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The snow is an oddity to him, even in its melted form.
It is something he would never cross upon back in Retroville, his home town in Texas. Amity Park is white and the breeze is cold and Jimmy shivers, but it is beautiful in the way that the sun shines yellow in the tilted angle it displays onto the earth. The sun is determined to be noticed as it reflects off the crystals of the snow that gathers in half-melted piles of yellow and gray in the ditches he passes on the sidewalk. The sun blinds in the way that Jimmy will later walk inside a building with his hands cuffed around his own warm breath and he will see things at an angle.
He does not even mind the way the cuff of his pants brush ( hard, already icing from the water ) against his ankles with every stride of his own. They are wet from where his ( absolutely immature, childish, naive, lovely ) friend and coworker Timmy Turner is idiotic enough to jump into puddles that they walk through in order to get a reaction out of Jimmy. He kicks the water that is deep enough to run the toe of his foot through so that it splashes Jimmy wet, and he laughs when Jimmy curses him out.
“Twenty bucks if I can jump over this trash can,” Timmy announces out of the blue, and Jimmy cannot suppress the deep, guttural sigh that escapes his lips as he turns to look at Timmy.
The pink-tinted boy looks back at him with a smug grin, winking in his direction before throwing himself at the nearest garbage disposal with the speed of a bike and the height of a gazelle. Jimmy does not stop walking as he watches the boy pull his knees towards his chest as the heel of his feet brush the top of the trash can, and he cannot keep the stupid fond grin off of his face as Timmy turns to look at him instead of where he is supposed to be landing.
Timmy does not land the jump, but it is proof of his years of hero work that he instinctively turns his body in order to tumble onto his back, where he falls a few feet beyond the trash can and on the grassy surface of the park they are walking next to. He laughs as he lands, uninjured in body and uninjured in soul as he throws his head back against the dirt.
His chin is tilted upwards, like a pair of prayer’s hands tilted towards god. Jimmy thinks, for a moment, that the boy in front of him carries the same amount of mirth as a god; endless and free. He smiles like it is euphoria and laughs like it thrives the dead. Jimmy wishes for a moment that he could be as carefree as Timmy Turner—he does not know what he would do with such unlimited happiness, such joy.
“You owe me twenty dollars,” Jimmy says with an extended hand towards the still-smiling boy below him. Timmy does nothing more than grin at his hand for a moment’s pause, before tender fingers meet Jimmy’s cold skin and Jimmy is pulling a blithe Timmy to a sitting position.
The knees of Timmy’s already ripped pants are covered in grass stains, and the back of his shirt is covered in wet mud from the melting snow. He is a mess in the purest sense, something that is the result of a childish want to play outside and jump over trash cans until he is high enough in the sky that his hands of a prayer can touch god.
“I don’t owe you anything,” Timmy says, brushing at the stains on his jeans with the palms of his hands. “I didn’t say I had to land the jump—I just had to jump over it. Which I did. In a very talented and awesome way.”
“ Timmy, you are not allowed to be talking about bets, ” a voice in Jimmy’s ear chimes, and Timmy rolls his eyes as he pushes himself to his own two feet. Danny’s voice crackles from where he sits on the other end of the receiver, and there is the slight pause of something that sounds like a gunshot before Danny continues. “ You still owe me twenty bucks from, like. Two years ago .”
“I was a child two years ago,” Timmy responds almost immediately, pressing a finger to the microphone in his ear as he glances at Jimmy. He mimes a puppet with his right hand, as if he is one to talk about how obnoxious Danny is being. “You can’t legally hold me accountable to any deals I made while a minor.”
“You’re still a minor,” Danny says after a moment’s pause. There is the slight sound of grunting from the other end of the line, and Jimmy knows that Timmy and him have more important things to do then bothering the only member of their team who knows what an undercover mission actually means.
“I guess that means any bets I made in the, well . Last ten minutes or so are invalid as well, then,” Timmy says, and he has the nerve to smirk in Jimmy’s direction. Jimmy watches as, with a shrug of his shoulders, he continues in a completely monotone voice: “Oh no.”
“You’re so immature,” Jimmy says with another roll of his eyes ( but his cheeks are flaming red, and there is a smile that threatens to sneak onto his face for reasons he does not know) . Timmy beams at him in response, as if it was a compliment that graced Jimmy’s lips instead of an insult.
“Unfortunately.”
“ If Timmy gets twenty dollars, I want twenty dollars ,” Spongebob offers from the other end of the microphone in Jimmy’s ear, where he sits in the comfort of one of his favorite chairs in Jimmy’s lab. Spongebob is watching the security cameras of Amity Park that Jimmy had hooked up to his own monitors, and by the sound of crackling in Jimmy’s ear, Jimmy assumes that he is watching the footage with a soda in hand, treating the team’s undercover mission like a box-office breaking movie. “ There’s this new Barnacle Boy comic book I wanted to check out from Bubble Bass, but he said— ”
“Nobody’s getting twenty dollars!” Jimmy exclaims, pressing a finger against his own microphone. There’s the sound of an audible whine from Spongebob’s end of the receiver, and he can hear Danny laughing from wherever he is on the other side of town. “And if anybody were going to get twenty dollars, it would be me .”
