Title: Dinner at Joshua's
Author: Savage Midnight
Email: savage_midnight@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Any characters/concepts familiar to the Dark Angel universe belong to the creators of the show.
Summary: Joshua has organised another dinner party for the gang, but when the group arrive, all hell breaks loose. Max is auditioning for a toothpaste commercial, Logan's unsure which way his door swings, and what's so fascinating about White's socks?
Authors notes: My response to a challenge that was set for a Dark Angel fanfiction competition that ran last year at The Broken World. The challenge was as follows:

2000 - 5000 words
Shipper-less
G - PG-13 rating
Any genre

Must include:

"Did anybody else just go to a scary visual place?"
"Lets play Pin The Blame On The Idiot Who Got Us Into This Mess. I blame you. Can you guess why?"
"He/she/they hurt me. Burn him/her/them."

The word "toothbrush" must be mentioned three times.
Alec and Logan cook something together, but it all goes wrong. They blame each other throughout the fic.
One character breaks out into song (pref. White) and is hit up the head by another character (pref. Sketchy).

Before I leave you, I must apologise profusely for the insanity that is this fic. I was young, so very young. Still, it was fun. Enjoy.

Oh, and one more thing, Logan-lovers be WARNED. Logan-bashing ahead ;)

---

"A dinner party?" Max inquired blankly, jabbing the toothbrush forcefully into her mouth, only to remove it again to spit delicately into the wash basin. She turned sideways, flashing a grin into the mirror, before winking at herself and proceeding to turn the soft glow of her teeth into a full-blown lighthouse signal.

"Yup. And we're all invited. You, me, Alec... White... " OC explained, admiring the crumpled invitation, which looked like it had once been a christmas card.

"White?!" The X5 squealed in an unusually Max-like way, stomping her feet angrily on the bathroom floor and waving her toothbrush around like a demented chicken. "But he's a bad guy!"

"Josh thinks it's about time we patched things up, ya know? This whole evil versus good thing is too clean cut. He thinks we need to add a lil' grey to our otherwise black and white canvas."

Max snorted, raising her nose in distaste. "Artists."

"Sooooo... we goin', or what?"

X5-452 sighed dramatically, brushing invisible strands of her from her face so her I'm going to be the bigger person in this particular situation look showed through. Wrapping her toothbrush up in its protective casing, she turned to her friend. "We'll go. But if Logan even thinks about sharing another one of his renditions of "Annie", I'll shove his exo-mah-thingy were the sun don't shine."

OC raised an eyebrow in response, but Max simply puffed out her chest in an attempt to look... well, manly.

"Okay, boo. Whatever you say."

---

"Alec, you know as well as I do that you're incapable of cooking anything besides beans on toast. And even that's a stretch for you."

"Hey!" Alec cried, glaring angrily at the older man who was currently attempting to fish spaghetti out of a pan of boiling water. "I resent that. What about the time I made us all oeufs et pommes frites?" He smirked.

"Egg and chips doesn't make you a chef, Alec. And besides... the yolk was too hard."

The X5 shot him a menacing glare. "Muppet," he grumbled, stabbing his knife into the onion that some-what resembled Logan's head. The only difference was, the onion had layers. Logan was just boring, through and through.

"I heard that," Logan snapped, growling in frustration and attempting to stomp his foot as the spaghetti slid off the spoon again. Of course, with the presence of his exo-skeleton, the stamping of ones foot was pretty difficult, so instead he opted for plan b - whining loudly and without mercy.

"Oh God! Why won't this spaghetti do what it's told! Nothing's going right tonight!" The older man whirled (well, I say whirled... he sort of... puttered around in a circle). "This is all your fault, Alec! Things usually run smoothly when you're not here!"

"What?! How is it my fault? You're the one cooking!" Alec screamed, waving his knife around like a mad man (there seems to be a lot of waving of objects in this fic, but hell... what're you gonna do?). Logan, fearing for his own life, scrambled for the nearest weapon he could find, which just so happened to be a spatula. A pink spatula with yellow dots and the word BLOBBY written in bright fluorescent writing.

