This one's just dumb and follows no sort of canon. My friend Sailor-Prince requested "a gingerbread prompt where Daiba, Zero, and Harlock have to make a gingerbread house." There was more to the prompt, but that spoils how ridiculous it gets.

We hadn't even started yet, and Zero was already drinking. Granted, Zero tended to drink more often than even me. "Why did I agree to this?" he frowned, staring at the box that had contained the pieces of our soon-to-be gingerbread house. The picture on the front looked pretty nice. The roof was crisscrossed with lines of white icing, and gumdrops were placed neatly around the edges like a small fence. There were even happy little gingerbread people, a boy and girl.

As soon as we'd opened the box, Daiba had eaten the girl one.

"I don't remember agreeing to it at all," I muttered. "Daiba, put the icing down. You can ice it after it's put together, but let someone else set it up."

"I can do this, Captain!" he snapped as he squeezed out an excess of the icing to the inside of the walls. I decided not to argue. We'd already had to go out and buy a pre-made gingerbread kit in the house shape because the gingerbread we'd attempted to bake had been too runny and held no discernible shape.

With his tongue stuck out to one side in concentration, Daiba stood one wall up and stuck another it against the lines of icing he'd drawn. Then he grabbed the other wall and did the same before adding the final one. Somehow all the walls held together when they were a complete box, though the icing was so thick that it was rolling down to pool at the piece of cardboard it sat on. Zero reached across me to ruffle the blond's hair. "You did it, kid."

"Still have to put the roof on. Can I have the other gingerbread man?"

"No." Zero had taken that one for safe keeping. "I'll ice it while you work on the roof, and once everything's done, you can have it."

He took the other icing colors while Daiba continued on with the white. "Shouldn't you wait for the walls to dry together before you put on the roof?" I questioned skeptically.

"I know what I'm doing!"

Zero also seemed to know what he was doing. With no job to do, I went to get a glass so I could pour some of his bourbon for myself.

"God damnit!" Daiba screeched suddenly. The glass fell from my hand and shattered against the counter.

"God damnit," I echoed. I looked back to see the house lying in a small pile of walls and ceiling. "I told you to wait," I reminded him.

He spun heel and glared daggers at me. "Fine," he spat. "If you know so much about it, then you do it!"

The icing was thrown at my face, but I managed to catch it. "I did offer earlier, so don't take it out on me."

"Take it out on him," Zero encouraged my crewman, not really paying attention to the conversation. He was too invested in icing his cookie to even glance up.

Ignoring him, I took my place in front of the demolished house and tried my luck. Daiba really had used too much icing, so it was no wonder the whole thing fell apart when the weight of the roof was placed on it. I cleaned some of the sugar off before redoing the lines and putting the walls together. Daiba had taken to drinking the bourbon that I had been planning on having, and Daiba drinking was never a good sign. Luckily, he was just sipping it as he watched Zero work. I had a feeling he was going to snatch that cookie right from under Zero's hands and eat it at any moment, but the older captain would be faster and smarter.

Once I thought the icing was starting to hold well enough, I placed the sides of the roof on as well, drawing a line between them where they met, so they would hold together in some form. It was all messy and ugly. There were smears of the icing all over the house where there shouldn't have been. "This is awful," I muttered.

Zero bothered a glance. "It looks fine. It's more important that it's edible in the end anyway." He shouldn't have been allowed to say anything, because his gingerbread man was impressively detailed with intricate swirls and layers of icing. Apparently he was actually better than me at something. Too bad it wasn't a useful skill.

Daiba's hand crept along the countertop toward the cookie, and without looking, Zero smacked it away. "So, candy?" Daiba asked hopefully as he moved away from the stricter captain and back toward me.

I shrugged, handing him the piping bag. Well, it couldn't get much worse. "I think we have to put more icing on to get the candy to stick first."

"Yeah I know that, but we should open the candy." He pointed toward the plastic bags filled with the rainbow sugar. None of it looked particularly appetizing to me, but my youngest crewman was a vacuum. He wanted to eat everything, especially sweets. The moment I opened those packages, he would set to devouring them, and the house would end up mostly bare.

