A/N: I'm SO sorry about the wait...I wish I could tell you the reason why I updated so late, but I think that you guys are so great that I don't want to bored you. So...Here's chapter two! :D
Chapter Two~
RING!
The school bell had just rung, and Jack was making a quick dash to the gym with Emma before the doors close. But just as he was so close from entering, the principal saw them in the hallway and calls out, "Jack Frost!"
'Crap', Jack cursed, halting with a sigh. The principal crosses his arms and tells Jack, "I need to speak with you."
"Look, I'm running really late for work," Jack said, tiredly glancing up at the principal.
"This will only take a second," he reassured in understanding. Jack lets out a breath and hands Emma her jacket, softly telling her before kissing her forehead, "I love you."
"Love you too," Emma whispered. Emma took one more glance at her brother before darting off into the gym with the rest of her peers. Jack's drowsy eyes looked back at the principal, hoping that things weren't all that serious. But, man, was Jack just exhausted.
'Whoo!" Jack laughs out, "Boy am I having a day."
Then he stood straight and tall as listened to what the principal had to say.
"There's something I have to tell you," the principal earnestly says, "You bring your sister to school everyday late and you pick her up late. All of the teachers have been complaining."
Jack waited to hear more, but the principal said nothing else. Jack slowly nods, grinning a bit, and plainly tells him, "Well I will just bring her on time then, Mr. Manny."
If Jack could tell the principal that bring Emma on time was never going to happen, he would've. But he was not going to tell Mr. Manny that just yet, because he has already too much going on in his life. So Jack coolly smiles while he hurried past Mr. Manny to get to the front entrance. Before Jack could egress, Mr. Manny explained, "Okay but I have to tell you: This is a warning."
Jack raises his eyebrows at Mr. Manny, strolling back towards him in surprise. Jack beams up at Mr. Manny, half-heartedly, and explained, "I'm not one of your students, Mr. Manny. I hear you."
Jack then leaves the building, having Mr. Manny let out a chuckle as he shook his head at the secretive boy.
Downtown at a dress shop, Astrid was busying looking over at the pictures of the wedding design. But, of course, she didn't come by herself. Hiccup's mother, Valka; Astrid's mother, Phlegma; and Astrid's friend, Ruffnut, where there as well. Astrid stood off secludedly while the others admired the wedding dress Astrid was going to wear.
"Oh, isn't this exciting, Mrs. Haddock," Ruffnut applauded, touching the softness of the dress.
"Yes it is," Valka happily sighed. "Oh I wish I had a daughter."
"Oy," Phlegma said, "girls are a handful."
Valka nodded, and then breathed inwardly, "Yeah boys, too…Especially that son of mines."
"Oh! How is Snotlout? " Phlegma chirped.
Valka widen her eyes at the question, but answers with a fake smile, "Um…H—He's better."
Valka swiftly moved to where Astrid was standing, wanting to avoid the topic by saying to her, "I cannot believe that the two of you are finally getting married."
Astrid showed a brief smile before looking back at the pictures. 'Yeah, I can't believe it either,' she thought, unhappily. Valka leans closer to her and says, "Do you have any idea how much your mother and I wanted this?"
Although not interested, Astrid looks up to Valka and Phlegma and politely answers, "Uh…Yeah. I think I do."
The two older women chuckled at this, glad to see Astrid like this. Ruffnut glances at her friend and says, "Well it a good thing that they wanted it. And pretty soon, your little ones will be playing with mine little ones."
Astrid unnoticeably cringes at the thought of having kids, but keeps her worried eyes locked on the pictures instead of saying anything.
"I have always thought of having grandchildren," Phlegma blissfully says. Astrid, feeling rather mortified, promptly said, "Let's get through the engagement party first, shall we."
Valka, seeming the only one who saw Astrid's apprehension, asked, "You do want children, don't you?"
Before Astrid could answer, Phlegma interrupted, gently taking a hold of Astrid's hand, "Of course she does."
"Well then you better get busy," Valka says to Astrid, smiling as she took Phlegma's comment as an answer. "You're not getting any younger."
Astrid raises a questioning eyebrow at Valka. Valka just smirks at her before trotting back over to the dress. Astrid blinked a couple of times, thinking quietly to herself, 'Okay…thanks for telling me that, I guess.'
