"Gerald," Arnold said, his voice louder than normal. He slapped my arm, probably thinking he didn't have my attention. But, come on, you can't ignore drunk Arnold. He's too delirious and amusing. "I love Helga so fucking much."

I rolled my eyes with a smirk, taking a sip of my beer and listening intently his drunken, extremely hilarious, musings. We were in his apartment, sitting at his and Helga's breakfast bar. At the time, it was just Arnold and I at his bachelor party. Arnold had wanted to start off with a bang, and I guess maybe he realized that he wouldn't want too many people around, because he only invited me. Not much of a bachelor party, but I guess I understood. Getting married to the girl of his dreams, who could also snap him like a twig, was a sensitive subject, and all the other friends he had would only be too eager to find out just what the former Helga the Horrible was like in bed. Helga was off in Phoebe and my apartment for their bachelorette party.

Arnold was almost hammered, (he'd had three more beers than me), and, yeah, I was a little buzzed, but I was more aware of my surroundings than my man Arnold. He was able to talk coherently, and he wasn't swaying too bad, but I could tell that there were slight gaps in his paying attention to the world around him. Although, that might also be the result of his not having shut up about Helga since we sat down. So that's why I just told him, my voice full of shade, "I know. You've said that about fifty times in the past hour."

He chuckled goofily, nodding eagerly. "But it's true! She's so funny, and I can... be myself around her, you know? I mean, I used to think she... well..." His face got pensive for a moment, before he shook his head, his flopping blonde hair flying around his ears. He looked like a dog. The ones with the really floppy ears, the big eyes, and the ability to have a lot of energy, while also being pretty calm. "I thought she used to hate me. A lot. I thought she hated me with every single hate-fiber she had. She's just so good at acting, I never would've guessed if she never told me." I rolled my eyes again. I totally knew, ever since freshman year, that she had to have had a thing for him. I just never clued him in, figuring it was her deal to expose him to her gross, love-dovey feelings. "And it's just..." his drunken grin fell and he frowned sadly at the beer bottle he had gripped in his hands. "I want her to be happy, but sometimes I feel like she's just never happy. Her parents really fucked her up. I mean... why else did she say no the first time? She's got this... she thinks I'm just this..." He sighed, trying to find the best way to word what he was trying to say. "This perfect person, who's perfect even when he's messing up left and right, and it's not fair that she doesn't... that she doesn't like herself. I mean, she's getting there, I think. She's starting to embrace her poetry, and her amazing way with words. She even lets me read her old pink-book poems back from when we were at P.S. 118." Arnold got this amused look in his head and he looked over to me, his eyes slightly glazed over. "Remember that pink book we found on the bus in fourth grade? Yep. Hers." He chuckled. "She's the sappiest person I've ever met."

"Wait, really?" That actually surprised me. I mean, I knew Helga wrote poetry. Love poetry, but I just never made the connection. I've even seen her handwriting since then, and she's always had a thing for the color pink, so it made total sense. Because the evidence was so obvious, and so clearly right in front of my face, I started feeling like a complete idiot. "Man, that's so funny. I should've known."

He grinned, taking a swig of his beer. "Yeah, I didn't even know until she told me. Made me feel like a moron. Talking to her always makes me kinda feel like a moron." He sighed, getting that gross, lovesick look in his eyes. "She's really smart. I mean... really smart. Back in fourth grade, she had the highest aptitude scores, since her sister. And she had straight-A's all through high school. And she made the Dean's List every semester in college. I found her congratulations letters in a box in our closet. She was proud of herself, but she didn't want people to know, for some, probably ridiculous, reason. And she has the audacity to think I'm perfect." He scoffed, rolling his blood-shot eyes. "It's the only time I'll ever call her crazy."

I smirked at him. "Oh, really? That's the only time you'll ever call her crazy? What about all those fights you had when you called her insane?"

Arnold's smile dropped and he scowled over at me. "Shut up, Gerald. I always apologize for that, and she always forgives me, and then we'll always forget about it." He paused a moment, his scowl faltering before returning full-strength. "And she's not crazy. So don't call her that ever again."

I had to hold back a laugh. I never really mean it when I insult her; it's just so fucking hilarious to watch him get all riled up about it. But, hey. It was his bachelor party, so I figured I should let up. He was also drunk, and I didn't want him to sock me in the jaw or something in a temporary fit of insanity. He has only ever punched someone in the face once in his life, and it was in high school. Sid. The idiot was... well, he called it flirting with Helga, although, really, it was more like harassment. All he was doing was just calling her all these demeaning names and stuff, trying to grab at her chest, and Arnold just completely lost it. Almost broke his pickle nose. I was shocked, but didn't blame him. The guy had it coming. I mean, yeah, it was Helga, so Arnold was going to get all extra pissed off anyway, but even if it wasn't her, he'd... probably still be at least a little pissed off. He hates it when people talk about women like that. I'm the same way. It's disgusting.

