This is my belated prompt fill for @reylowarrior, who won second place in my 1,000 follower giveaway a while back. She wanted a Reylo Chopped AU, and I got a little carried away. Enjoy!
The forty-odd minutes it takes to watch an episode of Chopped is nothing compared to the twelve hours it takes to film one. By the end of the day, Ben Solo is strung-out, tired, and sticky with perspiration (although he will see when the episode airs that his hair, at least, remained near-immaculate). But as he speaks to the producer coaching him through his exit interview, he feels only exhilaration.
Not because he won.
In fact, he had not. He’s the runner up. And he might rail, as he so often did during taping, against an egg that stuck to the pan and a yolk that broke, or his inability to locate cornstarch in the pantry when he needed to thicken a sauce, or the unholy inclusion of samosas in the dessert basket. The producer seems to expect this of him. And who doesn’t?
For Ben Solo was, very simply, outcooked by a young sous chef who’s never stepped foot in a culinary school.
And no one will believe it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
“Of course not winning is… a disappointment,” he hears himself say, and if he cared to he might revisit the mental list of the disappointed: his father, who never believed he should follow in the footsteps of his uncle to become a chef; his mother, forever skeptical of his choice to “throw away” his Harvard undergraduate education by pivoting to culinary school; his uncle, one mentor; his current, scarier, mentor. But in a way, Ben realizes he already has all he might want. He has already made a name for himself in the kitchen, and not just for his temper. He thought he was hungry for the win, but it turned out there was someone else who was hungrier.
“But watching R— Chef Rey cook today was an experience,” he says. “Her creativity, her passion. She earned this win.”
For it was Rey who had created a bright and lively salad dressing out of those terrible maraschino cherries in the appetizer round, and Rey who had expertly made the cactus pear the star of her dessert. In the end, Ben had gotten in his own head, muttering to himself, swearing when things didn’t go his way, to the degree that Rey had snapped — snapped! — at him briefly when she got in his way, something few would dare to do (they would play that up for drama on the final episode, he imagines). But he has some things to reevaluate. He had deserved the chiding. And she deserved the win.
“You don’t have a problem with losing to a less experienced chef?” the producer prompts.
“She composed a better dish,” he says, in a tone that brings a definitive end to that line of questioning. He glares into the harsh lights. No further questions come.
Later, once he’s been de-mic’d and he’s changed into his own clothes, he lingers by the door that will take them out into a crisp New York night, hands in his pockets, waiting for Rey to emerge. He assumes her exit interview will take a little longer, and can’t fathom why with each passing minute, he feels more nervous. The hard part should be over.
When she finally makes her appearance, she glows, flushed from the day’s exertions, little pieces of hair stuck to her face, grinning from ear to ear. Then she spots him, and looks— surprised. Obviously she expected him long gone by now, sulking off to wallow in defeat.
But she barely misses a step. “Hi,” she says.
“Hi.” Ben takes an awkward, shuffling step away from the wall. He hasn’t felt like this since— probably since his career in boarding school. All of his limbs feel too long. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, I—” She shakes her head, still grinning. “Thanks. God, I really need that money, I can’t believe it. But you did well, too.”
“You did better.”
Rey jerks her chin in a little nod. “By a hair. But it was a fair fight.”
“So it was.”
She cocks her head, looking him over. “You seem really… calm, now.”
“Do I?”
“I guess I thought you’d be more upset.”
Ben shrugs. He doesn’t feel calm. He doesn’t know what he feels. He hasn’t felt anything like it. But he just says, “Long day.”
“Well.” Rey sticks her hand out. “It was a pleasure cooking with you.”
He extends his, as well. And then watches her face change when she pulls it back, a slip of cardstock in her hand.
“My card,” Ben clarifies, as if that wasn’t obvious from his name on it, the name of his restaurant on it, in red script. “Wherever you’re working, they’re not paying you enough for your talent.”
“Oh,” she says, a bit hollowly. She looks at it and then — adorably, but unexpectedly — scrunches her nose. “That’s very generous. But I don’t know that I should cook for someone I just beat at cooking.”
“Oh,” he echoes. “Right.”
“Besides, with ‘Chopped Champion’ on my resume, I should be able to—”
“Yes,” he mutters, feeling foolish. “Right. Of course.” He clenches his jaw. “Well, if you wanted to call for any— other reason.”
Her eyes widen. “Other reason?”
Ben knows he is not making this better. In fact, he is likely making it worse. But he can’t stop himself. “If you wanted to talk.”
“That’s usually why people call each other on the phone.”
He looks away from her. He feels the sting now, of loss, of humiliation. Of course a pretty young girl like Rey wouldn’t be interested in either offer. Likely she already has a mentor, or possibly a partner—
A light touch on his arm. “Ben,” she says. “What are you doing now?”
Going home to forget this day ever happened. “Nothing,” he says.
The silence lasts a beat too long. “Some friends were going to take me out for drinks after taping,” Rey says. “Consolation or victory drinks, depending. Do you want to, maybe, come along?”
Ben glances down at her slim, pale fingers on his dark jacket. “I don’t need pity.”
“It wasn’t—” Rey sighs, and drops her hand. “I guess it’s just not a good time.”
“I guess not.”
He hears her exhale, loudly, through her nose. “Okay, then,” she says, and from the corner of her eye he sees her roll her shoulders back, straightening up. “Well, I have your number. I’ll call.”
“You will?” He looks up, surprised, to find her with a stubborn set to her own jaw.
“I will,” she says. “But not to work for you.”
“No,” he replies, quickly. “No, I didn’t think so.”
And now her smile is back, and it’s for him. She must see the tips of his ears going red. “Thanks for being a good sport, today. I— you surprised me, Ben.”
“You did, too, Rey,” he says. Her name tastes like honey in his mouth. “In the best way.”
She knocks her shoulder against his bicep, and he thinks he might melt. “Hey,” she jokes brightly. “Maybe they’ll have you back for one of those redemption episodes.”
“Redemption,” he repeats, and he nods. “I like the sound of that.”