“ I think we should split it between the four of us, ” Spongebob offers, as if the twenty dollars were ever real . Jimmy does not know if he should laugh or cry. “ That way we each get five dollars. I think I could buy one fourth of the Barnacle Boy comic books with that money!”
“Yeah, I’d like five dollars!” Timmy exclaims from where he is only now getting off of the ground, hand tightening around Jimmy’s as he steadies himself to his feet. There is a finger against the microphone in his own ear, pressing hard. “C’mon Jimmy. Where’s our paychecks?”
“Your paycheck?” Jimmy repeats, arching an eyebrow in disbelief.
“The Crimson Chin gets paid for being a superhero,” Timmy says, being supported by a Spongebob in the back of Jimmy’s mind that chimes in with a ‘Barnacle Boy and Mermaid Man do too! ’. Jimmy wants to collapse on the floor unconscious; he thinks it would help him get out of this mess of a conversation. “Shouldn’t we get paid for being in your superhero fighting group?—” he has the audacity to throw himself over Jimmy’s shoulder with an overdramatic swoon, as if Jimmy is able to say no when Timmy bats his eyelashes like that . “—How am I supposed to be a financially supportive boyfriend when I'm not getting paid!”
“ You’re getting game?” Jimmy asks, eyes widening in response.
Timmy almost instinctively elbows him in the ribs. Quick and teasing; like the bucktoothed boy’s fleeting touches.
Danny responds a few seconds after Jimmy, voice coming through the receiver in their ears crackily and sharp: “I thought you would be a sugar baby in a relationship, though?”
“Everybody’s so mean to me,” Timmy frowns, as if his own pity helps his case ( it does, Jimmy thinks as he makes a mental note to give him five dollars later for some pointless reason he’ll think of on the spot. The way his bottom lip turns down is infectious; the way his eyes crinkle is something that Jimmy wishes he could wipe away with the inner fold of his own thumb ).
“Are you complaining about helping people?” Jimmy scoffs instead, crossing his arms over his chest as the two of them continue their totally inconspicuous walk through the park. “Consider your payment for being a self-proclaimed superhero the reward of being able to go home at the end of the day to a dimension that is not riddled with perversity.”
“I wouldn’t complain,” Timmy says with another innocent shrug of his shoulders. Jimmy shakes his head at his nonchalance, extremely fond for absolutely no reason. “I think saving Dimmsdale from dimensional distress could be a fun way to spend an afternoon. Way better than whatever we’re doing right now.”
“ We’re saving Amity Park from dimensional distress ,” Danny responds through the communicator in their ears, and Jimmy can tell that he is scolding Timmy with a smile on his face. “ But, I have this really weird, indescribable, feeling that the two of you aren’t actually doing anything relevant to the mission. Which is really weird, because when I think of Jimmy and Timmy together, I don’t think of slacking-off at all . In fact, it’s probably the last word that— ”
Jimmy presses his finger against the piece of metal in his ear with a familiar roll of his eyes. “ Okay, we get it.”
“Oh, shit, Nerdtron,” Timmy says, turning to face Jimmy with wide eyes. Jimmy looks at him, eyes turned to look at the curves of his face with inept attention, but his ears cannot seem to focus on Timmy Turner’s joking rambles as his thalamus is fully enwrapped with the feeling of his nerves transporting the feeling of Timmy’s lithe fingers brushing along his biceps like so . “We’re supposed to be, like . Actually doing stuff.”
“ The warehouse is a few blocks away from your current location, Timmy and Jimmy, ” Spongebob says from the opposite end of the receiver, where he simultaneously seemingly remembers that he too has a job that he is supposed to be doing. There is the clicking of a keyboard in Jimmy’s lab, ( the one that Timmy had always teased about being a little too loud; the one that he said he could hear when he slept the night and Jimmy would stay up late working on fatuous code ) and the sound of silence before Spongebob speaks once more. “ Danny, you have to go down the hall and take the next two rights to find the device that Jimmy wants you to get. ”
“ I already have the device, Spongebob. I just need somebody to make a distraction, so they get off my back— ” Danny starts the first syllable of his next sentence, before he is cut off with an annoyed groan and an exasperated grunt.
Jimmy can feel Timmy’s fing ers tense around his bicep. Jimmy’s hand is pressed on top of it ( comforting ) before he can even think twice.
