck," says Chef, and thrusts, hard enough that the desk legs bang against the wall below the window, and the lamp next to them wobbles. Another thrust, and it goes, right off the table top and onto the carpet. Carmy has the ludicrous thought that he knows how it feels, and then David is grabbing him by the harness, by the hair, dragging him up onto his palms, pressing down so they're back to chest, so he can grind up into Carmy in shallow little thrusts that drag fluttery, urgent noises out of him. The second he's done thinking he can't possibly come again so soon Chef grabs his cock in still-slick hand and starts pumping it in time with his thrusts.

It's less that he's making Carmy come, and more like he's not taking no for an answer. Carmy hears his own voice, chanting;

"There, there, there, please-"

"Yes."

Yes. On the next brutalizing crash of David's body down into his, Carmy comes, crushed down into the desk and quaking under his weight, his authority, his hands and his cock. The way he keeps on, letting Carmy's cock go now that he's got no use for it and grabbing him instead, heaving his body back to a better, more selfish angle. The way he uses him for those last few seconds, for absolutely nothing but his own pleasure.

The way he bites, once more. LIke he can't- or no, actually, just like he has no reason to help himself. Like Carmy is there to be bit.

Carmy's vision goes out at the edges. Chef's hands are there, on his hip, in his hair, and his voice is saying things distantly that sound like praise- which is nice, but not totally important in the grand scheme of things because it turns out Carmy's legs are going out, and they're headed down to the carpet together in a slightly ungainly crumple.

Chef rearranges them- specifically Carmy, who cannot move, and ends up draped out on his back next to his friend, lamp. Carmy laughs dizzily at the ceiling, and accepts being proppsed back up and given a cup- the last of the peppermint tea. Not Carmy's cup, which he'd finished, which makes it David's own.

Carmy crawls to close the small space between them, puts his forehead impetuously into the crook of Chef's shoulder, and sighs in relief when strong arms wrap around him.

He surrenders.

Chapter Text

Peppermint tea turns into sitting on the carpet, back over at that armchair, cuddled into Chef's legs and submitting to being hand-fed raspberry chocolate tuiles. Carmy knows exactly how hard these are to make this uniform, and knows chef made them.

Emboldened by how good he's feeling, he just out and asks;

"Are these part of it?"

Chef pauses, with one of the cookies held between his fingertips. Carmy nods at the tuile.

"You made them. You're not eating them- maybe one or two, but you made them for me. For this. Right? I would have taken sleeve of oreos with a smile and a thank you, but you made me these."

Carmy leans forward to nip the spun sugar confection out of his fingertips.

It melts on his tongue, and he lets his eues close in pleasure. Chef's hands card through his hair, and Carmy gets a thrill when he admits it;

"Yes. I don't know if I realized it until now, but it's part of it. As will be dinner. If you're up for it, I would propose we eat, chat and digest a little, then play one more time before you go. I've got a lovely four poster in there I'd like the chance to tie you to."

Carmy blushes immediately. This is a thing that one can do as an adult, apparently. Lounge around in hotel rooms with dangerous men in their fifities. No one will stop you from doing it.

But he very much does want that meal, and also the thought of the scene is making him feel hot and cold all over. He nods, jerkily, and David stands, holding up a light hand to indicate Carmy should stay kneeling. He picks up a couch cushion and a throw blanket, then steps around Carmy, heading for the kitchen. With a lofty reminder over his shoulder;

"Crawl."

Carmy crawls, hurrying to catch up, in time to find Chef setting the cushion down in the most out of the way corner of the kitchenette. He drops it there, and Carmy takes that as his territory- is pleased when Chef drops the throw blanket around his shoulders. The tile is a little colder in here, and it also just feels wrong somehow to be naked in a kitchen.

Chef washes his hands, rolls his sleeves back up, tightly, gets on an apron and then goes to the fridge to start taking out components. He has two burners, a toaster oven, and a bare few inches to work with, but Carmy clocks seared salmon with farro and greens, and his stomach churns in hunger preemptive of even the smell.

