A/N: Yeah, I think updates are going to be every other week.
I'm not shipping any member of the Big Four together so don't expect any follow through. I do apologize for the occasional ship-tease, but the Hiccstrid pairing is ultimately what I'm focusing on.
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 Fifteen: Attempts At Vicarious Living
The cafeteria had once served double-duty as an auditorium until the actual one had been built. The light-and-sound booth above the cafeteria remained because there was really no way of getting rid of it, but the ladder to the catwalk that accessed it was long gone (Marie claimed she could climb up there but no one had ever seen her do it). The stage itself still remained and the area behind it had been gutted of everything except load-bearing walls. The administration was still in discussions about what to do with the empty space. There was no need to expand the cafeteria or convert it to storage or turn the space into an area for lunch detentions. For now, they left it as it was and the stage was fully intact and thus in useable condition to this day.
The cafeteria was flocking with families now, pulling out tables and chairs in order to sit and eat comfortably. Others were setting out the food while the band kids eyed the spread hungrily. They had to wait for their families to serve themselves first, as a swarm of band kids would pick the banquet clean in a matter of minutes. Gobber had no illusions about how much food this group of kids was capable of devouring.
There were enough people around that Jack gave a growl of frustration and hopped up onto one of the couches in order to better see over everyone's heads and peered around for that familiar face.
"I don't see Rapunzel." he reported. "You said she was near the concession stand?"
"That's where I lost her. Can't say she's there anymore." Merida said.
It was hard to keep track of her at times. Rapunzel was their human-shaped social butterfly, always flitting from one group of people to the next like they were flowers. She could be halfway across a room in a matter of minutes and she could exchange words with just about everyone in the room by the time they realized she was nowhere to be seen.
"I see her-- No, never mind. That's Elsa. Wow, Elsa's here. What's Elsa doing here?" Jack rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. "Marching band really isn't her thing. I mean, people really aren't her thing."
"Anna's in the colorguard." Hiccup explained and that was all he had to say.
Elsa King was one of the most notorious loners in the senior class. She didn't socialize with people. She was the wallflower who did the very minimum of interaction to qualify as "healthy socialization" and then scurried out of there as quickly as possible.
But she also didn't like disappointing her little sister Anna and did her best to be the supportive big sister.
"Hang on, I'm gonna do this the easy way." Jack decided, pulling out his phone, only to stop and stare at it in relative confusion before tentatively touching the screen.
"Oh, it's a new phone." Hiccup realized, recognizing the sleek, slim shape as one of the more recent models of SI smartphones, rather then the old flip-phone Jack had carried around for ages. "But I thought his parents were going to hold off on a new phone until graduation?"
"He says his dad was offered a really good deal on a three-line plan, so they went ahead and he shouldn't expect a graduation present now." Merida explained.
For the longest time, Jack had been the less-than proud owner of a Tracphone. The pay-as-you-go sort that were only really any good for making phone calls. Trying to text on one those was a nightmare. The few texts Hiccup had ever received from Jack's old phone had been riddled with typos and auto-corrects and misplaced punctuation marks, due more in part to the terrible design of the texting system rather than any technological incompetence from Jack.
"Welcome to the twenty-first century, Jack!" Hiccup called out, grinning at his friend's scowl. "How's the new phone working for you?"
"I should have joined the twenty-first century much sooner." the older teen said. "It's really shiny and the sound quality is better, but it's complicated and I kinda miss the little bloopy noise my old phone made."
"Y'know, my phone's in the band suite. Do you want me to..." Hiccup offered, gesturing.
"No, I got this." Jack said assuredly, tapping the screen with increasing frustration. "Just give me a minute..."
He gave the phone a wide-eyed stare, like was trying to make it work through sheer force of will.
"Takes him five minutes to navigate all the menu options." Merida said in a low voice. She had decided not to wait for Jack to figure out his new technology and was already tapping out text on her own phone. It was short, simple and she had sent it off by the time Jack was half-sure he knew where his contacts list was.
