A/N: Enjoy.

The Three Amigops Plus Two

Whoever said that the Ultra Lord franchise was just a phase, that it would die out eventually in the coming years as the primary demographic grew up and moved onto different things and newer interests, had clearly underestimated the staying power of the famed superhero. Especially when considering more than half the total gross of merchandise sales seemed to curiously originate from a insignificant town in Texas, and maybe one day the creators would realize a large chunk of their revenue came from a single megafan and reward them appropriately.

Maybe.

But until then, a hyperactive Sheen Estevez would continue to wear all manner of Ultra Lord themed clothing until his obsession was rightfully realized. So down the packed halls of Retroville High he strolled in his fitted Ultra Lord shirt, his purposefully ripped Ultra Lord pants, the socks and shoes to match, an Ultra Lord cap hanging off the backend of his spiked hair, and an Ultra Lord clip dangling from the backpack slung over his shoulder.

The years between elementary and high school hadn't really changed Sheen that much. Puberty hit, knocked his voice about, made him taller, his hair was longer, and he had mellowed out somewhat, yet his hyperactiveness and Ultra Lord were the two main constants that presided over every aspect of his life.

Next to him and taking two steps for every one that Sheen took, Carl Wheezer pushed up his glasses, which were being held together by a very obvious band of tape. Still ever freckled and rocking the same haircut from years past, except longer, there was some noticeable weight loss and no one could deny the way Carl carried himself nowadays, with a more straightened spine and he spoke with far less hesitation than his elementary days. "You don't really think we're having llama soup for lunch today, do you, Sheen?" he asked nervously.

The urge to laugh at his worrying friend was a strong one, and since Sheen was never one to exhibit mastery over himself, he burst out in laughter, leaning sideways into a row of lockers. "C-Carl, you… dude, what? Llama soup?" he repeated through chuckles, gripping a locker handle to keep himself upright. "You really think this school can afford a high class delicacy like llama soup? They can barely afford chalk!"

But now Carl looked stricken, like a ghost had just crossed his path. "D-d-delicacy? You mean, llama soup is a… no! It can't be!"

Shaking his head, Sheen pushed off the lockers and threw an arm over his portly friends shoulder, steering him on. "Hey, hey, I was just joking, calm down before you bust another synapse—you forget what Jimmy had to do did the last time to fix you up?"

A petrified whimper left Carl as memories of being hooked up to a cold lab table flooded in, all the electrodes stuck to his head, the chains and shackles holding him down, Jimmy's none-too-reassuring words bouncing around in his cranium before a switch in the distance was pulled and everything went startlingly dark—

"I didn't think so," Sheen surmised when Carl started shaking his head vigorously, the color draining from his face, "and who told you we were havin' llama soup anyway?"

"Um…" Carl picked at the edge of his nose. "Cindy?"

"Of course she did." Sheen rolled his eyes. "She was just goofin' you, Carl. C'mon, man, she's been telling you that faithfully since we were in middle school—and for some odd reason you believe it every time," he scolded with a crooked grin. "We're as likely to have llama soup as—"

"As we are of you wearing something decent to school for once," came a snide voice, and both Sheen and Carl looked up to see Nick Dean walking toward them. Ever the picture of cool that he cultivated in elementary and somehow managed to expound upon in their junior year of high school, to say Nick was the coolest kid of their grade was an understatement; he practically gave new meaning to the term with his impeccable fashion sense and slick hair. His right foot was in a cast, a remnant of his latest skateboarding injury, but even that moment, a moment that would have been an embarrassing faux pas for anyone else, was effortlessly spun into a grand tale of athleticism and bravery. "Looking fashionably lame as usual, Ultra Loser."

Sheen straightened up with a small scoff. "'Sup, Nick? Looking fashionably busted as usual, I see," he commented, noticing how several of the names adorning Nick's cast were actually following close behind him. Mostly fangirls who probably needed to be heading the other way but were ready and willing to risk a detention just to be in Nick's presence. The dedication was wild and confounding, considering Sheen was the exact opposite of popular and liked it that way, but he merely lifted a fist to the handicapped boy as he made to hobble past. "Jealously doesn't look good on you, man. Whenever you wanna upgrade your drab with some Ultra Lord fab, lemme know."

