"I just can't believe you!" A voice suddenly said.

Edward whipped around, looking for the source of the voice, ready to pound whoever it was who had sneaked into his room.

"…Turning down that cute hunk of monkey!"

His jaw dropped. It was his doll; Veronica!

And, not only that, but she was talking!

Okaaay, he must had just stepped into the twilight zone; "The place where normal things don't happen very often". Sure, Veronica was his emotional support, and he talked to her a lot, but he never expected her to talk back.

She talked in an annoying tone of voice, the type common among teenage girls.

It made you want to hit her.

She stood up, looked right at him with her little plastic hands resting on her hips, and continued her speech.

"I mean, like, don't you want to be happy?"

Edward picked her up. "Happy?" He repeated, confused.

She gave him a meaningful look with one of her eyebrows raised. "Duh! Yeah! You're always complainin' to me about how depressed you are, but you never do anything about it!"

Edward couldn't believe his own doll was dissin' him!

"I want you to be happy," She said. "You know you love him, so give him a chance…" and, as though she felt her time of being able to talk and move running out, she blurted out, "And buy a Ben doll; I deserve love, too!"

And then she was back to normal, and reality settled its warm fuzzy blanket around the world again. Whether it was just a hallucination induced by a repressed subconscience or had actually happened, there was only one thing left for Edward to do…

Lazlo sat on the steps of Pinto cabin, leaning on the door and staring at the sky. There's a danger to leaning on doors, but Lazlo was leaning on this one on purpose, since he didn't want to miss it when it opened.

It did. Lazlo nearly fell backwards into the cabin but Edward had his weight on the door so he didn't fall all the way in. Edward glared at Lazlo for his stupidity. Lazlo smiled back.

Edward sighed, his glare fading. "Fine."

"Fine?"

"I'll go out... with you." He said through gritted teeth.

"Really? Oh." Lazlo got up, excited. "Ok! I'll pick you up at eight. Wear something nice!" He commanded nonchalantly, which was something only Lazlo and children's show hosts could do.

Pick me up? Edward thought. "Wait! Where are you takin' me?!" He tried to yell out, but Lazlo had already hopped, skipped, and jumped across the camp and out of earshot.

Edward leaned his head on the doorframe and tried not to think about what the other campers would think. He felt defeated and sort of relieved. He came to believe that he would have to leave whatever happened next to chance, and just hope that Veronica was right.

He'd never packed for this. He never thought to himself, Hey! I'd better pack something nice, in case a monkey asks me out to dinner! No, he didn't! Why didn't he!?

He threw a pair of shorts across the room at Skip and Chip, who, for some reason or another, he had let in. Skip put the shorts on his head like a hat. "Look, I'm Edward!" He said to his brother, who laughed.

What did Lazlo expect him to wear anyhow? A suit? A dress? Well… he did have a dress (don't ask), but he wasn't planning on letting anyone see him in it anytime soon. He didn't have a suit. He had a Scab Zombies t-shirt, but what would that say? And… And why did he care what Lazlo would think?! The guy did a gymnastics routine in a sunflower suit, for heavens sake! He wasn't in any position to judge.

Some shorts, after he'd wrestled them off Skip, and a sleeveless t-shirt that was what he ended up wearing. It was good enough, and it wasn't like Lazlo would find anything better…

There was a knock at the door. Lazlo stood in the entrance, grinning. He was wearing a suit.

He looked hot!

Edward looked down at his shoes, feeling suddenly scruffy by comparison. Lazlo got the feeling that Edward was mad at him.

"I like your shirt." He said in effort to lighten the mood. It didn't really work, but it was enough to get Edward out the door.

"So, where are you takin' me?" Edward asked, feeling like he was being taken hostage. In a way, he was. Lazlo had a death grip on his arm.

Lazlo put his index finger to his lips and went shhh. He grabbed Edward's hand and dragged him through the woods. The path they were on took them to a clearing. It wasn't a particularly interesting clearing; although it had a stump right in the middle of it.

Someone had draped it with a checkered tablecloth and thus, with very little effort, the clearing was transformed into a posh restaurant.

Standing next to the stump was Raj, looking uncomfortable in a tux. "Please wait to be seated!" He demanded rather than asked politely.

Edward felt a cold shiver down his back as he looked at the stump again. One of Lumpus's scented bath candles had been pilfered to decorate it. Clam was a little ways off to the side, next to a large pot, dressed like a cook.

This wasn't a date; it was a game! It was a frikkin' pretend date!

He shot Lazlo a look of simmering contempt. Lazlo didn't seem to notice, for he was busy smiling at his own handy work. It took a lot of asking around to find out what a date was like, since very few Bean Scouts had experienced one.

He pulled up a "chair for his date.

Edward pushed him away. "Don't bother; its a log!"

He sat on the aformentioned log with a huff.

