Title: Smoke and Stitches

Summary: As a paramedic, Hiccup's life has been anything but normal. But he never thought he'd be the one needing an ambulance, until the night his apartment complex goes up in flames. At least the pretty firefighter was able to save most of him. -Modern AU-

Word Count: 4,139

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD

...

1. Smart and Strong

"You'll be alright," Hiccup told the distressed boy, fastening the ankle strap around his broken leg. "Cami, can I get a hand?"

"Got it," she said. "Sorry honey, this is gonna sting." The EMT's gloved hands carefully prodded at the boy's leg as Hiccup fastened the straps of the traction brace as quickly as he could. Gustav only let out a small whimper, too overwhelmed with pain for a reaction any more complex. "That's it."

The ambulance drove into the drop-off lane of the hospital and the back doors flew open. The group of nurses waiting for their arrival helped the two medics lower the gurney out of the truck and onto the sidewalk.

"What's the verdict?" one of the nurses, Heather, asked.

"Gustav Larson, seven years old. Got a nasty compound fracture in his tibia bone. We applied a traction splint to hold it. No signs of concussion or instability. No medications." Hiccup ran through the list in his head as he helped push the gurney, not waiting for Heather to ask the questions individually. At this point it was all out of habit.

"Then we'll rush him off to x-rays," Heather decided. "Thank's Hic!"

"Just doing my job," he said limply, letting go of the gurney when they reached the lobby. He dazedly watched the nurses cart the boy down the hall, the complete twenty-four hours without sleep finally catching up to him. Honestly, he'd had that job for over four years, and he still wasn't used to how tiring it was. What's worse, most of the calls Hiccup answered were for stomach aches and the flu instead of actual injuries; in fact, Gustav was the first broken bone he'd treated all day, and even then they're rarely that common. While the citizens of Berk are very accident prone while fulfilling their 'brawn before brains' sort of lifestyle and tend to find themselves in bodily harmful situations more commonly than the average folk, you'd be surprised to find what could sneak into even the strongest immune system. Dare he mention the chicken pox epidemic of '07, affectionately named the Eel Pox for how it unpleasantly slithered into the town and graced itself upon a good three-quarters of the population, possibly even more. Even Hiccup's father, 'Stoick the Vast', great mayor of Berk, had gotten fairly ill. But, of course, it didn't take long for Berk to plow through the vomiting and hallucinations and soon everyone was cured. Luckily there were little to no deaths, which was great, except that also included Mildew, so it wasn't all that great anymore.

"Mmph," Cami moaned, leaning against her partner. Her blond hair was out of the messy ponytail required for her job and instead hung haphazardly over her shoulders. "What time is it?"

"Five a.m.," Hiccup yawned. "Shift's over."

Cami gave what sounded like a groggy whoop of celebration, but Hiccup found it getting rapidly harder and harder to stay awake, so he used his remaining energy to haul himself and the girl using him as a human pillow to their office.

Hiccup slowly swung the door open, careful not to wake up the sleeping black labrador by the window. He lowered Cami down into her desk chair and walked over to the coffeemaker, determined to stay awake and finish the paperwork that had accumulated on his desk even if it killed him because he'd been holding it off for a couple of days and he promised himself that he would get it done today, and he had an unhealthy habit of a little something called 'procrastination' that wasn't going to stop itself.

The dog in the corner stirred, and Hiccup absentmindedly ran a hand through his dark fur. Technically, Hiccup had only owned Toothless for five years, but they'd known each other since four years before then, when Hiccup was only fourteen. Up until then, Hiccup had been a friendless, quiet, skinny boy who preferred reading to wrestling, which was an unpopular opinion to say the least. He'd spent the entirety of elementary school trying to get the other kids to like him- he drew them pictures, made small inventions, showed them his potential, but instead they gave him the cold shoulder and a nickname- Hiccup, courtesy of his very own cousin. If he couldn't even lift his nerdy textbooks without help, they didn't want anything to do with him- not even his own blood relative.

He stopped trying in middle school, when the teachers stopped caring how the students treated each other and the cool kids could beat him up. They stopped calling him Hiccup and just called him Useless- once again, courtesy of Snotlout- as if he was too much of a hiccup to even deserve a real name. They punched him and shoved him into lockers and puddles and poured food down his back and tore up his books and pictures and diagrams and told him he was useless and Hiccup learned what pain really was. He grew distant from his parents, stopped talking, kept his head down. He started eating his lunch in the library, where he could forget how much his heart hurt for forty minutes a day and just do whatever he wanted, which usually consisted of changing into his gym clothes and taping his papers back together while trying not to cry.

