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Hiccup kept slipping out of sight.
Finding those moments in between moments where he could sneak off, dip away from his duties, and slip into a wood.
Lucious and green, every step soft over grass that grew healthier despite the waning season. fall had set in fully, and with each day Hiccup visited the woods he inched closer towards winter.
but always found himself walking under Vibrant shades of forestry, emerald overhead and underfoot. the grass bending under his heavy footsteps to slowly rise back up again when he passed. As if to watch Hiccup’s departure.
Each walkway lit up by playful birdsong on a distance, ringing in his ear like bells. sun filtering through leaves in little ellipses of crisp white light.
Hiccup never saw the birds singing through the trees, but believed they were there for all the times he found himself walking through their chorus.
Each time Hiccup would come to a grassy camp. the little shrubbery and flowers poking out in white and yellow overtook the once ashy grounds. The fire was long dormant, but there was a ring of rocks set up in the middle of the camp. with a blanket of dusty brown piled in a forgotten heap in front of that.
it was moth bitten and worn out around his shoulders.
Where he’d find a man sitting there before the empty rocks, holding his pale hands out to the fire crinkling before him.
That man bounced surprised, brows raised.
“You came back…” his whispered voice was ashen too, like his camp around him. As if his throat was sore with disuse, too long spent quietly sitting by a fire gone cold. “It’s… really you this time, isn’t it… Welcome back.”
Hiccup couldn’t help but think those eyes should have gone green by now. Not brown, that didn’t suit the shy man sitting before Hiccup. He thought they should be green, like grass and leaves, like things growing out of the cracks in stone.
But every day, in shaking hands Hiccup would take those cold digits, trying to warm each one with the faintest brushing of thumbs. Always sure if he pet too roughly over the skin then Jack would startle. Would flick his eyes towards Hiccup’s, before darting away into the cover of the trees.
So Hiccup was soft and tender to each one. Pulled them slowly up to lips never dropping that eye, and kissed Jackson the way Hiccup wanted to kiss those hands once.
Jack would laugh, silently; just a bouncing in his chest, eyes flicking away nervous. But let Hiccup have them, let hiccup kiss the skin there for as long as he liked and tell Hiccup about his days in a nervous rush.
“Today… we played again. We hid in the woods, I still can’t find them all… do you want to help me?” The question asked so nervously and without any of the confidence Hiccup once knew. He’d admired, silently from a distance, then watched petter out like a light. In red stained sheets, and iron that the soups couldn’t wash away.
“Yes.” Hiccup finally said one day.
Jack blinked at him, touched his own lips as if he couldn’t understand the words out of Hiccup’s. tugging Hiccup up by his hands and running them through the woods. Down under a overturned tree Hiccup didn’t know, along a river Hiccup could never find the end of anywhere on Berk. Over a bridge they shouldn’t have passed. Through the old woods of Berk, with none of the landmarks Hiccup had once known.
Running hand in hand, playing in the woods where the Vikings would not go and the trees would not stay.
Days passed in funny ways, spent playing, or talking, eating fish they caught in a stream. Jack might sing to him, songs Hiccup had never known, and could never find in any corner of the archipelago. Or Telling stories around a fire Hiccup never wanted to leave.
but he couldn’t stay.
“You’re… oh. Oh of course. You cant stay for dinner. You weren’t… you aren’t…” Jack licked his lips around words he couldn’t bring himself to say. His mouth shaking on them, but he smiled instead. Nodding. “Then… then I wish you well.”
Hiccup would have liked to burry his head in those hands if he could. If they’d hold him long enough to. But someone pulled away and someone pushed gently off them.
Hiccup stood in the metaphorical doorway of that campsite. The arch between two trees that hung onto each other over head. Like they leaned into one another so much, so far over, the other tree was the the only thing holding up one another.
Jackson watched him with wide eyes in that doorway, slowly raised up a hand to wave without any motion and hiccup would turn back to civilization.
Didn’t stay. Couldn’t.
Stuff to do.
Places to go.
Things that needed fixing.
Fires to put out.
Bugs crawling through his brain with each one he couldn’t actually quell.
To leave those woods, panting, bent over with his hands on his knees whipping off the spit from his chin and wiping off the rouge.
return to a town all demanding some sort of help from Hiccup that he couldn’t actually provide. Shoulders feeling heavier the longer he lifted and hoisted whatever they needed, the longer he walked and talked with Vikings all around him. Asking for any manner of help they could get.
Something was breaking out and all around town.
but still, hiccup could find moments to disappear back into the woods. like slipping into a fur coat, like drawing a cloak over his shoulders late in the night to step off the face of the earth.
each time he left was harder than the last.
each time he could return took longer and longer, those moments between getting scarcer then longer it all wore on around Hiccup's heavy shoulders.
