A/N: My utmost apologies for- How long has it been? Three months or something? Way too long, anyways. This is basically what happens when other fandoms attack. Don't ask about chapter thirteen, I've got no idea.

And sometimes, Marie is a jerk.

Disclaimer: I do not own How to Train Your Dragon. I do own an assortment of OCs, a few of whom are trying to make me regret creating them.

How to Train Your Marching Band

Chapter Twelve: General Insanity

"GOOD MORNING! DID YOU REMEMBER YOUR SUNSCREEN?!"

"THOR'S TITS, WOMAN! NOT IN MY EAR!"

The two voices bellowed through the band suite like fog horns, piercing the early morning haze of sleepiness. One belonged to Steiny and the other to a rather startled Marie. Hiccup squeezed the sunscreen bottle too hard and ended up with a larger-than-intended glob of lotion. He shrugged, peeled down his socks and began smearing the lotion all over his legs.

It was Friday at last. The final day of band camp. Simultaneously the easiest and the hardest day of them all. The instructors didn't work the students quite as hard, but they were coming off a week's worth of strenuous exercise and feeling every second of it. They were all dead-tired and sunburnt and mostly just looking forward to the end of the day when they would be let off the leash.

At the moment, all Hiccup could think was that he clearly wasn't wearing a strong enough SPF. Every year, he got sunburned and usually in the same place. Where he hadn't broken out in freckles, he'd turned a formidable shade of lobster pink. It was mostly concentrated along the back of his neck, his arms and his lower legs. There was a little on his face, making the skin around his nose and eyes feel unnaturally tight.

Marie came ambling back to the woodwind area a moment later. Red sunburn encompassed most of her lower right arm and backs of her legs were seared to a painful-looking red. She was a fair skinned individual who would burn like nothing else despite the amount of sunscreen she put on. The sunburn would fade into a tan as they progressed into the school year.

"Morning..." she said to Hiccup through a yawn, dropping her things onto the bench with little grace. Her body followed shortly thereafter, her limbs sprawling out to take up as much room as possible.

Hiccup grunted in response. The long week and his still midnight-oriented sleeping patterns had caught up with him. He had also spent the better part of an hour on Skype lecturing Jack about why teaming up with Marie for any reason was not conducive to one's continued good health and warning him that he was probably in violation of the Bro Code and that revenge would be swift and furious.

Most irritatingly, Jack had just laughed.

Marie tried to stretch the pervading stiffness out of her limbs and rolled her head in Hiccup's direction. "Got some red on your face." she said.

"So do you." he replied.

"Yeah. Last day." she commented, reaching for her sunscreen.

"Yep. Last day." Hiccup agreed.

"And no sleep tonight."

"None at all."

They lapsed into a mutual silence, still too sleepy to get up to much.

The rest of the band arrived in a steady stream. When Astrid arrived, it appeared that she had gotten over whatever feelings had been bruised for her over the last two days, as she slung her things to the floor before squeezing down into the space that was offered between Hiccup and Marie, so close the three of them were elbow to elbow.

One thing about band camp was that it gave one a chance to discern the sleeping habits of their fellow band-mates. Specifically, whether or not they were cheerful morning larks or unrepentant night owls.

The god-forsaken morning people like Steiny bounced around on their toes, the devil herself clacking the drumstick off the gock block and bellowing greetings at everyone's face and making sure they had all brought sunscreen. It was quite possible Steiny drank bottled sunshine every morning to go with her caffeine. She all but demanded smiles out of everyone she ran into.

The night owls, on the other hand, were still visibly sleepy and looked somewhat grumpy about being forced out of bed at ungodly hours. They were the ones who went through the morning routine in a quiet, robotic sort of way, sneaking in a bit of sugar since energy drinks were forbidden.

The band as a whole was doing a lot more yawning and ambling along, but as they gathered, a curiously charged atmosphere began developing; a new enthusiasm now that the end of the week was in sight. It was strangely infectious and very fast-acting. By the time they were herded out onto tower field, Hiccup felt fully charged and ready to go. He felt like the heat wouldn't be able to affect him and he barely had to work at rallying his section into a good mood.

The drum majors led the band through stretching and fundamentals in a loud, boisterous way, trying to work the band into high spirits. When they were finished with fundamentals, Gobber came forward with a shit-eating grin plastered over his face.

