Negative delta is the beginning of fun Chapter 2 - Beer-Lambert law, a How to Train Your Dragon + Rise of the Guardians Crossover fanfic

Pairing: JackxHiccup

Genre: Romance, Drama

Rating: NC-17/M

Warning: not beta-read

All characters belong to Cressida Cowel, William Joyce and DreamWorks Studia. May contain some OOCness.

Beer-Lambert's law – The absorbance of radiation passing through a homogeneous medium depends on the kind of solution and is proportional to the concentrations – C - of this solution and to the thickness of the absorbing layer - b.

"There he is, your perfect boyfriend."

Hiccup groaned quietly, so only Astrid was able to hear him, but it didn't stop her from chuckling, then patting him on the back, not so nicely.

"Hey it could be worse, you know?" She said, playfulness dancing in her eyes.

"Yeah, it could, but it's not the best option either." Hiccup answered. As they were moving slowly forward, the pack of people standing near lockers became more and more detailed thanks to his glasses.

"Hey, you yourself said that he isn't so bad!"

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean that I automatically like him…"

Astrid huffed, her eyes darting from his face to the people now not so far away from them.

"Soo, should we say hello or something like that?" She asked, an unsureness tingling in her voice.

Hiccup wasn't totally sure how to answer that. He was fine with not talking with Jack at all in school or you know… ever, but something told him that if they wanted to put up with this plan they actually had to talk or interact somehow. Jack said he will take care of it, right? Right… Just how much the auburn haired boy can trust total stranger that hangs out with his crush?

"Just act like we didn't see them…" Hiccup whispered into Astrid's ear, looking away, like he was sharing some secret. And it maybe was, in some weird twisted way, their own secret.

They walked next to each other, unnaturally slow, towards their classroom, but also unfortunately towards them. And it wouldn't be actually so bad if only Jack and Tooth (that was her name or nick or something, at least Hiccup thought so) were there, but he also was. Aster with that stupid grin, with that shining, sparkling but steady eyes and that bristling, gray hair - which swayed a little whenever he changed his position and… ugh…

Hiccup was solid, as a cold, already welded metal, unable to move properly. And if he would be perceptive enough, he would hear the crumbling, creaking sounds his bones and joints were making whenever he made another step.

Why was it so hard to walk and, more importantly, not look that way!

Astrid probably felt something, some kind of vibe that his body had sent, as she picked up some minor topic from their previous lesson and started babbling about it, her mouth not even closing for more than a second. Hiccup was grateful for her for providing this perfect distraction.

They were almost there, almost passed the point. Maybe this was how they were supposed to act? Ignore each other and pretend they were meeting after school? Maybe that was the whole plan?

"Hiccup!"

Guess not.

They both stopped and turned around to face them.

Jack waved at them, indicating to move closer in something similar to a friendly chat. But they weren't friends. This would end probably as awkward as the family dinner with a gay son and a homophobic uncle.

Better move with the flow. It wasn't the end of the world, right?

"Hey Jack." Hiccup said, moving forward, staring at this smiling face. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, because Jack looked so… loosen up?

Never mind, Hiccup stopped next to Aster. The alarming LEDs inside his head started to blink furiously, screaming – retreat, retreat! But his legs felt like suddenly pure lead filled them. Astrid quickly sent him a strange look (something between amusement and care).

"I never introduced you to my friends, did I?" Jack stood straight and with a swish movement of his hand (quite too fancy for Hiccup's like), showed him the girl on his right. "This is Toothianna."

The girl punched him in the arm playfully, but smiled nevertheless, showing a perfect linear function of equal, white teeth. She then brushed a strand of green hair behind her ear. One free hand was showed to Hiccup.

"Just call me Tooth."

Hiccup never talked with her. He only knew her from some teachers and students talks. But from his close position he must say that she was… pretty. Her nose was a little bit too small, eyes too close, but it all added nicely to her cute demeanor. Not to mention those hair, literally rainbow splattered on the head, made her look like the happiest person on the Earth.

"Hiccup." He said, trying to sound as positive as he could be while standing next to the tall boy.

They shook hands. Her palm was soft, not only because of the skin, but also because of the touch - not too strong and not too light. It just felt nice.

"And this miserable excuse of a human…"

"Hey!"

Hiccup tensed and prayed to Thor that no one saw that.

"Is Bunny!"

Hiccup felt like he was a mannequin in some studio, with his brain as a silent director, ordering him to move - A little bit to the right… lift your head… look him in the eyes! No, no like that! It must be natural! Dang… Don't stutter. It's real-life play! You got it. Just one, two, three and go!

Hiccup stared at the tall boy in front of him, who currently (thankfully) wasn't looking at him, but was sending daggers at Jack's stupid smirk.

But then… oh no… he turned to him and Hiccup felt as his legs bent underneath his small body. How was this even working? It wasn't logical! It was some kind of magic, some invisible force was pushing him down, a vector directed to the center of the Earth. For brief moment he forgot how to breathe when those ingenious, ashy eyes looked at him.

"It's Aster." He said.

And of course Hiccup's mouth could only answer with:

"I know." Shit, that wasn't how he was supposed to reply. Now they will know that he was some creepy guy with a crush on the older and taller boy. Everything was doomed!

Aster lifted his eyebrow and there was a second or two when Hiccup saw something blinking in those orbs. Something… different than a surprise he expected. For a moment Hiccup saw some fondness, maybe with a hunch of exultation, merriment. Or maybe that was his mind trying to fit him in the role.

"I-I mean…" Hiccup said, lifting his voice a little, trying not to stutter more. "Miss Bennett told me about your last year project for this Physics Contest…" And it really was truth indeed. But let's not fill them with the information that Hiccup knew who Aster was way before that. Deal?

The teenager blinked, hiding those eyes and with that simple movement all those earlier emotions flew away.

"Ah right. I did participate last year. Shame I didn't get too far." He said, the corner of his lip twitching, finally showing him his hand.

Hiccup caught Aster's hand. The mighty, strong grip and shook that followed after made his spine vibrate. He hoped that it wasn't too visible beneath his too big sweater.

"Oh, I think your project was great." He spoke the first thing that popped into his head, that was overflowed with thoughts about Aster's hand, how nice it felt to touch that skin, a little bit rough but warm, welcoming. "Nice usage of Höppler viscometer*. I wouldn't think about it like that."

Aster blinked, like he wasn't prepared to hear that. Well, Hiccup didn't plan on telling it either, but the sudden rush of happiness that appeared on the taller boy's face warmed him inside. Seriously, who was using a thermostat inside his stomach right now!?

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

Then suddenly all this magic, this kind of weird barrier that appeared around them was crushed down by Jack's voice. Hiccup wanted to kill him, but only a little.

"Visco… what?"

And back away from the nerd island.

Hiccup took on his shoulders to explain it.

"Höppler viscometer. You know, that machine with oil and metal ball inside? You check how the viscosity is related to the temperature?" But the pure incomprehension beaming from Jack's half opened mouth told him that was no use. Hiccup sighed and tried to massage the bridge of his nose, but he found obstacle in his glasses, so he only pushed them higher. "Eh, you turn the tube around and see how fast the ball is falling down?"

The recognition finally hit him.

"Ooh that one weird machine!"

Hiccup groaned.

"How did you end up together is still a mystery to me…" Aster said, underlining especially some words with his tone while crossing arms on his chest. He glanced at Jack with one eyebrows raised.

Shit, they were supposed to look like they were together, right? Jack didn't even do anything (for which Hiccup was grateful). Maybe occasionally talks on the corridors would be enough? For him it was great plan, it meant that he maybe would be able to have a proper conversation with Aster! Gods were merciful to him this year!

The girl behind him coughed.

"Oh, and this is Astrid, my best friend." Hiccup stepped back and now he made swish movement with his hand, like he was presenting some kind of countess and not his best-friend. He mimicked Jack a little.

The blonde rolled her eyes, but shook her hand with Tooth and Aster. She stopped when Jack showed her his hand.

"I'm glad that Hiccup finally introduced me to you. He was talking so much about you…" Astrid said, smiling broadly. She was having too much fun from it.

Hiccup, although couldn't stop the snort that left his lips. Yeah, he had spoken few times about Jack, especially how pissed Hiccup was because Jack always blocked him the perfect view of Aster.

Jack anyway caught the hint, the fun sparkling in his brandeis blue irises.

"Oh really?" They shook hands. "Like what?"

"You know, how sweet you act, how you always listen to him – oh - and don't get him started on your hair!"

Jack smiled, turned his head and looked at him. For a moment Hiccup wasn't sure if Jack caught the act, but he hoped that he did.

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, you know, you're such a charmer, so I couldn't resist not talking about you." Hiccup stated, trying hard not to start laughing right there in front of the entire school.

But the white haired boy bit his lip hard, puffed his cheek and took deep inhale through his nose. It looked like not only Hiccup had problems with containing it.

Then finally the bell rang above their heads. They all looked at each other, some of them shrugged, but in the end everyone walked in their own direction, waving back at the rest.

Hiccup hummed under his nose.

It wasn't so bad after all.

"You didn't tell me you are fake-dating Hiccup."

Jack lifted his head to stare at Aster walking next to him.

"Was it so important?" Jack waved at the girl that smiled to him, when they passed her. She blushed, but waved back at him.

"No… but it would be nice to know."

"Now you know."

Jack smiled, hearing how heavily Aster sighed. He loved pissing off his friend, it was kind of his hobby (one of the weirdest ones).

The previous encounter with Hiccup and Astrid went well… too well in that matter. Hiccup couldn't see this, but few people stopped to look at them, maybe even eavesdrop and even though it pissed Jack off, he couldn't quite accused them for acting like that. People were curious and some were more than other.

If just talking in the corridor was fine, then this was the most pleasurable relationship he had. But something, at the back of his head, was telling him that this won't be enough pretty soon.

"So, are we meeting them for lunch?" Tooth next to them looked up from her phone. Her earrings swished back and forth, reflecting the lights that hit Jack right in his eyes.

"I don't know. I say we go to our usual spot and wait. If they appear inside cafeteria then we can call them."

Tooth smiled.

"Cool, they seem like nice people."

They did indeed. Although, it felt like Hiccup was somehow… straining himself. Maybe he wasn't used to spending time around people? Jack had a good memory for faces, but Hiccup's one wasn't on his list of the most recognized ones. Maybe he was one of these people hanging in the corner of the cafeteria? Far away from Dagur… That seemed right.

They walked inside the room and Jack could already see some people lifting their heads and few even standing up. The table (their table, how they liked to call it) was empty, so they quickly took seats.

Few people approached them - one girl that shared class with Aster, their teammates from football team, the boy with whom Jack was doing project for Biology and so more. It was a busy lunch, filled with conversations interrupted by Jack's glances to the door.

If Hiccup would walk in, should he call him?

