Hi, my dear readers. I'm sorry you've all had to wait so long for such a short chapter. I got stuck in so many places in this one and even had to completely rewrite half of it because it didn't lead anywhere and was really just confusing.

Do tell me if you like my silly winter poem or not. It just sort of happened because I needed a transition (and for once I wasn't drunk when writing it!)

Jack Frost

"Have you heard of Frostman's twins!"

Flynn glanced up, curious about the loud old guy who'd stepped in front of the fire, waving an empty tankard around.

What was even more curious was the way people went quiet and turned to listen. At least the "original hooligans" as Pitch had once put it.

"The terrible Frostman!" the man shouted dramatically. "No one could melt his heart! So why bother to try? But view the beauty of Lady Snow. Gaze upon her black hair that glitters with stars at night. Behold her skin as it sparkles under the sun."

Despite himself, Flynn was a little intrigued. The old drunk was a talented storyteller. By now the entire room was listening.

"Oh Lady Snow, as fair as she is cold. But hear the wind howl in triumph as he swings his staff to whip up blizzards. Fear the devastation of the Frost! Bow before the strength of the storms in his eyes!"

Flynn moved between the tables, people showing they wanted a refill by hand signs but not words. But nobody in the room was more spellbound than Snotlout and Dorgsbreath. It made the inn-owner a tad worried. The duo had already thought about burning down the Overland house once for getting into their heads that Jackson was a snow sprite.

"Cold was their love," the storyteller said with a gravelly voice. "Cold was the night of their union. And cold but beautiful the day of birth. Jökul Frosti, Frostman's firstborn son! Dark be his eyes and cold be his heart! Cry will the winds and rage will the seas by the cruelty of Jökul."

Poor Jack, Flynn thought. The kid really didn't deserve the kinds of rumours that would surely rise from this…

"But look!" the storyteller hissed, like in awe. "A second son is born. Jack Frost. Watch how the stars twinkle when he laughs. See the snow dance with the playful winds. Beautiful the patters of the frost across the lake."

People were nodding amongst themselves, and Flynn suddenly realized this wasn't a story at all. It was just a winter poem.

"Proud be the terrible Frostman of the havoc spread by Jökul. Proud be fair Lady Snow of Jack Frost, playing in the snow, and calling to the human children. The snow is warm, he tells them. Fear not the terrible Frostman! Fear not the cold! Come out and play with me. I will nibble your noses if you don't!"

The man bowed and a round of applause filled the room as people nodded at each other.

"He's good, isn't he?" a woman said to Flynn, who realized he'd stopped in the middle of the room to listen. "It's a good thing that old fraud is at the very least happy to remind us not all is bad about winter."

"Yes, he's really good," Flynn agreed easily, but that's not at all the feeling he was left with. Instead he remembered what he'd told Elsa last week. That if he knew where Jack was he would get a horse and go fetch him.

Maybe he actually should? Once the snow cleared. If someone actually was holding Jack prison as the toymaker had claimed, he couldn't be as lively as the Jack Frost of the poem anymore.

"Hey, Dagur! Ida! Everyone else! Let's clean this place up until it shines and we will have a party tonight! Dagur, you'll have to cook something special! I'll take this and go look for Hiccup!"

The door swung shut after Jack, leaving the entire room in a stunned silence.

"What just happened?" Tuffnut asked.

"Um… Jack swiped the bread and left the rest of his breakfast on the table?" the faucet said, but it sounded like a question.

"That was Jack?" Dagur asked.

There was another bout of silence.

"Did anyone hear what he said?" Ida asked.

Jack had found Hiccup, and now the dragon stood stock still staring down at the little human breathing heavily in front of him.

Hiccup blinked owlishly, but it was still Jack standing before him, waiting for an answer because he'd been talking.

The dragon shook his head slightly. "Sorry, I'm still progressing your grand entrance. Did you say you want to clean the castle with a snowball fight party?"

