Disclaimer: Rise of the Guardians concepts and characters and How to Train Your Dragon concepts and charactersbelong to Dreamworks, Tangled concepts and characters and Brave concepts and characters belong to Disney, Supernatural concepts and characters belong to WB, etc. This fic belongs to its' author.

Notes: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME I DO NOT NEED ANOTHER PROJECT. /SOBS.

Anyway. This is my first time writing… well. Any of these characters. I am well acquainted with all the movies as well as the SPN television series, though. And I'm learning about the ROTBTG fandom as I go, since I only discovered it relatively recently. So basically, call me on my bullshit if I fuck up too badly character-wise, k? But do it nicely. Concrit is love. :)

Warning for Frostcup/Hijack and possible hints at Destiel later on.

STOLEN INDEPENDENCE
Prologue: A Step Out
By Senashenta

Jack Frost liked to wander. He always had. And he had always done it alone.

But that was before—when no one could see him, when he'd had no friends—before he'd met Hiccup, and then, later, Merida and Rapunzel. It was an unlikely series of events that had brought the four of them together, but now they were stuck like glue and couldn't get rid of each other even if they had wanted to. Jack would never say as much, but he wouldn't have had it any other way. Adventuring with company was much more fun than adventuring alone.

"I swiped it from Old Saint Nick himself!"

"Oooof course you did."

"Sticky fingers, as usual."

"Hey, he's got lots of them! You don't want to come with me?"

"Where, Jack?"

"Somewhere you guys've never seen before!"

"Not very helpful, frosty."

"Where's the fun if I tell you, Hic?" Jack smirked and draped himself over the shoulders of his oldest and closest friend, blowing into Hiccup's ear teasingly and making the other boy shiver and elbow sideways. One hand held the sparkling snow globe that he'd stolen from Santa the day before up for the other three to see. "Look, this thing'll take us anywhere in the blink of an eye. You guys in, or what?"

There was a long pause, during which Hiccup, Merida and Rapunzel exchanged looks amongst themselves. The same looks they always exchanged when Jack proposed one of his hair-brained schemes, as if they were having a silent meeting that the Guardian wasn't invited to. Jack, not known for his patience, busied himself nipping at Hiccup's earlobe, just to make the other boy blush and to get a rise out of the girls. It was usually enough to interrupt their wordless conversations.

"Jack!" Hiccup was always the first one to protest, of course. "I told you not to do that!"

"You told me not to do that in public, beanpole." A grin and Jack nosed against Hiccup's neck, licking at his jaw before moving away, leaning back against the rock behind him and crossing his arms behind his head. The four of them were hanging out in Hiccup's favourite clearing outside of Berk, Toothless lounging on his side in the sun a short distance away. "Punz and Mer don't count as the public. Not that anyone else could see anyway. 'Sides, it could be worse: I could've copped a feel."

"He's done it before." Rapunzel pointed out. "Multiple times."

"I have no idea why ye put up with him like that, Hiccup." This came from Merida, who was sitting cross-legged a few feet away, her bow in her lap and an unimpressed look on her face. "Next time just clock 'im." Then she perked slightly, adding, "or I could do it for ye!"

"Hey, hey." Jack protested with a wave of his hand, "no clocking!"

"No clocking," Rapunzel agreed. She was sitting next to Merida, also cross-legged, with one elbow propped against her knee and her chin resting in her palm. "But I mean, you two really are kinda weird. No offense. It's just that most boys don't… do that kind of stuff together. Especially if they're not even dating."

"Which we are not." Hiccup insisted, as always.

There was another short silence following that, mostly contemplative as Rapunzel studied them curiously, though Hiccup shifted awkwardly under her scrutiny, vaguely uncomfortable with the idea of actually analyzing the nature of his and Jack's relationship. Merida began cleaning her bow absently. Jack, naturally, ignored Rapunzel completely in favour of conjuring a snowflake and dancing it along in front of him with his fingers.

"Ever heard of Friends With Benefits, Punz?"

Red to his ears now, Hiccup made a wide gesture with both arms, "can we please change the subject?!"

