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BRAZIL, 2002
ㅤㅤㅤThe beer in his hand was so cold that Jack kept passing it from one palm to the other, as though it might burn him if he let the can rest for too long. Water gathered and slipped along his fingers, beading and falling on the ground like a slow, lazy rain. It was an odd thing, he thought, how people here preferred their drinks with more ice than liquid: he could barely taste the sweetness everyone praised so much. It felt thin on his tongue, too amiable to his throat. Nothing like home.
ㅤㅤㅤAs he curled his toes into the night-warm sand, he supposed it made sense. This wasn’t exactly a place of half-measures: always warm, always loud, always alive. Even now—with his wristwatch insisting it was well past two in the morning—the radio hummed with tambourines and drums, tangling itself with the beach party chatter around him. Celebrations had painted the blue skies with fireworks and dancing a couple of mornings ago, yet it seemed to change only its shape and rhythm while it continued throughout the night. He wondered if the stars ever got tired of watching this little hearth in the middle of Earth.
ㅤㅤㅤ“I’m telling you,” Snotlout insisted, his voice rising in pitch, even as he stuffed his mouth with fruits and cheese, “Cafu needs more credit for how he played!”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Oh, yeah?” Tuffnut was the last one still willing to entertain the argument. He pulled a stick of corn from the fire and pointed it at Snotlout like a duelist might a blade. That alone made Snotlout take a step back, scandalised. “And who do you think made him look so good, huh? The Triple R squad, that’s who! Well—who’s. Plural. Wait, I’m confusing myself…”
ㅤㅤㅤ“You mean whose?” Ruffnut offered, scratching her head. “Wait… Who?”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Will you all drop it already?” Astrid groaned, rolling her eyes as she tossed a pebble into the fire. It cracked softly among the coals. “We won! That’s what matters.”
ㅤㅤㅤSnotlout seized his turn, raising a skewer of snacks like a weapon of his own. “You’re just upset because you lost your bet on the score.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Say that again, I dare you.”
ㅤㅤㅤThe moment she so much as leaned forward, Snotlout was already retreating to the far side of the bonfire, laughter spilling out of him too quickly and awkwardly to be real. “Say what again? What? Haha, no one said anything.”
ㅤㅤㅤAstrid huffed, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like ‘that’s what I thought’, and settled back into her place—though not before helping herself, very deliberately, to another handful of grapes from Snotlout’s plate. He pouted, but didn’t dare to protest. Beside her, Merida and Heather snickered, quiet and conspiratorial. Jack wondered just by how much she had lost their secret bet. It must’ve been a lot, because Flynn kept poking Astrid’s leg with a stick to tease her in a heavy accent.
ㅤㅤㅤHe kept on watching them all with a soft, outlying fondness, as though they were a story he had stepped into midway through and was still learning how to read. The mixture of languages (Portuguese, Spanish, English) didn’t make it easier to navigate.
ㅤㅤㅤA little further off, Rapunzel tugged Flynn closer, and it didn’t take long before their heads bowed together over an old beach towel. They whispered private jokes in each other’s ears as though the world had drawn a curtain around them, adjusting each other’s hair with absent-minded affection, fingers lingering as if they had nowhere else to be. Jack looked away when their mouths met.
ㅤㅤㅤIt wasn’t envy, he told himself. Not exactly. Still, his gaze wandered until it found the place it always seemed to settle.
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup.
ㅤㅤㅤThe firelight caught in his green eyes and turned them warm, almost golden. His freckles scattered across his face like stray embers, as if the fire had reached out and claimed him. When he laughed at something Ruffnut said, the sound seemed to fall into step with the waves in the distance, as though the ocean itself followed his melody. To Jack, he was the moon and all its diamonds.
ㅤㅤㅤSo, without intending to, Jack licked himself, tasting more of that sugary yeast on his tongue. Like a voyeur, he watched with held breath when Hiccup plucked his lips to swallow a strawberry and leaned back against the curved trunk of a fallen palm, one hand buried in the thick black fur of his dog, who lay stretched and content beside him. He looked entirely at ease, the night shaping itself around him—wind threading through his hair, brushing his lashes, touching him and kissing him without hesitation.
