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Jade pouted and crossed her arms, turning away in a gesture of exaggerated annoyance. Karkat sighed and shook his head, swearing under his breath as he turned back to the task at hand. With sleeves rolled up, he continued chopping up the spinach bunch clenched in his hand, only barely missing his own fingers with each rage-repressed cut. “You know, if you’re really so fucking upset by how I’m doing this,” sneered Karkat, “you can come and cut this leafy bullshit yourself!” Jade clattered a pan onto the metal hob across from him and glared in his direction.
“Listen, Karkat: do you want to help out or not? I was perfectly fine prepping this by myself.” Jade spoke, her tone harsh yet measured. “It’s not exactly like omelettes require two people to make.”
“Then get the fuck out of the fucking meal block and let me do it!” Karkat exclaimed, gesturing angrily and managing to only barely miss cutting his own cheek. “I am doing you and Dave a favor by taking over this shit.”
Jade huffed and began to seriously consider beating the brash troll over the head with her frying pan. But instead, she closed her eyes, placed her hands on the counter, and took a deep breath. Upon reopening her eyes, her disposition suddenly reverted back to its usual cheery state.
“Alright, Karkat,” she said, lifting her apron up over her head and tossing it aside, “if you wanna cook our breakfast so badly, I won’t stop you.” With that, Jade dusted her hands off and skipped out of the kitchen, exiting to sit on the couch in the next room over. Karkat looked up and blinked. “Wait, seriously?”
“Yep.” called Jade from the other room, “I’m sure you know exactly what you’re doing.”
It was at this moment that Karkat realized what was going on. He had been posed with a challenge. A proverbial gauntlet had just been thrown down at his feet. Jade was proposing the thesis that Karkat would be unable to cook by himself, an idea so preposterous he felt he had no choice but to oppose it.
“Alright, Harley. Don’t think I don’t see this shit you’re trying to pull. You think I’m gonna cave after 5 minutes and come writhing to you for help like some pathetic grub calling for its lusus.” Karkat continued to chop recklessly as he spoke. “Well guess what: I won’t. I’m gonna make the best fucking egg-pancakes you and Dave will ever have the pleasure of salivating your shit-filled human mouths all over.”
Jade smiled to herself. “Okay, okay. Just remember” she giggled “there’s no shame in needing some help!”
Karkat gritted his teeth and ignored her, dreading the sass that was sure to continue as he went on cooking. He returned his focus to the decimation he was wrecking with the knife before him. He increased his haste, at the expense of the already lacking grace in his movements. When he was finished, Karkat cast aside the knife dramatically and slammed his palms down on the granite surface.
“Okay well I’ve cut up the fucking…” Karkat looked down contemplatively at the lacerated green mess before him “...spinach, or whatever. Now what?”
“Read the recipe, Karkat!” Jade called out, now playing a game on the apartment Switch. “Jeez, do trolls never cook?” Karkat resisted the urge to chastise her lack of knowledge of Alternian culinary culture, and instead wiped off his hands on his apron as he began to look around the kitchen.
“Trolls cook all the time, we just usually never need to steep so low as to use petty ‘recipes’ for our meals.” He was lying, of course, but he’d never let Jade know that. “Now where in Jegus’ name would I find your stupid fucking egg-pancake recipe.”
“It’s called an omelette, Karkat, and the recipe is in the cookbook by the stovetop.”
As he crossed over to the stove to retrieve the cookbook, Karkat muttered under his breath some snarky remark about the stupidity of such a name. Running his finger over the page, he found the last step he had completed, ‘cut up spinach’, and read on to the next. ‘Crack 2 eggs in a bowl, add a pinch of salt and black pepper, then beat thoroughly.’ Seemed simple enough, he thought to himself, turning to the fridge to retrieve the eggs. Karkat knocked about the fridge’s interior for a moment, fishing out the carton and picking out two eggs. As he did this, he reached above him into a cupboard with his other hand. Almost knocking multiple ceramic jars and plates to the floor, he grasped at a glass bowl towards the back, which he eventually had to stand on his tip-toes to finally get. Exasperate at this minor inconvenience, Karkat stomped over to the counter and set down the bowl. Determined to get this shit done, he raised an egg in front of him and got to cracking.
The near-immedtiate sound of Karkat exclaiming prompted Jade to leap from the couch and hop back into the kitchen, both out of genuine concern for him and in hopes of getting some sweet sweet schadenfreude. She couldn’t help but laugh when she was greeted with the sight of Karkat standing impotently with raw egg dripping down his front.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” He snarled preemptively. Jade made a futile attempt to stifle her laughter, followed swiftly by her bursting out into hysterics.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” she guffawed. Karkat was deeply unimpressed, his face flushing red with anger.
“The stupid fucking recipe said to crack the egg. How was I meant to know it would fucking explode?!”
“Karkat,” said Jade, still failing to withhold chuckles between her every word, “you crack the eggs on the edge of the bowl - gently.” Karkat glanced incredulously at his hand, shards of the shell still stuck to his fingernails from when he had carelessly crushed it in his fist.
“Don’t you dare tell him about this.” snarled Karkat, trying to wipe the egg off his apron only to end up making it worse.
