Cold Heart
"Not into the lightning zone," Jim cuts in. "Remember, head for the tree in the one-to-two-o'clock sector. If you find you're running out of time, move over one more. Don't even think about going back on the beach, though, until I can assess the damage."
Hiccup takes Jack's face in his hands. "Don't worry. I'll see you at midnight." he gives him a kiss and—before he can object any further, the brunette lets go and turn to Astrid. "Ready?"
"Why not?" says Astrid with a shrug. "You guard, I'll unwind. We can trade off later."
Without further discussion, his boyfriend and the blond girl heads down the slope.
:::::
Jack paces back and forth—even though he's supposed to be guarding. As long as he sees Hiccup's figure, he was able to relax. But the white-haired teen grows tense as the figures of both Astrid and his boyfriend shrinks smaller as their distance widens from the group.
"Would you calm down?" Zuko says. "I know you have the tendency to be protective, but you saw Astrid fight. She's more than capable, and don't you believe in your boyfriend? I mean, you should."
Jack scowls and gets into Zuko's face, pointing a knife at him. "Never question me about Hiccup."
"Then stop acting like I should," Zuko shot back, crossing his arms. "They're coiling wire, they have each other for back up. They'll—"
"I'm the one who's supposed to be backing him up in the first place!"
Jim cuts in between them and takes Jack's knife. "Can I borrow this? Thanks." he declared more than asked before stepping back once more as Jean shook his head wearily.
For some reasons, that was all it took to cool down the two. Zuko went back to guarding the pony-tailed brunette, watching his left side while Jean watches the right. Jack thought that even if he said he needed more guards, it seemed like Jean and Zuko are well capable of doing that. Unless they had some kind of device to watch any hostile from above or the like, there didn't seem much for Jack to do. The Spear wielder sighed deeply, before turning to see what else exactly needed to be done to the tree. Till he saw that the brunette didn't need his knife for the tree, but for something else. And he remembered how he almost died their first night at the arena.
"Jim, wait!"
Too late, Jim touches his knife to the force field and is blown back a few meters off and his instantly knocked unconscious. Jean and Zuko were blown back, but didn't feel the same impact as the younger boy. Jack didn't move in time, so Zuko landed on him and got the wind knocked out of his lungs.
"Guys!" The white-haired teen gasped out, pushing Zuko off him. "Why didn't you warn him?! You knew what would happen!"
Zuko lifted himself up with his elbows, "He said he knew how to break it, something about chinks."
"Why would he think he could—"
Then suddenly, Jean gasped before rushing off to the direction Hiccup and Astrid took off to. "Zuko, change of plans, handle Jack, I'll get the other two!"
Before Jack could think to question or respond to that, he sees what Jean probably had. He could barely make out the figures, but there's one who's down, the one that's blond takes off to the jungle with something black in her arms, with the two Highs approaching the victim on the ground.
"HICCUP!"
Before Jack could even get up and make it to his boyfriend, someone was heavily on him.
Zuko.
"Get off me! He needs me! He needs—AHHHH!"
Jack screamed in sheer pain as Zuko digs his knife into the white-haired teen's arm, as if to cut off the very tendons inside it. Despite this, even when it's the thought of his boyfriend that was primarily in his mind, another more alarming idea dawns on Jack's mind.
The alliance is over.
Jean, Zuko and Astrid must have had an agreement to turn on them tonight. Jack knew they should've taken off this morning. He doesn't know where Jim stands, but he didn't think it mattered at this point. Jim seemed down to the count.
And pretty soon I will be too, like Hiccup probably is...
And that's when it hits him.
Hiccup!
Jack elbowed Zuko right at his bad eye, and the black haired guy cried out in pain, immediately getting off the Overland boy, who shakily stands. Disoriented by the pain, Jack has the mind to grip his injured arm tightly to stem the flow of blood, hoping to stop it somehow. Because of this, though, he neglected to bring his spear, and the only thing in his mind was to get to his boyfriend.
They didn't stop Jim, maybe they were really hoping the guy could get himself killed in the process. Make things easier for them.
Jack considered this, forgetting to take into account that Jean and Zuko didn't back away to be cleared from the blast. Or that Jean mostly sounded concerned when mentioning Astrid and Hiccup.
This, in itself, can be a signal to kill, can't it? Surely this was just this is the real reason they divided us, deciding the time had come to break with us.
Kill him. Kill his boyfriend.
Take out the Highs then each other.
The last stand being with the three of them. But he didn't understand, why they would make plans so they can fight each other, kill each other. Kill people they built friendships with.
I don't know. I don't know.
Jack only knows that he get to Hiccup and keep him alive.
~o~
Jack makes it down the slope slowly and carefully, the pain in his arm slowly ebbing. He berated himself for forgetting his spear, and even his knife from Jim. Even that was better than no weapon at all. As it was, all he had with his were his spearheads. And unless he wanted to cut himself while using them to stab either Gaston or Zeera, there wasn't much they can do. But he didn't have time to climb back up. Besides, he didn't know why Zuko didn't go after him to finish him off, but Jack's sure that if he did climb back up, the expert fire starter wouldn't hesitate to take him up once and for all.
