Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold, or anything else that I've mentioned.
Full Summary: So what did happen to Helga and Arnold after that faithful night in Las Vegas? How did they handle the one of many new predicaments they were in? Find out!
Housekeeping: This isn't going to be a full blown story. It literally is going to be a series of chapters that pop in at certain times in their lives. Some chapters will be small, some big and, just like my other story, the end has already been per-decided and partially written at this point.
A/N: Enjoy!
Fun times with Dave and Kate.
Present.
"Well, hello there gorgeous." Nine-teen year old Helga turned in her chair to see a dude come sliding up into the spot across from her all smooth like, as if he owned the damn place. Thank you hotel bars. They just let anybody in. His goofy little half grin had her at least entertaining him long enough for a swift chuckle and an intrigued expression.
"And who are you suppose to be?" She finally asked, downing the last of her gin and tonic. That fake ID was certainly still coming in handy. Of course two more years and she'd be legal and probably not give a rats tookus about drinking anymore.
"I'm Dave."
"Ah," She nodded, popping her brows once while pushing her empty glass to the edge of the cocktail table. "Well, Dave, I'm Kate," She lied. She knew how this all worked. Shifting her eyes from the drink, she re-planted them on her guest, "Can I help you with something?"
"No," He chuckled, "You were just by yourself and...I was just wondering what a girl like you is doing all alone in a place like this?"
"Having a drink before a night out," She replied rather matter-of-factly.
At about that time, one of the waitresses walked by them and was flagged down by her guest, "Can I get a Fat Tire and..." He looked at Helga, "Whatever the lady would like."
"Another gin and tonic. I guess."
When the waitress ran off to fetch their drinks, he leaned in and said, "Out on the town huh? I'm guessing you've got a lucky guy running around here somewhere."
Helga snorted but leaned into the table on her elbows, "God I hope not," She smirked at him.
This sent his eyebrows creeping towards his hairline, "Single?"
"Separated, actually."
That seemed to intrigue him the most, if her judge of his facial expression was accurate, "Wow...divorced huh?"
"-ing." She corrected him, "Divorc-ing. I mean, sure I wish it were past tense at this point but, you know. These things take time...unfortunately."
"Hm...must have been pretty nasty."
"Yeah, well...it's what happens when you date for a hot minute and then get married very quickly...in Vegas," She sat up and cleared her throat, "You know what they say. What happens there...sometimes really should have just stayed there."
Her guest chortled slightly, "I've never actually met somebody who got hitched in Las Vegas. Did you go to an Elvis chapel?"
Helga looked off a little thoughtfully, actually pondering it for a moment before finally replying with, "I really don't know."
The waitress walked by and sat the drinks down between them and her companion handed off his debit card that he'd quickly maneuvered out of his back pocket, and wallet. Taking a small sip from his drink he then asked, "So...wait, you don't remember getting married?"
"Not a bit," She laughed, "We think maybe we took some sort of drug that caused us to blackout. We woke up the next morning with a pair of these," She held her left hand up, wiggling her third finger at him so he'd see her ring tattoo.
He perked a brow, "Is that a tattoo?"
She nodded, staring at it for a second while saying, "Yeah...all permanent and crap. You know that mofo never bought me an actual ring either."
He snorted, "Not to be mean but, this guy sounds like...kind of a loser."
"Big time loser. He has nipple rings, for Christ's sake. Nipple rings. Who has those?"
He started laughing, "Yikes! The nineties called."
"Right?"
"Let me guess. Bad tattoos as well?"
"Sheesh. Does he ever."
"So a neck tattoo of your name in crappy cursive then?"
Helga snorted, "Not that bad." He gave her a skeptical look and she continued, "He has my name on the bottom of his foot though, and the word duck fat on his upper inner arm."
"Duck fat?" He repeated.
Helga rolled her eyes and kind of waved it off as no big deal, "Safe word. It's an inside joke."
