Work Text:
You glare into your camera, nudging your filming apparatus this way and that until you finally get it to stand properly on the rickety pile of books on a chair. Dave, who edits your videos, will be sure to include this for the exaggerated frustrated scowl on your face.
Your phone pings and you look down to quickly confirm dinner plans with the Maryam-Lalondes for tomorrow night. Your boyfriend will also leave this in the video.
You finally look back up to the lens.
“Today I’m making gluten-free apple pie. It’s objectively terrible because apple pie has so much goddamn cinnamon in it it makes me feel like I’m on 2012 YouTube, but it’s my boyfriend’s birthday tomorrow so I’m making it for him.”
You move around some bowls and ingredients on the counter in front of you.
“This recipe is safe for any- FUCK!”
Your rolling pin, inconsiderate of the fact that you’re trying to run a serious operation, rolled straight off the counter and into an open trash can. You pull it out, swiping it free of any crumbs that stuck to the wood. You let out a theatrical groan.
As you wash the pin, you shudder and grind your teeth because you know, you just know, that Dave is gonna put in that shitty SBaHJ graphic that says “ TEKNIKAL DIFFICULT. PLEZ STAND BUY ME” decorated with the image of Sweet Bro holding up Hella Jeff to the yellow sunrise ripped off of a sprite can. The entire image is deep fried and littered with artificial jpeg artifacting.
You turn back to the counter, slamming the rolling pin onto the marble.
“As I was saying- NO FUCK GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING-”
Predictably, the rolling pin rolls itself off the counter and into the garbage again.
You fume enough that the water feels ice cold on your hands.
You slam the rolling pin back onto the counter again, this time between a bowl and a bag of sugar.
“This recipe is gluten-free, but it’s not vegan,” you sigh, warily eyeing the pin just to make sure it wouldn’t somehow wiggle out and plunge itself into the garbage just to spite you one last time.
“Your butter has to be cold, that is what makes the crust flaky and not just a sweet bread you baked into applesauce. Use a food processor to chop it up if you have shitty knives. It’s not worth hurting yourself over.”
You cream the butter into the bowl with the shitty fourteen dollar beater you bought back when you and Dave started dating.
“And for fuck’s sake you don’t need a stand mixer!” you bark.
Some butter sprays onto the cabinet by your shoulder.
“Unless you work at a goddamn bakery baking baguettes out the fucking ass you never need a stand mixer!”
You shake your head trying to focus all of your anger into the bowl.
“If I see one more rich white man in front of his goddamn continental kitchen island talking about using a fucking stand mixer to make fucking chocolate chip cookies I’m gonna lose my shit!”
You take a deep breath to calm down. You fail.
“You know, they used to make all this shit with a goddamn whisk and nothing else but the wrath of god against them. I’m sure you can make due with a hand mixer.”
You start to measure out the ingredients, being sure to make your movements aggressive as possible so your stupid editor can artificially zoom onto the stupid spilled ingredients and add stupid sound effects. This apparently qualifies for humor on the internet. Whatever. If it will make Dave and your followers happy you can get sugar all over your kitchen.
“I’m using almond flour because I think it goes nicely with the apple filling,” you roll your eyes, “but to be perfectly fucking honest, you can’t tell a damn difference. Use gluten-free flour if you want, nobody around you will give a shit.”
You snarl. “And even if they did, fuck them! You just made them a pie from scratch, for the love of fuck.”
You dump dry ingredients into your bowl. “Sift this if you’re sourcing your flour from extremely dubious sources. That way you can fish out rocks or bugs or whatever you’re so scared of finding in there. The quote unquote ‘added air’ immediately deflates when the flour collapses under its own weight. But, you do you I guess.”
You proceed through with making the pastry, trying to be as detailed as possible.
“This part is what gave me most grief when I was figuring out how to make this glorified PopTart. You need to add water”
You’re always embarrassed thinking of all of your failed attempts at homemade pie. Dave, in an outward show of thoughtfulness, which was rare back then, mercifully did not give you a hard time whenever the crust was too gooey or was hard enough to crack a tooth.
“It depends on where you live, the humidity, and a truckload of other stupid shit that makes this part impossible to standardize. Just add cold water a little bit at a time.”
You do just that.
“It just barely needs to come together. DO NOT ADD ANYMORE WATER AT THIS POINT.”
You nudge the dough between both hands and wrap it in cling film. You yank open the fridge and chuck it like you’re trying out for JV baseball.
“Chill it for at least a half hour.”
You toss things around the counter, rearranging what you need for the next step. You spin around and point at the camera aggressively.