Once, many years ago, when the team was still fresh and the friendship was the grandest part and their missions were nothing more than defeating the Syndicate in simple plans that they used to combat alone as part of their day-to-day life, Timmy Turner had declared himself the role of being the group jester; the source of levity and jokes and teaseful remarks and laughing sly smirks.
At the time, Jimmy rolled his eyes and mumbled a snide comment underneath his breath and returned to whatever project he was working on at the time ( worthless now, worthless then ). Spongebob was a source of unbridled positivity that Timmy Turner could never even begin to radiate, something that only the foolish would demand to take.
But levity is different then Spongebob’s positivity, Jimmy thinks now, when he has seen all that he has seen and done all that he has done. Positivity is always thinking good; it is making jokes out of an already positive scenario and strengthening bonds that have already been created. It is the sun on your skin on a plentiful day and a smile that makes your cheeks ache with joy. It is an award and a batch of cookies and love so sweet it makes your teeth hurt. Positivity is the key to being a team of loyalty, one that they can count on.
Levity is always making good. It is making jokes out of the bad and reminding people of who they once were and who they can hope to be. Levity is failing your science test and your math test and your english test and thinking to yourself that perhaps you will pass your history test. It is the end of rain on a day where you have spent nothing but time looking at the way wet droplets race down your bedroom window. It is last place and burnt dinner and broken hearts; a team where you win when you lose and the take-out you get after burning your meal and the fresh start after an ended toxic relationship. It is the key to being hopeful; to being successful.
Jimmy does not think that he would be standing here today without the ringing bells of the jester and his endless remarks.
( He thinks of the time he snapped at Timmy to just stop when they were on a mission three years ago. The boy’s mouth audibly closed, bones clicking shut, and he had been a sort of fearful quiet the duality of the mission and woefully ashamed when Danny broke two ribs. He was quiet when he cried at the end of Danny’s bed when he thought no one was looking, apologizing profusely. He was quiet when he wandered through the halls of Jimmy’s house, eyes black and skin hollow. He was quiet and remorseful and his silence was pitiful. Jimmy wished he had enough of a nerve to get down on his knees and beg for him to say another word; one laced with the levity that he once claimed to know well. Danny was better and he was alive but it felt as if he had lost Timmy, because he did not smile like he used to and he did not joke, neither. )
“Danny, status report,” Jimmy says after Danny’s line goes silent after a moment. It is more to calm his hyperventilating friend than for the benefit of the mission, for Timmy is digging sharp pink-painted nails into Jimmy’s arm. “Danny?”
“ You’ve got to be shitting me ,” Danny says after a moment’s pause, and if it was any other moment, Jimmy would laugh at the way Timmy seems to physically deflate at the sound. They are like brothers, the two of them. He has your back and you have him . Jimmy would be envious if it was anything else. “ There’s more?”
“Do you need Spongebob to use a portaling device to travel to your current coordinates?” Jimmy asks, brow rising. Spongebob squalls at the idea, bored from sitting behind a desk during a mission as exciting as this. “Spongebob, I’ll send you his location now.”
“That would be great, yeah,” Danny grunts in response. There is the sound of his fist ( solid ) making contact with the nose of somebody else; the crack is unmistakable. “I know we were joking, but I would also really appreciate it if you two got a move on with griefing that base. It would create a nice distraction.”
“Got it,” Jimmy says, because now he is playing the part of a professional . He is the coordinator of the superheroes that Timmy Turner loves to claim that they are. “Spongebob, these coordinates are being sent to you through my watch. They will appear in the machine automatically; just press the green button and wait for it to tell you to go.”
“ Okie-Dokie, Lemon-Chokie! ” Spongebob gleefully exclaims in response, singing a little bit as his voice fades from the other end of the receiver as he walks away from the microphone and towards the machine. Jimmy prays that he will be alright.
“Danny, Timmy and I will be muting ourselves on the line,” Jimmy says, pressing a finger against the device in his ear. Timmy’s neck snaps to look at the brown-haired boy, but he mutely does as he is told as his finger fiddles at the end of his ear. “We expect you to do the same. Only unmute yourself if there is an emergency or announcement to avoid any disturbance or interruption.”
“ Understood, Neutron ,” Danny says, mimicking the singful tune of Spongebob’s answer. The reply falls short, but Jimmy knows that if Timmy was still online he would have laughed at the impression. “ Don’t die, guys— ” which is sweet within itself, but then he follows it up with: “—I have a feeling that since we’re not getting paid, we’re probably not getting any life insurance benefits, either—I mean, maybe Spongebob is, because he works for the Krusty—”
Jimmy rolls his eyes, nails glazing along the off switch in the corner of his ear. “Goodbye, Phantom.”
And then it is silent.
Good , Jimmy thinks to himself. He loves his friends, truly , but there is only so much unorderly chaos one can take before he considers actually installing a self-destruction switch into their own blood and veins. Actually, now that he thinks about it, perhaps he should rethink an ejection button into the group vehicle he was building for them, he can see the—
“So, uh. Lovely weather we’re having, innit?”