Watching him cook is enlightening. Every dish, it doesn't take Carmy long to realizes, diverges. Half the salmon out of the pan, the last portion finished in roiling, golden butter. Half the farro out of the pot, the butter and salmon juices tipped in and reduced through the rest. Half the greens out, then butter in to finish the last of them. Economy of movement, emotionaless expression, dreamlike efficiency.

Carmy is breathless by the time he finally straightens up with their plates in hand.

"Back to the the livingroom," chef decides, and nods for Carmy to crawl along after him. It takes him a trip more, to return with water glasses, and Carmy's pillow and blanket, but it's nice to be back on the soft rug and in the low, golden warmth of the livingroom. Chef closes the door to the kitchen, and Carmy realizes, as he gets to the chair;

"You cranked the baseboard heater?"

"You're naked. There's no way to make that less appealing than to make it cold."

Carmy chokes on a laugh, and settles in with his plate, waiting for David to join him and pick up his own fork before he goes for his first bite.

He makes an involuntary sound at the crackle of fish skin, and turns red. That's the kind of noise you could absolutely not get away with back at Empire.

"I think that 'no exclamations' rule was mostly self-preservation on my part," says Chef, "and I hereby rescind it. React however you wish, Berzatto, from now on. It's incredibly attractive."

Which, is dark, but also kind of funny, maybe?

"This is very good," says Carmy, with great dignity, "thank you, chef."

"Good. I miss cooking for someone with a palate."

"Who do you cook for these days who doesn't have a palate?"

Chef pauses, and looks across at him, realizing;

"I suppose I don't actually cook for anyone, these days. Special occasions, but I see people when I travel, and I don't like using other people's kitchens."

"Don't people come see you, ever?"

"No. I'm pretty private, when it comes to my home. Or, private isn't the right word; I mean controlling. You would be welcome to come visit in the context of a D/s relationship, but there would be rules."

Carmy's mouth goes dry. This, finally, feels like what he's been scrabbling for, with his questions about rules, about castles.

"Like what?"

"Well, you'd have your own bedroom that I wouldn't come into, to rest and reset as you wish, as yourself. Outside of it, you'd go naked and collared."

It takes effort to swallow. He reaches for his water.

"What else?"

"We'll leave that for when we get there, Carmy. But I take it you like the idea?"

"Very much, apparently," he says, with a little shake of his head, then a laugh at himself; "High structure environments, I guess."

"You're not wrong." A vaguely grim little smile. "I am capable of structuring better ones."

Carmy, who hadn't meant to turn the subject to nastier things, hurries on;

"Well, I'd like that." And, since he feels like he needs to be honest, since it will get him closer to getting collared, naked in Chef's environment, and since he's been putting it off long eough; "I have more time now. I took myself off the line at the Bear."

"Fuck," says David, appreciatively, hand coming up to his mouth to disguise he's said it around a mouthful of farro, which Carmy kind of appreciates for its' humanity, "are you surviving? I had an easier time quitting pills than quitting cooking."

Carmy snorts, and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. Yeah, it... yeah.

"I've gone back one day to fill, so I'm not totally sure it's sunk in yet. I've just been sleeping." Which sounds like nothing, so honesty makes him add; "Constantly? Twelve, thirteen hours a day? Not sure if tht's normal."

"That whole first week for me," says David, with a shake of his head. "Just let it happen, there's no point fighting it. It's some cumulative fatigue thing, it passes. Or see a doctor in a week if it doesn't."

"Good to know," says Carmy, hoping tht doesn't come out sounding facetious, because he also kind of means it. "When would you say you stopped missing it?"

"I'll let you know if it happens," says Chef, making Carmy wince at his own insensitivity. He shouldn't make this about him, but he kind of can't resist asking;

"Do you think less of me for quitting?"

"Well... from the sounds of things, you haven't, have you?"

Carmy looks up, into an uncustomarily frank expression. Chef is usually fairly measured about the restaurant, and doesn't tend to contradict him. Today, though, sitting up with his plate, with Carmy on the floor, in their quiet bubble of honesty;

"You said you were committed to staying until your uncle was repaid. That's two years of work ahead of you, at a minimum. During that time you're shepherding your protege into a leadership role, and helping her retool her menu to make her venue commercially successful. You're using your time appropriately for your talents. It makes perfect sense to me to get a good sous chef in under her and spend less and less time there, while you look around for your next project. Nothing about this is shameful, Carmy."

