"Pinky! You've ruined it!"

"Oh, Brain! I didn't ruin it! Narf!" Pinky giggled, shaking the scraps of tinsel from his arms. "I made it festive! Joy to the world! Narf, narf narf narf!"

"Pinky, cease!" Brain commanded, snatching his snout and yanking until the rubbery, ridiculous nose stretched past its limits, then let it snap back. "You've. Ruined. It. All your deluded decor has become completely entwined in all my machinery! My instant granular ice precipitator fabricator has been rendered useless by tinsel and strings of popped corn kernels!"

"You're welcome!" the taller mouse chirped, draping some silver tinsel over the megalomaniac.

The Brain shook it off with a glare, picking strands of the shiny material out of his fur. "Now Christmas has been ruined," he grumbled.

"Don't talk like that, Brain. Zort. I was only trying to make Christmas more joyful. Poit. Your machine wasn't in the spirit of things," Pinky pointed out.

"It wasn't supposed to be," he growled, pink gaze narrowing. Dusting himself off and kicking the smoking snow machine, Brain stalked over to their cage, only to find it covered in garland. He couldn't even see through the bars. "Pinky!"

"Well, you said we couldn't have a tree, Brain, so I thought this would be the next best thing." Pinky came up beside him, arms clasped behind his back while he rocked on his heels. "And look! You can even hang sparkly ornaments and pretty lights on it!" From nowhere he whipped out a shiny red ball and hooked it on the draping, green faux-fir.

It was too heavy and brought half the garland down on the large-headed mouse, a snowman ornament conking him on the skull. Falling onto his rump, he swayed dizzily as wreaths and ribbons fluttered around his head in circles. He shook himself free of the daze and glared at his companion. Pinky was giggling, stopping only when Brain took the ornament and bashed him on the head with it, then he was simply too dizzy to laugh about it. Once it passed he would've, if Brain hadn't been attempting to tear down the rest of his decorations.

"Egad, Brain, what're you doing? Don't you like it?" Pinky clasped his hands together, concerned.

"No, Pinky. I don't like it! Clean this mess up immediately!" Brain ordered, shoving a clump of the green mass at him.

Blue eyes blinked. "It's not a mess... poit."

"It is a mess and I will not have it polluting our cage!" He made a face when he noticed that some of the green clung to his hands and made to brush it off. "Throw it away!"

"But, Brain-"

"No buts, Pinky! Now!" The mood he was in was determined to make all those around him just as bitter and miserable as he was, including his cohort, and on some level he realized this and felt ashamed. But that level was quietly and quickly buried by other levels and he ignored it.

"Right, Brain," Pinky sighed and set about removing all his lovely decorations.

"Good." When there was enough space for him to crawl through their door, the smaller mouse did so. "Now, there's still some time left tonight to implement one of my back-up plans. Perhaps tonight won't be a complete waste after all."

He didn't notice the way his partner froze, shoulders slumping and gaze widening, too focused on sorting through the bundle of blueprints he kept under their bed. "But... but, Brain," he protested hesitantly. "It's Christmas Eve."

"What- ow!" Brain bumped his head as he moved it out from under their bed to look at him, growing grumpier by the second. Nothing was going his way tonight. "What did you say, Pinky?"

"It's Christmas Eve, Brain. Poit." Pinky wrung his hands together.

"Your point?" Brain raised an eyebrow and Pinky did nothing more than look sad.

"It's our very first."

Ridiculous creature. "Pinky, I know your memory is not up to standard issue, but this is absurd. You know we've celebrated Christmas before, we've had three of them."

"Oh, I know that, Brain. But this is different."

"No it isn't. Pinky, we've worked Christmas Eve before and it has never been a problem."

"Wuh... well, this is our first Christmas as marrieds."

Brain paused to ponder a moment. The same part of him that realized he was being purposefully hurtful because of his bad mood alerted him that this was, in fact, something important. The part of him that still grew misty-eyed when he held the keychain of the world in his hands. But again, it was too far buried.