"Ah. Still, who tattoos that on themselves where other can see? Where did you find this guy again?"
Helga looked down at her drink, smirking to herself, "Officially, at a bus stop when I was five. But," She looked back up at him, "Unofficially he ran me over with his car in high school."
"Holy moly."
"Yup. I was nearly paralyzed from the impact."
"Wow."
"Had to learn to walk again and everything."
"And you still got together with him? After all that?"
Helga popped her head to the side and shrugged, "Yeah. Well, he helped me out, you know...learning to walk again and all, and then we hooked up and then I got hooked on the crazy good sex," She laughed, "Silly me right? So anyway, Dave..." She began running her finger around the rim of her glass, desiring to know a little more about him at that point, "What about you?"
"I was married."
"Oh, are you divorced now too?"
He shook his head, "Oh...no, no, she's dead. God rest her soul."
Helga stopped and just looked at him for a second. Did she just hear that correctly? "I'm so sorry for your loss."
"Yeah..." He nodded, "Freak sewing accident."
"A...I'm sorry did you just say 'sewing accident," Her eyes subconsciously thinned.
"She was trying to make too thick of a quilt. Snapped the needle right off and it ricocheted straight into her heart. She died in my arms," He sort of did a weird impression of him cradling someone in his arms.
Helga was looking fairly unamused by that time, because she was. She'd never heard such bull crap. And she'd come up with some fairly elaborate bull crap in her time. "That is...certainly an unbelievable accident. When did that happen?"
"Three months ago."
"And you're already out on the town? That was quick."
He shrugged, "Well, when she was dying in my arms, her last words were, 'You're too young. Find someone else.'" He said the last part as if he were taking his dying breath. Really laying the dramatics on thick.
"Mmmhmm." This guy was something else. Something. Else.
Dude took another sip from his drink, and then looked at Helga with a more wanton stare while leaning into the table on one elbow, "So I'm just going to cut to the chase, girl. I came over here because you're looking smokin' hot in that short little dress and your..." He slightly leaned over to catch a glimpse of her shoes, "...'bone me' heels tonight. How about we head back to my room and I'll bend you over the desk and show you the fifty states," Helga's mouth slowly fell a gape in complete surprise of his outward audacity. "Or if you aren't down with that, we could go to the bathroom and you could give me a hand job. What do you say? Little slappy, make daddy happy?" He perked a brow at her, a little smirk coming up on his stupid face as his lids drooped lower, giving him those alluring, half lidded bedroom eyes.
What...an A-hole.
She promptly tossed her drink in his face and slid out of her chair, leaving him careening backwards, knocking his own glass over as he began wiping his eyes while she walked away from him.
"Hey, ho!" She stopped, hearing him yell out from behind her, "You owe me two Goddamn drinks you fucking bitch!" The tiniest smirk briefly fluttered her face. God was she ever turned on by a man who had a foul mouth, among other things as well, but probably because it had always been like pulling teeth with that guy who shared a couple tattoos with her.
As turned on as she was by it, she managed to compose herself enough to spin around and fix dude with one of her famous death glares. The ones that Harold knew all too well in grade school, "Excuse me? I'm sorry, do you want to take this outside, bucko?!"
"You're damn right I do!" He huffed in retort.
"Fine! Let's go little boy!" She pointed to the door and they began marching towards the stairs unwilling to wait for the elevator, bursting into the stairwell in a whirl of hot and fiery intensity.
As soon as the door clicked behind them, Helga heard him sneer, "You don't scare me, little girl."
She had just reached the bottom of the first set of stairs when she decided to stop, spinning on her heel, and peering up at him, "You know, you are incredibly...incredibly lucky that the assertive dick head shtick gets me hot and bothered," She then grabbed his shirt, yanking him to her for a crushing kiss, her other hand falling down, grabbing his crotch rather assertively herself while she breathlessly moaned, "I want to get thrown against the wall and banged like a screen door in a hurricane."
