Archive of Our Own ^beta

About two years ago the empty commercial space beside the town’s only bookstore was filled in by a shop called The North Pole. At first, Hiccup thought it was an ice cream parlor or something—a yogurt place, even, but when he opened the door about 3 days after its opening he learned that it was indeed a coffee shop; Berk doesn’t need any more cold things anyway. They have that through their fierce winters and hails. He was glad someone took the liberty of establishing a coffee shop in their town. They needed it; and by the influx of customers the shop was having he thought right.

            He tried their coffee and it was good but Hiccup wasn’t really a fan of coffee so he opted for their hot chocolate with marshmallows, and he doesn’t come back solely for the coffee and chocolate but for the one who makes it.

            So, every morning of every day for the past two years he had been getting his, Gobber’s and his father’s coffee from The North Pole. His dad always made him make coffee anyway, so he figured spending a couple of bucks for good coffee to help them wake up wouldn’t hurt.

            It was the first time he saw him, when he opened the shop’s doors for the first time—the guy with the white hair and a smile definitely warmer than Berk’s weather. He didn’t wear a nametag then so he doesn’t know how to address him.

            He always smiled at him though. Hiccup was a shy one if he says so himself, wasn’t really a fan of talking to people, so he would just smile and nod at him when they met eyes and order his usual.

            Hiccup was an engineer, just new to the industry, and he was working in Gobber’s construction depot. Gobber lets him supervise some of the company’s projects but never really supervises one of his own. Ever since he was a kid he always felt a little bit left out; people here in Berk looks all tough and built and there he was like a walking-talking fishbone. Most jobs in Berk consist of hard labor which needs muscles and stamina which Hiccup didn’t really had.

            And being the mayor’s kid didn’t really give him any pass for the bullies and wedgies growing up.

            So, he didn’t understand why someone like Jack—white haired barista guy from The North Pole, would ask him out to lunch one morning when he was working with his first construction project.

            It had been cute, really. Jack could have just pulled him out of the site to ask him out but no, Jack had to have a shouting match with him while the sound of saw hitting steel permeates the background.

            He got his first complaint from Jack and he got asked for the first time with the very same person. Hiccup found himself smiling when he returned back to work after Jack asked him out. He was pretty sure his co-workers were watching them.

---

They are at the preserve—he and Jack, one morning on a Saturday. They’ve been hanging out for more than a week now and he doesn’t know what to call them. He had been eating lunch with Jack every day for the past few days and it was one of those hours Hiccup really looks forward to everyday.

            “Why’d you bring me here?” asks Jack. They’ve just entered the preserve and were greeted by the guards.

            “I go here every Saturday,” he says. “I wanted you to meet someone.”

            “Okay,” Jack smiles and he smiles back, their hands brushing as they walk, and it burns with contemplation on whether he can hold Jack’s hand.

            Jack looks down to their hands, just centimeters apart, and Hiccup wasn’t aware he was looking down until he sees Jack smirk and bit his lips, looked forward, and holds his hands.

            He has to take a deep breath and coughs and he hears Jack chuckle, so he looks at him through his eyelashes and they both smirk at each other. Jack’s hands are warm—warmer than the sunlight their clouds allow them to feel, and his body feels warm all over—warmer than the coffee he makes for him.

            When they reached the fence where there was a sign “Wolves” painted in gray with white letters, Hiccup lets go of Jacks hands.

            “Toothless,” he puts both of his hands on his mouth forming a cup and calls.

            Right after he called there pops a head of a black wolf from behind one of the rocks. The wolf perks up and walks right up to them, just by the fence. “Hey there, bud.”

            “Toothless?” asks Jack.

            “Uh, long story,” he says. “Before you moved in here, we have a little bit of a wolf problem . . .”

            It’s true. The town of Berk sits between mountains and forests infested with wild animals. When his father, Stoik, was elected to place he immediately ordered putting up a fence around Berk to keep the animals away for the people’s and the animal’s safety.

            Wolves that lived in the mountains come down to hunt once in a while in a pack and when most of the towns hunt for deer’s and rabbits, Berk used to hunt wolves.

