The Journey Into Us

Pairing: Hiccup X Toothless
Rating: M for Mature

Disclaimer:I do not own anything HTTYD-related.

Chapter 18

=Normal POV=
(Monday, 12/30/2019; 7:00 pm)
(Barbarchi City, Archipelago)
(Hunter's House)

It had been quiet after the friends questioned Trayden, and Hunter seemed to be taking longer than just changing. It didn't bother Trayden any, he contently watched TV while he ate. Finally, Hunter moseyed back into sight, finding Trayden at the kitchen bar with a plate that had a few chips left on it, then the can of Sunkist orange soda next to the plate, on a coaster. It didn't appear Trayden had noticed him yet, though, so Hunter took advantage of hiding in the kitchen and silently pushing up on the counter to lean over and gently take the chip that Trayden had just reached for to bring to his mouth. Hunter grabbed it with his teeth and brought it into his mouth as Trayden about near fell off the stool.

"Odin above! Hunter! What have I told you about popping up out of nowhere!" Trayden scolded, but not hatefully. The man was too busy trying to calm his breathing. Hunter chuckled as he kissed Trayden's cheek while moving back to be on his feet again.

"I know, but it's just so fun," Hunter chuckled as he grabbed a red Powerade from the fridge and walked around to exit the kitchen and be on the side of the bar that Trayden was sitting at. "And your reactions are adorable," He added, leaning in more since Trayden's legs were apart on the stood, so Hunter easily moved between them as Trayden blushed. "Well, this looks familiar…" Hunter teased quietly and the blush worsened. "I wonder what it would be like to boost you on my counter and do it?" Trayden suddenly felt hot, and the blood heading south.

"What am I going to do with you?" Trayden decided to try and sigh, seeming lost for ideas.

Hunter only grinned. "You can do whatever you want with me, hot shot," Trayden's eyes widened. Hunter leaned in more and Trayden found that he had no real place to back up.

"You're not helping in keeping them off my ass about you and me because I've been here two other times since the night they realized who you are…" Trayden mumbled.

"Are they giving you trouble over it?" Hunter asked in a more serious voice.

"Sort of assuming we're dating or hooking up…" Trayden replied.

"I mean…Maybe not the dating, but…We are working our way up through things to sex, so the hooking up thing isn't entirely inaccurate," Hunter said quietly as Trayden looked down a bit. "You don't want them to know?"

"It's not really any of their business…And I could be wrong, but I swear they got jealous to learn they've been waiting all month for tonight when you tell them what happened to you, and I've seen you here at your house twice," Trayden explained. "I just…Know how they are. They could find out, but they won't leave it alone and they'd push to know how things progress or the thing they did before with having me just jump in…I just don't…"

"Want to be pressured or pushed before you're ready like your brother did to you?" Hunter offered as Trayden nodded. "Then I'll behave around you when they are present," He smiled.

"No…I don't want you changing what you do for me," Trayden said.

"I meant that I wouldn't drop hints about what we're doing. I'll still flirt with you to hell and back, kisses on the cheek, or give you a few sexy touches like I do with all my friends," Hunter stated. "I'll stop scaring you, but no guarantee that nothing pops up out of nowhere when I'm around you," He winked and stepped back, leaving Trayden blushing intensely.

"I'm just gonna say it…After all that, I'm not buying what you told us, Tray," Shane remarked.

"Then you can buy it from what I tell you. Nothing's going on with Tray and I. We're good friends, both gay and single. I treat him the same way I do all the others who gave me their permission that it's okay. I do it to Dev, Thax, Bry, Jay, and Eli. Hell, I even do it to Ethan now," Hunter informed firmly.

"He does," Ethan shrugged. "I told him it was fine, within limits,"

"Yeah, well, that whole display we just saw seems a little too friendly," Alyssa said calmly.

"Pfft. That's the clean display, and only because Tray is still getting used things. Now, as I said, I do it to all my guy friends with their permission and limits set if they have any. The only ones who have those are Ethan, Bryan, Thaxter, and Devon. I'll flirt, crack sexual jokes, imply all the things I could do to them, and smack them on the ass in passing. Maybe a kiss on the cheek. But that's as far as it goes because three of them are straight, and one of them is bisexual, but also in a relationship. Jason and Eli don't give a damn, I've fucked both of them, and maybe a time or two, there's been a three-way," Hunter admitted, surprising the friends at the open information and forwardness. "None of us are dating, and we're not friends with benefits. It's usually random chance at a party when everyone is dancing together, end up horny, or drunk," He continued. "Tray knows how I am, and he knows all of this already too. I've already told him that being one of my gay friends doesn't mean I'll expect him to do what the others do, and it's entirely his decision if he wants to. IF and until that time comes, we're just friends and he knows if I ever do anything to make him uncomfortable, to tell me and I'll stop,"

