Chapter Text
Jack had taken off those ridiculous boots as soon as he got through the doorway of Hiccup’s house, with no Hiccup around to tell him off for doing so. They were messily left right in the way of the door.
Fishlegs watched Jack make himself at home from the corner of the room.
Jack, who had sat in the chair he’d been offered the night before, proceeded to pretend that Fishlegs did not exist, boredly twirling his staff in his hand and balancing it on his finger. Having lived for as long as he had, he had no problem with a little waiting. He found ways to entertain himself. Being here, though, human and under watch, removed all but two of those pastimes.
One was losing himself in his imagination. The other was talking to himself. Though, considering there was someone else to talk to, maybe a new, third option could be added.
“How much has Hiccup told you about me?”
“Uh-” Fishlegs perked up and moved so that he was more in front of Jack, standing by the stairs. “He told me how he found you in the water… and that you like to lie.”
“I lied once. And I took it back.”
Fishlegs shook his head, “Hiccup said you said that you can’t die. Like you’re immortal, or something. You’re saying that's not a lie?”
Jack deflated in his seat.
“I don’t know if I’m still immortal.”
Fishlegs scoffed out a laugh, and immediately stopped when Jack glared at him.
“I was immortal, at the very least. If you won’t believe that, if no one will believe that, then why the fuck am I still trying?”
Fishlegs lost his smile, and his stomach seemed to drop with it.
Jack stared into the fire, heat slashing his cheeks and hands and altering his perception of self completely. The warmer he got, the less he felt like himself. Jack Frost was melting.
Fishlegs sat on the floor by the fire, glancing nervously between it and Jack. Jack saw this from the corner of his eye and refused to acknowledge it.
“Uh…” Fishlegs started. When Jack didn’t react, he continued. “Let’s say you were immortal… how long have you been… alive? Or, conscious?”
Jack tapped the top of his staff on the ground lightly once, twice, three times.
“Uh… three years doesn’t seem…”
Jack looked at him, expression unimpressed.
“Um, okay, no, uh… thirty?”
Jack raised his eyebrow.
“Three… hundred?” Fishlegs’ eyes widened comically, pupils shrinking.
Jack smiled without emotion and returned his eyes to the fire.
“That’s… that’s a long time… what did you do all those years?”
Fishlegs, whether consciously or not, finally believed him. He got someone to believe him.
“Made it snow a lot,” Jack joked. It wasn’t really a joke though, was it?
“What?”
Jack glanced at Fishlegs. His face was disbelieving, once again. Jack sighed. That didn’t last long.
“I could make snow and ice appear with just my staff.” Jack twirled it around above his head. “My name isn’t Jack Frost for nothing.”
“That’s…”
“So you’ll believe that I’m three hundred years old, but you won’t believe that I could make snow?” Jack stood from his chair. “Ask Toothless about it. He saw me do it yesterday, right in this room.”
Then Jack walked through the room to the stairs and went up them quickly, blatantly avoiding any further conversation with the blondie. His staff banged against each stair he walked up.
Jack woke up to hot, heavy breathing on his face. He opened his eyes and saw two huge green ones staring at him, and a big pink tongue. Jack reached his hand out and rubbed Toothless’ nose. Toothless nuzzled into it happily.
“I don’t believe it.”
“What’s new?” Jack responded automatically, lifting his head to look at Hiccup at the end of the bed.
Hiccup shook his head. “You actually stayed, and for much longer than you agreed to.”
Jack shrugged as he sat up, properly petting Toothless with both hands. “Fell asleep.”
“Again?”
Jack blinked. Yeah, that was the second time that day he’d fallen asleep and if Hiccup was right, then he’d been out for a long while.
“Yeah.”
“Are you alright?”
There was a distinctly concerned undertone to the words that confused Jack; left a weird, gross feeling in his stomach. His hands fell from Toothless. The urge to defend himself bubbled up in his throat.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He asked, slipping out of the bed and getting to his feet.
The light from the window in front of him was greyish, and the clouds were dark like a storm was coming. The night before, before the moon transported him here, he was walking on snow. It was undoubtedly winter. But here and now, there was no snow on the ground, yet it was cold. Perhaps it was autumn, or spring. He hadn’t thought too much about it until now. He could feel the cold, now. He didn’t know if he liked it or not— what a horrifying thing for someone named after it.
Hiccup and Toothless both watched Jack walk over to the window and peer outside. He didn’t realize he was doing that until he turned and noticed them watching. Hiccup's expression was one full of questions and Jack knew none of them had to do with why he was by the window.
“You’ve slept about fifteen hours out of the… what, twenty you’ve been here? People don’t sleep that much unless they’re sick… or extremely sad,” Hiccup muttered that last part, like his speculations brought him to the conclusion that that one was true.
Jack was not aware of the regular hours that people slept, and was just getting used to the idea that he had to do it, now. His eyebrows furrowed.
“I assure you, I’m perfectly fine.” Jack ran a hand through his hair, grimaced as he saw his bangs and remembered it was brown, now. Then a question he had from earlier occurred to him once more, “hey, what colour are my eyes?”
Hiccup sighed as the topic changed but willingly took a step closer, peering into Jack’s eyes. That forest green stare was intense.
Before Hiccup answered, he asked, “don’t you know your own eye colour?”
Jack rolled his eyes. “My hair colour changed overnight, maybe my eyes did, too.”
“They’re blue,” Hiccup deadpanned.
“Really?” Jack asked excitedly. He looked around for something reflective to look into. He couldn’t see a single thing, so he turned back to Hiccup. “The same blue as last night or a different blue?”
Hiccup shrugged. Jack frowned.