Hiccup wasn't sure what expression he was making, but Jack's already flushed cheeks grew even redder as he glared up at Hiccup. Then he held up a finger. "If that was possible, it would be awesome. But no." He started to throw his arms around in wild gestures, making Hiccup lean away from him, framing the boy with his wings to make sure he didn't hit anything, and to hide the boy from anything that could interpret the waving as threatening. "I want to have a party! I want everyone to come and forget everything bad for just one day and remember what it's like to have fun! And you're the only one who won't break in a slowball fight, and the sun is shining, and the snow looks so inviting I want to go out and play in the snow… with you."

Yes, Hiccup was still facing a few difficulties understanding any of that. He'd been giving Jack space for a while, planning to slowly come back into the corners of his everyday life. He certainly hadn't expected Jack to throw himself at Hiccup with demands that sounded like he wanted Hiccup's company. The party thing had sort of gone in one ear and out the other, along with a lot of other words he hadn't been able to catch.

The dragon blinked again when suddenly Jack was rubbing his face and groaning.

"I forgot. You're sensitive to cold."

"Huh? Who told you that?" Hiccup asked, answering to the first coherent thing the human had said.

Jack avoided eye-contact and hunched his shoulders up. "Astrid, Gobber and Ida, I think. They said dragons are sensitive to cold, and that you're just putting up a brave front. And the other day, when we were outside, you looked like you were in pain when the wind started up."

"I did?"

The teen lifted his head, staring at Hiccup who tried to remember what Jack might be talking about.

"The day you showed me the library. When we went outside?" the boy said as if trying to trigger the memory. Not that it was needed, Hiccup knew which day and what hour they had been outside after their adventures together in the library. He could even recite each word they both had spoken when they'd been outside since he'd been looking for what could have triggered Jack's fear of him. He still saw Jack's eyes zeroing in on his hand when he'd reached forward to touch him, and how his eyes had suddenly widened and his body freezing for a second.

"You wanted to go back inside," Hiccup said. "You stepped away from me. Like you… wanted distance."

"Huh?"

Hiccup stayed silent. It seemed Jack hadn't realized his own reactions that day, but apparently there was something Hiccup had done unconsciously that Jack had noticed and reacted to.

"Dragons typically hibernate," Hiccup explained. "There are a few exceptions and some who go about it in a different way. I'm not sensitive to cold, per say, but the weather does affect me."

Jack nodded slowly, appearing to be thinking as the colour was rising on his cheeks.

"So… you're okay to go out today?"

The question was laced with hopeful eagerness and glittering eyes. Hiccup couldn't quite figure this boy out, but his young face was void of the ill intentions, the dark thoughts Hiccup had learnt the hard way to look for.

Or Jack was the best liar Hiccup had ever seen.

"Yes," the dragon said, swallowing a nervous ball of fear. "We can go outside."

Jack couldn't stop thinking about it; that he'd been such a fool. He was a fool for ever thinking Hiccup's looming posture was threatening, that his glare was hostile. Now, under the sunlight, seeing Hiccup hesitatingly thread the snow, Jack was wondering for the first time who had been most afraid that evening in the tower. Tooth had said the people who had come here before had tried to kill Hiccup, and if that meant all of them, it was understandable that Hiccup had tried to appear intimidating.

Now the dragon was following Jack around with this strange expression on his face, like he tried to figure out how to play as Jack was rolling snowballs and stacking them together to make a lantern he wanted to place candles inside later in the evening, as well as putting a snowman together.

"How is that a man?" the dragon asked when Jack finished the project and proudly presented the creation.

"I don't know?" Jack said after thinking about it, staring at the snowman with sticks as arms and stones making up its face. "I… suppose it doesn't really look like a man at all."

The dragon snorted. "No, it looks like something that fell from heaven."

"What?"

Hiccup looked down at him, and there it was again; that softening of his features, the glint in his eyes and that almost smile. Jack realized then and there that it was that almost smile that more than anything made him want to break the curse. Because it wasn't right. Hiccup should smile. Or at the very least he should be able to smile freely, rather than carrying around this heavy curse that was starting to make every flash of happiness the most precious thing to the teen.