He needed to get to Hiccup. Maybe Jack could at least make do with his bow and arrows.
"Hiccup!"
Wherever the brunette collapsed earlier, he was no longer there. At least, Jack couldn't find his boyfriend anywhere out in the open. That means he's still alive, Jack thought hopefully. Maybe he heard Jean coming for him and tried to hide...
"Hiccup!"
Jack heart skips a beat when he actually gets a response. "Jack! Jack! I'm here! Jack!"
He doesn't know how he did it, but Hiccup somehow managed to make it back up the slope undetected. The white-haired teen turns and picks up the pace, no longer applying pressure to his wound. He looks around for his boyfriend, desperate to find him. Also, while it was helpful, he hoped Hiccup would use his common sense and stop calling out loud to attract other unwanted attention.
"Jack!" But the screams just keep at it. "I'm here! I'm here!"
That's when he realized it, He doesn't want me to reach him! He wants to draw them in, any in my vicinity, away from me and over to him and the lightning tree! He's doing it, he's sacrificing himself!
"I'm here! I'm here!"
Jack wanted to yell out for him to shut up, to stop calling attention to himself. But he realized he's out of breath. The white-haired teen is almost afraid he won't make it, but that just makes him quicken his pace more. That's why he stopped yelling himself, to save his lungs the trouble and so he could focus on his run.
There's a cannon, and Jack can't help but cry out in anguish, fearing the worse. "HICCUP!" his voice howls for his boyfriend.
But this time the brunette doesn't answer. Jack stumbles—dizzy for a moment—most probably due to the lost of blood from his arm injury before taking off again.
Three cannons have sounded.
Aside from Hiccup, there were still Gaston, Astrid, Zuko, Eret. Jean. Jim. Some of them are already dead. And he could only hope it wasn't Hiccup.
One enemy.
Enemy. Enemy.
The word is tugging at a recent memory. Pulling it into the present.
The look on Aster's face.
Snowflake, when you're in the arena…
The scowl, the misgiving.
What?
Jack hears his his own voice tighten as he bristles at some unspoken accusation.
You just remember who the enemy is, Aster says. That's all.
Aster's last words of advice to them, even if it was directed to him mostly.
Why would they need reminding?
They have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and kills them in the arena. Who will soon kill everyone Jack loves. And that's when he stops short, just as he nearly makes it up the slope.
Yes, I remember... I know who the enemy is.
And they're not the the other Lights.
Jack finally sees Hiccup, and finds Jim was still there as well as his knife. He didn't know where Zuko was, but that didn't matter. Just like the pony-tailed brunette attempted earlier, his brunette's shaking hands slide the wire from the hilt, wind it around the arrow just above the feathers, and secure it with a knot picked up in training. Hiccup rises, turning to the force field. He doesn't see Jack, though.
Only focusing about where he should direct his tip, where Jim would have driven the knife but probably, even the guy could miscalculate.
Before Jack can move to stop him, Hiccup lets the arrow fly, sees it hit its mark and vanish, pulling the thread of gold behind it. His hair stands on end and the lightning strikes the tree. A flash of white runs up the wire, and for just a moment, the dome bursts into a dazzling blue light. He's thrown backward to the ground, body useless, paralyzed, eyes frozen wide, as feathery bits of matter rain down on him. Jack struggles, attempting for one last time to reach Hiccup, so he could have just one more chance to embrace him, to kiss him.
Everything seems to erupt at once.
The hovercraft materializes above the brunette without warning. If it was quiet, and a bird perched close at hand. It was especially painful for his superhuman ear midst this bombardment. Even with his superhuman hearing Jack wasn't able to make out anything so delicate in this bombardment. The claw drops from the underside until it's directly overhead. The metal talons slide under the Overland boy.
Jack wanted to scream, run, smash his way out of it but he's frozen, helpless to do anything but fervently hope he'll die before he reaches the shadowy figures awaiting him above. They have not spared Jack's life to crown him victor but to make his death as slow and public as possible. His worst fears are confirmed when the face that greets him inside the hovercraft belongs to Dimitri Sudayev, Head Game maker. What a mess they must've made of his beautiful Games with the clever ticking clock and the field of victors. Dimitri will suffer for his failure, probably lose his life, but not before he sees Jack is punished. His hand reaches for the him, Jack wonders if it's to strike him, but he does something worse. With his thumb and his forefinger, he slides Jack's eyelids shut, sentencing him to the vulnerability of darkness.
They can do anything to Jack now and the white-haired teen will not even see it coming. His heart pounds so hard the blood begins to stream from his injured arm. His thoughts grow foggy. Possibly he can bleed to death before they can revive him after all. In his mind, Jack whispers a thank-you to Zuko for the excellent wound he inflicted as he blacks out.
