Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“She’s fucking home!” Powder hollered, charging down the steps, Vander yelling after her to be careful on the stairs. More footsteps from all over the house accompanied her fast, surprisingly heavy footfalls.

Vi laughed as she shut the front door behind her, hanging her knife bag on its dedicated hook by the door and turning around just in time to catch her baby sister in a hug. 

Powder squeezed her neck with skinny arms, and Vi kissed the side of her blue-haired head when she wiggled to the ground a second later, screeching as she shoved papers into Vi’s face. 

“Hey, watch it!” Vi protested, trying to grab the little stack before she got a papercut on her fucking eyeball.

She finally managed to grab the papers, which were all crinkled from the way Powder had been waving them around, and Vi raised an eyebrow at Vander and her brothers, who were now also all standing around the entryway at fuck o’clock in the morning. 

They must have waited up, Vi thought. 

Or got woken up by Powder.  

Her whole family was standing around and staring at her, her baby sister excitedly clapping her hands together and leaning up and closer on her toes. 

Powder wasn’t so great with the concept of personal space.

“Well, this is fucking weird,” Vi muttered to herself before finally actually looking at the papers in her hand, which turned out to be a couple different - very wrinkled - sheets of paper and an envelope that looked like a fucking raptor had had a field day with it. 

Vi frowned, putting it together. “Hang on, did you open my mai–” 

“Yes I fucking did, and you’re gonna be on Hex Chef!” Powder yelled, excitement winning out as she finally couldn’t take the suspense anymore. 

Vi’s eyes widened, her hands starting to shake as she forced her tired eyes to focus on the writing on the pages. 

An incredulous laugh bubbled out of her as she actually took in the words that confirmed what Powder had almost busted out her fucking eardrums to tell her. 

Goddamn. 

“Congratulations, kid,” Vander rumbled. 

Vi bit her lip as her brothers echoed the sentiment and Powder sang and whirled in the living room. 

The words on the paper went blurry as her eyes welled. 

I’ve finally got a shot.  

She was going to be on one of the biggest cooking competition shows…ever. 

She was going to get to cook for some of the most famous chefs in the whole fucking world. 

And she had a chance to win three hundred grand. 

She - they - could do a lot with three hundred grand. 

Vi swallowed hard, letting go of the papers with one hand to wrap an arm around Powder’s skinny shoulders as her sister spun back into the entryway and lurched forward for another excited hug. 

Suddenly, something she’d wanted since she’d first started helping Vander in the kitchen, standing on an upturned milk crate so she could reach the counter, wasn’t so far out of reach. 

My own restaurant. 

Holy shit.

______

Six months earlier…

______

Vi sighed tiredly as she sank onto the couch, resting her elbow on the armrest and propping her head on her fist. 

“Long night?” Clagg asked from the worn recliner. 

Vi rolled her head to look at him, not moving her head off her fist, and raised her eyebrows. 

Clagg laughed. “Right, yeah.” 

Vi grinned, shrugging and shutting her eyes, moving around a little to get comfortable. 

She fucking loved her job, but every night was a long night when you worked in a kitchen. As far as things went, tonight hadn’t been too bad. No fires, no injuries, no big spills, and only two tables with a laundry list of dish changes. 

Vi didn’t really give a shit if people wanted to change the dishes - she’d spent a lot of time working on the menu with Jericho, but she cared a hell of a lot more that everybody who came to the restaurant got to eat, and eat well. 

She did give a shit about having to deal with full utensil and pan changes - full, intensive station scrub downs - when somebody with an allergy came in in the middle of the dinner rush. 

But, that was par for the course when you worked in a restaurant, and Vi always made sure she was available to help with the more complicated tables. All of the waitstaff knew to come get her if there was trouble, whether that was a rowdy drunk or someone just needing extra reassurance that they’d take a dietary concern seriously. 

“You gonna crash, or you wanna stay up? We recorded the new episode of Hex Chef so we can all watch it together.” 

“Seriously?” Vi asked, lifting her head up in surprise. 

He shrugged. “Yeah, didn’t feel right watching without you.” 

“You big softie,” Vi teased.

Claggor was saved from having to deny something that was absolutely true by Vander walking into the living room with a plate and her big ass, dented gym water bottle. “Here you go, sweetheart.”

Vi frowned at him. “You didn’t have to make me dinner. It’s late.” 

He frowned right back at her and held out the plate and the water bottle. 

With a sigh, Vi took both. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome. Besides, even if I wanted to go to bed, I don’t know that I could sleep through Powder screaming at the TV. We might as well all watch the new episode together.” 

Laughing, Vi dug into the heaping plate and took a bite. 

It was fucking delicious, because everything her dad made was fucking delicious, and it was a relief not to have to figure out what she wanted after a long day. Vi loved to cook, yeah, but she always appreciated it when somebody else - well, somebody else who could cook - made food for her. 

“Alright!” Powder yelled, slamming her way through the front door and kicking off her shoes so they clattered off the wall. “Who’s ready to watch some kitchen fuckery!?” 

_______

Vi watched one of the chefs run through the kitchen, headed toward the ice cream maker. 

Everyone in the living room was shouting at the TV as the chef started to pour too-hot, lumpy custard into the machine. 

Vi shook her head. “I don’t know why everybody always uses the fucking ice cream maker. Just do a baked or chilled custard dessert. That mess is gonna be sweet scrambled eggs - and that’s if they can get it set and on the plate in time.” 

Powder twisted to look up at her from her spot on the floor. “You know, you should apply.” 

Vi chuckled, eyes still on the TV. “Yeah, right.” 

“I’m serious. You’ve got all the skills these assholes do, and you always have opinions on what you’d do for these challenges.” 

On the TV, the camera was zooming in on the ice cream machine while foreboding music played. 

Vi rolled her eyes. “All the people who go on this show train at the best cooking schools in the world. Even if I could get past the audition stage, I’d just get laughed off the show. I’m good working at Jericho’s, Pow. I’ll get to where I want to go eventually.” 

Where Vi wanted to go - where her whole family knew she wanted to go - was to have her own restaurant. 

Pow opened her mouth to argue again, and Vi nudged her sister’s bony shoulder with her socked foot. “Just watch the show, Pow. You love ice cream drama.” 

Grumbling, Pow sat facing forward again, and Vi thought about what being on the show would be like - eight weeks of flying around the world to all the major food cities and cooking in different kitchens, having her skills tested and getting to cook for some of the top chefs, food critics, and restauranteurs in the world. 

The amount for the prize money had more zeroes than Vi’d ever seen in her life, but even the chefs that didn’t win often got restaurant or show deals. 

Her family groaned as another one of the chefs dropped her tray of scones, and the camera switched between the clock, counting down the minutes, and the sad, squished pastries on the floor. 

For a minute, Vi could see herself there, maneuvering around an unfamiliar kitchen, keeping an eye on the clock while she finished making her dessert. This challenge had required custard to be a main ingredient, and what Vi would have made was croissants with a pistachio-chocolate-rum filling. 

She didn’t have anything on Powder, but she wasn’t too bad a baker, and laminated pastry was always a hit with the judges, if you could pull it off. Plus, Vi *was* a fucking good barista, and espresso would go great as a balancing component. 

Vi shook off the vision of her in that kitchen, and tuned back into the show, where the chef who’d tried to make ice cream was discovering that that had been a fucking stupid decision. 

______

“We think it would be a great move for your career. Your New York restaurant is up and running, the cookbook you released last year was a hit, and the episodes of the show where you’re a guest judge always rate really well. You’re a social media sensation!”

Caitlyn looked across the table at her perky PR manager and tried not to be irritated. 

She had hired her for a reason, and her advice was good. 

“You don’t want to have your own show, which I won’t argue with you about, even though I want to. So, getting screen time being one of the main judges on this show could really round out your career, as it stands.” 

Caitlyn raised an eyebrow. “Do I need a more rounded career?” 

Her PR manager rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me grief about this. You know as well as I do that it’s important to stay relevant.”

Caitlyn couldn’t argue with that. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. 

