The kitchens were always insanely hot whenever Gimli got to work. Legolas seemed to never have any classes ever, and always seemed to be in the kitchens whenever they opened. The only time Gimli had opened was when Legolas went on vacation with his father back to his hometown. Gimli had been invited, but he wasn't exactly keen on going to the Greenland Heights over his Reading Week. Gimli still very much appreciated the offer, seeing as the rest of his family lived in Scotland, and he had gone to ME University due to its esteemed engineering program.

Gimli adjusted his hairnet on his beard, wishing that today he wasn't working in the kitchens, and instead was working out waiting tables. It was, unfortunately, raining, so the amount of customers had taken a plummet. That still didn't prevent Legolas from keeping the ovens going nonstop. Gandalf did not have air conditioning in the kitchens and even though it was fall, the kitchen's three large ovens kept the room quite warm despite the fact that all the windows were opened.

Gimli used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe off the sweat before he put on his oven-mitts and pulled out a tray of muffins. Despite them lacking eggs and the chocolate part of banana chocolate chip muffins, Gimli knew from experience that they were quite good. It was a wonder that Legolas wasn't going to run his own baking company. Gimli thought that perhaps Legolas would be happier running a bakery than he would in environmental sciences.

It was at least once a week when Legolas came in with some new idea of how to make some vegan food. Gimli teased Legolas throughout the process of making the new concoction, but always found it quite satisfying whenever they worked out. When it didn't, they always seemed to manage to convince Pippin that the failed food object was actually edible, and got him to take it home. They often received comments about how they were 'traitors' and that Pippin would 'never trust them again.' And yet, Pippin would still take home whatever baked food items they offered.

Today, they were attempting to make gluten free (not entirely vegan) double chocolate chip muffins. So far, they at least smelt good, though there had been many a failure that had done the same. Legolas often told him that they would never learn if there wasn't failure, but Gimli thought it would at least save Gandalf some money. Gandalf, however, seemed to enjoy the fact that the vegan and the near carnivore were willing to work together.

Gimli decided that the muffins were cool enough to take out of the tray, and then put them into the basket for Legolas to bring out to for the customers to eat.

"Hippy, bring the baked good out," Gimli commented, "I'm sure they're running low out there."

"It's raining out, there would be nobody there, halfwit," Legolas retorted.

"Go anyways, I'm getting tired of your presence," Gimli muttered.

"I'll go then, I need to breathe some air that doesn't smell like you," Legolas told him, sweeping the basket into his arms and turning to leave into the serving part of the café.

There was certainly a large amount of teasing between the two. Everybody knew that it was only that; teasing, but strangers often thought that Legolas and Gimli were going at each other's throats. People who knew them well knew better however, and Gimli was absolutely positive that Aragorn had started up the rumour that they were gay for each other. Gimli had yet to get Aragorn to admit it, but ever since he came up with the conspiracy that Aragorn had started that rumour, he had teased Aragorn a lot more about Arwen.

"Tell Aragorn that he should ask Arwen out!" Gimli yelled as he spooned out some muffin mix into some trays. He checked the clock in the kitchen to see that his shift was almost over. After he got back to his dorm, he was going to have to work on his assignment. His class wasn't until eight in the evening, a rather unfortunate time, seeing as it made Gimli always sleep later on Wednesdays which was quite unfortunate due to the fact that he had an eight o'clock morning class on Thursdays.

He put the trays into the muffin oven, before he began to check on the cookies. Legolas was a firm believer against timers, which made Gimli paranoid to the fact that he might burn the cookies. He shook his head; since when was he, a stout, bulky engineer who played football in high school, concerned with the state of cookies. He supposed it was due to the fact that there was a pay check attached to the wellness of the cookies, and the fact that there were many customers who would rather not eat burnt cookies.

The cookies where unburned, though on the more crispy side than what Gimli would have liked them to be. He supposed his time bickering with his friend wasn't exactly spent productively, and he could have taken them out then. But, he would never miss an opportunity to make fun of his friend, especially when his shift was almost up and all of his time outside work was spent studying.

Gimli wondered why he wanted to be an engineer in the first place. All the exams were harder than a normal degree, he had to deal with Physics and Math on a daily basis (he did like math, however), and he had more exams than normal students. He liked engineering, however, which meant that he had a method to his madness.

Legolas had returned in time for his shift to be up. Gimli finished scraping off the cookies and then bid Legolas goodbye, "I hope the rest of the day isn't as slow as this," he said, as he took off his apron, and folded it in his hands.

