"A major comet strike is overdue!" Andrew bellowed at the top of his rich, brown voice. "The sun is already half-way through its last aeon before it flash-fries the solar system! Antibiotic-resistant diseases are on the rise! The end is nigh!" He grinned at the mixture of annoyed and frightened commuters emerging from the subway station. "What more excuse do any of you need to enjoy one of Max's Homemade Cupcakes? Die with a smile on your faces and a belly full of sweet, delicious confectionary! Cheaper than heroine, quicker than prostitution and morally-uplifting to boot! Can one of you good people look me in the eye and say your lives will be the better for missing out on this?"

The giant cupcake was being ignored.

"Look at you, spinning through your empty lives, working all the hours god sends for people you despise doing work that contributes nothing to this world! What do any of you do to deserve your presence on this planet? Well you might ignore me, because the truth hurts does it not? But cupcakes take the pain away! A mere seven dollars and not only do you get delicious food, you also support struggling businesses from people who actually have something to offer this septic isle you call a superpower!"

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WILL YOU SHUT UP?!" screamed a very highly-strung Hispanic man with a leather jacket.

Andrew's hand lunged out and clamped around the commuter's throat. "You want silence? Visit a graveyard!" he roared at the unsuspecting American. "What have you done to earn my respect, pal? Saved any lives? Built any pyramids? You can't even spare some change for some sodding cake people slave over just to make your night that much more bearable! You want good karma, damn well earn it!"

He swung his head to face the rest of the crowd.

"And the same goes for the rest of you!" he bellowed. "Cause the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can drag this money-grubbing vomit-encrusted craphole out of the gutter! AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR?"

-x-x-x-

"So has Andrew had much sales experience?" asked Caroline as carefully manipulated the cappucino machine at an angle of forty-five degrees so her groin was nowhere near the steam nozzle.

"He works part time at Toys'R'Us," Nigel replied, whisking some batter in a bowl. "As far as I can make out, the moment he doesn't turn up for duty, the sales go through the roof."

Max looked over from the sink where she was washing the cupcake trays. "Why do you hang with the others if you hate them so much?" she asked. "I mean, surely a feminist like you can find some kind-hearted girl to share a bed?"

"I guess I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

"What's that, Bono?" Caroline snorted. "A nympho running a brewery?"

"Hey, don't knock my dream, blondie!" Max huffed.

Nigel tapped the excess batter from the whisk. "I used to be someone," he said bitterly. "I was famous for being famous. But the mob's a fickle thing. Next thing you know, I'm forgotten. Not just by TV and radio, by people I thought were my friends. Everyone got onto the lifeboat with me, and I had to go down on the Titanic."

"Die doing what you love, that's my motto," agreed Max, making Caroline smirk.

"I'm glad my suffering amuses you," Nigel sighed.

"Well," she shrugged, "it's already depressing you. It doesn't help both of us getting miserable."

"Max," said Caroline reproachfully. "I know how it feels, Nigel. Society dropped me like a leprosy-infected iPhone after my dad was arrested. I probably would have died on the streets years ago if Max hadn't been there," she added, looking at the brunette with such affection Nigel was genuinely confused how they could not be lovers. "That happen to you?"

"Dave's crazy idea," Nigel shrugged. "I had nowhere else to go."

"Jean-Paul Satre said hell is being trapped with your friends," Caroline pointed out.

"Is that why he became a fashion designer?" asked Max with a frown.

"Well," Nigel said, handing Max the bowl of mixture, "then I have been living in heaven for the last few years. You have any idea how it is to be unable to open your mouth without people mocking you, insulting you, finding the slightest excuse to make you feel like crap?"

Caroline blinked. "There are other ways of talking to people?" she asked dryly.

"See, this is men all over," Max said. "They can't cope with pain, they can't deal with getting sick, and even normal conversation makes them all messed up! If you got that fussed about me pointing out what an entilted, under-endowed and deluded dipstick you were," she nodded to Caroline, "you would have vaporized by now."

"But you don't mean it," Nigel pointed out. "You love her."

Caroline sighed. "For the seven hundred and thirtieth time, we're not lesbians!" she groaned.

"Am I wrong?" Nigel asked. "You don't love each other?"

Max emptied cake mixture into the cleaned trays. "Well, duh! You don't have to be such a girl about it!"