He spoke too soon.
“Why are you British?” Jimmy asks as he leads them towards the end of the park, where the warehouse lies a few blocks away. Timmy grins at him, mouth twisting at the ends to display a selfish sort of squander.
“I think if we’re really about to play into this Minecraft warehouse griefing strategy, then we should also be allowed to have fake civilian identities,” Timmy says, elbowing Jimmy in the side again . Jimmy snorts, looking towards his side as they cross the road.
“It’s going to take less than an hour,” Jimmy responds. “You won’t even talk to anyone.”
“My name’s going to be Charles,” Timmy says, as if Jimmy had never even interrupted him in the first place. When he continues the conversation, his voice switches back to a poor mimicry of a British accent, supposedly an attempt at this so-called levity that Jimmy adores so much. “Which is a British name, so he obviously has to be British, innit?”
“It’s not British, though?” Jimmy asks, but he’s grinning as he responds. “Stop saying ‘innit’ after every single sentence.”
“You can be Richard,” Timmy says, and Jimmy knows what the punchline is before Timmy even says it, but he finds that he is laughing anyway. “Because you’re such a Dick.”
And it’s really not that funny, but then Timmy is squeezing his arm in anticipation to what Jimmy’s reaction is going to be to the joke, and Jimmy can smell the scent of lingering freshly mowed grass from where he jumped over the trash can at the park, and there are all of these senses that his thalamus cannot control that filter into his brain all at once; unfiltered and real and always there , like a reminder that this is the idiotic boy that can twist his brain in a way of mirth like no other. It is Timmy Turner, in his purest form, that can make Jimmy laugh in what would normally be a time of stress.
It has always been Timmy Turner.
“Oh, wait, shit,” Timmy says, with the British accent back in his tone. “Because you’re such a dick, innit ?”
“You’re so stupid.”
“Charles actually has a PhD in every single major, ever,” Timmy remarks, and his smile continues to twist upwards like a snake. Jimmy arches an eyebrow again in response, leading the other boy along the sidewalk as they try their best to nonchalantly approach one of the nameless shops in the distance. This is where Spongebob’s directions have led them; the warehouse. “He knows how to say ‘fuck you’ in forty different languages.”
Jimmy opens his mouth to respond, teasing quip already on the ends of his lips as he looks down at Timmy with all of the fondness of the world. It would be so easy, he thinks, to rush into the nearby shop and pretend like they are like everyone else who wanders into coffee shops and tries on prom dresses that they cannot buy. It would be so easy for them to be like everyone else; to be in love.
He doesn’t know where the idea comes from, but he pushes it away as fast as he can while light red cheeks replace the idea on his face. It’s not unwelcome, so-to-say, but it is something that he has tried not to think about before—he does not even know where to begin with that simple idea; this idea of enamoration.
So he opens his mouth to say a distraction and closes his eyes so he can turn his back on his feelings, but then somebody runs into his shoulder and it feels as if everything is crashing down. The body against his shoulder comes hard and leaves just as fast, painful and just and something that Jimmy should be used to but he isn’t . It is as much as he can do to turn around and look at the person who turns around the corner of the block, Timmy’s hand leaving his arm as he turns to look as well.
“What the—” Jimmy mumbles underneath his breath, before being cut off again as somebody runs between the two of them. They hit Jimmy’s shoulder again, causing him to stumble a few feet forward as his brows sew together in confusion .
When he looks over his shoulder, he can see another one coming. And another one. All of them stumbling over their own fast pace as they run out, out, out of the alleyway next to the warehouse that the two of them supposedly need to destroy. It’s two pieces to a puzzle that should fit together and do fit together but Jimmy has not had enough time yet to fit the two of them together.
Timmy’s fingers slide between his own ( fitting together perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle. Jimmy doesn’t think about that too long ) as he pulls him out of the way of the oncoming hooded men. He follows willingly as they run into the nearby alleyway between two shops, where a dead end stops them barely even four feet from the street.
“They’re coming out of the warehouse,” Timmy says, a little breathless. He is able to put the pieces together faster than Jimmy, for he does not have to worry about the red flush on his cheeks at something as simple as a warm hand in his. “Do you think—”
“They’re heading to where Danny is?” Jimmy says, turning over his shoulder to look at the men that run past. “I do, yeah.”
“Well shit,” Timmy returns with half of an anxious laugh. The nerves in his tone makes Jimmy’s neck turn to look at him with an audible click , and he watches as the other boy runs a hand through his hair in the bare light that the alleyway provides. “That’s not good.”