"Never mind, Jack."
"Oh c'mon Merry, you're gonna cripple my phone-fu if you keep beating me to the punch." Jack grumbled. And just as he'd figured out where his contacts list was.
"Stop calling me 'Merry'." Merida said, rolling her eyes. It had been a cute nickname when she'd been younger, but she was practically a grown-ass adult now. Grown-ass adults were exempt from cutesy nicknames.
Jack grinned. "Never."
Merida scowled.
There was a spark of unseen energy bouncing between them. Hiccup was never sure if that spark was unresolved romantic tension or just the indication of an antagonistic sibling-like relationship. He leaned towards the latter more often. Jack had an on-again, off-again thing for Elsa (unrequited despite effort; Elsa was either largely oblivious, deliberately ignoring him or just didn't recognize the overtures for what they were, and they hadn't quite pinned down what the issue was) and seemed to regard Merida with the same casual dismissal one might show towards cars on the roadway in that you only cared about them when you were trying to cross the street. For her part, the red-headed Scot seemed to have graduated from the Toph Bei Fong School of Showing Affection to Your Friends by Punching Them, so it was difficult to determine if she indeed had any feelings for Jack that went beyond the usual affection/loyalty of friendship.
"Eeee! Hiccup!"
Rapunzel's excited squeal was the only thing preceding her pounce and sun-tanned arms wrapped around his chest. For reasons unknown, the cheerful brunette always managed to smell like wildflowers and a sun-warmed summer day. It was a welcome change from the vast amounts of sweat, bug spray, and sunscreen smells that pervaded the band suite this time of year.
"I missed you all week! It's like you've been gone forever! You don't know what it's like dealing with Jack while he's going through you-withdrawal! He turns into a whiny nightmare!" she squeaked into his ear, followed by Jack's affronted "Hey!"
Rapunzel drew back from the glomping hug with a sunny smile that never really lost. There was flecks of white and green paint on her fingers and a smudge of gray along her jaw. She was another art student whose skills and talents veered more towards watercolors and oil paints than traditional pencil sketches.
"I'm sorry, but you have been kind of grumpy and whiny all week." she said, albeit gently, to Jack.
The white-haired teen drew himself up like he was going to vigorously argue everything to the contrary.
"First of all," He waved his finger a few times. "You're right." he admitted. "I've been unpleasant between this freaking August heat and my parents going 'senior year!' all in my face all week and it's a bunch of little stuff going on that piles up."
"Meaning you spent the last week taking out your stress on the girls." Hiccup concluded. His best guy friend was not one of those people who could de-stress through artwork. He needed to actually his voice his stress out loud to a receptive party and was a touch choosy about who he considered a receptive party.
"Ye could talk to us." Merida suggested. They were friends, after all, and friends were supposed to be able to vent their spleens on one another.
Jack, however, looked mortified at the suggestion that he do any spleen-venting with Merida or Rapunzel. The girls were great, but there were some things that guys and girls just didn't discuss with each other. But he couldn't voice that and just ended up waving a hand.
The undercurrent of chatter was interrupted by the thump-thump as Gobber flicked the microphone to command everyone's attention. Conversations dropped off and everyone scurried into the cafeteria and turned towards the stage.
"Alright now, everyone! Welcome to the end of band camp 2010!" he announced grandly, nearly drowned out by whoop of cheers and applause. "Yeah, yeah, settle down. It's been a long week for these kids, but they've been workin' hard every day an' I think that deserves a round of applause for them."
The families enthusiastically complied. Some of the band kids, especially the rookies, ducked their heads in modest embarrassment. The parents weren't quite so modest and some of them outright roared.
