A/N: I am so sorry for the longest wait in forever. I have been having problems with my laptop. And the thing is, the pages aren't back to back. I'm counting them as they are in Microsoft Word. Which means, each chapter at least touches the tenth page. That's more than my other fics which hardly touch the sixth page in a document. And not only am I having problems with my laptop(which now turns off as soon as the charger is slightly unplugged from the laptop socket), but I was having problems with myself. I was in a deep state where I just couldn't form a sentence. I pushed myself and started a new fic, RePLAY, to help me gain more motivation. And it has. If you wish to read it, let me warn you, it's a PunkNerd AU fic through Jack's POV. Yeah, not all that great, but I need to try my hand at first person.

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING TRIGGERS

Mentioned family abuse

Molestation

Turning twelve had its ups and its downs.

The first up, he was allowed to stay up till 9:30PM on school nights. So him going up and down from the attic didn't have to be a constant rerun of Mission Impossible. Another up side was that he was old enough, in his parent's eyes, to walk down to the corner store and back by himself.

One of the biggest downs was his birthday party. Sure, it was a regular, normal, non themed birthday party like he was sure every other kid in the world had but it came with a price. His mother had not only invited Snotface Snotlout but she also invited his brother, Dagur over for the party.

Fishlegs had come over first that morning with a smile on his face and a gift under his arm. "Happy birthday, Hiccup!" He said happily, placing the present on the table. "Wow, it really is a normal party."

Green and blue streamers hung and wrapped around each other from every doorway, ceiling, and light fixture. Hendrick nodded and stuffed his hands into his pockets, happy at the fact he didn't need to wear special shoes that went with his costume. His toes wriggled slightly in his socks as he turned on his heels and began walking into the living room. Pin the tail on the donkey, a piñata, and ring toss game were set up across the large floor.

"I told you it was going to be." The brunet said and grabbed a fun sized bag of m&ms that was on top of a candy bowl. "No costumes, no themed games. Just us, maybe a movie or two tonight, and some candy." A kid's dream.

Camicazi was the second one to show up. Even though the invitation said that there were no costumes allowed, she still showed up in her zombie soccer player costume, a grin plastered on her face. "Hey there, Hiccup." She said, shoving a badly wrapped box in his chest.

"Uff! H-hey, Camicazi." Hendrick let out a small cough as he pulled the present away from his chest, placing it on the table. "Why are you in a costume?"

"Well someone has to be the life of the party!" She shrugged and looked back at him before turning to stare at the balloons that hung from curtain rods and the backs of the chairs. "Wow…really dumb looking party. I liked your Halloween birthday better."

He rolled his eyes. Of course she did. "Well, it's my party so it's my choice." He crossed his arms and followed her into the kitchen.

Camicazi smiled and greeted Val as she poured herself a glass of punch. "My birthday is next month." She told Hendrick. "The theme is 'Hunger Games'."

'Great…' The still eleven year old groaned as he thought of her family hosting such a party.

She took a sip and leaned against the table, her hands and arms moving as she talked. "We're going to have piñatas hanging from trees and nurf guns and those fake bows and arrows. You get shot, you're dead and that means you get a smaller piece of cake." The twelve, soon to be thirteen, year old nodded with a smirk and eyes that said 'you're my first target' as she sipped her punch again.

Hendrick frowned. He wasn't very good at aiming. Or running. Or anything that was too athletic. He was more of a sit down and make things sort of kid. The typical 'always picked last' child in gym class.

Val smiled and giggled slightly, placing another platter of goodies for them all on the table. Cupcakes that needed to cool before she frosted them. "Well that sounds very creative, Megan." She said, unaware that her child wasn't going to last two minutes in those games.

At that point, kids from his class began piling in without any sign of stopping. His mother even decided to leave the door open and stand outside, talking with other mothers as they walked up to drop their child off. The presents, mostly huge boxes, soon overflowed the table as they had last year. Camicazi placed her fifth cup of punch down on the floor and lifted a few, bringing them up to her ear and shaking them. One gave off no sound while another started to rip at her thumb.

Fishlegs walked over, frowning slightly. He held a cup of chips in one hand and a cup of candies in another. "Hey, Camicazi, you got to be careful with those. Those are Hiccup's. What if you break something?"

"I'm sure he'd understand." She shrugged, shaking another as Hendrick walked over to them. "I always break everything I touch."

