More Than Just A Saving Grace

by ProbablyAwfulWriting

Modern AU. Hiccstrid and probably done to death but humor me, I think mine is new and fresh to an old AU. Give it a read and find out for yourself. He has been nothing his entire life and she has not. He was ridiculed and ignored and she was praised. Both are missing things in their lives and need someone to understand.

1. Introducing Hiccup

This is my first fanfic of all time! Hip Hip Hooray, I guess. It honestly probably doesn't matter to most of you if it is my first or not so long as it is well written and not too depressing. Sadly I can only promise one of these things. I know that the Hiccup/Astrid modern au, high school, hiccup being bullied and ignored, astrid popular, story has been done to death, but I can't help but do one myself. HTTYD is honestly one of my favorite subjects to read and/or write fanfiction about and this au pairing is my favorite story type

Edit: This was never honestly going to be uploaded in the first place, but my sleep addled mind, in it's infinite wisdom, decided I should upload it. I am too stubborn to take it down and it has recieved moderatly well reception so far so I will continue it. I came in and editted a few things that were probably fine but I believed could be improved, mostly the "Stoick" paragraph. Enjoy.

Mondays fucking suck.

Pessimistic as hell I know, but when your Mondays consist of bullying, disappointment, and overall uselessness on your part, you come to hate them. Not that they are much different from most other days of the week, Mondays just have that horrible stigma around them that makes them seem so much more miserable, but, before I go onto continue this rant that you could honestly care less about, or say something else to you to make me seem like the awkward introvert that I am, I should probably introduce myself, as you are probably just dying to know.

My name is Henrik Horrendous Haddock the Third, not that I have heard my actual name in years. Most people, and probably you as well, know me as Hiccup The Useless, or Hiccup the Ultimate Lord of the Nerds, or, if you are feeling really nice, or just don't care enough to address me by my one of my full titles, Hiccup. The reasons for both of those long winded titles were, at one point or another, attempts to bully me, but I have honestly come to love the latter of the two. I won't deny that I am a major nerd. Hell, my idea of a good time is a good game of Magic: The Gathering (Green White master race bitches) while video game music plays in the background, or maybe an online game of League of Legends on Skype with a few guys I met online.

I happen to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere called Berk in a faraway, mystical place called Alaska. It has a population of 8,000 poor, unfortunate souls, and rarely rises above thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit. It snows, rains, and hails ninety percent of the year, is cloudy five percent, and sunny the other five, in a really, really, really good year. It's pretty depressing if I am completely honest, and this Monday just happens to be one of those sunny days, for some reason or another, symbolism is fucking beautiful is it not (you will find out why it counts as symbolism in due time. Patience young padawan).

I was born to Steven (Stoick) Haddock, mayor of Berk and ex-special forces, and Valka Haddock (here is where I would put any information I know about her…, IF I HAD ANY), yeah… she kinda disappeared a few years after I was born and no one has heard of or seen her since, and my father refuses to talk about it so yeah, sorry. Anyway I'm over it, never knew her and thus don't really care or think about it too much, but my dad wasn't so lucky. He was convinced that she was his soulmate and was destroyed when she left, so he found something to take his frustrations out on, I'll let you guess what. Give up? I'll give you a big hint… it just so happens to be me. Yay! (insert sarcastic tone) He sees me as a constant reminder of my mother, and so, being the wonderful man and father that he is, has punished, ignored, and generally been disappointed in me for years. It doesn't help that I am the literal opposite of him in every aspect of the word, thus giving us nothing to bond over. He is big, strong, and prefers fighting to thinking, and I'm the, a pacifist at heart. He was the star quarterback with a B/C average in high school, and I am a scrawny nerd with an above A average. His life goals consisted of going into the army and kicking ass, mine consist of engineering. Different in literally every aspect of the word.

My circle of friends consists of Me, Myself, and Frankie, alias Fishlegs, who is almost as much of a nerd as I am, just with slightly lower grades, more muscle mass, and is the leading fullback of the the Berk High School Dragons. He and I are both juniors and ready to head out into the world, both plan on going to the same college, and both have hopelessly futile crushes on two of the most popular girls in school. He loves a brass girl named Ruffnut (Theresa (Ha got you there, I put the nickname first)), gods only know why. I have a much more obvious crush. The object of my affections, along with most the other guys in the school, is the one and only Astrid Hofferson. I will not begin to describe why I happen to be hopelessly in love with her because I could go on for days, but to summarize, she has, hands down, the most beautiful voice I've ever heard (which is why she is the head chair in our student and church choir), the most beautiful eyes ever created (no comment), and is the only one in school whose grades come close to mine (she makes even higher marks than Fishlegs, but still not as high as me).

You may have noticed that all of my descriptions have exactly three traits each and every time. That is all thanks to my not so clinically diagnosed OCD, not technically clinically diagnosed thanks to my father. My father said, one snowy day during one of our not so uncommon arguments and/or general conversations, and I directly quote (cue the Scottish accent and deep booming voice that does not understand that volume management is a thing) "NO SON OF MINE NEEDS A SHRINK TO TELL HIM WHETHER HE IS SANE OR NOT, AND NO MATTER HOW SEEMINGLY UNLIKELY, YA ARE ME FLESH AN' BLOOD, AND I REFUSE TO PAY FOR IT." True poetry and unadulterated fatherly love and concern right? … … … Yeah … … that's what I thought as well.

My whole life, I've never been known around town as anything more than a disappointment, if I'm acknowledged at all, but today, I'll finally do something right. I'll finally stop being a burden to everyone.

Humorous and funny right, yeah that will only last so long. Tell me what you think and I may or may not update sometime soon, depending on my schedule and if I feel like it. I plan on making this a multi-chapter fic written from the point of view of both Hiccup and Astrid, who will introduce herself next chapter. This chapter is shorter than what I want the average length of my chapters to be because it is an introduction. Criticism is always welcome and if there are any changes you believe I should make, let me know and I'll get on it right away. Thank you so much for reading and please leave a review.