Forever You & Me
Title: Forever You & Me
Author: elphie_7
Pairing: Arnold/Helga
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I neither own Hey Arnold nor make any money off this.
Song Prompt: "I Only Have Eyes for You" by The Flamingos
Summary: They'll always be there for each other. Forever.
Word Count: 890
Location/Time Period: Hillwood High School; 60+ years from now
A/N: I'm not quite satisfied with this one since I really haven't written anything in a while. It was first inspired by an episode of Buffy and sort of manifested into this fluffy (and a smidge gorey) story. Also, I imagine the custodian speaks with a repressed British accent. I don't know why.
Are the stars out tonight?
I don't know if it's cloudy or bright
I only have eyes for you, dear
The hallway was almost completely deserted, save two barely recognizable figures. School had been out for at least three hours, every team practice and club meeting had dispersed, and the only sounds remaining throughout Hillwood High School were the clanging of rusty pipes in the third floor women's bathroom and the squeak of the custodian's mop bucket in the cafeteria, finishing a few last floors before morning.
That, and the lopsided screaming match between two of Hillwood's darlings in that last spring's Cutest Couple contest, a title which appropriately disgusted Helga and clearly embarrassed Arnold even now.
"What do you mean I CAN’T leave?! I will do anything I damn well please!" Helga bellowed, tearing the bloody blue cap from her head and throwing it meaningfully on the floor. She set her jaw and drilled her fiery eyes into Arnold's; he didn't back down.
"Come on, let's just talk about this," he replied in a calming, yet loud, tone that did not match his eyes. Disregarding all caution for his limbs, he reached toward her and grabbed her pale wrist with his own ghostly hand. Even in the middle of a fight, he was still rather amazed that her hand could feel so soft and light, yet strong and calloused at the same time. For a brief moment Arnold lost track of what he was arguing, where he was standing, what he was thinking. All in the world was held in his hand and glaring at him; all that mattered was that she was not pulling away. Yet.
He continued, only slightly aware of the fist the hand attached to the wrist he grasped was forming, "You know why you can't leave. Why we can't leave." Something flickered resignedly in her eyes briefly and he knew she was at the part of the argument in which she knew he was right but still had a few ounces of futile fight left in her. It was like this night after night, every moment of their existence.
Arnold raised a hand to her pale cool cheek and gently traced the outline of her forever perfect jaw with his knuckles. Sure, they were stuck in constant limbo, forever frozen as the seventeen year-old figures they'd grown to resent as what would have been eighteenth, nineteenth, sixtieth birthdays came and went. Sure, they never saw the light of day, nor did they see old friends, awkwardly shuffle back and forth on the dance floor at Prom, kick rival ass at the Friday night basketball games. But, Arnold wondered night after night, couldn't they for one night be happy?
"I don't really see why not. This sucks; I hate this school, I hate these hallways, I hate the stupid jock trophy case in the senior wing, I hate that God-forsaken clanging every single night, and I just want to GO already! What the hell are we doing so wrong that we can't just leave, really leave?!" Helga's words lost nearly all their venom as she choked back sobs that would never really come to fruition in the form of actual tears. Arnold took the rest of her in his arms and let her sob pointlessly against his torn shirt. The wounds had never healed and bits of glass was still stuck in the skin of his chest, next to an open gash surrounded by an everlasting stain of deep red blood that he no longer needed.
Arnold rubbed Helga's back, avoiding the bits of glass and metal embedded between her shoulder blades so as not to upset her further. "Be rational now," he tried soothing her with the voice he's used with Grandpa after Grandma had died so many years ago.
Helga at once pulled away from his embrace. "Be rational? Arnold, when have I ever in life or in death been anything that even remotely resembled a rational person?" Sarcasm dripped from her tongue but her eyes were kind and defeated as she nuzzled back into Arnold's gaping chest wound. His arms found her waist and wrapped her in as closely as he could. He could hear the custodian finishing up in the cafeteria and wheeling the mop bucket back to storage, approximately two feet from where he and his forever-seventeen paramour drifted. Almost 6:45, Arnold noted to himself, recognizing the pale oranges and yellows in the morning sky through the window atop the entrance to the high school twenty feet or so down the main hallway. Arnold saw the custodian from the corner of his eye and stopped breathing, so to speak, as the elderly man walked right through them.
The man looked up and turned to face the figures he could not see. "Must be a bit drafty, I s'pose," he shrugged and maintained course to replace the mop bucket in the storage closet. "Time to face the little urchins," he mumbled as he wandered to unlock the front doors. A mess of students from the first busload burst into the hallway, trudging past the long-forgotten tribute on the wall to two students who had died saving one another from the fire that destroyed the last high school so many years ago, before even their grandparents could remember. Arnold and Helga began to disappear as sunlight broke into the hallway.
"Same time tomorrow night?" Arnold offered with a smirk.