The brunet frowned, playing with the frozen fudge mint cookies in his hands like a gambler would poker chips. "Please don't break too much." He groaned.

As Val smiled and laughed, saying goodbye to a parent, she walked in through the door, gaining the attention of the three. Just as they turned around, they regretted it deeply. Standing behind Hendrick's mother was Snotlout and his older brother, Dagur. The door slowly closed as their grins became wider, more evil and more horrific.

The rest of the party went on as the birthday boy had thought it would: terrifyingly bad. Every time they were near the ring toss game, Snotlout would trip, pouring his entire cup of punch on Hendrick, soaking his hair to his shorts. He changed at the very most three times before he stopped going over there to play. The piñata seemed even worse. Since it was his birthday, he went first and of course, ended up hitting Fishlegs upside the head with the piñata stick due to horrible directions and screams from the snot nosed boy. Camicazi ended up going next and hit Snotlout upside the head a few times as well as his stomach, pretending she thought it was the piñata even though she knew the truth. It gained her an hour in the corner, but it was worth seeing the punk's nose curved and blood dripping down past his lips.

Dagur surprisingly didn't do much. He mostly sat on the couch and watched television while everyone else mingled or played games. He took candy from other kids candy bags and tripped a few of them when they were running in front of the screen, but other than that, he wasn't so bad. Until it was time to for the cake.

Hendrick had just changed into another pair of clothes, his hair wet from quickly washing out the sticky punch as he walked into the dinning room and sat down. His father and mother stood around him, smiling as they placed the cake in front of him. Everyone took their seats and sang to him as he closed his eyes with a smile. His wish that year was split in two. He leaned forward with the wish to have Jack by his side and pulled away, thinking a moment before he really leaned forward and blew his candles out, wishing that Snotlout would take Jack's place in his mirror.

The cake was three large layers tall; strawberry on top, golden in the middle, and chocolate on bottom, each having different frosting. Camicazi sunk her teeth wildly into a piece of strawberry with chocolate frosting. Fishlegs happily enjoyed his golden with strawberry and Hendrick grinned as he received his chocolate with vanilla. He cut and scooped the smaller end of the slice, eating it contently as he chatted with his friends about nothing in particular at all. Ice cream dripped down into the slice as Val went around and placed a scoop of different flavors on everyone's plate. About halfway through the party, Hendrick glanced up at the clock; 6:32 PM. He remembered his parents telling him every year how he was born two minutes before six in the pm. It had been early in Val's pregnancy and they thought he would die later on that night. Hendrick smiled. He had survived yet another year.

While the poor brunet was busy staring at the clock and popping cake in his mouth, Dagur decided to bring his paper plate to the trash. Of course, Snotlout's bad habit of bullying had to originate from somewhere and as soon as Hendrick felt something press into his chest, he knew just where. He gasped and leaned back, the drink he had been holding splashing onto the teenager. Snotlout chuckled from the other end of the room while Camicazi and Fishlegs stared with disbelief and horror.

"I'm sorry!" Hendrick said quickly, the signs of puberty showing as his voice cracked slightly.

Dagur shrugged and looked up at Val and Steinn apologetically. "Sorry for messing up the rug." He said.

He gestured with his eyes down toward the expensive looking rug under the table, a very sorry look in his eyes. To an adult who didn't know him any better, it would have looked real. But the other kids at the table knew much more and could see a faint spark of something terrible shine in his eyes.

Still, Steinn and Val shook their heads with a smile, saying that it was no problem. Hendrick's heart began to beat against his chest as he saw his own parents – whom he thought were smarter than that – fall right into Dagur's hands. His body stiffened as the teenager nodded and volunteered to get something to clean it.

"Hendrick, why don't you get cleaned up, too. That food coloring in the icing will set in and stain your clothes." Val explained, smiling as she watched her son cautiously follow behind Dagur.

It took some wordless, gesturing coaxing before Hendrick completely left the room, alone in the hallways with the famous monster of the streets. He muttered a 'this way' and headed up the stairs. At one point, before going to the bathroom, he glanced at the attic door. Part of him wished he could rush up there and just spend the rest of his party with his best friend; explaining to him more things about the outside world and how it's changed, playing video games with him and laughing about the comments he would make. But as soon as he felt the teen brush past him violently, he dismissed that part of him. If Dagur knew, it could only mean bad news and maybe a broken mirror.

Hendrick tripped slightly as he walked into the bathroom, his heart sinking as the door shut behind him. He quickly walked over to the in-wall cabinet and pulled out a few towels, wetting them down.

