Spoilers for episode 16: Sonny in the Kitchen with Dinner. You will understand so much more if you watch the episode.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonny with a Chance.

CHAD IN THE KITCHEN WITH PUKE

There is one secret about Chad Dylan Cooper that people are not supposed to know, to never read about in Tween Weekly, to never hear uttered from the TV star's lips. For the sake of this story, that secret will be revealed now: a week ago, a big Hollywood director had rejected Chad from the lead role of an upcoming horror movie. Needless to say, Chad's ego was crushed. He thought he had it all pinned down in the audition – the shock in his eyes when he saw his love interest in danger, the courage in his voice when he shouted "Stop right there!" to the serial killer.

"Sorry, Mr. Cooper," the director, who shall not be named to protect the pride and reputation of Chad, said. "You just don't seem to have the heroic qualities I'm looking for."

When asked what he meant by heroic qualities, the director replied that he lacked compassion – to truly put someone else in front of himself. Such a concept was foreign to Chad, but it still bruised his ego even so. He needed his head to be inflated again. Sonny praising that he was the greatest actor of our generation was good enough, even if she did say that for his Lakers tickets.

And you know what? Sonny's fake lines were right! Who needed that stupid horror movie, anyway? "Compassion" was for amateurs, and Chad was certainly no amateur.

So when he picked up his phone a few days later, heard Sonny screaming and metal crushing, his heart lunged and almost jumped out of his chest. He realized immediately that her cry of help was his calling, his chance to shine in a real life horror situation: he would swoop over, slay the bad guy with his awesomeness, and receive a kiss from the cute girl whose life he saved. Ha! That would be something to show Mister Big Hollywood Director!

Chad rushed to his convertible when it started drizzling rain. The perfect setting for a dramatic scene. He glanced at the clock on his machine, green numbers blinking 6:50 PM.

Oh shoot, he realized before inserting his car keys. He had an appointment for a three hour massage at 7:00 PM. Well, if Chad was going to kick some butt, it would be advisable to unknot some of his muscles before doing so. He wouldn't want to strain any part of his body while battling someone, after all.

… But Sonny was in danger here! It was an emergency! Chad anxiously looked back at his clock. 6:51 PM.

Okay, he decided. I'll cut my massage – to an hour.

That was the right thing to do. He smiled and started the engine, ready to turn the other way to see his personal massage therapist. Chad turned the rear-view mirror to face him when he noticed his hair looked a little deflated.

Wait a minute, if he was going to save Sonny and be all over the news, he had to make sure his hair looked good. The front page of the newspaper would have his picture for him to shove it in Mister Big Hollywood Director's face, and he had to look flawless in that picture.

Alright, he thought, I'll shower and re-do my hair after that massage…

Probably would take another hour…

He looked back at the mirror again and opened his mouth.

Should whiten my teeth too…

---

It was 7:30 PM and Chad was on the floor of Sonny's bathroom, sponge and bucket in hand.

As the boy wrinkled his nose and scrubbed one of the tiles, he thought about his ruined dreams of becoming a hero. He was supposed to be stuck with a tied up axe murderer in the bathroom, not stuck with Nico and Grady. He was supposed to wipe his hands clean from a job well done, not wipe the tile floors clean of vomit from disgusting sun-baked 'Granico' sandwiches. He was supposed to whisk Sonny away in his arms, not have Sonny standing above the three boys and barking orders at them.

"You missed a spot!" she snapped, pointing at a yellowish goop near the toilet. It was difficult to determine whose mark it was. The boys had all upchucked and tried to aim for the toilet. And all of them had failed.

"That's not fair, Sonny, how come Hayden is the only one allowed to go home?" complained Nico.

Sonny folded her arms across her chest. "That's because he's a guest and an innocent victim. He wasn't the one who made those sandwiches, after all." She shot a glare at the two So Random boys.

Oh, sure, take the kisser's side, Chad grimaced. He was still upset that Sonny had kissed the new assistant, so he imagined that yellowish goop to be Hayden's face and scrubbed the tiles extra vigorously.

"I can't believe I'm stuck here cleaning all because you dropped your phone in the sink," he started criticizing. "Honestly, Sonny, you made me think you were in serious danger or something!"

The brunette blinked, her arms loosening. "Is that why you came?" she asked. "You were worried about me…?"

Her hair was a tangled mess, her face stained with dirt from being trapped outside her apartment earlier, but Chad liked the way she looked when her expression softened. Just as he opened his mouth, Grady responded for him.

"Yeah, he was really worried! He said he had to cut his massage to an hour and came here immediately!"

The Mackenzie actor closed his mouth shut once Sonny shot him a look. "You mean you thought I was in danger… and then scheduled a massage before rushing over?"

Chad swallowed the lump down his throat. "Of course not, Sonny," he replied coolly. "If I save you, I have to look good for the news reporters, so I scheduled for a hair stylist and got my teeth whitened too."

The boy swore he saw medusa snakes crawl out of the knots of Sonny's hair. If she were dynamite, he would be the matches.

"You are such a JERK! You can never put anyone else in front of yourself, can you?!" the girl fumed, then pointed outside the bathroom doorway. "Just for that, I'm not letting you leave until you wipe every inch of your mudprints off my door!"

She stomped out to attend to Tawni back in her living room, while Nico and Grady snickered and high fived each other. Chad grumbled, soaking his sponge back in the bucket. He could never do anything right, could he?

