[h1]RPGC#11 - Heatwave![/h1]

[i]The full list of runner-ups, staff picks, special category winners and honourable mentions can be found [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3829820]here[/url].[/i]

[h2]Winning entry: The Watched Pot, by [@McHaggis][/h2]

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The Watched Pot

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There was no breeze. The sun gave no mercy or quarter to the filthy sidewalks. The asphalt was hot enough to fry an egg, but instead it baked chewing gum into the stone. Stray dogs panted in the shadows between tall buildings, whining for rain that refused to fall. The hottest June on record––slated already to grow warmer and warmer and warmer. The tourists sweltering in their daisy-dukes with aloe vera slathered on their sunburnt backs might not have felt the misery, vacationing in the heat island of the city.

Sacha did. France had escaped the wrath of the record-breaking temperatures. Grapes ripened to perfection back in sunny valleys, a good harvest promising for local vintners, and a fine-dining restaurant with his name on it raked in the green on The French Riviera. New York City stank of fermenting garbage that hadn't been collected in days, of strikes in the garbage disposal industry, of recession. The family bistro that he had left behind near two decades ago struggled, and in its death throes, a call was made.

The prodigal son returned home. At noon, high noon, he made it to the restaurant on the corner. Sunshine illuminated faults and in it, the building was as dilapidated as any other in the neighborhood. It needed darkness to attract customers. The windows were gritty and opaque, algae-green as they had been since he left after culinary school. A fire escape corroded by time creaked and groaned whenever a smoker upstairs stepped out onto it. Red plaque dotted the hinges of the doors like chickenpox scales.

This was the [i]The Bain-Marie[/i], or so the lurid, neon sign said. It was flamingo pink, a shade so bright even Barbie would think twice before wearing it. A French name.

It wasn't proud and it never had been. A mirage stood in front of the door, smoke and mirrors. A younger Sacha stuffed out a cigarette before turning the sign to 'open'. By the time he blinked the sun out of his eyes and made it to the gasp of cold air that leaked through the door, which was ajar, the illusion was gone. The heat of a stainless steel door handle pricked at Sacha's calloused palm as he pushed inside, and the pain was entirely his own.
   
A beat-up AC unit clunked twice above his head and dropped into a noisy buzz, a wasp that had been trapped inside a jar.

"Hey," he said to the hostess working: bottle-blonde, a passable beauty. A nametag that said, 'Gerry,' like the Spice Girl. Gerry's smile was fake, and Sacha felt like he could relate to that if nothing else in New York City. "I don't have a reservation and, uh, I'm not here for the lunch service either, sorry doll. Can I speak to the owner of the place?"

Sacha was not surprised that the girl's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates –– he was overdressed. Lunch was a curious affair at [i]The Bain-Marie[/i] when it came to dress codes in that there were none. It had always been a place for Hawaiian shirts and board shorts, not Parisian fashion, designer sunglasses and tailored suits sans jacket and tie. Considering he looked like he'd just walked out a modern remake of [i]The Godfather[/i], he could either have been some sort of health inspector; a food critic or a debt collector ready to break the fingers clutching cold, hard cash.

[i]Clunk-clunk.[/i]

"He's out back for a smoke break––um, can I take your name?"

"Tell him it's Alexandre so he doesn't do a runner and climb the fence out back." It was made of wire and hard to climb, but Sacha remembered getting a leg up from his brother back in the day when they were on the run from Dad after some shenanigans that summoned his frothing wrath. "I'm sorta his brother."

The hostess's brows furrowed in confusion, but she nodded. Clearly, he had never been mentioned. A quick glance around the part of the room that wasn't hidden away behind the frosted glass of the old smoking section informed him that the yellowing newspapers in their original picture frames were still up on the wall. [i]Restaurant of the Year[/i] under the care of the Moreau brothers––under Head Chef Sacha Moreau.

"[i]Sorta[/i] his brother?"

"Probably," Sacha corrected with a womanizing grin that was surprisingly ineffective. Gerry ran her fingers through frizzy blonde hair twice, then thrice, before looking at the door anxiously. "Oh––oh, shit, I'm sorry. I'll watch the stand if you wanna go grab him. I could have picked a better time than the start of lunch rush."

