March 9 2014

Prompt: High School AU

So it's HiJack week again! But fair warning, I didn't realize this until yesterday and this is a bad week for me so I'm not doing all the days and most of them will probably be late. But enjoy!

It took Hiccup until they were told to line up alphabetically to realize that it was finally here. Graduation day had finally arrived. It was the end of their high school careers, and soon they would be off to bigger and better things. He hugged Jack quickly before running off to find his spot in line. He wished he would be sitting a little closer to his boyfriend so they could share as much of this time as they could together, but it was not meant to be. Unfortunately H was a little too far from O for them to be sitting together.

They were waiting for about two minutes before the doors before them were opened and the music started playing. The students walked down the aisles at the unusually slow pace and took their seats, waiting for the events to begin. There was a talk by the principal, a couple of the teachers all telling them how proud they were and glad that they were moving on and wishing them success and all the usual stuff, and finally it was time for the valedictorian speech. Being the smartest kid in the grade, naturally Fishlegs has been selected as valedictorian, and naturally Fishlegs was proud of himself for the accomplishment.

Hiccup was paying attention for the first little bit, but his mind started to wander as Fishlegs' valedictorian speech dragged into its fifth minute. It wasn't that the speech was boring, it was just that after all of these speeches Hiccup was getting bored in general. Fishlegs' voice drifted off into the back of his brain as Hiccup started to observe his surroundings a little more closely.

Glancing to his left, he noticed Jack sitting a row back and a few seats over. Staring for just a moment he was about to turn his head to look elsewhere, but before he could Jack looked over at him and caught his eyes. Hiccup immediately got lost in those blue eyes and only just noticed Jack feigning boredom and rolling his eyes. Hiccup laughed silently and tapped his wrist where a watch would be, earning a smirk from Jack.

When Jack returned his attention to Fishlegs a moment later Hiccup also focused his gaze forward, but he wasn't paying attention to the speech. His mind started to wander to the past four years and how amazing they had been.

The first day of grade nine had been horrifying for Hiccup. The only friend he had known coming into high school was Fishlegs, but the flight home from his family vacation had been majorly delayed due to a strike and he missed the first day. That left Hiccup alone, and in retrospect it was because of that that he met Jack. They learned afterwards that they shared absolutely no classes except for lunch and their lockers were nowhere near each other, so their meeting was highly unlikely.

The meeting had been entirely accidental as well. And he meant accidental. Hiccup had been looking for room 316 and was looking at the room numbers more than where he was going. Jack, however, was looking down at his schedule and sprinting towards his own classroom on the other end of the floor. As anyone watching a movie would expect, they collided and knocked each other backwards in a flurry of papers and books. Jack had been upset at first, but when he saw how apologetic Hiccup was he couldn't get mad. He apologized as well and as soon as they got up and had gathered all of their stuff, the bell to signify the start of class rang. Both boys immediately sprinted off, headed towards their respective classes. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending at how you look at it) they were both denied access to their classes without a late slip, and they ended up in line together at the main office.

"Hey, I'm sorry for making you late. I should've watched where I was going," Hiccup said to Jack, keeping his head down. He couldn't believe that on his first day of high school he had ran into someone and been late to his first class.

"It's alright, I probably shouldn't have been running so fast," Jack said with a smile. "I'm Jack by the way."

"I'm Hiccup." When Jack cocked an eyebrow at that Hiccup explained. "It's a family thing." Fortunately Jack was courteous enough not to ask further or make fun of it.

After they had received their admit slips to class they said their farewells and went their separate ways. At least until lunch period came around.

Hiccup had brought his own lunch and found a table on his own, at least until Jack came out of the kitchen area with the lunch he had just bought. They ended up talking all lunch period, discovering they both had a lot in common. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

As it turned out, Jack was new to the area and knew no one. Naturally Hiccup introduced him to Fishlegs on the second day, and they got along quite well as well. A few weeks later they were joined by Astrid, who Jack met through the volleyball team. By the end of the school year it was like they had known each other all their lives.

Grade ten was definitely interesting. At the beginning of the year Snotlout and the twins that kept following him around had started to pick on Hiccup and Fishlegs, but Astrid and Jack put a quick stop to that. From then they were really more annoying than a real problem. The really interesting part was that after Jack had gotten Snotlout to stop picking on Hiccup, Hiccup had started feeling something for Jack. He wasn't sure what it was at the beginning, but after his dream about Jack a few months later, he knew. He had a crush on Jack.

