Hello guys! I'm very very late... I'm so sorry... It's just that school kinda sucked me up... and it's difficult for me to write these days. I'm worried for school, I'm worried for my boyfriend and I'm afraid I just screwed up two of my friendships... Kinda sad... I'm sorry...

Okay, let's cut this short. Uhm... i'm not sure of what reviews are for chapter 9 and which for chapter 8 anymore... Because all the mess that this site caused... I'm sorry... i can't answer properly to your reviews. But be sure that I appreciated them a lot. They made me smile. Thank you all for taking interest in this. I love you all! oh, by the way... if you review this chapter... can you tell me what your impressions on chapter 9 were, too? Thanks 3

Chapter 10 – The descent begins

"Hiccup, sweet Jesus, calm down!" Toothless almost yelled, trying to overcome the brunet's soft sobs. He had held his friend in his arms, tightly and comfortingly hugging him, for at least ten minutes by then. "It's going to be alright, trust me. Give him a bit of time and he will…"

"How?!" Hiccup screamed loudly against the other's chest, cutting the black haired boy off. "He will not remember! It's as clear as the sun. He didn't remember a few minutes ago, why should he do it at any time later?"

"Hiccup, he was drunk just a little while ago!" Toothless answered, forcing the brunet's teary eyes to look at his' own. "It's just a temporary lack of memory, from his hangover. Soon he will get everything back in the grasp of his memory, okay? The clouds of alcohol in his brain will go away and everything will be as clear as crystal in his mind. Every single thing will be alright and he's going to like you back, okay? Hiccup, did you hear me?"

The brunet shook his head no, whimpering harder. "Stop trying to get my hopes up, James. I do appreciate, really, but stop it." He said, the notes of pain resounding in his voice, evident as an elephant among zebras. "It will just make reality harder to accept and harsher to live when I face it. He will never remember it. You heard him: there is nothing of what happened last night that is worth remembering!" Hiccup exclaimed, desperately slamming his fist on Toothless' chest, out of rage and anger, causing the black haired boy to yelp in surprise. "Why did this have to happen to me? Have I committed some horrible action? Am I a bad person, James? Am I? It's karma, by any chance, giving me some sort of payback I didn't know I deserved? Answer me James. Tell me why… I don't understand… I can't understand nor do I want to… Why this? Why to me?"

Toothless just tightened his grip around the brunet's small frame, letting the questions dissolve in the air, unanswered. There was no honest, truthful response he could give to soothe his friend's pain, nor did he know the reasons of Hiccup's torments. Of course he didn't think that the brunet was a bad person, on the contrary, he thought the complete opposite. But a judgment wasn't his in duties, nor in his jurisdiction, was it? He knew for sure, though, that there was only something left for him to say without lying. "Hiccup, listen to me." He said, taking a deep breath before going on with his speech. "Do you remember the last time you called me James?"
The brunet slowly and hesitantly nodded. "I-it was r-right after my mother's funeral… when I asked you how could go on without her…"

"Yes, that time." Toothless said softly, caressing his friend's head. "You were so sad back then… So sad that you actually forgot to make fun of me, with this damn nickname I hate. The point is: Hiccup, you cannot be so sad over a… a mere crush. Don't get yourself so down for this. Jack is nothing. If he doesn't remember, you'll make him. You'll find the way, I know it. He'll become that someone who cares for you even more than he does now. And, trust me, he does care for you a lot. He'll start to think of you as more than a friend. You'll find in him that person capable of being the perfect lover you deserve. And in the worst of the cases, you'll forget him. Everything will be sorted out the best way possible, okay? All these things are going to be solved over time."