“YOU DON’T GET TO CHILL, YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE FILLING.”
You reach for the bag of apples by your feet and plonk them onto your work surface.
“This is actually the easiest part. If there was a time to chill it would be now.”
The filling comes together quick and into the pie tin quicker. You clean up while it's in the oven.
You set a timer for 30 minutes and move to where the camera is still balancing precariously.
“While you wait for that to bake you can go play video games with your wet sock of a boyfriend.”
You snatch your camera, not bothering to point it at anything in particular except your feet. You whip it up to ambush the stream your boyfriend is hosting.
The door whaps against the soundproofing foam, so the slam is not as dramatic as you would have liked.
“DAVE!”
The screen to his left is blinking with activity, a deluge of text crashing into itself, all saying the same thing:
CRAB!!
CRAB
crab🦀!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CRABBY BOI CRAB CRAB
beep beep meow ❤️
🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
C R A B
🦀He is the crab. The crab is him.🦀
CRAB CRAB!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Accompanied by the custom stream emoji that depicted a crude drawing of your likeness. Your face is almost entirely overtaken by your screaming mouth.
Dave’s stoic facade does not slip save for a small twitch of his lips.
“Yo, Karkat.”
You zoom into his face, ignoring the garish colors and pulsating strobe lights which decorate Dave’s streaming room.
“I’m bored,” you say, completely deadpan. It manages to startle a laugh out of him.
“Lucky for you, we just popped in Mario, your favorite.”
“You know damn well it is not my favorite,” you mutter, taking a controller anyway. You wonder if your blood pressure will be stable enough to risk bending down and pulling something from the oven.
“I want Peach,” you say.
“You can play Toadette.”
“Get the fuck out of here with fucking Toadette I want Peach.”
“If you get the crown mushroom she looks like Peach.”
“I don’t want to look like Peach, I want to be Peach.”
“You can’t be Peach.”
“And why the everfuck not?’
“Bowser has her, duh?”
“Still?”
“Bro what the fuck do you mean ‘still’, that happens every game.”
“Oh, that is such garbage. It’s like the 900th game and they’re still having her be kidnapped?”
Dave starts the game up.
“You heard it here first, gamergate II starting right here.”
“What the fuck is a gamergate.”
Dave gives you a look that is so unbearably fond that you feel like ripping your skin off.
“Man, it’s so fuckin easy to forget that you use the internet like a fucking old man.”
He glances at his chat for a moment.
“Yeah, Karkat doesn’t understand memes at all. It’s literally the best.”
You decide to play along for the stream.
“Yesterday you ‘wished me a very good come to bed and cuddle me right now’ and I could have throttled you.”
“You could never,” Dave weaves his arm through yours and settles into your side. He mashes at the controller to skip through the opening cinematic.
“Why do you even play video games if you’re just going to skip through the story?” you grouse, picking at an old argument for the sole purpose of riling up chat.
“Story?!” Dave exclaims right into your ear.
He leans away from you so he can stare at you judgmentally. “This is a Mario game, my guy. What fucking story?”
You push at his face to get him to stop staring. “Well, now I won’t fucking know because you skipped it!”
“There is no fucking story, bro! You just said that they kept making the same story over and over again, bro! Do you want to go back, bro? Restart the fuckin game so you can have the deets on which fucking shade of pink they used for the cake, huh? Bro?” Dave is in your face, contorting his body more and more with each question.
The chat has been rocketing up the screen the entire time you’d been arguing.
THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINGGGGGGG
if i wanted to watch two adults fight about stupid shit i would go to my living room
hey does anyone wanna play among us
not them arguing about wasting time when they have not moved since the game started
CRAB FIGHT CRAB FIGHT CRAB FIGHT
place your bets in one corner we have a pair of walking sunglasses and in the other literally the most angry human in the universe
tg is that ur real hair
bro tf are you still playing among us for
rest in peace 9ever in our hearts tg 😞😞😞😞
Do u guyes think that fish know when we put them in tanks
You involuntarily bark out a quick laugh.
“Stop! Get the fuck out of my face!”
Dave snickers like the shitheel he is, but still obliges. You play the game for a little while, you’re not paying attention to chat because it’s not your fucking job, but judging by the asinine shit Dave puts you through he must be keeping an eye on it.
“Stop jumping on my fucking head,” you grind your elbow on his head in retaliation.
“I needed that coin.”
“You shoved me down a pit for a coin?!”
“I gotta beat you.”
“This is a co-op game!”
