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oncewhenalongtimeago · 5 months

Note

Hello! Can I ask a jealous Hiccup bc f!reader spends time with the rest of the team (especially Snotlout)?

Plus, if you like, he does his best to get her attention and you end up confessed to her (a little bit of angst would be nice) <3

Thanks! I love very much how you write, I hope you have a nice day~

The Jealous One

Pairing: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III x Fem!Reader

Words: 1,861

An old friend starts to act odd. Snotlout is slightly less so.

Tags: fem!reader, jealousy, beginning of Snotlout friendship, ambiguous Post-first movie pre-httyd 2 timeline, part one

Next>

You continued your march up the ramp to the docks, very certainly ignoring the small form of Hiccup and his Night Fury fading off into the distance behind you, choosing instead to focus on the pushing and pulling of the waves against the hard wood beneath your feet.

You wished you had someone else to hang out with.

You wished you had some larger rocks to kick, too.

You eyed every other person sourly as you meandered up to the hall, feeling sort of potently, upsettingly upset in a way you felt shouldn’t have been natural.

So intensely that you you’d no idea where you headed, too focused on looking back at the people around you and suppressing the nasty, lonely tears that wanted to burst to the surface.

You ran chest first into another, falling hard onto your butt, nearly falling backwards down the Great Hall stairs.

“Gods,” You hissed, biting your lip as you brushed your stinging butt off. You got up, running your hands down the backside of your skirts, looking forwards, squinting in an effort to make out the mysterious person you’d just run into.

“Watch it,” Snotlout grunted down at you as other people came and went, passing through the doors of the Great Hall like schools of fish.

“What are you doing here?” You groaned.

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”

You noticed very quickly that Hookfang was gone. Absent, more like, for the time being.

“None of your business. And, you still didn’t answer my question,” You grumbled, feeling petty, “Besides, don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“I’m here to get some grub,” Snotlout scoffed down at you, “That’s where I have to be. Again, not my fault you’re too busy skulking to watch where you’re going.”

“You’re kidding?” You asked incredulously. You didn’t skulk.

“Not in a million years. Unless you’re offering something, then I got no time for you, small fry.”

You weren't sure why, or maybe you were, but you didn’t have the mind to acknowledge the maliciousness of it, but you suddenly felt a whole lot better.

“Like you’re much of a catch, either,” You shot back gleefully, rolling your eyes and grinning for the first time in what felt like a long while.

Snotlout scoffed condescendingly as he spoke, looking up at you with his arms crossed and stance stout, cocky as ever.

“I don’t have a dragon,” You grumbled under your breath, tossing down the Terror maybe a bit too roughly, wincing as it caught on your sleeves and twisted midair as dragons often did in order to land on its feet, quickly grabbing hold of Snotlout’s face.

You winced, loosening the straddle of the log between your legs, gripping it tightly with your thighs, deeply so to the point that you could feel the bark of the tree digging through your pants legs.

You watched as an already grump, irksome viking teen became frantic.

The Terror screeched as Snotlout hurried to try and push it off, shouting and irritated, both flailing around scrabbling at its claws, digging into his jaws and cheek in turn.

You didn’t feel too bad about it, though. You were more grumpy over the fact that you'd been dragged along and you had to deal with him.

A lady; a tall, burlish woman with a crying babe in arm and a toddler’s hand attached to the sleeve of her other, rushing the two of you through the introduction to some quest or other.

She had been quite standoffish and brash, too preoccupied and frazzled to take a close enough look at your face to tell you weren’t a rider. One of the more warrior types, covered in armor with large spiked helmets. The kind who, when they eventually had children with the least suited fathers, looked awfully out of place, busy and regretful.

You were sure, in a few years, her kids would be quite the hellions. You almost felt a little bad for them, between your efforts to wipe the spittle from your face and back away far enough with enough time to spare to keep your hearing intact.

You smiled as the terror left a particularly hard bite to his nose.

“You know what you need?” Snotlout complained, roughly tugging a branch from his shoe, hopping on one foot as he kicked aside a particularly feisty yellow-and-purple terror, “You need a dragon. It would be a lot more convenient. For me.”

You thought it served the little pest right for all the trouble it had brought.

“If you can get me one,” You rolled your eyes, picking leaves out of your hair as you were dragged along on another chore with Snotlout for what was probably the third time this week. It was becoming a pattern, “Trust me, I would be happy to have it. But I’ve not had very good luck yet.”

“Then,” Snotlout seemed to pause, but only momentarily before yelling again as the Terror launched itself at him again.

You shook your shoulders loose, then winced as you stepped forwards again, a bright shot of pain bursting dully through the sole of your foot and up your spin.

You lifted the offending foot, hopping and bringing up your sole to see a hefty thorn stuck right in the middle. And you squinted, using dull nails to pick fruitlessly at it, efforts half hindered by the setting sun and dimming light.

You glanced upwards.

“Meet me back here tomorrow. If I’m going to be stuck with you, then-” Snotlout lifted a finger into the air, before stumbling off the path. It was probably fine. The paths here weren’t that steep, you knew.

Sure,” You knew the riders got saddled with all the chores around town, but good gods.

You decided that whichever foul soul thought Terrors would be a great starting dragon for the kids deserved to be hung. You would give Hiccup a piece of your mind later.

“-Right, yeah, uh, so, I- well,” Hiccup said, shifting from one leg to the next, before stilling completely.

It looked like you’d caught him fresh from flight, as the browns of his leather were more mud than hide. His hair was a mess, more of an ugly bed-head than wispy and windswept, though you found it endearing all the same.

“Hey,” You scuffed your feet awkwardly into the dirt, eyes staring straight ahead, meeting his eyes head-on.

There was an odd, reddened, blotchy quality to his face in a way he hadn’t been since he’d just started riding Toothless, before soft, land-bound skin had gotten used to the winds whipping past his cheeks.

You were careful not to show it, however. Instead, you were more focused on keeping your basket, and therefore its content, out of view and out of discussion. You would loathe having to explain, or having to come up with an explanation.

It felt sort of wrong to announce it, something in your heart urging you to hold it preciously, and like most of your precious things, to keep it hidden.

“Let me just,” You shifted to the side. The two of you were standing face-to-face in the open door to the newly minted dragon stables.

There was plenty of space for you to move, though you did so more to graciously cut through the awkward atmosphere, to split the spell that had broken between the two of you as of late, though you were hard pressed to understand why.

Right,” Hiccup nodded, twitching to life suddenly as if he’d just come back into himself.

You crouched behind a sizable rock, one hand clutching tightly at a sharp, pointed ledge.

You felt dirt and sharp pebbled grind into your palm as you peered over the top, revealing a vibrant, blue-looking Thunderdrum. It was posted, standing seamlessly on all fours, in a small clearing with a healthy dusting of grass.

Its mouth opened oddly to grasp the small strands of grass and leaves, its neck clearly not built for that kind of consumption. It ended up tearing up dirt whenever it pulled too hard or bit too deep, and whatever it could get ahold of was roughly nibbled.

Despite its oddness, it was quite frightening. The dragon was sort of small in the back but its jaw was large enough to make up for it. And it had a large, beefy set of arms for a Thunderdrum, which made you a little nervous.

“Are you sure this isn’t going to be too much for us to handle?” You shifted the fish you held in one hand, which was getting to be uncomfortably gooey and warm. You hoped you’d be able to please at least something with your meager offering before it gave your fingers wrinkles, though you were afraid you were much too late.

“Like I said. I’m not gonna help you tame some lame dragon,” Snotlout scoffed, “I don’t do small fry, small fry. So are you going to tame it or what?”

“Okay, keep your pants on,” You scowled.

The two of you ran into each other often enough since the hall that you’d spoken to each other, and eventually the topic of dragons had come up.

The two of you had done the bare minimum to make sure it hadn’t been claimed yet, traveling to the far side of the island before finding a dragon to settle down with.

Thunderdrums didn’t come into the forest that often, so this was your lucky break.

You furrowed your brows with determination, setting your jaw assuredly, shifting on your feet behind the rock. Snotlout peered over the top too, horns sticking out obviously over the edge of it.

You had to sneak away from Hookfang, watching cautiously as if he knew the two of you were about to do something stupid.

“So I just, what- give it the fish?” You asked, half in a whisper, “Should I, like, toss it, or hand it over, or…?”

“How should I know?” Snotlout asked exacerbatedly, perhaps a bit too loud, “Do I look like the ‘Dragon Master’ to you?”

He asked that last bit mockingly, shrugging his shoulders exaggeratedly, using his fingers to make air quotes.

“Are you serious?” You asked, “But, you have a dragon.”

You vaguely noticed as the Thunderdrum became distracted by something, which you took as permission to lose yourself in the whisper-shouted argument you’d just begun with Snotlout.