ㅤㅤㅤJack envied the wind for that. He wondered, not for the first time, what it might be like to be something so simple, so invisible—something that could reach and cup Hiccup’s face without being seen and adore him whole. He wondered what it would be like to be a bird and have his wings caressed by those careful hands, to be the ice in his cup during a hot summer day, to be the sweat drop glued between the cotton fabric of his shirt and his heaving chest. To tickle the shell of his ear with his digits, to touch his thigh and stir a soft, blushing laughter out of him. To—
ㅤㅤㅤThe radio crackled then, sharp and sudden—then twice, three times, rising and lowering in volume as if it had something urgent to say, before dissolving into a wavering hiss.
ㅤㅤㅤGroaning, Tuffnut smacked it lightly with the heel of his hand. “C’mon, don’t do this now…” he muttered, tilting the dial back and forth.
ㅤㅤㅤAnd for a moment, a voice indeed returned, some journalist talking about an upcoming movie called City of God, soon to be released in theatres. Not long came the static again, swallowing her voice, dragging it under static until nothing remained but an annoying noise, even as Tuffnut stubbornly tried to find another channel to tune.
ㅤㅤㅤ“That’s it,” Astrid declared, bending over to switch it off. “Even the radio’s tired of hearing you two argue about football.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Blasphemy,” Tuffnut scoffed. “The radio loves me.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“The radio—and us—want peace,” Fishlegs corrected solemnly.
ㅤㅤㅤWhen the sound finally died, the silence that followed felt almost foreign. One wouldn’t be able to call it barren: the sea still breathed steadily, tide folding over itself in a rhythm older than any song, their campfire crackled low and bright, and somewhere beyond them, laughter thin as smoke drifted from the horizon, no doubt belonging to another merry group of bohemians; but it felt awkward. So much so that Toothless whined, sitting up and barking in protest at Hiccup.
ㅤㅤㅤ“It’s okay, buddy,” Hiccup said, smiling faintly as he scratched behind his dog’s ear. “Just a little bit of silence, eh?”
ㅤㅤㅤ“I still can’t believe he only falls asleep to samba or bossa nova…” Merida muttered.
ㅤㅤㅤAt Merida’s frown, Hiccup shrugged. “At least he’s over his Xuxa phase.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Chucha?!”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup blinked, looking genuinely confused, but Fishlegs quickly leaned in to clarify, murmuring something about the singer. The brief misunderstanding unravelled into a teasing giggle, and Jack laughed too—softly, almost to himself, as he finished his beer. When Hiccup glanced toward him, as though seeking solace or perhaps an explanation, Jack only waved a hand, dismissing it.
ㅤㅤㅤHe loved, absurdly, the way Hiccup frowned at that—playfully indignant, just for him, amidst their little crowd.
ㅤㅤㅤRapunzel sat up suddenly: “Wait—wait, I’ve got something.”
ㅤㅤㅤFlynn raised an eyebrow. “That usually means trouble.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Or genius,” she shot back, already scrambling to her feet. Sand clung to her legs as she brushed past them. “Stay there, but don’t go being boring while I’m gone!”
ㅤㅤㅤ“The boys make no promises,” Astrid called after her.
ㅤㅤㅤShe returned a few minutes later, triumphant, carrying a small, battered tambourine and a purple guitar. Its varnish was worn in many places, the edges softened by time and hands that had loved it often, but Jack could tell that in its better days, the guitar was meant to have a painted sun on its design.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Emergency entertainment,” she announced, dropping back onto the floor with a grin. She shook the tambourine once, and it answered with a bright, cheerful jingle. “I can manage this, but I refuse to be a one-woman band. Volunteers?”
ㅤㅤㅤThere was the brief, collective hesitation of people who feared being volunteered by someone else.
ㅤㅤㅤJack surprised himself by speaking before he could think better of it: “I can.”
ㅤㅤㅤRapunzel’s face lit up. “Perfect! Here, catch.”
ㅤㅤㅤShe handed him the guitar, and he caught it with a familiarity that felt almost like nostalgia. The wood was cool from the dark air, the strings slightly out of tune, but not by much. He adjusted them instinctively, with a practised hand, head bowed, listening closely as each note settled into its rightful place. He strung all chords one by one, enjoying the certainty they offered him as the wooden body rested on his thigh.
