Pretty In Pink

"Ouch!"

"Alex, will you hold still and let me zip you up!"

"I still don't know why I let you talk me into this."

"Because you're such a sweet guy, Alex, and nice guys always get stuck in the bunny suit."

"Gee, thanks, Mulder. I'll take that as a complement."

"There, you're done. And don't you look precious!"

"Fuck you, Mulder."

"Now get out there and make me proud!"

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Mulder watched as Alex hesitantly entered the crowd of little FBI children and began his role as the star of the show. One thing was certain, it was difficult to miss a 6 foot pink bunny rabbit with big floppy ears wading through a sea of lilliputan like kiddies. He had to laugh, it was all so ridiculously funny.

Mulder had been amazed at how much fun it had been to talk the younger agent into it, it had been a game he had played, sharpening his somewhat rusty psychology skills, convincing him that it was the decent, upstanding thing to do. And now he was enjoying the fruits of his labor, watching the hapless fellow out there like some hokey creature in one of those cheap Japanese monster movies, "The Pink Terror from Planet Bu-Neee."

The poor guy, this really was a humiliating job. Maybe afterward he'd take him out for a hamburger and a few beers, Alex deserved it for standing out there surrounded by all those little terrors, all of them juiced up in some jelly-bean induced sugar-high.

Alex really was a decent guy. Mulder hadn't liked him at first, found him to be an annoyance, a distraction, but the junior agent had grown on him. And now, he sort of liked having him around, relied upon him as a sounding board during their case work. But there were still those awkward times when there wasn't anything pressing to talk about where the two men would just stand there and avoid looking at each other, Mulder hated those times. He didn't know what to say, or what to do.

Mulder did want to get to know the guy better, and taking him out for dinner might be a start, might be a way of building a relationship based on something other than work. There was such a thing, wasn't there? Life did exist outside of the X-Files, didn't it? And hanging around with Alex wasn't such a bad thing, was it? He was a nice enough chap, not bad to look at, especially when he got rid of the cheap suit and loosened the damned-ugly ties he usually wore. And there was the way his eyelashes curled up at the ends, very nice eyelashes those, very long for a guy, and they framed those green eyes so well.

Yep, Alex was easy to look at, just not easy to talk to. Mulder could play it safe, talk about basketball or football or about that cute new secretary in the travel office... Would Alex be attracted to her? What kind of women was he interested in? He was interested in women, wasn't he? Maybe. Not.

That was all superficial, he wanted to find out more about what was underneath all that pink fur. Not just what Alex thought about Michael Jordan or John Elway, but about what was going on in his head, how the guy's mind worked, what made him tick. Mulder somehow doubted that he'd get very far over a few beers down at the local pub, but what the hell, it was worth a shot. Besides, he was bored and Krycek was a nice distraction, pink bunny suit and all.

As the wave of little tikes parted, preparing to go on their Easter egg hunt, Mulder noticed the costume, or more precisely the tail - it was on backwards, he'd dressed the poor guy wrong way round! Jesus, how fucking ironic, that poofy white bit sticking there on his crotch like some sort of bulls eye! Yep, the guy definitely deserved a free beer and some nice conversation, besides, how could Mulder pass up an opportunity to rib the guy about the tail? It reminded him of one of those clown noses, the one's you honked. How could he resist the urge to go up to Krycek and go 'honk, honk' and squeeze his little bunny tail? How indeed!

the end - by the lopsided weevil