A/N: Hello everyone! A new story is here! :D

So, this is one that I've been working on for a little while, and since We're so Metal and Chances are coming to an end soon, I figured now would be a good time to share some of what I've been working on lately. :)

I hope you all enjoy!

The crash woke Kendall up, the sharp metallic clang of stainless steel against the deeper, resonating thud of the wood floor.

Almost certain dents in his favorite copper pot-check.

Scratches on the hardwood floor their landlord would definitely freak about-check.

Bruises his roommates would inevitably punish him for? Still in question, though if Jett's exaggerated howl of pain was any indication, Kendall thought those were inevitable.

"Goddamn it, Kendall." Jett exclaimed loudly as Kendall dragged his head up from where it had landed in a slump of exhaustion only a few hours before on his marble pastry slab. If he was a betting man, he'd definitely bet that the fine grain of the marble was imprinted on his cheek.

He probably shouldn't have fallen asleep in the kitchen after filming the video, and he definitely shouldn't have piled those pans in such a precarious pile to dry after washing them. Inspiration had struck midway through the dinner service last night, and he'd been in too much of a rush to work out the intricacies of the recipe in his head to care much about the consequences of yet another late-night/early-morning filming marathon.

"At least I washed the pans out?" Kendall tried.

Through his tired squint, Kendall could just make out Jett's disgruntled expression. He was annoyed, not pissed off, which boded well for Kendall. He was also pretty sure that Jett had a few crumbs clinging to his chin, which meant that he'd already sampled some of last night's experiments.

Having eaten one over the sink just past 4 a.m., Kendall knew just how fantastic those tarts were. Jett's forgiveness was no longer an uncertainty, but an inevitability.

"Good, huh?" Kendall asked with a grin.

After culinary school, working in many good kitchens, before finally moving to the great kitchen at Terroir, and then ending up with three chefs as roommates, he knew all about the culinary ego. Sure, he had one, but constantly talking about how talented he was got exhausting. He normally preferred the food to do the talking for him-but in this case, distracting Jett from the fact that he'd used the kitchen until 4 a.m. again, was way more important.

"You film these, too?" Jett asked ruefully. He reached for another tart, not even trying to be subtle.

Kendall remembered when they'd first met, and Jett, all that ego barely restrained, had looked down his nose at pastry. He'd claimed to not even like sweets, but now he was chowing down on Kendall's tarts like there weren't about a hundred more packed away in neatly stacked Tupperware.

It was particularly sweet to convert someone who didn't appreciate his craft, just like he enjoyed bringing the skill of his craft to the masses. Even the masses who didn't necessarily appreciate it, but watched his videos anyway.

"Of course I did."

Jett might have been converted to liking Kendall's tarts, but Kendall knew he probably wasn't ever going to understand why he filmed himself making them, and posted them to social media. For Jett, it felt too much like a magician giving away his secrets for free.

Jett might want the cultured and erudite to enjoy his food, but he didn't want to teach them how to make it.

Jett shook his head. "You're wasting your time."

Kendall was tired. It couldn't be any later than 8 a.m.-because that was when Jett took his run every day-and that meant he'd gotten only a handful of hours of sleep on a marble slab that wasn't quite the same as his feather pillow. He had a fierce crick in his neck, and he had to be at work in two hours for prep.

Which was why he nicked the tart from Jett's fingers and popped the remains into his own mouth.

"But it's my time." Kendall said, and made a shooing motion. "Now go jog like a good boy."

Jett made a face, shrugged, and then turned away, shutting the door behind him slightly louder than normal. Kendall might be worried things would be weird between them, but they worked fourteen-hour days at one of the most exciting restaurants in the world, and after going through Chef's bullshit each shift, nothing ever seemed weird for long.

Kendall bent down and started gathering his pots. Yes, there was definitely a dent in his favorite copper sugar pan. Dammit. He'd just got the sink filled with soapy water so he could wash them again when his other roommate wandered in.

Carlos was rubbing sleep out of his eyes, but they lit up when they saw the Tupperware containers.

"You filmed last night?" He asked, popping the lid off. "Oh, these are pretty. Raspberry and strawberry?"

Carlos' nose was legendary. He could sometimes tell the separate ingredients in a dish just from the aroma, and always by taste. Sometimes Kendall enjoyed trying to stump him, but today, he just nodded, then turned back to his sink full of pots.

"Delicious." Carlos pronounced through a mouthful of pastry cream and flaky tart shell. "I never would have dreamt of doing just raspberry and strawberry. Mixed berry is so middle-class housewife. But you elevated it."