Hiccup shook his head again and hiccupped from his hard weeping. Toothless speech had the only effect of calming down his sobs and terrorizing him further. 'I don't want to forget Jack…' Was the thought, that was solidly carved in his mind. His brain was building chains around the white haired boy's image to prevent any attempt of slipping away from his mind. 'I don't want to lose him… He is too important to me… Even if…'

Toothless didn't know what to do anymore: his friend was crying over a guy who hurt him and his feelings. And his brain, taken back from the sudden hopelessness and the utter sadness that he saw in Hiccup, so un-Hiccup like, was completely shut off. His mind was blank, despite his huge knowledge of these type of situations*. No coherent thoughts. Complete nothingness. A desert. Flat EEG. He felt annihilated; he had no idea of what was his brunet friend thinking, or how hurt he was. He could only imagine. He didn't know what to do anymore. He was sure, completely sure, about one thing though: he couldn't leave his friend like this. "Hiccup." He called, trying to sound as soft and soothing as possible. "I don't know what you are feeling right now. I know how being rejected feels and this must be ten times worse than what I felt. My situation was so different from yours. I don't know how to help you, you are the only one who can tell me. But, even if you don't want to tell me the way, you must know a thing: you can rely on me, always. As it has always been, as it will always be. If you need me to listen, I'll drop whatever I'll be doing and come there to be all ears. If you'll need me to hug you, I'll run to you and crush you into my arms, as if I was hugging Astrid. If you'll need to cry, I'll be there to offer you my shoulder and soothing words. I'll always be there for you, okay Hic? This I can assure you, my friend. I'll always support you."

Now that is a perfect friendship-support speech, isn't it? That would have been if Hiccup's train of thoughts, didn't decide to derail in that moment. Let me be a bit more specific.

Toothless, not being able to read people's mind, wasn't aware of the changing that was taking place in Hiccup's brain. In fact Hiccup's mind, was getting through that process called 'flipping over to the opposite' in which, the pain, caused by someone you love or you care very much for, leaves you so sad, so hopeless and disappointed that your mind is forced to turn the love and the care into a wall of rage and hatred against anyone else, in order to suppress the searing flame of the pain for a while. The curious thing about this whole process, is that, deep inside, the subconscious of who gets though the flipping, perfectly knows that it's its destiny to succumb and crumble under the pain, whether the flipping gets done or not, unless someone is found to cling to. But the flipping gets done anyways: it comes from instinct. Only a handful of persons can control instincts and Hiccup, unfortunately wasn't one of those. (I got sidetracked, sorry.) Hiccup's mind flip started to happen the very some moment in which the brunet's mind thought 'Even if…', right after 'I don't want to lose Jack…'.

But, as we said before, Toothless couldn't be aware of this, obviously, so he went on and on with what he thought to be a comforting speech, promising Hic his full support. It's not difficult to figure out the expression he got when Hiccup, pulling back from his hug, spat out a firm, acid, full of venom "No."

Toothless face clearly had a 'What the fuck?!' written all over it. "W-what?" Toothless asked, taken aback by the sudden coldness of his brunet friend's voice. "What do you mean with no?"

"Exactly what 'no' means, James. I won't ask for your help. I won't ask for anyone's . I do not need help. I'm not a wimp. I'm going to stop being such a cry baby and start growing a pair, as a true man would do." Hiccup stated firmly, talking quickly. His voice had never been so low-pitched and it dripped with hatred. "The first thing I shall do, is close my heart to Jack. He doesn't want it, does he? Fine, I'm going to save it for someone who actually cares and wants to have it."

"But… Hiccup…" Toothless said hesitantly, still slightly shaken by the sudden change in the other's behavior. "But… Hiccup, you can't cut your feelings out of you like that. It's stupid and it will just make you suffer even more. It's… It's wrong and unnatural. You can't do that."

"Want to make a bet, James?" Hiccup snapped harshly, as he glared his sharpest daggers at the boy in front of him. He started throwing the food they baked into the bin, not wanting to have anything related to Jack in his sight. "No, James. This is not wrong nor unnatural." He continued talking, as he cleaned the kitchen. "The thing that is, as a matter of fact, wrong and utterly unnatural is the fact that I like a boy and that he kissed me back, a few hours ago, giving me high hopes just to crush them mercilessly. He gave me the happiest moment in the last few years, only to blow away my happiness. He kissed me and he forgot it. We fucking made out. And he told me that there was nothing worth remembering of last night's happenings. Now, that is really wrong, James. Not my will to cut him off from my heart."