Carmy breathes out a sigh that's almost a sob and laughs at himself, then looks up at Chef.

"I feel like I'm failing."

"At your business?"

"At the universe."

"Well, you're not. You inherently can't universally fail, because there's no actual universal standard any of us is being measured by. What you're doing is changing, and categorizing that change as failure out of guilt. Skip that part, decide what you want to change into, then change."

How did he get to be this fucking decisive?

"Like are we going to keep pretending to be a fine dining establishment, or are we going to be a crummy little family restaurant?"

"Like, what do you like to contribute best, when have you been happiest in your life, and how can you structure your career so that you get to do more of that."

"Like cookbooks," says Carmy, aware that Chef has written one in his retirement, and that it's supposed to be good. "I don't think I exactly have the name for it?"

"You'd make up for it on quality. But if you want a name, you could have that too. Let a network snatch you up."

"Be Ramsay Lite? I'd rather eat glass."

"Be Bourdain."

That's... a little more flattering. Not completely so, but he can tell by Chef's irritated frown that he actually means it as a compliment. (Weird nance, but Carmy and David worked together for a long time; he definitely knows approval-aggression when he sees it.) Carmy shakes his head.

"I don't know yet where I want to be. I mostly just hit my threshhold of 'I want to be anywhere but here.'" The next part he's going to have to figure out later. "The thing that's still kind of incredible to me is that I just said something, and then they rearranged the schedule?"

David gives him a curious look, at that, so Carmy tries to explain;

"In my head, this was the point where I guess the world ended?"

"You have a slight tendency towards black and white thinking," is David's perspective on that, "and you catastrophize, which is a pretty common symptom of anxiety."

"That tracks," says Carmy, and vaguely thinks that maybe he should get tto a doctor about this, at some point. "Did I hear you right earlier that you reject the abstract concept of 'being a failure' in its' entirety?"

"Obviously," says David, and comes to clear Carmy's plate, then saunters off to the kitchen, continuing over his shoulder like it's the most natural thing in the world;"Informal social consensus is useful to understand, useless to abide by."

Carmy breathes out deeply, and looks around at the space- the blindfold, rope, and crumpled clothes all over the floor, with the slightly askew furniture. They'dre definitely outside the social consensus of what's considered normal, now.

He hasn't even been into the bedroom yet, jesus fuck. Carmy shudders pleasantly, and again, brushes some carpet lint off himself where it's dried to his skin. Chef emerges to find him doing, smiles at the sight, and proposes;

"What about a hot shower? Take a minute to decompress. I'll be reading out here."

It's so the opposite of what Carmy was expecting he'd say, and it's such a welcome relief that Carmy actually freezes for a moment, before scampering to take him up on it.

"Carmy!"

He pauses, wondering as David comes up behind him if he's in trouble for something, but all the other man wants is to unbuckle his harness for him. Carmy can see why that can't be showered in, and is grateful not to have to fight with straps, not in his curent state. He submits to it being adjusted, then drawn down his shoulders. It feels ceremonious, in a weird way, and Carmy isn't sure how to get out of the moment, until David puts a hand in the small of his back and gives him a light push, setting him off towards the washroom once more.

It's the first time he's ever broken in the middle of a date to bathe. It's also the first time he's gotten half way through a date covered in carpet fiber. Carmy cleans himself up, and breathes in the momentary quiet. All bathrooms are basically like another and the stark beigeness of the tile scratches that mental itch he still feels to subtract, subtract, subtract. Carmy soaps himself quickly where he's still a little sticky, and then lingers a little longer to continue to catch his breath.

This is good, and he wants this, but it is, no doubt, a lot. It's good to be able to rest his forehead against the tile and breathe his square while the water rolls down his skin.

When the few seconds to process start to veer towards the start of a spiral, Carmy calls it. He gets back out there and goes to find David, where he promised. Reading in the armchair, Game of Thrones, presumably because he approves of human suffering.

Carmy feels weird, having just finished toweling himself dry, and then not put clothes on to come back out to company. He'd technically been naked before, but now he feels naked all over again.

