Author's Note: Hello my faithful, faithful Fanrats! What happens when you try to juggle over three stories? You get this: an abundance of Hiccup's broken mind. I tend to torture characters if I take a mighty liking to them.
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Chapter One: Sec
The ire that surged through the veins of Stoick the Vast was something completely incomprehensible, and his son was to blame. It burned in his throat, boiled in the pit of his stomach. What he had witnessed said son display in the ring completely disregarded what stood morale in the eyes of the common man.
For three hundred years, the children of Berk had been taught to protect their own.
How could Hiccup, the son of a Viking chief, do such a traitorous thing? Although it was in correspondence to what Valka believed in oh-so long ago, and although Stoick had loved his wife with all his heart, he wouldn't stand for it.
So there he was, towering before the fabled unholy offspring of lightning and death itself, which struggled desperately for freedom. Providentially, it was restrained from any possible means of escape; at least six robust Vikings were piled atop the creature, yielding it no inch of freedom.
The Hofferson girl, screaming and begging for him to show mercy to the horrendous beast, was presently withholding his hysterical son, Hiccup, in place. However, it was her act of disloyalty that was utterly appalling. Complete betrayal engulfed whatever dander had not at that point. Stoick breathed quite heavily for a moment, securing his eyes with his son's.
"Dad!" The boy cried urgently, struggling endlessly against Astrid's iron grip. "Please! Please don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!" His voice was cracking, a strong indication of his desperation and panic. His emerald eyes were wide and watery, bloodshot even.
Stoick's grip on his hammer tightened as his son continued to plead. "Dad, I'm begging you! He won't hurt anyone if you just put down the-"
"ENOUGH!" Bellowed Stoick to silence his son, who trembled with anxiety. His command echoed tremulously about the stone walls of the damaged arena, ringing the ears of everyone present. Sensing Hiccup's impending distress, Astrid's harsh grip became one of comfort, and she held him close.
"B-But...but Dad-" Hiccup stammered.
"You bite yer tongue, boy!" A villager shouted and others shouted in agreement.
Hiccup opened and closed his mouth a few times, unsure of how to retort. In the end, he decided against it and could only plead with his father, shaking his head rapidly from side to side to prepare for the impossible. "Dad, I-I can prove it to you!"
"You have nothing to prove to me anymore!" The man boomed, causing even the Nightfury to warble in intimidation. Hiccup flinched and shrunk in on himself. "We..." He paused, trembling with uncontrollable anger. "We HAD A DEAL!" The man slammed the hammer into the stone wall of the arena, causing everyone present to jolt. Hiccup quaked, his knees going weak, and he finally sunk into Astrid's toned arms.
"I-I know..." He whimpered, going completely limp with fear as his father glared down at him in pure rage. "T-That was before... Oh, its-it's all so messed up."
"I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!" The vast chief yelled, causing the scrawny boy to tremble. Astrid tightened her grip around the lad and tensed, ready to defend him if anyone, even the chief, dared threaten his safety.
"I…" Stoick trailed off, his voice finally lowering, and shook his head while locking eyes with the dragon. "I need to bring this beast to justice. For the harm it has befallen on the people of this land." He straightened, ignoring the horrified expression that overtook his young son's face. "Bring me an axe," he ordered, and one of the villagers quickly complied, presenting said weapon with him.
Stoick graciously took the armament, his emerald eyes narrowing in revulsion at the incarcerated creature before him. "I want to make this quick."
That ensued Hiccup into a panicked fever that crooked his lie of sight from green to red. "NO!" After literally tearing himself away from Astrid, who yelped in protest, he clutched his father's enormous arm to avert it from swinging the axe and completing the transaction.
"NO! STOP!" He screamed, harshly digging his stubby fingernails into the toughened flesh. Stoick gaped at him in shocked irritation, but he didn't wrench the boy away in fear that he would somehow misplace the axe. Luckily, Spitelout stepped forward and gripped the boy's shoulders, roughly yanking him away from the man.
"Hiccup!" Astrid cried, watching him falter and stumble in the Viking's grip.
"Keep the dragon steady!" Stoick ordered.
"No, you can't!" Hiccup screamed, struggling with all his might to get away as two other Vikings realized his intentions and secured him properly. "Please! DAD!"
"Silence, boy," His uncle growled, giving the youngster a good shake to rattle his bones. "Don't try anything."
"Sir!" Astrid tried, approaching Stoick with sharp notes of panic in her steps. Settled before the intimidating figure, she ventured, "If you won't listen to him, then maybe you'll listen to me-"
"Lass," Stoick interjected, his gaze piercing the young teenager's toughened composure. "Unless you want to find yourself in a rotten position, I strongly suggest that you back down this instant."