"Catch me never on that," Nick chuckled, and to the never ending surprise of his entourage, he bumped his knuckles against Sheen's in a brotherly fashion as he continued on. "And for the love of llama soup, Wheezer," he added, pushing past the bespeckled boy, "if I see you in that plaid shirt one more time I'm gonna realign my broken foot with your ass. All these years and you still dress like a college professor about to retire. From life. Just once, help me help you."

As Carl pulled on his shirt, looking perplexed as to just what was wrong with it, Sheen snorted, making sure to dodge the rest of Nick's entourage, several of whom tried to purposefully elbow him and Carl out of their way.

"I feel I just got needlessly dragged into the cross-fire," Carl muttered, though he didn't sound all that pressed about it, and that was because he and Sheen were well used to the love-hate relationship they shared with Nick.

It was a friendship they had fostered during their middle school years, and really, after saving Retroville from assured destruction, you couldn't help but become friends with the person at your back helping you fight off an alien invasion or robotic upheaval. The comraderie blossomed into a brotherhood that perplexed Nick's fanbase, a majority of whom just couldn't figure out why he associated with the hershey-dipped nerd, the toy-obsessed geek, and the whale-sized four-eyes.

Not that Nick cared. He treated them like his brothers, even going so far as to futilely try and help Carl with his wardrobe, but that was like trying to pull teeth from a baby.

"I mean, he's not wrong, Carl," Sheen was saying as they neared the end of the hallway and he plucked the collar of Carl's shirt in a speculative way. "You look like you're trynna win a 'what I wanna be when I grow up' competition."

"But… those aren't normally competitions, though."

"See, and that's why you always come in first place."

"I feel like I should be insulted, but first place is still first place."

"Can't even be mad at you for that outlook, pal," and Sheen picked up a happy little bounce in his step as they approached a pair of open lockers shielding the occupants from view. Standing off to the side and half-preoccupied with some glowing, beeping device in his hand while he gave distracted nods and "uh-huh"s to whoever was talking to him was the understood leader of their three-man group. "And there he is—the man himself!"

Even with all the commotion flooding the halls, Sheen's screech of a voice parted the noise with ease and Jimmy Neutron produced the smallest of smirks as he shook his head. "I swear, with the frequency pitch you so effortlessly hit, I could pick you out in a room full of howling monkey's, Sheen," he chuckled, effortlessly clapping hands with his friend without glancing up from his device.

No amount of science wizardry could have predicted that Jimmy would undergo a growth spurt that put him squarely at Sheen's height, but it happened, and although his limbs were a little bit gangly they fit his frame nicely; add to it he had grown into his head and his face had lost most of its baby fat leaving it far more angular than it used to be. His hair was a constant source of contention, mostly because he couldn't be assed to keep up with it so it was shoulder-length these days with a fair amount of it pulled into the tackiest ponytail known to mankind. He scratched at the admittedly eye-catching five o'clock shadow he was unknowingly nursing, highly unconcerned until he noticed Carl trying, and gloriously failing, to hide himself behind Sheen.

"Ah, Carl! Perfect timing," he said animatedly, and neither Sheen nor Carl liked the sudden gleam that sparked to life in Jimmy's eye as he surveyed his rotund friend. "You got time after school? I was just hammering out the kinks in my Stimulant Array—blasted thing was on the fritz for a couple days, almost chucked it through a wall." His lips curled with the beginnings of a scowl, then he shook his head. "Anyway, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind—"

"Absolutely not," Carl responded with a wry smile, and Sheen had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing while Jimmy merely grinned, accepting Carl's one-armed hug all the same.

"Figured you might say that," Jimmy nodded understandingly. "However… will you say the same after a large extra cheesey cheese pizza?" he haggled, inclining his head with an imposing glance down his nose.

A contrite look transformed Carl's face. "You're really trying to make me choose between pizza and potential loss of life?"

