Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Gods must hate me, a sentence that seemed to be sardonic despite me finding myself saying it regularly. My lungs burned, my legs screaming for me to stop running, but I couldn't stop, not with Snotface and his goons after me. I can hear them mockingly calling out my name mixed between their stupid laughs. In a panic, I decided to hide in a bush, which shouldn't be hard with this stick of a body of mine. I yelped in pain. Out of all the bushes in this damn forest, I managed to hide in a thorn bush. I gasped and covered my mouth, seeing Snotlout in the distance.

"I know I saw that runt run this way.." Snotlout groaned. The twins giggled at the word runt.

"Let's just go back, he's not worth the time to search for. We have dragon training." Astrid said as she crossed her arms.

"Anything you wish, m'lady." Snotlout stretched his arm out to lead the way back. Astrid scoffs but continues forward.

"S-shouldn't we make sure Hiccup is okay on his own out here?" Fishlegs said as he fidgeted with his fingers.

"Do you wanna go look for him?"

"N-no.."

"Right, now hurry up, fishface."

I watched them walk back the way they came. I waited for a little while to ensure no one forgot anything. I pulled myself out of the bush, hissing in pain as the thorns nicked and pricked me. Once I was out, I was covered in small stinging cuts, and some thorns stuck to my shirt and pants. Like I said, the Gods hate me.

⊹﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪

I sighed as I picked out the thorns stuck in my shirt. Turning my focus to Toothless, watching him play in the sand next to the little pond, I smiled at his playfulness. Standing up, I walked over to him. Toothless, immediately noticing me, stopped rolling around and gave me a gummy smile. Chuckling, I returned the smile.

"Long walk." Toothless clicked. "Why?"

"Snotlout and friends… ambushed," I grunted.

Toothless growled as he pressed his head against my chest. I scratched his chin and lifted his head to look at me.

"Hiccup, okay." I purred, trying to reassure him.

"Hiccup, say okay even when not…"

"Hiccup, promises."

Toothless looked at me, still not convinced, but decided not to press on about it. I leaned back as Toothless curled around me, feeling a sense of leisure. I decided to take a nap, but not for too long, or else Gobber will get suspicious of my absence. It's funny that he's the only one who notices me being gone; my father never notices me being gone…well, unless he wants something from me. Or if Snotlout and his friends need something to beat on. Funny, right?

Chapter Text

My eyes fluttered open as the sunlight shone in my face. "Shit…I slept for too long." I gently moved toothless tail off my lap so as not to wake him up. Standing up, I stretched out my back, earning a few pops and cracks, and walked back towards where I came from. I turned around to take one more look at the cove, and with a sigh, I turned back around and continued walking back to the village. I shuddered, already feeling those judging and disappointed stares. Being the runt of a village like Berk is tough, even tougher with being the son of the chief. Should I even consider myself his son at this point? He never acts like he's my father, so why should I act like I'm his son? No…That's not right. He's still my dad, whether I like it or not.

Everyone expected me to be some kind of clone of him when I was conceived, but when I was born, people had low hopes that I would survive my infant years. Even as I got older, some still think I won't make it to my adult years. I don't blame them for thinking that way, for I am a fish bone after all.

I huffed and kicked a rock out of my path. I was rearing the edge of the forest now with the trees feeling barren and empty. As I got closer to the end of the forest, a wave of anxiety came over me. Afraid that Snotlout and his goons would ambush him again, I took a deep breath and tried to shake off the feeling. They're probably off watching snotface make a fool of himself, which is what he usually does when he craves validation. Once I got to that line of forest and the village, I stood there, mentally preparing myself for whatever happens.

I took a step forward. And another. And another until I was walking towards the forge. My skin prickled, feeling the stares of others, and my ears burned hearing their whispers. But I kept walking. I felt unreal, like I was there but at the same time I was not, but this feeling isn't new for someone who was barely acknowledged his whole life.

"Hiccup?"

