Hello everyone, I'm back~! *Insert usual "I'm sorry I'm late" speech*
So, this chapter's kinda fillery and more of a bridge to the next chapter so... yeah, I hope you like it, anyway.
Christmas break for Hiccup always meant that she was going to be busy, be it with family or friends or both at the same time. It was everyone she cared about coming from wherever they were and gathering in one place to celebrate together. It meant being able to stay up late and wake up whenever she wanted. But this break in particular was turning out to be more hectic than normal. Since her date with Jack kicked it off, she hadn't had that many days yet where she could just relax and do nothing. Instead the weekend was spent doing homework that she'd been assigned to do over the vacation and helping her parents put up the last of the Christmas decorations. Then the weekdays came and she had something planned for almost every one of them.
A few days after her first date with Jack, Hiccup was hanging out at the Hoffersons' for the day and, surprisingly, both of the blonde-haired twins were interested in hearing about how her outing with the "tall, pale, and handsome Jack Overland" as Astrid described him. So she recanted the entire date to the two of them, giving the sisters details as they asked for them and, eventually, just getting the idea and putting them in herself. And the whole time her friends were happy with what they were hearing.
Astrid, as always, was more interested in the brunette's romantic endeavors than Cam but that didn't stop the messier twin from asking questions and making her own commentary. Most of it had to do with who paid for the hot chocolate and stuff like that, being the feminist that she was. But it was more out of curiosity than anything. Hiccup guessed that she wanted to try to figure out what kind of guy Jack was based off of certain things that he and Hiccup did when they went out. She got stuck between "The Guy Who Insists on Paying to be a Gentleman" and "The Guy who actually has a Sense of Equality." Well, at least those guesses were better predictions than the ones she had last time.
It didn't take very long for Bertha to make herself known to the three teenagers either. She slipped into the room and started leaving her own input after a little while. She'd apparently been listening the whole time and just decided to stay at bay… however, some of the stuff Hiccup and Jack did were apparently too cute for her to handle in silence. So, that was basically her entire Tuesday. Well, that and playing video games with the Hofferson sisters until Val came to pick her up that night.
The next day she was hanging out with Clueless, as he'd come home from his school for the holiday as well, and catching up with him one-on-one. The next was dragging Scott out to town with her to help pick up the last-minute gifts that the family had been neglecting to get and some ingredients for the meal that Stefan had been planning to make for the big day. Val mentioned that she could help him with it several times but her husband was set on keeping her as far away from the kitchen as possible. The only really nice way that he could put it was that he didn't marry Val for her cooking skills. The day after that was cleaning the house from top to bottom and preparing her room to be taken over by her grandfather for the next week. Hiccup wasn't much of a fan of the idea, but the man drove a long way each time he came to visit and her parents insist that each drive up should be worth it for him. Plus, Scott's room was too messy for anyone except him to feel comfortable living in. All she could say on the matter was that Old Wrinkly was lucky that she loved him; as if the nickname didn't give that away.
Before Hiccup knew it, the weekend had swung back around. But she realized it had when she woke up at noon that Saturday… on her own, for a change. Her eyes creaked open and she didn't see Toothless laying on the floor, so she assumed that he was downstairs somewhere. The dog was probably watching her father cooking, hoping that he'd be tossed a free sample. And, without him to pull her out of bed, Hiccup just opted to lay there under the blankets for a while longer, thinking about nothing in particular. Although, Jack came up quite a few times in her random array of thoughts, as if that was a surprise to her anymore.
When she heard the doorbell ring was when she finally decided to get out from under the covers, as Toothless' barking upon hearing the sound surely woke her up along with the rest of the neighborhood. Hiccup heard her father's heavy footsteps downstairs and the front door opening. She expected to hear him yelling at Toothless to get back and apologize to whoever was outside for the Great Dane's behavior. But it never came. Toothless' lack of barking after a moment and the jovial conversation that was starting downstairs got her curious. So she got up from her bed and wandered closer to the staircase, staying out of sight just in case she wanted to avoid whoever was at the door. Christmas of course meant family and friends everywhere but, when it came to certain members, Hiccup needed some time to prepare herself for interacting with them.