Since he had his back to his roommate, Carlos couldn't see Kendall roll his eyes. Every chef he knew believed they were as high class as the restaurant they worked with. He would be the first to tell anybody that Terroir was special, because it was.

Chef Massimo Bottura had built something one of a kind deep in the heart of Napa Valley, and then maintained it-which, Kendall knew, was most of the struggle. But most of the chefs he knew also came from decidedly low or middle-class origins. And they wanted to forget them as quickly as possible.

But Kendall had lots of good memories of his childhood, and the dreaded 'mixed berry' had shown up lots of times in Bundt cakes and muffins and as far as he was concerned, it was a classic. He'd just used a little of the technique he'd spent so many years perfecting to make it even better.

"Wish we could get marionberries here." Kendall said, because he wasn't going to tell Carlos, who was one of his best friends, that he was full of shit. He'd already antagonized Jett this morning, and he tried to only piss off one of his roommates per day.

"Chef could." Carlos said, making Kendall roll his eyes again.

Chef could get anything because he was Massimo Bottura, and a god of American and Italian cuisine.

Pans washed, he started drying them one at a time, because he wasn't letting them air dry in a precarious pile again. His precious copper sugar pot might not survive another tumble.

"I meant get marionberries at the farmer's market." Kendall clarified, which Carlos must have known he meant.

Chef was only vaguely aware of Kendall's 'little internet experiment' as his boss had termed it, and as far as Kendall was concerned, it was going to stay that way. He wasn't going to go around name-dropping Massimo to get some marionberries.

"They're good as they are." Carlos said complacently, which as far as Kendall was concerned, was Carlos' biggest drawback as a chef. He rested on his laurels. He made the vision in his head, and if it matched, declared it done and perfect.

Kendall knew his own personal drawback was that no recipe was ever truly done. The tarts would be better with a single marionberry resting on the glossy surface of the pink pastry cream. They'd not only look better, but they'd also taste better, too.

Putting the last pan away, Kendall turned back Carlos.

"I'm going in at eleven. What about you?"

"Just got a text. Bunch of artichokes came in. Lots of prep today. So I'm going in early." Carlos flashed him a carefree smile that belied the fact that he'd be spending approximately the next sixteen hours at the restaurant, deep in the bowels of the kitchen. "But thanks for the tarts, they were a great start. Breakfast of champions."

"You're welcome." Kendall said, wiping his hand on a towel.

"Go get some sleep. You look like the walking dead. And not that hot one with the bow and arrows either."

Kendall didn't look in the mirror when he walked back to his room, but he considered it for a brief moment. He probably did look like hell, nothing like that admittedly hot guy from The Walking Dead. He should go take another catnap, but he wanted to get the tart video posted before his shift started.

He spent the next two hours editing his footage, and without even watching it all the way through, posted it to his page, Pastry by Kendall.

He took a lightning-quick shower, jumped on his bike, and was walking through the back door to the kitchens at Terroir right on time for his prep shift to start.

Part of the beauty of posting a video before a shift began was that there was no time to check hits or views or comments or anything at all. He was deep in prep, waist-high in white chocolate lemon mousse pyramids when Mateo, the head pastry chef, stopped in front of his station.

Mateo was sort of a dick, but pretty much all the chefs that reached his level were, so Kendall mostly didn't hold it against him.

"Did you put the rosemary in the cream while it seeped?" Mateo asked, like Kendall hadn't been making these all summer.

Terroir was considered one of the best restaurants in the world, and Mateo wasn't a terrible innovator-but sometimes his desserts were a little obvious. Kendall had also discovered the hard way that Mateo wasn't a huge fan of anyone having an idea other than him. If this wasn't Terroir and one of the best jobs anyone at his level could hope to have, Kendall would have left a long time ago, but here he still was, fielding Mateo's stupid questions and creating while chocolate lemon mousse pyramids.

And it should have been thyme, not rosemary, as far as he was concerned. But nobody had ever asked Kendall and that wasn't about to change.

"Yes, Chef." Kendall answered respectfully, but didn't glance up from his work.

"Good." Mateo said, and then lingered in front of his station, which made Kendall nervous. Mateo lingering didn't usually mean good things. It usually meant a great deal of unexpected work, and Kendall was already tired.

"Your new video." Mateo said, and Kendall couldn't help but tense. Mateo knew about the videos, but he'd never imagined Mateo might actually watch one.

He'd had to tell Mateo, and Mateo's boss, Chef Bottura, what he was doing with Pastry by Kendall, because he figured it was better to beg permission now than for them to find out about it on their own and be fired later. Chef Bottura hadn't cared, because it wasn't about him, and Mateo had only insisted that the desserts he created be Kendall's ideas and Kendall's ideas alone.

