Chapter Text
You'd think that with the number of times Carmy'd imagined seeing Chef David Fields sitting in his dining room, that he'd he'd have come up with some kind of a plan for in case it actually happened. Instead, he'd consoled himself with the reminder of the miles between them, coupled with the low likelihood that Chef would voluntary leave Manhattan.
Unfortunately, it kind of turns out to be the opposite. When the man, the monster, turns up sitting at the romantic two top in the window, Carmy's first reaction is just to blink at him, to try to clear his vision and the man resolve into a stranger with heavy glasses.
Only, this time, it's apparently Fields. The shock of the realization actually takes his knees out for a second, buckles him against the counter, makes Syd lurch towards him in surprise, makes two more voices raise in a question. Shit. Shit shit shit.
Chef isn't looking back, mercifully. Is instead looking across the table at his companion- a younger man, with thick black curls and a suit that costs probably three times what Carmy pays himself in a year.
He turns away, fast, putting his back to the dining room and breathing in deep.
"Jeffrey?" Tina is saying- when did she get in this close? She should be at the grill, not at his elbow, not putting a hand on his arm. How long has he been standing here?
"Chefs," he says, loud and clear, and repeats the last call, driving Tina at least back to her station.
Syd stays, because she's Syd, and because she apparently remembers;
"That's that asshole, right?"
She's been a little cold with him since he told her he was planning to leave, but she hasn't actually been unkind, and she's the kind of friend who rallies in a crisis.
"Yeah," says Carmy, short and choked, as he rakes his eyes over the tickets on the table in front of him, trying desperately to regroup.
"You weren't this scared of him before."
Yeah well, Chef wasn't about to eat his food, before. It's one thing to tell a man to go fuck himself in the hall to a restaurant bathroom; it's quite another to serve him a scallop, apparently. Into his silence, Syd presses, more quietly;
"Do you want me to take over?"
Does he? He could slip out back for a cigarette, resettle his nerves. Go hide in his office, get caught up on purchasing- it's Saturday night, and sure enough, 8:15 pm when he checks the clock.
The printer spits out the next round of tickets. Syd lays them out for him, and murmurs;
"Do you want to spit in his mirepoix?" Carmy chokes on almost a laugh at the silliness of the suggestion, and looks sideways at her. "Cover his plate in black pepper?"
Carmy breathes, for the first time, since it sunk in, and makes eye contact;
"I don't want to think a single fucking thing about him, Syd."
When Chef Fields had been let go (fired!!!? per the internet) from his last position, thirteen different people had texted Carmy to celebrate the news. The headlines had been salacious to say the least. Cousin Michelle's jubilant reaction had needed to be broken into three separate messages. Luca had just sent a series of exceptionally crude celebratory gifs. Carmy had been briefly, breathlessly relieved. Maybe some part of him had thought that if the man stopped cooking, he would somehow automatically wither up and die.
The possibility that unemployment would free him to roam, that he might then turn up in Chicago, turn up in Carmy's restaurant, had not occurred to him. Major downside to all that not thinking about him, it turns out.
"Fine," says Syd, taking a step back, then another, not taking her eyes off him but expression going a tiny bit more playful as she lets him off the hook; "business as usual."
"Perfect, as usual," says Carmy, who isn't going to think about him, but also isn't going to let standards drop here and now.
"Heard, chef."
His team rises to the challenge. The next few plates are already in front of him, for Carmy to finish and send out. He pays careful attention to not paying attention to which plate will go to Chef and his friend. Only, the minute it's out the door he can't help but look again. Carmy cranes a not-so-casual glance over his shoulder, and feels his stomach fall out at the sight of Chef laughing. At him? No, at his dinner companion, whose apparently engaging story is interrupted by the arrival of their plates.
Carmy has a brief, vivid fantasy about picking up a carving knife, walking out into the dining room with it, and heading for their table. Not to kill him, or anything, but maybe just to make him wonder? He shouldn't be allowed to be laughing. He shouldn't be allowed to be happy.
He stops, as the plate hits the table. Carmy swallows, watching Chef's face as he takes in the ravioli. It's so painfully familiar: the first, technical assessment, leading into the careful cut with the fork. The second of hesitation as he considers the single bite, then the first bite...
