originally posted at my tumblr, inspired by siggyshriek's awesome modern au art, in which hiccup is wearing a TPM star wars shirt. (ffnet isn't allowing links, but there's a link on my ao3 archive if interested. also check out their other fanart!)

"Uh, hi dad, what're you—" Hiccup scrambled to his feet, trying to pull his rug a little straighter, while at the same time not wanting to make it look like he was trying to pull his rug a little straighter.

As his father squeezed in through the door frame, Hiccup abandoned this in favor of jumping forward to meet him. The key here was to impede any forward movement. Somehow. Just keep the parent by the door, that was Hiccup's objective. "I'm kinda—I mean, it's a real mess in here, but there's a system to it, so why don't we—"

"What's that smell?"

Hiccup froze. His father had lifted his nose into the air, twitching it in a sniff.

"Right! Haha," his voice broke on that last syllable, "the candles, um, Ocean Breeze? Or is it Sparkling Rain, I uh, I was at the dollar store today, and, you know, thought it might be nice—"

He watched Stoick open his mouth to ask why Hiccup was burning scented candles in the middle of summer, and then close his mouth as he decided he did not want to know if his son was smoking weed. Which wasn't even—actually, that would probably go over better than the truth, so maybe Hiccup should play to that, except he had no idea how to. Paranoid? Didn't they get paranoid? Hiccup was feeling pretty paranoid.

After clearing his throat, his father started, "I was searching the Amazon the last week—"

"You were in South America?" Hiccup asked, momentarily bewildered that his dad had gone to a whole different continent and Hiccup hadn't even noticed. That was a new low, even for them.

But Stoick only looked as confused as Hiccup felt, and said, "Ah," staring down at his gigantic hands. It was only at that point that Hiccup noticed the plastic garment covering barely peeking out from between the man's fingers.

"Oh, you mean dot com," Hiccup realized. Right. The Amazon. The eBay. The My Space. His dad had made a foray into The Internet again.

As Hiccup was worrying about things like browser history, his dad went on, "I—saw this, and I know you're into this sort of… thing, and—"

The conclusion of that sentence eluded him, however, and in the end Stoick just thrust a crinkly parcel at Hiccup's eye level.

Jerking his head back a little and blinking, Hiccup took it.

Oh. The unmistakable yellow Star Wars label was staring back at him, the rest of the shirt folded beneath it.

Well, this was actually—

"Thanks. I—I like it," Hiccup said, a little startled that his dad even knew this about him. After a moment in which they looked at each other, Hiccup began to break the plastic wrapping with his fingernails, stretching it open.

"Your mother was a fan too," Stoick's beard crinkled, "we actually saw that one in theaters on our second date—"

Hiccup shook out the shirt, and he thought, They didn't see this one in theaters.

"—well, it may not have been that one… neither of us watched very much of the film, to be frank—"

Oh, joy.

"Okay, dad!" Hiccup said loudly, before he heard things no child should have to hear. "No, this is really - well, this is one of the newer ones, so—"

"Oh," said Stoick. "Well. They're just as - good though, right?"

"Um, yeah." An idea struck. "You know what, I'm actually gonna put it on right now, so if you'll just—" Hiccup took a small step toward the door, holding his hand out to indicate he wanted to close it.

There was a knock above their heads.

Father and son looked up, the former's face in a frown, the latter's twisted in panic.

"What in the name of—" Stoick started.

"Rats!" Hiccup invented wildly. "I think we have—"

There was another knock, louder this time.

"I think we have extremely annoying rats with bad timing!" Hiccup shouted at the ceiling. When he looked down, his dad was staring at him like he was crazy. Wincing and pushing his fingers into his hair, he muttered, "They fall down the walls when I'm trying to sleep."

"Hmm." It was hard to read the expression behind the great red beard, and Hiccup tried to cover his nervousness with an uncertain grin. "I'll have to call an exterminator."

"Yeah," Hiccup agreed, relieved, "yeah, you do that, while I…" He held up the shirt.

After finally shutting the door on his father's back, Hiccup regarded the shirt. The Phantom Menace. Of course. His dad had to get him the one Star Wars shirt even other Star Wars fans would make fun of him for wearing.

Sighing, he pulled it on anyway.

x