"Take the pizza, Wheezer. If the invention works that'll be a bigger contribution to society than what you've got going on currently anyway." The ridiculing voice that spoke belonged to one of the two lithe figures digging in their locker, and when they leaned back, Cindy Vortex's beaming face came into view. "And if it fails, we'll bury you with a piping hot bowl of llama soup in commemoration of your brave sacrifice."

Now Sheen was doubled over laughing, hands to his knees, while Jimmy sighed with a fatigue straight from the soul. "Vortex, c'mon, I'm trying to negotiate over here—"

"Trying to negotiate with me without even the common decency to give my ponytail a pull or two is awfully bold of you, Nerdtron," Cindy uttered distractedly, sifting through the many books in her locker.

Nonplussed by her words, Jimmy sucked his teeth. "You can brat it up later, I really need Carl right now—"

"And I need you to know, Ms Vortex, that there's no such thing as llama soup—Sheen told me," Carl said indignantly, frowning at the leering blonde.

Fishing a couple books out of her locker then shoulder-bumping it closed, Cindy adopted a shocked expression, eyebrows flying up and jaw dropping. "No way… there's really no such thing?" She gasped, a hand to her cheek. "I'm so, so, so sorry, Carl, I really thought there was!"

If there was one thing the much-lauded over Cindy Vortex detested was losing, and that spanned from any sporting activity to whatever unholy test their teachers happened to surprise them with; so it was perhaps fate righting her feverish obsession with victory by having Jimmy Neutron of all people win in the one area she couldn't even begin to compete in. And she had to watch it happen in real time, silently fuming as she witnessed her greatest rival continue to grow inch over inch, matching her in height until he finally surpassed her, simultaneously gaining victory through what she stubbornly called a "battle of vertical attrition" and forever making it so she couldn't ridicule him with any number of height-related insults, her favorite kind.

Still… in exchange for that, she couldn't very well ignore her own substantial growth. That scruffy-looking nerd might have bested her in the height category, but her chest was bigger, her hips were wider, thighs fuller, ass plumper—and while she could freely acknowledge all those were common traits that came bundled with puberty, she could just as freely acknowledge that a win was a win. And it was a win that she took immensely great pleasure in teasing the super-genius with.

"Oh, c'mon, blondie," Sheen managed to get out, straightening up and rubbing a tear from his eye, "anyone with half a working frontal lobe can see you don't really mean—"

"Aww, that's okay, Cindy!" A dopey smile split Carl's face and he looked wholly complacent, just at ease with every little thing under the weight of how Cindy hunched in on herself and tipped a finger against her bottom lip, displaying an unprecedented level of cuteness. "No need to apologize, it was a simple mistake to make."

"A simple mistake to—" Sheen did a double-take, looking from Carl to Cindy, who shot the shorter amigop a beguiling smile, and back again. "No, it's not!" he burst out, causing several other students to jump and look around. "She did that on purpose! She's been doing it on purpose since we were in elementary school, man!"

"And somehow, against all logic and reason, you keep buying it," Jimmy muttered.

"Don't pay these two spazzes any mind, Wheezer," and Cindy playfully hunched Jimmy with a shoulder, sticking her tongue out at him, "they're just upset because we're not having llama soup. Because they hate llamas."

"That would make sense," Carl reasoned, nodding.

"It—what? No it wouldn't!" snapped Sheen. "In what world does that make sense? Bypass the absolute lie that we hate llamas—'cause you know we don't—who the hell even wants llama soup?"

"You would, llama hater…."

"I'M—" Sheen started hotly, driven to the brink of madness, but just then the other locker closed with a resounding clang and an astoundingly soft pair of lips met his cheek.

"Mmmm, you're letting someone other than me raise your blood pressure, Sheen," whispered a candied voice, "and that just won't do, will it?"