“Look, it’ll help promote your restaurants by the simple fact that being on the show every week will remind people that you know what you’re doing and they should go, it should boost cookbook sales, it will get the network off of both our backs about wanting you to have your own show, and…” Her manager paused for dramatic effect, and Caitlyn waited for whatever the woman across from her considered to be the pièce de résistance. “The show goes all around the world, and most of the challenges on the show are set with innovation in mind. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to get inspired.” 

Frowning, Caitlyn slowly unfolded one of her arms and held out a hand. Her PR manager grinned triumphantly and slapped a stack of papers into her hand - her contract to be one of the permanent judges on the next season of Hex Chef, for review. 

As Caitlyn flipped open the folder, starting to skim the first page, her PR manager started talking - again - about the apparently desperate need for her to have a blog. 

“I am not going to be a food blogger.”

Caitlyn wasn’t looking directly at her, but, even in her periphery, her PR manager looked offended. “And why not?” 

Caitlyn turned to the next page in the contract. This discussion was a recurrent one, and she found the contract more interesting at the moment…which was saying something, because Caitlyn hated reviewing paperwork. 

“Because I am neither an aspiring food critic nor a woman looking for a hobby to distract herself from her unfulfilling life.” 

Her PR manager sighed. “I’d ask you not to be such a bitch if it weren’t for the fact that your bad attitude is the reason why I have a beach house.” 

Caitlyn looked up at her, and they shared a wry smile. 

“Alright - consider the blog dropped for now.” She made a few notes, and then tapped the nib of her pen down agenda items Caitlyn couldn’t read. “Let’s see here…sponsorship! You’ve gotten a few offers lately, and I think it would be a great move for you to be the face of something other than your own company—“ 

Caitlyn half-listened as her PR manager went through the list of cooking wares and frozen foods that apparently needed a celebrity chef to back them as she started thinking about street food and wineries and little-known sushi restaurants. 

Maybe it would be a good idea to take advantage of the show’s schedule to find some inspiration. 

———

“So, don’t be mad.” 

Vi paused, her bite of cereal halfway between the bowl and her mouth, milk dripping onto the table.

Usually, she would have asked what Powder was talking about, but she’d been at the restaurant until four o’clock in the morning, and so she just slowly resumed eating her cereal as she looked at her sister expectantly. 

Powder was bouncing up and down on her toes and grinning like a fiend - she didn’t so much look nervous as she did manic, so Vi figured her sister hadn’t actually done anything she’d be mad about. 

Vi crunched on her cereal and dipped her spoon back in the bowl to pick up another bite. 

“Okay, fine, I’ll tell you!” Powder shouted, and Vi winced. 

“Can you either tone it down or get out of the kitchen?” The words were a little garbled since she was talking with her mouth full - sue her, she’d never had any etiquette lessons - and Powder didn’t even frown at her, which was suspicious. 

It was suspicious enough, actually, that Vi set her spoon in her bowl with a clatter and leaned back in her chair, waiting for Powder to ‘fess up. 

Powder waited another few, tense moments before she squealed and abruptly flung her arms up toward the ceiling like she was celebrating something. “I applied to Hex Chef for you and you got an audition!” she hollered, and Vi winced at the volume, sticking her finger up against her ear and wiggling it a few times to clear the ringing. 

Somewhere in the process of trying to recover from the screaming, Vi finally realized what her sister had screamed at her - and what it meant. “Wait, you what?” 

Powder bounced to the chair across from her and yanked it away from the table with a screech of chair legs on the floor. She threw herself into it and planted her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, maniacal grin still in place. “I applied to Hex Chef for you, and you got an audition.”  

Vi shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t…” Something occurred to her all of a sudden. “Wait, what do you even mean?” 

Powder rolled her eyes like she was impatient - like Vi was being too slow catching up to information she’d gotten less than two minutes ago. “You were never gonna fuckin’ do it, so I sent in an application and the video and everything to Hex Chef, and you got a callback for an audition! Apparently, they wanna know if you can make something edible with a camera in your face. It’s next Thursday at seven thirty five downtown. I already called Jericho and got you covered for the night before so you don’t turn up looking…” Powder looked her up and down and wrinkled her nose. 

It was fair enough - Vi knew she looked like hell. But it didn’t mean she wanted anybody pointing it out. 

Sighing, Vi dug back into her bowl of cereal. This was too much information to process on too-little sleep and too-little food. 

Powder was still staring at her. 

“What?” Vi demanded, chewing with her mouth open. 

“I just thought you’d be more excited!” Powder exclaimed, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms to pout. 

“You can’t give me a minute?” Vi groaned. “It’s so goddamn early.” 

Powder leaned forward and slid her bowl of cereal away from her too fast for Vi to grab it. 

“Hey!” 

“You - as in, you, Violet Vanderson - have an audition for one of the biggest cooking competition shows in the world because they liked your application and you want to eat cereal!?” Powder hadn’t exactly been talking quietly when she’d started, but she was definitely full-on shouting by the end. 

“You didn’t have to take my cereal,” Vi muttered. 

“Stop talking about your fucking cereal!” 

“Fine, fine,” Vi said, giving in. She looked at her sister - really made the effort to look - and noticed that Powder was genuinely aggravated, looking at her with big, expectant eyes. “You…” Vi swallowed reflexively. “You’re serious?” 

Powder rolled her eyes again, still apparently annoyed that Vi hadn’t caught up yet, but she nodded, and then picked up Vi’s spoon and started eating what was left in the bowl. 

Vi would have protested her baby sister’s theft of her breakfast, but…the words sunk in, finally. Powder had…she’d applied to Hex Chef…and Vi had…they wanted her to…

She had an audition for one of the biggest cooking shows ever. 

Holy.

Shit.  

“Oh my God.” 

“I know.” 

“Oh…my God.” 

“I know.” 

“Oh m–” 

“--I fuckin’ know, Vi!” 

“Alright, damn,” Vi muttered. ‘Oh my god’ was still running on repeat in her head, but she didn’t keep saying it out loud. 

As Powder polished off the cereal and threw the spoon on the table so she could drink the sugary milk, something else sank in: 

“Wait, I’ve never filmed myself cooking. What video did you send in?” 

Powder froze…and then very slowly lowered the bowl back to the table, a sheepish smile on her face. 

Oh no.  

______

“You did not send this in!” Vi looked at her sister with wide, horrified eyes. 

Powder looked at her like she was crazy. “Of course I did!” 

“Pow…” Vi groaned, curling forward and resting her forehead on the dining room table. 

It was still too early, and, now, she’d seen what her sister thought was acceptable for a video that went with an application to a professional cooking competition. 

Pow sniffed. “I don’t see what the big deal is. You got an audition!” 

Vi jerked her head up and stared at her sister. “You don’t see wh– …Pow, this is a professional competition!” 

“And?” 

Vi gestured emphatically at the laptop screen. “You sent in a video that has footage of me in a sports bra!” 

“What? You wear those all the time.” 

“Yeah, at the gym.”  

“That’s still in public.” 

As she watched the video unfold, Vi figured out very quickly that Powder had decided that the judges needed “the full picture” of who she was. Vi also realized that she should pay more attention to her baby sister, because Powder had been following her around and filming her at the gym, and at work, and at the farmer’s market, and at home to compile clips for this fucking audition video. 

“Pow…if I somehow manage to get on this show, you know that they show clips from the audition videos when they tell the contestants’ backstories!” 

“...and? Why the hell do you spend all that time in the gym if you’re not planning on using all those big, stupid muscles to further your career?” 

Groaning, Vi leaned forward and rested her head on the table. After a few minutes, she could smell nail polish, and hear Pow humming. Vi didn’t bother picking up her head as she asked the table, “...so next Thursday at seven thirty five?” 

“Yep. I’ll text you the address.” 

“....great.” 

______

“Are you going to make me beg?” Caitlyn asked, feeling the corners of her lips twitch and quashing the smile. 

Mel regarded her regally, somehow making the act of drinking a cup of coffee look like something that would be impossible for the layperson to do. She set down her cup and saucer and mock-seriously tapped her fingertips against her lower lip. “I’m considering it.” 