"Now, jus' a few things before we get dinner underway. I know you're all lookin' forward to that. The drum majors are goin' to be passin' around the theme shirt order forms for this year. Try an' get those in by next Friday. Secondly, I need season volunteers for the competition days. Parents, this is for you. Sign-up sheet will be posted on the band room doors." Gobber checked the index card where he had scribbled the points he needed to address. "Lastly, the annual Berk County Queer Pride Parade might be cancelled tomorrow on the account of weather. I've been hearin' reports that we might get rain early in the afternoon an' we've got some clouds movin' in from the north-west. But until we know one way or another, let's jus' go into tomorrow like the parade is goin' to happen-- Come off it, ye wussy lot! It won't kill ya!" he added, at the chorus of groans from the various clumps of band members throughout the cafeteria, accompanied by laughter.
"Hmm, is it the fact you march in the gay parade or the fact you do it right after band camp?" Jack wondered.
"The second one." Hiccup replied. "Believe me, we're exhausted; I don't think anyone actually gets a good night's sleep on that floor. We're so brain-dead the only reason we can still the hold the parade block together is sheer force of habit. And I've never had my ass stared at by so many guys before."
Simultaneously, Rapunzel and Merida leaned back to get a better look at the posterior to see if there was actually anything appealing about it. Hiccup shuffled back to the brick pillar behind him.
"That means," Gobber was continuing. "That ye'll need your parade shirts, so if you forget 'em home, now's the time to run back an' grab 'em. Make no assumptions about the weather. We marched an invitational in the rain once an' we'll do it again!"
"And it was a miracle none of us caught pneumonia." Hiccup muttered. He remembered that invitational very well. The wool uniforms soaked halfway through and the football field had been too soggy, forcing them to shift the performances to the local practice field on the tarmac before moving the whole thing indoors.
"Oh, it wasn't that cold out." Jack said.
"Speak for yerself, Nome." Merida retorted. "Not all of us have the cold-tolerance of polar bears."
"Rain in October is freezing." Rapunzel agreed. She was definitely a summer girl. She would hibernate through winter if she believed she could get away with it.
"I've figured that Jack's albinism gives him special insulating properties." Hiccup said.
"Partial albinism." Jack corrected. He wasn't completely lacking in pigmentation, after all. "And for your information, I was irradiated by the northern lights and given magic transformation powers. When the temperatures drop into the negatives, I turn into a polar bear."
Rapunzel snapped her fingers. "So that's your secret!"
With a final word, Gobber opened up the banquet to the parents and families. Like the good friends they were, Jack, Merida, and Rapunzel hung back with Hiccup until the band kids were clear to fill up their plates. There was plenty of food left over. The parents were well aware of just how much food it took to adequately feed eighty hungry teenagers.
Fried chicken was standard fare and available in vast quantities, accompanied by piles of biscuits and rehydrated mashed potatoes. There were strange casserole dishes made with green vegetables that had been cooked until mushy and didn't look terribly edible, but the brave ventured a spoonful. Party platters with cold cuts, trays of barbequed pork and chicken, and pre-sliced buns were aplenty. The pizza didn't last long at all. The fight over it amounted to a war-zone, but Hiccup managed to slip in and snag a slice of pepperoni for himself without getting his fingers taken off.
The desserts ranged from Fred's much-vaunted peanut brittle, to macroon cookies to the standard chocolate chip and various other sorts. There was fudge and brownies and sheet cakes and whatever else people thought passed for dessert. Some bore helpful warning signs that informed those with nut allergies to steer clear.
Beyond the dessert was various colors of juice and Kool-Aid because the band was still technically restricted from carbonation until after they had done their final performance.
The quartet filled their plates and cups and went to settle out on one of the commons couches. Hiccup tore into the meal with he hungry ferocity of someone whose last bite of food had been several Oreos about three hours earlier and not substantial enough to restore the expended energy. It was one of the things he loved about band season. He could eat whatever he wanted in large quantities and nothing would stick.
Not that anything really stuck anyways, but it was the whole principle of the matter.
When his stomach had stopped growling so fiercely, Hiccup turned to his friends.