Chef rises at the sight of him in the doorway, folds the corner of his page down, then stalks towards Carmy like a god damn predator. It backs Carmy up into the bedroom on instinct alone, and his heart is pounding by the time Chef is on him. He bears Carmy down into the bed with a deliberate struggle, for a deep, searing kiss that makes Carmy wrap his legs up and around him.

Excuse enough for Chef to start there, apparently. He sits back, and catches Carmy lightly by the ankle, then reaches for the rope.

Carmy has been tied up before (Claire, again, who worked harder than anyone to pry his secret self out of him) but that had been nothing like this. Playful plastic bondage kit straps compared to rough spun jute wrapped around a bedpost.

Chef, perversely, only ties him down by one bed post, to the one ankle. Carmy feels a little silly, but also pleasantly kept, so he doesn't try to complain.

After the ankle is secure, Chef turns to Carmy's wrists- which need attention, apparently. He lost the bandages in the name of the shower, but Chef takes a minute to head out to the livingroom for the first aid kit, to redo that now. Like last time, the conversation lapses away as he focuses on Carmy's body. Patient dabs of polysporin on red-pink skin, while Carmy watches David hold his head at a careful angle, not letting his glasses slip down his nose as he works.

Satisfied, silent, he reaches for more rope. Chef arranges Carmy's arms behind his back, has him grip his own elbows, and then settles in behind him and starts to tie.

Rope bondage is another thing Carmy knew about from TV, but has never seen done in person. Honestly, he's only ever seen it done to women, and would not have pictured himself all folded up like this, secured with his arms in a tidy square behind his back.

"Does that hurt?" No direct pressure goes on the burn, when Carmy tests with a struggle, so he shakes his head, no. Chef runs his fingertips under the wraps over his arms, and instructs; "You tell me if you start feeling any numbness, at all. It's a warning sign you don't ignore."

"Heard, chef," whispers Carmy, which is more than he thought he'd be able to spit out, hard as this is apparently hitting him.

He doesn't even need to struggle to feel that there'sno way of squirming out of it. Especially not once Chef also ties Carmy's other ankle, not to the bedpost but to the net wrapping his arms and shoulders.

There's enough slack between ankle and wrist for Carmy to sit up comfortably, but when he tries to lie back down he finds he has to keep his leg bent, while the bed post forces the other to stretch out long.

Already, Carmy wants to whine in discomfort, but he remembers chef's instructions; calm, strong, patient. It's supposed to be hard.

He settles into it, as Chef settles down over him, reaching to rub a hand over the wicked bruise setting in on Carmy's thigh. That's going to be pretty colours, tomorrow. Carmy shudders, and understands this is the reward for his patience.

"Please," he breathes, and David is on him with a kiss. Carmy wouldn't have thought he could get hard again, but here he is, trying to get his legs around Chef, again, even as he's born down onto the bed. The arms under his back are forcing him to arch lightly, putting his chest and the diamond ropes cross crossing his bruises all on display. Chef reaches for his nipples and pinches, then twists them until Carmy yips in shock, tries to arch up to let more of the pressure off, then just outright tries to thrash him off, and gets a couple of stinging swats to the chest for it, and then another, nastier pinch.

Withstand, don't escape; got it. Carmy babbles apologies, and feels Chef trace a quick hand over his cheek in comfort, then rest over his eyes. The room goes mercifully dark, reducing the input of things Carmy can pay attention to down to just his body, and the weight of Chef on the bed next to him. Carmy moans, loud and long and frustrated, because he just knows, they're nowhere near his getting what he wants.

---

"Impatient," murmurs David, and checks Carmy's expression to see if this is too much criticism. There's a line, but this is firmly on the right side of it, by the way he blushes and twists in his restraints. Hips arching up to try to get closer to David's body, he tries for friction David is careful to deny him.

He's warmed the bedroom up too; heat really is the core ingredient in 'how to get people to want to keep being naked.' But that means it's hot enough in here that David decides he's justified in climbing off the bed to strip at least his shirt off- then slacks too, for good measure, so he climbs back onto the bed in boxer briefs and a t-shirt. Carmy, who had been lying there with his eyes closed, gasping, looks back up when David's bare leg brushes his.

His expression turns flatteringly hungry. David snorts, and reaches down to take his vision away again with an idle palm, and watches him settle back down. That isn't going to get old any time soon.

