At least he had something to hold onto, Hiccup thought as he fell and as his skin collided with frozen water. Not so great that it was living and moving and heavy, or that it was holding onto him, but someone was better than nothing. Jack seemed to know what he was doing as they were dragged by the powerful current. He was incredibly forceful, grabbing Hiccup's wrists and crossing them over his body, pulling Hiccup's back to his chest, and pushing them up so their heads were at least above the water. Jack had them positioned so they were being forced backwards. He didn't seem to be able to turn them around or get to a bank, and Hiccup couldn't get enough breath to give him hell for it. He had to trust that Jack could get them out of this.

That didn't stop him from screaming, though. He kicked his legs and shrieked and tried to wrestle his hands free from Jack's. For once, he wasn't actually trying to make it harder for the guardian, but he certainly wasn't making it easier. Jack was shouting something, over and over, in his native language. His feet were pushed up and he was trying to align his boots under Hiccup's to force his up, too. Hiccup had never learned how to swim. He didn't know that Jack was trying to keep his head above the water. All he knew was that Jack was shouting,
"Arrêtez! Arrêtez!" Over and over. Very suddenly, they stopped moving. Jack stopped screaming. They started moving again. Hiccup craned his neck. They must've run into a rock. Hiccup wasn't sure. He tried to throw Jack off of him, twisting around. His own head collided with something hard above the roar of the water, and he fell to the depths.

Jack broke the surface of the water with a spewing cry. His hands were, thankfully, practically frozen around Hiccup's wrists, and he managed to drag the unmoving man to a gravelly bank. It took no small amount of effort to get them both out of the water, constantly surveying for other dangers.

Jack knew what cold water did to a person, but more importantly, he knew how to survive it. He stripped off layer after layer, no time to fold or even be sure where the scarves and hat and jackets were falling. Naked from the waist up, he pulled Hiccup to lean against an outcropping of stone and began to pull at his jacket with fumbling fingers. Hiccup's head lolled and jerked up as he regained consciousness. Relieved though he was, Jack didn't pause, pulling his jacket off and adding it to the pile. He was pulling Hiccup's sweater off before the man was capable of moving. He slapped Jack off him, hard, and Jack gave himself hardly a moment to register before he was up again, now barking out instructions.
"Get them off, wet clothes will kill you faster than nothing at all."
"Why the hell should I-"
"-Do you want your punk ass to survive?! Strip or die, Hiccup!" He stood up and walked away, pulling the already frozen solid clothes under his arm as he looked around them, trying to get his bearings. His communicator was destroyed by water, no doubt. They seemed to have washed up on the edge of a pine forest on the opposite side of the river, at least four or five kilometers south of where the Guardians' protection ended. He'd only been this way once, though, so he couldn't be certain. Hiccup was cursing him out as he stood, but he seemed to be listening at least partially, pulling his clothes off so he could throw them at Jack. He froze in his movements when the shorter man whipped about to face him, intensely upset. He made quick, dangerous steps towards Hiccup and he scrambled backwards until there was no place else to go. Jack threw the clothes aside. Hiccup's back scraped a tree, so cold he couldn't feel it. There was blood in Jack's white hair, running with the water down his neck, pooling in his collarbone before dripping across his side. His dark brows were pulled low and deep against his eyes, and he was staring up at Hiccup, the toes of his boots touching Hiccup's.
And he wrapped his arms around him.

He hugged him.

"What do you think you're-"
"-In this temperature the only heat we can get is from one another. Both of us have hypothermia; we'll soon die with or without a fire." Jack reached his hands up and rubbed life into Hiccup's ears with surprising gentility, kneading the skin with his thumbs. He was frigid, of course, but much warmer than their surroundings.
"Put your arms around my shoulders. Don't let my ears freeze." Jack commanded, and startled, Hiccup complied. He dropped his hands down over Jack's shoulder blades and closed his eyes, trying to enjoy the contact of someone's hands at the sides of his head and trying to ignore the context. Jack was still talking, planning, shivering. He seemed so skewed that some of his words were in his native language.
"Nous-we, we need to build a fire and some kind of shelter before anything else, est-ce que vous-do, do you still have your lighter, matches, anything?"
"It all got soaked, what do you think water does?"
"Kills us if you keep up that kind of attitude! Do you have it or not?"
"I-I've still got a lighter."
"Then it's up to you to start a fire. Your lighter can still give you a spark, fuel or no, and this pine has good sap. It won't be too difficult." Jack withdrew his arms and fluffed his fingers through Hiccup's hair, pulling out ice.
"Your hair's longer than mine. Normally it would keep your head warmer, mais-but, but now it'll freeze to your head. Keep running your hands through it, pull out the ice often."
"Don't tell me what to do!"
"Don't listen if you would rather die. I have no qualms in letting you fall, but I am going to survive." Jack pulled away and Hiccup's skin cried out at the loss of warmth. He pulled a long, thin blade from somewhere along his leg, running his hand down the flattened edge. He drew it away, bloody.
"Still sharp." He murmured to himself with a nod, seemingly undeterred by the wounds he inflicted. He flopped to the ground near their clothes and peeled off his boots. His socks followed, thrown onto the pile. With the same gentility as he'd had with Hiccup, Jack tried to rub warmth into his feet, pain etched into his normally placid face. Hiccup still had not moved.

"You…"

"What?"

"Did you push me off the cliff, or try to stop me from falling?"

Jack stopped moving and looked up. His expression became again unreadable.

"What do you think?"

