original here. dated 2011-11-04
~
They’re not really sure when it started. Well, no, that’s a lie. All of them are sure about when they think it started, but none of them agree:
Timmy says it was that Friday the 13th dance all those years ago; “we were dancing together—and Cindy even admits she went to the dance with both of us.”
“She went to the dance with both of us, yes, and she was both of our dates, but we didn’t go to the dance with each other.”
“Actually, Neutron, since we all arrived at the dance at the same time and from the same place together, we all three did, in fact, go to the dance with each other.”
“Haha! See, I am so right! Take that, boy genius!”
“Oh, Timmy, you really aren’t.”
Cindy thinks that that’s far too early—they were just kids, they didn’t really know anything back then, boy genius aside. “If it had any specific beginning,” she argues, “it was in high school.”
“What?”
“No, no, now you’re too early. You were my girlfriend in high school.”
“Only because Timmy was still living in his old dimension—”
“Then how would it have started in high school?”
“Let me finish! Only because Timmy was still living in his old dimension and you know how high school is, peer pressure and all that. And plus, the two of you were still shy—it took you forever to kiss.”
“Well, that just proves my point then, Vortex.”
Jimmy knows it didn’t really start until even further after that, it was definitely in college.
“Look, the facts don’t lie, it can’t have started before Timmy came to live in this dimension. And like you said, high school wasn’t really the best place to foster any kind of relationship that didn’t match the accepted social norms. We couldn’t really accept ourselves a-as a… as a…”
“I believe the phrase you’re looking for is ménage à trois, Neutron.”
“I can’t believe he still stutters at that. Just call it a threesome, no need for fancy words. But it’s okay, I love both of you for your bodies, not your minds… nerdy babes, the things I put up with.”
At this point in the disagreement, they lose their train of thought or get distracted by other topics or end up in a bit of roughhousing that turns a lot friendlier. It’s a conversation they’ve had before, rehashing the same things over and over, so it’s easy to drop it. Because what really matters isn’t when it started, this relationship of theirs, only that it exists.
~
College was fraught with a lot of surprises. Mostly the fact that he even went to college. Timmy that is. To be honest, with all of the poor schooling and sadistic teachers and limited attention span, he’s still kind of surprised to have even graduated from elementary school let alone high school. And no one really expected him to continue on to higher education. Least of all himself.
Actually… no one really expected him to do anything with his life. (Why does that seem wrong to him, somehow? He feels like there was someone, maybe two someones, who cared about him. But why wouldn’t he be able to remember them then?)
… Well, no one in his old dimension anyway.
What are you going to do now? Will you be going to college? Why don’t you live in this dimension? Wouldn’t you like to come with us? What are you going to do now?
They had asked. And he had answered. Through the inter-dimensional portal he went. (None of them can remember what inspired Jimmy to invent the inter-dimensional portal, they’re pretty sure that Timmy came through first but they’re not too sure how that would have happened.)
He had only two sets of clothes and his favorite comic books in his backpack, money not working across different dimensions and not really having much else of value. (He had considered bringing his goldfish bowl, even if there were no more goldfish in it and he wasn’t sure why. He had gone back to get it when the three of them finally got a place of their own. Cindy always asks why they don’t get some fish for it, but he feels like it just wouldn’t be the same.) And he had gotten used to living without much stuff, his parents constantly forgetting his existence and Vicky destroying most of what he did have.
He wouldn’t really have been prepared for college even with more stuff. He’s still not actually sure how he got accepted, though it he thinks it might have to do with Jimmy giving him credit on some inventions—he hadn’t actually done any of the science-y stuff, but he had come up with the ideas, and no college is going to say no James Isaac Neutron—and maybe with Cindy’s family’s connections—and practically nothing on Earth is going to say no to Cynthia Aurora Vortex. [It’s actually neither, the school wanted the honor of having the first inter-dimensional student, regardless of how mediocre his application was.]
But he did get accepted into college. Even if he did struggle in introductory general education classes and hop from major to major with no clear idea of what he wanted to do. Even as his friends blazed ahead: Cindy getting a heady combination of degrees in business, political science, and biochemistry and Jimmy dominating all levels of the engineering department like he had been born to do so.
And at some point, Timmy, being one of the few people not driven off by the constant inventing and in desperate need of a place to stay [though that’s not at all why Jimmy chose to do all of his noisy tinkering in the middle night while his previous roommates were trying to sleep. Not. At. All.] moved into Jimmy’s apartment. And at some point after that, Cindy, already practically living with them—eating, studying, sleeping, even bathing there—officially moved in, bringing whatever hadn’t already migrated it’s way there.
It confused the hell out of their peers and professors. But that didn’t matter at all.
~
Money is… kind of not an issue for them. Definitely not for her, and surprisingly not for him either. Jimmy that is. Sure, his brain’s wired almost exclusively for science, but he’s not a total idiot when it comes to finances. It’s just simple arithmetic. But anyway, the point is that he knows how to handle money—the resources for his inventions don’t just pop out of thin air and there’s more to engineering than just making things. He had to get his inventions out in the market somehow, and it’s not like he’s going to let Cindy handle all of their business and financial needs [Jimmy has to at least pretend like he’s still got some pride, even though Cindy and Timmy know the truth.]
But money is not an issue for them. They work because they want to and because, honestly, they’d be horrifically bored otherwise. They do still have the tendency to go on crazy adventures, or maybe stop the occasional menace, but it’s not like they’re superheroes or anything [though there was that one Halloween…]
Cindy alternates her time between her family’s company [Vortex Incorporated has a hand in almost everything from televisions to sports equipment to pharmaceuticals to you name it] and being an associate of the law firm Manson Pataki & Sanchez [the three managing partners are very impressive and inspirational ladies, and are noticing her work ethic]. Her boys aren’t all that sure how she does it, but they do make sure she gets enough rest and relaxation.
Timmy is an elementary school teacher and counselor. He’s very good at his job. His students love him and it’s educational and fun in a way school never was for him. He gets to be a child again, and he missed that (he really does and it seems like more than just nostalgia). He also writes children’s books about magic, to his scientifically-inclined lovers’ despair, about kids with fairy godparents. (He knows that it’s all his imagination, but it doesn’t always feel that way).
Jimmy comes up with some new invention every once in a while and passes it off to the R&D department of whichever company he’s showing off to [usually a certain Vortex Inc, because it’s more fun that way]. If they can reverse engineer it he lets them mass produce it as long as he gets a percentage of the profits; if they can’t he gets to play around with whatever they have in their labs [because not even he can think of everything, but either way it is a win-win situation].
So, yeah. Money isn’t a problem. They can afford the occasional sick-leave-that-really-isn’t and they use that time to maintain what really matters, even if it’s just the three of them all being at home at the same time or even some distant locales like desert islands or outer space. It works.
JackSGreyson Says 