“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t!” Jade smiled as she walked back to the living room, crossing her fingers in front of her. Tentatively, and with impatient carefulness, Karkat tapped the other egg on the rim of the bowl until a sizeable crack appeared. With his yellow nails, he pried open the shell, allowing it’s contents to spill out into the bowl. Karkat grumbled to himself at how simple this now seemed. After fetching a third egg from the fridge and breaking it into the bowl, Karkat sprinkled (a little too much) salt and pepper into the slimy substance and glanced back at the recipe. “Beat it.’ Now, whilst his instincts were telling him to go ham and start beating the shit out of the egg with his fists, he had already learned the hard way that when it came to cooking, violence was regretably not always the answer. So he looked around in vain hopes of seeing some sort of instrument labeled something like ‘beating tool’ for him to use. After about thirty seconds of unsuccess, he gave up and shouted to Jade “Okay, how am I meant to ‘beat’ this shit?”
“You’ll need a fork!” called out Jade, who was now back to her game. “You just kinda whisk it until the yolk and the egg white are mixed together.” Whisking. Karkat could do that, surely. Grabbing a fork from the cutlery draw, the troll got to work sloshing about the egg with his usual over-compensatory vigour. It took a moment for him to get that hand out of it, but once he did, he found that this ‘beating eggs’ business seemed to be something he was actually quite good at. After a moment or so, the contents of the bowl formed into a yellow-orangey mixture, which Karkat assumed was the intended result. Bowl in hand, he went back to the cookbook, reading the next step in the recipe. ‘Melt 1 tsp of butter in a nonstick pan at medium-low heat.’ Karkat turned to the pan, which appeared already pre-lubricated by butter. Must’ve been Jade’s doing. Skipping ahead, the next steps instructed to pour the contents of the bowl into the pan, allowing it to sit until the edges start to set, whatever that means. And so, Karkat went about doing exactly that. With reckless abandon, Karkat inverted the bowl over the pan, the beaten egg plopping down into it and splashing more egg onto the troll.
“Fuck” he swore, yet again swiping at his front and inadvertently creating more of a mess. Jade perked up in the other room.
“Everything alright, Karkat?”
“Just fucking dandy” he replied.
Karkat had gotten this far with what he saw as only minor mistakes, which was a win in his books. But that didn’t mean he could let down his guard yet. Karkat refused to allow Jade any further opportunities to belittle and emasculate him, nevertheless afford Dave the same liberty when he awoke. The next step called for a spatula, which Karkat snatched from the utensil holder and held up preparedly for the next step. ‘Using a spatula, push the edges of the omelette towards the center of the pan. Repeat until set yet still soft.’ He could do that. Easy. With the spatula, Karkat began to scrape away at the egg in a circle. Rather than turning the pan, he angled his arm around to perform the motion along the full circumference of the pan, awkwardly banging his elbow on the wall and causing him to swear yet again. Whilst his patience began to wear thin, after about five to six minutes, the omelette seemed to be setting well. Satisfied enough, Karkat returned to the cookbook. It said to next fill the omelette with chopped spinach, mushrooms, and gruyère. Karkat had the spinach from earlier, so there was only to find the mushrooms and whatever this ‘gruyère’ stuff was. Returning to the trusty food-bastion that was the fridge, Karkat peered in and scanned its innards. After an excruciatingly arduous 15 seconds, he spied a bag reading ‘pre-chopped mushrooms.’ Continuing his inspection, he eventually discovered a small container of cheese adorned with the written label ‘gruyère’ in Jade’s handwriting.
After rashly emptying a few chunks of the cheese and a handful of the mushrooms into the pan, Karkat fetched the chopping board from the other counter and threw in a hefty helping of the spinach. The remaining steps of the recipe were simple: just leave the omelette for a second or two more, and then fold it in half with the spatula. Whilst his spatula technique left much to be desired, Karkat was soon finished. A wave of accomplishment washed over him, prompting him to immediately call Jade back into the room to gloat. “There: I fucking did it. Let it be known, from now until the day I perish some tragic fate, that I am able to cook a fucking om-let without any need for your obsolete patronization or assistance.” Jade peered over Karkat’s shoulder into the pan, genuinely at how he had managed.
“Ooh! That actually looks quite lovely, Karkat! I’m impressed!” Stung slightly at the idea that she had ever doubted him, Karkat shrugged it off and instead opted to revel in his moment of glory. “Now, you’ve just got to do the other two!”
Karkat’s face turned red.
-
Jade threw herself back onto the couch, landing on the cushioned surface with a bounce. Karkat sat down across from her with less jubilation, both his and Dave’s plates in his hands.
“You two better fucking enjoy this, I swear to god.”
“I’m sure it’ll be delicious” chirped Jade, her own plate in her lap. As they spoke, in walked Dave with a great yawn. Stretching out his arms in his sleepwear, he crossed over to where Karkat sat and gave him a groggy kiss on the head.
“Mornin’, babe.” Dave flunked down beside him, before noticing the dishes he was carrying through his shades. “Oh shit, what’s this?” At this point, Karkat became unable to speak, feeling embarrassed at what he now realized was a brazen display of what humans tended to call ‘domesticity’. Luckily for him, Jade spoke on his behalf.
“Karkat made us breakfast, all by himself!’ For a moment, behind his ever-cool facade, Dave looked genuinely impressed. Turning to his matesprite he smiled and grabbed a plate from the now heavily flushed troll. After what was meant to be a mere act of proving himself to Jade, Karkat had instead found himself stumbling into the unbecoming position of househusband, prepping meals and humiliatingly serving them to his partner.
And the worst part of it all was that, deep down, he liked it.