For what felt like the hundredth time, Jimmy sighed heavily, rustling the leaves on the branch he was sitting on. A small caterpillar popped over the top of a knot and inched its way along the tree limb and away from Jimmy. Jimmy watched it with mild interest for a moment, but then settled against the thick trunk of the oak and back into his morbid and bitter thoughts.

Go on, then, he told the furry caterpillar silently. Everyone else seems to be mad at what I do as well.

And it was true. Even when things weren't his fault, people acrimoniously told him off. He didn't even get a chance to defend himself when he was point-blank accused of setting one of the high school labs on fire the other day! (He had, of course, been the offender in that instance, but he was never able to properly explain he had just been trying to fix a small fuel leak in his jet-pack backpack, and the only reason it had been detonated was because some certain girl – some infuriating girl who still wouldn't admit his intellectual superiority, who wouldn't let him go one day without a degradation of some sort, who still insisted it had been all Jimmy's fault, who still could not buy pants the proper length – decided to put her Bunsen burner right next to him!)

Good grief, how he loathed her.

But then there were those…moments. (Even Jimmy was at a loss for words and couldn't describe them as anything else.) They were moments when Jimmy felt so confused, as though his genius I.Q. was slowly diminishing into nothing, leaving him a bewildered puddle of mush. They happened at such seemingly random times and for reasons he either did not know or was afraid to admit. Like just last week, when Cindy had actually complimented him in chemistry and peered around his shoulder to look at his skillfully completed lab assignment, he had been so distracted by the hand that was lightly holding his upper arm, he had only been able to give a very unintelligent, "Ohuuuhnn…" Even with all the collective pranks Cindy and Libby had pulled on him in the past, it was hard to find a memory where he had been more embarrassed.

Then, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered why he had been so humiliated. It was Cindy, for crying out loud! The fact that she had reduced him to the same state as a drool monkey was infuriating enough, but now he was reduced to sitting in a tree, doing everything in his power to avoid running into her again. Because maybe, perhaps, if he didn't see her, these unsettling feelings would finally sort themselves out and he could have a moment's peace.

"Hey, Jim!"

Jimmy looked down and saw Carl standing at the foot of the tree, looking up and waving. Jimmy waved back as Carl started to climb up and said, "Hey Carl." He grabbed his paunchy friend by the collar of his shirt and hoisted him up the rest of the way.

"What are you doing up here?" Carl asked, adjusting the thick-framed glasses on his face.

"Hiding," Jimmy supplied, snapping a twig off the branch he was sitting on and spearing a leaf upon the end. "Though I suppose it's doing me no good, because it's my own self and my inexplicable feelings that are setting off most of my primitive 'fight or flight' instincts. You can see how this tree holds no protection from that…"

Carl looked nervous. "Yeeaah, okay, are you going to start asking me any confusing questions, because my doctor says he can't raise my medication dosage for my anxiety fits any higher!"

"No, Carl," Jimmy said, patting him on the shoulder reassuringly. Carl sought out more comfort from his inhaler. Jimmy turned his attention back to the street in front of him when he heard voices approaching and could just see through a leafy veil Sheen, Libby, and – his stomach clenched – Cindy stop in front of the latter's house.

"My Libbilicious Queen!" he heard Sheen saying, (which wasn't all that hard considering the volumes his grating voice could reach,) "I thank you for the honor of escorting you and your most esteemed friend to the Candy Bar, and I hope to be graced by both your presences again very soon!"

Both girls giggled and chorused, "Thank you, Sheen!"

Jimmy's chest leapt. As if her voice were the final piece to a puzzle, the swirling turmoil of emotions within him finally clicked something into place. Suddenly very determined and decisive, he vaulted himself out of the tree and sprinted across his yard as soon as his feet touched the ground, ignoring Carl's wondering call of "Jimmy, what's wrong?" He dashed across the empty street and skidded to a halt in front of Cindy, breathing hard.

"Hey Cindy!" he gasped, grinning broadly. His instincts were screaming at him to leave while he still had some of his dignity left, but his insides were still soaring and kept him firmly rooted to the spot. His mind had been made up, though by what he still wasn't quite certain.

"Neutron," Cindy said, almost questioningly. She looked him up and down with an air of suspicion. "What do you want?"

Jimmy continued to grin stupidly and stare aptly down at her while he answered, "Nothing, really, just wanted to get a few things out in the open."

Cindy was beginning to look a bit apprehensive, though she continued to sneer through their eight inches of height difference up at him. "Oh really? Like what?"

"Oh, where to begin," he said jovially. "At first I thought it was just some incredibly ridiculous case of hormones – but then, we've known each other for ten years, right?"

"Oh, look," Cindy said bitterly, already not liking the conversation Jimmy had situated her in. "The genius has learned to count."

Jimmy's smile only widened and he nodded. "And yet I can't count the number of times I've wanted to tell you but have been too cowardly, or too stubborn, or not even aware of it! For a genius, I sure have been dense."

"As I've told you many times over the last decade," Cindy said venomously, hands on her hips.

Jimmy nodded again. "That you have! But back to my point. Doing the math, back then I wouldn't have even known what hormones were, so this was some other sick form of nature."

"I'm beginning to think that, once again, you have nothing intelligent to say," Cindy sighed, looking like she would very much like to punch Jimmy.

"Probably not, because just the idea is ludicrous!" Jimmy paced in front of a her, a few steps to either side. "And the possibility of me expressing it through words is about as likely as Sheen passing school the first time through –"

"Hey!"

" – but c'est la vie."

"Neutron, just what are you babbling on about?" Cindy's anger – though not abating any – was now accompanied by full-blown confusion.

Without further ado or stalling, Jimmy leapt forward, put his hands on both sides of her face, and solidly connected his lips with hers in a smothering kiss.

Libby's jaw hit the ground. Carl needed to take several more calming puffs of his inhaler. Sheen just stood there, at loss for words for the first time in his life.

It was after a few excruciating seconds that Jimmy broke his contact with Cindy. He did a dance, skip, and a hop around her and shot off down the street, running as though Death were pursuing him. Fate was with him, though, because Cindy didn't regain control of her senses for another short moment, giving him a sizable head start. Once she came to, though, she wasted no time in sprinting after him, shouting, "Neutron, I'm going to pulverize you within an inch of your life!"

Carl had managed to scramble out of the tree and walked over to his pair friends, all three of them too dumbfounded for words. As they watched the two rapidly disappearing backs of their unstable friends, abjectly wondering who would be next to snap, Sheen found his voice.

"What, in the mighty name of Ultra Lord, was that?"

Carl was wheezing and clutching at his chest. Libby shaking her head, answered.

"Just a couple of idiotic teens who don't know how to properly say 'I love you'." She affectionately stood on tip-toe and kissed Sheen on the cheek. "I'm just glad you're not that immature…"


A/N: The first few paragraphs of this was a post sample I wrote for Halfa-Goddess and her AMAZING site. Unable to contain my inner fan-girl, I continued on and this came out. It's pretty short, and I felt it deteriorated a bit, and will most likely be torn apart and redone at a later date in time.