Caitlyn’s reply was immediate. “I’ll do it.”

Mel’s laughter loosened some of the knot in Caitlyn’s chest - she knew her friend was in. 

“Goodness, you must be desperate,” Mel chuckled. “My assistant may well murder me, but I’ll do the show. Hand me the contract you’ve concealed in your bag.” 

A bit chagrined at how obvious she’d apparently been, Caitlyn dug around in her bag, which was sitting on the chair next to her, and fished out the neatly bound contract. 

“I owe you my life,” Caitlyn said as the papers changed hands. 

Mel shot her an unimpressed look. “You most certainly do not.”  

“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Caitlyn responded, taking a sip of her own coffee. 

Sighing, Mel flipped open the contract to skim the document. “You do realize that you haven’t even really asked me for a favor.”  

“I definitely did,” Caitlyn protested. 

Mel didn’t even bother looking up at her as she made her rebuttal. “No, a favor is something you ask of someone that provides no benefit to them. You have simply requested that I join you as a judge on this cooking competition program, for which I will be handsomely compensated, and during which I will have an all-expenses-paid trip around the world with one of my dearest friends.”

Caitlyn blinked at her. “Well, still.” 

“Not ‘still,’ darling. We need to work on your definitions of ‘putting someone out’ and ‘favor’ and several other terms you used incorrectly.” 

Sensing that her friend was unlikely to budge, Caitlyn sat silently and drank her coffee. 

Mel didn’t comment further, and Caitlyn used the time her friend was reviewing the contract to look around the little coffee shop. It was a favorite pastime of hers to go to different local coffee shops and try to discover the hidden gems. Caitlyn had been a coffee addict since her teen years, and her career as a chef hadn’t done anything but make her even more appreciative of good coffee. 

She’d flown to London to beg Mel to join her on the show as one of the permanent judges - each week there was a guest judge, and she had a few more stops on her groveling tour so that she could guarantee herself a few weeks with guest judges she didn’t want to bludgeon with a rolling pin. She’d agreed to the show, which did not mean that she’d agree to be subject to the whims of the producers. 

But, her flight to pay Jayce a visit wasn’t for a few more days, and she was enjoying getting to explore the city where she’d grown up. She’d been very sheltered, which had made city life a shock when she’d finally struck out on her own, and continued to be a source of excitement, though Caitlyn had, admittedly, become a little jaded. 

Caitlyn admired people who managed to retain any kind of childlike innocence into adulthood…provided she didn’t find their behavior tedious. 

About the only thing that still brought Caitlyn that level of joyful amazement was food, and, of late, even that was diminished. 

The desire to reconnect with her love of food was honestly the main reason she’d agreed to be on the show. Caitlyn had no particular love of the spotlight, though her career might indicate otherwise, and she really did not enjoy being on television, but it did afford a prolonged opportunity to travel to the major cultural epicenters of food culture, and Caitlyn wasn’t one to let an opportunity go to waste. 

There was also the question of the contestants, some of whom might make suitable chefs or contacts at her restaurants. Having been a guest judge on the show before, Caitlyn seriously doubted that she’d actually want to work with any of the contestants, but stranger things had happened, she supposed. 

If she gained nothing else from the trip, Caitlyn was hopeful about rekindling some of the inspiration she’d lost over years of focusing on business, rather than cooking. It had been necessary, but it had sapped her creative energy and made her significantly more apathetic toward food than she wanted to be. She’d started to feel like she’d seen and tasted everything, and, as that was completely impossible, Caitlyn wanted to have the world prove it to her. 

“Do we have any discretion in terms of the challenges or the contestants?” Mel asked, her eyes still focused on the pages in front of her. 

Caitlyn shrugged. “Not much. All the contestants will be selected according to their formula, and then we’ll be sent their application materials so that we can get to know them beforehand. Avoid any embarrassing slip-ups with names, et cetera.” Mel hummed as Caitlyn continued, “As for the challenges, I wasn’t asked for my input there, either. I’m under the impression that the challenges will be as much a surprise to us as they are the contestants. If there’s anything you absolutely will not eat under any circumstances, I’d suggest that you have your people speak with them about it.” 

Mel leaned over to pull a pen and notebook out of the bag that was set next to Caitlyn’s own, and then began making notes without preamble. 

Caitlyn chuckled into her nearly empty coffee cup, drained it, and then pushed back from the table. “I’m going to get another drink. Would you like anything?” 

“The depth of your caffeine addiction never ceases to amaze me,” Mel quipped, and there was mirth and warmth in her eyes when she glanced up. 

Caitlyn stood. “I’ll get you a hot chocolate.” 

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” 

Caitlyn rolled her eyes as she moved toward the counter, doing her best not to intimidate the very petite barista. 

“With whipped cream!” Mel called from behind her. 

Caitlyn scoffed. As if she’d forget the whipped cream. 

______

Vi nervously tapped her hands on her thighs, wishing that she’d spent an extra hour at the gym this morning. 

She’d gone early to get her mind right, but she’d underestimated just how nervous she’d be for her audition. 

Even though Powder had gotten her yesterday off so that she could be rested and prepared, Vi hadn’t really had time during the week to drill cooking skills and other stuff they might ask her about. Powder had said that they wanted to know she could make something edible with a camera in her face, but Vi really didn’t know anything other than that. There hadn’t been anything in the email about what she might have to do, either. 

“Violet Vanderson?” the bored-looking intern called. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” Vi replied, standing up and lunging for her phone when it clattered to the ground. 

The intern rolled his eyes, and Vi plastered a smile on her face so she didn’t get defensive with the intern. He wasn’t paid enough to care, and Vi wasn’t here for him, anyway. 

She walked past him and into a harshly-lit room with a well-equipped temporary kitchen, a little platform with a few people sitting behind a table, and camera equipment in it. It was like a miniature version of the TV show sets Vi’d seen in behind-the-scenes videos. 

Vi half-turned back to the intern. “Where do I…?” 

He rolled his eyes again and pointed in the general direction of the table before he shut the door in her face. 

Helpful.  

Vi took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before she stepped into the harsh lighting. 

______

Caitlyn crunched on seaweed-flavored rice crackers as the contestants’ application videos played on the screen. She’d been sent a compiled sort of mishmash that she was expected to review before the show began filming. 

So far, she’d watched six different chefs from all over the world, and, if she didn’t have to actually retain the information, she’d have been tempted to devise a drinking game. It was all so wildly predictable, Caitlyn couldn’t stand it. 

God, the last thing anybody needed was more pompous, twattish culinary school graduates. 

The screen of her television went dark, white text appearing on it. 

Screen Test Audition

Chef Violet “Vi” Vanderson

32

San Francisco

Specialty: New American Cuisine

Caitlyn shifted around on the couch, popping more rice crackers into her mouth as she got comfortable and the title card faded, the familiar audition kitchen appearing in its place. 

She gasped as the newest chef - Vi - walked into frame, and promptly began coughing, because, predictably, the sight of the most stunning woman she’d ever seen had made her completely forget what she was doing.

Caitlyn lurched upright to grab her water off the coffee table. 

Chef Vi’s audition was still playing on the screen, and she was answering questions from the panel of producers that Caitlyn couldn’t hear over her own hacking. 

When she’d finally cleared her lungs, Caitlyn stood up off the couch, wiping her watery eyes as she moved toward her kitchen to refill her water glass. 

God, she was such a disaster. 

As she ran the sink, she listened to Chef Vi’s voice in the background, now narrating as she went about making exactly the same thing all of the chefs had been asked to make - spaghetti carbonara - and sounding very natural, which was a rare talent. You could learn to do it, like any other skill, but Caitlyn knew that the contestants hadn’t been given any guidelines about what their audition would actually be, so she knew that Chef Vi hadn’t been practicing; this was off-the-cuff and very impressive. 

Caitlyn debated bringing another snack with her back to the couch and then promptly dismissed the idea. She had no desire to choke again.  

She returned to her couch and set her water glass down before looking around for her remote, which had, in her respiratory distress, gotten knocked to the floor. She picked it up and hit rewind, pressing play when the title card again filled the screen. 

