In the small town of Jelle in Denmark there were three types of people - the people who relied on their faith, the people who relied on others, and the people who relied on no one. The last category was generally reserved for those with no religion, no minds and no hope, as the locals would say.

There was only a handful of these ‘weird’ people in the close-knit community, and if anyone was weird, it was the Lindgren family living on the edge of the small nature reserve (a large area of forest that the government had surprisingly decided not to chop down), in a medium sized house.

The oldest members of the family were well respected in the community, Poul Lindgren had been an active member of the military for many years, and often narrated his tale to the many children who would listen. Despite the wide acceptance of their older relatives, the younger members of their family were often referred to as ‘weird’ in the purest form of the word, as such a family was rarely seen in the rural community.

Johann Lindgren stood almost 7 foot tall, with a long beard and hair that grew past his shoulders, an appearance not unusual to the Viking age. He was a devote pagan, and believed strongly in the old gods of the North (which was probably one of the leading factors to his looks). Johann lived with his teenage son - the 17 year old Bjørn.

There was much dispute in the small town as to whether Johann and Bjørn were really related, as despite them sharing the color and length of their hair, they could find almost no similarities appearance wise. Johann was strong from years of working as a welder, and Bjørn could barely lift his school bag. The boy was small, pale and thin, and many people would at first mistake him for a very underweight girl.

These mistakes didn’t effect Bjørn, he could take most types of bullying as long as he didn’t get into a fight. That was another point in which he varied from Johann - Bjørn refused to fight. He would try and talk his way out of it, he would try and run away, or he would simply stand perfectly still during the physical onslaught if it meant they might get bored of their game. Johann was always disappointed in Bjørn’s nature of not fighting back, but he continued.

Bjørn’s time in high school did not go by with ease. He had just started a school which the Danish referred to as college which would be called high school in most other countries, but of course there were differences. The Danish high school had ages ranging from 15 to infinity, as the opportunity to return to high school was always there.

This of course meant that Bjørn had to deal with a lot of people that were older then himself, and at one time he had even found himself in the same class as a 30 year old. He didn’t have many friends to share his time with, and none in his class at all. He spoke a little with the other people, but not enough to really make a connection. Mostly he just kept quiet and of course answered politely if anyone asked him anything.

He knew he lacked the social skills many people found necessary for their lives to be ‘normal’, but Bjørn could simply not remember how to make friends and in the small community there were not many people that would dare reach out to him of fear of what their parents would say to the matter

Even though he wasn’t particularly successful on the social front, he did have a few friends. There was the skinny and tall David Jensen, who was 19 and deeply involved in politics and ideologies. He shaved his head completely bald regularly, yet would scold any that dared refer to him as a skinhead. He often scared Bjørn with his lack of human compassion and strange ideas of what was right and wrong. Despite that the two got on very well, sharing many good memories between them.

Then there was Nathan Edwards. The long black haired teenager the same age as Bjørn was built much like Bjørn’s father, yet with a warmer personality. Nathan had moved from the US to Denmark a long time ago as his parents had decided to do something with the offshore business that was located at a port not so far away from Jelle. He didn’t speak amazing Danish, but what he couldn’t say he could say in English and that would often fill in the blanks. Like Johann, Nathan often tried to get Bjørn to protect himself, or at least fight in self defense, to no avail.

The three friends usually gathered round Nathan’s house, listening to his massive CD collection. Bjørn was happiest when he was with his friends, yet Nathan was in a parallel class to his and David was in the last year of his high school period. This meant Bjørn rarely had anyone working with him voluntarily in group work, and never anyone to talk to during the most boring of lessons

He did however get to see Nathan during gym class, as most of the classes had that together. Bjørn despised gym for the obvious reason of his reluctance to participate in any physical activity, and he asked himself over and over again why he hadn’t chosen business school where they only had gym once a year for an obligatory health day.

Bjørn didn’t hate school as much as the other pupils thought he did (they couldn’t imagine not talking to the other people in the class), and he excelled at most subjects. His strong points were English and History, and he considered himself fluent in English due to his time spent talking to Nathan when he was yet to learn Danish.

The school Bjørn had gone to before high school had had an immigrant building where all who were unable to speak Danish well enough to join a normal class had intense Danish lessons. They had met at a bus stop where they had started talking when their bus was late. Nathan had initiated the conversation, and Bjørn had found himself able to continue it with no awkward silences.

They had eventually became friends, and when they graduated to high school they were put in parallel classes, finally free of what Nathan often referred to as ‘language prison’. David had very strong opinions on the immigrant classes, but he generally kept them to himself as Nathan could be very touchy on that subject. He was an immigrant after all.

Every break time the three of them could be found in the one of the bicycle shelters, shivering due to the cold, yet probably laughing at one of Nathan's tales of humiliation and/or pain while David chain smoked. Bjørn contributed to the conversation in his own special way, and was often the brunt of the joke because of his naivety when it came to people - specifically of the other gender.

Bjørn had little to no experience when it came to women, something which only seemed to bother him when listening to others recount theirs. It seemed Nathan had also had few experiences, while David on the other hand seemingly lived off sex. Most of the conversations in the bike shelter were started by the familiar words.

"You won't believe what I did last night.. or rather who", David smirked knowingly but Bjørn just sighed, knowing the routine already. He and Nathan shared a look before David seemed to decide the dramatic silence had gone on enough.

"That girl that lives next door to me", his smile widened as Nathan nodded.

"Never saw that one coming", Bjørn could detect a hint of sarcasm, but David didn't seem to notice.

"Yeah.. So what have you been up to recently Nathan? Still just sitting around and listening to CD's?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I like the quiet life", he said drowsily, obviously still reeling from the 08:00 start of the school day. It was only the first break and they could look forward to two more lessons, except for Bjørn who was unlucky enough to have three. He didn't particularly mind seeing as the last lesson was English, and would therefore pass fairly quickly. He just hoped there was no group work involved.

"Hey, Bjørn's daydreaming", he heard David snigger and brought himself back down to earth, hastily trying to look somewhat composed again.

"What're you doing after school?", Nathan asked him with tired eyes, reminding Bjørn vaguely of his cat Tor which would stagger around in a lethargic state all day.

"Not much.. You two want to come round my place? I've got some new DVD's"

"I'm betting one of the films is Titanic", Nathan smiled, it was an ongoing joke between them that Bjørn was crazy about Titanic (just the sinking scene, of course). Bjørn laughed.

"No, I've still been unable to find that.. I've got hold of some of the old Jaws films", as he said it he saw David's eyes follow more avidly in the conversation - he loved shark films, especially the old type with bad graphics (which he reasoned served as both comedy and horror). It wasn't often that the small DVD and CD shop in Jelle got old films, as they mostly supplied the newest films or some old Danish stuff that none of them had interest in unless it was for an older relatives birthday.

"Okay, what time? I know you have 4 lessons today, and I'm not waiting all that time in school", David smirked again as Bjørn began to look thoughtful.

"I don't know.. around 4? That should give me time to get home and everything", Bjørn replied after some consideration. His school day ended at 15:00, and the bus would take about 20 minutes to reach anywhere near his house, then he had the 10 minute walk. Getting to school was a pain, and half the time he didn't even know if it was worth it.

He had no idea what he wanted to do after graduation, and in Denmark there weren't many opportunities for you if you didn't choose a further education.You had to be educated for pretty much any job you could think of. The bell rang from the hall beside them to signal their 20 minute break had ended, and they sighed in unison before marching back into the dreary building.

Author's note: First fic on here, comments are very much appreciated