ㅤㅤㅤIt had been a while. When was the last time he had struck a tune? It was hard to say. Certainly long enough that he had almost forgotten this version of himself—the one who knew what to do with his hands, with his voice, with the quiet spaces between things. The one left behind at the edge of a white-and-blue world, back in Santa Cruz, in a kitchen filled with afternoon light or on a balcony where the air smelled faintly of sheep and clouded days, all while he tried to follow his mother’s sewing machine’s little notes to make the bags under her eyes lesser.
ㅤㅤㅤHe ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back, and let out a small breath. When he looked up, Hiccup was already watching.
ㅤㅤㅤHe had shifted from the palm trunk, leaning forward now, elbows on his knees, his attention fixed. There was something intent in his gaze, curious in a way that wasn’t demanding, yet it made Jack’s chest tighten and leap all the same. He felt weirdly prideful to have Hiccup’s eyes on him, and only him, perhaps for the first time that night. He lowered his eyes quickly, smiling to himself as he adjusted his grip on the guitar one last time.
ㅤㅤㅤ“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.
ㅤㅤㅤThe first notes came gently, almost shy, threading themselves into the night air as if asking permission to stay. Rapunzel joined in with the tambourine, her tempo steady like footsteps beside his own. And then Jack sang:
ㅤㅤㅤY hace falta que te diga que me muero por tener algo contigo…
ㅤㅤㅤHis words unfurled warm and fluid, carrying more than their definitions, more than their sounds. Memories of another place, another time, another fantasy, of where he and Hiccup both found each other in skies, or perhaps amidst a blizzarding field. Fantasies of what it could be, of that tingling warmth one could find at the end of a bottle or in a long-awaited kiss. Feelings that had taken root without a fight inside him, too quickly and without permission, in this new country that was too green not to fall in love with.
ㅤㅤㅤ¿Es que no te has dado cuenta de lo mucho que me cuesta ser tu amigo…?
ㅤㅤㅤThe fire snapped softly, a spark lifting into the air before disappearing into darkness. The sea answered, patient and endless. Across from him, Hiccup stilled. Neither of them looked at anyone else.
ㅤㅤㅤYa no puedo acercarme a tu boca sin deseártela de una manera loca…
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup did not understand every word: that much was clear in the slight furrow of his brow, the way his gaze lingered as though trying to follow the meaning as it slipped between languages. He grasped the shape of them, however, the way they were offered and how it made his face ease, twinkling as he tilted his head. There was something there. Jack chose to believe that was enough.
ㅤㅤㅤY hace falta que te diga que me muero por tener algo contigo…
ㅤㅤㅤHis voice steadied as he went on, growing surer, carried along by the cadence Rapunzel kept and the quiet eyes gathered around the performing duo. Even Snotlout had gone mute, his usual commentary swallowed by the moment. Astrid watched with her chin propped on her hand, a faint, knowing smile playing at her corners.
ㅤㅤㅤYa me quedan muy pocos caminos y aunque pueda parecerte un desatino…
ㅤㅤㅤSomewhere to the side, Fishlegs had produced a small camera. Its whirr slipped easily into the background, unnoticed by most, though not by Jack: he caught the glint of it briefly and felt, rather than saw, the way the moment was being held in place, captured before it could vanish. He didn’t mind.
ㅤㅤㅤYa no sé con qué inocente excusa pasar por tu casa…
ㅤㅤㅤHe wanted to be seen. He wanted to be heard. He wanted this, him, to be remembered. One day, he wanted to tell himself, one day Hiccup would be holding him in his hands, cradling Jack in his arms. As a photograph, as a video, as a moment, even if only like this, it mattered not: as long as it had been real.
ㅤㅤㅤNo quisiera yo morirme sin tener algo contigo…
ㅤㅤㅤThe final notes lingered, trembling softly in the air before fading into the steady hush of the sea. Precious seconds stretched as no one spoke.
ㅤㅤㅤThen Rapunzel let her instrument fall against her palm with a soft jingle and broke into a grin. “Well,” she hummed, glancing at Flynn, “I’m keeping you.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“It was beautiful,” Flynn said, his applause a sincere sound. Beside him, Hiccup nodded slowly, his expression unreadable in the flickering orange of the driftwood fire.