~o~
When Jack swims back into semi consciousness, he can feel he's lying on a padded table. There's the pinching sensation of tubes in his left arm. They are trying to keep the white-haired teen alive because, if he slid quietly, privately into death, it will be a victory. Jack's still largely unable to move, opens his eyelids, raises his head. But his right arm has regained a little motion. It flops across his body, feeling like a flipper—no, something less animated, like a club.
Jack had no real motor coordination, no proof that he even still had fingers. Yet he manages to swing his arm around until he rips the tubes out. A beeping goes off but the white-haired teen can't stay awake to find out who it will summon. The next time he surfaces, the Overland boy's hands are tied down to the table, the tubes back in his arm. Jack can open his eyes and lift his head slightly, though. He's in a large room with low ceilings and a silvery light. There are two rows of beds facing each other. The Overland boy can hear the breathing of what he assumes are his fellow victors. Directly across from the brunette sees Zuko with about ten different machines hooked up to him.
Just let us die! Jack screams in his mind.
The white-haired teen slams his head back hard on the table and go out again.
When he finally, truly, wakes up, the restraints are gone. Jack raises his hand and find he had fingers that can move at his command again. He pushes himself to a sitting position and holds on to the padded table until the room settles into focus. His left arm is bandaged but the tubes dangle off stands by the bed. He's alone except for Zuko, who still lies in front of him, being sustained by his army of machines. There are other empty beds, but he couldn't tell for whom.
Where are the others, then? Hiccup, Jean, Jim, Zeera and... and... one more, right?
Either Astrid or Eret or Gaston was still alive when the bombs began. He's sure they'll want to make an example of them all.
But where have they taken them? Moved them from hospital to prison? "Hiccup..."
Jack so wanted to protect him. He's still resolved to. Since he had failed to keep him safe in life, he must find him, kill him now before Berk gets to choose the agonizing means of his death. Jack slides his legs off the table and looks around for a weapon. There are a few syringes sealed in sterile plastic on a table near Zuko's bed.
Perfect.
All he needed is air and a clear shot at one of his veins. Jack pauses for a moment, considers killing Zuko. But if he does, the monitors will start beeping and he'll be caught before he gets to Hiccup. Jack makes a silent promise to return and finish him off if he can. He's naked except for a thin hospital gown, so the brunette slips the syringe under the bandage that covers the wound on his arm. There are no guards at the door. No doubt he's miles beneath the Training Center or in some Berk stronghold, and the possibility of his escape is nonexistent. It doesn't matter. Jack's not escaping, just finishing a job. He creeps down a narrow hallway to a metal door that stands slightly ajar...
And feels something at his feet.
"Toothless!" He forgets where he is for a moment, bends down to hug the cat to his chest. "I don't know how, but I'm glad you're alive, can you tell me where Hic—!"
Then he hears voices and stiffens. Jack takes out the syringe and grips it in his hand. Flattening himself against the wall, Toothless curled to his chest with more sense than him to be quiet as Jack listens to the voices inside.
"Communications are down in Seven, Ten, and Twelve. But Eleven has control of transportation now, so there's at least a hope of them getting some food out."
Dimitri Sudayev. Jack vaguely recalls the voice. Although he's only really spoken with him once, when he had asked to borrow Hiccup for a dance.
"Forget the food for a moment, Dim-wit! How about him? He may not be Ben, but he's still my friend! I get that you couldn't save Ben, but don't let me go through that again!"
Jack had to pause, Jim? He made it alive?
"I wish I can get them all, Jimbo. But you know as well as I do that there's nothing left we can do."
"Don't call me Jimbo! Save my friend, damn it!"
"Don't you think I would by now if I could?"
A hoarse voice asks a question.
"No, I'm sorry. There's no way I can get you to Four either. But I've given special orders for his retrieval if possible. It's the best I can do, Jean."
Jean.
Jack's mind struggles to make sense of the conversation, of the fact that it's taking place between Dimitri Sudavey, Jim who he thought was dead, and Jean.
Is Jean so near and dear to Berk that he'll be excused his crimes? Or did both he and Zuko really have no idea what Jim intended?
Jean croaks out something else. Something heavy with despair. "Don't be stupid. That's the bloody worst thing you could do. Get him killed for sure. As long as you're alive, they'll keep himalive for bait," says Aster.
Says Aster!
Jack drops Toothless and bangs through the door and stumbles into the room. Aster, Dimitri, and two very beat-up Jean and Jim sits around a table laid with a meal no one is eating. Daylight streams in the curved windows, and in the distance Jack sees the top of a forest of trees.
They are flying.
"Done knocking yourself out, showpony?" says Aster, the annoyance clear in his voice.
But as he careens forward he steps up and catches his wrists, steadying Jack.
The man looks at the white-haired teen's hand. "So it's you and a syringe against Berk? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans."
Jack stares at him uncomprehendingly.
"Drop it."
Jack feels the pressure increase on his right wrists until his hand is forced to open and the Overland boy releases the syringe. Toothless takes the syringe and brings it away from Jack. Then the cat returns, purring against the Overland boy's shin.
"And I suppose you couldn't get to Morph on time, either?"