"Snow, Jack," the dragon said.

With widening eyes, Jackson burst out laughing. "Oh gosh, you're right! Snowmen fell from heaven. Oh shit, that sounds terrifying!"

"It does when you put it that way," the dragon said, his eyes wide and stuck somewhere between amusement and horror. It really was a beautiful shade of green, those eyes.

"Let's have a snowball…!" Jack cried as he scooped up snow, but froze when suddenly Hiccup surrounded him, a deep growl vibrating in the air between them. They didn't touch, Hiccup just circled Jack with his body, arms and wings, so close Jack could feel the warmth radiating off the dragon, heart trembling with the growl, and the teen just stood there, poised to throw a hastily made snowball, not daring to move a muscle and barely even breathing.

It only lasted for a few seconds, and when he stepped away, Hiccup wasn't looking at Jack. Instead, the dragon was glaring at the yard and blew steam from his snout.

"Let's go outside the walls for a bit. If we play here, you might hit the dragons."

The human looked around with wide eyes. He could see the stone dragons under the snow as well as the shape of bushes and the black stems of dead flowers. But Jack knew he was still blind to anything in the castle that might move to hurt him. Tooth had been careful to warn him that some were so high-strung that they'd interpret any move against Hiccup as a threat.

"I… I didn't…"

"I know, Jack," the dragon said gently and waved a hand to the boy, urging him to follow. "I do know."

The white-haired boy swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat. A second. No, even less than a second. That's how fast this bright and sunny day had gone dark and frightening.

Biting down on anger at the injustice, Jack caught up with the dragon. The thought "and it was so close" passed through his thoughts sullenly.

Jack didn't catch it immediately. He'd actually almost forgotten the thought had even passed him before he suddenly caught it by its tail and reeled it back, searching for the image that had caused it.

The dragon had almost held him. Hiccup had held his arms around Jack and…

A snowball hit Jack square in the face. Sputtering, the teen staggered backwards, wiping at the snow on his face.

The dragon sat on his heels in the snow between the trees, squeezing snow between his large hands and smirking at Jack.

"We're outside the walls," was all he said before hurling a second snowball at Jack who ducked and ran for the cover of the trees, hurriedly squeezing snow.

The first snowball Jack flung at the dragon was shot down by a spit ball of fire.

"Hey! That's cheating!"

"Oh sorry. I thought we were practicing aim!" Hiccup called back.

Gawking at the pure cheek of this creature, Jack rose to the challenge with a determination he hadn't felt since he was a small child.

The dragon had the advantage of faster movement, the ability to run on all four helping him along, and jumping quite high, but he couldn't really spread his wings or wave his tail between the trees and he was a lot bigger than Jack, his black stature standing out starkly against the glittering snow.

Jack was way more agile and smaller, making him harder to hit, but wasn't quite as familiar with the terrain, and Hiccup was not above playing dirty. Like hitting a branch above Jack so that chunks of snow would fall on his head and into his jacket.

But it was worth it. They were having fun. Jack found himself laughing and yelling insults at Hiccup who answered with pure sass, allowing the human to see a shadow of the person he might have been before the curse.

And then, just like before, everything froze. Jack had taken cover behind a rock to squeeze more snow and was jumping out to throw a snowball at the dragon, only to see Hiccup's eyes wide with fear and flinch back, protecting himself with his wings when Jack's arm whipped forward.

Jack caught himself, the snowball still in his first. Slowly, when nothing hit him, Hiccup looked up. His pupils were thin slits and all mirth gone as he inched away, staring at Jack.

The teen looked around. At first he couldn't see anything that could have provoked the reaction. But then he saw the rounded shape of the rock he'd been hiding behind.

Kneeling down, Jack brushed the snow away.

"Heather" it said, and beneath it only one date. The first of December ten years ago.

Jack looked up. To the left was another stone. This one said "Sven" and the thirteenth of February two years after Heather. There were another four stones.

