made in america

carmela does not flinch when the watch cracks against the refrigerator and rains down in pieces on the kitchen floor. it's nothing for tony to shout, to throw things, she'd long ago become accustomed to the sound of broken things -- plates, promises. whatever he felt like destroying in any given moment. she does take a step backward this time, though, removes herself from his reach without thinking. "yes, it is a fucking problem." she glances down, eyeing the bits of metal and glass, gearwork scattered on the tile between them, an inhale sticking uncomfortably in her chest when she draws it in sharply, and then looks back to him.

"i don't want your gifts. i don't want you here. i don't want you waltzing in whenever you feel like -- eating whatever you feel like, doing whatever you feel like." she badly wants to reach for the high ground, to claim some position above him, to keep her voice even and her face clean of emotion or reproach, but it doesn't work. it never has. her voice climbs slightly in pitch, sounding stretched with the effort of keeping herself from yelling outright.

he baulks at the term, like she's said something in a tongue not known to any man. in all actuality, tony doesn't know what to say. he's seeing fucking red. and he hates that he knows it's because of how hurt he is. melfi had said it - carmela would leave him, but he'd never leave her. he's cheated, he's lied, he's hurt her again and again - and yet, a life without carmela in it seems incredulous.

confronting why he does the self-sabotaging shit he does would entail some self-work he doesn't think he's ready for. it'd require thinking about the guilt-induced panic attacks, the fact that the gaggle of girls he's taken in bed have been part of a self-induced perdition caused by the lifestyle he'd been born into. it's in the blood.

too much. melfi doesn't even get half of that, for fuck's sake.

he exhales through flared nostrils, knuckles gripping the edge of the counter so hard they're white. he avoids the urge to storm out of the house, to give carmela exactly what she wants. he cannot take another person leaving him. not carmela.

"i know you're livid with me, carmela," he says, finally, voice restrained. have they had a calm discussion about this shit? nothing in him wants to, but he feels desperation bubbling up within him. the vulnerability puts a rotten taste in his mouth, as if a decayed tooth had been drilled into. "but we've got a goddamn family. we've been together for twenty-five years. you really wanna throw that all away? i've been out of the house for seven fuckin' months - i -."

the sound of his full name tenses his jaw, nose furling - as if he hadn't been asking for it, with his own brashness. she says his name the same way she says their son's when she's correcting him.

melfi's always told him anger is a secondary emotional response, that there's always something beneath it, and yeah, maybe he's self-aware enough to know that seeing carmela in this house and that he's not living with her in it cuts him deep. what makes it worse is that she hates him. all the people in his life that who have fucked him over - his mother, pussy, and now christopher - he's sure he's ruined it all with carmela, has pushed enough that he's broken the band of her tolerance of him.

"i'm not the one with a puss on," tony says to that same effect, seating himself on one of the kitchen stools. "you've had that look on your face since i walked in the door. i know you better than anyone, carm."

"oh, do i have a look on my face?" she can never allow the distance to last for long, too accustomed after years of needling one another back and forth to miss the chance to press a finger to the bruises that bloom between them, on the off chance that she might see him wince. ( is it too much to want him to be affected, to see some sort of evidence that he might care? ) the watch - a gift of course, from him, is tossed without ceremony on the counter as she paces back toward him. it's as much a part of her tirade as anything else that he's done to her, no doubt bought as payment for kneeling between legs that he shouldn't have -- she'll never know.

tony's smiling, yeah, but his eyes aren't in it. it's all for show - he has to have the upper hand here, because he can't lose. neither of them come away a winner or a loser when they get into it like this, but she's already seen him vulnerable enough as it is. it's not like he's about to lie down belly up. fuck that.

he takes another bite of the apple, comically large. it gives his hands something to do, his mouth too.

"i've only been married to you for twenty years, carm," it's intentionally present-tense. he sets the apple down, standing up to take the watch in hand. it's worthless to him, but it's always been an effective olive branch between them. not anymore.

what is he without the shit he can provide?

the words make his own mouth twist. in turn, he throws the rolex against the fridge hard. pieces of it land loud on the floor, chunky metal hitting the tiled floor of the kitchen. pointedly, he refuses to answer her question.