Chef's eyes close, and Carmy's heart just about bursts out of his chest as he watches the obvious surprise, pleasure, relaxation- turning, oh god, into interest. Chef finally looks up, and across the dining room, finds the window and squints through it to see who runs this place.
They lock gazes. Chef's eyes narrow in instant, ruthless consideration, and Carmy tries his very best to look cool and unconcerned as he turns away. So much for not even appearing to recognize him.
He manages not to look again when he sends their mains, or again at all, for that matter, right up until Richie sticks his head into the kitchen to deliver the news;
"Yo, cuz, guy at table sixteen says he knows you? Want to-"
"Fuck off," says Carmy, loud enough that it carries through the open door to the dining room, by the way the chattering voices outside hush over so slightly. He looks- sees the expression on the face of the handsome young man with the curls crumple in disappointment. Sees Chef's lip curl in amusement, or something like it; sees him say, clear as day, lips shaping the familiar words;
I told you so.
Carmy turns back to his team, turns back to his table, and bends back over his work.
---
It's a bad date right from the get go. Ali arrives six minutes late and doesn't seem to notice, and talks about himself incessantly, and insists on picking the restaurant. A dour, out-of-the-way little place that David doesn't have high hopes for when he steps inside. Uneven tables, subtle mismatches in the flatware and cutlery, and a server who makes three jokes and calls them colleagues before they're even sat at their table. It's looking like another dreary night having to be polite to an idiot who thinks that just because a place serves squid ink it's automatically impressive.
He'd known he was wrong by the first bite of the ravioli. Perfect cook, fresh made and by people who know pasta. David shuts his eyes as he tastes. The filling is gorgeous spinach and creamy ricotta, with fragrant brown butter. He would never have let it on his own menu in a million years, but he honestly hates that there are only three in the bowl. Who have they managed to get working here?
Blue eyes. Brown curls. Incandescent, barely contained rage.
David stifles a groan. Of all the gin joints in all the world...
No, of course Ali brought him here.
"That's Carmen Berzago," the young man is saying, "he's like this young, sexy maverick chef. Local guy, but back from New York. That's where your restaurant was, right?"
"Berzatto," David corrects; he'd looked it up in his files after their brief confrontation last year. He takes a second bite of the dish, wonders briefly if it's too much sage, then decides it probably is on a technical level but that the imperfection is what makes it interesting. "He used to work for me."
"Oh my god," says Ali, evidently a little star struck, looking from David over to Berzatto's hunched shoulders. He still leans over his work station like he's trying to climb it, David can't help but notice. "I didn't know you were that good!"
"Mm," says David, pitching it to sound like non-committal gratitude, since he's quite sure Ali thinks that's a compliment.
These days he tries very hard not to bite people's heads off for being uneducated or insipid, or even outright insulting as the case may be. Most people don't understand food, as his therapist has put it to him, the multiple times they've had this conversation. Most people don't give a shit about fine dining, is what his sponsor says, but he's a little more blunt than Doctor Milliken.
"Well if you cook anything like this, I hope you aren't going to ask me to do 24/7."
"Absolutely not," replies David, recalling that most people also do not understand BDSM. As though those two ideas would be at all connected. Ali laughs, like this is a joke about their preferred play styles and not an outright rejection. David is a little relieved that it goes over his head. That hadn't exactly been living up to his kindest and most considerate self.
"Was he this good when he worked for you?"
Good question. Berzatto's file had been hand-written and scanned, because every piece of paper David produced during his career has been coded and logged into a database. In amongst the images of stained and warped recipe cards, another the purchasing order discrepancy tally (useful for the blacklisting and/or blackmailing of suppliers, as the case may be) there had been a few crumpled pages of foolscap.
There are no real words to describe the way it feels to look back into your records and recognize the ragged penmanship of the worst time in your life. Jagged black letters, recording every reprimand and reproach, every castigation and composure test. Symbols, indicating something or other that David had decided was too sensitive to risk someone seeing, with no ledger anywhere to be found. Reading between the lines though, the picture had been clear; massive potential, total lack of discipline. Underlined, twice, the solution had been fire hot.
"Was he?"
Ali, interrupting his thoughts.
"That's complicated."
"Try me."
Ah, okay, he may be skating onto thin ice here by drollness in that tone. David tears his gaze back off the kitchen, reminds himself that he can come across as condescending, and offers;
"He had tremendous potential."