"Hiccup, you cannot expect someone to remember what he did when he was drunk. Especially if this someone was as drunk as Jack was yesterday night. Did you see how much vodka he drank at the party? You snatched the bottle from his hands, of course you did. He drank the whole damn bottle. One fucking liter of 40% alcoholic beverage! I'm surprised that, right now, he is not in a coma from all that liquor! You should be grateful he isn't."
"Well, actually, I'm starting to think that it's a pity that he woke up, this morning." Hiccup hissed angrily, starting to wipe the dirt off of the stove with a wet cloth. His movements were filled with rage and hate and his hands were shaky, yet his motions were mechanical, almost like a robot's.

Toothless' mouth went wide open in utter shock. Hiccup didn't just say that he hoped something bad for Jack. He gasped for a second, panting and staring at Hiccup, incredulous. "Y-you..." He began. "You didn't mean that. You cannot mean that. You didn't jus-"

"Yes I did, James!" hiccup exclaimed, a smile that looked more like a crazy grin than anything else on his face. "I said that I think that it would have been better if Jack had been hurt. And you want to know what? I mean it. And you have no idea of how good does it feel to finally break free from the grasp of this absurd attraction I feel… I mean, I felt towards him!"

Now, while Toothless didn't and couldn't know how his friend was truly feeling, Hiccup knew that what he had just said was the greatest lie ever told. He felt everything but good. All he obtained was just a bit of relief after his first outburst against the white haired boy, but the sensation soon died, as sorrow started to grow like ivy on a wall. Like a malignant tumor it grew, planting its roots deep into the brunet's mind, digging further and further, as lies over lies continued to find their way out of his mouth, until it became one thing with his own essence. He was the epitome of sadness and he felt pained for that. The only way to stop it was shielding himself with hatred and rage, tell even more lies, continue down on that desolate, dark path until it would have ended and there wouldn't have been anything else to walk on. The road was bound to end, sooner or later. His walls, so frail they were, would have crumbled under the merciless gusts of the wind of pain and he would have had to suffer, finally facing the reality.

"I can't believe it…" Toothless muttered. "Hiccup, I reckon you have to think about the words you just pronounced. Because it seems like you… are not you. I'm giving you some time to be alone. I know you like peace and silence when you think, so I'm going. See you tomorrow at school, Hiccup." The black haired boy took his leave, not looking at the brunet as he got out of the house. He quickly jumped into his car, ignited the engine and drove away.

As soon as Toothless closed the door, Hiccup gave him the finger, even if he couldn't be seen while doing it. "Screw off…" He mumbled bitterly, finishing to clean the last remainders of the would-be-breakfast. "I reckon you have to think about the words you just pronounced. I'm leaving you some time to be alone." He repeated, mockingly. "Fuck you, Toothless. Let me live the way I want to. I mean, can't you mind your own fucking business? Of course not you…"

His angry monologue went on out loud, until his father came home. Then he shut his mouth and continued the rant into his own mind. The last thing he needed was his father to think that he was crazy.

The day after, when Hiccup woke up, it took a few moments for his walls to rise. He just had a wonderful dream: Jack was holding his hand and telling him that he loved him. And he wanted to answer that he… 'I hate Jack!' His mind screamed to itself. Yup, walls up again. Sadness slowly morphed into rage once more and the pain was temporarily suppressed again. He hastily shoved the blankets away and went for a rapid wash up. He splashed his face with the cold water of the sink, as well as his armpits and groin, removing the layer of sweat that the night brought on his body. A quick brush to his teeth, because, seriously, fuck Toothiana's warnings, and he was descending the staircase already, with a grim pout on his face. He didn't bother combing his hair. "It's not like I have to impress someone, right? Not anymore." He said to himself, as he stepped into the kitchen and sat down on his chair, shoving whatever was in on his plate into his mouth, going as fast as possible without choking. When he swallowed the last mouthful of it, he finally managed to distinguish the flavor of the slimy thing running down to his stomach: caramel pudding. He hated caramel pudding with a passion.

He was about to stand up and leave for school, twenty minutes earlier than usual, when his sight fell on the seat in front of his.

There, his father sat, his mouth wide open with an half-chewed piece of bread into it, eyes wide open as well and staring at him. In the man's hand there was a fork, loosely held. It seemed like it could have fallen any moment. Stoick seemed to be completely astonished by something in Hiccup's general direction.

