A/N: So, this is the last fully completed chapter that I have. I'm having trouble with Chapter 14 and I have a request.
Could someone please point me in the direction of a good fanfic with the Big Four (Hiccup, Jack, Rapunzel and Merida)? What's making chtp14 difficult to write is that I have no precidence for how to write these characters interacting with one another. Ultimately, I'm looking for something that's moderately lengthy (5 chapters or more unless you know a good one-shot) with little to no shipping, preferably.
Links won't show up in reviews. Just give me the title, author and where to find it. Thanks in advance.
Disclaimer: I do not own How to Train Your Dragon. I do own an assortment of OCs, a few of whom are trying to make me regret creating them.
How to Train Your Marching Band
Chapter Thirteen: Frostbite
When five o'clock rolled around, the families started to arrive.
The final act of band camp was the Parent Picnic. Not so much a picnic now as it was a potluck, but the parents were encouraged to drop in, socialize with the other parents over a hot meal and then watch the band perform however much of the show they had gotten through, music and marching together. Allowing the parents to see what their kids were up to encouraged them to become more involved in what their kids were up to. Gobber figured it was also a good way to foster interest for marching band in the younger generations.
The group was settled on one of the new sofa-sets in the downstairs commons, waiting for their families to turn up. The cafeteria had become the epicenter for a growing mass of adults who probably hadn't seen their kids properly all week. They bore steaming dishes of food and plates of desserts and various beverages. There was also a growing swarm of younger siblings, the most adorable of whom were hefted into arm and introduced to the more approachable members of the band.
"This couch is absurdly comfortable." Fishlegs commented, half-sunken into the cushions.
"Yeah, I could fall asleep on this." Tuffnut agreed.
"Good thing. I didn't bring anything for Fred to sleep on." Marie commented.
Astrid canted an eyebrow. "Fred's staying over this year? Run for the hills, guys. All of Marie's minions will be in the same place."
"Fred's not my minion, he's my brother."
"Brother, minion; he's under your thrall either way."
"We use our little brother like a minion. We make him do our chores." Tuffnut remarked. "I mean, the chores we still have. Which isn't many. 'Cause we kept breaking stuff. He actually gets off really easy. We need to fix that." he added to his sister.
"How does he ever survive with such loving and caring older siblings?..." Astrid wondered blandly. She didn't want to know. Daily life at the Thorston household was prime fodder for nightmares and ulcers, if the stories she'd heard over the years were anything to go by.
"Well, we wouldn't make him if he started fighting back. We stopped making Coralie do stuff when she started biting us."
"I was so proud of her that day she finally drew blood." Ruffnut said nostalgically and she wasn't kidding about it. She held up her arm. "Look, you can still where her teeth marks are!"
"We aren't allowed to bite each other. Dad says if we start using our teeth on each other, the Tooth Fairy gets 'em all." Snotlout said, covering his mouth reflexively. Spitelout had given the lecture while displaying his largest pair of pliers.
"My dad said something pretty similar, but he also said the Tooth Fairy would do it herself and it wouldn't be anything like going to the dentist. No anesthetic. Just a pair of pliers and you're strapped down so you can't wiggle around. And she wouldn't give you any money for your teeth." Fishlegs said, cringing into himself as he managed to freak himself out. Fear of that happening to him (real or not) had been the only thing that had kept him from resorting to biting his older brothers in the past.
"My sister doesn't bite. Never even tried, so we don't have to traumatize her with horror stories." Astrid said, deciding that having a sweet-tempered sister who didn't start fights and didn't bite people was something to be proud of.
"That's 'cause your sister is frikkin' adorable." Ruffnut drawled.
"And she's got a crush on Hiccup."
"What?" Hiccup scrambled into a more upright sitting position, looking at the colorguard captain in shock. He hadn't properly met the youngest Hofferson, but memories of a grade-school-aged Astrid danced in his head and he was suddenly seized with the urgent need to run for the hills.
"Relax, she's five. Her having a crush on you just means you're good enough a role model to idolize. It'll pass soon enough." Astrid assured him, trying to wipe that horrified expression off his face. "If it makes you feel better, I'm glad she decided to latch on to you than someone else. Say... Snotlout."
"I'd make an awesome role model!" Snotlout boasted and was mostly ignored.
