26. Worship (280)

"Is it too much to ask for a little appreciation?" Brain was ranting about humanity's inability to accept him as their world leader again, pacing the cage rapidly. "What do I have to do to earn some respect?! My intellect is massive! I could do so much for these boobs and their simple-minded ways! They should be praising my name!"

He raised his fist to the air and Pinky knew his hubby was reaching his breaking point. After accusing all of the people of the world for being too stupid to realize how great he was, he'd start into picking at pieces of himself. I'll never get the world, Pinky. What do you see in me, Pinky? I can't do it anymore, Pinky.

Pinky didn't want to hear those things tonight, or any night. So as he watched Brain grit his teeth and growl and press his hands to his head, he wracked his brain for some kind of something that would make him feel better. Cheer him up, so to speak.

Hopping off the bed, the sudden movement caught The Brain's attention and he looked over in time to see his lover on his knees. Bowing. "Hail, Brain! Narf!" He appreciated Brain, he respected him and wanted to show him that it wasn't just during love things that he praised his husband's name.

Luckily, he got to do that anyway because Brain had wasted no time in yanking him up by the scruff of his neck and kissing him hungrily. This reaction was much better than the one he'd feared. They'd need to do this more often, because his praises definitely needed to be sung in squeaky love songs.

27. Zeal (1298)

He'd brushed off the tingling in his fingers, only growing mildly concerned when his entire arm followed suit, and by the time he knew he should be panicking (stroke, heart attack, what?) he was passed out on the floor of their cage; Pinky's concerned, questioning voice the last thing he'd been aware of hearing.

He pinned the blame on the scientists. They made him run an obscene amount of tests the day before, taxing his body, pushed him to his limit and didn't even give him a proper cool down afterwards. That was what induced the heart attack, nothing more. It wasn't stress and certainly wasn't because he was overweight. No. It was an impossibility. Surely, it was a side-effect of ridiculous testing in the name of science.

But that didn't appease his husband, who was sobbing when he woke up. Apparently the scientists had taken him away for a little bit, to observe and determine whether he would awaken ("Of course I was going to awaken, Pinky, what do you take me for?") and didn't tell the taller mouse a thing. All he kept hearing was "heart attack" and the bumbling idiot had taken it to mean that he'd made him sick.

"I didn't take very good care of your heart at all, Brain!" he wailed, draping his body over him as he sprawled out on their sponge bed.

"Pinky, heart attacks have little to do with the romantic image of a heart," Brain attempted to console him, irritated that his arm still tingled when he moved it as he stroked the messy fur atop his partner's head. "They're brought on by numerous stressors. Most common is an unhealthy lifestyle, when one engages in overeating, smoking, zero exercise, and accumulates a large amount of stress in their day to day life."

Blue eyes blinked at him blankly, then slowly narrowed. "You do all those things, Brain."

"What?" The megalomaniac arched an eyebrow. "Pinky, that's preposterous. I do not stuff myself silly as you tend to do that enough for the both of us. I haven't smoked in months. I exercise my mind constantly, as well as my patience with you, and I am not stressed."

The look his husband continued to give him set him on edge. He didn't buy it. "You snack on food pellets when you're working on your plan thingies, even after meal times. You snuck a cigarette last week - I saw you. And you never, ever run on the wheel, and taking over the world every night always makes you- umm... that last one! You do it all, Brain! You're hurting yourself!" The stern tone and expression dissolved into tears as he began his crying again. "Oh, Brain, please don't hurt your poor heart! I need it! I need you!"

Brain's ears flattened. "Pinky, stop that. It's not my fault. It was the experiments! They must've induced it- Pinky, are you even listening to me?" He was crying so loudly, Brain couldn't even hear himself think. "This is nothing to cry over. I'm perfectly alright."

Pinky shot up and grabbed onto his shoulders when he tried to get out of bed, pushing him back down. "You have to rest!" he told him. "And once you're better, you have to start taking care of chubby round body better. Zort."

"Pinky," Brain warned, but his husband wasn't going to budge. "Pinky, it's my body, I can do with it what I want. I'm not a child, you cannot tell me what to do." The irritability was uncontrollable; on some level he understood where Pinky was coming from and wished he could adequately assure him that he would not get sick again. Perhaps he could not manage it, because it was a promise he couldn't make. If another heart attack were to happen upon him, he'd be powerless to stop it. And once you had one... He shook his head, glaring at the taller mouse. He would not be bossed around by a mouse who certainly never once treated his body like a temple.

