Archive of Our Own

It was a Tuesday when it first happened. Hiccup was leaning against the entrance to the cafeteria, back pressed against the small patch of wall to the left of the doorway, waiting for the rest of his gang, who were held up by the bitch of a science teacher, Ms. Treford. Despite his attempts otherwise, Hiccup was the only one of them who hadn't needed to take remedial physics third period. And so he hadn't been there today when the twins began shooting spitballs at some nerds sitting in front of them, or when Astrid had subsequently punched them, earning the three of them a lunch detention for the first twenty minutes of lunch. Fishlegs wasn't at school today, and Snotlout was probably skulking outside the studio arts room, trying to impress the girl he wanted to bang (Hiccup thought her name was Heather, and she wasn't bad looking, which meant that Snotlout didn't have a chance in hell).

All said, though, Hiccup found himself uncharacteristically alone, and he wasn't sure what to do with himself. It wasn't that he was afraid or uncomfortable; most of the regular school populace feared him, including a few of the more slack teachers; Hiccup had had a reputation for solving more than a few problems with his fists, and despite the fact that he was somewhat short for his age of 17 years, most of the fights that he got into, he won. And those students who didn't fear Hiccup directly feared Astrid, who didn't take shit from anybody gracefully.

No, rather than feeling afraid or uncomfortable, Hiccup simply didn't have anything better to be doing right now. Between his temper and the piercings to his ears and lip, Hiccup didn't have friends outside of the gang, who were otherwise busy at the moment. The tattoo of a red dragon's skull on his left shoulder didn't help him make new friends any, either. Hiccup figured he would wait out the ten minutes he still had until Astrid and the twins were done with Bitch Treford, and then they'd spend the rest of lunch together. He leaned his head back against the industrially painted brick wall and closed his eyes. Though he was mostly unaware of it after a few years of having it, Hiccup toyed with his lip ring when he was idly thinking, rotating it from side to side.

His ears, medium height and pointed like an arrowhead and covered with the soft brown, shaggy hair that covered the rest of his head, perked up automatically. Someone is approaching, they conveyed to Hiccup, and the boy opened his eyes as turned his head to the left.

It wasn't Astrid or the others, so Hiccup blinked twice and closed his eyes again. It had been some dweebish kid with white hair, tall and lanky and clutching a paper bag to his chest. Hiccup allowed himself to return to the design he was planning to tag the wall of the supermarket with that night.

Ten seconds passed, and something felt wrong. Very wrong. Incredibly wrong. Hiccup opened his eyes in annoyance.

The white-haired boy's face was inches away from his own, eyes wide and unblinking as they stared mercilessly into Hiccup's own. Forgetting that he was himself only a hair's breadth from the wall he had just been resting against, Hiccup recoiled in surprise, banging his head painfully against the unforgiving material. Now thoroughly pissed off, Hiccup took a handful of the boy's shirt and shoved him back as he pulled himself from the wall, rubbing the back of his head and biting down on the side of his lip to keep from flooring the boy immediately.

"What the FUCK, man?" Hiccup asked angrily, ignoring the reflexive dampness in the corners of his eyes.

Despite the rough shove, the boy remained upright and appeared annoyingly unaffected by the sudden jostling; it pissed Hiccup off to no end, but the now-bent corner of a comic book that was tucked under the boy's armpit brought him some satisfaction.

This other kid was tall, and quite clearly a complete loser. Wide black-rim glasses outlined his deep blue eyes that were open in barely concealed mirth (as though his wide smile didn't give that away well enough already). Beneath a v-neck shirt emblazoned with a machine washed drawing of super heroes, he had on tight-fitting khaki pants (seriously? Skin tight khakis? Those aren't something you can buy. This fucking loser had to go looking for bullshit like that). The boy's hair was stark white and jutting out in every direction, and his ears, huge and blocky, drooped flat against his head; the left one had been inverted in the throw backwards, and Hiccup could see the pink flesh poking out from under the hair covering the ear. On his wrists were a few cord bracelets, and in the light of the hallway, Hiccup could see the glint of a ring on the other boy's right hand. Years of practise and of participating in fistfights had taught Hiccup to instinctively always pay very close attention to the hands of another person.

Blinking away the wetness, Hiccup steeled his jaw, clenching his fists as his ears fell back against his head in unconcealed hostility.

"Hi!"

The other boy's voice was unusually deep, but was completely — offputtingly — happy. The smile on his face was wide, and sparkling, perfect white teeth shining between his lips (oh christ, this kid probably flosses every night). His right arm was outstretched towards Hiccup, palm out as though he were hoping to shake hands.

"Sorry about making you hit your head. I didn't think you'd jump back like that!"

Hiccup looked incredulously from the extended hand to the boy's face, a look of annoyed confusion replacing the outright anger, and his fists released. His ears, however, remained flat, and his eyes wary.

Silence between the two followed as they continued to stare at each others' eyes, with Hiccup patently refused to accept the handshake. And yet all the same, after half a minute the other boy was still smiling.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I haven't even introduced myself yet. My name is Jackson! Jackson Overland. Freshman." With that, his extended hand jerked, begging once more to be noticed. Hiccup paid it no attention.

But the act of giving one's name is infectious. "Hayden," Hiccup replied tersely. Unconsciously, his hands slowly balled back into fists, in preparation; this whole surreal scene spoke deeply of another one of Dagur's completely idiotic schemes. If Jackson (god, what a loser? Who would go by a full first name like that?) — if Jackson noticed the slowly-tightening fists, he didn't seem to let on.

Realising that his handshake wasn't going to be reciprocated, Jackson let his arm fall back against his side, but that unwavering smile remained.

"Hi, Hayden!" he said, the toothy smile causing his cheekbones to raise and his glasses to reposition themselves slightly crooked on his nose. "You looked like you were waiting for someone. Are you waiting for someone?"

"Yeah," he replied, just as curt as before. Hiccup couldn't believe that someone could be this painfully oblivious; but he could especially not believe someone could be this painfully oblivious to him. The kid might only be a freshman, but it was already late September. There was no way that he hadn't heard a few rumours by this point. And even if he hadn't, Hiccup didn't look like someone you approached and made smalltalk with. Sure as hell not somebody you tried to make forced smalltalk with after hurting them. Hiccup came to the conclusion that this boy was incredibly fucking stupid.

"Ah, cool! I'm just about to go in and have lunch myself. I got out of class a bit late; I had to stay after to help someone with a problem they were stuck on. Normally I get to lunch earlier, because I'm always—"

"What do you want?" Hiccup cut him off abruptly before he could run his mouth anymore. This entire encounter was disquieting for Hiccup, who had been waiting for the other shoe to drop (or at the very least, to figure out what the hell was happening).

"Excuse me?"

"What do you want," Hiccup repeated flatly. "Why are you talking to me."

Despite the hostility of his words, Jackson's happiness seemed to remain just as resolute. He looked to the side for a second as though thinking, but his eyes didn't appear any less cheerful.

"I don't think I want anything?" he said, more a question than a statement, but giving it earnestly as though he were answering a real question. "Well, I guess I wanted to talk to you. So I guess I do want something. And I'm doing that now. But I'm not looking for money or something, if that's what you think—"

"Why are you talking to me." God this kid could talk to no end.

Jackson's eyes blinked, opening wide, and the smile returned en force.

"Oh! Because I think you're attractive and I wanted to get to know you!"

Hiccup's head recoiled and his ears perked up in surprise. Of everything that he had been expecting, this had been none of the even remotely possible responses. Hiccup stared blankly at the dorky smile on this embarrassingly naive boy in front of him, and he couldn't wrap his mind around how utterly ridiculous the entire situation was. Jackson's eyes still practically radiated friendliness and joy. Hiccup expected there to be demanding in them, but there was no expectation (of anything) that he could see. Hiccup felt completely caught off guard. And he couldn't think of a damned thing to say.

Jackson had no such problem, however.

"So, you like dragons? That's a really cool tattoo that you have there!" he said, raising his arm again to gesture at Hiccup's bare shoulder, wholly unobstructed by the leather vest he was wearing. He hadn't hastily changed the subject, or shown any signs of embarrassment. Jackson didn't seem to be affected in the slightest by what he had just said, as though it were a perfectly normal piece of information to pepper any day-to-day conversation with.

It wasn't that Hiccup was offhandish as an individual. He wasn't a social paragon, but he had always been more than willing to talk to others. It was when his tastes began to run into areas that most parents warned their children against, that others had stopped talking to him. Over the years since he began wearing leather and eyeing the piercings sections in stores, he had merely grown accustomed to answering questions with disinterested grunts and dismissive rolls of the shoulder. It had been years since anyone that wasn't Astrid or the rest of his gang willingly engaged him.

"U-uh, yeah," he replied cautiously, unsure how to proceed.

The outright smile on Jackson's face disappeared as he took on a more contemplative look, his mouth slightly agape; one ear flopped forward over his bangs as he turned his head to the side, gripping his chin in thought.

"Dragons are pretty cool, actually. They're terrifyingly strong and are usually evil, at least recently. But they're so large, and it would be amazing to be able to fly through the sky like they can. Most of them block out entire villages at a time," he said, eyebrows furling in thought before looking up so quickly and with such intensity that Hiccup actually jumped off the floor and his ears stood as high as they could stand. "Do you think you'd like to ride one? If you had the chance?"

'Okay, so much of what this fucker just said raises so many warning flags,' Hiccup thought to himself.

"Recently? What do you mean 'recently'?" Hiccup asked, even more hesitantly.

Jackson's eyes lit up, and he blinked twice before smiling. "Oh, you know. In movies, video games — video games are where they've been especially evil. I don't think there've been any games out in years now where dragons have been in them and haven't been the cause of all suffering." A beat, then: "You play any video games?"

Hiccup tried to think of the safest answer to give and how to escape this conversation, when Jackson's stomach let out a terrible roar, and the boy patted it sheepishly.

'Now he chooses to be embarrassed?'

As if in response, Jackson looked back to Hiccup. "Sorry. Like I said, I've normally eaten by now. I'm absolutely starving," he grinned, that same, perfect smile. "You eaten?"

"Y-yeah."

"Well then, if you'd like to come and sit with me while you wait for your friends, you're more than welcome," the taller boy replied, gesturing to the cafeteria door.

"Uh, actually, I— I think I'm good for now. Thanks... though."

"Alright, then," Jackson replied. Despite being rejected, the smile on his face didn't seem any less bright or less genuine. "Well it was really great meeting you, Hayden. I hope we get to see each other around some time."

"Y-you... too," Hiccup found himself saying to the closing cafeteria doors twenty seconds later, his hand half raised in a reactionary wave.

As he turned back around, he launched in reverse, letting out a loud shriek as he noticed Astrid standing directly behind him.

"Who was that?" she asked, faint hints of interest in her voice completely overpowered with annoyance (it turned out that bitch Treford had forced them to work on unfinished homework for their lunch detention). Behind her, the twins looked exhausted, and Ruffnut practically screamed of the act of yawning.

Hiccup took two breaths to regain himself. Then he looked Astrid directly in the eyes and shook his head side to side, eyes wide and mouth blank.

"Oh look everyone, it's Hiccup's little puppy," Snotlout taunted, his hands behind his head as he rested his back on the side of the school. Despite being late September, the weather outside was still reminiscent of the warm summer, and Ruffnut had suggested gathering out in the shadow of the school rather than at the food court of the nearby mall.

