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Jack wakes up to an unseasonably warm weight draped against his back and the edge of cool scales digging into his feet. Which is an unfortunate result of the first deep sleep he’s managed to have in the handful of centuries since he’s become a spirit.
He opens his eyes in stages, blinking through the film of frost that’s accumulated between his lashes. The sun is poking down in a muted orange yellow haze. Which is the complete opposite of the stark white snow he’d buried himself in for his nap.
He stretches out, kicking down and away from the warmth that’s just the edge too much. Jack doesn’t have to stay cold, the same way he doesn’t have to sleep or eat if he doesn’t want to, but as Lord Winter and the Guardian of Wonder he thinks he’s entitled to his comfort.
His efforts result in a snarl, and arms tightening their hold around his waste. The snarl isn’t human, even though the arms kind of are. They’re as close to an approximation of humanity as any of them can maintain.
“Queit, Toothless,” The words are spoken against the back of Jack's neck, he can feel them melt the feathery ice crystals in his hair. “It’s too early.”
“It is?” Jack asks, the warm sleep hushed haze gone from him entirely. Replacing it is pure unadulterated mortification. “Cuz it kind of feels like it’s been ages.”
His voice startles the other man. And maybe it should be a relief that Jack is at least familiar with who it is. After all, how could he not recognize the Lord of Autumn. He’s new to the Court of Seasons, sure, but he’s not that new. He’d know Hiccup anywhere.
They've met a handful of times, around and at different society events his new found status demands he make his presence known. Winter’s wild, unrestrained and unyielding, it’s a small blessing his nature makes it so that he’s only really required to show up. He’s had plenty of time to spend winding around the Autumn Lord.
Jack could almost call them friends.
“Oh my gods,” Hiccup jerks away. Putting distance between them so fast Jack’s tempted to check and make sure he didn’t accidentally give the guy frostbite. “I am so sorry. I don’t…”
Hiccup trails off. Lost looking for words Jack doubts he has.
So Jack settles for shrugging. The least he can do is try and ease some of the awkwardness he’s at least eighty percent responsible for. “Can’t say I do either. I’m new to this whole ‘thing’, but I’m willing to bet you don’t usually have this problem.”
“No,” Hiccup says, too quickly. “No this is definitely the first time it’s happened.”
“What’s the best way to say sorry,” Jack asks. He’s not the best at social situations. He’d run out of the Autumn Court as fast the wind would take him. Which still felt too slow.
He’s avoided any corner of his court that so much as hinted toward fall since. As a result, New Hampshire has been having an unseasonably long foliage season, and an unprecedented cold front has buried Southern California and Arizona in snow.
Weather like this is unsustainable. Jack knows that.
But it doesn’t make the situation any better.
“Depends,” Rapunzel says, flicking little bits of dandelion yellow paint splatters in his hair. “Who are you apologizing to?”
She asks this, while painting scales drenched in morning light. She’s so bad at subtle.
“Don’t make me relive it.” His whining gets him a laugh, and a nose full of pollen spores.
Typical.
“It wouldn’t be half as bad if just stopped hiding every time he was within three hundred miles of ya,” Merida says without mercy. Not that Jack expected her to have any.
She’d laughed for a solid five minutes the first time she saw him after the incident and she told, without trying to mince his words, that he'd be lucky to keep himself intact if he ever so much as thought of trying that with her. She’d find a way to castrate him, friendship be damned.
Another of the many reasons why Rapunzel is his favorite.
Jack adores the Lady of Spring. If he is wonder, Rapunzel is pure whimsy. They go hand in hand, and work well together.
“You should give him a pumpkin.” Rapunzel says.
Merida snorts, “And what? Carve ’sorry for creepin into your bed’ on it?”
Her words are meant to be a joke. Probably. It’s absolutely lost on Rapunzel, she bounces, glee dripping off her in flowering petals. “That’s a wonderful idea. You can make a little guilty face on it and give him a Jack-o-lanter. That’s the most fall thing imaginable.”
That seems a little, cliche to him. But when Jack looks over at Merida who he can usually count on to reign in the more fantastical ideas Rapunzel gets, she’s grinning.
Jack gulps.
No one wins when the Lady of Summer smiles like that.
Jack wakes with a crick in his neck and pumpkin tucked to his chest. Ironically he’s once again too hot. This time he’s plastered half on top of the Hiccups chest and half covered in creeping ice.
The ice makes sense. That’s his body’s usual way of cooling down. Hiccup does not.