He stood again, taking his blade in his other hand and circling a tree, scrutinizing it with the same expression he used to look at Hiccup, and all the Vikings, with. His eyes were squinted just barely and his mouth was open just enough to see his front teeth, white and polished like sharp, smart pearls. Already, bruises were beginning to form, purplish-black lichen flowering over smooth marble. He had one against his jawbone, spanning down his arm, and at the very center of his back, making it painfully easy to see his ribs and spine. There were more on his legs, but Hiccup wanted to avoid checking. Hiccup followed Jack to the tree, trying to cling to some level of superiority but not wanting to push Jack so much that he would abandon him. He was suddenly very dependent on Jack, and Jack knew it, too, which burned curiosity into Hiccup. Why did he have yet to address that?

Hiccup had addressed it right away.

It was a memory that came to him while he was sleeping, quite often, and it never failed to wake him up with a jerk, hand gripping at his heart and wondering why it felt like someone had squeezed it.

It had already been weeks since he had established that he was not fond of Jack, which was established the very moment they spoke personally. Somehow, though, it seemed that Jack was always wherever important things were happening; not, of course, because Jack was important. Hiccup had no problem telling him this. He was not important. Jack never tried to correct him.

But then, Jack was sitting cross-legged on his leader's desk, on the far edge but in the very middle so he could hand the man things while he worked. North, that had been the man's name; North who used to speak Russian, a language that came surprisingly easily to Hiccup and many of the other Vikings. Bunny, he had also been there, arms crossed and leaned against the desk next to Jack, staring out the window and not really contributing anything to the conversation. Hiccup was staring at them with his mouth opened; he wasn't sure if he felt disgusted or enthralled. It wasn't like it was the first time something similar had happened. The Guardians were incredibly intimate and shockingly subtle with their physical reassurance. To them, it was just natural. To a Viking, it was downright erotic. Foreplay. Not even the most exclusive mates would touch one another so gently, if they did certainly not in public. And though it was not the first time he had seen it between two Guardians, he was still absolutely blown away when Bunny came into the room late, turned to face the window, and as he raised his hands to cross his arms, lightly stroked Jack's jaw with his fingertip. Jack had hardly reacted. Neither of them acknowledged it; in fact, it was the only movement Bunny had made in the past fifteen minutes.

No, Jack hadn't not reacted, Hiccup realized. He just hadn't reacted much. His eyes had closed slowly and he had just barely leaned into the touch, but that was it. They hadn't spoken to one another at all.

Stoick and North didn't seem to notice, and Hiccup wanted to shout at them about how absolutely inappropriate it was, but it was rather normal to the Guardians. When his father discussed it with one of the Vikings, all he had said was that they would have to get used to it.

Hiccup didn't think he ever would.

But, as that had happened and as North was bent over some kind of metal, Stoick was seated in a chair next to his, sitting in a way that was completely expected of him. So why was he constantly receiving looks of such disdain from the tiny lady who seemed to flit and dance about the room, speaking quickly and never once stopping? He'd come to know her as Tooth, because the children went to her when they got hurt, but most commonly from toothache, and she had hair that was bright green even though it was as white as Jack's or North's underneath, peacock feathers braided into the pixie cut and layered over her shoulders. She was sorting big huge scrolls and books into cubbies that pocketed three of the room's walls, making a stack on the edge of the desk of ones she found relevant. But she kept throwing glances over her shoulder at Stoick with disgust, seemingly criticizing how he sat, legs spread steadily and leaned forward with a hand on his own knee; the way a strong and confident man should sit. Did these people not understand that he was a chief? How else was he meant to sit? Certainly not like North, clever man as he was, ankles crossed under his seat as he leaned over his work. Definitely not like Jack, legs crossed and even, back straight and fully attentive. They didn't know any better, Hiccup tried to convince himself.

"It's certain, then, that with your help we can seal off our western edge. It would be most efficient to move into the center of our territory; see? Here." North had taken a map handed to him by Tooth, handing off his little trinket to Jack as he unrolled the paper and traced an area with his finger. Jack handed him a pencil, and he circled where they currently were; edged up in the southeastern corner of their territory. Back then, it had been the only fenced area.

"It will be safer for the children, of course. We had always wanted to be central. We just did not have the people, before."

"We are always willing to help. It would be the least we could do, for what you've given us." Hiccup's mouth snapped shut as he looked at his father. Still, were they that desperate? Hiccup felt that they had reached an agreement; why was Stoick possibly being so formal? Nobody seemed to notice Hiccup's wildly changing expression. He was still standing in the far corner of the room, trying to hide away. He had to keep up this idea that he didn't want to be there, after all.

"Of course, of course, now we have the people power...your people are remarkably strong. I'm certain you're capable of even more than I credit you with."

"We'll certainly try to impress."

"Hah! You have done that already, my friend."

North slapped Stoick's shoulder happily. He seemed to at least somewhat understand physical contact.

"Now, we will need a supervisor for the perimeter, after it'll have been expanded so much…" North pulled on his beard as he thought.

"What about your son?" North gestured grandly to Hiccup. Everyone's attention shifted to him, even Stoick.

"I…uhm..."

Hiccup was considering negatively when he glanced over at Jack, still on the table. His mouth was open and his eyebrows were flying up into his hair.

"I would be honored." Hiccup kept his eyes fixed on Jack's face as it contorted.

But as he shivered in a forest of pine trees, watching that same teen hack down branches, toss them to a pile, run fingers through his hair, pulling loose chunks of bloody ice, scrutinizing his face, he realized that he hadn't been devastated, had he? His lips had pulled up and his eyes had squinted, sure, but...he had been smiling.

He had been happy for Hiccup.