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Joel didn’t have any real reason for going to Jimmy’s today. He was just bored. It made for a nice break from building, anyways. A nice relaxing flight out into the middle of nowhere and then a solid payoff in the form of Jimmy getting all red-faced and shouty.
He didn’t see him around Tumble Town at first (too small, he reckoned,) until a closer look found him emerging from one of his cliffs carrying a crate. Joel landed with a flourish in front of him, and Jimmy-
He didn’t scream or even roll his eyes. He just walked around him with an exhale that could barely be considered a sigh. His face and especially his shirt were drenched in sweat, golden hair sticking unflatteringly against his forehead. He was already red in the face, but it didn’t seem to be from anger.
Joel didn’t let that deter him.
“Hey, Sheriff ,” he said it the same mocking way he always did, the way that got Jimmy worked up, as he walked alongside him.
Jimmy ignored him, continued trekking down the mountain, at the foot of which held numerous crates much like the one Jimmy was holding. All of which carried materials- ores, mostly, and terracotta- which seemed rather heavy.
Not to Joel of course, as he was very big and strong. But to a human like Jimmy, maybe.
“What’s the deal?” he asked. “Tramway broken down? Oh, of course it is, you built it after all.”
Jimmy didn’t say anything. He hadn’t even looked up at Joel the whole time he’d been here. He just kept walking with a disconcerting tilt in his step.
Joel, getting a little peeved from all this ignoring, stepped in Jimmy’s way. When he tried again to sidestep him, Joel simply shifted to block his path. For the first time, Jimmy looked the god in the eye.
“Shove off, Joel.”
His voice echoed the look in his eye, both unfocused and inattentive. His words came out in a vague mumble and, now that he was stood still, the swaying was all the more apparent.
Okay. Something was definitely wrong here. He didn’t know what, exactly (probably some stupid mortal ailment), but something. Maybe that should’ve stopped Joel.
It didn’t obviously.
“No, go on then. What’re moving all these boxes around for? Don’t you have someone to do that for you?”
“Some of us take initiative in our Empires, actually,” Jimmy countered unenthusiastically.
“Oh, big word. And funny way to say you have to do all the work.”
“That’s not what’s happening.” Jimmy looked away again. “Get out of my way.”
“No, I won’t,” Joel smiled, but it was a little harder to be so vindictive when Jimmy seemed so ill. “Come on, I’m just trying to help a friend.”
Jimmy scoffed and attempted to move around Joel again, once on each side, then failed. He almost dropped the crate, which made Joel laugh, and in response, Jimmy pushed him with it hard in the chest.
Well, it was clearly meant to be hard. It was actually a little pathetic, Joel merely stumbled back. But he wasn’t really thinking on the semantics of that because once he regained his balance Jimmy was collapsing in front of him.
The box fell first, falling to the ground and spilling gold, iron, coal, and clay everywhere. Then Jimmy was falling, too, and Joel caught him on instinct. He wasn’t dead. He was still breathing. Joel was pretty sure he passed out? From what, carrying boxes around? The dangerous Box-Carrying Exhaustion? That could be a thing, for all Joel knew.
He was holding him by the back of his unbuttoned vest, and Joel knew carrying him anywhere that way probably wouldn’t be safe, but he really didn’t want to touch his gross wet shirt, much less his skin, and for whatever reason he couldn’t just leave him out here to dry up like a prune, so.
With an unconscious Jimmy hanging by the vest in one hand, Joel walked down to what he was pretty sure was the sheriff’s house. Inside was a dinky setup, consisting of a bed, some chests, and some cats. He waved one away from the bed and unceremoniously dropped Jimmy onto it.
<Smallishbeans> sheriff just passed out by the way
<Smallishbeans> in case anyone wanted to nurse him back to health or whatever
<MythicalSausage> uh oh!!
<Pixlriffs> passed out? how do you mean passed out?
<Smallishbeans> like he collapsed. i dont know he was all sweaty and gross.
<Smallishbeans> guess its hot or something. thought about throwing him in a river but there’s none around.
<Smajor1995> joel for future reference please dont throw people in rivers.
<Smallishbeans> im sure he can swim
<Pixlriffs> not when hes unconscious?
<Smallishbeans> whatever. i brought him inside
<MythicalSausage> aw, how sweet!
<Smallishbeans> not sweet i want him to owe me
It was an excuse made up on the spot, but Joel didn’t have any other reason to explain why he’d brought the other inside. He was about to change the subject, ask if anyone was going to come or if he would just leave him, when he heard a thump outside, followed by quick little footsteps. They came up the porch and opened the door.
fWhip. Joel didn’t know who he expected.
“Is he okay?” fWhip asked.
“I dunno,” Joel replied, putting his comm away and walking out. fWhip disregarded him and went up to Jimmy’s bed.
Awesome. Now whatever may happen is in no way his fault.
Jimmy remembered having a not great day.