Gravestones.

Jack stood and backed away. There were six graves. Out here. But Hiccup kept the remains of all the ones who had died in the west wing.

"The people who were here before, you said they didn't linger…" Jack turned to the dragon, standing under a pine tree, his dark form surrounded by bright sunshine and glittering snow.

Jack couldn't say it. Couldn't even think it. What was he even supposed to think when the cold was seeping into his heart, chilling him to the bone.

"Heather was Dagur's younger sister. She thought killing me would bring her brother back to normal."

All blood drained from Jack's face.

"Hiccup has to live." Tooth had said, and it dawned on Jack that that was the curse. Hiccup had to live, so those who tried to kill him…

"Why?" Jack whispered, images flashing by in his mind as his eyes started to burn. Hiccup pleading to the bear, unconscious in the snow, asleep before the fireplace, yelling at Jack in the west wing. "Why?" he said a little louder.

Hiccup didn't answer. He just stood there, right there, but there might as well have been an entire world between them the way he seemed to fold into himself, the way he seemed like he was waiting to be dismissed. If Jack blinked, he feared Hiccup would be gone.

"Why… did this happen to you?!" Jack cried. Because it wasn't fair. It wasn't right. "Nobody deserves this! Not you! None of you! Why? Why is the curse getting worse the more I learn about it! Why won't you tell me how to help you?! Why is *hic* this isn't… you…"

By now Jack was both blind and incoherent from crying. The tears wouldn't stop. Hiccup wasn't evil. He wasn't a murderer. Who could have thought he deserved this?

The snow crunched and Jack looked up. Hiccup had stepped closer to him, and that was all encouragement Jack needed to throw himself at the dragon's chest, holding onto this misfortunate creature and feeling so worthless that all he could do was cry as if that was going to help anyone or anything.

Privately, Hiccup wondered how much was left of his heart. He'd long since stopped counting the ways it could break, and knew there were big chunks of it that had been lost along the way. However, he was risking all that was left if it now. If Jack turned on him later, Hiccup would accept it.

Because the rose was wilting, it didn't matter anymore.

Slowly, carefully, the dragon closed his arms around Jack's sobbing form. At first he held lightly, but when the boy made no indication he wanted to pull away, Hiccup held on tighter, rocking from side to side.

"Jack. Jack, you are helping. Believe me, you've done plenty already."

"You're still… cursed," Jack sobbed.

"That's not because of you. Breaking the curse isn't on you. There isn't a curse in this world that can be broken by anyone other than the cursed one."

After that, the teen didn't say anything. He just kept crying quietly, allowing Hiccup to hold him.

'How long has it been?' he thought silently to himself as he stroked Jack's soft hair. 'When did I last touch anyone?' Not since Heather. She'd known him, she'd been used to dragons.

And nobody had ever come as close to killing him since.

The dragon gazed sadly at the grave of a woman who had once been his friend. It didn't matter whose fault it was, but his hope had died with the abrupt end of Heather's scream, with her last breath. But he couldn't let it show. All of this was his fault, and it all fell on him to right it. So he took it all and lived with it. He picked up whatever pieces he could, of his friends and himself, and tried to hold it all together until he found a way to break the curse.

The body in his arms drew a shuddering breath and leaned away. Hiccup let him go and looked carefully and Jack's face. He still couldn't quite believe the teen actually had cried for him rather than run away like Hiccup had been so certain he would do.

"Why were you cursed?" Jack asked with a small voice.

He hadn't stepped away, and Hiccup tried to reach up to dry the tears that were still rolling down the boy's cheeks, but Jack flinched and pinched his eyes close.

'Still afraid,' Hiccup thought, but accepted it. Jack didn't hate him or want him dead.

"It's a long story. We should go back inside."

"Tell me," Jack demanded, his voice still broken, but also pleading.

"Of course, Jack. After you've gotten some food and water in you. I'll tell you everything when you're not upset. So…" Hiccup nudged Jack's forehead with his snout, making the teen look up at him. "Let's go inside."