"It's good to see you made it in one piece again." Stefan joked.
"Eh, getting here's never a problem." A familiar raspy wondered somewhere down the hall "Now where are my grandchildren?"
"Scott should be home any minute now; I sent him out to go get a few things I forgot." Hiccup heard her father respond "Henrika should be upstairs- Henrika!" Of course he didn't know she was waiting near the top of the stairs for everyone to calm down a bit.
"Dad!" Val called "Hi!"
"There's my girl." Hiccup's grandfather cheered "How are ya, Val?"
"I'm great, Dad. What else would you expect?"
"I don't know, maybe some exciting development to come out of it?" He chuckled and Hiccup could hear him give her mother a kiss on the cheek. A smirk came onto Hiccup's face as she listened to the three of them.
"Henrika!" Her father shouted, even louder than the last time.
She rolled her eyes and decided that she'd been eavesdropping long enough. She stood and descended the stairs to see her parents standing by the front door with the ever-familiar old man with a peppered gray mustache and beard holding is cane "Hey, Grandpa." Hiccup greeted. She held back on the nickname since Stefan thought it was a little disrespectful to call your grandfather old and wrinkly, even if said grandfather found it amusing and laughed along with her. So it'd gone from the name her toddler-self called him to their own personal joke, a lot like hers and Scott's silly nicknames.
"Come here, you little hiccup." He ordered before pulling her into a hug. Hiccup could smell the tobacco from his pipe on his breath and his beard tickled the side of her face a little "How are you? How's school going?"
"Pretty good." Hiccup answered as she pulled away from him, smiling.
"Oh, yeah?" The old man asked "Anything new happening around here or do I have to wait for Scott to give me all the updates?"
"Well-" Stefan started.
He was cut off by his wife "Henrika actually does have a bit of news." She looked at her daughter expectantly.
"Oh, yeah…" The youngest Haddock less than enthusiastically replied "I, uh… I went on a date last weekend. And, uh, we're talking about going out again soon…"
Her grandfather suddenly became intrigued by the update "Really now?" She nodded in response "So who's the lucky guy, huh? Gimme a name."
"Uh, Jack." She blushed a bit upon saying his name "Hi-his name's Jack."
"Got a picture on ya?" He went on "I gotta see if he's half as good looking as I was at your age." He laughed and let out a wave of breath that reeked of pipe smoke.
"How about you unpack first, Dad?" Val suggested "Get settled and then we can all catch up, okay?"
"Works for me." Old Wrinkly claimed as he began to scale the stairs.
"Henrika, why don't you help your grandfather upstairs?" Stefan suggested.
"Oh, it's fine. I got it." Old Wrinkly insisted "But our little hiccup might need a few things before I kick her out for the week?" He looked at her from over his shoulder and smirked before he continued to climb the stairs.
Hiccup looked down at herself and finally remembered that she was still in her flannel pajamas and probably had a bad case of bed-head "Right…"
It was three days before Christmas and Jack and Emma were taking the day to partake in their favorite seasonal tradition: the ever-important Christmas cookie baking. The Overlands have been their family's cookie provider since Jack was in kindergarten, the first year that they finally stopped following Charles around for work. It had always been a fun activity for him to do and, now that he had basically dubbed himself the family baker, Jack was making all of the cookies that he used to simply decorate from scratch. Well, except for the gingerbread men. Those were still done with a family recipe that goes back a few generations that, frankly, was too good to even think about changing.
The two siblings were decorating a batch of Jack's Christmas tree-shaped cookies with all different colors of frosting; Jack much more expertly than Emma. In the background, a stereo in the dining room was blasting a CD of Christmas carols to help keep the mood.
The two had fallen silent for some time before Emma finally broke it "Are ya gonna give some to Henrika?"
