HOME | DD

Description
Title: Two Darks
Pairing: Helga/Arnold
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~1,080
Disclaimer: Hey Arnold! characters belong to Nickelodeon and I make no profit from this.
Warning: sort of dark
Summary:  Hollow his guts and display them on a platter so he can see what he's really made of.

There is a lot going on behind the human eye.  A lot more than we can hope to confront and come out sane.  Arnold is walking out of the science lab when you see him, his neck pivoted in exactly your direction.  Very suddenly there is no gap between you.  You are ten footsteps apart but occupying the same space, like there is some wormhole connecting you, hollowing a path through the material world and all you see is the awareness in his eyes.  He has found out your secrets, or he is finding out now: the tortured mosaic of your inner walls (blank before you met him) are on display.  You think, wait, what? What does he know? What is he seeing?

And then it's over.

For the next five minutes you are comforted by your own conjured pretense, wherein you pretend nothing happened.  Arnold doesn't know anything strange about you, he didn't see anything.  But English class snatches that pretense away because now there is an exam, and the class is silent and you feel very small in your desk.  You are left to examine the behinds of your eyes to look for whatever it was Arnold walked away with, casually, like a good thief always does.  You do badly on that exam (badly in World Lit?  For cripe's sake!) and go home none the wiser as to why Arnold's eyes seeing you haunts you every step.

It's one of those things you can't tell people, because whatever Arnold saw inside you, it was dark, it was secret, it was something even Phoebe wouldn't know.  It might be something even you don't know.

Eventually, you stop thinking about it.  That's one thing time is best known for: stealing the gravity out of pressing matters.  A burning question becomes a curiosity.  A curiosity becomes retrospect.  Retrospect becomes repressed.

Now it's years forward and you've been with men, nice men, altruistic men, but it isn't until you're suddenly looking into Arnold's eyes again that you admit you've always measured them against him.  And they were never enough.  You and he are seperated by a crowded street but your gazelock locks you together.  This time, it's you who sees him.  This is not the Arnold everyone else sees.  They see the do-gooder.  The peacemaker.  You see that that is all a cover-up of his failed attempts to make peace with himself.

That's something even he doesn't know.

It's the Arnold you never let yourself see. (The Arnold Arnold never let himself see.)  The Arnold who gives in.  Who was sometimes rough with you, who sometimes retaliated your pranks with a smirk.  The world saw the Arnold who helped his grandparents, his friends.  This--this is the orphan, bitter still for this lot in life, secretly fighting out against the world for spiting him when he did nothing to deserve it.

Well there you are.  Despite these profound insights, you are a civilized being and therefore required to carry on cooly with that public act we all participate in, that act of composure.  Social nicety requires you two approach now that you've spotted one other.  You grin and agree to coffee and a walk.  One would think you were no different than any other two homo sapiens, the way you conform to practiced behaviors -- talking about the weather, about work, all manner of materialistic jazz.  Only do you stop when you pass a lavish Christmas display in a business window, as a pair you pause in front of it, let your eyes feed.  You know this cutesy veneer can't last.

Your connection is a bridge of fire and it's only a matter before you meet in the middle and everything burns.

"What do you see?" Arnold asks. You think what a stupid question, but you turn and realize he is begging you with his eyes.  Begging you to dig his depths and get it over with.  Reveal everything.  Hollow his guts and display them on a platter so he can see what he's really made of.  But you don't think he'd really want to know.

You felt what he's feeling, years ago.  Dying to know what he saw in you.  But with time's gradual repression you realize you're better off not knowing some things.  You're the one who has to live with them, after all.  No escape.  We are not the civilized beings we pretend to be.  Old things rage inside us.  We look in other people's eyes and see the reflection of our own darks, then we spend the rest of our lives denying it.

That is not me.  I am not that.  I am special and capable of good, amazing things, you would think, even when you were sitting alone with your face in a computer screen, searching for someone to agree with you.

We cannot know ourselves.  There is always a lifetime of bias coloring the picture.

It's why we seek to know others!  If we can just rope another person into some mutual understanding, then at least we'll have someone to keep us human, for a while.  It's the best security we can hope for.

Even as he steps into your space (closer than is civilized) and begs, "tell me what you see," you do not tell him.  You are not going to tell him.  You are doing him a favor.  Behind Arnold's eyes there is a range of great and terrible possibilities.  And they are yours.  They are yours almost more than they are his.

Very suddenly there is no gap between you.  You kiss, and it's no different from any other kiss, just another stupid lip-licking kiss but if you're honest, there is promise.

I will peer into your eyes and hoard you.  Your secrets will be safe with me.

The cold glass of the business window seeps through the back of your coat, but you are heated by the burning as Arnold dots his puckered lips (--"tell me"--) across your neck.  If this chaste display gets you so hot, you can only imagine the burn of more.  This fire that connects you.  This fire that burns through darkness, outshines Christmas.

"Tell me.  Please."

You and Arnold.

Two darks that make a light.