Sitting down cross-legged on the couch, Caitlyn pulled a pillow into her lap and settled in to watch the first genuinely interesting audition yet. 

This time, when the title card faded and the audition kitchen appeared, Caitlyn was prepared - or, if not prepared, at least not eating - as Chef Vi walked into the frame, looking…well, absolutely delicious. Pink-haired, with muscular, tattooed arms displayed by her short-sleeved chef’s jacket, and beautiful, expressive, pale blue eyes. She was wearing enough makeup to highlight her features and not be terribly washed out on camera, and Caitlyn wondered if she’d done it herself. It was very carefully applied, in any case. 

“Violet Vanderson, yes?” one of the producers asked. 

Chef Vi looked up and cleared her throat before replying. “Hey. It’s ‘Vi,’ but, yeah.” 

“Apologies. Vi.” 

Chef Vi nodded, and said nothing. 

Interesting.  

Quite a few of the other contestants had immediately gone into little spiels - pitches - about themselves and their various accomplishments. The approach of the woman on screen appeared to be to simply…size up the situation. 

One of the cameras focused in close on Chef Vi’s face, revealing that, actually, her eyes were even more striking than Caitlyn had initially thought, and that she had an adorable smattering of freckles dusted across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. 

This was going to be a problem. 

Not a significant one, Caitlyn was sure - she was a professional, after all - but a problem. It had been a long time since she’d been particularly attracted to anyone, let alone a contestant in a competition she was adjudicating. It was practically the definition of inappropriate professional entanglement. 

“We’d like, today, for you to make spaghetti carbonara.”

Chef Vi nodded. “Can do. You got any specifications?” 

The producer shook her head. “None. You may make the dish as you see fit. You have forty five minutes.” 

Another nod. 

“You may begin when you’re ready,” the producer said, and then ducked her head to begin taking some sort of notes. A dismissal. 

Chef Vi took it as such and turned toward the kitchen, but she hadn’t so much as taken a step before she turned back to the table. “Any dietary restrictions I should know about?” 

The producer’s head popped up. “Pardon?” 

Chef Vi’s expression was unreadable as she repeated the question. “Do any of you have any dietary restrictions?” 

Caitlyn was impressed, and took the question as a sign that Chef Vi had consistent experience working in a restaurant - specifically one that cared about its customers’ well-being. 

The producer looked to either side, and when there were two head shakes, shook her own head. “No, but thank you.” 

Yet another nod. “No problem.” 

The camera followed Chef Vi as she walked - with purpose, but definitely not at a run - to the pantry, pulling out the items she wanted and putting them in one of the provided baskets. Caitlyn was interested to see that, in addition to salt, pepper, and a hard cheese, she’d pulled flour off the shelves, rather than the dried pasta that Caitlyn knew was also in the pantry. When she’d finished in the pantry, she moved to the fridge, pulling out eggs and guanciale and adding those to the basket before taking everything over to the prep station. 

The gaggle of producers walked over and began asking her questions almost immediately - when she was still in the middle of washing her hands, as a matter of fact. 

On her couch, Caitlyn squeezed the pillow against her chest. It was a bit nerve-wracking just to watch, to be quite honest. 

“So, Vi, what’s your experience with cooking?” 

Chef Vi finished with washing her hands and started getting set up at her station as she answered, “My dad taught me to cook starting when I was really young. He used to have a pub, and, then, on top of that, he had four kids to feed, so he cooked a lot.” As she’d talked, she’d pulled out a pot and filled it with water, which she’d salted, and, also on the stove, there was a saucepan that she’d filled with water, and a skillet. On the butcher block workbench, she’d set out a few pinch bowls, a food scale, two stainless steel bowls, a cheese grater, and a rolling pin. 

Setting the glass bowl on the food scale and hitting tare, Chef Vi started scooping flour into the bowl as she kept talking. “He made - still makes, actually - really hearty, comfort food type stuff. He pulls a lot from English and Irish cooking, and then puts his own twist on stuff because he likes to eat, and he doesn’t like to go to the effort of making stuff if he’s not going to enjoy it,” she said, chuckling at the inside joke. 

“It’s a family business, then?” the producers asked as Chef Vi upended the bowl of flour on the counter and made a well in the center with a fork. 

She shrugged as she reached for the egg carton, and eyed them for a second before pulling out four eggs. “It’s not so much a family business as it was just a part of growing up. Nobody else but me got really into cooking. My sister’s a really fantastic baker, though. I’m passable, but I never really got the hang of the really complicated pastries and stuff. I think you need a kind of sixth sense for that sort of thing.” 

Caitlyn silently agreed, from her spot on the couch. There was a sort of sixth sense required to be a really phenomenal baker.  But, truthfully, the same could be said of being a chef.

On screen, Chef Vi cracked three of the eggs into the well one-handed and then grabbed a pinch bowl and separated the last egg, leaving the white in the bowl and putting the yolk into the well with the other eggs. 

“Could you describe what you’re doing for us at the moment?” the producer asked as Chef Vi started whisking the eggs with a fork, starting to slowly incorporate the flour. 

“Oh, sure. I’m just making some fresh pasta, because it’s easy and there’s never a reason not to, if you’ve got time.” 

Caitlyn agreed with that assertion…with a few notable exceptions. 

“The rule is, you go one egg for every hundred grams of flour, and, because the eggs are a little small, I added an extra yolk. Pasta dough won’t come together properly if it’s too dry, and if it’s too wet, it just turns into a gloopy mess. You have to get the balance right.” 

“So, you’ve decided that the forty five minutes we’ve given you is enough time to make fresh pasta and also the dish?” 

Chef Vi grinned crookedly at the producer, which the camera did not miss. 

Oh, Caitlyn was so gay. So completely, totally, hopelessly gay. 

“Yeah, forty five minutes is plenty. If we were talking about the kind of pasta you make with just flour and water, that’s not doable in forty five minutes because, ideally, you need to let it dry for about twelve hours. But, using eggs? Yeah, no problem at all.”

Caitlyn liked that Chef Vi didn’t seem particularly boastful. Some of the other auditions Caitlyn had watched had been full of insufferable peacocking and a number of assertions about “the best” this and “I’m amazing” that. Caitlyn didn’t particularly enjoy people who couldn’t acknowledge their own accomplishments, but she was definitely not a fan of people who couldn’t stop patting themselves on the back. 

It was a shame, sometimes, that she’d chosen the career that she had. Most of the people she knew were back patters extraordinaire. 

Chef Vi finished with the fork, starting to knead the dough by hand, instead, and Caitlyn made a concerted effort to keep her thoughts somewhere in the realm of “appropriate.” 

Well. 

If, today, she was failing miserably, she supposed she had plenty of time to practice before filming commenced. 

“So, you grew up cooking, and, after that…?” 

Chef Vi nodded, no hitch in the steady rhythm of her kneading as she answered, “Yeah, as I got older, I checked cookbooks out from the library and made everything I could - usually with a lot of modifications, because we either couldn’t find or couldn’t afford a lot of the ingredients. And then, when I was sixteen, I got picked up for smoking weed, which is pretty minor, but the judge who oversaw my case was really looking to make a big statement about being committed to cracking down on drug-related crime or some shit, so I got sent to prison, instead of juvie. Food sucked in prison, so I was even more excited about cooking when I got out.” 

Caitlyn could practically feel the producers salivating over that particular piece of Chef Vi’s backstory. 

“You went to prison? What was that like?” 

On her couch, Caitlyn rolled her eyes at the idiocy, and, on screen, Chef Vi was now flouring her work surface. 

“I’ll spare you the gory details, but I don’t think it’s a secret that sixteen-year-old girls don’t belong in federal prison,” Chef Vi replied, one corner of her lips quirking up at the little bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. 

The producer stammered a bit, and another took over. “You said that you got even more into cooking after prison? How so?” 

Chef Vi had moved on to setting up the KitchenAid pasta extruder, and was fiddling with all the little parts of the machine. Caitlyn didn’t envy her having to do that with a camera in her face. The machines were trivially easy to use, but could be a pain in the arse to set up. 

