"What'd she do to piss you off this time?"

Arnold did a double take, the question breaking his train of thought.

"W—what?"

"Helga, man," Gerald shrugged like it was obvious, nodding his head in her general direction. "I mean, you keep glaring at her."

"Indeed," Phoebe concurred, "and I must say, Arnold, one can't help but notice."

If he'd been caught at any other time he might have blushed, but for once, his focus on and frustration toward Helga could seek an outlet that went further than a date with his own hand.

That said, he'd gotten so used to bottling up when it came to her that he couldn't even think of a response.

Arnold often sat with Gerald for lunch, while Phoebe would swap back and forth between their table, the table where her friends from Science & Tech Club met, and where Helga typically sat on the other side of the cafeteria with the counterculture regulars from the Art and Creative Writing classes she took.

Locking eyes on her again, she'd taken a seat next to a tired looking, dark-haired girl he recognized from poetry slams and open mics. She facepalmed as the weird twins who transferred last year approached with their trays. He couldn't remember their names, exactly, but he'd never liked them.

They sat down and blocked his view, leaving him to the company of his own friends and troubled thoughts.

"I figured you were just gonna ignore her all the way through graduation," Gerald tossed a shrug and stuffed a ketchup-dipped potato wedge in his mouth.

I wish.

"Well, she might," Arnold scoffed. "I got paired with her in Mr. Reid's class. She won't work with me, and I can't get a passing grade if I try and do it all by myself."

Gerald's brows shot up.

"Well, what about the teacher? I mean, couldn't you just ask—"

"He doesn't care. Told me part of the grade is 'how well you can work with others,' whether you get along with them or not."

Gerald cast him a pointed look and let it drag.

"That is…the most ironic goddamn thing anyone could ever say to you, Arnold. Shit," he shook his head, popping a chocolate milk carton with its built-in straw, "that guy does not know you."

Arnold scowled in agreement.

"Or Helga," he groused.

He'd tried talking again to Mr. Reid after Helga's rejection that morning, but this time the issue wasn't so much that he'd refuse a swap, but his conditions for one. That he'd need a good enough reason besides personality conflicts; maybe a mediation with him and Helga in the same room was in order. It could even involve the vice-principal, if the issue was serious enough.

'Is it?' he'd asked, dryly. 'Because Ms. Pataki's is one of the best students here. So, what do you think is the real problem?'

Arnold backpedaled like his life depended on it, and said he'd just keep trying.

Because there was no way in hell he was going to have that conversation.

"Man, that Mr. Reid can be a real dick," Gerald commiserated. "You just can't work with some people, y'know? And I mean, hey—true, you may be eatin' a shit sandwich here, but couldn't you just do all the work yourself and let her take credit?"

Arnold shook his head.

He'd also asked the teacher for more details about the assignment, and if he'd get more than a zero if he at least showed the work that he'd done—that he could do, even without her.

The answer was yes, a 50 minimum F. Still an F, and better than zero, but he'd be looking at pulling a D in that class when the scores averaged out.

In his situation, that just wasn't good enough.

"Project really does need two people. And there's a team presentation at the end. Even if I did fake her work, I doubt she'd go along with it—"

"And she wouldn't, I'm afraid."

Arnold and Gerald stared at Phoebe, and something unspoken filled the silence that stretched between them, as it so often did when it got quiet with Helga in mind. Ever since the cabin, anyway.

…Goddammit.

She didn't have to like him. And it was fine that she hated him—and he was in no place to begrudge that, particularly since his secret, shameful incident at her place.

But she didn't know about that.

And he already apologized for what he said at the cabin. Even though, really, she was way more out of line than he was. And it's not like she ever apologized.

And besides, what I'd said then…wasn't even that big of a deal, anyway.

That's what Gerald and Candace had thought, anyway. And as for Phoebe, she'd kept predictably quiet and loyal on her best friend's behalf, but Arnold figured if he had said something truly terrible, she would've said something herself. And besides…

What were a couple of harsh words between the two of them worth, anyway?

Hell, he'd worked on projects with her since they were kids and at each other's throats, before her daily mockeries came less—and eventually, only in spurts, going oddly quiet and distant between them. He even wondered if she was depressed, though her home life left no wonder why.

And there were times her jabs almost felt like terms of endearment, that he could tolerate and parry back himself. Even when she was as difficult as ever, he could at least enjoy going toe to toe. And in some weird way, it was even a relief when she'd try and knock him down a peg sometimes, because that meant she was doing good, right? Or at least better?

His brow pinched, something rising up that he swallowed back down before it could be examined.

