Face Value

Part 15

FIFTEEN:

"So how's it going, Fish?" Hiccup asked at lunch, peering over his friend's shoulder as the husky boy scrolled through his Berkbook feed. Chewing his roasted red pepper and hummus sandwich, Fishlegs looked up.

"Um...rather well," he admitted, turning the screen so Hiccup could see. There were stills from the video and a comment thread that currently had eight hundred comments and counting. Leaning forward, Hiccup read through the most recent.

"He's an ass-how could I ever have looked up to him?" he read. "Wow. I don't know where to start. Is the writer someone really short? Because no one else could look up to Snot..."

"It's Gustav," Fish told him. "That irritating kid from Junior Year..." Hiccup sighed.

"He's a kid whose Dad abandoned the family when he was about ten and he's basically looking for a role model," he explained, recalling the over-enthusiastic jet-haired scrawny kid from when he was still one of the guys. "Though why he looked up to Snot was one of life's mysteries."

"Well, he doesn't look up to him now," Fish told him cheerfully. "In fact, most of the school consider Snotlout to be an ass and probably lower on the food chain than pond slime." He switched page. "And a few of the kids are trolling the jocks." Hiccup shook his head.

"Please ask them to stop," he said firmly. The husky boy's eyes widened.

"Why?" he asked. "I would have thought you would have been happy that they were learning what it was like to be unpopular..." But Hiccup shook his head, his eyes pensive.

"That's not unpopular-that's bullying," he said calmly. "It's cruel and intrusive and vicious and unrelenting..."

"And they did it to you, didn't they?" Fish realised, his mouth dropping open in shock. Reluctantly, Hiccup nodded.

"You get no respite," he said tonelessly. "You can't get away at home because it follows you. And no one should be telling you to go away and die-or kill yourself. Please ask them to stop. They're idiots-but not irredeemable. Being rejected is enough." Fishlegs nodded wordlessly and typed in the request, hitting SEND with a flourish.

"Are you okay?" he asked his friend and the auburn-haired boy forced a smile onto his face.

"I know this was my idea but do you think this is justified, Fish?" he asked quietly. "I know they deserve it but I don't want to be that guy who gets revenge, who deliberately hurts people..." Half-turning to look up into the troubled face, Fishlegs sighed.

"They are going to get hurt," he said carefully. "But not permanently. And nothing that isn't part of the normal rough and tumble of school life, I think. Having their misdemeanours and hypocrisies pointed out and puncturing their self-deluded image of themselves is going to be uncomfortable but no one is going to die. And maybe they could learn from it..." Hiccup smiled wearily.

"Or not," he sighed. "I think, between them, they have the self-awareness of a brick. But we can always hope." Fishlegs patted his arm.

"You know, you're a decent guy, Hiccup," he told his friend. "I don't think anyone else would worry about the wellbeing of the people who have made your life miserable for the last year."

"They were my friends," Hiccup reminded him. "I don't hate them. I'm just sad they behaved the way they have and wish they didn't." Then he visibly pulled himself together. "But if they hadn't, I wouldn't have you guys. So I guess everything happens for a reason..." Fishlegs nodded.

"You know a guy like me would never usually have a chance to be friends with a guy like you?" he reminded Hiccup as the auburn-haired teen froze and stared at him, as if the thought had never occurred to him. "I'm a husky computer nerd with a botany obsession and a tendency to panic. You're a popular, handsome athletic guy who's smart and determined and relentlessly kind..."