“I promise I am not doing this on purpose,” Jack says. Maybe he’d sound less guilty if he remembered going to sleep. But he’s been up at a farm in Vermont—one of the few that still offered hay rides and a corn maze all the way through mid-November—trying to find the best pumpkin in the patch.
He doesn’t remember much, just walking down the neat rows and feeling the earth, tired and begging to go to sleep, ’just for a little while. Just a short nap’.
Usually he’d have come through this part of the world a month ago to start laying down blankets of baby fine frost.
Maybe he'd be less guilty if that wasn’t his fault.
“I believe you,” Hiccup says, “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”
“Oh,” Jack says stupidly. “That’s good. Yeah, that's good. I just–here—this is for you.”
Jack stands up holding out the pumpkin.
Hiccup looks at him. Like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle. He settles for taking the gourd. “Thanks?”
The uncertainty in the other man's voice puts Jack on edge. He feels like he’s messed up somehow, he’s not sure where—so he talks, because that's what he’s good at, talking. “I wanted to say sorry. For the whole ending up in your bed thing. The first time I mean—well I guess this time, too. I asked and Rapunzel and Merida both said you’d like it. Only, I was going to carve it, you know make a Jack-o-Lanter. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I guess I just used too much energy and maybe I got distracted trying to figure out how to add the face. But it still totally counts as an accident. And an apology.”
Hiccup stares at him way too long. His eyes are honey-warmed hazel that melt into the dusty layer white ice that always seems to cling to Jack's skin. It leaves his face flushed and pink in ways that make him look alive
“You’ve never carved a pumpkin before?” Is what Hiccup settles on asking after what feels like forever.
“I never had a reason to.”
Jack gets up to leave. Toothless, who up until this point has been playing the part of an overly plush pillow perfectly, makes a grumpy sound of disagreement.
“Oh,” Hiccup says, still just sitting there. He looks so painfully dumbfounded, Jack can’t help but be a little charmed. “We should. Do that together some time, I can teach you.”
Carving pumpkins doesn’t seem like something Jack couldn't figure out on his own. Still he’s happy to have an excuse to come back. “Sounds like a date.”
They meet up next on the edge of Lake Erie mid January. This time it’s on purpose. Jack had blown in a blizzard strong enough to cancel schools across the state for at least the next week.
It takes an especially cold winter to get the Great Lakes to freeze. He’s only managed it a handful of times and never on purpose before.
He’s so excited.
He makes them hold hands as he drags Hiccup across the ice. Unnecessary, given that they’ve both skated hundreds of times before. Hiccup's hands are too warm, his are too cold, together they’re damp and sweaty and it should be more gross than it is.
Hiccup follows him. The metal of his left leg makes little scraped-in dents in the ice. Toothless won’t land. The air is too cold to be comfortable for him, so he circles them in long swooping arches overhead.
Jack could get lost in this. In circles and sweeping glides that drag them both to the very edges of the people surrounding them.
A group of kids giggle every time they brush too close. He thinks a few of the younger girls can see them. They’re still the right age, stuck somewhere in the tweens. Belief is heady, warming the same way the butterflies in his stomach are.
He blows the softest feather down snowflakes through their hair.
A blessing for a blessing.
“I love snow days,” Jack says, out of breath and dreamy as pulls Hiccup off toward the banks.
Hiccup laughs. “I bet.”
“I mean it,” Jack says, “They’re my favorite kind of magic.”
“I have a surprise for you,” Hiccup says, coming up behind Jack out of nowhere.
Jack’s been traveling all over the globe since he last met up with him. Everyone always thinks December is his busiest month, but North runs his twenty-five days with an iron fist, the most Jack ever needs to do is sprinkle a little bit of snow when a kid's been begging especially hard for a white Christmas.
February actually demands the most from him. It takes effort to maintain the careful work he’s done in January with spring waiting to come in like a lion.
“You know,” Jack says, smothering the yawn that wants to escape out of his mouth. He’d made the mistake of pissing off the current Punxsutawney Phil the damned rodent’s first year in office and gotten six more weeks of winter every year since. “I could use a break.”
“Perfect,” Hiccup means to take his hand, Jack can see that in the way he reaches for him. He doesn’t get the chance to, because Toothless grabs him by the neck of his hoodie and drags him through the air like a rag doll.
Hiccup sounds mortified, Jack can barely hear him over the sound of his own laughter. He’s a spirit of ice and wind and it’s fun being dragged through the air. As long as he has his staff there isn’t any actual chance he'll fall.
(Nothing would happen if he didn’t. The wind would catch, if he couldn’t catch himself.)
