Pippin checked the cupboard; all he had left was a small box of stale rice crackers that his older sister Pimpernel had given him for his birthday. She was a fan of the gluten free diet, despite the fact that she didn't even need to get gluten free, and no matter how hard Pimpernel tried to convince him to convert to a gluten free diet, Pippin refused to do so. There were too many delicious things in the world that had gluten in them, and there was no way that he was going to stop eating them.

He supposed he should have gone food shopping, but he hadn't the time; he had been studying his hardest for his midterm, and only studied, ate and slept. He had only realized that he was running out of food when he was spooning canned diced tomatoes into his mouth as he made his sixteenth page of review notes. He would have gone shopping but now he had to go to work; after abandoning his job for a week, he was finally getting shifts again.

Hopefully for him, Legolas would have not thrown all of the stale pastries out yet. A bonus of working at the café was that Pippin could get all of the stale pastries for free, since none of the customers would want to buy them. It was pretty much what he lived on, since he was much too lazy to actually go food shopping properly. Sure, it may not have been entirely tasty (they still were pretty good), nor was it incredibly healthy, and it may have caused him to gain some weight (just a little... he hoped). It was still food, and it helped him get through the day, probably just as much as his nicotine patches did.

He was supposed to only take one a day to help get him over his addiction, but Pippin was not exactly true to the program. He was lucky that his parents helped pay for his food, but they were completely against paying for his addiction. They were quite encouraging to help him get over it, but they figured that if they didn't pay for his nicotine patches, he would get over his addiction. It was much harder than that, though. He had started smoking at the end of tenth grade, and only started the patches two years after smoking, during his first year of university.

It shamed Pippin to think that the reason for him wanting to get a job at the café was so he could afford the nicotine patches. Since he was not true to what he was supposed to do, and he used two to three patches a day instead of one a day, his addiction cost him about sixty to ninety dollars a week. It was an expense he would not be able to afford without his job.

He had tried to hide the fact that he was a nicotine addict to Gandalf when applying for the job. He purposefully did not wear a patch to the interview, or for the first couple months of work. Even so, he had a sneaking suspicion that Gandalf knew about his addiction from the moment he had applied for the job. Gandalf just seemed to know things without being told. Pippin also had a hunch that it was the only reason why he got hired.

Though Pippin was firmly against cheesy movies, and cheesy stories, he found that the longer he worked at the café, the less he relied on the nicotine patches to get him through the day. Sure, the smell of coffee reminded him of when he used to sit out on the back porch and have a cigarette with a coffee in the morning, but he found that working distracted him. The café was incredibly busy (except on rainy days). It was as cheesy as he got over his addiction; he still had a long way to go, but he found that the distraction and the support he got from his coworkers helped.

He sighed, pulling out the box of rice crackers. Despite the fact that they were months old and incredibly stale and meant that was succumbing to his sister's wishes, they were the only food in the house, and he didn't want to have to work with coffee and pastries while starving. So he grudgingly at the crackers (convincing himself that it wasn't just the stale taste that made them bad), before he grabbed his bag of work stuff.

He made sure he had his face-paint in it. Though it was only his second year working at the café he was still very much in love with the Halloween tradition, and was grateful that he went home for Thanksgiving* so he could get a costume. Though Gandalf required that they dress up during the week of Halloween, he also required that they still wear their uniform, which was why Pippin had bought himself a pair of cat ears. Not only was it an obvious enough costume, it might help him be adorable enough to get a girlfriend. Plus, bringing the face-paint would help make sure that Boromir dressed up (Pip could easily turn him into a zombie if Boromir was being a stick in the mud ). He always brought it despite the fact that Boromir might now have been working.

Sure dressing up was a little childish; it was a tradition loved by both the customers and the staff. Boromir, Aragorn and Gimli would never admit to like dressing up, but Pippin had seen Aragorn smiling as he put on a face-paint beard last year. Aragorn had denied it horribly, blushing all the while as Arwen told him that he looked nice with a beard. Pippin was hardly surprised when Aragorn began to grow a scruffy beard after that Halloween.

He entered the café, smiling at the little ghost, black cat and pumpkin stickers on the windows. All he could see on the tables were Halloween themed mugs; Gandalf had instructed them to only serve with the Halloween themed mugs, and had hidden the rest of them. Pippin had a theory that Gandalf just owned an entire storage locker of mugs, because during Christmas, he had only Christmas mugs. He then supposed that collecting mugs was a better addiction than nicotine.

He exited the change room after taking forever on his face-paint (he wanted to look incredibly awesome), the 'STAFF ONLY' door swinging behind him. He thought his face-paint was bound to be the best costume around; he thought he looked pretty snazzy until he saw Frodo.

