Rain

Hiccup absolutely loved the rain.

It was just too bad that the finicky form of precipitation seldom managed to make an appearance. The years that Berk was lucky enough to get rain without the direct transition from hail to snow, he was happily laughing and shouting among the thundering skies and pouring showers.

Of course, everybody thought that he had been off his rocker. After all, it wasn't a surprise that the Chieftain's only worthless son would end up liking loving something as inconsequential as rain, but there you had it.

After many a muttering from his father and jeers and catcalls from the local peer population, Hiccup was finally left alone to enjoy the only phase of weather he truly loved. Which was in itself a feat, because he didn't think he had much of anything to enjoy in his life.

All that changed when Toothless came along, and Hiccup felt he could probably add another item to the list of things he loved, which included smithy work and rain. The instant fame and recognition that came with saving the village was just an added bonus he could have done without.

Jack Frost loved nothing more than waking up to the warmed skin of his lover. He thanked Odin for steering his impulsive feet towards Berk, or he would have never found the reason that made 300 years, worth waiting for. He remembered a time when Hiccup would drag him out into the rain, whether the Guardian of Fun wanted to or not. The Dragon Rider loved to splash about in the overly-large puddles and stomp about in the fleetingly-forming ditches. Of course, he'd look utterly insane and adorable at the same time. Jack sometimes wondered how he'd manage it. Unrestrained joy would be etched onto his expression and Jack would be forced to cut his musings and appreciation short as he would once again duck or risk being the victim of a splash aimed in his direction.

But Jack's memories sobered as he recalled the scary times that were brought about by the rain. It was exactly two years after he'd become friends with Hiccup when the snarky, sarcastic teen caught pneumonia. Jack was beside himself with worry but there was nothing much that he could do besides hasten the change in the weather. He remembered fretting to restlessness as he kept strict vigilance at Hiccup's window, carefully watching as the younger boy tossed and turned agitatedly, fever running high with seemingly nonsensical words pouring from his lips, with every other word being Jack's name. Jack had never felt his heart clench so painfully and as he sat by the window bit his lip till it bled. For the first time, he was helpless to do anything and he hated the feeling. There was also an odd sense of satisfaction that crept up on him when Hiccup had called out for him in his delirium, but he didn't think that it warranted much observation at the time because Hiccup was so clearly out of it.

~oOo~

If Hiccup had turned, he would have seen Jack's face contort in distress. Hiccup always knew the best way to get rid of frown lines and crow's feet. It involved peppering lots of soft, butterfly kisses all the way from the bridge of his nose to the curve of his sable eyebrows and Jack was sure that it had to be the best way to ease his worry and stress.

But looking at Hiccup gazing out into the rain beyond the window had Jack pausing in his quest for stress kisses. The auburn-haired boy was a million miles away in his thoughts and Jack could see it in the way his eyes searched for a memory, looking beyond the window pane and into the past.

~oOo~

Hiccup for his part was reminiscing the first time he had seen the winter sprite. The mouthy white-haired boy had been sitting on a tree branch directly outside Hiccup's bedroom window, face in a frown and hair in disarray as the rain kept pelting down on him. Hiccup watched, fascinated as how the little droplets automatically formed into soft, powdery snowflakes thus never really touching him and before he knew it; he had shouted the question across to the strange boy in the tree. In a heartbeat, the boy was in front of him in the blink of an eye with an incredulous expression asking, "You can see me?" with a slender index finger pointing to himself. Hiccup wondered whether the fellow was all right in the head, never mind that he had white hair and it was probably the softest thing that Hiccup had seen and his fingers were just itching to run over that scalp. After hesitantly nodding, his hand had been shaken enthusiastically with a, "Jokul Frosti, at your service." and an immediate invasion of personal space had begun.

Not that Hiccup ever had a problem with it. He found that he loved spending time with his Jack Frost (when had the guy started becoming his?) and the free time that he wasn't spending with Toothless was channeled into learning more about Jack and Jack learning more about him (and Oh My Odin, when exactly had their friendship started to sound more like a relationship?). Jack Frost was slowly earning himself a spot on the list of things that Hiccup loved and now he was pretty sure he had to italicize and underline the word love because never before had an actual person made it to his list (Never mind his pressurizing father and non-existent mother. They were his parents. He loved them in any case.)

