Everything was fine.

Classes were as boring as usual; Violet spent her spare time goofing off with the school's famed pack of idiots; the dread of college application deadlines crept closer day by day… all was as it should be. Or so it seemed.

For those who actually knew them, who had watched the weird bond between those two forming, things were different. Still, the reasons behind it remained a mystery—few people knew something was off, even fewer knew what had happened to disturb the fragile balance they shared. Most didn't understand why Jack now looked away whenever Elsa walked into the room, or why Elsa loaded herself with so much to do that she was rarely seen outside the library lately. Sure, they could be seen exchanging pleasantries in the mornings; the gang still hung out together frequently enough that they had to at least be civil to each other, but the matter at hand was that Jack and Elsa weren't talking .

And it was driving Violet insane.

The same thing continued to happen whenever Jack or Elsa was around. A storm of emotions washed over her, in an endless cycle, over and over and over. The guilt for being—partly—responsible for that dilemma; the fear of things never going back to the way they were, of losing either one of her friends or of saying the wrong thing and making the situation even worse; the exhaustion at getting caught between those two stubborn idiots' denial; and the raging anger for everything altogether. Oh, the anger.

She was sick of tiptoeing around them, and the situation called for another round of intervention. In her defense, Violet had given them plenty of time to work things out on their own, but if they weren't going to do anything about it, then she'd take care of it herself. Action was better than inaction, right? And she knew exactly what had to be done.

Now, where was Hiccup when she needed him?

The Student Council's assistance had been requested to organize the gardening shed before a new shipment of supplies arrived, and because the girls were still buried up to their ears in paperwork, Elsa and company had offered to help in their place. Andy and Astrid headed there first while Elsa procured the new order's documentation.

"I brought the list," she said, sliding the shed's door open slowly, but to her confusion, the room was darkened, and she could hear no one inside. Elsa flicked the light switch on and gasped at the dusty boxes of miscellaneous items precariously piled so high that they looked on the verge of collapsing. "Dear Lord, has anyone ever cleaned this place?"

Not wasting any time, Elsa made her way to the back wall and started putting discarded scissors and other utensils back on the hangers. As she worked, she wondered where the others had vanished to. Not even the gardener had been on sight—

The door creaked open.

"Hey, Linguini. Hiccup said you got something to show me?"

Elsa's breath caught in her throat as she recognized the owner of that voice. She turned, finding a very familiar face frowning at her from the door.

"What are you doing here?" Jack snarled, crossing his arms as he came inside.

She huffed, taking offense in his accusing tone. "We offered to help organize this place in the Student Council girls' stead, is that a problem?"

Jack shrugged. "Have you seen Linguini?"

"Not since I arrived."

He hummed, burying his hands in his pockets and moving to inspect the closest shelf. She was about to tell him to get out if he had nothing to do but to stand there when a sudden movement caught her eyes. Before she could utter a word, the door slammed shut, its sudden impact making everything inside the shed shake.

"The fuck was that?" Jack hissed. Just as he was about to touch the doorknob, there was a click, and they both froze.

"Please tell me that wasn't the door being locked from the other side," Elsa hissed.

When his attempts at opening the door failed, he groaned, throwing his shoulders back. "Hate to break it to you, Your Majesty, but that was indeed the door being locked from the other side."

"This is ridiculous." Elsa shook her head, gesturing for him to move. knocking on the door, she shouted, "Hello? Anyone out there? I think we're locked!"

"You think this was an accident?" Jack mocked.

"You think someone locked us in here on purpose?" Elsa's voice died down as she found the answer to her question on her own. "Of course. You said you were called here?"

Jack nodded with a frown. "Hiccup practically forced me to come... And seeing that you were here by yourself, I'm guessing the rest of your posse had somewhere else to be?"

"So it seems."

He rubbed a hand over his entire face as he grunted profanities under his breath. "And I bet Violet is involved too."

She snorted. "I bet she's the one behind it."

"You gotta be kidding me." Slamming his fists against the wood, Jack yelled, "OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR, ASSHOLES!"

"OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR, ASSHOLES!"

Hiccup flinched, stepping away from the shed. "I think they know we're here…"

Jack continued to shout very graphic threats from inside, and truth be told, Hiccup was starting to feel a bit concerned, having to share a room with the guy and all.

"Big deal." Violet rolled her eyes, then snapped her fingers at Andy. "Shut the lights."

With a sigh, the guy went to the electric box and pushed the lever down.

"I don't think that's a very good idea, guys…" Linguini said, his voice wavering with unease.

"Thank you for your help, Linguini, we'll take it from here," Violet said in a humorless tone.

"If anyone finds out about this, I'm screwed," the gardener cried. "I'm getting fired for sure!"

"We're not gonna let that happen, man," Hiccup assured the other guy.

"Yeah, we'll take full responsibility for whatever happens next," Andy added.

"There's a lot of dangerous equipment in there, and now you turned off the lights!" In his frantic state, Linguini's voice increased in volume, and Hiccup shushed him to keep his voice down. "Can't you guys do something else? I'll help you out! I'll get you whatever you need—"

"What we need," Violet hissed, "is for you to get the fuck out of here. Your freaking out is gonna get us caught."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "Ignore her. She's a bitch when she's stressed."

Violet gasped, faking surprise. "And here I thought that was an inherent part of my personality!"

"Shut up before I hurt you."

Sighing, Hiccup looked back at the gardener. "So yeah, you don't have to worry, Linguini."

Linguini still seemed to struggle with letting the teens have things their way, and he stammered, "J-just make sure that no one gets hurt, okay?"

"For the love of God, Alfredo," Violet threw her hands in the air, finally losing her patience. "Take the afternoon off and go out on a date with Collette or something!"

"But—"

"We stole your keys, okay? You knew nothing. Now go make yourself an alibi and leave us alone!"

Linguini recoiled, shoulders sagging down in defeat. "You have one hour."

Violet shrugged. "That should be enough."

And as soon as the gardener left, Astrid turned on her heels to ask, "Now what?"

"Now we wait," Violet replied.

Sitting down on the stoop, Andy sighed. "I gotta say, I'm starting to have doubts about this plan."

"Yeah, maybe we should abort and go hang at the Robotics Club," Hiccup suggested hopefully as he joined the other guy.

"We're not aborting shit. Those two need to talk, and they will fucking talk or so help me!"

Almost as if they could hear the conversation from inside, Jack banged on the door again as he shouted, "Parr, I know you're out there, and I swear to God I will make your life a living hell if you don't get me out of this place!"

Hiccup sighed, and even Andy, the mature one of the group, seemed exasperated. "Vi—"

"Nope. We're not doing that," Violet snarled, shaking her head in frustration.

Astrid dropped her head back and groaned with her eyes shut. "One of these days, Violet, you're gonna learn not to butt in on other people's business..."

The shed had no windows, and the gaps in the walls were not wide enough to let any significant amount of light in. The darkness was starting to mess with his brain, and paranoia made his skin itch. He kept rapping his fists against the door and yelling his threats to no avail.

"Alright, motherfuckers, you had your fun! Now get us out!"

He couldn't see her, but he heard her voice just fine when she asked, "Do you have your phone with you? I left mine in my bag."

"No, Hiccup borrowed mine." He banged his forehead against the door. "WHICH MAKES A LOT OF SENSE NOW."

"There's gotta be something in here that we can use—"

Her voice got lost as a pile of tools crashed onto the floor with a deafening noise, and then she was whimpering in pain, and Jack felt his heart tightening at the sound of it.

"What the hell, Elsa?!" he shouted, hands tugging his hair in panic. "Stay still, I'll try to get to you."

"It was just a scratch," she ushered to say, but he was already moving.

"Gee, Your Majesty," he grumbled, carefully patting around in the dark toward her voice. "Can't you stay still for a moment?"

Elsa snorted. "You're one to talk. You haven't been still since the day I met you!"