"Ladies an' gentlemen, I hold in my hands the final charts for the closer." he said happily, presenting the last packet for the band to see. "This packet is the only things that stand between us an' havin' the whole show charted b'fore the mornin' ends. Who wants to get it finished?"

He was pleased with the volume at which the band roared.

"Alright! Section leaders! C'mere an' get the charts!"

The charts were quickly distributed among the section leaders and Hiccup passed them out to his section with a grin of glee.

"Hey," Kate the freshman started curiously. "Have you guys ever gotten through the entire show before the end of band camp?"

Hiccup and Marie exchanged thoughtful looks.

"This is a first in our tenure." Hiccup answered, searching the chart for his number. "I think last year we had to park-'n'-blow the closer on the first competition."

"Gloria sucked." Marie commented idly.

"Yeah, the music sucked, the show sucked, Clay City was kicking our ass, Woodland took State. Couldn't tell you what the hell was up with that..." Hiccup could grumble at length about last year's season. It had been a bad year for the band; everything had started to shred at the seams for no reason. They had failed to get through Regionals that season.

"Is Woodland a good band?" Ashley asked.

"No, we can play Woodland under the table any day, but they beat Pioneer and Knox. Everyone must have been sucking. Our marching coordinator said if we had gotten to State last year, we might have taken first." Hiccup replied. "Everyone know where they're going?"

There was a collective murmur of assent, then the section spread out to find their next chart. Hiccup glanced ahead at the remaining number of pages. There was only nine of them. It was a definite that they would get them finished well before noon. They would even have a chance to put some polish on the final product.

He was looking forward to it.

"Oh, great." came Marie's incredibly enthused voice.

It was late afternoon. Friday always ran a little differently, due to the fact band camp effectively ended once the afternoon sectionals were finished. It had run up to three o'clock and Gobber had generously extended naptime into a full hour, overtaking the hour normally used for full concert rehearsal. They were putting on a performance a little later tonight. He wanted them to be at their best.

"Problems?" Hiccup wondered.

"Yeah, problems. Look at this. Talk about passive-aggressive. She heaved all her crap on my stuff." Marie gestured to the backpack, sleeping bag, pillow and blanket that appeared to be slowly crushing her own belongings.

"Oh boy, passive-aggressive. That's something to look forward to." Hiccup grumbled.

Irritably, the second-chair clarinet unceremoniously dumped everything that was Ashlyn's onto the floor and gave it a few kicks for good measure. Then she opened up her own backpack to make sure nothing inside had suffered damage.

"I hate the fact Gobber doesn't like kicking people out of band." she muttered, rifling through her more fragile belongings and checking them with a keen eye.

"Technically, she hasn't done anything bad enough to get herself kicked out." Hiccup pointed out diplomatically.

"Well, if she wants passive-aggressive, I'll give her passive-aggressive in spades. I'm good at that." Marie punctuated her claim by throwing another kick at Ashlyn's bag. This one knocked it over. The zipper was open and when the bag hit the floor, no less than three packs of Oreos spilled out. The two clarinets stared at the delicious haul for a moment.

"Dude, are those mint frosting?"

"Yep. Three packs! Think she was gonna share?"

"Not with us. She totally doesn't need those. She's chubby enough."

"I just had a thought. Since we are the ones who have to pull an all-nighter tonight, perhaps we should... help ourselves?"

"Hiccup, I didn't know you'd dare to think so deviously; rationalizing it away like this."

"I'm clearly much further gone than I'd previously thought. Besides, after all the trouble she gave us earlier this week, I think a much more heartfelt apology is in order."

And that was how Astrid came across them some ten minutes later, sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall and sniggering like rich thieves over an open pack of Oreos. The sight of this worried her even more than the sight of Ruffnut and Marie giggling over whatever, because Hiccup was insanely clever and Marie was cleverly insane and whenever they teamed up, something truly diabolical was in the works.

"Where'd you get those?" Astrid asked warily.

"Ashlyn."

"Where's Ashlyn?"

"Napping."

Actually laying down was mandatory for the rookies.

Astrid shook her head. "You guys are cruel, you know that?"

"It's her fault! I was alone with her for three years! She made me this way!" Hiccup protested, yet making no moves away from his section-mate.

Marie offered the pack to the colorguard captain. "Want one?"

"You keep your ill-gotten cookies and choke on them." Astrid said with a tone of disappointment. She inhaled. "Oh, but they smell so good..."

