A/N: Thank you to Billi for the fic prompt.
Guess Who's Coming to Christmas Dinner?
"Gee, Brain, doesn't the lab look nice all dolled up for Christmas?" Pinky said, admiring the decorations from the view inside the cage.
The scientists of Acme Labs had really gotten into the Christmas spirit that year. There were festive lights strung from the windows, holly and garlands along the walls, even a Christmas tree in the corner. One particularly mischievous Acme technician had even put up little sprigs of mistletoe all over the lab. Pinky thought it was romantic. Brain thought it was annoying.
"Quiet, Pinky," Brain said, huddled in the far corner of the cage, scribbling busily on a miniature notebook. "I'm trying to prepare for tomorrow night."
"Why, Brain?" Pinky asked. "What are we going to do tomorrow night?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky: Try to take over the world!"
"Oh, but, Braaaain," Pinky admonished, walking over to Brain to get a look at his scribbles, "I thought we agreed never to take over the world on Christmas again after what happened last time..."
"Indeed, Pinky," Brain said. "It's Christmas Eve, so I have no intention of taking over the world tonight and ruining Christmas for everyone. But that doesn't mean I'm going to sit here twiddling my thumbs and watching sappy overplayed Peanuts cartoons in the meanwhile. I'm planning for tomorrow night so that come December 26th, the world will be mine!"
But Pinky didn't seem to be paying attention to Brain's impassioned speech. "Look, Brain," Pinky said, pointing up. "Poit!"
Brain looked up. Someone had tied a sprig of mistletoe to the lighting fixture above their cage. The little green plant was hanging directly over their heads. He glanced back to see Pinky leaning over expectantly with his eyes closed and a big goofy smile on his face.
"Not now, Pinky," Brain said, pushing him away.
"Yaaaaahhh!" Pinky slipped on a little toy car he had left lying around and slid on it like a roller skate until he slammed into the back of the cage.
"But, Brain," Pinky said, getting up, "you can't spend Christmas Eve making plans for global domination! We have guests coming over tonight!"
Brain didn't bother glancing up from his papers; he had gone back to scribbling furiously. "Whatever are you babbling about, Pinky?"
"Christmas dinner, Brain! Why else did you think I was slaving away all day in front of a hot stove?"
Brain's pencil stopped mid-page for a brief moment. "By 'slaving away all day in front of a hot stove,' do you mean putting food pellets in and out of an unplugged Easy Bake Oven every 30 minutes? I thought you were playing house..."
"Oh my gosh! The food pellets!" Pinky screeched. "I forgot all about them!" He ran over to the Easy Bake Oven on the lab counter-top and pulled on a pair of mouse-sized oven mitts.
"They're ruined! Ruined!" Pinky sobbed, holding up a tray of perfectly normal-looking, uncooked food pellets. "What will we serve our guests to eat now?"
"Again, what are you going on about, Pinky?" Brain said evenly, though annoyed. "Who could we possibly be having over for Christmas dinner?"
As though on cue, the doorbell to the lab rang.
"They're heeeeere!" Pinky cried happily, and ran to the door, where he held open the mail slot for their guests to enter.
"Who's here? What are you talking about?" said Brain, not bothering to look up from his papers.
"Sorry I'm late..."
The pencil dropped from Brain's fingers and rolled across the cage floor. He recognized that voice...
"...Where's Bunny?" Pinky was saying.
"She went home to Wisconsin to spend Christmas with her family. We decided it's best if they don't meet me yet. Small-town folks, not very open-minded..."
"Well, I'm just glad you're here!" Pinky exclaimed, hugging their visitor.
"Ahem," Brain said, standing next to the emotional display and looking their guest in the eyes. "Well... don't you have something you'd like to say to me..."
"...Merry Christmas, Dad," Roman Number I said, giving Brain a hug.
Brain wasn't quite comfortable with the show of affection, and he pat his clone on back tersely.
"Oh, Brain, Romy...!" Pinky cried tearfully, pulling them both into his grasp, and accidentally cutting off the air to Brain's throat. "It's so nice to be a family at Christmas!"
"Enough, Pinky!" Brain said, struggling out of Pinky's grip.
"But Braaain, it's Christmas..." Pinky said, pointing up. "See, mistletoe...!" He reached his arms out for Brain again, but Brain bopped him on the head with a nearby human-sized pencil.
"Grow up, Pinky. What a silly, nonsensical tradition, showing displays of affection under a parasitic plant. I'm the imminent leader of the entire world, and soon billions will be bowing before me. I don't do something just because Phoradendron flavescens tells me to. Now, explain to me why you didn't tell me our clone was coming here to interrupt my important work."
