A/N: The moment this idea took hold of me, it just wouldn't let go xD Also, I have the strange feeling Snotlout enjoyed this one-shot, perhaps a little too much... XD
Anyway, what d'ya think? I just got back from the livestream of the newest episode and it went offline halfway through, so I missed a chunk of angst, but eh...well *shrugs* I frankly don't expect this one-shot to be read anytime soon. I worried the teens were a little OOC, but then I was like, 'weeeeelll...they DID stick Fishlegs in the dark...they were really serious about doing this...' So...IDK
Six Viking teens sat in the semidarkness of a cave, five of them leaning against the rocky wall and listening to sixth and smallest one prattle on about this or that.
Only two of the listening five seemed to be actually listening. The other three were planning how to shut up the talker and get him to give up his whole dumb idea. Until they – "they" being Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Snotlout – heard the small speaker say the magic word, "…and a little practice at interrogation—
"Interrogation?" Snotlout repeated, perking up a little. "Sign me up!"
"Me, too!" Tuffnut called, waving his arm around.
"Awesome. I want to interrogate Tuffnut. He's a sissy when it comes to interrogations," smirked Ruffnut, his twin sister.
"Whoa, guys, I didn't mean interrogate like interrogate with the intent to harm," the speaker, Hiccup, was quick to explain. "All I'm saying is we need a little practice at this kind of thing. Alvin is bound to question us and he'll be looking for the weakest link. We—we need to work on this. Some of us…" his eyes swept over the teens listening to him, Astrid and Fishlegs and they seemed to take a long time to move away from Fishlegs. "…need to work on not cracking under pressure."
Tuffnut snorted. "Who does that? Are you saying I do that?"
Fishlegs' eyes lowered.
"Look, I'll even go first," offered Hiccup. "To make things easier."
"I want Ruffnut to go first," Tuffnut said, at the exact same time Ruffnut interjected, "But I want to see my weak and girly brother sob for his mommy!"
"Keep in mind," Hiccup said, in a tone that made it obvious that he was trying not to scold anybody – he was remarkably good at it, having lived with his dad for fourteen years. "We don't want to hurt each other. We're just practicing. And we're going to treat it like it's practice," he added at Ruffnut's, Tuffnut's and Snotlout's gleeful looks.
"Okay, but we all need to agree on one thing," Astrid interjected. "We may be keeping this as close to the real thing as possible but we're not allowed to cause each other bodily harm. Understood?" Her gaze flickered towards Snotlout and rested there for one awfully long minute.
The tense silence was broken by Tuffnut's sigh of disappointment.
"I'll never get to hear my brother cry now," Ruffnut commented miserably.
Hiccup shook his head at the twins' silliness. "Who wants to go first?"
He noticed the twins and Snotlout seemed a lot less keen on being the ones interrogated themselves and so, with a rueful eye roll, he said, "Okay, fine. I'll do it."
He sat down on the ground and as he did, Astrid approached him and knelt down next to him. They couldn't see what she was doing, but when she drew away, the others saw that she had tied him up with a bit of rope, pinning his hands to his sides.
"Are you sure we're not even allowed just a little bodily harm?" Tuffnut asked.
Hiccup shook his head firmly. "Just get on with it, will you?"
"Okay, okay, fine," Astrid said, raising her hands in surrender and leading the other teens back into the darker side of the cave, where Hiccup wouldn't be able to see them.
Hiccup had insisted on this point – he'd done extensive research on fears and he noticed a common theme: often, people feared the unknown and what they couldn't see.
Thus, he had stated earlier in the day, (had any of the teens been listening) it would make more sense for the ones doing the interrogating to be well out of sight of the one on the hot seat.
Hiccup waited for his friends' questions to start coming.
"Tell us how you train a dragon!" Astrid said in a fake Outcast accent.
"Odin, Astrid, you're terrible at this," he called.
"Talk! I know you know!" Astrid yelled.
Oookay, Hiccup thought. Astrid is getting dangerously in-character.