During this time, Jack hastily drives back to the apartment to pay off the money he had left to the owner. Jack frowns at thinking that she might not accept it, but he had no other options.
While he got to the apartment, he notices a bunch of strangers digging through and picking out clothes, toys, and other belongings into a couple of trash bags. Jack was confused at first, but when he realized that these items were Emma's and his, he immediately slams on the breaks and parks in the middle of the streets.
'This is not happening?!' Jack fearfully thought as he continued to look at the people in horror. Jack feared that one day this would happen to him and Emma, the one thing that no one would want to be: Homeless.
Quickly jumping out the car, Jack hurried over to the mess and wailed, "No…NO! This is my place!" Jack pasted back and forth, crying out to the people and the on-lookers, "Please! Don't do this! I'm begging you!"
Jack grabs hold of the TV a man was taking away, but the man snatches from Jack's grip and continued to do his job without a care. Aster came running into the scene, demanding the people to leave but of no avail. Jack lets his frustration and tears get the best of him as he angrily yells at Aster by pointing a finger, "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?! You let them do this!"
"I'm sorry…" Aster contritely said, "I told you she would do this!"
Panicked, Jack swiftly went over to the mattress down on the ground. He searched through the opening side for his money, but, much to his dismay, it was gone.
Poor Jack was downright broke.
"I tried to talk to her out of it," Aster said. Jack just grimaced at Aster and shoves him away, scorning, "Yeah, I'm sure you did." Jack grabbed a couple of his household items, now in trash bags, and storms off to the van. Aster wanted to help, but Jack sharply said, "Don't help me. Don't even help me!"
A couple of citizen walking pass Jack stared at him in wonder. Jack glares at them and barks, "What are YOU looking at?!"
Taking a few more items and placing them inside his vehicle, Jack's redden watery eyes glances back at Aster, choking back a few tears as well. Jack tells him, "Alright, shame on you…SHAME! ON! YOU!"
All the cars behind Jack's van honked endlessly, making one guy yell out, "Hey kid! Move your car!"
"Go to hell!" Jack yelled back, hopping back in the driver spot before driving off to work.
It was noon. Lunchtime. Valka dressed quite causality in her long, decorated attire, strutting down the fabulous restaurant to greet her two boys. Entering through the door, Hiccup stood up and greeted Valka with a smile and embrace. Snotlout, however, remained in his seat, sipping out of his half-full glass of wine.
"Hello, mother. It's good to see you," Hiccup said. Valka warmly smiles at her son and beamed, "Hello, dear. It's good to see you."
Both Hiccup and Valka took notice of Snotlout's rudeness, but Soutlout merely just raised his eyebrow at them. Valka slightly frowns at Snotlout, but sternly told him, "Sit up straight; rise and greet me."
Snotlout reluctantly rises up and went over to Valka, muttering, "Sit up and stand up. What do you want?"
Valka and Snotlout stared at each other, the only that was heard was the silent between them. Hiccup nervous licks his lips, hoping things wouldn't go bad. After for what seems to be like a minute, Valka places a smile upon her face before hugging Snotlout and says, "A 'Hello' would do fine."
As a gentleman, Hiccup pulls a seat for Valka to sit in. "Thank you," she says. While waiting for the waiter, Valka happily presented to Hiccup, "You should see the dress." She then added, "It's not quite my taste, but it'll work just fine."
A beam crept on Valka as she looked on about her brilliant, handsome son in front of her. "I'm so proud of you." Hiccup plainly smiles as well, loving to see his mother as happy as she can be. "You remind me of your father."
Leaning over a bit to whisper in Hiccup's ear, Snotlout said, "I told you she would get married."
Valka's content slowly melted once she heard Snotlout's comment. Calmly, Valka glances at Snotlout with a smirk, holding her chin up high, and proudly announced to him, "Astrid is a respectable girl from a very fine family…unlike that trailer park cheerleader you married."
Hiccup smile disappears once Valka mentions about Snotlout's wife, Heather, knowing it'll offend Snotlout. He felt disappointed that his own mother would ever bring that subject up right now…especially in front of Snotlout.
Snotlout kept a dead gaze at Valka, grimacing. However, Snotlout clears his throat and properly retorted as if it was a lovely conversation, "If I remember correctly, mother…dad met you at the trailer park."
