Work Text:
Scene A - Mise en place
Juliet was back at the Academy.
She couldn’t remember how she got there, but she found herself cluelessly overlooking the pots and pans that littered her station. A pot with burnt sauce was in front of her. She couldn’t understand how it was already burnt, she swears she only looked away for a second!
Overlooking her performance was the sous chef at the Ko Academy. He was a burly, angry and bald American, with over a decade of military experience and biceps larger than Juliet’s waist. When he’d get in your face to yell at you the waft of sweat and butter emitting from him was enough to make you wretch. Of course student of Ko had been taught to control their involuntary reflexes by being exposed to smells that even the producers of Fear Factor would find too transgressive.
Yet, it wasn’t him Juliet feared.
René Dupont, the chef de cuisine, was an older Frenchman. He was gentle and soft-spoken, both unusual traits for anyone working in a kitchen, however it had never been an obstacle and he had trained some of the greatest chefs of the decade. Chef Dupont felt his patience was reaching the breaking point. He had never in his career met anyone as incompetent as this child. She could barely peel a cucumber, let alone julienne it. During her four weeks of training in the kitchens Juliet Butler had managed not learning a single thing.
Juliet’s list of fears was pretty small considering what she’d been exposed to at the Academy since age 10. But the psychological strain of the high stress environment of the kitchen combined with the physical strain of daily training with Mme Ko resulted in Juliet fumbling her way through cooking risotto, making salade niçoise and baking macarons. When Juliet looked into that poor man’s eyes as he tasted her risotto and telling her to use less salt in between the teary coughs, she felt awful. She was at the academy to learn how to beat up bad guys, not to make an old Frenchman cry, she thought sadly.
Juliet woke up in cold sweat, her nightmare quickly fading away. The TV in her room was still on and showing American 24h wresting. The cold glow of the TV cut through the darkness of the night. Juliet liked falling asleep to the sound of undertaker throwing mankind off of hell in a cell. It was comforting to know that some things were a universal constant.
Her eyes were crusted shut. Gross, she thought as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and saw speckles of iridescent sparkles on the back of her hand. Whoops. She must have forgotten to remove her makeup before she went to bed.
Juliet checked her phone. It was still on silent, but it showed two unanswered calls and a text message. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw who the message was from. Unfortunately it dropped by quite a bit when she read the message.
Scene B - Fowl Plans
Unsuspecting subject Artemis Fowl II was concentrating on soldering the final components to the circuit board. His neck was stiff from staring down at the electrical board and computer screens all night. He much preferred working during the day, however unfortunately his mother and father had insisted he spend all day in their company. He was glad his father was back, but the sudden increase in parental supervision meant that he was working through the night to meet his deadline. Artemis had spent the day fruitlessly advocating to his parents that school was thoroughly unnecessary for him. He’d even gone through his report cards to prove that St. Bartleby’s was admittedly inept at handling someone with his intelligence, but Mother had interrupted him with a scathing remark that emotional intelligence needed to be cultivated with his peers and not in a laboratory or at a university with students twice his age.
A machine whirred quietly, cutting another solder stencil. What had begun as a fun experiment to incorporate some fairy security into his personal devices had evolved into another money making scheme.
Artemis reminisced back to his eight birthday and remembered how pleased he was when his parents actually purchased the laser cutter that he was using. It was the only thing he had wished for that year and the machine was still working perfectly five years later. Mother had tried to convince him that a lego set would be more fun, but Artemis had insisted. A tendril of guilt poked his conscience as he knew his parents, and especially his father’s newfound conscience, would disapprove of the device he was building. It wasn’t an entirely illegal venture, he reasoned with himself. It was immoral, but not illegal.
A tiny copper pad fell from the tweezers and onto the table, rolling down on the floor before he had a chance to catch it. Artemis breathed in deeply to calm his nerves. Concentrate, he reminded himself. He was already on his third circuit board and having eliminated all the previous errors he was 96% certain this should work. His pianist hands held the tweezers calmly. Artemis put his sizeable mind towards finishing the project.
He’d have to expand his lab, Artemis mused as he walked downstairs to the kitchen, as daylight finally broke through the cloudy Irish sky. As soon as the deal with Spiro was in place he would begin working on a program to mechanise the process. The technology he had stolen, well, that is, borrowed, from the People was more advanced than he was accustomed to and he would need to modify machines if he was to take this to the market.
How convenient, he smirked. Another patent to go with his invention. He’d have the market absolutely corned, he though savagely.