Her companion groaned, "There is a good chance of us getting caught."
"Don't turn me on anymore," She hummed back.
He knowingly smirked before slinging her up against the painted bricks beside the steps for a very exhilarating quickie in the stairwell of the hotel. Afterwards, while they were both still catching their breath, he still having her pressed firmly against the wall, and Helga having yet to un-wrap her legs from around his waist, she heard him start laughing against her shoulder. Arnold finally picked his head up and looked at her, "A screen door in a hurricane?" He asked his wife through his giggling.
One year prior. Las Vegas.
Arnold chortled as he shut his menu, having found what he wanted to eat, "Assuming that, it's not already null and void, because I'm sure we used our fake IDs. Do…" He began drumming his fingers nervously, and licked his lips, "Do you want to stay married or…?"
Helga looked up her lashes at him before sitting back in her chair a bit, running her tongue over the inside of her cheek for a moment, "Well…do you?" Yeah, she knew it was really lame to throw the question back in his lap but...she honestly was still kind of afraid of scaring him off with her answer. Even if it were completely and utterly ludicrous at that point. And considering everything else that had happened.
Ahhh...old undying insecurities. They were like glitter. You could never get rid of them.
But they were talking marriage here. Marriage. Holy bonds...at least to the government.
As nervous as she was about her inner wants, her boy seemed to be unbothered by it, shrugging a single shoulder as a smirk dragged the side of his lips high, "Why not?"
Helga chuckled before finally sighing, bringing her left hand up to, once again, stare at the inky black band wrapping around her ring finger. "We made it as hard to undo as possible anyway, didn't we?"
"It's like blackout us, knows us better than we do."
"Clearly," She looked back up at him, finding herself feeling so warm and fuzzy on the inside that it was impossible not to wear a smile, "Okay..." She agreed, "Let's stay married." Arnold's smile widened and he pushed himself into leaning across the table, clanking from the handcuffs still on his wrist making an ungodly scraping as he solicited a kiss from her, one that she laughed into, "And let's try to kick butt at this, okay?"
Her husband snorted, "I love you."
"I love you more..." She kissed him, "Also, we really need to figure out where the key is to those things."
Present.
Helga smirked, "You liked that huh?"
"That might be my favorite so far. You know, of all the ways you've vividly described how you want me to bone you."
"I like to keep you on your toes, babe. Keeps things interesting."
"Speaking of which...this was spontaneously interesting."
Helga gave him one of her looks, "Yeah. It was. Nice twist, bro man. We've never pretended not to know each other before."
Her husband's face shifted into a bewildered one. Clearly they weren't on the same page of what happened, "Me? I just went along with you. I thought you felt like doing something different tonight." She unhooked her legs and he gently set her down on her feet, getting himself re-situated and his pants zipped up in case anybody decided to be using the stairs.
Rolling her eyes, she smoothed out her, by then very wrinkled dress, as best as she could, all things considering, "You're the one that came back to the table all, 'hello there gorgeous.'" She mimicked his voice, "Like you didn't know me or something."
"Um, that's a figure of speech," Arnold crossed his arms and smiled at her, "You were the one that asked who I was suppose to be."
"Also a figure of speech, Hair Boy."
"Well, I...just went with it." He defended with a shrug. "Turned out fun, I'll say."
"I'll say. Ten out of ten," Helga then snorted, having thought of the funniest part of the night, "But Dave is the best name you could come up with? And your wife died from a sewing accident?" She was really laughing at that point.
"Hey, you dropped divorce on me! And you know I'm not great at improving."
"Eh, I wanted to see if you could stay in character. And kudos babe, you surprised me there," She grinned at him, "And sorry about the whole drink in the face thing. I was in character and it felt appropriate," She ran her hand over his damp polo. "Seemed like something a Kate would do honestly."
Arnold started laughing, "Kate is a total hate-er."