Middle school graduation couldn't have come sooner, and then it was summer vacation. He was going to be a freshman, and it was scary. He was going to seem even smaller compared to all of the hefty seniors that were sure to have sports scholarships in the bag by Christmas just for making the famous Berk Academy Football Team. Time and time again he'd heard that people stop being mean and start accepting people in high school, but you can't blame Hiccup for not believing that. Berkians had a hard time changing their minds in general, let alone overnight. And Hiccup wasn't even worth the trouble of being called a hiccup, let alone changing the pig-headed minds of his classmates.

High school also meant that Hiccup needed to start thinking about what career he wanted to pursue. When he was little, he wanted to be a firefighter, and there was still a part of him that wanted that. He wanted to make a difference- that much was clear with all of the inventing he did- but, more than anything, he wanted to save lives. He wanted to make an epic escape from a burning building with someone around his shoulders, someone whose life was on the line and was just saved by none other than Hiccup the Useless. He wanted to show that it was possible to be smart and strong at the same time, that there was no need to draw a line between the two. He wanted to show that he was small, but he was brave. He was kind, but he was relentless. He was different, but he was worth something.

...Alas, he needed to think realistically. He wouldn't even be able to save himself if there was a fire, let alone another human; he was so weak and clumsy he'd probably fall into the flames and burn to death before the victim was in any imminent harm.

And just thinking about that sort of discouraged Hiccup from wanting to do anything at all. His inventions were as weird and as useless as he was, his art skills were limited and maybe mediocre at best, and the knowledge suffused in his brain from all those tests and books could only get him so far. It didn't matter that Hiccup was only fourteen, because he was positive that he'd be in the same exact place by the time be graduated. And he'd be jobless, and useless, and that was that.

So you can't blame him for not looking forward to September.

It was a hot Summer day, much to the delight of the town. Such days were rare, when the temperature reached above eighty degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Seeing this, almost the entire town had packed up and trekked down to the beach for a day of tanning and swimming and bonfires and everything that Summer was supposed to be, but hard to be in such a cold and dreary place. Even Hiccup allowed his parents to drag him down to the shore, but only because if he was forced to look into his dad's upset stare or his mom's concerned gaze one more time that week, he was going to chop off a leg or something as equally drastic.

(His mom was practically giddy with excitement and his dad clapped him on the back so hard he couldn't breathe properly for a good two minutes, but he couldn't remember the time he'd seen them so happy, so he decided it was well worth it.)

They stayed at the beach for the whole day. Hiccup had kindly reclined his parents' invitation to go swimming, but Stoick and Valka were just so happy that their son actually willingly decided to come to care all that much, so they let Hiccup chill underneath the umbrella and eat ice cream while watching Ruffnut Thorston try to bury his cousin alive.

It was a good life.

But it wasn't even noon until Hiccup began to regret his decision to accompany his parents to the beach; his t-shirt was sticking uncomfortably against his skin and he wasn't about to take it off and give the entire world another reason to laugh at him; he'd long since run out of ice cream and he wasn't about to spend twenty dollars on the insanely over-priced, disgusting-excuse-for-ice-cream that the beach sold; even Ruffnut had quickly gotten disinterested in trying to murder Hiccup's cousin and ran off to beat up her twin instead, unfortunately allowing Snotlout to dig himself out of the ground and stumble over to a group of sophomore girls so he could try to lather tanning lotion on their backs. Utterly devastated, Hiccup decided to abandon his camp and walk along the line of trees near the back of the beach to make sure he didn't run into anybody he knew.

Surprisingly enough, the walk was actually very relaxing. No mean cousins, no worried parents, no fear of the future, just the bees, trees and the breeze to keep him company. Not a half an hour into the walk and Hiccup was on the verge of- God forbid- skipping. The exposure to so much sunlight must've really been getting to his head. Exercise was more dangerous than Hiccup thought.

But then, of course, Hiccup being Hiccup, he somehow managed to trip over thin air and fall flat on his face. Hiccup groaned and rolled over, back to his usual sour-puss self, and the universe was once again in balance. Too upset to get up, he just laid there for a few minutes, contenting himself by muttering about how much god must hate him. His musings were short lived, however, when he suddenly realized how wet the ground beneath him was. He sat up, thinking that with his luck he probably landed in a puddle of deer piss, when he realized, oh, no, it's blood, and it wasn't his.

Hiccup choked back a scream and scrambled to his feet, doing everything he could not to lose his lunch. Heavily breathing, Hiccup followed the trail of blood to the edge of a small cove, and that's when he spotted the pile of black fur at the edge of the pond, and that's when he realized it was a dead dog, and oh my god oh my god oh my god ohmygodohmygodohmygo-

And that's when the dog moved, and that's when Hiccup almost threw up with relief.

Hiccup stumbled down the hill at a record speed and sat at the dog's side. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a baby labrador, and amongst many cuts and missing patches of fur, his back left leg was completely mangled. There was no obvious evidence of how the puppy had gotten stuck in the middle of the woods with such injuries, but it seemed as though he'd been attacked by a larger animal and left alone to die. And then the puppy opened his sad, green eyes, and Hiccup's heart shattered in a way he never imagined it could.