The brunet looked back at his father for a bit, staring directly into his eyes, before saying, not without a slight shade of annoyance into his voice, "Do I have something on my face, Stoick? Is there something behind me? Have you seen something weird?" A few second passed in silence, then Hiccup, seeing that his father wasn't answering, tried to ask something different. "Have I done something wrong or that upset you again, father? Why are you staring at me?"

"Y-you… S-son, you…" Stoick whispered, stuttering. "It's Monday… Aren't you sick o-or something? I-I mean, you always feign on Mondays because you don't want to go to school, a-and now… like this… all of a sudden… You come downstairs by yourself… I didn't even have to call you… I-I… What… How?"

The brunet shrugged and puffed. "Meh…" He said. "You said 'be more mature' and… here I am. I grew a pair and became a man. Shouldn't you be happy for this?"
"Son, I am! I am really proud of your change." Stoick stated with the most sincere smile Hiccup had even seen on the man's face from his mother's death. "Thank you Hiccup. This is the greatest gift you could ever give me. Thank you. I'm proud of you."

The smallest crack opened in Hiccup's walls. "A-are you really?" He asked, incredulously. When his father nodded, the crack grew just a slight bit bigger. "Thank you, dad." He said, his harsh expression turning soft for a brief second. The brunet's face went back to a grim expression as he picked up his backpack and his I-pod, muttering a "Good bye. I have to go." He slammed the door shut after him a few seconds later.

On his way to school, Hiccup shoved his green, trusty earbuds as deep as possible into his ears, plugged them in and started playing songs from the album named "Disney". He had always liked Disney's songs, even more than the movies themselves. He didn't know why, but those songs always inspired a feeling of calmness and serenity into him. And he needed to be calm to face the day that was to come. He was psychologically preparing himself to face a whole school day, almost hip to hip with Jack.

'I have to ignore him. I have to look away somewhere else.' He mentally instructed himself. "I will act as if he never arrived here. His voice is gonna be nothing more than a tedious, annoying bug buzzing in my ear. He doesn't exist. He is nothingness. I'll look through him. No matter what he'll do, I won't talk to him or even look at him."

His self-persuasion continued until he walked into the school's courtyard and, instead of frantically searching for his friends and Jack, leaned his back against a wall, as far away as possible from their usual meeting spot. He barely waved 'Hello' to Toothless when he saw him. But when the black haired boy started to walk towards him, Hiccup gestured for him to go away and let him be. He didn't feel ready to face every smart accusation, remark and comment that Toothless surely had prepared against him. He couldn't bear a battle with his friend on the outside. Not while he was fighting a war on the inside. So he just decided to procrastinate, hoping that something would occur and prevent him from facing the talk that Toothless surely wanted to have with him.

And there Jack was! With his fluffy, snow-white hair, his icy blue eyes and… 'No!' Hiccup yelled at himself into his mind. 'He is nothing. Look through him. He is not there. He is NOT there!'. The brunet continued to repeat these words into his head, almost like a prayer, concentrating so much that he unwillingly closed his eyes to focus on his mantra even more. And, when his eyelids opened again, he found out that, as a matter of fact, Jack wasn't there anymore. He inwardly cheered at his victory, only to turn the cheering into cursing a few instants later. True, Jack wasn't there, on the opposite side of the courtyard, right across from him anymore. That was because, though, he was now leaning against the same wall, right next to him, their shoulders almost brushing.

"Hiccup?" He murmured softly, so low that only the brunet could have been able to hear him. "Hiccup could you please tell me what's wrong?"

The brunet continued keeping his glance forward, not once turning towards Jack to look at him, just as if he hadn't heard the question. He was still repeating the same words into his mind.

"Hiccup, please listen to me!" Jack exclaimed, his voice rising a bit and cracking slightly. "I don't want you to be angry at me. I want to be your friend. I'm sorry if something happened. Whatever it is, please forgive me. Do what you want to me. Everything you want. But please, just forgive me. I'm sorry…"

'Oh my God! His voice… his voice!' Hiccup thought before he could help himself. 'It sounds so soft and sorry… and I bet his face has that lovable, apologetic expression he has when he has done something wrong… and…' At this point he mentally slapped himself before any more thoughts could form. 'You hate him.' He reminded himself.

