Sniff…
Sniff…
Sniffffff…..

Adam walked into the break room, nose in the air, oversized-purple sunglasses pushed up into his black and (slightly) orange pompadour. His support cane was tucked into his back pocket and the man moved like he didn’t need it.

What was that glorious smell? He wondered still sniffing around. It was the most interestingly bitter, slightly sour, and earthy smell…

Sniff…
Sniff…

Adam wandered round the room sniffing various things until he came to the coffee maker.
”AH!” he exclaimed as he pulled the pot from the maker. He put the thing to his nose and – sniiiiiffffffffffff-------

It was an interesting smell. He wondered how it tasted. He opened his mouth and drank directly from the pot - -

And immediately spat it out.

”HOT!” he exclaimed!

Although the taste hadn't been exactly pleasing or exciting even. Just the small sip left him feeling invigorated! Refreshed!! Stimulated!!!

He proceeded drink again (directly from the pot) the bitter sour earthy black liquid as he looked around the room.

A muffin basket caught his eye and he walked over (still guzzling the coffee from the pot) and started poking a finger at the fluffy tops. It wobbled under his finger. Oooo, he thought. He poked it again, only this time his finger left a hole. He poked another one, leaving another hole. A few more hole-poked muffins later, he paused in his coffee gobbling and picked up a muffin. Not bothering to tap off the paper wrapping, he started shoving it into mouth.

Luckily for the man, the level six break room was full of delightful smells and delicious tastes. The hot coffee and fresh muffins sitting out in the open were just the tip of the iceberg of what could be found here.

Just inside the refrigerator can be found a treasure trove of foods and drinks. Not only is it stocked with snacks, but many of the employees of this department elect to keep their lunches inside. And what's that still cooking in the magical microwave? Looks like someone is having pasta carbonara for lunch today...

Muffin (complete with wrapper) gone, Adam continued to wander around the room. Fingers poked, prodded, pushed, padded, and palpated various products and possessions in a possessed preoccupation. Meanwhile, he continued to drink straight from the pot – the earthy sour bitter liquid.

Something behind him beeped loudly. Adam jumped, knocking a couple of mugs onto the floor. They crashed with a loud cacophony of sound that was interesting! Holding the pot of coffee in one hand, Adam picked up a couple more and started tossing them around the room as he giggled to himself. But he soon ran out of mugs to toss around. Irritated that his fun had been stopped Adam put the coffee pot down with a clunk.

Another beep sounded and Adam turned towards the microwave. OOOO something that made more noises! He hurried over to it, bone china, earthenware, porcelain, stoneware, and glass crunched under his boot soles as he crossed the room. It appeared to be a small box with buttons on it. Adam started pushing random things. They beeped and booped under his fingers and then suddenly it lit up and started making an odd woooommm-woooom noise. He jolted again, elbow hitting the frig door which popped open…

What! Was this?! He thought excitedly to himself. He stuck his head inside. ”Cold!” he exclaimed in the depths of the refrigerator. But unlike the ‘hot’ sensation he had when first tasting the awful brown – but boosting brown stuff, he didn’t mind the cold. He started pushing things around in the refrigerator.

He pushed something and the lid popped off. ”Oh!!!” and sounding a lot like a gremlin, Adam started popping the lids off of everything he could get his hands on. Once about two-thirds of the dishes were open, Adam started poking one of the contents which then wafted up at him. Soon his fingers were going from dish to mouth to new dish to mouth to another dish to mouth back to a tasted dish.

The smell was too much to stay away from! Sam sniffed and sniffed her way to the food room where she saw Adam. Saw but did not immediately acknowledge. She was watching him. There were noises of scuffling EVERYWHERE and scents upon scents EVERYWHERE! Sam's eyes were wide, she was only breathing through her nose, and she could feeeeeel her mouth watering. She lokd round at the mess being created and sat on the floor where all the treasure was. She started spreading everything around, looking for things to taste and touch.

Crinkle crinkle crinkle. ...Lick.

There were more noises. Noises were interesting. What were those noises?

Adam pulled his head out of the cold box that housed lots of interesting things to taste and touch and feel and experience and found Sam sitting on the floor, playing with all the broken noisy things that he had tossed about. "Mine!" he said loudly to her. Adam didn't like to share and he still hadn't gotten used to this thing called talking, but even so, he reached down and snatched the piece of broken crockery from Sam's hands and then promptly tossed it across the room where it knocked the basket of poked muffins on the floor.