Quicker than any sedative in circulation today could muster, all the built up frustration bled from Sheen's shoulders and he produced a contented expression that looked twice as dopey as the one Carl gave. And really, who could blame him? There was very little that Libby Folxfax could ask of Sheen that the smitten boy would not do, and with great spirit at that. Just as her best friend Cindy had seen some rather nice enhancements over the years, so had she, though where Cindy's was more refined thanks to her several sports-related extracurricular activities, Libby possessed more of an hour-glass figure, eye-catchingly thick and curvaceous, and her braids from before trailed down her back and were pulled into a sideways ponytail interwoven with colorful bands that she now swished to one side, holding Sheen in a smoldering gaze that froze the poor Ultra Lord where he stood.

"There's my good little ultra man," Libby cooed, and the adoring way she scratched Sheen under the chin caught a few jealous glances from passerby.

"And so soothes the savage Sheen," Cindy giggled, while next to her, Jimmy had a hand to his chin, looking pensive. "Oi, Nerdtron, what's going on in that big head of yours?" She prodded him on the temple with her pointing finger. "Hey—don't even think you're going to beat me in today's calculus test—"

She fell abruptly silent when Jimmy reached up, taking her hand in his. Slowly, softly, he dragged her finger down the side of his head, tapping it over his front lip before giving the tip the barest of flicks with his tongue. The blush that ignited in Cindy's cheeks was offset by the snide grin that curled her lip. "So… disgusting," she uttered, though noticeably, she made no attempt to take back her hand; indeed, she stepped closer to the taller boy, angling her head back. "I know Mr. Hates PDA isn't going back on his word…?"

"No. When I eat, I prefer to eat away from prying eyes," Jimmy responded evenly, and his base analogy only served to deepen the red hue circulating throughout Cindy's face. "I was just greasing the wheel a little."

"Greasing the wheel…?" Cindy blinked, wholly confused now, which was something she never liked to be. "You… huh? Greasing what wheel? What're you—oh! You mean you're trying to butter me up to go easy on you for the test!"

"This has nothing to do with the test I'm going to summarily trounce you in, Vortex," and ignoring the gobsmacked way Cindy's jaw dropped, Jimmy turned to Carl, who had been in the process of pulling out a granola bar and using his teeth to unwrap it. "So how about it, Carl? Can I count on you later today?"

"Count on me what? To be your guinea pig? Hard no," Carl replied, taking a healthy bite and lifting an eyebrow at his friend. "Nuh' f'all the pi'shuh thish shide uh' Reshroville."

That garbled speak caused Sheen to cringe, breaking him out of whatever stupor Libby had placed him under. "Dude, what?"

Nodding as though that were the answer he expected, Jimmy brought Cindy's captured finger to his nose, giving it a single tap while looking into her eyes and jerking his head at Carl. To anyone else, that signal would have seemed odd, but Cindy had years of dealing with Jimmy Neutron and his eccentric ways; she had the most experience with being pulled into his plans last minute without a heads up, and while in the beginning that was the most annoying thing about the genius, she soon found it more than a little endearing, being the only one the normally lonesome nerd could count on in the moment.

So she understood exactly what he was asking her, what he needed to 'grease the wheels' earlier for. "Hmph… at least you tried to sweet talk me first, I'll give you that," she told him royally under her breath, tapping him a little more forcefully before snatching her hand free and spinning on her heel to face Carl. "Wheezer."

Whatever was in Carl's mouth was hastily swallowed. "Y-yeah, Cindy?"

"Be this nerd's guinea pig for the evening and we can rewatch Kung-Fu Llamas 3: Enter the Meadows this weekend."

"Done and done," Carl agreed immediately. "What time you need me over, Jimmy?"

"Little after four."

"You can count on me."

The sharp sound of Sheen facepalming himself with enough force to cave his nose in echoed over the hallways bustling noise. "I know he did not just—"

"Oh, but he did," cut in Libby with a giggle, placing a hand on her tilted hip.

"Thanks, Vortex," nodded Jimmy with a 'well done' smirk.

Tapping the back of her knuckles against his chest, Cindy glanced up over her shoulder at the boy genius. "Don't waste your thanks with words, Nerdtron. I require action," she told him, her voice dropping into something husky and sensual near the end.