Crossing his arms, Pinky huffed and turned his head away. "Fine! No love things then."

Pink eyes blinked a moment, then narrowed. "What?" What was his wayward, idiot of a husband going on about now?

"For every night you don't run on the wheel, that's a night we don't do love things," he explained.

"Pinky, that's absurd! You can't possibly be serious," Brain demanded of him.

"I am and I will." Pinky's tail gave it's own irritable flick.

A growl of frustration escaped him. "You're mine to do with as I please whenever I wish. We're married, Pinky. You're my husband."

Arching an eyebrow and maintaining a rather unimpressed look, Pinky shrugged. "It's my body. Narf. I can do with it what I wish. And I wish no love things until you can love you and your chubby little heart."

It wasn't going to happen. There was no way Pinky would be able to go longer than one night without love things since they weren't exhausted from their plans, as Brain decided it would be best to postpone them for a week or so, there was plenty of time for love things. Yet Pinky stayed true to his word. Even when Brain had resorted to squeaking for his husband's attention after the second night. The lanky mouse had shivered, but didn't turn around and didn't even look at him. For all of the next day, Brain pouted at him and refused to give him the time of day. It was petty and childish, yes, but if Pinky was going to behave that way, then so would he.

Except he was refusing to eat the breakfast Pinky had prepared for him (whole grain food pellets and herbal tea), which made him cry when lunch rolled around and he still wouldn't look at him or touch the food. "I don't want you to die, Brain!" he sobbed, tears splashing in the tea. "I'm not trying to be mean, I just don't want you to die!"

It broke him, and later that afternoon, he pulled on his purple tank top, gym shorts, and running shoes and did a good twenty minutes on the wheel. His reward was being showered with kisses, everywhere, and Pinky didn't even mind that he was sweating and disgusting or sore from using muscles he firmly believed in not using. But then Pinky massaged every last achy bit of him and gave him what he'd desired the night before.

It certainly inspired him to be a bit more... zealous in his workouts, and he'd eat the whole grain food pellets and drink the herbal tea because his lover cared enough about him to do things differently (to actually use his mind to think to do things differently), and the massages certainly prevented him from feeling as stressed. As for the smoking, he remained adamant that he did not sneak the cigarette Pinky claimed to have seen. He really hadn't; he'd lit it up and let it burn out on the windowsill because he'd found one crammed in the back of the drawer from when he'd been addicted and figured it would be a fitting send off for the last of them.

He would take care of his body for his husband. After all, he couldn't possibly die without taking over the world and leave Pinky all on his own. He wouldn't know what to do with himself. When thinking of it that way, the exercise came much more easily.

That, and it had surprising effects on his stamina when it came to love things. His libido did not pale besides Pinky's any longer, and that little bit of pride was very much worth a little sweat and a lot of kissing.

28. Light (383)

When he was happy, he sparkled. Literally.

The fact that Pinky was essentially a walking miracle had been readily accepted by Brain. His blundering companion mucked his plans up on several occasions, so to accidentally become one with the Magnum Opus rather than placing it in the vessel he'd specifically designed just to contain the sheer power of the stone seemed appropriately Pinky. It was frustrating, to say the least, that he'd accomplished what alchemists had deemed forever lost in the pursuit of technology, and he couldn't even use it. But frustrating or not, he'd accepted that it had fixed itself to his cagemate. He'd seen it with his own eyes.

What continuously astounded him though, had him blinking in awe, was the glimmer, the shine, the prism of light that emanated from his very soul it seemed, deeper than his too blue eyes. Whenever he was particularly delighted, he shone. From the tips of his ears to his toes and even through his tail, when he beamed at Brain he was truly beaming. It was difficult to hide at first, what with Pinky being so deliriously happy all the time, but eventually he could control it.

Another baffling development. How could Pinky control this light? This power? He could use it at will, which Brain strictly forbid him from doing. Not because he would do any harm (nonsense, Pinky was using it to bring flowers back to life and help them bloom), but because the more power he used, the less of him there would be. It was affixed to his soul, after all.