"Not much of a rush. It's probably nothing anyway, just... the Bossman would lay down the law if I missed a customer. Every single one counts, you know?" He nodded sympathetically. It sounded like his brother, and before it was his brother, it was Dad. Tyranny in the kitchen was a hereditary trait that skipped Sacha as the second son. He reassured her one last time, and with a final glance at the empty street outside, the hostess left –– dashing in her high heels as fast as her pencil skirt would allow her.

Front of house, back of house; he'd worked both. Washing pots as soon as he could stand the boiling water, waiting tables as soon as he could fill one of his dad's old uniforms and cooking as soon as the man's hands began to shake from the liquor. When Sacha tired of watching the city through the windows, his gaze turned to the white linoleum he could scarcely see through the archway in the back. Through it, the porthole, he swore once again that in his mind's eye he could see himself: young, blonde and not graying julienning carrots as prep work.

A familiar voice stole his attention away from it, and all of a sudden, there was no clone in there; only thinly sliced vegetables left on the worktop.

"Here I was hoping it was a customer," drawled Luca Moreau, pushing forward through the small barrier behind the counter and hanging up his pinstriped apron. "But no, it's just 'Alexandre'. I didn't think you'd come. Honest to God, I figured, what with your gig on the continent... I didn't think you would."

Sacha supposed he should be offended by the surprise in his brother's voice, but instead his heart was pricked and prodded with needling guilt. "That restaurant runs itself; it doesn't need me. Besides, it's good practice for the [i]commis[/i]," Sacha explained, the implication being that [i]The Bain-Marie[/i] would never run itself –– it needed coddling, a watchful eye over both the kitchen and the front of house. "But, well, it's nice to see you again."

He pushed up his sunglasses to see his brother without the grim black filter. Luca was olive-skinned, like him, but he had a thin goatee that ill-suited his wide face. Gold decorated his neck above the chest hair that sprung out from the top button half-way down his shirt. Sacha was taller, his hair blonder, his tan darker. He had to stoop into the manly, back-slapping hug.

"You too. It's been a while." To ruin the moment, Luca went to grab at his growing gut playfully. Sacha dodged out of the way. "Getting a bit thick around the edges, bro. And you were always the skinny one! What happened to you?"

"Good food and booze," he said easily as his brother led him by the elbow to one of the various empty tables in the bistro. "[i]You[/i] try going to France and seeing what they eat like over there, or––God forbid––Italy. That's worse, with all the pastas and the pizzas. I guarantee you'd be twice the size by the time you come back." 

Luca's lips tightened slightly, then twisted into an easy smile. "I thought they had smaller portions in Europe?"

"Yeah, but it's so good you ask for seconds. Then a doggy-bag to go home with."

[hr]
Sacha refused the first three offers of a meal that came in quick succession, but the fourth he reluctantly allowed to pass. Luca put through a ticket for onion soup – two plates, presumably so he could eat lunch in his own restaurant for once – and soon the noisy clatter of pots and pans reached the diners' ears. Over the din, they spoke of cooking and old school stories; 'How has everyone been?' and 'How have [i]you[/i] been?'; carefully avoided questions as to the bistro's fate.

Even with the AC on full blast, Sacha found himself pushing back his sweat-slicked hair and unbuttoning the top of his black shirt.

"Poor choice, given the weather," Luca said with a pointed nod.

"I don't suit garish colours, not like you do." Sacha unfolded the napkin his knife and fork came wrapped in and stuffed the corner down his collar.  "Don't have the complexion for it."

"Huh."

The stilted silence that followed was timed only the rhythmic [i]clunk-clunk[/i] of the AC unit.

Their waitress, after a suspiciously short wait, came out with the heavy soup that turned Sacha's insides upside-down just to think about. The food at [i]The Bain-Marie[/i] had never been good at the best of times, and he worried over the quality of chef his brother had hired –– if they could even hold that title to begin with. He put it off, struggling to even think of stomaching the grease of his dad's old signature dish even if it wasn't the man who made it, but eventually it would have been rude not to.

Luca dabbed at his mouth already, black eyes searching Sacha's face for discomfort or distress or disgust. All three, perhaps. "It's decent today. Who would have thought?" he said as his brother took another tentative spoonful after the first. "I usually hesitate to keep the kid on after lunch duties––" A pot clattered in the kitchen, "––but he's learning."

