****So yeah, another extremely depressing chapter. I can't even say I regret it. Finally some Hiccup and Jack action! sort of? more like crying sorry guys!****
A thank you to HoneyBeeez for editing this chapter and part of the next! I really appreciate it!
A thank you to all my wonderful reviewers as well!
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, AUGUST 21
I woke up coughing again. It's funny, you don't really get a lot of sleep when you're me. Or not so funny. Uhg. Time to get ready for school. I've never gone to a private school, so this would be interesting. Maybe.
I went downstairs. Stoick wasn't home. I made some coffee for myself (It turns out the stuff is delicious) and ate a piece of toast. Better than oatmeal. Uhg.
I picked out a green sweater to go over my gray shirt. I put on my glasses, a pair of black skinny jeans (for some reason blue jeans aren't allowed) and converse and headed out the door. I figured I could walk, it wasn't far at all.
On the way I smiled at the neighbors mowing their lawns. There was a woman standing on a porch a few houses away from mine who looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it in my memory, so I shrugged it off.
I crossed the street and the school was in sight. I had to stop for a minute to breathe. I had to pull myself together. I can't let people know my weakness. I tried to take deep breaths. In, out, in out. I gained control again.
"Hey, are you okay?" A girls voice asked. Shit. Already found out. And, would you look at that it was Astrid. Lovely. I looked around to make sure nobody else was here. I told her everything was fine. "Well, I don't think so. You know you're wheezing, right?" Oh. "You shouldn't come to school, you'll get other people sick." Astrid warned.
I rolled my eyes. "It's not contagious." She gave me a distrustful look. "Look, Astrid, I was born with it. It isn't contagious trust me. COPD. Look it up." I said, walking away. I could see the shock on her face. Crap, I just gave out my secret to a random stranger! Hopefully she wouldn't tell anyone, but I still wouldn't let my guard down.
I was so concentrated on thinking about that that I bumped into some guy. His hair was white. Dyed probably. And Spiked. It set off a coughing fit. "Hey… ow! Jesus…" He turned around and glared. "Sorry Frosty, didn't mean to step on your tail!" Uhg. This guy is awful! He doesn't have to glare like that.
Suddenly his face changed. It turned into a grin when one of his little Jock friends punched me in the gut. Ow, that hurt, like a lot more than if a healthy person got hit. I started coughing again. Uhg. "Whatever!" I turned and ran.
"Settle down, kids. We have a new student." The teacher spoke up. A few kids giggled in the back. It was the twins and Snotlout. And would you look at that, the dumb jocks and their cold hearted leader were in this class too. Why do I make so many enemies? The gods hate me…
There was giggling in the back of the room, and the guy who punched me spoke up, "I doubt he going to be able to learn with all that coughing." He snickered. Apparently Astrid had figured it out because she stood up and glared.
"At least he's trying." The jock shut up right then. Maybe Astrid was popular? I didn't know. But it definitely looked like something had once… happened, between the two. The frost head just sat there, watching in interest. He… reminded me of someone.
The teacher continued, looking annoyed at his students. "Please introduce yourself." I coughed a little, but it wasn't out of place, nobody noticed, really. I gave my signature crooked smile to the class, and I think half of them thought I was crazy.
"Hi, I'm Hiccup, and I hope to get to know you all better." A couple of them stared at me in shock, and a couple of them laughed, and a few, for some reason, looked at frost-head (I really needed to ask for his name), who was just smiling like a fool, he looked determined? why? Nevermind. I didn't want to know. "Yeah, I know, I know, I have a weird name. It's… a family thing." I smiled weakly.
The teacher, I learned his name was Mr. Bunnymund, told me to sit over in the front, next to Astrid. It was homeroom, so I just pulled out my sketchbook and decided to doodle for a few minutes. I was drawing a rather personal piece when frost-head walked over and smiled down at me and pulled my sketchbook out of my grasp, and ran away with it!
What was I going to do!?
JACK
So, Hiccup doesn't remember me? Ouch. Usually I'm the one who forgets things. Well, I guess I look a little different, right? I smiled down at the doodling Hiccup and decided, why not. I stole his sketchbook and ran into the bathroom. It would be kind of weird to look at it out here, so I sat in the stall.
I opened it up. I had expected drawings of dragons, and there were some, but not as many as I hoped, and definitely not as nice. Don't get me wrong, Hiccup is a natural born artist, he just… doesn't draw happy things much anymore. It wasn't like the art was bad.
The first drawing was him in the hospital, hooked up to the thing he called the dragon. It was surrounded in darkness. Drawing after drawing of him alone, of him displaying self hatred. A few that stood out were the ones that showed the scars on his wrists, or the ones where he was apologizing, even if he didn't do anything wrong. Then I got to the one he had been working on.