"Jim, I love you and all, but please shut up." Dimitri groans, holding the bridge of his nose. "You already broke my nose, isn't that enough?"
Jim scoffs, "You are such a baby."
"At least I'm not a whining one..."
Aster shakes his head in annoyance, before settling Jack in a chair next to Jean. Dimitri puts a bowl of broth in front of him. Jim places a bowl of milk down for Toothless.
A roll.
Slips a spoon into his pale white hand.
"Eat," Dimitri says in a much kinder voice than Aster used or the one he used on Jim a little earlier.
Aster sits directly in front of his white-haired Light. "Jackson," The boy is taken aback that the man doesn't call him either snowflake or showpony. It doesn't sit well in him. "I'm going to explain what happened. I don't want you to ask any questions until I'm through. Do you understand?"
Jack nods numbly. And this is what the mentor tells the boy.
There was a plan to break them out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victor Lights from 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it. Dimitri Sudayev has been, for several years, part of an undercover group aiming to overthrow Berk. He made sure the wire was among the weapons, the one that Jim claimed he invented.
Said lover was in charge of blowing a hole in the force field. The bread they received in the arena was code for the time of the rescue. The district where the bread originated indicated the day. Three. The number of rolls the hour. Twenty-four. The hovercraft belongs to District 13. Nico and Will, the young men he met at the woods from 8, were right about its existence and its defense capabilities. They're settled in and are offering their own contributions there. Now Jack and everyone present are currently on a very roundabout journey to District 13.
Meanwhile, most of the districts in Berk are in full-scale rebellion. Aster stops to see if the white-haired teen's following. Or maybe the mentor is done for the moment. It's an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan in which he was a piece, just as he was meant to be a piece in the Nightmare Games. Used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Nightmare Games, Jack knew he was being played with.
"You didn't tell me." the white-haired teen's voice is as ragged as Jean's.
"Neither you nor Hiccup were told. We couldn't risk it," says Dimitri. "I was even worried Hiccup might mention my indiscretion with the watch during the Games." He pulls out his pocket watch and runs his thumb across the crystal, lighting up the Nightfury. "Of course, when I showed him this, I was merely tipping him off about the arena. As a mentor. I thought it might be a first step toward gaining both your trust. I never dreamed you two would be a Light again."
"I still don't understand why Hiccup and I weren't let in on the plan,"
"Because once the force field blew, you'd be the first ones they'd try to capture, and the less you knew, the better," says Aster.
"The first ones? Why?" Jack frowns, trying to hang on to the train of thought.
"For the same reason the rest of us agreed to die to keep you alive," Jean answers.
"No, Zuko tried to kill me,"
"Zuko knocked you out to cut the tracker from your arm," says Jean.
"What?" Jack's head aches so and he wants them to stop talking in circles. "I don't know what you're—"
"We had to save you because you're the Frostbite, Jack," says Dimitri. "While you live, the revolution lives."
His volunteer. His refusal. The berries. The resolve to go against Berk like a storm for the sake of his love ones.
I am the Frostbite.
The one that survived despite Berk's plans, breaking the rules as he did. Surviving the system against all odds. The symbol of the rebellion. It's what Hiccup suspected in the woods when they found Nico and Will escaping. Though he's never really understood the magnitude. But then, Jack wasn't meant to understand. He thinks of Aster's sneering at his plans to flee District 12, start his own uprising, even the very notion that District 13 could exist.
Subterfuges and deceptions.
And if Aster could do that, behind his mask of sarcasm and aloofness, so convincingly and for so long, what else had he lied about?
I know what else. "Hiccup," The white-haired teen whispers, his heart sinking.
"Of course, we bloody wanted both of you. He's the Nightfury, you're the Frostbite," says Aster. "Ideally, you guys started this together, so you two are supposed to finish this together."
Aster's words are matter-of-fact, his expression unchanged, but he can't hide the tinge of gray that colors his face.
"Where is Hiccup?" Jack demands, almost desperately, but at the same time, he didn't want to hear it.
"He was picked up by Berk along with Astrid and Zeera," says Aster, and finally has the decency to drop his gaze.
Technically, Jack unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do, especially if the target is unprepared. The Overland boy lunges across the table and rakes his down Aster's face, causing blood to flow and damage to one eye. Then Jean and Jim are trying to drag the blue-eyed teen, and Jack knows it's all Aster can do not to rip him apart, but he's the Frostbite. Jack's the Frostbite and he's anger is a hail that can't be contained.
The white-haired teen's back on his table, his body restrained, his wrists tied down, so he slams his head in desperation again and again against the table. Toothless doesn't make a fuss when Jim handles him, probably the guy's taken care of him while Jack was passed out. A needle pokes his arm and the Jack's head hurts so badly he stops fighting and simply wails in a horrible, dying-animal way, until his voice gives out. The drug causes sedation, not sleep, so the Overland boy's trapped in fuzzy, dully aching misery for what seems like always. They reinsert their tubes and talk to Jack in soothing voices that never reaches him.