That was perfectly fine by him, because the site had originally been created because he'd been creatively stifled at work, so he had zero intention of ever posting a white chocolate lemon mousse pyramid to Pastry by Kendall.

"Yes, Chef?" Kendall said, glancing up when Mateo didn't spit it out right away. His dark beady eyes seemed to grow even beadier. Or maybe Kendall had just been up three-quarters of the night baking. It was hard to say exactly.

"It was good." Mateo's voice was gruff, like he could barely bring himself to say anything positive. "An innovative concept."

So much of his job was biting his tongue, and Kendall kept right on biting it. "Thank you."

"I might mention to Chef Bottura that we could use it as a special next weekend."

Kendall had to tamp down his excitement so it wouldn't show. It wouldn't be a surprise to see Chef taking some poor chef apart for not cooking the scallops to perfection, but celebrating in the Terroir kitchen? Out of the question.

"That would be good." Kendall said, and because he was too tired not to, took a risk. "I didn't even realize you watched the videos, sir."

Mateo had turned to move on, but looked back at Kendall's statement.

"I don't." He said. "Chef Bottura recommended I watch it. Apparently he really enjoyed it. He said he was seeing it all over his Twitter feed."

Kendall couldn't hold back his smile at that. He might not enjoy the reign of Chef Mateo, but he very much respected Chef Bottura (even if he could be insane at times). And all over Chef's Twitter feed? He knew his videos were popular, but he'd never heard of them spreading that quickly before. He wished he could put his pastry bag down and look at his phone, but he still had a good hour left and these pyramids needed to chill before dinner service started.

He'd check his phone on his break.

When he finally finished the white chocolate lemon mousse pyramids, and they were nestled in the blast chiller, the crick in his neck was much worse than it had been that morning. Trying to stretch it out, he detoured into the tiny locker room next to the dishwashers. Grabbing his phone out of his locker, he was floored by how many notifications he had-and he'd anticipated having a ton.

Chef Bottura hearing about his video and seeing it on his timeline had been a pretty good hint that his video had gone viral. The avalanche of notifications he was trying to sort through proved it.

After fifteen minutes, Kendall felt overwhelmed and for the first time ever, he was relieved his break was over. It felt like he'd barely touched the growing mountain of comments and shares and likes.

He couldn't put his finger on why the sudden flash of white-hot popularity bothered him, but as he was dusting the mousse pyramids with edible gold, it hit him.

Pastry by Kendall had never been about becoming popular. It had been an expression of his creative side that had been stifled at Terroir-a necessary outlet that he paid attention to sporadically. He didn't post videos weekly, or even regularly, but he must have hit a nerve because each video he posted seemed to exponentially increase his social media reach.

It was, Kendall decided, a serendipitous symptom of something he enjoyed doing. He'd still record the videos if nobody but his little sister watched them.

"Knight." A voice called across the kitchen. Kendall glanced up and tensed. It was Jett, his dirty blond hair covered by a bandana festooned with chili peppers, and he had his phone in his hand.

"What do you want?" He asked shortly, and far more quietly than Jett. It was just like Jett to believe that even in another chef's kitchen-even in Chef Bottura's kitchen-he could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

Sometimes Jett pushed his buttons, and all Kendall wanted to do was push them back. But Kendall always remembered he was a roommate and a friend, and even worse a co-worker, before he punched Jett in the face.

"You didn't tell me you were famous." He said, coming to stand over by the tray of pyramids. Kendalls set his brush on the lid of the gold dust with a steady hand.

"I'm not famous." Kendall said, even though the notifications blowing up his phone might argue otherwise.

"I don't know," Jett said skeptically, "when my aunt in New Jersey texts me to say she thinks our kitchen is a pit, I sorta feel like you are."

Kendall stared at his friend. "You don't have an aunt in New Jersey."

"But I could." Jett said blithely.

"You're an asshole." Kendall said, scowling as he picked his brush back up. "Now go away, I have to finish these. Don't you have about a thousand artichokes to break down?"

"Roughly two thousand." Jett announced cheerfully.

Kendall shook his head in disbelief. Not at the artichokes-that didn't surprise him at all because Chef Borruta was a famous perfectionist and a closet sadist-but at how happy Jett seemed to be about them.

"Did you get laid?" Kendall demanded quietly. "Is that what this obnoxious cheerfulness is about?"

Jett just laughed. "You look tired. You should get some sleep, Knight." He sauntered away without ever answering Kendall's question.

