LJ prompt: night

The Night to Forget

"There's nothin' good on," Freddy complained as he continued to flip through the channels.

"You know you've already flipped through the channels twice now," Lance snapped as he walked past Fred and Toad and headed for the stairs with three empty trash sacks in his hand. "You guys could help out," he muttered under his breath.

"No thanks," Blob replied lazily, not taking his eyes off the television screen.

"Yeah yo, with all this cleaning you and Wanda keep doing I can't find a decent snack of flies or bugs anywhere," Toad complained as he clipped his toenails and then put the clippings into his pocket for his regular midnight snack.

"When's dinner?" Freddy asked scratching his belly.

"I don't know, why don't you ask Wanda! She's the one working in the kitchen!" Lance yelled over his shoulder as he went up stairs.

Todd and Freddy exchanged a look of dread.

Fifteen minutes and thirty-seven rock-paper-scissors games later, Todd tipped-toed into the doorway of the kitchen.

"Ugh sweetum cakes," he muttered as he leaned his head into the room. Todd's eyes practically popped out of his head. The cabinets were hanging evenly with newly attached chrome hardware and looked freshly polished. There were no more food and rust stains along the walls between the counter-tops and the cabinets, instead, a new layer of paint was just about done drying.

"What is it?" Wanda asked. She was standing on the table cleaning the light fixture above it. The light fixture had recently been replaced and was sporting a brand new light bulb. She looked down at him with a smile waiting for his reply.

Todd quickly snapped his jaw up.

"Yo me and the Blob were talkin' and wondering when dinner is gonna happen."

"Oh no, I completely forgot to tell you guys!" she shrieked jumping down and running past him. "LANCE! PIETRO! Come down here for a minute!" she shouted stopping in the living room. Todd walked up behind her and shared a confused look with Fred, who was still sitting on the couch.

It took a minute before Lance, followed by Pietro, began to come down the stairs. Lance came all the way down, Pietro stopped halfway down and just leaned onto the banister with his gloved hands.

"What's up sis?"

"Yeah, I'm trying to get this stuff cleared out before dinner."

"Well that's what I want to talk to you guys about," Wanda replied, the boys exchanged a glance and then all stared at her. "I've decided to reward you boys for all your hard work with a home cooked meal by me!" she squealed and then ran back into the kitchen to finish her repairs and cleaning so she could begin baking.

"Did she say home cooked meal?" Freddy asked as he began to drool.

"What's that yo?"

"When did she learn to cook?" Pietro asked. All eyes were on Lance.

"What are you asking me for!? I don't know!" Lance shouted storming up the stairs and out of sight into Fred's bedroom.

"Sheesh, you'd think loosing the toss up for who gets to clean the bathroom was still bothering him," Pietro said admiring the mint green rubber gloves he had on. They reached all the way up to his elbows and matched the hairnet he was wearing.

"Well back to scrub-a-dubbing the tub," He hummed to himself.

"Hey look, Bayville's on the news again."

"OOOH, is it about rampant animals running loose from the zoo, or how about some sort of contaminant in our water supply, no wait - giant robots attack downtown." Todd asked excitedly trying to guess what might be the hot topic of the evening. He wanted some fun news for a change, lately everything was boring and pointless to care about.

"Nope, nuttin like that," Freddy replied trying to let his buddy down easy. "Just a story about some local missing kid reunited with his foester mother and the progress Kelly is making in his campaign for mayor."

"No one cares about that sort-of-stuff," Todd sighed hopping over and down on the couch next to Freddy.

"Hey, can I get a hand up here!?" Lance yelled down at them.

"Don't know, but let us know when you figure it out," Fred replied with a smirk, feeling proud of himself.

- - - - -

"Dinner is ready!" Wanda shouted out from the kitchen a few hours later. Fred and Todd were just sitting down as Lance made it to the door way.

"Out-of-my-way!" Pietro shouted as he zoomed past Lance and into his chair. It took a moment for everyone to realize he had just come in since there was no cloud of dust in his wake, like there normally was.

"Whoa...did you get faster?" Todd asked scratching his head. He found a dead fly in and quickly slurped it up.

"You'd-think-so, wouldn'tcha," Pietro smirked pulling out Lance's chair for him. "With this place all clean, there isn't any dust or debris around to be moved in my wake. It's-totally-great! We have to keep this place clean from now on."

"That's the plan stupid," Lance said as he sat down eyeing the chair and Pietro suspiciously.

"Relax, I'm not going to ruin dinner with a prank. Wanda-would-kill-me."

"That's right bro, I would. I want this evening to go perfectly," Wanda said as she began to bring the plates over from the cabinet to the table.

"Meatloaf?" Fred asked sniffing the air. He began licking his lips while he waited for his plate.

"Yup." Wanda hummed cheerfully. "I hope you like it. You guys have to be honest since it isn't my recipe."