“So that surprise?” Jack asks, once they’re back on solid ground and he’s been dumped and covered in dragon saliva.
“Right, yes. Just—here follow me,” Hiccup says, taking his hand and pulling toward a brightly lit downtown. Toothless makes a motion to follow them. “No you’re staying to think about what you did, Mr.”
“Awww.” The troublemaker in Jack makes him cock his head, mirroring the pleading look Toothless is leveling Hiccup with.
“No. No aww,” Hiccup says, unimpressed. “We do not drag people through the air, we’ve been over this.”
“Have you?” Jack asks, keeping pace with Hiccup. Winter isn’t known for its festivals. Well, not in the way Spring and Summer are. Still, Hiccup’s managed to find them a night carnival. The effort thrills Jack just as much as the fairy lights do.
“It’s a work in progress.” Hiccup drags him into the middle of the street, to where booths of games and handcrafted goods line rows of sidewalk. There’s barely any rides. It’s too cold for them to work in Montana, but temperature hasn’t stopped anyone from showing up. “What do you want to do first?”
Jack takes a moment to look around, until his eyes land on a fishing game with a would-be little dragon hanging from the prize rack. He points. “You’re going to win me one of those.”
Hiccup does not win him one. He’s terrible at all the games they try, a telling mark of the fact that he hasn’t spent time around actual humans in the last couple hundred years.
Jack takes pity on him, and wins him a little bunny from a balloon popping game.
“Why is neon blue,” Hiccup asks, holding it upside down like it’s cursed.
“Kids like colors.”
“Neon blue isn’t a rabbit color.”
“Sure it is,” Jack says, scooping snow up in his hands and crushing it together. The glow of his magic is reflected up in frosted light as the snow hardens into ice “See, blue bunny.”
He makes the snow hare jump around the two of them, before freezing at the base of a tree. It’ll be a nice treat for whoever finds it in the morning. He catches Hiccup watching him instead of the rabbit.
“Snowman?”
“If you want,” Jack says, hardening the snow along the base of an igloo a brother and sister are trying to make in their front yard, “but that's more Elsa’s thing.”
“Too cliche?” Hiccup laughs.
Jack makes a so-so gesture with his staff, blowing a breeze through the trees and covering Hiccup in falling snow. “I prefer snowball fights.”
Hiccup looks up at him, through his drenched hair and smirks. “Oh it’s on.”
He over-shoots and hits a girl across the street square in the chest. It takes remarkably little prompting before they’re in the middle of a full on war. They probably shouldn’t be taking sides, but it’s in both their nature to be competitive.
Hiccup never stood a chance.
Jack’s willing to give him credit for the fight he put up, though. He earned it. It takes until the first bits of the sun starts to set before anyone winds down, and they’re both left spent, hyper ventilating in the snow.
“Did you know Finland makes the biggest ice castle in the world?” Jack asks, breathless and worn in the best way.
None of the kids could see them. Not surprising. Not everywhere has Jack Frost. But that doesn’t matter. The game was still thrilling.
“I didn’t.” Hiccup laughs and grabs his hand. “Tell me?”
“It’s beautiful, the ice catches the northern lights and everything glows,” Jack says. He notices Hiccup drifting off a bit next to him and feels like it’s only fair he gets to fall asleep on him this time, so he keeps talking. Explaining all the ways he’s seen people build igloos and ice forts and snow castles.
He’s pretty sure Hiccup's asleep when he finally trails off. And it’s only the fact that he’s soaking everything in and giving the other man his full attention that lets him catch it when Hiccup mumbles, “We should visit.”
Merida hears about what’s been going on, because of course she does. Apparently there’s an Autumn spirit who’s life Jack’s been making worse.
“You’ve been distracting her High Lord, do ya have any idea how much work that creates?”
Not particularly. Winter runs on wild whims and requires very little of his active participation to function. And the wind has always loved blowing through Autumn. His old friend is almost as fond of Hiccup as it is off him.
“Leave him alone,” Rapunzel says, dancing her way through thinning snow, under her feet the ground starts waking, the edges of spring pushing against the corners of his court. “Astrid’s just complaining for the sake of it. Everyone knows she could run Autumn with her eyes closed.”
April showers are Jack’s least favorite time of the year. And he does feel bad about messing things up in the Autumn Court. Not enough to cut things off with Hiccup. Now that he’s had the other man’s attention he feels like he would fade away without it.
Guilt is just a nice excuse for him to find a nice still frozen part of Canada for a nap while Rapunzel gets to work on making those May flowers. Jack feels like taking at least a two week nap.