"Pinky, us being married has little to do with celebrating Christmas. It'll be the same it's been every year. Besides," Brain scoffed, dismissing Pinky's concerns and returning to rifling under the bed, "didn't we decide that our being together would in no way detrimentally impact my goal of world domination?"

"Well, of course not, Brain!" Pinky was torn between shaking his head and nodding it, not quite sure which would mean he was agreeing with his husband. "But it's Christmas!"

"I don't care that it's Christmas, Pinky! It's no different from any other day of the year! Get all that commercialized, fabricated nonsense out of your head and stop bothering me with it!" The Brain snapped, one ear falling when he heard the sniffles. "Pinky, don't cry. I don't have time to deal with your crying."

A blueprint caught the corner of his eye and he drew it out, unravelling it to keep his focus solely on the plan rather than the tears his partner was tempting him to look at. "Brain, I only wanted us to spend Christmas together... p-poit."

"We will, Pinky. After the plan." He waved him away. "I need to you to collect several yards of fabric. We're going to decorate my mechanical suit as Santa as phase one in my scheme. We'll have to work quickly though. Can you adequately sew a Santa suit in less than an hour? Oh, who am I kidding? I'll use the sewing machine. It'll speed the process." Brain rolled it up and tucked it under his arm, turning towards the door, struck by the image of his husband still standing there. "What're you doing, Pinky? You're wasting precious time!" He tapped his wrist as if there were a watch there. His simple companion wouldn't know the difference.

"But Brain, I was gonna wrap presents," he told him. "I even picked out special, holiday edition Rush Limba themed wrapping paper and Jonas Brothers gift bags. And pretty, shiny bows to go on top." Pinky held out a gold bow he pulled out from nowhere. "I have to make sure they're wrapped before Christmas morning and you know how hard wrapping is. Zort."

Brain smacked his palm to his forehead. "Only for you," he grumbled, glaring at him. "Pinky you can wrap them when we get back." He started storming out of the cage, only to freeze when the words caught up to his racing mind. "Wait. How many presents do you have to give?" he demanded more than asked. "It's only the two of us!"

The gold bow crinkled when Pinky hugged it. "Well, I had to get Romy a present, Brain. He's our son! And then I got Bunny a present, too. And Gerry because he's always so friendly and watches our cage very well. And Mr. Sultana because he's our neighbor and you always give presents to neighbors. And Pharfignewton and Billie and Maurice LaMarche and Rob Paulsen- oh! Narf! And I also picked three little angel cards from the tree in the lobby of the lab!" He got excited when he pulled out the cards, two blue and one pink. "It's to give Christmas presents to children who need a little extra help to have a Merry Christmas this year and Santa needs our help because he's so busy. Oh, can we help him, Brain? Just this once? Instead of taking over the world? Puh-leeeeeeze?"

Something in his head was pounding, hammering away at his skull and each syllable uttered by his wayward husband created more chinks in the bone. Oh, his head... "Silence, Pinky!" he hollered, hands pressing into his temples. "Of course we're not helping him! We don't have time to help him! We don't have time for any of this!" He kicked a stray ornament into the wall. It shattered.

Pinky stared at it, the gold bow flopping to the counter. "Brain..." he murmured, slowly turning his gaze to the smaller mouse. "We have time. We have all sorts of time, there's no deadline on when you have to take over the world-"

"Does there have to be?! For it to be important, does it have to have a deadline?!"

"No, Brain, that's not what I'm saying at all." Pinky hugged the paper angels.

"Would you put those down?!" Brain snapped, making to snatch them away from his partner. "You're not spending any of the money for my plans on your Christmas endeavors!"

"But Brain!" he whined, pulling back until the pink angel ripped in half. A squeaky, horrified gasp escaped him and he let the blue angels flutter out of his grasp to the countertop.

A flicker of shame lit in his gut, promptly snuffed out by his frustration. Brain crumpled up his half of the paper angel, then stomped off to throw it away. His ears stayed lifted even as Pinky's cries reached him, determined not to give it.

"No, Brain! I don't remember what she wanted! She needs a present from me or she won't get any this Christmas! Oh, please, Brain!" he begged, chasing after him, waving his pink half in the air.