"I would, but I have to find out if she can eat them first." Her brother clarified.
"How come? Does she have allergies or something?"
"No. Uh, I don't think so, anyway…" He trailed off "but she has braces. And I know there's a lot of things you can't eat when you have braces on."
The young girl laughed "Ask Anna about it."
Jack joined in on the laughter "Maybe I will when she gets home."
Emma huffed when she squirted out more frosting than she intended to "Where'd she go anyway? It's not like she has school or anything."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean she can't go hang out with her friends right?"
"I just wish she was here making the cookies with us." Emma explained "Like we always do, remember?"
"I remember." Jack mused "I hate to say it, Em, but you coming along is the thing that made this family more normal."
The brunette stuck out her tongue and her older brother did the same, leading to the two sharing a good laugh before the timer went out, signaling that the latest batch of cookies was done.
Jack slid on the oven mitts and pulled out a tray full of gingerbread men and transferred them onto a cooling rack before resting the tray on the stove "Alright, they look good." He looked back at his sister "You got the next batch punched out, right?"
The small girl nodded and pointed to a tray of unbaked gingerbread men "There's still more dough too."
He looked over the shapes on the tray and then to the unused dough sitting on the cutting board with all of the cookie cut-out molds "Hmm… I think we can squeeze a few more on that tray, Emma."
"Okay!" She moved from the decorating station they'd made to the baking station farther down the counter and climbed on the barstool that was placed there for her to sit on. Then, she started rolling out the remainder of the dough "How many do you think we can get out of this little bit?"
"Maybe three or four." Her brother guessed "I just hate wasting the dough, so we might as well get as much as we can out of this." He moved the shapes already on the pan closer together and made room for more cookies while Emma flattened the dough and cut out as many shapes as she could. After she took the leftovers and milked it as much as she could, the siblings had another four cookies to decorate. And, once they were all placed gingerly with the rest of the cookies, Jack took the pan, slid it into the oven, and set the timer.
The rest of the afternoon and some of the evening went like this, with the two of them preparing and decorating their festive treats while they waited for others to bake and cool. Jack's life might not have always been this domestic, but he surely enjoyed it more than traveling all over the place and not having any roots at all. And, though he sometimes ignored her, Emma was what brought this lifestyle to him and Anna. So he loved spending time with her in this way, relishing in the simple pleasures that he was allowed to enjoy because of her. It was one of his favorite parts of Christmas; remembering how important his family is.
Before Hiccup knew it, Christmas day had come and that meant that there would be almost no rest until all but those who were sleeping at her house were gone. There were still presents that needed to be wrapped, dishes that had to be prepared, decorations to be adjusted and tweaked, and, most importantly, Hiccup had to move everything that she'd moved downstairs for her past few nights of sleeping on the couch back into her bedroom so that the living room looked presentable again. On top of it all, Toothless was constantly getting in the way because he didn't want to miss a bit of the excitement either, be it a scrap of food or Scott getting his foot caught on something and spilling a giant pile of presents all over the floor.
And, of course, before the few remaining members of the family arrived for the evening, the Haddocks had to put on their best holiday attire. And, while Val decided to wear a nice-looking dress colored a festive green, the rest of them just changed into nicer tops and pants that didn't have dirt or stains on them. Stefan actually convinced Scott to put on a button down while he donned the same sweater that he wore every Christmas and Old Wrinkly avoided changing all-together by complaining about how difficult it was for him to do so (the lying bastard). Meanwhile, Hiccup threw on a dark green sweater that she liked and dark-wash jeans. She was only going to see about eight people in total so why go all out, right?
The first person to show up was Stefan's best friend Gobber. Well, his name isn't Gobber but everyone's called him that since the two met in college. Apparently the man was impossible to shut up after he's had a few drinks and the nickname stemmed from there. He wobbled inside decked out in the most… interesting Christmas outfit that Hiccup had ever seen, jovially waving his prosthetic hand in the air as a greeting. He had fake antlers on his head that light up with red and green lights and a sweater with the same setup. The lights were joined by strings of garland and sloppily-done crocheted images of trees, snowflakes, and gingerbread men adorning his top. In his hand he had a bottle of wine and left it with the other bottles sitting on the dining room table.