Astrid stiffened, her face growing hot and her stomach going queasy. Her superior had never threatened her before. It was quite foil to all the times she had been extolled for her competence in putting out fires or chasing off predators. She tightened her fists and tried again.
"Chief," she rasped, her mouth dry. "Please, don't be angry at Hiccup." Stoick tensed. In what what world did this girl think she was, telling him what to feel? "He didn't mean any harm-"
"HOFFERSON!" Stoick abruptly shouted before she could go on. Egil, Astrid's fit but timid father, vigilantly waylaid the scene and put a somnolent hand on his daughter's armored shoulder.
"Ch-Chief?" He stuttered before clearing his throat. He'd never been so embarrassed. "Ah'm—Ah'm terribly sorry about mah daughter's behavior. Um…" He trailed off when the Chief held up an authoritarian hand.
"Kindly remove her from this arena," he ordered. "I've had enough mutiny for one day."
Astrid gaped and whipped her head back and forth from Hiccup to his father. She couldn't just leave him alone!
Meanwhile, Toothless was frightened by his human's distress, and warbled out pathetically at him. This unfortunately drew the unwanted attention of Stoick's, who dismissed Astrid and her father and approached the reptile with the axe in hand.
Captivated and momentarily distracted by the chief's actions, the men holding Hiccup back unconsciously slackened their grips. The boy took the chance, wrenched away from them, and launched himself at his father.
"Stop it!" He cried, his nasally voice growing hoarse as his throat began to tighten. "Please, Dad. You don't have to do this!" Stoick gawked in incredulity as his son planted himself protectively in front of the dragon, his arms outstretched.
"For once in your life, would you please just listen to me!" He screamed. Stoick, for the sake of himself, paused and withheld his weapon. The arena had gone instantly taciturn upon witnessing the heir's comeback, and sensing his advantage, he went on in a quieter tone, "I know," he admitted. "I know it looks bad. …It does. But—But Toothless isn't the monster you think he is. None of them are! They may err on the side of dodgy, but they're animals! Not monsters!"
The assertion might as well have gone through one ear and out the other. Stoick stared at his son, who's auburn hair was now wild and tangled, his emerald eyes wide with panic, his forest-green tunic rumpled, his fur vest hanging off a shoulder, his inhales and exhales much too quick. He looked…well…not himself.
"He must have gone insane..." Stoick concluded, and he felt his stomach drop along with his tremors of disbelief. "What happened to him while I was gone? This isn't the boy I know! He's gone mad!" He realized with horror. "MAD! Gods, I should have seen the signs. The signs...too early…too naïve…too…Hiccup… Thor only knew he would go off and protect a devil. Dragon-lover." The thought caused the man to flinch.
This conclusion tempered his anger a bit and he sighed gruffly. Well, if lunacy was to blame, then it wasn't much of his son's fault. But it just wasn't right. His eyes flickered to the dragon with contempt. Justice had to be served to the foul beast that had destroyed so many, and a mentally unstable teenager wasn't going to prevent him from completing the task.
"Move aside, Hiccup," he ordered, standing lofty and daunting in front of the fifteen-year-old.
Hiccup pursed his lips and shook his head. "No. I won't let you hurt Toothless," he declared, trying to ignore the groans of disgust that radiated from the surrounding Vikings who had caught his insubordinate clause.
Stoick narrowed his eyes and, with his patience wearing thin, roughly pushed his son to the side, earning himself an abundance of encouraging yells and cheers from the tribesmen as the young male collapsed to the ground, staring at his father in shock.
"Finish it, Stoick!" An impatient Spitelout yelled, shaking a fist.
"Lop its head off!" A woman shouted.
"Kill it before it escapes!"
"Leave him alone!" Hiccup bawled, lunging a second time for the man, only to be held back by a stricken Astrid once again. Egil, for a moment, stood by with his mouth hanging open but eventually helped his daughter keep Hiccup in place.
"Dear Gods, leave him alone!" The boy instinctually panicked, clawing at the hands that held him back, trying to kick his way free. "At-At least keep him for trainees!" He offered as one last desperate attempt to keep his pet safe from Death's clutches. "Just don't hurt him!"
"H-Hiccup, don't," the girl tried and failed to pacify, holding him as tightly as she could while burying her face in his furry vest. It would only make things worse if he got between that axe and the dragon once more.
"TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup cried, "GET OUT OF HERE!" Even if there was nothing that the dragon could do… "GO! RUN!"