“You’re not helpful,” Jack complained. He didn’t know if the blue eyes meant anything as he had no idea if his eyes were naturally supposed to be blue or if the moon made them blue. At least something stayed the same about him, though.
Hiccup sighed. He obviously had no idea why this was so important to Jack.
“Come on. I’ve got something to show you.”
Jack perked up immediately and followed closely behind Hiccup as he started to leave, darting back to the bed to grab his staff and then running to catch up on the stairs. Toothless bounded along behind him until they left the house, where he went to go do his own thing.
Within a few minutes, Hiccup and Jack had walked through the village and made it to a large, round, stone… thing. They stood on top of the walls, peering down through rusted metal bars and chains into the bottom area, where there were a few tiny dragons and all the same black-clothed characters that Jack had seen in the great hall. He saw the man that called himself Erling kneeling beside one of the small dragons, petting it as if it were a dog. The woman with the braids watched this interaction from a few feet away, eyes narrowed.
“This is the arena. It used to be for teaching the younger Vikings how to fight dragons, but when we made peace with them, we no longer had a use for it. Now, as you can see, this is where we’ve decided to teach the people of Odin’s Peak about dragons,” Hiccup explained, gesturing down at the people in there. Jack saw Astrid down there, too.
The woman with the braids looked up at the sound of Hiccup’s voice, and her dark eyes settled on Jack. Jack stared back. Something fizzled in the air between them. Something unsettling.
“So you put them in a cage?” Jack asked, eye contact unwavering.
Hiccup winced slightly, covering his mouth with his fist. Then he nodded. “We put them in a cage.”
“At least you trust them as little as I do,” Jack muttered, prying his eyes away. He turned around and began to walk back toward the village. Hiccup furrowed his eyebrows at him before following along.
Hiccup limped alongside Jack in his usual stride while Jack walked with his usual light feet, tapping his staff along the flat stones in the ground. Hiccup hadn’t made him wear footwear today, so his bare feet shuffled along the path. Jack was starting to understand why Hiccup made him wear boots, before. His feet were cold.
After a few minutes of slightly awkward silence, Hiccup broke it. “I don’t understand you.”
“Sounds about right,” Jack nodded.
Hiccup shook his head. “Honestly, I should trust you as little as I do these newcomers. You’re a newcomer too, technically. What’s confusing me is that I don’t.”
“You trust me?”
“That’s not what I said. You’re as trustworthy as a dragon trying to trick you into thinking they haven’t been fed in weeks,” Hiccup rolled his eyes but he had a playful air about him. He waved at the air dismissively, “but that’s a different kind of mistrust. You don’t have bad intentions.”
“I could have bad intentions, you don’t know,” Jack muttered, knowing full well he didn’t.
Hiccup just laughed. “I don’t think you have any intentions at all, honestly. It was just a coincidence that I found you in the water, and I’m the one who suggested bringing you here, so… yeah. Circumstances say no.”
Jack's gaze lost focus, settled blankly over the dirt path in front of him. The word Hiccup had used, ‘coincidence’, was doing laps around his mind, clashing with other words such as ‘moon’ and ‘intentions’. Was it really just a coincidence that this is where and when the moon decided to put him? Was it a coincidence that Hiccup was flying nearby at the exact moment he needed help?
“Did you hear me?” Jack asked suddenly, looking over at Hiccup.
Hiccup’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, “hm?”
“I shouted for help. Did you hear me?”
Realization dawned on Hiccup's face. Then he shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything, but I think Toothless did. He started acting weird, looking around and hovering midair. Then he dove suddenly and I saw your white hair. Honestly, I thought you were just some water dragon at first. I panicked when I realized you were a person.”
Jack nodded slowly as he absorbed this new information. “So Toothless saved me, then.”
“Toothless got you out of the water. I decided to bring you here. It was a joint effort.”
Jack casually brushed that off and went to change the subject, but was interrupted by Eret who’d come from behind them and grabbed Hiccup’s attention away from Jack. Jack frowned.
“Hiccup, Astrid needs you back there to help,” Eret gruffed, “N’ you know how impatient she can be…”
Hiccup sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, his shoulders hunching forward.
“Yeah, I’ll be right there. Eret, can you watch Jack and keep him out of trouble?”
“Hey, I don’t need a babysitter!” Jack complained loudly. No one seemed to hear him.
Eret looked apprehensive about the idea, but he sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”
With that, Hiccup limped back the way they’d come toward the arena and Jack was left alone with the very tall and intimidating and muscular Eret. Jack decided he would not argue with this man. But he would absolutely make trouble in other ways. Who was Hiccup to keep him under watch at all times, never letting him have any chance to explore alone? Well, Chief, he supposed. But still! Ridiculous.
Jack crossed his arms as he looked up– way up– at Eret. He was much taller than Hiccup who wasn’t exactly short, himself. Jack was pretty much a child in comparison. Eret could snap him like a twig.
Eret looked confused as he looked down at Jack. “Why are you lookin’ at me like tha’?”
“Why are you British?” Jack retorted.
Eret just looked more confused. Then he shook his head and brushed that away. Jack realized now that Britain probably didn’t even exist yet, or not with that name, anyway. But still, Eret had a British accent. That confused Jack immensely. But maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe his question had a little more depth to it than he realized. Why are you British when Britain doesn’t even exist yet? Yeah, that’s it. Good question, Jack.
Jack snapped out of his tangential thought process when Eret started walking away. He almost wanted to ask where he was going, but stopped himself when he realized Eret seemed to be leaving him alone. That dream died when Eret turned and called out, “come on, then. I’ve got things to do, unlike you.”
Jack grimaced behind Eret’s back but reluctantly trailed behind, his staff dragging along the ground. Don’t argue with the twig snapper.