At fifty four with a bad heart, he can't actually do everything he'd like to do to Carmy in this moment. He can, though, reach for the lube again, and re-slick his fingers before reaching down to touch Carmy's cock.

"Oh fuck, I can't-" says Carmy, who evidently very much can by the twitching and squirming he's doing under David's fingertips, "-chef, please, I-"

"What are your safewords?"

"Red yellow green beige- green, chef, green, but-"

Beige makes David want to laugh- they're counting that one, are they? Instead, he shifts up onto his knees, to get a better angle to loom over him. To continue to stroke, while he presses one slick fingertip inside him.

"You know, I can feel how warm and used up you are." He watches whatever words Carmy had been about to say die, dried up, on the tip of his tongue. Watches him swallow. Mercilessly, David pushes deeper; "I bet you don't know what a fucking fantasy you are. How good you look and sound, bent over and begging."

"Chef," complains Carmy, very softly and with what sounds to David like real fear. Who the fuck convinced him there could be anything this wrong with taking the compliment?

David himself probably.

He shoves his self-recrimination aside (beige!) and slips Carmy a second finger. He does feel raw, and David licks his bottom lip, then glances up and finds Carmy hiding his face sideways in the pillows, eyes screwed tightly shut.

"Look at me, chef," he orders, and Carmy does, at apparently considerable cost and effort. David's breath catches, and he strokes Carmy's cock, which gives David a perfect view of the moment his eyes roll back in pleasure. Which is so fucking pretty, but is not following orders; "Chef!"

Carmy cries out, and his eyes fly open with a look of outright fear that reminds David that while he cannot spiral into guilt, he also can't ignore the context;

"Stay with me, Carmy."

"I- I'm here, I-"

He's taking it as being in trouble. David breathes out, and soothes;

"Shh, you're perfect."

"Fuck," blurts Carmy, twisting against the rope, forgetting himself and closing his eyes again. David tries, more gently;

"Look at me."

In an act of supreme self-control, Carmy manages it- and David gets to watch the moment where his eyes flood with tears.

"Sensitive little thing," he murmurs, which actually makes Carmy flinch. "I mean that as a compliment, chef. You're pretty when you're letting me have my way."

Carmy opens his eyes back up and gasps a protest and warning- he's close, David can feel, and so he gives him permission;

"Now, chef."

Just before he can actually come, David works his fingers hard, to force the issue. He generally prefers that most of his orders are easy and pleasant for his submissive to follow.

Carmy does cry when he comes this time, to David's utter delight. Those threats earlier had been half bravado, half educated guesswork, and it's nice to be proven right. Carmy doesn't cry very much, but the tears trickle down his temples and leave dark lines in his curls, and David has a hard time looking away.

It's time to untie him, which also means the excuse to get his hands all over him (after giving them a brisk wash) starting with those ankles, which are both jerked pink and tender. Then, David moves to gather him up to sit, so he can start unfastening that harness.

"Oh my god," says Carmy, and when David offers him a bite of madeleine from a tin off the bedside table; "You planned this. You planned to bring me here and fuck me twice."

"Back with us, I see," says David, and bends down to press a kiss to the darkest rope mark, cutting across his shoulder.

Chapter Text

Carmy wakes up the next morning in his own bed, feeling achy but happy- not just happy, fucking fantastic actually. He stretches deeply, groans, contemplates his ceiling, his clock radio, and the novelty of not feeling like absolute dogshit when he rolls out of bed, for once. Although, why are his thighs so sore? Why is his-

Oh fuck.

He'd slipped out with a few last cookies and words of casual comfort- most, Carmy remembers David promising they'd do it again the next time he was in Chicago, if Carmy wanted.

He wants. He reaches for his phone to text a good morning, and finds a message from Tina waiting for him; she needs to talk about her station, can he be in later before her shift starts?

"Fuck," says Carmy, and gets out of bed a lot faster than he would have liked.

It turns out not to be a crisis, but rather a fight. Syd is angry because Richie has... something, and Sug thinks they should just something else- small plates? The tasting menu?

"Guys," tries Carmy, and then, "guys!"

Silence, from all parties.