"This is good." It silenced Luca. Sacha's brother seemed to be biting his tongue to stop from saying anything else. "Seriously, man, this is good. Better than it's been in a long time. [i]Way[/i] better than Dad's." [i]And yours, Luca.[/i] He recognised the flavours, similar enough to his own award-winning dish that he was instantly skeptical. "My recipe?"

"Yeah," Luca said, licking dry lips. "Yeah, I gave him your old recipe book when he was younger. You know, the one we tried to write and publish."

Sacha grinned, stirring his spoon in the soup before taking another mouthful. "It would have been better if it hadn't been written in crayon, practically. Remember when we couldn't get the photographs developed?"

"When we were too poor to get them developed, you mean."

"Yeah, that––and we [i]drew[/i] 'em instead. Fuck, that brings it all back. Nostalgia up the wahoo." Sacha opted to ignore the grimace on his brother's face in favor of a sepia-toned memory: two brothers sitting on the hard-wood floors of [i]The Bain-Marie[/i] between services, sketching out plans in their notebook of shared dreams. "Why'd you give it to him, anyway? Not that I'm against passing on the family secrets. They aren't so secret anymore anyway."

There was a pause as Luca wiped his mouth on his napkin, shaking his head fondly. "This," he said, stabbing vaguely in Sacha's direction with his spoon, "is why you should answer people's calls. Maybe if you did, you'd know your own blood." Sacha had five excuses on the tip of his tongue, none of them done well and all of them hasty, but he was interrupted before any of them could be spewed prematurely. "Darius!"

The loud, cranky reply: "What?"

"Get out here! Let me introduce you to your uncle!"

"Wait, what?"

Luca grumbled an insult into his soup, and ten seconds later (with another clang of pots and pans that would upset the customers – if they had any) a ghost appeared at the table. Sacha rubbed at his eyes to ensure it was not just another mirage born out of heat and wishful thinking. 

The chef that his brother called through looked like them: the same wide eyes, thick brow and matching scowl. He had blond hair shaved into a mohawk that was flattened down with sweat; piercings on every inch of skin that could be pinched––eyebrows, nose, lips, ears––and a tattoo of a meaningless rose on his neck. Sacha had one of those too, right on his shoulder during a drunken mistake some nineteen years ago. He could see Luca in him, the Moreau genes strong and proud except when it came to his eyes, which were blue.

Darius had his mother's build, tan skin, and her blue eyes.

"Michelle's kid," Sacha said in wonderment. He stood up to shake his hand – ignoring the kid's limp grip; he'd learn to have a good one in time – and when he slumped back down into his chair he had to wipe his brow. "Last time I saw you, you were just born." At the funeral. Luca didn't know his name before, though he knew of his existence. He thought he might be at college, at culinary school if he was interested in the family business, but instead he found another generation trapped at [i]The Bain-Marie[/i].

Luca introduced him as, "My son, Darius Moreau." Darius glanced at him curiously, presumably discerning the same tension in his father's jaw that his uncle could, but he eventually turned Michelle's gaze on Sacha. "This is–"

"Uncle Sacha," the kid finished for him, "the one with the Michelin star. I get what you mean now."

Sacha grinned –– he couldn't help it. "Glad to hear that your Dad's been saying good things about me," he said, and Darius smiled at his shoes. He waved vaguely at a table beside them. "Bring a seat over, bring one of them over. [i]The Bain-Marie[/i]'s always been a family business, and you're part of that, especially if you're cooking in it. We were never allowed at the adult table back when your grandfather used to run the place – it's only fair to change that now." 

He looked to his Dad for approval, who in turn looked to the swathes of pedestrians who did not spare even a passing glance at the restaurant. "You can go back into the kitchen if a customer shows up," Sacha continued, resulting in a terse nod from his brother. Darius took a seat as ordered and sat back to front on it, folded arms on the stiff wood to keep his head up. Purple bags made his eyes all the more blue. He was a good kid for worrying about his duties like that.

The AC blew stagnant, lukewarm air in Sacha's face. The words had dried out.

"So, is this about the soup? Did I do something wrong?"

"Seasoning on it's almost overdone," he ended up saying almost on instinct, scaling back to something he knew well: criticism. "But I would serve this at my restaurant––I'm only nitpicking."

