Archive of Our Own

Summary:

“What are you playing?” Hiccup asked, curling his legs beneath him.

ㅤㅤㅤJack hesitated. There were songs he knew by heart, shaped by living rooms and voices that no longer reached him across the distance of far away countries—songs he had played for Emma in El Calafate, brotherly and ridiculously, so stupid in their lyrics or performance that she laughed and begged him to stop; songs he had piped for his mother, quieter still, when the evenings stretched long and yellowed by losses, stained with love left with nowhere to go. He glanced at Hiccup again.

ㅤㅤㅤ“Algo contigo,” Jack answered.

ㅤㅤㅤRapunzel’s smile flickered, a glimpse of recognition in the way she said, all too brief and all too precious: “I’ll follow.”

ㅤㅤㅤHe wondered if she knew this would be a confession of love to a boy who might never know how much he was loved.