“I cooked a lot at home - probably over seasoned stuff for a while - and I needed a job, so I started working as a dishwasher at Jericho’s. I worked my way up from there, and now I’m head chef.” 

“A real rags-to-riches story!” one of the producers exclaimed excitedly. 

Chef Vi laughed. “Let’s hold off on the inspirational documentary, but, yeah. The owner, Jericho, has been really good to me. It’s pretty rare to actually be able to work your way all the way up the ladder like that.” 

The producers looked a bit like bobbleheads, from Caitlyn’s viewpoint. 

“What kind of food does Jericho’s have?” 

Chef Vi had moved on to rolling out the pasta dough. “It’s a New American seafood restaurant on the harbor. The place is an institution, so I don’t have a lot of discretion when it comes to what’s on the menu, but I do have full freedom with the seasonal menus, so I like to have fun with those. We’re really lucky to get to work with a lot of local fishermen and farmers, so I have a lot to play with.” 

Caitlyn was immensely satisfied to watch Chef Vi expertly slice strips of pasta dough to feed through the machine. The dough peeled up perfectly from the work surface, and it was clear that this was something that Chef Vi had quite a bit of practice doing. Her movements were sure and steady as she ran the dough through the machine to get it all a consistent thickness and then ran it through again with another attachment, expertly flouring the spaghetti and twisting it into little nests that she set on a tray, ready to be put into the pot of salted water that was already boiling away on the stove. 

Now, Caitlyn watched as Chef Vi moved over to the rest of the ingredients she’d pulled out of the pantry. 

“Would you just walk us through the rest of the process?”

A chef’s knife already in her hand, Chef Vi nodded in the affirmative. “Yeah, sure. So, right now, I’m just removing the outside of the guanciale - the rind, which is this part here, and the crust that has all this seasoning that you can see on there - so that it doesn’t burn. When I’m done doing that, I’ll be cubing up the guanciale and throwing it into that pan right there,” Chef Vi nodded toward the pan she’d set out on the stove, “on low heat, and then slowly raising the temperature to get it nice and crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside. For carbonara, the flavor of the guanciale is really important - the meat is one of the main visible components of the final dish, but you also use the rendered fat in the sauce.” 

Chef Vi looked perfectly at home in the kitchen - even an unfamiliar one - and Caitlyn found herself relaxing, despite the large digital clock on the wall behind Chef Vi ticking down. 

The rest of the dish looked as easy as a dance that had been rehearsed a million times. Perfectly seared guanciale, perfectly separated egg yolks mixed with both pecorino romano and grana padano cheeses, and what looked, to Caitlyn, to be just the right amount of freshly cracked black pepper. It was easy to overwhelm even flavors as strong as guanciale and pecorino romano if you were too heavy handed with the pepper. 

Chef Vi dipped a ladle into the water boiling away on the stove, cooking her fresh spaghetti, and added it to the bowl where she was mixing together the egg yolks, cheeses, and pepper. “So, pasta water is really fantastic. I’m using it here because it’s traditional, and because it works, but any kind of water that you’ve boiled a starch in, like pasta or potatoes, you can use to thicken sauces and do lots of other really cool things. I make a lemon and green pea pasta dish at home pretty often, and the sauce is just pasta water and cheese. Really versatile.” 

Caitlyn found herself wondering what dish, exactly Chef Vi liked to make at home - there were quite a few variations of what she was describing, and every chef had their own take. 

“I’m just whisking all this together, and setting it over a bain marie, because that’s going to cook the egg yolks nice and slow. And, you know we rendered out that fat earlier, so I’m just going to add some back in now. You have to remember to keep stirring this - otherwise it gets clumpy, and no one wants that.” 

Caitlyn chuckled, and then caught herself, looking around surreptitiously like someone might have seen her actually enjoying herself. She was going to have to tamp down on any of her responses to the easy charm that Chef Vi exuded once they were actually filming. Caitlyn was known for her “brand,” which was a particularly chilly sort of iciness. She’d gotten a bit of a reputation, actually, for never smiling, which was usually an easy brief to meet, since she hated appearing on television. 

“It’s been a few minutes now,” Chef Vi said, grabbing a spatula out of one of the containers with all sorts of kitchen utensils. “And, you can see that it’s ready if I dip a spatula in this…” the spatula dipped into the bowl and lifted back up, and the camera operator did a great job of capturing, in high definition, Chef Vi as she said, “...and then swipe a finger through the sauce, and it doesn’t drip.” 

Caitlyn was having a bit of a moment in her condo as Chef Vi finished up her dish, assembling the components and grating fresh cheese on top. 

She’d made four portions - three for the judges, and then an extra, just in case, apparently - and they all looked lovely. Perfectly sauced spaghetti filled Caitlyn’s screen. Pasta wasn’t technically an aphrodisiac, but Caitlyn was tempted to call the people in charge of the dictionary and ask them to add it in. 

Caitlyn frowned at the screen, puzzled, her flash of arousal forgotten. In the audition kitchen, the producers talked amongst themselves, not asking Chef Vi questions, not eating the dish, and, quietly, Chef Vi went about cleaning the station. 

The producers seemed to realize what was happening about the time that Chef Vi was starting to wash dishes. 

“What are you doing?” 

Chef Vi looked up, as if a little startled that anyone had asked her anything. “Uh, yeah, just. You know. Cleaning up.” 

Even from behind, the producer seemed boggled. “Why?” 

Shrugging, Chef Vi replied, still continuing to clean the pan she’d used, “If you make a mess, you clean it up.” 

“...right.” 

Another few awkward seconds went by before two of the producers started moving back toward the platform that simulated the judges’ platform on the show. The third spoke to Chef Vi. “We have people to take care of that. Go ahead and dry your hands.” 

Chef Vi finished up quickly with the pan and dried it - and her hands - off, and then moved to stand where she’d been when she’d first entered the room. 

The plates of food were now in front of the three producers, and, without preamble - or even saying anything to Chef Vi - they all began eating. 

From the complete and utter silence, Caitlyn deduced that Chef Vi’s rendition of spaghetti carbonara was delicious. 

“Well, Vi. Thank you for your time,” the producer in the middle said, his plate empty in front of him. The other two producers kept eating. 

“Thanks for having me,” Chef Vi said, notably making sure to look at all three of the producers, and Caitlyn was, again, treated to the sight of her pearly white smile before she turned and walked out of frame. The screen went dark again briefly, and then another title card appeared:

Application - Video Portion 

Chef Violet “Vi” Vanderson 

32

San Francisco 

New American Cuisine 

A video that showcased the chef’s unique skillset and personality was a required part of the application to be on the show. There was a written portion, as well, but, mostly, the producers cared that the contestants could cook on camera. And Caitlyn was sure that they selected chefs who thrived on drama - or had the personalities that created it. 

She was, admittedly, curious about what portion of their formula Chef Vi fulfilled. Caitlyn had a sneaking suspicion that she was the “underdog” contestant. Chef Vi hadn’t been to culinary school, she’d worked her way up from a dishwasher in the restaurant where she was now head chef but not an owner, and she had the “look”. 

Regardless of anything else, Caitlyn found herself rooting for Chef Vi to do well in the competition, if only to demonstrate to the producers that their “formula” was utter bullshit. 

As the title card faded, Caitlyn subconsciously clutched the pillow to her chest in anticipation of what was to come. 

Whoever had shot the video had clearly done so with a phone camera and in a “candid” style, managing to capture Chef Vi looking unguarded and completely at-ease. 

Captions indicating what was happening appeared on the screen as loud, energetic hard rock blared. 

As she watched, she was inclined to call some of the filmmakers she knew and tell them to reach out to the video’s creator, because it was really quite good. 

There was Chef Vi, flipping pancakes in what was clearly a home kitchen, an easy grin on her face, then in the gym, a barbell with more weights on it than Caitlyn could fathom across her shoulders as she squatted low, muscles in her bare back and legs popping out and clearly straining as she stood back up. The video cut between reps at the squat rack and Chef Vi smiling, undoing her weight straps, punching a heavy bag, drinking from a water bottle, or tapping a gym buddy on the shoulder, in varying sets of fairly revealing gym attire. 