It had been a week and a half since Hiccup had first met Jackson, and yet in that short amount of time, Jackson had somehow managed to find Hiccup every day at school (or at least, every day that Hiccup had been at school). Even though Astrid warned (and Snotlout teased) Hiccup that the boy was stalking him, Hiccup got the feeling that Jackson actually, legitimately wasn't; he was just — somehow — extremely lucky. Hiccup hadn't told Astrid or Fishlegs what Jackson had said about why he was following Hiccup; and if he hadn't told either of them, there wasn't a chance in Hell that anyone else had even the slightest idea.

And in the course of the week and a half, Jackson had learned a tremendous deal about Hiccup's life. He knew his friends ("Hello, Hayden," he had said one morning. "Hiccup, do you know this guy?" Astrid had asked, incredulously. "Well, Astrid, sort of." "Oh! Hello, Astrid!"); he knew about his life ("You drive a motorcycle? Oh my God, that's insanely cool"); he (somehow) knew about his family ("So you're from Norway? Can your parents speak English?"); and, annoyingly, he knew his nickname.

"It was great running into you today, Hiccup," Jackson had said on Thursday after finding Hiccup by the junior's locker bay. "Hope to see you—"

"Don't call me that," Hiccup cut him off.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Your friends call you that, so I assumed—"

"They're allowed to call me that. Nobody else."

If Jackson was insulted, he didn't show it. Rather, he only looked sincerely apologetic. "I'm sorry, then. It was great seeing you today, Hayden. Hope to see you tomorrow!" And he had left with a smile.

Jackson's face was becoming a familiar sight for the gang. He wasn't necessarily welcomed by the others (nor even was he outright by Hiccup himself), but he wasn't being pushed away, either. Astrid had at first had the same fear that Hiccup had had; that this was part of some elaborately ridiculous plot by Dagur, the senior from the rival school that had somehow adopted Hiccup as his lifelong rival after a hotdog and mustard incident at a football game freshman year. But even Astrid had to agree, protective though she was, that there couldn't possibly be a plan of his so fucked up that it managed to involved this kid.

As Jackson jogged towards them on this Friday afternoon, Hiccup wasn't even the least bit surprised that he had found him, hidden though they were. After Jackson cleared the softball diamond, his jog slowed to a walk.

Jackson Overland had the largest set of ears that Hiccup had ever seen outside of kink porn. Unlike his own, which were pointed at the tips and rigid and animated, Jackson's were floppy, drooping down along his head or flipped to one side by the boy's hair that seemed to defy all physics; and the ears were blockish, almost perfectly rectangular. The combination left them unusually responsive to his body's movement, and as the boy walked towards Hiccup and his gang, every step caused the large, white ears to bounce up and down.

"Afternoon, everyone!" he called out as he approached. "Astrid. Ruff, Tuff; Steve, Finn. Hayden."

Nobody responded back out loud, but Hiccup gave a slight nod of his head in acknowledgement, and out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Fishleg's hand raised in a slight, welcoming wave. Tuffnut lay sprawled out on his back, his sister propped against a tree stump beside him. The rest of the gang was leaning in various directions against the wall of the school, enjoying the faintly cool autumn breezes just beginning to blow, but glad all the same for the shade.

"How'd you find us today, Jason?" Snotlout asked, a small dose of venom in his words. Despite Hiccup saying otherwise, he didn't believe that it was "just by chance" that the boy happened to find Hiccup every day; he regarded the stories that Jackson told as amusing lies, as though they were series in a book and each day was better and better.

He also expressly refused to acknowledge Jackson's name, choosing instead to call him "Jason" in the hope that it would rile him up and cause him to break his ever-present happiness.

'No such luck, Snotlout.'

"I actually walk home that direction," Jackson replied cheerfully, pointing towards the thin row of trees separating the school grounds from Cypress Road that they had seen Jackson emerge from minutes ago. Hiccup knew that nobody was looking at him at the moment, but he nodded his head in confirmation; he had learned as much from Jackson earlier that week, and, truthfully, he had been just waiting for this very moment to happen all afternoon. "The walk is rather boring, so I'll look around a lot. And I saw some people over here, so I thought I'd come by and say hi!"

'He didn't even know it was us? He just walks up to anyone he sees?'

"Uh huh," Snotlout replied sarcastically, clearly not believing any of what Jackson had just said other than 'I thought I'd come by.'

"You know, I feel like, statistically, that shoul—" Fishlegs began, before Snotlout cut him off.

"Shut it, Fishlegs. That's literally the only thing I'd like to hear even less," Snotlout interrupted. Fishlegs went silent.

"Oh!" Jackson perked up, suddenly, body bouncing and his floppy ears flapping up before falling down against his head. "Steve! I saw you trying to talk to Heather Dobbson earlier today?" Snotlout pursed his lips in evident anger and balled his fists. "Yeah, if you'd like, I know her from chemistry; I'd be more than happy to give her your number. If you'd like to me."

A look of surprise crossed Snotlout's face, and his fists were gone. Hiccup was shocked that it almost—it almost looked as though he were regretful.

"Oh," he sputtered, and yes, Hiccup could definitely pick up on the sheepish tone in his voice. Snotlout's shoulders relaxed. "Well, it's— it's not like I'd need you to. I could definitely do it myself. But if you want, I won't stop you." The ploy was so pathetic that Hiccup buried his face in his hands.

Jackson smiled, clapping his hands together in excitement. "Okay! I'll do that on Monday, then!" Almost as an afterthought, he added: "I'll need your number thought."

In his fervour to get laid by a beautiful woman, Snotlout completely overlooked the irony in giving his number willingly to the very same guy he accused of stalking them. Fishing through his pockets, he unraveled a rumpled receipt, before looking around to the others. "Any of you got a pen?"

Jackson swung his backpack around his shoulder, upending his ears in the movement. Within moments, he was handing a pencil he procured from the front pocket to Snotlout, who wrote out his phone number in horrible handwriting before handing it and the pencil back to Jackson, who put them both back into the backpack pocket.

"So, Jackson," Astrid ventured, and Hiccup turned to face her. Astrid had, for as long as Hiccup had known her, been able to stare even the scariest of back-alleyway muggers in the face with calm poise; her ability to keep her expressions neutral was legendary, which was why Hiccup never played strip poker (anymore). Her face was unreadable right now, but years of knowing the girl had clued Hiccup in to a few of the nuances of how to read her, and the way that her ears were perked ever so slightly outwards let Hiccup know that she hadn't let her guard down.

Jackson turned, giving Astrid his full attention.

"We've been seeing an awful lot of you lately."

Jackson nodded his head in enthusiasm, his ears bobbing up and down, and he looked like he wanted to reward Astrid for how correct she was. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup could see Ruffnut cover her mouth in a poorly concealed giggle.

"Why is that?"

Hiccup stomach dropped, and he felt butterflies of apprehension for the first time in over a year; the last time had been when two of Dagur's goonies thought they would try to pack their boss' grudge into their fists, cornering him behind the grocery store. One of them had flashed a knife, and Hiccup's blood had gone cold as he had frozen momentarily.

That was very much how Hiccup felt right now.

'Oh god please, anything but this. Shit Jackson, don't sa—'

"Oh! I'm visiting Hayden!" was the cheerful reply from the tall boy, whose lips parted in his now-signature toothy smile.

Hiccup could see the words forming on Astrid's lips before she even opened her mouth. If he could just— not— get— her— to— ask—.

"I think he's really cute, and I want to get to know him!" came Jackson's unbidden response.

Hiccup could feel all of the blood in his body rush for his cheeks and ears, which caught fire so quickly it felt as though they were actually burning. Astrid's composition was completely broken as she looked up, amazement plain in her features; Hiccup would have been thoroughly impressed with Jackson's success at breaking her composure if it hadn't taken him saying that. From Hiccup's left, he could see Tuffnut propping himself up on his elbows and turning to face Jackson and Hiccup, a look of astonishment.

The entire group was silent for what felt like whole minutes, and Hiccup tried to bury his face in his hands and feign exasperation, not embarrassment. These were not the kinds of problems that he should be facing. He could take on multiple opponents and come away victorious. He could shoplift and work his way out of trouble when he was caught by the police. He rode motorcycles and had tattoos.

Hiccup wasn't cute. He was badass. And this was the fucking stupidest thing, that he couldn't fucking handle this.

Snotlout snorting broke the silence.

"Hiccup? Cute?" he laughed. "You need to get your glasses checked."

Hiccup wasn't entirely sure if this might not actually be the first time that he was agreeing with Snotlout.

At least in the spirit of what he was arguing.

Maybe.

Jackson didn't seemed phased by any of the reactions that everyone around his was having.

"Oh, no! Well, maybe; I'm having a hard time seeing the board in class. But I still think he's really cute."

From the peanut gallery, Ruffnut piped up. "What makes you think he's" — she gestured with her arms, as though somebody didn't know who she was talking about — "cute?"

Jackson turned to face her; his enthusiasm in general made him appear like he was spinning around in circles chasing his tail.

"There are a lot of things! His ears. Oh, his hair! The freckles really make his face pinchable. He has really large eyes, and they're this wonderful shade of green. And the way he poses is so cool. And then—"

"Alright, well that's great!" Hiccup spoke up, failing miserably as he tried to rally his dwindling masculinity; his voice cracking and raising a full octave only set him back further. "But I think we were about to go, anyway. It was nice seeing you and all, but we've... gotta... go."

Hiccup stood up, brushing at his legs. He had been hoping that he could regain dominance (here and now, and in life in general at this point) if he stood up, but Jackson was a full head taller than him and, if anything, Hiccup had only made the situation worse by reminding everybody of that.

Jackson turned to face Hiccup, looking at him with adoration in his eyes. 'God, Snoutlout is right. This kid is just a big fucking puppy.'

"Yeah, we were heading off," Astrid chimed in, standing up as well. She wasn't taller than Jackson — only Tuffnut came close to that — but at least her position of power wasn't in question right now. "We were just out here to rest for a moment."

Hiccup would never, ever be able to repay Astrid for this. The depth of gratitude he felt for the girl was overflowing.

"Oh, okay!" Jackson replied, his jolliness not hurt even slightly. Seriously, the fucking pick-me-ups that this kid had to be on to be this fucking happy, all the goddamn time. "I'll continue heading on home then. Have a great weekend, you guys!" He turned his attention to Hiccup, whose head was defiantly raised even though his entire body wanted to curl up into a single, infinitesimally small ball of embarrassment and rage. Jackson smiled. "I'm glad I got to see you again today, Hayden! I hope you have fun this weekend, and I'll see you on Monday!"

With that, Jackson backed up a step, waved to everyone, and then turned to head back towards the street he had come from. There was almost a joyful bounce to his walk (who the hell was he kidding, there absolutely was), as though he were oblivious to the mine-ridden battlefield he had just wrought. The boy was a fucking sociopath.

With no particular speed, the others began to pick themselves up. Wanting to be anywhere but here, Hiccup quickly scooped up his bag, only tossing it over his shoulder when he was already three steps away from where his life had just fucking ended. The searing heat all over his face — especially in the blood coursing through his ears, where he could feel every magma-filled vein — was awful.

Hiccup maneuvered towards the parking lot where they were all parked, Astrid catching up to walk alongside Hiccup.