Stay today? Lay with me? Hmm? Lay down your weary head…
The dragons needed him.
The riders needed him.
He had to go help them with whatever needed doing there was always something.
Or… or it’s still sunny here it’s still warm during the day, come with me to Turtle island we can swim?
He had letters waiting on a desk he couldn’t bring himself to fully check.
He had people to write back in towns he had to check up on.
Just… for one night? Just this once.. stay the night…
He had an entire island outside his doors banging them down.
one more time? One last meal so to say… I could be… if you wanted— just about anything…
Hiccup had pressed his face into hands like he could press letters of resignation there. Like he could poor himself out at bare feet and then maybe he’d be the water under those toes. The ones that patted sometimes, if Hiccup was clever.
Stay with me?
Mala. He had to write to Mala still.
The sheild maidens would know what to do.
He had to write to the valkyries—
we can make these today I made one already—
He couldn’t fucking take that.
Hiccup Stared down at the circlet of mint leaves and oak, tasted the words around him like the scent in the air. Heard nothing else Jack said as he spoke over his nervousness.
Just that once upon a different time; Jack used to make them.
Mint leaves and oak.
We’ll meet again, don’t know where don’t know when. But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.
Jack didn’t sing that, he couldn’t sing anymore over lips that wouldn’t part and a chest that no longer moved.
He couldn’t sing if Hiccup was facing him, but if Hiccup hid his face in a shoulder he could hear it still. Songs on the wind Hiccup had never heard before, but heard it then, filtering through the leaves.
oak leaves twined in a circle.
Strength stability and endurance. They meant justice and Hiccup didn’t know who it was for. Just that it was reminiscent of Something in a back pocket Hiccup never brought up for fear he’d lose it in those woods.
Lily of the valley poked out in stems of little white bells. Forget me nots of blue poking between that and the rich greens.
it was absolutely lovely, it was handsome even; with all those flowers and intricate weaving it should have looked delicate and whimsical, instead the circlet was just thick, and wholesome.
with it’s flowers of blue and white, singing their song of purity and joy, sincerity and happiness, well wishes of good luck.
Better luck next time don’t forget me then.
Forget me nots wouldnt say something as cruel as that. No they were for one person in particular, spoke of respect and faith in one another. Jackson wouldn’t say that to Hiccup, while he stared at a flower crown and tried not to show how his eyes reddened or lip shook. Jackson meant, I’ll always remember you.
His hands were even nervous; as Jack stood there, offering it out and thumbing over the branches he’d twined together.
there were dark circles under eyes that never went away no matter how long he slept.
And kept sleeping.
a place just to lay a weary head down into bed. Downy and seashell soap that couldn’t wash the slates clean.
the sheets always smelt of iron.
Kids made flower crowns in the fields all the time. To run up to their parents around Berk and excitedly exclaim they were merry.
Hiccup closed his eyes and licked his lips to wetten them again. Jack was saying something in those woods. as Hiccup’s mind raced so far and fast it wound up in the fields of his youth. he couldn’t hear Jack’s voice over the bells in his ears, kids laughing in a field.
It morphed.
From a happy green field his mind supplied, that kids were laughing in…
to something mocking, when Hiccup knew he couldn’t reach it.
hiccup had never been a kid in a field happily making crowns for his friends. Was on an outside always looking out at them, when no one wanted to sit with him and play house.
Never went to his dad grinning holding a little hand behind him. To receive an accommodating chuckle. Never heard the clinking of coins when the adults saw that and weighed in their coin either which way.
Because at a certain point kids learned not to make flower crowns anymore, lest they mean something someone couldn’t take back. Kids got away with it, but then they grow up. and were explained to; it was all in good fun, but approaching an age of marriage they shouldn’t do that unless they mean it.
Hiccup breathed out through a mouth that ran dry and tasted like iron when he’d bit the words off his own tongue.
Jack was not a Viking.
Hiccup wasn’t much of a Viking anymore.
Jack wasn’t much of anything anymore, if someone looked over him.
But if they looked carefully, then they might have see the honey suckle wetting his lips, might see the sweetness he tucked behind a funnily pointed ear.
If one looked past the confidence and nonchalance Jack once wore around Berk like a cloak in the night or a fir in the cold, one might see he was kind. With usually big bright eyes to take in a world. Ones that always saw the kids on the outside looking in, nervous and afraid and out of place.