"Obviously, Football Head."
Author: elphie_7
Pairing: Arnold/Helga
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I neither own Hey Arnold nor make any money off this.
Song Prompt: "I Only Have Eyes for You" by The Flamingos
Summary: They'll always be there for each other. Forever.
Word Count: 890
Location/Time Period: Hillwood High School; 60+ years from now
A/N: I'm not quite satisfied with this one since I really haven't written anything in a while. It was first inspired by an episode of Buffy and sort of manifested into this fluffy (and a smidge gorey) story. Also, I imagine the custodian speaks with a repressed British accent. I don't know why.
Are the stars out tonight?
I don't know if it's cloudy or bright
I only have eyes for you, dear
The hallway was almost completely deserted, save two barely recognizable figures. School had been out for at least three hours, every team practice and club meeting had dispersed, and the only sounds remaining throughout Hillwood High School were the clanging of rusty pipes in the third floor women's bathroom and the squeak of the custodian's mop bucket in the cafeteria, finishing a few last floors before morning.
That, and the lopsided screaming match between two of Hillwood's darlings in that last spring's Cutest Couple contest, a title which appropriately disgusted Helga and clearly embarrassed Arnold even now.
"What do you mean I CAN’T leave?! I will do anything I damn well please!" Helga bellowed, tearing the bloody blue cap from her head and throwing it meaningfully on the floor. She set her jaw and drilled her fiery eyes into Arnold's; he didn't back down.
"Come on, let's just talk about this," he replied in a calming, yet loud, tone that did not match his eyes. Disregarding all caution for his limbs, he reached toward her and grabbed her pale wrist with his own ghostly hand. Even in the middle of a fight, he was still rather amazed that her hand could feel so soft and light, yet strong and calloused at the same time. For a brief moment Arnold lost track of what he was arguing, where he was standing, what he was thinking. All in the world was held in his hand and glaring at him; all that mattered was that she was not pulling away. Yet.
He continued, only slightly aware of the fist the hand attached to the wrist he grasped was forming, "You know why you can't leave. Why we can't leave." Something flickered resignedly in her eyes briefly and he knew she was at the part of the argument in which she knew he was right but still had a few ounces of futile fight left in her. It was like this night after night, every moment of their existence.
Arnold raised a hand to her pale cool cheek and gently traced the outline of her forever perfect jaw with his knuckles. Sure, they were stuck in constant limbo, forever frozen as the seventeen year-old figures they'd grown to resent as what would have been eighteenth, nineteenth, sixtieth birthdays came and went. Sure, they never saw the light of day, nor did they see old friends, awkwardly shuffle back and forth on the dance floor at Prom, kick rival ass at the Friday night basketball games. But, Arnold wondered night after night, couldn't they for one night be happy?
"I don't really see why not. This sucks; I hate this school, I hate these hallways, I hate the stupid jock trophy case in the senior wing, I hate that God-forsaken clanging every single night, and I just want to GO already! What the hell are we doing so wrong that we can't just leave, really leave?!" Helga's words lost nearly all their venom as she choked back sobs that would never really come to fruition in the form of actual tears. Arnold took the rest of her in his arms and let her sob pointlessly against his torn shirt. The wounds had never healed and bits of glass was still stuck in the skin of his chest, next to an open gash surrounded by an everlasting stain of deep red blood that he no longer needed.
Arnold rubbed Helga's back, avoiding the bits of glass and metal embedded between her shoulder blades so as not to upset her further. "Be rational now," he tried soothing her with the voice he's used with Grandpa after Grandma had died so many years ago.
Helga at once pulled away from his embrace. "Be rational? Arnold, when have I ever in life or in death been anything that even remotely resembled a rational person?" Sarcasm dripped from her tongue but her eyes were kind and defeated as she nuzzled back into Arnold's gaping chest wound. His arms found her waist and wrapped her in as closely as he could. He could hear the custodian finishing up in the cafeteria and wheeling the mop bucket back to storage, approximately two feet from where he and his forever-seventeen paramour drifted. Almost 6:45, Arnold noted to himself, recognizing the pale oranges and yellows in the morning sky through the window atop the entrance to the high school twenty feet or so down the main hallway. Arnold saw the custodian from the corner of his eye and stopped breathing, so to speak, as the elderly man walked right through them.
The man looked up and turned to face the figures he could not see. "Must be a bit drafty, I s'pose," he shrugged and maintained course to replace the mop bucket in the storage closet. "Time to face the little urchins," he mumbled as he wandered to unlock the front doors. A mess of students from the first busload burst into the hallway, trudging past the long-forgotten tribute on the wall to two students who had died saving one another from the fire that destroyed the last high school so many years ago, before even their grandparents could remember. Arnold and Helga began to disappear as sunlight broke into the hallway.
"Same time tomorrow night?" Arnold offered with a smirk.
"Obviously, Football Head."