"Well I'm not a huge fan of meatloaf, but I'll try anything once." Lance said picking up his fork and cutting a bite to try. The other three followed suit as Wanda stood beside the table and waited for their first reactions. She rocked back and forth on her heals anxiously as she watched the four of them place their forks into their mouths.

"Well, how is it?" She asked them. "I tried to follow all the instructions Kitty gave me, but I wasn't sure if I remembered them all when I was actually cooking, you know."

Lance dropped his fork.

Fred's eyes began to water.

Pietro casually lifted the napkin he had on his lap up to his mouth and spit the food out into it.

Toad grabbed his glass of apple juice and used it to help him swallow.

"Kitty helped you cook this?" Lance asked hesitantly looking at the plate in front of him.

"No," Wanda replied. Lance let out a breath of relief, reaching up and covering his eyes. "She's just been teaching me how to cook for the past few weeks. That's all I meant."

Lance's arm fell down into the food on his plate. Freddy's lips began to tremble, and a few tears trickled down on his cheeks. Pietro dropped his jaw and stared at Wanda like she was some kind of alien from another planet. Todd decided to check if he had anymore bugs in his hair.

"W-..W-..W--Why?..." Pietro stammered. Before Wanda could ask them about their reactions a knock on the glass of their back door make everyone in the room jump.

"Ello' mates," John, otherwise known as Pyro, waved from behind the sliding glass door. Wanda turned on her heals and ran to let him in.

"JOHN!" she shrieked bouncing as she slid the door open and jumped up into this arms, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Talk about your warm welcomes," John said hugging her tightly with a wide smile. He grabbed her waist and pulled her back from him just enough so he could look at her face to face. "It's good ta see you too shelia. Am I too late to catch the grub?" He asked.

"Trust me, you don't want any of this." Lance said. He had already collected the plates and was slowly scrapping their contents into the trash can. Pietro was helping by gathering the pots and pans with the rest of the food and dumping them out as well.

Wanda began to pout and folded her arms at them. "I worked hard on that, why are you guys just throwing it all out?"

"Sorry sis, but it's not like this stuff is edible." Pietro replied. Freddy suddenly stood up and ran out of the room in a burst of tears. Everyone remained quiet as they listened to him run out of the room and up the stairs, reaching his door and slamming his door closed, and finally throwing himself down onto his bed.

"But Kitty-"

"Can't cook to save lives," Lance interrupted. He was done clearing the plates. He turned and faced Wanda. "Seriously, if people were starving and the only person who could cook was Kitty, they'd either die of starvation or from what she'd give to them. And if they were the latter they'd die wishing they had starved. Trust me."

Wanda didn't seem convinced, she looked up at John for help.

"But she's your girlfriend mate, surely she has cooked for you two and-"

"No. She did make some cookies once, and that was enough. I had the runs for the whole week and I had only eaten three of the two dozen she had made. You don't even want to know what it did to poor Freddy who had taken them from my room thinking I was done with them."

"Why didn't you just tell him not to eat them?" John asked curiously.

"I thought the fact that they were in the trash would have been clue enough," Lance replied.

"Okay, hate to break up these lovely moments down memory lane and all," Pietro interrupted, "But we need to figure out how to fix dinner before the big guy upstairs has a complete meltdown. We can't afford another six months of therapy again."

"Again?" Wanda asked.

"After eating Kitty's cookies," Lance and Pietro responded together. John let out an odd whistle.

"Eureka!" Todd exclaimed pulling out a cockroach form his back pocket. He jumped up into his chair and hugged it close to his chest with glee.

"How bout some good old Chinese food this evening?" John asked trying to ignore the sight of Toad licking his new found snack.

"Sounds good enough for me!" Pietro said dashing out the back door. Wanda turned and closed it.

"The place looks great, you must have been working all day," John said looking around the room casually.

"Yeah, no thanks to Toad or Blob," Lance complained taking his seat again.

"I'll go get an extra chair, just wait here hun," Wanda said kissing Pyro on the cheek and then she skipped out of the room.

John took a seat next to Lance and placed his hands together, twiddling his hands as he looked around the room again.

"Nice Job."

"Thanks."

"Sure thing mate."

"Such a scrumptious snack, yes you are," Todd said dangling the roach above his mouth. John and Lance looked on in disgust as he flipped it up into the air and swallowed it whole.

This was suppose to be a submission for both DeviantArt and LiveJournal but since I'm late on the DA submission date, it won't actually be apart of the contest I wrote it for. Oh well, at least I finally got the thing done and typed.
Obviously this isn't in character or serious in nature, and that was the whole point, to write "the worst brotherhood fic ever". So I did my best to make readers cringe and characters not be or act themselves. I still wanted you to know the characters and like it so I didn't do something overly drastic with everyone.