Caitlyn was becoming inclined to ask who filmed the video just so she could offer them a grateful handshake. 

The footage changed, then, leaving the gym behind and, this time, following Chef Vi through a farmer’s market - Caitlyn recognized it, actually. That market was one of the best ones in San Francisco, though Caitlyn tended to avoid it because it was busy and her presence often caused a bit of a stir. It was a bit difficult to hide when you were six feet tall and quite recognizable. 

On screen, Chef Vi was laughing, clearly familiar with the vendor, and then pointing to a variety of different vegetables. The footage cut to Chef Vi at varying stalls, smelling strawberries, and picking up tomatoes to feel the heft of their weight, and…Caitlyn’s eyes widened - smacking a watermelon with a broad, scarred hand. 

Caitlyn was going to find out who made this video and send them an anonymous and very generous check. She was sitting on her couch in her own home watching all of this unfold on a television - as far removed as it was really possible to be from the actual situation - and she still felt like she was getting more action than she had in years. 

Before she could embarrass herself, the video switched again, the footage becoming more wobbly than it had been, the camera now clearly attached to someone walking into a kitchen through the swinging, windowed doors. 

Chef Vi appeared in the frame, standing at a stove and tossing sautéed vegetables, the effort of shaking the pan making the muscles in her arms stand out, veins appearing from the strain. 

Rock music still blared, and Chef Vi looked serious but jovial, working with the kitchen staff, echoing tickets as they were called out and hung up. 

Caitlyn exhaled, her death grip on the pillow loosening as she watched someone exist so comfortably in the space that was also her happy place. 

Caitlyn loved to cook, but she also loved the energy in a well-managed kitchen; she loved the fast pace and the challenge and working alongside people who were so essential to the process of having a restaurant in the first place. 

It seemed to Caitlyn that Chef Vi had created the sort of environment in her kitchen that Caitlyn always strived to create in any restaurant she started. 

Working in a kitchen wasn’t for the faint of heart, and it was very possible to make the experience absolutely miserable. However, it was also very possible to ensure that everyone who contributed to the kitchen’s functioning had a fulfilling, well-compensated job and that the kitchen was a good place to be, no matter if you were a dishwasher or the head chef. 

Caitlyn had found that, often, chefs struggled with ego so much that it affected the respect needed to cultivate that. It was a red flag that Caitlyn looked for, and also a lot of the reason that she found most other chefs to be fairly intolerable. She just didn’t have the patience for someone who thought they were better, simply because they had more education than a line cook. 

Caitlyn believed very firmly that the atmosphere that surrounded food when it was made affected everything about the meal, including the taste of the food. If the person preparing a dish hated doing so, that came through like any other element of the dish. 

Caitlyn had eaten a lot of miserable meals at some of the “best” restaurants in the world. 

She was pleased to see that it appeared that a meal at “Jericho’s” was unlikely to be miserable. Caitlyn hadn’t been, though she’d heard of the restaurant - again, her presence tended to cause a stir, so she often avoided public spaces - but she added it to her mental list of places to try the next time she was in the area. 

The music faded out as the kitchen footage changed to a focused-in shot of a familiar, broad hand dropping a few coins into a jar. After Chef Vi’s torso had passed across the screen, the camera zoomed in, and Caitlyn found herself smiling at the curling, aged piece of paper taped to the side of the jar that read “RESTAURANT FUND”, and she was still smiling as the video slowly faded to black, the ending “credits” page popping up with Chef Vi’s information. 

On the screen, the title card for the next chef appeared, the same, familiar, black background and white text appeared for the next contestant, and Caitlyn would need to rewatch this video later, because she wasn’t paying attention. 

Mindlessly, she picked up her phone and opened her text thread with Mel. 

Have you watched the contestant film yet? 

She put her phone back down and leaned forward to grab her glass of water while she waited. She was a bit overheated. 

She didn’t have to wait long before Mel’s response came through: 

I did. Was ‘hot butch lesbian’ a line item in your contract negotiations?

Caitlyn’s mouth dropped open as she re-read the text, and then, glad her friend couldn’t see her blush, Caitlyn replied, 

As a matter of fact, it was not. 

Caitlyn hesitated for just a moment before she added, 

How are you so certain she’s a lesbian? Don’t be homophobic, Mel. 

Mel’s reply was, again, immediate: 

Am I supposed to dignify that with a response? 

In any case, it would appear that this season might well be more interesting than we thought.  

Caitlyn snorted, replying, 

It might.  

Mel was right, as she often was. 

This season did, indeed, look like it would be interesting.  

Caitlyn just hoped that she’d be able to hold it together for eight weeks of seeing Chef Vi in the flesh. It wouldn’t do to be caught blushing on camera. She had a reputation to uphold. 

______

Present Day…

______

Vi stood on the sidewalk in the Departures area at the airport she’d never been to and did her goddamn best not to cry. 

She’d been a weepy fuckin’ mess this week, what with having her last day at Jericho’s for a while, and trying to cram in some last-minute prep work before she left her dad and siblings on their own for eight whole weeks. 

The last time she’d been away from her family had been when she was in prison, and, then, she hadn’t left the state. The first stop for this show meant getting on her first ever plane, which would take her all the way across the country - all the way to New York City. 

“Alright,” Vi said, looking toward the automatic doors that led inside the terminal and then back at her family. All of them were crying - Pow and Mylo openly, and Vander and Claggor were trying to hide it. 

Vi’s brave smile turned watery, and she dropped her backpack as she stumbled forward to crash into a group hug, letting her family hold her together one last time before the only hugs she’d get from them were through a phone screen. 

She pulled back when she felt like she could stand on her own, because she had to, and she hugged everybody individually, letting all her siblings squeezed the fucking life out of her. 

When she hugged her dad, he picked her up clear off the ground and held her tight, kissing the top of her head as he set her back down. “One foot in front of the other,” he rumbled, and Vi laughed through her tears.

It’s what he’d told her since he’d first adopted them, and it’s what he’d told her every time things got hard. She’d - they’d - been through a lot in the years since, and Vander had had a lot on his plate with four kids he hadn’t asked for, but he’d loved the hell out of them all and done everything he could to keep them all out of trouble. 

Just continuing to put one foot in front of the other, no matter what happened, was really the only reason that any of them were okay at all, let alone full-grown adults with lives they actually enjoyed living. 

Vi set her jaw, trying to let the fact that she’d gotten through hell more than once bolster her confidence. She could do this. And, if she flamed out on the first episode, she knew she’d go down fighting. 

She was never going to get on that goddamn plane if she tried to say anything else, so she just smiled at her family and picked up her stuff, turning to walk toward those automatic doors before the fist squeezing the hell out of her heart could make her just call all of this quits and go home. Get back to her life where nobody like her ever got a chance like this. 

It wasn’t that far to the door, and Vi was feeling the air conditioned airport air wash over her before she knew it. 

Vi turned back one last time as she walked through the automatic doors, waving to her family, who all waved back, jumping up and down to see her until she faded out of sight. 

She made it through security, which was weirdly nerve-wracking, because the TSA agents reminded her of prison guards, she got a way overpriced coffee that was actually pretty decent from one of the places inside the airport, and then she waited at the gate, leg jitterbugging up and down. 

It felt like it took hours and seconds to board the plane and get settled in her seat, and Vi distracted herself with sending “on the plane” texts and reading the safety manual front-to-back twice, and then…and then they were pushing back from the gate, and this was really happening. 

As the plane started accelerating, her stomach dropping out as it lifted off from the ground, all Vi could think was, 

Here we go.  

Chapter Text

Vi looked at her phone and then up at the tall brick building in front of her, checking the big, iron number. 

Yeah, she had the correct address. 

Taking a deep breath, Vi hefted her bags and walked up the steps. 

Getting here from the airport had been a little bit of a shitshow but not bad. Apparently, if she made it next week, that’s when the network would start handling getting them to and from the airport and stuff - had to make your own way for the first one, though. 