            Hiccup had accidentally hit one on its jaws when one of the wolves wandered around in their town. He was just protecting himself, he knew the wolf saw him as a prey and Hiccup had already been a prey all his life that he couldn’t accept the fact that an animal looks at him the same way as his people do. So he hits it with a steel rod, from one of Gobber’s shops, right in the jaw. But when he sees the wolf lose consciousness, Hiccup feels quite guilty and sorry, so he dragged the wolf’s body further in to the shop, lifts it up to the wheelbarrow (he was 15 and Gobber made him collect scraps of metal—for internship) and brings it home to heal it.

            Wolves travel in packs, he knows this much. But this particular black wolf was alone and Hiccup didn’t know if it belonged in a pack, so he doesn’t know what to do with the animal when it gets better. If it gets better, he thought, it would probably try to eat me, again.

            But the universe seemed to have a different plan for him because when the wolf woke up it snarled and growled at him, all fangs bared—except for the one he knocked off, circling him around like a predator about to pounce its prey. And for a second he thinks that’s what’s happening, so he closed his eyes and prepared for the worst but then the growling stopped and Hiccup tried to take a peek and what he saw changed the town’s views on wolves and their hostility.

            The black wolf was sitting and looking at him expectantly like a dog owner tells its pet to sit and stay still.

            There was this ridiculous idea to pet the wolf and so he did try. At first the wolf began growling again, and it sure took some time, but when his hands landed softly, gently, onto the wolf’s black fur everything went alright.

            “I’m sorry about the tooth,” he said to the wolf that was licking the place where a tooth/fang was.

            “I think I’m gonna call you Toothless,” he said. Naming a wolf that tried to eat you is a ridiculous idea on its own but at that time Hiccup saw something in the wolf the same thing the wolf saw something in him that allowed him to pet it.

            “So you hit a wolf, took it home, and pets it,” Says Jack. He’s looking at Hiccup incredulously.

            “Yeah,” he says. “But when dad found out he got mad.”

            “Who wouldn’t?” Jack raises and eyebrow and Hiccup returns it.

            His father wasn’t so keen on finding a big black wolf lying on his son’s bed one afternoon. He was furious. But Hiccup convinced Stoik that Toothless—“You named it? Are you insane?”—was no harm, meant no harm.

            “We can’t keep it in the house,” Stoik said. He finally gave in to his son’s stubbornness. “You can keep him on the preserve.”

            “But we don’t have a preserve,” he said.

            “Apparently,” Stoik said and sighed, “we do now.”

            And that’s the story on how Berk’s animal preserve was founded. And every Saturday he visits Toothless and plays with him.

            “That’s really cool,” says Jack, “But I’m finding it all hard to believe.”

            “You don’t have to believe me,” he says, “I just wanted you to meet Toothless.”

            Jack looks down at the wolf that is looking back at him and he smiles unsurely, wary of the presence of a predator.

            “C’mon,” he says, he takes Jack’s hands, “Let’s go inside.”

            “Wha—what?” Jack stutters.

            “Well, I can’t let my boys meet through a fence now, would I?” he smiles at Jack and he sees Jack hesitate for a moment but notices a smile crawling up his lips.

            They go through the back where the gate through the wolves den is located. They meet Gobber inside.

            “Hiccup!” Gobber greets. “You’re a little late for today are we?”

            Gobber was this big and chunky man, who was also his father’s trusted advisor, who has a prosthetic for a left hand and right foot. He’s a fairly intimidating man—not more than his father, but he’s really a good and clever guy when you get to know him.

            “Yeah,” he says, “I want Toothless to meet someone.” He gestures at Jack who smiles and waves at Gobber.

            “Ah,” Gobber nods, “This the guy who asked you out then?”

            “Yeah,”

            “Good looking lad,”

            He smirks and glances at Jack. He’s blushing, and there’s that warm feeling in his chest again.

