Not Exactly Mrs Beaton [Feliciano]

Occasionally, the prisoners were put to work around the camp, cutting the grass, cleaning up, serving in the mess hall. Sometimes the prisoners even acted as guards, if they desperately needed to make up the numbers. It was very similar to when he was in the army barracks, so Arthur didn't really complain. But there was one thing nobody ever gave Arthur - cooking duty.

It became clear, after only one cooking duty, that he was almost cursed. Whenever he even touched a kitchen utensil, the likelehood of it catching on fire goes up exponentially. He still refuses to believe it's his fault though, prefering to blame it on the German materials he has to work with.

But today, someone had decided to give him kitchen duty. Someone who, obviously, had a death wish or more likely, didn't know he was so terrible. Well, he had to, he supposed, do it. Might be a laugh.

He strolled over to the kitchen at 17h, hands in his pockets and knocked at the door. "Arthur Kirkland, reporting for duty, sir." He grinned, waiting to see who the guard would be and what face they would pull when they saw who it was who had come to assist them.

Feliciano could likely have managed in the kitchen just fine on his own but generally it wasn't a bad thing to have some help. There were a few prisoners that were always showing up for cooking duty, and having someone else competent in the kitchen was always nice. Generally he left them chopping or cutting or mashing while he did the more delicate work, and it sped things along nicely to have help. Of course, he never ended up finding out who was helping, and that was a bit of a bother. Some helpers were about as good as he was when it came to cooking, and could be trusted to make a whole sidedish by themselves. Some, however, were useful for little more then some cutting, and even managed to mess that up. Really, he'd have liked to know who would show up on time, but it was always so last minute he never found out until the prisoner showed up at the kitchen door.

When there was a knock on the door, right at the correct time, Feliciano pulled it open with a grin that died the moment he saw who was at the door. Arthur Kirkland. He was extremely thankful he'd never had to cook with him before, but he'd heard the horror stories. Water that caught on fire. Pans burnt so badly they were ruined. The whole camp going hungry for days because one Arthur Kirkland had managed to use up so much food and none of it was edible.

Why did it have to be him!? Feliciano struggled to keep a grin on his face, stepping out of the way to let Arthur in as he frantically tried to decide where he could stick Arthur without him giving everyone in the camp food poisoning. "...I don't suppose you know how to cut carrots?" Maybe he could just chop. Maybe.

The way the grin fell off of Vargas's face was priceless. Arthur knew he had a reputation, and he also knew that Vargas was the closest they had to a chef here. His food was tolerable, and that was saying something, considering what they had to work with. The bread still tasted like it had been filled out with sand, and the milk was still watery, but at least it was tolerable. Well, now he was here, it would probably be ruined.

"Cut carrots, yes I suppose," He didn't cut things up much, let alone vegetables. He wasn't sure how well he could do it but how hard could it even be? It wasn't exactly skill based, like firing a gun. He picked up the knife and a carrot, beginning to chop it. The slices weren't very even and it was a lot more fiddly than he thought it would be- "Bloody hell!" He sliced his finger, blood spraying over the carrorts. Stupid knife! He put his finger in his mouth, sucking the cut clean, the familiar metal taste of blood in his mouth.

Arthur Kirkland had not even been in the kitchen for a solid five minutes and Feliciano was already entirely sure some people would be going hungry that night. Despite how needed food was, there were still a few standards being held too - and one of those standards was 'don't feed anyone food that's had blood sprayed on it'. Really, it was a standard safety thing, and Feliciano looked annoyed as Arthur started sucking on it. "Stop that!" It wasn't even that bad - just a little cut, but even so, he felt an unpleasant jerk in his stomach as he headed to the corner, retrieving the tiny medkit kept for situations like this. It was the tiniest slice, and it would stop bleeding in a moment, and he was still mentally worrying about Arthur like he was going to die from it. Fishing out a little bit of gauze, he held it out. "Wrap it around the area, pull it tight, clip it on. if I had gloves, I'd give you some, but we don't." Passing it over, he turned to the chopping board, which he was thankful, for once, was metal. Shoving the bloody carrots into the trash, he quickly grabbed the ones not covered in blood and moved them over, dumping the bloody board into the sink.

