#jackstrid

Jack does not yelp. But he does jump, whirling on the spot to find a certain golden-haired shieldmaiden glowering at him. Menacingly. Silently praying to the gods that Toothless will stay out of sight a bit longer, he dons an easygoing smile.

“A-Astrid! Funny running into you here!”

Her icy glare sharpens. Jack tries not to focus on the axe in her hand.

“So this is where you’ve been sneaking off to.” She stalks towards him, and Jack is only just able to resist the urge to take a step back. “I knew you were up to something. Who is Toothless? Are they the person who’s been training you?”

“Wha- Training? You’re joking, right?”

She seizes a fistful of the front of his tunic, yanking him down to her eye level with such a look that she could have frozen a rampaging monstrous nightmare in its tracks.

“Don’t play dumb,” she spits. “How else would you have gone from being the village hiccup to placing first in dragon training overnight?”

The word ‘hiccup’ stings. It does every time one of the villagers hurl the insult his way, and like every time he shrugs it off with a smirk.

“Oh, you know, nothing special; I eat all my veggies, get eight hours every night, and toss Odin the odd prayer now and again. You might wanna try it sometime.”

Her fist tightens on his collar.

“Haddock, if you don’t start taking this seriously,” she threatens, “I will hurt you.”

“You can try,” Jack says. “But I don’t think Toothless is going to like that.”

That’s when she feels hot air on the back of her neck. As focused as she was on Jack, she hadn’t noticed the giant shadow unfurl itself from the roots of the great tree that grows into the base of the cliff, nor did she notice when it came to loom over her, pupils narrowed into dangerously thin slits.

Slowly, she loosens her grip on Jack’s tunic and turns, careful not to make any sudden movements. Toothless glowers down at her. And when her eyes land on the furious dragon, he peels his lipless mouth back in a ferocious snarl.

“Jack, get back!”

Before he can process what is happening Jack suddenly finds himself being shoved backwards, and Astrid standing protectively in front of him with her axe poised to strike. Toothless yowls, not liking the perceived aggression towards his human, and leaps at Astrid. With a snarl Astrid throws herself at the dragon. And Jack, reckless fool he is, gets between them.

“Wait! Wait!”

It’s mostly the surprise that lets him rip the axe from Astrid’s hand and fling it to the ground. Toothless backs off as soon as Jack is between him and his target, but his eyes remain locked on the perceived threat and he continues to snarl and bare his fangs, even when Jack places his hands on Toothless’s head and strokes him consolingly.

“Hey hey hey, it’s okay,” he whispers soothingly to the dragon. “You just scared her is all.”

He can feel Astrid’s bewildered eyes on him, but he focuses on calming Toothless before he turns to her. She’s staring at him with a mix of shock, terror, and disgust. He can’t say he expected any different.

“Astrid, meet my ‘trainer,’ Toothless.” He turns to the dragon, stroking his snout. “Toothless, meet Astrid.”

Toothless snarls, showing off a mouthful of very sharp teeth.

Astrid turns on her heel and runs.

Jack and Toothless exchange a look. Then Jack smirks.

“Toothless, fetch.”

Astrid has only just made it out of the crevice that leads into the cove when a shadow descends from the sky and pounces on her. She hits the ground hard but is only stunned, not torn limb from limb by the claws of the nightfury. Before she can recover, toothless jaws clamp on her leg and she is being dragged over rough dirt and rock and underbrush back where she came from. The dragon dumps her on the floor of the cove. Astrid reaches for the dagger on her belt but suddenly a weight drops down on her and she’s pinned.

“Jack!” she screeches as she thrashes beneath the weight of the nightfury. “Get this thing off of me right now!”

Jack smirks down at her from where he’s seated atop a moss-covered boulder. Maybe she’s imagining, but she can swear the dragon’s wearing an identical smirk.

“Not until you promise you won’t tell anyone about Toothless,” he says.

“I’m not promising you anything!”

“Alright then. Toothless...”

Astrid goes still beneath the dragon. He wouldn’t order the dragon to... Would he? His smirk widens, a devious glint in his eyes.

“Give ‘er a kiss.”