Hiccup continued acting as if Jack wasn't either talking or there at all, until the first bell rang its loud, high-pitched, metallic scream into the students' ears, announcing the beginning of all the classes.

Hearing that sound, the brunet pushed himself away from the wall and began to walk his way through the courtyard to the school's front door, after violently shoving Jack with his shoulder, causing the apologizing boy a fall to the hard ground with a rather loud bump.

His ears were deaf at the pained sound of Jack's yelp.

Or at least, he would have liked them to be: contrariwise to what his expressionless face suggested, the sound of that sore yelp continued to echo into his head, until a noisy rumble, produced by the mass of talking students, covered it and filled his eardrums and his brain with useless comments on how that exercise had been difficult to do, or on how that guy over there was a complete idiot, and with lame speeches about how someone was totally going to bang someone else's girlfriend to take some sort of twisted revenge.

'Oh! Useless, boring commonness…' he thought with a bit of melancholy. 'Why can't I be like everyone else? Numbed by a boring routine and trapped into clichés, barely aware of what I'm doing…' His brain got lost into his own thoughts and he started to pay so little attention to what he was doing, to where he was going, that he stepped on some guy's feet four times in a row. He was roughly drawn back from his musings when said guy, fed up with the whole stepping on his feet matter, gently shoved him away.

"Haddock!" The guy exclaimed. "Would you kindly stop walking on my shoes? I'm a really patient man, but this is the fourth time. It's enough, don't you think? Mind the way you walk, next time."

That voice wasn't new to Hiccup's ears, but the brunet was too distracted to remember who the hell its owner was, so he just shoved the guy back and scoffed derogatorily. "Yeah…" He said, chuckling in the most mocking and disrespectful way he was capable of. "Sure. Piss off, dude. Who the hell do you think you are? Get out of my way."

"Mr. Haddock!" The guy snapped. "You'll regret what you just said. And you'll take it back immediately."
"Oh yeah? And how do you think you'll make me take it back, du…" He looked to the side, to see who the guy was and, surprise of the surprises, there was his Math teacher. "…de" He concluded his sentence, his jaw falling down, leaving his mouth gaping. "U-uh… Good m-morning sir…" He stuttered, fear seeping through his skin and flowing into him. "How's this day? D-did anything interesting happen?"

"Yes, a moron crossed my path, Mr. Haddock" the teacher said. "I assume you already know where Toothiana's office is, don't you? You'll have to meet me there in five minutes."

"N-no, please sir… I'm sorry for what I said. It's just that I had a rough morning and I was angry already and it simply… burst out. I lost my self control. You do know, sir, how much am I polite and well mannered. It was just a moment in which I lost it… Please don't report this to the headmaster."

The teacher glared at him for a few seconds, keeping the brunet on a sharp, painful edge, before saying. "I'm way too gentle and kind-hearted, Mr. Haddock, to ruin your reputation as a good student for a little… friction. Should it happen again, though, I'll report the whole matter. Don't be late for my class." With that the teacher started to walk his way again, leaving Hiccup behind.

The boy's face was back to its angry expression, as he muttered. "You filthy son of a whore. Go fuck yourself."

"What did you say?" The teacher asked, turning around to impale the brunet with his sharp glare again. "I'm not sure I heard well."

"I said 'Thank you sir, for forgiving my imprudent actions', sir." Hiccup hissed at the everything-hearing bastard, sustaining his gaze. The teacher just smiled before spinning on his heels and walking away.

Hiccup's way to Math's classroom was constellated by people purposely bumping into him and many, many, many insults: both directed at Hiccup and coming from the brunet himself.

The fact that Hiccup was answering to the insults he received, took many people aback. He had never reacted to anything he got pranked with. Not to the insults, not to the shoves, not to the beatings. And now, he was spitting venomous replies to the left and to the right. "Something must be wrong." Someone muttered. "I've never seen little fishbone like this." Someone else said. Comments like those filled the air, and they didn't stop even in the classroom.

