Another Sunday morning found Jack and Hiccup curled up in bed together once again, snuggled together under the covers. As usual, they were easy to wake with the sunrise, but they most certainly were not easy to rise. Hiccup had tried at first to get out of bed, but Jack had put up a fuss. Not wanting his boyfriend to move, he'd clung to one of his arms and whined childishly for him to stay.

"Jack... Jack, oh come on, I have to pee. I'll be right back, okay?"

Reluctantly, Jack let Hiccup go. Lucky for him, Hiccup came back into the room a few minutes later and Jack was quick to drag him back into bed. Hiccup seemed eager enough to re-join the magical land of blankets and sheets and comfort.

Once Jack had him back, neither of them said anything for a long time. Hiccup pulled Jack close to him, and Jack contently nuzzled into Hiccup's chest to breathe in his scent. Hiccup nosed into Jack's hair to do the same, and they continued to lay there in their lazy morning haze for a good long while.

Jack had stayed the night again, of course. Over the past couple of months, they had made a habit of staying at each other's houses. Jack was more likely to stay at Hiccup's apartment though, just because it meant not having a nosy little brat of a sister coming in while they were kissing, or waking Hiccup up in the mornings to demand Jack make cinnamon buns for her, or something equally as distressing to two grown men just trying to enjoy a relationship together, alone.

They weren't even sleeping together yet, but Jack was absolutely certain that Emma would ruin it completely if they were. He was mildly paranoid she'd somehow manage to make an appearance if he and Hiccup did end up having sex...at Hiccup's apartment. She'd do it. He had no doubt.

Jack had his own drawer in Hiccup's dresser now, and Hiccup had one at Jack's. But despite having night clothes stored over here, Jack had still managed last minute to sweet talk Hiccup into loaning him a t-shirt to snuggle into. And that was how Hiccup had found Jack after getting up to pee - curled up, peeking at him very intentionally cutely from over the neck of Hiccup's t-shirt, smelling it.

Eventually, their early morning cuddles had shifted. Hiccup groaned as he stretched and rolled onto his back. Jack was moved part of the way just from being so tightly pressed against his boyfriend, so he rolled off and stretched as well. But then, he had just crawled on top of Hiccup and settled his hips between his legs, laying his head down on his chest and letting his arms fall loosely to either side of him. Occasionally Jack's thumb would brush over a thin, noodle-like bicep or over the shirt Hiccup wore, ever so lightly caressing his ribs.

Jack closed his eyes when Hiccup's arm came up around his waist, and there they stayed for another good...maybe half hour or so. It was so peaceful...until a loud rumbling sounded in his ears. His eyes snapped open and Hiccup started to laugh.

"Someone's hungry~."

True enough, it wasn't Hiccup's stomach that had growled, even though Jack's ear was right above it. It was Jack's, and it was so intense that Jack had heard it before he registered the feeling. Jack's face burned red and he pouted. "Shut up..."

Hiccup snorted, and shifted, urging Jack to sit up as well. The pouting, sleepy whitette was pulled into Hiccup's lap and soothed and shushed with a sweet kiss to the forehead. "C'mon, Jack... We've been in bed long enough, haven't we? Let's get some breakfast..."

"I wanna cuddle," Jack mumbled, in a childish whiny voice, which made Hiccup snort again.

"I'll make breakfast if you want me to," he whispered, nosing against Jack's cheek playfully.

That got Jack's attention and woke him up. "Absolutely not," he said, pulling away quickly. "You'll burn the building down if you try to cook. I'll do it."

Jack crawled out of the bed and adjusted Hiccup's shirt - he may have accidentally stretched it around the neck a little, but a good washing would make it spring back to life later. Jack wasn't too worried about it for now. "I already know what I want..."

Before Jack could elaborate further, Hiccup chimed in from behind him as they made their way to the kitchen as though he had read Jack's mind. "You're just like your sister, y'know, with the cinnamon bun obsession."

Damn it.

The cinnamon buns were, of course, perfectly baked. The whole apartment smelled absolutely divine, which was of course why cinnamon buns were Jack's favorite thing to make. Hiccup had said too that no one made them quite like Jack did. And Jack, of course, was inclined to agree. The bakery had even asked him to use his own recipe instead of the owner's when he was making them because they were always so good.

Jack insisted on scooting his chair as close as he could to Hiccup's, so they could cuddle at the table while they ate. Hiccup was gracious about it, and let Jack be as clingy as he wanted. The two of them sat in comfortable silence, picking apart their cinnamon buns, leaning shoulder to shoulder with a blanket wrapped around the both of them despite the warm, late spring weather outside. Jack picked a candied pecan off his and popped it into his mouth, leaning his head against Hiccup's as he munched on it. He hummed when he felt the brunet lean on him, too.

"Aren't you glad you stocked your kitchen for me?"

Hiccup chuckled and nodded, swallowing what pastry was in his mouth before speaking. "I'm never letting it go barren again, you little sugar fiend."

Jack smirked and dipped his finger into the glaze, reaching up to swipe it across Hiccup's nose. "How did you ever survive without me?"