The Nightfury howled, struggling harder still, but was successfully subdued by the villagers and shocked frozen by Stoick, who was now raising the axe above his head.
What happened next was the sole cause of Hiccup's loss of mentality. Restrained, the boy could only watch in agony as the axe fell, gravity doing its job well as the weapon met its destination with supreme accuracy. One moment he was screaming, the next he was stunned silent, splatters of blood coating his face that spurted from the now-decapitated head of the Nightfury.
Stoick dropped the heavy axe with a grunt and wiped the blood of the dragon on his tunic, unmindful of the drastic consequences that were to come.
The arena became reticent in his mind, the cheers and battle cries of victory vanishing from his subconscious as he absorbed the image of his stricken boy. Hiccup was finally released by Astrid, who'd been grabbed by Helga, her furious mother, and was dragged kicking and hollering from the arena with her father's distraught face hidden behind his hands.
Unable to properly support himself once his body had left the steady grip of Astrid's arms, Hiccup wearily fell onto his backside, propped up only by his quivering elbows, which he felt were going to give way at any moment. He couldn't bring himself to scream, speak, or make any kind of sound, his sharp tongue rendered useless. He was far too traumatized by the circumstances to do such trivial things as speaking as the crimson substance continued to pump out the dragon's body.
Hiccup wanted to hide himself away from the horrific sight, to curl up under a rock, away from the mangled form of his beloved pet, but for one reason or another, he couldn't tear his eyes away. This meant witnessing the body giving tremors and spasms, the nerves still active, blood continuing to exit the neck spurt after crimson spurt. The sight was unholy and gruesome and made Hiccup want to upheave whatever he had eaten that day. As the gravity of the situation began to weigh onto the shoulders of the child, he began to quake, the warmth of blood trailing down his freckled complexion in crimson streams.
He was gone…Toothless was gone…
Stoick, clustered by gushing men and women, watched in profound concern as his child slowly brought a pale, jittery hand to his face, his fingers coming into contact with the liquid. After pulling his hand away and realizing what coated his fingers, the boy let out a terrified scream of trauma, one that Odin himself could hear.
"GAAAAAAAAH!"
Stoick jumped and nearly covered his ears at the volume of the scream. His eyes went wide and his heart began to pound. "What…?"
Other villagers jumped as well, and stared in abhorrence at the hysterical child, under the honest presumption that Hiccup wasn't normally the extremist that yelled and cried when things went awry. Many were beginning to stare questioningly at Stoick, so the man stomped over to his son, who backed away from the incoming figure in a panicked frenzy.
"No, nonononono!" The young Viking sobbed, scrambling to his feet. "H-HELP HIM! HELP HIM! SOMEBODY HELP HIM!" His only means of defense was to turn before his father scooped up his blood-caked form and tossed him onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
He'd better be contained before he did something crazy like try to reattach the head.
Hiccup went into a full-blown panic attack. He hyperventilated; his vision going white and blurry while a drone in his ears began to overtake everything else. He…He felt like he was going to faint from the trauma. Toothless… Toothless was gone… And now his murderer was carrying him off.
With that in mind, Hiccup out a scream of rage and started to beat his father's back with his tiny fists. "YOU! YOU MURDERER!" He screeched. The man hardly even flinched, which only made the boy beat down ever harder. The villagers watched Hiccup rage with appalled and skeptical eyes of disgust. The runt was a traitor and they felt nothing but disdain for him and nothing but pity for Stoick, such a wonderful chief with a case of bad luck in the family legacy.
"L-Lemme go, lemme go!" Hiccup bawled, his punches growing weaker and weaker as the man continued the trek to their home. "G-Gods! GODS!" He shrieked. "Y-You-you-you killed th-the-you killed Toothless!" He forcefully twisted his body in an attempt to escape the man, but Stoick merely tightened his grip on the child. "You k-ki-killed him!" Hiccup rambled, yanking his father's scarlet hair, causing the man to finally grit his teeth as pain graced his scalp.
"Enough!" He gruffly repeated, visibly flinching at the high-pitched rambling that his Hiccup was unaccustomed to, and gave the boy a rough shake. "Of course I did. It's what we do to dragons."
"You didn't have to-"
"You need to stop this at once. That beast was not your pet," Stoick firmly insisted. "Never was. Never would be. And what's more: it deserved what was coming to it! I don't understand why you can't see the obvious in these things. You're confused, Hiccup."
