Whatever Makes You Happy
Acepilot
AN - Another Valentines themed treat. And yes, it's not an RR/AGU fic for the first time ever in my career (but there is a bonus in there if you've read The Hospital Story). I'm just as stunned as you are. Again, named for a Powderfinger song.
Thanks to Lord Malachite, as ever, for all his help when I first suggested I was planning on playing with these characters, and for proof-reading this for me. Always much appreciated, good sir.
8 - * - * - 8
Arnold shrugged off his jacket as he walked inside. For once, the boarding house was disconcertingly quiet, and it had him more than a little nervous.
"Hello?" he called into the silence.
"Yo, Arnoldo."
He rolled his eyes and made his way into the living room where his most recent tenant, Carl, lay stretched out over the couch, watching the TV. "Police Chases?" he asked, dropping his book-bag at the side of the couch. "Bit morbrid for Valentine's Day, isn't it?"
Carl shrugged. "I think there's a certain romance to the beautiful blinking red and blue lights of a city cruiser," he told Arnold. "Besides, Valentines day-schmalentines day. What's the big deal with love and candy hearts and all that?"
"I dunno, there's a certain something to be said for it," Arnold speculated, picking up the mail from the table and sifting through it. Bills, as usual. He sighed. Running the boarding house was not the easiest of experiences but he couldn't have let it fall into anyone elses hands. It was a principle thing.
"Ah, to be young and in love," Carl said.
"You're twenty, Carl," Arnold pointed out, "and expecting your lovely lady friend at some point in the very near future. You trying to tell me that you don't have some great romantic gesture planned?"
"No," Carl said. "Big romantic gestures really aren't our kind of thing. What about you?"
Arnold sighed. "I did have something planned," he admitted. "But my lovely lady friend is not feeling at all well."
"Oh?" Carl asked, interest peaking.
"She didn't come to school today. When I rang she said she was feeling lousy and was sorry but had to break our date."
"Sorry to hear it," Carl said.
With a slight snicker.
Arnold didn't trust Carl snickering. It lead to badness. "Alright, out with it."
"Out with what?"
"Whatever it is that clearly, you know but I don't."
"I can't imagine what you mean, boss," Carl said, tucking his hand behind his head. "Must just be the romantic atmosphere causing you to believe things are not as they really are."
"Uh-huh," Arnold said, dropping the mail back on the table. There was nothing there he particularly wanted to deal with right now, certainly not on Valentines Day. "Anyway, I'm going to go get changed and then I'll head over to her place. I figure this might not be an entirely inappropriate moment to show up with what was going to be a Happy Valentines Day arrangement but will probably end up being a Get Well kind of thing instead."
"Sounds like a sound plan," Carl told him. "Good luck with that, boss."
"Don't call me boss," he called over his shoulder, "or I'll start making you deliver that mail."
"I live to serve!"
Arnold rolled his eyes and mounted the stairs, trudging up to the upper floor. He wasn't upset that his Valentines plans were shot to hell - he wasn't entirely pleased about it, sure, but he was more worried about her actually being sick.
"Hey, Arnold," Oskar cut in on his musing, "how's it going?"
The European member of the house was leaning against his own door, attempting to look nonchalant. But Arnold knew better.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"Me?" Oskar said. "I did nothing."
"Really?"
"Suzie, she wants to go out, so I make the reservations, and now she says they're wrong."
"Where did you make the reservations for?" Arnold asked.
"Michael's," Oskar told him, looking exasperated.
"Oskar, that's a deli."
"I know," Oskar said. "Best meat in town."
Arnold sighed. "Oskar, go tell Suzie you were joking. You have seven o'clock reservations at The Wandering Minstrel."
"But Arnold, I don't have reservations at the Walking Jester."
"Wandering Minstrel," Anrold emphasised. "You don't but I do and I don't need them any more. So please, use them, take Suzie out and show here a wonderful time and we'll all enjoy the peace."
"Oh Arnold, you saved my neck," Oskar said. "I could kiss you."
"I'd rather you didn't," he said. "Do you know where the Wandering Minstrel is?"
"...no," Oskar said. "But I'll find it."