The next few months had been awkward, with Hiccup trying to keep his feelings from Jack. A part of him wanted to keep them hidden, and a part of him wanted to find out if Jack felt the same way. The only person he had confided in was Fishlegs, and that was in December.

Little did Hiccup know, however, that Jack was doing the exact same thing. Back when he had defended Hiccup in front of Snotlout for the first time, he had done it partially because he was his friend, but mostly because he felt a need to protect him. He wasn't sure where such a strong feeling came from, but he realized it a few weeks later. He had a crush on Hiccup. He had kept it a secret for a while, eventually confiding in Astrid. That had been in November.

In January, Hiccup and Jack had gone on a class field trip together for their elective, leaving Astrid and Fishlegs alone at the usual lunch table. As if it was planned, they each asked at the same time if they thought that Hiccup and Jack were acting weird recently. That was when it all came out and they decided that they needed to do something.

For the next several months, Astrid had been pushing Jack to say something to Hiccup, and Fishlegs pushing for Hiccup to say something to Jack. They pushed as hard as they could without revealing they knew anything, but it was unfortunately getting nowhere. So, Astrid decided to give it a little push.

Over the March break, she ended up throwing a party at her house. Naturally Hiccup and Jack ended up going, but what they didn't expect was to be thrown together in a closet for seven minutes in heaven. They didn't end up kissing, but the truth did finally come out when they wondered why the other each had a deep red blush. Just before they were let out, however, they realized that Astrid and Fishlegs must have known, and when they came out boy did they let them have it. But they couldn't be too brutal; after all they did bring them together.

It actually took until the beginning of grade eleven for them to have their first date though. The rest of the school year had been packed with ISUs, essays, exams, plus both boys were so nervous that they found it hard to set a day. Then, the entire summer, Jack had been shipped off to see some relatives out west. But in September they got back into the rhythm and had their first date. It was very cliché, consisting of dinner and a movie, but both boys enjoyed it.

When they returned to Hiccup's house, they stood talking on the porch for a few minutes, and finally Jack got brave and moved in for the kiss. Hiccup was in bliss, until the unthinkably awkward happened. Not only did Hiccup's father decide to open the door right then, but he had done it because Jack's father had been visiting and was about to leave. Needless to say, no one left for a while after that, and the boys had what was probably the most awkward conversation of their lives. Fortunately no one was too upset though.

What really caused the rise in attention was when they made their relationship public at school. There was no violence and no hatred thank goodness, but Hiccup wasn't comfortable with being the centre of attention for those few weeks. Fortunately it was high school and no one stayed focused on anything for too long. After that, the year finished pretty normally.

Finally, there was grade twelve. Both boys had university stresses and loads of assignments. This was also the year they'd had their first fight. They had refused to talk to each other for a week but eventually they got over it. They knew that it was just the stress of studying and grades that was getting to them.

What really surprised them, though, was that without realizing, they had both decided to go to the same university. They would be in different majors (Hiccup in engineering and Jack in film) but they would still be together. Then, on top of all of that, Fishlegs and Astrid announced they too would be going to the same university for Biology and Phys Ed respectively. The day they figured that out was one of the best days of their lives. The happiness of knowing they would all be so close for the next four years of their lives made the year seem to go by so quickly they seemed to miss it, or at least until February, when everything had come to a screeching halt.

Hiccup had been walking home from school late after a group project meeting and was standing on the sidewalk by the traffic light waiting for it to change. Just then, a car came and tried to take the corner a little too fast and lost control on a patch of black ice. Hiccup had tried to jump out of the way, but his left leg had been pinned between the car and the traffic light pole. He had spent weeks in the hospital, and it was only because of his friends that he would be graduating this year. Astrid and Fishlegs had convinced Hiccup's teachers to allow him to still be part of the lectures by Skype, and Jack brought Hiccup his homework every day until he was discharged. He had spent another few weeks with an elevator key (which Jack loved to take advantage of) until he was comfortable enough with his new prosthetic.

Just as Hiccup reached that point in his memory, he was brought back to reality by the sound of his name being called. He had been called up to come and receive his diploma. Fortunately he hadn't missed that, because that would have been awkward. He walked up, carefully watching where he stepped and making sure he didn't trip on the fake leg. Fortunately everything went off without a hitch, and soon enough they were moving the tassels to the other side of their graduation hats and celebrating finally being done high school.

Later that night they all gathered at Hiccup's house to celebrate four years well done. Surprisingly it was Jack that came up with the best line of the night. Their parents had sprung on getting the teens a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and as Jack raised he glass he said, "Cheers to four great years past, and four great years to come."

Alright, see you whenever I manage to get the College AU done...