"Thanks?" Bafflement was etched into every line of the kid's face.

Luca, watching with beady black eyes and finishing off his soup, said, "Try not to steal this one from me too, eh, Sacha?"

His brother ignored him. "So what are you? Head chef, sous-chef?"

"Sous-chef," Darius confirmed. A glance towards his brother confirmed for Sacha that Luca held the mantle of both owner and Head Chef – a not uncommon practice. Their dad had been the same. He nodded sagely. 

Sacha's eyes dropped to the watch on his wrist. Armani. The time was early, and assuming the closing times were the same, and the number of customers remained consistently low, he would have time to check in on the kitchen he was going to resuscitate. "Right, that makes it even more important to keep you in the loop. I'm here to help for the rest of the summer, for free, outta the goodness of my heart. I'm guessing your dad's heading up the kitchen right now?"

Luca scowled. He hid it with his napkin but that didn't disguise the sarcasm. "Yes, he is."

"Well, I'm going to steal that position from you," he said frankly, not even looking at Luca but rather at Michelle's son. "You can concentrate on the books, bringing them up into the black. Darius, show me your station – let's see if it's been cleaned since the eighties."

[hr]
For the first seven days of his stay, Sacha kept his mouth shut. He waited. He watched. He lurked around the grotty kitchen, observing Darius as if to paint an accurate picture of his many culinary talents. He saw the kid slow while doing prep work one evening, a strain injury for the repetition of the smooth knife-work, and he saw Luca nudge––

He saw Luca shove him out of the way, force the knife from his son's hands and finish it off himself, muttering "Useless," under his breath in French. Sacha kept his mouth shut.

It was the tail-end of a quiet Wednesday service when Sacha finally spoke up. He waited for Luca to leave for a 'walk' that would surely end near a liquor store and stopped Darius with a gentle shoulder check just as he was about to turn the lights off. He promised to pass on everything he knew, and this was the first opportunity.

"I noticed something during this shift," Sacha said as he scrubbed his hands over the sink––fingers, wrists, thumbs and all. Darius copied his thoroughness clumsily. It had been two weeks since the first lesson and this was the sixth. It should have been Luca teaching this. His brother should have done it a long time ago. "You overcook your pasta. It's the most popular main dish with the customers but they hate it; they send it back."

"Dad says––"

"I don't care what your Dad says," he interrupted before it could go any further. Darius shut his mouth almost instantly, eyes dropping to the ground, and Sacha wondered whether it was because he had insulted the kid's father––his own brother––or if it was because his voice had leapt up in volume. He breathed out deeply through his nose. "Look, he's not always in the right. He's a good chef, but..."

[i]But what, Sacha?[/i]

Luca had lost his way. He didn't know how cook pasta anymore, and that was telling.

Where Darius remained suspiciously silent and folded up his sleeves so they would stay up at his elbows, Sacha filled the emptiness with the quiet clatter of pans, water hitting metal, and the click of a hob's temperature being turned up as appropriate. "You were right, earlier."

"About what?"

"The pasta. It would have been too soft with Luca's method. It was too soft." He moved spaghetti wrapped in protective paper to the center of the worktop, and beckoned his nephew over. Sacha felt the urge to ruffle the boy's hair––or do anything, really, to wipe away the defeatist expression on his face. "You knew that, and you went along with it anyway."

"I was just doing what I was told," Darius said defensively, fingers clenching around the hem of his jacket. "Dad told me to do it, so I did it. It's not my fault the dish got sent back..." He sucked in his lip, biting into the metal ring with a clink. Without being asked, however, he added the spaghetti into the pot with a shaking arm. "Look, I won't do it again. I know how to cook pasta. We don't need to do this––you can teach me something else."

He glanced at the clock nonetheless. Good boy.

"Humor me." Sacha took a step back and relaxed against the station behind him. "Cook it [i]al dente[/i], remember. Not like your dad wants it––[i]al dente[/i]."

"What does that even mean?" He didn't answer. Darius was a smart kid. He'd figure it out.