Arnold sighed and dug his wallet out from his pocket, fishing out the relevant business card. "Reservation is for two in the name of Shortman. Ask Ginger to watch Sofia and for god's sake, wear a real suit. Not the one you bring out for company. Dress for church."
"Okay, Arnold," he said. "I can't thank you enough."
"No," he agreed, "you really can't."
"You're a generous soul, Mr. Shortman."
Arnold rolled his eyes as he turned to see one of his other new tenants, Phil, leaning against his doorjamb. "Thank you."
"I get you great reservations like that and you give them away?"
"Well," Arnold said, "I figured I can eat your cooking any time. Why pay a ridiculous amount for the priveliege."
"Ah, but you wouldn't even be eating my cooking tonight," the other man told him. "I swung it off. My girl is flying in from Bahia tonight and I wouldn't miss it for the world."
"I'm very happy for you."
"Why lose the reservations?" Phil asked. "Surely you didn't get dumped on Valentines Day by the angel herself?"
"No," he sighed. "She's sick."
"Oh?"
Arnold's eyes narrowed. "Why does everyone keep saying things like that? Like they don't believe me?"
"You're just going crazy," Phil assured him. "Anyway, I need to get some sleep and some tablets and some water and maybe not in that order, so I'll leave you to your evening. And if Oskar gets me fired tonight I'm going to be demanding compensation."
"I'll keep that in mind," Arnold said. "When your 'girl' finally moves in here like you've been threatening, I'll only charge her half rates."
"Don't make promises you don't intend to keep," Phil said, stepping back through his doorway and into the state of semi-darkness that he always seemed to keep his room in.
Arnold rolled his eyes again. When he had taken over the boarding house, he had made it a number one priority to fill the empty rooms. Thus far he had found a brother and sister who were diametrically opposed and he had no idea why they thought they should persist in living together, a cancer-stricken chef who kept bizarre hours and had a girlfriend who flew in at odd times and he shared extremely loud sex with, and Helga, who had finally given up on trying to live with her parents as soon as high school was over.
He pulled down the stairs to his room and trudged up them. He wasn't upset that she was sick. He really wasn't. It wasn't anyone's fault, and it didn't really matter to him whether he took her out to dinner on the 14th of February or not, but it would have been nice.
And he might have been planning something beyond dinner. But that was completely speculative.
The instant he stepped into his room, he found himself awash in a sea of red - a curtain draped in front of his door that he pushed through, startled. There was the sound of Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine" piping through his stereo, which was clearly serving to match the rest of the...atmosphere.
His room was...not exactly unrecognisable, but definitely different. The curtains were closed on the rapidly advancing winter sunset, and the only light in the room was provided by candles, scattered throughout the available space, and the lamp on his desk, which was leant a reddish tinge by a piece of cellophane over it.
He raised an eyebrow.
There were rose petals scattered over the floor, just enough to make the intent clear but not so many as to be considered wasteful. The arrangement he'd bought her and that was sitting in a vase on his desk waiting for him to deliver it had been moved to his bedside table.
Which drew his attention to the bed.
And, more specifically, the lump under its covers.
He kicked off his shoes and socks, and crossed the room, seating himself on the bed. The lump underneath the covers stirred but didn't emerge.
"This is nice," he said.
"Thanks," she said, in a small voice.
"I thought you were sick," he commented.
"I lied," she said. "I kind of...wanted to do something special."
"I see," he said, reaching out and placing a hand through the blanket and onto what he hoped was her shoulder, and not something more inappropriate. "You wanted to surprise me?"
"I did, yes," she said.
"Are you going to come out from under there or am I going to have to spend the evening conversing with my best sheets?"
She sighed. "You've got to promise not to laugh."
"I swear it on my life," he assured her.
"Alright," she said.
He waited a moment, and then a moment more. "Alright?"
"I'm coming," she said. "This is a bit...embarassing for me."
"You?" he protested. "Embarassed?"
"Shut up," she grumbled.
Finally, her head poked out from underneath the covers, black hair first and then her eyes peeping out beneath them. "Can you pass me my glasses?"
He nodded, finding them easily enough on the bedside table. "Do I get to see the rest of you any time soon?"
"Maybe," she told him.
He found this quite intriguing. "Okay, Pheebs, what's going on?"