"It was supposed to be a surprise, Brain," Pinky said, "for Christmas."
Romy looked from Pinky to Brain and sighed. "Let me guess, Pinky, Dad over here would rather spend his Christmas plotting to take over the world than spend time with me."
"No, Romy, that's not true!" Pinky cried, but Romy wasn't listening.
"Typical! You know, maybe if I was a world leader instead of a ventriloquist, I could get you to pay some attention to me. Half the time it's like you forget I exist!"
"Now, now, Roman," Brain said. "Calm down. I didn't mean to imply that I'm not glad you're here. It puts a time crunch on me, but I can finish my plans for world domination later. Please, come in. Let's have... Christmas dinner."
"It's burnt to a crisp," Pinky whispered to Romy confidentially.
In spite of Pinky's claims, the dinner turned out rather nice. Pinky set up a little mouse-sized table with candles and plates and champagne glasses filled with sparkling water straight from the bottle in their cage. The food pellets were room-temperature and unseasoned, but Pinky was clever enough to scrape off the outer layers to get rid of the "burnt" edges before serving.
To Brain's credit, he was trying very hard to play the role of the involved father. He asked Romy a lot of questions about his life, his work, his girlfriend (even pretending he approved of his clone dating a human girl... what would the neighbor lab experiments think?) But Brain knew enough not to start an argument with his clone on Christmas Eve.
Brain even paid full attention while Romy performed his inane ventriloquist act for them. Pinky applauded wildly when it was over. Brain sat quietly, mulling it over.
"Hmm," he said.
"What did you think, Dad? Was it funny?"
"Oh, Romy, it was brilliant!" Pinky cried. "I nearly bust a gut! Zort! ...Oooph!" he yelled out, clutching his stomach. "There it goes!"
"Yes, well, I admit my funny bone was, as they say, tickled..." Brain added politely.
Romy raised a brow. "But?"
"Well... you have so much talent and creativity, Roman. I don't understand why you don't pursue your highest potential. The theatrical arts are a noble calling. You don't have to limit yourself to its lowest forms."
"Now, Brain," Pinky said, raising a hand, "I wouldn't call working with puppets lowly. Why, just the other day I saw an ad in the paper looking for puppeteers for the Baloney the Orange Dinosaur show."
"Oh yes, working with Baloney the Orange Dinosaur, that's really something someone with half my genes should aspire to! Why doesn't he just spend his days holding up Lamb Chop's right arm while he's at it?"
"Don't be silly, Brain," Pinky said. "Why would a real life sheep need someone to hold her arm up?"
"Grrr," Brain fumed. "Pinky, that is the most idiotic..."
Romy sighed while his parents argued. There were cries of, "She is too real!" and "My clone will never amount to anything, not with your influence around!" Brain's face was turning red, and Pinky was getting so flustered that he began to mix up his subject-verb conjugation.
"Bicker, bicker, bicker!" Romy exclaimed, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "You're like an old married couple! Would you two just kiss already and get it over with?"
This silenced them instantly. Brain blinked. Pinky laughed nervously.
"Oh, Romy, you know we can't do that legally..."
Brain stared at Pinky, wide-eyed. Pinky was pointing a finger at the ceiling.
"I mean, there isn't even any mistletoe above us. Zort!"
Brain sighed. "Roman, you know I just want you to be happy..."
"I know, Dad..."
"Well, then, I think that makes it a night. If you two will excuse me, I'm going to finish my plans for world domination now."
Brain pushed his chair back—it made a loud scraping noise—and retired to the cage. He was back in his corner, scribbling away faster than ever, as though to make up for lost time.
Romy turned to Pinky. "Thanks for dinner, Pinky. Don't look so sad. Things went pretty well, all things considered..." Romy packed his dummy away and reached for his jacket.
"No, Romy, don't go yet!" Pinky cried. "This hardly seems a fitting end to a family Christmas. Hold on! I've got something... one of those mind thingies!"
"An idea?"
"Yeah! Troz! One of those! Here, take this and wait here..." Pinky shoved one of the festive dinner-table candles, which were still lit, into Romy's hand. Then he grabbed two more and ran into the cage, where Brain was bent over, pondering.
"Braaaaiiin!" Pinky cried, pushing a candle into Brain's hand. "Come outside with Romy and me! We're going Chriiiistmas carolling!"
"Pinky!" Brain said, completely flustered, passing the candle back. "What foolishness is this?"