"Look, buddy. You may be stronger and faster than me, but I know how to use this. Ya hear?" the older man threatened, wafting the spatula under the younger mans nose. "You don't want to know the things I can do with this... this spatula."

Alec raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow (he plucks?) and in that very moment everything froze, except Alec, of course. The readers (or watchers, depending on how you look at it) all turned to look at him in mild shock; curious as to why this fic had suddenly stopped moving, even though technically... it hasn't stopped at all.

"Did anybody else just go to a scary visual place?" the genetically powered sex-god asked and the readers of this fic simply nodded - slightly bewildered as to why the characters of this story was talking to them... not that they minded. After all, who would mind talking to such a fine specimen? I sure as hell wouldn't. But moving along...

The scene unfroze and without a second thought, Alec proceeded to dump the pan of spaghetti over Logan - boiling water and all. The older man squealed - much like a pig without any bacon - and danced around the kitchen like Michael Flatly in the Riverdance. With a satisfied smirk, Alec left the kitchen and went in search of some much-needed fun.

---

Meanwhile, in the dining room of Josh's house (didn't know he had a dining room, did ya? Well, neither did I, but... ) the guests were sitting themselves around the table, set with the finest paper plates any of them had ever seen.

Unfortunately for Logan, the table only sat six places and the poor guy was forced to sit at the kiddie table (you know the kind; those plastic ones your mom buys you for christmas... the ones with the pink, dancing elephant on it and the chair to match). Well, needless to say the elder man was not pleased and in a childish attempt (which is just so unlike Logan) to attain justice, Eyes Only locked OC in the airing cupboard and claimed her seat as his own. With that problem solved, the friends sat patiently, awaiting the meal that Logan had spent the last ten minutes bathing in.

Reluctantly, Sketchy voted himself topic opener.

"Sooo... anyone see Days of Our Lives last night?"

Pitiful groans travelled around the table faster than a transgenic with a bullet up their ass and Sketchy stared down at his empty plate shamefully.

"I was at work, unfortunately," White spoke up. "You know how it is... transgenics to kill, prophecies to fulfill." The friends nodded in understanding, murmuring quietly - so quiet nobody actually knew what they were saying.

"So how're you liking it here, Ames? Seattle agreeing with you?" Alec inquired, eyeing White intensely in hopes that he looked remotely interested. Unbeknown to the villain of the piece, Alec was in fact debating whether White was a boxers or briefs kinda guy. Unbeknown to Alec, White was in fact a g-string kinda guy. Huh... who know?

Meanwhile, Logan and Max were in the middle of their own debate. Max, who was currently waving a candlestick around (again with the waving), was being her usually curious self (well, she is part cat... she's entitled) and was attempting to see if dripping candle wax on Logan's exo-skeleton would cause it to malfunction. But the poor, sorry excuse for a guy wasn't having none of it. With a frightening squeal he jumped (leaped) from his chair and pointed to Alec frantically, all the while, screaming "He hurt me! Burn him!"

"What are you talkin' about?!" Alec cried in defence, rising from his chair and flexing his muscles for OC's sake (he still didn't buy her I'm gay deal). Slamming his fists down on the table for effect, the X5 continued to glare angrily at the older man. After a while the poor guy developed a twitch in his left eye and had to resort to hissing at the cyber-geek instead.

"You ruined my pasta!" Logan wailed, his trusty spatula appearing from... well, nowhere.

"I did no such thing! You're the one who decided to go fishing with a spoon!" 494 snapped. "How about this! Lets play Pin The Blame On The Idiot Who Got Us Into This Mess!"

Logan glared menacingly (or tried to) at Alec, suddenly wishing his exo-mah-thingy had a built in laser... or a machine gun. Whatever.

"I blame you," the X5 declared. "Can you guess why?!"

Silence.