Carmy starts with Syd, who starts, right away;

"We are not prioritizing a bar tasting menu right now."

"But-" says Richie, and Carmy points- no. Continues staring at Syd.

"The redesign is already going to be so much work, Richie, and the whole point of is to have to do less!"

Which, she's right; Carmy looks at Richie and tells him;

"We have maybe four dishes ready. Maybe."

"Can't you just carve up-?" Sugar starts to suggest, only to be cut off by Syd insisting, Carmy agreeing in time,

"-won't work."

"Nothing we do here can plug and play," says Syd, shaking her head, "and we wouldn't want it to even if it could."

"We need a menu that can be executed in this kitchen, by this team," agrees Carmy, who spent last night watching Chef make a world class meal in a hotel kitchenette. Two- two meals, because his own plate had been entirely different from Carmy's. Yes, he'd done the prep at home, obviously, but he'd done his prep with a plan in mind to execute in the space he had to work with. Subtract, as Chef had put it. Or, as Carmy prefers now; "Simplify."

"Why don't we just simplify ourselves down into a McDonalds, then?" Richie- who Carmy looks at, long and hard, because a) that's crazy, and b) that's a change of tune. Who, when stared at, collapses into the silence and admits; "I know what we talked about sounded good when we talked about it, and I still agree with all that fuck the star stuff, just-"

"Just?" prompts Sugar.

"-Garrett and Jess didn't sign up for this."

Ah. Their Ever refugees were onboarded into the Bear as one kind of restaurant, based on having come from that kind of restaurant. They may be the actual only people left in the place who are committed to that standard.

"We might lose them," says Carmy, matter of factly, and realizes by the rage in Richie's face that this is the wrong thing to say.

"Fuck off!" Fast, mean; "What, like it's back of house rules, priorities now, like my team is disposable?"

"No, Richie," says Sugar, right away, and even Syd is wincing now, looking like she's come down from the towering indignation she was in when he first walked through the door. Carmy pushes on;

"I hope we don't. But Richie- if people don't want to be somewhere, you can't make them stay."

"Said from someone who's leaving."

Carmy winces, because that's true, and wonders;

"What are you guys all doing in here this early?"

"Tina texted," says Syd, "She wants to go over something to do with prep-"

She trails off, because Richie and Sug have each cut in, cursing in Richie's case, and in confusion in Sug's, both overtop of each other and mangling what each of them is saying. Carmy furrows his brow, and follows the two threads as best he can, which is better than Syd, by the looks of things; you get used to listening to a competing din in the Berzatto family. Richie is here to talk about some unspecified bullshit, Sug was supposed to go over health insurance stuff- all scheduled right now, which Richie says can only mean one thing. Unfortunately they haven't come to this conclusion with anything like time for Carmy to come up with a plan for what he suspects is about to happen. Speak of, the bell above the door chimes, and Tina sticks her head in.

"Oh good, you're all here. This should be easy then." As though tears haven't already flooded her eyes. She draws in a shuddering gasp "I love you all, but I have to be honest with myself, and with you all. I can't do this any more. I want to thank each and everyone of you for the opportunities you've given me, and I- I have to quit. I can't fucking talk about it, don't make me cry..."

"T!" Interrupts Richie, and then they're all talking, surrounding her with the traditional Bear chaos of encouragement, support, solutions, admonishments;

"Stress leave, right now, one week, paid." Richie, who technically has no authority to offer this, but.

"As much personal time off as you need after that, door's always open to you coming back, and we do hope it's in a couple of weeks, Tina." Sugar's contribution; she has claimed said authority, apparently.

May as well join in;

"To a position managing the sandwich shop expansion," says Carmy, "sorry Syd, I would'a- but-"

"No, no, my god, good idea, Tina, please, take a beat, we'll figure out how to work with you-"

"What?" says Tina, cutting through the din, as they're also all saying this basically on top of each other, as usual, pointing through the din of voices, straight at him. Carmy doubles down;

"We can't give you a raise until breakeven, but you can negotiate a contract for whatever after that. You know the business, you know how to manage Ibra, you can come over and ask Richie any time you need, you can boss me around to make sure I give you guys equal bandwidth. You can keep daylight hours, you can put that culinary management class you said was stupid bullshit to good use."

