"She's got to tire herself out soon, right?" Miles questioned as he turned to look over at his best friend.

Bass shrugged. Charlie had been practicing her ballet routine since he had shown up almost an hour ago and she still seemed wound up like a top. Still, she was six years old. She couldn't really have an endless supply of energy. Could she?

"Dunno," he responded. "How much sugar did you give her before I showed up?"

"She's got to crash at some point though. Doesn't she?" Miles asked with a hint of desperation in his tone as he purposely dodged the sugar question.

Much to his dismay, instead of Charlie deciding that it was enough ballet for the day, Danny got up from where he had been seated between the two men on the couch and toddled over to his sister. The three year-old watched her for a few more moments before he twirled around in an attempt at imitating her that practically ended with him falling onto the floor. That didn't perturb him for long though, since only moments later he was back on his feet and trying out the move again.

Charlie finally stopped dancing then, but something in the wide grin on her lips made her uncle think that it probably wasn't for very long. That grin only widened as she turned her gaze from brother to uncle and skipped over to the couch to get right up in Miles face, with a hand on each of his knees as she stretched up on her tippy toes, before informing him, "I want to play ballet teacher."

Bass let out a quite audible laugh that he quickly attempted to cover up with a cough. It seemed to convince Charlie, but Miles was resisting the urge to turn and glare at his friend as he told his niece, "Looks like Danny wants to be your student."

She shook her head at that. He wasn't getting off the hook that easily.

"I need more than one student, Miles," she insisted. "Teachers have a class."

"Maybe later, Charlie," he dismissed her, although he had no intentions whatsoever of ever taking part in any such classes.

She didn't argue, but a dreadful silence followed and Miles watched in horror as her bottom lip began to quiver and tears began to well up in her eyes.

Dammit. The trembling lip and sad doe eyes always worked on him and he hated it. The kid could make him do almost anything with that little act and he was pretty sure that she was well aware of it.

"Fine," he grumbled out reluctantly. The tears suddenly disappeared and her face broke out into a beaming smile before he even had the chance to state his conditions. "But I'm not wearing a tutu and we don't tell anyone about this. Alright?"

She nodded her head enthusiastically and backed up so that her uncle had room to stand up.

Miles caught his friend smirking over at him out of the corner of his eye, so a cruel smile of his own spread across his lips as he looked down at his oblivious niece and encouraged, "Did you know that Uncle Bass has always secretly wanted to be a ballerina? Do you think that you could make enough room in your class for him too?"

"Okay!" Charlie responded excitedly before rushing over to grab the other man and pull him up from the couch by the arm.

Bass stood up and let her yank him across the room as Miles smirked over at him from behind her back.

Fine. If he was going to be forced into learning a ballet routine that was designed for six year-old girls, then he was going to take it as a challenge and act like it wouldn't be completely mortifying if anyone found out about it. He plastered on a wide smile that only annoyed an already less than eager Miles even more before he turned back to their new dance teacher and asked, "Alright. What's the first move?"

"You've got to stand on your tippy toes like this," Charlie told them as she demonstrated for them.

Well, that was one advantage of learning a routine made for little kids. At least it wasn't very difficult. Or so they thought.

"No, Miles," Charlie told him. "You're doing it wrong."

Bass had a suspicious coughing fit once again, which made him fall back onto his heels while Danny grabbed onto the coffee table with two hands to keep his balance.

Miles gritted his teeth together and tried to keep any signs of his annoyance out of his tone as he looked down at his niece's innocent little face and told her, "I'm on my tip toes, Charlie."

"No, not enough," she insisted. "You've got to point your feet."

Miles was about ready to sit back down on the couch and let the rest of the class fend for themselves, but instead he kicked his shoes off and tried again, then asked, "Better?"

"You should get ballet slippers," Charlie responded, even though there was no way in hell that was happening.

She didn't answer his question, but she did turn away and move onto the next move so he figured that it was good enough. Either that or maybe he was lucky enough that he would get written off as a lost cause.

It became very clear very quickly that Charlie was not planning on letting Miles out of things, no matter how many times she had to come over and correct him. She at least shot the occasional piece of advice in Bass's direction, but it was clear that Miles was her main focus and that she was enjoying bossing him around a little too much.

Danny, however, was getting suspiciously few pointers for someone who had fallen over at least three times in the last five minutes and frequently incorporated nearby furniture in his performance whenever he began to stumble. Miles was really starting to wonder how the hell the kid kept bouncing back up so quickly and going back to what he was doing as if nothing had happened. He thought for sure it must have something to do with trying to impress his sister because this was the same three year-old that Miles had seen wail for an hour straight after stubbing his toe before stopping only when he'd finally offered the kid however much ice cream he wanted just to make the noise stop.

A few very basic moves later, it was Bass's turn to be picked on as Charlie walked over as close as she could to him before she finally stopped and looked up at him with her lips pursed into a frown.

"You're not very good," she told him in a very loud whisper. "You're going to need a lot of practice if you want to be a real ballerina."

Miles didn't even bother to try to cover his laughter up with a fake coughing fit. Suddenly this wasn't quite as bad now that Bass was her newest victim.

A/N: Please read and review! This was supposed to be a ficlet, but then it got a little out of hand and turned into a one-shot, so here it is.