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“Ho-hyow does they not have one?”
“I don’t even have a freaking clue, dude.”
“Every house always has then.”
“I knoooooww. It’s like—like—like the freaking holiday, man! It’s like... not having a Christian tree on Christmas.”
Below them, the party was still raging. Sounds of warmth and happiness, mixed with the aroma of cinnamon and spruce, flowed freely between the floors, filling the air around Hiccup and Jack and leaving them feeling safe and protected. Outside the rose window at the end of the hallway, snow was falling peacefully against a dark backdrop. It didn’t take the decorations of red and green on the walls or the single electric candle on the sill beneath each window to bring in the feeling of of the holiday.
Hiccup and Jack were sitting across from each other, taking up completely the space within the doorway. Previously, they had been standing together in the doorway, but eggnog and rum was a potent intoxicant and the best friends were never ones to let themselves be outdone in anything. Jack sat across from Hiccup, his head leaning against the surprisingly comfy doorhinge, his legs spread out; Hiccup, a perfect imitation of Jack. There was hardly any semblance of personal space at the moment, though there never was with drunk friends.
Jack let his head fall backward so he was looking up the doorframe above them. Betrayal fell on his face and he squinted at it angrily.
“I just—there are just—there are so many decorations everywhere in this house but like, no, I’m Rapunzel and I’m oooooooooohhhh too good to have mistletoe anywhere.” Hiccup tried to hide a giggle in response. “Like, Hiccup—don’t you—you have mistletoe at your place, yeah?”
Hiccup frowned deeply, first in concentration and then in resignation. “Nope. I di’n‘t buy any.”
“But you normally do, don’t you? I mean, it’s Christmas!”
“Nah. My mom never bought some when I was—when I was a young, and I never got into the habitat for buying it.”
Jack was silent for a moment. “But that’s—that’s okay, because you aren’t the one holding a Christmas party!”
“Yeah, I’m not!”
“You’re not even supposed to be—you don’t even need to be decorating for the holiday, because you’re not trying to, you don’t have any obligations to do it.”
“Right?”
“But, I mean, Rapunzel? She’s hosting a—a freakin’ Christmas party. How doesn’t she have the mistletoe?” Jack threw his hands up in the air.
“Jack... Jack?.. Jack?!”
“What’s it, Hiccup?”
“You know it’s the New Year’s party, yeah?”
Jack looked towards Hiccup again, his head rolling too much under the alcohol. “I mean, yeah, I know that, but like we were here six days ago for her Christmas party. All these decorations are here for Christmas, so it’s still like—okay I mean I know it’s not the Christmas party anymore, but like, she still should have some mistletoe here.” His exasperated voice tapered off in an emphatic huff.
“Do you think she’s still down there?” Hiccup asked after a moment.
“Who? Rapunzel? Asking her woul—”
“No, no. Astrid.”
It had been a while since Jack had heard her voice coming from among the voices downstairs. Even though many of them were overpowering, Astrid’s could always hold its own. But—
“Nah, she’s totally still here.” Jack shook his head. “If she had left, she would have come found us first to say goodbye.”
“Oh, yeah. G’ point.”
“I don’t get why you’re so incredibly freakin’ passionate about making Astrid and Rapunzel kiss. Are you, like, secretly into that or like—?”
“Nooooo.” Hiccup was all hand gestures and the clenching of fists in anger at the gods. “You can’t tell anybody this. It’s a deep secret and she doesn’t tell anybody about it but...” Hiccup leaned towards Jack and Jack met him in the middle. “Astrid likes Rapunzel,” Hiccup whispered.
Jack shot back so fast that he hit his head on the doorframe. The alcohol let him work through the pain.
“Are you serious?!” Hiccup just nodded in head in response. “Oh my God, I just—I didn’t even know she liked—oh wow.” Hiccup continued nodding and smiled.
“But you can’t tell anybody.” Hiccup put his finger up to his lip to drive home the point, but missed and poked himself in his eye when the finger slid up his cheek.
“Wow...” Jack’s voice trailed off, and he found himself grinning into his knuckles, the limbs having appeared by his mouth with their host none the wiser. “Another one...”