"Yeah, but-" Hiccup's tongue tripped over ways to finish that sentence, the most common being variations of how to say he'd rather have Astrid doing to the crushing, not her five-year old sister. After a frantic second of thinking, he realized there was no way to finish it without it coming out sounding a bit too wrong.
"Y'know what, never mind." Hiccup said, slumping back down and crossing his arms. "Only child here. Your words are foreign to me."
For some reason, Snotlout let out a loud snort. "If you're an only child, then Tuffnut's actually a girl."
One of Hiccup's eyebrows scurried up to his hairline. "Then Tuffnut's a girl, because my mom is dead. Unless you've spent the last seventeen years wondering why your Auntie Val hasn't been around." he said with a bit of snark.
"Astrid." Snotlout made an 'after you' type gesture.
The colorguard captain nodded, then promptly turned and socked a fist so hard into Hiccup's arm that two of her knuckles popped and the force of the punch was enough to send the clarinetist rolling away towards the end of the couch. He let out nothing louder than a gasp, clamping a hand over the newly-assaulted flesh. Fishlegs and the twins cringed sympathetically.
"What the hell? What was that for?" Hiccup demanded, throwing a glare between his cousin and Astrid.
"You're being stupid again." Astrid told him, crossing her arms. "You haven't been an only child since first grade. You practically have a brother. You just don't live with him."
It took a moment for Hiccup to realize what she was talking about.
"Oh-- No, that's just the thing--" he started, but the colorguard captain was swift to cut him off.
"Jack spent two weeks not even attempting to interact with anybody until the weekend you guys started working on that art project together. Next Monday, you ate lunch together. You two were attached at the hip and you already had in-jokes." she said. "You two bonded in about six hours and you've been inseparable ever since. So, brothers. Marie, back me up on this?"
"Weasels don't wear ass-less chaps." Marie said absently, as if she were responding to an entirely different conversation. Then her head shot up and she looked at Astrid with a confused: "Huh? What are we talking about?"
"We're certainly not talking about weasels wearing ass-less chaps." Astrid said, ignoring the fact the twins were clearly trying to imagine it and having entirely too much luck.
"Well I'm not paying attention to your conversation." Marie stated. That much was plainly obvious. She had barely taken her nose out of her notebook to pay attention to the conversation. She had filled up three pages, front and back, in the time since they'd taken their seats.
"I was talking about the art-bros bonding in six hours." Astrid prompted.
"Huh... Yeah, I guess so. Why are you asking me?" Marie wondered, scratching her head. "'S'not like I was in elementary school with you guys."
"I don't entirely trust Snotlout's assessment."
"Hey! I notice everything! Nothing gets by me!" snapped the percussionist in question. "And she's right!" He pointed an accusing finger at Marie. "She wasn't even in elementary school with us! What makes you think she knows better than me?"
"Snotlout, how often do you actually pay attention to what I do?" Hiccup asked flatly. "I mean really actually pay attention and not just glance over to make sure I'm still breathing."
Predictably, Snotlout drew a blank. For the most part, his cousin was a blur on the edge of his attention span unless Hiccup's mood was particularly pervasive. There had been a handful of moments where he had expressed concern for Hiccup's physical or mental well-being, but he could recall nothing specific off the top of his head.
The twins sniggered and Fishlegs hummed idly, having nothing relevant to add to the conversation. Marie twirled her pen once, then put it back to paper and continued writing.
"Hey, Hiccup!"
The clarinetist's head shot up, green eyes zeroing in on a terribly conspicuous individual with white hair and blue eyes, strolling towards them with a confident, cocky expression. The smile that lit up Hiccup's face could rival Marie's manic grin on its best days.
Jack Frost (Hiccup was sure his parents had known exactly what they were naming their kid) was originally from Nome, Alaska. He had lived in Paramount for going on ten years now and still had yet to weather a Midwestern summer with anything resembling tolerance for the ninety-plus degree temperatures. It didn't help that he lived in a house that had been built during a time that pre-dated air conditioning. (This was typical of many of the houses in Paramount, as the town was turn-of-the-century old. Installing air-cons involved a fair bit of remodeling; knocking out walls for the vents or upgrading window frames, for example.)
"Jack!"
Hiccup didn't even half the time to sit up when Astrid, Ruffnut and Marie leapt off the cushions like bolts of lightning and all but tackled the newcomer in a group hug. Jack didn't so much as twitch, accustomed to this behavior. He was mostly amused and pleased by the attention, honestly, and didn't even offer up a token complaint when Ruffnut's fingers found their way into his hair and started stroking it.