Cooking in a kitchen that was empty of waitstaff and trainee chefs and dishwashers and the owner was cold. There was no need for his hands to be constantly in motion, for his eyes to be scanning tickets or his voice hoarse and crackled from barking orders. The AC unit blasted enough of a chill into the room to counter the single active appliance and the steam that rose from the boiling pot––in a proper kitchen during dinner service, it was never enough to stop sweat from trickling down the back of his neck to the base of his spine.

Darius's face was red, his lips trembling with what must be fear and his shoulders brought up as if expecting Sacha to step in at any moment, shove him out the way and take over his station. Used to following his father's orders to a T, Sacha thought, and being punished for it either way. He recognised it, recognised Luca not at the older brother who had taken the worst of the lectures but as a clone of their father with his mother's face.
 
His son looked like Michelle, and acted like her too. Skittish in the kitchen, but with the potential to be brilliant. He remembered her  slaving away at the same dishes and turning for approval––a smile on her face. She wanted it from him, not Luca, because nothing was ever good enough for Luca.
 
The difference became apparent when Darius plated up the pale pasta without sauce or seasoning and presented it to him––but presented was a strong word. His eyes were cast to deep grooves on the floor where dirt and crumbs collected. His hands were folded behind his back, though he rushed to the trays, near tripping over his own two feet, when Sacha jokingly asked where his fork was.
 
The verdict: "Al dente, without knowing what the term means. Perfectly done. At least we know someone in the restaurant has mastered one of the most basic techniques they teach you at culinary school."

Sacha turned before seeing his nephew's blinding smile to set the plate aside and turn off the cooker. A new pan left the racks to join the other one.

"I don't speak French," Darius admitted. "Not proper French." His voice was soft when he was speaking to him, Sacha realised. It didn't have the bite of rebellion or the attitude that attracted negative attention from Luca. He didn't need to fight to have his words be heard. "When I was younger I had a couple of textbooks and, well, I tried it myself because... that's what they use in Paris. But I don't even speak good English, all things considered."
 
"My brother should have taught you that, too," Sacha mused, though more to himself. It rang out sadly amongst the low murmur of the kitchen appliances. "If he had, you'd know that [i]al dente[/i] is Italian, not French."

He couldn't stop the wicked smirk that crossed his face as Darius's thoughts raced to catch up. The kid pointed accusingly at his uncle. "You're fucking with me. Julienne, though. Macédoine. It sounds like those; like French!"
 
"Well, it's not." He nudged him, gesturing to the cookware out. "Do this one yourself––the full dish. I'll help you with the sauce."

And he did.
 
"Pop quiz," Sacha said out-of-the-blue as Darius was preparing. "Where do you think the name 'Moreau' comes from?"

"America?"

Sacha laughed into the white sleeve of his chef's jacket, grasping Darius by the shoulder firmly despite the kid's obvious hesitation. "It's so much more than that," he told him. "We're Americans with a French surname cooking Italian dishes in a restaurant––we're so much more than that."

Confusion furrowed Darius's brow, and his eyes narrowed. They scanned his uncle's face as if trying to discern answers from it. He doesn't understand, Sacha thought as the divide between himself and his nephew widened. His mother had spoken French to him (or rather sang it at him) from the womb right up until the day she died. 

Sacha was willing to bet that Luca hadn't passed it on to his son as she would have wished. He took too much after their father who knew only one language and that was violence. [i]Michelle[/i]––if she'd lived, Darius would have been a much different boy. He wouldn't have had those piercings, the tattoos, the bleached hair. He would have had an arsenal of his mother's beautiful, melodic Italian.

But then again, he wouldn't have made Sacha chortle again with the sincere question he posed next. "More than that... like, New Yorkers?"

His second attempt at the full dish under his uncle's guidance was exquisite.

The next day when he tried it out, Luca hated it.

[hr]

His brother kept his mouth sealed shut, though Sacha could tell he was chomping at the bit to say something – anything – about the temporary apprenticeship Darius found himself with under his uncle. Completed dishes during dinner service were viewed with a sigh as they had Sacha's signature flair instead of Luca's, and by proxy, their father's. There was no traditional passing down of [i]The Bain-Marie[/i]'s trade secrets, something that Sacha could only see as a good thing.

Dad's recipes had dragged his dreams down out of the black and into the red. They didn't need to be inherited.