" 'Cause you're the one who decided to flame-grill the minced meat! You're the one who used a spatula to make tomatoes into tomato sauce! And now look! We've got seven people to feed and nothing to feed them with! Unless they fancy suckin' the pasta outta your hair. And to be quite honest, I'd rather eat White's socks than eat your damn pasta!"

 "How dare you?!" the cyber-geek roared (well... I say roared, I mean whined pitifully). "Everything was perfect until you came along and ruined it all! Well, no more! I don't care if you're some special soldier, with-with manly muscles and buns of steel! You can just take yourself and your finely toned ass elsewhere! I've had it! Who do you think you are? Prowling around this place like you own it! Oozing your-your sex appeal! It isn't right! Flaunting all your... assets! Teasing us until we can't possibly take it anymore! Do you know what that sort of things does to a man? Do you?!"

The room remained silent and the occupants of the table stared blankly at the older man like he'd suddenly grown a pair of legs (a working pair of legs, that is). With an anguished cry, Eyes Only turned and fled (I say fled, I mean hobbled) from the room, strings of spaghetti flapping wildly behind him.

No one spoke for a while and the soft twitter of grasshoppers sounded in the background. Or was it crickets...

Anyway, with Logan finally gone, Josh felt it was his duty to free OC from the airing cupboard. With a strangled cry, the girl landed in a graceful heap on the floor (how she managed to land gracefully is beyond me). Wiping non-existent dust from her trousers, she sat herself back down at the table and eyed the remaining occupants warily. Why she was eyeing them warily, I don't know, but how else would she be eyeing them? After all, most of them were male, with the exception of Max, of course. But hell, we all know that chic's got balls.

"Whadida miss?" OC asked, aware that Alec's face currently resembled a pulverised beetroot.

"Oh, nothing much. While you were hiding in the closet, Logan was just comin' outta his," Max explained, shrugging casually and returning back to her task of creating man-made coasters with candle wax.

"'Bout damn time," Cindy muttered.

Silence befell the room full of occupants and OC was left making shadow puppets on the wall with her hands, much to her amusement. Alec was left admiring White's black, cotton (100% cotton, I'll have you know) socks, and Sketchy proceeded to examine Josh's recent art piece, which vaguely resembled a bird upside down - or was it Alec flexing again?

Suddenly and without warning, White piped up, suddenly speaking like one of those English men you find in American adventure films (the fact that he's not English has nothing to do with it), and tapping his cane for full effect (where the hell he got his cane from, I don't know). "I say, since dinners cancelled, how about a sing-a-long to pass the time?"

Gasps of shock travelled around the room, but White was oblivious, already rising to his feet and clearing his throat. The villain raised his arms above his head, drew a breath, and...

"The sun'll come out tomorrow! Bet your bottom dollar there'll be sunnnnnn!"

White's... er... incredible (incredibly frightening) voice pierced the air and Josh howled painfully, clamping his hand over his dog-like ears. Max scrambled for cover beneath the table and OC, too entranced by the dancing shadow-puppets on the wall, simply ignored the man before her; who at that moment in time was prancing around Josh's dining room, waving (ahah! the wave has arrived) his cane around like a broadshow dancer. Any minute now, Max was expecting a top-hat to pop up out of nowhere.

Ah... there we go.

Stifling a groan, 452 could do nothing but watch, helpless.

"Just thinkin' about tomorrow, clears away the cobwebs and the sorrowwww! 'Til there's nonnneee!"

With a loud, tortured howl, Sketchy (who, upto now, had been blissfully ignored) launched himself at the dancing, prancing man, raising a shaking hand to batter White upside the head; in turn rendering the poor guy unconscious. With a cheer, the occupants of the room proceeded to envelope Sketchy in what they loosely called a "group hug" (a weird ass group at that). Alec, however, didn't join in (he just doesn't swing that way. But by the way he was eating White up with his eyes earlier, I'm not so sure) and after realising that he wasn't the hero of this particular piece, he stormed off in search of... something.

The villain finally defeated, the friends sat down to eat the meal that never was, and everyone lived happily ever after ('cept Logan, who was tragically hit by a freight train on the way home).

The End.

Or is it?