Little Brother
A/N: Soooo. This is. Like. A missing moment. From Break of Dawn. Because I feel like the ring toss scene could have been expounded upon and SDFGHJKYGHBGFGV. IT COULD HAVE BEEN SOMETHING, OKAY. But at the same time, I have a terrible habit of writing out scenes that aren't absolutely necessary to the plot, so often, my stories feature a looot of filler and padding and just unnecessary crap. But then I had to write this. So it's a one-shot, instead of being featured in the actual story. Huh? Huh?
Also, psst psst the boy behind the counter was a vague HTTYD reference, because I stated he was a redhead of about sixteen who handed off a blue dragon to a blond girl who had won the ring toss and unofficially that's Hiccup and Astrid and they meet for the first time at the carnival and flirt a little and after a little while Astrid starts coming to the carnival just to see him xD Essentially, I'm writing detailed AUs for other characters who never appear in this story more than, like, twice xD
"…See? It's easy, mate."
"Yeah," Jack nodded, frowning down at the rings as though they were displeasing him; he took several minutes to reposition his grip on the rings, and even then, he hesitated, evidently sizing up the distance between his body and the booth.
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Frostbite, will you just throw them already?" Aster griped; he had never had patience in abundance. "It's not like it's a matter of life or death."
Jack twisted around to look at him, sticking out his tongue before refocusing his attention on the booth.
Aster rolled his eyes.
The time Jack had taken to ensure himself a good shot was wasted anyway; when the ring left his hand, it whizzed at least four feet over the bottles, sailing straight toward the boy behind the counter; the redhead, evidently thinking fast, reached out a hand and caught the wayward ring.
An embarrassed flush crept up into Jack's pale cheeks, but, amazingly, the boy behind the counter just laughed, waving a dismissive hand.
"Don't worry, we get kids in here all the time that do that. Still counts as a shot, just so you know."
"S-sorry," Jack stammered, picking up the second ring. "I'll, um…aim away from you this time, I promise."
"Yeah, tell your brother he might want to duck," the other teased.
The color left the white-haired teen's cheeks completely at this; cocking his head, he demanded, "What are you talking about?"
"It…it was a joke," the kid manning the counter looked away, apparently under the impression that his humor had not been appreciated. Aster, however, thought he understood the direction in which his thoughts were going; yet the idea was so distasteful that every part of him immediately moved to shut it down before he could think on it any further.
It appeared that the same thought had occurred to Jack, for the white-haired teenager gave the man a horrified look. "No! No, you've…you've…you've got it all wrong, I mean, we're not…I'm not…" He gestured, rather helplessly, in the man's direction. "We're not related, we're just…he's just…he's, a, um…"
Aster could tell that Jack's mind was whirring with every possible way to finish the sentence, so he stepped in to relieve the boy of his burden. "Yeah, you've got the wrong idea, mate, I'm just looking after him for a friend." He turned to look at the teen in question, allowing a quick, fond smile to appear on his face. "But we're not brothers, no."
Personally, he didn't see how the other kid could make such a mistake; the two didn't look alike, not at all. Where Aster was tanned and muscled and blond, Jack was pale and thin, light strands of silver hair falling over a high forehead.
"Oh, sorry," the redhead behind the counter blushed at his misstep, shrugging apologetically. Seemingly following Aster's train of thought, he added, "You two don't really look alike, I guess, but you seemed close, so I just assumed…"
Close? They'd barely known each other for five days – Jack had entered his house Monday morning, blue eyes flicking warily from one wall to the other, as if it were a prison cell, rather than a two-story suburban home. Though Jack now seemed more relaxed upon walking into Aster's house, it wasn't as though anything huge had happened between them. Sure, the kid was okay, he supposed – Aster didn't like to be wrong, so when he admitted to being so, he did it grudgingly.
But they didn't act like siblings. Did they? Jack was annoying enough to be a little brother, Aster reflected, a smile quirking up the corners of his lips when he thought this, but that didn't mean he saw the boy that way. Jack was just Jack. Everything was simpler that way.
"I…I won!"
"What?" Aster was jerked out of his thoughts by the disbelief in the teen's voice; apparently, he wasn't taking this as seriously as Aster himself. "You…you won? That's great, kiddo." Unconsciously, he reached up to run his fingers through the white hair, grinning when the pale shock stood straight up and the boy didn't even notice.
The boy behind the counter seemed just as shocked as the one in front. "Uh…okay, then. Pick your prize." He gestured to the trinkets and stuffed animals dangling above them; Aster briefly saw a grey rabbit clutching a carrot in stuffed paws, green dragon with forked red tongue dangling and fluffy teddy bear with a red bow around its neck before Jack twisted to give him a questioning look. "What do you think?"
"Oh…I dunno, mate," Aster shrugged, a little surprised that he'd been asked. "You're supposed to pick what you want."
"I didn't play it to win," the boy explained, putting his hands on the counter and staring for a few minutes at each prize, as if it required some real thought. "I didn't think you could win these things."
"They aren't rigged!" Aster said.
"They aren't," the boy behind the counter assured them.
"Alright, give me the rabbit," Jack decided. "It's cute and fluffy."