Chapter Thirty-Six

"They know." He tells me. I close my eyes, leaning against my car. "They filmed it, Jack," His voice shakes.

"I know." I reply, my head sinking between the insides of my elbows. "I've seen it."

Hiccup turns his back at me and stares at the building. He does that thing, when he crosses his arms and ignores me and I know he's angry. When he turns back his eyes are glassy.

I find it too hard to stare back at him, so I stare at the floor, my eyes roaming through the piles of snow that form slowly, where only last week he was knocked down by the jocks from the baseball team. And now I'm angry.

Stupid/freak/stupid/weird/stupid/useless/stupid/idiot/stupid/

Ugly/stupid/loser/stupid/nerd/stupid/faggot/faggot/

What makes me angrier is the fact that there is absolutely nothing we can do. Nowhere to hide, no one to lie to. And this feeling is gut wrenching, like having someone tying your arms around your back and shoving needles inside your throat. If your arms were free, you could fight back. But now there is nothing to do but feel your insides being ripped open.

"What now?" he asks the question for which there is no answer. I look at him, and we're both terrified. "My parents… They can't know." He cries.

"You'll be fine." I say. "They'll never know a thing."

"How can you tell?!" Hiccup shrieks, slapping my hands away from his face. "You're not the one with the messed up parents here, I am." He says, "My mom could live with that, my father would kill me if he finds out!"

"He won't, Hiccup." I try holding him by his shoulders. "We'll be careful."

"If we come out now…" He starts, still uneasy.

"We're already out."

"I don't want that." He says, and I step back. His eyes open wide just after the words come out, and he realizes what he just said.

"What is it that you want, Hiccup?" I ask him. "Okay, I wasn't planning for us to be found out, alright? I wasn't planning for someone to film us, I wasn't planning to chop off your leg-"

"Don't go that far!" His hands push me away, and we are standing on that thin thread before keeping things steady and dropping them off the cliff. "This is not about the accident."

"Everything is about the accident, can't you see that?!"

"I was there too, I see it just fine!" He snaps back. "In fact we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that goddamned crash."

"Tell me you regret this now?" I am daring him to say yes. Part of me wants him to.

"Well, we wouldn't have done anything if it wasn't for it now, would we? We wouldn't have dated, we wouldn't have been caught."

"Oh, I'm sorry, it's my fault now. Emma, your leg, us, that's all my fault as well!"

Tears are trickling down Hiccup's face. "Emma had nothing to do with this, I-I loved her as well. This is about us!"

"Do you regret being with me, yes or no?" I ask him, and we know I mean finality. He stutters. "Yes or no?!"

"Jack…" He is crying. Or perhaps I am crying, I can't tell. I want him to cry. "I don't…"

"Yes or no?!" I demand.

"No." He spits and stops crying. That defeats me entirely. "But this is…" He gestures all around, and we know every last bit of invisible matter around us is overwhelming. "I am tired too." He says. "I am tired, and I don't want to…"

Silence. And this time I don't know what he wants.

"From all this mess, you were the only good thing that has happened to me." I tell him.

There is no reply. He stares at the ground, the snow isn't falling over us, but it is hanging on air, thin flecks of white that don't go neither up nor down. "Let's make things easier, Hiccup, I'll leave. And then there is nothing they can threat you with, does that make you feel safer?"

I am not daring him, not this time. We know that whatever he says – or doesn't say – will mean something. And I don't want to go. I don't want you to let me go, Hiccup.

"Okay."

Please don't hate me, I know I'm taking too long, but I think this story is nearly over to be honest... I dunno, Sorry this chapter is so short xC
I already have 50K words for my next big HiJack - it'll be a Harry Potter crossover with a weird... timeline I guess (?) Has anyone read The Cursed Child? anyways, the new story is The Guardian of Shadows - COMING SOON