"She's never—" he paused, then started again. "She's hated my guts before, but would still at least work with me. I mean, she'll be getting an F on this, too. And college is right around the corner. So why doesn't she care?"

"Well," Phoebe began with a hesitant wince, "provided her grade in World History is higher than an A+ due to extra credit, she likely feels she can afford to, uh…"

"Take a hit," Gerald finished.

"Precisely."

Arnold leaned his elbow over the table and rubbed his eyes.

"Well, I can't do that," he sighed.

There was a pause, and when he looked up again he caught Gerald and Phoebe in a nonverbal exchange with an odd tension rising between them, though his best friend stood down a bit, tapping the air with his palms in appeasement while he persisted.

"C'mon, babe," he implored, eyebrows raised, "is there any way? Can't you—"

"No, sorry," she declined sympathetically and swallowed, clasping her hands, "I can't, um. I can't do that."

Gerald dropped his hands in apologetic surrender and sent her a warm, reassuring look that made her nervous frown crinkle up in a small, relieved smile.

And though a part of him softened as always at their little genuine displays, Arnold facepalmed. Gerald was fine standing down, but he wasn't.

And, dammit, that bothered him. In all the years he'd butted heads with Helga, he'd never gotten Phoebe involved. But, massaging his temples as he weighed his options, he decided to probe.

"Phoebe," he began, tone laced with misgivings. "Is there any chance you know, or…could share what I could do, or say to Helga, to at least… get her to talk to me? And not just to tell me off?"

He tried not to look at her in a pressuring way, and noticed the same from Gerald, who kept his eyes down, frowning thoughtfully at his tray.

Phoebe's bispeckled gaze flickered across the table as she wrung her hands conflictingly. He looked away when she bit her lip, figuring this attempt was also a dead end, but his eyes went wide with surprise when she replied.

"I…" Phoebe began carefully, "I guess that would depend on how you approach her."

His brows raised.

"What do you mean, 'how I approach' her?"

I can think of a way to 'approach' her, intruded a damning thought that conjured an even more damning series of images and scenarios.

Christ. Not helping.

He closed his eyes and breathed for a moment, thankful his crotch was hidden under the table. He shifted his flannel inconspicuously anyway, clenched his quads, and forced himself to focus.

"I mean—she's already made it clear she doesn't care that I'm sorry," he continued, trying not to push his luck but gesturing at a loss. "I've given her space for the past few months…I've tried coming in peace…"

His words hung incredulously across the table as Phoebe's features pinched, closing her eyes with a long, controlled breath.

Come on…please.

"…I'm afraid that—whatever would work, can't come from me. Because otherwise, it wouldn't. So, I'm sorry," she said with a twinge of frustration in her tiny voice, "but you'll just have to figure it out on your own."

Arnold's mouth slacked as he watched her rise from her seat abruptly, perplexed and doing his best to hold back his growing dread and annoyance while she gathered her things and clearly held back any information he could use.

She excused herself to go to the library, cast Gerald a demure glance as he waggled his brows, and wished Arnold good luck before taking off.

Looking her up and down in appreciation as she made her way out of the cafeteria with her back turned, Gerald sat back in his chair. Then turned his head, brow cocked.

"You had to have known that wouldn't have worked."

Arnold closed his eyes to resist rolling them and heaved a sigh.

"I know, Gerald…"

… … …

He needed a walk.

Ditching his normal transit route, Arnold stalked his way back home for a good 45 minutes, each step paced with churning rumination.

There had to be a way to get her to see reason.

Each time he tried to talk after their run-in at her locker she blew him off, refusing him just the same.

It totally tossed his mind that he could have readily upped his challenge in the past; but that was before her closet, or the cabin—before any of that.

And now, not only did he have to contend with his fucking boners, and his guilty, shame-ridden anxiety when it came to the idea of even interacting with her, butsince this morning, he'd also been struggling against these unwanted urges to just grab her in frustration and—

Don't let your obsession make you do something stupid you don't actually want, he warned himself sharply. Like her, your dick won't listen to reason, either. Otherwise, there'd be no reason why she'd drive you crazy like this. At all.

Goddammit, though.

The very thought of being alone with her, working one on one, made his guts churn, his pants tight and his heart rate spike so fast his face burned.

If she couldn't stand to work with him in person, fine, that would work for him, too. Hell, before today he figured she'd at least be willing to do as much as they possibly could apart. Which, really, was doable for most of the project.

But no.

Helga just had to be fucking ridiculous as always. Impossible.

It was a fresh reminder of why he couldn't stand her. How he couldn't want her, and why he'd blown his patience in the past. And he wasn't an impatient person, by any stretch. Except when it came to her, of course. Fuck.