Hiccup frowned. "Would you guys get off him?"
"In a minute." Astrid replied.
"No really, it's creepy with the three of you doing that-- Stop stroking his hair!"
"But it's so soft and fluffy!" Marie exclaimed.
"Hiccup, you're the only one who's having a problem with this." Jack said, grinning giddily. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. "A little to the left? Right there, that's nice..."
"'Course, he don't have problem. He's the one getting hugged and fawned over and petted by three pretty girls." Snotlout grumbled, having a problem with this.
Tuffnut made a face. "You think my sister's pretty?'
"It's an expression!"
Ruffnut was too content where she was to care about what her twin was insinuating this time.
"Hey, how come none of you never hug me like that?" Snotlout demanded. He had never been glomped three (reasonably) attractive girls before, but he wasn't going to die without it happening to him at least a few times.
"'Cause Jack's pretty and you aren't." Ruffnut informed him.
And that was probably all there was to it.
If Hiccup Haddock was the walking soap opera, then Jack Frost was the pretty boy from the toothpaste commercial with an inexplicable number of fans who only watched the soap opera because the toothpaste commercial seemed to only come up during the soap opera.
Jack was gorgeous, with that snowy white hair and that alabaster skin and those hypnotic blue eyes... In order to reduce most of the school's female population (and a small percentage of the male population) to mush, all he had to do was flash those pretty white teeth.
Fishlegs had become long-since resigned to the fact he would probably never have three girls happily glomping him in greeting, but nonetheless wouldn't mind being in Jack's place just once. Tuffnut appeared to have mixed feelings on the matter. He would be happy to have three girls swooning over him, but one of them being his sister? Just-- erg.
Hiccup groaned and plopped his forehead down on the back of the couch. Jack was a self-admitted attention whore; he loved having people pay attention to him (as long as it was the right sort of attention). He had been the class clown back in elementary school; a trickster whose goal was to make people laugh and have fun. His antics had landed him in several detentions (skipping gym to cover the chalkboards in artwork, freeing the class hamster, or stealing the glitter-crusted rainbow-vomit unicorn figure from their first grade teacher). Like a true bro, Hiccup had gone down with him.
But he hated the moments when the girls he was friends with decided (once again) that Jack was just so gosh-darned pretty.
Not that it made him feel inadequate in comparison, but there was something very disturbing and depressing about watching the girl he had a crush on swoon over his best friend.
"Hello ladies." Jack's grin widened, his greeting a little delayed as he draped arms around their shoulders and looking entirely too comfortable. "I really just came in here to find Hiccup, but finding him is just the bonus after running into you three."
"Can a hole open up and swallow you?" Hiccup wondered. It would save them all some trouble.
"If it'll make you feel better, we'll cuddle you next, okay?" Marie offered, flashing a smile at her section leader.
"You can cuddle your brother. I saw him in the parking lot." Jack told her and with a delighted "oo!", Marie was off like a shot. (Ruffnut sidled in to take her place.)
Astrid sighed and declared: "I'm not sleeping tonight unless I can put my back to a wall."
"Dude, we're not gonna be sleeping tonight at all." Tuffnut said with an excited grin, one that was mirrored on his twin's face. "Marie and her brother. It's gonna be like the apocalypse came early."
"Oh, speaking of that," Jack started, extracting himself from between Ruffnut and Astrid.
Hiccup canted an eyebrow. "Speaking of the apocalypse?"
"I always speak of the apocalypse." Jack said seriously. He spread his arms and raised his voice to the level of 'passionate preacher'. "And of the gods will rain fire from the heavens and bring upon a horrible catastrophe that will cleave the earth in two! Unless reparations are made unto the Holy Chalk! Can I get an 'amen'?"
"Amen!" the others shouted in the role of the equally passionate congregation, throwing their hands up. This earned them more than just a few odd looks, but years of acting like nutcases had made them rather immune and by this point, half the band was accustomed to the level of insanity generated by the group.
"Actually no, I meant the sugar apocalypse." Jack corrected himself. "That is, ten pounds of assorted candy and about four gallons worth of soda, all bubbly and fizzy and dripping with caffeine. And your dad brought it." he added to Hiccup.