"Jeff," says Tina, and then regrettably hugs him- though it is nice, he guesses, to know how much she appreciates it. He hugs her back, tight, and shuts his eyes tighter.

"I'm hiring Luca," says Syd, into a jumbled of encouraging voices telling her to get right on that; "No like, he's already hired, I texted him while you were still talking, Carmy, and he's in."

"Holy fuck," says Richie, "look at us go?"

The downside of the situation is they're carrying two sous salaries. They're essentially duplicating Tina's position until the Beef starts being able to pay her... That'll slow the rate they're able to repay Jimmy, and thereby extend Carmy's sentence.

It's worth it. It's Tina.

While the others are expressing different versions of this sentiment at her, he slips away to go text David the news.

Our sous chef just accepted a position operating the sandwich side. Luca is coming on.

No immediate answer, so Carmy sets his phone down and turns to greet Syd, who for whatever reason also hugs him. Carmy hugs her back, and decides this means she's happy about the Luca-Tina swap out. It will be a better fit.

"We're not Ever-ing him, are we?" Carmy checks; they really might lose Garrett and Jess.

"Unlike you, Luca is actually active in the group chat. He knows what we've been talking about."

Luca is in their group chat? More importantly- what they've been talking about? Carmy frowns, and reaches for his phone, to an exasperated sigh from Syd. No, of course he hasn't checked.

"Here's what I was thinking," says Syd, and sketches out a chart on the whiteboard that virtually duplicates his own. He has to laugh- and when she turns, looking scalded;

"Swap your scallop in as an app, and make the hamachi a sashimi snack. I'd thought sweetbreads for another, keep the beef theme going. 'Snacks' might also be a good place to bring back sweet potato with roe."

He means this as an apology. He owes it, apparently, because Syd looks over at him in shock. This had been one of the dishes of Syd's he'd culled in the first twenty four hours after he got out of the freezer. Part of that frantic purge of any and all indulgence. He'd liked how un-Michelin that dish had been, and how beautiful, and he'd still thrown it away without asking her.

"Chef, I want you to know right now- this is your menu. Immaculate, simple, and sentimental."

"How about... local whitefish in broth?"

For a couple of hours after that, Syd and Carmy lose themselves in menu design. They're about three quarters of the way through a duck dish on farro (Carmy can't stop thinking about it, for some reason) when Tina knocks.

"Jeffrey, Chef- I just wanted to say thank you again."

"'course," says Carmy, pausing over his notebook. "I'm just glad you're staying."

"Can I ask- T, Why did you think you had to leave?" asks Syd, braver than Carmy is, despite being more scared of Tina.

"It was watching Luis, that little shit." Which makes him glad Syd asked; it lets him stop wondering whether it was him. "Don't get me wrong, I love him and I'm proud of him, but he's been here less than a week and he's already faster than me- and do you know that child goes out after shift, Saturdays?"

Carmy couldn't name any of the Chicago industry bars if you paid him. He snorts in sympathy at Tina's expression, and checks;

"We can set up a meeting with you, me, and Ebra for tomorrow."

"For Thursday?" Suggests Syd, hopefully. "Luca is coming back from Copenhagen."

"Starting Thursday," agrees Tina, "fucking hell. This is how you people take 'I quit'?"

"Pretty much," says Richie, materializing in the doorway behind her. He accepts the hug Tina turns to more good natured talking over one another- which Carmy takes as permission to glance quickly at his phone.

David:

Good.

How are you feeling?

Carmy smiles. He has no idea, of course, but it's nice that Chef is asking.

"Yo Carm, you talking to Claire again?"

Richie, still with his arm around Tina, responding to the look on Carmy's face like a shark to blood.

"I thought you guys were-?"

"No," says Carmy, maybe too quickly, then, as Richie lets Tina go and advances on him. He resists the urge to back up. "No, we made up at the wedding, but we're not getting back together. We don't text."

"Bullshit," says Richie, and uses his god damn height advantage to snatch Carmy's phone before he really even clocks it's within snatching range? "'How are you feeling?' Gay."