Luca dragged him aside one night as the diners were winding down and slowly filtering out, one table at a time. He propped open the fire escape with a bucket of greasy water and guided Sacha around it by the crook of his elbow until they were both under the dimming sky of the endless summer days.

They shared a lighter.

"And stop – stop teaching my son this [i]shit[/i]. They might like it in Europe, but here in New York it – it doesn't sit right on the palate. These are regional dishes. National dishes. Whatever, you know what I mean." At Sacha's quirked eyebrow, a gesture that said no, he didn't know what his brother meant at all, Luca elaborated, "Just... let the kid cook what he wants to cook."

"And if he wants to cook like me? Like Michelle?" Sacha challenged. There was nobody on Earth, he was sure, who wanted to cook like Luca Moreau – a culinary school drop-out who couldn't keep his own restaurant afloat.

"He doesn't." Luca's eyes darkened, and he stuffed out the cigarette with undue force against the crumbling brick wall. "Look, if what you're doing is about what happened between us and Michelle, just don't. Stop. Don't bring my kid into this."

"I thought we weren't going to talk about her. You said, at the funeral––"

"You brought her up first, Sacha. Don't turn this on me." 

"I'm just saying! Honestly, the thought never crossed my mind. He's my nephew, he's your son... I'm not shit-stirring here, Luca – I'm not reopening old wounds to douse salt into them. Michelle did love you."

The lie was acrid on Sacha's tongue.

"Yeah. I know that. Remember that I was the one she married – the one she chose to spend the rest of her fucking life with, even if she made one mistake and slept with you." Luca snorted his sceptical laughter, cutting it short. "Remember that when you make the decision on whether or not you're going to ruin Darius's life for something he didn't even do." 

With that, Luca turned on his heel and departed, one last, tired glance at his brother that spoke volumes. [i]Stop[/i]. There was nothing to stop, Sacha told himself. He was doing the kid a favour, giving him a proper role-model – the one that his mother would have wanted for him. He was here to save [i]The Bain-Marie[/i], to pull a miracle out of his ass and bring the restaurant back from the dead.

He laughed off Luca's words, but later on when he couldn't find even an ounce of sleep to steal, he followed a well-worn path from his hotel room down to the nearest bar and took a lesson from his brother's book.

[hr]

Three weeks later, the heatwave assaulting New York City reared its ugly head and bit down. Scorching temperatures during the day held off all but the bravest of tourists, but the nights – more temperate, tolerable in places with air conditioning – brought forth a boom of customers that Sacha had to race to come up with. Dishes weren't returned to the kitchen; diners didn't leave unhappily; and [i]The Bain-Marie[/i] was making a profit, even if they were still in the red and it was only for one night.

At seven o'clock in the evening, the AC unit gave one last [i]clunk[/i] before giving up the ghost.

The kitchen turned into Hell.

Darius melted into a puddle of useless flesh when he was supposed to be cooking Table 12's [i]bœuf bourguignon[/i]. A plate slipped out of a waitress's clammy palm. Sacha's hair flopped in front of his forehead limply, and he was moving on exhaust fumes, the heat having sapped the life from him. One of the younger chefs, the part-timers, fucked up a dish – truly eviscerated it – and Luca's ire was turned on him.

Sacha's brother didn't have an apron on. He was wandering between front and back, pushing his way into stations that were struggling and taking over, leaving cooks as headless chickens in an already hectic kitchen. "This is how you cook chicken, alright?" he heard him say. "This is how you cook a [i]fucking[/i] chicken. Even a twelve year old could do that. I could do that when I was eight, what are you, thick?"

Luca kept going at it and at it until Sacha had to warn, "No backseat cooking!" It produced only angry French mumbling, toothless threats and the complete alienation of his brother.

He turned back to inspecting the meal that Darius just plated off and allowed himself time to pat his nephew on the back. Sacha would have to deal with his brother later. "Good job – better than anything Luca could serve up."

Darius grinned wickedly and wiped at the dripping condensation on his brow, and they almost shared a moment – a moment of father-son understanding – when Luca interrupted, moving into Sacha's space as if he was entitled to it.
 
"Outside, Sacha," Luca said, murder hot on his breath. Deja vu struck Sacha as his brother jabbed at his shoulder with one longer, digging in just enough to cause pain but avoid bruising him like a peach. There was force behind it; deliberate, premeditated force enough to penetrate the stiff, white material of his chef's jacket. "Right [i]fucking[/i] now. We're taking this outside."

