Chapter Text
When Syd wakes up, she’s on the floor. Right next to the low boys, flat on her back.
Everyone slips in kitchens all the time, even clean ones with pristine floors. Syd’s fallen on her ass more than once.
But she’s never been… whatever this feels like, afterward. Asleep, foggy, deeply weird. As her vision gradually swims together, she realizes that she can see that one fucking spot of dirt on the floor that they can never scrub off.
She can hear Tina and Marcus talking across the kitchen, and realizes they haven't noticed. Furtively, she tries to stand up before they can see her, before she has to deal with anyone else’s reaction. But when she lifts her head off the floor, it feels like someone’s stabbing a fork into her left temple just behind her eye. She puts a hand up to it and it’s sticky, brings it down and sees blood. She takes a deep breath. Okay, that explains it. It’s good that this was the end of service, at least, and all she’d been doing was cleaning up.
Come on, Chef, she tells herself, time to get up before they make a whole thing of this. She manages to hoist herself onto her elbows before she promptly turns and vomits off to the side, just barely keeping herself propped up until she’s done, and then collapsing onto her back again. Fuck.
This, Tina hears.
She does a visible double-take when she sees Syd laid out on the floor. Time is doing some funny thing; it takes Tina an eternity to drop whatever she’s doing and come over. Syd feels like she’s watching it all from a thousand miles away.
“Oh my god, baby, what happened?” Tina’s crouching next to her, her voice full of concern. She puts her hand on Sydney’s arm, her shoulder, but it’s like she can’t even feel it. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, I’m fine, I just slipped or something,” Syd tries to say, but it comes out all weird. Tina glances at her head and curses softly in Spanish.
“Carmen, get out here!” Tina shouts, the volume like a dull kick to Syd’s head. Even through the pain, she can tell Tina’s worried just by the way she called Carmy by his actual name.
Suddenly, there are far too many of them standing above her, looking down. Ebra, and one of the dishwashers, and a couple line cooks. Richie comes screeching around the corner and is kneeling by her side in what seems like four seconds flat.
“I’ll beat the shit of whoever did this,” he says, only half-joking.
“Then you’re gonna have a really bad fight with the corner of that counter,” Syd says, forcing her voice to sound more normal.
Richie huffs out a laugh, but his face is worried. Syd closes her eyes against it and puts her head back down on the ground, and it feels so nice. Cool. Stable. Acid is crawling up her throat and her stomach’s still churning, but she’s so sleepy again, their voices are so familiar and weirdly soothing, and Syd lets her eyes drift shut.
From far away, she hears Carmy’s voice, getting louder as he approaches from the direction of the office.
“… long has she been lying there?”
“I think only a minute or two,” Marcus answers, his voice getting louder too. “It just happened, I don’t—“
“What the fuck did she slip on?” Carmy is shouting, upset, in a way that’s becoming increasingly rare these days. They're six weeks out from friends and family and things are going... okay. She's too superstitious to think they're going well and there are a million things to improve — but the food is getting better every day, the reviews have been glowing, and they're booked solid for another few weeks at least.
“I don’t know what she slipped on!” Marcus says, also way too loud and agitated. “There’s nothing here, I don’t see anything!”
“Take it down a notch, pendejos,” Tina says, as their footsteps get closer. “Several notches.”
Syd forces her eyes open just in time to see both of them kneel down next to her. She says, pathetically, “wait, watch it, there’s barf. Right there. Be careful.”
“You threw up?” Carmy asks, much quieter, as his face comes into focus beside hers. She’s still flat on her back, but she turns her head so he can’t get too close to her barf breath, acid in her throat and her stomach rolling.
“Yeah, but seriously, it’s not that big a deal—“
“—I’m sure it’s not, baby,” Tina cuts in. “But we gotta go get her checked out, she could have a concussion. I’m looking it up now.”
“I do not have a concussion,” Syd hears herself saying, but it sounds echoey again, like it’s coming from somewhere far away. Shit. Do not throw up again, she orders herself.
Carmy’s still so close to her, right there, taking her shoulders gently and sliding his hands under her head.
“That hurt?” he asks as he sweeps her hair aside and touches her neck, impossibly gentle.
“No? I don’t think so,” she says, and he moves behind her and settles her head down on his leg, cushioning it. It immediately feels a hundred times better. She can feel Carmy’s hands on the back of her head, slowly moving over her braids, careful fingers pressing to feel where she’s hurt.
“Cousin, you don’t move somebody with a fucking neck injury!” Richie shouts, and Syd winces at the sound. Carmy clocks it right away.