It’s a win-win. Astrid gets Hiccup back. Hiccup gets to catch up on work. Jack gets to rest after a record breaking winter.
And if there is a burning pit in his stomach it is not jealousy.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Jack doesn’t wake up on a sleeping Hiccup this time, worse he wakes up to the flickering candle light of Hiccup’s desk lamp from his bed.
“On the bright side,” Hiccup says, from where he’s hunched over a stack of papers at his desk. “I figured out the answer to our problem.”
“Yeah?” Jack’s too tired to really pay attention to what's going on around him outside of the blanket cocoon and drapey canopy he’s found himself in. However long he’s been sleeping hasn’t been nearly long enough.
“Yup,” Hiccup pops the p on his words and turns down the kerosene. Jack can feel the flame dimming more than he can see it through his already closed eyes. “Turns out we’ve got Toothless to thank.”
“Oh,” Jacks always liked Toothless. He’s a bit of an overgrown cat and Jack adores cats. It’s nice to know that Toothless likes him too. “Thanks Toothless.”
He gets a purr and a chuckle and they’re both wonderful sounds.
Maybe if he asks, Sandy will give him dreams about cats, and Hiccup, and Hiccup with cats, and he’ll fall a little more in love with how cute that is.
Huh?
Is he already in love?
That feels like it should be a big realization. He’s too tired for revelations, and the information slots easily into place alongside everything else he knows about Hiccup, so maybe it's not actually that big of a deal.
Yeah. He can just love him.
It doesn’t have to be a thing
“Go back to sleep. I won't wake you up again.”
The bed’s warm on one side in a way that makes Jack ache. “Come back?”
“Later.”
“Wait,” Jack says, bolting upright, “Did you say this was all Toothless's fault.”
“Go back to sleep,” Hiccup whines, Jack’s not sure when he actually took him up on his offer for cuddles. Rightfully, he should get to enjoy these ones. Unfortunately, he can’t because he desperately needs more information.
“Nope.” Jack tries to shake Hiccup awake. All he gets for his efforts is the other man turning over and burying his head in his pillow. “This is important”
“It’ll be important later, it's too early.”
“It’s almost June.”
“One more week.”
“No, no more weeks,” Jack shrieks, "it's been a month.”
“Let me get this straight,” Merida says, “Ya were not ‘sleep-whatevering’ into Hiccup's bed, Toothless—the dragon—was going out and depositin ya there, like an overgrown dead mouse, cuz why? Ya gave him treats. And ya both just happened to be sleepin like the dead every time.”
Jack grimaces, embarrassed, “Pretty much.”
“Right,” She says. Her accent gets thicker when she’s skeptical. “Was this before or after yur massive crush happened.”
“I—don’t,” Jack tries, and promptly gives up on denial in the face of the look he gets leveled. “I didn’t have a crush at the time.”
“But now you do?” Rapunzel asks, too nicely. Human kindness gives Jack the hives and makes him want to cry.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jack says, instead of answering, “Hiccup said he'd fix it and Toothless wouldn’t be doing it again. Problem solved.”
The girls share a long, heavy, dare Jack say heated, stare.
Finally, Merida looks away, and sighs. “Men are so stupid.”
Scotland’s green in the summer, it makes Jack’s eyes ache. There’s nothing but rolling hills and lush wood. It reminds Jack of how things used to be before people started building up and with metal.
It feels frozen in time.
And the air is filled with enough moisture he’s still comfortable even on the longest day of the year.
Merida had invited them all, and used her title Lady of Summer to make sure they all came for the solstice.
“Flower crown?” Hiccup asks, holding out the braided bundle of wildflowers. He looks too much like a kicked puppy for Jack to have any hope of saying no.
“This came out pretty good.”
“Rapunzel made it.” Hiccup rubs the back of his neck, the silence between them is heavy, awkward in a way Jack is not used to when it comes to Hiccup. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been busy,” Jack says. Hiccup doesn’t call him on the fact that it’s the middle of summer and there's nothing Jack needs to be doing that would keep him away for weeks without a word. “Only 188 days until Christmas.”
“Oh…that's barely anytime.”
“I should get going,” Jack says, standing up too quickly. He almost loses his balance on a particularly wet piece of moss, and then again when he jerks away from the hand Hiccup puts out to steady him.
He catches himself on his staff and stiffens when he feels fingers wrap themselves in the fabric of his sleeve.
“I’m sorry if I ruined things,” Hiccup blurts out. His words coming out rushed, breathless, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t,” Jack assures him. Still not turning around. “I’ve just had a lot going on.”