But Pinky of all people, was trusted to control that light. To be the vessel of the Philosopher's Stone. And as much as Brain detested the waste, he couldn't help but agree that there was no one more perfect than Pinky to be trusted with it, while he be trusted with Pinky. To make sure none of those vagrants tracking them got their hands on him. Not until he could set things right within his friend.

When he promised to protect him, after a close call with Snowball, he barely had time to take note of the dark flush that painted his cheeks before he was illuminated. Brighter than anything Brain had ever seen. And, mind-boggling as it was, it was beautiful.

29. Exhaustion (287)

It had been a tough decision, but one that he did not regret. Being Super Mouse required energy that he just didn't have after spending the whole day playing with six adorable grandbabies. Once upon a time he could remember fighting crime and playing with his children, but his children hadn't come all at once, and his niece and nephews had come at a different time too. Cici and Cyan told him it was because he'd been younger, but he didn't feel any older. He felt the same! Until the grandbabies went away for the night and Pinky's back yelled at him for letting too many of them ride at once. But he couldn't say no to any of them. They were so cute!

He'd tried to be Super Mouse and fight the bad guys before playing with his babies' babies, but then he got very tired very quickly and he hated to leave them in the middle of a game to take a nap. Other than getting tired faster, nothing else had changed. He could climb and run and dance and jump and sing just like he always could, but for less time. Super Mouse couldn't be as super if he was getting tired. But he couldn't bring himself to hang up his cape and mask. The world needed him. His family needed him.

"Grandma," Pumpkin tugged on his tail one day in the playroom. "We don't need a superhero to have fun. We need you."

So when he crawled into bed at night to snuggle with his hubby (he was never too tired for snuggles or love things), it was after a hard days' work of being grandma, and Pinky was rather happy with that.

30. Obsession (378)

"Not now!"

Brain growled through gritted teeth, waving away the nuisance buzzing in his ear, trying to distract him from his goal with unimportant trivialities. Won't you rest, Brain? Please come to bed. Brain, I'm tired. It's cold without you. Brain, please?

"I don't care! Stop bothering me!"

His plans weren't gelling. Wrong, wrong, they were all wrong. How could any of these be worthy of the world?

"Quiet, Pinky!"

He would not sleep. He would not eat. He'd spent too many nights slaving over blueprints and formulae and failures. Failure. Failure. Failure. He was not a failure, he would conquer the world. Nothing would deter him from this. Nothing else mattered-

"Brain, I-"

"I said quiet!" This time when his hand swung back, his palm came back stinging and the smack echoed in his ears. All he could see was red. Anger boiled in his gut. Anger, irritation, frustration, loathing- how dare his frivolous husband take his attention away from-!

…His husband. His husband who was sitting behind him, their blanket from their bed wrapped around his shoulders, his pillow on the counter beside him. His husband who stared at him with wide, wondering blue eyes, his hand pressed to his cheek, his ears flattened.

All he could see was red blossoming from beneath Pinky's palm, his soft white cheek marred from impact. He'd struck him. He'd struck him hard enough to leave a reddening welt on his lover's sweet face. The lover who, despite being tired and ready for bed after a night of being ignored, stayed sitting up with him, dragged their bedding over to stay close to him.

This was different from a bop. Different from the usual brand of punishment dished out when Pinky was being inappropriate, annoying, a pest, ridiculous.

Pinky didn't know why he'd been hit. And Pinky didn't ask.

With hands trembling, Brain reached for him. Something in his heart twisted painfully when blue, blue eyes lit up with joy at the attention. "Pinky, I…"

"Do I still have to be quiet, Brain?"

His breath hitched and he shook his head, capturing Pinky's hand in his own and kissed it, the red mark still glaring at him even as it began to fade. "No, my dear. Let's go to bed."

I should be writing my story for my workshop class in 8 hours, but I'm uploading this instead.

At least I'm not writing PatB at the moment, that would prove to be terribly distracting from my studies. And my roommate's up with me! We're pulling an all-nighter together! Hooray! (Because did I forget to mention that I also have a midterm I need to be studying for? Yep. Fun-fun silly-willy...)

I may not update tomorrow because I'll be dead. But I'll try xD

Next up: Rage, Empty, Anger, Fury, Delight (I'm sensing a theme with this next batch lol except for the fact that one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong... but it's my favorite of these)