"Well, thank you for noticing—Hi." His hand brushed against fabric, and he squeezed her shoulder to make sure that it was indeed a fellow human and not some of Linguini's gardening paraphernalia he had found. "You okay?"

She shrugged his hand off and stepped away from him. "You don't have to pretend that you care."

He frowned. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not worth the trouble, remember?" Elsa sneered.

"That—you weren't supposed to hear that," the silverhead grumbled, rubbing his eyes with disgruntlement.

"I'm glad that I did. At least now I know how you really feel."

"I—"

"It's a miracle that we're even friends, right?" she scoffed, cutting him off.

Her tone made his blood boil, and his teeth clenched without him noticing. He wanted nothing more than to be able to look at her haughty face when she threw those lines at him. Jack put a hand on his hip, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his stance radiating complete disdain. "Can you drop the self-deprecation? It's really unflattering on you."

"Forgive me for being a constant nuisance in your life, Frost."

"See? This is what I meant," he argued, throwing his arms in the air. "We can't even talk about this without it turning into an argument!"

"And whose fault do you think that is?" she shouted back, making his head snap back.

He laughed, feeling somehow both drained and electrified at once. "You know what? You're right. You're always right."

Jack spun on his heels, going to the nearest shelf and groping blindly for the first item he could wrap his fingers around. He grabbed the handle of whatever it was that he had found and tossed it as hard as he could against the wall.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Elsa cried in panic.

"Oh, I'm just giving you what you want!" Hearing the thing shatter into pieces in the dark gave him momentary satisfaction, and all he could think about was that he needed to feel that rush once more. So he did it again.

"Will you stop that?!"

Another poor gardening tool met its demise, and Elsa shriek as if she had been injured herself.

"I'm this fucked up asshole who only thinks of himself, aren't I?" He kicked a shelf, and the whole thing went down in an avalanche that shook the whole room.

"FROST!"

"That's who you want me to be AND GOD FORBID ELSA ARENDELLE EVER BE WRONG IN HER FUCKING LIFE!"

It was a good thing that they had brought a deck of cards. Jack and Elsa had been in that shed for a while, and staring at each other, regretting their collective wrongdoings got boring pretty fast. Andy kept nervously bouncing his knee, an itch of apprehension lurking in the back of his mind.

"You think they're okay in there?" Hiccup asked, laying a seven on the pile in the center of the circle.

Andy scoffed, "For all we know, they could've killed each other by now."

"They wouldn't," Violet laughed. "...Would they?"

"They were trapped inside a tiny dark room together in the middle of a fight," Astrid reasoned. "Wouldn't be surprised if they weren't thinking straight right now—"

Lo and behold, they heard a loud crash that confirmed the blonde's prediction.

"What the hell was that?!" Violet cried, eyes widening in concern.

Andy pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "I have a bad feeling about this…."

Their worry only grew as the sound of items being thrown around continued. After the third crash, they couldn't pass it as a coincidence anymore, which was probably not a good sign.

"Shit, we gotta get them out," Hiccup grumbled, rushing to his feet.

Astrid handed him the key as Jack's screaming increased in volume. "This is all your fault, Violet."

"Not the time, Hofferson!" Violet hissed.

As Hiccup attempted to open the door, something hit it from the other side, instinctively making Hiccup pull the door back in defense. "Whoa—"

He looked back at the others, panic growing on his face and knuckles going white as he kept the doorknob clasped around his fingers. He gave the inside party a minute to cool down, then nodded to his friends and tried to open the door again. The attacks seemed to have stopped, but there was still fallen equipment blocking the way, so Hiccup trod slowly and in full attention mode.

Andy was the last one in, but his friends' reactions getting inside did not make him any less surprised at the damn warzone he found in front of him. What he assumed were broken torture devices were scattered all over the floor; Jack and Elsa were glaring at each other like rabid animals about to rip the other's vocal cords out, and he felt so overwhelmed that all he wanted was to get out of that claustrophobic place and drink so much hot chocolate that he'd overdose...