He had almost a good ten seconds of silence before she spoke.

"So. At least we know now that he isn't with Dagur," she said, an optimistic tone in her voice that was supposed to cheer Hiccup up, but only infuriated him even more. He quickened his pace.

Behind him, he could hear Snotlout mockingly repeating "Ahwww, bwut his fweckles are so pinchabul" as he could practically witness Ruffnut grinning as she pinched the air in front of her, sniggering as she did so.

Monday morning came with a light fog and bitter humidity, having rained well throughout the night. The streets were soaked with runoff, and the air hung thick with moisture.

Hiccup took a deep breath of the morning air, shaking his head before pulling the motorcycle helmet over his hair, wiping at the slight condensation that had formed on the visor. It took him a moment of shifting the helmet around, as he had managed to pin one of his ears somewhat painfully against the padded but still rough interior. Flexing his grip through his gloves, he threw his left leg over his red-with-black motorcycle, pulling himself out onto the nearly empty street.

Students were allowed to drive to school starting with their sophomore year, but were only permitted to have a parking space that first year if they carpooled with other, eligible students. Beginning with a student's junior year, students were able to reserve a parking spot without needing to share it. Hiccup had obtained his motorcycle license as soon as he was eligible, having practised many times (without his parent's permission) on others' motorcycles. But he had turned sixteen during his sophomore year, and so this was the first year that he was able to drive himself to school. You can't carpool a fucking motorcycle.

Even though the air was sticky and oppressive, the wind whipping it against his bare arms and pushing it into his chest made the world feel cool. In truth, there was nowhere else that Hiccup felt more at ease than when he was riding. He had himself — mind and body — entirely to himself, and everything moved past him as he moved past everything else in turn; it was hard to feel attached to the bullshit of the rest of the world when it whipped by in a blur and the noise of the engine drowned out the voices. Hiccup slowed to a halt for a light that had just turned red, and the purr of the machine under his thighs relaxed his muscles, calming the pounding of his heart.

The ride to the high school took twenty minutes on a regular day, and on a day such as this one, where traffic was dense and drivers took more caution on the slick roads, it took an extra ten. By the time that Hiccup pulled into the student parking lot, spot 178, the majority of the other spaces were already filled. From down the row, Hiccup could see Snotlout's ride. The lights were off and there was no sign of the boy anywhere, which meant that Hiccup was likely the last one to arrive.

Hiccup pulled the helmet off, tucking it under his arm before running his free hand through his hair. The weather might not have affected him while riding, but now that he was at a standstill, the humidity surrounded him and wove itself into his hair, tangling it beneath his fingers. He could feel the humidity from within his ears, and Hiccup growled at nobody in particular in annoyance.

The only excitement in the next seven hours already over, Hiccup made no real rush to reach the school. He wasn't late (not that he would have rushed even had he been), but he didn't see the need to move any faster than a lazy walk. He pulled at the collar of his vest.

Spot 178 was on the far end of the parking lot, away from the school building, and so his walk took him the full length of the blacktop, a solid six or seven minute walk at Hiccup's pace.

Even from a distance, Hiccup noticed the unusually large gathering of students underneath one of the basketball hoops on the edge of the parking lot. Any gathering of students, especially at this time of the day, was unusual; but this crowd was exceptionally large. Large enough to pique Hiccup's curiosity. The few errant voices chanting "Fight! Fight!" from the crowd as he got closer dampened his pace; there was no rush on Hiccup's part to watch two morons fight each other.

A girl in a now out-of-season summer dress turned her head as Hiccup approached. The sight of one of the scariest boys in the entire school two feet away from her, look of utter dissatisfaction on his face and motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm sent her blood cold. She backed away, opening a spot for Hiccup. Those around her felt the shift, and on noticing Hiccup, did much the same. Without needing to raise a hand or make a single sound, Hiccup was able to make his way to the front of the crowd, moving through it fluidly not unlike a hot knife parting butter.

Hiccup hadn't been too interested in the fight, up until the point when he made it to the front of the crowd. Then, at that point, it had his full attention, and his eyes went wide.

That fucking Jackson was standing to the far end of the crowd from Hiccup, dopey smile over his face, hair tousled from the humidity and ears almost completely obscured by the frizz. His backpack was on the ground, and he was hopping from one foot to the other, but it was perfectly evident to Hiccup that it was because of exuberant joy and giddiness, not because he was in the middle of a fucking fight.

Hiccup could only see his back, but he knew Jackson's opponent. Not well — he'd never really made formal acquaintance — but knew of him, at least. He was a shit-for-brains senior who'd decided that "Krall" was somehow an intimidating and not-at-all stupid name for a thug to choose. He had no affiliation with either Hiccup or Dagur, and didn't seem the type too keen on holding conversation, so Hiccup had never considered the other boy as anything short of uninteresting. Not to mention, Krall seemed to get off on being the "bad boy." Which seemed a little too distasteful even to Hiccup, though for reasons he couldn't seem to place.

Jackson's smile widened, though Hiccup was sure that he hadn't been spotted. Then, as sudden as all of Jackson's movements were, he shot out his hand in greeting to Krall. "Is this kid serious?" the guy to Hiccup's left muttered aloud; Hiccup pinched the ridge of his nose. 'Jesus fucking christ, god dammit.'

As much as he didn't want to, Hiccup couldn't watch Jackson fight. The kid might be dense and completely fucking stupid, but he didn't deserve the curb stomping that Krall was preparing for him. Hiccup breathed an exasperated sigh through his nose, pinching his nose even harder and squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe if he shut them tight enough, he would open them and this whole fucking scene would be gone.

Hiccup opened his eyes.

No dice.

Reaching to his right hand, Hiccup pulled at the velcro on his riding gloves, pulling it off and throwing it into his upended helmet, which he set on the ground. The movement was enough for the boy next to him to finally take notice, and he gave Hiccup a double-take before backing away in astonishment, a look of 'Oh shit' firing through his eyes. This was just enough movement for Jackson to look over in Hiccup's direction, finally noticing him.

"Hey, Hayden!" Jackson called exuberantly, waving his arm cheerfully as though he didn't have a 200-pound simpleton snorting at him like a bull, ears back in fierce anger. Hiccup wasn't sure what Jackson had done to piss off the guy so badly (probably being himself was what had done it), but Krall was in it for the fucking kill.

And apparently, being ignored while he was in a death match was just the spark Krall needed. He lunged at Jackson with his fist raised high, a fierce shout erupting from his mouth.

Movement happened all at once. Hiccup managed to take one step forward, trying to rush into the fight that had begun before he had a chance to properly intervene.

Jackson, at Krall's first movement, had snapped his head back towards his attacker, attention rapt. And then, he simply sidestepped the boy.

Hiccup skidded to a halt, not really having been moving all that fast in the first place. The rest of the crowd collectively drew their breaths in one large sound of rushing wind, the expected and completely evident outcome of the fight going up in flames.

Krall was furious. Not only had he not hit the boy, he hadn't even been properly blocked. The fucking shit had moved out of the way, as though Krall were some slowmoving steamroller. This pussy was mocking him.

Another, even more angered lunge with his fist. And Jackson stepped out of the way a second time, twirling around this time.

Hiccup felt two things for Jackson at this point: unexpected respect, and complete and utter sympathy. Krall was going to murder a bitch this morning, before school even started.

"Fight me like a fucking MAN," screamed Krall in anger, before throwing his fist forward. Jackson skipped backwards a step, backing towards the edge of the crowd, which recoiled in fear as though the boy were on fire. Krall threw his other fist at Jackson, who reclined his back, letting the swing pass over his abdomen.

But his footing had been precarious, and his foot slipped on the slick blacktop, Jackson toppling backwards and landing painfully on his ass. Krall huffed even as he swung his foot to kick the boy.

In one motion, Jackson pushed himself away to the side from the kick, before launching himself back to his feet, spinning almost uncontrollably towards the other edge of the crowd. Righting himself, he shook his head, blinked, and smiled.

"Heh heh, oops!" he laughed, grinning enthusiastically at Krall.

Hiccup saw the blood vessel pop on Krall's neck. Not only was he not being fought properly, but now he was being openly mocked.

Krall raced at Jackson, screaming, swinging his fists; Jackson moved out of the way, but Krall was already moving too fast, and he rushed into an unsuspecting girl, punching her in the face before pushing himself off of her and swinging back around to face Jackson. He repeated the process, and Jackson moved out of the way once more.

The two were caught in an indescribable dance. Hiccup watched as Jackson jumped — almost playfully — around and out of the way of his assaulter. He moved with such grace that it was as though his body were made of wind and took no effort to move at the speed or with the flexibility that he was. His ears traced patterns in the air as they stood up when he dropped to his knees to dodge a punch, and flew to the side when he launched himself — from his kneeling position — back to his feet in a single, swift movement. Hiccup could never have moved so quickly. He didn't have the same level of control and ease with his own body to be able to emulate the fluidity of the boy in front of him. Hiccup had needed to learn how to fight, because running away and escaping wasn't an option for him.

"FUCKING—" Krall yelled, panting heavily; the two had been in near-constant motion for five minutes now. He swung with his right fist at Jackson's head, and the boy jumped to the far left.

"STAND—" His left fist moving, and Jackson jumped backwards and out of the way.

"STILL!" And Krall dashed at Jackson, throwing himself bodily at his wiry opponent, who for all the movement he had been making in the stifling humidity of the morning, didn't seem to have broken a sweat, or to even be breathing with difficulty.

Hiccup couldn't believe what he saw, even though he and fifty other students witnessed it. Krall, moving forward, lunged at Jackson, who smiled happily and completely without malice. Then, with Krall a mere two feet away and making a beeline for Jackson's waist, the boy leapt into the air, tucking his feet up underneath him with just enough room that he cleared Krall's shoulders; Krall, for his part, had already been on his warpath for some time and had no ability to react as Jackson's shoes touched his shoulders and he leapt off of Krall's back.

Jackson landed on his feet just off-centre of the makeshift arena. Krall landed in a heap of sweating muscle and fat on the pavement, close to the edge of the ring.

Krall didn't get back up.

The crowd was completely silent, nobody assembled quite sure what had happened even constituted the truth. Then, quite suddenly, the silence turned into a burst of applause; all fear of retribution by Krall completely dismissed by the impossible fete of gymnastic mastery they had just witnessed.

Jackson turned to face Hiccup, smiling, shoulders raising and lowering finally showing that the boy was at least slightly winded. Hiccup stood where he had been — rooted to his spot since the start of the impossible fight — eyes wide, dumbfounded.

From the corner of his eye, Hiccup saw the movement in slow motion. Krall's face contorted in pure, seething hatred, and reaching into the pocket of his pants. Jackson continued staring at Hiccup and the crowd continued to cheer in slow motion as Hiccup watched Krall withdraw the slender item, then the glint of the blade as the knife was exposed. Krall pulled his arm back, aiming at Jackson's completely exposed back.

Hiccup's motorcycle helmet was in his hands in a second. Leaping around Jackson, he raised his arm and threw the helmet with every ounce of force and rage that his body could muster, hitting Krall in the face with a sickening crack. Krall's raised arm collapsed onto the ground, and when the helmet rolled away, Krall's eyes were closed and blood was streaming from his nose.