Dagur groaned and took off his own shirt. "Such a sticky mess." He whispered, tossing it to the side with a slight grunt. "You're a sticky mess, too."

His body froze. Fingers lightly brushed the hem of his shirt though they didn't feel like fingers. More like knives carving into his side. He was so focused on biting his lip as not to scream at the knives, that he didn't notice his own shirt off and to the side. "We can't have the birthday boy being a mess, now can we?"

The words were like acid and he could feel his eardrums turning into liquid. Hendrick spun around when Dagur violently took his hand, placing it on his bare chest. He tried to pull away from the teen's burning grip, but he just didn't seem to be strong enough. With every try, the other squeezed harder and harder, causing the twelve year old to squeak and whimper.

His adolescent chest burned against his palms and he felt branded just like how he saw in games and in movies whenever someone did something wrong. Whatever words the older one was saying didn't make any sense. They were all jumbled and dripped off his tongue like vile saliva. He squirmed as his much bigger hand started to lightly stroke every part of Hendrick's exposed skin. The only words that came to his ears was 'must clean you up', but he felt dirtier by the second.

As his hand was forced to lower down to Dagur's pant line, he remembered one thing his parents taught him when he was younger. Scream 'fire' if someone was hurting you. It would cause people to run and police to come. So Hendrick threw his head back and screamed as loud as he could.

"Fire! FIRE!"

Thumps came from upstairs; Jack had must of heard it. Val and Steinn called out their son's name as they ran up the stairs. As soon as he saw his father come into the bathroom, everything started to fast forward like an old VHS tape.

Dagur threw himself back as Steinn approached him, screaming things he couldn't really make out. Hendrick's body gave out from under him and he just fell onto the floor, his limbs all shaking. Val ran to his side and stroked his burning hand, trying to speak soothing words to him even though his ears by then were numb. He stared at her, watching tears fall from her eyes. Did she feel the white hot pain that came from his hand? Was hers burning too? Slowly, he turned his head to the doorway where everyone stood.

Camicazi's bottom lip shook but the sadness didn't travel to her eyes, where a fire of revenge slowly started to burn. Fishlegs shook his head, staring at him with a true apologetic look. When Val stood up and started speaking wildly into her cell phone, that's when Hendrick saw Snotfaced Snotlout. He stood there, glancing at him then at his brother then back down at his own crossed arms then back at him. It was almost as if he was taking the blame for what had happened, a guilty look sparking on his face.

Everything stayed silent as the police arrived, ushering everyone back downstairs. Things continued to stay that way as they took Dagur out of the room in handcuffs. Even while they seemed to question him, he was deaf to everything. He spoke but the words never made it to his ears. The pain in his burning hand pulled his focus back down and he stared at it for God knows how long. He just sat there after a while, silent with a blank face, staring down at his hand and wondering why on Earth isn't charred and black. Why isn't it smoking? Why isn't his skin peeling off down past his wrist?

Images flashed through his eyes but not everything had processed yet. His friends said their goodbyes, Camicazi and Fishlegs hugging him. His parents rubbed his back and brought him to his room. They didn't speak much to him, only whispering things that never made it to him anyway. They kissed his forehead and let him be by himself. After a while, his hands stopped shaking. Once his knees were calmed, he felt himself get up and walk slowly out of the room, heading up to the attic. Nobody stopped him and it was a surprise his parents didn't rush up the stairs when they heard him close the attic door.

When Hendrick got to the bean bag chair in front of Jack's mirror, he just laid there, staring at the ceiling. The scene played over and over in his head and he would glance down at his hand without a word. The silence seemed to break his deaf spell and the sound of the television downstairs loomed into his ears. That's when he turned onto his side and sat up, staring at the mirror's frame. He had been trying to escape his glass prison; parts of the frame had fallen onto the floor and he was tilted slightly to face more toward the left.

"Why…?" The brunet whispered, looking up at him, almost pleading for an answer as he stared into his eyes. "Why?"

Jack could only shake his head. He tried to force the lump in his throat to go down, swallowing twice before he bit his lip. The only thing he knew was that his Hiccup was severely hurt by something someone did down at his party. He had heard the police whispering in the hallway and he had heard Steinn's screams from where he was, but he wasn't sure just what had happened.