Astrid doesn’t have time to process those words before a hot, wet dragon tongue slavers all over her face and hair. She clamps her mouth shut and resumes thrashing in earnest but is helpless against the onslaught of thick drool and fishy breath. Jack’s laughter rings in her ears and she swears she is going to throttle him the moment she’s free!

“Aright aright, that’s enough scaly-butt. Let her breathe for a second.”

Toothless huffs and gives her one last broad-tongued lick before relenting. Astrid coughs and sputters and gasps for breath as she swipes saliva from her face.

“So,” Jack says, and though her eyes are squeezed shut she can hear the shit-eating grin in his voice. “You ready for more? Or do you promise to keep your mouth shut?”

“Yes! Yes, I promise!” She can’t take any more of that dragon breath. “Just get this thing off me!”

With a nod, Jack instructs Toothless to back off and the dragon lifts himself from his captive with a chortle. Jack slides smoothly from his perch and offers Astrid a hand. She takes it, reluctantly, and allows herself to be pulled up.

Then she punches him in the arm.

“Ow!”

“You are insufferable!”

With a huff, Astrid turns her back and stomps over to the pond. Jack rolls his eyes. Then his attention turns to Toothless. Toothless has gone rigid at the punch and only marginally relaxes when Astrid drops to her knees at the edge of the water. Jack places a hand on the nightfury’s head, stroking him gently and whispering assurances while Astrid attempts to clean herself up.

“You’re not going to get away with this, you know.”

He turns, fixing Astrid with a blank look. She’s not looking at him, she has water cupped in her hands, but he can see her glare reflected in the pool.

“You can’t keep him hidden forever. Your dad’s going to catch on eventually.”

It’s only now that Jack realize she didn’t hear everything after all.

“It’s a good thing Toothless and I are leaving then, isn’t it?”

That grabs her attention. She turns to him, water dripping from her bangs and tunic sporting a large damp spot.

“You’re leaving?” She stands, wiping her hands on the dry part of her top. “You’re choosing a dragon over your own people?”

Jack’s voice is uncharacteristically cold as he says, “You are not my people.”

Toothless warbles, pressing his head against Jack’s side. Even a man as large and formidable as Stoick the Vast can be knocked around by one of these creatures, and Jack is built like a twig, so Astrid marvels at the care and gentleness the dragon shows as it comforts the village hiccup.

“Still,” she says, hostility ebbing as a wisp of curiosity works its way to the surface. “You’re a human. Why would you want to be with a dragon?”

“How long do you have?” he asks. Then he turns to her and the sharp edge to his expression falters. She’s staring at him, brows furrowed, mouth pulled in a slight frown, and he realizes she genuinely doesn’t understand. Turning to his partner, a thought forms. “I could show you.”

Astrid watches as he climbs atop the nightfury’s back, and despite her own reservations she can’t help being a little in awe. A beast of legend, feared by even the most hardened of Viking warriors, and Jack’s sitting on its back as though it were no more extraordinary than any farm animal. He offers a hand to her, and she finds herself frozen.

“Come on, Astrid,” Jack says, and that teasing smirk is gone, his eyes are genuine and hopeful. “Haven’t you ever looked up and the sky and imagined what it would be like to fly?”

No, she hasn’t. She’s always been grounded, focusing on what’s right in front of her. It’s just one of the many things that put her at odds with Jack, who walks around with his head in the clouds.

"You’re serious?” she asks. His smile begins to falter, and before Astrid knows what she’s doing she’s taking his hand and climbing onto the dragon behind him. “Okay. So show me.”

“Alright, Toothless.” Sitting behind him, she can’t see the smirk reappear on his face, or see the devious glint in his dragon’s eyes. “Let’s have some fun.”

Astrid’s stomach sinks as those great black wings slowly unfurl.

And then another shriek is ripped from her throat as they shoot up into the air.

They pierce through the clouds, spin in the air, drop back down to the sea and swoop back up again. As the wild flight goes on Astrid becomes increasingly aware of another sound, just barely audible over her screams; laughter. Jack is enjoying this. If she weren’t clinging so tightly to him for dear life she would smack him.

“C’mon Astrid, look!” he cries. “Isn’t it amazing?”

"I’m going to kill you when I get down!”

“So what’s my incentive to let you down?”