Something beeped again and Adam turned towards the box with the buttons on it. Gray misty stuff was pouring out from the sides of it and it didn't smell very good. He started pushing buttons again enjoying the boop-beep-bop-bing-bong noises. Only this time, there was a click and the door swung open. "Oooo!" he exclaimed again as the misty gray stuff swooshed out of the box and straight into his face.

He motioned for Sam to join him. What was this odd smelly thing in the box?

Sam had completely delved into the floor treasure when her current focus was torn away from her. She watched as it was snatched from her hand, and over as it knocked over the brown puff stuff. The sound that she heard next made her turn her head so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. The other person here turned to look as well. How interesting that they could both hear these noises! Her eyes widened and all of her senses were overwhelmed at once. The sounds, the smell of blech, Adam's movement... and then mechanics were happening! She could hear the beep boops and looked over quite curiously. She got up and joined him, sniffing at the box.

It was lunchtime and Kendra was rather hungry. After popping her pasta carbonara into the microwave, she had stepped away from the breakroom for a few moments to check on some paperwork she needed signing from one of her employees. And once she had taken care of that, she headed back to retrieve her lunch and was certain she had heard the microwave beep. Though.... had she heard it beep multiple times? That was strange.

But she was not prepared in the slightest for the sight that was before her when she walked in.

It looked like a tornado had struck solely inside the confines of the level six breakroom. Bits of food and splashes of coffee and broken pieces of china littered the floor and were spread all over the counter. Was the microwave on fire?? And at the center of it were two people that were not her employees, one of whom had her PASTA CARBONARA!

"WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?" she demanded, accused, her voice raised in her loud, stern mom voice. She needed some answers and she needed them now!

Something hot and orangey and bright and kinda flickering-sparkly was emanating from inside of the box. It seemed to be the source of that the misty gray smelly stuff. Adam was about to touch it when -

Loud Noises!!!!!

He turned, knocking heads with Sam. It was an odd sensation and it made spots form in his vision. He reached up and rubbed his head then stepped away from the beeping misty smelly boxy thing.

"Nichts," Adam said, speaking German and not realizing it. It was, after all, his first language and didn't require extra thinking. It was a reflex, like breathing. "Was machen Sie?" he said back defensively as if he was ready to pick a fight.

His eyes traveled back to the earthy sour bitter stuff in the pot on the counter. His eye twitched, so did his fingers. He reached around behind Sam and snatched up the pot.

He put the pot to his lips and started drinking it again as he walked out of the break room.

There was, after all - more things to discover and try and experience!!!

The break room. It was usually a peaceful place to gab with coworkers and get refueled for the rest of the day (or start of day). As the redhead made her way into the familiar room, what she hadn't expected was nearly running into someone who was NOT a Transportation employee. Sure she'd seen new people all the time in her near decade of employment but this wasnt really a hiring season and she was pretty sure he was just here to investigate upon the best coffee in the ministry. Or well likely that since he had the level six coffee pot in hand and was drinking directly from it.

Was in budget to get a new one because Chloe was o.O over watching that.

"What in the name of shooting stars???"

Flabbergasted, she stood there, her slender frame no good against stopping him from leaving.

Whatever this was was making Sam’s mouth waaaaaaaaterrrrrrrrrrr!! She was staring wide eyed at the warm gooey thing when a new sound emerged from the other way. Sam whipped her head around much too quickly, and she hit her head on Adam’s before making out the noise maker. Her vision had gone… well there wasn’t quite a word for it but it was dizzying. Her eyebrows furrowed and her body tilted to the side against any will of her own. Not that any of this was her will of course. She lay against the cupboard, dazed, not even realizing Adam had switched languages and not seeing where he went off to. And now there was ANOTHER noise maker here! When had that happened?? Sam was starting to feel ganged up on by the yelling and so she decided she was done with looking at them. Instead she turned her attention quickly back to the trash, where she just KNEW were things she needed to find! Smells and tastes and who knew what else?! She began digging ferociously, tossing everything until she found… something!