"But right now, I don't mind. It's a new perspective when you're gay, and like Hunter said…I'm new to all this, so I'm just going with it," Trayden added. "Being gay, I'm bound to be around it, so might as well get used to it. At the moment, nothing is really making me uncomfortable that he does and that probably comes from the fact I know he's my friend and like he said, he'd stop if I asked or told him he's going too far,"

"Regardless…Tonight wasn't for you to see how incredible un-shy I am in being gay," Hunter stated. "You're here because, in a twist of whatever you want to call it, you found me again by following Trayden to my house after seeing him with some guy at Arc Burger. And I told you I'd tell you what happened. My friends at Wild Fantasies all know already, and if you intend on staying in my life as friends then you get to know. Hailey, Trayden, and Ethan are friends of yours and I don't assume will be going anywhere anytime soon, so I've invited them to learn too," Hunter paused. "Understand this…I hate…Absolutely despise talking about it. So after I tell you, I'll request you don't bring it up again. No questions, no mentions. All my other friends respect that, so I will ask you to do the same. And you three…" He motioned to his cousins. "Will not tell your parents that you found me,"

"But…Why?" Fisher, Addilyn, and Shane wondered.

"It will start shit I don't want to deal with…I've haven't seen or spoken to my parents since my fifteenth birthday. Your parents will just go after them, they'll end up coming to argue with me about what happened, and I just don't want to deal with it. I know what happened even if they deny it. They didn't want me in their lives, and I don't want them in mine. So, are we clear?" Hunter stared at them.

"Yes…" The three responded softly.

"Good. Thank you," Hunter seemed to relax a little. "Now, if you can sit quietly…I'll tell you everything and then you can ask questions after,"

"Okay," The group replied as Trayden made his way off the stool and sat down on the love seat while Hunter grabbed the stool to set it in front of them, then sat on it.

Trayden could see that Hunter didn't want to say anything, but he was absolutely a man of his word and that's why he was going to do it anyway. "So basically, this starts years ago, beyond the seven I've been gone from your lives. I've been gay for a long time, discovering it from a young age around nine or ten. Obviously, I didn't know that being attracted to boys had a specific group name as gay," Hunter began and continued telling them the story that Trayden already knew and remembered from their hangout on the 19th. "With that backstory out of the way on how I knew I was definitely attracted to men and identified as gay in sexual orientation, we come to my birthday that year. Greg, unfortunately, had something to do and wasn't able to be there because I'd chosen to tell my parents that night after dinner. I told them bluntly, and there was no yelling or anything, but the immediate response was; you are no longer our son, you will leave this house and never come back. You have ten minutes to pack."

There was a pause as Hunter let them take that in. "Despite feeling like I couldn't move from the shock that I was just kicked out and disowned at fifteen for being gay, I knew I didn't have time to stand there and process anything other than I need to figure out what to do. So I just walked away from them, went to the room, and packed everything I could fit into a suitcase. Mainly clothes, some pictures, and bathroom stuff. At the five-minute mark, they came by the room and tossed me a folder with my important documents in it, and informed me they would be taking the cell phone. Once they walked away, reminding me I only had four minutes left…My first instinct was to call my Godfather because he told me he wanted to know how things went. Of course, he didn't answer, so I left him a message that I was disowned, kicked out, and heading to the cove. Also, I would be unreachable by the time he got the information. Just as I ended the call, my parents came in to let me know time was up, so I handed over the phone and house key, then left," Hunter explained.

"You can imagine what I was feeling as I walked to the cove, and I probably sat there for an hour or so until Greg showed up to get me. I wasn't expecting him to, I had only wanted him to know because if he went to my parents' place to see me, I wouldn't be there and they probably wouldn't have relayed the message anyway given they lied to all of you about what happened," Hunter paused a moment. "So Greg said everything would be fine and I could stay with him in the city in his apartment. He asked if I had everything I needed from the house and I nodded, we stopped at the store to get some of those plastic storage drawer containers, and he made me a key. When we got to his place, he just told me to let him handle things and to go take a shower. So I did without an argument, and by the time I came out of the bathroom; Uncle Greg had cleared out his office and made it into my room," He continued.

"Now, the office space was really just this…Half a room off the kitchen with a sliding door, one of those wooden ones you see on small closets that you just pull to open and push to close. But it was a big enough room for him to put a cot, the plastic drawers, and a folding table for a nightstand. Greg said we'd figure everything out in the morning and suggested just getting some sleep. It was only about 8:30 at night, but I didn't care. The next morning, Greg dealt with a lawyer regarding custody of me. It came down to the best decision of Greg adopting me with my parents' rights terminated because they technically abandoned me. Also, because I was over the age of twelve, I was asked in court if I consented to my godfather adopting me, to which I absolutely accepted. When everything was finalized, I left the judge's chambers as Hunter Forger," Hunter stated.

