He knew he looked ridiculous, but he looked ridiculous in the
name of scientific advancement. He was chasing a green
labmouse. That was what happened when you worked with
Spooky Mulder, he supposed.
Pendrell had seen flash of neon green just out of the corner of his
eye once in a while for a week. At first he thought he had to cut
down on his overtime, then wondered if someone was spiking his
coffee as a joke, but the green streak kept showing up. Then it
came close enough for him to see that it was a mouse. He'd
thought that maybe its fur had been covered in something that gave
it that color, but its eyes were green too. It ran under the table
before he could catch it.
He immediately thought of all the vials of bizarre "alien" goo
Spooky Mulder had brought him, but Pendrell kept them locked
securely up with the other biohazardous materials. No way
anything could break in there. He wondered if the mouse had
come from the fabled basement office, where Mulder no doubt
kept some things he shouldn't have.
Then Pendrell got another look at it later and recognized the
mouse's stumpy tail. The little guy had to be Pooky, who'd made
a jailbreak two weeks earlier. Pendrell wasn't in the habit of
giving the lab animals cutesy names, but Pooky had always had
more personality and been friendlier than the other mice.
Now the name was almost appropriate. Pookas changed shape,
while Pooky had somehow been exposed to something that had
transformed him at a genetic level, made him change color.
Pendrell wanted to know if the changes were more than cosmetic.
Had the mouse's eating habits or life cycle changed? Pendrell had
thoughts of mating Pooky to see if the green was recessive or
dominant. He wanted to find out how the mouse had been exposed
to whatever had changed it and what that catalyst had been. When
the little guy came to the end of his natural //unnatural?// life, he
could be dissected and examined for other changes.
Pooky twitched pale green whiskers at him and gave him a look
that appeared almost wry. The look said, "Humiliate yourself all
you want, but I'm not going back to that cage, bub."
"You know I won't hurt you, little guy. You'll live like a king.
The best food, some girl mice..." //Sure, Sean, part of the change is
that he now understands English. If he does, he's laughing his
little mouse ass off at you right now.//
Alex Krycek congratulated himself on leading Mulder astray
again. While the agent checked out a sextoy warehouse for
nonexistent evidence of aliens, Krycek would be back at the lab a
floor above Mulder's office stealing real evidence. He looked
forward to his former partner eventually figuring it out. The
confrontation that would result would be fun. He loved forcing
emotion into that blank face and monotone voice. Maybe someday
Mulder would figure it out...
Krycek quickly looked into the lab to check it before he walked in.
No one should be here at 10 pm, but he preferred to be safe. He
didn't see anyone.
"C'mon, Pooky, I would never hurt you. I'm taking you home to a
nice nest of wood chips and easy food. I would never hurt you."
//I have to find out what this is about.// As quiet as a mouse,
Krycek leaned to look around the lab table and saw a young man
wriggling around on his hands and knees on the floor. The lab coat
covered a lot, but from the way it moved over the young man's
body, Krycek could imagine...
Then the kid looked up and saw him and, worse, recognized
him. Apparently the lab tech kept track of the FBI's most wanted.
He leapt to his feet, and his hand went for his gun, but Krycek
grabbed his wrists first. They faced and stared at one another with
their arms outstretched over a lab table full of glass beakers and
test tubes.
The kid looked like a choir boy, too young and innocent to be
allowed out after 10, but Krycek had used the young and innocent
facade himself now and then. The lab tech tried to be
expressionless, but his pulse jumped through his wrists, his
naturally pale redhead's skin looked paler than it should, and his
blue, blue eyes burned with rage and fear. //Rarr. Just the way I
like it...//
Krycek smiled. "C'mon, Pooky, I would never hurt you."
Pendrell stared at the man who'd help kidnap Agent Scully, who'd
thrown away all his honor, who'd cast aside the oaths he'd taken to
defend and protect. Traitor, the lowest... Krycek threw off a sense
of danger like summer lightning, and his green eyes could have
been chips of arctic ice, deep, cold, and giving the impression of
infinite depths. Then the eyes started to warm a little with
amusement.
//The bastard's laughing at me.//
Pendrell tried to struggle discreetly, get his wrists loose without
plunging his arms and Krycek's down on a table full of glass. He
couldn't do it, but he didn't see how the traitor could do anything
either. Impasse. //I wonder what he'll do now.// Pendrell tried to
anticipate the former agent's next move.