            “Well, we better get inside,” he says, “You know Toothless—“

            “You and your wolf,”

            They open the gate and they enter. Slowly. Because he’s with a newcomer and the only humans familiar with the wolves are him, Gobber, his dad, and his friends, Astrid. Snoutlout, Fishlegs, Ruff and Tuff.

            When they get inside he sees Stormfly and Gronckle slowly approach them.

            “Uh,” Jack utters, “Hiccup.”

            “Just stay still and don’t move,” he says. Jack is gripping at the hem of his jacket and his eyes are wet wide with panic, so Hiccup reassures him by taming the other wolves.

            He pats them on their head, just like he always does and he sees Toothless strutting towards them.

            “It’s okay,” he says to Jack. “They won’t hurt you if you don’t give them any reason to.”

            “Easy for you to say,” he hears Jack mumble.

            So, he guides Jack’s hesitant hands towards Toothless’ furry head, “Just trust me,” he says to Jack and Jack nods and closes his eyes and before he knew it, Jack’s hand is on top of Toothless’ head and when he opens his eyes Hiccup sees the smirk and excitement in lips and eyes.

            “Wow,” Jack whispers, and Hiccup smiles and places his hand on top of Jack’s.

            “Yeah,” he says, looking at Jack’s amazed face. He can feel Jack’s hand rubbing Toothless’ head gently. “Wow.”

            Their eyes meet. And it’s both as warm and fuzzy like the first time they stared into each other’s eyes. And Hiccup feels so lucky, so happy that someone had found him and that he found someone who sees and accepts him for who he is.

---

After they’ve played with the wolves they went to sit on the bench just right beside the den. Jack had been a good sport, running and playing tag with Toothless and the others. It’s ridiculous, he knows, if someone not from their town would see them literally running with wolves. They’re hostile creatures. Predators meant to hunt. Hiccup wouldn’t say that they completely ‘tamed’ the wolves—they’re animals not humans—no, he would just say that he understood them better than anyone did.

            And that’s what he told Jack when he asked how they manage to tame these wolves.

            They sit on a bench with bottles of water. The weather is warmer than Berk’s normal temperature and Hiccup feels a trickle of sweat itching on his temple. He wipes it and sips on his water.

            “That was an experience,” says Jack.

            He lets out a breathy laugh and says, “Good enough to put on your resume?”

            “Probably,” Jack smiles and he smiles back.

            “So, you’re good friends with Gobber, I see,” says Jack after a while. He points to where Gobber was earlier with his water bottle.

            “Hmm,” he gives a half shrug half smile gesture and says, “Kind of. Well he’s good friends with my father so I’ve known him for as long as I can remember.”

            “So, your dad’s an engineer, too?” asks Jack.

            He looks at Jack incredulously but then smirks. Everyone knows his father is the town’s mayor. Even North knows it. But there’s innocence in Jack’s eyes telling him that he has no idea.

            “You could say that,” he says.

            Lunch came and they went to eat in the preserve’s cafeteria. The cafeteria was proof that the preserve was being visited more than occasionally. They talked about stuffs. Like people going on a date kind of conversations. They talked about their childhood, their likes, to their most embarrassing experience, their fears, and their dreams.

            Lunch was nice. As Hiccup found himself unable to take his eyes off of Jack’s electric blue ones. It was amazing to Hiccup as they talk about things that made Jack Jack. Slowly, bite by bite, word by word, he saw Jack in a whole different light—different from the one standing behind the counter at The North Pole taking orders and making coffee. It was a privilege eating with him. Being in his presence.

            And suddenly Hiccup felt like falling. The longer he locks eyes with Jack the stronger the feeling got. But there was something in him holding him back. Insecurity? Fear? Doubt? Then he remembered what his father had told him the moment Stoik asked his mother’s hand in marriage, “You’ll just know it, Hiccup,” his dad had said, “And then you just let it happen.” And so Hiccup did. He knew and so he did. He let himself fall, fall into those blue eyes, fall into those same gangly arms, fall into Jack.

            “I think I’m in love with you,” he said. And the only thing he remembered was Jack’s smile and his lips pressed firmly against his.