“At least the warehouse should be empty?” Jimmy offers, but it sounds like a weak defense on his own lips. They both know that if it comes to it, the empty warehouse is nowhere near as important as the health of their friends: they both know that Danny and Spongebob combined can take the strength of an ambush of men, but there is the great ‘ what-if ’ that stands in the back of both of their minds. What if the masked men have the element of surprise on their side, attacking unprepared boys? What if one of them gets hurt and the other has to worry about the injured and fight an entire army of armed men? What if Jimmy’s barked orders are the last thing he says to Danny Fenton and Spongebob Squarepants, friends unmatched?
Timmy raises a brow at Jimmy’s response, wide and displeased with Jimmy’s missed mark at simple jesting. Jimmy purses his lips in worry, biting his bottom lip until it bleeds . He glances over his shoulder at the sound of a talking man passing by, his gaze flashing on the sight of an intruding man in a black suit.
When the man walks by, he has a phone pressed against his ear. Differing from the other men in the speed of his pace and the short and brisk form of his stride. Jimmy is able to catch the snippet of a rushed conversation as he walks past with haste: “—there’s more of them planning to infiltrate the warehouse?”
“ Shit ,” comes Timmy’s hushed voice from somewhere behind him. Jimmy runs his top lip over his bottom, tasting the copper of blood along his front two teeth. These are two more puzzle pieces; things that he needs even more time to comprehend what to do with. He just needs time .
The next wave of men do not run past the alleyway, but Jimmy notices their shouted commands from the opposite side of the building, where they are barking orders at each other loud enough that he can hear them if he pays abrupt attention. It takes him a moment, but one of them says: ‘ check the alleyway across the street’ , followed by the command ‘check the park !’.
He turns back to Timmy with wide eyes.
They were prepared for nothing more than destroying a warehouse; the only weapons they have are stacks upon stacks of dynamite in Timmy’s tote bag and hairspray and a lighter in Jimmy’s backpack. Timmy’s fairies are with Danny, helping him find his way out of a different warehouse as they zip through the walls to find an exit. Jimmy didn’t bring his raygun because it would have been hard to hide amongst the public eye ( which is something he is regretting now, with men who have been rumored to kill searching for him and his friend ). They will not, cannot, hold off an ambush of men like the others; not on their own.
“ Shit ,” Timmy echoes Jimmy’s own worries. Jimmy does not think he could say it more elegantly himself.
There are the sounds of men walking across the pavement; footsteps pounding, guns rattling in their own quivers. Jimmy is able to watch as they check the alleyway across from where they stand right now, on the other side of the street. Their guns are poised, ready to shoot.
Jimmy’s heart is racing. Shit, shit . Shit.
“What are we going to do?” Jimmy asks, watching as Timmy takes a step closer to him. There is nowhere for them to hide, and if they run out of the alleyway, it is only a matter of time before the rest of the men find them wandering through the street with dynamite in their bags. “We can’t interrupt Spongebob and Danny—they’re fighting more men than we are.”
Jimmy turns to look over his shoulder once more, because there is the sound of footsteps sneaking closer and closer and closer than they were before.
Then, it happens all at once: there is a gun flashed in the corner of his vision and a pair of men’s faces blocking the light of the street. Jimmy’s head is grabbed between the hands of Timmy’s own, steering his face towards Timmy’s and away away away from the barrel of the gun. Jimmy’s eyes close immediately, expecting an impact of the brush of a bullet against his abdomen, red and sticky as blood coats his skin ( it is an experience well known ).
But there is no pain.
Instead, there is something soft against his lips; Timmy’s hands against the skin of his cheeks and a finger anxiously rubbing at the hairline in front of Jimmy’s ear.
It takes Jimmy a second longer than it should to realize that the feeling prodding against the corner of his lips is Timmy’s own , and it takes Jimmy a second longer than that to realize that they’re kissing .
Timmy pulls away before Jimmy can lean into it—before he can wrap his hands around his waist and pull him taut against his body. Before he can rub his bleeding bottom lip against Timmy’s top lip and taste his own blood against Timmy’s chapped lips. Timmy pulls away before Jimmy can get a chance to enjoy it; to worship something that he has missed without even knowing about it. It is something he wishes to take and take and take.
Timmy does not look at him as he looks over Jimmy’s shoulder, close enough that Jimmy can feel his breath on the side of his neck. It makes Jimmy freeze under the movement; it makes his hands stiffen at his sides and his eyes widen in suspense. There are goosebumps on his skin and the hair on the back of his neck is standing up in a desperate plea for more .
Timmy’s hands travel downwards on Jimmy’s face, barely brushing against his neck before they finally land on Jimmy’s shoulders. He looks at the man with an eyebrow cocked in suspicion, but Jimmy can feel the way his hands shake when pressing hard against Jimmy’s shoulders. “What are you guys looking at?”
Jimmy can feel the sound of a gun being loaded. He knows that if it were him in Timmy’s position, he would not be able to keep a straight face. He does not know what to do, what to say, when so blatantly faced with the simple possibility of death.