"You think you know and understand everything, don't you,"
Krycek's eyes, warming further, flickered to the ID badge on the
labcoat, "...Agent Pendrell?" His smile turned deeper, darker.
Unsettled by the sudden cat-eating-the-canary look but desperate
not to show it, Pendrell just shook his head slowly in negation.
This man could torture or kill him, and no one would ever know if
Krycek dumped him somewhere else. He braced himself for the
worst.
Krycek caught him completely off guard anyway. The former
agent abruptly pulled him forward by the wrists and into a kiss.
Pendrell felt beakers rattling just under his chest, but that seemed
less and less important as a rush of sensation hit his body,
accompanied by an expert tongue that surprised him into admitting
it into his mouth. When he opened his eyes he drowned in warm,
thick green and wondered how he could have ever seen those eyes
as irrevocably cold. He couldn't think; he could only surrender.
Pendrell wanted to get closer... Traitor, killer, spy, whatever, the
man could kiss.
//What is he doing? What am I doing?//
Krycek had kissed the kid on a mischievous whim, just because he
could, and hadn't expected the immediate acquiescence. He
appreciated it; he just hadn't expected it or the fact that the kid
could kiss... Sean Pendrell moaned against his lips, and he
shivered. The thought of corrupting an innocent always turned
him on, and the lab tech provided that without, it appeared, the
often frustrating ignorance that went with it.
//I came in here for a reason. Damn.// Regretfully, he pulled back
and away. The lab tech's eyes, which had the rich blue of the sky
on a clear autumn day, looked dazed and so damned hot. //Another
time, kid. Definitely another time.// Krycek headbutted Pendrell
and, with difficulty, controlled his descent to the floor.
Krycek found the specimen and notes right where his employer
told him they would be. He filed that revealing bit of information
away for later. With everything he'd come for tucked into his coat,
he went back to check on the kid.
Pendrell lay sprawled out on the floor, looking like he'd taken a
nap. //He could identify me. I should kill him, or take him away,
kill him, and dump the body somewhere it will never be found.
Why didn't I just let him split his head open on a table on the way
down? He looks so sweet...// Krycek started to smile. //I don't
think he'll be in a hurry to report this incident. Maybe I have a soft
spot for workaholic federal agents, even if the two aren't alike in
any other way. I have to work on changing that, but not tonight.//
Then Krycek saw the mouse sitting on Pendrell's shoulder. The
green mouse, resplendent in bright emerald shades even down to
its eyes and whiskers. //So much for living the life of a normal
operative for hire. Maybe I could get a bonus for this.// He gently
picked up the mouse and put it in his pocket before planting a kiss
on Agent Pendrell's slack lips and leaving, humming a jaunty tune
under his breath.
//Till next time, kid.//
Pendrell came to on the floor with a pounding headache and the
taste of spearmint on his lips. The events preceding his collapse
came rushing back, and he moaned.
A torrent of thoughts clashed and collided. //He took me down so
damned easily. Did he steal anything? I have to check. He felt so
good... What did he come here for? That kiss, that kiss... He
helped those bastards take Agent Scully... Will he come back? I
have to tell— but I can't tell anyone what happened here tonight!
I'm not even supposed to be here. I can just see it: "I stayed over
to try to catch a labmouse. Well, this was a very special labmouse.
It was green. Then former agent Krycek came by, and I locked
lips with him. Who knows what else I would have agreed to do
with him if he hadn't knocked me out. Please commit me."//
Pendrell still hadn't caught Pooky. He didn't know if Krycek had
stolen anything. Right now, Pendrell didn't care. It could all wait
for tomorrow.
As he left the lab as if the devil chased him, confused and
unsettled, he thought that everything he wanted that was out of
reach was green...
The End
"It's not that easy being green;
It's not easy being green.
But green's the color of Spring.
When green is all there is to be
Green
by Viridian5
Sean Pendrell slid on his hands and knees across the floor of the
lab crooning, "Here, Pooky... heeeeeeere, Pooky. Come to
Daddy." //Thank God no one else is here to see this.//
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves.
When I think it could be nicer being red, or
yellow or gold
or something much more colorful like that.
It seems you blend in with so many
other ordinary things.
And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're
not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water-
or stars in the sky.
And green can be cool and friendly-like.
And green can be big like an ocean, or important
like a mountain, or tall like a tree.
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why
Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine,
it's beautiful!
And I think it's what I want to be."
—"Green"
lyrics by Joe Rapposo, sung by Kermit the Frog
