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yellowmagicalgirl · 2 years

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Camelot Meat 3.1415926535897932384626433...

Krel has a new project to help his homesick boyfriend.

This was written for Diane as part of the KlebBuckets Secret Santa.

Contains mild referenced gore if you squint (mainly canon-typical eye horror, pun not intended) as well as references to canon character death.

The title is based on the first 26 digits of pi.

AO3

FFN

“Do you know what I miss the most about Camelot?” Douxie asked. His head was on Krel’s shoulder, and Krel made sure to keep that shoulder still as he continued typing out his computer science homework. Both of them were so busy, between Krel’s educational prison (even if he had come to enjoy it, sometimes) and Douxie’s trying to hide Nari in New York City, that a lot of their “dates” were really just coexisting.

“Let me guess, the people?” That was the answer that was to be expected, the answer that other people thought was obvious and expected Krel to answer with when he was asked what he missed the most about Akirdion-V. And sometimes, that was the correct answer. The things he missed the most, some days, were his sister, his best friend, and his bodyguards.

(His parents, well, they weren’t part of Akiridion-V anymore, so they didn’t count.)

“Um…” Of course, Douxie, like Krel, didn’t always answer things the way most people thought was obvious. And that made Krel feel hopeful, because if his boyfriend could go centuries without ever figuring out how allistic people worked and still be well-liked, maybe so could Krel. Besides, some delsons, Krel would take not getting sensory overload from Earth’s myriad of colors over Aja, Eli, Zadra, and Varvatos with less than a quarter-secton’s decision.

(Not that he wanted to go back for more than wardon-long trip. He just didn’t like all the eye strain, since Akiridion eyes were really only built for a couple of colors. He should probably start wearing glasses. He won’t break them. Not like Aja.)

“What do you miss the most about Camelot?”

“The meat pies.”

Krel hit compile and wrinkled his nose, remembering Steve’s complaints. “Didn’t they have eyeballs in them?”

“Not usually. I mean, I know I messed up my memories, but I’d remember eating an eyeball. Archie tried to feed me squirrel eyeballs when I was little, and I never forgot how gross they were.” Douxie took his head off of Krel’s shoulder and shook it. “No, Steve was just an unfortunate victim of how Camelot didn’t have a Food and Drug Administration. To be fair, neither did the rest of Europe at that time. But I still miss those pies. Nowhere I go has ever got it the same, nor any time I’ve ever tried to recreate it.”

Krel shut his laptop on the error messages, maybe a bit too forcefully, but he had a new project.

“Uh… is that really safe?”

“I made it; it’ll be fine. Besides, which human thought it was a good idea to put a semicolon at the end of every line? So unintuitive and frustrating. I need a break from the code. It isn’t due ‘til Monday anyways.”

“Hey, Lucy?” Krel asked as he walked into the kitchen of the Mothership. “Can you help me cook something?”

He had finished his computer science homework (the stupid, infuriating, good-for-nothing semicolons had added an extra three mekrons) and then he had spent four-and-a-half horvaths last night researching recipes until he found one that was narrowed down to the proper part of modern England as well as the correct time period. It would be easier if the Mothership could duplicate complex foods, and maybe if Mother was still around her AI would have advanced enough that she could. Krel would just have to work with what he had, and that was a large amount of raw ingredients and a Blank who enjoyed cooking.

Her smile grew unnervingly wider. “The first step to making pancakes –”

“– No, I want to make this recipe.” Her smile fell away completely. Krel placed the print-out on the counter in front of her. “It’s for Douxie.”

Her smile came back slightly as she picked up the recipe. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

Based on Krel’s understanding of the human body, Lucy’s statement was wrong. If one really wanted to get to a human heart quickly, one should go through the ribcage. And if Lucy had decided to start talking in metaphors again (he was never fully sure how literal she was being), the way to Douxie’s heart had been DJing (and therefore ears) because apparently Douxie’s crush on Krel had started at the Battle of the Bands.