Hiccup rolled his eyes. “You’re always just—you’re so super excited whenever somebody is gay.”
It was Jack’s turn to emote wildly. “I mean, duh, Hiccup. I mean, being your gay best friend is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I just wanna find other people I can be gay with, right? I mean, obviously not Astrid. Kinda don’t wanna be gay with her, that’s the whole point of me being gay, yeah? But like, now I’ve got somebody I can talk to about being gay and shit.”
“Hey! You’ve got me to talk to for your being gay.”
Jack levelled his gaze on Hiccup. “Really? So do you wanna talk about Eugene’s ass, because that is hella fucking delish with those pants he’s wearing tonight, or about, uh, Tadashi from Calc 2’s pecs because he wore a tight shirt two days before break and I swear to god I thought I was gonna pop a—see? You look uncomfortable!” Jack rolled his eyes before they settled back on Hiccup. “I want somebody I can just.. y’know.. be all gay and shit with because it’s this whole, like... it’s this whole world of new stuff that straight people don’t go through? And like, I love you so much Hiccup, and you’re wonderful and supportive and all that, but like, you’re not going to understand it because it’s just—there’s just something about knowing that you’re like, not alone? Y’know?”
Hiccup’s face was scarlet and he couldn’t make eye contact, but after a moment he started nodding.
“Hey—hey. Hiccup. Hiccup, look up, up here.” Jack grabbed Hiccup by the chin and lifted his surprisingly heavy head to face Jack. “Don’t look so sa—holy shit dude, are you crying? Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I was just trying t’... y’know, tell you how I felt about things? It’s not like I think you’re a bad friend. You’re pretty much the greatest friend I’ve ever had, dude. So just—hey, listen. There are—I’m sure there are stores open right now. One of them has to sell mistletoe. How about we just—you and I—we just slip out of the party, go to one of those stores, buy some, and then we come back and—boom! Life of the party right here.”
“Nobody’s going to be open. It’s New Years Eve.”
“Oh shush, Hiccup. It’s like, a crime for Walmart to close or something. We’ve got options.”
Hiccup looked up at Jack from where the brown-haired boy was still sitting. He looked far sadder than Jack had expected him to after a conversation that normal and routine. But when Jack extended his hand, Hiccup took it and Jack pulled his drunk best friend to his feet, the both of them swaying unsteadily with the force of the movement. Jack clapped Hiccup on the shoulder.
“Operation: Mistletoe Prank is now a go.”
Snow had been falling on and off over the past two days. It had been such an uncharacteristically warm winter for them in Burgess, and none of it began to hold on the ground during the 30th. There had been a light layer of white blanketing the campus when Jack had arrived at the party, but as the both of them trudged through snow that was up past their ankles, Jack couldn’t help but think of the irony that they’d had a green Christmas but a white New Year’s.
It was also bitterly cold. That part hadn’t changed; this was Pennsylvania, after all. Both Jack and Hiccup had their coats bundled tight around them, and along their journey towards the other end of campus they had taken to finding shelter behind buildings and trees and under bus shelters when strong gusts raced across the snowbanks. Alcohol might have given them a fire within, but a single flame could only do so much damage against a blizzard.
Walmart was on the other side of the campus from the house that Rapunzel and three of her sorority sisters owned. It was a looming behemoth in the distance—the brightest light still left on campus. Jack hadn’t been much for the church in recent years, but he was drunk and getting some serious wise men vibes from their trek towards the brightest star over the promise land.
“Holy shit Jack, how did I let you talk me into that?” Hiccup was hopping up and down violently underneath the space heaters when they entered through the first set of doors. He was gripping his arms tight and in the light now, Jack could see that a windswept, burned red colour was tinting his cheeks now, having replaced the emotionally compromised red he had left the party with.
“Alright, well—look. We’re on a quest here.” Jack stepped out of the way of a man entering the store ahead of them. “We’re drunk, and we’re going into Walmart. There’s going to be a lot of stuff going on in there. And there are going to be a lot of deals that we can’t pass up. I need you to be strong for me, Hiccup. We’re going in, buying mistletoe, and we’re leaving. Not a penny spent on anything, not even candy.”