"It's not your job to get some strange child a present, Pinky! She's not anyone you know and not anyone you should be preoccupied with getting a present for! I'm your husband!" As he prepared to chuck the wad of pink paper into the trash, it struck him how deeply unsettled he was that Pinky did not mention him among those receiving gifts. Of course he'd be getting one, it was obvious. But currently everyone else seemed to be coming first. It was unacceptable. He threw the scrap of angel away and brushed off his palms.

On a loud wail, Pinky collapsed to his knees. "You're so mean!"

"Oh, yes. Make me the bad guy," he grumbled. "I'm a regular scrooge. Isn't that what you're implying?"

"I'm not trying to, Brain! You're doing that all on your own!" Pinky accused through his blubbering.

"I don't have time for this, Pinky!" he growled, pushing past him, needlessly shoving the shoulder of his already fallen companion.

"You don't have time for anything!" Pinky sobbed, twisting his neck around to glower at him despite his tears. "That's just what you said when I asked if we could have a Christmas dinner with Romy! Or when I asked if we could go shopping together and look at all the pretty lights on Christmas Tree Lane and eat Denny's holiday pancakes! I asked you and you said you didn't have time! You never have time for me!"

Brain rolled his eyes at his husband's overly dramatic claims. "Pinky, we'll have plenty of time to dine with Roman and go shopping! Once I'm crowned uncontested ruler of the world!"

"Not at Christmas!" Pinky rose to his feet so he could stomp one. "Christmas is supposed to be special!"

"That's just the commercials talking, Pinky. Grow up."

"No!"

Brain turned to glare at him, hands clenched to fists at his sides. "What do you mean 'no'?"

"No! I won't grow up! If that means I have to be like you and hate Christmas, then I never want to grow up!" he shouted.

"Well I have no use for a childish husband! I need someone I can consistently count on and if you can't give me that, then you're useless to me!"

"I'm sorry I'm not all boring and cranky and mean like you then!"

"Oh, you should be! You pale in comparison to me! I don't even know what I see in you!"

"Then why did you marry me?" Pinky gripped at his own fur, hugging himself so tightly to keep from falling apart at the seams. "If you don't love me, then why did you marry me, Brain?!"

It was the accusation that he didn't love him that turned his blood cold. Brain gaped at him, the levels sheltering his egomaniacal self peeling away to reveal the raw, vulnerable, hurt part of him. How could Pinky ask that of him? How could Pinky not know? He relied on that ability to just know. His gaze flickered to the half of the angel lying at Pinky's feet. Oh. Brain's white knuckled grip eased and he stared at his hands to keep from feeling caught in the wounded blue eyes boring into him.

His voice was trapped, clogged in his throat like the tinsel in his machine. "I..." He swallowed thickly, but it didn't help. "Pinky, I..."

"If you didn't want me around, you could've just said so, Brain!" he blubbered, tears spilling down his cheeks. He clutched his heart. "You didn't have to lie to me!"

"Pinky, I-!" Brain's eyes widened and his head snapped up, whiplash prickling at his neck. His husband was fleeing him, fleeing the lab, their home. Them. Words, words were always his greatest asset and now he couldn't find a single one. Not with fear flooding his senses. Defensively, he latched back onto authority, the notion of control. "Pinky, get back here! Pinky!"

The taller mouse leapt from the window, landing ankle deep in the snow, and ran off. Brain looked out after him, then scrambled to collect their coats because that idiot would freeze. He raced after him as the hands of the clock shifted to 11:50.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Here is my present to you~ A Pinky and the Brain Christmas fic.
Speaking of, I need to watch the Animaniacs marathon in an hour and the PatB Christmas special before the night is up lol.

But yes, this fic was inspired by thinking of this old ABC Family original Christmas movie called "Three Days" (which they actually aired this year! Something they haven't done since 2001!). It made such an impact with me when I watched it then, so I thought to myself, why not make a PatB version? So I did. It's multi-chaptered, clearly lol, but it will be decently long, I've outlined 8 chapters so far. I'll update as quickly as I can, but I'm very behind in it due to life.

Like right now, instead of writing more, I have to go make some cookies and pie. Yes.
Merry Christmas!