This was how it usually was with them. Relaxed and natural, good-natured teasing (usually directed toward Hiccup, who predictably had the best reactions) and just general fun times. On this particular occasion they had gathered in Berk in Norway. Other times it was Corona in Europe, where Rapunzel was from, or Merida's home, the DunBroch lands in Scotland. Never in Jack's place of residence because—well—he simply didn't have one. He had taken them to the North Pole once, though. This travel was always with the aide of the other Guardians—Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman—since although Jack could fly himself, he had no way to take three other people along with him. (He had tried to fly Hiccup once back when they had first met and that had ended in unmitigated disaster.)

Now, it was obvious to Jack that the others were all considering the idea of travelling on their own as he was suggesting. There were ups and downs to the concept, but as far as he was concerned the freedom to go where they wanted when they wanted was reason enough to go by itself. Hence him nicking the snow globe on his last visit to the Pole.

"Look, all I'm saying is—when was the last time we had a real adventure?"

He knew exactly how to phrase things around his friends—the word "adventure" was one that none of them could resist. It was one of the things that they all had in common.

"Well." Rapunzel said finally. She straightened up, and banged her hands against her knees in a decidedly determined manner, a wide smile splitting her face. "Want to give me a hand, Merida? I need my hair dealt with if we're gonna go anywhere."

That was the answer Jack had been waiting for, and he grinned, sitting up himself and then pushing to his feet. He banished the snowflake quickly and held the snow globe up again, then tossed it from one hand to the other even as he was turning to pluck his staff from where it had been resting. Hiccup gave a resigned-sounding sigh. He had been tinkering with his prosthetic leg—he was always tinkering with the damn thing—but now returned his tools to their pouch and the pouch to his vest pocket. Despite the sigh, he was grinning crookedly himself. For her part, Merida slung her bow across her back, then hauled Rapunzel up and set about braiding the blonde's impossibly-long hair, the motions quick and practiced. She was surprisingly good with styling the other girl's locks, considering the absolute mop of red that served for her own.

Across the clearing, Toothless lifted his head, noticing their movement. He seemed to consider for a moment before standing, stretching languorously and opening his maw in a huge yawn. Then he shook himself, flapped his tail a few times and finally settled his wings against his sides. Wide green eyes darted between the people across from him—and a minute later he wandered over to sit by them, gaze flitting around their somewhat-circle curiously.

"Ahh, Toothless… sorry, bud." Hiccup stood and stepped over to rub a hand against Toothless' nose, scratching lightly. "But you can't come with us."

He always found it hard to tell the dragon he would be going somewhere without him. But taking Toothless around the world was obviously a very bad idea—mostly because the rest of the globe had no idea that dragons even existed. And based on what he knew about people in general, Hiccup was pretty sure they wouldn't for very long afterward if their secret got out. He and the other residents of the isle of Berk liked their lives—and their dragons—just fine the way they were.

Toothless seemed to droop a little, but by and large he was used to it. And when they went places like the North Pole, where it was pretty much assured that no one would see him, Toothless was usually brought along. This time, with Jack leading the way, there was no telling where they would end up—so it was just safer to leave Toothless back and make it up to him with scratches, games and dragonnip after they returned.

"I'm working on something for you, yanno, Toothless. I'll give it to you when we get back, alright?" The dragon-tamer was smiling fondly, the same crooked half-grin he always did, and gave Toothless another handful of scratches before dropping his hand and looking over toward the others. "Hey, so… what should we pack?"

o-o-o-o-o

Packing was easy: they went back to Berk—leaving Toothless behind to lounge around in his favourite sunny spot—and Hiccup rounded up his school backpack. Into it went his laptop (and his glasses, which he unfortunately needed to read) and a change of clothes. Also his sketchbook and pencil case. Jack dug around under Hiccup's bed for a minute, producing a shoebox—and Hiccup squawked when he saw it, trying to snatch it from Jack's grasp without any luck.

"Jack, that's my whole savings!"

"Duh. We're gonna need money, you know."

Hiccup once more attempted to grab at the box. "How did you even know where I keep it, you jerk?!"

"Heh." Jack smirked and quirked one eyebrow, holding the shoebox just out of reach, then leaned in close, teasing. "It's always right next to that other box, fishbone. And you know I know where it is. I could find it in my sleep. Or blindfolded, which you've seen me do. Twice."