He drove his curiosity to the side, not wanting to spark anything horrible in the twelve year old's mind. "Some people…just do terrible things. And why they do these things, we'll never know." Jack frowned, trying to get to Hendrick's level as best he could. "Just know, Hiccup, it wasn't your fault. What happened wasn't your fault at all and you're gonna be okay."

The brunet's parents had told him those very same words, but he didn't believe them until Jack's watery voice hushed them. He calmly placed his other hand, the hand that wasn't burning, up to the glass. The lump in his throat over took his body; forcing it to shake violently and cause helpless sobs to pour from behind his teeth. Tears streamed down and he allowed himself to curl up against the whole mirror, his head bowed to hide his face.

Val kept him home part of the next week. Camicazi and Fishlegs would come over to see how he was doing and would play video games with him to cheer him up. At times, Camicazi would bring over wrenches and woods and tools, telling her friend that working on something usually cheered him up more than playing and fooling around did. Keeping his mind on something, keeping his fingers working, it almost always brought him to a state of being okay. And after a while of just staring at them, he actually went to work. From the time he woke up till the time he went to sleep he would make small wood statues. Some were simple figures like pencils or lamps while others were more complicated like people or things.

He seemed to have mastered it by the time he went back to school. Whenever the thought of it all came to his head, he pulled out a block of wood and began carving. During recess his first day back, he had sat off to the side near the four squares area and finished a carving. It was a mirror frame, almost identical to the one around Jack's mirror up in the attic. Hendrick smiled as he turned it over a few times, giving it the last finishing touches; hinges, his name in the back, a soft carving of Jack's face and hands against the wooden glass. It was one of his best works yet.

As he blew away some dust, he looked up to see Snotlout standing in front of him, arms crossed firmly across his chest. He stared down at him with the same steady look he gave him on his birthday. "Look, Hendork…" He started before looking away. "I'm sorry…about my brother and things."

Hendrick continued to stare at his face, his arms dropping into his lap. "It's fine. He's in jail now…he can't hurt anyone anymore."

"Yeah." Snotlout nodded as his lips curled into his mouth. "Yeah, my parents weren't too happy about it all…and I know yours weren't either. It's a surprise your dad didn't beat him up."

All he did in response was nod and go back to carving his wooden mirror. For the remainder of recess, Snotlout stood there, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot as Hendrick continued to carve and carve. By the time it was over, the mirror was finished and the older boy ran to go back inside. Fishlegs ran over, breathing heavily as he walked into the school with his friend, complimenting him on his newest creation. He smiled and said his thanks, ignoring the arm that Camicazi put around him when she finally caught up to the two.

Now that they were in the sixth grade, they had even more classes. Weirder classes, harder classes. Classes that made them wish they could just skip to the next grade already. Woodshop was horrible for Fishlegs; dust everywhere and many machines that made him scared of chopping his own finger off. The smallest of them, however, had a blast with all the tools she could use to destroy all the long planks of wood they had. Cooking was a very confusing class and left the three with flat creampuffs and bitter tasting cookies. The only class they all seemed to get a hang of was Health and Life class. They understood all the different levels of grief, the difference between lust and love, and how each body works. Today, as they sat down, large green letters were written on the whiteboard.

"Relationships." Fishlegs read as he sat with his friends at a group table. "I wonder what she means by relationships."

Camicazi shrugged. "Maybe it's about abuse in relationships and how to spot it." Her two friends stared at her with slight surprise. Usually, she wasn't so in depth about lessons; going off almost every lesson about ninjas and robots and pirates and how it related to the topic at hand.

Hendrick shook his head and turned back to listen to the teacher who spoke softly yet firmly, making the room calm as she talked about the many things that were part of a relationship.

Students cringed slightly as she spoke of sexual interactions, most groaned as she spoke of different sexualities, and some frowned as she mentioned abuse in homes. She wrote down a list of signs that could show different forms of abuse; emotional, physical, mental. By the end of class, everyone had at the very least seven back to back pages on abuse in relationships and how to spot them. As the bell rang and some students ran up to talk to them, Camicazi walked out with Fishlegs and Hendrick, reading over the lists with a sad expression. Fishlegs kept the notebook he used for Health and Life in his backpack, hoping that if it was out of sight, it was out of his mind. Hendrick, however, kept his close to his chest and he thought about every fact he learned, trying to connect them to the people he saw in the hallways.