All he can think of is Hiccup, lying on a similar table somewhere, while they try to break him for information he doesn't even have.
"Jackson. Jack, I'm sorry." Jean's voice comes from the bed next to the brunette and slips into his consciousness. Perhaps because they're in the same kind of pain. "I wanted to go back for him and Astrid, but I couldn't move."
Jack doesn't answer. Jean Kirschtein's good intentions mean less than nothing.
"It's better for him than Astrid." Zuko says, and it seems his somewhat recovered from whatever happened to him. "They'll figure out Hiccup doesn't know anything pretty fast. And they won't kill him if they think they can use him against you,"
"Like bait?" Jack says to the ceiling. "Like how they'll use Armin for bait, for Jean?"
Jack can't even afford to be apologetic after hearing Jean weeping but the white-haired teen can't bring himself to care. They probably won't even bother to question him, Armin's so far gone. Gone right off the deep end years ago in his Games. There's a good chance Jack's headed in the same direction. Maybe he's already going crazy and no one has the heart to tell him.
I feel crazy enough.
"I wish he was dead," Jean says. "I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best."
There's no good response to that. Jack can hardly dispute it since he was walking around with a syringe to kill Hiccup when he found them.
Do I really want him dead? Jack considers this for a moment before shaking his head fiercely, No! What I want ... what I want is to have him back, he's my hope, the one who kept me going in this life, he's my hope, I can't do this without him... But I'll never get him back now.
Even if the rebel forces could somehow overthrow Berk, Jack was sure President Pitchiner's last act would be to cut Hiccup's throat.
No. I will never get him back. So then dead is best.
But will Hiccup know that or will he keep fighting? He's can be so stubborn and strong-willed if he was impassioned, Jack believes his love may last longer if he wanted to.
Does he think he has a chance of surviving? Does he even care if he does? He wasn't planning on it, anyway.
Hiccup had already signed off on life. Maybe, if he knows Jack was rescued, he's even happy. Feels he fulfilled his mission to keep his lover alive. Jack gives up. Stops speaking, responding, refuses food and water. They can pump whatever they want into his arm, but it takes more than that to keep a person going once he's lost the will to live. Jack even had a funny notion that if he did die, maybe Hiccup will be allowed to live. Not as a free person but as a Sandys or something, waiting on the future Lights of District 12. Then maybe he could find some way to escape. Jack's death could, in fact, still save him.
If it can't, no matter.
It's enough to die of spite. To punish Aster, who, of all the people in this rotting world, has turned Jack and Hiccup into pieces in his Games. They trusted him. They put what was precious in Aster's hands. And he had betrayed them.
See, this is why no one lets you make the plans, he said.
That's true. No one in their right mind would let me make the plans.
Because Jack obviously can't tell a friend from an enemy. A lot of people come by to talk to him, but he made all their words sound like the clicking of the insects in the jungle. Meaningless and distant. Dangerous, but only if approached. Whenever the words start to become distinct, Jack moans until they give him more painkiller and that fixes things right up. Until one time, he opens his eyes and finds someone he cannot block out looking down at him. Someone who will not plead, or explain, or think he can alter Jack's design with entreaties, because he alone really knows how the Overland boy operates.
"Jamie,"
"Hey, Jack Frost."
Jamie jabs his best friend's face lightly, like a simple tap more than anything else. One side of his face has been burned fairly recently. His arm is in a sling, and Jack can see bandages under his scavenger shirt.
What has happened to him? How is he even here? Something very bad has happened back home.
It is not so much a question of forgetting Hiccup as remembering the others. All it takes is one look at Jim and they come surging into the present, demanding to be acknowledged.
"Emma?" Jack gasps. "Mom? Hiccup's family?"
"She's alive. So is your mother. Even the Haddocks. I got them out in time," Jamie says.
"They're not in District Twelve?"
"After the Games, they sent in planes. Dropped firebombs." He hesitates. "Well, you know what happened to the Hob."
Jack does know. He saw it go up. That old warehouse embedded with snow.
"They're not in District Twelve?"
As if saying it will somehow fend off the truth. "Jack," Jamie says softly.
Jack recognizes that voice. It's the same one Jamie uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. Jack instinctively raises his hand to block his words but his friend catches it and holds on tightly.
"Don't," Jack begged.
But Jamie is not one to keep secrets from him. "Jack, there is no District Twelve."
~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~
GUARDIAN ROUTE
Before Jack can move to stop him, Hiccup lets the arrow fly, sees it hit its mark and vanish, pulling the thread of gold behind it. His hair stands on end and the lightning strikes the tree. A flash of white runs up the wire, and for just a moment, the dome bursts into a dazzling blue light. He's thrown backward to the ground, body useless, paralyzed, eyes frozen wide, as feathery bits of matter rain down on him. Jack can't seem to reach Hiccup, as much as he would like just one for chance to embrace him, to kiss him. Everything seems to erupt at once.