"Yes! Thank you Uncle Stoic! You always come through when Mom goes on another crazy diet!" Snotlout cheered.
"And I bet he wants me to help bring it in." Hiccup deduced, getting to his feet.
"Don't you already have your ill-gotten cookies?" Astrid sniped, crossing her arms. If she had any time to sleep tonight, she was definitely putting her back to the wall and sleeping with one eye open.
"Cookies alone will not get me through the entire night!" Hiccup protested. "Besides, it's to share with the other seniors."
"All right, bring on the sugar coma." Ruffnut dared. She nudged Astrid in the side when the colorguard captain went to speak. "Stop trying to figure out why you're friends with us and just enjoy the ride, would you."
"Yeah Astrid, don't be such a drag." Tuffnut agreed.
"Yeah Astrid, geez."
"I think it's great that you can show such responsibility--" Snotlout started, sucking up. Jack and Hiccup managed to slip away quietly before Astrid started to visibly fume.
"So at what point did Astrid turn into a stick in the mud?" Jack wondered.
"It's shark week around here. All the hormones in the air saturate the rational part of their brains and suppress their ability to process common sense. Turns 'em crazy." Hiccup told him. "Except for Marie. I think she actually gets less crazy, but then she starts talking to herself."
"How is talking to yourself less crazy? I've heard people say that's actually the first sign of going insane."
"Well it is, but it's like she's finishing conversations we started years ago, 'cept I don't think we ever had conversations about weasels wearing ass-less chaps."
Jack stutter-stepped mid-stride as the words sank into his brain, a smile warring with disbelief that such a phrase had even been uttered.
"H-How does a conversation lead into weasels wearing ass-less chaps?" he wondered. "Seriously, what kind of topic do you have to start with to lead into something like that?"
Hiccup shrugged. "You'll have to ask Marie, she's the one who said it. And it had nothing to do with the conversation at hand."
"Hmm, maybe I will. I'm very curious." Jack admitted, stroking his chin.
Hiccup pushed open one of the front doors. He grimaced when the still-boiling evening air all but smacked him with its mugginess and glared at Jack in annoyance.
"What, are you still peeved about the girls mobbing me?" the white-haired teen asked.
"It's not that, but while we're on the subject, why do you let them do that?"
"Why not? If they want to cuddle with this gorgeous body, who am I to stop them?"
"Hugging you is like hugging a model skeleton; you know that right?"
"Hugging you is like hugging a model skeleton. You know that right? Don't look at me like that. We're both bony sons of bitches and we know it."
Hiccup groaned. "You just like the hair-stroking part."
"And that makes me a bad person?" Jack instantly adopted an innocent look.
"No, you're making me sweat just looking at you." Hiccup replied, going completely off-topic because he wanted to get off it anyways.
Jack spread his arms again, looking down the blue hoodie draped across his shoulders. It was a lightweight one and unzipped, but it was the fact he was wearing in the middle of the summer.
"Well I'm not taking it off." he said, crossing his arms defensively.
"One day you're gonna collapse from heat-stroke, Frosty." Hiccup predicted, setting off across the grassy knoll.
"And it still won't come off." Jack said defiantly, brushing off imaginary dust. It was one of his favorite hoodies; a custom-order dusted with silver, spidery frost-patterns across the shoulders and up the sleeves. He had the same pattern on a heavyweight darker blue one for the winter.
"Y'know, I don't think you've worn another hoodie all summer. Can you still take that off or have you become one with it?"
"Yes, my clothing has become a part of me. I'm glad you noticed. Hey!" Jack whirled towards him with an excited grin and nearly tripped off the edge of the sidewalk. "We're all staying tonight. We're gonna try and brave a night with the band. Do we have to sleep with the others or can we do the all-nighter thing too?"
"If you're gonna stay up, there's no guarantee you'll get any sleep. And you'll probably get roped into helping us with the skit." Hiccup warned him. "Especially you. 'Cause you're-- y'know."
"Attractive? Photogenic? Swoon-worthy? Aesthetically striking?"
"I was gonna say 'dramatic attention-whore'."
"Oh, that hurts. Right here, Hiccup. You've stabbed me right here. It hurts." Jack said, putting a hand over his heart, his other hand gripping a handful of Hiccup's shirt. "I think I'm bleeding out! I think you killed me with your cruel, cruel words! Oh no, I'm dying!" he wailed in a strangled kind of voice, all but throwing himself on the clarinetist.