Valka remained silent as she continued to stare coldly at Snotlout, knowing that he was right about that. Snotlout merely slips in his cup, glaring at Valka back. Hiccup didn't like the tension between the two, so he softly calls out, "Mother? The engagement party, uh, how's it going?"
Valka didn't answer. Her expression saddens as she thought more about what Snotlout just said, glancing down on the ground. Hiccup saw his mother's face and calls out again, "Mom?"
Valka lit up, smiling up at her son and answered, "Uh…It's quite beautiful." Returning back to Snotlout and his wine drinking, she sneers, "What is this, Snotlout? A drink in the middle of the day?"
Tired of listening to his mother, Snotlout faked a smile toward her and happily retorted, "Well if I have to sit here with you, you better be glad it's not a mountain of cocaine."
Valka finally set asides her soft, sweet voice for the moment when glaring at Snotlout. Lifting her chin up again, she bitterly asks, "You enjoy this, don't you?"
Snotlout sets his drink down, and mockingly beams, "As a matter of fact, I am."
Valka lowers her head to narrow her eyes at him. She light shakes her head in disgust, then in a low voice she bitterly says, "You think it's funny…" She pauses, then bites, "…Why can't you be more like your brother?"
This question wiped the smirk off of Snotlout's face, giving a cold hard stare. Hiccup realized he himself was slouching the whole time, so he sits back up and gets Valka attention by asking, "Uh…Mom what's going on?"
"I wanted to see you," Valka told him, sincerely. Glancing over at Snotlout, who remained silent, she harshly chuckled to Hiccup, "You insisted on inviting your brother."
Snotlout glances at the table, feeling rather poignant over the fact that Valka is mad about him not acting like Hiccup. Hiccup understood that Valka didn't really considered Snotlout as a family, which made himself feel awful, so Hiccup meekly explained, "Um…well you said it was about business and…uh, he is apart of the business, so…I uh…I—I thought he should be here."
Valka raised her eyebrow at Hiccup. She glances over at Snotlout, who was sipping his wine, then to the floor. Not looking directly at Snotlout, she kindly asked, "Are you still going to your meetings?"
Snotlout slightly slams the drink back to the table. Frowning irritably, Snotlout quietly snaps, "Why?"
"Yes," Hiccup answers for him, not wanting another fight. "Yes he is. And I'm making sure of it."
Noticing Valka's sneer at Snotlout and wanting to change the subject, Hiccup quickly asks, "Mom, wh-what's going on?"
Valka glances up at Hiccup and said in seriousness, "I read the newspaper. Is everything alright?"
Before Hiccup could answer, Snotlout scowled with a chuckle at realization and said to Valka, "This is just like I thought. You are only worried about yourself."
"Your father worked very hard to build this business," Valka explained to Hiccup, choosing to ignore Snotlout. "And to lose it like this would be unthinkable."
Snotlout grimaced at Valka, mocking expressing, "Don't worry, mom. Perfect little Hiccy, here, is going to work it all out for you."
Valka put on her smirk while looking over at Snotlout, proudly stating, "Oh yes he will…and you will find someway to try to sabotage it."
Oh that was it. He couldn't take any of this anymore. Furious, Snotlout hastily gets up from out of his seat. Hiccup places a hand on him and asked, "Where are you going?"
Snotlout angrily smacks Hiccup's hand off and crisply said, "I'm going to have a cigarette. Is that okay? I can't drive."
Hiccup sighed but didn't say anything. Glaring over at Valka, Snotlout angrily explained, "Hiccup has to drive me, mom, because you have my car locked up in the office garage."
Valka halfheartedly rolled her eyes at him, making Snotlout snarl before walking off, "I'm going to have a smoke."
Hiccup glanced up at Snotlout's direction then back at his mother, who shook her head at the second-born son. Valka frowns, hating that her son Snotlout just had to be this way, muttering, "It takes a patients of joke to deal with him."
Hiccup clears his throat, waving off the thought of Snotlout, then straightens himself saying, "Don't get worked up about it, mother. He's fine." Hiccup presses his lips together more, hesitantly adding, wanting it to be true, "It's all fine."
Downtown at the enormous, magnificent skyscraper, home of The Haddock Corporation, a frantic Jack takes his sister along the empty hallways to find her a place to stay. Since fortuneless Jack can't take her back to the place they called "home", he had a place for little Emma to settle in until he could search for a new home while working as well.