When he'd finally made it to the privacy of his bedroom he jerked off to her, again.

Always, fucking her.

Beating his cock resentfully, he questioned again just why he'd become so sexually obsessed with someone like Helga in the first place, closet incident be damned. Because hell, this just wasn't like him, and Helga wasn't the kind of girl he liked. None of those girls were like her.

Shit, that's gotta be a reason. It was so unthinkable it might as well have been taboo to see her like that—so of course that would be a thrill on its own, right? Still.

Even he'd come to admit that despite his high roading, he'd picked up a habit of eventually retaliating against her over time. That part of him that'd been there for years, in the boy who snapped and splattered her dress during class, when he got even after too many pranks one April Fools by accidentally blinding her. And more recently, two summers ago, when he unloaded his paintball gun right back at her after they'd already been disqualified.

When he'd blown up at her at the cabin.

And, though he wasn't proud of it, he could also admit there was something undeniably gratifying about such a harsh, stubborn torment like her sounding so…vulnerable. Actually begging when she fucked herself to whoever it was she fantasized fucking her. The Helga he knew never let anyone she'd caught begging live it down, and he couldn't get over it. The concept that she came like that just blew his mind.

I bet someone like her thinks she's pathetic for it, too.

He went hot, breath quickening at the mean-spirited thought and pumping harder despite the wash of guilt and self-judgment on his conscience. Pathetic? He hardly had a leg to stand on for that one.

…Nevertheless. As far as he knew she didn't hook up, and she'd never dated. Not seriously, anyway; the ones she briefly did left in the dust along with her obvious disinterest. And that, paired with the fact that she didn't seem to turn anyone's head but his, which was really just due to a fluke, then…

Damn, he thought, biting his lip, all that begging for a guy who doesn't even want her, huh?

He indulged the spiteful thought with a snort, a moment he didn't even care he'd regret later as his head fell back over his pillow, thighs tightening as he beat himself faster. His eyes closed and followed the thought with another one:

Arnold didn't know what to make of the fierce feeling that rose in his chest at the idea of there being anyone out there who was interested in her, but he was willing to bet no one else out there lusted over her like he did, not even the person she wanted…and he didn't even want her.

His lips curled in a lip-bitten smirk as he let out a shivery chuckle, clenching as he got close.

Take that, Helga.

True to obsession, he erupted all over his hand and stomach like so many times before to the thought of those hot, broken, desperate sounds of hers as he made her come instead, with an intensity and hunger she'd never get from anyone else—or from him, either.

He came down much harder than usual after that, sagging lifelessly into his mattress from the weight of the disturbed self-disgust he'd just added to his load.

"...God," he panted, voice cracked and quiet. "That was fucked up."

Somewhere under the guilt and astoundment at himself that stung so much it stunned, stirred the first workings of an explanation.

It doesn't mean anything, he reminded himself.

You're just… pissed. She's butted heads with you your whole life. And now you have this obsession problem, and you have all this stuff riding on the line, and she's in the way, for no good reason, and unbelievably infuriating, and… yeah.

He sighed, closing his eyes. Of course it'd come out somewhere.

The moment lulled as his breath slowed, thoughts drifting inevitably to Phoebe's advice.

'It depends on how you approach her.'

…Shit, he thought, shaking his head at the concept; daunted.

Most approaches didn't end well with Helga.

… … …

"I don't know why you let her get to you like that."

He blinked, shifting himself onto his elbow to get a better look at Candace's face as they spooned wearing PJs in their bedroom for the night, its wood-grain interior dimly lit by a small lamp at their bedside. Whatever willingness she may have had to get frisky before bed was completely dashed—and to be fair, his mood was blown, too.

She raised a brow at him. "It's just not like you to fly off."

Arnold paused, exhaling the waves of fed-up frustration from his blowout with Helga earlier in a controlled exhale.

"She's just—I've been stuck with her since preschool. So she's had a long time, to…" he frowned with a wave of his hand. "She just knows how to press your buttons."

Candace pursed her lips and turned her face to the mattress again; away from him.

"Sounds like you two really have a history," she said in a wary, distant tone. In her normally sweet, honeyed voice, it rubbed him the wrong way, and he balked at the implication.

"What? No—it's just, our best friends have been dating since practically forever, and, Jesus, she was my bully. And I mean, is it a surprise? She was rotten to everyone. In fact, I'm amazed she even agreed to come on this trip. Normally she passes up this sort of thing."

"Yeah…" she sighed, like she was letting something go. "She didn't seem that eager either, to be honest."