"Alright guys. As you know, I've been cut off from civilization with a bunch of crazy people and we have limited access to the outside world. Please tell me you have come bearing news I want to hear." he said.
"Uh..." His friends looked at each other, eyebrows rising towards hairlines.
"No, not off the top of my head."
"Nothing new on my end."
"Not really, if you don't count Mildew's lack of clothes on Wednesday."
"Wow, fountains of information, you guys are." Hiccup said dryly. "Seriously, no developments? Nothing new in certain desert parts of the world?"
"Uh... Tony Stark's still lost and presumed dead in the Afghan desert, since that's clearly what you're asking." Jack said, shrugging. "Is it important that he lives? I mean, important to you?"
"Well-- yeah. Mr. Stark agreed to fund a research expedition into the Alps next summer. Dad and some other researchers want to go looking for Night Furies." Hiccup explained. "But if he's dead, that makes the contract void. And if he's dead, then Dad backs out entirely. Without Dad, the researchers actually won't be able to get any funding anywhere else. He's a top-ranked dragon hunter and no one is going to send researchers into Vorpent-infested mountains without someone of his calibre around."
"For someone claiming to be exhausted, you're using very big words." Jack noticed.
"The one in town isn't enough for the researchers to do that?" Merida asked, feeling a little insulted on the behalf of Paramount's resident Night Fury.
"They say he's too 'domesticated'. Too used to humans. They need to observe ones that are more wild. Finally get an appropriate species baseline." Hiccup said. "It's the same argument they gave with Olympia from World War Two. She was too accustomed to being around people and her behavior was altered because of it."
There had been only two readily observable Night Furies in the last seventy years. The Paramount Night Fury whose behavior was considered so bizarre (stalking notwithstanding) that researchers couldn't trust the data they were recording. And secondly, Corporal Olympia of the 107th Infantry Battalion, stationed in the European war theater, veteran dragon of World War II. Recipient of both a Dickins Medal and a Bronze Star, the only dragon in service to receive the latter award.
"So how does Mr. Stark being dead make the contract void?" Rapunzel asked.
"The nature of the contract means Mr. Stark is the only person who can sign off on the allocation of the funds." Hiccup explained. The details had been hammered out years ago and he had been too young to fully understand all of them, but that was the gist of it. "Look, the whole point is, Dad said I could come with him, since I'm not planning to go to college right away."
"Hang on, I thought you weren't going back out into the field after Canada." Jack pointed out. Hiccup had swore every which way that he was never, ever, ever going on another dragon hunting expedition ever again because being stranded in the Canadian Rockies was no fun.
"No, Canada was capture and relocate and there was a very pissed off Skrill involved. This thing with the Alps is supposed to research and observation and we're not actually trying to get close. I can do research and observation. It's less stressful." Hiccup said.
"Vorpent-infested mountains?" Merida prompted.
"As long as we stay away from the Southern Limestone Alps."
"How long would you be gone?" Jack wondered.
"About four months. Mid-July to late October. It's research. That takes a while."
"It would be so lucky if you could go. I hear the Alps are gorgeous during the summer." Rapunzel said.
"And not blazing hot like summer usually is around here." Jack added, almost half-wishing that Hiccup wouldn't be able to go just so he would have to suffer another blistering Midwest summer. "I'd love to go to see the Alps. Hell, I'd love to leave the state for once. My living in Alaska did not count. I'm talking about visiting. Going to new places." He pointed to Hiccup and Merida. "I mean, your dads are dragon hunters and your parents--" He pointed to Rapunzel. "Are all over the world keeping a global company running. You guys have to have the passports of seasoned celebrities."
"Actually, I just stay home with Mum." Merida said.
"And we share the share the house with my aunt, uncle and cousins." Rapunzel reminded him.
"I've never been Europe. Just Canada and Mexico and Panama." Hiccup said.
"You guys are ruining my attempts at vicarious living."
"Sorry." they chorused.