“Not even Reese’s, Jack?”
“Hiccup, you son of a fuck, I’m going to be following the same rules that I’m telling you to follow. There’s too much stuff happening in this store when you’re sober. We’re dead men if we lose sight of the mission in there.”
Hiccup just giggled, and Jack had to stomp down the rising butterflies that came to him in moments like this, when his guard was lowered and his deeply-ingrained self control was just a little less strong.
“Hello, Happy New Year. Welcome to Walmart.”
Jack drew himself up and paid close attention to every action so as to do his best to not give away that he was actually still mildly plastered out of his goddamn mind. “Hi, yes. We’re looking to buy mistletoe. Where is... that.”
“Christmas supplies are on the far right, between aisle 31 and 32.”
“Thank you! Merry Christmas!”
Jack turned and power-walked away whispering a litany of fucks under his breath as Hiccup followed behind, howling with laughter, repeating “Merry Christmas” far more loudly than he needed to.
“Look, just shut your pretty little face and help me look for mistletoe.” Hiccup went to the end of the aisle and disappeared around it, the sounds of his wet boots squeaking on the tile flooring following him. The fluorescent lights above Jack gave the air a surreal, detached reality, and Jack just wanted to be out of the place and back to warm and drunk and comfortable once again, surrounded by fresh vanilla and friends and a sense of home.
There were veritable tons of unbought stocking stuffers, bags of candy, whole boxes of candy canes for decorating trees, boxes of Christmas tree lights that were—oh shit that’s a good deal—still sitting on the shelves, and just for good measure, Jack moved them around and checked behind them. He’d cleared two metres of vertical space when he realised he hadn’t actually been reading anything in his drunken state and had to repeat from the beginning. By the time he had reached the end of the aisle on one side Hiccup had already turned around in his and begun browsing the other side of his.
A sinking feeling was overcoming Jack the longer he searched fruitlessly, and by the time he finished with his half of Walmart Christmas section, he was praying that Hiccup had found it already and just... not told him about it.
“You find anything? This aisle doesn’t have it.”
Hiccup walked into view at the end of the aisle and shook his head. “No luck there. Maybe they don’t have it.”
“No, it’s—it’s mistletoe, Hiccup. Of course they have some. We must have just missed it. I’m a little drunk; I could easily have just overlooked it.” Jack went back to the shelves and began moving boxes aside. When he thought about it, he’d never actually bought mistletoe himself, either, so he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for. At all. But if it was going to be in anything, it was going to be in a green container—it completely defied all logic to put it in anything that isn’t green. So now it was just the task of finding the right green container among all of the green Christmas things. “Look, I mean—it’s Walmart, Hic. I’m sure it’s gotta be here somewhere; this place is gian—Hiccup?”
The other boy in question was at the far end of the aisle, talking with an employee. Jack looked up just in time to see Hiccup thank him and wave as the employee walked out of view, and Jack jogged over to his best friend.
“I asked him if they had any mistletoe.”
“... and?”
“He said that he didn’t know for sure, and suggested we look over by the trees, since they might have put all the... green things... in the same place.”
“Oh shit, that’s a good idea.”
“Yeah. But I already looked there because you were taking forever, and there wasn’t any there.”
Jack frowned and grabbed at the last straws. “Well, maybe they have more in the back.”
“Asked him that, too. He said that everything they had was out here because they need to go through it so they can put out the Valentine’s Day stuff next week.”
Jack let his head fall back—narrowly missing the price check machine—and let out a massive groan. Walmart’s track record for not giving him the one thing he needed was continued. Walmart was basically the Amazon of the physical world, but unlike Amazon, it apparently didn’t have shit. Ever.
Hiccup remained silent for a minute; a very slight sway in his form being the only real giveaway that he was still intoxicated. It took him almost a minute for him to speak up.
“So, what do we do now?”
Jack rolled his eyes as he tried to think, but no images in particular were coming to his mind. He was about to tell Hiccup that they should just give up when the realisation came and he looked to Hiccup quickly.