"God, I was trying not to laugh the entire time, especially when I was walking away," She chuckled, wrapping her arms around him and pushing up on her toes to give him a lingering kiss, "But when you mouthed off at me like that, I soaked my panties. It was so hot."
Arnold laughed too, "I knew you'd love it. Even though my soul cried a little calling you those words. I don't think I've ever sworn that much in my life."
"I know. So hot. And by the way...they're called 'fuck me' heels, much sexier than saying bone."
Her husband smirked, "Eh, I've reached my cussing quota for the next six years. Thank you miss."
Helga smirked, "Whatever you say, bro man."
"Oh, here are you underwear back," His hand slipped up between them with the garment semi-wadded up in his hand. His wife rolled her eyes, lovingly of course before snatching the away from his paw and slipping them back on. "Does it really bother you that I never bought you a real wedding ring?"
Once righting herself, Helga cast him an absurd look and waved him off, "Um...no."
"I figured. I just...didn't know if you were trying to hint to me something."
His wife snorted, giving him another loving eye roll. He really should have known better by then. But alas, he still could be...Arnold sometimes. "We just had sex in a public stairwell, since when do I hint about things?"
"Never," He agreed before offering her his hand as he guided them to the next flight of stairs, assuming they were done with the hotel bar for awhile, "Where do you want to go now?"
One year prior - Home.
"Alright so...Arnold and I have and bit of an announcement to make," The pair stood in the living room of her sister and Owen's house, having just arrived back from Las Vegas.
"Does it have to do with the sports car you came back with?"
Helga crossed her arms, "Not...directly but it was probably involved somehow."
"Oh my goodness..." Olga's hand shot to her face to cover it, causing her sister to roll her eyes a bit, "Are...you selling drugs?" She said the last part in such a quiet squeak of a voice that the room could barely hear her.
"Seriously?"
Olga was still ghost faced, and suddenly in a position to justify her speculation, "Well, it's just that...with mom and—"
"While I'm flattered that you think I have the capability of running an empire to rival Pablo Escobar..."
"Nobody said that..." Owen said, unamused.
"Our news is much more tame."
"Well?"
Helga looked at Arnold who just shrugged back, "We got married." Olga nearly blanched while Owen doubled over in laughter. In other words, exactly the reactions she had expected.
"How and why?!" Was all her sister could manage to sputter over her husbands hysterics.
"I mean, we didn't mean to," Arnold replied, "We sort of think we got drugged or something, because we don't have any memory of the night. I one that car in a poker match. I don't even play poker!"
"Oh...oh, you two are too funny," Owen finally righted himself and began wiping the tears from his eyes, "I've got to go call Carl..." He said, beginning to walk away, "He owes me $5 on a bet."
"Of course..." Helga murmured, watching her brother-in-law walk to the kitchen.
"So what is happening now?" Olga pressed.
Helga shrugged rather casually, "We're staying married."
More laughter from Owen all the way in the kitchen.
That Night.
Helga walked back through Arnold's cracked bedroom door, dressed for the night and wearing a very peculiar expression upon her face. His room was bigger and a lot more private, and they had decided that, that was where they would be staying. "So, remember how we could never find the key to those handcuffs?" She stated, closing the door. They had finally gone to a hardware store and had them cut it off before going home.
From the bed, where he was already stretched out, his eyebrows raised, "What about it?"
"Apparently I swallowed it."
"Hmm, how'd you figure..." He trailed off when he saw her giving him a deadpanned face, "Oh...right."
"Probably need a tetanus shot now or something," She chuckled while climbing in beside him and snuggling herself up to his person.
"In case of emergency, break bowels," He teased back, wrapping his arms around her. "You know, last time you were here overnight, you had to make a smooth getaway."
"Which I ended up at home, begging Owen not to tell my sister," When Arnold just looked at him, she tossed her eyes, "He figured it out immediately."
"That guys a wizard."
"He's...something."
"But guess what?"