Intimidation didn't work twice. Sacha ignored him.

Darius was watching. He was trying not to –– his eyes focused entirely on the rubbery fish that was overcooking before his very eyes –– but Sacha knew. His gaze flickered up to him, relieved that it wasn't him on the receiving end of his father's sharp tongue but instead worried for his uncle's safety. An empathic kid. A good one. Sacha wondered whether the worry would translate into mind-numbing, self-depricating guilt at the end of it all, just as it had for him. He hoped not.

Sweat dripped as if from stalactites on Sacha's hairline. "Luca. [i]Luca[/i]. Shut up, turn around and get cooking, or get the hell out of my kitchen."

A pot boiled over, unwatched. A kettle sang, huffing and puffing out silvery steam to add to the miasma of warmth clouding their heads. There was no air to breath in. Nobody spoke. The diners in the restaurant carried on in their low tones as Luca's mouth twisted grotesquely into a grimace on his cherry-red face.

"Your kitchen? Look at me. [i]Look at me[/i]." Sacha put the final finishing touches on a dish before sending it out, and only then he turned around to face his brother. "[i]Your[/i] kitchen, did you say?"

"Yes, my kitchen. For as long as I'm here it's my kitchen, unless you want [i]The Bain-Marie[/i] to be some grimy shit-hole forever."

Thirty seconds later, Sacha thought he was good – that Luca had put his anger management to good use and counted down from ten, from a hundred. Forty seconds later, two large hands grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and slammed him into the side of the nearest workstation. The pans overhead rattled like bone-charms. Behind Luca, everyone had stopped: the cooks, the waitress who came in at the wrong time, the sous-chef. Sacha barked orders at them all to, "Keep working!" and, "Let me handle this one!"

Fuel to the fire. Sacha stared Luca down, hands on his hands that were dangerously near his neck. "We gonna do this brother? We gonna throw down?"

"I'm not gonna throw down," Luca said, but Sacha didn't believe him. His voice was defensive –– defensive about [i]being[/i] defensive. "I'm not gonna throw down, unless you're gonna repeat what you just said." His brother's grip loosened slightly, expecting submission as was tradition.

Sacha's lips pressed into a firm line. "Luca, you heard me the first time. It doesn't need repeating." But he did anyway. Brown eyes met brown, both sets aflame. "Calm down, or get the hell out of my kitchen. Cool your head."

[i]Don't be like dad.[/i]

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm cool," Luca said. He held his hands up in the air, empty, and released Sacha from his grasp. "I'm cool." They were baked slowly in the kitchens of [i]The Bain-Marie[/i]. Sacha himself was tempted  by a smoke break and threw a hand-towel over his shoulder on his way towards the back door. That was when when his brother attacked with a cast-iron skillet, hot, straight off the ring.

His flesh sizzled; the other white meat. The skillet roasted every inch of forearm it touched, from half-way to his elbow to the fingers of his dominant hand. Luca held it, deliberately and in full knowledge of his actions, and it wasn't until Sacha struggled and kicked that he managed to push him back. Pots and pans fell from their racks as Luca staggered against it, but the sound of it all was muffled to Sasha by his own wordless yell of horror –– the shock that hit before the agony.

And the sick tune of stuck skin separating from the skillet was all that Sacha knew.

Luca fled out the fire escape.

Darius was at Sacha's side, prayers like, "Oh my God," and "Holy fuck," on his lips. Sacha's head lolled towards him –– he was suddenly light-headed, high on adrenaline and the white-hot lances dancing up his arm a like lover's fingers –– and he was suddenly hefted up by his much taller nephew, dragged towards the sink. One of their waitresses brought him an ice-pack but instead he thrust his own arm under the freezing tap.

"I didn't think he'd do that –– Uncle Sacha, he's never done that before, why –– why did he do that?"

Sacha could think of plenty of reasons but they all filtered down into one: Luca wasn't being watched. He'd spent all his attention on Darius, on the restaurant's ledgers and little black books, and Luca's frothing rage had boiled over like scum in a pot. Through ground teeth he tried to explain this to his nephew, and he almost managed it. 