“How about we steal some?”
“Okay Jack, what the fuck?”
“Hiccup, it’s going to be like, five minutes.”
“Jack, we already have a party we’re supposed to be at. We just came from there. There’s a place we’re supposed to be at. And now we’re—” Hiccup gestured emphatically towards the blacked-out windows and giant Greek letters atop the frat house they were standing in front of, watching a couple of stragglers making their way around back. A shiver ran up Hiccup's arm and he was quick to wrap it back against himself, but the scowl didn’t disappear from his face. Jack sincerely wished that Hiccup didn’t metabolise alcohol as quickly as he did; the boy who had been in a drunken stupour not even an hour ago was barely tipsy at this point, and he was back to his logical protests.
“Yeah, but you agreed to this.”
“Jack, I agreed to help you steal some mistletoe. I didn’t agree to go to a frat party with you at 10:40 on New Year’s Eve when my inner jacket is already at my friend’s New Year’s party.”
“Hiccup, Hiccup.” Jack slung his arm around Hiccup’s shoulders. Jack was still intoxicated, but not enough to inhibit his perfect mind creating perfect plans. And certainly not so drunk as to pass up a perfect opportunity when he saw one. “We’re not going to the frat party. Well, we’re, y’know—I mean, okay, so we’re like, going to the frat party. As in, y’know, we’re inside of the building that the frat party is being held in. And we’ll probably need to pay to get in.” Jack put his finger over Hiccup’s lips before his best friend could even begin to protest. “But we’re only going to be there for, like, ten minutes—tops. All we’re going to do is go in, find the mistletoe, maybe grab a solo cup of alcohol because, I mean, we paid for it. And then we’re out. We’re not staying here—this isn’t even a good frat.”
“Why would they have mistletoe, Jack?”
Jack levelled his eyes on Hiccup. “Hiccup, come on. It’s a frat party. At a frat house. Mistletoe is the thing of the season where you get two people under it and neither of them are allowed to say no. Frat parties are basically about nothing other than getting your drink on and dangerously skirting the bounds of consent. If any place is going to have mistletoe hanging, it’s going to be inside that godforsaken building, Hiccup. Now just come on—the sooner we go in, the sooner we’re back at Rapunzel’s party.”
Jack began his way up the path leading around the house, but didn’t make it five steps before realising that Hiccup wasn’t following him. Sighing as loudly as he could, Jack turned around and grabbed Hiccup by the hands, leading the other boy around to the back and trying desperately to not let his heart rate spike by something as innocuously innocent as this.
He’d been good about this. He’s better than this. He’d put all of this behind him and moved on, because that was how you did it. It was... only when he was drunk that he realised he might be lying to himself a little bit. Jack was perhaps lucky that he did most of his drinking around his best friend, because Jack was one to say too much in drunk texts.
“$5 per person.” The frat brother waiting outside was covered in black fleece and a hoodie, the only part of his body still visible being his wind-chapped face. Jack fished out his wallet and passed over the entrance fee, before moving past the bouncer. Jack turned around to watch Hiccup make angry eye contact with him, before groaning loud enough to spook the deer in the woods, and then paying his own entrance fee.
There were far too many people inside the house. It was absolutely a fire hazard, but that seemed to be of absolutely no concern to anybody. As Jack stepped inside the house proper, though, he realised that it would have been a better decision to make the plan with Hiccup while they were outside, because he was now forced to lean deep into Hiccup’s space and yell in the other boy’s ear in order to be heard. And that was both inconvenient and torturous, because he was so close to putting his hands on the other boy’s chest, and he’d even be able to brush it off on his drunkenness.
Since he had already paid the entrance fee, Hiccup seemed to have resigned himself to his fate and accepted the situation. When Jack had finished telling Hiccup the plan, they broke, with Jack taking the staircase down to the basement while Hiccup stayed up on the ground floor looking. Jack wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do when he found the mistletoe, in order to retrieve it without anybody seeing him do it. He maybe hadn’t thought that far ahead. But that was justifiable, he justified. Wherever he found it was going to be somewhere different, and it would be a different scenario altogether. There was no planning for the millions of situations he could uncover.
