Finding Hiccup - Modern!Au ✔️

fifteen

It's the next night that Heather appears at the door of the den and says, with no preamble, "I'm going to bring Ally in to say hello."
"Right," I say, trying to sound relaxed and casual. "OK."
Relaxed and casual? What a joke. Already my whole body is tense. Already my breath is coming faster. Panic is rocketing round my body. I'm losing control. I hear Dr. Gobber's voice, and try to recall his soothing presence.
Allow the feelings to be there.
Acknowledge your lizard brain.
Reassure your lizard brain.
My damn lizard brain.
The thing about brains, which you might not know, is they're not just one ball of jelly. They're all divided up into bits, and some bits are great and some are just a waste of space. In my humble opinion.
So the one I could really do without is the lizard brain. Or the "amygdala," as it's called in the books. Every time you freeze in fright, that's your lizard brain taking over. It's called the lizard brain because we all had one of these even when we were lizards, apparently.

It's, like, prehistoric. And it's really hard to control. I mean, OK, all bits of your brain are hard to control, but the lizard brain is the worst. It basically tells your body what to do through chemicals and electrical signals. It doesn't wait for evidence and it doesn't think, it just has instincts. Your lizard brain is totally not rational or reasonable: all it wants to do is protect you. Fight, flight, freeze.
So I can tell myself rationally that talking to Astrid in the same room and everything will be fine. No worries. What's the problem? A conversation. What could be dangerous about a conversation?
But my stupid lizard brain is all, like, "Red alert! Danger! Run away! Panic! Panic!" And it's pretty loud and convincing. And my body tends to listen to it, not to me. So that's the bummer.
Every muscle in my body is taut. My eyes are flicking around in fear. If you saw me now you'd think there was a dragon in the room. My lizard brain is in overdrive. And even though I'm telling myself frantically to ignore the stupid lizard brain, it's kind of hard when you have a prehistoric reptile banging away inside your head, yelling "Run!"
"This is Ally." Heather's voice breaks into my thoughts. "I'll leave you two together."
And before I can escape, there she is, at the door. Same blonde hair, same easy smile. I feel kind of unreal. All I can hear is my own brain saying Don't run, don't run, don't run.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi," I manage to reply.
The thought of facing her or looking at her is impossible, so I turn away. Right away. Staring into the corner.

"Are you OK?" Astrid takes a few steps into the room and pauses.
"I'm fine."
"You don't look that fine," she ventures.
"Right. Well."
I pause, trying to think of an explanation that doesn't involve the words weird or nutty. "Sometimes I get too much adrenaline in my body," I say at last. "It's just, like, a thing. I breathe too fast, stuff like that."
"Oh, OK." I sense that she nods, although obviously, I can't look at her, so I can't be sure.
Simply sitting here and not running away feels like riding a rodeo. It's taking a major effort. My hands are twisting themselves up in knots. I have an aching desire to grab my T-shirt and start shredding it to bits, only I have vowed to Dr. Gobber that I will stop shredding my clothes. So I will not shred my top. Even though it would make me feel a ton better; even though my fingers are dying to find a place of safety.
"They should teach us this stuff in biology lessons," says Astrid. "This is way more interesting than the life cycle of the amoeba. Can I sit down?" she adds awkwardly.
"Sure."
She perches on the edge of the sofa and, I can't help it, I edge away.
"Is this to do with everything that...happened?"
"A bit." I nod. "So you know about that."
"I just heard stuff. You know. Everyone was talking about it."
A sick feeling rises up inside me. How many times has Dr. Gobber said to me, "Henry, everyone is not talking about you"? Well, he's wrong.

"Finn Hill's gone to my cousin's school," she continues. "I don't know what happened to Issac Lawton or Thomas Collins."
I recoil at the names.
"I don't really want to talk about it."
"Oh. OK. Fair enough." She hesitates, then says, "So, you wear dark glasses a lot."
"Yeah."
There's a silence which I can sense she's waiting for me to fill.
And actually, why not tell her? If I don't, Heather probably will.
"I find eye contact hard," I admit. "Even with my family. It's too...I dunno. Too much."
"OK." She digests this for a moment. "Can you do anything contact? Do you email?"
"No." I swallow down a wince. "I don't do email at the moment."
"But you write notes."
"Yes. I write notes."
There's quiet for a moment; then a piece of paper arrives by my side, on the sofa. On it is written one word:

𝐻𝒾.