"He's a mean fucker," Sacha said, punctuated with a groan. "He always has been."

"Do you need anything? I – I can call 911. Gerry, can you –– can you get all the patrons out, say there's been an accident––"

But Sacha grabbed Darius's wrist with his good hand, squeezing. "Keep going. Keep cooking." His arm was turning shades under the icy water – red, the colour of a burn before it blistered. It matched his sweating face. "When my dad was having a heart-attack, we kept serving customers in this very restaurant until the ambulance arrived. I. Kept. Cooking."

"R-right, okay."

Sacha's nails dug half-crescents into his own shoulder after he released his nephew's hand. "Let me handle this." His voice wavered with uncertainty, but he knew one thing: he wasn't going to let them close early on the restaurant's last night on Earth. "If this is the end of [i]The Bain-Marie[/i], she's going down in a blaze of glory, I'll tell you that much." 

The ambulance came at nine o'clock at night, and it parked around the back of the building for Sacha to leave that way rather than disturb his nephew's moment of glory.
 
[hr]
It finally rained. The wind caught in Sacha's curls as he pressed his side against the bus stop for shelter, a cigarette between the fingers of his good hand. The other was wrapped up in gauze and bandages, and no matter how many times he reassured the kid that it wasn't his fault, he kept noticing Darius's eyes flickering down to the oozing pus of the healing burn.

"Kid," he warned when it happened again. The wounded puppy look worked on Sacha – it always had tugged on his heart-strings and made him to stupid shit like antagonise Luca. "Stop staring at it or it won't heal. You know what they say about watched pots? Same damn idea."

"Sorry," Darius said for the umpteenth time. He looked up again, head held stiffly facing drenched asphalt. Thunder rumbled timidly overhead, not quite a growl. Sacha put out his cigarette and let his hand fall onto his nephew's shoulder, a comforting pat that had the kid's fingers turning white-hot with guilt around the handle of his suitcase.

The bus hadn't come yet, but they had already ran out of things to say. Instead they watched the dull pink glow of [i]The Bain-Marie[/i]'s neon lights from the other side of the road. The doors were boarded up. The tables and chairs from outside stored inside with the rest of the now-useless furniture.

"You going back to France?"

Sacha smiled. "Not for another couple of months. This was meant to be a vacation for me!"

"You know what I mean, though."

[i]Can you still cook?[/i] The answer was, 'Eventually,' Sacha was certain of it. The toughened, cracked and flaking skin of his right hand prevented him from holding a knife, but only in the short-term. "Yeah. I do. Don't worry about it, Darius," he said. "I'm looking at real estate in the city right now. I could set up a nice New York City restaurant, you know."

"Going to buy [i]The Bain-Marie[/i]?" Sacha didn't even curse the boy for sounding so hopeful. An old part of him long since buried, the corpse of it set on fire for good measure, cried out that this wasn't the end, that family had to stick together so they could all pull through.

"Fuck no. The place is haunted and it's [i]been[/i] haunted since before Luca took it over. It was my dad's." He needed another cigarette. A passing car splashed filthy rainwater his jeans. "He never the left the place. Look at it."

Sacha could still see him, the grandfather that Darius had never met, standing outside the door to the restaurant, flipping the bird at passing cars. He could still see Luca beside him, the celebrated chef that never was and never would be, spirited away as if he'd never existed in the first place with all the money he could stuff in his pockets. The cops wouldn't catch him, but Sacha didn't need reparations – from either of them.

He snapped out of it as the bus rolled up to their stop.

"Thanks for the letter of recommendation, Uncle Sasha," Darius said quietly, tugging at his earring. A blast of warm, stagnant air hit them as the doors to the bus opened.

"It's nothing. You deserve it, more than anyone else." Twin smiled spread across their faces and Sacha pulled Darius in for a one-armed hug before he stepped up on his way out of the city and its ghosts. "Call me if you need anything, okay?" He stretched out his thumb and little finger for good measure and put it up to his ear.

"You don't answer!"

"I will this time," Sacha said. "I swear. We're family."

[hr][hr]

[hider=Author's Note]
Word Count: way, way too long at 6,697 words.
Rushed, my apologies - but it's done! There would be more French lines if I could actually speak it beyond [i]Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?[/i] so don't hold that against me! :)
[/hider]