He was about to take his usual seat, but his brain reminded him that he didn't want to be anywhere near Jack anytime soon, so he picked the nearest, and only, free seat. The one next to Snotlout's chair. It took less than thirty seconds for the bully to start annoying the crap out of him with stupid jokes and lame insults. Hiccup, as always, tuned it out as soon as the class began, trying to listen to the teacher's words instead. Apparently, Math's teacher was really pleased by the fact that he and Jack weren't sitting next to each other anymore, and Hiccup couldn't agree more with him.

The lesson was difficult: it was about how the paraboloids interacted on the layer of Cartesian coordinates and how their equations changed in relation to that.

Everybody was trying to write down some notes about the topic. Everyone but Snotlout, who decided to keep bugging Hiccup. The bully had just finished saying something about his dead mum, when some words exited his mouth, that made Hiccup's body shake.

Gritting his teeth, the brunet spun his head to the side, looking as if he was ready to kill, and said "Repeat it to my face, Snotlout."

"I asked you if you and Frost broke up or something. I see you are not sitting there with him anymore. What happened? Did you and that little boyfriend of yo-"

Something cut the bully off. It was a Math book. It was Hiccup's Math book, that the brunet swiftly flung into the bully's face. Snotlout, unprepared to such a sudden and un-Hiccup like thing, lost his balance and fell back with his chair. The same moment he hit the ground, Hiccup stood up from his chair and walked over to him, rising his foot and stomping it on the other's chest with all his scrawny might. "Don't you dare saying something like that again." Hiccup ordered, a furious flame burning into his eyes.

Twenty minutes, a trip to the headmaster's office, a call to his dad and a boring lecture by the teachers later, found him walking through the empty hallways alone with a week of detention hanging over his neck, ready to be spent. They were sending him back home for the day. 'Well… a day free from school.' He thought. 'At least this is good, about today…'

He was just about to push the main door open, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. His muscles tensed, ready to flee from Snotlout's rage, but when he turned he saw that it was just Toothless that stood behind him, with a worried look into his eyes. Just a few inches behind, though, there was Jack. Hiccup clenched his jaw, so hard that his teeth were becoming sore. "What do you want, James?" He asked, keeping his vow not to pay any form of attention at Jack.

"Did you really beat Snotlout up, Hiccup?" Toothless asked, his expression clearly said 'Please Hiccup tell me it's not true.'

"Yes I did. He said some stuff and he deserved it. Can you let me go, now?". Uncaring of his request, Toothless didn't release his shoulder from the grasp.

"Hiccup, listen to me." Jack kicked in. "It's obvious that something happened. You don't talk to me anymore. You became violent all of a sudden… You are not yourself anymore. I don't know what happened, but I think that y-"

"You want to know what happened, Jack?" Hiccup said, breaking free from Toothless' hold and turning completely to finally face Jack. "Fine. I'll tell you what happened. It happened that you sent me up flying into the greatest moment of happiness in my whole life and then you forgot what you did, letting me fall as if it was nothing!" The brunet screamed at the top of his lungs. "That's what happened. That's what you did! I'm acting perfectly normal, for someone who got his back stabbed like that. I'm myself. Completely."

Both Toothless and Jack were looking at their friend as if he was mad.

"Hiccup…" Toothless hesitantly said. "Jack is right… You are not being yourself anymore…"

"So you agree with him." Hiccup stated matter-of-factly. He gave a sad, cold chuckle. "It seems like people enjoy stabbing me in my back when I'm expecting it the least. Fine… I'll cope with it. Don't you two bother calling me a friend anymore. Or calling me at all."

With that, the brunet opened the door and walked outside, the building, calmly making his way home. He left his two former friends behind: they were still, unable to move, as they couldn't believe what Hiccup had said yet.

*(Chick flicks, remember? Heart breaking and stuff…)

Yes, I just did it. I'm so sorry guys. You can kill me if you want... This is pretty much all for this chapter. Oh, right... i probably won't be able to upgrade until June... because of school. Maybe I'll surprise you all with two or three chapters but... Don't be too sure. I must have perfect grades this quadrimester, at school. I'm sorry, but my summer, and the weeks I'd spend with my boyfriend in case I pass with good grades, are being threatened. i need to take care of it. I'm sorry. I hope you understand.

I love you all! 3