Carmy is shoving him before he even really clocks they're fighting. Almost before Richie clocks it too, though he comes back into the tussle. His phone goes flying, which at least ends the actual danger. Syd and Tina have just cleared out, obviously used to their bullshit by now. Carmy is fairly sure he hears Syd ask if she's sure she still wants to work here.

"Hey," Richie says, at a particularly nasty shot to the side, "hey, hey, okay, relax! Jesus, Carm."

"Don't say that shit, man," is all Carmy is willing to concede, grabbing his phone off the floor and shoving it in his pocket before Richie can go for it again.

"Fine!" insists Richie, both hands up, peaceably. "PC operation, all the way, understood. My bad, cuz."

He sounds like he's kidding up until the last sentence, but that's an actual concession, for Richie. Carmy presses his fingertips into his eyes, and changes the subject;

"You want me to be there when you talk to Garrett and Jess?"

"Why, to help translate?" Bitter, in a way that makes Carmy realize that he's maybe being kind of an asshole also. Which, Richie is very prepared to tell him so, to his face; "Why didn't you offer me the Beef gig?"

Oh fuck. Carmy looks up in stricken guilt, and Richie waves him off- that's not why he's asking? He's just asking. So Carmy tries to answer;

"It honestly didn't occur to me. It should have, I'm sorry, I just- you're my maitre d'. I can't lose you."

Richie gives him a disbelieving look. Points out;

"Tina was your sous."

Which is another true statement, but not actually reflective of the greater truth. Carmy tries, again, to explain, but just ends up saying;

"I can't lose you."

Whether this clarifies anything or not, it apparently helps. Richie, looking at the floor too now, asks;

"It would be good if you came and talk to them about where the ship is headed, so they can decide for themselves? They deserve that."

"Of course, man," says Carmy, "tomorrow, before we start?"

Richie gives him a two fingered salute, and goes, leaving Carmy to sink down into his office chair and put his head in his hands for a minute.

"Well, I was coming in here to tell you, you looked good, Carmy," says Sugar, with a friendly scoff, from the doorway. "When you first got here, before the screaming started. You looked happy."

"Thanks," he says, and because the conversation with Richie has reminded him of one he once had with her; "How are you feeling?"

"Good!" She's so happy to be asked. He needs to remember more often. "Sophie's started understanding colour, which is a lot of fun."

"Oh yeah?" says Carmy, perking up, "how do you know? Presumably she doesn't tell you?"

The details of his perfect niece being perfect calm him the rest of the way down. Sugar also has a few things to go over, in terms of financials, purchasing, Tina's transition- more meetings, joy, now with Tina, Sugar, Carmy, Computer, Albert and Richie.

By the time he finally makes it back onto his phone and sees the unreplied to text waiting for him, it's embarrassingly late. Normally this is where his anxiety would make him leave it another day, on the grounds that he can't face it and it won't hurt ito let it go just a little bit later, but the thing is that it actually would. He bites the inside of his cheek, and takes a leap.

---

Even off the line, this EC thing is a full time job.

David raises his eyebrows at the sideways apology, received close to nine pm that night. Mostly he smiles at the thought that Carmy for some reason thought it wasn't. Like David was hiding in his office back at Empire, cackling and counting his gold?

He tries, again;

I hope you aren't having to work through drop?

This finally returns Carmy to the subject.

Not at all. Apparently I even looked happy when I got here?

That's a nice thought. David smiles, and sits on his reply for a moment, rather than giving into the urge to text inane pleasantries. Berzatto does not strike him as a texter.

I'll be back the weekend after next, Friday to Tuesday, if you'd like to do it again?

There. Directness pays off, because right away, he gets back;

Please! I want to try impact play, if that's something you're into?

It's not David's go-to, actually, but it's absolutely something he can top and it's a very good safe pathway into playing with pain.

I'll pack my favourite flogger.

Anyways; saying he's not his go-to is a bit misleading, considering he does have multiple implements with which to hit him. David is just compulsively well-rounded, including in what he's capable of topping. But, since they're negotiating, and since Carmy had wanted him to participate;

How would you feel if I brought an electrical toy, as well?

Three dots, and again, more simply;

please

David doesn't know how he's going to spend the next two weeks doing anything other than touching himself to the memory of Carmy underneath him, sobbing that word.

See you soon, chef.