"Is there anything you can do in the kitchen properly?" It wasn't even meant as an insult - he was genuinely curious. Maybe he'd been taught something? Anything?

Arthur felt that Vargas was over reacting a little bit. It was a tiny cut and yes, there was a little blood splashed over the carrots and it did sting, but it wasn't dangerous. He rolled his eyes, taking his finger out of his mouth and holding it out. There, it wasn't even that bad. "Just a little slice," He shrugged slightly, doing as he was told and bangading the wound. Really, if he was at home his father would have told him to just suck it up and get on withh his day. A little cut didn't stop a Kirkland. "Sorry about getting blood on the food. Just wash it off." He flexed his fingers.

He thought about it. Vargas sounded less insulting and more exasperated, so Arthur nearly felt sorry for him. Nearly. He shrugged awkwardly, "I don't know. I've never really cooked. There's always been someone else to do it." Cooking was not a man's work.

Washing it off was not an option when it came to blood, and Feliciano quickly shook his head. "No way. It's just not safe. You wouldn't want to eat food with someone elses blood on it, would you?" Blood didn't just wash off! The taste stayed, nevermind whatever health concerns there might be. Some freaky parasite or who-knew-what? It was already in the trash anyway, and Feliciano grabbed a knife, swiftly chopping what remained of the carrot.

At least Arthur was honest, and wasn't trying to claim he was some chef. He had no skill, and he admitted it, and it certainly raised him a notch in Feliciano's book - even if that was the same notch he'd just dropped by cutting himself with carrots. "Alright... I'm going to put on a pot with some pasta, and all you have to do is stir it gently every few minutes so it doesn't settle, alright?" Stirring was something Feliciano was fairly sure you couldn't mess up. Pasta was easy to make, after all. He just had to try a little bit.

"Well I'm not diseased or anything." God, why was it such a big deal? It wasn't a big deal, a few droplets of blood. Arthur wouldn't be able to taste it if there had been blood on his carrots. Carrots were mostly waterproof, why would they absorb blood? He tilted his head; Feliciano was much better than he was at it, it just proved quite how terrible he was. "Most of us are used to tasting blood anyway, we're soldiers." He joked casually.

Stirring? Yeah, he could probably do that. He wasn't an imbecile, after all. And water couldn't exactly catch on fire... could it? "Yeah, I can do that." When the pasta was ready, he took the spoon and stirred the pot, making sure that it was all moved. This wasn't too bad, if deathly boring. He didn't really want to screw up again.

Feliciano frowned at the mention of soldiers tasting blood. Sure, he knew what it taste like, but it wasn't a pleasant taste at all. "No no, it would ruin the food." Didn't Arthur get that? Even in war time, when food was so scarce, serving bad food was just not to be done. He had some pride as a cook, after all. "It would make everything taste odd."

He was trying to do his own work - but finding it difficult. He couldn't even chop a single vegetable before he turned around, squinting in Arthur's directions to be entirely sure that nothing had caught on fire. His progress was entirely slowed by his consistent turning, and he let out a short sigh. "How does it look? Like proper pasta, or is it still stiff now?"

Vargas was so picky when it came to food. There was a war on, there was no time for gormets or wasting food. Just the fact that they had this, they should be lucky. He didn't say any more on the subject.

He stirred the pasta. Uh... proper pasta? Arthur didn't understand what he was saying - maybe Vargas's english was failing him, or maybe it was some kind of cooking jargon. "Um... I don't know. What do you think?" It looked like pasta to him. But it had looked like pasta at the beginning too.

How could someone not tell when Pasta was done? It was easy as looking - hold it up, see if it's noodly, if not, leave it in. He paused what he was doing, turning around but not moving. If Arthur couldn't do this, what's the point? "Just hold up a noodle, and look at it. Is it still stiff, or would you eat it as it is?"