[sub][h3][center]Archie[/center][/h3][/sub][hr]

Archie Anderson is a coward.

You wouldn't know it by looking at him, or by talking to him, or by getting to know him on a very close and intimate level, but it's true. Archie is a complete and utter wuss, when it comes right down to it, and it's not because he's not lacking in physical prowess or strength of will or even any sort of courageousness. He wished that he was lacking in those areas, he wished those were his problems, because then he could just have Lynn beat them right out of him like his brother had way back when. His life had always been about coping with loss with hard work and determination and then the pain would be over just like that. No harm done, life goes on, burgers on the way home?

But that's not the case, because Archie didn’t have those minuscule, mind-numbingly simple problems. He has emotional problems, which for the record are about a hundred thousand times worse. How do you fix emotional problems, anyway? His usual methods of repression and avoidance don't seem to be working. Perhaps years of professional therapy and trust exercises might help, but Archie had neither the time nor the patience to talk about his feelings at length to some quack who doesn't actually care and look at inkblots that all probably symbolize love or acceptance or daddy issues or something.

Archie sighed hard, fumbling with his phone and haphazardly tossing it onto the table. He can't help but think, as he looks up at the ceiling and curses god and himself and girls, that therein lies the problem. He doesn't want to talk about his feelings, because he doesn't like talking about his feelings, and so he would have trouble expressing himself and opening up to people on that intimate level until the day he dies. Which wouldn't be a problem, really, because that's kind of the way he prefers it, after his family had walked out or died and all but then…

Then there's Natalie. The girl whose name had been stuck in his head since that incident where Mr. Hyde had taken over. It was such an odd experience because he [i]remembered it[/i]. He never recalled that had happened before, at least not in detail like he had. It was always curtails and wisps of colors or smells. Like a dream you couldn’t quite place. But he remembered that he had held her and she had let him.

She made him – and this is embarrassing, really, it is – she made him want to talk about his feelings, for once. She made him feel stupid to the point where it's actually sort of medically alarming how badly his words formed when she was around, and he wanted to tell her everything not only about what he feels but about who he is. He wants her to know about his family. About his mom and his dad and his brother. He wants to describe life on a washed up ship and what it was like living on an island. He finds himself craving her attention in random moments, like the previous evening when he'd been doing his homework and had just wished that he'd been next to her, not so she could help him or talk to her but to just be there.

[i]Sure. Where about?[/i]

He had replied without even reading her name. [i]Panda Express[/i], then immediately panicked upon realizing that she could get there first and he had no fucking clue what he was going to say or how he was going to go about making... plans for homecoming. With Natalie. Homecoming with Natalie. His eyes flashed around the room, the primal side of his being pounding against his chest like a war hammer because the adrenaline in his body was putting him over the edge. He wasn’t in any danger of hulking out, he could feel it when he was, but the beast had stirred when Natalie had bore her wounds to him. The fact that even the giant was unnerved was probably the scariest thing of all. Aside from Natalie herself, that was.

There was a girl nearby. Around his age. She smiled at him and he was panicking. He abruptly stood up, just about running towards her. He just about crashed into her, dropping his phone on the ground as he did so and didn’t bother to pick it up. She was a girl, she’d know how to help him.

“Pleasehelpme.” He said, way too fast. He breathed, far more out of breath than he should have been. “I need to ask out this girl and I have no clue how.”