“Well,” Snotlout shot back. The two of you turned to gripe at each other, barely noticing as you were overshadowed, though not caring very much as to what was doing it, “That’s wimp stuff. Hiccup did all the taming.”

You opened your mouth wide, tongues lit with a scathing rebuke. Before you could respond, a loud, malicious, echoey rumbling seemed to fill the air around the two of you.

Slowly, you looked up, shivers, dread and the phantom of a cold sweat gathering around your temples and your spine.

You heard the shifting of fur against helmet that dictated that Snotlout was doing the same.

“Oh Thor,” You peeped, staring up at a long row of sharp teeth and a wide, angry blue face.

#thanks #how to train your dragon #httyd #x reader #fanfiction #hiccup haddock #hiccup x reader #httyd imagine #toothless #fem reader #female reader

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oncewhenalongtimeago · 8 months

Text

Always an Angel, Never the God Full

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III x Runaway!Reader

Words: 13,104

Your plans to run away with Hiccup fall through. Three years later, you finally make it off Berk and away from the Edge. Here are the years that follow.

Tags: SUGGESTIVE ENDING, Runaway Reader, Angst, bitter reader, unrequited love, requited love, healing, conflicting emotions, compiles parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

<Previous

You waited for hours, back aching against the flat rock, basket of your few chosen belongings hidden behind a small outcropping of rock as you waited for him, increasingly more worried as the sun began to set.

Scared, even. You’d seen the axe, laid plainly on the ground. You feared the worst, especially after your frantic search bore no fruit. That he’d been found, and that something terrible had happened to him.

But Hiccup was fine, with Astrid, this whole time.

Even Toothless seemed to like her well enough. He didn’t like you, glaring and snapping at you when you got too close, despite all of your efforts to get on his good side. He barely let you on, and he certainly wouldn’t without Hiccup. You had the sneaking suspicion he’d buck if you tried it on your lonesome.

While you understood, it hurt that even as close friends he’d not told you about Toothless at all, at first. You doubt he would’ve if he’d not seen you do so poorly at dragon training. He probably felt terrible, watching you fail over and over again when he could be doing something to help.

You hugged your knees tightly, hidden behind rock and moss, fighting not to make a sound as you peered around a corner, barely listening in as they conversed.

Even if he never inherited the chiefdom, It was still a heavy expectation that he’d marry. You two were an inevitable couple, if not because of love, out of a bond of solidarity. It’s not like either of you had any suitors. You were friends first, of course, but privately you hadn’t had a problem with that. You got along well, and you could see a future with him where you were both alright.

And you really, really liked him.

You knew he wanted someone else, someone who was confident, capable, who had good standing, who his father could be proud of. Someone who was more gorgeous than plain, someone like Astrid.

You weren’t the best viking, you couldn’t work in the forge, you hadn’t a lot of lucrative talents at all and a measure of clumsiness and troublemaking that could rival Hiccup’s own.

But you were friends, and that had to count for something.

He came to you with his plan to run away. You were running away together, you thought.

But somehow, she was here, and he left with her. He liked her. You knew that. And, you realized with mounting horror as she leaned in closer to him, she liked him too.

You knew you’d never had a chance, but knowing it is different from experiencing it. You had not a chance in the world.

You could never fault him for that.

You couldn’t stop the tears from pooling in your eyes, or the tiny bits of your heart from splitting apart and scattering across the grass.

Conversely, he didn’t tell you when he flew off to battle with the rest of your peers. The whole thing with the Red Death? You missed it completely. You only found out later after Hiccup had been towed back to Berk on death's door.

Constantly spilling his heart out to you but saving the rest of it for the other teens, the ones who used to jeer at him from the sidelines, who all of the sudden began to treat him well, but still jeered at you while he wasn’t looking.

A hangers-on to their group, not very useful or funny, just there, always. Not spoken with or talked to or considered at all by anyone who wasn’t Hiccup. Just there.

Your companionship had, for lack of a better word, remained the same, except now there was an undercurrent of something under the surface of a black ocean, broiling and writhing like an angry serpent.

Sometimes it felt like a sick corruption of the friendship you and Hiccup used to have, made up of long held hardship and what you had thought were good times. Sometimes it was better than it was before, and you could joke and laugh and play games the same way you had as children.

And sometimes it felt like you were speaking to a stranger, one you weren’t sure you’d ever known at all; sometimes his mannerisms, his ticks and even the way he stood were alien to you.

You weren’t even sure you recognized who he was anymore. You never asked why, afraid of the answer you might find.

“So, I’m hoping that if I place a spring there, when I pull the lever it wont catch so violently. The gear system around the side is to help turn the barrel while you’re aiming. Got it? What do you think?”

You nodded, eyeing the vast array of blueprints and open journals spread sideways in between the two of you. Brown leather met leather as Hiccup rubbed his shoulder, no doubt a result of a hard fall he’d taken earlier on Toothless.

“Yeah, I got it,” You say casually, “What about the wheels? If you’re going to be pulling it over grass, you might need to cover the space between the wheels and gears, because the plants might catch and pull up into the gear system.”

It feels fake. Slimy to say, like a lie, except you know it’s not. It feels like a product of something more larger and uglier.

Hiccup picks up a yellowed paper, scrutinizing his own design, “Yeah… Actually, you’re right. I don’t know If- maybe if I shift the base… Yeah, I think that would work. Thank you.”

“No problem,” You puff, blowing a strand of hair out of your face.

“Also, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Hiccup shifted in his seat, clenching and unclenching his fingers, a nervous tick he’d had since the two of you were little, “Your dragon. Have you picked a name for it yet?”

“Ah, no,” You sigh, looking down at your knees, “Honestly, I haven’t been able to find something he likes.”

The picky bastard./Picky beast.

Hiccup had helped you find a dragon before the lot of you had moved, a smallish nadder who still didn’t feel much like your own, but served you just as well as any other would and you did teh best to serve it fine as well. He turned out to have just as much propensity for social upset around the other dragons and seemed to get along with Stormfly, Toothless and no one else.

Speaking of, the black dragon, Toothless, had warmed up to you, and in the end you became no better or worse than anyone else on Berk to him, which you were okay with for the most part.

The others had gotten used to you, though remained relatively detached. Conversations wouldn’t stop nor would people give you the look once you entered a room. You didn’t try to strike up conversation anymore, learning that it was better to be silent than awkward.

It still did nothing to soothe the hurt, or all of the years you’d spent hurting, or any of the time now you spent on your lonesome.

“If you don’t mind, I can-...” Hiccup leans back, the both of you turning heads as your door creaked open, heavy boots moving across the threshold of your home, wood floors creaking.

You gave Astrid a nod of acknowledgement as she approached your table and she tilted her head, glancing in your direction.

“Hiccup,” Astrid called, “Are we still flying tonight?”

“Astrid,” Hiccup greeted as he stood up, a soft smile stretching half the length of his face as he gathered his assets, leaving a few papers scattered across the top that he knew he could come pick up later as he usually did, “Yeah, let me get my things first.”

You tuned them out as they began speaking in earnest, leaning back to stare at the ceiling, fingers tapping against your elbows almost antsily as they slowly took their leave.

“Hey,” Hiccup looks back at you as your heart beats rapidly in your chest, “I’ll see you later, right?”

“Right,” You say nearly at a mumble, refusing to look him in the eye, your stomach rolling guiltily as the door shuts behind him, “I’ll see you later.”

Your foot nudged the pack you’d prepared out from under the table in the small, shoddy hut you’d managed on the Edge, slinging it over your shoulder as you watched Hiccup and Astrid take off on their dragons through a crack in your window shutters.

He may have found his happiness with the others but you had not, and you fully intended to leave, the same way he’d planned it all those years ago.

You knew what you were doing was wrong. Not saying goodbye, just up and leaving in the middle of the night without telling anyone, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to say it.

What would you be leaving behind, anyways? You didn’t have much.

You waited until they were just a small speck in the distance before running out on your own, a pack slung up over your shoulders. The dragon, who you’d parked just behind your hut and who’d spent the past few hours almost patiently waiting for you as you’d spent your sudden and unexpected last few hours with Hiccup, stood to its feet and chirruped as you hoisted yourself up onto its saddle.

Fishlegs was busy in his hut. The twins and Snotlout, maybe they’d notice you leaving but you didn’t have much faith in them asking why or feeling much at all besides a vague expectation that you’d be back later. Everyone went out for a leisure flight every once in a while, it was just about time you’d finally taken yours, after all.

Hiccup and Astrid wouldn’t be back till late doing who knows what. You bit your lip, lightly tapping your Nadder’s side with your heel, signaling for him to take off in the opposite direction, shoving down a deep spike of jealousy at the thought. He was your friend first, and soon he would be nothing to you and it wouldn’t matter at all anymore.