Hiccup continued to lose sleep over the quandary that now presented itself in his brain, and every morning, for a period of time, when he woke to a chipper and bright-eyed Guardian of Fun, Hiccup felt like taking Jack's staff and hanging himself with it. How could this Jack Frost even understand a smidgen of the emotional upheaval that Hiccup was going through? Best friend? Ha! More like the worst friend in all of Viking history. Even Snotlout had learnt enough differences between facial expressions to ask him what was wrong but his own best friend couldn't be bothered.

In fact, now that Hiccup had the time to think about it, Jack hadn't been looking so good himself. He'd stopped by few and far times, and Hiccup knew that something had been bothering him. The few times that he did stop by, he'd be trying to act like his usual self, but the minute Hiccup said something, Jack would get an intense look in his eye, the kind of look that Toothless got if he was feeling particularly ravenous and Hiccup would just be so caught up in that predatory stare that he would forget to ask Jack just what was wrong., After these weird confrontations, Jack abruptly left and that didn't make things any better.

Things however, came to a head when they had their first kiss.

Which, of course, had to take place in the rain.

It had been a year after Hiccup came down with pneumonia, so they were both trying to take extra precaution. Trying being the key word here. All the careful preparation, planning and prevention in keeping the rain off Hiccup's head flew out the window the minute the teen saw the light drizzle that heralded the beginning of the liquid diamonds. After running down the stairs in giddy joy with a panicking Jack following close behind, he ran into the street and threw his hands up to the heavens and laughed in childish glee. Seeing the immature display of emotion from someone going to hit their twenties soon and being unreasonably irritated by it, Jack snapped out a question at him.

"Why in the world are you so joyful when it rains? It's not like it's anything great. It's just water falling from the sky." Jack bristled in his anger, quite forgetting that he was named the Guardian of Fun for a reason.

Hiccup paused in his welcoming gesture towards the heavens and turned to look at him. Then in a moment of bravery or stupidity (he could never distinguish which one it was), he walked up to Jack and cupped his face in his palms. A comforting mix of warmth and coolness seeped through his fingers and Hiccup tilted Jack's face down so he could speak the next words directly into his skin.

"The snow is too soft and the hail is too hard. But the rain is perfect. Just like you."

He covered the cool lips with his own, fire pumping through his blood. At first, it was just a press of lips on lips. Hiccup worried that he might have gone too far but the spirit opening his lips and shyly flicking out his tongue against Hiccup's lips quickly disabused him of that notion. He groaned, his mouth falling open as Jack plunged; tongue licking and twisting desperately against his own in an effort to consume him. Hiccup could feel the blood roaring in his ears and when Jack left his lips to lower his head to gently bite and suck at Hiccup's skin, a high-pitched whine left his throat. Standing in the rain, Hiccup knew that this was what he wanted for the rest of his life.

Which brought him back to the present.

Hiccup turned on his side and caught the gaze of his lover. Jack returned the hot stare with a smirk of his own. Looping an arm around his waist, Jack dragged the to-be chieftain close to him. He ran a pale hand over the body that he held so possessively, marveling at every faded freckle that he longed to kiss and tongue once again into existence. Green eyes glanced at him knowingly, and rough calloused hands threaded through bone-white hair and pulled its owner down for a kiss.

"It's raining today." Jack murmured as he lightly nipped over Hiccup's skin, "Aren't you going to go out and celebrate like always?"

Hiccup cupped his face in his hands, a tender expression with a hint of mischievous shining through his eyes. "Oh, I'm celebrating the rain. In my own special way." He lowered his hand and grabbed the stiff cock against his thigh, smirking as Jack moaned his name.

A long right leg was thrown over the waist of the blue-eyed man and both men sunk into the sheets licking, sucking, nipping, thrusting and grinding their flesh against each other as the rain continued to fall.

The End.