And he just very well may have been swathed in confusion. Stoick had seen the abnormal spangle of turmoil in the boy's eyes when he discovered the blood splattering his features, and it frightened him. Hiccup had always been a sensible, albeit stalwart character in dire situations. But after the execution of that Nightfury, he seemed to have lost all sense of sanity. He had…completely fallen apart.
"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S CONFUSED! YOU NEVER LISTEN AND NOW LOOK! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"
Stoick shifted the boy with one arm so he could successfully biff him on the top of the head, hoping it would silence the boy. "Calm yourself."
After delivering one last defiant blow to his father's backside, Hiccup finally went limp, allowing him to carry his limp self to the base of the hill that led to his home and onward, his dreary eyes squeezing shut as he began to sob, body trembling as they finally entered his home. He knew it was shameful to cry—it was dishonorable for anyone to break in their society, but at that point, he was too far gone to care for his dignity-it had been cast off when he'd begged for Toothless's life to be spared in the arena, when his father had thrown him aside. Astrid was the only one who'd come to his aid, and even then, her parents had taken her away from him.
Re-hoisting his shaking son, Stoick wasted no time in carrying him to his room and non-too-gently placing him on his bed. Hiccup was like a rag-doll, slumping bonelessly against the headboard, his erratic nerves zapping the energy he had left and reducing him to a soft lump.
Once he deemed his son stationary, the chief released his scrawny shoulders and let him sob. Hopefully, after some time to himself, Hiccup could calm down and they could straighten everything out. "You stay in here until you've calmed down," he ordered before taking note of the blood, "and don't forget to wash up," he added, gesturing toward the water basin in the corner of the room. "Understood?"
Hiccup barely heard him over his sobs. Not only that, but he was much too preoccupied with that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't wipe away the Nightfury's blood from his face or clothes. It only smudged and expanded and stained…and the smell…Gods...it smelt of death.
Giving up rather quickly on his hygiene, the young Viking made a trembling, hasty retreat into a corner by his bed and collapsed, weeping uncontrollably after releasing the contents of his stomach.
Gods... He could still see it. The axe as it fell, slicing into Toothless's soft scaly neck, cutting off all traces of life within the dragon.
"Oh Gods..." Hiccup moaned, holding his head in his hands. "What am I gonna do?"
He wasn't sure was his purpose was now. Before Toothless, it had been to kill a dragon and prove to everyone that he wasn't the useless smith they'd deemed him to be. Later it had been to prove to everyone that war was about to become a thing of the past, but now… Was it possible to try again without his reptilian counterpart to stand by? Would anyone even give him a chance after his recent pratfall from fame?
It was unlikely, he thought miserably. Nearly impossible, because if nobody could listen with the proof right before them, why would they listen without it? Who'd waste his or her time listening to a traitorous runt? Odin, he'd never felt so useless, misunderstood, and alone.
...
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...
"Why him? Why my son out of everyone on this God's-forsaken island?" Stoick was frustratingly thinking, clenching his thick fingers around the fire poker. He was tending to the hearth in the center of his home, when he'd rather much be outside in the plaza, taking on his chiefly duties to vent his system, but as much as he'd rather not, he had to keep a close eye on his mentally hysteric child. Who knew what he could do?
Hiccup, he concluded with a devastated sigh, was no longer stable. It was a fact that no parent, even he, could ignore: that his own child had passed the gates of sanity and onto the vast wastelands of madness.
Most of his era would be hiring a healer or a Christian priest to cast the demon out of their child, but Stoick was different. Not in terms of religion, because he as a Pagan was happy to loop another God alongside his own, but he was different in terms of being. Hiccup wasn't possessed, he believed. He was just experiencing a state of extreme confusion brought on by the dragons. He was disobedient and stubborn, but a good young man overall, and Stoick never would have dreamed that he would turn to the dragons…
"Is it because I told him that he couldn't kill dragons?" Stoick wondered to himself. "Did he tire of my doubt and rebel in response?" That must've been it, but as to how he as going to fix it…?
Thor knew that Valka would have handled this, if any, situation better than he ever could, but she was absent from her maternal role. Whatever fate would befall Hiccup was entirely up to him, the father.
Stoick decided to call off his chiefly duties for the rest of the day to stay indoors, but that meant listening in horror to the wails of misery emitting from the boy's room until he could stand it no longer.
Hiccup had never acted this way before… He swallowed, not at all regretting his decision to axe off the dragon, but that he hadn't…well...been there for his boy to see this coming. He had never been particularly good at exerting diplomacy and comfort into situations that involved his son, or anybody for that matter, but this seemed extra important. After all...Hiccup DID see a creature that was obviously very near and dear to him succumb to decapitation. But whom in the seven worlds could admire a devil with sharp teeth and no conscious of mercy?