"Well, Andrew and Dave don't love me," Nigel replied. "Or even like me that much. In fact, it's pretty much day-in day-out abuse. If I had literally anywhere else to go, I would leave in an instant."

"You ever thought maybe being nice to them might help out?" Caroline suggested. "I dunno. Buy them something?"

"Is that how you won over Max?" asked Nigel.

"Sure as hell didn't hurt," the girl in question replied. "Maybe show you care about them."

"They'd just call me gay and assume I'm trying to bribe them."

"You think they'd be wrong about fifty per cent of that?" Max replied. "Go mop the floor up, superstar."

Nigel sighed and went to the supply cupboard. Caroline watched him go, feeling more sympathy for him. "There must be something about them you like," she said, checking the window panes were secured open. "Something you admire."

"I enjoy it when they're not here," Nigel replied, sweeping up the flour. "You know they bet me I couldn't have sex with the pair of you."

Max sniggered. "Wow, if Caroline here didn't have a gambling issue, we'd have made a fortune off you."

Caroline tutted. "See, Nigel, I think you're making up stories again."

"Why would I do that?" asked Nigel.

"You're trying to get into our pants," Max replied. "And better men than you have succeeded."

Nigel scowled. "At least I'm honest about it."

"Well, they can't take that away from you," said a voice from the window. It was Dave. He looked to the girls. "I met a few people who all promised to come back for cupcakes when they had money. And, no, I didn't believe them either."

"Hey, there are wierdoes out there," Max consoled him. "Not even your cute face can turn them."

"Oh, please," Nigel claimed. "Stop encouraging him! This is enabling behaviour!"

"Enabling what?" Dave retorted. "Incest? How is Benny nowadays?"

Max and Caroline exchanged glances. "What?" they both asked in unison.

"Bernice, his sister," Dave explained. "We call her Benny. Nigel's been trying to bang her since he was like, eight!"

Nigel took a deep breath. "My adopted sister and I shared a mutual attraction," he said haughtily. "And one we both took a decision not to act upon, because unlike Dave we're not a sub-human golem of used kebab wrappers somehow acquiring the power of speech!" His voice rising to a snarl, Nigel threw down the broom and stormed out of the kitchen, through the side door and out of the shop.

Dave, moving down the street to meet him, was taken by surprise as Nigel grabbed his foam-coated cupcake torso and swung him heavily into the cold brick wall. "Dave," he said through a fixed grin, "are you deliberately trying to ruin this for me?"

"Yes, I am as a matter of fact!" Dave hissed back at him.

Nigel looked at him in genuine surprise. "What? Well, why the hell are you doing that for?"

"Max loves Caroline," Dave told him angrily.

"Oh, the purely platonic ideal!"

"Like you care! They could be married and you'd still be trying to ruin it!" Dave snarled. "Wham, bam, screw you all ma'am! You don't get that those girls would be happier without you trying to penetrate any and every orifice you can get your hands on!"

"Yeah, that's what grown ups do, David, it is called 'consensual intercourse'."

"It's called you being a jerk. Name one girl who's been happier after you've shagged her!"

"All of them!"

"They never stuck round, did they, though? The moment school was done you might as well have been buried in cement for all the action you've got! No one ever calls back, no one ever wants you around, there's probably self-help groups formed from the women you've been with!"

"Oh, self-help groups? Like those you're too chicken to go to, Mr. Anxiety Dissorder?"

"Oh, the one you recommended that was a fundamentalist Christian faith group?"

"Religion isn't to blame for you bolting the first session, Dave!"

"No, but finding you're holding hands with knife-wielding child-throttlers who don't take their anti-psychotic meds because they have the power of the Lord is a good reason if you ask me."

"No one did, Dave. No one cares about your two-fifths of an opinion! Never have, never will!"

Dave's eyes widen. "Oh, you want to do this, do you?" he challenged. "I was there at the start with you, Nigella! I know the crap you didn't put in your official biography, especially the time you woke up in bed with a sheep after the HSC results came out!"

"You couldn't get a sheep to give a damn about you, Dave! You're a purposeless waste of junk DNA, a weed in your own family tree who have been so concerned about you since you left home, haven't they? Oh, wait, they haven't."

"At least my parents didn't dump me on a doorstep when I was two days old!"