“You guys just,” one of the men say, voice boyish. He pauses to catch his breath, and Jimmy grits his teeth as Timmy’s nails press into his shoulders even harder . He prays that he does not do anything out of the ordinary—does not get shot. “Make out in alleyways, huh?”
“The guy’s irresistible, what can I say?” Timmy says, and Jimmy can see his trademark smirk out of the corner of his eye. “His name’s Dick, and we met after I just got out of my PhD test. For my PhD. I saw him and immediately knew I had to gobble him up— Just like his namesake. You know.”
Jimmy closes his eyes, top teeth biting against his inner lip as he tries his best not to snort anxiously at Timmy Turner’s nervous ramblings. It is another sense of Timmy Turner’s levity—his way of endlessly going on and on about something that never really made any sense in the first place. There is no ‘PhD test’, and the fake names that he came up with are precarious at best. If the men shoot him because Timmy Turner came up with the worst fake identities known to men, then Jimmy is going to ask Danny if he can make him a ghost so he could kill Timmy Turner again .
Timmy continues, almost interminable. Jimmy wonders if now he has the liberty of being able to lean down and kiss the words out of his mouth; he wonders if he is free to shut him up in a way where his lips grace his own. A touch of god. “If you don’t know, that’s going to be real awkward, because then I might have to show you, which I don’t really want to—”
“Jesus, kid, I didn’t ask for your entire backstory,” the same man responds, tone exasperated. Timmy skittishly shrugs his shoulders in response, shaking against Jimmy as he manages a small, terribly anxious, horribly afraid, god-awful volatile smile. “Did ya’ see a pair of boys wander through these parts?”
“No,” Timmy responds, voice quiet. Jimmy steps on his foot, and the other boy manages to bite back a shriek as he coughs into Jimmy’s shoulder. “I mean, no . I haven’t been paying attention to anything besides this man, officer. You know how it is with love.”
“Officer?” A different man mumbles underneath his breath, but the other one seems to pause for a moment ( and based on the flash of fear in Timmy’s eyes, it appears as if the silence was filled with a hostile action: a scoff or a roll of his eyes or the cocking of a gun ) before mumbling about looking at the next alleyway.
They leave as they came, with footsteps that recede in the back of Jimmy’s ear.
Jimmy does not turn around to watch them go; too afraid that they will catch the sight of fear in the white of his wide eyes and will think twice about letting them go so easily. He is still and he is silent and he does not even dare to look at Timmy, who he can still taste on his own lips.
“Sorry about that,” Timmy offers quietly, voice a tone of silence that Jimmy has never really even heard before; like he wishes he could just fade into the darkest corners of the alleyway and never be seen by anyone ever again. Jimmy does not know if he is apologizing for the kiss or the lie or the interaction they had in the first place, but he does not take a step away from where he stands, and his breathing comes out labored as it hits the side of Jimmy’s neck. “We’re going to be stuck here for a few more minutes, just until they leave this street and move onto the next. They’ll think it’s suspicious if we leave immediately.”
He’s silent for a moment longer, before he opens his mouth and continues again. Timmy’s voice is as shaky as it was when he was held at gunpoint. “I’m sorry for kissing you, it was just the first thing that came to mind and I panicked and now when they come back they’re going to think we should be kissing and I’m so, so sorry because now I’ve put you in an awkward spot and—”
Jimmy cuts him off with soft lips against the corner of his mouth.
He closes his eyes again, this time without fear, and he thinks that it is as easy and joyful as he thought it would be; shutting Timmy’s mouth with a gesture as grand as this.
He pulls away slowly, leaving his eyes closed for a few seconds more. He can feel Timmy’s breath against his chin and he presses his lips together gently to savor the loss of chapped sharp edges against them. He wipes away wet blood and laps at the taste of Timmy that still lingers flavourly; worships every piece of the boy across from him that he was given that he may never have again.
Timmy’s fingers tighten against the deltoids in his shoulders, and Jimmy slowly opens his eyes. He does not know if he will see a disappointed face frowning back at him, or one that Jimmy recognizes from walks in the park and movie nights at home ; faces of mirth that grin with eyes of excitement ( and perhaps something new. Perhaps cheeks that blush with admiration and pupils that are wide with love ).
When he does, Jimmy’s sight is entirely him . Timmy Turner. His eyes are gently closed like he was sung asleep by the choir of a church, and his chin is tilted upwards as his lips are gently curved like so . There is nothing disgusted or disappointed or even unlovely in his features; all of it painted like a boy in the presence of Eros during the era of the Greeks, so heavenly in love with everything about Jimmy Neutron that he would chisel his own features to look the pristine boy of Jimmy’s own perfect expectations.