The sudden movement brought the crowd to attention, and then the sight of blood and the open knife lying prone on the ground caused one of the assembled girls to shriek loudly. In a manic frenzy, every assembled student — other than Jackson, Hiccup, and the entirely incapacitated Krall — were dispersing in every imaginable direction. One girl fell, her shoes (entirely inappropriate to wear to a fight, even if you were only just spectating) giving out underneath her; her friend pulled her up and they dashed off together.

Jackson looked from Krall's face to Hiccup's quickly, a look of disappointment on his face. "Why'd you do that? He was already down."

Hiccup, now standing beside Jackson, pointed angrily at the knife that was lying between Krall and Jackson. "THAT'S WHY" he seethed.

Jackson looked at the blade, turning back to face Hiccup, a look of honest surprise on his face. "Oh," was all he had to say.

The two boys breathed heavily in silence; Jackson's face seemed almost apologetic as he looked at Hiccup's, which was burning with hatred and anger. Hiccup might not have participated in the fight, but his blood was boiling and he was breathing even heavier than Jackson was.

Almost a full minute later, four school faculty came running from the building, evidently alerted by one of the dispersed crowd that there had been a fight. As the first teacher approached — a balding man in a blue sweater-vest — he spotted the knife laying open next to Krall. Skidding to a halt, he approached with almost comical caution, picking up the knife by the very end of the handle as though it were a venomous, sleeping animal. Neither Hiccup nor Jackson had moved a muscle.

One of the other teachers — this one a female — picked up Hiccup's motorcycle helmet, holding it like an egg. Hiccup could tell, even at this distance, that there were new scratches and smears of blood on it. She looked from the helmet to Krall to Hiccup.

The first teacher, still holding the knife by the very end of the hilt, looked at Hiccup accusingly. "What did you do?"

Hiccup's fists clenched, and he crossed the space between himself and the female teacher, ripping the helmet from her hands without a word; she put up no fight.

Hiccup then proceeded back the way that he had come, towards parking spot 178.

"YOUNG MAN, return here this instant!" called the teacher.

Hiccup spun on his heels, ears pressed flat against his head, mouth in a feral snarl and eyes seeping hatred. Hiccup growled. The teacher shuddered, losing his precarious hold on the knife, which fell to the ground.

Hiccup turned back around and walked to his motorcycle. Spot 178 was vacant a minute later.

Hiccup hadn't gone home from school, instead driving downtown, parking behind one of the buildings, and spending hours punching and kicking the trash lying around the dumpster. Anger radiated from the boy, and a homeless man who had chosen this particular alleyway to rest in reconsidered his options and left without a word.

By the time that Hiccup finally calmed down, the sun was overhead. His stomach growled from hunger, but he ignored it as he slid down against the wall, sitting on the grimey pavement surrounded by filth. Exhausted as he was, it was difficult for him to not fall asleep resting his head against the wooden palette.

There was, of course, a police inquiry. When Hiccup finally returned home that evening after wandering around until the sun set, there was a cop car parked in his parent's driveway. Hiccup seriously contemplated continuing to drive down the road, but pulled to a stop all the same, wanting to get this over with.

Jackson had explained the entire situation to the teachers. How Krall had wanted to fight, and how it had been just he and Krall until the larger boy was collapsed. Then the knife — it had been Krall's, after all — and that Hiccup had knocked the boy unconscious to prevent him from using the knife on Jackson. Krall had been arrested on charges of concealed weaponry, assault, and attempted homicide; he had already turned eighteen, and so he was thoroughly tied up in the legal system at this point. In the end, the school and the police had decided that it was a case of necessary self-defense, and that Hiccup wasn't in trouble — for that. He had still skipped school, threatened school faculty ("He stared at us fiercely, preparing as though to strike at us; we were completely defenseless to intervene"), and impeded a police investigation.

He was, needless to say, grounded.

And if that had been needless to say, then so was the fact that being grounded had no affect on Hiccup whatsoever. This wasn't the first time he had been grounded; nor the first time that he had been involved in a legal investigation. Hiccup didn't return to school until Wednesday.

Walking through the hallways of the school Wednesday morning, it became apparent that word of the fight on Monday had traveled throughout the student body. But rather than lauding Hiccup as a hero or congratulating him on preventing what could have turned deadly, the students seemed even more afraid of him. One boy was already averting his eyes from Hiccup as he passed through the hallway, and when Hiccup looked his direction, he all but climbed into his own locker. A flock of girls walking Hiccup's direction jumped, one of them letting out a squeal that she quickly covered, before they brushed their hair behind their ears and hurried past him.

It seemed that the only part of the story that had passed through the school was that Hiccup had knocked Krall unconscious, and that there had been blood. Hiccup spent most of the day in thinly veiled annoyance. He didn't give two shits about the other students, but this was infuriating all the same.

Astrid had managed to get herself detention; a full detention this time. Apparently forgetting your homework for math class often enough had become a crime punishable by death. Snotlout was off trying to woo Heather, who had taken his number out of courtesy to Jackson but had wadded it up and thrown it away when the boy wasn't looking; the twins and Fishlegs were god knows where. Which left Hiccup alone after school.

Thwack.

A hand shot out, catching the tennis ball before lobbing it back against the brick wall of the back of the school. Thwack. Hiccup ran two steps to the left, catching the ball, and throwing it back against the space between the first and second floors, putting all of his rage into his arm as he let the ball fly. Aiming while pissed is a fete near impossible for even those who are skilled, and the ball angled off the wall, flying far to the right and bouncing a number of times on the grass as it rolled out towards the centre of the grassy field, near the softball diamond.

"Fucking shit," Hiccup cursed under his breath, not angry specifically at the ball so much as just really fucking pissed off at the world in general. He jogged out to grab the ball, scooping it up and turning around, throwing it back at the wall, which he overcompensated and the ball shot to the far left this time. Hiccup grit his teeth as he went to retrieve the ball.

The game continued on, Hiccup throwing the ball as hard as he could against the wall, and the wall retaliating every time. He had come out here to relieve his stress and anger, to vent it at something that he actually could beat up, but if anything, he only felt more angry, coming to grips with every minute piece of aggression he hadn't even realised he was carrying with him.

Gripping the ball so tight that his arm shook and his nails threatened to draw blood, Hiccup didn't even bother to take aim as he propelled the ball at the wall with such ferocity that it easily would have broken through the glass window it just narrowly missed. The ball went soaring over Hiccup's head, arcing across the sky. For all of his anger, curiosity won out and he tracked the projectile's path.

And let out a monstrous groan as the ball came to land at Jackson's shoes.

He hadn't been angry at Jackson, but seeing him here gave Hiccup a focus to direct the anger that he couldn't express. He was seething with barely contained rage, and it took almost all of his self composure to not want to rip the boy's ears from his head until that fucking smile disappeared from his stupid fucking face.

Jackson reached down and picked up the tennis ball, turning it over without looking at it before throwing it underhand to Hiccup, who caught it with a perfectly controlled motion. Not trusting himself to say a single word to the boy, he turned around again and let the ball fly against the wall with purpose, the ball jumping slightly to the left, just out of Hiccup's reach.

Missing a catch was infuriating enough alone, but missing a catch while being watched was indescribable. Hiccup didn't watch his uninvited guest as he walked with murder in every step towards the tennis ball.

And Jackson, to his credit, and to Hiccup's growing confusion and annoyance, didn't say anything. Hiccup didn't need to turn around to know that the boy was still standing there, eyes boring into his every action. But he was totally silent. And he was grateful that the boy was smart enough to know when to shut up. And he was angry enough that the boy wouldn't just say his bit and leave.

Ten minutes passed with neither boy saying a word, nor moving towards one another. Hiccup's back remained to Jackson the entire time.

But as Hiccup began to perfect his throw while being observed, the silence of his audience began to come to a head, until he finally couldn't take it any more.

"You're here," he said without turning around, loud enough to be heard. Hiccup wasn't sure if there was hostility in his words, but he did know that they weren't inviting.

"You seem irritated," was all Jackson replied. It wasn't accusatory, or meant with malice. But being told that you're fucking pissed off when you already know you're fucking pissed off has never in the history of mankind made someone less fucking pissed off.

"Get lost," Hiccup snarled over his shoulder, still not turning around. He didn't feel like seeing that annoying face with the happy smile and the wide, hopeful eyes and all of this warmth and happiness. Hiccup wasn't in the mood for this shit in general right now, and he sure as hell wasn't in the mood for Jackson's version of it.

To punctuate his command, Hiccup threw the tennis ball with great fury and no particular aim at the wall. He had only been able to keep a rhythm when his mind was distracted from his anger, and so the tennis ball flew wide. Hiccup stomped in the grass towards it, his ears practically plastered to his head in anger and his knuckles turning white from the strain they were exerting by clenching so tightly.

Jackson still hadn't left, hadn't even moved a muscle. Hiccup spun around, anger burning in his eyes so fiercely that tears of anger dotted at the corners. He went to throw the ball at Jackson, to spook him or to hit him he didn't care which, but at the last second, inexplicably decided not to, instead following through with his arm to point as angry as possible at Jackson.

"I told you to FUCKING GET LOST," he yelled. Two birds that were perched on the softball field fence took flight.

But Jackson didn't flinch. He didn't even seem to blink, when for all involved it appeared that Hiccup was about to strike him with the projectile. Hiccup's completely inability to intimidate him only compounded his ever-growing internal rage.

"I wanted to say hello; I didn't get a chance to see you today," Jackson said calmly, innocent eyes trained on Hiccup.

Hiccup couldn't take this. The boy was acting like nothing was wrong. Hiccup threw the tennis ball at the ground so ferociously that it bounced up past his knees, despite the fact that they were on natural soil. He crossed the field and grabbed the front of Jackson's shirt with both fists, and shook. He didn't shake Jackson so much as his own forearms shook, out of inexpressible rage. Hiccup bit down so harshly that his teeth threatened to crack.

They stood like that for half a minute.

"And I wanted to thank you for protecting me," Jackson said, still as calm as before.

Hiccup's grip loosened, and his teeth unclenched; a shock of pain ran through his jaw as the pressure on his teeth was removed.

Jackson hadn't done anything wrong. Hiccup wasn't angry at him; he was angry at Krall. He was angry at that knife. He was angry at just about everyone in the world right now. But it wasn't Jackson's fault. He hadn't asked for any of this, even if he had somehow been asking for a fight.

Hiccup's rage abated, and he released his grip on Jackson's shirt. He took a deep breath, keeping his head down; he didn't want to look at Jackson's face right now, whether it was that he was still latently angry, or if he felt guilty.

"You're welcome," he mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

There was a moment before Jackson spoke. "I hope you didn't get into any trouble because of what you did," he said. He was neither scared nor tentative when he spoke, but Hiccup couldn't read what other emotion was mixed in with the happiness that Jackson usually carried everywhere.

Hiccup scoffed. "Yeah, well, I did." He turned around, walking back towards where he had thrown the tennis ball down to the ground. He picked up the discarded ball, gripping it in both hands for a minute before throwing it at the wall with barely enough force to make it to its destination at all. It bounced feebly and landed close to the wall. Hiccup picked up the ball and returned to where he had been standing, before throwing it again.

By the time that Hiccup caught the ball a fourth time, Jackson had moved to stand to Hiccup's right. The approach hadn't been subtle, but Hiccup had said nothing. He continued to bounce the ball against the wall, and now that his anger was in truly check for the first time that afternoon, he was catching all of the returns easily.