Returning attention to the device in his hand now that everything was settled, Jimmy started off down the hallway. "Action. Right, right. After I—c'mon, you stupid.. what relay are you missing?" He flipped open a little latch on the back, pulled out a miniature screwdriver, and set to work. "Er, what was I saying…? Oh. After I finish with Carl, I'll finish you, Vortex."

Hearing those words caused Cindy to bite her lip, a familiar yearning catching fire just behind her pupils like she wanted nothing more than to wrestle Jimmy to the ground and strip him naked… but she sighed out whatever wanton urge had caused her to shiver then slapped Carl over the back to get him walking, too. "C'mon, you guys, after the moron."

"That's one thing I'll never be," Jimmy grumbled, frowning at his device.

"Carl, I know Cindy did you a really big favor a couple years ago," Sheen started, squeezing in-between the two of them protectively and sneering at Cindy, who only rolled her eyes and dropped back to walk beside Libby instead, "but that doesn't mean you gotta be her little foot soldier and do everything she asks!"

"She took me to see Llamageddon, Sheen, the biggest llama-themed rock band in the world," Carl said matter-of-factly, as though that settled things. "I tried for weeks to get tickets in advance but they sold out like that," and he snapped his fingers, "so yeah, I'm pretty much honor-bound to be her gopher for the foreseeable future."

"Yup, them's the rules," Cindy agreed with a playful wink.

"That's ludicrous!" Sheen exploded, so loudly that a teacher poked her head out of a nearby classroom to shush him. "Cindy doesn't even like llamas like that! She makes fun of you all the time for it!"

Cindy lifted a finger, pointing at nothing in particular. "Um, wrong? I like llamas, too, I just don't collect body pillows or figurines or possess whatever weird fetish Wheezer has for them. But they are cute animals."

"Cute is highly subjective," Jimmy chimed in from the front and Sheen, thankful for the aid, thrust a hand at him.

"See? Subjective!"

"What's absolutely objective, however, is your utter lack of taste if you haven't seen the Kung-Fu Llama series," Cindy commented, staring Sheen from head to toe with disdain. "You can watch Ultra Lord reruns until you warp the DVD but you actively choose to miss out on an actual cinematic masterpiece franchise. What a shame."

The urge to flip Cindy off swelled within like a tsunami, but Sheen fought it down. "The fact that you'd even put Ultra Lord and those wooly creatures together in the same sentence," he started, the blasphemy crinkling his face. "What does llama rock even sound like anyway?"

"You'd know if you cared about anything other than Ultra Lord, Sheen," Carl responded ruefully and Cindy started laughing.

"Sometimes I wonder why I hang around you loons and then you drag me into these stupid arguments over even stupider things and I remember why," she said fondly, to which Libby nodded.

"Never a dull moment around the three amigops, I swear."

"Two amigops plus one, you mean," Sheen corrected with a venomous stare at his rotund friend.

"Plus one?" Carl repeated, aghast. "Sheen, when did you give up your position?" he queried, and even Jimmy had to chuckle while Cindy and Libby outright started laughing. "I mean, I guess that makes sense. We can't be seen in the company of an amigop with such narrow taste. Cindy can fill your spot rather nicely."

That comeback was so unexpected and on target that all Sheen could do was join the others in laughing. "O-okay… damn it, okay, you got me on that one."

"Yeah, he did, that's a burn if I ever heard one," Cindy giggled. "And I'll have to decline such a gracious offer anyway. I'm too smart, you see, too rational; I lack the stupid gene you three wear so proudly."

"Keep that same energy when it's test time, Vortex," said Jimmy, stepping through the doorway to their classroom.

"Oh, I will, Mr. Second Place."

The five of them found their desks, which were grouped fairly close thanks to Sheen jokingly bribing the teachers on the first day of school. It started on the first day of high school and just became tradition year after year, an accomdation granted in lieu of all the good they had done for the town. True, they were usually the ones behind whatever menacing force threatened their lives but they cleaned up the mayhem well enough.

"So I guess I'm wondering why you didn't just ask Sheen if you knew Carl would say no," Cindy wondered, seated on Jimmy's right and thumbing through a weathered notebook stuffed with sticky notes.