“So we’re good?” Hiccup asks, uncertain.
Jack’s lying when he nods yes.
He’s never had a crush before. Somehow he doesn’t think it should feel like shattering every time they talk. But being friends, just friends—when maybe Jack’s always been a little in love—hurts. “We’re good.”
“Good.” Hiccup smiles, and lets Jack shrug off his hand. “That’s good, cuz I found this place in the Alps that's always covered in a bit of snow. I think you’ll love it there.”
“Some other time.” Jack feels bad when the enthusiasm drains from Hiccup's face.
“Whenever,” Hiccup agrees, easily. His heart’s not in it, though.
The avoidance is mutual after that.
Rapunzel spends her free time popping in to give him disapproving looks, and encouraging him to ‘talk about his feelings’.
The thought is mortifying. He’s already gone and messed things up by catching them in the first place. It’s better for everyone—or the sake of seasonal balance and court unity—that he gets over it.
And if he tells himself that enough times, he might even start to believe it, too.
The Guardian’s look at him weird when he slinks into North’s workshop.
He can only handle so much mother-hening, and Merida can only hand so much moping, before one of them snaps. Jack would feel awful if he made Rapunzel cry, and Merida would probably kill him, and really it’s just the best all around.
“What’s got you so down, my friend?” North asks, after he’s frozen over the desk his heads been resting on.
“Don’t ask.”
“We need to talk,” Hiccup tells him, after showing up in late August looking exhausted.
Jack tenses. His eyes dart to the window of the little one room hunting cottage he’s been holed up in for the month. The whole place is maybe fifteen feet wide, with enough room for a bed and not much else. Hiccup’s blocking the door way, but he can still—
“Don’t you dare.” Hiccup crosses his arms, seething. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
It’s a statement not a question. And it’s not like Jack could deny it anyway. “Yeah.”
“Why.”
Jack debates what to say. He can tell by the way Hiccup carries himself that he won’t put up with lies. He doesn’t think the whatever between them would make it out of this conversation if he’s anything but honest.
“Because I like you.” Jack decides on finally, trying not to notice the holes Hiccup’s doing his best to burn into Jack’s skin. “Really like you. And I know you don’t feel the same. I just wanted to stop loving you so we could go back to be friends again.”
Hiccup looks at him like he’s said the stupidest thing imaginable and spit in his salad. “Who said I didn’t like you?”
“You said you’d make Toothless stop.” Which had felt like a monumental shift in that something between them.
“Because I didn’t want my giant lizard to kidnap you every time you went to sleep,” Hiccup throws his hands up, and pulls his hair, hard.“Not because I didn’t want to sleep with you.”
“You want to sleep with me?”
“Unfortunately! Did you not—we went on dates. We were dating!”
“You never said!” Jack yells back, easily matching the hysteria that's creeping into Hiccup’s voice.
“I didn’t think I needed to.” Hiccup takes personal offense to the look of shock on Jack’s face. “You asked me out. I literally got back in bed with you after you asked. You can’t play dumb here.”
Wow.
Yeah.
He had Jack there.
Cuddling for four weeks probably wasn’t something just bros did.
Oh god he’d said it, too. He called it a date that first time. Jack is so painfully stupid.
Somehow the two of them have ended up chest to chest, breathing heavy. Jack has no clue when that happened. His brain is still playing catch up and he’s personally too busy being floored. “So you like me?”
“I love you,” Hiccup says, still just as angry as when he started. “I really thought that was obvious.”
“I’m not used to talking…with people,” Jack says, finally. Looking away. “That’s new. I couldn’t for a while. Sorry. My social skills are rusty.”
Hiccup snorts. “I knew I should have said something.”
“For the record,” Hiccup starts, pulling Jack down onto his bed. “We’re going to sleep, and we’re going to cuddle and it’s not platonic.”
“You need to let me live that down.”
“Sure,” Hiccup agrees, and gets comfortable arranging Jack into being the big spoon. He’s taller than Hiccup, and the other man has no issue ruthlessly exploiting that fact in order to drape Jack over himself at every opportunity. “When I finally catch up on all the sleep I missed.”
Rapunzel says it’s sweet. Merida gags every time she catches them. Astrid makes little slit throat motions whenever Hiccup’s not looking.
Jack likes running his fingers through the curls in Hiccup’s hair. “You don’t need to sleep.”
“I like to sleep,” Hiccup corrects. “And I got used to sleeping with you. I kept getting over heated.”
Well, okay. Jack can’t argue with that logic. He does make a great air conditioner.