She opens her eyes to glare at him, and that’s when she sees it. The world above the clouds. She’s seen countless sunsets on Berk, but not like this, not above an ocean of mist painted with hues of warm pinks and oranges and traces of purple. Already stars are beginning to dot the night sky as Sol draws her chariot beyond the horizon. It’s almost as though they’d flown into another realm, and without thought Astrid finds herself raising her hand to run her fingertips through the sun-painted mist above her head. To her great surprise, her fingers come away cold and wet, and despite herself a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Jack says, drawing her from her reverie. “Up here, with Toothless, I feel more right than I ever have in my life. When I’m up here, I finally feel like myself.”

The clouds part beneath them and Astrid can’t suppress a gasp as she sees Berk, her home, as she’s never seen it before. It’s so small, so beautiful. Astrid’s arms, still wrapped around Jack’s waist, give a gentle squeeze, and she lowers her chin to his shoulder.

“I feel it,” she says, breathless. “This is amazing... He’s amazing.”

Toothless croons.

-----

They remain in the air until the sun sinks into the ocean and Mani’s chariot rises high in the sky. Toothless brings them around the north side of the island, where dense forests and rocky cliffs limit human exploration, but serve no barrier for someone riding on a dragon.

Astrid feels drained in a way she never has before. Even dragon training has never taken this much out of her. From the moment her feet touch solid ground she is able to take only a few wobbly steps before she collapses against the base of a large boulder, heart racing like she’s just run a lap around the island. Jack takes a seat next to her while Toothless stretches out in the soft grass surrounding them.

“This still doesn’t feel real,” Astrid says after a long silence. Her eyes are on the shockingly docile dragon, watching as he rolls over onto his back to expose his smooth underbelly. “I keep expecting to wake up.”

There’s another beat of silence before she asks, “How did... this happen?”

“Would you believe by sheer stupid accident?” Jack asks. At the look on her face, he says, “I was exploring the woods. Y’know, avoiding Stoick. And Toothless here had stopped for a drink. I came up to the edge of the cove and just completely froze when I saw him there. I was so sure that if I moved or made any noise at all he’d notice me and I’d be dead but... I was also kind of mesmerized.”

As he speaks, Jack withdraws a bit of metal from his pouch and Astrid is reminded of one of his little tricks he showcased in dragon training as he sends Toothless scrambling after a fleck of reflected moonlight.

“I didn’t notice I was getting closer and closer to the ledge until I slipped. Nearly broke my neck. By the time I pulled myself from the dirt Toothless was standing over me, just... staring. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I thought that was it, but he just kind of sniffed me, and then he turned and flew away.”

Toothless catches up with the flek and Jack tilts the coin down so the light vanishes, to the poor dragon’s ire.

“Why didn’t he attack you?” Astrid asks.

“I wondered that too,” Jack answers. “And the next day I went back, only that time I brought a dagger with me. I hid in the crevice and waited, and eventually Toothless came back. Only this time, when I walked towards him, he started hissing and growling, and he didn’t stop until I took the dagger I had and threw it in the pond.”

Thinking back, how did he expect to defend himself with a dagger in the first place?

“That’s when I realized, he wouldn’t attack me as long as he knew I wouldn’t attack him. And then I realized other dragons were like that too. Feed a terrible terror and it’ll curl up in your lap and let you pet it. Scratch a nadder’s chin and it goes limp. Gronkles, monstrous nightmares, all of them. Everything we think we know about them is wrong.”

Toothless bounces as Jack makes the light flek reappear and pounces for it, chirping in delight. Astrid watches, processing this new information.

“...We have to tell your dad.”

“No.”

Jack’s answer is immediate and firm, and takes Astrid by surprise.

“Jack, we have to tell people about this. If we show them that dragons can be trained-”

“Astrid, Stoick’s never listened to me a day in my life,” Jack says, sinking back against the boulder. “What makes you think he’d listen to me about this?”

“You could show him,” she says. “Like you showed me.”

“Oh yeah, that’ll go over well. ‘Hey Stoick, would you mind coming with me for a sec? Where? Ah, I just want to take you for a lovely evening flight on the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. No, I didn’t fall off the roof again, why do you ask?’“

Astrid punches him in the arm.