"now, i can't buy something nice for my wife? and i can't sit in my own fuckin' house?"

i miss you. those words are too hard for tony to mutter. poison's easier.

the statement stings in the weirdest way. he, of all people in the world, understands complacency. he lives in it - fuck, he marinates in it. years of therapy have given him a semblance of self-awareness to understand that about himself, but he feels stagnant, like his arc has been a straight line. nothing.

the cigar hanging out of his mouth is supposed to be honey-flavored. it tasted like shit before, and somehow, tastes even worse now. he finds himself glancing at yesenia for a beat too long, brow furrowed. long enough that ash spills on his favorite jacket, and he coughs out a puff of smoke, as away from yesenia's face as he can muster in his effort to breathe.

"goddamnit," tony mutters softly, dusting ash off himself.

he holds the cigar between his fingers now, glancing at the oil spill down by their feet and back at yesenia once again.

unfortunately, having been exposed to the same flavor of bullshit since she was roughly fifteen, yesenia does not question it. instead she nods, thoughtful, as she smokes her much less glamorous camel light.

“is that why you looked so uncomfortable back there?” she jerks her thumb over her shoulder, toward the entrance of the club. his posse is still partying it up. next time she sees the girls in the locker room, they'll be complaining about how rowdy the men were. about how the manager didn’t do shit to discourage their grabby hands, because they’re mobbed up, you know, and anyway, jim owes the big man a favor. where the fuck were you, nia? they’ll accuse, and she’ll remind them to mind their own fucking business.

yesenia seems different than the other girls. or maybe it's because he's not drunk yet, or because he hasn't snorted a line or two of coke in the back office. he's pointedly sober.

he shoots her a look, cigar between his fingers on the side away from her. a smile forms at the corner of his mouth.

" - fat old pricks like me must be a dime a dozen in this place," tony says, not confirming or denying the observation. "you see a lot, though. shit, maybe i'm the pot calling the kettle black, or whatever. sometimes it's better not to fight. life's a maze," a very, very paraphrased ism from melfi, but maybe it's insightful to her ears.

because tony soprano would never be caught dead looking like this during business hours, but it'd been what the club had on hand that was his size: a white t-shirt with the club's logo, untucked in pressed slacks. the italian leather shoes he'd worn had been covered in too much blood to justify keeping regardless of their price tag, so they'd been discarded at a landfill a few miles down. it leaves him in sock-clad feet. so, it's good thing it isn't business hours, or it shouldn't be, so what the fuck.

well. he's never not been adaptable. and there's no way he'd be able to sneak his way out of here around her to his car ---- all 350 lbs and six feet and four inches of him. if anything, it'd make him look worse. besides, the boos doesn't run, or sneak around anywhere.

he's a safe distance away when he says quietly, hands raised.

"hey. hey."

the weight of the murder weapon is suddenly heavy in the pocket of the slacks that carmela had pressed for him just this morning. her face is familiar too ---- one of the dancers. she'd have to recognize him, even with his black eyes and split lip and cut up face.

None of her working outfits are hand-me-downs or gifts, but her lash glue is from one of the girls, and she's pretty sure these heels were donated when another one retired. Luckily, she is more put-together and competent than these facts might indicate. She's walking to her car with confidence, with acute awareness of her surroundings.

Or so she thinks.

Hey. Hey.

Maryanne does what any woman do, right? She flinches; you can't resent her for being startled. And then she grips her keys like a weapon, faces the man indignant. Is she being followed by a rowdy regular, a creep who'd been watching her all night from the back?

Oh.

It's just the fucking boss (he's impossible to mistake for anyone else) in — ill-fitting merchandise. Covered in blood, looking like he just lost a boxing match. She's too stunned — and a little too uncomfortable this close up during in his state of what can only be considered vulnerability — to form a good response.

stupid fucking bum knee ---- he can't hide the way he ambles toward her either, slow steps. easy now. he feels like he's ready to topple over any minute, like a house with a rotted out foundation.

"easy, hun. i got a favor to ask you, alright?"

he stops, form outlined by the headlights of his car. he holds the gun in hand, wrapped in the rags he'd managed to salvage from the club and undecipherable from a bunch of rags. a stupid goddamn mistake on his part, but he can't be seen with the murder weapon of a missing made guy. inside the bundle is the four carat ruby thumb ring of said made guy, too; a convenient little payment.

he calls out to her, sets the package down by his feet, "i know what this looks like. i've seen you around the club - i'm tony. don't think i've introduced myself, and don't think i've got your name. listen - you do this, and i'll owe you. and when i owe a favor, i pay 'em back in kind. you must know that."