Chapter Text
A scream echoed through the house.
“The lord of the undead has found the eel in his sheets,” Jack cackled, digging through the fridge for milk. It should have been right behind the prunes, but heaven knew he wasn’t lucky.
“Really, Jack? Again? You’re losing your touch,” Merida said, setting the twentieth cup of tea that day on the table. It sat with the others, slowly cooling and lefting off a fragrant steam.
“How is it losing my touch if it keeps working?” Jack crowed, finding the milk and giving a whiff. Nope, that was sour, sour, sour…
“Ah, wee lamb, have you run out of ideas?” Merida put her hands around the cup, wishing to feel its warmth. She couldn’t, of course, but it was the thought that counted.
“No,” Jack said, “I just say, why fix it if it ain’t broke?”
“Not funny,” Hiccup ground out, slapping the eel down on the table. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, as he often did. Not quite like Merida could appear out of nowhere, but he was still fairly silent in his approach.
“Well, Merida thought it was funny,” Jack offered, shrugging. He had a smirk on his face, and he slurped down some orange juice in a plastic cup they had gotten from a fast food place.
“Did not,” Merida volunteered, holding the mug in her hands.
“Where do you get off buying an eel and wasting it by putting it in my bed?” Hiccup grumbled, looking at the eye of the eel.
“First off, I’m the only one who eats. If anyone’s going to suffer from grocery money going to waste, it’s going to be me,” Jack said, fishing his toast out of the toaster. “Secondly, fun is important. And since you haven’t played Parcheesi with us in two days--”
“Or Risk,” Merida put in, as if she was on Jack’s side.
“Or Ticket to Ride,” Jack amended, shrugging, “I kind of reserve the right to make a little fun.”
“Fine, we’ll play Parcheesi, if you like it so much,” Hiccup grumbled, crossing his arms. While he didn’t technically need to sleep, he liked to do it out of habit, and he still woke up groggy as though he were human.
“Tonight at five,” Merida announced, setting down the mug decisively.
“All right!” Jack grinned. It wasn’t so much the board game they played as the fun conversations and hijinks that went on during it; Hiccup would stop brooding over his hundreds of years as a vampire, Jack could feel like he was a regular human, and Merida could forget she was dead. It was a win-win-win.
Hiccup sighed, and sat down at the counter.
“What’s got you so blue?” Merida asked, then she gestured to the tea. “Some tea’ll pick you right up.”
“I don’t think it will, Merida,” Hiccup replied.
“This is about Rapunzel, isn’t it? Why don’t you just ask her out?” Jack flipped the other chair around backwards, and sat on it.
“She’s human. I’ve seen too many people come and go to get attached now,” Hiccup said simply.
“You’re attached to me,” Jack pointed out.
Hiccup sighed again. “She doesn’t deserve this world. She’s happy, you know. She has no clue about vampires and werewolves and ghosts… and she should stay that way.”
“That’s a load of bull,” Merida said, rolling her eyes. “You’re just scared of what she’ll say. You’ve had lovers in the past, you’ve told me; what makes now so different?”
“She’s just so full of life,” Hiccup said, “And I’m so… not.”
“Mopey, you’re not going to be happy if you keep denying yourself things because you’re not human.” Jack rolled his neck, producing several cracks. “Look, you’re here now, so you should live now. We decided we’d try to be humans, right?”
“Right.” Hiccup didn’t protest.
“And you like her, don’t you?” Merida put in, idly putting the kettle back on.
“I… yeah.”
“So, talk to her. Go out to a cafe or something,” Jack said, crunching on his toast.
“Fine. Fine, I will, if only so that you guys get off my back,” Hiccup said, though his shoulders had less of a slump to them.
Jack cheered, and high-fived Merida. “We rock.”
“Champions of love,” Merida agreed.
“You guys are so weird,” Hiccup said, though he smiled too. He helped himself to the warmest tea, feeling the heat in his throat.
He’d have to see how this went.