"Don't torture yourself." Marie advised, stretching her arm out a little further so the pack was closer to Astrid. The colorguard captain staunchly and defiantly held her ground. She wasn't going to give in, she wasn't going to give in, she wasn't going to-

"Screw it, I've never gotten guilty over chocolate before and I won't start now." Astrid fished two Oreos out of the pack and ignored the grins the two clarinets gave her. "I just came to tell you guys that they're handing out class schedules down by the main office."

"Alright! Time to see if my hard work this summer paid off!" Marie crowed. She stuffed the swiped Oreos into her backpack and jumped to her feet, running out the band suite.

"It better have. That was the most strung out I'd ever seen her." Hiccup commented, trailing in his section-mate's wake.

"Didn't she already get the results? She said they were mailing them out at the beginning of the month." Astrid wondered.

Hiccup shook his head. "I don't think she's had time to check the mail yet."

The corridor outside the main office was filled with various administrative officials who sat at tables where the incoming freshmen were being registered. Slightly to the side were the tables set with the class schedules for the remainder of the school and these were manned by student council representatives. Hiccup and Astrid spotted several of their classmates clustered around the senior table and moved over to join them.

"Oh guys! Look at this awesome schedule of mine!" Marie trilled happily, emerging from the cluster and holding out her class schedule. "It's completely math-free. It's beautiful."

"Oh, you passed! Congrats!" Astrid said, honestly pleased. She raised her hand for a celebratory high-five, which was eagerly returned. "Do you know what your grade is?"

Marie shook her head. "Fred says the results did come, but I haven't gone looking for them yet." she explained. She heaved a sigh. "I'm glad I don't have to do this again. That class started haunting my dreams. Don't laugh, I'm serious! I had nightmares about giant killer mutant rectangles!"

"Oh, you mean concave polygons?" Hiccup offered brightly.

"I hate you."

After three years of struggling with it, Marie had passed Algebra 1 by the skin of her teeth. Guidance Counselor N-Z had signed her up for a compressed summer geometry course, having decided that dragging the course out over the school year would do the eighteen-year old no favors. She had clearly scraped through that with a passing grade and now had enough graduation credits that she could pile on the electives without falling short of the mark.

Muffling sniggers, but not so successfully masking smiles, the other two band seniors gathered their schedules from their amused classmates and shuffled around the corner back into the commons, which they started drifting idly across.

"Giant killer mutant rectangles?" Astrid repeated, still finding the subject of the nightmares rather amusing.

"With fangs." Marie used her fingers to mime gnashing teeth. "They were chasing me across tower field, trying to make me find their side values or something. That was your fault." she added to Hiccup.

"Me? How are your nightmares my fault?"

"The sectionals. You scheduled them right after my class. I had math and band on my brain all day. What did you think was going to happen at night?"

"What your brain does in its spare time has nothing to do with me." Hiccup assured her, snatching her schedule away from her to compare it with his own. His eyebrows went up. "Wow, except for band, we don't have a single class together."

"Really?" Marie leaned over his shoulder to see for herself.

"That's a first. You guys have shared most of your classes for years." Astrid said, leaning over Hiccup's other shoulder.

"Yeah, that's gonna be weird."

Hiccup glanced up from his perusal. "You're taking Scandinavian History?"

"It sounded interesting. The teacher's name makes me think he's from the area, so he oughta be able to make it interesting." the second-chair clarinet nodded. She snatched Astrid's schedule away from her, scanned it, then frowned at it. "And why are you taking Drama second semester? Have you met any of the Drama freaks we have in this school?"

"I happen to be friends with some of those Drama freaks and they're really not freaks. They're passionate." Astrid said defensively, taking her schedule back from the grabby hands. "What are you taking this year since you've got a free slot in your required courses?"

"Personally, I'd swear it's everything. Classic literature, earth/space, creative writing next semester... Wow, you really are packing on the electives." Hiccup commented. "Why are you in Jazz Ensemble? You're already in band."

"You're one to talk, Van Gogh. Aren't you taking two art classes this year?" Astrid peeled his schedule away from his hands. "And AP Dragonology. Wow, you're practically taking three art classes this year."

"It's for science."

"Sure it is." Tuffnut said sneeringly as he and his sister darted past.

"Say that again with a straight face." Ruffnut challenged. "And any of you know where locker block D is?"

Hiccup blinked. "We have a block D now?"

Marie grabbed her schedule back and glanced at her locker assignment. "Looks like we do. Are we all assigned to the new block D?"