ㅤㅤㅤ“I didn’t understand a single word,” Snotlout sighed dramatically, a hand to his chest for extra theatrics, “but I feel like I just got dumped.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“That’s because you probably did,” Astrid replied, not looking up from her drink. Snotlout stuck his tongue out at her; Astrid merely rolled her eyes, the practised indifference of a friend who had seen every one of his tricks since nursery.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Eh,” Merida shrugged, “I much prefer to believe it’s one of those temporarily one-sided love songs. People love those, don’t they?”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Well,” Hiccup stood up then, the sand cascading from his trousers like an hourglass running out. He pulled a can from the cooler and raised it high, his gaze suddenly finding Jack’s as if they were the only ones left on that beach. “You know what they—sorry—what we say, don’t you?”
ㅤㅤㅤA pause, more tempting than not.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Hope is the last thing to die,” Hiccup went on, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. “Here’s to hoping love is the second last thing!”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Saúde!”
ㅤㅤㅤThe word burst out of them—laughter spilling close behind, bright and easy, clinking cans and glass and borrowed joy. Someone bumped into someone else; sand shifted beneath their weight; the fire snapped louder again, embers jumping. Life resumed, vibrant as it always was, to talks of bossa nova.
ㅤㅤㅤJack stayed eyeing Hiccup, though. The way his shoulders loosened as he drank. The way his mouth lingered, just slightly, against the rim of the can. The way his eyes—even now—found their way back to his own: not completely puzzled or distant, but rather just… there. As though something had brushed against him, soft as a breeze, and he had turned toward it without knowing why. Jack smiled, small and fleeting, and lowered his gaze to the guitar, fingers still resting against strings that had not quite stopped humming. Perhaps they never would.
ㅤㅤㅤOne day, he thought, with the serene certainty of a prophet. One day, he’ll understand.
ㅤㅤㅤSnotlout, Tuffnut and Astrid were already arguing again—voices rising, overlapping, hands gesturing wildly about what song should be performed next. Someone threw a piece of bread. Someone else protested. The night gathered them all back into itself.
[...]
BRAZIL, 2011
ㅤㅤㅤAfter a few years, their apartment no longer looked like itself. It was emptying in small, treacherous ways; an architectural shedding of skin. First went the walls, stripped of their crooked posters and sun-faded photographs, leaving behind pale rectangles like ghosts of memories. Then the shelves lost their colourful mugs; then the kitchen drawers, once heavy and protesting, slid open with a hollow, eerie lightness. Even the air felt thinner, as if it, too, were being packed into cardboard boxes along with the linens.
ㅤㅤㅤFishlegs stood in the middle of it all, surrounded by open packages and half-folded lives, holding a bundle of mismatched cables with the aggravated confusion of a man who had once known exactly what each of them was for.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Tell me I don’t need these,” Fishlegs requested, his voice echoing slightly in the bare room.
ㅤㅤㅤ“You don’t need those,” Hiccup replied automatically, though he knew very well Fishlegs would keep them anyway. He was a man who lived in the ‘just in case,’ terrified of a future where a 2004 power adapter might be the only thing standing between him and a life-ending catastrophe.
ㅤㅤㅤFishlegs nodded, satisfied, and placed them carefully into a box labelled ‘miscellaneous’, which seemed to contain the better part of his life. “Ruffnut says we have too much stuff already,” he added. “But she also insisted I keep the toaster, so I don’t know what her standards are.”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup huffed a quiet laugh, folding another shirt with more attention than necessary. “The toaster has emotional value.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Everything has emotional value,” Fishlegs countered. “That’s the problem.”
ㅤㅤㅤIt should have felt like a beginning—this packing, this leaving, the promise of something new waiting on the other side for both of them. Ruffnut’s laughter already echoed in the spaces Fishlegs would soon fill elsewhere, brilliant, fuller. Maybe the two of them would go off to have kids soon, and their place would smell like that of new parents’, that strange mix of talcum powder, soap and candies.
