A/N: I'll admit, I've got a strange sense of humor, but I just thought this was funny.
"Chet…." Marco gasped, "Pass me….the….water…"
"I'm…..tryiiinnng," Chet replied, sweat pouring down his forehead.
"Someone…please kill me….." Johnny moaned, sprawled out on the floor.
"God help us…" Mike moaned, sitting on the floor and leaning his head against the wall. "You guys, this isn't…as bad…as it could be…" Roy murmured, breathing heavily.
"Alright, roll call in five minutes!" Captain Stanley said, walking into the kitchen and clapping his hands together.
"Ohhh….Cap…can't you see we're dying over here?" Johnny whined. Captain Stanley took off his hat and wiped his brow.
"Come on, you sissies, mailmen are tougher than us!" he said, raising his voice.
"Cap, with no disrespect," Chet said, "But mailmen are crazy."
"It's hotter than….hell….in here." Marco said, trying to find something to compare the heat to. "Right now, hell sounds like a pretty good place to be." Johnny mumbled.
"Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor zombie apocalypse…" Captain Stanley trailed off, trying to remember the mailman's oath.
"Nor gloom of night…" Mike added.
"Stays these firemen from the swift completion of their appointed laziness." Chet finished.
Captain Stanley fixed Chet with a glare. Johnny snorted and Roy rolled his eyes.
"Are you as hot as I am?" Marco asked, just trying to make conversation.
"Well, I like to think I'm attractive," Johnny said, grinning, still sprawled out on the floor. Marco sighed and let his chin rest on the kitchen table.
"Need….water…" he moaned. Chet sat at the kitchen table too, just staring at the condensation that was rolling down the side of his water glass.
"I'm too weak to even take a drink." he carried on.
"Do you ever just wanna sit back an say 'the heck with it all'?" Johnny asked, wiping the sweat from his face.
"To heck with all what?" Roy questioned, cocking an eyebrow. Johnny frowned and narrowed his eyes, thinking about that.
"Good point." he concluded.
"Roll call!" Captain Stanley shouted. Normally, everyone would've jumped at the captain's orders, but nobody was in the mood for it. Captain Stanley stood akimbo and huffed.
"What is this?" he demanded, "Mass mutiny? Get on your feet, men!"
"Can you humor us, just this once?" Chet begged.
Captain Stanley clamped his jaw, and then relaxed his shoulders.
"Alright, we'll have roll call later, but I don't want the other shifts finding out about this."
"Don't worry," Johnny assured his captain, "What happens on the 'A' shift, stays on the 'A' shift."
Captain Stanley tossed his hat on the couch and flopped down on it.
"Don't!" Marco cried out slowly, his voice monotone with the dreariness of the heat. Too late.
Captain Stanley slapped against the leather couch and winced.
"Something tells me, I won't be getting up again." he sighed.
"Your sweaty back will stick on it and it'll be painful to rip it off." Roy informed him. "That's why I hate leather seats in the summer," Johnny ranted, "Ever try to drive a car with shorts on and the seats are leather? It's painful. It's like getting a wax job on your thighs."
"That's more than I needed to know." Roy said bluntly.
"Ever have a wax job, Gage?" Chet jabbed. Johnny was too hot to protest.
"Not yet." he said flatly. Chet was disappointed with Johnny's un-dramatic reply.
"Too bad the air conditioner broke." Mike noted. "We could be cooling off right now."
"Yeah, I wonder who broke it!" Chet snapped.
"Hey, now you had a part in it too, Kelly!" Mike shot back.
"So it was you morons that broke the air conditioner?" Captain Stanley demanded.
"Typical." Johnny snorted.
"Come on, let's stop this. Fighting isn't going to help us cool off." Roy said, putting his hands up for silence.
"I bet the dispatcher is all nice and cool in his nice and cool little office on the cool part of town, just keeping cool, because he doesn't lose his cool, because it's cool to be cool." Johnny said incredulously, starting to get delusional with the heat.
"Mmm….I can feel the breeze from his air conditioner….sooooo coooold." Chet said dreamily. "Kelly…stop it…" Captain Stanley warned.
"We should raid his office and steal his air conditioner…." Marco put in, his eyelids growing heavy.
"We tie him up and then….then…" Johnny added, gesturing his hand; the wheel was spinning, but the hamster was dead.
"…Then we hang out in his office and enjoy the coolness of it." Mike finished.
Roy widened his eyes. "Why don't we?"
All the firemen jumped up, a little off balance with the heat, and headed to the fire engine. Mike drove them to the dispatch center and they all hopped off.