But, anyway, back to Arnold's apartment. I held my hands up in surrender, showing him that I didn't mean it and that I'd let us move on. "Okay, I'm sorry, you're right. I didn't mean it."

Arnold's scowl held for a few more seconds before he nodded. "Good. Because she's not crazy. She's perfect. Funny, beautiful, unbelievably smart, independent, stubborn, determined..." He sighed again, that smile returning. "And she's... really fucking sweet." He abruptly sat up, his beer bottle tipping over precariously. "It was about a month ago or something, we were walking to Chez Paris..." He chuckled again, his eyes getting a little distant. "We've had... a lot of good times there. But... anyway, we saw this little girl walking down the sidewalk past us, with no coat on, not hat, no gloves, nothing. I'd never seen a child look so sad in my life. And then Helga, she just gave her sweater to this little girl, even though she had no idea who the girl was. And it was so cold out that day..." He shivered. "I'm telling you, Gerald, when I saw that... I fucked her so hard when we got back to our apartment -"

I grimaced, inching away from him. After all the years I'd known her, Helga had turned into this obnoxious little sister to me. And I did not need to hear about her... physical relations with my man Arnold. Besides, I've heard enough innuendos from her; I didn't need to hear anymore. "Okay, I don't think I needed to know that -"

"She's so fucking great in bed -"

"Arnold, man, too much information -"

He completely ignored me. He was too far gone in Helga land to really realize that he was dishing out kinda gross details about his sex life. Sober Arnold would be blushing like crazy if he knew what he was saying. "She's so flexible, Gerald! She can do a split and everything. One time, we were in bed, and she laid down on her back, and both of her legs were like..." He made a weird gesture with his arms, which I'm sure did nothing to explain what the hell he was talking about. "Just completely resting on the bed, in a straight line, and I was laying on my stomach in front of her... Oh, man, I just about exploded just looking at her -"

I punched him on the arm, successfully shutting him up. Temporarily. "Dude, seriously," I scolded. "I get that you're getting married in two days, and that you're wasted right now, but that's no excuse to dump your nastiness on me."

Arnold just laughed, his chuckles off-beat and a tad too loud. "Sorry, Gerald. But it's just... I keep all this stuff inside all the time, and only really Helga sees me when I get like this. And when I say she sees me... She..." He got this dark look in his eyes, and I was tempted to call Helga just to ask her to get him off so he could leave me out of his bedroom life. I'm sure Arnold wouldn't object. "Sees me... Know what I mean?"

"Yes, Arnold. I know what you mean."

"Helga's right," he continued, taking a swig from his beer bottle. I made a vow that that was his last beer before I cut him off. Enough's enough. As funny as I was sure his bachelor party would be the next morning, and as much as I'll never let him forget it for the rest of his life, he was kinda getting on my nerves. "I'm a total wet blanket. I get all... shy and shit whenever I'm... you know, not drunk, but like... man, around Helga I am... the complete opposite."

"Arnold, shut up, I get it."

Arnold rolled his eyes, waving me off. "Alright, alright, I can take a hint. I... kinda have a feeling I'll regret this conversation tomorrow, anyway." That made a smirk spread all across my face, because I knew he was right. He was going to be so embarrassed the next morning, but I swore to myself that I would take no hostages. He was going to get every joke, every jeer, every taunt, and I wasn't going to feel bad for him. He scarred me for life that day. "And... well, I'm... sorry, I guess, that I keep talking about Helga. But it's just..." he looked timid all of a sudden. "I'm always thinking about her. And I'm also drunk. And I'm marrying her two days. In two days, she's gonna be Helga G. Shortman. She even agreed to take my last name!" He beamed proudly at me, taking another drink from his bottle. "I was so happy when she told me. And no details, I promise, but like... I know we fuck all the time, but that was... that was making love."

I was happy for him. I really was. Still am. Arnold, more than anybody else I know, (besides maybe Helga), deserves to be happy. He deserves a happy ending. I mean, the kid has gone through hell, what with being taunted for having no parents growing up, from adults as well as other kids. In high school the bitchy English nerds used to call him Pip, and Oliver Twist, and even Mowgli. That last one... well, that was the one that people who knew him more personally would call him, usually behind his back. A lonely boy with no parents who belonged in a jungle. As depressing as that is, it... ugh, it fits. And the kicker was that nobody knew for sure if they were dead or not. Most people assumed they were, but Arnold never got any concrete answers about where his mom and dad disappeared to. For a while he kept telling me that his parents were still alive, that they were just lost. He was sure they'd just show up on his doorstep one day, safe and sound and ecstatic to see him. No one wanted to burst his bubble, so everybody acted like they believed him, but nobody did. Helga in particular defended the hell out of him if anything came up. If she heard anybody calling him anything that even remotely resembled their hinting at him having no parents, she would fly off the handle, just like he'd do if someone insulted her. In our sophomore year, Helga got into a fist fight with two junior guys from the football team because they stole Arnold's hat and called him "orphan boy". The bastards broke her arm, but, man, you should've seen the mangled mess she left them when all was said and done. One of 'em had his shoulder dislocated, and the other had a broken nose and a concussion. They didn't go to a teacher or anything, mostly because they didn't want anyone to know that they lost a fight to a 5'6'', 110 pound girl with pigtails, who also happened to be a year younger than them. My respect for her skyrocketed that day.