Not very long after that, Hiccup's Uncle Spencer arrived. He only comes around for the holiday and then disappears again until next year, mostly because he and Stefan have more bad blood between them than a sibling rivalry. But the brothers managed to be civil on the one time a year that they met. Hiccup always found it strange that Scott looked more like their uncle than their father, but it wasn't like she was a carbon copy either. So they just left it at that.
And, in general, the party was pretty boring. Once Spencer arrived, everyone was there and people started filing into their usual roles. Stefan and Gobber took to the kitchen to finish off the last few touches on dinner, Old Wrinkly stepped outside to smoke his pipe until the meal actually came out, and Hiccup and Scott retreated into the living room to occupy themselves with a video game or two. They wound up putting in their favorite fighting game and going at each other in a thirteen-round tournament where the first one to seven victories was the winner.
About halfway through the matches, Hiccup moaned as Scott's avatar tore the head off of hers, ending the round "Come on, you so cheated!"
"No I'm not; this is skill." The older Haddock defended "Look, you see what this is?" He held up two fingers "The rounds left that I have to win. And you know what this is?" He put up two more "The number of chances I have."
"And do you know what this is?" The brunette made a small circle with her thumb and index finger "The size of your brain. Wait…" She made the circle smaller "There. That's more like it."
Scott growled "You are so going down, little sister."
"I'd like to see you try, bro."
And Scott did win, but just barely. They had each won six matches and their final battle decided the winner. When the timer ran out, Scott's avatar had just a little more health than Hiccup's did and he proceeded to boast about it with a stupid cheer before dinner was called.
The food was all great, as usual, but there was also the usual amount of conversation: none. So the freckled teen had been searching for an excuse to leave the table when her cell phone rang. She took it out of her pocket and saw Jack's name showing on the screen. Everyone looked at her when her generic ringtone sounded and she felt her ears heat up.
"Oh, I gotta take this." Hiccup stated as she excused herself from the table. She picked it up when she was a decent distance away from her family "Hey." She greeted.
"Hey." Jack answered "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas, Jack." Hiccup repeated "What's up? How's your day been going so far?"
"Well, since I finally figured out how to get this freaking Play Station to work on my TV," he sighed like he'd just sat down "pretty good."
Hiccup started scaling the stairs to go up to her bedroom "Got it today, I take it?"
"Yeah. Present from my parents. They got me a good six games to go with it too."
"Ooh~, fancy."
"I know!" The older teen cheered "Maybe you can come hang out here sometime and we can play together?"
The brunette chuckled "Sounds fun. Especially since I haven't seen your house yet while you've been over here… how many times now? Seven? Eight? Kinda unfair, don't ya think?"
"Maybe just a little." Jack teased "What about you? You get anything cool today?"
"Eh, not really. Some gift cards, a bunch of new fantasy books, some clothes…" she peeked through Scott's door just out of curiosity "and a new laptop." She knew Jack couldn't see it, but she smirked anyway.
"Really? Awesome!" He exclaimed.
"Yeah, hopefully this one'll last longer than two years."
"Take tech upgrades when you can; they don't come along very often because of their price tags."
"I know, believe me." Hiccup jiggled the handle to her bedroom door and groaned when it wouldn't open "Stupid… door!" She shouted as she gave a few sharp kicks and it finally opened "Sorry, my door's a pain."
"It's fine." Jack assured her "I'm not calling at a bad time, am I?"
Hiccup left her door ajar and sat on her bed "No, you've got perfect timing, actually."
"Avoiding the family, I take it?"
"Gods, you have no idea." Hiccup muttered "There's only like eight people in my family, my dad and my uncle hate each other for whatever reason, I don't have cousins to talk to either, so it's not exactly fun to be around them."