The vast man clambered up the wooden stairs and swung the door open. He peered in to find his son curled up in a corner, his head buried in his scrawny, shaking knees. The boy was exhausted after hours of screaming and crying, but even the sight of his broken child, it had to be admitted that Stoick's throat went dry, not with pity, but with copious notes of fear and betrayal that coursed through the layers of sympathetic concern. Even after all that had happened, Hiccup was still a traitor.
Speaking of which, the guilty party slowly peered upward, his frightened emerald eyes red and runny from all the from his ceaseless crying. For a long moment, all was mute, save for the sniffles brought on by youthful misery and desolation. "You…" Came the hoarse, hopeless croak. "Y' didn't have to ki-ki-kill him," he whispered, his scrawny body tensing. "Y'-Y' didn't hafta d-do it, Dad."
The anger was gone, and in its place, desolation and sadness. And with this in mind, Stoick hadn't the heart to raise his voice or lay a hand on his child.
Instead, he sighed, bent down to meet with his boy, and rubbed the space between his eyes. How would one get through to one that was of empty destruction?
"It could have killed me," he reasoned. "It could have killed the other villagers—and it has been for years now! Ever since you were brought into the world, that's the only Nightfury I've ever come to know. And the others… They've killed hundreds of us," he justified, as if it weren't apparent enough already. "Isn't that enough proof of their ferocity?"
"Ngh..." Hiccup lamented, a river of tears straggling down his freckled cheeks. Stoick felt his insides clench, but true to his name, he forced the feelings away. "I-It isn't as if we're innocent; we've killed plenty of them too! Th...They do-do it because t-they have to. They're animals." Out of nowhere, his head fell back and he stared at the beamed ceiling with a glazed look, which frightened Stoick. "What's a dragon to do with no alternative? If they don't bring enough food back, they'll be e-eaten..." He trailed off and rested his head on one of the corner walls.
How could one explain to his prejudiced sire that humans needed to take the upper hand in bringing peace, since animals had neither the smarts nor capacity to do it? "They'd be killed..." He muttered. "No—No choice…"
Contrary to what many would believe, Stoick's mind was a million miles away. His son evidently needed help, but what he said, something about "bringing enough food back", had diverted his train of thought from the matter at hand. Stoick quickly shuffled in front of the small teenager and whispered as if the walls could hear, "So you've been to the nest?"
Hiccup's glazed look snapped back into reality upon the realization that he had given away too much information. "Di-Did I say nest...?" He mumbled faintly, averting his guilt-ridden gaze from the man's.
"Lies!" Stoick hissed, catching the boy by surprise by gripping his boney shoulders. "How did you find it? Tell me NOW!"
"No!" Hiccup shrieked, visibly trying to mush himself further into the corner, his lanky arms flailing helplessly. "I-I didn't! I-I-Toothless did! O-Only a dragon can find-" he stopped short and bit his lip, trying to suppress another sob. "Y-You can take this out on me," he moaned, falling forward into the man's chest. "T-Take it out...on...on me. Just d-don't hurt the other dragons."
Stoick gaped at him in shock and roughly pushed the auburn-haired boy away, causing him to cry out. "The dragons?" He asked in disbelief. "That's what you're worried about? Not the people who have died to protect our home? Our lives? You? You..." He stood up and backed away from a very distressed Hiccup and shook his head. "You've gone mad," he whispered sadly, "Odin knew you'd lose yourself to a demon…"
"Dad..." Hiccup moaned out in desperation. "Don't... No! You don't know what you're up against!" He reached out a small, scrawny hand, but the chief backed away and exited the room, locking the door once more.
"We're finding the nest and ending this Gods-forsaken war once and for all," he declared to his son through the door. He paused, licking his lips as anger began to course through his veins for the second time that day.
"My cousin, my parents, your mother—taken from us-! You're own mother was taken by the beasts!" He roared, slamming a huge fist on the door. "Doesn't that anger or sadden you at all?! Your own mother! And you have the gall to disgrace her memory with this dragon-loving business! How dare you?"
All that emitted from behind the door was a soft, "Please... Please… Don't go…"
Stoick gave up and withdrew from his house of horrors, hoping to find some sort of peace outside its walls, only to find the entire village standing outside his door. Perfect. "Ready the ships!" He bellowed. "My son has provided a compass that'll lead us to the nest."
...
Author's Note: The title is a reference to what Gobber said to Hiccup at the beginning of dragon training. I wasn't paying much attention and thought he said "secor insane" rather than "sick or insane".