Frodo was wearing a pair of large, circular false glasses, and through his dark curly hair, Pippin could see a red, lightning bolt 'scar' painted on his forehead. If Frodo's eyes were actually green instead of blue, Pippin would not have been surprised if people thought he was the real Harry Potter. Frodo even pulled out a red and gold striped tie. Compared to him, Pippin's face-paint and cat ears seemed like a mediocre attempt to dress up.

"Nice costume," Pippin commented as he got back behind the counter.

Frodo grinned as he made a coffee; "Bilbo insisted; I agreed. We both share a love of dressing up, though Bilbo does it more practically for his interviews and movies."

Pippin could see people in the café lift up their phones in a nonchalant fashion, obviously trying to get a picture of Frodo. Frodo did not seem to mind, though Pippin wasn't sure if Frodo even realized that they were taking pictures. Cellphone service in the café was iffy, so they all couple have been Lion Kinging their phones in an effort to send a text. Pippin then snorted at the unlikelihood of that possibility.

Pippin had yet to serve a customer when Legolas came out of the back to put a new batch of pumpkin muffins in the display case. Pippin could see false pointy ears, and a circlet was wrapped around his hairnet.

"What are you supposed to be?" Pippin demanded.

"I'm an elf!" Legolas exclaimed as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe. Pippin just shrugged, though Gimli popped out from the back, an incredibly long plastic beard strapped to his face over his real not as long but pretty impressive beard. On his back, Pippin could see a foam axe.

"And I'm a dwarf!" Gimli told him.

"You look more like a cave-dwelling Neanderthal," Legolas retorted.

"Aye, and you're a tree-shagging ninny!" Gimli yelled as Legolas walked back in the bakery, the door effectively blocking out their bickering.

Pippin raised an eyebrow to the closed door, before he saw a hand raise up. Pippin was walking towards the customer before he realized it was the Caffeine Girl. He sighed before he continued to walk over, it wasn't like he could turn back now and cower behind the counter.

"The regular?" Pippin asked before she could speak.

The girl stuttered for a little bit, before she looked down at her feet. Pippin stood there for a couple of seconds, unsure of what to do.

"A coffee with two creams, right?" He eventually said, "Or would you like something else?"

Her head shot up, "Ah... no.. Um... umm... that's good..." she looked back down at her feet, "how do you know?"

"Well, you're a regular now, so I think I should know your usual order," Pippin responded, "And your name, if you don't mind. The staff usually likes to get to know our regulars. I'm Pippin."

"I'm... um... Diamond," She replied, her cheeks turning incredibly red.

Pippin gave her a grin, "I'll be back with your order soon, Diamond."

Pippin walked back to the counter, wondering why she was so embarrassed. Perhaps she was just overly shy, and uncomfortable with talking to people... yeah... that was the one that made the most sense. Pippin had never seen her talk to anybody else in the café, and had never seen her bring a friend to it. She had to be incredibly shy or incredibly introverted.

He was fixing the coffee when he finally noticed that Aragorn was also working. The tall politics student was wearing a gladiator helmet; the kind that made it look like he was wearing a rather large curved broom on his head. Unfitting to his costume, however, was the pendant that Arwen had given him as a good luck charm. It was rather girly, in Pippin's opinion, but Pippin decided to tease Aragorn about something other than the pendant.

"That'll impress Arwen," he commented, pointing at the helmet.

"Shut up," Aragorn mumbled back.

"So are you two dating or what?" Pippin demanded.

"We're not dating. Now go give your coffee to the Caffeine Girl before she dies of withdrawal," Aragorn shot back.

"Her name's Diamond, for future reference," Pippin told him as he made to go get around the counter.

"I'll keep that in mind when I receive your wedding invitation," Aragorn retorted, and it was Pippin's turn to blush.

"We're not getting married," Pippin said, glad that his entire face was covered in face-paint. Diamond annoyed him more than anything. It wasn't like he was beginning to enjoy seeing her at the café every day. No. The day Pippin admitted that would be the day that Aragorn finally got enough courage to ask Arwen out on a date. Pippin had a long, long time before that happened. Or so he hoped.

*Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, before Halloween; sorry for the confusion Americans.

Thanks to KFinance, tommyginger, Xx-Jigoku-no-Hana-xX, Adanwen, Wanderingidealism, Rorythedragon, Nyla Evergale, mngirl, LoTR-HP-PJ, BleachmyNARUTO, and Crazylily1007 for reviewing! Thanks to legolasgreenleaf14, Etolrah, Super Serious Gal 3, sarahcap27, Cee.A, and Crazylily1007 for favouriting/subscribing!

Sorry for such a long wait; I was really busy with school. HAPPY (PRE) HALLOWEEN GUYS.