The Things They Cling To

A series of one-shots starring characters of Hey Arnold! and the things they care about the most. AU & OOC Warnings.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold!

Ol' Betsy

Brainy's love of a particular, um…touch and the girl who owns it.

It kinda made sense that at age fourteen, he was finally starting to question it, this thing he had for her and her fist. Especially her fist. He had reached that point in life where he knew about sex and fetishes and wondered if he had one of those things for all hands everywhere or if it was just for her left hand.

…He, of course, almost always had this thought when he was crouching behind trashcans in the alleys that were en route to her house.

(And this was, of course, one of those times.)

Whenever he tried to find the root of it all, his personal abnormality that had put this in motion, his mind always went back to the prelude of his life before her and her fist. Life before them had been delicate; he was his parents' pride and joy and slightly-damaged good. It had been the natal bronchitis' fault; it was his allergies' fault; it was his first asthma attack's fault; it was the wheeze in his chest's fault.

Whatever the cause, its damage had been permanent: the world had treated him like he was going to break into pieces at any second. His mom dressed him in cotton because wool might've set off his allergies; he had a humidifier; his dad never ventured to play catch or horsey for too long; he knew how use his inhaler by age four. There were so many baby pictures of him in beige-colored clothes, reading books with cardboard pages and large print, but not enough of him running and having fun outside.

Fragility followed him to preschool. He had spent much of his time in the Storybook Corner; the teacher had always carried his inhaler with her on the playground during Outside Play. Maybe his glasses had reminded her of Einstein or something because she was the one who had changed "Brian" into "Brainy." And the other kids had followed suite, binding him to a nickname he was too young to know if he liked or hated and treating him extra carefully. They would go home with Wally band-aids and notes safety-pinned to their shirts and he went home untouched and wheezy.

It was like everyone had put him into his own bubble, away from the world, before he had had the chance to do anything or make something of himself.

Until the day he had caught her behind the trashcans, holding the pink paper heart that had been missing from the class Valentine's Day bulletin board and declaring her love.

Superficially, on that day, he had ended up in the emergency room with his worried mom and a Happy Meal for dinner.

But beyond the surface where things were important, that was the day he had stopped being afraid of Helga G. Pataki, the girl who wore a pink bow and pigtails but was mean, stomped everywhere, and had a big, black caterpillar eyebrow. The day she became beautiful in his eyes and the day he had personally met "Ol' Betsy." That first day of pain and wheezing, he had ironically found his life.

He remembered being happy. He was a damaged good. He was in love.

"Ol' Betsy." It was kinda funny that she had given her left hand a name that was so ugly. Betsy was beautiful. Small, but with long, slender fingers and clipped fingernails. Betsy rolled up spitballs and caught baseballs in Gerald Field; she kept a lock weaved around the middle finger during intense moments of thought, writing, reading. Betsy was menacing: all of her knuckles could crack at once; she made his nose crack without trying.

But, with the exception of a few people, Brainy thought he understood why Ol' Betsy existed. Helga's left hand, as beautiful as it was, was one her defense mechanisms. Ol' Betsy made sure arm's length was maintained so that Helga could hide the side she wanted to keep from the eyes of the world. The part that spoke poetry half-consciously, liked and emulated Kung-Fu and spy movies, listened to French music, and sighed longingly throughout the day. That side that held her own all-consuming love for that one classmate of theirs.

Ol' Betsy made sure that the shroud Helga wanted everyone to see stayed clenched in her fingers. That angry side where she wore her hate for her family on her sleeve and contempt for the same boy she loved; the one where she mocked everybody openly and made and followed through on her threats. The side that was worthy of an Oscar. The side that made everything about her so complicated.

Her in fourth grade had been an eye-opening, frustrating, and above-all, painful year. He wound up in the emergency room a lot that year. He stopped liking McDonald's that year; food was never what he had really wanted anyway...

But they were fourteen now.

Ol' Betsy had changed; she wasn't "Ol' Betsy" anymore, just Helga's left hand. Still keeping most of the world at that safe distance, but with a looser grip on the tricks she had been made to hold. Still beautiful. Just like the girl that owned her.

He hadn't changed. His life hadn't become the teen movie where he, the nerd, turned into the deluxe hot guy overnight and won the girl's hand. There wasn't a dramatic change to his wardrobe; he was still wearing beige. The asthma and allergies hadn't gone away; he still wheezed half of what he wanted to say. People still called him Brainy. His parents had attributed his broken nose to a sort of clumsiness.

He was getting pimples; he was starting to get a little taller; his hormones were in overdrive all the time.

He was still walking through alleyways after school, following her as she walked the city, watching her stuff Betsy in her pocket or wrapped around locks of her hair. He was still watching her keep her almost all her secrets from almost everyone around her.

