Unexpected

Drifting Off

After a while, Selvig got too distracted by his work and I grew bored, unable to just sit there and do nothing. So, I returned to the kitchen to find that Ben and Ed had completely scrubbed the kitchen and the cafeteria down, making everything shine and the rooms smell of disinfectants and cleaning solutions. Honestly, I felt just a little bad for lazing around in the main chamber while the pair of them had cleaned. For some reason I had assumed that they'd go off and do something else once they had finished the few tasks I had assigned to them. Apparently not. The pair of them turned around as soon as they heard the door open to the kitchen and I was frozen for a moment by their blue, empty eyes, my mouth suddenly going dry.

Clearing my throat, "I think that's enough cleaning for now."

Ed stood up from his crouched position and pushed the oven back to its place and the two stood there looking at me almost expectantly for their next order.

"I-I was thinking that, uh, for dinner we should have something fun, so I was thinking hamburgers and home baked French fries would be nice.

Neither of the men gave any indication if they thought this was a good idea or not and continued to stand there, waiting for my next words. Goodness it was hard talking to them, but I couldn't just not speak to them until I gave them a task, it didn't feel right...

"But burgers and fries don't take very long to make, so we have some time before hand. I was thinking we'd get breakfast out of the way for tomorrow and make some more oatmeal bakes. They're very simple to make and will bake easily in the morning."

I then walked them through the steps of putting together the bakes and within the hour all the 9x11 pans we had were different combinations of oatmeal bakes, apple cinnamon, blueberry, walnut, pecan, cherry, chocolate, and mixtures of these. Then I had them start grilling up hamburger patties, chopping lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, and slicing potatoes to make the fries. As they did this, I struggled with a cooking brush to brush the potato strips lightly with oil, and then carefully, so as not to hurt my sore, mummified hands, I salted them. By the time dinner hour rolled around everything was set up and ready, and I had Ben make up two burgers on buns, a large basket of the baked potato fries, then make a plate of burger toppings, since I didn't know what Loki would like on his hamburgers. Just before I left the kitchen I instructed both the men to serve ice cream as a dessert to the people as a last minute thought before I started off through the cafeteria with Ben following behind and carrying the covered tray.

He was silent as he followed me through the halls until I reached Loki's door, gingerly knocking on the door. The door opened up only a few moments after I knocked to reveal Loki standing in the doorway. With a small sweep of his hand he waved me inside and took the tray from Ben before closing the door. He then took the tray to the coffee table as we both sat down. As I made myself comfortable in the leather chair I found myself feeling quite awkward. After a conversation like we'd had that afternoon, how does one start a conversation with a man like Loki? I had blatantly told him that I disapproved of what he was doing, and since he had the general mindset of a dictator, then again, he hadn't seemed upset with me. In fact he had appologised for upsetting me.

"I see that you're uncomfortable." Loki stated, folding his hands on his lap and looking at me intently.

"I was just thinking- I guess I'm confused why you weren't angry at what I said this afternoon." I said softly after a moment, deciding as I usually did with the Norse god of lies to go with the truth.

"Like I said before, I appreciate your honesty with me." Loki said simply. Lifting the cover off the tray he looked at the spread before him, "Now onto a better topic, what is this?"