A few people walked around with bruises or uncombed hair. Some had bags under their eyes and the brunet tried to figure out what their lives must be like. What was home life like where they lived? It bothered him that he didn't know. He knew it wasn't his business yet he wanted it to be his business. Nothing felt more horrible than knowing that while he lived happily with a loving family, another child was living somewhere in a basement, being fed scraps of food once a month. He swallowed hard and shook his head. His hand twitched and he felt a prick of burning pain in the middle of his palm. Had Snotlout gone through the same as he had? Maybe it was worse at home than it had been at his birthday party. When they passed him in the hallways to get to the front doors, he noticed him staring back. Their eyes locked for a moment before they all continued on their separate ways.

The walk home was as expected. Hendrick's hand kept burning and burning to the point where he cut open skin from rubbing it on his pants. He hissed and stared at his bleeding palm with hardly any emotion. A groan escaped his throat as he continued walking, slipping his hands into his jacket pockets to keep from getting infected. Leafs fell from trees and slapped against his leg as the wind blew them down the street. As he got closer to home, he kept hearing the same thing over and over; it was getting colder. Colder weather meant holidays and cheerful music, but it also meant that his time with Jack was getting short. It wouldn't be long before he was frozen in place once more, hardly able to give even the slightest of smiles.

His father and mother smiled at him and asked him how his day was the moment he walked through the front door. He quickly gave them an answer, kicked off his shoes and headed upstairs as fast as he could. Opening the attic door and climbing up the small staircase, he tossed his backpack toward the desk, watching it skid till it hit the chair.

"Hey, kiddo. How was school?" Jack asked and smiled when he saw his brunet friend fall backwards onto the bean bag chair. "Long day?"

Hendrick nodded. "Sort of. Just an exhausting day." He stared up at the ceiling and thought about the apology Snotlout had given him earlier.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Exhausting meant many things. For all Jack knew, he could have been playing around too much or he could have been picked on from the time the doors opened till they closed.

He stayed silent as he thought about what he wanted to tell his best friend. He weighed out the options; the look Camicazi had after last period, the talk Snotlout gave him, or the still burning sensation he held in his hand that now slowly traveled toward his chest and down his stomach. Hendrick shook his head and sat up slightly, looking at his backpack.

After a moment or so, he finally looked into Jack's icy eyes. He had to tell him something. Anything. "We learned about sexuality in class today." He said.

Jack smiled and nodded. "Oh? And how did that go?"

"It went okay." The conversation slowly turned from awkward with silent patches here and there to full of facts and opinions. Hendrick spoke of the many sexualities he learned about that day and the many things they go through everyday; abuse, hate, self harm. He frowned as he thought about it all.

As the conversation continued, questions began rolling around inside his head. He started asking Jack if he remembered anyone like that. He asked what they went through and what happened to them if they were caught and everything else he could think of. The other talked softly, clearly taking the situation more seriously than he ever took anything before. Hendrick noticed, as Jack spoke, that his eyes became more and more sad. They became darker and made it seem like the usually upbeat forever teenager was drifting slowly and ever so slightly away from him.

He frowned and stared at him, feeling the sadness pour into him as his friend continued on. When he finally finished with a sigh, Hendrick let the silence hang between them. He allowed it to soak up the bad feelings and he pushed out the last question he had for him, hoping it wouldn't ruin anything.

"Jack?" He started, his voice shaking and small, as if he was afraid of breaking the mirror's glass with just his words. "Are you…?"

Jack bit his lip and stared at him for a moment before nodding, his eyes shifting down to the other's shaking hands. "Yeah…I am." He whispered back. "My mother…I remember her taking a lot of the hate some of the villagers had for me. I remember my sister…standing up for me in her school."

Hendrick frowned. The only hate he had ever known, what he thought, was created from the jealousy of others. From them not feeling right about themselves to them not having a good home environment, that's the hate he's always known. For someone to hate people for who they were and who they loved…it was stupid in his eyes. Unneeded.

He placed a hand on the mirror's glass, softly smiling up at his best, most trusted friend. The wave of cold air that made him shiver stopped. The burning in his hand stopped. Everything stopped as Jack lifted his head and smiled back.

"I'm going to get you out of here. And then, we'll find you an amazing boyfriend."

A/N: I don't hate Dagur or his character. In fact, I think he's funny. I enjoy watching him in the TV series. I laugh every time he comes on screen and so doesn't my little brother. So no, the reason for his character to be like this was NOT because of hate. It was for character development on Snotlout's part. - ADAM

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