"Nothing, really," she said. Without letting the blankets fall from where she was holding them to her skin, covering her entire body as best as she was able, she sat up, leaning against his pillow and the wall. He could at least finally see her entire face and the tops of hers shoulders - which were only adorned with a pair of red straps that suggested something very promising was indeed underneath the covers.
But right now that was a distant second priority. First, he had to work out what had her so...worried.
He leant over and kissed her softly, pulling her as tightly to him as her awkward positioning would allow. "To be honest with you, I'm not quite so sure what you're worried about," he told her. "So far I'm definitely not seeing anything that should leave you...embarassed."
He knew she was extremely prone to fits of shyness and very much liked her privacy. Since they'd gotten together, he'd respected her boundaries the same way she had respected his, but at the same time they'd both enjoyed breaking down a few walls between them. And by the looks of things, such boundary breaking had definitely been on the cards tonight.
When they'd first gotten together, during the epic, cross-country road trip he, Phoebe and Helga had been dragged onto by Gerald, there had definitely been the opportunity and motive for them to sleep together, but they had decided they weren't ready - not within themselves and certainly not within their relationship - to take such a big step so quickly. So they'd dated, dealing with the endless complications that come with a college romance, not to mention a few that were unique to them and them alone.
When Gerlad had quizzed him on the state of his sex life - or, more accurately, his lack thereof - the other boy had been puzzled that he and Phoebe hadn't been together so...intimately yet. Arnold had laughed it off - he was completely comfortable in his relationship. He and Phoebe, he was convinced, might not be perfect for each other but he knew they complemented each other nearly ideally and she made him feel a lot better about his life. Sex could wait. He was just happy having her with him. She was this bright and vibrant and uplifting force in his life that made him enjoy it again, when it had been kind of hard for him to do so after the death of his grandparents and the struggles he went through afterward.
That said, he would have hardly said no. And he wasn't about to say no now. If he could only work out exactly what was going on.
"I'm not embarassed," she assured him.
"Really?" he asked. "It's hard to tell if you're blushing or not with this light."
"Alright, I'm a little embarassed."
"Don't be," he assured her. "This is...well, it's not exactly what I was expecting - "
"I know, I know!" she wailed. "I didn't mean to spring this on you quite like this - well, obviously, I did mean to spring this on you, that's the point of it being a surprise, but I didn't think I'd - I thought it'd - I just -"
"Breathe," he suggested.
She did so. Slowly and deeply.
"I just...wanted to do something special for you. For me. For us. For Valentines," she sighed. "I wanted to make it...very special."
"I'm getting that," he said. "It really is, you know. You've done a lovely job."
She hugged her knees up to her chest. "Yeah, well..."
"Hmm?" he asked, aware that this was probably a kind of a delicate moment and resisting the temptation to reach out and stroke her shoulder like he was so badly aching to do.
"I was just...well, I was setting it up, and I was waiting for you, and I was thinking..."
"Yes?"
"Well, I was thinking this is kind of a big deal for you and I, isn't it?"
"Yes," he agreed. "It is. Well, it is, but it isn't."
She looked slightly puzzled at this wording, but didn't strictly speaking object. "And I was wondering...what if...what if this isn't right?"
He nodded. "Alright, how do you mean...isn't right?"
"Well...I don't want this to be...disappointing. For you. Or me."
"Phoebe, let me assure you, I am extremely unlikely to be disappointed about anything about this night. This is...incredible."
"Thank you," she said. "I just..." she sighed. "You know me. And how I hate to not be the best. At anything."
He smiled at her broadly. "Phoebe..."
"I'm just nervous," she admitted. "I'm nervous and worried that this won't go to plan, and that's what's already wrong about it. This shouldn't be to plan. This shouldn't be something I surprise you with. This should be something that happens at the right moment because we both want it to happen then and there and this isn't like that at all, I mean, you probably had your own plans for us and they were probably very good plans and I hope I haven't spoiled anything-"
He placed a finger on her lips. "You haven't spoiled anything," he assured her. "I mean, yes, I did have some reservations, but...that's okay. I just got them off Phil anyway."
"I got Phil to promise to cook us dinner," she told him. "So I guess we'll still get that."
"Who wasn't in on this, other than me?" he asked, shuffling up onto the bed slightly. She shuffled across in turn so he could do so, and he found himself stretched out next to her.