"Did he have those tattoos back then?"
Did he? David glances over, and yes, remembers the ink, remembers the arms. Berzatto's collection has expanded. He's a little surprised to realize he can see them. Berzatto is working in a t-shirt and apron. The rest of his team, who David is only just noticing really, are wearing a mismatched combination of jackets and aprons.
"We wore full uniform. The coat was to the wrist."
"Oh, okay. So you were one of those fancy fancy places. Like with the hat and everything?"
Save him. David nods, and puts down his fork, realizing he's demolished the food a little faster than it truly deserved. He puts his fork down with a reluctant sigh.
"So he was young and green and rebellious, and you were there to give him all this technique and discipline," guesses Ali, with a knowing smile and a perspicacity that makes David reevaluate him- maybe a little too obviously, by the way he grins. "Mark didn't tell you what I do?"
"Cook?"
"Ballet dancer."
Ah. That makes perfect sense to David, in a way it might not to anyone who isn't either a chef, a ballet dancer, or some other specialist in a discipline honed by the French. The server clears the table, not invisibly but quietly and well. David waits until she's gone, then reaches out a foot under the table. He slides until he finds the toe of Ali's polished, black dress shoe, then lifts his foot and sets it lightly on top of the younger man's foot. David probably knows less about ballet then Ali does about cooking, but he certainly knows that where chefs have bloody and burnt hands, dancers carry their pain in their feet.
No pressure, just threat enough to make Ali's eyes flutter shut and his bottom lip drop open a bare inch. David can suddenly absolutely see why Mark thought to set them up as potential play partners.
While his eyes are closed, David takes another quick look at the kitchen.
"How far outside of Chicago did you say you were?" Ali asks, innocently, as Berzatto calls for hands. David guesses they're their plates, and eases his foot back off, straightening up in anticipation of what turns out to be wagyu cooked to absolute perfection. One of his shaky scrawls had contained an accusation of brain-damage to do with meat temperature, which Berzatto has obviously resolved.
Or, David had overreacted, in a fit of jealousy and paranoia. He swallows, and the meat goes down heavy.
"I'm in Muskegon." Ali's face falls; that's three hours away, in Michigan. "But I'm in the city once or twice a month right now, a few days at a time. Tonight I'm at the Waldorf Astoria."
"Really?" asks Ali, with a naked hunger that further sours David's stomach, "If I can be good will you let me see your room?"
Clumsy, and more vulgar than a place like this deserves. David clears his throat quickly, and probably ruins his chances by not returning the flirtation, but that doesn't bother him too much.
"Tell me about ballet?"
Ali's provocative smile falters, and turns into something a little resigned. He does- and David listens with interest, begins enjoying his night, in fact. The technical conversation takes his mind most of the way off Berzatto, and his ulcers, and his nightmares, and his smokers' palate, and his attitude. Dessert is a cinnamon bun wrapped in cellophane, and David wants to call it cheap looking except that it's also just quietly immaculate. He wipes his fingers on his napkin, and envies Ali licking his own clean of the small piece he'd consented to share.
Torn off and passed casually across the table. He'll report that moment to his Doctor Milliken, next time she accuses him of having no capacity for compromise.
"I think we should go say hi," says Ali, with their server standing over them, as David is getting out his wallet to pay. "Woud it bother the chef if we came in quickly to say hi? They used to work together, back in New York!"
"Oh yeah?" says the server, professionalism slipping far below what David would have tolerated at Empire, even for a conversation with friends and family, "no kidding! Things are winding down for tonight, but he might not mind just a-"
"No," says David, overtop of him, drawing the tall man up short in surprise and making Ali frown. Since they seem to want some kind of explanation; "I wouldn't want to interrupt when he's working."
"He never minds, I promise," says the waiter, with a glint in his eye now that to David reads as sabotage. Before he can put his foot down, harder, (possibly on Ali a second time and now no longer for fun) the man is already walking, and Ali is already rising to follow, overbrimming with excitement.
David can't actually hear the answer across the dining room, though by the way the sound in the space changes he suspects other guests have. Fuck off, shapes his mouth, clear as crystal. David recalls four 'profanity audible to clientele' notes from his own file, and surrenders to the desire to say say, out loud, both to Ali but also kind of to the universe at large;
"I told you so."