I gasped softly as I came back to my senses, quickly looking over at who called my name. ''S-sorry, Gobber. Did I ignore you?"

"No, not really. But ye' did bump into me when I tried to get your attention. You alright, lad?" Gobber queried.

"I'm fine, just got lost in my thoughts, that's all."

"You tend to have been doing that a lot." Gobber said in a suspicious tone, "You missed training today. Why?"

"Took a nap longer than I was supposed to." It wasn't a lie, but I wasn't going to tell him that I got chased down and that I hung out with my best friend (my only friend), who was a dragon. I just hope he doesn't press on about it.

"Uh huh…Well, if ye' say so." Gobber said, shrugging. Yipe, he left the situation alone. "Your father should be comin' back home anytime now." Dammit, I forgot that he left.

"Oh, that's great. I can't wait for even more disappointed looks than I already get throughout the day."

"Hiccup, don't be like that…" Gobber said dismally.

"What? You know it's true."

"He just wants you to stop being all…this." He said in a sort of cheerful way (like changing his tone would make anything better) as he gestured at me.

"You-you just gestured to all of me."

"Yeah, exactly! Stop being all of you!"

I looked at him for a long second, trying to see if he was joking. He was not. "Wow… You know what? You make a lot of sense. I shall take what you said into consideration. Thank you, Gobber." I bit the inside of my cheek, holding back the words I wished to speak. I truly like you, Gobber, but you're kind of an asshole sometimes.

"See! That's the spirit!" Gobber said loudly and smacked my back. "Now, for punishment for missing training today, sharpen that pile of weapons over there."

I knew he was gonna assign me something, I just knew it, and yet I still ended up disappointed that he did. I sighed and nodded. "On it, Gobber…" And with that, I walked over to the pile of weapons, grabbed one, and got to work.

⊹﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹

I blew out an exaggerated breath as I set down the sword. "I'm done…Yes! Finally!" I'm not sure why I was so relieved to get it done. It didn't even take me that long. I've worked on weapons for a longer time in the past. Maybe I'm just getting too comfortable with how Gobber has been putting less work on me since I'm in dragon training now, and with him covering as chief until my father gets back. I glanced outside, checking to see how late it was; it didn't appear to be that late, as others were still walking around.

"Should I go see Toothless? People are still out walking around. It wouldn't be too suspicious with me walking around, too." I mumbled to myself, thinking of what I should for tonight. The thought of walking around was quickly forgotten as Snotlout and his gang walked by, Ruff and Tuffnut staring at me for too long with a not-so-comforting smirk, which made my gut twist with uneasiness. I need to get home now.

After getting the forge prepared for tomorrow, I hurriedly ran ( yeah, 'ran' or whatever you would call it for someone like me) to my house. I took a short path, occasionally ducking behind houses to check if they were around. I could see my home in the distance. I was almost there! Key word almost. Someone snatched me back by my collar, almost choking me, to the ground.

"Hey, useless, miss us?" Tuffnut said cheerfully as he looked down at me.

"Not all." I groaned as I tried to get back up, Ruff taking note of that and kicked me back to the ground. I coughed hard, holding my side. "That was my ribs." Ruff and Tuff snickered.

"Would ya like getting hit in the gut instead?"

"We can always make that happen."

Tuff and Ruff picked me up, my arms, and held me there. I looked up to Snotface, looking at me with disgust like I was the inconvenience!

"You ran out on our game today."

"Oh yeah…I forgot about that. Yeah, no-see I had some very important things to do, so that ass beating had to wait…"

"Oh well, I've got time to beat your ass now. Twins hold him still." Snotlout said firmly as he cracked his knuckles.

He kinda looked corny doing that. I bit the inside of my cheek trying to stop a chuckle from escaping me, so as to not give him a reason to beat me harder than he probably was already going to. I took a deep breath. May the gods have mercy on me.

…

The gods did in fact NOT have mercy on me.