--

Description
Title: Two Darks
Pairing: Helga/Arnold
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~1,080
Disclaimer: Hey Arnold! characters belong to Nickelodeon and I make no profit from this.
Warning: sort of dark
Summary:  Hollow his guts and display them on a platter so he can see what he's really made of.

There is a lot going on behind the human eye.  A lot more than we can hope to confront and come out sane.  Arnold is walking out of the science lab when you see him, his neck pivoted in exactly your direction.  Very suddenly there is no gap between you.  You are ten footsteps apart but occupying the same space, like there is some wormhole connecting you, hollowing a path through the material world and all you see is the awareness in his eyes.  He has found out your secrets, or he is finding out now: the tortured mosaic of your inner walls (blank before you met him) are on display.  You think, wait, what? What does he know? What is he seeing?

And then it's over.

For the next five minutes you are comforted by your own conjured pretense, wherein you pretend nothing happened.  Arnold doesn't know anything strange about you, he didn't see anything.  But English class snatches that pretense away because now there is an exam, and the class is silent and you feel very small in your desk.  You are left to examine the behinds of your eyes to look for whatever it was Arnold walked away with, casually, like a good thief always does.  You do badly on that exam (badly in World Lit?  For cripe's sake!) and go home none the wiser as to why Arnold's eyes seeing you haunts you every step.

It's one of those things you can't tell people, because whatever Arnold saw inside you, it was dark, it was secret, it was something even Phoebe wouldn't know.  It might be something even you don't know.

Eventually, you stop thinking about it.  That's one thing time is best known for: stealing the gravity out of pressing matters.  A burning question becomes a curiosity.  A curiosity becomes retrospect.  Retrospect becomes repressed.

Now it's years forward and you've been with men, nice men, altruistic men, but it isn't until you're suddenly looking into Arnold's eyes again that you admit you've always measured them against him.  And they were never enough.  You and he are seperated by a crowded street but your gazelock locks you together.  This time, it's you who sees him.  This is not the Arnold everyone else sees.  They see the do-gooder.  The peacemaker.  You see that that is all a cover-up of his failed attempts to make peace with himself.

That's something even he doesn't know.

It's the Arnold you never let yourself see. (The Arnold Arnold never let himself see.)  The Arnold who gives in.  Who was sometimes rough with you, who sometimes retaliated your pranks with a smirk.  The world saw the Arnold who helped his grandparents, his friends.  This--this is the orphan, bitter still for this lot in life, secretly fighting out against the world for spiting him when he did nothing to deserve it.

Well there you are.  Despite these profound insights, you are a civilized being and therefore required to carry on cooly with that public act we all participate in, that act of composure.  Social nicety requires you two approach now that you've spotted one other.  You grin and agree to coffee and a walk.  One would think you were no different than any other two homo sapiens, the way you conform to practiced behaviors -- talking about the weather, about work, all manner of materialistic jazz.  Only do you stop when you pass a lavish Christmas display in a business window, as a pair you pause in front of it, let your eyes feed.  You know this cutesy veneer can't last.

Your connection is a bridge of fire and it's only a matter before you meet in the middle and everything burns.

"What do you see?" Arnold asks. You think what a stupid question, but you turn and realize he is begging you with his eyes.  Begging you to dig his depths and get it over with.  Reveal everything.  Hollow his guts and display them on a platter so he can see what he's really made of.  But you don't think he'd really want to know.

You felt what he's feeling, years ago.  Dying to know what he saw in you.  But with time's gradual repression you realize you're better off not knowing some things.  You're the one who has to live with them, after all.  No escape.  We are not the civilized beings we pretend to be.  Old things rage inside us.  We look in other people's eyes and see the reflection of our own darks, then we spend the rest of our lives denying it.

That is not me.  I am not that.  I am special and capable of good, amazing things, you would think, even when you were sitting alone with your face in a computer screen, searching for someone to agree with you.

We cannot know ourselves.  There is always a lifetime of bias coloring the picture.

It's why we seek to know others!  If we can just rope another person into some mutual understanding, then at least we'll have someone to keep us human, for a while.  It's the best security we can hope for.

Even as he steps into your space (closer than is civilized) and begs, "tell me what you see," you do not tell him.  You are not going to tell him.  You are doing him a favor.  Behind Arnold's eyes there is a range of great and terrible possibilities.  And they are yours.  They are yours almost more than they are his.

Very suddenly there is no gap between you.  You kiss, and it's no different from any other kiss, just another stupid lip-licking kiss but if you're honest, there is promise.

I will peer into your eyes and hoard you.  Your secrets will be safe with me.

The cold glass of the business window seeps through the back of your coat, but you are heated by the burning as Arnold dots his puckered lips (--"tell me"--) across your neck.  If this chaste display gets you so hot, you can only imagine the burn of more.  This fire that connects you.  This fire that burns through darkness, outshines Christmas.

"Tell me.  Please."

You and Arnold.

Two darks that make a light.

--