Arnold's pet pig Abner got run over by a bus when Arnold was sixteen, and the kid was a wreck. I walked in on him one night a couple weeks after the accident, drunk off his ass, and, when he was coherent enough to speak, he told me that Abner was one of the last things of his parents that he had left, and it was gone. After that, he gave up on waiting for Miles and Stella. I never saw him with his blue hat on again, and he put his father's journal, as well his parents' picture, in a box and shoved it in the back of his closet. The only time he ever looked inside that box was on October 5th, the anniversary that they left him behind for San Lorenzo. He would lock himself in his bedroom and wouldn't let anybody come in, not even his grandparents, or Helga, or me. Broke my heart seeing him like that.

His grandparents died in their sleep when he was nineteen, on the same night. Arnold got a call from Ernie Potts one morning in the spring of his freshman year of college, telling him he had just lost the only parents he'd ever known. He was devastated. The whole year, he barricaded himself in his dorm room, refusing to talk to anybody. Helga didn't even know that Gertie and Phil passed away. She didn't find out until Phoebe and my wedding. Arnold didn't want to tell her; he told me I was not allowed to tell her, under any circumstance. He made Phoebe promise, too. I never really got why. I mean, Helga was his best friend, next to me, so he should've known she'd be there for him.

Speaking of Helga, throughout all of that shit, (amidst minor breaks in fighting), he was constantly on this emotional roller coaster with her, and just watching it made me feel exhausted. I can't imagine that that was easy on his sanity.

So, yes. I sat through him going on and on and on about his fiance, only interrupting him every once in a while when he ranted a bit too much. He'd apologize for rambling; we'd talk about something else; some random thing would remind him of Helga; he would go off about her again. The lovesick moron. I can only imagine how exasperated Phoebe must've been on that same night, dealing with Helga panicking about getting married, and not shutting up about Arnold. My beautiful wife sure pulled the short straw. At least Arnold knew when to knock it off. Helga doesn't have a filter, and was probably just babbling on about grotesque details that only their bedroom walls could attest to.

Bringing myself back to the present, I held a fist out to Arnold, and he grinned happily, commencing our classic handshake. "I'm really happy for you, man," I told him honestly. "It's about time you tied the knot. And here's to your marriage being less dysfunctional than your dating life." I held my beer bottle up to him, half expecting him to get angry, but he just smirked at me and clinked the bottles together.

"I'll drink to that," he said with a chuckle, chugging the rest of his truth juice and slamming it down on the table. His face looked thoughtful for a moment, before he shifted his gaze onto me and said, "I think I should stop drinking."

I laughed at that, nodding in agreement. At least his judgement wasn't completely out the window. I slapped him on the back and smirked at him when he smiled good-naturedly at me. "Yeah, before you making an even bigger fool of yourself," I said, taking a deep swig of my own beer. "Water," I said, nodding in the direction of the stack of bottle waters in the corner. "Hangover protection."

Arnold rolled his eyes, rising to his feet and grabbing a few bottles, for him and me. He opened one, took a long drink, and then set it back on the table again. We had fallen into a comfortable silence at that point, me taking sips from my beer every now and then, and Arnold thinking about... whatever the hell he was thinking about.

We must've been sitting there for half an hour or so, occasionally starting up conversations about sports, and movies, and work, and just life in general, and laughing at some random shit that's only funny when you're drunk. And because the atmosphere was so relaxed, calm, and quiet, the moment the front door flung open, I just about had a heart attack and dropped the glass bottle in my hand. The footsteps, (or, as I would later discover, pair of footsteps), that came running into the dining room was a far cry from the stomping around that I was used to. And yes, both Arnold and I knew exactly who it was. She wasn't very inconspicuous.

Helga slid to a halt in the doorway, her eyes locking with Arnold's immediately and she beamed at him. "Football Head!" she exclaimed, sprinting over to him and settling herself down on his lap, a knee on either side of his hip. Arnold looked incredibly confused, but he also didn't look at all inclined to reject her sudden physical act of admiration. She had her arms wrapped around his neck and, without hesitation, started frantically kissing him all over his face. Arnold's confusion melted immediately.