"Put icing where you want the candy," I decided. "And I'll put them there."

He puffed out his cheeks before taking a longer sip of bourbon. Zero was already almost finished with the bottle. At least drunk cooking sounded more fun than the usual.

Daiba constantly decided I was putting the wrong candies on each icing dot and took them off to eat them because they "weren't good anymore." Zero reached over and smacked the back of his head, but the little brat just ignored it.

I didn't notice the tipping point when it happened. I noticed a few minutes later, and looking back, it must have happened when Daiba finished his glass and reached out a pawing hand to pour another, only to find the bottle was empty. I hadn't even gotten a shot, greedy bastards.

Zero was staring dazedly down at his gingerbread man. A bottle of wine had appeared in his hand, though I hadn't seen him get up. Daiba reached out to grab it, but Zero just leaned away from him.

Instead, Daiba grabbed the cookie.

"No!" Zero snapped as a triumphant grin spread across Daiba's face. "Give it back, you little pig."

"Oh come on," the pig slurred. "It's for eating anyway."

"You already ate his wife, now give him back."

I blinked, realizing they were both quickly getting wasted, and I wasn't in the mood to deal with them. Zero lunged for what was apparently his new friend, while Daiba jumped back, his elbow smacking into the house. Once again, it completely collapsed into itself.

Absolute horror filled Zero's face as he snatched the cookie away. "Now you've destroyed his house!" he slurred frantically.

"Goddamnit, Daiba," I growled.

He hiccupped, dully realizing what he'd done. Then he broke out into a wobbly grin. "I'm just gonna eat it then."

"No," I decided, my eye twitching. "You've eaten enough." Grabbing one of the walls, I threw it up, took out my gun, and blasted it to pieces. I would at least get some enjoyment out of this.

Now both of them were howling at me to stop, Daiba because he was hungry, and Zero because he was apparently lost in some drunk fantasy where he needed to protect his gingerbread friend.

"Probably doesn't taste good anyway!" I snapped, throwing up to more pieces to destroy. Someone was going to have to clean this up later, but it wasn't going to be me. I managed to hit all but the last piece, when Daiba tackled my gun arm to save it. It landed on the floor anyway. Hopefully he wasn't going to try eating it anyway, though it wouldn't have surprised me.

Furious, the teen snatched the half-empty wine bottle from the table and stormed to the corner of the room, where he plopped down to pout and drink.

I was more disturbed by Zero, who had tears streaming down his face as he mourned the loss of the house and cradled his cookie friend.

"It's just a goddamn gingerbread house," I grumbled.

Tochiro walked in then, looking around the room as though a tornado had swept through it. "What's a gingerbread house?" he questioned in genuine confusion.

I pointed to all the crumbles of cookies and icing around the floor, and he cocked a brow. "Not really surprising when I think about it," he muttered. "Well come here, we made some gingerbread too."

"How? We've been in the kitchen all day," I frowned, worried about the state of my ship.

"I just made a simple machine that cranks 'em out into the shapes I want, and then stick the pieces together. It's just like building a ship really."

In fact, he and Emeraldas had built a small squadron of at least a dozen frosted gingerbread ships. They handed one to Zero that he stuck his gingerbread man on with a wobbly smile. Daiba proceeded to eat his in two seconds. It took everything I had not to throw mine against the wall.

"Next year, let's just buy a Christmas cake," I sighed.

"Oh, I like those too!" Tochiro grinned. "I wonder if I could build something for that. I only blew up two prototypes to make this one." He pointed toward the wall behind me, and I turned to see two ashy carcasses of burnt machines. We both had a lot of cleaning up to do. When I turned back around, Emeraldas was holding a gun to Daiba's head and daring him to try eating the last gingerbread ship, while Zero mourned the loss of his friend.

"You know what," I decided, "let's just not have any sweets next year."

In the next fic, Daiba goes ice skating. This can only end badly.