The hovercraft materializes above the brunette without warning. If it was quiet, and a bird perched close at hand. It was especially painful for his superhuman ear midst this bombardment. Even with his superhuman hearing Jack wasn't able to make out anything so delicate in this bombardment. The claw drops from the underside until it's directly overhead. The white-haired teen panics as he starts to run once more, and Jack finally reaches Hiccup after all.
"Jack!" Hiccup cried out, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend's neck. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry about the force field! Now they'll kill us both, I'm sorry I couldn't save you!" He sobbed.'
Jack returns the embraces his boyfriend just as desperately. "It's okay, it's okay. I—I think it's better this way," he pulls back to plant a soft kiss on his lover's lips, before pulling back. But they're faces were still close enough to be touching. "At least—we die together, right?"
That was the only consolation. Hiccup was with Jack. Even if they're to be tortured brutally before dying, at least they'd suffer together.
Then the metal talons slide under the brunette.
Hiccup wanted to scream, run, smash his way out of it, Jack wished he had his spear, maybe it could do more and free his boyfriend but they're both frozen, helpless to do anything. Jack just hangs on to Hiccup and the brunette holds him close as they're being brought up. They have not spared Hiccup's and Jack's life to crown them as dual victors once again but to make their deaths as slow and public as possible. Their worst fears are confirmed when the face that greets them inside the hovercraft belongs to Dimitri Sudayev, Head Game maker. What a mess Jack and Hiccup had made of his beautiful Games with the clever ticking clock and the field of victors. Dimitri will suffer for his failure, probably lose his life, but not before he sees Jack and Hiccup are punished. Suddenly, Jack yells in anger and protest as he's being pulled away from his boyfriend and pinned down to another table. He screams bloody murder as Dimitri's hand reaches for the brunette, as if to strike him, but he does something worse. With his thumb and his forefinger, he slides Hiccup's eyelids shut, sentencing him to the vulnerability of darkness.
And whoever is on him injects something to Jack's bloodstream and he feels the effects of the sleeping drug almost as instantly as the syrup Hiccup had given so long ago at the cave knocked him out.
~o~
When Jack swims back into semi consciousness, he can feel he's lying on a padded table. There's the pinching sensation of tubes in his left arm. They are trying to keep the white-haired teen alive because, if he slid quietly, privately into death, it will be a victory. Jack's still largely unable to move, opens his eyelids, raises his head. But his right arm has regained a little motion. It flops across his body, feeling like a flipper—no, something less animated, like a club.
Jack had no real motor coordination, no proof that he even still had fingers. Yet he manages to swing his arm around until he rips the tubes out. A beeping goes off but Hiccup can't stay awake to find out who it will summon. The next time he surfaces, the Overland boy's hands are tied down to the table, the tubes back in his arm. Jack can open his eyes and lift his head slightly, though. He's in a large room with low ceilings and a silvery light. There are two rows of beds facing each other. The brunette can hear the breathing of what he assumes are his fellow victors. Directly across from the brunette sees Zuko with about ten different machines hooked up to him.
Just let us die! Jack screams in his mind.
The white-haired teen slams his head back hard on the table and go out again.
When he finally, truly, wakes up, the restraints are gone. Jack raises his hand and find he had fingers that can move at his command again. The white-haired teen pushes himself to a sitting position and holds on to the padded table until the room settles into focus. His left arm is bandaged but the tubes dangle off stands by the bed. He's alone except for Zuko, who still lies in front of him, being sustained by his army of machines. There are other empty beds, but he couldn't tell for whom.
Where are the others, then? Hiccup, Jean, Jim, Zeera and...and...one more, right?
Either Astrid or Eret or Gaston was still alive when the bombs began. He's sure they'll want to make an example of them all.
But where have they taken them? Moved them from hospital to prison? "Hiccup..."
Jack so wanted to protect him. He's still resolved to. Since he had failed to keep him safe in life, he must find him, kill him now before Berk gets to choose the agonizing means of his death. Jack slides his legs off the table and looks around for a weapon. There are a few syringes sealed in sterile plastic on a table near Zuko's bed.
Perfect.
All he needed is air and a clear shot at one of his veins. Jack pauses for a moment, considers killing Zuko. But if he does, the monitors will start beeping and he'll be caught before he gets to Hiccup. Jack makes a silent promise to return and finish him off if he can. He's naked except for a thin hospital gown, so the brunette slips the syringe under the bandage that covers the wound on his arm. There are no guards at the door. No doubt he's miles beneath the Training Center or in some Berk stronghold, and the possibility of his escape is nonexistent. It doesn't matter. Jack's not escaping, just finishing a job. He creeps down a narrow hallway to a metal door that stands slightly ajar...
Someone is behind it.
"Hiccup!" He forgets where he is and what he was intending to do to Jack as he buries his face to the front of his boyfriend's. "Oh thank goodness! How are you—"
Then he hears voices and stiffens. Hiccup cupped his boyfriend's face and speaks soothingly. "It's okay, it's okay," Jack just continues staring, uncomprehending. Hiccup takes his hand and makes him drop the syringe. "You'll understand soon enough, just come with me."