"Oh, it was just Phil. And Ginger - she helped me with the decorating. And Carl, but only because he walked in on us."
"He didn't have any advice?"
"He suggested 'Ride of the Valkyries' for the music," she told him, "but I figured you didn't need the pressure."
"Thank you," he said, finally giving into the temptation and stroking her softly on the shoulder. "Thank you for doing all this for me. For us."
"But it's stupid," she said. "I mean, I know it's cheesy and romantic and what everyone wants to walk in on on Valentines Day but..."
"But all I needed to walk in on was you doing something special," he assured her. "Or hell, just you. And that would have been plenty."
She smiled at him, and leant across the small distance between them and kissed him. "I do love you."
He paused, drawing back slightly. "Really?"
She caught her slip the instant after she said it. "Oh."
"I love you too," he assured her.
This time he could see quite clearly that she had flused a bright red colour, regardless of the lighting. "You don't have to -"
"No, I know I don't," he said. "But I very much want to."
She sighed. "Even if I say that this..." she indicated the elaborate set up, the rose petals, the music, the candles, "isn't going to happen?"
"Phoebe," he stopped her, "this is happening. This," he waved around the room, "is perfect even if we now go and play in the snow or eat whatever it was Phil cooked us. I don't want anything more than...well, this."
The colour faded from her cheeks and she just smiled at him. "You're the best boyfriend."
"Well, I try," he said.
"Would you, perhaps, mind turning your back for a second so I can get...dressed?"
He raised an eyebrow. "What exactly are you wearing under there?"
"Nothing much," she told him.
"I'm...intrigued."
She groaned. "Arnold..."
"What? My beautiful, sweet, lovely girlfriend is here, lying...intriguingly attired in my bed, and I can't perhaps savour the myriad possibilities?"
She poked him on the shoulder with a single index finger. "Alright - if I show you what I've got on under here - do you promise not to get all...lusty on me?"
"I'm a nineteen year old male," he protested, before holding his hands up in self defence. "I'll do my very best."
She sighed, stared him in the eye, and shrugged off the sheet she was covered with.
His jaw dropped.
She covered herself back up again and reached out a hand. "If you could pass me my dress and go outside for a second, I'd be very much obliged."
8 - * - * - 8
Hours later, Arnold and Phoebe were technically watching a cheesey, romantic movie on the TV in his room but in practice were languidly making out on the couch. Discarded plates lay on his desk, and the candles from Phoebe's earlier efforts at seduction were starting to flicker and gutter. This didn't bother them, though, as the glow from the TV and the cloudless winter sky above them was plenty.
"Thank you," he told her during a break to catch their respective breaths, "for a perfect evening."
She smiled at him. "I guess it was, wasn't it?"
"Definitely. All that stuff before..." he kissed her on the tip of her nose. "I love you for thinking of it, but really...this - this is what I like."
"Me too," she said, leaning in and kissing him on the neck. "Just sitting here with you and being...us."
He felt her lips slide over his pulse point and he swallowed hard. "Us."
"Hmmm," she groaned, feeling his hand slide under the back of her shirt and up and down against the bare skin he found. "You know," she said, "I'm suddenly not feeling all that nervous."
"Huh?" he asked, pausing in his ministrations.
"That before..." she said, pointing to the bed where they had had their previous, stalled encounter, "that wasn't really us," she said. "That was something anyone could have gotten out of some women's magazine. But I think maybe..."
"This is us," he says.
"This is us," she agrees.
"I can get along with that," he tells her.
She chuckles against him, and the tickling of her breath causes him to laugh as well. Planning things out, he reflected, wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Sometimes -
He looked down at the girl in his arms, who was staring up at him. He leaned down and kissed her, and she returned it, pulling out her oft-hidden assertive side as she pushed him backwards, tugging at his shirt to indicate that she rather wanted it off. They'd gone this far before, he knew, but something told him they were about to go a fair bit further.
- sometimes you just had to let things go as they would. Dinner reservations and flowers and...intriguing nightwear were one thing. But he'd take Phoebe over any of them any day of the week.
And twice on Valentine's Day.
8 - * - * - 8
thank you for reading, and happy Valentines Day. Reviews are ever appreciated.