He said Hiccup that he would take care for this whole relationship thing – acting. But to tell the truth, he only said that because Hiccup looked totally petrified just thinking about that. Don't get him wrong, he knew what pairs did, the problem was totally different.

The problem was that he and Hiccup weren't together. And okay, he didn't really care too much for occasional hugs or winks. It was even okay to hold hands. Those things were fine. Even small kisses on the cheek were okay to some extent. But he hoped that they won't have to do more.

But Jack still wasn't sure how they should act. He told Heather that they wanted to keep it a secret, but maybe they should just act like their big relationship was finally discovered? This way people won't be listening and eavesdropping around anymore, trying to find out if this was truth or not. But this definitely will put more attention on him and definitely Hiccup. Yet this way Dagur will definitely leave him alone… and Heather could tag along with him too.

It looked so easy in the movies or books. You just play along, the twists happen, then the main characters fall in love and…

Scratch that, no falling in love. They were just two people who were doing it for their own purposes. No love involved. Friends? Sure. Hiccup looked like a nice guy. But lovers? Nu huh!

He talked a little bit with Aster and Tooth, still glancing back at the door. But neither Hiccup nor Astrid appeared.

"May I know why are you sitting here when you have a full lunch at your school?"

Astrid smiled and put another fry in her mouth.

"The case is the food there is terrible…" She said, then turned to their companion with this glint sneaking inside her eyes and Hiccup automatically knew that mean trouble. "Not to mention Hiccup wanted to run away from bloodthirsty fans!"

The dirty blonde haired boy sniffed loudly, his nose scrunched in this few seconds and eyebrows flew high onto his forehead, hiding behind the company hat, that he was forced to wear.

The girl next to Hiccup snorted loudly. Her braids fell down onto her chest and hid the plaque with her name.

"Fans? What fans?" Ruffnut asked with disbelieve painted clearly in her voice. She then leaned, snatched Hiccup's coffee and took few sips.

Hiccup just sighed, used to that by this point.

If someone had told him few years back that he would be sitting together with Thorston twins in some food joint, talking like they were best buddies, then Hiccup would totally laugh in their faces and call them delusional. The chances of it happening were as high as finding electron in one place on an atom's orbital*. And yet here he was…

Before Hiccup could open his mouth to probably snap at his best-friend (not counting Toothless), Astrid already leaned above the table (her hair almost fell into her ketchup), put her hand near mouth and whispered:

"Hiccup's boyfriend fans."

Oh boy.

Ruffnut next to him choked on Hiccup's coffee, her eyes came out with tears appearing in the corner as she started to hit her chest hardly, probably trying to redirect the flow of the liquid. But Tuffnut wasn't any better as his face twisted into horror (not even caring that his sister was currently dying right next to him) and his mouth hung open.

Tuffnut blinked and then, in hoarse voice, asked:

"Hiccup's what now?"

Astrid rolled her eyes. She motioned with her hand for Hiccup to help Ruffnut who was still dying next to him. Hiccup patted her hardly on the back, which finally helped her catch a breath.

With teary eyes, she looked at him, eyes accusing him of not helping earlier.

"Hiccup's boyfriend fans!" Astrid repeated, this time more slowly, like she was explaining something to kids. And in the Thorston twins case that was probably too close to truth for comfort.

Tuffnut lifted his hand.

"Permission to question?" He asked, still totally dumbfounded.

Hiccup felt just tini-tiny little bit mad and offended by that, but by looking at himself… yeah, he totally could understand them.

"Permission granted…" Astrid said, rising her eyebrow.

"Can we now laugh?"

Hiccup groaned as his head fell to the table with a loud thumping sound. He hit his nose and forehead painfully because of that movement, but his glasses were fine. After two days he started to even like them - even though they were nerdy as hell, however they made him see things, so yeah… equal exchange.

Ruffnut snorted, probably at his behavior, and Tuffnut followed, then Hiccup heard something that resembled a sound of a high-five. Great friends they were, why did he even put up with them? That was still a miracle.

"You finished?" Hiccup mumbled, his voice muffled by the soothing touch of the cold table.

"It depends…" Tuffnut snorted. "Who is the victim then?"

And in this moment Hiccup understood that Astrid had really too much fun out of this mess. Her sweet voice ringed in his ears:

"Do you remember Jackson Overland?"

"Frost? Ya, I remember him… Wait… No way!"

"You're joking right?"

"She must be, Frost wouldn't date Hiccup. This isn't possible! He must have bribed Frost with something!" Well Tuffnut wasn't too far away from the truth.

Hiccup finally graced the company with the ability to see his miserable face (and probably also the scowl forming on his lips).

"That is the truth…" Unfortunately, he added in his mind.

Astrid leaned on her chair, crossing her arms on chest.

"Yep, unfortunately their secret relationship was discovered, so we decided to tell you guys about it too. The whole school is buzzing about it."

Ruffnut blinked.

"Yeah, I heard some girls talking about it here. I didn't know it was about you thought… Although I should catch the bait, hearing words 'small nerd' constantly coming from their mouths." The sentence was underlined by her devious smirk.

Not this time, this time Hiccup wouldn't catch a bait. He was too tired now.

"Sooo… will you introduce the star to us anytime soon?" Asked the blond boy, glancing at the wristwatch and nodding at his sister to get up.

"Maybe." Hiccup answered suspiciously.

Ruffnut smiled.

"Yeah, you should totally bring him to our party!" She stood up, gathered the trash around the table and threw it on the tray. Hiccup's coffee was still half-full. He quickly grabbed it, so she wouldn't able to take it from him.

"I think this is a bad idea…" He said, also getting up, Astrid following and throwing her bag on her arm.

"Nope, great idea! So smell ya later!" Tuffnut chortled evilly and high-fived one more time his sister. The twins walked to the counter to take back their shifts.

They both waved at them (more like Astrid waved and Hiccup nodded) and walked out of the bar. After moving few meters away from the joint, Hiccup lifted his head and tried to punch Astrid hard on the arm (but it probably came out as something soft as a brush).

"What was that?" She asked lifting her eyebrow.

"Why did you have to tell them about Jack?"

Astrid shrugged, the surprised look replaced with a small smirk. Definitely too much fun from it. She looked like someone just gave her early Christmas' present or found full test solved just one day before exam.

"Relax. I'm just helping you."

"By telling the twins? Astrid, I understand telling it to anybody, even Snotlout, but… twins, seriously? Ruffnut is probably now spreading the news all over twitter!"

The blonde laughed – that sound made Hiccup's spine shiver. She was his best-friend - a devil in angel's costume. Hiccup was now pretty sure she was responsible for hiding all those x in mathematical functions. Damn her!

"You don't even have twitter…" Astrid slowly said, but the grin didn't leave her lips.

"And she knows that!"

She patted him on the back, surprisingly not too strong for her.

"Don't worry, everything will be fine!"

Hiccup highly doubted it. Because the twins meant only one thing – problems.

Nor Jack, nor Bunny and not even Tooth saw Hiccup or Astrid for the rest of the day. Jack wasn't too surprised by it. It looked like they didn't even have one class together. Not to mention until now he never really saw Hiccup in the corridors.

If this was how dating Hiccup looked like, then he was totally fine with that. It made him almost think why he didn't think about this plan earlier. But as every good thing this calmness also had to take its things and move out.

"Jack, do you know where Hiccup has classes now? I need to bring him his notebook…"

And of course Jack only gaped with this stupid smile plastered on his face, thinking about how he can run away from this situation with full pride.

The boy in front of him stared at him expectantly and Jack… Jack didn't know how to answer that. He didn't even know in which grade Hiccup was! Such great fake-boyfriend he was.

"Uhm you know, I think…" His mouth opened, formed some words, but his brain didn't quite registered them.

And ugh, he felt the look on his back. Of course this was the class he had with Heather. Curse his luck!

"Maybe…" Just say something.

And then the God got merciful on him as Bunny next to him leaned on the table and answered for him:

"Biology with Mister Corona…"

The boy in front turned his head and nodded at Aster, thanking him quickly, then turned around, leaving classroom with few minutes to spare.

Jack sighed loudly, arms relaxing when the pressure that was suddenly put upon them was defeated. That was some kind of middle-level boss and Jack had to say that he totally… failed it.

"Thanks." He finally murmured, looking around. Heather was talking with some girl next to her.

"No probs, but even I have to say it was weird. You could just made something up."

Jack groaned.

"I know, but you know I'm a terrible liar…"

"You had no problems earlier when you were introducing Hiccup to us." One eyebrow swam high onto the forehead.

"Yeah, but that was only introduction, I didn't have to make something up! Not to mention it was only our group."

"How about that talk with Heather? She sounded convinced."

Jack ran his hands through his hair.

"Yeah, then she literally forced me to go to the twins' party!"

Aster took out his notebook and opened it.

"Ugh, twins' party means only trouble…" He said, his voice a little bit lower and quieter, because of the throng of people that suddenly emerged from the door.

"Exactly!" Jack moved closer.

"Don't worry, we'll be there with you. And I'm sure that if Hiccup will go then Astrid will follow. Nothing bad will happen."

Jack smiled, feeling a little bit better suddenly. Yeah, they had nothing to worry about. He had his friends and Hiccup was smart, so there was nothing to be afraid of…

But first, he needed to do something.

Get to know more about his boyfriend. Or their plan won't work.

"Bye Astrid!" Hiccup waved at the blonde.

She turned around, still jogging and waved back.

"We'll talk on skype!"

"Sure!"

Hiccup turned and slowly walked back home. Or at least he hoped he will get back home. This was the day he finally wanted to start working on his project as he got quite few ideas on his mind. But it looked that his needs were futile as someone threw his hand on his arm.

At first he tensed, expecting the manly voice just right next to his ear to be creepy, terrifying, deranged, yet he received a laugh.

"Come, I need you for a second. Or two. Or maybe even longer. We need to talk."

Hiccup lifted his head, just in time to see Jack wave at someone.

"About what?" He asked when they moved away from the curious looks of their schoolmates.

"Many important things!"

Hiccup sighed. There was probably no chance of running away from this, right? Right.

Hiccup allowed for his body to be literally dragged around the town. His eyes curiously wandered around shops' signboards, every other more colorful than the previous one (probably trying to catch attention of as many people as they could). There were a lot of people walking around, bumping into them mostly. And it was loud. The sounds of people talking, chattering, laughing, the loud honks of cars and their engines, the steady rhythm of music coming from the bars. It was aggravating. Too much incentives were trying to get to him, to his ears, to touch his eardrums. Those vibrations, tingling, swishing were only making him sick.

He really hated going out, especially to the center of the city.

But Jack, next to him, didn't look fazed by that. He was walking forward like all those sounds missed him, like he had some kind of barrier around him that prevented those sounds to come inside it. Hiccup envied him a little.

So when they finally entered some kind of café and the door blocked all kind of vibrations, Hiccup sighed in content.

"Sit somewhere private. I'll buy. Want something specific?" Jack asked, turning to him and smiling.