Rapunzel's parents were the joint-CEOs of Glockenblume International and had the deep bank account to purchase and maintain a six-bedroom palatial home. Their work kept them very busy, however, and the last thing they had wanted to do was leave their daughter alone after just getting her back. The most logical thing to do, it had seemed, was for Mrs. Glockenblume to invite her brother, his wife and their daughters to come live with them.
Being a single parent, Stoic hadn't had much of a choice but to take Hiccup along on some of the longer ventures into dragon-filled wildernesses abroad. The in-laws had been willing to babysit, but Snotlout had been an antagonistic pest who couldn't be left unsupervised for long. Not to mention the other three little rugrats who took Snotlout's example by storm.
Merida was not a happy traveler when it came to long-distance trips and she knew it, so she wouldn't take them unless it was necessary.
It was a good Parent Picnic. Not that there had ever really been a bad one before. The pervading atmosphere of good humor and the overall pleasant-ness of the veteran students eased many of the lines that some of the rookie parents appeared to have developed. As always, there was that handful of parents who had had their doubts about marching band in general and whether or not this would be a good experience for their child. Friday night of band camp always went a ways in assuring the new parents that things were probably better than they had anticipated. (For some reason, marching band tended to be viewed as this radical, out-there thing that no one joined with willingly so it clearly had to be full of druggies, burn-outs, failing students who desperately needed to meet some Fine Arts requirement and general weirdoes with no social lives to speak of. Hiccup blamed TV for the first three characterizations, but he couldn't argue the last one.)
Already graduated veterans made surprise appearances, popping in on their old section mates. The marching and music techs (those who were present) were introduced and the drum majors were shown off. There was still plenty of daylight left after the banquet had been picked clean, so Gobber shooed the band outside first with their instruments.
"I saw Jessica." Marie informed Hiccup on their way out to tower field.
"Oh, you did? Did you tell her about our metric crap-ton of rookies?" Hiccup asked. Jessica, their rookie-year section leader, had never failed to turn up on Band Camp Friday since she'd graduated.
"Yep. And she's thrilled we're up by six." Marie said. "You should talk to her about section leader stuff. She might know how to deal with Ashlyn in a way that doesn't end in tears."
"I thought my Alpha Asshole routine did the job."
"Well, Ashlyn's stupid, so it might not stick for long."
"Yeah, true."
They set up in a concert arc and Steiny led them through stretching. They were just starting on the instrumental warm-up when the parents started to gather on the sidelines. A few of the alumni veterans bolted for the tower, rushing to get to the top platform for the best view. Gobber waited until the band had assembled on chart one in parade rest before he tapped the microphone hooked to the speakers on either side of the tower base.
"Welcome out to tower field, families. This is where it all happens. Is everyone where they can see an' hear? Good. Now, this isn't goin' to look like much from ground level, so just take it as is. Ye'll appreciate it more when ye finally see it from the stands." the Scotsman said. "Tonight, we present the entire show. This is the furthest we've ever gotten on chartin' durin' band camp. This is the entire show from start to finish. Meanin' anything I say next year is a stinkin' lie."
"This is the furthest we've ever gotten', he said every year, regardless of how much the band had accomplished the previous year. This year would make it the last year it was actually true. The entire show charted before the end of band camp. It would be a while before they ever accomplished that again.
"Drum majors, is the band ready?"
The three drum majors, in a straight line across the fifty, stepped forward and executed this season's salute. It was always a coordinated flailing of the arms, this time with a left-ward lunge that naturally ended with them snapping off a proper salute, hand to the forehead.
"Touchstone High Marching Vikings. Ye may take the field in exhibition."
Second A/N: Oops, I Tony Stark'd. See, this is what happens when you get away from a story for too long. You get all these ideas and then you start wondering "How can I cross this over with the Marvel Cinematic Universe?" Don't worry, it's not going too deep. It's still very much HTTYD. I'm just planting some seeds for the future.