Krel got the butter out of the fridge for Lucy. Maybe later, after he had perfected the meat pies, he’d let her teach him to make pancakes. But this was more important.

On Monday, Krel set the container down on the table he and his friends were eating lunch at. “I made these to share.” Krel then batted away Toby’s hand. “With Steve and Claire. Not you.”

Jim patted Toby’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I still care about and will make food for you.”

“The recipe only made five, and the other three were dinner last night,” Krel said. Despite what his friends may have thought, he wasn’t trying to be cruel. Just practical. “I need Steve and Claire to tell me if they’re accurate to Camelot’s meat pies.”

Steve looked between Krel and the pies with horror. “Whose eyeballs did you use?”

“Wouldn’t you have noticed if there was an eyeball shape in the other five pies you tried to eat in half as many minutes?” Claire asked.

“Douxie did say they weren’t supposed to have eyes in them,” Krel said. “Said it had something to do with how Camelot didn’t administer food and drugs?”

“He probably meant by a Food and Drug Administration,” Jim said. “We’ll be learning about that later this year, right before we cover World War One.”

“But anyways, I want Steve and Claire to tell me if these are correct so I can surprise Douxie with them.”

“I blocked the taste out of my mind,” Steve said.

“I didn’t eat any; I was more focused on…” The shadows under Claire’s eyes that indicated she hadn’t slept last night darkened just a little. “Other things. But didn’t the ones in Camelot have more holes in them?”

Steve looked at the pies more closely. “Yeah, they did. Eight, not three. Also, the outside edge had this pattern that made it look kind of like a flower.”

“Crimping?” Jim suggested.

“No, like actual petals,” Steve said.

“When was the pie tin invented?” Claire asked. “Because that might’ve made any crimping uneven and look more like flower petals than modern pies.”

“1957,” Toby said, looking at his phone. “Wait, no, that’s the frisbee. Oh huh, that’s cool, the guy who made pie tins also made frisbees.”

The next day, Krel brought more meat pies to school, this time with Steve and Claire’s suggestions. And he brought enough of them to share with Jim and Toby as well.

“I made you something,” Krel said to his boyfriend the following weekend.

“Oh? What’s it do?”

Hopefully, put a smile on your face.

“It doesn’t do anything. It isn’t technological. Oh, stop giving me that look. I can do things other than engineering and music; I just normally choose not to.” Krel pulled out the container and pulled off the lid, revealing ten meat pies.

Douxie’s eyes widened. “Are those…”

“Yeah.”

“How did you… they look just like the ones I had growing up.” Douxie looked ready to cry as he smiled between Krel and the pies.

“Steve and Claire helped me make it look right. Go ahead, try one.”

Douxie took a pie and closed his eyes. He smelled it before popping it in his mouth. He chewed slowly before swallowing and opening his eyes. “It tastes great.”

“I got it right?” Well, of course he got it right. He was a genius and good at anything worthwhile.

(Except for maybe avoiding getting knocked out. That was worthwhile.)

(And so was understanding people, for that matter.)

“No.”

“Oh.” Krel cringed away. He didn’t like failing, especially not when he had tried so hard. Or when it was someone he really wanted to impress. “I’m sorry.”

“Krel. You tried. That’s honestly more than I expected out of anyone, to try and recreate them. Thank you, my love.”

Author's Notes

Me 🤝 Krel

Being frustrated by C and Java's insistence upon ending all lines with semicolons. We computational physicists like our Python's lack of semicolons thank you very much.

Krel's errors in meat pie making include not using goat meat (the recipe I found online after a few minute's research was chicken, and I decided that Krel would use a recipe similar to that one. However, the eye that Steve spat up was a goat eye based on the pupil shape) as well as some modern American ingredients being different from modern British ingredients, much less medieval British ingredients.

#krexie #krel tarron #hisirdoux casperan #lucy blank #toby domzalski #jim lake jr #steve palchuk #claire nuñez #3below #toawizards #tales of arcadia #klebbuckets secret santa #autistic!krel #autistic!douxie #my writing #i only put down the digits I had memorized

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