There was a murmur of assenting replies.

"This is block A." Hiccup said, pointing to the dual rows of lockers now in front of them. They had drifted all the way to the other side of the commons, where the school proper really began. "B is around the corner right by the art rooms. And block C is further up this hall, right?"

"Yeah, that's the extra sixty they added back in sophomore year." Marie replied, consulting her mental map of the school. She tapped a finger to her pursed lips. "Now that I think about it, Block D might be the ones upstairs."

With that, she broke into a quick sprint, darting down the hallway on her toes. Astrid and Hiccup had to dash after her to keep up and the twins trailed along in a lazy fashion, mostly for the sake of curiosity. A new flight of stairs had been installed beyond the T-intersection, right beside the side of one of the art rooms.

"Dude, haven't been up here yet." Tuffnut commented when they had all passed over the landing, looking around with bright-eyed interest at the new space.

"Let's wreck it." Ruffnut suggested.

"Can't you two walk in anywhere without thinking about destroying it?" Hiccup wondered, shooting the twins a disappointed look over his shoulder.

"No." they replied.

Hiccup frowned.

"At least they're honest." Astrid pointed out to him.

"Ugh, I wish they would be less honest sometimes." Hiccup groaned. He straightened his schedule with a flourish and went to find his locker.

The five of them were spread out all over the locker block. The closest person to Hiccup was Ruffnut, but she was still some thirty lockers down from him. That meant none of them were sharing the same homeroom (evidently, the administration had finally wised up to the perils of having the twins in the same homeroom - only took them six years).

The only difference between the new lockers and the old was that the new lockers were shiny and free of scuffs, scrapes and dents, and possibly harder to keep jammed open with a properly inserted paper clip. Otherwise, they were no bigger, wider or deeper than the lockers downstairs.

"You'd think with us being seniors they could give us lockers that aren't as crappy as the rest." Ruffnut complained, once they all had finished making sure they still remembered how to work a combination lock.

"What are you talking about? It's their way of saying they don't actually care about us seniors because we'll be gone in a year." Tuffnut told her. "It's the freshmen they want sticking around. Why do you think we haven't been on any field trips since ninth grade?"

"Because it's expensive?" Astrid suggested.

"Exactly. They're not gonna waste that money on us!" Tuffnut said indignantly. "The whole thing about seniors getting at least semi-preferential treatment? It's a myth."

Didn't know Tuffnut knew words like 'preferential'... Hiccup mused, finding it slightly disconcerting that male twin did have a larger vocabulary than he normally demonstrated. "Where'd you get that theory?"

The trumpeter turned to the clarinetist with a flat, indignant expression. "Isn't it obvious?"

Hiccup shook his head. "Not really."

"C'mon, the crappy lockers are only the tip of the iceberg. We totally got shafted when they were doing the remodel." Tuffnut said with total conviction.

"We do have a seniors-only section of the cafeteria now." Hiccup pointed out. "I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as getting shafted."

"See how long that lasts. Second we try to defend it, the cafeteria monitors will get on our asses about being nice to the underclassmen." Ruffnut predicted. She turned to her twin. "Like that time-"

"And remember when-"

"Yeah, that was shitty. And also when-"

"Definitely! And that other time-"

"What the hell was up with that?"

Astrid and Hiccup exchanged a long-suffering look of incomprehension. The twins didn't finish each other's sentences. They just didn't finish their sentences. Between just the two of them, they didn't exactly need to. Their brains worked on the same wavelength ninety-nine percent of the time and it sort of negated the need for consistent verbal communication.

Unfortunately, this went a long way to making them completely incomprehensible to the rest of the world.

"Well, that's a great theory, you guys. I think you just need a little more proof before you can tell it to other people. Let's go Hiccup." Astrid grabbed him by the shirt collar and hauled him away from the two trumpeters. He had no choice but to stumble after her. Once inside the relative safety of the band suite, she released his collar.

"Is it just me or are the twins turning into pseudo-anarchists?" Hiccup wondered, rubbing his neck where the fabric had dug into his skin. "Formulating conspiracy theories, wanting to wreck things on sight, that sort of thing."

"Personally I blame the over-exposure to Marie. She's got to be exuding some kind of pheromone. I think your inhibition drops if you're around her too long." Astrid said, shrugging. "I dunno, there also could be something in the water around the elementary school. Everyone from Touchstone Elementary seems a little..." She twirled a finger in circles in the air near her temple.