He shrugged.

Jack said that he would find him, so Hiccup was left alone on a mission to find two empty and private seats.

He found a small table in the corner, under the dim light of a wall lamp, next to some elderly man that was reading a newspaper. In Hiccup's opinion it was private enough for whatever Jack wanted.

The said boy appeared seven minutes later holding a tray with two glasses.

"Sorry, there was some weird woman that couldn't make her mind in front of me." Jack said putting their order down.

Hiccup rolled his eyes, but took his own drink. Well, they both were the same, so it really didn't matter.

"Don't worry about it. How much for the coffee?"

Sitting down, Jack shook his head.

"Don't worry, it's on me." Then he smirked, showing a perfect monotonic function of equal white teeth. It was a crime in Hiccup's mind to have something so ideal. Life wasn't even fair when it came to teeth. "I'm such a great boyfriend, am I?"

"Yeah, totally." He said in static voice, yet inside he was amused.

Jack blinked, but the chuckled. It wasn't a full laugh. Kind of the snort when you hear something funny, buy actually you heard it earlier.

"So what you wanted to talk about?" Hiccup asked when Jack didn't speak and was busy eating the whipped cream off his coffee.

"Ah yeah, I wanted to talk about us." He murmured, not even lifting his eyes from the spoon that maneuvered above the glass, probably trying to spot the part of the cream holding the biggest amount of chocolate that was sprinkled on it.

"Wow, wow much details. Such topic."

Jack snorted one more time and finally dipped his spoon.

"Okay, at first I wanted to ask to what extent do you want to do this?"

Hiccup was lost.

"Pardon?"

"Okay, different approach…" Jack took deep breath. "I mean we need to show probably some kind of affection around the school and I was asking about what you are willing to do with me? I mean…" Shit, the blush on Jack's face was starting to get hilarious. If this was how his face looked whenever Hiccup got flustered, then he understood why Astrid was always laughing at that. "I just want to know what should or can we do…" His hands played with the spoon, mixing the coffee too harsh now.

"I thought you were a pro in…" Here Hiccup lifted his hands and made a quotation mark. "…'relationships' matter."

Jack stopped moving his hand. In this time the auburn haired boy finally took a first sip of his own coffee. And… almost gagged. Cinnamon. He hoped that his disgust wasn't clearly visible on his face. He didn't want to hurt Jack, because of his choice in drinks. He should had said that he hated it, but who could have guessed that Jack would take something with cinnamon?

"I said I will take care of things, not that I'm a pro in that matter." Jack said slowly, weighting all words. Or maybe he was just trying to remember what he actually had said.

Hiccup stared at the cup.

Jack asked quite important question. What was he willing to do to keep Dagur away? Well, the answer was simple - actually a lot, but Jack didn't have to know that.

Okay. Hiccup didn't believe himself that he was actually thinking about that. What he was willing to do with the almost unknown person in a fake-relationship? First of all, do relationships really look like the ones in the movies or the ones in the books? Are they so over affectionate in real life too? Are they supposed to text and met every day? That sounded like a lot of problem. No, Hiccup needed to think about details. What pairs usually do… at first – they hold hands. Was Hiccup against holding hands with total stranger? Well, you shake hands, so he guessed that holding onto someone's hand for few minutes longer wouldn't be so bad.

"I'm fine with holding hands…" He started, his hand landing on the ear of the cup. He took another giant sip. The faster he drank, the faster it would disappear.

For second – they hug. That was a little bit tricky as Hiccup didn't quite like any human interactions. High-five? Okay. Pat on the back? No problem. But real hug? Not really his type of favorite equation. He once had tried to cheer Astrid up by hugging her. He had read somewhere that hugs could heal someone. And of course Hiccup's hug had healed her, but not in the way he had read about. Astrid had started laughing because – as she phrased it – she never received such robotic hug.

"With hugging… I don't know. Maybe short ones would be fine." Hiccup took deep breath. "I'm quite uncomfortable with any form of physical interaction or contact, so don't freak out when I'll suddenly freeze."

Jack stared at him with amused imps dancing in his cheeks' dimples.

"Okay, how about pecking? Like on the cheek or forehead."

"Well don't expect much from me. The only life being that received my pecks is my cat." Hiccup said, an embarrassed smile probably ghosting over his lips.

"What if I will kiss you on the cheek?"

Hiccup wasn't actually too comfortable with this idea. It's just… kisses were something private, something shared between two people that actually felt something to each other, not between people who were trying to run from other people. Or maybe Hiccup was just childish.

He wanted to be left alone by Dagur, right? Right. It's would only be a second or two of touch of lips on his skin. Jack was willing to kiss him on the cheek to get someone away, so Hiccup can bear with it.

"If they won't be too often I think I'll somehow survive."

Jack laughed, his coffee half drank by now.

"So I guess kisses on the lips are out of the question?" He asked.

"Definitely."

Yep, Hiccup never had his first kiss. Maybe it was stupid or childish or girly or… anything similar to that, but he really wanted his first kiss to be with someone he liked. Maybe not his true love or fated person or things like that, but with someone… special…

"What if we will be forced to kiss?"

Hiccup took another giant sip and gulped it, trying to remain stoick. Jack paid for it, so he didn't want to make him feel bad.

"What do you mean?"

Jack shrugged.

"Like what will you do if we will have to kiss to prove something?"

Hiccup stared at his fake-boyfriend, searching for something in his smiling face, but he only saw pure curiosity. No upper plan, no weird look, no encouragement. It was so clear look, that Hiccup started to wonder how anyone could have so innocent eyes.

"I don't know…" He spoke the truth. "I never thought about that, but I guess if it will be really… I mean really necessary then I will do it… At least I think… I'm not sure really."

"Cool, I was just curious. Let's hope that nothing like that will happen then anyway."

"Yeah…" He knew that this was somehow the end of one matter, but still something wasn't really fitting in. "Was it all you wanted to talk about?"

Jack, who in the meantime was staring fascinated at the ceiling, snapped his head back.

"No, not really." He started. "Well, it's just this dude approached me today and asked where you had classes and I was like 'I don't know man…', but then I thought that he expected me to know it, 'cause I'm your…" And once again quotation marks with a small grin in the corner of lips. Was Jack mocking him? "… 'boyfriend' and then it hit me that I really know nothing about you. Sooo…" Here Jack put his hands on the table and drummed his fingers nervously. Probably nervously. Hiccup wasn't sure. Whenever he saw Jack and Aster together it looked like the white haired boy was more opened than the other.

But point taken.

"Yeah, good point." He pushed his glasses higher. "Sooo…"

And Jack suddenly lightened up like a burning magnesium ribbon*.

"Twenty questions?" He asked. His voice dripped with something that Hiccup could only describe as playfulness and enjoyment. It was weird hearing it. But he had nothing against it.

"Twenty questions it is…"

So Jack exited the café richer with information about the smaller teen.

They mostly asked each other simple question and for every one of them Hiccup always took time to answer, even if this was question about his favorite color (which was green or ebony). Jack on the other side yelled or shouted almost every answer, waving his hands in the air. He was just this kind of person that loved talking about even minor things.

And he maybe enjoyed the freak outs Hiccup got whenever Jack burst out. Yep, definitely funny.

Summing things up, Hiccup was one year younger than him, he had no siblings, he lived with his father, his cat was named Toothless, his hobby was reading or building things, his favorite subject was physics or chemistry, he had kind of obsession with dragons and so more and so long.

Jack definitely spoke more than Hiccup. But who could judge him? He loved the attention, he loved being surrounded by people and he loved being listened to. And it looked like Hiccup quite didn't mind. So when Hiccup only answered with two words (even though he was thinking for two minutes), Jack was literally making elaborates about his favorite food.

It was kind of funny. Jack felt like a child again. When he was younger, much younger, it was so much easier to gain a friend. The only things required was something similar, for example a mutual love for swings and voila – friends for a life time (or at least until their parents called for dinner). There was no strains, no invisible walls, no barriers between kids. It was so easy to talk, easy to laugh, easy to banter.

When you're older it is harder to make a friend. You can't simply walk to someone and say 'Hey, I also love pink, we can be friends!'. You need to get to know this person, spend time, live through something, something special.

Yet this few hours with Hiccup – person he barely knew – gave him a taste of his childhood. Why? Jack wasn't totally sure.

They still weren't friends of course. Some people were his friends and with some he only talked occasionally or hang out, but to be really honest Jack only have two best-friends that he trust from the bottom of his heart. Because friendship take time, friendship take trust, you can just switch on some buttons.

Maybe they were buddies? Mates?

They parted ways and Jack walked to his house slowly, humming some song under his nose. He had to say that it was quite good day. Maybe not the best days of his life, but definitely enjoyable one. And definitely more interesting.

"I'm home!" He yelled as he swung the front door open and literally kicked off his shoes. Ugh, his feet were itching for using those damn shoes all day.

"Jack!"

And then came the tackle.

Jack opened his arms in the last second before something small and blurry jumped at him with so much force that he had to make few steps back.

The girl in his arms snuggled to his blouse, giggling happily.

"Hey, hey, hey do you know what happened in school today?"

Jack shook his head. His hands wandered to settle under the small girl's arms as he lifted her up. His legs buckled up beneath him, but he held strongly. Or at least he tried to.

"You know Mary* right? You must know Mary, she was in our house two weeks ago…"

Some blurred, gray image blinked in front of Jack's eyes. His sister had a lot of friends (really a lot, she was so similar to him in that matter) and she told Jack about every one of them, but well… Sometimes it took time for him to fish out the memory.

But this time it didn't work. He guessed he had to play along.

"Yeah, yeah, totally know which one…"

It looked like his sister didn't quite mind or didn't see his lie because her chocolate eyes shone with excitement and mouth moved nevertheless:

"And you know what she did? You know what she did?!"

Jack definitely didn't know.

"What Mary did?" He asked, moving from the hall. He heard sounds coming from the kitchen – something that sounded like boiling oil. Uh oh, Jack should hurry up!

"She punched Sid in the face!"

Okay, stop, stop, this was slowly drifting in very bad direction. They were only like in fifth grade or so? Why was his sister so happy about her friend punching someone? He need to talk with their father about that.

"Okay, why she have punched him?" Jack asked, trying to sound not too cheerful. Even though he didn't quite approved what Mary did or why Emma was so happy about it , it was kind of funny to imagine a ten year old punch someone.

"Because he was mean to Russell! And he was yelling mean stuff at him! So Mary punched him."

Well that escalated quickly.

Jack walked inside the kitchen where he immediately saw his bulky Dad rummaging through the cupboards, humming something under his nose – which Jack presumed was some kind of Christmas' song. On the stove stood giant pot with something boiling inside. On the frying pan next to it the vegetables were sizzling angrily - there was also dark smoke above them.

He quickly put Emma down, ran to the stove, grabbed some spoon and stirred the vegetables. Well, the good news, they weren't as burned as he thought they would be.