As they stood there, Hiccup began throwing the ball further out to the sides; first further to the right than he had been, then more to the left than previous. He expanded his range erratically, allowing his mind to withdraw from the chaotic vortex it had been stuck within, and to forget everything — even the grass he was standing on and the person who was two feet to his right.

The first time, Hiccup thought that he was just reacting out of surprise. The ball had — as planned — gone further to the right on its return than any of the previous balls — and had been angling dangerously close to Jackson. Out of the corner of his vision, Hiccup saw Jackson move quickly, before Hiccup snatched the ball out of the air and returned to his neutral position to throw it again. But three cycles later, the ball went angling towards Jackson once more, and right before Hiccup caught it, he realised that Jackson wasn't moving out of the way; he was moving to catch the ball.

Neither boy spoke, and Hiccup threw the ball against the wall again, catching it. But he couldn't return to that place of isolation in his mind, now that he knew there was someone else there as well.

"Here, you," Hiccup said, barely above monotone, as he threw the ball wide.

"Hun?—ah!" Jackson said, confusion giving way to understanding as the ball bounced off the wall and shot towards him.

Hiccup had expected him to not catch the ball, or to drop it, but he simply picked it out of the air. Hiccup was still facing forward, and so wasn't looking at Jackson directly, but he could almost have sworn that he had used just the tips of his fingers, the motion had been so fluid and natural.

But when he threw it at the wall, it hit far higher than it should have, and angled miserably, landing fifteen feet to the left of where Hiccup stood.

Hiccup jogged to pick up the ball. "Sorry," Jackson apologised as Hiccup returned to where he had previously been standing, but the shorter boy said nothing, throwing it against the wall, it bouncing back to Hiccup again.

Two more throws later, however: "You," Hiccup said bluntly, before throwing the ball against the wall and having it angle towards Jackson.

Once again, the boy gently lifted the ball from the air as though it were stationary. When he threw it against the wall this time, it was still off where it should have struck, but it was a significantly better throw than his first had been, and Hiccup only had to lean far to the left to pick it up.

The two began a rhythm, then, of throwing the ball back and forth to each other, using the wall as the medium. There was no set pattern: Hiccup would throw it to Jackson, back and forth for ten cycles, or Hiccup would throw it to Jackson once and then just to himself three times. But as time passed, Jackson's throwing ability got better, and soon Hiccup found himself able to stand in place, catching the ball with ease. The boy had clearly needed time to adjust, but that seemed to be all he had needed.

The autumn sun was beginning to darken on the two boys standing silently behind the school, throwing the tennis ball against the wall to each other. Clouds rolling in (it was supposed to storm later that evening) eclipsed the sun, and a slight chill ran through the air, brushing against Hiccup's bare arms, which were beginning to feel the repetitive motion of catching and releasing the ball.

And still they kept throwing it, back and forth though not quite at each other, until the silence finally settled in Hiccup.

"And are you okay," he finally asked, more as a statement than a question, as the boy seemed perfectly fine. But that was all that Hiccup could think to ask, and Jackson seemed to be respecting rather than maintaining the silence.

"Yeah," came Jackson's reply. "Thanks to you."

Hiccup didn't quite scoff — the mood didn't call for it. "You seemed to be handling yourself pretty well without anyone else." Then, not quite as an afterthought: "Where did you learn to do that?"

Hiccup could sense Jackson's shrug. "I dunno. I've never really been in a fight like that before, so I just did what felt natural, what I felt I could actually do, rather than..." His voice trailed off. "And I didn't want to hurt him," Jackson said after a moment.

Hiccup caught the ball with both hands, and turned to Jackson.

"You didn't want to hurt him? Not even at all? He wanted to beat you into the ground, and would have if you hadn't run him around the circle like a, like a—a bull. And you didn't want to hurt him?"

Now that the sun had begun its descent, the darkness of the pre-twilight was quickly creeping across the field; already, Jackson's features were beginning to obscure themselves in the pending darkness, the minute details that Hiccup could see an hour, even a half hour ago (had he turned to look at Jackson) were lost to him now. But even though the darkness, Hiccup could see Jackson's face, unwavering as he vehemently shook his head, his ears flopping from side to side with the force.

"Why?" Hiccup asked. Hiccup didn't seek out fights, didn't seek to hurt other people, but when they came to him, he would defend himself. Hitting someone back when they threw the first punch was the only way to make sure that they didn't throw a second one.

Jackson was silent for a moment, and his features scrunched up; it took Hiccup a second to realise that he was thinking, though it didn't look like he didn't know the answer so much as he didn't know how to phrase it. Finally, he seemed to give up.

"I dunno. I just— I don't feel like hurting anyone is going to do anything but hurt them."

Hiccup stared at the other boy in silence, a mix of confusion and disbelief on his face, until finally he said the one question that had been running through his mind.

"So what is your tragic backstory?"

Jackson gave a confused sort of laugh. "What? My tragic backstory?"

"Yeah," Hiccup replied. He waved his hand around, gesturing to Jackson's face, where a puzzled but happy smile was resting peacefully. "What made you like... all of this?"

Jackson let out another muffled laugh, before biting his lower lip in thought and going silent for a few moments, as though he were actually considering the question that Hiccup had asked.

'Oh my god', Hiccup thought. He actually was.

"I don't think anything made me like this. I just am like this. I just like the things I like. The same way that I like you. Nothing you did made me like you. I just do..." his voice trailed off, but only because it seemed that he had run out of things to say.

Hiccup didn't say anything, but he could feel his cheeks burning suddenly, brightly. The tips of his ears felt heated, and Hiccup was glad for the darkness that all of this was hidden.

This was stupid. He'd been standing out here for too long. Astrid surely had been let out a while ago. There was nothing else that he was waiting for.

Without giving any warning to Jackson, Hiccup grabbed the ball and walked towards the parking lot, before Jackson had time to get a proper look at his face. He said nothing as he left, made no gesture of goodbye. But he couldn't prevent his ears from reflexively laying to the sides, a telling sign of his embarrassed relaxation and ease.

Within a week, the school had returned to normal. Krall had been released from police custody (and from the hospital) to his parents, who had taken this as the final straw in a series of misadventures that were now the cause for Krall being shipped off to some military camp ("or something like that," Hiccup heard through Tuffnut). The remainder of the school body seemed fickle enough with their interests that, after the weekend, nobody looked at Hiccup with any more fear or outright terror than was their usual for him. Hiccup was still grounded, but all involved in that knew that that was a complete farce (and all knew that the others all knew).

School hadn't started yet, and Hiccup, Snotlout, and the others sat clustered in front of their lockers on the bottom floor of the school. Other than the unfortunate other students whose lockers resided in the enclosed bay, nobody entered or bothered the gang. This was — pretty well known, in fact — their spot. And nobody willingly sought them out. Except for Jackson.

Who hadn't shown up yet today.

"Hey Hiccup, where's your boyfriend?" Snotlout jeered, punctuating his question with mock kissing. Astrid immediately punctuated him with a punch to the shoulder, but he didn't look like he had taken back his question at all.

Which irritated the hell out of Hiccup. Hiccup glowered at Snotlout from across the bay (they traditionally sat across from each other, and everyone sat about them). But even as he did, his cheeks coloured, and he could feel his stomach turn. This was stupid. He was just embarrassed because they all thought that kid was his boyfriend.

Astrid continued her half-lidded glare at Snotlout, before turning to face Hiccup. "It's okay. I'm sure nothing bad has happened to him."

Hiccup stared back at her with a look of indignation on his face, as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Because he couldn't.

"Do you all believe he's— we're— that he's my... boyfriend?" Hiccup sputtered out the last word, almost embarrassed to say it aloud.

Snotlout looked at him with expected condescension. Tuffnut grinned and made a gesture with his hands that seemed to indicate that he believed Hiccup and Jackson were rather intimately involved. But Astrid just looked at him with a look of concern.

Hiccup felt betrayed. He expected this from Snotlout (even if he hadn't hoped for it). Maybe even the twins. Fishlegs seemed entirely uninvolved one way or the other, which didn't surprise Hiccup; his interests in topics were rather... focused. But Astrid? Astrid? This was a betrayal that ran deeper than anything he could imagine.

"I— He likes me, guys. Don't— we aren't— Hey Snotlout, how's it going with Heather?" Hiccup tried deflecting; it wound up sounding as artificial as it had felt, even to Hiccup.

Snotlout frowned at Hiccup, but didn't show any of the emotional responses Hiccup had been aiming for that would distract the conversation. "Stupid girl rejected me," he said, huffing. "That's okay, though. She wasn't my type anyways. I prefer them with blonde hair and bigger breasts."

Both Astrid and Ruffnut punched Snotlout this time. Hard, from the looks of it.

"Owwww. What the hell did I do?" Snotlout asked, as though he honestly had no idea (and knowing Snotlout, he probably didn't, and wouldn't until someone told him). Rubbing at his shoulders though, he returned to Hiccup. "How do you prefer them? Tall and goofy smile. Floppy ears as big as their dic—"

Hiccup was already getting up, but Astrid beat him to it. From a seated position next to him, she managed to shove him backwards against the locker, standing up in the process. "What the hell? Is this some fucking joke to you? Hiccup is your friend. Back the fuck off, and worry about your own pathetic love life rather than making him feel bad."

'Oh christ,' Hiccup thought, closing his eyes as he heard her speak. He really wished she hadn't said any of that.

Snotlout fell silent, and an uneasy tension settled over the six. When the school bell rang a few minutes later, he stood up first, grabbing his pack and walking off without making eye contact or saying goodbye to any of the others.

As a group, the remaining five slowly stood up, Ruffnut's kneecaps cracking audibly in the process; she didn't wince, but looked at them with annoyance, as though they were small children who should have known better than to do what they fucking just did. Picking up their own backpacks, the five left the confines of their locker bay, walking slowly and with no real purpose down the hallway. They would (usually) attend the classes they had to go to when they went to school, but being there before the bell rang was a stupid rule that didn't apply to them.

Fishlegs waved goodbye to them silently before departing from the group and heading down a side hallway. Of the six of them, he was the one who was most dedicated to his schoolwork, and who played the system well enough to still be in accelerated courses; most teachers were surprised to find out who his friends were, given his grades and overall decent attitude and effort. But Fishlegs had been childhood friends of Hiccup, and even though he only fit into the rest of the group with some heavy(handed) manipulating, neither boy would abandon the other.

Hiccup waved to Fishlegs, as did Astrid. Their numbers cut almost in half from where they had been ten minutes prior, the four kids continued down the long corridor towards English.

Hiccup made it as far as the corner of the hallway at the end of the locker bay, where they had to turn left to head to the English wing, when he realised that he was still wearing his riding gloves; he had managed to come in and get so distracted by the others (and then Snotlout being an ass) that he had forgotten to take off the gloves and put them in his locker.

"You guys go ahead. I need to go back to my locker," Hiccup said, only mild annoyance in his voice even though he had to reverse the entire walk thus far. "I'll catch you guys in class." Hiccup spun midstep on his foot, turning around and returning around the corner.

The hallway was quickly emptying, students who had been milling about now on their way to their first class of the day. As Hiccup waded against the tide of students entering the school proper, there were shoulder bumps and mumbled 'Sorry's. It took him considerably longer to return to his locker than it had to leave it.