ㅤㅤㅤFor Hiccup, however, it all felt like a closing of sorts. Tuffnut had moved out the year before, chasing his own dreams. Now Fishlegs was leaving, too. The apartment, once crowded with noise and their overlapping lives, was learning how to be quiet. He wasn’t quite so sure he liked that lesson.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Hey,” Fishlegs called suddenly, crouching beside a low drawer he had just pulled open. “I thought I lost this.”
ㅤㅤㅤHe reached in and pulled out an old camera—tiny, scratched along the edges, its strap frayed with use. A few memory sticks followed in a reddish container, tied together with a thin elastic band that had begun to dry and crack.
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup glanced over: “Does that still work?”
ㅤㅤㅤFishlegs turned it over in his hands, thoughtful. “I think so? Haven’t used it in years.” He squinted at the tiny chips. “God, I didn’t even label half of these properly.”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup stepped closer, looming over Fishlegs’ shoulder. “Can I—?”
ㅤㅤㅤFishlegs looked up, nodding without thinking. “Yeah, of course.” He handed the camera over without ceremony, already becoming distracted by another box. “If you find anything embarrassing, delete it.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Isn’t that gonna be most of it?”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Exactly.”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup chuckled faintly, but it didn’t quite reach him. He turned the camera in his hands, thumb brushing over the worn silvery plastic, as though it might greet him. He sat down on the edge of the couch—one of the few pieces of furniture left that belonged solely to him—and began to scroll.
ㅤㅤㅤPhotographs first. Blurred nights and sunlit afternoons, with faces caught in the act of being young. Tuffnut mid-laugh, Astrid mid-argument, Snotlout mid-something that could only be described as causing problems to everyone else. Ruffnut with salt in her hair. Fishlegs behind the lens, sometimes caught in reflections of car windows or brought into the frame by Ruffnut herself. There was a picture of her kissing him on the cheek. Another one of Astrid, Ruffnut and Heather together, posing with peace signs. The following was still of them, but this time, seemingly dragging a man into the picture. He thought it was Tuffnut at first, but his arms were too pale. Who—?
ㅤㅤㅤJack.
ㅤㅤㅤHe was looking somewhere just beyond the camera, his expression mellow, almost faraway—like someone standing in a doorway between two places. There were other pictures, dedicated solely to him or their other foreign friends. Merida and Rapunzel posed in front of a tourist attraction while Jack goofed on the side, trying to mimic a nearby statue. Sometimes, Jack was at the edge of the frame, half-turned, as though he had not meant to be captured at all. He posed, rarely, when someone laced their arms around him. Many were group pictures in which he was listening, watching, waving, or smiling. Hiccup softened when he saw a photo where the two of them stood side by side, a ball between their feet as both tugged at their shirts’ sports prints. Jack had the loudest, boyish smile he had seen on him.
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup remembered, in quite a lot of detail, that this registered the first time Jack won in one of their silly competitions. He still had sand on his brown hair, and he smelled of the barbecue they had just eaten… But did Jack always have that beauty mark just on the corner of his lips? Hiccup felt it again, that strange, untiring pull, like a tide he had been swimming against for a decade without realising.
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup swallowed harshly and clicked a video file at random. The screen flickered with grainy images: darkness, then firelight. The beach, a distant breath. Voices coinciding, familiar in a way that made one’s chest ache; laughter rising and falling like tides, the radio crackling, the wind.
ㅤㅤㅤThe camera panned: Jack sitting there with a guitar in his hands. The image was too low-resolution, but perhaps if Hiccup slanted forward and squinted hard enough, he could try to piece together the pixels that mosaicked his face. On the screen, Jack adjusted the strings, and ran a hand through his own hair.
ㅤㅤㅤThe notes were faint and uncertain, and Hiccup could barely hear them through the captured audio. He thought he saw Jack smiling—but then again, perhaps that’s just how he remembered Jack, always grinning—not at something past said, but at something waiting, paused, suspended, just out of reach. Hiccup frowned slightly, as though trying to place the angle, the direction of those brown eyes—until something in him went very still. He had remembered him wrong: he thought Jack was looking at the fire, or the guitar, or their group as a whole. But now all he could see was the way Jack watched him, abandoning any discretion with his gaze. A bit of neediness, a spun of expectation, a lot of yearning. There was a zoom during that moment in the recording, and Hiccup was unsure whether Jack was looking at past-him, at the camera, or at the present-him.