His success in the lab had left him in good spirits.
Scene C - Convergence
“Haven’t you anything better to do?” Artemis leant against the counter, his hand resting under his chin and a raised eyebrow.
“Nope!” Juliet exclaimed happily and turned around heading for the pantry. Juliet was in an extraordinary good mood despite the early hours of the day.
With her back turned, Artemis slyly slid her phone, still displaying the recipe towards himself while Juliet emptied out cupboards searching for ingredients and equipment. She returned with her arms full of items that ought to have taken several trips to carry and ungracefully unloaded them onto the tabletop.
Artemis raised his eyebrow as if to convey how little Butler would appreciate her treatment of the kitchen machinery. She made a face back at him that said she cared very little for her brother’s feelings about his equipment.
Somewhere, while going on his rounds of the manor grounds, Butler’s sixth sense tingled.
Ding!
Juliet checked her phone. “Brother is asking if you’re alive”, she said to Artemis who was now feeling the full effect of staying up working all night and was slumped across the table.
“Maybe you should, oh I don’t know, try to enjoy your weekend off instead of being a workaholic recluse,” she scoffed at his non reply.
He turned his head to look at her and groaned. “He is being overly sensitive.”
“My brother! Overly sensitive?” She said incredulous at Artemis’s statement “On what grounds?”
“I’ve arranged a meeting with Jon Spiro at the end of next month and Butler seems to think we’re going to get murdered in open daylight at a London fish restaurant,” he said without lifting his head.
“The Fission Chips guy?”
“The very one. I’m surprised you know of him.”
“… is that why you’re meeting at a fish restaurant, Arty?” Juliet thought perhaps she’d gotten used to his poor sense of humour, but her disappointment in this terrible joke seeped through her voice.
Artemis misinterpreted her tone. “Yes,” he chuckled “Perhaps I went overboard. I do need to be taken seriously as a business partner,” he said musingly.
“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that, Arty, “ Juliet rolled her eyes at the teenager. “Just don’t invite him to your standup routine.”
Somewhere, further across the Fowl Manor grounds, Butler received a text back from Juliet. It consisted of several emojis. Butler assumed the thumbs up meant that his charge was indeed alive and that the weary faced one meant she was with him.
Artemis got up to fix himself a cup of tea. “I was not aware you had a boyfriend, Juliet,” Artemis said while waiting for the kettle to boil.
Juliet immediately looked up from her phone. “I don’t!” She exclaimed hurriedly.
Artemis took his time pouring the water into a mug. “Ah, my apologies, that was rather presumptuous of me.” He said smirking over his cup of Earl Grey tea. “Girlfriend, then.”
Juliet looked like she had been caught with her hands in the cookie jar. “I don’t have…” Juliet began. “Why do you think that anyway?” She asked suspiciously.
Artemis peered at her, raising an eyebrow, “Firstly, you are baking a cake.” He paused to allow an objection.
“Maybe I just feel like baking, smart-ass.”
“Juliet. You hate baking.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I recall you were crying over profiteroles last month,” he said flatly.
“…they’re very tricky. It was the fifth batch and I still couldn’t get them right,” she said weakly, aware of her defeat. Crying was an understatement. She had broken two mixers by the end of her tirade and punched a hole in the door. “Secondly?”
“Secondly, it is 7 AM on a Sunday morning and the last time I’ve seen you up this early was when you had an infatuation with the delivery boy.”
“That was ages ago! I’m totally over him.”
“My point still stands.”
Juliet sighed. “Am I that obvious?”
Chuckling while stirring sugar into his cup, Artemis the hunter opted for mercy.
“Coincidentally, you received a text message a few minutes ago from whom I assume is your beau.”
“Arty!”
Artemis scoffed. “It’s a shame your generation communicates mostly by sending ideographs.”
“They’re called emojis, you nerd. And stop snooping on my phone!” She shouted at him, not bothering correcting him that they’re part of the same generation.
“Does Butler know?”
“No, and you’re not telling him.”
“Telling him what?”
“About… oh shuddup.” A small fond smile graced her face. Juliet had missed their little chats. As annoying as Artemis could be, and believer her he could be very annoying, he was part of Juliet’s small family. And even if he’d never admit it, she was part of his.
Artemis cleared his voice. “You are not supposed to add the sugar yet.”
“Ugh, why are you still here? I don’t need your help.” Truthfully Juliet was already feeling overwhelmed and she had barely begun.
