Guardians and Angels

Chapter 17: Jack

Crunch!

Chomp!

"Can you please stop that?" I shot a glare at Hiccup.

He narrowed his jade eyes at me and munched once more on some Doritos just to annoy me. "Whatcha gonna do about it?" His cheesed smile challenged the inner kid in me.

I grabbed the empty soda can next to me and threw it at his head, making a loud metallic thunk in the process.

"Ow!"

"That's what I'm gonna do about it," I smirked.

He groaned in pain and rubbed the spot where the can hit him. "I know you're a sore loser, but don't take it out on me. We both lost, okay?"

He was referring to our failure to show up the girls at laser tag. But the thing is, I'm not mad that we lost against the girls, I'm mad because I wanted to keep hanging out with them. Well, more specifically a certain blonde. It's funny really, ever since I became cognizant about my crush on Rapunzel, I wanted nothing more than to spend time with her. I'd find more and more ways to talk to her, to subtly touch her, to get her to laugh, or just look at me. Every time one of those things happened, my heart would speed up and warm my chest like a small fire was lit to it.

Even though I was with Hiccup right now, I still felt a little lonely without her here. Hiccup was great, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to be with Rapunzel.

"I know we both lost, but that's not why I'm mad at you. I'm mad at you for chewing your Doritos like a cow," I snarked.

After a very brutal and embarrassing defeat from Rapunzel and a redheaded Katniss Everdeen, Hiccup and I had driven back to my house for some snacks and a recoil session from the punishment of losing against the girls--which by the way was the most painful and uncomfortable thing I've ever felt. We were sitting outside on my porch swing with pretzels, chips, cheez-its, and soda cans sprawled all around us, talking about the humiliation of our previous outing and the consequences afterwards.

"Don't judge me, it's been a hard day," he defended.

I simply nodded in agreement and grabbed another can of soda. While the fizzy liquid slid down my throat with an exhilarating sensation, Hiccup's phone buzzed several times with the most obnoxious ringtone I've ever heard. He looked at his phone and suddenly burst into laughter from what he had just received.

"Jack, look at these." Hiccup laughed as he showed me the pictures that had been sent to him.

I was now staring at least seven images of Rapunzel and Merida. It looks like Punzie had somehow managed to get a hold of Merida's phone and plagued it with silly pictures of herself and her friend. Rapunzel either had her tongue sticking out or was smiling widely, while Merida was in the background with a scowl, trying to reach over the blonde to get her phone back. Just seeing a picture of Rapunzel seemed to lift my spirits a bit.

I chuckled and sunk back to a comfortable positioning on the swinging bench. "You should send me those," I joked.

Hiccup looked at me intuitively with his eyebrows raised as he pocketed his phone. "Why do you want them?"

"Cause they're funny." I rolled my eyes at him.

He wasn't convinced, even though I was partially telling the truth... partially being the operative word. "That's why you're in a bad mood isn't it? Rapunzel."

"Hic, I was kidding."

My best friend took in the smile on my face, and could see past my displayed allusion of trying to act cool and collected. "No way, you totally like her!" he exclaimed, shifting himself to face me better. He pointed an accusing finger at me and smiled coyly. "Admit it," he laughed.