Except there wasn’t any mistletoe by the kegs in the basement. Or in the doorway to the tiny room with blaring music and strobe lights. There wasn’t any by the bathroom, or under the staircase, or on any of the rafters on the unfinished basement ceiling.
“What, the fuck.” Jack cursed, looking off at absolutely nobody but totally assured that some remote person was listening and agreeing with him as to the absurdity of the situation. Now this was absolute bullshit. Who the fuck doesn’t put mistletoe up at a frat party. If this were SAE, there’d be mistletoe garland throughout the house.
Trudging up the staircase, it took Jack all of a minute to find Hiccup, who was standing by the upstairs keg with a glass in his hand. He made eye contact with Jack and shook his head. Jack clawed at his own face, wanting to scream, but was elbowed in the back by a girl before he could make a sound. Which, naturally, was enough for Jack to grab Hiccup by his empty hand and leave the party, ignoring once more the increased beating of his own heart.
“Look, we both know I’m not going to let up until you do this, so you might as well do this. God, Hiccup; I thought you’d be more behind this and dedicated to helping me. I mean, this was your idea.”
“Yeah, but this can get us expelled if we’re caught.”
“Well, then, you already know what I’m going to say.” A virulent gust of wind swept under the archways and made Jack’s teeth chatter. “Now be a sweetie and open the goddamn fucking door before I die out here.”
Hiccup fished his keys out of his pocket, the shaking of his hands slowing down the process. The door opened, and both of them stepped inside as quickly as they could, Hiccup locking the door behind them as well.
“I’m sure when Dr. Tyrell gave me that key, it was because I work late doing my thesis and not so I could break into the engineering building on a quest to steal plants.”
“Hiccup, you’re so cute when you’re at a moral crossroads.” Jack pat Hiccup’s face gently, the other boy recoiling immediately because of Jack’s near-frostbite fingers. “And we’re not stealing anything. We’re going to borrow it, and you’ll return it when you come back here in, like, two days.” Jack spun on his feet, facing Hiccup again. “And we’re only even in the engineering wing because the building connects to the biology department. Whiiiiiiiich... is downstairs, I believe.” Jack hit the down button for the elevator. Hiccup stood next to Jack, looking from the button, up to Jack, then back to the button. He pressed the up button, and Jack just smiled apologetically and rubbed at the back of his head.
There was something to be said for the experience of drunkenly riding an elevator in a school building you broke into at almost midnight with your best friend who is cute and funny but is totally off limits (and that’s probably for the best) in an attempt to steal plants from a laboratory in order to force two women to make out. It wasn’t quite where Jack had envisioned his night would be going. He would have worn more black. And brought gloves, though he seriously doubted that anybody would be trying to fingerprint the laboratory that Hiccup was now leading him towards. Or, at least Jack hoped they wouldn’t. This night had taken a number of turns for the bizarre and unexpected already, and he chose to blame that on the universe and not on himself making the decisions.
There were, thankfully, a lot of windows in the botany department; without the building lights on, it would have been impossible for the both of them to see anything. Jack had never been up here before, and his first thought was that the windows there would be to help the plants grow. That was followed immediately afterwards with his brain processing the dark scene he was seeing, which was just a large, beautifully decorated open space with chairs by the window. During the day, this would actually be flooded with sunlight and a rather spectacular view of the campus. Jack doubted that a bunch of plant nerds would mind much if he were to come here and do his homework from time to time.
Hiccup slowed to a halt in front of Jack, like a perfect guide who would only take the adventurer so far and then who must turn back. Jack rolled his eyes and picked up the pace, moving around Hiccup to walk towards the greenery.
Except, there wasn’t one. Because what the fuck? “Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhohhmygod.” Jack let his head fall back and moaned upward at the ceiling. He was standing in front of a long corridor of professors’ and adjunct professors’ offices. There was no greenhouse or storeroom of plants, because naturally there wouldn’t be one. This was their shitty school and of course the botany department wouldn’t have an actual greenhouse. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“What?”