"You shouldn't let him get to you." Logan said.

Logan was Kendall's third roommate-Napa was insanely expensive and the only way Kendall could afford a halfway decent kitchen with halfway decent light was to split the rent four ways.

"Easy for you to say." Kendall retorted.

"I had a tart. Actually two." Logan confessed. "They were awesome."

Kendall had a soft spot for Logan. He kind of reminded him of his little sister, Katie. Except Logan was male, but like Katie, he was tough as nails because he was at the bottom of the food chain in Terroir's kitchen. Kendall had no idea how Logan even survived the diabolical tasks Chef Bottura put on his plate. Kendall usually thought women were usually way tougher than men, but what Logan put up with put even Katie to shame regularly. And Katie was a freshman in college.

"Thank you." Kendall acknowledged.

Logan was way more respectful than Jett, and had kept his distance so Kendall could pick his brush up and get back to his careful, artful dusting of the pyramids. Chef Mateo might not make crazily innovative desserts, but he was a stickler for presentation. Every single one of his desserts was a work of art.

"Jett's just jealous, you know. He has a secret, desperate yearning to be famous."

"It's not so secret." Kendall muttered. "In fact, it's hard to miss."

Logan burst out laughing. "True."

"You're too nice to him."

"I'm too nice to everyone." Logan said, which was also true. "I'll leave you alone to your geometric wonders."

When Kendall finally finished the dinner service, he had gold dust under his fingernails and a shit ton of sleepy grit in his eyes. He tossed his bike into the back of Logan's hatchback, and barely remembered his head hitting the pillow.

XxX

His phone blared shrilly, interrupting Kendall's deep dreamless sleep.

His hand shot out of the covers and grabbed what he thought might have been the shape of his phone. Not bothering to look at the screen, he blindly pressed the answer button.

"What?" He barked. It better not be Jett, waking him up to go for a jog. Or Logan, trying to be cute and failing.

"You're famous!" His little sister sang into the speaker, sounded even brighter than she usually did.

Kendall groaned and fell back to his pillow. "What time is it?"

"I waiting until nine, at least." Katie said. "I've got a class in five, I just wanted to tell you that you're famous, in case you missed it somehow."

"You'd be surprised." Kendall told her wryly, because he'd pulled an extra-long shift and then fallen asleep. He hadn't exactly had time in the last twenty-four hours to wrap his head around his sudden, inexplicable fame.

"What class?" He asked before she could tell him the breadth of what he'd neglected by choosing sleep. He didn't get a lot of time to talk to Katie since she'd started at Cal in the fall, and he'd missed their chats.

"Philosophy 101." Katie said, and he could hear her eye roll.

"Not enjoying it?" He asked. He'd chosen to go to culinary school instead of college, and it had absolutely been the right choice for him, but he was thrilled at the brave step Katie was taking.

She was one of his favorite people-smart and funny and bright as the sun-and she was the first of his family to actually go to college. He couldn't think of anyone better suited to fight for what she deserved.

"Oh, it's plenty dumb at points." Katie said. "Like whether we're actually not here, but figments of someone's imagination. Of course we're actually here. It's just…"

Kendall heard her pause, and he was still wiping the sleepy cobwebs from his brain so it took him a long second to catch up to why she was hesitating.

"What is it?" He finally asked. "What happened?" He was still, and would always be, a big brother.

"There's this guy." She said, frustration evident in her voice. "He argues with everything I say. I'm not sure he even agrees with what he's saying, but it doesn't seem to matter."

"He sounds like an ass." What he sounded like was a guy with a crush on Kendall's baby sister, and no idea how to go about getting her attention like an adult. Kendall wanted to punch him in the face.

"He definitely is." Katie said, and though she didn't say it, Kendall could hear the hesitation in her tone.

She didn't think he was an ass at all. And just like that, Kendall realized that she probably wouldn't be his baby sister for much longer. At least not in her mind. She was eighteen and in college and discovering the world.

"I've got to go." Katie continued. "But don't think I didn't notice that you changed the subject. We still need to talk about you, big bro."

"Someday."

"Sooner rather than later." Katie insisted.

After she hung up, Kendall hesitated before unlocking his phone again. Did he even want to look? When he finally did, he grimaced. If the avalanche of notifications yesterday had been daunting, the pile this morning was insurmountable.

He wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad thing that Mateo had told him he wouldn't need to be in until four today.

He debated whether he wanted coffee or not-not a real debate, more like whether Kendall wanted to pull on pants and stumble into the kitchen-and he'd just about made up his mind that coffee was required if he was going to slog through his phone when there was a knock on the door.