Swallowing whatever little pride he had, Hiccup tore off his shirt, instantly deciding that this puppy's life was more important than worrying about flaunting his pale, scrawny, non-existent abs. After washing his shirt out in the small pond and wringing it out the best he could, he started tearing apart the cotton material to make makeshift bandages. By the time he was done wrapping up the injuries, it had been almost three hours since he left the beach, and Hiccup realized a) his parents must be terrified and b) he needed to rush this animal to the vet right now, so he lifted the puppy into his arms and ran like he had never run before.

His parents were insanely relieved when Hiccup emerged from the woods relatively unharmed, but their relief was short lived when they saw he was shirtless, smeared with blood, and holding a bloody ball of black fur. Hiccup quickly explained how he found the puppy in the middle of the woods and that they needed to rush to the vet before he died, which he surely would because . His mother agreed right away, but his dad kept a good distance from the dog- not that Hiccup could blame him. He was severely allergic, mind.

They stayed at the vet all night. Well, at least, Hiccup did- his dad couldn't breathe five minutes in, and around six o'clock his mom reluctantly left to take a shower under Hiccup's convincing, but promised to keep her phone on in case he wanted her to pick him up. It wasn't until eight-thirty that Hiccup was finally allowed to see the puppy, and he finally allowed himself to cry when he saw that they had to remove his bad leg.

Needless to say, it didn't take very long for the two to become close. Hiccup visited the vet every day and even started calling him Toothless due to how he would gently naw on Hiccup's sleeve as a sign of affection. The veterinarians told Hiccup to prepare for something to go wrong because the wounds were infected and took a drastic toll on his health and there's only so much that a three-month old puppy could take. But Hiccup brushed off their words with surprising ease, silently vouching that if he could survive middle school, this puppy could survive losing a limb. After that, Toothless only got strong, and soon enough he was healthy enough to move out of the vet.

That's when Toothless was shipped off to the pet store, and Hiccup begged his parents to let him take Toothless home. His dad refused right away and his mom gently explained that he knew they couldn't keep a pet because yes, the health of the immediate family comes before owning a pet. Regardless, Hiccup fought tooth and nail for the remainder of the Summer before ultimately giving up, because it was hopeless. Toothless was going to stay in the 'unwanted' section of the pet store, because apparently it's impossible for humans to ignore someone's exterior above all else. And Toothless would proceed to rot in his little cage for the rest of his childhood until he got sold to some creepy old lady with a three-legged dog fetish and Hiccup would be back to having no friends.

And Hiccup couldn't let that happen. For the first time in a long time, Hiccup was inspired to achieve something big, even if 'big' meant owning a limping puppy. And if Hiccup couldn't own Toothless, then he'd just have to do the next best thing.

Hiccup filed his job application to the pet store on the first day of school, which seemed sort of ironic, but looking back on it it was more like poetic justice. For the next four years of his life, Hiccup returned to the pet store every day, feeding the animals and restocking the shelves and watching as happy children were handed an animal that was now theirs to love and cherish and Hiccup was finally happy. He learned new things about Toothless, such as his inclination to roll in the grass for hours on end, or how he refused to play with any toy besides his squeaky fish. And Toothless learned things about Hiccup, such as how Hiccup liked him to sit in his lap whenever he was upset, or how Hiccup acted funny whenever Toothless decided to lick slobber all over his clothes.

Their friendship grew so strong that Hiccup was instilled with a newfound sense of courage, even when Toothless wasn't around to keep him brave. At school, Hiccup began to keep his head up and, slowly but surely, the bullying slowed to a stop. People began to smile and wave whenever he walked by, and Hiccup wasn't afraid to raise his hand in class or laugh whenever he fell down or eat lunch in the cafeteria because he was smart, and he was small, and he was different, and that was a thousand percent okay.

And then it was time for Hiccup to graduate, and Hiccup got up on the podium and gave his valedictorian speech, and his parents threw a party at their house and the entire class, alongside and their respective parents attended, and Hiccup was actually popular. Stoick gave a speech congratulating the class of 2010 and spoke about how he was so proud of his son, and everyone clapped for him, Hiccup the Useless, and he knew that he'd finally proved that he wasn't in fact useless. And then his parents found a moment to privately congratulate their son and hand him a check for three hundred dollars- more than enough money to buy Toothless and whatever supplies required to bring him home- before quickly explaining that they figured it would mean a lot to him if he could pick up Toothless himself. And when it was time for everyone to leave, people voluntarily came up to him to say goodbye and wish him luck and give him hugs- even Snotlout confessed "he'd miss his 'arch nemesis'"- and it was so easy to say that it was the best night of Hiccup's life.