Jack turned around to look at Hiccup with utter resignation in his eyes. “They don’t actually have any plants in the botany department.”
“Aight, well.” Hiccup clapped his hands together, holding them in place in front of him. “I’m just not going to say anything, because I love you and all.”
Jack trudged himself over to one of the seats in front of the windows and let himself collapse into it. After their adventure into failure, Jack’s body was exhausted. He looked out the window with bleary eyes. The snow was falling over campus, and from up here at the top of the joint engineering-science building, he could see the clock-tower in the far distance and all of the other buildings sprawled out in front of him.
Hiccup quietly sat down on the sofa seat next to Jack, resting his forearms on his knees and looking out the window as well. Jack huffed out a resigned sigh, but Hiccup said nothing and allowed Jack some silence. There was something to be said for having a best friend.
“Well,” Hiccup broke the silence. “This has been quite a story we get to tell now.”
Jack took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. “Hiccup, I’m sorry. I dragged us out here and now we’re stuck here trespassing in a dark school department on New Years Eve instead of at the party and—”
“Hah, are you kidding me?” Jack could practically hear Hiccup smiling. “If we’d stayed at the party, I’d probably be passed out drunk in a corner right now. Yeah, we’re not at our friend’s party. And I mean, I’ve put up a lot of shit about that the whole night. But we got to kick snow all across campus; I got to see you embarrass yourself to a Walmart employee; we crashed a frat party; we literally broke into a school building; and now I’m getting to sit here and watch the snow fall on a new year next to my best friend.”
“Dude, are you serious?” Jack gave Hiccup a small smile, ducking his head slightly. “How do you even remember the Walmart thing?”
Hiccup exhaled a muffled giggle, letting it draw out into a sigh as the snowflakes fell on the window in front of him, and he looked down at Jack. “Happy New Year, Jack.”
“Oh fuck, is it really?” Jack’s head spun around looking for a clock, finding one on the far wall that read 12:27 in large block numbers. He turned back to look at Hiccup and sighed. “Merry Christmas, dude.”
Hiccup burst out howling and Jack’s face caught fire. “SHUT UP. I’M DRUNK. DON’T YOU SAY A FUCK—”
“—YOU DID IT AGAIN, OH MY GOD. I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT WE’RE STARTING A NEW YEAR WITH THIS.” Hiccup was all laughter—and from the sounds of it, possibly tears. It was absolutely mortifying for Jack, but Hiccup’s laughter was infectious and Jack couldn’t help the smile that edged its way onto him. After what felt like ages, it finally began to die down into intermittent chuckles.
The two friends sat there, letting the snow fall in front of them, and it gave time to Jack to think. Snowflakes danced outside the window, flickering with light as the streetlamps and, further, the lights coming from the various houses illuminated the white world, broken only by the darkened silhouettes of the buildings. This was peaceful. More than peaceful, actually. Jack felt content. He was sitting next to his best friend, having gone on an adventure, just the two of them. They were in forbidden territory, together, and it felt like they were the only two in the world right then. Jack felt himself smiling, and he took in the scene in front of him as he grew accustomed to the beginning of a new year.
The snow blew particularly close to the window, blocking out the view and showing the boys’ reflections. Jack had been focused on the world outside for so long that he hadn’t felt Hiccup’s gaze turn to him. When Jack turned to face Hiccup, the other boy was already looking at him, warmth in his eyes and a relaxation that he hadn’t shown to anybody in years. There was an almost goofy smile across his face, and he looked so at peace; Jack wondered how long Hiccup had been staring at him.
“What?”
“What’s your New Year’s resolution?”
“I—” Jack trailed off, brows scrunching up as he tried to fight against the calm to think. “I don’t know if I have one yet. I spent all of my energy getting us to wind up here that I never really sat down to think about one.”
“Well, what do you want to accomplish? This time next year, who do you want to be?”
“God damn, man. You can’t just ask that question of somebody unprepared.” Jack looked away. “I don’t know... I think I’d like to be... crap.” Jack let out a small laugh. “I can’t think of something. What’s your resolution?”
“I want to hear yours first.”