Gunnar felt a little weird about going to another level to have lunch, but he was assured that it was okay and he wanted to hang out with Kodee on their break. And it was kind of cool to get to see what another department looked like after spending most of his time on Level Four. Too bad this entire level was so boring that he almost didn't find the breakroom.

Gunnar poked his head in the doorway to find it empty, but it looked like a typical breakroom. Tables, chairs, and all the amenities one would need to eat lunch. Great, he was in the right place. Choosing a seat in the middle of the room, he began pulling his lunch from the bag he packed at home and waited for his friend to arrive.

He was quite over being here. Quite over being woken up to head to the ministry that didn't smile or know how to take a joke. Tired of the relative monotony, the copious amounts of extra rules he had (his fault or otherwise, being confined to this level, being on "break" from Kenzie--know what? He was quite over this whole summer. Never did he think he'd wish to go back to school this much in his entire Hogwarts career and yet....yet he had to deal for the rest of the summer.

What a joke.

Kodee walked in just minutes after Gunnar, his own lunch packed and kept warm with a charm. From mum with love, yet another joke.

"Hey mate." He greeted, slipping into the seat across from him and pulling out his toasted turkey and cheese sandwich to start. He frowned down at it, not because it wasn't appetizing per say but because in general he'd lost his stomach in this place.

"How's your level going?"

Gunnar had just pulled out the contents of his lunch sack when he heard the greeting that caused him to look up.

"Mate." He grinned up at Kodee from his seat at the table, though his smile dimmed a bit as his friend clearly didn't share his good mood. Of course he knew at least some of the trouble he had gotten into with his assigned department, so he couldn't blame him too much. But he hoped he was starting to let that go and focus on his work.

But maybe his work sucked too, which wouldn't surprise Gunnar by the way this department looked on his way in. It reeked of sterile boredom.

"Oh, pretty good," he answered before taking a bite of his own sandwich. "It's a lot like working at the animal shelter last summer - walking the dogs, feeding the animals." The shelter didn't have anything magical, so that was interesting but not unlike CoMC class.

"What about you? Doing anything interesting?"

Was it lunch time?

Two owls swooped in with packages and dropped them on the table, instead of leaving though they perched on the table to have a snack from someone's lunch.

Tatiana glanced around when she heard owls. That was ... odd. She stood up to see where they disappeared off to. She was expecting to see them take off again, but she they did not, she creeped closer to see two packages and the owls enjoying what she assumed was the lunch of an unfortunate coworker.

"Did anyone order packages?"

Coming into the break room for her afternoon pick-me-up was when Chloe heard Tatiana mentioning something about packages.

"Are they are not addressed?" she asked nosily, heels click-clacking on the floor as she made her way over to where they were dropped and peered at them. Also, were packages NORMALLY dropped off here? Wasn't there a mail room or something? Owls definitely seemed unusual compared to the normal interdepartmental memos she was used to flying about....

After a rather trying morning with the appriation center being a disaster when he walked in and with having back to back testing all morning ... only half of which he passed ... again kids these days don't practice enough. But none the less his was time for a break. A sandwich and cup of coffee is what was needed.

Marcel was looking forward to being done with work this weekend, it was his weekend with Jonah and he was really looking forward to it. He missed his son greatly when they weren't together. After pouring himself a cup of joe he took a seat in the break room and busted out the newspaper ... he didn't actually want to read to news, there was just no on around to talk with ... he would welcome any kind of conversation at this point.

Coffee was essential, sometimes multiple times per day and today was one of those days. Chloe wasn't sure what was going on in regards to the floo network shutting down but fortunately it meant that portkeys were needed stat. Hence the coffee.

After fixing her mug, she took a seat by Marcel, one of transportation's newer employees and took a sip of the heavenly liquid. "One of those days, huh? How's Jonah?" she inquired casually of her coworker's son. A common ground to coworkers was discussing children.

"Hey Chloe"Marcel smiled at Chloe, they didn't know each other well, but it was nice to be able to bond over their boys.... now if only he could remember what her son's name was ......... He knew he was 9, he knew the boys would probably love some kind of play date together .. maybe he should organize that for the this weekend? But what the his name .......

