Together
A/N: Just a random plot bunny. I didn't really want to make it seem like everything's going to magically be okay for Hiccup and Toothless, or that the events of HTTYD2 didn't likely emotionally scar the both of them, I just wanted to make it like, yeah, it sucks, but they're facing it together. So. This is also I believe my first attempt at third-person present-tense...ever. So. I think I did an alright job. Not superb, but not bad.
It hits him one day, and it scares him.
It's been about six months now, but he doesn't notice; the seasons have changed, the summer fading into autumn – all the leaves are turning red and brown, and they've fallen off the trees and though he walks upon a thick, crunchy carpet of them every morning when he departs from the hut atop the hill, he doesn't notice. He has settled now, and he knows this is the way it has to be; he has accepted his role without question or complaint, and he has not cried. He's tired all the time now, and hardly looks up when people address him; he smiles at Astrid, smiles at his mother, and his lips resist, his mouth forgets how to move upward. He tries to talk and it comes out a whisper; he addresses the village and his throat tastes of sawdust, and his mouth has gone dry. He is tired, unbelievably so; he does not notice when the villagers whisper about him, and he forgets that he has not cried.
He never forgets what occurred, but he forgets to cry.
When it comes upon him six months later, slamming into him, it is icy as an ocean wave and it stings like salt in an open wound; it is explosive and all-consuming, and it scorches him as a dragon's fire; it is sudden and shocking, and it rises up like a great hand and closes its fingers, like a physical thing, around his throat and it presses into him until he cannot breathe; it is the most pain he has ever experienced in his life, and it scares him.
Later, he is ashamed of himself; later, he will rise; later, it might get better; later, the weight upon his chest and throat will lift, and he will breathe again, and perhaps it will become easier; later he will walk the village streets and he will be alright; later, he will erase the evidence with his sleeve, and he will smile, and it will be an effort, but perhaps it will seem easier than all the other times before; later, he will be strong.
But now, it is icy and stinging; now, it is explosive and all-consuming; now it is sudden and shocking, it is painful and dark and scary, and he responds to the fear with his base instinct, and he cries into his armor. And when his dragon nudges his hand gently, and seeks to comfort his crying rider, he will accept the comfort; he will grab the Night Fury around the neck and hug him tight and sob into the dark, smooth scales; and the word that leaves his lips will be choked and incoherent, but both dragon and Viking will know that the cry he uttered was dad, and neither will admit it. And he will cry for the father he has lost, he will cry for the mother he has only just met; he will cry for the dragon at his side, he will cry for the guilt he knows the other feels, he will cry for the time he yelled, he will cry for the time he shouted at the dragon to go away, and he will cry because he never wants to drive his dragon away again; he will cry for himself, and cry because he is lost and scared and alone, he will cry because he has lost someone very dear to him, and he will cry for the family he almost had, and he will cry for the family that he lost and he will cry for the family that remains; and he will cry because he has not cried, and he will cry because he is afraid.
And his dragon will grieve with him, because he is also afraid.
And they will be afraid together.