Lazlo quietly took his seat on the opposite side of the stump. Raj handed them menus. They were just pieces of paper with the word, 'soup' scrawled on in an erratic handwriting that one could only guess as belonging to Clam. Edward growled at the lack of choices. After a few seconds, he decided that he'd just have to swallow whatever Clam the cook was stirring up. Ew!

Raj came back with a notebook. "May I take your order?" He twittered. Edward crumpled the menu up into a ball and flung it at the elephant's head. "Fine! I'll take the soup!" This small act of violence rested his soul a bit.

Raj grinned nervously, trying hard to be polite for Lazlo's sake. Lazlo looked at his menu, cupped his chin in his hand, and went, "Hmmm…"

Edward seethed. He tapped his fingers on the stump and waited. Finally he burst out, "There's only one thing on the menu, Lazlo, pick it!"

Lazlo giggled. It wasn't that he was stupid and didn't notice that the menu lacked any real choices, it was just that Lazlo thought pouring over a menu was an essential part of a 'going to a posh restaurant' experience. Either way, he ordered the soup.

Raj carefully wrote down their orders with a somewhat obsessive-compulsive attention to spelling (one could only double check the spelling of the word 'soup' so many times…) and took the order to the cook. The cook, Clam, promptly took the paper and dropped it into the cooking pot, giving it a good stir.

"This is crazy!" Raj hissed. Clam stared at his own cooking. Raj hadn't ever judged his cooking abilities before.

"I meant this date!" Raj quickly corrected after seeing that look of dismay on Clam's face.

Clam nodded, then shrugged. He poured out two bowls of soup and handed them to Raj. Unlike Raj, he didn't believe that it was his place to judge their enigmatic leader.

Back at the table, Edward had already decided to take out his rage on the service. He grinned sneakily when Raj came back with the soup, deciding that he had always wanted to try what he was thinking about doing…

He took some lint out of his pocket and dropped it into the soup when no one was looking. He took a deep breath and declared, "Oh Maître D'! There's a fly in my soup!"

"Where?" Exclaimed Raj, leaning over the soup.

"Right there!" Edward yelled, pushing him in. It wasn't what he was planning to do in the first place, but seeing Raj lean over the soup like that was too big a chance to resist. That, and the fact that he messed up the first line of the joke.

Raj slowly lifted his head out of the soup. He was mad.

He was so mad that Dumbo's mother attacking circus visitors and dropping the ringmaster into a barrel had nothing on him.

"I'll kill him!" He raged. Both Lazlo and Clam had to hold him back.

"You can't kill him, Raj!" Lazlo said, trying his hardest to seem calm.

"And why not?!"

"Because you're a gentle, peace loving guy." He explained. And, oddly enough, Lazlo believed this with all his heart…

"Wuss!" Barked Clam, although he also believed this with all his heart.

Raj calmed down. They were right, of course. Edward could take him any day and he wasn't up to having a fight.

Clam took his hand and led him back to the pot, which had now become Clam's personal cauldron of weird concoctions. "Make soufflé, make soufflé!" He yelled, repeating it ecstatically.

Lazlo sat back in his chair. "That wasn't very nice, Edward…"

Despite the fact that he believed that he was guiltless, Edward found himself looking at his feet.

"I was bored!" he retaliated. "This so-called-date is boring, Lazlo! It sucks..."

"Oh." Lazlo's pupils dilated with understanding. "Dates aren't as fun as stagecoach robberies, are they?"

Edward didn't have anything to say to that.

"I don't really know that much about dates…" continued Lazlo. "I asked everyone I know, too. Nobody here knows anything about them."

"That's 'cuz everyone here's antisocial loners!" Edward said. And, like how both Clam and Lazlo believed that Raj was gentle and peace-loving, Edward believed his statement with all of his heart.

Lazlo smiled at him, and Edward had to look away. He had always found the monkey's smile unnerving. Lazlo tried lean back into his line of vision.

"What's a real date like, Edward?" He asked.

"Umm..." Edward blushed. "What makes you think that I know about dates?..."

"'Cuz you're so smart, Edward!" Lazlo said, giggling.

Encouraged by this, Edward blurted out the only single thing he knew about dates. "Well, my brother said that they start with dancing and end with sex…" He said this with nearly no expression on his face. He knew he'd regret it as soon as he said it. He tried to avoid looking at Lazlo's face so he won't blush again.

He glanced up. To his surprise, Lazlo seemed pretty mellow.

"What's sex?" Lazlo asked suddenly. Edward fell off his log. "Well, there goes our relationship!" He snapped.

The last thing Edward said didn't make much sense to Lazlo, so he promptly erased it from his mind, but something in the sentence before that one agreed with the happy-go-lucky primate…

He got out of his seat, walked to Edward's side of the table, leaned down, grabbed the younger boy's hand, and pulled him up. "What kind of dance?"

"Guh?" Edward didn't hear him since he was too shocked. One minute he was on the ground and the next minute his head was buried in Lazlo's shoulder. He pushed Lazlo away to a safe, manly distance, but he was still too close, and Lazlo was holding onto his hand.