ㅤㅤㅤWas this how friends looked at each other?
ㅤㅤㅤJack’s singing slipped past him then, just as it had years ago—half-understood, half-lost, stubborn nevertheless. It was embarrassing to admit he hadn’t learned Spanish while Jack and the others lived close. His tenderness, however, needed no translation.
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup remembered that night. Remembered the fire, the laughter, the easy warmth of it all, and how he thought those pretty lips were just singing a pretty song. Remembered how, when the twins requested, not much later, a song for themselves, he sat close by Jack and shared a bottle of cheap wine they had bought across the street. He remembered, now sharply and much too flustered, how Jack blushed when they drank from the same bottle, their breaths spraying each other with conversations that didn’t seem important at the time. Hiccup remembered how he thought Jack’s voice had been angelical, and how he wanted to listen to it again, but never asked. Jack had said everything he possibly could, and Hiccup had been stone-deaf to it.
ㅤㅤㅤThe videotape continued, but Hiccup barely saw it now. His gaze dropped, unfocused, to his own hands. They looked the same. The same hands that had clapped him on the shoulder, careless yet fond. The same hands that had passed him drinks, that had rested easily beside him in the sand. The same hands that had never reached back.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Hey—” Fishlegs’s voice was gentle, cutting through the silence. “You okay?”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup didn’t answer at first: his throat felt tight, strange.
ㅤㅤㅤ“He was looking at me,” he gulped finally, the words rough, as though they had to force their way out. “The whole time. Jack.”
ㅤㅤㅤFishlegs paused, resting against a stack of cartons. “Yeah,” he said simply. “He was. You never noticed?”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup let out something that might have been a laugh, if it hadn’t broken halfway through. No. No, indeed, he hadn’t. How could he? He was so ethereal, so loving, so… God.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Was it—” He stopped, tried again. He looked at the frozen frame of Jack’s face. Before he could help it, he ran a thumb through it. “Was it always like that?”
ㅤㅤㅤ“I’m not sure,” Fishlegs admitted, walking over to pat Hiccup’s back. “But whenever I looked at him, he was always looking at you. So maybe that was something.”
ㅤㅤㅤThe room suddenly felt too small, the air too heavy with the weight of lost years. Hiccup stood up abruptly, setting the camera down as if it were made of glass.
ㅤㅤㅤ“He went back to Argentina. He never… he never said anything directly.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“He waited,” Fishlegs said. “Maybe longer than most people would.”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup closed his eyes. Memory shifted again—letters, folded and refolded, eventually left unanswered too long, rotting somewhere in his inbox. A name that had once been constant, then less, then just… gone. “I didn’t know.”
ㅤㅤㅤ“I think he knew that,” Fishlegs answered.
ㅤㅤㅤThat, somehow, was worse. Hiccup dragged a hand over his face, exhaling with the force of his shoulders. For a moment, he stood there—caught between the man he had been and the one he might still become. Maybe Jack had felt the same when they were younger. Maybe he was still waiting. Maybe he was still wanting, willing.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Where was his last letter from?” he asked.
ㅤㅤㅤFishlegs blinked. “What?”
ㅤㅤㅤ“The last one, Fishlegs!” Hiccup insisted, turning back to him. “Do you remember?”
ㅤㅤㅤ“Some small town in Patagonia,” Fishlegs offered slowly, his eyes widening. “Why?”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup was already reaching for his phone, his fingers flying across the screen. He didn’t know what he would find; he had never even left the country. He didn’t know if Jack would be there, or if he’d found someone who actually knew how to listen. But the thought of that song left unfinished in the cold wind of the south was more than Hiccup could bear.
ㅤㅤㅤ“I’m going,” he said, grabbing his bag.
ㅤㅤㅤ“Wait, what? Going where?”
ㅤㅤㅤHiccup didn’t look back as he hauled his suitcase toward the door of the emptying apartment:
ㅤㅤㅤ“To find him, obviously!”
ㅤㅤㅤThe door clicked shut behind him, leaving the quiet to finally claim the room. He wanted to have something with him, too. Hope was the last thing to die, wasn’t it?