“Keep your voice down, Cousin, number one,” he says quietly. “And number two, she doesn’t have a neck injury, but she does have a giant goose egg on her head and keeping that shit flat on the floor is not a good idea.”
Now Carmy’s got his hands on either side of her head, and he sucks in a quick breath when he notices the blood on her temple and leans over to examine it. He’s calm, now, preternaturally. Good in a crisis, Syd thinks idly. At home where chaos is involved.
“Richie, could you get me a wet paper towel, please. Cold water.” He’s got his chef’s voice on, now, clipped and professional, no nonsense.
From far above her head, Syd sees Richie crane his head over and wince exaggeratedly.
“Now, please,” Carmy says.
“You got it, boss,” he says, and hustles over to the sink.
“The cut is from hitting the counter, on the way down. And the bump is from the floor,” Syd says. Her memory is fuzzy, but she knows there was a flash of metal, the world tilting sideways.
A minute later, Carmy’s pressing a cool square to the side of her head and holding it there. It feels amazing, so good that Sydney has to shut her eyes against it.
“Eyes open, Chef,” he says quietly. “No sleeping on the job.”
“Right.” Syd lifts her head again and sees Ebra with the mop bucket beside them, and is hit with a wave of embarrassment as strong as the wave of relief she’d felt at the paper towel.
“I’m sorry, Ebra, here, I can—“
He looks horrified. “Absolutely not. You will stay right there. You think this is the worst thing I have ever cleaned off the floor in this place?”
She smiles. Carmy lifts up the paper towel, refolds it, and presses it back to her temple. Syd closes her eyes; she can’t help it. It feels so good.
“Syd, eyes open,” Carmy says again. He puts his other hand on her shoulder and squeezes twice, a little nudge. His hand is warm and reassuring, and he leaves it there after she reluctantly opens her eyes again.
“Is that blood?” Marcus asks from far above, his voice still on edge.
“I think just a surface cut,” Carmy says. “But Tina’s right, Syd, you could have a concussion. We gotta get this checked out.”
“No way, I’m fine, and it’s so late—“ she takes a deep breath and sits up fully, and it’s doable this time, with Carmy a solid presence supporting her back. She starts to argue, but Richie cuts her off.
“Hey, yo, don’t gimme this bullshit. You need a doctor, sweetheart.” He’s crouched down beside her, one of his huge hands on her arm.
“Barf breath, Richie, it's gross,” she tries to remind him, and he scoffs. “Like I fucking care; like I haven’t seen worse every day of my life. You okay?”
“Yeah, Richie, I’m fine.” Syd gets a flash of Richie as a dad, a good one, as he looks right in her eyes.
“Lemme see your eyes. Move 'em back and forth for me.” Syd laughs but focuses on his deep brown eyes, narrowed with concern and concentration, and moves hers left and right. It only hurts a little.
She feels Carmy shift behind her. “Cousin, all due respect, but I don’t think a couple weeks at DeVry gave you a fucking medical degree.”
Richie shoots Carmy a look but admits, “Yeah, I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at here, something about pupils.”
“They’re supposed to be equally reactive to light,” Tina says, reading off her phone. “But vomiting is the number one sign of a concussion. She’s gotta go to the ER.”
Damn it. “Can’t it be an urgent care, at least?” she asks.
She can feel Carmy shaking his head, but it’s Tina who answers. “No, baby, they’re closed. It’s Wednesday, it’s almost 11 — they’re not open that late.”
“We gotta take her to Northwestern,” Tina continues. “It’s the best ER, trust me. You want me to—“
“I’ll drive her,” Richie says, already jingling the keys in his pocket.
“Oh yeah, Mr. Suspended License.” Carmy holds out his hand, palm up. “Gimme your keys, I’m taking her. In your car.”
"Give it here,” Marcus says. “I’ll drive her.”
“Both of you, I said, I got it.” Carmy’s voice is calm but tight. “You all stay and finish closing, all right?”
Syd starts to get to her feet, and both Marcus and Carmy rush to help, grabbing her arm on either side and practically lifting her off the floor.
“Guys, I’m fine,” she says, even though her head is pounding again with the exertion.
“Here, hold this on your head, okay?” Carmy says, handing her the square of wet paper towel. Syd takes it and presses down, conscious of how close he'd been when he'd been holding it.
It's cool and misty outside, and Richie's car smells like cigarettes and food and old upholstery. When she swings her legs in, Carmy closes the door for her and she rests her forehead against the cold glass, mercifully closing her eyes again.