"Ah!" Hiccup swatted at him and laughed, dipping into his own bun and swiping the gooey cinnamon mixture over Jack's upper lip, giving him a sticky sweet mustache. "I have absolutely no idea. I must have been starving. You saw how skinny I was."

"You're still skinny!"

"So are you~."

"Fair."

Hiccup made to sit up, but Jack grabbed his arm and pouted at him. Hiccup rolled his eyes. "Jack," he sighed, grinning in amusement. "I gotta get something to clean us up. I'd rather not one of us end up with sticky goop in his hair."

"You know I like it when I've got sticky goop in my hair," Jack purred, playfully wagging his eyebrows.

"Oh, is that so?" Hiccup snorted, and ducked down to burrow his glaze-covered nose into Jack's hair, earning a squeal and a laugh. Jack started to smack at Hiccups shoulders and chest, wiggling and nearly falling out of the chair he was still sitting in. "Hey, hey, careful!" Hiccup laughed, catching his boyfriend by the waist and righting him again. "You're gonna end up hurting yourself, you doofus."

"Yeah, yeah... I guess you can go get something to clean us off now that you've soiled my hair."

Hiccup just laughed as he got up and went to go clean his nose off. He brought back a warm, wet cloth and ever so graciously started to clean the icing out of Jack's hair. "Sorry babe, looks like you're gonna have to wash it," he hummed.

Jack just snorted and shrugged, taking the rag from Hiccup and starting to wipe at the grainy cinnamon sugar mixture on his face. "Meh, I'd probably have to anyway. I haven't showered since Thursday."

"Jack, you slept in my bed last night."

Jack could only laugh. "I put on deodorant," he teased, flicking the dirty rag back at Hiccup, who flailed and knocked it to the floor in his clumsy attempt to catch it. Jack laughed a little harder. "Shouldn't that be good enough?"

"You are absolutely disgusting," Hiccup groaned, picking up the rag and leaving the kitchen to toss it into the dirty clothes basket in the hall. When he returned, he leaned down to give Jack a slow, sweet little kiss on the cheek. "It's a good thing you're cute."

Jack fluttered his eyelashes playfully at his boyfriend and stood up, to give him a proper kiss on the lips. But before they could get into it, Hiccup's phone started ringing where it was laying on the table. Jack was quick to break their kiss to turn around and pick it up, being as nosy as ever. He turned back around again to face Hiccup, excitement written all over his face. "It's your mom!"

"Heh..." Hiccup took the phone, looking at it, then looking at Jack. "Do you min-"

"Of course not!" Jack said quickly, and reached to answer the phone before it could go to voicemail.

Hiccup made one of his lovely little awkward noises and quickly pulled the phone to his ear, chuckling a bit as he greeted his mother. "Ahaha, hi, Mom..."

"I'll clean up the kitchen," Jack whispered, and slipped away from him to do just that. He hadn't bothered washing any dishes after finishing up the cinnamon buns because he'd wanted to eat them warm. Thankfully he'd had the foresight to soak everything, so washing them wouldn't be too difficult.

Behind him, he heard Hiccup walk out of the kitchen, continuing the conversation with Valka. "What? Oh, no, that was just Jack. No no, he doesn't mind. Well I see him all the time, but I don't really get to talk to you that much."

And that was true. Jack wasn't jealous or something crazy like that. Quite the opposite - Jack was a complete and total mama's boy. The idea that Hiccup's mother was away on archaeological digs in places without cell service and so often in another absolutely ridiculous time zone that Hiccup rarely got to talk to her was just heartbreaking to him. And he could see how much Hiccup missed his mom, even though she always replied to his emails when she had the time with as much enthusiasm as he had sent them.

"Wait, you what?!" Hiccup almost shouted from the other room, and after a brief pause, the brunet laughed excitedly. "Oh my gods, th-that...that's incredible!"

Jack had to turn down the water a little, grinning to himself as he listened to Hiccup get excited. He actually loved when Valka called when he was around - actually, he'd gotten to talk to her on the phone a couple of times. Yeah, he'd been shy... But she seemed to like him well enough, and that sure did make him feel better about eventually meeting her when she was able to spare some time to come to Burgess to visit. Hiccup had said that would probably be a long way away, though. But even when he didn't get to interact with her (and he usually didn't, because he didn't want to push into Hiccup's time with her), he loved hearing him express his passion for their shared interest. Valka was Hiccup's idol, practically, and it was adorable listening to him geek out.

"And you're sure it's his?"

Wait, what?

Jack dropped the spatula in his hand back into the soapy water and turned towards the living room, turning off the water the rest of the way so he could listen better.

"That's amazing...! We've never confirmed anyplace before... What are you gonna do? ...Are they gonna let you do that? ...Fair point. ...Wait, what...? Oh. W-well, I... I need to ask Jack. Of course the school is gonna approve, listen... How long- Okay, I'll... Oh. I'll email you- a few hours? Alright. I'll let you know. ...I love you too, mom. Thank you! Thank you so, so, so much! Bye."