You weren’t sure where exactly you were going. But you knew wherever it was, it would be good as long as it was as far, far away from here as possible.

You grind your teeth, eyes tearing up as a heavy booted foot pushes you down further into the wooden ship floor. The ship rocks angrily as does your dragon, struggling against the barbed netting.

“Who are you? A new vigilante?” The leading trapper, Erik son of Erik or something, asked, bending down above you. He had, coincidentally, been the one to shoot you down.

“Where is your… hideout?” He leaned down into your ear at your silence, speaking in a raspy whisper. You got the vague impression he was trying to be intimidating, though the end results were more in favor of making you blush.

You were thankful for the hard wood covering your face and, therefore, your embarrassment. Of your belongings, you were only able to manage a mask and had taken to running around ensconced in furs with nothing but a dagger to your name.

You’d recon you looked much like a wild animal, straddling your nadder bare of a saddle. You had not done too well on your own. It was hard. You had always been a team player if by team player you meant a leech on society. At least, you had been told so.

So of course you had, unwittingly, stumbled onto dragon trapping territory. Extreme sport dragon trapping territory. It didn’t help that you and your nadder hadn’t been on the same page, you two being unable to sync in the way you’d seen the other riders with their dragons, which left a bitter taste in your mouth.

He’d go left when you were trying for right, and when you finally decided to just go with it, he would change his mind and throw you for a complete loop. It was safe to say that even if you got out of this mess you never wanted to step foot on his back again.

You breathed a silent sigh of relief just as the trapper let out an annoyed one, stepping off of you in favor of yelling at his men for damaging their goods. Meaning, your nadder. Was he really yours, though? He did try and make a break for it without you.

While debating whether or not you should try at the ropes shackling your arms together, you grunt frustratedly, noticing a new tear in your garb.

After running away and getting captured, you had not expected to be kidnapped again by some insane-looking madman in a mask. Though you did look like two of a kind, so it was fitting.

Your nadder had its wings torn irreparably, so, unfortunately, you had to retire him early.

You found small comfort in that it hadn’t abandoned you on the ship that one final time, though the irony that it had led you here was not lost on you.

He visited sometimes. He took to life in the sanctuary very well.

You didn’t, a borderline prisoner before you’d been able to win over the trust of the resident feral gorgon. Sort of. She was a woman who let you see her face, more on accident than anything else. You hadn’t let her see you or hear yours. However you weren’t inclined to speak of her nicely, least of all in your head, after the number of weeks you spent trapped in a cave at her behest.

Finally, you’d been let out. Let out enough to walk more than just the short stretch of stone and greenish ice that made up your prison. The endless turquoise was beginning to make you sick.

Recently, you found a real friend in the sanctuary, and this dragon, it was truly yours. Affectionately named, fed and groomed, you two were almost inseparable. It was the kind of friendship with a dragon you’d completely missed out on on Berk.

It was hard to maintain given your captive status, but that was alright.

There probably wasn’t any social profit involved in being a vigilante, which is why you assumed the crazy dragon lady had taken to speaking at you in her spare time. About the dragons, what they ate, what she had to do. Pointedly she gave away nothing of their true secrets, not that you wanted them, nor anything of her vigilant-ing. Not verbally, though the influx of injuries both on her and the dragons spoke volumes.

She did give away her name.

You groan, rubbing your eyes under your mask as you cradle the thing to your face with the other.

“You’re quite attached to your mask,” Valka said amusedly, shifting the logs roasting in the fire with a stick, pushing them back and forth as you sat in silence. You hardly ever spoke a word, nowadays.

Her dragon, the stormcutter, stared at you with large eyes through the licking flames.

Neither of you mentioned that the only real reason you’d been able to keep your mask so long was that she’d been kind enough to let you. An allowance you’d been given on a whim. One you clung to with all the nervous energy of Fishlegs to his dragon cards.

“... I’d rather not be,” You grumble, voice raspy from disuse, “It’s stuffy.”

“Oh,” Valka looked at you, amused and maybe a little surprised to hear you speak at last, before going back to tend to her fires, “I was starting to think you couldn’t speak.”

“Funny.” You said, lifting a sharpened stick off the ground, spearing it through a slimy, gutted fish from the basket beside you. Your nose wrinkled as you heard the sharp point break skin. No amount of faux stoicism could make it seem pleasant to you.

“I have a few questions,” You grimace under your mask as she asserts herself. She can ask them all she wants, but there’s no guarantee you’ll answer.

You might, probably, as keeping secrets hasn’t always been your strong suit. She’s certainly been trying to open you up for a while. You’ve not given her any leeway before though, no reason to give her any now.

“How did you tame your dragon?” She asked, pushing a particularly thick dragon searching for morsels. Valka guides its head gently away with her spare hand before any of the other dragons crowding around them get any ideas.

You wait for a moment, still wondering whether you should follow along. Eventually, you decide to answer.

“Wasn’t me. Someone else back home did it,” You huff, “I just followed along.”

“...But not very well,” Valka hums. It’s obvious she doesn’t believe you. Unfortunately for her, that is not your problem.

She pulls a small trout off her own stick, tossing it to a crowd of young dragons, who you knew had acquired a taste for the cooked, through no fault of your own.

You should feel offended, but you know she’s right. You lean away from a wandering dragon snout as it searches you for morsels. The stormcutter, after a look from Valka, shoos it away with a large wing.

“Where are you from?”

You feel the embers from the fire as they rise, the furs of your coat becoming nearly unbearable, your skin heated up rapidly. You wrinkle your brow with annoyance as you feel a drop of sweat slide down the side of your face.

“Where are you from?” You retort pointedly.

She studies you cautiously, as if she could glean your intentions from your body language. And she very well could. Or the heat was getting to you, the wells you’d spent in solitude had finally done some real damage to your psyche, and you were hallucinating.

“Berk,” She says. You sit back, surprised, “And you?”

“...None of your business.” You wonder how long it had been since she had left. You pray she would not know you.

Valka raised her eyebrow.

“I’m serious.” You ground your heel into the dirt. It was a touchy subject, still.

“Berk, too. …Stop looking at me like that.”

Valka leaned back against the ice wall where you rested, looking out over the empty ocean as dragons flooded to and fro the sanctuary. You squinted far into the distance, as if you thought you might be able to see through it if you tried hard enough.

Your hair tugged wildly by the winds out from behind your mask as you sat, one leg extended and the other bent as you leaned back against one arm.

You probably looked as you felt, weary and unkempt after a long flight over the seas with your dragon, who clambered among the icy spike-lined wall with clawed hands. You felt refreshed yet somehow at odds with yourself still.

You cared little for your bedraggled demeanor the same way you hadn’t cared for much at all in a while. It might have made a cool picture had you not slipped and fallen onto your face on the ice just a few minutes prior. Whether you had broken your nose or not on your mask had yet to be uncovered. All that mattered was that Valka hadn’t seen.

Dragons crowed. Through the cracks in the walls of the sanctuary, the wind would whistle through if it hit the right angle. Louder than anything else were the sounds of the waves crashing against rock.

But between you and Valka, it was silent. A contemplative silence, the kind of silence you shared with others after a long thought or a hard day’s work. That’s how you knew she was going to break it.

“Why did you leave?”

You are annoyed at the prospect but are no less expectant. After the moment passes, you are not surprised. However, it feels as if you are the one who should be asking.

“Why did I leave?” You ask, “Does it matter?”

A loose chunk of ice falls off the side of the sanctuary as a large titan scrambles violently down the side, chasing after a bright yellow baby. You spot a shape through the fog, distant and blurry enough to resemble a bird though there are no birds here. You pointedly do not think of your small hut, even less of green eyes, and tiny, fading freckles.

Valka tilted her head in your direction, reaching a hand out to scratch Cloudjumper under his chin as he lowered himself towards her, “It mattered to you.”

You open your mouth, but you are only able to choke on your breath. No one has ever said something like that to you, not in a long while. You don’t understand why it’s hitting you so hard. Maybe it’s the isolation.

You blame the burning of your eyes on the biting wind.

“Why did you leave?” You ask in return, once you’ve taken time for yourself, though you have an idea. You can’t keep your voice from sounding a little bit scratchy.

You unhook your dagger from your belt, trying not to seem so attentive. Instead, you take to carving random shapes into the ice. A gronkle. A nadder.

“I was taken.” She sighs, quieter now. Lost off in memory as you both often are.

The nadder’s spikes are much too long. The gronkle looks more like a sandwich than a dragon.

“Taken?” You prompt and you begin on the outline of a fury. The result is shallow and scratchy.

It’s one of your own designs, not the same as the one Berk uses. Astrid liked the other one better, not yours, so that was the one Hiccup went with.