Dialing the combination, Hiccup threw open the locker, staring in at the posters he had taped up along the back of the locker. Most of them were stylistic, dark colours and curled dragons. He pulled his gloves off one at a time, chucking them in and letting them land on top of his helmet, sliding down the dome and losing themselves somewhere between the back and the bottom of the locker. He closed the door.

The hallway was considerably more empty, though not entirely; students still rushed through their lockers, or shuffled their feet on their way to class.

"Hiccup!" called a cheerful voice, from behind him. Hiccup came to an abrupt stop, though every process in his mind told him to continue walking, to speed up.

"I told you not to call me that," Hiccup growled, rounding on Jackson. This boy was the last person Hiccup wanted any interaction with right now. He would rather be mugged in a back alley than deal with him any more. Hiccup glowered at Jackson, but the other boy's demeanour didn't seem to waver even slightly.

This fucking shit was the cause of all of Hiccup's problems now. Hiccup had never had authority over the group, had never been in control. But he had had respect before Jackson showed up. Snotlout had argued with Hiccup, but it was always an even playing field; Hiccup could fight back. The twins had never mocked him so outright. And now even Astrid was pitying him, treating him like he couldn't fight his own battles. And they all thought that he was at this boy's beck and call. That Hiccup was just going to roll over and beg for him.

"Oh, sorry," Jackson said, giving his toothy smile that made Hiccup clench his jaw. "Good morning, Hayden! I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to catch you this morning. I woke up late, and my mom just dropped me—"

"What do you want," he said through clenched teeth. He did his best to compress as much of his anger into his glare as he could. And Jackson still wouldn't wither under it. Hiccup couldn't intimidate Jackson, and it fucking pissed him off. Everyone thought that Hiccup was dating this loser? He had no ability to be anything other than happy. It was infuriating — Hiccup's emotions were thrown aside, his anger dismissed without even recognition. As though he had no basis to be angry with the other boy, or even angry in general. Everything had to be so fucking happy, everything had to be with a smile.

The skin around Jackson's eyes crinkled when he smiled, pulling his backpack around his shoulder to the front, unzipping and digging into one of the larger pockets. He put on a show of trying to find something, before exclaiming and pulling out a cream and tan box.

"I wanted to share these with you!" he said, pulling at the thin cardboard tab at the end of the box, opening it to reveal two sealed plastic sleeves with dark cookies inside them. "They're cookies. Chocolate, but they have this hint of mint to them; they're my favourite. Go on, have a few!" he said, pulling out one of the sleeves and ripping open the end of the plastic wrapping, pulling out two cookies and holding them out to Hiccup. "They're really good. My mom gets them at—"

"What do you want?" Hiccup asked, as flatly as he could manage, his arms remaining still but his fists balled.

Jackson faltered midsentence, as though confused by the question. "What?"

"What will it take for you to leave me alone?" Hiccup asked, more emphasis behind his words this time.

And then, the smile slipped from Jackson's face. Just for a second, and it never completely left. But Hiccup noticed it, before it was replaced again, this time with a new smile just as big, but which felt... different.

"Come on, just try a few. They're really—"

"What will it take for you to leave me alone?" Hiccup repeated, his voice unintentionally becoming louder.

Jackson went silent, and the smile faded away, his face returning to neutral. Hiccup realised that in the almost month that he had known Jackson, he had never seen this face before. And at the same time, he realised that he had never said any of this before, either. The hand holding the box of cookies fell back to Jackson's side, but Jackson's eyes didn't leave Hiccup's.

Neither boy said anything, just staring at each other, until finally Jackson broke the silence, asking in a voice that was so different than any Hiccup had heard from him before.

"Do you... really want me to leave you alone?" he asked.

'Tentative'. That's what it was. Jackson had always been confident — overly confident. And always happy, Hiccup realised. He had given off this air that everything was going to be great, and nothing bad could happen.

This was the first time Jackson's voice didn't carry any of that.

And suddenly everything felt so much worse.

"What do you want from me?" Hiccup asked, his voice now quiet. The hallway was empty except for a lone girl sorting through books on the floor in front of her locker.

"I just wanted to share these cookies with you, Hi—Hayden."

The girl had closed her locker and had embraced two books wrapped in vibrant fabric covers tightly against her chest. Hiccup had never found anything more interesting than the sight of her, right now. When he looked back to Jackson, it was with a steeled gaze, and resolve.

"What are you hoping to get from me? What are you hoping to get here?"

Jackson's lips had been minutely separated, and his eyes seemed rounder than Hiccup remembered them being.

"I'm not looking to get anything here. I just like you. That's all." Silence elapsed between the two, and Hiccup gazed intently at the brick wall directly behind Jackson's left shoulder. When it became apparent that Hiccup wasn't planning to say anything, Jackson's shoulders sank. "But," he began. "If you want me to leave you alone, I will. I don't want to force myself on you if you don't want me."

Neither boy spoke. Hiccup could feel Jackson's eyes focused intently on his face, but Hiccup couldn't bring himself to meet the other boy's eyes. A full minute passed in silence, neither boy moving — perfect replicas of living statues locked in stone.

Then, from far down the hall behind Hiccup, an older woman's voice carried through the hallway. "What are you two doing? You should be in class right now, or I'll need to see your hall passes."

Hiccup finally looked up, meeting Jackson's gaze which was trained on him. He looked as though his mind had considered crying, but he had decided against it.

He could hear the teacher's footfalls even through the muffled industrial carpet, nearing the pair.

Not breaking his eye contact with Jackson now — not able to break his eye contact with Jackson — Hiccup took a step back. The two boys breathed at different times, their pulses both beating to different rhythms.

Hiccup said nothing, and turned around, walking past the teacher. He didn't speed up his pace; didn't look back; didn't say anything. Hiccup continued to stare directly forward at the painted brick wall marking the end of the hallway he was quickly approaching. Hiccup rounded the corner of the hallway, heading towards English.

He took three steps before suddenly throwing his right fist against the nearest locker, letting out a primal yell that sought in vain to echo through the corridor. The row of lockers quivered, but the sound of something falling inside one of the adjacent lockers fell on deaf ears.

Hiccup took a deep breath and continued walking. The knuckles on his hand howled with pain, but he refused to rub at them.

Jackson didn't come to visit Hiccup anymore.

Hiccup didn't see Jackson at all during the rest of that day, nor did he see him at all the day after, or the day after that; Hiccup began to realise just how out of the way Jackson must have gone in order to see him every day.

And something about that brought a taste of bitter resentment to his mouth, though he couldn't figure out towards whom.

On that Friday, Hiccup was walking to third period (history) alongside Astrid. The days had seemed to pass in a haze; Hiccup's mind felt cloudy, and his actions felt muted, as though he were trying to wade through a thin (but still ever-present) fog with every movement. It felt fake; reality had the qualities of a dream, and Thursday morning Hiccup had woken up confused and disoriented, mumbling about how he thought he had woken up in another dream.

Astrid had been quiet for most of the walk, but a jab at Hiccup's shoulder caught his attention. She grabbed him by the sleeve of the shirt, pulling him around towards her but stepping aside in the process.

"Hey check this out. Look how awful these posters are. I've seen these fliers all over the school," she said, pointing enthusiastically at black and white clipart designs plastered on purple paper. The whole sign was a travesty to look at, and looked as though it had been slapped together at the last second by somebody who neither cared about, nor knew anything about, the event that the poster was advertising.

"Astrid, why are you showing me this?" Hiccup asked, his voice flat but with annoyance at the edges. "I don't care." He made a move to turn around, because this was a waste of their time, but Astrid grabbed him hard and continued staring at the poster.

"No, but look at this. This guy looks like he's jacking off a—"

"We both know it's a complet—" Hiccup turned back towards the hallway, and his heart lept through his chest in nerves and unidentifiable emotions, and time around him seemed to slow down as Jackson passed by him quickly, moving the opposite direction that they had been going.

All around him, Hiccup could feel people moving, but he was standing in a frozen hallway. Jackson's head was down, and he didn't look back once; just kept moving forward, seeming to walk faster into the crowd, his white hair still painfully visible until it ducked to the right and through a doorway.

Behind him, Astrid winced, clenching her eyes tight.

"Hiccup..." she started, tentatively and with care, but the shorter boy spun around, teeth clenching behind a taut mouth, ears pulled back and hostility in his eyes. He met his friend's gaze long enough for her to avert her eyes (even if it was only momentarily), and then he spun around and walked off alone.

He hadn't been angry, but now he was. And he wasn't sure if he was angry at Astrid, for thinking that Hiccup was a broken ex-lover who couldn't stand the sight of a boy he never date, never even liked. And he wasn't sure if he was angry at Jackson, for still existing and for all the bullshit that he had put Hiccup through, reducing his life down to this.

And he wasn't sure if he was angry with himself for only just now realising that it had been a good thing he hadn't seen Jackson since then.

Jackson's sudden absence didn't go unnoticed by Hiccup's gang. But it did go unspoken for the first week. Which was infuriating, because Hiccup knew that the only reason that Snotlout hadn't said anything, or the twins hadn't chimed in stupidly, was because there was something larger that was keeping them from doing so. Hiccup had no doubt that Astrid had figured Hiccup and Jackson had broken up, and had threatened Snotlout with his dear life if he so much as winked at Hiccup in a mocking way.

Hiccup was beginning to very quickly resent his friend. How she thought that he needed coddling, and over something that if she even bothered for a goddamn minute to ask him about, she would realise had no effect over him at all.

Hiccup began sitting with Fishlegs between Astrid, culminating on Friday morning when she sat down next to him and he let out a loud sigh of annoyance before getting up and moving himself.

Jackson had ruined everything.

Tuesday the following week, however, was when Hiccup learned for a fact that Astrid had been coercing their friends' silence.

Astrid was absent that morning, her mother taking her in for dental surgery that had been scheduled for a month now, ever since she had managed to crack her tooth in an unevenly matched back-alley fight she had refused to back down from. Without her present, the gang remained silent. Astrid was the only one who was able to bind the two factions together into a cohesive whole. Snotlout and Hiccup had always had an adversarial relationship; Hiccup had tried many times, early on, to bridge the gap between them, but Snotlout had rebuffed every attempt. Fishlegs was clearly on Hiccup's side, but when it came to group matters, he kept himself invisible enough that he could be considered a nonentity. And nobody knew about the twins; probably the twins didn't even know about themselves. They just seemed to come and go of their own whims.

As the five sat around in their usual circle, silence bearing over them, Snotlout drummed his fingers against the side of his leg, until he finally seemed to give up some internal battle.

"Where's Jackson been?"

Hiccup's brow furled and his gaze turned harsh as he looked up from his hands that had been perched in his lap. "He's not my problem anymore," he replied, keeping his tongue in check.

Snotlout didn't back down, though. He never did. Snotlout would never back down from a challenge with Hiccup. "So, did you two break up or what?"

The corners of Hiccup's lips tightened and he did his best to keep his voice under control. But that didn't stop him from replying.

"Fuck off, Snotlout."

Jackson was gone. Hiccup's life should be returning to what it had been. He'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted.

But he wasn't any happier.

When Hiccup saw Snotlout next, he had a black eye that he refused to talk about.