"He's doing great, I have him this weekend, seems like forever since I've seem him though." It always felt that way, and his ex was well... difficult to communicate with. "He keeps stealing my wand and 'trying' things out ....How do you make that stop? He set the recliner on fire last weekend.
Okay that part was kinda funny since it was easily extinguished. "How's your boy doing?" There that's the best Marcel could do ... he kept racking his brain trying to figure out, maybe she would drop a hint .. or just say it. Man Marcel felt foolish not knowing it.

Oops.... Chloe forgot that her co-worker had shared custody of his son and felt almost bad about bringing him up except that Marcel didn't seem phased at all about it. "Well if you'd like, we can meet up with you this weekend in the park? I'm sure Apollo would love a new friend who's not thirty years old," she mused, although she knew he'd made friends in primary school, but it might be cool to make other friends and plus it might be a good excuse to get her out of the house.

She laughed, "You gotta lock that wand up when he's around to let him know that's NOT okay for him to be playing with a real wand and set boundaries. Apollo knows he will get his own wand at eleven and he has had his own share of incidentals without the help of a wand. Strange things happening too." She sighed, recalling some of them and shook her head. "Tantrums when he doesn't get his way are the worst. It's one reason we got a cat a few years back because with no sibling in sight i wanted to make sure he knew responsibility."

Apollo!!!! There it was, thank Merlin Chloe said it out loud, made it so much easier than having to look like a fool and ask again. "We'd love to meet up this weekend, Jonah has made some friends in primary school, but really it's only his second year there, and it's hard because he has to remember not to talk to much about magic or it looks like it's more than just a small boy's imagination." Jonah going to a muggle primary school was about the only thing Marcel and his ex wife agreed on. They both may be of magical decent, but they both thought it was best that he learn how to read and write, and do mathematics from real teachers, not just them.

"I keep putting my wand out of reach ... or what I think is out of his reach, but either strange things are occurring with him already, or he's taller than I realize." Marcel chuckled a little at it, Marcel and yet to catch him in the act of anything, but one second his wand was on top of the fridge and the next it was in Jonah's hand.

"So did you want to meet up this weekend? I did promise Jonah some ice cream." Did Blake just ask Chloe on a date?? Or was a play date for the boys? He hadn't been able to decide just yet.

Good thing Chloe wasn't one to judge tooooo harshly about looking like a fool since she probably did herself 97.9% of the time. "ahhh yea i could understand that. Telling a kid to not talk about charms and transfiguration. and then the 'what does your parent do?' question is inevitable of course, which requires creative explanations, because well, muggles would probably roll their eyes on portkeys or apparition. Fortunately, Apollo attends St Woboldo's, which is good because he attends with other kids of magical background but still gets to learn all the basic arithmetics and linguistics." Plus it was OH SO convenient to drop him off in London on the way to and from work.

"They do grow up so quickly," Honestly, Chloe wouldn't be least surprised if Apollo ended up taller than her by the time he was a teenager. And at five foot five, she didn't think she was super short, but she wasn't a giant either.

Wait, meet up. Oh. The kids. "Sure, ice cream sounds good, though it will have to be early. Apollo gets crazy energetic on ice cream and he'll need the day to burn off the energy. Would 11 work for you?"

Heading into the break room to fix herself a cup of coffee, Chloe sighed whimsically, slightly worried that she hadn't heard anything from her son. Had he made it to Hogwarts okay? Surely she would have been contacted had something happened, but the kid was only eleven.

She absently stirred in some sugar, frowning and thinking maybe she ought to try writing the school to make sure he was getting situated okay. She didn't want to be overbearing and yet she couldn't help herself.

It was her favorite time of day, lunch time, though any time of day typically was her favorite time of day depending on what the day had in store. Anna was never really picky on that sort of thing, but she did like to eat and she did like her sweets. Today she was excited to get to lunch because her left over pasta had been calling her name all morning or maybe it was the small piece of chocolate fudge brownie from the cafe down the street she had in there. Either way she was ready to sit and eat.

Opening up the fridge she pulled out her lunch box and went to the table. Sitting down she opened it just to find the brownie was gone. "THIEF, THIEF, WE HAVE A THIEF!!!!!" No one takes Anna Marie's brownie and gets away with it, nope she needed to dust for finger prints, put up cameras, put mouse traps in the fridge, do something ANYTHING!