“I didn’t leave,” She insisted, almost as if she was trying to convince herself of the fact, “I had a son, and a husband.”

You’ve seen her by the fires, while trying to sneak out of this hellish ice maze. She talks to herself then. On particularly paranoid days, she’s slept by you, in the same caverns, so you’ve heard it. She talks in her sleep and says things she would never say awake, or had you been around. It’s all so very unsettling.

“Really?” You remarked with false astonishment. The facade is flimsy, but you figured you’d give her the benefit of the doubt. The grace to assume that you’d no idea what she was on about.

With prompting, you might have seen it earlier. In her slim form, the one she kept hidden under thick furs and thicker armor. You squint. They have the same eye color. The same hair. They both have higher cheekbones, though her son more resembles his father in that aspect. That is all.

Valka shoots you a reprimanding look. Cloudjumper, now creeping down the wall behind you, taps you on the back of your head with its tail at her behest.

Valka was of the air. Though he had the same flighty tendencies, he was very grounded, like his father, though he might either be proud or loath to admit it. He loved flying, yes, but he loved inventing and processing and routine just as much, if not more.

He did when you were close. Of course he did, he spent his whole life on it. You couldn’t really say you knew him anymore.

You didn’t pin Valka as the type to enjoy the same in any sort of manner. But that suited you just as well. You found that as time went by and as you were granted more freedoms, you appreciated it. It made it easier for you to forget. To ignore.

In the end they, you and she, she and you, were one and the same.

“But what does it matter, if you never went back?” You grumble, pushing your dragon’s head away as it nudges you towards the cliff, crooning for more flying time.

You guessed that was why she clung so viciously to the safety of her sanctuary. Why she hated other people so much, why she’d had no faith in the humanity of other people, why she’d held you here so strictly. If things could have been different, then what did she give it all up for?

Though you’d never had something else. Not even the option. You’d never been given it. Valka hadn’t been given it either, but there was a sure difference between something being there and not.

The atmosphere is silent again, tainted with some darker undertones. If you’d had to put a name to it, you might have called it grief.

“I want to leave.”

Valka doesn’t look surprised at your request. And indeed, it’s been no secret that you wanted to leave. Maybe she was glad for it, or maybe she was sad at the news.

After all, you settled into each other's presence long ago. You had a good sort of companionship.

And from that companionship, you learned a lot without even trying, just by watching. Eventually she took notice and she took an active part in teaching you the truths she learned during all her years in self-imposed isolation.

You two weren’t incredibly close but you could tell Valka was grateful for the company, grateful to have someone maybe even a little bit like her, even if most of it was spent in silence.

You still left the Drago fighting for her. It wasn’t your fight, it was hers, and you made that clear.

Neither of you brought up Berk. Ever.

You were content to just come and go as you pleased, for a while. Nonetheless, despite your freedom, you felt restricted to the small world of the Sanctuary and the empty skies around it. There was no place for you on the ground or by the seas, where hunters and trappers swarmed by the thousands and Drago’s armies grew by the day.

You spent so much time learning from her and yet it felt like no time at all. Which was why you were shocked when you’d truly learned how much had come and gone in full.

You were out slinking in the shadows, seeking shelter from a storm on the same small rocky outcropping of island that had a shipful of trappers stranded, in a rage and a panic as they attempted to recover their assets. The winds had been too rough to fly, so you had no choice but to wait and listen.

You didn’t believe it at first. It had been…

Months.

You wondered if he’d been married, yet.

Years.

The idea hurt, not as much as you’d thought it would, still not as little as you’d hoped.

Under clear skies, you found an inn, untouched by everything except grass and trees.

You asked, “What day is it?”

The large man, a burly viking scrubbing down a wooden cup with a torn old rag, had looked down at you skeptically from behind a beaten pine and stone counter.

Two years. It had been nearly two years since you left Berk. Just as Valka’s attachments kept her at the Sanctuary, you needed to go. To run.

Since you had heard it, spoken it, the urge to run, to fly hadn’t abated at all, going from a wispy thought at the back of your mind to a full blown need. Your dragon too had become antsy, maybe feeding off of your nervous energy. Eager to take off, to fly new skies.

“Are you sure?” Valka asked searchingly. You two were stationed over a heavily planted cliff over a large main pool which consisted of the main cavern within the Sanctuary, once again in front of a fire, eating your own meals as the dragons below ate and exchanged fish.

You were already packed, your mask secured as it had been for all two years you had been in this place stuck between confinement and dwelling. You almost regretted it, not telling her your name, but you couldn’t bear yourself to her knowing who she was, not truly. Not until you’d washed yourself of that particular weight.

“Yes,” One day you would, if you ever saw her again. Once you were released from the heartache and pain of your own making, “I am. Thank you.”

You started out into the pale foggy sky, mounted your beast as smooth as you’d ever done, which is to say, not smooth at all. You’d only ever managed it right when Valka was watching, anyhow. It was odd how that worked, maybe the peer pressure was finally starting to kick in.

As you took off and the sanctuary became smaller and smaller both to your eyes and your mind, as the tight bundle of chains in your chest dropped and the world opened up to you once more, you felt light, and free.

Once again, there was no one to watch you and no one to hurt for besides your and your dragon. Endless opportunity. Thousands of ways to keep going.

You wondered what your face looked like.

You couldn’t wait to see it again.

Hiccup traced the faint outline of a Night Fury in the ice with his fingertips.

He tried to suppress the bubbling hope and dread at the thought his mother had been lying to him and his father about being alone all those years.

He had left to get some air and to give his parents time together to linger while the snowstorm outside abated, taking shelter under a misty overhang of ice just off one of the tunnels leading back into the main dwelling. One that had fortunately not fallen victim to the heavy layers of snow drowning the uncovered surfaces below.

Toothless had followed him out, of course, and sniffled curiously at the ground, giving the other few doodles littered across the ice an inspection of his own. Hiccup sat back, covering his mouth with his hand as he mulled over the implications.

He then stood, staring back into the tunnel leading back into the sanctuary. Much of the awe he had felt earlier at the discovery of his mother had washed away and a wave of uncertainty and hurt replaced it.

He knew he had been given grace. A lot more than he deserved.

Since everything had changed, terrible mistakes became minor inconveniences. People no longer whispered about Hiccup the weird, Hiccup the Useless, the Hiccup who just didn’t get it. Rather, every jest on his behalf was now just another one of his strange little quirks.

He did his part. He was happy to have a part now. A real one.

(He’d had a part. Blacksmith, inventor, friend.)

(Mistake.)

He thought they’d do the same for you. But you weren’t doing well. Even though he was busy with his new role, he noticed. He noticed when you fell behind, when you still couldn’t seem to find your place.

(His father, looking at him with shining eyes.)

He begged for you to not fumble this chance that you both had to be different. To be a part of something real, something tangible.

(He was so proud.)

Except.

(It made him sick.)

He knew what it was like. To be the odd one out, to not be able to do things quite the way you were supposed to. After all, if he hadn’t had Toothless then he would still be the same old Hiccup.

(He felt like the same old Hiccup.)

So yeah, it made sense that you weren’t always the first on call. It made sense, when you lagged behind. Why you weren’t part of the group the same way everyone else was.

(Was he?)

Like a wall had been shattered and the curtains pulled, he’d been witness to some of the moments between the other Dragon Riders he’d not been included in when he was ‘other.’ Moments that he just couldn’t quite indulge in, that used to be aimed at him, that caused something ugly and sad to curl tight in his stomach.

That left the sour taste of stomach acid on his tongue that he couldn’t wash away, no matter what he drank or how many times he tried.

So he vouched for you when the whispers started. Hounded them until they stopped, despite the creeping feeling that they were right. Clung tightly onto the few moments you were able to spend together. The way things used to be.

(Pushed down the tiny voice telling him he still didn’t belong.)

Days. It took days for them to notice you were gone. Truly gone. And they couldn’t be sure at all when it had happened, what or why.

They assumed you were dead. Once the next devastating winter set in, there was no way you could have made it on your own.

They locked your hut. An empty grave. The key, he’d taken and melted down into other things.

But. there was always a but.

Hiccup was a good handyman. For the most part. He’d caused a lot of handy-requiring, meaning he’d had a lot of practice.

He broke your lock.

Hiccup stared down at the piles of maps, noted, traced and copied sprawled across your desk, pulled out from underneath a loose floorboard by your bed. He clenched the various compasses and sea charts hidden in drawers and carelessly thrown under dishware.

It turned out you had a lot of free time on your hands.

There was something missing. Something missed when the other riders would joke and prod, wielding inside jokes he’d never been privy to just as easily as they wielded swords and hammers. And now he had no one to share with when they did.