Jack frowned a little, but he knew Hiccup was coming back in to talk to him. So he turned back around and flicked the water back on, going back to washing the dishes as Hiccup came in.

"So, uh, that was my mom."

"..." Jack looked up at him with an eyebrow raised. "...I'm the one who answered the phone, you big nerd."

"Right."

Jack put the spatula he was washing into the drying rack and turned to face his boyfriend. "Soooo...are you gonna tell me what that was all about?"

Hiccup laughed sheepishly, shifting on his feet. The poor boy looked like he could barely contain his excitement. "Okay, so... My mom's on an excavation trip right now in what used to be the Barbaric Archipelago, where my family's from... A-and you know how I told you those seas are dangerous? I've been really worried about her being out there."

Jack smiled and put a wet hand on Hiccup's shoulder. He meant it to be supportive and sweet, but he couldn't help but snicker when Hiccup grimaced. "I know," he giggled. "I'm so glad she was able to call you and let you know she's okay. So what did she say?"

"She found something... She found something really huge, actually. And, well, it's... It's about our family. About the last Hiccup. You remember how I told you...we have one of his journals?" Jack nodded, standing on his toes now, eyes wide as he listened to Hiccup build up to everything. "Well...she found a funeral boat... In the sea. Just off the coast of the island they found."

Now Jack was lost...and it showed on his face. He tilted his head and looked at Hiccup expecting some kind of explanation.

"...Right. Uh. Our stories in our family tell us Hiccup's dad, Stoick the Vast, was killed after a battle on Hiccup's mom's home island...where she'd been raising dragons. And in the boat she found a helmet that looks like it was crafted out of someone's body armor."

Now Jack was caught up. "Hiccup wrote in his journal his dad gave him a helmet made out of his mother's breastplate to match his own."

"EXACTLY! And I mean, we were always confused about that part of the story because women didn't actually have breastplates or they could crush their sternums and ribs if they fell on them, but my mom says it looks like it was originally a slightly curved piece of metal that someone forged into a helmet, and Hiccup's mentor was a blacksmith and he was Stoick's best friend."

"So...you're thinking the funeral boat was Hiccup's dad's."

Hiccup nodded, excitedly. "And that's not even the best part... On the island, there are massive ice formations all over the place - I mean, it looks like some of them have been broken through and exposed to the elements, but the inside of it looks like it used to have a human or two living there and there's some evidence of flora having been growing before the cave was compromised by the outside cold and the fact that a giant cave made of jetting ice pillars going in all directions even exists in the first place heavily suggests the cave she found was a bewilderbeast lair and there's a gigantic dragon skeleton outside of it which means we may finally have found an actual bewilderbeast and if what she found really is Stoick the Vast's burial site it means she may have found our ancestor Valka's mountain where she lived after leaving her family and studied dragons and she wants me to come out and intern on the dig so I can see it all for myself!"

Somewhere in the middle of that, Hiccup started gushing at him really fast, and it honestly took Jack a few moments of staring at his boyfriend blankly before it all clicked. Hiccup had told him about the bewilderbeast - the king of all dragons. Hiccup's eponymous ancestor had written about them in his journal, which had been passed down in his family and sparked the interest in draconology in his mother and himself. "W-wait, you're going out there?!"

"W-well," Hiccup was trying to reign himself in a bit. "That's what I wanted to ask you about - I can't...bring you with me and it'll be a long time. More than a few months..."

"Oh, Hiccup," Jack sighed, taking Hiccup's arms gently...before starting to shake him. "Are you a fucking moron? I figured all that! But it doesn't matter! You absolutely cannot pass this opportunity up!"

"Wh-"

"This is your career we're talking about. Not just that, your family history. Your birthright to be on that dig. This is such a unique chance! You have to go!" And with that, Jack grabbed Hiccup's hand and dragged him to his computer. "Come on, email your mom and let her know. You gotta get in touch with the school and get them in touch with her, right? So you'll get credit for going out there?"

"Jack, wait," Hiccup said, planting his feet into the ground and pulling the whitette around and into his chest to hold him still. "I'll probably be gone at least six months, Jack. I-I'm gonna have to sort it out with the school, yeah, but I also have to worry about my apartment and rent and my stuff, and...and now you. We'll barely be able to talk to each other out there. Slow down. I really need to think about this for a bit."

"Hiccup, what is there to think about? Put your stuff in storage. What you don't want in a storage locker you can keep at my house. And when you get back, you can stay with me until we find a new place for you. Your lease is almost up anyway, isn't it? So you won't even have to break it before you leave."

"Okay but, that's... That's an awful lot of work and there's no guarantee-"

"Hiccup, I don't care what excuses you have... This is your dream. You can't make excuses. You gotta grab this opportunity and not let go for anything. Do whatever it takes to make it come true."

Hiccup was silent for a long moment, and Jack was beginning to worry that he'd upset him somehow. But then Hiccup sighed, and Jack tilted his head a little questioningly.

"Do you...plan these motivational speeches?"

Jack snorted, and knocked Hiccup down onto the couch in front of his laptop. "Come on you big idiot, write that email. I'm gonna call my mom."