"The rain seemed to be lightening up, and more people seem to be showing up. Your help would be appreciated," Legolas told him.

"Don't try to guilt me into another shift like you did last weekend, I actually have to work on this project and I have to finish it tonight, it's due at eight thirty," Gimli replied, raising his eyebrows at his friend's fake pout. Legolas gave Gimli a small smile in return.

"You could have finished it before today," Legolas commented, and Gimli glared at him, "If you didn't procrastinate so often, you wouldn't have to rush."

"Thank you, mum," Gimli retorted with a huff, throwing his apron at Legolas's head. Unfortunately for Gimli, the apron unfolded in mid-flight, and it fell quite a few metres short. Legolas raised his eyebrows at him, though Gimli was absolutely positive that Legolas would have stuck his tongue out if Aragorn had not walked into the doors. Legolas liked to keep his composure around anybody but Gimli. Legolas said it was because Gimli simply 'rubbed him the wrong way', but Gimli just thought it was because nobody else could see them in the bakery, allowing Legolas to be as childish as he wanted without reprimanding.

"So, Legolas? You wanted me to help with the baking?" Aragorn asked as Gimli walked over to retrieve his failed missile.

"You were the only one qualified," Legolas responded as he began to mix up the pumpkin muffin recipe. Gimli knew that the only reason why Legolas was making pumpkin muffins was because they had left over pumpkin from Halloween (the firework show didn't attract as much people this year due to the constant, dreary rain), and Legolas wanted to use it all up.

"Qualified?" Aragorn said, putting his hair in a hairnet.

"Pippin would eat all the food, Boromir's bound to burn anything he touches, and you know that Frodo gets caught up in his thoughts too much, he'd lose track of time," Gimli explained, and Aragorn's face wore the expression of remembering one too many pots of Kraft Dinner lighting themselves on fire due to Boromir's horrible cooking.

"Makes sense," Aragorn agreed, "What of Sam?"

"Sam likes to be where Frodo is," Legolas put in, "Plus, I hear Arwen loves the pumpkin muffins. You could bring her out one fresh from the oven!" Legolas almost sing-songed, waving the bowl of pumpkin muffin mix around. Gimli snorted as Aragorn's face turned red, looking down at his toes and grumbling something to himself. Gimli could still see that Aragorn was wearing the necklace that Arwen had gotten him.

"Well, I'll be off, then," Gimli said to them with a small salute, backing through the kitchen doors. Legolas had been right; the café was much more occupied than it had been when Gimli had first shown up for his shift. He tried to not feel guilty about leaving Legolas in the bakery with Aragorn; sure Aragorn was qualified, but it didn't mean that he was qualified with high honours. Pippin often took home a lot of baked goods whenever Aragorn entered the kitchen.

Gimli disappeared into the 'STAFF ONLY' door to get changed into more street appropriate clothing. Once he was changed, he purchased one of the freshly made vegan banana muffins (employee discount!) and made his way out of the café.

The rain had nearly stopped when Gimli got outside. Only a few, tiny but still incredibly chilly rain drops hit Gimli as he made his way back to his dorm, munching on his muffin as he went. There were very few people on the street, few enough for Gimli to notice the people who did not seem to belong there.

The large red 'M' surrounded by fire made it quite obvious, but the flaming eyeball (what a shitty mascot, really) on the front of their sweaters solidified Gimli's suspicion. But it did not exactly quench the curiosity of why nine, extremely sketchy looking Mordor College students were doing wandering around the campus of the city's university when their school was halfway across town.

The leader of the group, Gimli supposed, judging on the fact that he was wearing the most eyeliner, gave almost a small hiss as Gimli walked by him. Gimli gave him a rather uncomfortable glance, before he shoved the rest of his muffin into his mouth and began to walk as fast as he could back to his dorm, occasionally checking over his shoulder to see if they were following him.

Fortunately, for him, they weren't. But that still didn't mean they weren't up to no good.

Thanks to Nyla Evergale, Gracie, LoTR-HP-PJ, tommyginger, Rorythedragon, KFinance, Singing Moon, Guest, Xx-Jigoku-no-Hana-xX, and Quiet Hiker for reviewing! Thanks to PurpledragoN1997, and NTSFroes for favouriting/subscribing! Thanks for reading and please review!

Terribly sorry for such a late update; I got an ear infection and I have killer headaches, which makes it difficult to look at screens. My schedule is going to get more busy due to the fact that I have school sports! Sorry!

Also, I don't own Kraft Dinner. I can't even eat it.