The pulley tram for carrying things from the mines went down overnight, and so now there were dozens of boxes of freshly mined materials gathering dust in the caves. This was, of course, less than ideal, because the engineers weren’t sure when it’d be fixed and until it was, there’d be a complete halt on all manufacturing, trade, and probably a million other unforeseen consequences.
Jimmy could’ve gotten someone else to deal with it, but he already did not envy the mine workers’ jobs and he wasn’t going to ask some random folks to do it either. He had the authority to do so, but he figured it’d ruin their day. It wasn’t their fault the tram went down, anyway.
So, he handled it himself. When he heard the news, he had a light breakfast (if a single slice of bread can be considered “breakfast” at all,) and went up to the mines to haul the resources out himself.
It didn’t take long for a headache to kick in. Jimmy ignored it.
Then it got worse, and Jimmy figured, okay, he’d get some water when he was done with this next load.
The headache got worse and Jimmy was feeling a little lightheaded. So, water and maybe a sit-down break after these crates.
Time passed. His arms were sore. Some water and a nap after this load, he told himself, but that didn’t mean anything because he was forgetting to keep count.
He reassured any townsfolk who asked that he was okay. Just a day of work for the Sheriff.
Joel came by at some point. Jimmy wasn’t sure how long he’d been working. He ignored him at first, because he really did not have the energy to deal with him right now (and everything he said felt like it had to go through a ball of cotton to leave his mouth anyways.) Then Joel stepped in front of him. Jimmy didn’t know what they said, but surely he asked him to move because his arms hurt, and every second he stood still could’ve been a second closer to setting this crate down and retreating for just a few minutes to the relative coolness of the caves-
Joel said something. He always had something to say. But he wouldn’t move, so Jimmy shoved him as hard as he could. Which may not have been very hard, to be fair, because he felt very weak.
The movement pushed him off kilter, and the burst of energy it took to do it made something in Jimmy slip away from him. He fell, only being jolted midair by something grabbing him before losing consciousness, brain behind his eyes pounding.
He felt similar now, waking up. His head beat to the sound of his heart in the darkness surrounding him. He grunted in protest as he forced himself to open his eyes.
He was in a cave, but not one of terracotta, or even stone. He was surrounded by deepslate- dim torches littering a seemingly endless hallway of iron rails. He furrowed his brow, looked around more, and found large, blue eyes peering at him from the foot of the bed.
“Hey, Sheriff,” fWhip said, voice quiet. Jimmy smiled a little bit.
“fWhip, where are we?” he asked, exasperatedly.
“Oh, um,” fWhip cleared his throat. “This is the tunnel from your base to my base.”
Jimmy paused. Having a secret tunnel to his empire probably wasn’t the weirdest thing fWhip had done. but it was definitely up there. He’s learned to quit questioning it by now.
He began to sit up, but was reminded quite aggressively of the pain in his head. He winced and groaned involuntarily. fWhip jumped off the bed and by the time Jimmy opened his eyes again, he was being offered a bottle of water. He took it, drank it very fast (he was even thirstier than he thought,) and by the time he finished fWhip was offering him another as well.
He got about halfway through the second bottle when he lied down again. He recognized, for the first time, that he was in a bed- one that probably hadn’t been here before.
“So,” he said. “Why the tunnel, exactly?”
fWhip nodded.
“I figured it would be the coldest place nearby. Underground and all.”
That was fair. Jimmy would’ve nodded if he wasn’t so lightheaded.
“What exactly happened?” he asked. fWhip shrugged.
“I don’t really know. Joel said you passed out, all warm and sweaty and stuff. So I came to make sure you were okay. As for why you passed out, my bet’s on heat exhaustion.”
“Heat exhaustion?” Jimmy asked. He was familiar, obviously, but confused as to how fWhip had come to this conclusion before he had.
“Yeah. Deal with it all the time in the Goblands, actually, since it’s so cool underground and so hot up there. From how you looked, it seemed the most likely.”
Honestly, that was also fair. Jimmy slowly sat up, letting his back rest against the really cold wall wow that’s really cold it’s like he’s not even-
Hang on.
“fWhip?”
fWhip, who was placing the empty bottle in a chest, hummed.
“Mhm?”
“Why am I not wearing a shirt?”
fWhip then froze. When he turned, it was probably just a trick of the dim cave, but his face seemed a deeper shade of green than usual.
“Uh,” he said. “It was really wet. So I figured you wouldn’t want to sleep in it. It’d be uncomfortable, or something,” he trailed off. Jimmy bit back a smile.
“And that’s the only reason?”
“Yes!” fWhip said. He pointedly looked aside, “I wouldn’t just undress you while you were unconscious for no reason, that’d be weird.”
Jimmy laughed a little.
“Okay,” he said. “What time is it?”
fWhip took out his communicator.
“Ten PM,” he reported. Jimmy nodded.
“Alright. I think… I’m gonna stay down here a bit longer.”
fWhip nodded.
“Then I’ll be here to help.”