I finally felt like I had enough Valcup drabble-type things from Tumblr to bother making this dumping ground for them.

Could be modern, canon-verse, smut, not smut, fluff, angst... basically, anything.

This one's prompts were "Look me in the eye and tell me you love me." + "I thought I'd never see you again."

-HTTYD-

Being back on Berk was still jarring. Valka knew that the crushing grief of losing Stoick, and the lingering validation that the strange woman who said killing dragons was bad twenty years ago had been right was sometimes all that made the villagers leave her be.

The fact she was the mother of their new chief scarcely seemed to come in to it. And Valka had an idea why.

Because, after everything, Valka was avoiding her son.

He knew it. She knew it. His young betrothed knew it. Hel, even Cloudjumper knew it. Sometimes flicked his large tail toward that hut and rumbled lowly at her as if to say "Well? What are you waiting for?" to his human.

And despite the fact she'd failed him, and despite having every right to demand she turn up and be a mother to him for once, in his own grief and struggles… Hiccup let her.

All the more impressive when one considered they technically lived together; Valka had claim of Stoick's room in the Chiefs hut, but she preferred to go bunk in with Cloudjumper. It was safer there for her torrid mind.

Ignoring another judge-y crooning from her dragon, Valka kicked her legs absently against the cliffs edge, gazing out at the horizon and wondering why it had never seemed more inviting and more terrifying.

"Oh. Sorry."

She twisted, saw him. Hiccup and Toothless had clearly landed nearby, not expecting company on that spit of rock.

"Hiccup."

"I usually come up here to think, but… it's ok. Come on Toothless."

"Hiccup, wait."

Already about to mount his dragon, Hiccup faltered, shocked. She couldn't blame him. He padded closer, metal foot crunching little pebbles under it as he approached, slowly slunk down to sit there. Not close. But there.

"Can I ask you something?"

Hiccup's face displayed the confusion; Valka had been practically ignoring him for weeks now. But rather than call her on it, he answered.

"Sure."

"Do you remember… being in that ice?"

"Oh" whatever he'd expected, it wasn't that "kind of. I couldn't see a lot because of Toothless, and we couldn't really breathe or move. I remember thinking I was gonna die in there."

Valka remembered pounding at that ice, heart shattering as she thought the very same.

"I thought I'd never see you again."

The sun sparkled in Hiccup's eyes. Eyes he'd inherited from her. He looked more like his father when he stood tall, chiefly, strong. But Valka could see herself in his face, and it made everything worse.

"Then why… what is it that's making you avoid me?"

Oh. How could she answer him?

"I…"

Hiccup sighed, already standing up and Valka ached to see him go.

"Yanno, you told me that day you were proud of me. But mom? You've never said you loved me. I loved you. I barely knew you. Just a fragment or two in my mind, a picture here and there, and the things dad would tell me when he'd had too much to drink because otherwise, it hurt him too much to say anything. But I loved you anyway."

His voice shook, and Valka saw the frightened boy inside, asking for his mother to stand up and support him at last. Her body moved on instinct at first, but the reminder of Stoick was enough to stop her moving further, closer.

When Valka still said nothing, nor touched him - Hiccup seemed to understand that touch meant more to dragons than words, and so she communicated silently sometimes - Hiccup turned to her, eyes dark.

"Say it. Or can't you? Don't you? Are you only here for some twisted sense of duty, guilt? Because if you are… I'd rather you left."

"Hiccup!"

He stilled for a second, anger still tight in his jaw.

"You want to be back out there. I know you do. You know you do. So prove you're here by choice, not guilt. Look me in the eye and tell me you love me mom."

Valka wanted to. Gods, she wanted to. But the words stuck in her throat, knowing that what he heard would be a lie. The love he sought from her was not what she felt.

Because Valka loved him. Wholly, truly… sickeningly. Because she didn't love him as a mother should. Valka ached for him the way a young bride feared her betrothed never returning.

Valka wanted him. But she knew it was wrong. Knew he'd never understand. And she would take his righteous upset over her being gone for twenty years, but Valka would not burden Hiccup with the poisonous lust inside her.

"That's what I thought. Look. Stay on Berk if you want to, but if all you're here for is cus you think I need you… just go."

He leapt on his dragon, looking younger than Valka had ever seen him since infancy. And then he was gone, and Valka was wrapping her arms around herself, chilled air telling that tears had slid down her cheeks to all but freeze there now.

She turned to Cloudjumper, her closest friend for two decades now and pretty much all she had.

"What should I do?"

-HTTYD-

This one was super angsty aww.