WHHEEEEE! The first of the one-shots! The two I've done so far are just light-hearted Chris stories. Well, Chris is in them. Obviously.

This first one is really short, and I wrote it in between a couple chapters of DBS. It's set before Roger shows up in LA. Probably a couple months or so after Mark moved there. It was inspired by a Jimmy Carr comedy routine and too much Monty Python.

I do hope you like it. :-D

Dicky Birdied Right in the How's Your Father

by Baka-Sensei

Mark stifled a laugh by shoving another piece of tempura into his mouth. On some level he took note of the fact that he didn't even really need to think about using chopsticks anymore; it was almost the same as using a fork... just with a little more complicated wrist movements. But the majority of his attention was centered on the egotistical, smarmy, but ultimately lovable man sitting next to him on the couch.

Japanese take-out littered the coffee table, and as Christian talked he'd take a stab at some domburi here, maybe a little soba there, never missing a beat as he stuffed the food in his mouth and kept talking. He was like a well-oiled machine… and Mark would kill himself before he ever voiced that out loud. God only knew what innuendoes Christian would come up with.

"So, he looks exactly like my step-father did in high school, even sounds like the bastard, and he was hitting on me!" Chris exclaimed, elegant hands moving in the air as he accentuated his point. The hand with the chopsticks in it flung a little noodle onto the coffee table. Chris glared at it, but didn't pick it up and kept going.

"I figure that it's a little too close to incest for my tastes, but still, just imagining the look on Robert's face if I brought home a gay carbon-copy of him…" he trailed off. "Okay, do I have something in my teeth? You've been staring at me like that for the past ten minutes without saying anything. That's quiet even for you." Mark snapped out of it, nearly choking on a bit of fried rice.

"N-Nothing… It's nothing," he stammered after swallowing. Chris just continued to stare at him. Mark sighed. "Okay, well, it's just that today Beth mentioned to me that you lived in London when you were a kid. I guess I never really noticed before, but now that she told me, I've been hearing your accent. It's just kinda… distracting, I guess." Christian looked at him quizzically.

"Accent?" he asked. "I have an accent?"

"It's very faint," Mark told him. "It's just… you're Rs are a little softer and your words just… I dunno, flow a little more, I suppose."

"Oh, that?" Christian grinned. "Mark, honey, I don't have an accent!"

"But…"

"No, no, no," Chris cut him off. "Think about it. Who founded this country?"

"The British…" Where the hell was Chris going with this?

"So that means that a British accent was the original American accent, which means that it changed over the years into your mid-western non-regional accent, which means that I don't have an accent. You do."

"…What?"

"The way I talk… This is just how words sound when they're pronounced correctly. You're the one who speaks with an accent." He could practically see the light-bulb go on in Mark's head.

"Christian," Mark said with a slight smirk, "has anyone ever told you that you're an arrogant ass?" Christian's grin was devilish.

"Many a time." He leaned forward into Mark's personal space. Mark blushed immediately and Chris leered at him. "Has anyone ever told you that accents, such as the one you have, are hot as all hell?"

Mark stared blankly at him for a long moment. Chris was so focused on his friend's face that he didn't see the hand slink behind the filmmaker and grab a throw-pillow before he was being pummeled back to his own side of the couch. With a sound that he would never admit was similar to a squeal, Christian fell back and Mark stuffed the pillow into his face, holding it there for a second.

"Like I said, you're an ass," he reiterated with a grin.

The sound of half-smothered British laughter was Mark's only answer.