He cleared his throat and readied himself to speak, but before he could, the torches had flickered off. Darkness, he had told them, was also something immediately linked with fear and cracking under pressure, meaning they had to use stuff like that to get the full effect. "I know nothing about the dragons!" he called to his unseen friend. "My name is Hiccup, I come from Berk! I know nothing about the dragons, or their riders."
There was a silence.
"Guys?" Hiccup called, waiting for them to call back.
There was nothing but darkness and silence and he felt himself getting a little nervous, before shaking himself. These are my FRIENDS! They won't hurt me! Well… Snotlout's gleeful face seemed to loom in the darkness before him, as if somebody had glued it to the backs of his lids. Okay, Astrid won't LET them hurt me.
It was colder in the cave than he remembered. He shivered a little, having given up on the thought that they would call back at all. They'd probably leave him here alone for a little while and see how scared they could get him…
That's actually probably a good thing, he tried convincing himself. I mean, they're sticking as close to the real thing as they possibly can without hurting—
Suddenly, the silence was broken by a desperate, pained roar. "Toothless!" Hiccup yelled painfully, making as if to stand up before losing his balance. His prosthetic foot, his clumsiness, and the fact that his arms were tied to his sides didn't exactly help the already klutzy boy keep his balance. As a result, he landed back on the ground, cold sweat in his hair. "Toothless?"
"Tell us everything you know or the dragon gets it!" one of the teens called. Hiccup thought he recognized it as Snotlout, but maybe not – as far as the auburn-haired boy remembered, Snotlout had never been quite that good at mimicking Alvin the Treacherous.
He closed his eyes against the darkness, straining his ears for the slightest sound, waiting for anything, a footstep, a moan from Toothless, a breath, a cough, a sneeze…
"Weelll?" called that same voice again, and Hiccup opened his eyes, struggling forward a little. "Let him go, guys, this isn't funny!"
"Too right, it isn't!" Snotlout said his voice piercingly loud in the staggeringly silent darkness. "This isn't funny at all! But if you think this is a joke, dragon conqueror, go ahead and laugh your way right to the executioner's block! And do take the dragon with you, won't you?"
Hiccup squeezed his eyes shut again and his heartbeat slowed. They were just his friends, they were just goofing off…Just state your name and where you come from…
"I know nothing!" Hiccup yelled into the darkness, making his voice as calm as he possibly could. "My name is Hiccup, I come from Berk! I know nothing about the dragons or their riders!"
"You're, like, the worst liar ever!" Tuffnut's voice rang out in the darkness and though Astrid snapped at him to shut up, Hiccup was very grateful for the teen's interruption – it reminded him for real that he really was on Berk, not on Outcast Island.
There was silence for a second.
And then…
"Am I really that bad?"
Astrid's face appeared before him, lighting a torch so he could see her better under the harsh orange glow from the firelight. "Yes. You are." She allowed herself a tiny smile and then knelt down next to him, handing the torch to him to hold.
"Sorry," he muttered as she began untying him.
"It's fine," she replied, sweeping her bangs out of her face and going back to the knot. There was silence, until Astrid broke it by saying, "You knew we weren't really gonna hurt Toothless, right?"
"Yes," Hiccup told her, though he still felt slightly resentful towards her and the others for targeting his biggest weakness.
"Good," she nodded and succeeded in untangling the knot, coiling up the rope for the next unlucky soul.
"No, he didn't," Snotlout chipped in, inviting himself into their conversation. "But it's okay – we needed to do that. We're not playing around, you said that yourself." He shot Hiccup a look and gave him a small nod.
Hiccup stood, rubbing his right shoulder where the rope had cut into it. "Let's pick someone new," he said shortly as Astrid picked up her torch. "Fishlegs?"
"I really don't like this game," Fishlegs said in a small voice. "Can't we do somebody else?"
"Fishlegs," Astrid said in a hard voice.
"Fine," whimpered Fishlegs.
Astrid began tying the rope around his shoulders.