By Wednesday, Hiccup couldn't take it any longer. He was tired of dealing with Snotlout's — Snotlout's everything. And he was tired of that hyena-like laughter that the twins would give each other before high-fiving. And he was tired of Astrid babying him. He didn't want to see any of them anymore. As the hallway siphoned through the doors to the cafeteria, Hiccup continued walking past them, navigating through the school's hallways which became less and less dense the further he traveled from the lunchroom. After five minutes, he was left standing in an isolated stairwell, framed by bare concrete and cut off from the rest of the school by brick walls and metal doors. Hiccup ducked under the stairs, shaking his hand with disgust when it came into contact with dried gum plastered to the underside of the stairs.

Hiccup tucked himself against the wall, sliding back as far as he could. He looked down at his legs, which weren't long enough to poke out from the end of the staircase while his back was flush with the outer wall. His body didn't move for a minute; then, his feet jumped once, in a synchronised manner, and Hiccup let his head fall back slowly against the brick and his ears to gently fall, staring up at the sloped concrete inches above his head.

This stairwell was his, and he had spent numerous classes here when he didn't feel like being at school but couldn't sneak out of the building. After a while, the enclosed space had begun to feel as though it belonged to him, though this was the first time that he had ever sought it out for anything that resembled shelter.

Shelter. That annoyed Hiccup. If Jackson had never spoken to him— none of this would have happened. Everything would have kept going exactly as it always had. But that forward piece of—

Hiccup couldn't think of a proper word. He let out a breath, closing his eyes and willing himself to relax.

Eight minutes later, he opened his eyes at the sound of the door swinging open only a few feet on the other side of the staircase, which echoed throughout the enclosed room. His ears perked up, listening for any distinguishing sounds from the footsteps. As long as it was anyone but Astrid, or Snotlout; as long as it was anyone who wasn't here for him. 'Just keep going up the stairs,' he willed silently, waiting to hear the dull thud of the shoes to sound directly into his ear.

But his stomach sank as the feet began to move around the staircase, towards where Hiccup was hidden. Reflexively, he began to sit up so he could move quickly, though he had no idea why; there wasn't anywhere that he could escape. He was under a goddamn staircase, which was pretty inescapable. And this was stupid anyways. He wasn't going to run away from his friends. He stared at the small sliver of space at the very foot of the stairwell, waiting to see the petite boots come into view.

Instead, massive loafers plopped down awkwardly, and a moment later, Fishlegs' hand wrapped over the concrete edge of the stairwell, face coming down into view.

Hiccup's features eased when he saw his best friend's face. He didn't want to see Astrid or Snotlout right now — didn't think he wanted to see anybody right now; but if he had to have company, Fishlegs was the only person he would have wanted.

"Hey," he asked, voice reverberating through the air. His voice had been high since they had first met, but had suddenly dropped over the course of the summer as blonde stubble began to appear all over his face. "Mind if I sit with you?"

Hiccup let out a relaxed breath — perhaps the first one he had taken in many days — and nodded at the spot to his left. In response, Fishlegs ducked under the floor of the staircase, shuffling across the ground before turning around, setting his backpack to his side. When he had settled into place, he sat cross-legged on the ground and pat his legs once for good measure, as though he were checking to make sure that they were secure, before digging through his pack and pulling out a textbook. A sliver of paper stuck out from the top, and he opened to the page, revealing a pencil tucked in on top of a half-filled sheet of loose leaf. Fishlegs picked up the pencil, scanned the left page, before continuing to write symbols and formulas on the paper. Hiccup waited until he had finished the problem before speaking.

"How'd you find me?"

Fishlegs looked up, but continued staring forward rather than facing Hiccup. "I followed you when you didn't go into the lunchroom." He waited a moment, as if that alone were something that needed to be digested.

"I've been here for ten minutes now," Hiccup responded.

"I figured you needed some time to yourself first," Fishlegs said, blinking before he turned back to his textbook, closing it (and the pencil inside of it) and setting it back next to his backpack. With that done, he focused on Hiccup, who averted his gaze after a beat. Hiccup let out a breath through his nose. For almost a minute, neither boy spoke. Then, voice level and audible only for the two boys, Fishlegs spoke.

"I liked him."

Hiccup looked at Fishlegs, no expression on his face. There was no mocking in his voice, like Snotlout; and there was no coddling, like Astrid. It was just a simple statement of truth, one that Fishlegs offered and which said nothing about Hiccup.

"We were never dating, Finn," Hiccup replied calmly, mind and body seemingly without emotion.

"I know," came Fishlegs' reply. "But I liked him anyways."

The two boys stared forward at the brick wall. Hiccup didn't know how to respond, and his mind filled with thousands of ill-defined thoughts even as it felt entirely empty. No words came to the surface, however, and so Hiccup sat.

"What did you think of him?" Fishlegs asked after two minutes of silence. Hiccup's head had slowly fallen, but he pulled it up and looked towards Fishlegs.

"What do you mean?"

Fishlegs gave Hiccup a dull look. "Hayden, I mean what I just asked: what did you think of Jackson?"

Hiccup pulled his head back slightly. "He was really forward— and always happy. I mean always. It isn't natural that he'd be so carefree like that. It's really— I mean, he followed me around like a stray puppy. And he'd never pick up on even the simplest of things, and—" Hiccup's voice stopped abruptly, as though he had simply run out of things to list even though his quick-paced rant had only been building up.

Fishlegs took a breath. "Is that what you actually think, Hayden?" he asked. "Or is that just what Snotlout and the others thought?"

He blinked, and his brow creased. "Well he always went around saying that he liked me, in front of everyone. And he'd do these over-the-top shows of affection. And then Astrid— I mean, everyone thinks that I'm this lovesick weakling, like I'm just as bad as he is." Hiccup's ears twitched with energy, and he hadn't realised how his voice had sped up or gotten louder as he had been talking until he noticed that his shoulders were rising and falling with each breath.

"But all of those things," Fishlegs began. "All of those things are everyone else. How Astrid treats you. How Jackson acts. What Snotlout thinks. I want to know about you. What did you think? Before everyone else had met Jackson. Before Astrid started treating you like a baby, or Snotlout began taunting you or the twins making fun of you."

Hiccup's lips pursed in annoyance; Fishlegs was beating a dead horse. He had already said exactly how he felt. Jackson had been forward, and annoying, and had been his shadow for every day since the day he had just walked up to Hiccup and thrown himself on him. Fishlegs was pestering him, and suddenly he would rather have been alone than with his best friend. He turned his head away and stared forward at the wall, brow set, leaving Fishleg's question unanswered. Minutes passed. But neither boy moved.

'This is stupid.' Hiccup thought. 'This whole thing has been fucking stupid. He's gone, but he fucked up everything enough as it is, and now this is what it's become. All of my friends are turning against me, or are annoying me, all because some fucking loser decided to shove himself into someone else's world where he didn't belong.'

'But he's gone.' Another voice in Hiccup's mind pointed out.

'Yeah. And he's still fucking everything up even worse.'

'You could have always told him to go a long time ago.'

'Yeah, but—' Hiccup argued, hesitating for a moment as he tried to figure out a valid argument. 'He probably wouldn't have listened. He didn't get any of what I said, ever.'

'When you told him to leave you alone last week, he listened.'

'Well okay, but we couldn't have known he would actually listen.'

'You never tried before last week,' the voice responded. 'Why?'

The argument in Hiccup's mind went silent as there was nothing that Hiccup could argue with. He didn't know why. Jackson was stupidly naive, and awkward and way too forward, and everyone had been making fun of him. But Hiccup hadn't turned him away. He had talked to him; he'd stayed after school throwing that ball back and forth; he'd let Jackson sit with them at lunch, even if he'd been so dopey that Hiccup had to hide his face because it burned so painfully; he'd let Jackson walk with him to his bike after school; he'd still talk with Jackson; he'd included Jackson when throwing the tennis ball.

And the memory of that evening behind the school, throwing the ball back and forth as the sun was setting—the calmness and ease as Hiccup had let Jackson join in. And then Jackson's response.

"Nothing made me like you. I just do."

Hiccup wasn't sure if he had heard it when Jackson had said it, but in his memories now, he realised what had been in Jackson's voice. It wasn't gratefulness, or outright joy. It was the ever-present happiness characteristic of Jackson, mixed with respect. Respect for Hiccup not because Hiccup had bloodied a monstrous bully and saved Jackson's life, but plain respect for Hiccup as a human.

And Hiccup realised that Jackson had never seen Hiccup as anything different than anyone else. He wasn't afraid of him, or intimidated by him. It wasn't Hiccup that wasn't able to intimidate, but Jackson who wasn't able to be intimidated.

A thousand mundane observations that Hiccup had never known he had known connected, as each piece unraveled with new information and unlocked a constellation of others, and the sudden rush of understanding overcame Hiccup as his vision seemed to momentarily spin. He brought his hands up and rubbed at his eyes. His vision was normal when he pulled his hands away again.

Slowly, he spoke. "I don't know," he admitted. It had been a long time since either boy had spoken, but both of them knew what he was answering. "I don't know," he repeated, looking away from both the wall and Fishlegs, staring at the disorientingly close slope of the stairwell inches in front of his nose.

It was a few seconds before Fishlegs began to respond, and when he did, it was tentatively. "You didn't hate him," he offered.

"No," Hiccup admitted gruffly.

"You didn't dislike him," Fishlegs pressed after a second.

"No," Hiccup repeated. His arms weren't physically crossed, but his voice was just as guarded all the same.

"Why did he need to go away, then?" Fishlegs asked after a few seconds. He had been choosing his words very carefully for a while now.

Hiccup was silent for a minute. "Everything was changing. Everyone was treating me differently." He felt like he wanted to go on, but the words wouldn't come.

"Did you ever think that perhaps things could get better?"

Hiccup looked from the underbelly of the staircase, to Fishlegs. He moved to open his mouth, but Fishlegs beat him to it, though the boy spoke with no rush.

"A lot of things change. With or without him," Fishlegs said. "Do you think maybe it didn't have to be a bad change?"

Hiccup's mouth closed slowly, and his eyebrows relaxed. His ears slowly began to fall down as his mind began to calm. After a moment, his gaze slipped down to focus on the crack of space between his and Fishlegs' hips. He took a breath, and rubbed his face with his palms. "I don't know," he mumbled through his hands before coming to a rest.

Hiccup's head fell to rest on Fishlegs' shoulder, and Hiccup shifted his weight so that he was leaning against his best friend's side. It was an awkward movement in the tight space between the wall and the smaller boy, but Fishlegs wrapped his arm around the boy's shoulder and pulled him close. Hiccup had always found comfort in being close to someone when he was younger.

Neither boy spoke. Fishlegs looked at the wall, expression neutral, and Hiccup's eyes were closed as his mind was lost in undefined thought. Fishlegs could feel Hiccup's breath begin to even out and slow down as the boy began to calm down, and Hiccup's shoulders relaxed underneath Fishlegs' palm.

Hiccup was nearly asleep when Fishlegs spoke quietly. "And you know that Astrid doesn't think you're a baby," he said. That earned no response from Hiccup, though the boy shifted enough that Fishlegs knew he had heard him, so he went on. "She doesn't think you're weak. She just wants to make sure that you always have someone who has your back. Maybe she's doing it wrong," Fishlegs added somewhat hastily, feeling Hiccup begin to stir. "But she's doing all she knows. I know for a fact, though, that she doesn't think you're any less at all."