"Ah Jack, good to see you. I was searching for oregano!" His Dad turned his head to him. Faint, blue eyes shone with happiness and recognition. His tattooed hands were still running through the shelves, even though he wasn't looking there.

And only now Jack saw the smaller pot behind the bigger one where the sauce was boiling not too happily about that. He quickly turned off the fire.

Quick notification to remember – his Dad was terrible cook. Status updated - except for Christmas' food – these ones he aced with the highest grades.

"It's in the drawer on your left." Jack said when the danger was overtaken. The noodles were boiling slowly, vegetables were good to go and sauce wasn't too dark. Perfect. Now they only needed few spices to season the dinner and they were good to go… err, eat.

The man yelled gaily. Soon the sauce was sprinkled with, literally, a waterfall of spices.

Jack grimaced

"Oh no, no, no! Let me take over, I insist!" He moved near his Dad and with his hip tried to move him away, but it was quite hard as he was almost twice Jack's size in weight and about one head taller than him too.

Jack carefully took all packages from the man's bulky hands.

"Okay, khorosho, leaving it for your care then!"

North – as Jack sometimes liked to call him (a habit he caught from his Dad's friend) - moved away, starting to get plates and glasses.

"So how was school?"

And here they go.

His Dad of course knew about his grades or at least about most of them. But he didn't know how bad Jack's situation was. Was it a good time to talk about it? North knew many people around, so he probably knew some tutors, right?

Here goes nothing…

"Um, Dad…"

"Oh I already don't like it, so spill it out!" The giant man wasn't looking at him. He was bend over the table while distributing the dishes. His back muscles were tense, like he was preparing himself for some kind of blow. He often did that whenever Jack spoke about his problems. But even until now Jack didn't know if this was a good sign or a bad one.

He turned off the noodles, took out the colander, put it on the sink and then grabbed cloth and pot and poured everything above the sink.

"Uhm you know… that I kind of have problems at school… And funny thing – I kind of failed the last test… so Professor Black told me that if I'll fail another one I can say…" He put the pot away, grabbed the colander and started to shake it violently. "… Goodbye to passing this grade. So I was curious if you maybe… know someone good at math who can help me?"

Jack observed as the man's shoulders move an inch higher to finally slump down heavily with a long exhale.

"Okay, that could have gone worse." North said, weirdly jolly as he turned around, one hand on his grayish beard. "I can ask around at work if you want."

Jack smiled, or at least tried to smile, as his Dad's palm landed on the white haired boy's arm, making his legs shook beneath his body. He almost spilled their food into the sink.

"I'm glad that you told me anyway. I'll ask tomorrow and if not, then we'll search for someone on that computer of yours, tak?"

He nodded, feeling some of the nervousness and tension flowing away from his body. This wasn't so hard. He almost could say he felt better now. Everything will work out for him, right? Heather will leave him alone, Emma will learn to not get excited over violence, he will find some kind of tutor and everything will be fine. He will end this school…

But what then?

"Now the dinner!"

Jack looked up at the man and felt something bubbling inside of him. Something evil, something malicious, something typical of him.

So when he separated noodles, covered them in delicious sauce and they all sat together, he looked right at his sister and asked:

"So Emma, tell North what did you do today?"

Because they both knew that North wasn't a biggest fan of violence.

"And we talked."

"Ugh, lame…" Astrid retorted, probably bored to death.

"I think it's kind of sweet!"

Hiccup rolled his eyes, hearing the over warm voice of his friend in his ears.

Astrid groaned in his other earbud. Not even second later she yelled something, something similar to 'kill that things' and then the screen lightened up with violet light.

"What? I think it's nice that he took you to some café to talk. It was almost like a date!"

"Fortunately it wasn't, Fishlegs." Hiccup smiled under his nose as he saw the bloody letters on the screen indicating the death of his friends.

"But it could be!"

He could agree, but he didn't.

Fishlegs was his second (or third, counting Toothless) best-friend. He moved from Burgess a year ago, but even though they were living quite far away, they kept in contact.

And Hiccup though that maybe it was better for him to move out than to stay in this town, where ekhm… Fishlegs wasn't liked too much. But the people in his town were great, he had a lot of friends in his school, so Hiccup was happy for him. Not to mention now he had a place where he can go for holidays with Astrid.

Yet he often found himself missing him. Talking on skype was great of course, but well… Fishlegs was this one friend that understood him even without speaking too much. When Astrid often solved his problems with a punch to the arm, Fishlegs used more calm ways, that resulted often into sitting and watching Discovery Science for few hours straight.

He was also the mother hen of their team, which he didn't quite missed.

"The last thing I want is a date with Jack, believe me." Hiccup finally said, when the silence wrapping around his ears wasn't too comforting. Only when he lifted his head from his project, he saw that Astrid and Fishlegs were in the middle of some boss battle.

Somehow they defeated him or her (Astrid used some weird giant-pro-spell that costed too much of her mana). Two small heroes moved forward through the forest.

"Yeah, but I know with whom you would want a date…" Astrid murmured too seductive for Hiccup's comfort. She was probably also grinning too much, her mouth forming a parabola with positive a next to squared x. Oh, he can see it in his mind.

Fishlegs giggled in his other earbud.

"But it's a good thing right! By being with Jack you can be near Aster, right?"

His pen froze midair, not ending the asymptote that he was currently drawing.

"Uhm yeah…" He murmured.

"Does Jack know?"

"Hell no!" Hiccup cringed when his voice echoed in his ears.

His statement was followed, of course, by an evil laughter coming from Astrid and a kind chuckle from Fishlegs. He didn't understand why they found this topic so hilarious. Okay, maybe he had a crush, but come one… everyone had at least one crush in their life, right? Right… Maybe it was the way he acted around him, or even thinking about him, especially his smile and those eyes…

No, stop thinking!

"That is not funny. And no, Astrid you cannot tell him!"

The girl laughed harder and her character accidentally threw some spell.

"I wouldn't dream about it. You'll probably just reveal it somehow by mistake soon anyway."

The scary part was that the probability of this happening was quite big. Enormous even. His magnetic field was working strongly, luring problems to him nonstop. He could already feel it.

"So what? You'll be only holding hands sometimes and he will kiss you on the cheek? Kind of lame…"

"I think it's cute."

Astrid snorted.

"Did you even tell him about the party at the twins?"

Hiccup really tried not to think about that event.

"Uhm no… I kind of forgot about it."

"Better late than ever."

"I'll tell him tomorrow." Hiccup grumbled, now crossing something on his blueprint.

Somehow…

The next day looked almost normal. Well, as normal as his day could look after the huge fake-relationship reveal. So yeah, Hiccup was still being glanced at, pointed at and whispered about, but not counting that, it was relatively okay.

He had met Jack only in the morning and waved at him, which was quickly followed by a whisper and giggle coming from some girls following him to the next class. So that was definitely new.

Astrid left him for her own classes, so now he was roaming around the building alone, left with his own thoughts. And his thoughts were filled with ideas for new robotic project. Yesterday he had made only few quick sketches, nothing too big, nor spectacular. Don't get him wrong, he didn't want anything spectacular. He just wanted to make something… innovative! So yeah, he still was on the first line, but he got quite some time still to think about it.

"Mister Haddock, may I take a while?"

Hiccup lifted his head from his chest and focused quickly his gaze on the person in front of him.

It was quite surprising to find the tall man standing not even a step away.

"Of course, Professor Black…"

Professor Black was one of the most hated teachers in their school and Hiccup could totally understand why. His always bored look didn't quite mixed well with the evil smirk he often wore (especially showing itself when he found out that some student made some dumb mistake). Simply - Professor Black wasn't a nice person to those who were lazy, yet Hiccup didn't hate him. Of course, the tall, lanky man, who was wearing nothing but black suits, was making him feel edgy, but nothing more. The small teen could almost say he tolerated Professor. And Hiccup got the feeling that Professor Black maybe even reciprocated the feeling.

Not to mention Professor Black was never mean to him nor said anything bad, so that was a giant plus.

"It came to my hearing that you're emotionally attached with one of our students." He said slowly, looking Hiccup right into his eyes. His hands were holding something. "I'm not in place to judge your personal choices, although you could definitely do better…"

The surprise look on Hiccup's face was probably pretty visible, because the man coughed – the sign he often did, when he wanted to change the topic or hide something.

Then the paper the tall man was holding was presented to him. Hiccup took it carefully. Nothing good came from Professor Black's hands, this paper could incinerate itself with no apparent reason even.

"Could you give this test back to Mister Overland? I though he may like to have it back. This way he will know on which topics he should focus more."

Hiccup nodded, totally dumbfounded, because it finally hit him. Professor Black knew about him and Jack! This was ridiculous! Who told him? Did he eavesdrop some students? Although the image of Professor Black creeping around female teenagers giggling in a circle was kind of funny. But still… how!?

"Okay, I'll do it." Hiccup said, not even looking at the papers.

"Good, thank you." And with that, the black haired male turned around to march inside his classroom.

But before Hiccup was able to even made a single step, Professor turned in the doorway.

"And Mister Haddock, please tell Mister Overland that he better be prepared for the next test, because it won't be easy."

"Okay…" He nodded, not really sure how he should answer that.

Professor Black nodded at him with his static face (it really showed nothing, it was just staring at him and yet Hiccup felt like he was read like an open book. Yeah, definitely creepy).

"Have a good day."

"Same to you, Professor."

The auburn haired boy slowly walked away from the classroom. He might have nothing against Professor Black, but still…

The really scary thing was the fact that the man knew about him and Jack. And what was even worse was the fact that there was nothing between them! The rumors nevertheless spread here faster than the gas in the elevated temperature (with few exceptions of course)!

Hiccup wondered if more teachers would walk to him to talk about his oh-so-real boyfriend Jackson Overland. If yes, then he was literally doomed. Jack wasn't known for having the highest grades in school …

Hiccup lifted the paper that was still in his hands.

Actually, to be honest Hiccup really thought that Jack was intelligent. Judging by the scarce imitation of conversation they had, he got a feeling that he was smart - not in the bookish way, but in the… more natural way? Hiccup had no profs (or very little profs) confirming his suspicions, but the feeling was there. And he often listened to his feelings.

"It couldn't be that bad." He murmured to himself, as his eyes moved to look at the sheet.

But it was. It was really terrible.

The whole sheet was covered in red circles, lines, exclamations and question's marks to this point where Hiccup wasn't sure where was the actual answer. Maybe the back page would be better?

But it wasn't. It was still covered in three different colors (the red one still the most visible). There was even a note form Professor Black at the bottom!

Okay, okay, that was definitely bad! But maybe, just maybe the questions were difficult, right?

Nope, they were easy. Well not too easy, but logical and quite simple if you actually made few exercises at home.

So Hiccup did the only logical thing. He quickly took out his phone and searched for Jack's numbers. Coming to this, he didn't even check how Jack signed himself… He hoped it would be something normal.