"Hm?" Jimmy hardly glanced up from his gadget, now wearing a pair of glasses with a specially built scope over the right eye as he meticulously moved a certain chip around. "Oh. Because Libby'd kill me if something went wrong."

Sitting in front of Jimmy and next to Sheen, Libby hunched a shoulder, smiling and wiggling her fingers at the Ultra Lord fanatic staring dreamily back at her. "When he's right, he's right."

"Wait, so… I'm the expendable one?" Carl surmised, pausing in the act of grinding his pencil through a llama shaped sharpener to gawk at Jimmy on his left.

"Expendable?" Now Jimmy faced Carl, nearly poking his eye out on the end of his scope. "Out of everyone here, you, Carl, are the least expendable. The way you help me work out the bugs in my inventions is second to none—and your durability toward even the most agonizing of experiments is a master class in commitment. Expendable, you say? Not even close. You're worth more than your weight in gold."

A heartfelt smile replaced the dejected look over Carl's face and he squared his shoulders with a newfound sense of pride. "Thanks, Jimmy, I was about to feel really bummed out there for a second, but now I know I have a greater calling!" he exclaimed, a fire lit behind his normally dull irises.

"Of course," replied Jimmy before leaning toward Cindy and whispering as casually as possible, "Have the llama soup on standby just in case."

While Cindy had to bite on a knuckle to keep from laughing aloud, Sheen only scoffed and swept his hat from his hair, not really keen on having it slapped off by the teacher like last time. "Tch, I know a salesman loves to see you coming, Carl, you buy anything, I swear."

"Oh, speaking of buying things…" Libby began, yet she trailed off with a mysterious tug on the front of her blouse, glancing up almost sheepishly at the Ultra Lord Fanatic. "Remember what you bought me?"

Sheen didn't immediately respond, a dull look clearing his face.

"Libs, c'mon, you know better than anyone that Sheen here has the memory retention of a jar of peanut butter," Cindy noted not unkindly, flipping to a section in the back of her notebook to check a reference before returning to the front and scribbling something down.

"Add to it, he basically buys you whatever you mention even in passing," Jimmy added, poking his tongue out to the side. "I haven't seen Sheen actually keep a single check from his job in the past three months."

It briefly crossed Sheen's mind to flip both their desks over for the betrayal, but he had already promised Libby to work on his impulse control, so he fought it by inhaling to a count of a five and exhaling. "Okay, genius boy, first of all, keep your eyes off my pockets—"

"—when you quit asking me for money to fill those pockets, I will," Jimmy responded in turn.

"—and second," Sheen continued as though hearing nothing, "I will continue to spoil my princess with whatever her cute little heart desires so long as I have breath in my body! On my Ultra Lord honor!" he declared bravely, pumping a fist, and the moment he tried to stand up in his chair, Libby snatched him right back down as though expecting it.

"And here I sit, all the while trying to figure out how I'm labeled the group simp," Carl marveled.

"When one simps for their own girl, it can be seen as loving devotion," Jimmy began offhandedly, giving the circuit board of his device one last glance over, "while being the unconditional gopher to a girl that you're not even romantically tied to, well…."

Cindy jabbed him in the side with the eraser end of her pencil. "Leave my gopher alone, Nerdtron."

"Thanks, Cindy," Carl smiled.

"Case in point," said Jimmy, unbothered.

"And b-besides," Sheen continued, the bravado and steam dropping from his voice in tune with the way he lowered his head somewhat, "anyone who can stand to be around me on that level, I just…" He clenched at his knees. "I feel they deserve whatever I can offer, which ain't much, lemme tell ya, but—but still…."

Hearing their friend begin to speak ill of himself, as he so often did when it came to accepting Libby's feelings as something genuinely meant for him, it quickly seemed to draw out the ire in everyone and, silently, Jimmy looked up, forgetting all about his invention; Cindy made a face, slowly setting her pencil down; Carl looked utterly baffled as though Sheen had lapsed into speaking German—

"Sheen," Libby called tenderly.

Refusing to lift his head, Sheen found a particular crack in the tiled floor highly interesting. "Yeah…?"