"Oh, but it will be sooo lovely, Brain!" Pinky said, forcing the candle back on him. "You and me and our clone on Christmas Eve, going from door to door spreading cheer with nothing but candles to light our way and snow falling gracefully on our heads..."
"NOT NOW, PINKY!" Brain shoved the candle back. "By my calculations, it will take me roughly 12 hours to fine-tune the aspects of Phase Three of my plan, which means unless I want to be hopelessly behind schedule I need to finish plotting out Phase Two by midnight... which is in three minutes!" Brain gasped, looking up at the grandfather clock by the lab wall.
"But Brain," Pinky said, holding up the candles near Brain's face, "Christmas only comes once a year, and how often do we get to see our clone, and..."
"Pinky, QUIET!" Brain yelled, and he grabbed both candles out of Pinky's hands before Pinky could shove one of them at him. "Can't you see I'm busy?"
"Um, Brain...?" Pinky said, quietly.
"WHAT?"
"Your plans—!"
"What...? AHHHH!"
Brain had held the lit candles directly into the notebook containing his carefully drawn plans of world domination. The entire book was going up in flames!
"Here!" Pinky tossed Brain a blanket and Brain smothered the fire out... but it was too late.
His entire book of plans was charred to a crisp.
The two lab mice stared at it in horror for a few pregnant moments.
"Don't worry, Brain..." Pinky said gently. "I'll just scrape the first few layers off and it'll be good as new, just like the food pellets!"
"ARGGGHHH!" Brain yelled. "Pinky—get out of my sight!"
Pinky sniffed. "I just wanted us to have a nice family Christmas..." he said meekly, and ran from the cage, sobbing.
"Do you have to be so mean to him?" Romy said softly when he approached Brain. He had seen Pinky run out of the cage crying. Just another typical evening with his parents.
"Did you see what he did to my plans?" Brain said, throwing some ashes up in the air for good measure. "All my hard work—ruined!"
"And what about Pinky's hard work—did you ever think about that, Dad?"
"Hm?" Brain said, confused.
"Look at all the trouble he went to, convincing me to come over—yeah, I wasn't exactly knocking down the walls at the thought of coming here. But he kept writing me and calling me, ever since the day after the 4th of July, to come home for Christmas. He begged me, saying it was the only thing that would make you happy for Christmas. He cares about you so much. Everything he does, he does for you. Did you ever stop and think about what you could do for him on Christmas?"
Brain looked deflated. There were tears in his eyes. "No..."
Suddenly Brain looked up with resolve. "Romy, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Well," Romy said, motioning to the grandfather clock. "You've got one minute left till Christmas. I think it's too late to find a duck and a hose at this hour."
"No, I have something better in mind... And Roman?" Brain turned to look at his clone sincerely. "I was wrong when I said you weren't living up to your potential. You're the smartest and most insightful genetically engineered being I know."
"Thanks, Dad," Romy said, giving Brain a hug. "Same time next year, okay?"
Brain smiled. "Deal... son."
The chimes on the grandfather clock rang twelve times, welcoming Christmas Day into Acme Labs.
Pinky was sniffling quietly to himself in a corner of the lab. He had retreated into a maze that the scientists had him run sometimes.
"Pinky?" Brain called as he entered the maze. "Pinky! Where are you?"
"Go away!" Pinky called. "I just ruin everything—I should be alone! And don't bother trying to find me, Brain, I've hidden in the farthest, hardest, most complicated part of the maze to reach!"
Brain turned the second right corner and found Pinky huddled in a dead end.
"Mind if I sit down?"
Pinky shrugged, sniffing, and Brain sat down gently beside him.
"Pinky... I don't care about the plans for world domination..."
"You don't?"
Brain shook his head softly. "The only reason I'm even able to try to take over the world nightly is because you're here by my side, every step of the way."
"Oh, Brain," Pinky said, still sniffing, but it was a different kind of sniffing, a happy sniffing.
A quiet moment passed between them.
"Pinky," Brain said hesitantly, "I'd like to give you your Christmas present now..."
"Where is it?" Pinky said.
"Look up," Brain replied.
Pinky craned his head up towards the ceiling. Nothing was there except blank tile and fluorescent lights.
"Ummm, poit!" Pinky said, confused. "Egad, Brain, I don't see anything there at all."
"Try now."
Pinky looked up again.
Brain was holding his hand above Pinky's head, and caught in his fingers was a little sprig of bright green mistletoe.
"Merry Christmas, Pinky..."
"Oh, Braaaiiin... Merry Christmas... Narf!"
THE END