Nope, no, it wasn't. It was 'The Hottest Dude You Have Ever Se'. Someone had a big ego. Well, it must be him, Hiccup didn't remember having anyone else with that name! Not to mention, there wasn't even place for the last two letters.

'Can you met me after classes behind the school? I've got something for you.'

He walked to his next class and sat in his seat, just in time for the second bell to ring above their heads.

Hiccup was taking out his book, when his phone buzzed.

'Sure ;)'

"Ya going?"

Jack shook his head, a grin too wide for comfort probably graced his face.

"No, I have a secret meeting~"

Aster blinked, swirling his keys on his finger. Then almost after five seconds some cables inside his head connected, because he nodded.

"Okay. So see you later?"

Jack nodded. It was finally Friday. He actually had some plans for the weekend, but he decided to refuse all of them. He hoped that he could start learning, maybe crash at Aster's or Tooth's house to ask them for help, even thought they were terrible at it. Yeah, that seemed like a good thing to do.

Jack nevertheless felt bad. He knew he wasn't the brightest or the most intelligent person. It was even better not to mention his laziness. But failing his last year… It was slowly starting to scare him. The though only recently spurted out of the darkness. It was a small seed planted few months ago, but now it was watered and started to grow, slowly, but steadily overtaking his mind in that process.

He had no idea what he wanted to do after school, but there was only one thing sure. Jack wanted to finish High School, no matter what.

But he will do it after whatever Hiccup wanted to talk about.

When Jack opened the back door, he found Hiccup already standing there, staring at something in his hands. He didn't even see the white haired boy, nor did it look like any kind of factors actually cut through to his mind.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

Hiccup jumped, when Jack literally whispered it into his ear. It was just too tempting and who was Jack to refuse scaring someone? Well, maybe someone normal then, but it would be too boring.

"Jack, don't sneak on me!" Hiccup turned to him, face red and Jack wasn't sure if it was because of the embarrassment or the cold outside. Maybe it was both.

"Sorry not sorry. But you still didn't answer my question."

The auburn haired boy then showed him without hesitation the paper he was holding. And the look on his face didn't show anything good. Well, it was a mixture of surprise, sadness and anger, so yeah, all the bad emotions in Jack's case.

"Professor Black stopped me today and asked me to give this to you."

Oh no…

Jack halted, suddenly very aware of the thing in the smaller teen's hand. Yep, he could see the red lines splashed all around the paper, lines that made him cringe inside. But this wasn't the worst. Knowing you were bad was one thing. Your best-friends knowing it was other thing. But Hiccup knowing it – someone who Jack hoped would be his friend… this was a little humiliating. Especially if this someone was the best student in their school and his fake-boyfriend.

"Oh, thanks… I guess…" The taller teenager said, not even trying to sound happy or confident. He took the paper away from the boy and looked at it quickly. He could already feel something forming inside his stomach – a small guilt.

"Jack do you have problems with learning?"

The white haired teenager didn't lift his head, only turned the paper around and stared at few paragraphs written by Professor Black at the end.

"Yeah, kind of but…"

"Do you need help with it?"

To say that Jack was puzzled was a good word. And only when he looked into Hiccup's eyes – unnaturally big behind the glasses - he understood something. He hadn't seen this one feeling that really made him felt bad – there was no pity swirling inside those green eyes.

He hated to confirm those words, because saying that you need help was making him feel… useless. But this was truth and he was bad at lying. And mostly of all he really needed help.

"Yeah…"

But before he was even able to say that he actually started to ask around for tutor or that he talked about it with his Father, Hiccup was already speaking:

"I can help you."

"What?" Jack asked in very a high tone, the words registered by his brain seconds later.

Hiccup got flustered and started to turn his head around, not glancing at Jack now for even a second. Oh and he started to babble:

"I mean I have quite an experience with helping other people in learning. Let me tell you, teaching Snotlout Chemistry was one of the worst things in my life, but hey, he passed, so that was good…" He corrected the strap from his backpack on his arm. "I mean that in Math, Physic and Chemistry I am in advanced classes, so I actually already covered what you had on the test and I think I will be able to clear few things for you. If you want of course!" Then it looked like the words that left his lips in a never-ending flow finally were processed by his brain, because now even his nose turned red. "I-I didn't mean to brag about myself. That sounded so bad. What I meant is, that I cannot help you in History or Geography – I totally hate those classes. Or even Cooking classes are out of the way. But if you want help with something that I think I'm quite good at – still no bragging! – then I…"

And Jack couldn't stop the beam that formed itself on his lips. Well, that really meant a lot to him, because Jack lately had brought Hiccup probably more problems than the boy already had… yet here he was, offering his help to someone as Jack.

For anyone else it was probably nothing big, it was something normal even. But for Jack it meant world. Lending a helping hand in such situation (and Hiccup probably didn't even know how bad the situation was for Jack) – it allowed Jack to regain this few strings of hope that were almost cut down.

"Yeah, I would love to. I mean, I really need help right now." Jack said breathlessly, smiling probably as widely as a child that someone gave the best gift ever. And for Jack it was one of the most important gifts right now.

Hiccup finally looked at him - face literally red as tomato, hands tangled in the hem of his sweater. His eyes blinked, brushing away the worry and replacing it with fondness and relief.

"Great! So when is the next test?"

"Thursday…"

Hiccup blinked one more time, but quickly shook his head.

"Okay, that's not a lot of time." He then pushed his glasses higher. "And which topic we need to cover if you could be more precise?"

Jack somehow fished out the memory from his brain.

"I think it was something about limits*?"

And Hiccup groaned. Not a good sign.

"Please don't tell me you also had trigonometric functions in them?" He asked, the hope tinted his voice.

And uh huh, Jack needed to destroy this hope.

"Yes?" Or at least he thought that they were there.

Hiccup took deep breath and massaged his temples with two fingers. His glasses moved down. It looked like they could fall down, but before they were able to, Hiccup lifted his head.

"Okay, we can do it, but we need to work pretty hard. I hope you're not doing anything tomorrow then?"

Jack shook his head quickly, feeling something seeping inside his chest and covering it in something warm. It wasn't the burning guilt now, definitely not. It was something different, something definitely new, but welcomed nevertheless.

Maybe it was the Sun shining behind the clouds – something akin to first rays of hope.

"No, not that I can think of." Jack said, that stupid smile plastered to his face. He was literally bouncing inside.

"Okay, I'll come to your house then. How about 1 pm sounds?"

"Totally fine!"

Hiccup smiled, his crooked front teeth were now visible.

"Cool, send me your address via message. See you tomorrow then!" Hiccup said at the end as he passed him in a light jog.

Jack turned around just in time to see the small boy catching up with Astrid, who turned to Jack and waved at him. Walking slowly to their homes. they both started talking.

Jack moved, humming under his breath. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. He got rid of Heather for some time and now he even got himself a tutor. Maybe saving Hiccup from Dagur was one of the best days of his life?

"Hey, we totally should go to the laser tag tomorrow! Some dude just tipped me with a free coupon!"

"Heck yeah, I'm in!"

Astrid behind him hummed in response, not looking away from her fingers. Seriously, couldn't she do it somewhere else, but in Hiccup's room? Yeah, he was probably the only guy on the whole Earth that saw Astrid Hofferson paint her nails! And Hiccup wasn't sure if he should be proud or ashamed of that.

Yeah, being the gay friend had its pros and cons. And this… this was definitely con.

"Astrid, please don't spill your nail polisher on my quilt okay? Last time I had to treat the stain with a remover and then made a hole in it." Hiccup shuddered remembering it. He really liked that quilt. It was warm and comfy.

"Relax! I've got it under control!" Then Toothless choose this second to jump onto the bed and on the girl's knees.

Hiccup stared with wide eyes as the small bottle tipped dangerously, but before it could fall down, Astrid quickly snapped it in her fingers.

"See. Everything under control!" She said, gracing him with a smirk. "And about laser tag, I'm in, only when?"

Tuffnut on the video chat hummed under his nose and swirled on the chair, in which process he bumped into his sister sitting next to him.

Hiccup refrained himself from speaking. He knew he would be dragged anyway. The only way of excusing himself would be when his butt would be on fire (literally, this is what Tuffnut had told him once). Anyway, he listened for few seconds as the twins bickered between each other, until the girl turned to the camera:

"How about tomorrow sounds?"

Uh oh.

Hiccup felt as his bed bounced when Astrid jumped excitedly. Toothless looked at her with weirded out look and moved away to curl next to Hiccup's good foot.

"Yeah, totally! I need to recharge myself for the next week!" She almost screamed, moving to sit next to Hiccup, so she also would be able to see the screen showing the twins room.

Tuffnut and Ruffnut head bumped each other (seriously, that looked painfully, and even on the other side Hiccup could hear the sound of it dulling into the air) and turned their grinning faces to the camera.

"So we're good? I need to call Snotlout and ask…"

"Actually I can't go tomorrow."

The boy with dirty blonde hair stopped babbling. In exchange he directed surprised look at him. But his sister was quicker to open her mouth:

"Come on Hiccup, don't be a fun killer!" She whined - her voice sounded like a working dryer.

"But I really have plans for tomorrow." Hiccup mumbled, suddenly feeling that actually this wasn't such a good idea. He should had say that he can go and tomorrow change his plans.

No wait, that was also a bad plan. He once had told them he was ill and they literally had went to his house, kidnapped him and together drove to some amusement park, two hours away from Burgess. Yeah, scratch that plan!

"Like what? Even more learning? Dude, you have the best grades in the whole school, you can have one free day!" Tuffnut moaned, throwing his hands in the air.

"Yeah, what is so important that you can't hang out with us?" Astrid next to him nudged his arm, staring right at him with those vibrating blue eyes.

This would sound so cliché and ugh… romantic, but…

"I'm tutoring Jack tomorrow for his incoming test…" Hiccup whispered, trying very, very hard to sound as quiet as possible, but still give the needed answer. But of course it was no use, because apparently the twins had suddenly weird ability to hear things they weren't supposed to hear, so both their mouths turned into delightful, for them, smirk.

"Uuuu it's a classic learning-date!" Ruffnut winked at him. The movement made Hiccup want to gag, but the only thing he did was sigh loudly. "You'll be describing to him how to find the x and then he will try to find you point g~!"

At that Hiccup groaned heavily, feeling as his cheeks started to get hot. Seriously? Couldn't they be even more childish? And no, that wasn't a challenge.

"Good one! Oh, I've got one too! You'll be showing him how to calculate angles in a triangle and in exchange he will show you the best angle to…"

"Enough!"

Hiccup was never so thankful Astrid for stopping the small contest between the twins.

"Stop it guys! Look, Hiccup will blow a fuse soon!"

"Aww, our small Hiccup is embarrassed!" Ruffnut cooed, weirdly sweet (as for her). She moved to pinch her brother's cheek, like he could replace Hiccup on the other side.