"I dunno, but I guess we'll see what happens when your sister starts school." Hiccup said.

Astrid paused mid-stride and then heaved out a sigh. "Oh that's right, she's starting to kindergarten this year." she groaned, slapping a hand to her forehead in exasperation. "Geez, that completely slipped my mind. We haven't even done any back-to-school shopping and she needs like, everything!"

"And to think I get ribbed for forgetting my section-mate's names." Hiccup sniggered.

"Shut up, you've got no excuse."

"I've got no excuse? So you're excused for forgetting that your own sister starts school this year but I don't get one for forgetting the names of my section-mates?"

"Yep, that's how it works."

Hiccup eyed the colorguard captain warily and edged away from her. "You're turning on me." he said. "You're gonna go crazy like the rest of them."

Before Astrid could assure him that she wasn't about to do that, a whine from around the corner cut her off.

"Those were mine!"

"They were? I found them in my bag, how the hell was I supposed to know? I don't remember everything I packed in there this morning."

Hiccup threw out a hand to stop Astrid from turning the corner when Marie's nonchalant tones came back at them. They looked at each other for half an instant, then proceeded to peer cautiously around the corner. Ashlyn was red in the face, possibly from anger that her section-mate had been all but dancing around her. Marie was casually digging through her bag, but there was a sense about her that she wasn't enjoying having to deal with a yammering ninny and could start showing it at any moment. Best to stay hidden, really.

"Oh, don't get your feelings all hurt. Besides, a little deprivation in moderation ain't gonna kill ya." she said and then had the audacity to pat Ashlyn's somewhat pudgy belly, a blatant sign that she thought Ashlyn could stand to lose a few pounds. The younger girl certainly didn't appreciate the implication and she opened her mouth, drawing in a deep breath, but the other clarinet was faster.

"Now, now, let's save our outdoor voices for the outdoors." Marie instructed with the air of a patient kindergarten teacher. "I don't like you, you don't like me; we've established that. There's no need to drive it into the ground until China starts wondering why there's a big wooden post in the middle of the street. I think it'll be less stressful on both of us if we just don't interact with each other outside of band. Mind you, I will gleefully schadenfreude your misery to the fullest extent whenever the opportunity comes along. And if you wanna keep this little stupid thing going, you're welcome to it, but just remember one thing: I've been at this for years. You're never gonna win."

The cheerful slasher smile was present and even being on the periphery of it gave one chills. The unsettling part, Hiccup realized now that he really had the chance to watch it from the outside, was that there was nothing really threatening about Marie's body language. She wasn't doing the forward, personal-space-invading thing; she was actually standing just out of arm's reach. Her voice didn't even qualify as threatening.

It's more like she's just stating facts.

"Marie, stop traumatizing our rookie!" Hiccup called out pointlessly.

"I'm not traumatizing her! She's receiving a valuable warning!" Marie called back, never taking her eyes of Ashlyn. She made the 'I'm watching you' gesture before moving off, possibly to go traumatize another rookie. Hiccup sighed and fell back to lean against the wall.

"Y'know, there are some days where I think she's trying to usurp my position as section leader." he commented.

"No, you two share it, I think." Astrid decided, smiling sympathetically. "I mean, you've been stuck together as the only two clarinets for so long you've sort of mutated into joint-section leadership, especially since you're the only two seniors. You're both in charge, for the most part. Except, Hiccup, you're the Good Witch of the North. You provide the munchkins with love and tenderness and gently show them the right way to do things. Marie's the Wicked Witch of the West who cackles menacingly and threatens their dogs if they do wrong."

Hiccup thought about that for a moment.

"Wait, Does that make Ruffnut the Wicked Witch of the East who got crushed under the house?" he wondered. "Does that also mean one of my rookies is Dorothy? It better not be Kristen! Marie's contaminating her! The movie didn't end that way! And when did we start comparing band to the Wizard of Oz?"

"Well, think about it. Everything outside those doors," She pointed to the band suite doors. "Is Kansas. Where everything is normal and boring and sepia-toned. The minute you come through to this side, you're surrounded by very strange people who do very strange things. For fun."

"But Astrid, we don't have a lollypop guild!" Hiccup pointed out, still going along with the joke. "Where's our lollypop guild?"

"Oh, man up!" She slapped him playfully on the arm.

"Ow! Astrid!"

"What?"

"I'm sunburned all the way up my arms!"

"Sorry."

-0-