Kendall pushed his hair back from his forehead and grabbed a pair of loose sweats on the floor by the bed. Pulling them on, he opened the door to Logan's way too bright smile.

It was hard to scowl at all that cheerfulness, but Kendall was a pro and managed it just fine.

"I brought you coffee." Logan said, extending a cup filled to the brim. "Two sugars, dark as sludge."

Kendall eyed his roommate suspiciously. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I'm always nice."

Okay, that was true. Logan was definitely the nicest of his roommates, Carlos a close second, and Jett could be an asshole on a good day. But Logan had a sort of apprehensive puppy dog thing going on this morning, and Kendall was naturally suspicious, but he wasn't usually wrong.

"Have you looked at your phone?" Logan asked, sounding way too much like Katie for Kendall's peace of mind.

"Sort of."

Logan shot him a frank look. "Take a closer look," was all he said. "Last I saw, Martha Steward retweeted it, and Snoop Dogg picked it up, too."

Kendall's jaw dropped open. "Snoop Dogg retweeted my video?"

"I mean, have you even watched that cooking show he hosts Martha?" Logan rambled as Kendall clumsily unlocked his phone after three tries and sat down on the bed, coffee abandoned to the bedside table as he scrolled through some of his notifications.

"I don't get it." Kendall finally said, looking up and realizing that Logan was still expectantly standing in the doorway. "Most viral stuff has a good hook. This was a video of me...baking tarts."

"But you've never shown yourself as much as you did in this one." Logan pointed out. "And, honestly, you looked pretty cute and intense, hair falling in your face, and I think at one point you might've had some raspberry purée smeared across your cheek."

Kendall stared at his friend.

"You did watch it before you posted it, didn't you?" Logan asked awkwardly.

"Technically yes." Kendall thought back to the morning two days ago when he'd gotten approximately three hours of sleep on a marble slab and decided he might not have been entirely coherent enough to do the editing justice. "But I was a little tired at the time. I probably thought the raspberry purée gave me a sort of rakish charm."

"It totally did." Logan said loyally.

Logan was much nicer than Jett, and since Jett had yet to give him shit over the purée, that must mean he hadn't seen it yet. Kendall hoped that state continued for a long time, though considering the way the video was spreading, he probably wouldn't get that lucky.

"So I looked...funny?" Kendall asked, unable to keep the desperation out of his tone.

"No, no. You just look really intense and cute and driven. It's a good video, and people like it for the right reasons, I promise. Plus, the tarts look delicious-and they tasted even better, by the way."

"Okay." Kendall took a deep breath. "Is it totally weird if I didn't want this to happen?"

Logan's gaze grew sympathetic. "Uh, no. It's a lot of scrutiny. I'm not sure Chef Borruta will like it, if I'm being totally honest."

That was something Kendall hadn't even considered.

Chef Bottura was notoriously driven by his gigantic ego. Where Terroir was concerned, he didn't like anybody else stealing the spotlight. Especially a lowly pastry assistant.

"He seemed okay with it two days ago."

"Kendall," Logan said, "Snoop Dogg retweeted it. He's probably not okay with it now."

Kendall had difficulty wrapping his head around Chef Bottura even knowing who Snoop Dogg was, never mind caring what he thought of the video, but Logan was almost always right when it came to Chef Bottura.

Chef had handpicked Logan from his culinary school's graduating class and had taken him on as a special assistant. From what Kendall could figure out, that mostly meant that Logan got to bear the brunt of their overbearing boss. But no matter how many times Chef yelled at Logan, or generally embarrassed him in front of the rest of the staff, Logan still worshipped him.

Personally, Kendall thought there might be a little more than hero worship going on there, but he wasn't going to open that bag of worms anytime soon. If Logan was smart, he'd get over it and move on. If Logan wasn't smart, he'd eventually get chewed up and spit out by their illustrious leader.

"Well, I'll find out tonight." Kendall said. "I don't have to go in until four though." He already knew what he'd be doing the rest of the day, and even though he knew he should be celebrating his success, all he felt was a mild dread.

He hadn't set out to become popular or famous, and he wasn't sure how this video would ultimately impact his fairly simple life. A life he liked because it was simple.

"Drink your coffee." Logan ordered. "I'll see you tonight."

Done! So this was more of a prologue, but we'll get more into the plot next chapter.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter, as well as if you happened to have a favorite part/moment!

Again, I hope you all enjoyed! The next chapter will more than likely be up sometime next week, so there won't be too long of a wait for that. I'm so excited for this new ride and to share more with you all! :)

Until next time!

-Epically Obsessed