Tuffnut jumped away disgusted. Astonished look was painted on his face, as he massages his now red cheeks, mumbling something similar to 'what the heck woman?'.

"Anyway, okay, you're dismissed. But we need a full report after your…" Here Ruffnut made quotation mark with smirk on her pink lips. "… 'learning lessons' then."

"You know that nothing will happen, right?" Hiccup asked, but even after he spoke those words he didn't quite believe them himself.

Ruffnut was anything but normal. And apparently she liked to add her own ending about things that definitely won't happen.

"Yeah, right. You and your boyfriend, alone in his room, I wonder what will happen?" She snickered when Tuffnut literally gagged right next to her. He hid his head between his knees and for brief moment Hiccup really though he actually vomited on the floor. Fortunately, it didn't happen.

Hiccup had to admit, after his accidental reveal last year that he was gay (in front of almost entire school) things were going quite smoothly. Well yeah, back then for almost three weeks there had been some slight bullying, but nothing much. Okay, there had been only one quite dangerous encounter, but hey, he had got out of it unscathed, so it was fine. After that all whisperings and unkind stickers glued to his locker ended. Just like that.

Hiccup wasn't sure what had happened back then, he only remembered that he had simply ran away one day, as far as possible and the next day it had felt like nothing happened. The guys who had even 'attacked' him apologized, so this was good, but still a total mystery. And it could stay that way.

But he was really happy that his friends took it so well. Of course, it had took some time at first, but they warmed to this idea rather fast and Hiccup… was quite proud of them for doing it.

Yet, sometimes they were still uncomfortable with that. For example – vomiting Tuffnut - that not only few minutes ago himself was speculating not-so-childish outcomes.

"Nothing will happen, Ruffnut!" Hiccup said, staring up at the ceiling. But only his lamp stared back at him and it also knew it was futile.

"Yeah, right. Still want to see both of you at our party!"

Oh, yeah, the party. He was supposed to ask about it today. Well, he can do it tomorrow.

"North, I have some good news!" Jack said in sing-song voice. He couldn't stop the smile trying to appear on his mouth, but heck yeah, he felt as the sky above his life was just brightening up - the small rays of sun pecking through the dark clouds. Yep, it was awesome.

His father lifted his face from some papers that we was looking through (Taxes? Loans? Jack didn't know). His cunning blue eyes lit, when he saw Jack.

"Yes, what would it be?"

"I found a tutor to help me in classes!"

North face beamed, a tons of small, thin wrinkles appeared beneath his eyes. Even his beard moved, when the corner of his lips flew higher on his face.

"That's amazing! I'm proud of you."

"Yeah, he'll be here tomorrow, so please don't embarrass me in front of him!" Jack quickly added the last part. He knew his family too well.

North looked at him, his mouth now forming a long line (or at least Jack guessed it did that, because his actual lips weren't visible under the mighty, fury, snowy beast called North's beard).

"Jack, you know me. I would never do something intentionally to embarrass you in front of the others!"

Intentionally? Maybe not. His father had the kindest heart in probably the whole Burgess. But accidentally? Huh boy, this was pretty possible. Add here his sister, that literally loved to make him feel ashamed, and this duet was unstoppable. So yeah, better hush on cold.

"I know, I know. I just wanted to make sure." Jack quickly lifted his hands, trying to surrender, before it would turn into some kind of argument.

But thankfully his father was quickly to forget such things, as he grinned widely.

"Don't worry, we won't do anything to embarrass you."

And as Jack though that it was the end and indeed nothing would happen, his sneaky sister ran inside the kitchen and passed him to rummage through some shelves. When she found her cookies, she turned to him, sat on the counter and with devious smirk said:

"I don't promise anything."

Great… This is what he needed.

"Where are you going?"

And Hiccup almost though he would walk out of the house without his father noticing him.

There wasn't anything bad in it, Hiccup just wasn't in the mood for telling his father why he was going out. But lately Stoick tried really hard to hold proper conversations with him. It wasn't the bad imitations of grumbles and awkward silences that had happened between them some time ago, but real conversation: question – answer, question – answer – expansion of the answer. To be honest Hiccup felt proud of his father (he knew how hard it was to talk with him, because his friends told him like a million times to stop being such a sass and sarcastic butt).

"I'm going to tutor friend in Math." He said, trying not to sound too disrespectful. He even smiled at the end.

Stoick nodded at him from the kitchen, looking from Hiccup feet (foot) to his head.

"Astrid? Thorston twins?" He asked. "Snotlout?"

Yeah, Hiccup's range of friends wasn't too wide.

"No, actually someone else." Hiccup corrected his backpack that tried to run away from him.

Hiccup, of course, had no intentions of lying to his father, so he said nothing more about it.

"Oh good, good. Do I know him or her?"

"No, I don't think so. He helped me once in school…" Better not to show too many details. "So in return I offered him help in Math."

Stoick nodded one more time, processing everything. He put away the plate from which he was eating until now and stood up.

"Okay, don't be too long out there. I will buy something for supper."

"Okay, bye Dad!"

Hiccup walked out of the house, patting Toothless one more time before closing the door.

Jack house wasn't too far away, maybe around fifteen to twenty minutes, so Hiccup decided to walk there. Not to mention he didn't have a car nor driving license, so that was out of the options. But this day wasn't too cold - walking sounded almost nice when he armored himself with a very fluffy sweater.

He felt pretty weird. Hiccup didn't have many friends. It wasn't like he was a total outsider, just… the amount of people he really trusted was pretty low. And he felt quite comfortable with what he had. He had no strains when he talked with Astrid or Fishlegs or even twins and Snoutlout, but he knew them for pretty long time. Not to mention they were all through really weird things.

With Jack… not so much. Of course they talked almost freely, but their conversations were very plain. They knew literally nothing about each other and the only one real conversation they had, had been in the café. Hiccup didn't know how Jack acted on a daily basis, how he acted in his house, how he behaved himself outside with friends. This was a total mystery to the small teenager.

And Hiccup wasn't sure if he wanted to know. But if they wanted to keep their… plan a little bit longer, he guessed he had to find out. Because what kind of boyfriend Hiccup would be if he didn't even know the real Jack?

A fake one, definitely, but still…

Jack seemed like a nice guy. Totally different from the one Hiccup expected him to be. He kind of felt bad that he assumed Jack would be all douchy, just because he played sports and was popular. Damn, he often complained about how people judged books by their covers and here he was, doing literally the same. Hiccup felt ashamed of himself.

That's why he decided to help Jack. This was his weird way of apologizing to him for thinking like that.

"I think, this is here…" Hiccup looked up from his phone at the simple, green, two-floor house standing proudly in front of him. He felt that weird feeling coming from it, like every wood, every splinter was vibrating with something. Something definitely positive. Yeah this was definitely Jack's house. Maybe the house somehow absorbed boy's optimism? Hiccup shook his head, chuckling under his nose. This was stupid.

He walked slowly up the stairs to the veranda. After locating the doorbell, he ringed it. He heard sounds coming from the inside and not soon after the running footsteps echoed very near him.

The door opened to reveal a kid with long, straight, brown hair and grinning face, where chocolate, warm eyes shone with fun and amusement.

"Uhm, hey…" Hiccup murmured, not really expecting for someone else to open the door. Did he get to wrong address? "Is this Overland's house?" He asked.

The girl, not letting go of her smile, nodded enthusiastically and moved a little bit away from the door.

"Sure thing! You must be Jack's tutor?"

Hiccup walked inside, where he took off his shoes and jacket. He glanced back at the small girl that was looking at him expectantly.

"Uh yeah, yeah I am." He smiled a little. That curious look was making him nervous. "My name is Hamish, but everyone call me Hiccup… and you?"

The girl giggled (Hiccup was used to it), covering her mouth with her hand, that she quickly showed to him, still with that giant grin glued to her face. That beam looked familiar. Hiccup wondered if this flew in the blood of the Overland's family.

"Emma, Jack's sister. And speaking about that dumb bro of mine…" She then cupped her mouth, making a small tube from her hands. "Jack, Hiccup is here!"

And then they both heard some weird sound coming from upstairs. The voice was definitely muffled and also a little urgent, which made Hiccup think that Jack was unprepared for the intrusion. But why? They had decided yesterday that Hiccup would be here on this specific time. Was he early? No.

"What?! Emma! You told me it was half past eleven, not twelve!"

The girl next to him laughed and Hiccup tried to stop an urge to move away as far as possible.

"Sorry!" She said, although Hiccup was sure that she wasn't sorry. The small spark of evil hanging inside her eyes was definitely showing no good. Hiccup decided that he never wanted to get on Jack's sister bad side.

They stood there awkwardly for few seconds, listening to Jack's scrambling coming from upstairs. It looked like, option a – Jack only recently woke up or b – was taking the shower.

The sudden curse, followed by a sound of someone definitely falling down, convinced him it was the second option.

"Soo are you Jack's friend?" Emma asked, staring at him with kind eyes (weirdly so different from the ones she had not only five second ago).

"Erm, kind off? We're maybe friends, but not close ones…"

She hummed and smiled when Jack upstairs shouted something, something that sounded like a howl of pain. Hiccup wondered how many bruises he already had.

"Still I'm glad you decided to help him. He looked happy yesterday when he told Dad about finding a tutor."

"He did?" Hiccup asked, before he was able to bit his tongue.

Emma one more time nodded and leaned on the wall. Her hand moved to her hair, where she twirled one strand on her petite finger.

"Uhm, yeah. He maybe doesn't look like that, but he really cares about such things."

Hiccup blinked.

"You mean… about learning?"

Emma shrugged.

"Kind of." She turned to look at him, right in the eyes. Jack often did it too. Staring right at someone. Hiccup felt like she could read him like an open book. "I don't think he is dumb…"

Oh, so this is what she meant.

"Neither do I. Lazy? Definitely. Too hyper active? Also. But I think he is smart in his weird Jack's way." Ugh, it was so hard to explain. Hiccup in the middle of his sentence started to swing his hands, trying to show what he meant. But his palms only made weird uneven circles to finally fell down.

Emma giggled when the doors upstairs opened.

"Yeah, definitely." She swung on her heels. "You're a nice guy Hiccup."

Hiccup didn't really know how to answer that, so he only shrugged at this.

He wasn't really too nice. Maybe neutral? Yeah, he wasn't the type of person that was always smiling, even while walking down the streets. He was the type to hung your head and not look at anyone.

But that reminded him that Jack almost always walked with his head held high. Hiccup never saw him looking down, even when he was passing through the corridors. His eyes were always directed forward with that weird, comforting smile soldered to his face.

If someone here was nice it was definitely Jack. He saved him from Dagur, in a bad way, but it was the will that mattered.

Jack finally walked down the stairs. And Hiccup could pat himself on the back, because indeed it looked like Jack was taking a shower.