“So you do have a resolution?”
There was silence for a moment, and when Hiccup spoke, a strange mix of trepidation and determination in his voice. “Yeah, I do.” He looked away from Jack at that point. “I think I spent a long time trying to figure out another one, because this one seemed too impossible and too... But something about tonight, something about the adventure and spending the time with you—well, I don’t think I’d have been able to make another one and not feel like I was lying to myself this year.”
“Shit, man, what is i—”
Hiccup’s lips cut Jack off mid-sentence. Jack could feel his best friend shaking, conveying a potent mix of nerves and fear. His lips were chapped, and they had missed Jack’s on the initial kiss, but that was something that was easy enough for Jack to fix once the shock abated.
As Jack received the kiss, putting his arm around Hiccup and drawing him closer, he allowed himself to truly, actually kiss Hiccup. The feelings inside of him—the ones that he had spent so many years pressing down and ignoring—began to sprout, every second their lips were together nourishing the feelings until they were grown, overtaking Jack, wrapped around his heart and making him wonder how he’d ever ignored them. He wasn’t sure when his world had gone black, his eyes closed, all of his senses focused on the sensations on his lips at that moment.
Hiccup broke the kiss, backing up and taking a breath; his inexperience with kissing had been expected and endearing in equal measures, and Jack sat dazed with a smile forming at the corners of his mouth as he watched Hiccup gasping for air. A million questions crowded his mind, but none of them felt worthy enough to reach his mouth, and Hiccup grew increasingly bashful in the silence, and the dim light from outside showed the redness covering his face.
“I—” his voice sounded off, and he coughed to clear his throat. “I—I’ve known for some time, but it wasn’t ever something that I really wanted to accept about myself. And I don’t know why, but I do know why. But it was never something that would change about me, and I’m starting to realise that now. And, I suppose, realise that it isn’t a bad thing. That it might actually be... kind of wonderful, if I actually tried to embrace it. That—” Hiccup gulped, and his voice was shaking. “That I’m not exactly, y’know, totally straight.” If Jack hadn’t known what Hiccup was going to say by now, he wouldn’t have been able to understand the rushed words. “And, so, even though I didn’t want to admit it even as I arrived at Rapunzel’s party, I’ve known what my resolution was for some time. In my heart.
“It’s to not be ashamed of this. To actually embrace it, and to see where it lets me go. To, well, tell someone—that’s you—and to, well... not bottle it all up anymore. To let myself be me.”
Jack sat, rooted to his spot on the couch, staring at his best friend with his mouth cracked in utter shock. Hiccup rubbed at his own shoulder in nervousness, and seemed determined to look everywhere in the room except at the boy he had just kissed.
“I—” Jack couldn’t find the right words, even as Hiccup looked up at Jack hopefully. They made eye contact, and Jack didn’t know precisely what he was doing, but he knew he was doing the right thing as he turned around, grabbing the first thing that fit what he was looking for, and pulled Hiccup into a deep kiss, every bit as chaste and passionate as the first one had been. Hiccup’s hands found their way to Jack’s face, cupping his face awkwardly in a way that Jack would never have found acceptable before. Jack hooked an arm around Hiccup’s back this time, keeping Hiccup close to him when the other boy pulled away for breath again.
“What—what is that?” Hiccup was looking up at Jack’s arm stretched out above them.
“It’s mistletoe.”
“That’s a cattail.”
“It’s our mistletoe.”
Hiccup chuckled nervously, then with a bit more force, until it turned into bellowing, choking laughter as Jack watched all of the nervousness wash away from Hiccup. Jack smiled, disbelieving that he could even feel as high as he did right now, and he leaned in to press both a smile and a kiss to Hiccup’s neck, before allowing himself to be manoeuvred into a kiss again, teeth clacking together as both learned to kiss while smiling.
Jack found his New Year’s resolution in that kiss: to help Hiccup, by any means, to fulfil his resolution. And to do everything he could so that Hiccup would be his first kiss again, next year.
He promised himself to buy as much mistletoe as he could, come next December. And to go on as wild and extraordinary a journey as possible in order to find it.