"The next issue was schooling since my parents wasted no getting me dropped out of our school on a lie I was being homeschooled. Unfortunately, I just wasn't in any mood to figure it out. I told Greg that I just needed time now that court was over, I hadn't even wanted to do that, but I knew it was legally necessary so that child services wouldn't take me into their custody. Everything just hit when the legal things were done. I mean, most of everything since the night I got kicked out and disowned, had left me in a state of shock. It was like a bad dream that I couldn't get out of. The next day after court, the shock wore off and it hit me that my parents really did do what they had over me being gay. I fell into a bad depression. I always wanted to be alone, sometimes I'd sleep a majority of the day, other times I wouldn't sleep for a couple of days. Barely had an appetite, spent random moments crying," Hunter admitted.

"Greg knew I was upset, he just didn't realize how bad I was feeling it until one night he came home from work and heard me in the middle of a breakdown. Greg feared that if he didn't step in then, it would only get worse and he didn't want to take the risk of coming home and finding me dead because I'd was left alone and ended up killing myself. The first question I got was why I didn't say anything and then before the night was over, it was agreed I'd see a therapist and that he wasn't letting me out of his sight until he knew I was in a better place," Hunter continued.

"I started seeing a therapist once a week, and Greg started having me come with him to work with him at his old job, which some of you may recall was the auto shop. I'd been working with cars since I was probably ten, Greg taught me all about them and how to fix just about everything over those years so he talked to his boss about not wanting to leave me home alone, and his boss gave me a job, under the table, to keep things clean, maybe help with small fixes on cars. Keeping busy and therapy helped, and when I was better. All this that I've told you so far, happened until about August 2012. So, I was sixteen and Greg asked what I wanted to do about school if I wanted to go back and he'd enroll me for the new year. I denied it, went with getting my GED. I had that by December 2012. Most everything after that point was still me working at the shop through to the next year," Hunter informed.

"After getting my GED, it was January 2013 when told Greg that I was better and didn't feel like I needed therapy anymore. I was better than before and honestly, while the therapy helped figure out more effective coping methods…The thing that really helped is what Greg told me after that breakdown before I started talking to someone. He said," Hunter paused. "You are who you are. You are not me, you are not your parents, and you are not your friends. You are not the rest of the world. You are you, so be yourself. Embrace who you are and everything about you because if you can't do that, how can anyone else? The people who love, support, and accept you are the ones who will never abandon or judge you. And that's because you chose to be yourself with them, so they can only have ever gotten to know the real you. You stay true to yourself and fuck anyone who tells you to be anything but that,"

Trayden remembered when Hunter told him that. "So after that, I stopped going to therapy and just focused on working and saving money. I kept his words close and just lived my life as I am. In January 2014, Greg bought Wild Fantasies from someone who wanted to retire and Greg always wanted to own a bar. Lifelong dream. Greg kept all the original staff and kept the strip show as it was. He told everyone to just work as normal under a new manager and owner, himself. Greg learned by the end of February that it's not so easy to run a strip show when you have no idea how to work the technology. Thankfully, he had me. I had been going there after work to help him stay organized, I was usually in the back office. I was seventeen, so you know, that could have been bad if I was caught there. After I turned eighteen, Greg hired me as a bartender/server and basically his tech guy. For how I became a stripper…It was probably June of 2014. When Greg was down dancers, I stepped up to fix things, including getting on stage," Hunter chuckled.

"And everyone fell in love with you, right? I remember you telling me this at Arc Burger," Trayden spoke up.

"That's right. There hadn't been male strippers before me, just girls. And I knew a good percentage of the customers mentioned plenty of times to bring in males too. I guess that came forward when Greg didn't know what to do. It worked out that while I didn't have the body I do now, but it was still lean with muscle from working in the auto shop, plus the fact I'd hated body hair since I was probably thirteen so I was constantly keeping it off me, that I got on stage that night and killed it. From there on, Greg put me in charge of the show. He owns the space, manages the bar and I manage the show. Music, moves, costumes, etc. By the time I was nineteen and a half with all the money I'd saved from the auto shop, working as the show manager, and tips from stripping, lap dances, and whatnot…I bought this place. It was foreclosed and in an auction, so got it pretty cheap. Cleaned it up, few renovation projects, designing, furnishing…And this is it. The stripper pole was added when I was almost twenty-one," Hunter shrugged with a smile.

"All the others you met a couple of weeks back, the dancers of Wild Fantasies are the ones who replaced a lot of the others. I think only…Nikki and Liv stayed from the original staff. The rest came in around the time I was nineteen. I think they were initially just a general group of friends who came to the bar when word went out Wild Fantasies finally had a male stripper. After one of my routines, Greg told me there were a couple of guys who wanted to ask about maybe working as stripper there. Worked out, and everything else has literally just been what it is now. I work, have some parties…And just keep living every day by what Greg told me. Be me and fuck anyone who thinks or says I should be anything but that," Hunter stated, looking at them all. Mainly his old friends, and three cousins, who were just sitting there, still trying to process everything they were told about the last seven years of Hunter's life.