When he spotted Hiccup, he smiled a little, showing his snowy white teeth. His hand travelled to his still wet hair that were glued to his head and because of that they didn't stand out as usual.

"Hey, I see you have met my sister." He said, trying to sound as casual as he could, but the visible redness of his cheeks showed that this was uncomfortable situation even for him.

And Hiccup felt a little bit like laughing. Here was the most popular dude in the whole school getting flustered about the fact that he was taking the shower when he was supposed to meet guests.

"Yeah, I did."

"I don't need to say that she is the evilest thing on the Earth?" He asked, now directing his look at her and crossing his arms on chest.

Emma only smiled and moved past him, up the stairs.

"I learnt from the better. See ya later, Hiccup!" And then she ran probably to her room.

Jack very quickly coughed away the embarrassment, as he turned back to Hiccup.

"Sorry for that. She was supposed to call me earlier."

"Don't worry. It's okay." Hiccup answered, surprised that Jack was actually apologizing for that.

Jack eyes lightened up as he made a step back and waved his hands in the direction of the stairs.

"So now, let's move forward to my chamber."

Hiccup walked, but his eyebrows rose.

"You mean a man cave?" He asked, before he was able to bit himself on the tongue one more time.

"Yeah, more over." Jack followed after him.

Jack's room was at the end of the corridor, in front of Emma's room and it looked… just as Hiccup expected it to be - minus the mess. There was a giant wardrobe in the corner covered in some kind of posters and stickers. Next to it stood bookstand filled with games (literally tons of them) and comics stocked in perfect piles. There was bed, nicely done (with small mascot laying on the pillow), in the middle of the room and a giant desk in front of it. So yeah, typical boy's bedroom.

The only weird thing were small snowflakes hanging on threads glued to the ceiling. And that the whole room was covered in blue. But other than that, it was okay.

"Don't be deceived. Usually I have a mess here, but I cleaned it up a little." Jack said as he marched inside and threw himself on bed, running perfectly straightened quilt.

Hiccup followed after, still looking around.

"I feel honored then…" He mumbled as he approached one shelve and looked through the titles of some games.

"Hey, even I don't want to show my dirty room to my boyfriend."

Hiccup turned around, facing Jack, feeling as his lips turn upwards.

"You're such a gentleman then."

"Yes, yes I am."

Yet there was something that really irritated him in Jack's current look.

And Hiccup couldn't let this chance slip by, so he walked to Jack and sat next to him. He grabbed the still wet towel that hung around Jack's neck and brushed away the rest of the shampoo from his hair. Perfect.

"Yes, you are, almost."

Jack looked at him, the magenta tones dancing on his cheeks. And it came to Hiccup's mind that he looked so different from the Jack he saw so often in school. He wasn't the cool Jack, he wasn't the popular Jack… he was just normal Jack. Normal teenager that got flustered over soap on his neck.

"Sorry, I was in a hurry…" He said, suddenly not moving anything, but his lips.

Hiccup shrugged and pushed the towel around the neck, where the white bubbles were still flowing down, wetting the shirt and leaving dark spots. How Jack didn't see it or feel was beyond Hiccup's comprehension.

"I noticed, trust me…" Hiccup murmured, glancing at Jack. The white haired teen was still looking at him. "I can see that siblings can be sometimes a pain in the butt."

Jack's hand played with his shorts, picking on threads hanging from the end.

"Yeah, but more like most of the time."

Hiccup spotted few droplets of water dripping from Jack's hair, so he stood up and threw the towel over taller boy's head and started to rub it furiously.

Jack shouted as his hands moved up to probably grab Hiccup's own to stop him from the torture, but as soon as it started, Hiccup stopped.

"What was that for?" Jack whined, when he was finally able to take his towel away. He threw it somewhere on the bed.

"Your hair was still wet."

"Couldn't you do it a little bit softer?"

"No, no I couldn't, now get up. We have a lot to catch up to."

Jack groaned and laid down on bed. Maybe Hiccup should take it back. Jack was the laziest person he knew.

When they finally sat together to actually learn something it moved smoother than Hiccup actually expected.

Jack, when he wanted to, could focus quite quickly. Whenever Hiccup explained something to him, showing examples all over the way, he listened silently, nodding from time to time or asking, when something wasn't totally clear. And when Hiccup asked him to do few tasks he really put his mind on doing them, mumbling something to himself as he scribbled down numbers.

At first he calculated them all wrong, but he showed his paper to Hiccup with such hope shining in his eyes that Hiccup felt bad when he had to tell him that he made some mistakes on the way.

Yet, he didn't give up and when Hiccup explained it a little bit more, he made another exercises with only one error. Which was pretty amazing in Hiccup's opinion.

Hiccup glanced at the line of signs, letter and number and he nodded when he spotted the correct result.

"It seems that you're starting to get the hang of it." The smaller teen said, more to himself than actually to Jack, but the boy heard it nevertheless.

"Of course I am, I'm awesome."

Hiccup rolled his eyes as his glasses slipped down.

"And so modest."

"You bet!"

The desk buzzed when someone tried to contact Jack via his phone and another message appeared on his screen. It was the fourth one in the span of three hours.

"You really are popular." Hiccup said, nodding his head in the direction of Jack's phone.

It was actually pretty nice that Jack didn't even pick it once to answer it. He always only checked who wrote to him, then left it there, not even then sparing a glance.

"Yeah, you can say that." Jack mumbled, looking one more time at the screen and then shaking his head, a ghost of smile tracing on his lips.

"You can answer them if you want." Hiccup looked at some other exercise, then at the clock. They were on it for some time now. It was funny how time moved so fast when Hiccup was in his nerd zone.

"No, they can wait." Jack muttered and turned to look at him.

Well Hiccup more like felt the curious gaze on his cheek as he flipped through the textbook.

"I think we did plenty and deserve a break." He said, turning to Jack and pushing higher his glasses. Even though they brought him his vision back, he was still not used to correcting them from time to time.

"Oh, in that case…"

Jack leaned on his chair, his hand grasped the phone and brushed his finger on the screen. The phone came to life with a happy beep.

For the next few second Jack's blue eyes moved through the texts he received, from time to time furrowing eyebrows and even twice blinking in surprise and then shining with laugher (with the warm voice following soon after). His finger tapped on the desk and lips, partly opened, whistled some song.

Hiccup circled some task he was sure they would be doing later. It was going quite smoothly and he started to think that it would be even a piece of cake for Jack to pass that test. But better to not really told him that right now, there was still a lot to catch up and Hiccup needed Jack motived and ready.

The taller boy next to him, threw his head back and laughed even harder at something he had read.

Hiccup glanced at the monitor standing in front of him. It was switched on, because Jack insisted on playing some background music, but they stopped doing it as Jack was more singing than actually doing the exercises.

The wallpaper was pretty normal - it was some snowy landscape. Or maybe it was a photo Jack had taken (there was someone there that looked a lot like Emma) when he had been on some vacation?

Hiccup was leaning closer, trying to recognize more details on the picture, when someone decided to call Jack on skype. The small icon appeared on the screen, scaring Hiccup, who jumped in the air and then (not) gracefully leaned back, which resulted in him falling down. Together with his chair and not so manly squeak.

And the skype call sound still rang around, like it was laughing at him.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the computer who was chuckling at him in reality. It was Jack, miserably trying to cover it by biting his knuckles.

What was even worse was the fact, that Jack actually picked the call and Aster's (Aster's!) face appeared on it. Great… and Hiccup face now flushed even harder in the beat with his heart starting to jump around his ribcage, wildly as expanded, reactive gas.

"Hey Jack." The boy on the screen waved his hand and Hiccup took his time to cover his face with his arm. Ugh, amazing. He just wanted to disappear. "Why are you laughing?"

Jack surprisingly moved away from the desk and not soon after Hiccup felt as the white haired teen grabbed his hand and hoisted him up.

So yeah, now he was standing embarrassed – and also with messy hair, bruise forming on his head, glasses sitting weirdly on his nose and his shirt ridded up a little – in front of his crush. Just perfect. Great.

He quickly sat down, when Jack lifted the chair. He just wanted to disintegrate, dissolve, like he was some freely soluble substation. He didn't have to be homogeneous, he only needed to be invisible for human eye.

"Do I want to know what you were doing?" Aster asked, lifting one of his eyebrow.

It took Hiccup all of his strength now not to bawl right in front of him.

"U-uh, we d-did nothing…" Hiccup quickly answered, feeling as his face heat up with every word that left his lips.

Ugh, he felt as Jack turned to him with curious gaze even. Nope, he was dead, doomed!

Yet Jack also decided to help him, because Hiccup wasn't sure he was able to mutter any more coherent and proper for this situation words.

"Hiccup just flipped, because you suddenly called. That's all, don't worry your… your…"

Aster blinked and leaned on his chair (showing pretty nice muscles beneath his shirt, gosh, Hiccup needed to stop that) as he stared with questioning gaze at Jack.

"My?"

"I wanted to say pretty little face… but your face is not small, not to mention, it isn't even pretty…"

Ugh, Hiccup had to strongly disagree on this one, but he busied himself with looking at the textbook, that fortunately didn't fall down with him.

"It's better than yours. And this is what matters!"

"Nuhuh, mine is better!"

Aster sighed heavily as he rolled closer to his computer. Hiccup only stole few quick glances at him, still too embarrassed to face him properly. Plus, it wasn't like he was talking to him, right?

"Yeaaaaaah, tell yourself that. But anyway I called to ask if you're doing something tomorrow? Tooth was supposed to go with me to pick up the suit, but she has to help her mother at work."

Hiccup still didn't lift his face. Seriously? This was so unlike him! He tried to hold his head high, to be brave, but it sometimes took Aster's one look to turn him into… this. This miserable excuse of nerd.

"I don't know, I have a lot to learn…"

This actually was nice. Jack willingly refused the offer to hang out with his friend, so he was able to learn and pass the test. Hiccup didn't expect that kind of dedication from the white haired boy.

And he felt that he shouldn't really bring Jack down.

"I have nothing against it, just tomorrow we need to fasten up a little, and then you'll be free." Hiccup murmured as he slowly lifted his face to stare at his companion.

Jack turned to him, but shook his head, still smiling.

"Nah. I know I'm a miserable student and I want to grab every opportunity I've got to pass this test." He then turned to the computer. "So sorry Bunny, but not tomorrow and not in this week."

The boy on the other side sent him, or maybe even both of them, a sad smile.

"I totally understand, just wanted to ask…" He then turned a little and directed his cunning eyes at Hiccup, who straightened his body as a string under this gaze. "So you're teaching him?"

Okay, there are such things as words. Hiccup need to use them and probably form some kind of simple answer.

"Um yeah." Well, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't totally good either. Ugh, why did he have to act like that? He had had no problems with presenting his work at the contest last month, he even had felt excited when he had told them how the spectrophotometer worked in his project, but now it felt like his mind was blank, empty, hollow.

If there was only some equation that could solve his problems!

