Note:
This is a one-shot of Jack opening up about what it felt like to be alone
This is also a 3am, energy drink-inspired word vomit
Please enjoy"How did it feel?" Hiccup asked
Jack looked at his partner curiously. "How did it feel" he repeated the question out loud and again in his mind over and over.
Jack chose his words carefully, but he couldn't pinpoint how to begin "It felt... cold"
"Cold? You should be used to that by now" Hiccup half laughed, trying to soften the mood
The ghost of a smile lingered on Jack's lips, but his eyes were downcast, deep in thought.
"It was a different kind of cold. It was... big, scary. Never ending, almost" His fingers absentmindedly picked at a loose string on his favourite blue sweater, he felt needles spreading through his hands. "It was like I was made of ice. When I would breathe it would shoot through me, it hurt." Loosing interest in the strings, the boy stretched open his fingers, within a few breaths a small bunny made of snow danced in the centre of his palm. "I didn't have anyone to talk too. No one believed I existed, even Moon ignored me."
Jack always spoke of the moon as if it were alive. He had explained to Hiccup that it was alive and that it chose him to be Earths Snow Spirit. Hiccup didn't believe him at first but being buried by a sudden burst of snow during the summer quickly changed his opinion.
"Most days" Jack continued, "I was afraid. The cold threatened to swallow me whole. Like something inside of me would open up and I would fall down it and never stop falling." The bunny wove between his fingers. It was still hard for him to talk about his past. Centuries of isolation, well, it changes you. Jack concentrated his mind on his bunny and let his mouth speak the words he had long forbid himself from feeling.
"After a while I stopped asking Moon for answers, it was pointless after all.' Both boys watched the bunny hop from Jack's hand onto the floor with a small thud, Jack created small fence like obstacles for it to hop over. "Instead, I focused on distracting myself" The bunny cleared the first three jumps easily, so Jack began to make the snow-fences taller. Hiccup watched in awe, vaguely wondering if the white-haired boys' power will ever cease to amaze him. "Blizzards, snow days, anything I could think of. It was almost like I needed to prove that I was there. I ruined a whole lot of Easters" A small, mischievous smile briefly appeared on Jacks lips, like he was remembering something he wasn't supposed to. The bunny didn't clear one of the jumps, it got up and repositioned to try again.
"But no matter what I did, I still didn't feel alive. It was like I was sleepwalking" Hiccup felt a knot forming in the back of his throat, it hurt him to know Jack felt like this for so many years. "I guess after a while, even I stopped believing I existed." There was a sadness in Jack's voice Hiccup had only heard once before. He was no longer the playful always-smiling boy he presented himself to be. This was I've-Been-Alone-All-My-Life-Jack, this was Sad-And-Afraid-Jack, this is the Jack Hiccup had sworn to protect. The bunny wound up and tried to jump over the snow-fence once more.
"The distractions stopped working. The cold, the fear... the loneliness, they were in my bones. They weighed me down." The bunny failed a third time, shook its body and tried again.
"I tried it, you know" Jack's voice barely came out in a whisper "To make it stop. But I guess nothing can kill a spirit, not even the spirit itself."
Hiccups heart panged. He looked away from the bunny, who was readying for its 5th jump, and studied the boy in front of him. Jack came into his life… unexpectedly, to say the least. True to his powers, loving Jack was like weathering a storm. It happened all at once, one moment there were clear skies and the next Hiccup was drowning in an endless sea of emotions, each wave taking his breath away. It was scary, overwhelming, and at times downright confusing. Hiccup hadn't known the feeling of longing for someone, he hadn't known the desire to talk to them each and every second of every day. When Jack and he were together, he felt warm and secure. He felt… complete. He knew with absolute certainty that he would blindly follow Jack wherever he went. He would rejoice losing his way, so long as they were lost together. He couldn't understand the words his partner was saying. A life without Jack? That was simply unthinkable.
"You know," Jack broke the momentary silence, "the cold never really went away... it was always there, threatening to swallow me." He tucked his hands in his hoodie and the two locked eyes for the first time since the question was asked "until I met you"
The words hung in the air for only a moment before Hiccup closed the distance between them, accidentally turning Jack's creations into piles of displaced snow. In one swift motion his arms were around him, as sure and steady as you would expect a chief's sons embrace to be. Gently, he tilted Jacks head back and kissed him, softly at first, and then with a growing intensity that forced them to cling to each other, as they were the only steady things in a dizzying world.
"Never." Hiccup caught himself thinking. In a moment of limited brain function, Hiccup couldn't quite decipher what his mind was referring to. He could have meant that he would make sure Jack never felt that way again, or that he never wanted to imagine life without him again. If in that moment he had the power to interpret anything other than the sweet sensation of his partners tongue and the primal reactions it was eliciting from his body, Hiccup briefly wondered if he would even bother. Instead, like many times before, he lolled helpless in a trance, remembering the effectiveness of Jacks protégé tongue. His mind repeating the word "never" over and over. They sunk deeper into the kiss. The Viking still couldn't fathom exactly which "never" his mind was referring to, but he quickly made a vow to uphold that "never", creating his own meaning for it. From that moment on Hiccup would never leave Jack's side and Jack would never be alone.
Never again.