There was something missing late at night working on a new tailfin, or a rig, or early in the morning when he was too tired to piece metal jigs together.

It just wasn’t the same, going to Fishlegs or Snotlout with these things, and heaven knows that Astrid wouldn’t entertain the idea at all. It was the dragons that appealed to her most. She was an early riser and an early sleeper and for many reasons she appealed to him, but she just couldn’t be what Hiccup needed. Not then.

You faded away as if you were a ghost, a door to a room no one used.

They didn’t get how it felt to spend all those years being the odd one out. He needed someone who got it. He needed someone who got him. A friend.

And like a note in the margins of a bad story, eventually no one mentioned you at all.

He flew as far and as fast as he could. Mapping the world, exploring farther and farther, as if he might somehow be able to trace your footsteps, following a lost trail that one day a long time ago you might have paved.

He’d flown as if, once he’d flown far enough, he might have been able to understand where you’d gone.

(Why you left him.)

They figured a way to identify dragons through scale patterns. It was a skill Fishlegs had perfected first, taking vague, long held knowledge and putting it into practice, doing the math.

Hiccup ran his hand down the side of this dragon, eyeing the torn wings, the spiked crown. The jaw.

Recording its age, its gender, his place of origin.

“You know this dragon?” Valka asked cautiously. Distrustfully. She was leaning against her staff, face guarded. He didn’t need to look to know that last bit, he heard it just fine.

Hiccup furrowed his brow. Two fish, a scratch under the chin. Dragon nip, a saddle, carefully woven and tenderly worn.

“I trained it.”

Hiccup leaned forward against Toothless, urging him ever onwards against the rough, buffeting winds and vicious onslaught of snow. Higher and higher until they cut above the clouds, breaching the threshold of the storm, evading it altogether.

Your absence had long since become an idea. Your person, a concept that eluded him time and time again, as inescapable yet unreachable as his own grieving heart.

But now, with the news from his father, his mother… he’d set out immediately, with not a word to spare despite Gobber warning him of the oncoming storm.

You were only two days departed. Two days out, a mirage turned real and he pursued it with all the desperation of a child. Finally, nearly, you were almost tangible. Reachable, physical, real.

There was no telling how far you’d gone or how far you’d go if you’d been given the chance to flee. He needed to catch up, catch you, see you.

Happy to be on your own again, you’d taken a few days rest just outside of Valka’s territory. You didn’t expect to be caught off guard like that. You didn’t expect to be found, even by accident. It was just your luck.

“Damn it!” Peering from around the bend, you spotted a man. And he was a man now, a long shot away from the kids you two were.

He was masked, hidden just out of view inside the crack between a rocky craig, where you’d set up camp. However the unmistakable form of Toothless followed suit as the two fought the wind and storm, searching for shelter.

You brushed your hand over your own mask, your dragon breathing over your shoulder as it too surveyed the newcomers. They had crash landed quite suddenly and you’d rushed to compensate, hiding before they could notice. Hopefully they hadn’t noticed. He nor Toothless wouldn’t ever notice, not if you played your cards right.

You wondered if he remembered you at all. If he knew or if he’d ever had the mind to think about you. What brought him here. Maybe he’d just been chasing a whim. You pushed back a large animal skull with your foot, the mangled remnants of your attempt to fashion a new helmet with no face.

Toothless shook his head, looking at Hiccup sourly as they trudged on towards an outcropping near the center of the small island they’d found themselves on.

Hiccup rubbed his arms grievously, staring out towards the sea, not sure the place wouldn’t be overtaken should a particularly large wave come to shore. There was no way he’d be able to catch up to you now, not in this rough weather. He prayed that the storm would give but the chances of that were low and he had little hope.

He stumbled slightly as he was buffeted forwards, finally making it to the entrance of a nigh hidden, narrow space carved into a crack in the large rock. Toothless snuffled at his back, urging him forward, though he had to take pause at the entrance as he spotted movement in the back.

A dragon? Or…

You hadn’t played your cards right.

You cursed as you ran further into the cave and towards the opening you knew lay at the back, your dragon already there, packed and ready. You had to run back after the realization you’d forgotten your dagger, which you probably should have just left behind.

“Hey, wait!”

You grit your teeth as Hiccup made chase, running past your dead fire and crumbling fish bones. You would have been caught had the passage not been too narrow for him and Toothless to run side-by-side. It was just luck that he hadn’t yet thought to jump back onto his saddle.

You increased your speed as the passage started to open up and swung onto your own dragon, kicking off and just missing Hiccup as he skidded to a stop. Toothless lept in front of him right after.

You could just imagine the two of them vaulting into the sky, a common scene turned frightening image as you and your own dragon bolted.

You’d had plenty of experience flying through this kind of weather. You hadn’t always, and the vikings on Berk hadn’t much at all, choosing to hole up with their dragons when the snow got too rough.

It gave you the advantage, one you needed if Hiccup decided to follow. There was no way to tell with the snow this thick, and with Toothless, he’d be nearly impossible to outmaneuver. You stayed under the clouds, hoping to keep your cover, as traveling into the open sky now would most definitely give you away.

What you could make out below between flurries of hail and flakes was nothing but open ocean and large mountains of ice, which passed you by in less than an instant as you sped as far away as possible, using the winds to uplift instead of hindering you.

You scanned the area around you, looking for a sound place to escape and hide. Something caught your eye but just barely and you swooped downwards.

With what happened next, you might have been caught off guard had it not been for the yelling you could make out just barely above the wind. Instead you were just incredibly scared as a large mass spiraled into you, sending the four of you tumbling and screaming down into the cavern below.

Through the vertigo you were able to kick Hiccup, untangling your limbs with force as your dragon took unsteadily to the air again.

“Wait- Come back!” He shouted, leaning forwards, arm extended towards you. Toothless roared.

“No!” You yelled stubbornly back as you twisted to glare at him through your mask.

Regrettably, it seems that the Night Fury remained undefeated in terms of speed and inescapability as he soon caught up to you again, Toothless grabbing onto your dragon’s tail and with a hard yank, forcing your landing onto a nearby ledge, large and long enough to facilitate your rough spill and roll against hard gravel.

Your mask cracked as it was thrown against the ground, loudly echoing as it clattered against hard stone.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to- It was really rough out there, and I-” Hiccup stumbled to his feet, shaking his mechanical foot out of Toothless’ saddle, heart pounding as you looked up at him behind scraggly hair, crouched a good few strides forwards

He’d found the experience novel when he’d seen it on his Dad, an outsider looking in. But to experience it firsthand… He knew what his father meant, when he said ‘You’re as beautiful as the day I lost you.’

Even seeing you as messed up and wild as you were squeezed his breath out of his chest. Maybe even made you more… Whatever this was. Whatever you were to him.

You definitely looked different, a little older, features more defined, but he’d die before he’d cease to recognize that face.

He had to shut his mouth, lips pursed as if to hold back all the memories flooding back into his mind, faster than the winds blowing up on the surface. You two, as kids in the meadows, complaining about life and dads, sneaking around the Great Hall, causing messes and being scolded.

He realized what it was that he’d felt and missed so deeply. It was something he’d known, hidden so deep inside, realized much too late.

You held back tears as the life you’d tried so hard to forget had finally caught up to you. Within an instant, this new life you had built for yourself had completely fallen apart.

You saw the man- because you begged for it not to be him, and you’d exhausted all your avenues, and the only option you had left was denial, took a shaky step forward, pulling his helmet back over his head with both hands, revealing a face lathered in sweat despite the cool conditions.

Trolls.

“Why…” Your voice, scratchy and ragged, was easily heard despite your whispering as there was nothing else to be heard, “Are you here?”

“Why… Am I…?” Hiccup asked incredulously, staring at you wide-eyed.

“Yes!” You shout, shoving the hair out of your face as you stood abruptly, “What in the world are you doing here?” Your dragon, laying behind you, began to stand, cautiously crouching against the ground.

“I came looking for you!” He looked like you’d kicked his puppy. You bared your teeth at him.

“You came looking for me? You chased me through a storm like a maniac! Can’t you take a hint?! Gods,” You grip your shoulder, “You probably broke my shoulder, curse it!”

“I’m sorry- I’m sorry I hurt you, that I-” Hiccup stepped forward. Toothless growled, behind him, “But you left! What was I supposed to do with that?”

“What you were supposed to do with that? You tackled me to the ground!” It had been so long.

“You didn’t even say goodbye!”

“You’re mad about goodbyes? Was the goodbye I gave you not good enough?!” He had scruff now, a light dusting of peach fuzz spotting along his chin. His hair was redder, his eyes greener. Or maybe that was the lighting.

“You went missing for two years! So I chased after you. Who wouldn’t? In what world would ‘I’ll see you later’ ever be enough? Ever?” It’s not like he ever gave you a goodbye. Not before he’d left you in the dust.