But the best day of Hiccup's life wasn't until the morning after, when he woke up after a four-hour nap at nine a.m., the same time the pet store opened. He was so excited that he even considered running to the pet store, when he realized that no, that's not a good idea, he'd die before he reached the intersection, and instead clambered into his black Lexus before driving off.

When Hiccup burst through the doors of the pet store that day with a huge smile on his face, Gobber, Hiccup's manager, only needed to take one look at the boy's face before saying, "What, 'ave I got somethin' on ma face? Go get 'im!"

It took Hiccup a good two hours to pick out everything he needed, finding the perfect balance between completely spoiling and downright neglecting his pet, opting to lean further towards the former option on the spectrum. First he would pick out the essentials- cage, food, etc.- and then he would mollycoddle Toothless by letting him pick out whatever he wanted. Which, in the end, didn't go very well, seeming that Toothless was much too excited to go home with Hiccup to care about whichever toy he could own.

And then, all it took was a signature, and it was official. Toothless was his, and Hiccup was so happy he could've died.

Hiccup texted a picture of Toothless curled up in the back seat of his car to his parents, and his mom sent him back a text with thirty-seven happy face emojis and his dad just sent back a 'your welcome', and Hiccup couldn't figure out which one was funnier for the life of him. The two spent the entire day just driving around town, Toothless getting a real knack of sticking his head out the window and exploring the unfamiliar sensation of wind whipping through his fur as if he were a dragon spreading its wings for the first time. Hiccup made a mental note to take Toothless driving with him as often as he could.

Two months went by. Now that Hiccup finally had Toothless, he had come face to face with the next big problem he'd been putting off for a long time: college.

To be honest, despite being valedictorian, Hiccup wasn't very interested in the many 'prestigious schools' that he'd been accepted to. It wasn't like he was trying to be difficult, he was just so genuinely disinterested in getting some special degree that qualified him to get a fancy job with a large paycheck. By the end of the school year, he'd become certain that he didn't want to go to some fancy school and become a lawyer or a scientist or something as equally unappealing. He wanted an adventure, and he wanted to help people, and he wanted to do it with Toothless by his side- and that was something he just couldn't do if he spent four years fifty thousand miles away from home.

To say Hiccup's parents were shaken by this statement would be an understatement. His dad began to angrily explain that he was giving up countless amazing opportunities that weren't to be taken so lightly, and opting out of important schooling wasn't an option under any circumstances. His mom, on the other hand, though disagreeing at first, eventually took his proclamation with a grain of salt and told Hiccup that if this was what he wanted one hundred percent, then she would support his decision. Eventually Stoick came around, mind slightly grudgingly, but he couldn't stay mad at Hiccup for wanting to follow his heart.

And follow his heart he did. Well, at least, he would have, if he had any idea what his heart was telling him.

But he had to start somewhere, so Hiccup packed up his and Toothless' belongings and headed to the city, more popularly known as Dragon's Edge. He'd known that they'd needed to move out soon anyway, for if he'd stayed one second longer his eardrums would've exploded from the volume of his father's sneezing. But that didn't make it any easier to see his parents go. His mother cried and his father looked like he wanted to, which was sort of unnerving- okay, really unnerving- but nonetheless touching, and he promised them and himself that he would call them whenever time permitted, which was hopefully often. And then, he was off, and his adventure had begun.

Ironically enough, it actually didn't take very long at all for Hiccup to figure out a profession that interested him. He was out walking Toothless on his second night in the city, deciding he could put off unpacking boxes for a little longer, when it just hit him- literally. Or almost literally, if Toothless hadn't had the chivalry to yank him out of the way before the white mass of flashing lights and wailing sirens sped around the corner. He stood there for a few minutes afterwards, dazed, and then there was an epiphany, and one and a half weeks later Hiccup was taking online EMT-B classes. Two and a half years later, Hiccup was a full-fledged paramedic, helping people like he'd always hoped he would. Even Toothless had gotten a job as the hospital's honorary Volunteer Dog, cheering up patients young and old alike.

Toothless let out a contented dog-sigh and rolled over in his sleep. The coffeemaker dinged and Hiccup filled up his mug with the sweet, caffeinated reliever before taking a long sip. He sank down into his chair and plugged in his headphones to drown out Cami's light snoring coming from across the room (not that it was that bad; his father was Stoick the Vast after all) before turning to the ever-dreaded paperwork that he needed to file.

And even though it took Hiccup until the sun rose for him to complete his paperwork, and even though Heather confiscated the coffeemaker after his fifth pot to save him from an oncoming heart attack, and even though he had to wake a grumpy Toothless from his slumber so he could carry Cami to the car and drive her back home...

He couldn't help but feel that his life was perfect in its own imperfect style, and he honestly wouldn't have it any other way.

Just a cute idea I thought I'd share. TBC.

Next Chapter: We get a little look at things from Astrid's point of view.