A throat clear drew my attention away from Arnold and Helga, and I smiled when I saw my own wife standing in the doorway, an embarrassed blush on her face, and sheepish look in her eye. Could that woman be anymore beautiful? I remember thinking, but the reality of the situation was just way too absurd for me to get too caught up in her. "Hey, Babe," I said, standing up and walking over to her, slipping an arm around her shoulder. "Party over already?"

Phoebe giggled. "Not exactly. We just finished a bottle of red wine and Helga gets a little... special when she drinks red wine," she explained, nodding her head in the direction of the soon-to-be newlyweds. In all the excitement, Arnold had somehow managed to wrap his arms around her waist, and was pressing her flush against him, accepting the fluster of kisses that she was still placing all over his face. He had that gross lovesick grin on his face, and he was staring at her with his half-lidded eyes, completely entranced by the girl's mere presence. Mmm mmm mmm. If somebody told nine-year-old Gerald that this would be his future, he'd laugh in the messenger's face.

"H-Helga," Arnold said quietly, trying to get her attention, probably so he could ask her what the hell she was doing.

"Mhmm," Helga said absently, her fingers tangling in Arnold's hair and tugging.

"Wh-what," he tried to get out, but then Helga seized his head roughly in her hands and pulled his lips straight onto her mouth. Arnold mumbled against her lips for a few seconds, before his eyes slid shut and he grabbed her ass, clearly trying to pull her closer to him. And they were fast at it, moaning into each other's mouths, and panting when they separated. And then just when you thought it was over, they'd start right up again.

All in all, it was a pretty gross sight, and I was about to let myself and my wife out of the apartment as quickly as possible, but then Arnold spoke again, his words shocking me so much that I momentarily forgot to move.

"As fun as it is to do this on a chair, I'd much rather do it in bed... So, what do you say? You want to be a good fiance and get on your back?" Arnold said, his voice husky and teasing. My jaw just about dropped open at that. I'd never heard him like that before, but I guess that's what he meant when he said that only Helga saw him in such a state as that. I half expected Helga to cuss him out for giving her any orders at all, but she just squealed, jumping up from his lap and high tailing it in the direction of their bedroom. (A place that I refuse to ever go.) Arnold stared after for a few more seconds, but then he must've realized that there were other people in the room with him. His gaze flicked over to Phoebe and I, and he flushed scarlet, rubbing the back of his neck nervously as he slowly rose to his feet. Oh, so now he's going to start acting all shy... "Heh heh heh... well, um... sorry about cutting the, uh, the bachelor party short, but, uh..." He glanced back in the direction Helga had disappeared, before looking back at us. "Fiance calls," he explained awkwardly, running an embarrassed hand through his hair. "You don't mind, do you?" he asked me sincerely, even daring to look guilty for just humoring the idea of fucking his wife-to-be when we're supposed to be drinking and hanging out.

Normally, I'd be just a little peeved at him skipping out on me, but I recognized that he was getting married in two days. I figured I'd let him have his fun. "Arnold, if you keep that girl waiting, it'll be both of our heads," I said, offering him a grin. "Don't worry about it."

He looked extremely relieved. "Thanks, Gerald. I really owe you one -"

"Hurry, mon amour," came Helga's distant voice, followed by a quiet, yet still audible purr. My obnoxious little sister. Purring. It's enough to make you nauseous. And it was even worse when Arnold shivered at the sound of her voice, but then it got even worse when Helga kept talking. "You did want me on my back, right? Well, here I am... just waiting for you to -"

Through Helga's sudden, brief speech, Arnold shifted his weight between his feet, obviously trying to figure out a polite way to ask us to get lost. The second he heard her voice, his eyes didn't leave the hallway that lead to his bedroom, not even for a second. He interrupted her, thank God, before she could go into details about what she wanted him to do to her. "Be patient, mi alma, I'm coming," he answered, his voice light and romantic and junk. He swooned, inching towards where Helga was, and he said absently to us, "Um... you can... let yourself out, right?"

I rolled my eyes, taking pity on the extremely eager kid, and I gently guided my wife towards his front door. "Yeah, we can take it from here."

"Great," Arnold said quickly, shooting me a grin and waving a goodbye to me. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, feeling extremely amused at the whole situation. Arnold bolted away from us, not even bothering to see if we'd left or not, but the memory of the hilarious boy-like eagerness on his face... I just couldn't be mad at him. Like I said before, the kid deserves to be happy, and Helga's the thing that will make him happiest. In saying that, I pulled Phoebe out of that apartment as quickly as possible, on the off-chance that they... I don't know, start? or whatever you want to call it.

Either way, getting the hell out of the there and back to sanity seemed like a pretty idea to me.