If you were a kid, outside looking in, you might see Jackson Overland walking up to take your hand, and guide you into the game.
hiccup hadn’t been a kid when he met Jack on a port. A Viking staring down a wayfarer on a dock. The start to a bad joke. But for a moment, just a moment, he felt like one, when jackson had a laugh that bubbled out surprised.
But still even if he wanted to so badly it was thorns in his gut, Hiccup couldn’t take that circle of green leaves and blue and white flowers. That particular haunting from his past.
When that particular memory ripped up through his chest like nails. Couldn’t take it, he’d bleed out under it.
Because. Because once, just once, back on Berk, hiccup looked at a flower outside his door, growing wherever it darn well liked. Then thought on flower crowns. To shake his head at himself, and call it stupid. Told that flower they were jumping the dragon they barely even knew each other.
That little yellow flower had been gone the next day when Hiccup looked back.
Hiccup’s breath caught then too.
When he found Jack sitting in a field showing the littlest ones how to make jewelry out of dandelions. A little boy made a crown and offered it to Jack, who’d chuckled and ruffled his hair. Told the kid to go give it to his mom she would love that.
Hiccup stood there frozen in that memory. Heard none of the words as that boy ran up to his mom.
the mothers smile was as bright as the yellow flowers. Hiccup heard only her in the end, absentmindedly stepping closer to her.
“Well of course I’ll be with you forever. I’m your mother that’s a given. Go find a little friend to gift that too.” The boy had buried his face into his mothers pant no longer as brave when he was shot down not once, but twice. She chuckled and pushed his back to the others. “I don’t think he understood you sweetie. Different walks of life.”
The boy shook his head no, she laughed and took him up into her arms, adjusting her crown she placed on her head, boosting high to any Vikings that tipped their helmets to her.
Plenty of adults got flower crowns from kids. It was cute. They didn’t fully understand why they got laughed at when they did it. They were already forever they had to go turn their friends into family with those.
Hiccup stared at a flower crown held out to him like he’d met a ghost in the woods. Like a clock somewhere struck three and he saw the ghosts before him.
The ghost of what could have been.
The ghost of what if.
The ghost of almost.
“Or— I get it. It’s childish. We can make something else? Baskets they’re useful— we could build something in the woods like a fort— that’s stupid. What do you want to do?“ Jack always whispered, like the words were hard on him. Like every sound pushed from his chest took great difficulty.
Bloody handkerchiefs.
Turned into Bloody pillow cases.
like a magic trick.
like a trick of the light.
like Hiccup had stumbled into a room blinded by the light collecting in his eyes, to slip past the ducts and drip into his creases. Then stepped right through a trap door.
Stepping into that room he kept behind a locked door in his memories felt like falling into a different land. One Hiccup could ask the flowers what they thought of painting all the roses red.
no one could figure out why so many of them were roses.
his hadn’t been roses.
Jack had trembling fingers around a circle.
Hiccup had never gotten a single flower crown.
they stood in a wood, two men staring out at each other from opposite ends of the fire pit.
and Hiccup couldn’t take that circle out of Jack’s hands
just stare at it and think of everything that lead them up to that moment.
The kids his age when they were the age to make them thought he was a creep. A freak.
They thought that as teens too, until he changed their minds.
But by then there wasn’t crowns being made anymore, unless they really meant it.
Hiccup made his friends beads anyways, told them it was a dragon rider tradition. They laughed, there was no traditions.
“What… what would it mean?” Hiccup found himself asking, even if he couldn’t accept it.
except…
Nervous fingers worked around that circlet, and red coloured his face a handsome embarrassed shade.
Hiccup couldn’t accept it. But what about staring out at a field hopeful as all the other kids played. What about trying to make a crown himself and not knowing how when no one showed him.
“I suppose… I suppose it would mean we made flower crowns. Made something out of nothing. Made something out of ourselves to make something for each other— what does it mean to you?” Jack asked carefully, unable to hold Hiccup’s eye for very long.
Hiccup bowed his head and closed his mouth around the words. Swallowed them down like pebbles dropping into a stomach.
“We… we don’t have to. But it can be fun, it calms the hands Y’know… did you want to make one with me? Sorry that’s stu—“
“Yes.”
And so Hiccup made a circle, of twigs and branches, and the only flowers he could find anymore, yellow and handsome in their simplicity.
Jack laughing like birdsong and wind through leaves in a wood. Like bells in a ear Hiccup would never actually get to hear.
Not when Hiccup had left those wood a day late a dollar short, holding a flower crown he’d meant for someone else once.
Hiccup sighed out that heavy feeling in his chest, coughed it out next, wheezing on airy lungs then hacking out the taste of iron that cling to him. Hiccup blinked confused at the little dandelion seeds wafting away on a solemn wind.