New York was really different from San Francisco, but it was still a city, and Vi was plenty comfortable in cities. She figured she’d start running into trouble later on down the line because the only language she spoke was English, and the show went all over the world. Regardless of being able to literally get from place to place, the best food was always local, which meant she’d have to figure out a translator or…something, if she got that far. 

For now, though, she just rang the buzzer, and pushed the door open when the lock clunked.  

“Hey, we got another one!” someone yelled, and Vi let the door swing shut behind her as she took in the house where she and the ten other chefs who’d gotten through the first round of auditions would be staying for the week. 

It was a townhouse - a big one - and Vi knew from the orientation materials that she’d be assigned a roommate, but that people could switch later, if they wanted. Sex between competitors was “heavily discouraged”, though they wouldn’t actually kick you off the show if you fucked somebody - Vi figured that was because they wanted to play up the drama, but she could be wrong. 

Vi turned as she walked farther into the house, whistling softly, impressed, as she looked at the ceiling, which had a big chandelier hanging from it, the fancy, modern design in the wallpaper, and the art that was hung up - everything looked…expensive. 

Finally, at the end of the hall, she made it to an open living area and kitchen, where nine other people were sitting at barstools, chatting on the couch, leaning against the kitchen counters, and otherwise just hanging out. All of them stopped what they were doing and looked at her as she appeared in the doorway. 

Last one to arrive. Cool.  

Vi lifted her chin. “Hey. I’m Vi.”

The guy closest to her responded first, raising his wine glass. “Hello. I’m Garen, and I’ll let everyone else introduce themselves.” 

Vi nodded. “Cool.” 

Garen was fucking huge - bigger than either Claggor or her dad - with straight, close-cropped brown hair, blue eyes, and his expression was fairly serous, but he seemed friendly enough. The other chefs…Vi did not get the vibe that all the other chefs were friendly. She recognized a few from culinary articles, but this would be…interesting. 

Garen, it turned out, was in the kitchen, drinking wine and talking with Akshan, a smiley, Middle Eastern guy with a neat beard and a sloppy man bun who was clearly already drunk, a red-haired woman in one of the lowest-cut shirts Vi’d ever seen, who was clearly busy trying to eat Garen alive and could not have been less interested in introducing herself, and a dark-skinned, soft-spoken chef who introduced herself as Rell. She didn’t seem super friendly, but Vi didn’t get a hostile vibe. 

Vi shook hands with all of them, and then walked over to where the other five chefs were all spread out on different chairs and couches around a big coffee table. A TV in the back was playing reruns of old cooking shows that nobody really seemed to be paying attention to. It fit the vibe of the place - both modern and vintage. 

“Hey,” Vi repeated as she got close enough. “I’m Vi, nice to meet you.” 

A big guy taking up a whole loveseat by himself finished glaring at the kitchen over his rocks glass long enough to say, “Darius.” 

Vi raised her eyebrows. Okay.  

A skinny, blond chef named Ezreal squeaked his introduction from his place squished on another couch between Hecarim - a pale, dark-haired guy with sharp features and mean eyes who barely even said “hello,” and Irelia, a petite Japanese chef Vi had actually read about recently - she was pretty well-known for high-end, traditional sushi. 

And then that left the chair closest to her, where a wiry woman with white-blonde hair and very blue eyes was sitting and nursing a martini. 

“I’m Ashe, and, according to the sign on the door, we’re roommates.” She leaned forward, setting her martini down on a coaster, and then stood. “I’ll show you around.” 

“Thanks,” Vi replied, holding out her hand for a firm, cold handshake, and saluted at the other chefs with two fingers before she followed her roommate out of the common area and up some stairs. 

Vi couldn’t get a read on her roommate - she didn’t seem like she was the type to put Nair in Vi’s shampoo, but Vi also didn’t figure they’d be up late talking about trade secrets.

“There’s a half bath under the stairs, and, out the back door, there’s a little courtyard that I guess you’ll see in the morning. We’ve got our own attached bathroom, which is nice.” 

They came to a stop outside a door that Vi could see had her name - and Ashe’s - taped on it, and Ashe turned the handle, pushing it open. 

“Thanks.” 

When Vi walked through the door, she found a decent-size room with two twin beds, each with a nightstand and a lamp along one wall, a luggage rack in one corner with Ashe’s suitcase on it, and an empty one in another corner, where Vi figured her shit would go. 

“Do you snore?” 

Vi turned, finding Ashe leaned in the doorway, her arms crossed. 

“Uhhh…nope,” Vi replied, turning back around to toss her backpack on the end of the bed that was empty and head over to her luggage rack to set her duffel down. 

Ashe raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t going to ask me if I snore?” 

Vi laughed. “I’ve got three siblings and all of them either snore, talk in their sleep, or both. I’m good.” Thinking about her family and the fact that she wasn’t going to hear any of that snoring, sleep-talking, or any of it for a few months, if she did okay, honestly made her sad, so Vi shoved the thought from her mind as she set her duffel down on the luggage rack and turned back to her roommate, who was giving her an assessing look. 

“We have to be ready to go over to the studio at seven tomorrow. Do you shower in the morning, or?” 

Vi shrugged. “I’ll probably go for a run in the morning and shower after that. I don’t take too long, though. How much time do you need?” 

Ashe frowned at her slightly, and, again, Vi couldn’t get a read on it. “I like about an hour, and I want to be pretty much ready before I go downstairs, so I’ll probably get started at about five.” 

“Sure,” Vi agreed. “No problem.” 

Ashe nodded at her. “Alright. I’m going to head back down.” 

“Sure. Thanks for showing me around.” 

Ashe nodded at her again, and then she pushed off the doorframe, heading back down the hallway, leaving the door open. 

Vi sighed, walking over to shut the door and then sitting on the side of her bed and pulling out her phone. 

She fished her headphones out of her pocket and popped them into her ears before she tapped around on her phone screen, listening to the video call ringtone. 

It didn’t take too long for her dad to pick up. Powder’s face filled her screen instead of her dad’s, though, and Vi laughed - her sister must have seen her contact pop up. 

“Hey, Pow-Pow.” 

“Vi!” Powder yelled. “Hi! Are you making new friends? Is the house nice? How’s New York? Have you seen any rats? Ohhhhh, are any of your competitors rats?” 

Laughing, Vi started answering her sister’s question. “I just got here, everybody seems alright so far - my roommate’s name is Ashe, I haven’t seen any of New York but the airport and the sidewalk, didn’t see any rats, and everybody seems plain ol’ human.” 

Powder blew a raspberry. “Lame.” 

Vi grinned. God, it was good to see her sister, even tiny on a phone screen after not even a whole day. 

It was gonna be hard to be away from her family. 

Really hard.

“Is Dad around?” Vi asked when she was looking up at the kitchen ceiling, because Powder had obviously set the phone down, humming as she went about doing…whatever she was doing. 

“What? Oh, yeah, hang on, lemme find him.” The picture started moving violently back and forth all of a sudden as Pow picked up the phone, and Vi was glad she wasn’t prone to motion sickness. 

Vi chuckled as she watched her sister skip around the house, and she snorted as her dad’s nose and left eye suddenly filled the screen, the phone obviously way too close to his face. 

“Vi called!” Pow yelled, excited. 

Vi watched her dad wince, but not complain about Powder yelling in his ear, and then the phone screen was being held steady and at a normal distance away from her dad’s face. 

“How are you doing, sweetheart?” 

Vi shrugged. “Okay so far. Just wanted to call and let you know that I got here okay.” 

Her dad smiled. “Your flight was okay? Is the house nice?” 

“Yeah, the flight was fine. The San Francisco airport’s pretty nice, actually, and the house is right in the middle of the city. It’s pretty fancy. Don’t know if they’ll keep this up, or if they’re just trying to impress us, or what.” 

“Only time will tell, I guess,” her dad agreed, humor in his voice. 

“Yeah,” Vi said. “I hope I get the chance to find out.” 

Picking up immediately on what she was worried about, her dad replied, “You’ll do your best, sweetheart, and we’re already proud of you, winner of Hex Chef or not.” 

