Work Text:
“God damn it….” Jimmy muttered under his breath, leaning back in his lab chair and taking a swig of his soda. He bounced his leg in thought as he stared at the computer before him. Upstairs, his friends were chilling in the living room, probably watching TV or something, which was totally fine and normal. More often than not now-a-days, they would gather and spend some time together. Generally it varied between his, Danny’s, and Timmy’s house, though it seemed Jimmy’s was the more common ground. He didn’t mind, though. It was nice having company, even if he might not know how to express that sometimes. It’s just that this particular time, his air conditioner had been out for a while, and during the Texas summer, that was a bad, bad idea to not have it fixed. The thing was, Jimmy was able to bear with the heat, even if he didn’t really like it. And frankly, he didn’t like being super cold either, but it’s easier to layer up during the cold. There was only so much stripping of clothes a person could do until becoming bare naked, and after that, then what? Take off your skin? Nah, not happening.
So there he was, in the midst of creating a super durable air conditioning unit. His project parts lay on the table behind him, but something just wasn’t working right, which is why he was where he was now, at the computer.
“Hmmm…..” He groaned in frustration. He was almost done, but the heat was probably getting to his head as he couldn’t think straight to figure out how to finish it. He sipped at his soda once more. Maybe he needed more caffeine. Or, more than likely, water, but he was too lazy to go grab some.
“If you would not have fallen. Then I would not have found you.”
Jimmy looked over to his little radio, giving a small ‘ooh’ and turned it up a little bit.
“Angel falling too close to the ground.”
Nothing like a little Willie Nelson, he thought.
He wasn’t exactly proud to be from Texas, considering its politics and laws and the oftentimes backwards viewpoints of the smaller cities. The way people drove like crazy and rode your ass trying to speed up around you, even though you’re going eighty-five or ninety on a seventy-five mile an hour highway, and how everyone seemed to have an obsession with pickup trucks. Especially the ones with, what he liked to call, ‘birthing hips’. And he especially hated his southern accent, which he did exceptionally well to hide. Really, unless he was extremely upset or worked up in anger, it would slip. But, luckily that hasn’t happened in a long, long time.
But, he did like a few things from Texas. The food (come on now, a good chicken fried steak?), its national parks and museums, NASA, and some good old country music. Emphasize, old country music. No one really knew he listened to it, because it wasn’t too often that he felt like it. Plus, he knew that if anyone found out, they’d never let him hear the end of it.
“Well,” he said quietly to himself, turning up the radio just a little bit more. “I mean, no one’s around…. Right Goddard?” He grinned at his robot dog, who gave a happy bark in response.
~~~~~
"Oh my G oooooood ."
In Retroville, it was nearing one hundred degrees. The TV was on, but no one had the energy to pay attention to what was playing. Timmy laid upside down on the couch, letting his arms flop onto the floor. Sweat was glistening on his skin, and he had already stripped down to as little clothes as he possibly could: a pink tank top and black shorts. Across from him, laying on the hardwood floor like a starfish in an attempt to keep cool was Danny, who had also stripped down to as much as he could. He could feel his skin stay at a horribly warm temperature, and felt sweat physically dripping from his forehead. Being from the North, he was really having a hard time. He felt like he was being baked to a crisp, like a strange human potato skin.
Spongebob, on the other hand, was as cool as he could be since he was wearing his water bowl, which kept at a nice even temperature similar to the Pacific Ocean and helped keep him from drying out. He felt so bad for the other boys. They already had the ceiling fan on, plus two extra fans on the floor trying to circulate as much cool air as possible.
"Are… You guys okay?" SpongeBob laughed nervously.
The only noises that came from the others were deep, guttural groans.
"We'd be so much better if Timmy's boyfriend would fix his damn air conditioning."
"Hey, it's not my fault he won't." Timmy fanned himself lazily. "He's all 'oh you guys are just being over dramatic, it's not that hot, I'll do it later'." He mocked, using his hands to animate the words. Sighing, he flopped his arms down. Maybe he should turn over, blood was rushing to his head.
SpongeBob pouted and his eyes became wide and glistening. He wished he could do something for them, but he wasn't sure what he could do.
"Well, how about we open some windows?" He suggested, doing his best to sound positive.
"Nah, bugs will come inside. Don't wanna deal with that." Danny said, shutting down the thought immediately.
SpongeBob frowned, and hummed. Suddenly, a light bulb moment!
"Hold on, you guys, I know exactly what to do!" The sponge hopped up from his seat and skipped to the kitchen and looked under the sink, finding an empty squirt bottle. He hummed cheerfully as he filled it and went back to the boys.
"Comin' at'cha!" As soon as he misted water in the air and the cool droplets fell onto hot skin, Timmy and Danny both sighed with relief. The water combined with the air from the fans was like heaven.
"Yaaaasssss, thank you Spongey." Danny muttered, flipping over to his other side like a human pancake. Spongebob continued humming, spritzing each of them separately, skipping back and forth. It felt so, so good.