"Hehehe, time to get cool." Johnny said, grabbing the crowbar off the engine and slapping it against his palm. Chet grabbed the fire ax and Mike just yanked the keys out of the engine's ignition. Hey, a murder weapon was a murder weapon. It just had to get the job done. Captain Stanley grabbed a hammer, and Roy took out his pocketknife.
"Mister Dispatcher better watch out." Roy said deviously, approaching the door to the building with the other firemen.
When they got in, there was a receptionist sitting at her desk.
"May I help you?" she asked. "Not today, doll face. " Johnny said, not even looking at her. The receptionist looked taken-aback; she was sixty-three.
"Where's the dispatcher's office?" Mike demanded. The lady blinked.
"Down the hall to the left. Don't bother him, he's-"
"Oh, we know what he's doing!" Captain Stanley snapped, leading his men down the hall. "Keeping cool, the little scoundrel!"
The receptionist knew she was dealing with crazy firemen, so she picked up the phone and dialed up security. Johnny was on to her and smashed the phone with his crowbar.
"Don't try anything stupid." he muttered darkly.
They kicked open the dispatcher's door and accosted him.
"Ha! I knew it!" Johnny cried. Roy nodded.
"We should have known!"
"What did he think he was doing?" Mike demanded.
"We'll have to report this to HQ!" Captain Stanley shouted. The dispatcher's eyes went as round as saucers and he dropped his marijuana cigarette. His dispatcher partner was as high as a kite as well.
"I can't believe this." Chet shouted incredulously.
He walked over to the air conditioner and tapped it.
"Thought you could hide it forever, eh?" he questioned, narrowing his eyes. Johnny grabbed the dispatcher by the front of his shirt and slammed him up against the wall.
"Who do you think you are?" he yelled, "Keeping the coolness all to yourself and not even letting us in on it! You should be arrested for firemen endangerment!"
The dispatcher blinked; wait, they weren't here to bust him for his marijuana dealing? Maybe they were too hot to realize what was really going on. Yeah, that was it.
"Well, we have ways of dealing with you." Captain Stanley said. Johnny threw the man down into his swivel chair and the fire captain duct-taped him in there.
"Mike," Captain Stanley beckoned, "Show him what we do with rats."
"With pleasure." Mike replied ominously, grinning. He produced the key to the engine from his pocket and approached the dispatcher with it. The dispatcher screamed; they were crazy! They were going to gouge his eyes out with a car key!
But instead, Mike held the key right in front of the dispatcher and rubbed another key against it, making an unbearable screeching noise.
"Make it stop! Make it stop!" the dispatcher screamed, swinging his head back and forth. The firemen cackled with delight; they were having fun, torturing their victim.
E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*
"You'll get your just desserts….." Johnny mumbled, thrashing around in the hospital bed. He blinked open his eyes and saw Roy laying in bed on the other side of the room. Marco was in the same room too, thrashing around as well.
"You filthy beast…" the fireman muttered.
"Hey, you guys, wake up!" Johnny said. Roy and Marco fluttered their eyes open and sat up in bed. "Wha…?" Roy asked, yawning.
"Did you have the same dream….?" Johnny questioned quietly. Roy and Marco frowned. "The dispatcher…?" Marco asked. Johnny nodded and looked at Roy, who nodded as well.
"Wow. That's incredible. How'd we end up here?"
The door to the room opened up and Dixie came in. she grinned when she saw them.
"Ah, I see you're up!" she declared, standing beside Johnny's bed.
"Yeah," Johnny replied, "But…what happened?"
Before she could respond, Chet, Mike and Captain Stanley came in, staggering a bit.
"Hey, how you doing Gage?" the captain asked, walking in.
"You guys got a call from dispatch, and when you didn't respond, they sent out the police to see what was up. They found you guys all passed out on the floor in the station, from heat exhaustion."
Johnny frowned; made sense.
"So, you brought us here?" he asked. Dixie nodded. "Hank, Mike, and Chet regained consciousness before you guys. You had us worried."
"Well…." Marco trailed off, "I guess the 'B' shift is filling for us?"
"You bet. They're not very happy about it either." Dixie informed him, crossing her arms.
"That's concern for you!" Johnny snorted, "We all pass out and they all gripe about it."
All the firemen laughed. "Can we go home?" Roy asked.
"Tomorrow." Dixie said.
"Good enough for me." Johnny chuckled.
E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E*E
Meanwhile, the dispatcher was closing a drawer full of marijuana packages.
"Those firemen will never know what really happened." he snickered ominously.