Making sure that no one was around, the two siblings instantly dashed to the exit stairs of the building. There, Jack and Emma arrived to a tiny janitor's closet that was perfectly safe for Emma to stay in. Despite all the cleaning materials against the wall, which made the room even more compact, Emma could fit right in.
Jack lays the blanket flatly on the floor, sets aside his belongings on a rack, and gives the shaking Emma eye-to-eye contact and says, "Now listen, I need you to help me and be a big girl. You can lay on this bl—"
"I—I'm scared," Emma softly whines out, nervously biting a tip of her fingernail. Jack nods understandingly, but continues, "You can try to go to sleep. Soon, I'll be checking on you in a hour."
Emma pauses, glancing down at her feet. Streaks of salty water ran down her face, calling out to a person that Emma could trust besides her struggling brother.
"I…I want mommy," Emma cried out, quietly. Jack suddenly freezes up at the mention of "mommy". She still hasn't gotten over the fact that her mother was deceased. Jack didn't want to admit it, but hearing his sister call out for his mother made him want to cry as well. But knowing that in the life he's living now, it's never the time to mourn over the past.
Letting his frustration temporarily take over, Jack shakes away the thought and sternly mutters to Emma, "Emma, don't do that. Don't do that mommy-calling crap."
Emma sides down to the blanket, dolorously shifting as she tried get comfortable. She didn't speak, but Jack softly smiles at her and says, "Now, you must not come out of the closet, okay? And I'll be back to check on you in an hour."
Jack places a peck on Emma's temple, before rushing out the door to go back to work. Emma clutches on to her teddy bear very tightly, wishing that things hadn't change since the passing of her mother while weeping to sleep.
Up stairs at the very top of the company were the assiduous white-collared workers that labored next to the business owner's voluminous office. Hiccup was busy with talking to Jamie about the business planning of North, discussing and solving the problem with what North is trying to do to the business.
Just then, Snotlout barges in the room, supposedly bored and irritated, and ambles up to Hiccup's desk and interrupts by grumbling out, "Can we go home, now?"
Hiccup, so caught up with his research and planning, glances up at him and asks, "What?"
Snotlout lightly frowns and slowly repeats, "Can we go home, now?"
Hiccup finally snaps out of his trance and directly looks at Snotlout. Hiccup kept a straight face and explains, "I'm working, Snotlout. And you should be too. Did you finish the North report?"
Snotlout takes another step closer to the desk, and carelessly tosses a stapled pile of paper on Hiccup's desk. Snotlout holds his hands together as he stood back, bitterly asking, "You need anything else, Mr. C.E.O.?"
Hiccup couldn't believe his brother. All Hiccup could do was sigh, looking at Snotlout. Snotlout raises his eyebrow and presented before departing, "I'm taking the cab home."
Once Soutlout disappears from view, Jamie couldn't help but chuckle at Snotlout's attitude. Jamie faces towards Hiccup, smirking with a shake of his head. "Jamie…don't say a word," Hiccup warned.
"You know that everybody around here is talking about him," Jamie pointed out to Hiccup. "It's not just me. He's not doing a very good job. I mean, he's sleeping with several staffers—"
"Jamie," Hiccup interrupted desperately, wanting to move on. He glances up at Jamie, giving the paper work to him, saying, "My father told me to take care of him, and that's what I intend on doing—Will you take care of this paper work?"
Jamie was amazed on how much work is needed to be done, so he just says, "Okay." Then excitedly tells Hiccup, "Look, I got to go. Ruffnut is going out with Astrid tonight, so I get to play 'daddy'."
"Uh…Yeah. Okay," Hiccup mumbles, not really paying attention to Jamie. Jamie knitted his brows in confusion, seeing Hiccup's trembling hands hastily try to work on the paper in front of him. Hiccup scanned back and forth at the papers, thinking on how to get it ALL done today.
"Hiccup, we can work on this tomorrow morning," Jamie said.
"No, no," Hiccup quickly said. "I'm not leaving until I figure this out. I would rather burn the midnight oil."
Feeling defeated, Jamie said, "Okay, well I'll talk to you later."
"Tell Astrid I said 'Hi'," Hiccup yelled out to Jamie. Jamie nods and leaves his workaholic boss to do his duty.
A/N: Sorry if this didn't have any HiJack interactions, but the next chapter will definitely have HiJack fluff, I promise!
Chapter 3: Coming soon