But it looked like Aster wasn't fazed by his sudden silence and awkward answering. Or maybe he was, but he was also very good at hiding it. Anyway Hiccup was very glad and totally overjoyed as the taller boy continued their small conversation.

"That's good. He need someone to teach him, but I suspect that he is a terrible student." Aster smirked, glancing at Jack next to him.

Jack, who until now was balancing his pen between his nose and upper lip, snapped up and glared at the screen.

"It's because you're a bad teacher!" He yelled like it could answer all questions in the world.

And probably between them it kind of did. Maybe Aster had taught Jack something? Oh, yeah, totally possible as Aster was also one of the best students in their school.

"I am not! You just can't listen!"

"I can't listen? I can't listen?! You couldn't explain it simple enough for me. You know what they say!? If you cannot explain it in the simple way you do not understand it!"

Oh, wow Hiccup felt impressed that Jack knew this adage.

"It's not my fault this was too complicated to explain it in easy way! You're a bad listener!"

Maybe he should give his three words to this conversation?

"Well, if my word matter at all I don't think Jack is that bad…"

The sudden silence was even more awkward than his previous stutter performance. And the responses were quite amusing.

Aster looked at him with disbelieve circling around his eyes, which blinked like his mind couldn't really understand what Hiccup had actually spoken. His mouth went down and it kind of felt like Aster was petrified.

Jack on the other hand… had the most stupid smirk Hiccup had ever seen. He wasn't sure if human's muscles were able to stretch to this point, but there it was, overthrowing his theory.

"See, listen to Hiccup, he is smart! You can trust him!"

And somehow Jack's hand landed on his head, ruffling his hair quite heavily and making his glasses slip down.

"Yeah, right… maybe he is just good at explaining?" Aster said, shaking his head a little, like he wanted to return to the right tracks.

Was it a compliment? Was it? Probably not, but Hiccup face felt even warmer now. He hoped that it wasn't visible, but who was he kidding…

Jack's palm finally left his hair alone (it was quite heavy) and landed on the desk.

"Hey, don't take my happiness away from me!" Then he turned to the smaller teen and raised his hands. "Not that I don't agree with him."

Hiccup chuckled, feeling as some of the tension flew away. This wasn't so bad.

"Okay, I'll be going. I just wanted to ask." He lifted his hand and put two fingers near his temple. "I'll catch you later then!"

"Yeah, go away loser!"

"B-bye!"

Aster saluted them. The video chat ended, leaving them alone.

It was finally over. Now his racing heart could finally calm down. For the last few minutes it was trashing around his ribcage. Almost like moving around sodium on the surface of water, only faster*.

Hiccup sighed heavily, the air leaving his mouth in a whistle as he brushed away the fringe from his head. He still could feel the heat radiating from his cheeks. But it was over. No more stress…

He turned to ask Jack if they should do few more exercises. Well, he wanted to ask him, but words died on his tongue as he saw the devilish smirk playing on the school's star pale lips.

"What?" Hiccup asked, lifting his eyebrow.

And then Jack had the guts to mimic Hiccup's behavior from the last few minutes in this weird high-pitched voice and flying everywhere hands.

"U-uh, we d-did nothing Aster! Um, yeah Aster! B-Bye Aster!"

He didn't sound like that! Not to mention he wasn't doing anything with his hands! To be honest, he clenched them on his pants to not flail them around too much!

But this was bad. Hiccup knew where this was going and he didn't like it! Not even a bit! No, no, no, no, no!

With as monotone voice as he could, he squealed a simple:

"Your point?"

And Jack put his elbow on the desk, leaned his head on his palm and stared at him, wrinkling his nose:

"I can smell crush from miles~"

Yep, this actually was happening. Odin save him, possible pretty fast.

Hiccup looked away, but still felt as his cheeks got warmer and warmer. It wasn't enough that he had made an embarrassment of himself just few minutes ago in front of Aster. Now Jack deduced what Hiccup was feeling and was poking it at him!

"I-I don't have a crush…" The mumble that left his lips was faint and shaky, even Hiccup could feel it was a lie. Ha, and he though Jack was bad at lying. Guess he was the king of it.

The white haired teen leaned closer, so much that Hiccup had to back down.

"O-oh really?" Jack mimicked him, the perfect line of his teeth showing up. He looked like a predator hunting his pray.

"Oh yeah, totally have no crush. From where did you even get this idea?"

As Jack moved away, he waved his hands in a giant circle.

"From all of this…"

Hiccup rolled his eyes.

"But you just gestured to all of me."

"Exactly!" Jack snapped his fingers. He kind of looked like a child that just solved the biggest mystery of his life.

"That didn't prove anything. You need evidence." Yeah, Hiccup was slowly turning back on his solid ground, which was science. There needs to be proofs if someone was throwing accusations.

"How about your blush?"

Damn.

Hiccup fiddled with the hem of his sweater as he tried to look as casually as he could.

"It will definitely disappear in few seconds and there won't be any proofs!"

And then he heard a snapping sound of someone taking a photo. He looked at Jack who was now looking joyfully at his phone.

"Now there is hard evidence. Do you still want to argue? 'Cause I can do it all day!" Jack put his hands behind his head as he put his foot on desk and pushed himself away, spinning few times. "Just admit it."

"I do not have a crush on Aster!"

"You definitely do~."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do!"

"No. I. Don't!"

"Yes. You. Do!"

Hiccup felt something inside of him bubbling with anger as they exchanged the same words for like a hundred times (Hiccup knew that the number wasn't even close to this, but it felt like that) until the last string inside of him snapped.

"Okay, I do! Now you are happy?"

And Jack, that until now wasn't facing him, only looking at the opposite wall, turned to him and smirked. Hiccup wanted nothing more than to brush that grin away, probably with concentrated sulfuric acid(VI) and maybe even sandpaper. Just for double pain.

"Very~"

Hiccup life was finally over as he hid his face in his hands.

"Are you gonna make fun of me now?"

He heard squeaking of a moving plastic wheels.

"A little. Can you judge me for that?"

"I kind of can. I'm not making fun of you because of your crush."

"That because I don't have one."

Hiccup groaned. He put his legs on the chair and tried to hid himself between his knees. This day was almost nice until this happened. Now, he even preferred to be doing sedimentation analysis than being stuck with Jack, who now knew about his secret.

Hiccup sighed heavily and this sound came out a little bit muffled – almost like a weird yelp. Not even a second after he had made that noise, he heard a soft, warm whisper next to him. The voice was oddly kind, a little bit hesitant and… so un-Jack that Hiccup looked up.

"Okay, I won't be making fun of you, so please don't cry…" The taller boy said, now staring at him with worried eyes.

Did he seriously think Hiccup would cry over that? Well, Jack knowing his secret wasn't nice, but it wasn't so bad either to cry over it.

"I wasn't crying." Hiccup said, tilting his head to the side.

Jack blinked, taken aback. His furrowed eyebrows relaxed for brief second.

"You weren't? But just a second ago…" His voice trailed, like he searched for perfect words.

Here was mighty Jackson Overland misjudging his sighing mixed with hiccupping for crying. And getting over worried about it. It was weirdly… nice and kind? But most of all, Hiccup found it adorable that the barely known to him Jack was worried if Hiccup was crying. Even if this was about something as simple as teasing.

Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

"You're such a worrywart." Hiccup spoke, smiling a little.

"Tell me something I don't know." Jack's hand, that until now hovered above Hiccup's shoulder (but was not touching it), moved to his white hair, where it got entangled with his locks. His eyes suddenly darted away from Hiccup's face "So… It really is Aster?"

"Unfortunately, it is Aster…"

Jack chuckled at that.

For two or three minutes they sat in silence. Jack was looking at something on the screen, but it felt more like he was thinking about something than actually searching for anything. Hiccup, in the meantime, returned to circling exercises (that they should do tomorrow just to be sure) to get his mind off this topic.

The tension slowly flew away. His heart calmed down, returning to its normal beating rhythm.

And when Hiccup though that Jack left this topic for good and he opened his mouth to ask if they should continue, Jack mumbled quietly:

"Do you want help with Aster?"

Well, he didn't expect that, that's for sure. Was he thinking about it while he was so silent? Jack really was a gentle person inside. Incredibly gentle.

Hiccup shook his head nevertheless.

"No thanks. This is probably just dumb crush that will disappear sooner or later." Hiccup really hoped it will be sooner, because it was definitely destroying his life right now. Quieter, he murmured to himself. "It's not like I have a chance anyway." And just to cover it quickly, he looked at Jack. "But thanks for the proposition… It was nice…"

Jack nudged his arm as he took the book away from his hands.

"Hey, I'm always a nice guy." He said, the typical smirk returning to his lips. "But seriously if you need help I can always do something."

"No I'm fine. Really. But thanks…"

Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

Author's note:

Could this story can get more cliché? You bet xD! And another long chapter. Seriously, I want to make them shorter, but really can't as I am not able to put everything I want in shorter space D: I planned this story to be shorter, but I guess this won't happen xD.

And about Dagur and Heather. I feel so bad for making them act like that… all bad or bitchy. It is hard for me because I know they have reasons for being/acting like that, but I can't show them just yet. So please bear with their behavior a little bit longer. Everything had its reason here. Or at least I hope I will be able to show all of them.

And quick answers:

CrystalGem18 - You bet I'm going to continue it xD. I'm so glad you enjoyed it, especially as nothing is happening here :3. To be honest it was so weird and uncomfortable for me to write that sexual harassment scene (so I totally understand you D:), but I will explain later why he acts like that! And thank you one more time. You're great! =D

And some nerdy fact to share with friends:

*Höppler viscometer – is an instrument used to measure the viscosity of a fluid. And to be honest… it really is a tube with oil and metal ball inside. While working with it you turn up the temperature, turn around the tube and measure how fast the ball will fall down.

*Finding electron on the orbital is almost impossible – I didn't hear about any ways to calculate those places. Only Schrödinger equation allow us to have a small outlook on it, but also not fully as it works only on atom of hydrogen.

*Magnesium ribbon – it flares with this really bright light. Just watch it on youtube :3.

*Mary (Mary Gibbs) – or as you all know her as Boo from Monster Inc. =D I decided to put some familiar characters here. I think most of you recognize Rusell mentioned later (from Up).

*Limits – I am not sure if this is how it is called in English. I mean in Poland we just call them limes. But wiki told me that I should use word limits, so who I am to judge xD?! Anyway in limits we calculate borders of function.

*Sodium on the surface of water – seriously, it acts crazy on it D:! Also watch it on youtube.

*Gases comparisons – seriously, I don't know why I put so many gases comparisons in this chapter. xD I have no explanation for it.

And I started to wonder… Did someone noticed that while writing from Hiccup's point of view I am trying to use many scientific analogies and comparison, while when I write as Jack I am trying to use more natural comparisons (related to the nature)?

Anyway thank you for reading this chapter. Hope to see you soon =D! Have an amazing day!