Which is ironic, because now that Jimmy is thinking about it, he does not think there was ever a boy as perfect as Timmy. Never a boy as lovely and pristine and divine; funny and smart and everything that he is not. Something new, something beautiful.
His eyes flicker open, blinking once, twice , as his gaze flicks towards Jimmy’s. He is unabashedly nervous for a moment of a second, cheeks blushing red and an exposed smile coating his lips as his hands sneak closer to the base of Jimmy’s neck. Then, the lovesick smile on his face is replaced with something coy, and he rubs a thumb against Jimmy’s jugular vein as he grins impishly. “Guess Charles is a pretty good kisser, huh?”
And it ruins the moment, but it is a joke that is so Timmy that Jimmy does not think he would trade it for anything else.
“I don’t know,” Jimmy says, sharing Timmy’s grin. His hands find his waist, and he digs his fingers into his lower back, returning the favor of the Timmy Turner shaped marks he’ll have on his shoulders when he wakes up tomorrow. “Maybe you’ll have to try again. I mean, scientifically speaking, if you want a perfect experiment you need to calculate a mean—which requires at least three pieces of varying data in order to qualify as such, so.”
Timmy hums lazily in response, taking a step closer as he presses his lips against Jimmy’s once more. Soft and sweet and everything that Jimmy had never known he was missing. He pulls away a little slower, his lips only moving by an inch as he presses his forehead against Jimmy’s. This time, his eyes are open. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
“The electron transport chain is a series of proteins and molecules that transfer electrons from the nutrients in the cell to the acceptors in the cell wall,” Jimmy responds, and Timmy is against his lips once more.
Jimmy can taste the grin of Timmy Turner’s upturned lips against his teeth, and Jimmy knows that he too, boy-genius, is grinning in response. It is so easy to forget about warehouses and friends and men in black; people that should matter and do matter but not when it is Jimmy and Timmy. Not when it is just them, with Timmy’s lips pressed against his like so.
Timmy takes a step forward, and suddenly their bodies are flush against each other as Jimmy drags them against the wall of the alleyway, his own back hitting the cold bricks of the opposite surface as he presses Timmy’s waist against his own. Timmy’s left hand is pressed flush against the side of Jimmy’s neck and his other hand curls at the end of his jawline, cold fingers rubbing against the metal bar of his glasses as Timmy’s front teeth bite down on the already forming scab of Jimmy’s bottom lip.
It is intoxicating, Jimmy thinks: the way the boy in front of him consumes so much of his presence. He is the only thing he can smell, like fresh grass. The only thing he can see, when he opens his eyes to see Timmy’s own bright blue ones staring back at him. The only thing he can feel, against his forehead and his cheek and his neck and his hands and his mouth . Timmy Turner is like the ocean, swallowing him whole in the beauty of his waves. Jimmy does not even try to fight the current as it pulls him deeper in.
Timmy pulls away with a sharp bite to Jimmy’s lower lip, licking at the blood that comes from the reopened scab as he pulls away. Jimmy trembles underneath the feeling of cold teeth against the place on his body with the most sensory neurons, gasping at the sudden need to consume the boy in front of him with everything he has inside of him and more .
“That’s two,” Timmy says softly, and Jimmy’s hands tighten against his waist, mission forgotten. Timmy looks at him with eyes that are wide and a mouth that is red from being kissed silly, and Jimmy thinks that he has never looked better. “Do we need to get a third? To see if I’m mean or whatever.”
“To get a mean,” Jimmy responds quietly, chasing Timmy’s lips as he presses a quick, teasing nibble against the corner of his mouth. Timmy giggles in response: Jimmy feels like a schoolboy in love, getting quick kisses behind the nook of the hallway. “Although, I don’t think any of those actually counted as being the same. The first were soft and the second were sharp; they didn’t have enough dependent variables to count as the same experiment.”
Timmy scoffs in an amused sense of annoyance, giggling fondly at himself once more. “I think science is the worst thing in the entire world.”
Then, he is back against Jimmy’s mouth, pressing soft kisses against his now bleeding lips, almost as a silent apology. His front teeth are large enough that Jimmy can feel them brush against his skin even when Timmy’s lips are closed, and the mixture of sharp and soft is something addicting that Jimmy does not think he’ll ever get used to. It is everywhere against Jimmy’s skin in the somewhat dark alley, pressing against his lips and with hands pressed against his face and with his waist pressed against his hands.
Slowly, steadily, carefully, Timmy’s lips trace the outside corners of Jimmy’s lips and across his cheek, where he mouths at the bone of Jimmy’s jaw near where his ear and face connect. The feeling of his lips against the skin of the bottom of his ear is addicting , something that makes his knees shake with a sort of fever. Timmy is soft with his movements in a way that he isn’t with his words, and Jimmy wants to shout at him to hurry up as he continues to mouth at his earlobe, because he kind of wants to return the pleasure as he runs his thumbs along the bottom of Timmy’s abdomen.