"Oh, Davey boy, they tried so much it was a Greek freaking tragedy! And where did this backbone of yours come from all of a sudden?" Nigel demanded. "You looking to get Max and Caroline to adopt you, maybe? Be their little pet and dance for change outside their cupcake shop? They don't know you like I do. If they did, they'd kill you out of mercy."

Dave licked his dry lips. "At least they'd have to get to know me - you got on Max's hate-list before you met her!"

"At least I'm honest about what I am."

"A filthy man-whore with no job, prospects, friends or cultural identity?" Dave suggested.

Nigel's hands lashed out, wrapped themselves around the lapels of Dave's coat and heaved them forwards, wrenching Dave towards him. "This is truly fascinating, David!" he spat. "It's like pond scum taking the moral highground over Nelson Mandela!"

"Nelson Mandela was a good man," Dave told him flatly. "What have you ever done to help people?"

Nigel stared at him. "Phoebe didn't have any complaints," he said softly.

Dave's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. "She... you can't..." he mumbled thickly.

"What's that, Dave? I think it's reality smacking you down like the bitch you are, isn't it?"

"Er, am I interrupting something?" asked a voice from the other side of the apartment.

Nigel and Dave turned to see Max standing by the door to the shop.

"Cause if you two are going to start making out, all I ask is a chance to get a good close-up view. And possibly some tissues."

Nigel released Dave, who slumpedf back against the wall. "Max!" he said brightly. "Dave was just getting a bit hysterical. He does that a bit."

Max looked at Dave, concerned. "You OK?"

Dave might have nodded. He seemed more focussed on trying to breathe.

"See, Max," Nigel continued in his best raconteur voice, "Dave's not a very happy person. I reckon it's down to the fact the only girl he ever loved ditched him the first chance she could get. Did he tell you that?"

Max folded her eyes, not enjoying Nigel's bullying manner. "As a matter of fact, he did..."

"Her name was Phoebe Richards," Nigel explained. "She was a beautiful girl - hell, probably still is. Right out of Bottocelli's wet dreams, all bright red hair and smooth milk-white skin. Dave knew her all his life. They were best of friends, easily as close as you and Caroline. But as Phoebe grew up, Dave here tried to be all nice and gentlemanly and look after her. Oh, she hated it, Max. Imagine being stalked by a hipster you don't have the heart to tell to sod off and die. The things she did to discourage him! She actually bonked the first guy she could find to put him off - a Ronald McDonald performer, actually - but he still didn't get the message, so she chose to throw away her future and become a teen mum before she was seventeen. Hey, Dave, bet that took a lot of fine service from McDonalds, huh?" He laughed unpleasantly. "But sweet, naive, oh-so-deluded Dave stuck by her in the vain hope she'd still love him. Eventually, she just fled the country and went into hiding and refused to talk to him again. But not," Nigel added with a sharklike smile, "before she let me bump uglies with her."

Dave closed his mouth. The slight clench of the jaw was the only visible sign of the stress.

"Stop this, you jerk!" Max said, taken aback.

Nigel scoffed, turning to face Dave once more. "Yeah, I'm not telling any lies am I, Dave? Phoebe outright despised me, but she would rather get all wet and sweaty with me that let one skin cell of you touch her. Plus, she was eight months pregnant at the time." He glanced at Max. "Whoo, seriously, moms-to-be redefine the term 'horny'." He turned back to Dave. "And you would not believe how happy I made her, Dave. The things we did, the things she said in the heat of the afterglow. You think I've been nasty to you, Dave? The things she said about you! Oh, even I felt sorry for you - for a while."

Nigel turned back to Max. "See, Max. Just knowing this guy is like paddling in toxic waste. Seriously though, we should send Dave on his way. After he caught me doing the reverse cowgirl with Phoebe, he's probably delicate about watching me bang the girls of his dream."

"You couldn't bang a girl if your penis was made of dynamite," sneered Caroline, framed in the doorway. "And we'd like you to go."

"You heard the girl, Dave. She don't want your kind around and we both know you don't blame her!" Nigel said cheerfully before turning back to ther girls. "You know, after finding out I was giving Phe multiple orgasms, he went up on the high school roof and pretended he was going to throw himself off? He thought it might make Phe come running back to him!" His smile vanished. "It didn't."

Caroline stepped forward, her face white with rage. "I want you gone!" she snarled. "To think I felt sorry for you! The others must be damn saints to put up with you!"

"You know, Nigel, I'm going to have to re-evaluate my whole life now I've met you," Max agreed. "Hipsters are no longer the lowest form of life."