And Hiccup leads him to a room, but as they hear voices, the brunette teen stops, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was.
"Communications are down in Seven, Ten, and Twelve. But Eleven has control of transportation now, so there's at least a hope of them getting some food out."
Dimitri Sudayev. Jack vaguely recalls the voice. Although he's only really spoken with him once, when he had asked to borrow Hiccup for a dance.
"Forget the food for a moment, Dim-wit! How about him? I'll forgive you for failing Ben, but don't let Jack go through it too!"
Jack had to pause, Jim? He made it alive?
"I wish I can get them all, Jimbo. But you know as well as I do that there's nothing left we can do."
"Don't call me Jimbo! Save his best friend, damn it!"
"Don't you think I would by now if I could?"
Jean's asked a question, despite of his hoarse voice. Hiccup couldn't hear it though, but Jack could.
"Armin. Can you get me to Four? So I can save him myself?"
The white-haired teen doesn't tell his boyfriend, though.
"No, I'm sorry. There's no way I can get you to Four either. But I've given special orders for his retrieval if possible. It's the best I can do, Jean."
Jean.
Jack's mind struggles to make sense of the conversation, of the fact that it's taking place between Dimitri Sudavey, Jim who he thought was already dead, and Jean.
Is Jean so near and dear to Berk that he'll be excused his crimes? And was Jim excused because of Dimitri?
Jean croaks out something else. Something heavy with despair.
"Don't be stupid. That's the bloody worst thing you could do. Get him killed for sure. As long as you're alive, they'll keep himalive for bait," says Aster.
Aster! "ASTER!"
Hiccup finally coughs to get their attention, figuring that it was okay to interrupt now. Aster, Dimitri, and two very beat-up Jean and Jim sits around a table laid with a meal no one is eating. Jack also sees that Toothless is calmly having his fill on milk at the floor. Daylight streams in the curved windows, and in the distance Jack sees the top of a forest of trees.
They are flying.
"Done knocking yourself out, showpony? Or did freckles just knock you awake?" asked Aster, the annoyance clear in his voice.
Jim looks at him, "Are you hungry? There's some bouillabaisse stew left. My godfather's old family recipe." he comes over and with Hiccup, helps Jack to settle in a chair next to Jean.
Dimitri puts the bowl of broth in front of him.
A roll.
Hiccup slips a spoon into his pale white hand. "Eat," he says in a much kinder voice than Aster used.
Aster sits directly in front of his Lights. "Jackson," the aforementioned boy is shock that the man used his actual name just now, it unnerved him. "now that you're awake, I'm going to explain to you and Hiccup what happened. I don't want either one of you to ask any questions until I'm through. Do you understand?"
Jack nods numbly, Hiccup doesn't say anything though. And this is what the mentor tells boys.
There was a plan to break them out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victor Lights from 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it. Dimitri Sudayev has been, for several years, part of an undercover group aiming to overthrow Berk. He made sure the wire was among the weapons, the one that Jim claimed the he invented.
Said lover was in charge of blowing a hole in the force field. The bread they received in the arena was code for the time of the rescue. The district where the bread originated indicated the day. Three. The number of rolls the hour. Twenty-four. The hovercraft belongs to District 13. Nico and Will, the young men he met at the woods from 8, were right about its existence and its defense capabilities. They're settled in and offering their own contributions there. They are currently on a very roundabout journey to District 13.
Meanwhile, most of the districts in Berk are in full-scale rebellion. Aster stops to see if the white-haired boy's following. Or maybe the mentor is done for the moment. It's an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan in which he was a piece, just as he was meant to be a piece in the Nightmare Games. Used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Nightmare Games, Jack knew he was being played with.
"You didn't tell us." the Overland boy's voice is as ragged as Jean's.
"Neither you nor Hiccup were told. We couldn't risk it," says Dimitri. "I was even worried Hiccup might mention my indiscretion with the watch during the Games." He pulls out his pocket watch and runs his thumb across the crystal, lighting up the Nightfury. "Of course, when I showed him this, I was merely tipping Hiccup off about the arena. As a mentor. I thought it might be a first step toward gaining both your trusts. I never dreamed you two would be Lights again."
"I still don't understand why Jack and I weren't let in on the plan,"
"Because once the force field blew, you'd be the first ones they'd try to capture, and the less you knew, the better," says Aster.
"The first ones? Why?" Jack frowns, trying to hang on to the train of thought.
"For the same reason the rest of us agreed to die to keep you two alive," Jean answers.
"No, Zuko tried to kill me,"
Hiccup's head whipped at that, and he turned at Jean. "Just like Astrid?"
"Yes. Similarly, Astrid knocked Hiccup out to cut the tracker from his arm, same as Zuko did for you," says Jean.
"What?" Jack's head aches so and he wants them to stop talking in circles. "I don't know what you're—"
"We had to save you guys because Hiccup's the Nightfury, and you're the Frostbite that started the hail plaguing Berk now." says Dimitri. "While you two live, the revolution lives."
The dragon, Toothless, the pin, the watch, the cracker, the groom suit that changed colors.
