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He didn’t believe it, at first.
The administration had pulled him away from class, had explained with faces that looked much more tired than concerned, that his friend’s body had been identified that morning.
He had drowned himself in the lake in the woods, just behind his house.
In the back of his head he knew, had always known, because Jack had always told him, always called in the early hours of the morning when no one could hear how broken his voice was. How broken he was.
No one else seemed to believe it, either.
Some gasped at the news, the room ringing with the hollow sadness over a boy they never bothered to know.
‘He always seemed like such a happy kid!’
Others - teachers, mostly - sighed and shook their heads in shame.
‘I can’t believe someone so bright and talented would do something like this.’
The worst part was that no one knew.
No one knew how much Jack hated his life, how much he despised each and every one of them.
‘wild animals have more humanity than these beasts,’ he had said.
It left a pit in his stomach and bile in his throat as he watched people pretend to care, pretend to know what his friend had been through - was going through.
And they pretended, oh did they pretend, and Hiccup watched with fire in his eyes as people he had never seen nor talked to tried to comfort him, tried to mourn with him.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to yell in their faces until his throat ran dry, because they had never seen the look in his eyes, had never heard the way he spilled his hatred for this world like poetry, never stood vigil on those nights when he was certain that this time, this time, he would do it.
They had never had to pry the knife, or bottle, or rope - or whatever instrument he had tried to use this time - from clammy, shaking hands.
They had never been forced to watch as the only person in their lives who actually seemed to care was buried under seven feet of dirt in a glorified wooden box.
Hiccup came to understand Jack’s hate very quickly after that.
Weeks passed.
Hiccup moved through his days on autopilot, following the routine that had been ingrained in his mind by age six, and he had to watch as those around him forgot, because to them Jack was nothing more than a name and a face.
He had vowed, then, that he would never forget.
He would not be okay, but he would survive, because Jack had always told him to.
‘You have to live for me, okay? If… If I die, you have to promise me that you’ll live. Alright?’
Hiccup often caught himself thinking, and would turn to Jack for his opinion only to be greeted with air beside him.
The feeling left him drowning, his breath lodged in his throat, and he was forced to face the fact that no matter what he did, his best friend would never be back.
He learned to null the feeling quickly enough. Replace it with emptiness and all the pain soon disappears.
Hiccup enjoyed pretending that Jack could hear him, after that.
He mumbled under his breath, asking opinions and mulling it over as if Jack had answered. Sometimes he swore he could hear Jack’s laugh when he fumbled over his awkwardness, that a cool hand clapped his shoulder at a particularly sarcastic response, as if congratulating him for his cleverness.
He liked the idea, though it left a bittersweet taste in his mouth, that Jack was beside him.
It became routine, eventually, to keep himself isolated, and find company in this memory of his friend, and he learned to keep the pain at bay, to bury his hatred, and his heart slowly grew colder, encased in a growing layer of ice that left him numb.
It was better than feeling, anyway.
Hiccup grew into a strong adult.
He graduated from college, maintained a successful career, made his father proud.
‘It should start to snow soon,’ he noted quietly, looking up at the expanse of grey, puffy clouds overhead, ‘should we take a walk?’ he let out a soft hum, as if responding to a comment. ‘yeah, it would be nice to watch the snow fall.’
He did not wait for an reply as he grabbed his winter coat from the hanger, knowing he would not receive one.
Silence followed him out the door, and he stalked into the cold winter air with a slight bounce in his step.