When your phone buzzes out an alarm, you vacate the streaming room faster than Dave can say anything, and before chat can harass you any more.
BYE CRABCAT
HE NYOOOOOM
i miss u already karkat pls come back
he even scuttles away like a crab
💔💔💔💔💔💔
whats the room code
beep beep meow 💔
You grab the pie from the oven and unceremoniously plop it onto the counter.
“It’s done.” You stare intently at the pie for no other reason than to annoy Dave while he edits this.
“It has to cool for at least six hours,” you slam both hands on the counter, “do not even think about touching this until then. If you do I will personally come into your home and piss on your shag carpets. Because I just know that the kind of MOTHERFUCKER who would cut into a pie right out of the oven is a motherfucker with shag carpets.”
“It’s a good pie,” you say. “Get out of my house now.”
The next evening you take the pie to Kanaya’s for Dave’s birthday dinner. It was a small affair, neither of you were big fans of huge crowds. The only other attendants were June and her girlfriends (one of whom happened to be your ex, which wasn’t awkward at all. No, really.) and Jade.
After you serve the pie, you pull out your phone so you can film Dave’s first bite, which has become tradition for your channel.
You shove the phone in his face just when his cheeks are ballooned with pastry like the “world’s most fuckable chipmunk”, which is what he mints himself in post.
“How is it, Dave?” you ask, making sure to keep Rose out of the shot.
“Ish godf,” he says, and you can’t help but be overtaken by a sense of pride.
A few years ago, you strong-armed him into a general checkup after he told you that he never actually stepped foot in a hospital. He didn’t seem to think it was such a big deal when you freaked out, but that’s the danger of being such a dramatic asshole. He took your frenzied state much more seriously when the doctor forced him through countless tests after you told her Dave never went to a doctor.
Other than some bones that were incorrectly set and nutritional deficiencies, Dave was diagnosed with Celiac disease. Cementing that day as the “worst of his fucking life, man”.
After a few weeks of scouring the marketplace for suitable foods, and having to sit through Dave’s disappointed scowl (which was really just a slight decline of his cheeks), you finally decided to don your grandma’s old apron and get to work. And soon enough, you were basically the Martha Stewart of de-glutenizing frat-boy recipes. Dave said your food was a divine blessing from above. After a few prods, you honestly thought he was taking the piss out of you, he eventually got you to start a YouTube channel to share your expertise.
Now, watching Dave stuff his face with the pie that took you upwards of two dozen times to perfect, you feel more fulfilled than you’d ever been.
You turn your phone so the video is almost entirely overtaken by your nose.
“Told you.”
Comments
Pinned comment
I COOK BETTER THAN YOU ✓
DAVE’S TWITCH: https://tinyurl.com/2vabp3wr
DAVE’S MERCH: https://tinyurl.com/cmt85ycw
FULL RECIPE:
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Ray Bandaids
mans really said buy my bfs shirts before putting his own recipe
freaxeus_a
karkat why dont you have a subreddit
Stacy K
I tried using gluten-free flour but it came out kind of gummy, is there another alternative?
I COOK BETTER THAN YOU ✓
THAT MIGHT BE FROM THE KIND OF APPLES YOU USE. I SUGGEST GREEN APPLES OR ANYTHING THAT ISN’T ALREADY SOFT. BUT AS FOR ALTERNATIVES YOU CAN USE BUCKWHEAT FLOUR OR WHATEVER YOUR LOCAL HIPSTER HEALTH FOOD STORE STOCKS. YOU MIGHT HAVE TO EXPERIMENT A LITTLE TO GET IT RIGHT, BUT JUST KEEP TRYING.
scilianic
i love when he yells helpful advice and encouragement its the worlds weirdest pep talk
narunauw
the neighbors dont even call the police anymore they just know that karkat made a new video and go watch it instead
YouJustActivatedMyTrapCard
meanwhile my bf cant even make me eggs without burning a whole nonstick skillet
kurosakiichigoplsdmme
WHEN HE INTERRUPTS A STREAM WITH HIS CHEST AND DAVE IS JUST LIKE “hey”-
Sasha Baur
its the sushi socks that make this
dundermifflinthisisDIO
THANK U KARKAT I COULDNT HAVE APPLE PIE IN SO LONG BECAUSE OF GLUTEN AND NOBODY MAKES IT GLUTENFREE WHERE I LIVE
marugarufaru
my roommate when karkat posts a new video: aw shit, here we go again
killuasthembo
dave when he eats is the opposite of my sleep paralysis demon
Jeff Long
moooooooom karkat is yelling at me about kitchen appliances again
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