Well, this is my first Hey Arnold fanfiction. While hoping I did not butcher it, I am also thinking of what will happen, and where it will go. I have not thought so far. But, in the interim, enjoy this small, purposely salty (to keep you coming back for more) little quench for that Arnold/Helga thirst. Yes, that was weird. Just read it.
Love is for Saps
"He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery – love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. . ."
The sun of an early spring day shone in through the window, touching with its light the classroom dust and debris, making commonness special as only sunshine can. The daylight flung itself over one student in particular, its rays illuminating and shadowing the form simultaneously. The sun which warmed one cheek made the other cooler in the shadow, and her elongated silhouette spread over the classroom floor, looking like the secret caricature of an alter ego. Her shoulders were hunched as two mountainous peaks, her torso conclave as an encompassing cave, her feet wound together under her chair as hidden vines. The attention of the sun, grazing her stony face, went unnoticed, and the bustle of the lively class, the noise a stark contrast to her stanch stillness, went unheard. Her full concentration was on the book in her hands.
". . . But then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this – kitchen – candle . . ."
Oh, Blanche! She thought. I know such a love! Such a love, so blinding, eclipsing, that no light can compare! Such a love, so musical, that no earthly song could possibly sound as beautiful! Such a love that should it be stopped, the light extinguished and the melody ended, I should live forever as a hollow mockery of the human condition, my heart ripped from my chest, beating and bleeding until the last of my breaths . . . Ahohohoh!
A paper airplane sailed over the heads of her peers and collided with the side of her head. Its tip crinkled on impact with her cranium and it fell to the floor. "Hey watch it, buddy!" She yelled.
"You watch it!" Came the idiotically boastful voice, always too loud and obnoxious. The congregation of snickering fools around him looked from her to him with excited anticipation.
She sighed again, but this time in weariness and irritation. Harold, he never learned. The big oaf, the big buffoon.
She looked with disdain at his pink, baby-butt face, all hot and bothered as it always was, with a perpetual look of stupidity about the wrinkled forehead and downturned lips.
"Harold," She began in a controlled voice, full of faux amiability. "You don't really want to make me mad, do you?" Her eyes were wide with innocence, though all the while she was stretching her fingers, making and unmaking a fist. Harold's eyes went quickly from her face, the tension of menacing niceness, to her hands, working and preparing to punch him in, and back again. He swallowed, panicking with dazed anxiety and confusion, trying to hide his fear from the expectant gazes of his friends.
"You know how I hate to get mad." Clenching, releasing, clenching, releasing. "And I know you know what happens when I get mad." He stared at the hard set of her mouth, watching the threatening words form. "So why don't you just sit down there, okay Harold? Just sit down there and be a good boy." Clenching, releasing, clenching, releasing.
He seemed like a ticking time bomb, about to explode – before all the tension suddenly went away.
"Okay, Helga," he said, and sat down.
Moron.
She heard the nasally voices of Sid and Stinky argue with incredulous disbelief at Harold's actions with smug indulgence before tuning them out returning to her book.
"You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be – you and me, Blanche? . . ."
Someone cleared their throat beside her, and she glanced over to see a torso. Oh, for the love of pork rinds!
Wait. Red quilt. Arnold!
The noise of the classroom increased tenfold to her sensitive ears, and the scent of vanilla cookies wafting in through the window hit her senses like a stunning, dreamy cloud. Every fiber of her being seemed to hum -- the strands of her hair springing into attention -- the moisture of her mouth drying up -- the tingling sensation of excitement running up her back . . .
She choked it all down. Her nose remained in the book, her eyes gazing down on the page in pretend concentration, fingers tapping in pretend agitation. "What do you want, Arnaldo? Can't you plague some other poor sap with your annoying presence?"
She could feel him scowl; hear it in his clipped and tired voice. He must have heard her converse with Harold, too. Why must I be so cruel to my beloved? Oh Arnold, if only I could --
Offering methodically, "I just came over to see if you're still coming over to work on our project after school." He stood easily, looking at her with that blank, patient expression of his.
Her mood darkened. Arnold. "Yeah, I'm coming. What, d'you think I'd forget? Afterschool, 4:00, bring a snack and a noose to hang yourself with."
He sighed. "You know Helga, you don't need to be so mean about things all the –
"Oh, spare me!" Her head shot up, a petulant expression on her face as she glared at him.
Their eyes locked for a moment in angry standing, glaring at each other with more than today behind their eyes. There was an almost pitying (perhaps regretful?) look in Arnolds, which sent Helga over the edge. She was practically shacking with rage as Arnold shook his head and turned away, walking back to his seat.
To say the least, their relationship had been on the decline ever since . . . well, ever since . . . well, ever . . . since . . .
She hunched in on herself once more and scowled into her book. Don't dare to hope, Blanche. Hope is a joke. And love?
Love is for saps.