Arnold readjusted his elbow out from under him distractedly as he thought back to Candace knocking on Gerald's car door just as they were about to pull out, and let them know her plans had fallen through and she could come, after all. Really, sitting in back with Helga had unnerved him enough, even if she was actually being kind of friendly, and seeing his girlfriend's smiling face came to him as a relief.

Phoebe, not the best with last minute changes to plans, he figured, had hemmed and hawed, but eventually relented when Gerald pointed out that either Helga or Arnold were gonna sleep on the couch, anyway, so if Arnold and Candace took the second room in the cabin it wouldn't make a difference. And as for whether Helga seemed "eager" to go or not, he didn't know. He was too busy helping Candace load her stuff in the back. Then spent the ride chatting with her while Helga sat on the other side of his girlfriend by the window, where he couldn't see her.

Arnold's brow furrowed as he thought back on some of the things Helga said during their fight earlier that night, and frowned.

"...You don't think what she said was true, do you?"

Candace scoffed, turning back to look at him in bewilderment.

"How can you even ask that?" she asked incredulously over her shoulder, hand to her chest. "Do you think the stuff she said about me was true?"

"What? No!" he denied with a shake of his head as he grasped her hand, and squeezed it. "Of course I don't. She was….way outta line…"

He gazed into her wide, brown eyes reassuringly until she looked away at last, relenting, and resumed her position as his little spoon.

And heaved a sigh.

"I can't stand that she's just on the other side of our door right now. God, I hate this storm, the forecast was way off. I can't wait for this weekend to be over."

Arnold nodded. If the weather hadn't turned so bad that evening, Helga wouldn't have been forced to come back inside after she'd gone out in the snow, and taken Gerald's car back to Hillwood. It would have left them without transportation, but it's not like Phoebe's uncle lived that far from his cabin and couldn't give them a ride back himself.

…Still.

"You know," he began with a frustration that still burned as he ignored the twinge in his chest, "I used to think that I kinda knew her? But honestly, at this point, I don't think I'll ever get what her deal is."

Candace scoffed softly.

"Right? And for her to lash out like that when you were just trying to help. Forget everything she said; I don't get why you don't just write her off."

When she fell asleep in his arms, Arnold laid awake a while, and wondered why he didn't, either.

…

"Oh, thank God," Candace sighed with relief, her face brightening as she looked back at him from the window. "You see all that sunlight? Clear day. At least the forecast got something right."

"I think I better go apologize."

"So we can—what? Oh, come on, Arnold, you don't owe her anything. Not after that. And besides, aren't you still mad?"

"But I blew up back at her… it wasn't right."

Candace cocked a brow at him as she put on her bra with her back turned. While appreciating the sight of her pale and topless as always, he didn't even feel like following up on the faded impulse to grab her.

"Considering how she is, that's totally forgivable," she asserted with a dubious frown. "And besides, it's not like she's the type to apologize back."

He looked down as she pulled on a sweater, puzzling over vague memories of times she had in the past, buried under many other apologies that were never given.

"Well," he ran a hand through his cowlicked hair, feeling that indignant pang in his chest, "yeah, I am still mad, but I'm sorry, too. Maybe I should just, I don't know, meet her out back or something, and tell her—"

Candace whipped her head back at him, her hair framing her freckled face in a flurry of dirty-blonde flyaways with a look that went beyond disbelief.

"Why would you need to be alone with her…?"

And, caught in the challenge of her stare, he couldn't think of a reason, either.

When the two couples left their rooms shortly after and encroached unavoidably upon Helga's unspoken territory in the shared living room/kitchenette space that made up the body of the cabin, she stood up from the couch to face them. She looked like she'd barely slept, and when their eyes met she wavered on the spot as if on the verge of saying something, but his apology broke the tension first. And she said nothing, as everyone else watched on.

He'd never quite seen her face go so indescribably tight like that before. By the time he'd finished she'd already cut them all out with a stony deadpan that held for the rest of their trip.

The suspense hung them all out to dry until she finally turned her back on him and spoke.

"Forget it, Arnold."

She'd said it with a voice he couldn't place as she began stuffing her things in her bag, something in his gut sinking with her followup.

"I already know what you really think."

… … …

Author's Note: Bold of Helga to assume she knows what Arnold thinks when even Arnold doesn't seem to know what he thinks lol

(And lol to anyone who may be confused, the last scene is a flashback to right after Arnold and Helga's Big Fight that left Helga not talking to Arnold after for months now at the winter cabin that's been referenced throughout the fic. Just figure I might as well say so, because not everyone is reading smut for the story ;)