Chapter Text
Jack is having a fucking bad day. Mostly it’s because Hiccup is Night Fury hunting, but some if it is because Hiccup isn’t listening to him.
Okay, wait. Back up.
It starts when Hiccup shoots down a Night Fury. An idea that Jack was originally for (the pure chaotic madness that is Hiccup trying to kill a dragon outside of conventional Viking means fills Jack with unexplained amusement), but later ultimately against when said Night Fury pins his best friend to the ground and almost eats his face.
Jack still isn’t sure who is more shaken, Hiccup or himself, but concludes that Hiccup definitely is having a worse time then him, considering that the scrawny teen passes out almost immediately after the dragon vacates the area.
“Well, so much for being a Viking,” Hiccup says, face down in the dirt, after he’s revived. Which. Okay. Back that up.
To start at the very beginning, Jack has to acknowledge that everything that happens after the Night Fury comes into their lives was—well—long coming. From the start, Jack was aware that Hiccup wasn’t your ordinary Viking. He was clever, soft-spoken and lacked in physical strength. His strange, sarcastic humor did not endear him to Viking society the way it did to Jack, which, on top of his other “failings”, meant that Hiccup did not exactly fit in. To put it lightly.
And it only got worse as Hiccup hit his teen years.
His peers saw him as a screwball oddball; his elders were either in a state of irritation or indifference (except Gobber, thank god for Gobber). And this combined with Hiccup’s stubborn personality and clever brain meant that the young Viking spent most of his free time trying to prove himself to a society that had already dismissed him as useless.
It was as sad as it was infuriating.
So yes, Jack was equal parts amused by Hiccup’s attempts to shoot down a Night Fury as he was hopeful, but unfortunately that hope was immediately dashed the minute Hiccup turned his knife away from the beast’s throat to the binds holding him and set the monster free.
Which was why now, as Jack watched his best friend lie face down in the dirt, he did nothing to encourage him after the Night Fury. Instead, he crouched down in front of him and poked him with his staff.
“Ow. Stop.”
Jack—still unable after five years to get over the fact that Hiccup could see and (occasionally, when Jack was feeling more believed in) touch him—pokes him again.
“Jack, stooooop,” Hiccup wines, turning his face to the side. There is dirt on his nose and chin, Jack observes, as Hiccup blows his hair out of his face.
“Are we done hunting dragons?” Jack deadpans.
Hiccup pouts petulantly. “Jack.”
The white-haired sprite raises an eyebrow.
“Fine,” Hiccup sighes. “We’re done hunting dragons.”
Jack smiles, all teeth. “Good to hear buddy. I always thought dragons were overrated anyway.”
His companion looks unhappy, but pushes himself up into a sitting position. “Ugh.” He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “We will not be telling Dad about this one.”
“Well duh,” Jack rolls eyes, offering Hiccup a hand up. As the boy’s hands slides into his own, Jack feels something settle under his skin. He quickly lets go and starts heading back toward the village. “I guess if you wanna impress Astrid, you’ve gotta bring something else to the table.”
“Could we stop talking about that, please,” Hiccup mutters, rubbing his face. “I still feel like I’m gonna throw up.”
“I hear that bread-making is in this year.”
“Jack shut up.”
So no, the dragon hunting is off the table permanently, much to Jack’s relief, until later that night when Stoick comes home and tells Hiccup that he can hunt dragons.
Which. What the fuck Stoick.
Okay, let’s back that up.
Hiccup and Stoick’s relationship has been on the down-cline ever since Hiccup hit around twelve years old. Puberty hit Hiccup, and as soon as it was plainly obvious that he was going to be a different kind of Viking, things kind of went to shit.
And, surprisingly enough, it wasn’t completely Stoick’s fault.
To give the brawny Viking credit, Stoick did try. He accepted the fact that Hiccup was different and did his best to adjust to Hiccup’s differences rather than have Hiccup change, but as the other teens began to reject Hiccup (along with most of the adults), Hiccup began surlier and more troublesome and eventually the father and son could barely sit in the same room with one another. It was obvious to anyone observing that the two loved each other, but their differences drove a chasm between them that only kept getting larger as Hiccup grew.
Stoick began to be fiercely overprotective of his son to the point that it was unhealthy and Hiccup rebelled in every way he could think how.
So no, when Jack heard Stoick offer to send his son to dragon training, he choked with surprised laughter until he realized that the man was—well—serious.
“What the fuck.”
The look on Hiccup’s face conveyed the same feeling, although out loud he vehemently protested. He even went as far to reuse Jack’s bread making joke, which amused the sprite to no end.
As his father walked out, a few moments later, Hiccup turned to stare at Jack.