"Oh, hey, guys!" Hiccup's cheerful voice made him cringe. "What are you two doing in here?"

"Save it, fuckface," Jack snapped, glowering in their direction. Then his eyes turned back to Elsa, and the shift in his expression was immediate: Jack's eyes filled with guilt, regret, and sorrow.

Andy took that moment to check on the girl as well, and his heart sank. Elsa, who always worked so hard to look composed, was a mess. Her braid had come loose, her clothes were muddied, her eyes gleamed with hints of unshed tears, and— goodness gracious, she was bleeding!

"Elsa—"

He started to point at her knee, but Astrid moved first. In mere seconds, she had Jack pinned to the wall by his collar. "What the fuck is your damage?"

"Astrid!" Hiccup tried to pull her back, but he was no match for her.

"What did you do to her?!" Astrid shouted, her hands tightening around the silverhead's neck.

"Astrid, stop!" Violet cried as she and Andy also tried to separate Jack and the blonde girl.

" He didn't do anything."

It took Andy a moment to understand where the voice was coming from. Elsa's voice trembled, and she sounded so vulnerable he hardly recognized it.

The girl exhaled, and straightening up, explained, "I tripped." She glanced at them firmly. "Let him go."

Reluctantly, Astrid dropped her hands, making sure to give the guy a final shove before doing so. As the guy hit the shelf, his head sagged, and he laughed, shaking his head. He motioned to leave, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Jack—" Hiccup's attempt at comfort was slapped off with a sneer.

"Where the hell are you going, Frost?" Violet asked, putting her hands on her hips.

"You think I'm staying in here for another fucking second, Parr?" He grumbled with a snort, and none of them could stop him from leaving the shed a second time.

Sighing, Andy turned to the platinum-blonde. "We gotta get you to the infirmary, Elsa."

"That's really not necessary—"

"No. You're coming," Astrid stated with narrowed eyes.

"You two go, the rest of us will clean up," Hiccup suggested, already starting to pick up scraps of metal and wood off the floor.

Elsa's protests were unceremoniously silenced, and as the girls left, Andy turned to look at his other two companions. With an arched eyebrow and crossed arms, he said, "I don't know about you guys, but I really think we outdid ourselves this time…"

He wasn't in the mood for dealing with his friends, so returning to his dorm room was a clear no-go. He wandered the halls aimlessly, letting his feet drag him wherever—that was until he realized where they were taking him. Call it Pavlov's conditioning or whatever, Jack had somehow made his way to the headmaster's office without noticing. And now that he was there, he really didn't see what could be worse than going in.

Never having been that keen on courtesy, not even when it came to the top tog, he unceremoniously barged into the room, swinging the doors open with his usual dramatic flair.

"I did not recall we had a meeting scheduled, Mr. Frost," North said mildly surprised.

The teen made his way to his usual chair and plopped down with a huff. "I broke the gardening shed."

"You did what?" The vein on North's forehead popped, and his eyes narrowed very threateningly.

Jack shuddered. Maybe he'd finally find out whether the rumor about North having connections to the mob was real or not. "Just thought you should know."

"Yes, your honesty is greatly appreciated," North mocked, running a hand through his beard with disgruntlement. "May I ask what led you to such feat?"

The silverhead smirked, but North didn't seem amused by it. Sheepishly, he suggested, "I was bored?"

"How sensible of you."

"I'm not saying what I did is right," Jack grumbled defensively. "It just… happened."

"Would you like to talk to me about it, Jack?"

"Not really, sir."

North watched him for a moment, and Jack could only guess what was going on inside the big man's head. As the silence grew, so did Jack's apprehension, and he started to wonder what kind of bit he could toss to cut some of the tension in the air...

"Very well," North said, at last, clasping his hands together before standing up. The headmaster walked around his desk to the coffee maker. "Since you came all the way, the least I could do is offer you a warm beverage first, wouldn't you agree?"

"You're the boss. You make the rules," Jack grumbled with a shrug. "... Then what?"

"Then we can discuss your punishment, Mr. Frost."