“I was hurt! And what are you- how do you even remember that, anyways?” You scoff loudly. But in the end he was still the same boy. He would have taken anyone else at their whim as a friend or otherwise. Yet he didn’t even recognize your companionship or your silly little crush. Wasn’t that disheartening?

Hiccup stomped forwards, causing you to step back. Your dragon snarled and followed as Toothless began to circle, trapping you and Hiccup in the middle of a very dangerous tango.

“How could I-? You’d- Just- Have you ever considered that maybe I was hurting, too? I spent so long just trying to fix- everything! I spent so long doing, and then you just leave and I can’t do anything about it! Do you know how painful that was? Why didn’t- why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you talk to me? Why?” He had worked hard. So, so hard.

He probably would have chosen Ruffnut’s hand over yours. He thought she was terrible.

“Why?” You asked him, throwing your arms out, squishing the little ball of guilt worming around in your stomach, “Why didn’t you talk to me? Do you know how much it hurt, to be constantly left behind like- like your old scraps, and maybe I got tired of hearing about it! Hearing about all of it! Your standing, your dad, your stupid girlfriend! Could you not just be happy with what you had?”

“What-”

He did get Astrid, though. He pursued her even though, for the longest time, she remained just ever so out of his league. The same way he was and wasn’t out of yours. Yeah, you were jealous. So, so jealous.

Of her, of his cousin and all his other friends for pushing you around and squeezing you out of his life. You were mad at him for letting them, after all they’d done to the both of you.

“I got made fun of! All the damn time! And your head was so full of air- you were too busy jerking your own ego to notice!” Your eyes stung as you shouted at him.

“Up my own ego!” Hiccup stopped, “No one wanted me as I was. I spent so long trying to make everything work for everyone else! What I had-I wanted you to have it too! So why? Why did you leave?”

“You say that, but-” You grimace and, “Shouldn’t it be obvious? Maybe I didn't want that! Did- did you ever stop to consider that maybe I wanted you? You didn’t have to make anything up for me! You-! It was all about you!”

“I- Honestly, you have to- All my life, I-”

“I have to what?! We had the same life, Hiccup!”

“I know!” Hiccup squeezed his eyes shut tightly. Then, quicker than you could react, he grabbed you by your upper arm and pulled you closer just enough- It wasn’t pleasant at all, all force and teeth against lip. But the next one.

He pulled back, readjusted and you slipped together seamlessly. Closed-mouthed, but he clearly knew what he was doing, kissing you that way. You held onto his elbows, unmoving yet still, frozen by shock. He’d gotten his practice in with Astrid.

The thought sent a wave of fury down your spine. You punched him.

He reared back from the blow, accepting yet more startled than physically hurt as, just like him, you’d never had much muscle. Still, you’d left what was quickly becoming a nice red welt on his face.

Your dragons stared at the both of you in shock, yours more in confusion than Toothless. There weren’t many Vikings in the sanctuary, so the meaning behind the gesture, the punch and the kiss, was probably lost.

“I thought…” He mumbled, eyes wide again, speaking as though whatever just happened, hadn’t, “I thought everything was fine. Fine enough. Between us.” You looked at him, the place where your heart used to be all twisted up and torn.

He was a liar. He was a liar, and you wouldn’t let him one over you. Not again. You didn’t want him to, more than anything else.

In spite of that, emotionally and physically, you were exhausted. You could only manage sadness. You weren’t sure you had the energy to push him away.

“You thought wrong.” You didn’t want to speak to him at all.

“Please, don’t-” he fell apart, voice hushed and cracking as he spoke. He took the final step towards you, burying his head against your shoulder. You stood stiff, staring out over into the scenery beyond his back and yet unseeing.

It was weird, having said everything you’d needed to say, that you’d bottled up for so many years. It defined you for so long that having it all out in the open kind of made you feel like you’d lost something essential.

“I see it. I see it now. I really do,” He whispered that last part tearfully, fingers gripping weakly onto the fabric of your sleeves. You felt as though a stiff breeze might blow him away, “Please, don’t leave me. Not again.”

He couldn’t say that.

“I can’t let you go again,” He really couldn’t say that.

“Just... Just tell me what you want.” He couldn’t say that, either. Toothless shot you a scathing glare, your dragon all but forgotten as he tugged Hiccup back. Your dragon unfurled its wings behind you, standing tall and proud as he pulled away towards the entrance to the cavern.

You met Hiccup’s gaze.

“Just do me this.” You choked out, watching as his expression switched from despaired to flat and back again, “Go away,”

“Please.” You said.

And he did. He turned tail and ran.

It was over.

As he flew away on Toothless, becoming nothing but a pinprick in your periphery before finally disappearing up the cavern entrance, you fell back down onto your knees.

You weren’t sure what to do anymore. The most important decision of your life was made with his ghost nipping at your heels. Truly, he haunted you. Whether he was with you or not, he always haunted you.

But the dragons here, untouched by the outside world, were kind. And curious. Once the threat was gone and the commotion was over, many came over to examine the newcomers, sniffing and prodding at you and your things.

They were welcoming enough. So you set up shop.

Hiccup laid flat against his bed, staring at the ceiling of his childhood home. He felt torn in every single direction all at once.

He’d left when his people needed him. When his father had needed him. Drago had attacked while he’d been gone, and all that was left of the sanctuary now was rubble. Then he’d gone after Berk. Hiccup had only just gotten there in time.

His father was fine, his mother… alive. After twenty years. Everyone was accounted for, but what if they hadn’t been? If he’d been there, maybe there would have been less damage, less people hurt.

But he wouldn’t have found you if he’d stayed. Finally, after all this time. He'd realized how long it truly had been since you left, lost to him even before you’d actually run off on your… the, nadder.

The floorboards creaked as someone made their way up the stairs to the loft, the front door swinging shut behind him. Hiccup didn’t move, just glancing to the side to see who it was that came to get him this time.

“Astrid,” He sighed. The two of them were distant and had been for a long while, despite the fact that they were supposed to be in a relationship. He’d been off a lot for that whole long while, which she hadn’t much minded as she’d found herself more interested in other things. And… he’d found his heart had a new owner.

“It’s been a month, Hiccup,” She rolled her head back, exhausted, as if reciting a tired script that she’d been reading off for ages, one that no one wanted to listen to anymore, “Everyone is fine. You don’t have to hole up so often. I don’t know why you did it, but no one is mad you left, you know. You couldn’t have known.”

“Yeah…” Hiccup sighed, “Yeah, I know.”

“You need to get out,” She looked around his room, which was very much a mess of parts and papers, and ran her hand down a large map, laid flat over the only remotely clear space he had, his desk, “if you don’t next thing you know, a month’ll be four.”

“Why are you so obsessed with this place? … Does it have anything to do with the time you spent missing?” Astrid questioned. Hiccup propped himself up, turning over alarmed as he heard the sound of skin on paper. It had been freshly inked.

“No,” He’d guessed at where the two of you had ended up. He was sure that he’d be able to find it again, given the chance. He would. After he worked up the courage.

After all, you’d… You didn’t want to be found.

“Hey, wait, that’s-” He scrambled onto his one leg, kicking aside his prosthetic and jamming his toe in the process.

“Ah, ow, ow, don’t touch that, please,” Astrid rolled her eyes and tossed the cylinder to his bed and he picked it up, examining it thoroughly as she sauntered off.

You weren’t sure why, but he kept coming back

“Hi,” He said awkwardly, shifting from foot to peg nervously. This was the first time he’d caught you. The first time he’d spotted you was the last but you’d made off that time before he could see you.

“Why are you here?” You stared at him, blank faced. Why didn’t you leave, curse it.

Your dragon waved its tail playful from the side, waiting for Hiccup to go. The other ones wouldn’t come out while he was here. It felt good in a vindictive sort of way, because dragons had always been this thing, except this time you were the one with the secret dragon knowledge. And the upper hand. Sort of. They didn’t hide from you.

“I like… “ He flushed, “I like hearing you talk?”

“Sure,” You suggested, turning and starting off again, basket under arm and over rock as you began unsteadily making your way back up to home cave. You liked it there because you didn’t have to leave much for anything.

“Wait, wait, wait wait,” Hiccup stuttered. As you had your arms over a particularly steep ledge, your legs waved nonsensically and scrambled against the side as you searched for a foot grip, “Just, uh, let me-”

“Come back tomorrow,” You grunted after you managed to finally get one leg up the side. You’d probably figure out what to say by then.

You felt better here, like maybe you weren’t meant for people. Not for dragons either, not really. The dragons here didn’t need defending or anything, it’s not like there was anyone down here to defend against besides other dragons. The most you’d had to go out for was food, and even that was made or stolen easily enough.