He hadn't changed. If anything, he just knew what "masochism" meant and that he actively participated in it, forever seeking the sweetest pain he had grown accustomed to.

From the street beyond his hiding spot, he heard what he'd been half-expecting for about thirty minutes now: a loud thud and two "oofs."

Brainy peeked above the can to see them sprawled on the ground, his frame pinning her to the sun-baked sidewalk. The skateboard he had been riding lied on its side, overturned with a wheel spinning comically. Her overnight bag had flown from its perch on her shoulder, too close to his hiding place.

He watched the dance they always did, the one that let him know that they were perfect for each other and that he shouldn't touch. The same dance that sometimes made him want to go up to the boy, grab his shoulders, shake him really hard and say, "Listen. She loves you, okay? Stop being stupid and love her back!"

Slow movements to recovery, grunts of pain, exclamations. Brainy noticed his flannel shirt buttons touching the cotton of her t-shirt; he noticed the way her breasts rose and fell towards his chest. He noticed the time it took for them to stand and notice each other. The summer was already being kind to them; they both were already a light bronze color, his hue just a tad darker than hers.

Arnold's grabbing of Helga's left hand and close examination of the skin was unexpected. And Brainy kinda hated the way the boy firmly but gently brushed away the bits of gravel on Betsy with his bigger, more masculine hand.

"Sorry, Helga. I was…distracted."

Betsy slipped out of his touch and flew up to Helga's left eyebrow in surprise, her blonde side bangs in nervousness, the pink bow wrapped around her forehead in recovery. "Whatever. Just watch where you're going next time, Football Head." Her words were tough and annoyed, but not hostile; "Football Head," in recent years, held as much anger from her mouth as other words like "air"or "that."

The boy apologized once again, picked up an envelope Brainy hadn't noticed was there before, and skated away.

Brainy watched Helga stare after him and then look down at Betsy. As cool as she had been when the boy was around, he knew that she was excited at his hand holding hers. Her left hand touched her blushing cheek gently.

"Arnold, Ulysseus. I want the opportunity to be your Calypso, to follow close behind you…" His bespectacled eyes watched Betsy rise and dip and brush over Helga's full lips. He tuned out her voice, but felt he was watching the very words slip through her beautiful fingers.

Here it was. The wheezing, the raspy sound he made without thinking. The one that got louder and louder as he stayed behind the trashcans and in the alley.

Here it was. His beige, penny-loafer footfalls towards the girl with the skinny jeans and t-shirt with the dinosaur.

Here it was. That desire to hold Betsy. To forget his self-induced promise not to interfere and tell Helga things like, "Listen, I know you're in love with another guy already. I'm not going to tell your secret to anyone. I promise. I just want you to know I love you."

And there it was.

There was her mild surprise and anger at being caught. And Betsy swiftly rising and connecting with the bridge of his nose. The audible crack as his bone gave way. The sidewalk. The sounds of her picking up her bag and walking away, annoyed at being caught by him—again.

He laid on the ground, in love with pain, the smell of her hands he had just caught. The beautiful, physical hurt.

Betsy was beautiful.

Helga was beautiful.

A/N: This is my first

I have always loved Hey Arnold!, especially after this last year. Without this cartoon and fanfics, I may have gone crazy at school. I guess that is part of the reason why I'm writing this, "The Things They Cling To." In watching the episodes on Megavideo, I felt like kept noticing that my favorite and least favorite characters held on to these things and couldn't seem to shake them and therefore made their own lives just a little harder. I guess I wanted to bring those out, hence the second reason why I'm writing this.

Writing this took me almost a week and it was inspired by the episode "Helga's Potion" which is the first and only time you see Brainy hit himself because Helga hadn't. I didn't know that Brainy was so hard! You'd think he'd be easy because you know almost nothing about him except that he wheezes, loves Helga, and knows that she loves Arnold. But, no—with such a lack of information, it made it harder to create his story. And I personally wanted to focus on his love for Helga being masochistic and bring up some old Hey Arnold! dynamics. And I generally wanted the characters to be fourteen+…Urgh! So, in the end, I just decided to put the emphasis on Brainy's love for Ol' Betsy as a way to lead into his love for Helga.

And I like it. I like having this internal, articulate Brainy who's very aware that his affection isn't normal but is helpless to stop it. The Brainy who apparently says "kinda" a lot. I did go look for the meaning of "masochism" and I watched a video about Helga and Brainy (funnybones021 is awesome).

So, review. Or don't review. (I'm serious about writing but everything's for fun. I don't base my enjoyment and attachment to my fanfics based off of reviews. No beef to you if you do.) My next one-shot should be happening soon. See you then!