But, at that moment, as if the universe wanted to shit even more on their parade, as the droplets fell, they fell onto the fans, which in turn, caused them to short circuit. And what happens then? Oh yeah.
They fucking break.
AKA, it was going to get even hotter.
“Oh hell no.” Danny said, sitting up, and pointed at Timmy and unplugging the fans carefully from the outlets. “Nah, man, you get down there and tell him that if he doesn’t fix his air conditioner pronto, I will personally beat his ass.”
“Honestly, same.” He said, standing up, fanning himself with his shirt. As he walked away, he could hear SpongeBob apologizing profusely to Danny, and Timmy felt so bad because it wasn’t the little dude's fault.
Timmy trudged down the stairs to Jimmy’s lab. “Oh, James !” He yelled out. “Danny says he’s gonna kick your ass if you don’t fix your A/C.” He whined, as if he were tattling on him like a younger sibling to their parents. Though, as he got closer to the door, which was cracked open, he heard music. Twangy sounding music.
“Eh?” He said, and quietly walked to the door, peeking through. And oh man, it was a sight to behold.
Jimmy was holding Goddard by his front paws, using him as a little dancing partner, dancing in little circles and singing off key to whatever song was on the portable radio Jimmy kept close by while in his lab.
“My daddy worked all night in the Van Lear coal mines. All day long in the field a hoin’ corn. Mommy rocked the babies at night,” It was at that point that Jimmy picked up Goddard and held him like a baby, swinging him around, having the time of his life.
“And read the Bible by the coal oil light,” he continued with the song, slowly turning around. “And ever’ thing would start all over come break of morn’- holy fuck ! ” Jimmy yelled, accidentally letting go of Goddard who ended up hitting the floor (he felt so bad) and tensing up at the sight of Timmy watching him from the door. Timmy had the worst shit-eating grin as he leaned against the frame of the door with his arms crossed.
“H-How long have you been there?” Jimmy asked nervously, swallowing dryly.
“Long enough.”
“I swear to Issac Newton, if you tell a single soul what you just saw, I will end you.” Jimmy threatened, pointing a finger at the other. “I swear it, Turner! I mean it!” He tried to speak with confidence, but his voice shook with embarrassment.
“Uh-huh. Whatever you say, country bumpkin.” Timmy teased.
“I ain’t no country bumpkin!” Jimmy retorted, then immediately regretted it. Oh no. Not the accent. Oh please not right now. He was trying to make a point here, damn it.
Timmy snorted, trying to hold in his laughter. “ What ?” He started to let his laughter slip. “What was that? Did the oh so smart Jimmy Neutron just use the word ‘ain’t’?”
“No! Ya done heard me wrong!”
And there it went. The laughter Timmy had been holding exploded and he doubled over, holding his stomach and slapping his thigh. Jimmy stomped up to him and started pushing him through the door.
“You’re banned from my lab.”
“I-I’m sorry,” he said, wiping a tear. “Oh that’s just too weird. That’s,” he took in a deep breath. “That’s not what I came to ask you. Danny asked if you could fix the air-”
“No, suffer.”
Jimmy closed the door in Timmy’s face. Blowing out a breath and fanning himself once more still with a smile that was hurting his cheeks, Timmy rested his cheek on the door and whined.
“Pleaaaaaasssseeeeee.”
Silence.
“Pleaaaaaassssseeeee.”
Silence.
“ Pleaaaaasssssee- “
Jimmy opened the door abruptly, causing Timmy to nearly fall to the ground. “Okay! Okay, fine! Stop whining, I’m almost done anyways, but I swear if you tell anyone, I will e-“
“End me, yeah, I know.” Timmy waved the words off, and went and gave Jimmy a tight, and slightly sweaty, hug, nuzzling his cheek against the other’s. “Thaaaaaank youuuu, I loooooveee youuu, my country buuumpkiiiinnn.” He said with a grin and a quick kiss at the corner of the other’s lips. Jimmy grimaced at the sweat that rubbed against his face, and settled for giving him a pat on the back. It was hard for him to stay angry when his boyfriend was just way too damn cute.
“Yeah, yeah, I love you too. Go on up and tell everyone I’ll be done in a little bit. And please, for the love of all that’s holy, put on some deodorant.”
“Roger wilko, cap-i-tan!”
Jimmy shook his head with a little smile as he shut the door to the lab, hearing Timmy exclaim to the others the answer he was given. He walked over to Goddard, who was okay, and cooed him with apologies. He grabbed his little radio and went to the project table to continue to finish the air conditioner. After that little debacle, it seemed to have gotten even hotter than before, so he was going to try to speed through it as accurately as possible. He just missed the end of another song. He was going to turn off the radio, or at least change it to something else, when another song popped on.
“Tumble out of bed, and stumble to the kitchen. Pour myself a cup of ambition, and yawn and stretch and try to come to life….”
“Ooohh…” He turned it up.
Well, he couldn’t change it now, it was Dolly Parton. You can’t just change Dolly . Guess he’ll just have to deal with it.
Oh, how tragic.