Being here gave you enough time to make you think that maybe you were meant just for yourself.

You sat by the spray by the falls, enjoying the mist as it sprayed onto your face and the echoing sounds of the water hitting gray stone.

“Toothless, come on- Just please, I know you don’t want- but-” Your eyes shot open, the distant voice of Hiccup bounced around the empty cavern, your moment ruined.

You looked around for the pair, trying to figure out which direction you should be running before. Suddenly, it felt like you’d been drenched by a whole lot more than a mist as Toothless landed messily behind you.

“What are you doing here?” You were careful to keep your balance as you shuffled further inland, looking a lot like a drenched cat as you came face-to-face with an also sopping wet Hiccup

You would never be rid of him.

“You said to come back tomorrow?” He asked, twisting his fingers and very purposefully refusing to look you in the eye.

Of course, you hadn’t figured out what to say.

You blew a raspberry as you adjusted the stolen, waterlogged basket which you had, again, under your arm. You needed more than two pairs of clothes.

“...Come back later,” You grumbled, “Later than tomorrow.”

You’d been free for a week. You’d been hoping for maybe two, to be frank.

“Please, I just-” Hiccup huffed, traveling by foot while you rode your dragon. Toothless followed behind, grumbling and gurgling at Hiccup judgmentally. Clearly whatever good will you’d built up with him before you ran left had been more than lost.

“I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling,” You stare straight ahead, over the encroaching cliff, ducking round and under ledges as your dragon trotted onwards.

“I want to get to know you, again.”

Eventually, the cave dragons had warmed up to Hiccup and he was able to work his magic on them. Now they watched through stalagmites and stalactites with impassive eyes as he made chase.

“Uh huh,” You scoffed as you reached the edge of the ledge. You turned around and stuck out your tongue as your dragon took a violent leap into the open air. As the wind whistled around you, you pinwheeled your arms in an effort to try and keep balance.

“Come on, Toothless, bud,” Hiccup complained from way behind. You saw Toothless very decidedly sit down, refusing to move even as Hiccup tried to push him towards the cliff with his whole upper body, “Let’s go.”

“So,” Hiccup started, “You haven’t gone any deeper.”

The both of you stared out into the vast, glowing sea of towers and gigantic glowing mushrooms extending out of their jagged rock faces. In the distance you could spot gigantic crystals, protruding from the ground the same way the sanctuary did.

Seas of dragons crowed and chirped, bright patterns shifting and growing under hard muscle. It was very dizzying, if you were going to be honest.

“No,” You replied, “No, I haven’t. Not this far, but now I… I might.”

You hadn’t traveled too far into the cavern, deciding not to push your luck with the locals. You always figured there was some sort of nest farther in. Turns out there was, and a whole lot more locals than you expected, and a lot more to this small world besides the cold, empty cavern. At least you didn’t have to worry about flooding anymore. Or sea salt in your hair.

You swore to yourself that you were going to move further in, caught off guard and most definitely embarrassed at the fact that so much open space had been hiding right under your nose.

Free for three days.

“There has to be more. There’s no way- It doesn’t make sense how all these different kinds of dragons can live in the same environment. There’s- there’s so much here that-Gods, I have to map it,” Hiccup rambled, smiling gawkily.

He’d been here for a week.

You felt a pressure to supervise him as he ran rampant in your new home, unsure of when he’d become such a cartographer. Your dragons had gone missing a while ago, leaving you two to be babysat by the hands of the general public.

You watched as he painstakingly mapped each pillar, occasionally chiming in with your own advice, looking the same way he did the day he discovered honey when you were kids. It was almost pleasant.

The two of you had fallen off the edge of a pillar after being knocked down during a spat between two touchy Crimson Goregutters, which no Hiccup magic or dragon secret could stop. After an event with a vine, dangling over certain death and panic, you two had managed to swing your way onto a large glowing mushroom.

The downside to that was that now, you were stuck, owed to the fact that apparently, what made some of these mushrooms glow was very viscous and… sticky.

Hiccup’s arms were glued to the space on both sides of your head, and your hands were gripping his arms which were visibly shivering, because you two had been stuck like this for a while. You’d been tugged, prodded at and licked by various different dragons. Nothing helped and you were starting to think that maybe this was how you were going to die.

Well, you knew you weren't going to go to Valhalla. It was kind of really hard to die in battle if you spent most of your time avoiding people. But this just sucked.

“What's up with your pathological need to map everything?” You asked belligerently. To be honest, it didn’t really bother you. Hiccup’s rambling had never bothered you, because you were prone to rambling in the same exact way. Currently though you were hard pressed to find anyone else to hear it.

“I thought your thing was the forge? You spent half of my childhood there.”

“Well, yeah, I…” He rested his forehead against yours, eyes shut as his neck finally gave out, you weren’t too pleased as you felt his sweat drip onto your face, squirming rebelliously.

“Wasn’t sure if you’d want to hear it. I-I could talk about that instead?” No talking at all would be great.

“Yeah,” You gave in, closing your eyes and going limp against the slimy fungi, “That would be better.”

Lips pursed, then grimaced as he’d opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out, though. He just stared above your head, unmoving. You tried to see what he was looking at, but only got an eyeful of his scruff.

Next thing you know, you’re being smothered by a plushy pink tongue, then just licked and nosed a little bit. The spit of this dragon doing something odd to dissolve the slime trapping the two of you, fizzing as it touched shiny goo. When you finally had the facilities to move, you flipped your head back and your eyes widened slightly.

It looked like the two of you had just found Toothless a girlfriend.

Three months, two days and five visits- no, seven. Nine? Eleven? Seventeen?

“I don’t actually have a problem… with the mapping. Talking about it.”

You two were nestled between a rock and another rock, though this time whether it was a result of purpose or chance remained uncertain. You couldn’t remember. You were after something… There was barely any space between the two of you. You had been talking.

There was barely any green to Hiccup’s eyes, most of his iris consumed by large pupils as he mouthed around works that looked suspiciously like, “Can I…?”

Instead, he leaned forwards and your foreheads touched, the same way they did when you were trapped before. His eyes were clenched shut as he uttered, “I love you.”

You had a hard time believing that.

You turned your head to the side.

“I wonder how Astrid feels about her boyfriend flying off and doing who knows what.”

Some of the wild dragons lay in front of you, licking at the dying fire by your feet. A terror lay in the middle of it. You’d lined it with stones which were now giving off a pleasant warmth.

“I doubt she’d mind. We’re not really… together anymore. I don’t think so. I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t want to be.”

“Right,” You raised an eyebrow at him skeptically.

“Not since a little while after you left, actually.”

You found that hard to believe too, as you shook the burnt slice of fish off your knife onto your burnt slice of bread. You weren’t much better than Valka at cooking, but you were getting better. It was something about that sanctuary, or maybe something about that woman that just made you worse at cooking.

Hiccup wrinkled his nose over on the other side of your log as he shook his head at you.

It was a petty, but bitter sort of revenge.

Your first kiss had been lost to a fair bloke- his words, not yours- in the middle-of-nowhere inn. It had been a long time since you’d been out, but you were sure you’d easily be able to find somewhere similar to lose some other things. Hiccup had your heart but you’d never give him the opportunity to take any of your firsts.

Two months.

You were angry at him for playing with your heart again.

“There was a crisis-Berk…” His voice cracked.

You looked disinterestedly out over uncanny black waters. “Yeah, It’s fine.”

Seven days, seven visits. He might have been camping aboveground.

The two of you were between two large red fungi, settled on a mossy rock overlooking a new, larger, unmapped maze of rock pillars and black water rushing below. Dragons, glowing and colorful, mingled together off in the distance. Toothless was probably one, gone off to frolic with his new lady love.

“You never wanted me. As a friend, as a- …battle buddy, or as anything else. You would never have chosen me for anything. And I just… I didn’t want to be just what you settled for,” You mumbled into your knees, “You spent so long searching for better, and then you found it, and it just really hurt to realize that I wasn’t a part of that.”

You spilt your heart out as you faced the cliffside. Hiccup was facing you. You didn’t care what he heard. None of this was real anyways.

“I’m sorry,” Hiccup repeated, clenching his eyes shut as he buried his nose into your shoulder, barely there though he had to crane his head forwards, due to the uncomfortable angle.

What he had with Astrid these past few years, that was real. That was history. This thing between the two of you was just a mess of pain and turmoil and a little bit of childhood fantasy. An old infatuation rearing its head as you got everything nasty out of your system.

“It hurt to think that-That… the one person- Like everyone else did, you didn’t think I was good enough either.”

“I’m sorry.” You felt his arms come around your sides awkwardly before he squeezed.

“Me too. I…”

He’d remember that he didn’t want-need- you again soon enough.