He was trying to swim to the surface, one arm reaching looked desperate, and tears were pouring down his face, but his eyes were the worst. They were dead. The suffering in them was evident. And his left leg was… missing? Tied to where it was cut off was a large brick that was pulling him deeper. That was odd. I saw that there was a boy, seemingly floating above. A boy with brown hair and brown eyes.
I realized that I was the boy when I saw the caption. "Jack, I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so, sorry. If I could change one thing, it would be losing you. It wouldn't be this wretched cough, it wouldn't be my mom going nuts and beating me, nor my dad abandoning us. It wouldn't be the accident, and it wouldn't be all the bullies. If I could have saved our friendship, I think I could still be happy. But I couldn't. It's my fault. I'm so, so, so, sorry, Jack. I didn't mean to lose you. I didn't mean to lose myself…"
I started to cry. I heard someone come into the bathroom. "-head? Frost-head? Are you in here!? Give me back my sketchbook!" He sounded angry, and hurt. I couldn't stop crying. I took out my blue tinted contacts. I opened the door. He turned to me, anger on his face at first, and then it turned to recognition, then hurt, then shock. Then it was… something dark.
HICCUP
How could I not have seen the signs? It's been so long since I'd seen him, but he was the only person who really cared about me (who didn't go batshit crazy) and I should have recognized him. This is all my fault. My voice was broken and cracked when I spoke next.
"Ja..ack?" It's all my fault. "J-Jack…? Is that.. I-Is that you?" I sounded almost as bad as when I was told my mom committed suicide. "Jack why are you here?" It's all my fault. "Jack, why are you crying?" It's all my fault. "Jack?" Everything.
Everything is my fault.
Suddenly I was enveloped in a hug. "Hiccup… I'm sorry. This isn't your fault." Yes it is. "Of course you wouldn't recognize me, I changed my looks completely." No, I'm just an idiot. "Hiccup don't blame yourself." If I smile they always stop asking. I forced a smile. Then went into a coughing fit. I rescued myself again.
"I-Its fine, I-I don't." Jack gave me a look of sadness. He looked to the side a little bit, and then he sighed. He hung his head low and sheepishly looked up.
"I- Hiccup. I saw the drawings." I dropped my jaw, those were personal! I knew I shouldn't have brought it. To school, of all places. Good idea Hiccup. "It's not like I meant to! Or, well I did, but I didn't know they were personal! I'm sorry…." he spluttered. I could have laughed, had I not gone pale remembering the last one.
"Did you see th-" I started. I didn't get to finish. Stupid coughing. Jack knew what I meant though.
"Yeah... Hiccup, what is that all about? When we were younger-" I flinched, not wanting to remember, which wasn't unnoticed by Jack, "-you never told me anything important. When we were little, I thought you just had pneumonia for a whole year or something, but it's still here! Why are you so upset about everything, and why are you missing a leg in this, you walk just fine! What's this about your mom and dad, and this 'accident'? Hiccup!?" Now I was crying.
I sighed, might as well get it out of the way. I lifted up my left pant leg. Soon a metal prosthetic was visible. "There was an accident about 2 years after you...left. I was in a car on the passengers side and it flipped over and…" I gulped, "The car rolled down the hill. The glass cut me up pretty bad, but… there was a metal gate at the bottom of the hill. It managed to go through the car and…" I took a deep breath, or tried to, ended up coughing a little, "It impaled my leg. They couldn't fix the damage, after that the car set fire, and the burns matched with the wounds just couldn't be saved. My flesh was rotting." I blew out.
Jack looked terrified. I brought him home after school and told him the rest, everything from when I was four until now, 11 years of pain. He looked absolutely as crushed as I felt. I had to relive every painful moment, and it wasn't as easy as talking about the accident. Several times I had to stop for a while and just sit and cry. Sadness was better than emptiness, right? Honestly I wouldn't be able to tell you. Probably hearing about my disease was the worst for him. He looked shocked, and honestly I thought he had known. We were together for a whole year after all.
The whole time Stoick stood in the doorway. It had only been a couple of weeks, but he had grown to love this boy. He stood there, weeping silently. I thought that I might be able to achieve happiness again, for the first time in a long time.
Jack just nodded when I was finished. "You didn't deserve any of this. And it isn't your fault. Just… I'm gonna be here for you all the time from now on, okay? Just call me, talk to me, anything, whenever. I'm not going to leave you again." He smiled at me, a sad smile.
I think maybe it was then that I fell for Jack. When he could so easily stay by my side, after figuring out I was hard to deal with, even though he was a generally fun person. He didn't even think I was weird, or anything.
Because Jack, he was… different. A good different. And that just made me like him all that much more. But you know… I don't think I'll tell him just yet.
****Okay I lied I am sorry. That was pretty painful to write. I'll update soon!******