I smile at it, and reach for a pen.

𝐇𝐢.

I pass it back along the sofa. The next minute it appears again, and we're into a backwards and forwards conversation, all on paper.

𝐼𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝑒𝒶𝓈𝒾𝑒𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓃 𝓉𝒶𝓁𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔?

𝐀 𝐛𝐢𝐭.

𝒮𝑜𝓇𝓇𝓎 𝐼 𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝑒𝒹 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒹𝒶𝓇𝓀 𝑔𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓈𝑒𝓈. 𝒮𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝓅𝑜𝒾𝓃𝓉.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐎𝐊.

𝐼 𝓇𝑒𝓂𝑒𝓂𝒷𝑒𝓇 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝑒𝓎𝑒𝓈 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝒷𝑒𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒.

𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞?

𝐼 𝒸𝒶𝓂𝑒 𝓇𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝐻𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇. 𝐼 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝒾𝒸𝑒𝒹 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝑒𝓎𝑒𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓃. 𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓎'𝓇𝑒 𝑔𝓇𝑒𝑒𝓃, 𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉?

I can't believe she registered the colour of my eyes.

𝐘𝐞𝐬. 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝.

𝐼'𝓂 𝓈𝑜𝓇𝓇𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝑔𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑜𝓊𝑔𝒽 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈.

𝐌𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐨.

𝐼𝓉 𝓌𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝒷𝑒 𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇. 𝒴𝑜𝓊'𝓁𝓁 𝒷𝑒 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝒶𝓇𝓀 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝒶𝓈 𝓁𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓈 𝒾𝓉 𝓉𝒶𝓀𝑒𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊'𝓁𝓁 𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝑜𝓊𝓉.

I stare at what she's written, a bit taken aback. She sounds so confident.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤?

𝑀𝓎 𝒶𝓊𝓃𝓉 𝑔𝓇𝑜𝓌𝓈 𝓈𝓅𝑒𝒸𝒾𝒶𝓁 𝓇𝒽𝓊𝒷𝒶𝓇𝒷 𝒾𝓃 𝒹𝒶𝓇𝓀 𝓈𝒽𝑒𝒹𝓈. 𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓎 𝓀𝑒𝑒𝓅 𝒾𝓉 𝒹𝒶𝓇𝓀 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓌𝒶𝓇𝓂 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓌𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝒾𝓉 𝒷𝓎 𝒸𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓁𝑒𝓁𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒾𝓉'𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝓈𝓉𝓊𝒻𝒻. 𝒮𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝑒𝓁𝓁𝓈 𝒾𝓉 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝒶 𝒻𝑜𝓇𝓉𝓊𝓃𝑒, 𝒷𝓉𝓌.

𝐒𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭, 𝐈'𝐦 𝐫𝐡𝐮𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐛?

𝒲𝒽𝓎 𝓃𝑜𝓉? 𝐼𝒻 𝓇𝒽𝓊𝒷𝒶𝓇𝒷 𝓃𝑒𝑒𝒹𝓈 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝒶𝓇𝓀 𝓂𝒶𝓎𝒷𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒹𝑜 𝓉𝑜𝑜.

𝗜'𝗺 𝗥𝗛𝗨𝗕𝗔𝗥𝗕?!

There's a long pause. Then the paper arrives back under my nose. She's done a drawing of a rhubarb stalk with dark glasses on. I can't help a snort of laughter.
"So, I'd better go." She gets to her feet.
"OK. Nice to...you know. Chat."
"Same. Well, bye, then. See you soon."
I lift a hand, my face twisted resolutely away, desperately wishing I could turn towards her, telling myself to turn—but not turning.
They talk about "body language," as if we all speak it the same. But everyone has their own dialect. For me right now, for example, swiveling my body right away and staring rigidly at the corner means, "I like you." Because I didn't run away and shut myself in the bathroom.
I just hope she realizes that.