“If he finds out about Toothless,” Jack continues, nursing his growing sore spot, “he’ll kill him.”

Toothless pads over to the pair of them, crooning sadly as Jack reaches up to scratch his chin. The dragon purrs in delight, head fins trembling and eyes slipping shut as he relaxes into the boy’s touch.

“If you don’t,” Astrid says, “a lot more humans and dragons will die fighting each other.”

The slight smile that has been forming on Jack’s face falls.

“...Do you still want to leave Berk?” she asks.

“Yes,” he answers, and then he bites his lip. “It’s the only way I can keep Toothless safe. And we belong together. I can’t... I can’t stay here after knowing what it’s like to be... To...”

“To be free?” Astrid supplies, and Jack turns to her with wide eyes.

“...Yeah.”

Silence passes between them. In a matter of hours Astrid feels like she’s aged years. She can’t imagine how it must be for Jack, who’s been harboring his dragon for weeks now.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she says at last. With a groan, she rises to her feet, stretching her arms overhead. Her spine gives a satisfying pop. “As long as you’re on the island, that is. As soon as you leave Berk I’m going straight to your dad and telling him everything.”

“You in the market for another tongue bath?”

She glares down at him.

“I’m doing what’s right,” she says. “I think you should be the one to tell him, but if you won’t, I will. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make him understand that there’s a better way to end this war with the dragons.”

“Toothless, I think she wants another tongue bath.”

“Jack, for five seconds, be serious!”

“I’m being realistic.” Jack rises to his feet with graceful, feline movements. “Ideally, yes, it would be better if we could magically make Stoick and every other Viking agree to training the dragons instead of killing them. But therein lies the crux of the issue; they’re Vikings. Why would they use patience or diplomacy on a problem when they can just hurl an axe at it?”

Astrid crosses her arms and fixes him with a stern look.

“We’re not all that bad.”

“Remind me, how did you react when you saw Toothless?”

“I climbed on his back,” Astrid answers, “after I realized he wasn’t going to hurt anyone. That’s what we need to make everybody see.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Jack-”

A force against her back cuts her off. Suddenly she is being shoved forward into Jack. He hits the ground hard with Astrid atop him, pinning him. His eyes are wide and by the silvery light of the moon, Astrid can see how his cheeks ripen. He’s really not like other Viking men, she thinks as her own cheeks grow warm. There’s a sort of delicacy to him considered ill-suited to their men, but Astrid finds she appreciates it. He’s gentle. And that gentleness is the very reason he was able to accomplish what no Viking before him has.

Toothless makes a gonking noise that almost sounds like laughter.

“See?” Astrid says, trying to sound calmer than she feels. “Even your dragon doesn’t want you to leave.”

Jack cranes his head to fix a glare on the nightfury.

“Traitor.”

Toothless lowers his head and swipes his tongue across Jack’s forehead.

“Stay,” Astrid says. “Help me end the war. You know dragons; I know people. Between the two of us we can convince everyone.”

Jack says nothing.

“Promise you’ll stay or I’m not letting you up.”

“Why Astrid-” His voice gains a teasing edge. “-I had no idea you felt that way about me.”

“Don’t make me hurt you.”

Jack sighs, but finally, he relents.

“Fine! I’ll stay, just... Just let me be the one to break the news to Stoick. He’ll just get madder if he learns about Toothless from you and not me.”

Satisfied, Astrid pulls herself up, and then offers Jack a hand as well. He’s so light it hardly takes any effort. And as soon as he’s on his feet she throws another weak punch at his shoulder.

“Do you want me to stay or not!?”

“That was for the tongue bath,” Astrid say, fixing him with a glare that lasts barely a moment before it melts away. And then she seizes him by the collar once more, pulling him near as she plants a swift peck on his cheek. “And that’s for... the rest of it.”

She runs off before he can respond, say something sarcastic or obnoxious or... Astrid can feel her ears growing warm.

Unfortunately, she remembers that she has an entire island she needs to cross to get back home and is forced to turn back. She finds Jack right where she left him, frozen to the spot with a blush that runs from the tips of his ears down to his neck. Toothless warbles, smiling toothlessly.