Helga smirked, "What?"
"Now we get to go to bed and wake up in tangles every morning from now on."
November
August crept up, school had started, they had moved into their little apartment on campus, Arnold starting his journey into the world of culinary arts and Helga...well...undeclared at that point, but feeling optimistic and some sort of life calling would grab her at some point.
September crept by, the October...
While all of her other general education courses were boring her to death, as they were suppose to, she was really grabbed by a creative writing class she had signed up for as a fun class. The professor was very free range, and she liked getting to read other peoples creative spin on topics. Some were more dramatic, some very depressing, but she quickly realized that she was a fountain of comedy. She enjoyed writing things that made people laugh more than anything. Which was weird for her because, while she was very random, and found herself in a lot of funny situations, she never considered herself, purposefully funny.
But one particular writing topic seemed to get some wheels turning for her, as far as finding a passion in something. The writing exercise had been to write a sci-fi scene. Scene? Pfft. She'd written a ten page micro story entitled, "The adventures of Shelga and Bro Man dude."
A stoner sci-fi adventure.
After class a couple days later, she was approached by a couple of her classmates. "That was probably one of the funniest things I've read in here." One girl, who sat towards the back said.
"Uh...thanks," Helga said, pulling her book-bag on.
"Sam," The girl stuck out her hand to be shaken, which Helga did.
"Nathan," The guy next her then said, offering his hand too.
"Sorry, didn't mean to ambush you. Have you ever thought about joining the campus comedy club?" Sam asked.
"Honestly? Never heard of it."
"Oh, well it's a club, obviously, for students who enjoy writing comedy. We meet on Wednesday down at the Hickory Tavern's open mic night. If you're interested, you should come by."
"Yeah, cool," Helga nodded, not super interested but...didn't want to be rude, "What all do you guys do? In this club. Besides just sit around a be funny."
"All types of things. Some of our members are involved in the theater department, writing original comedy plays. We have a comedy show that airs on the campus station on Saturday nights that Nathan and I personally write skits for."
"Some of us act in it too," Nathan pointed out.
"Neat."
"Yeah. We've had a couple of our past members go on to do stand up and, quite a few have gone on to work on some sitcoms and stuff."
Helga's eyebrow perked with the faintest bit of interest, "Really?" Truthfully, the idea of doing either for a living had never crossed her mind...but she was intrigued none-the-less.
A life time of...shenanigans?
Maybe she would check it out...
Present.
"Oh I don't know babe. We've got the whole night ahead of us," Was Helga's non-commital reply and Arnold led them down the flight of stairs and into the hallway of the floor so they could catch the elevator the rest of the way down. It was a rather tall hotel they were staying in.
"Exactly," He spun around to face her, after pressing the downward pointing elevator button, "The whole night. You can't tell me that there isn't something rattling around in that mind of yours."
The two doors parted and they both stepped in, punching the lobby button, "Well, duh. I'm me," She smirked up at him.
"Wackiest thing you've got. Go!"
"We could go to a strip club and I could buy you a lap dance."
Her husband's eyes thinned a little as he peered at her, knowing that it couldn't possibly be that straight forward. "That doesn't seem all that bad..."
"A women's strip club."
Arnold deadpanned, "You're diabolical."
"You asked, Bro Man." She sneered as their elevator ride reached it's destination, the doors parting for them to slip out past the herd of people trying to go up. She grabbed Arnold's hand and pulled him, while turning around and walking backwards, "Viva Los Vegas, baby. Happy one year."
Arnold smiled, "Happy one year, wifey poo."
A/N: For some reason I got "Fox on the Run" by The Sweet stuck in my head while writing this. Crazy. Alright, well, again, as I mentioned above, this epilogue is going to have time jumps galore as we pop in and see where they end up. This isn't going to be long or anything, but think you guys will enjoy the few little time drop ins I've gotten planned, and I think you'll enjoy the final ending. Thanks for sticking it out with me!