Jack out-weighed Hiccup by fifteen or so pounds and had at least four inches on him, although Hiccup was probably the stronger of the pair thanks to the band's marching-mistake discipline policy (five push-ups for every mistake done after a set). But dead weight combined with gravity usually won out over strength (which was why Marie's cling-like-a-monkey-until-they-fall-over strategy was typically effective) and for a second or two, Jack came precariously close to dragging Hiccup to the ground with him. Then with a dramatic flailing of his limbs and a mock-gasp of pain, Jack flopped down onto the blacktop and wrapped his arms around Hiccup's ankle.
"Dad, help. He's got my leg." Hiccup called. They were now only some ten feet away from Truck-zilla (as people were wont to call the massive vehicle).
"I don't fight zombies, son." Stoic called back, extracting two brown paper sacks from the back seat of the truck. "I just like to kick their corpses around. Their heads make for excellent footballs."
Jack sprang to his feet. "I have miraculously revived!"
"Great. Now come here and grab a bag. There's three more in the back." Stoic instructed, sounding vastly unamused, but there was a smile twitching under that mustache of his.
Shoving at each other, the pair of teenagers walked over. Hiccup didn't make it all the way to the truck when Stoic pointedly cleared his throat.
"What, are you too old to give your dad a hug?"
"Yes, yes I am." Hiccup said even as he leaned in to put an arm as far around his father as he could (barely made it halfway). He used it as an opening to try and get near the sack emitting tasty smells. "What did you bring? It smells like fried chicken. And how much did you bring? Are you trying to feed half the band?"
He tried to reach in and grab something, maybe just a wing; a morsel to gnaw on and stop his stomach from gurgling pathetically.
"Back off, you can eat when the rest of the band does." Stoic shifted the sack away from his son's plucking fingers. "Go bring the other bags in. And I brought one of your blankets. Wasn't sure if you'd be getting any sleep tonight, but you have it if you need it."
"Thanks Dad."
Then Hiccup turned to face the monster of a truck.
Some of Stoic's duties as a dragon hunter required him to go by the road less traveled, then off the road less traveled and then into areas where roads were long-forgotten myths. Often while hauling some forty pounds of equipment with him. Facilitating this meant purchasing a vehicle roughly half the size of a tank.
Truck-zilla had lasted a few faithful years of service thus far, but the sheer size of it was almost embarrassing. Hiccup was barely tall enough to see across the hood if he was standing beside it and if it weren't for the grab handles and step bars, someone would had to have given him a boast just to get in.
He climbed into the back seat of the truck; Jack followed him far enough in to make himself useful. On the bench seat were three brown paper sacks. One sack contained two boxes of pancake mix and pre-packaged biscuits. The second was stacked with six-packs of soda cans. And the third was filled to the brim with a variety of candy. Hiccup felt cavities form in his teeth just looking at it all.
"Did you guys clean all the chocolate out of the candy aisle?" Hiccup wondered, digging through the bags and bags and bags of various candies. He didn't see anything that didn't contain chocolate. "I feel like we're chumming the waters with all this."
"In my defense, I didn't spend the week surrounded by a bunch of hormonal teenage girls, so how was I supposed to know they'd all sync up? But if you don't want to be the one who gets mobbed, I'll take the candy sack." Jack offered, reaching for it.
"Uh-uh, you take the one with all the soda. I've done enough heavy lifting this week." Hiccup handed him the sack in question. He also passed over the one with the breakfast supplies. "And this one."
"Hey!"
Hiccup snatched up the last item on the seat, his favorite fleecy blanket that his dad had gotten him for Christmas years ago. Folded up, it felt thicker than usual. He groaned when he found his red parade shirt and khaki shorts nestled between the main fold.
"So much trying to leave this at home." he muttered, tossing the folded blanket into the top of the candy sack.
"It's supposed to rain tomorrow morning." Jack reminded him consolingly.
"Not hard enough to wash out the parade." Hiccup predicted sourly, scooting out of the truck. He hopped out and shut the door, then they set off back towards the school doors.
2nd A/N: Jack and Hiccup would not shut up. I swear to god they would not shut up. There is an entire block of dialogue that I ripped out because it kept sending the chapter off into different directions and I just couldn't get them out the freaking door in time without sending the word count over five thousand.