His volunteer. His refusal. The berries. The love he had for his fellow Light.
For the rebellion.
It's what Hiccup suspected in the woods when he found Nico and Will escaping. Though he's never really understood the magnitude. But then, Jack and Hiccup weren't meant to understand. And then they consider what they wanted, for Jack and Hiccup to lead the rebellion. And the white-haired teen was supposed to use his alias, to be at the front lines. But he was no leader, he never intended to be the face of the rebellion against Berk. He didn't feel the same passion for it like his best friend does.
"What about Jamie, he's more passionate about this, he believed in a rebellion more than I—" The white-haired stops himself as he sees the way all their faces fall, and his heart is sinking. "Where is Jamie?" Jack demands, almost desperately, but at the same time, he didn't want to hear it.
"He was picked up by Berk, just as Armin might be picked up as well if we don't make it to him in time," says Aster, and finally has the decency to drop his gaze.
And that was it, the dam was broken, flood gates were released, and Jack tries to stand, but he immediately collapses to the floor. Toothless and Hiccup are on him a second later but it doesn't help or stop him from crying out in anguish, it doesn't stop the tears from flowing, and it's all they can do to prevent the boy from killing himself once more by reaching for the syringe, they couldn't lose him, too. Jack's the Frostbite, he's the Frostbite—
The one they expected to help Hiccup lead the rebellion, the rebellion Jamie would've jumped at the chance to join in, even lead. The rebellion Jamie so strongly believed in could bring change and put an end to Berk's injustice. And in some way, Jack feels as if he failed his best friend. After all these years of watching each other's back, of guarding each other, he failed his best friend when it mattered most.
Jean comes out of his own stupor and helps Hiccup and Jim so now Jack's back on his table, his body restrained, his wrists tied down, as they get medicine on him to calm down, Hiccup settles in, placing his boyfriend's head on his lap, and starts to hum the little song Jack sung to him in what seems like ages ago.
But even that does little to help. All he can think of is Jamie, lying on a similar table somewhere, while they try to break him for information he doesn't even have, or maybe doing to him what President Pitchiner threatened he'd do if Jack and Hiccup fails to subdue the Districts from going into an uprising.
"Jack, I'm sorry." Jim's voice comes from somewhere Jack can't turn his head to see. "I tried convincing Dimitri to go get everyone we cared about first before breaking us out, but he wouldn't—"
"Dimitri had his objectives, too, Jim. Even if it was at your request, you know whose orders can't be overrode," Zuko interrupts, now awakened. "you know this, you met the man once, right?"
Jack doesn't answer. Maybe later, he could attempt to understand their exchange, but he doesn't feel like it now, so he doesn't try.
"It's better for Jamie than Astrid. He doesn't know about District 13." says Zuko. "And they'll keep him alive, well, at least a bit longer. Enough time for us to rescue him."
"Or use him against me, as bait, like how Armin would be use against Jean..."
Jack can't bring himself to care, even as Jean starts choking up again in despair. Instead, he tries to block out everything but Hiccup who continues comforting him the best that he can. Later, they're alone in the room. Occasionally given food, but they weren't in a very social mood. Jack didn't feel like speaking to anyone, and neither did Hiccup. Maybe not in the same degree, but Jamie had meant something to him too.
Until someone comes in, and even if Hiccup's initial response was to glare at the person until they finish their business to get out, he catches himself. Because he finds someone that neither he or Jack can block out coming in. Someone who will not plead, or explain, or that they think they can despise her entreaties, because she alone must know the pain Jack's in right now.
Because she might've lost her sister, too, and failed to do anything about it.
"Elsa," Hiccup whispers, almost guiltily.
Jack immediately sits up as well, and the usual dignified woman immediately goes in for a hug. The white-haired teen returns it eagerly.
"I'm sorry, Jack, I didn't mean for the Frostbite title to be used to this extent."
She pulls away and reaches out to embrace Hiccup as well. The brunette apologies profusely, for not being able to save Anna. For being the cause of her demise. Even as her expression is pained, Elsa tries to console Hiccup, assuring him that it wasn't his fault, that Anna had made that decision on her own.
And then they can't help it. It is not so much a question of forgetting Jamie as remembering the others. All it takes is one look at Elsa's appearance, so far away from her Berk attire and, hauntingly enough, more like a District dweller. And they come surging into the present, demanding to be acknowledged.
"My sister?" Jack gasps. "Mom?"
Hiccup grabs the woman's hand too, "My parents? Snotlout?"
"They're all alive, your families. Aster got them out in time," she says. "so try not be so hard on him."
They ignore her plea for the mean time. "They're not in District Twelve?" Hiccup asked.
"After the Games, they sent in planes. Dropped firebombs." She hesitates. "Well, you know what happened during the last war."
They did know. And a new kind of horror begins to rise up inside them as they imagine firebombs hitting their home.
"They're not in District Twelve?" Jack repeats weakly.
Elsa takes a deep breath and breaks it to them, "Jackson, Hamish, there is no District Twelve."