"What kind of dance?" Lazlo repeated.

"I dunno…" He tried to remember things about dates. Things he'd seen on TV. "The waltz, I think…" and because he didn't like to seem uncertain in front of someone who thought he was smart, he added, "Yeah, that!"

Lazlo's smile, if possible, grew wider. Lazlo liked dancing. He knew there was something missing with this date thing, and that must've been it. Granted, he preferred the robot to the waltz, but the waltz was one of those dances you could dance with someone.

He took a step closer to Edward while trying to remember how it went. One of his hands was already entwined with the little platypus's he put his other had on the boy's waist, ignoring Edward's sharp intake of breath.

Lazlo started leading Edward around the clearing in small, lazy circles. Edward stumbled along. "I didn't mean we should dance!" He protested.

Lazlo continued to ignore him.

"Someone will see us, Lazlo!" He raged.

"And…" Lazlo twirled him.

Edward growled under his breath, trying to regain his posture. It would be hard to explain a difficult concept like embarrassment to Lazlo. He tried to calm down. It really wasn't so bad. Dancing. Even if he wasn't really good at it. Yet something nagged at him.

"Lazlo?"

"Hmmm?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because you said danci-"

"Not that! This date!"

"Umm…" Lazlo tried to think back to earlier that day. 'It seemed a good idea at the time' didn't sound like the answer Edward was expecting. "So you'd be happy!" He answered truthfully.

Edward's face went from crème to beet red. "It's not like I'm your friend or anything…"

"It's okay, I like you!" Lazlo said, grinning.

If Edward blushed any harder his head would've exploded. Again.

Lazlo continued talking, taking a dangerous road. "And you said you liked me!" After a moment of consideration, he corrected himself. "You said you lov-" (Edward coughed, embarrassed) "-ed me. That makes us friends, right?"

"Well…" Frankly, Edward didn't really know what that made them. He hoped it wasn't friends. He also didn't want to say that he didn't know…

He decided to throw in a random guess.

He stood on his tiptoes. "Not really…" He continued, "It sorta makes us…"

Lazlo didn't get to hear the rest, because Edward's lips were on his.

If anyone is wondering where our overtly cautious pink elephant and beloved albino pygmy rhino were at this moment, here is your answer. Back when Lazlo and Edward were discussing the intricacies of a date, Clam and Raj where walking back to get Clam's pot when, suddenly, a bear (the very same bear that Lazlo once brought back to camp) jumped out of the bushes!

Wowed by the scent of Clam's cooking, it grabbed the pot and ran. Clam took chase, because that pot was one of Clam's most prized possessions along with the nose hair trimmer that Lazlo gave him and his toaster.

Raj followed, panicking from a safe distance. He didn't know what he'd tell Lazlo if he ever lost Clam again.

When they retrieved the pot and returned to the clearing, they happened upon the scene described earlier. Namely, Edward kissing Lazlo.

They both reacted with shock, even though it was impossible for Clam to have seen them because he was wearing his darling pot over his head. They felt somewhat threatened by this, since they didn't want a love interest monopolizing their best friend's time, so they sang Timon and Pumbaa's lines from "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?"

It didn't change anything, of course, but it did make them feel better…

Edward broke off the kiss. He didn't know why he did that; it must've been Lazlo. Something about being around that monkey made you think that you could do anything you wanted without worrying about consequences. Actually, he could make you think that you'd never have to worry again.

Edward looked up at Lazlo and tried not to laugh.

He'd never seen Lazlo look so genuinely shocked before. His face was red and the hairs on his tail were all bristled up. "Um… Ah?" The monkey boy stuttered. For once in his life, Lazlo didn't feel all that confident.

It took some effort on Edward's part to regain his composure and put on his default angry face, even though he actually didn't feel angry at all. He let go of Lazlo's tie and pushed him away.

"You know I ain't gonna forgive you for turning me gay!" He said.

And with that, he turned and left. He wasn't as naïve as Lazlo as to think he'd be able to squeeze any more joy from this date. Plus, the fact that some idiots in the bushes were singing Disney songs sorta turned him off.

Tomorrow he planned on being just as mean and anti-Lazlo as yesterday morning, but this time it'd be Lazlo who'd be confused and flustered. Yeah, life wasn't as bad as he figured …

"…Een short our pal is doomed!" Sang Raj.

"Doomed, doomed!" Repeated Clam.

Lazlo snapped out of his daze. "Who? What? Where'd Edward go?"

The end

Author's note: woo! Woohoo! I actually finished something! Wow it's late at night I hope this fic doesn't seem rushed or anything I wanted to finish it this week or I would've had to wait till after the weekend to submit it. Writing Lazlo/Edward is fun I should do it more often I'm a traditionalist so I finished this one with a kiss I don't think there are any LazED kisses on this site yet …

The Next one should be longer yea?