“I haven’t told anyone. About you, or this place.”

“You haven’t?” You’d actually expected otherwise. It was nice to know you weren’t at risk of getting dropped in on.

Two months, thirty two visits.

You might be coming around to him.

“You’ve already-?” He asked, a little startled. You still felt a little silly about it but after you’d done it, you figured it wasn’t that big of a deal. It wasn’t like you’d planned to marry or anything anyways, so his reaction was kind of funny.

“Yeah, I was pretty mad. So I went out, and… you know. It was a while ago, though.”

He looked a little disheartened at the idea, but he just scoffed, waving his hand off in your direction.

“What? You and Astrid kissed, yeah, but you haven’t done- anything? Not even before you ‘totally broke up,’” You didn’t have to specify what they hadn’t done, the innuendo was already pretty obvious.

“Nah.” Hiccup said, hair wiped out of his face, matched squares of parchment. Map pieces were strewn out in front of him as he made himself busy trying to create a complete chart of the underground, matching up the landscape he saw with the islands above it.

Unfortunately, the caverns seemed to stretch on forever and the islands only covered so much.

Three months, one day, thirty two hours.

You straddled him, crinkling some of the many, many blueprints scattered across the moss surface. You wiggled one out from under him, looking down as he looked up. It felt good, being the one in charge for once.

You leaned down, pressing your noses together. Just before, you’d been going over his things. His blueprints. Swapping ideas. Sharing minds. Like you used to, every single day. Like you’d been doing, almost every single day.

“Do you love me?” You asked.

Every day you’d been together. Your knees touched, shoulders pressed close together.

You had to know. And if he did… He had to mean it.

You played games, shared stories. You’d grappled and curled, not the way vikings could, but the way two hiccups did, a long, long time ago.

If he didn’t, well… You had all the time in the world to leave, to start again. But you didn’t think you could. You could go weeks without seeing him, and then sometimes it would be every other day.

This was it.

“I do love you,” He choked out, wheezing as you adjusted, your weight pressing against his chest. He glanced back at you, crumbling a little bit.

He spent a lot of time here, now. A lot more than before. With the time spent traveling in between, as he said it, it was a wonder he got anything done there at all. Most of his time was spent above mapping the islands or down here with you.

You read what his body language told you; he was insecure.

“... Do you love me?”

“I do.” Hesitantly, you nodded, “I do.” Was that even a question?

You trusted him. You didn’t trust him. You had no way to know if he stabbed you in the back again. Went back to Astrid. You didn’t really have a way to know if that’s what he did, every time he left.

You loved him, didn’t you?

He didn’t know that? Maybe not always and not all at once, since you left. You hadn’t done a very good job of making him know it. You hadn’t a lot of reason to.

Did you love him now?

You marveled at how easy it was to be around him, with him. It wasn’t the same as it was before, but it was still good. It could almost be better. You, against everything, wanted it. You wanted it so bad.

“I’d leave it all behind, for you,” Hiccup said.

You would make him know it.

“You would?” You asked, “Would you?”

You laid your heart bare to him, stitched and spiked. And you, as he said it, implied it, maybe you held his.

“Do you want me to?” He asked. He tugged lightly on one of the draws to your tunic, faking interest in it as he worried the inside of his cheek. You didn’t want his home, or his family.

“I don’t want anything,” You scoffed dismissively. You wanted his honesty. You wanted to know that he was yours. Yours truly. That was it.

Prove it. You urged him on, Prove it to me.

He smiled that goofy, awkward smile, half teeth and all closed at the edges. You could tell he was trying hard not to falter. You hadn’t seen that smile in such a long time.

Know me, You asked.

“So… Do you? Do you love me?” He asked again, offering his hand up to your face. His fingers were scabbed, and dirty and you leaned into his palm, pushing it down as he tangled his fingers clumsily into the roots of your hair. You pressed your lips together, again, again and over again until neither of you could breathe.

Have me, You pleaded.

“I do,” You gasped into his mouth, “I really, really do.” You offered no resistance. Not this time.

Love me.

There was no coming back.

(Deep in your mind, you wondered if maybe, possibly, he already did.)

Twelve months. Twelve months since he’d found you.

Hiccup stood at the edge of Berk, armor packed away in favor of a lighter tunic. He often wondered what it would have been like, if he’d really run away with you like he’d intended.

If things would have ended up the same.

Would he have seen you in time? In time for what he had now? For this?

No. no, probably not.

…

His father would notice. His mother might.

His father was fine. And now he had his mother. They were old, but they were tough. They could have a new kid. Or maybe they’d convince Snotlout or Astrid to take the mantle.

They’d-everyone-would be fine without him.Who was he kidding? He’d spent so long working so hard and they didn’t need him at all. And if he was honest, He didn’t need them.

He didn’t really care. Not anymore. He let go.

Life would go on just fine without him, just as it did before him and just as it would long after his name was lost to time. His distance only proved it. He spent so long away he’d been practically excommunicated again.

After a little bit of irritation, his travels became just another one of his quirks.

‘Oh, look, there’s Hiccup. Oh, well, he’s off again.’ He was barely missed. And rightly so. It was by his own doing, really. That was fine by him. In fact, It worked in his favor.

It was borderline hysterical how, the moment they found more furies, and his new paramour, Toothless went from devil’s advocate to his most eager accomplice.

The Sand Wraiths were especially cool… It cost him a lot less fish to get there now. To you.

Sometimes he had to wonder why he’d been so attached to Berk. Working for things that ultimately, he didn’t care about. Everything that kept him here, he also had with you. When he was here, all he wanted was to go back out.

A pebble-sized ball of guilt coil in his stomach. It used to be worse. But, he’d talked to you about it. The engagement.

The engagement with Astrid. The one that was basically moot at this point, anyways. She might even slap him if he brought it up, to expect anything after he’d left her for so long. Truly, officially. all he’d had to do was end it. He left a letter nearby her family home; they would find it if they bothered to search for him.

A scummy trick, yes. Was he a coward for doing it? Maybe. But he was a smart coward. He wasn’t lying when he’d told you that no one knew.

Hiccup exhaled, bouncing up and down on his heel and peg, as if to psych himself up. To dispel all of his nervous, excited energy.

It was a clear day, no risk of a storm. He strapped his saddle pack to Toothless. It was only slightly larger than usual, so as not to arouse suspicion, of course, but it held all of his essentials. Leatherworking tools, metalworking tools, more tools, his armor, spare armor, spare foot, spare charcoal. The small plush his mother had made for him as a child. His viking helmet, for memory’s sake.

Slung over his shoulder was a smaller pack with just his compass and his coin.

As the two of you grew closer and closer, it only made his decision more and more certain.

He wasn’t meant to be Chief. He wasn’t cut out for this life at all. He didn’t want this life. He wanted you.

As far as anyone else was concerned, you’d long since disappeared and now he had the feeling it was time for him to do the same.

He took a deep breath, one that pushed his lungs to his ribs. Then like his bag, he flung himself over Toothless’ saddle before he took off from Berk for the last time, closing his eyes. He’d left his helmet off this time so he felt the beating wind rip through his hair.

The two of you were there, half hidden from view under a large red plume. It was wasm, and your perspiring skin was trapped under hollow armor, same as his.

You gasped, hot air mingling every time his breath hit your face. The two of you huffed and panted as he pushed you unto the dirt and you pushed back, feeling the moss tickle your face and the backs of your hand.

Not your back, though. Just hands.

Gripped, interlaced fingers pressed firmly down by your head, sweaty palms melded to his. He’d been the one in charge, today.

He was hunched over you, his trousers unbuckled and unlaced as he pressed downwards, forwards, gently and not.

A line of sweat ran down your cheek. Your eyelids fluttered. His breath caught.

Men shouted their battle cries into the dark, never ending sky as Berk was set in flames. A skull, still fresh with blood and exposed brain, broke with a sickening, wet crunch as Stoick ground his head into it, bringing mercy to the poor, damaged creature.

“There is no fury here,” He bellowed as he towered menacingly against the hulking wall of flames by his door. Three Deathgrippers and their tails lay cut, prone and slain around him.

“We’ll see about that,” Grimmel crooned, standing tall with his hands linked behind his back, looking down on him with two more dragons hissing and spitting by his sides.

Sharp talons dug into the wood of the rafters, Cloudjumper’s head turning steering around as he hung by her feet. Valka, masked and fully covered, crouched down from where she was, nestled at the bend of his tail. She pulled her arms back, getting her hook, sharp and serrated, ready for a wicked swing.

Yes, he would see. She’d make sure of it.

#hiccup haddock #hiccup x reader #how to train your dragon #httyd #x reader #fanfiction #httyd imagine #toothless #fem reader #gender neutral reader #female reader #male reader

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