A pair of warm hands cupped Sheen's cheeks and he twitched at the sudden softness. Effortlessly, they guided his gaze back up until he was staring at her, until his eyes met those iridescent pools of brown. She regarded him with a smile twice as adoring as anything he had ever witnessed and he felt his heartbeat quicken. Not a single word left those enticing lips and yet… through her smile he could hear her voice and all the words that melted his anxiety.

"You know what you just said isn't true at all, goofball," she told him softly, and it was the melodious tone of her voice that brought a fierce blush to Sheen's face, heating her palms. She giggled at his reaction to her everything and leaned in until their noses touched, until it seemed as though time and space had left just the two of them in the classroom. "I don't care for the gifts you give me, but that's clearly your love language so I accept it. I'm with you because I want to be, Sheen, not because of what you buy me. I wouldn't give a peacock's feather if you never bought me anything again… I just want you. So listen to me, not the voices in your head," and when she kissed him the passion behind it felt like fireworks going off in his mind.

It was fated to be a brief embrace thanks to class on the verge of beginning, so when Libby pulled back, her caring eyes meeting his once more, Sheen reached up, grabbing the hands holding him steady, strengthening him.

"I'm sorry," he uttered apologetically. "I… it's just sometimes I think this is a dream, y'know? You bein' with me… like I might suddenly wake up and you're with Nick or something—"

Cindy instantly gagged, pointing a finger at her mouth.

"When llamas fly," responded Libby airily, drawing a disappointed frown from Carl, "and, well, I'm half-tempted not to show you this now because you might really think this is a dream."

Interest piqued, Sheen straightened up a little, nestling into Libby's palm. "Show me what?"

Taking back one of her hands and giggling at the way Sheen whined, Libby adopted a sensual, half-lidded stare as she once more hooked a single finger over the front of her blouse and gave it a few teasing tugs. "Remember that one special Ultra Lord lingerie set you ordered me a couple weeks ago?"

Clueless, Sheen nodded. "Um, yeah? That set cost me an arm and a leg!"

"And one of my fingers when your arm and leg wasn't enough," added Jimmy, returning focus where it rightfully belonged.

"Shut up, dude!" Sheen hissed.

Now clearing her throat and looking a little embarrassed herself, Libby leaned in once more, placing her lips next to Sheen's ear. "Well"—it was cute, the way he shivered when her breath coasted over his earlobe—"how'd you like to pull it off me with your teeth later?"

"Huwuh…?"

"It came yesterday. The set. I'm wearing it now."

"Oh! I'd love to, Libs, if I don't concuss myself when I lose consciousness in the next two seconds, that is—excuse me," and Sheen promptly fell out over his desk, foaming at the mouth.

Libby blinked, fretting as she prodded the limp boy in the cheek with a deep purple colored nail. "Sheen? Um… Sheen? Can you hear me?"

"And down in one," Cindy said with a click of his tongue, chuckling. "You're way too much for that poor boy, Libs."

"I—how? I didn't even do anything yet!"

"Your existence is more than enough, girl."

"Carl, we've got about seven minutes before class starts," Jimmy said, side-glancing the clock hanging over the chalkboard, "go grab some menthol from the science room so we can wake Sheen up. When he fails the test, it should be by his own merit, not because of whatever Libby just whispered to him."

"Why should I have to go? Libby's the one that made him pass out!" Carl protested and Libby brought her hands together in a silent apology.

"Please, Wheezer?" Cindy asked sweetly, fixing her face into an simpering pout.

Carl was halfway out the door before she could finish. "No problem, Cindy! I'll be right back, you guys!"

"I would almost feel sorry about the blatant manipulation if it weren't so sad," Jimmy remarked idly.

"Just be prepared to eat my dust on this test, Nerdtron," Cindy said with a smug grin.

There was something suave in the way Jimmy smirked. "I'm prepared to eat something, certainly, but not that, Vortex."

While Cindy lapsed into an embarrassed silence, once more looking as though a tomato had burst on her face, Libby took to soothingly running her fingers over Sheen's cheek.

"My goofy Ultra Dork…."

The End