Hiccup's shoulders relaxed again. After a moment, he spoke up. "I know," Hiccup's voice cracked in his throat when he spoke, and he followed it up with a cough.

Hiccup was woken up ten minutes later when the school bell rang.

When morning came the next day, waking up felt different. The world felt painted with hues of violets and blues, and Hiccup tossed the covers off himself. He didn't notice that he had sped through his morning routine until he arrived at a school parking lot that was abnormally empty. He checked his phone. He was over fifteen minutes early.

He couldn't explain it. But the voices that passed around him, to him, over him — he didn't hear any of them. As he was walking to first period, he realised that he didn't remember a single thing that anyone had said at the lockers, and he wasn't sure he had ever even been aware of anything being said, even though he vaguely recalled opening his mouth and words coming out.

The teachers might as well be speaking other languages. He wasn't one to pay close attention, but his ears perked up when they realised that nothing in the background noise of Hiccup's world was making sense. And try as he might, he couldn't follow what they were saying. It was English — he could pick out the individual words (he thought), but he felt entirely incapable of understanding their meanings.

As he sat in fourth period, his leg began to jitter, and his ears began to waggle. Astrid sat next to him in the class, and she discretely hit his leg with the side of her hand.

"Yo, what's up?" she asked in a whisper, confused, and her eyes darted to his ears briefly.

"I dunno," he responded, shrugging. And that was true. When the bell rang for the end of the period, Hiccup was already throwing his chair in against the desk, backpack in hand. He was rushing quickly through the doorway before the pack was thrown over his shoulder, leaving a confused Astrid behind him.

As Hiccup walked with purpose towards the lunch room, the cloud in his mind that had seemed to muddle everything went away, and he realised that he was executing a plan he didn't remember making. But now that it seemed so clear to him, he didn't realise how he couldn't have known about it from the very start.

He had to see Jackson. The boy had always sought out Hiccup at Hiccup's spots, though; Hiccup only knew one place where he could find Jackson.

"I go to lunch early" echoed through Hiccup's mind as he turned the last corner of the hallway, closing in on the lunch room. The hallway was already full of students shuffling idly into the cafeteria. But there was no shock of white hair on a tall boy with floppy, blockish ears.

As he arrived at the doorway, he looked through. But there was no sign of Jackson at any of the tables. He wouldn't be out of sight in the cafeteria buying lunch; the boy ate a packed lunch every day, out of a brown paper bag that always said "Jackson" on it.

While still in the hallway, Hiccup pulled himself off to the side, allowing traffic to flow around him and through the doorway as he put himself up against the wall next to the lockers. He pivoted his head left to right continuously, scanning the hallway for the taller boy.

A few minutes after Hiccup had arrived, he spotted Astrid walking towards him in the middle of a body of chatting, giggling girls; she looked confused and not just a bit worried as she approached him. Hiccup held out his hand, trying to stave off the conversation he knew was coming, but she didn't give in.

"Hiccup, what's going on? Are you okay?" she asked.

Hiccup stood on his toes, trying to scan over her head, before standing back down and meeting her eyes briefly. "I'm fine. Go on in for lunch. I'll join you in a bit," he said, before looking around anxiously again.

"Hiccup, are you—" Astrid began, but Hiccup cut her off, looking at her quickly.

"I'm fine," he repeated. "Just go on in." He tried to sound as confident, as calm, and as nice as he hoped would be enough to calm her.

Astrid crossed her arms and gave Hiccup a look of worried confusion, but hesitantly walked through the doors, entering the cafeteria.

Hiccup's ears were practically alive themselves, turning every which way as his head looked back and forth across the ever-thinning crowd filing in to the lunch room. Soon, however, the students stopped coming and the hallway began to empty. And he still hadn't found Jackson.

Hiccup began to worry. This wasn't supposed to happen. Jackson always came for lunch. He had to come for lunch. He had to be here today—what if he wasn't here? 'What if I've missed him?' Hiccup thought worriedly, turning from his post to scan the lunchroom quickly. His heart leapt every time that he saw someone with white hair, but none of them were Jackson. 'Fuck, where are you?' Hiccup thought to himself as a girl wearing a brown and deep violet blouse walked past him and into the lunch room. Dread began to flood Hiccup's stomach.

With the hallways now having been almost completely empty for two minutes, Hiccup abandoned his post, heading down the hallway to the left, where he remembered Jackson coming from all those weeks ago.

He still wasn't sure what he was going to do when he found him, but he needed to find him, dammit.

The hallway leading to the cafeteria was a major artery for the school, and numerous different hallways branched off of it in an almost labyrinthine system of confusing and disorienting architecture. Hiccup brushed past the first hallway in a breeze, checking it quickly for any sign of Jackson. He moved on to the next hallway, but without luck. Hiccup's heart beat against his chest as he reached the end of the main hallway. This was the last branch; Jackson had to be here.

Except he wasn't. The hallway was empty.

Hiccup stared down the hallway, blank stare matching the emptiness of the corridor. He had to have missed Jackson, somewhere along the line. Or maybe he was in the library, off the English wing. Hiccup turned on his heels, the determination in his eyes undaunted by the sinking feeling in his stomach, and he sped off.

Hiccup only saw the speck of white hair walking away from him out of the corner of his eye as he breezed past the middle corridor.

His heart leapt as he jumped backwards, whipping his head around. It was definitely Jackson. But he was walking away from the lunchroom. Hiccup walked as fast as his legs would carry him, trying his best to close the distance between the two. Jackson was walking at a slow pace, but his stride was longer and carried him further. He seemed to still not have noticed Hiccup, and his head was down, swinging back and forth from side to side rhythmically as he walked. The brown paper bag was gripped in his right hand.

Hiccup was nearing in on the boy. "Jackson," he said; his voice was strong, but not overly loud, and Hiccup was still ten yards away from the boy, who seemed to not have heard him. Hiccup picked up his pace.

"Jackson!" Hiccup called out, louder and closer. The boy heard this time, and he abruptly stopped walking, head bolting upright and ears flopping backwards in the process, one of them remaining upended on his hair. The thought that it must have to be uncomfortable to have ears that uncontrollable ran through Hiccup's mind. Hiccup slowed his pace to as slow as his nerves would allow him to walk as he approached Jackson.

Hiccup was only an arm's length away from Jackson when he decided that he was close enough. Hiccup repeated the other boy's name, this time quieter.

Jackson looked over his right shoulder. His mouth was slightly ajar, and his eyes seemed curious, but the normal never-ending exuberance of Jackson seemed to be dulled. The corners of his lips twitched almost imperceptibly, and for a heart-stopping second, Hiccup was afraid that Jackson might keep walking away.

But Jackson turned his body around, facing Hiccup. And his whole demeanour seemed to relax as his face warmed into an earnest smile. It wasn't the perfect, sparkling toothy smile that Jackson always wore; rather, it was a simple one, with just the corners of the mouth turned upward but the eyes conveying the rest.

"Hayden," Jackson said, just barely above a whisper. And there wasn't anger or hurt in his voice; there was just Jackson — a mix of reverence and unswaying happiness with life.

Hiccup hadn't known what he would do when he finally caught Jackson. He had figured that when he was facing him, the words would come. And even running down the hallway, jumbled and incoherent thoughts sped through his mind, innumerable different conversations. But every word in Hiccup's mouth fell short on his tongue at Jackson's smile. After everything he had done and the promise of no return, he was still smiling at Hiccup. The shorter boy stared up at Jackson, unable to say anything.

A quick twitch of Hiccup's ears were the only warning before Hiccup's arms shot out, gripping Jackson's shirt with both hands, shoving him back against the lockers behind him and pulling himself flush against the other boy's chest. And without a word, without a second for Jackson to orient himself, Hiccup shot up, pressing his lips to Jackson's.

Hiccup could feel the shock and surprise in the other boy's shoulders, but then his body relaxed and the tension in his face left. Jackson turned his head slightly to left, and that was all the acceptance that Hiccup needed as he tighted his grip on Jackson's shirt and released, wrapping his arms as best he could around Jackson.

Almost hesitantly, Jackson's arms raised and he in turn embraced Hiccup, and through his distracted senses, Hiccup thought he could hear the distant sound of a squishy paper bag hit the floor.

Neither boy deepened the kiss, allowing time to pass with their lips merely touching, both afraid individually to open their eyes and see the world. But even so, Hiccup's heart was beating far quicker than it ever had before, and finally he was forced to exhale a warm breath against Jackson's mouth.

Beneath his own lips, Hiccup could feel Jackson's soft lips spread open in what he knew was a wide, toothy grin. And suddenly, Hiccup found that he believed he would love to see that sight.

EPILOGUE:

"Wait, so you want to get rockets? And not blow something up?" asked Tuffnut, confused and almost offended. He threw his hands up in the air, leaning back against the locker behind him as though he had given up on Snotlout's very existence.

Snotlout, on the other hand, still had his usual smug expression on his face, and his fingers were splayed and extended in his all-too-common 'Allow me to enlighten you' pose. "No, but see: we get a bunch of rockets, and we fire them into her yard. We run away, but she's freaked out. Then I come by, notice she's crying, and I comfort her and protect her. Instant win."

Astrid's eyes were screwed so tightly shut that Hiccup could see the skin turn white, and from the look of her nose, she was pinching it so tightly that she was going to leave visible marks. Tuffnut looked disbelieving, but Ruffnut was downright indignant, her mouth open and eyes half-lidded as though she couldn't believe just how fucking stupid an idea she had just heard.

But it was Jackson who spoke up first. "That's not going to work, for so many reasons Snotlout."

He hadn't even bothered to look up at Snotlout; his eyes were still on the open textbook in his lap as he continued to write out a lengthy math problem that only seconds before, Fishlegs (who was sitting immediately beside him, in similar fashion with textbook but also a calculator) had been nodding his head at. Fishlegs' finger was still on Jackson's textbook, pointing at a nondescript symbol raised to another, equally-nondescript symbol.

Snotlout turned his head to face Jackson. "And why not, brainiac?"

Jackson stopped writing, but still didn't look up. "I don't even know where to begin. I— I mean, first of all, aren't rockets illegal in the entire state? And if she has any pets, you're probably going to wind up blowing them up with the rocket that you decided was a good idea to just, throw into this girl's back yard. And how is this supposed to make her like you? I—I do—don't—I fail to see how this turns out in any scenario with you getting a girlfriend."

Snotlout crossed his arms. "Well alright, should I go up and follow her around until she likes me, then?"

"Fuck—shut up—you, Snotlout—Snotlout."

Hiccup blinked in surprise, looking over at Jackson who was now looking up from his book. Hiccup closed his own mouth slowly. All around the circle, a look of amusement or surprise (or surprised amusement) was on everyone's faces. Snotlout looked like he couldn't decide which opponent to take on first, Hiccup or Jackson, and looked back and forth between them for a moment.

For his part, Jackson was still staring at Snotlout. There hadn't been hostility in his voice despite his words, and there wasn't hostility on his face. Rather, there was a look of challenge in his eyes, mixed along with the smile that was always on his face.

Hiccup looked at his boyfriend, and his chest felt warmer as his heart beat. He reached out and mutely took Jackson's hand in his.

Hiccup smiled.