“Of course you do,” Artemis scoffed. “You’re clearly terrible at this.”
“Alright, then help me.”
Artemis raised a delicate eyebrow. “Are you using reverse psychology on me, Juliet? I shall have you know I’ve not only written several papers…”
“Blah blah blah, you think you’re so smart, Arty.”
“I am a genius.”
Juliet didn’t need to look up to hear the smirk in his voice. She wondered if her brother would mind if she punched the smirk of his principals face. “You can’t even boil an egg.”
“Why should I need too?”
“I don’t hear you disagreeing, genius”
“Following simple instructions for a recipe does not require you to be extraordinarily gifted.”
“Then tell me when I’m supposed to add the sugar.”
Artemis took the bait. He was never able to resist an occasion to gloat. “Give me the recipe,” he demanded.
Scene D - The Resulting Failure
Juliet was squatting in front of the oven, her hand covering her mouth in horror. Artemis was standing a few steps behind her, a similar look of horror, albeit subdued, graced his face. His head was cocked as he peered through the oven glass door.
Juliet sighed. “It’s not rising.” The panic Juliet had felt earlier in the morning had long since been replaced with resignation. “It’s supposed to be rising. Oh come oooon, this is the third batch!”
Artemis was looking a mess. There was a stain on his cheek and his usually tidy, sleeked back hair was in disarray with strands of dark hair falling onto his flushed face. It was several hours since they had thrown themselves into the seemingly impossible task of baking a cake.
“I don’t understand what went wrong,” he despaired, unable to believe that Juliet had been right in her assumption of his abilities in the kitchen. “I’ve calculated for all possible errors.”
Juliet stood up, flipping her blonde braid over her shoulder as she turned off the oven and put on a pair of huge floral oven mitts. “Look on the bright side, Arty.”
“Pray do tell, for I fail to see how this disaster,” he gestured to the surrounding mess “can be redeemed.”
“Well,” Juliet shrugged in her charming carefree manner “at least the kitchen isn’t on fire.”
Artemis heaved himself onto a chair. “We have your quick reflexes to thank for that.”
Juliet giggled. “Boy genius Artemis Fowl, setting the kitchen on fire for the fifth time.”
He stared at his nails: ruined. And no time to get a manicure before he was forced off to another fortnight of so-called education tomorrow morning. “Sixth,” Artemis mumbled dejectedly.
“The crème brûlée incident,” he said as Juliet looked at him quizzically. She nodded sagely. She remembered hearing about that from her brother. For his parents anniversary Artemis had decided to make them his favourite dessert. Artemis Sr. and Angeline had gone for dinner and dancing at the Ivy in London and that year Artemis had insisted they bring him along. There was a robotics expo he was very keen to attend. So technically it wasn’t the Fowl Manor kitchen he had set on fire. In fact things were going quite well and he had managed to almost finish the crème brûlée before the unfortunate accident. That is until the curtains caught on fire from the blowtorch he was using to brûlée the crème. His parents happened to arrive at the same time as the fire brigade. Poor Butler had suffered a very stern talking to from Major and Artemis was effectively banned from making anything more complicated than a cup of tea unsupervised.
Juliet poked at a piece of simultaneously raw and burnt cake. It oozed raw cake batter where her finger had been. Juliet tasted it and made a face. “Yuck! Tastes worse than your caviar.”
Artemis looked up, deep in thoughts of analysing exactly why his brain was repeatedly failing him in the kitchen. He’d almost decided that it wasn’t worth it. Butler would be there to take care of things for him, so what was the point of spending time troubleshooting. “Juliet, you cannot be serious!”
Juliet was busy plating a piece of the monstrosity their joint efforts had created. It had difficulty holding up so she was using a spoon to scoop it out. She grinned brightly. “I figured Brother would love a piece of cake. He must be hungry.” She carefully arranged fresh raspberries and blueberries around the so-called cake in an effort to make it look somewhat appealing. Brother would always try her creations. She thought it was cute how he tried to hide how awful they tasted.
Artemis wondered what Butler had done to deserve such a gift. “I doubt he would appreciate it. There are several health risks associated to consuming charred foods, including four types of cancers which if…”
thud
Artemis heard the kitchen door close shut before he realised that Juliet had removed herself from his lecture.
He felt as if he'd run a marathon. Exhausted, he stood up. Casting a final glance at the terrible mess they had made and vowing never to attempt cooking again.