---

Sonny had meant it when she said Chad wouldn't be able to leave until he cleaned every mess he left in her apartment. Nearly 9:00 PM now, the TV star found himself on his knees again, stooped over the bottom part of the door to wipe the mud off. Tawni, Nico, and Grady had left earlier, giggling on their way out at the sight of Chad on the floor and flashing their camera phones at him.

Sonny still cried about her Blarmie, recently stained with Tawni's vomit before the blonde girl had left. "The blanket with aaarrmssss!" she blubbered, burying her face on the clean side of the cloth. Chad rolled his eyes.

"Of all people, I should be the one complaining here," he muttered, loud enough for the girl to hear.

"But it was you who made the mess. I never did anything to my Blarmie," she sniffed. "Why were your shoes so dirty in the first place anyway?"

Chad glared at a spot on the door. There was one stain that refused to wipe away no matter how much he pressed the sponge onto the surface. Now he cursed himself for ever kicking open the door because he had wanted to make a cool entrance.

"You wanna know why, Sonny?" he snapped, in a foul mood. The boy was not used to such hands-on labor. Even when he had pretended to build dog houses for stray dogs that one time, he only pulled out the hammers when the camera rolled by. "The reason why my shoes are so dirty is because I had to trek through the mud and rain just to get to your stupid apartment!"

Sonny blinked and looked up from her Blarmie. "Are you serious? Couldn't you have taken your car?"

"My car ran out of gas when I started driving to your place!" Chad attacked that pesky mudprint with the spray bottle and assaulted it with the soapy sponge, channeling his irritableness against the door. He continued complaining. "Now my new shoes are dirty, my car is left in the middle of the road, my hair is all messed up and my back is aching!"

With a frustrated battle cry he finally swiped the surface clean, capturing all the mud in the little sponge and dropped it in the bucket. His body collapsed across the hardwood floor, exhausted from the labor and vomit and mudprints. He panted and gazed blankly at the ceiling, arms and legs stretched out in a snow angel position.

Sonny poked her head over the couch and stared curiously at him. Quietly, she said, "I thought you had to style your hair and get a massage before saving me."

Chad's eyelids fluttered. For a second he felt accomplished, and then fatigue began wearing him down. "I went to see my massage therapist, but I never got the massage," he replied tiredly. "Just kept thinking about you crying…" He closed his eyes and rolled over, his nose scrunching against the hardwood, and mumbled, "I'm so tired…"

Sonny watched the boy snore quietly on her floor. She really shouldn't leave him like that, but the girl didn't want to wake him up. The corner of her lips drew to a smile as she stood above him.

"You're such an idiot," she muttered, and left to go to her kitchen, where she would hand-wash her Blarmie. Earlier she would have made him wash the blanket himself, but Sonny knew it would be best to let the spoiled celebrity, who had never worked and gone through trouble for anything in his life, rest.

---

Chad was the only boy who stayed over Sonny's apartment past 10:00 PM, but the girl would never admit that to him, otherwise he might blab it to Tween Weekly or display that fact on his blog. With the buckets and sponges tucked away in bathroom counters, the Blarmie tossed in the laundry, and the bathroom and door spotless, Sonny's apartment looked untouched. Chad stood outside her doorway with his hands tucked in his pockets, oblivious that the girl was actually stifling her giggles from his bed hair. (Or in this case, floor hair.)

"I guess it was my fault your door and bathroom got dirty," he admitted. He pinched the pockets of his jeans as he prepared to say the S word. "So, um, I'm… sorry."

"It's okay, I'm not mad anymore," Sonny replied truthfully. Part of the reason why she wasn't mad anymore was because she got to take a picture of Chad's bed hair while he slept. And of course, there was that other reason, too.

"Okay," Chad said, "good night then." Sonny nodded back.

If anyone else in the apartment complex had been awake and peered out their door at this time, they might have thought that the blonde boy and Sonny had been on a date. This, of course, is false. Their night had been the exact opposite of a date, and they certainly weren't feeling like a couple after that whole mess.

Still, Sonny felt obliged to do something.

Chad widened his eyes as the girl gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He gawked at her, and she turned her eyes away from his nervously.

"Thanks for everything you did today," she explained.

For a guy with a lot of talk, Chad could do nothing but stare at her speechless. He never realized until now how close they were, their proximity only a few inches away. That was why, when Sonny gazed into his eyes and the two stared at each other for a moment, she added, "… You smell like puke."

Chad closed his mouth, which had dropped open the second her lips grazed his cheek. He straightened his back, standing tall and puffing his chest out, and declared, "No. It's the stench of a hero."

And with that, the boy marched down the hallway with a proud strut, leaving Sonny staring after him dumbfounded.

So Chad may have not taken down an axe murderer, or saved Sonny like he wanted to, or made it on the news as a hero. He may have ended up vomiting out moldy sandwiches, cleaning the mess, and had embarrassing pictures taken of him that could possibly be used for blackmail in the future. He may have muscles aching all over, an abandoned car in the middle of the road, and a kiss which he didn't even know why he received it.

But you know what?

Somehow, tonight turned out to be a pretty good night.

Take that, Mister Big Hollywood Director.

End.

Author's Note: I haven't written Sonny with a Chance fanfiction in a long time, but I finally got inspired after watching the latest episode. Chad's line, "I got a weird call from Sonny's cell, heard screaming and crushing metal, so I cut my massage to an hour and rushed right over!", is so cute and yet very Chad-like. I kept on thinking of the possible scenarios and this is what I came up with.

Yeah, yeah, too much fluff. I'm getting a cavity now.

Ermmm, what do you guys think?