"No, Dave is!" Nigel said brightly. "See ya round, Dave. Almost as round as Pheobe was at the time!"

"GET LOST!" Max roared, throwing him into the street.

"Lies don't hurt, Max," said Nigel firmly. "The truth does."

With that, he turned and left.

-x-x-x-

Dave was inside the shop. Caroline and Max had brought him inside and helped him out of his costume, unsure of what else to do. He barely seemed to notice them, and Caroline wondered if he'd finally broken. "You know, I used to think I had the most dysfunctional life in the world till I met you guys," said Max said. "Guess someone's getting evicted when you get back to Oz."

Dave's voice was unsteady. "He was just being himself. Phe wanted him. Not his fault. And if he made her happy, good for him." He slowly got to his feet. "She always said we were just going in two separate directions. Maybe she was just lying and hated me the whole time. Maybe she was right to."

"No," said Max. "She wasn't. You gotta stop believing this crap. People we loved treated us like horse manure..."

"A subject about which we know quite a lot," said Caroline, nodding.

"But we never let that convince us we weres anything less than awesome," Max told him. "Don't let them do this to you."

Dave smiled sadly. "That boat sailed a while ago," he sighed. "But, like Caroline said, you don't care."

"No one tells me what I care about, except me," Max told him.

"And possibly google alerts," Caroline added.

"It's OK," Dave said. "I'm a screw-up. I'm aware of this. I'm not going to turn all stalkery, and you won't see me again after tonight. But I promised to be a giant cupcake for you, and if nothing else I keep my promises."

"You kept your promise," Caroline said. "You just, you know, sit there and calm down."

"Can't even do that, then," Dave sighed, gazing down at his shoelaces in despair.

"Maybe you should, I dunno, talk to someone," Max suggested.

Dave laughed, not quite hiding the unshed tears. "Who'd want to listen to me? My guidance counselor told me I was a whining crybaby and to get out of her office before I stunk the place up with self-pitying failure."

"Wow, my guidance counselor just locked the door and said he wanted me to be his special little friend."

Dave gazed at her. "I wish you didn't have to joke about that," he said quietly. "You're a braver man than I, Max Black."

"Indeed I am awesome."

"You sure you're all right?" asked Caroline.

Dave smiled, seemingly completely composed once more. "I'll be fine in the long run."

"Except, in the long run, everyone's dead," boomed Andrew as he approached the window.

"So what's the problem?" Dave asked incredulously. "Come on. We got cupcakes to sell."

"No need!" Andrew grinned. He held out his hat, now upside down to act as a bag full of loose change. "I seemed to have made a small fortune down by the subway plaza! Night-workers are very easily-frightened, have you noticed that?"

Caroline took the hat. It wasn't a small fortune, but there was at least thirty dollars there and every penny was welcome. "They didn't want to come here and get a cupcake?"

"No," Andrew admitted gloomily. "But they felt very bad about that and offered this money in recompense."

"That's crazy," said Max. "Crazy amazing! You're like a cross between a street performer and a mugger! Santa Claus and Snoop Dog rolled into one!"

"You mugged people?" Caroline exclaimed.

"I wouldn't put it past him," Dave agreed.

"But then we'll get sued!" Caroline gasped. "This is like the puppet all over again! Max's Homemade Cupcakes uses violence and intimidation to make ends meet! We need to totally dissassociate from this!"

"Caroline," Max reminded her, a hand indicating Andrew, "these people got freaked out by a giant cupcake at 2 a.m. Everyone'll just assume it's the meth talking, am I right?"

Andrew scratched his head. "Hopefully. Perhaps I'd be better in the kitchen and Nigel tries soliciting... where is Nigel, anyway?"

-x-x-x-

Sophie was about to head out to get her complimentary free cupcakes from the shop when there was a polite knock at her door. Confused, she went to answer it. Oleg had phoned, saying he wouldn't be over as he had to go online and pledge his support to the Ukranian revolution and also order more cabbage for the diner. So if it wasn't him, who could it be?

It was the cute brown-skinned Australian, who was posed in the doorway, grinning a mint-white toothy grin.

"Sophie!" he beamed. "Just needed to know something. Do you have any Indigenous Australian in you?"

Sophie looked him up and down. "No, but I'd like some!" she declared, grabbing his shirt and dragging him into her apartment.