Timmy’s lips travel along his jawline and towards the underside of his chin, where he mouths at the loose skin hanging there before moving onto his neck. He bites at the jugular vein of Jimmy’s skin and Jimmy can feel his heartbeat against Timmy’s teeth, something that makes his breath halt in his chest. He thinks that his heart is stammering fast enough against the cold, keen surface that he could be found dead in this alleyway, without the man’s gun pointed at his back.
There are worse ways to go, Jimmy thinks as Timmy Turner moves towards the place on his neck where his thumb had graced the skin only moments before. He does not bite ( Jimmy wonders if he is afraid of the permanency of it all, the idea that perhaps this is a mistake; something they have only done in the comfort of an anonymous alleyway. ) but he kisses with an achingly pliant will of his lips. Jimmy thinks that this one interaction in the alleyway of a random street of a random city of a random dimension will ruin any and all other men for him, forever.
“Hey,” Jimmy says as Timmy pulls away. He leans forward, lips pressed sweetly against Timmy’s lips ( because he is eager to return the favor just as quick ) before moving to the bridge of Timmy’s nose with a soft smile. He pulls away to meet Timmy’s eyes, because he thinks that this , here, will be love in its purest form. “There’s that new restaurant you wanted to go to in Dimmsdale, right?”
Timmy hums, pleasantly surprised at both the comment and the way Jimmy’s lips kiss the wrinkles of worry away from the point between Timmy’s eyebrows. “Is my mind betraying me, or is Jimmy Neutron actually asking me out on a date?”
“You made the first move,” Jimmy says with a grin, hands pulling away from Timmy’s waist to find his hand, entwining his fingers in his own. It is so easy, he thinks once more; so , so easy to love a boy like this. “It seems only fair that I asked you out, right?”
“To be fair, I only made the first move because I thought we were both going to die,” Timmy says, but he smirks at Jimmy like they have not been making out for the past few minutes. Jimmy finds that he wishes he could kiss the sly smile off of his face; so he does.
Timmy hums into the kiss, and Jimmy swallows the sound greedily, combining it with his very essence and reconstructing his entire personality to fit the noise alone.
When Jimmy pulls away, Timmy follows. His eyes are hazy with love and his lips are upturned with a thoughtless, prideless smile. “Didn’t want to die without knowing what your lips tasted like. I’ve had a crush on you since, like. The third time we met.”
“ What ?” Jimmy asks, unable to keep quiet as his eyes widen for reasons unrelated to lips on his own or guns pointed at his back. Timmy manages a sheepish smile in response, leaning in for another kiss, but Jimmy pulls away just as quickly, making the other boy feign a childish pout. “You’ve had a crush on me for how long?”
“Like, five years at this point?” Timmy manages with a shrug, grinning at Jimmy as if he hadn’t just grabbed the ends of Jimmy’s brain and folded them down the middle, completely rewiring everything he had ever thought he knew and everything he didn’t. “When I was eleven you were taller than me— which is really all it took at that age —and now you’re, like. Smart.”
“I’m smart ?” Jimmy smirks, pressing his mouth against the bump on Timmy’s cheek where his bone presses outwards near his eye. He can taste the way Timmy’s eyelashes flutter as the other boy supposebly rolls his eyes, still laughing at Jimmy’s soft kisses.
“A total smartass, yeah,” Timmy says, and Jimmy hums against his temple as he moves his hands to the back of Timmy’s neck, where he presses soft fingers against the nape of hair at the end of his head. “You know, Dick wouldn’t talk back like this.”
“Charles is a foot taller in my mind,” Jimmy says, pulling away softly, beaming. He is still on the high of endless puppy love, mind running circles around the buzz of kissing as he stares down at the boy in front of him; now that he gives himself the opportunity to kiss ; to make out , it is everything he could have possibly wanted and more. “ And he doesn’t distract me when I’m trying to blow up warehouses in the middle of town.”
“Charles must be a perfect man, then,” Timmy says, but he pulls away at Jimmy’s request and Jimmy tries not to let the yearning to be pressed taut against the boy once more show on his face. He must not do a good job at hiding his expression, though, because Timmy grins at whatever he sees on Jimmy’s face and steals one more kiss ( just because he can ). “The standards are impossibly high.”
“C’mon, boy-genius,” Timmy says, weaving his hand in Jimmy’s. “There’s a warehouse calling our name.”
And Jimmy does not think he minds. Not when Timmy pulls him out of the alleyway with their hands slotted together like perfectly fitted puzzle pieces ( that just took time ) and a suspiciously gleeful grin on his face as he steals a kiss from Jimmy’s lips before throwing a piece of lit dynamite through the open window of the warehouse’s roof.
No, Jimmy thinks as he leans forward to return the kiss; the sweet gesture. He does not mind at all.