"Yeesh. Wouldn't you be in for a shock if you were over here."
"Hmm?"
"My dad might not be home yet, but that doesn't stop the rest of the family from coming over. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. I swear, we'll be out of food by the time everyone leaves."
Hiccup giggled at the remark "You're free to take some of our leftovers; we'll have plenty of 'em for sure."
"Thanks for the offer" Jack sniggered before excitement filled his voice "Oh, so I know you said you wanted to go out again and, well, I was wondering… maybe we could talk about what we might wanna do next time?"
"Hmm…" The brunette pondered "How about I go to your house?"
"You're not gonna let that go, are you?"
She shook her head "Nope."
"I figured." He trailed off for a second "Alright, I'll see what I can do. It'll have to wait until sometime after my dad's home, though."
"Why?" She questioned.
"Because he's been pretty adamant about meeting you, so this'll knock out two birds with one stone."
"He won't try to show me how the Pear of Anguish works, will he?" Hiccup joked.
Jack let out a laugh of his own "I don't think so; he doesn't own one."
"Okay, I can relax a bit then."
"Hopefully, yes."
They stayed silent for a few minutes after that, content just listening to the other breathe, before Hiccup came back to reality "Oh, uh, I'd better go. Family's probably wondering where I am."
There were two smaller voices in the background on Jack's end, trying to get his attention "Yep, I've been found out too. So… talk to you soon?"
"Definitely."
"Night, Hiccup."
"Good night, Jack." Hiccup smiled as she hung up.
"Talkin' to your boyfriend, little hiccup?" She jumped and spun around, letting out a sigh of relief when she saw that it was just Old Wrinkly.
"Uh, yeah." She let her arms fall to her sides, her left hand holding her phone limply.
"Don't worry none; I won't tease ya or nothing your brother might do." He stated on his way to sit next to her on her bed. Or, for the week, his bed "After all, finding someone's about as natural as it can get, right?"
"I guess…" It was quiet again before she spoke up "so, do you still wanna see that picture of him?"
The old man smiled so widely she thought his jaw would fall off "Of course; lemme see."
Hiccup sat down next to him and scrolled through the pictures on her phone until she came across one of the only pictures of Jack she had on her. It was one that she took with him when they were in their first date, before they left the coffee shop that night. Hiccup liked having pictures of her with the people in her contacts list so that their faces would show up when they called her. And, since she and Jack never really could take selfies with just the two of them in it, it seemed like a good time. It was just a quick shot of the two of them standing next to each other and smiling at the camera lens.
Old Wrinkly leaned over and peeked at this image over her shoulder "That's him, hm?"
"Yeah."
He was silent, probably looking Jack over "He dyes his hair?"
"Yep. He told me his hair's naturally brown."
"He's got big ears too."
"Are you just gonna sit here and talk about these little things now?"
He ruffled her hair "Nah, just messing with you. He looks like a nice kid. Good things will come from him."
"Another prediction of yours?"
"Perhaps. Or maybe I'm just too much of a romantic." He stood and made his way for the door, stopping under the frame to turn back to his granddaughter "This, however" he pointed to the door frame "is a prediction. If you don't get your lazy ass brother or father to fix this for ye, something bad's gonna happen."
"It's not that bad."
"Henrika, this is a fire hazard, and earthquake hazard, and just about every other hazard I can think of." Her grandfather bluntly stated "What if you had to get out of your room and the door won't open? What'll happen then?"
She rolled her eyes "I think you're over-exaggerating, but I see the point. I'll ask Dad to do it after the holidays are over."
"Good girl." He praised "Now come on back downstairs, dessert's being taken out."
Hiccup followed her grandfather back to the party and waited until the adults had drunk enough eggnog for her to sneak back upstairs with Scott and Old Wrinkly and finally have some fun that night. Yep, it was Christmas classics and endless sweets until they all felt like they were going to pass out, just like the people drinking on the first floor.