Vi smiled, swallowing down some of the emotion that welled up. It was hard to trust, sometimes, that it didn’t matter to her family at-fucking-all if she won. Vi was hard on herself, like you had to be to get really, really good at something, but her family didn’t give a shit. They’d be probably even more excited than Vi if she won, but they loved her for her, not because of what she could do. 

“Regardless of whether or not you win the title, I hope you get to stay on just so you can travel the world. I know how much you’ve always wanted to do that,” her dad added. 

Nodding, Vi took a big breath. “Yeah.” 

It was true. Even after a long shift, Vi stayed up more nights than not watching every single travel cooking show she could find, writing down places and restaurant names in her notebook. She had a map on a cork board at home, with pins all over it, marking the places she wanted to go. 

If she made it past week one, she’d actually get to go to some of those places. Replace her red “want to go” pins with blue “been there” ones. 

“Do you need to go?” 

From downstairs, Vi could hear laughter and clinking glasses. 

“Probably,” Vi sighed. “Give everybody a squeeze for me, yeah?”

Her dad smiled. “Absolutely, sweetheart. Love you.” 

“Love you.” 

Vi waved as she hung up, clicking off her phone and tossing it on the bed next to her as she laid back, crossing her forearms over her face. 

She was here. 

She’d made it. 

And, tomorrow, at seven o’clock in the morning…she’d be officially competing for the title of Hex Chef.

______

Caitlyn leaned against the wall outside of Hair and Makeup and tried to savor her coffee, if for no other reason than to distract her from the fact that it was five o’clock in the morning and she was about to have a long day of filming. 

Television magic never felt as much like “magic” as it did “pain and suffering”. 

Sighing and taking another sip of her cardamom latte from the little, local coffee shop a few blocks away from the studio, Caitlyn focused on her reasons for being here. 

She was looking forward to getting inspired - she had four days out of the week where her time was her own, and she’d spent the weeks leading up to her flight to New York putting together an itinerary that she was actually very excited about. 

And she was, admittedly, also very excited to get to spend quite a bit of time with Mel. 

Caitlyn and all of her close friends - all three of them - had incredibly busy schedules, and the time they spent together was always quality time, but it was usually very brief. 

Nine weeks of traveling around the world with Mel was definitely something to look forward to. And Caitlyn had managed to persuade Jayce and Viktor both into being guest judges, so she’d have a week with each of them, as well. 

Other than that, Caitlyn had wrangled a few of her other peripheral friends and friendly acquaintances into being guest judges, so she only had a few weeks of this whole endeavor where she would likely not enjoy the judges’ table. 

“Alright, we’re ready for you!” the makeup artist Mel and Caitlyn had ensured they contracted chirped as she popped her head into the hallway. 

Caitlyn made the effort to put a pleasant expression on her tired face and swapped places with Mel, whose cheerful, “Good morning, darling!” was accompanied by a light smack on the arse as she took the coffee Caitlyn handed her and made her way out of the room. 

Chuckling and rolling her eyes at her friend’s antics, Caitlyn took her seat in the chair in front of the vanity, depositing her makeup artist’s matcha latte on the little counter next to her makeup kit. 

“The producers have asked for fairly natural makeup today, and I’m going to get done as quick as I can, because I popped by Wardrobe, and I think you may have to fistfight one of the producers,” Candy quipped, taking a sip of her matcha and humming appreciatively before she reached for the face cleansing wipes. 

“Oh, God,” Caitlyn groaned, closing her eyes both from anticipatory exhaustion and also to allow Candy to do her job. 

The former exotic dancer was an absolutely phenomenal makeup artist, managing to easily and confidently meet both Caitlyn and Mel’s exacting standards, she had a wonderful sense of humor, and her demeanor was never grating. After a few less-than-stellar experiences with other makeup artists who breathed heavily in her face, had a heavy hand with any number of products, and behaved like horse’s arses, Caitlyn always made sure that Candy was contracted for any job she took. The presence of a familiar, competent professional always removed some of the trepidation Caitlyn felt around being photographed or filmed in any capacity. 

It had been ingrained in her from a very early age that the camera captured everything, so you had to take extra care to be flawless every single moment you had a camera lens pointed at you. 

Caitlyn did not enjoy having a camera lens pointed at her. It was a sustained, stressful experience, during which she was hyper aware of her entire body. 

She liked being in the safety of her own kitchen, where no one was looking at her - and those who were didn’t give a shit what she looked like - and she could sweat and emote and move without being conscious of her every movemen​​t and expression. 

And, now, it would appear she was going to have to fight with Wardrobe about what she was comfortable with wearing. 

Caitlyn held in a groan as she thought about what the producers often thought was “appropriate”. 

No matter how many times she said, “I’m a chef, not a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas,” producers were often bound and determined to put her in tight, low-cut clothing, talking over her protests with vague, strange comments about her “figure”, since, as far as Caitlyn could tell, the only line anyone really drew was to stop short of telling her, “you’ve got enormous tits and we’d like to show them off.” 

It was a good thing, Caitlyn supposed, that she was accustomed to this sort of situation. 

She’d brought three different chef’s jackets and three different colors of trousers in preparation for being completely opposed to the producers’ wardrobe choices for her. 

She wasn’t tied to the idea of wearing her chef’s jacket at all times, but she preferred that to a body-hugging, leopard print monstrosity. 

“Alright, they told me you’ll be inside all day today, so we’ll be doing heavier foundation and I’ll be in your face to reapply powder every time there’s a break,” Candy said, matter-of-fact about the day’s expectations, and Caitlyn opened her eyes, raising an eyebrow as she took another sip of her coffee. 

Caitlyn made a mental note to get in touch with her assistant and let him know that she’d require caffeine literally every moment of today if she was going to get through filming without telling anyone what she really thought. 

______

Vi looked in the mirror in the bathroom she shared with Ashe and just tried to get her shit together. 

She’d gotten up in time to go for a run, which helped with some of the nervous energy, but definitely not all of it. 

Even with hanging out a little bit over drinks last night, there wasn’t really a sense of camaraderie with the other chefs, so everyone who cooked this morning made their own breakfasts, and no one offered to make anybody else coffee with the fancy espresso machine. 

Vi got herself breakfast and a coffee on her way back from her run - there was a great local coffee shop that opened early, and she figured she’d probably be a regular there for the week. Vi always tried to eat and drink local when she could, and she was a little bit of a coffee snob - about the only thing she was a snob about was coffee, actually - and trying new coffee shops was one of her favorite things to do. 

Today, she’d gone for a cappuccino - her usual metric for deciding whether or not a place had good coffee - but she’d seen that their seasonal special was a cardamom latte, and she was definitely trying that tomorrow. 

She’d finished her cappuccino and big plate of eggs and potatoes about an hour ago, and now…it was almost time to go. 

What today was going to look like had been a topic of discussion last night, because no one really had any information. A few of the chefs had been on TV before, so they knew a little bit of the behind-the-scenes stuff that was probably going to happen, but, honestly…they were really in the dark about everything. 

All they really knew was that they had to be ready to go at seven. 

It was about ten ‘til, and Vi leaned in close to the mirror to check her eyeliner, pocketed her phone, and grabbed her knife bag off the end of her bed on her way out of the room. Ashe - who didn’t snore, not that Vi cared - was already down there, it looked like. 

“Calm down,” Vi muttered to herself as she shut the door to their room, knife bag bumping against her side. 

The energy in the common area was more of an anxious buzz than anything else - as far as Vi could tell, nobody was really excited. 

A few of the chefs looked serious, some of them looked superior, and more than a few of them looked like they wanted to puke. 

Vi could relate to that last one. 

The sound of the front door opening had all of them looking toward the doorway like Vi’d seen meerkats do in one of the nature documentaries Clagg liked to put on, and she bit back a laugh as a very energetic woman in a headset bounced into the doorway. 

“Alrighty! Let’s get going, chefs! We’ll be walking over to the studio as a group, we’ll get all of you into Hair and Makeup, we’ll do some interviews, we’ll film you walking into the studio, and then you’ll do your first challenge.” 

There were some nods around the room, but nobody really said much, and Vi fell in to follow the line of fresh, multi-color chef’s jackets out the door and onto the street.