"Wha— Jackson Overland, I swear to Thor—!" He only used Jack's former-name when he was really irritated—or really flustered. Now Hiccup flushed red, pushing Jack away, then shoved the backpack into his friend's hands and resigned himself to being poor until he could rebuild his savings again. He took a little comfort from the fact that Rapunzel and Merida were at least waiting in the living room and hadn't heard Jack's comments—they would have been under his bed in ten seconds flat looking for aforementioned other box, and he most certainly did not want them to find that. "Fine, whatever. Just put it in the bag and lets' go."

Smugly. "Done and done!"

Once the backpack was full of all the items deemed necessary by either boy, Hiccup tucked his wallet and cell into his pockets and shrugged it on. Jack, of course, would only be bringing the clothes on his back and his staff. And both Merida and Rapunzel had packed a few things for their trip to Berk already, so all they had to do was retrieve their own bags from where they had stashed them when they'd arrived—in the back porch of Hiccup's house.

All that was left was to get hold of Astrid to ask if she would take care of Toothless while they were gone.

Satisfied that they weren't forgetting anything too important, Hiccup dragged Jack out of his room and downstairs—just in time for Merida to flail at them indignantly.

"Jaaaack, Hiccuuuuup! Punz is tellin me I can't bring me bow!"

"Uhh… Punz is right, Mer." Jack tapped one temple lightly.

"You can't just bring that thing everywhere you go. I'm pretty sure it's illegal most places!" Rapunzel sounded exasperated. The argument must have been going on for some time while Jack and Hiccup were upstairs.

"Ye all want me to just leave it here?" Merida was tough, but she whined sometimes when she didn't get her way. They were all used to it.

"It'll be fine here." Hiccup gestured, holding one hand out. "I'll stash it in my room. No one'll even know it's there and you can get it when we get back." And then, "and besides, what if it got broken or something? You've had it since you were a kid, right?"

Merida's eyes moved down to the bow in her hands and she wrinkled her nose, brows furrowing. "Aye, I've had it since I was a wee lass." She gave another long pause then before finally sighing and holding it out toward Hiccup, who took it gingerly, lest the redhead think he was being too rough on her most precious possession. "Okay, okay, yer probably right…"

"You have to leave it every time you come to Corona." Rapunzel reminded her.

"I know, I know, but that's Corona. It's safe there."

"I'm sure Jack won't take us anywhere that's not safe. Right, Jack?"

"Totally." Jack agreed, possibly too quickly.

Hiccup and Rapunzel shot him matching looks just before Hiccup dashed back upstairs to carefully place Merida's bow against the wall next to the window. It would be more than safe there—even if his father came into his room while they were gone, he wouldn't think twice about the weapon, since he already knew who it belonged to.

That did remind Hiccup to at least leave a note before they left, though. Last time he had forgotten. At least his father wasn't the type to worry.

The bow taken care of, the dragon rider hurried downstairs again, breezing past his friends to dig through a kitchen drawer for a notepad. Once he found one—along with a pencil—he scribbled out a quick 'Hey Dad, gone for a few days with Merida and Rapunzel, see you when we get back' note and then pinned it to the fridge with a magnet. His father would find it there. As usual, he didn't mention Jack—Stoick couldn't see the other boy anyway, so there was no point in raising questions that couldn't be easily (or particularly believably) answered.

By the time he was done with that, the others were waiting by the front door and Rapunzel was on the phone with Astrid, explaining the situation. Or, explaining part of the situation, anyway. She thankfully already knew most of what went on with Hiccup and his foreign friends.

Leaning over Rapunzel's shoulder a little, Jack piped up, "hey Astrid!"

The blonde lifted her free hand, placed it against Jack's forehead and shoved lightly. "She says hey."

Astrid saw Jack—she believed in him, mostly because she believed in Hiccup and he believed in Jack, and once she had seen him for the first time, miraculously, she simply couldn't un-see. It had been the same with Toothless—once Astrid believed in something, she never stopped. She was unfortunately the only one of Hiccup's friends from Berk who could see Jack, and no one from Merida or Rapunzel's homelands believed in him. But that still upped Jack's current friend list to four, where it had previously been zero and he was more than fine with that tally.

Once Astrid was up to date and had agreed to take care of Toothless, all attention turned to Jack and the ever-mysterious magical snow globe he was currently spinning in the palm of his hand.

"So," Hiccup began, "how does that thing work?"

A mischievous smirk tilted at the corner of the Guardian's lips.

"Watch."