“Did I imagine that. Did Dad just tell me I’m going to dragon training.”
Jack grimaced. “And here we said no more dragon hunting. Fuck.” He sprang off the floor and flopped down on one of the ceiling beams. “Thank god winters coming. I can make an early blizzard come tomorrow morning.”
“What no. Jack, all the crops will die, and we’re already low from the last raid,” Hiccup hisses. “I’ll just skip.”
The white haired boy scoffs. “Yeah right. Like Gobber won’t tell your dad. I guess you’ll just have to suck it up and go.”
Hiccup scuffs his boot against the wood floor. “Yeah. Fuck.”
Jack grins and folds his hands under his head. “Yeah, fuck,” he agrees.
Jack is against it.
Which is hilarious in retrospect. Because, you see, Jack is like the fucking god of bad ideas. It’s probably why Hiccup is still determined to believe that Jack is Loki or some derivative of the mischievous god. Which ok. Fair.
If you drew a painting of the god of bad ideas, that painting would just be a picture of Jack flipping off a pack of Berserkers while cartwheeling on the back of a Monstrous Nightmare which is flying directly into a pit of venomous snakes that haven’t been fed for five months and swim in lava.
In other words, Jack is a fucking moron.
He’s sure half the trouble that Hiccup gets in, he probably could avoid if he had never met Jack. Which is exactly why when Hiccup decides to go into the forest to investigate the scene of the crime—the crime being Hiccup nearly being mauled by a dangerous giant lizard—Jack vehemently protests and is just as vehemently ignored.
It all ends, of course, with Hiccup almost having heart failure as the massive cold-blooded creature leaps off the edge of the cove wall and almost directly in to Hiccup and Jack. Hiccup almost falls off the edge, but it saved by Jack hooking his staff around his ankle and dragging him back.
To reiterate: Jack is having a bad fucking day. Between this morning’s Dragon Training and Hiccup taking a hike to find the Night Fury again, Jack is ready to go back into the lake. Just fucking faceplant straight into that lake of ice and never come out again.
Of course Hiccup ignores his panicked state and starts sketching the dragon, firing off questions and rapid fire.
“Why is he still here? Shouldn’t he have flown away by now? Does his body construction contribute to his speed?”
Jack rubs his temples. He is very stressed out.
“Hiccup.”
“Do you think his scales—”
“Oh my god Hiccup.”
“What’s up with his tail?”
“Man in the moon, take me back.”
“Why doesn’t he just fly away?”
Jack pauses at that one. Good question.
It’s not long before Gobber gives them the answer.
Jack watches Hiccup slip away from the fire pit, but makes no move to join him. For the moment anyway. Instead, he continues to lean back against one of the wooden pillars and watch the rest of the teens needle each other.
He carefully keeps an eye on Gobber, wondering if the man knows.
Hiccup isn’t being exactly subtle. He’s been disappearing every other day and couple that with the knowledge of him claiming to have shot down a Night Fury a few day prior…
It’s not very hard to figure out. Jack just thanks whatever gods these Vikings believe in that Stoick is still gone. Hopefully by then Hiccup will have sorted out whatever’s going on between him and the dragon.
Or not.
Jack saw the way Hiccup was looking at that dragon. There was a connection there that Jack was almost envious of the instant that Hiccup’s small, calloused hand made contact with the dark beast’s scaly snout. Of course the dragon had snorted indifferently afterwards and darted away instantly, but Jack knew the creature was hooked.
Hiccup just had that adorable charm that drew massive creatures of destruction to him.
So now Jack was realizing that he may potentially have to share his best friend with another being which made him feel odd. Hiccup had grown up with few friends and was mostly isolated, which was fine for Jack, as Hiccup was his only source of human interaction. But now Hiccup’s world was expanded beyond Jack.
So Jack lets Hiccup quietly slip off, by himself, and continues to watch the other young Vikings.
Astrid seems to be the only one who notices Hiccup’s departure, but she shrugs it off fairly quickly. (Jack can’t help but feel slightly offended by her rejection of his friend, but he decides to ignore her.)
Jack turns his attention back to Gobber, who is currently suggesting that the rest of the Viking teens get some rest. As the group disperses, Jack catches a drift of wind and lets it carry him to the docks where he plops down to watch the starry sky.
The moon isn’t out tonight. Jack doesn’t even know what he would say if it was. His resentment for the silent mosaic still lingers, but has been soothed by the balm of Hiccup’s presence over the past few years. He still sometimes finds himself staring up at the bright orb, silently screaming at it to tell him his purpose, his meaning.
The air is cold, which would bother Jack if he was, ya know. Alive. He still lets a shiver wrack through his thin frame and pretends like it’s enough.