Even though it's not complete. I'm stupidly happy this one exists. I reread it often, edit a sentence, and then leave.
Hiccup was a young plane and car mechanic for the HUGE company his father owns: Berk Plane and Travel, or BPT. After a close call with him and a closed call for his mom, Stoick stopped being...around. Hiccup's boss, the best friend of his father and an uncle figure who goes by 'Gobber' and who has also never told the youngster his real name, basically took the lad in and raised him from that low age of four. Stoick started badgering his son unintentionally looking for something 'great' in him, but only got 'great' disappointment time and again.
Stoick didn't know he should have only needed wait until the boy was fourteen, almost fifteen; the date a week and a half before the next birthday: February 29/28, as well as three weeks before Stoick was forced to give up something he never even really had.
Hiccup is working on a car that came in the other day when it decides to almost fall on him. Luckily, Gobber is berating him when he apparently forgot to make lunch this morning. Hiccup sits up, and opens his mouth to tell off his Uncle. He doesn't get to, because Gobber's face turns horrified and shouts silently; because metal screeching on metal was the only thing Hiccup can hear. The boy ducks down quickly, and stares at his feet through prescription goggled, squinting eyes. The noise stops, and he uncurls slowly to look behind him.
His gaze flicks around to Gobber, who was scrambling over quickly, and asks the older man, "W-what? How did-did THAT happen?"
"I saw it go out; it was a blimin' chain link... Hoh...boy, laddeh, Toothpick, are ye alrigh'?"
"Y...eah," he puffs air at his bangs before running his hands through the same bangs and hair he can reach around the goggles while he glances to the relatively fine car, "just, rattled. ...Can we not do anything else with elevations for the day? I don't want to get any smaller than I already am."
"Definitely," the large, double amputee chuckles. The blonde pulls the amber to his feet, "How d' yeh make such diar situations so funny? 's unnatural."
"I live with you, work with you, and deal with Dad three times a month," he replied as he took off the goggles and set them down on the nearest, elevated, flat surface.
"Ah, truth. Didn' even know yeh had it in yah, eh?"
"We find surprises embedded inside e'ery day; even when they come out of your back-end."
"Oi. No."
"You started it."
"Ah did, but we've been workin' on not rebuttin', 'ave we not?"
"Haaahhhuuuhhhh. Shush."
"Nope. Keep wit' t'e program; you know tha's comple'ely impossible."
"That. Is why there is a word: apathetic. In this case, it means: I don't care."
"You think I don' rememba ya readin' dictionaries ta me for two yea's. I tolerate ya, but really: You, good 'sir,' 're a Nerd t' th' fullest extent."
"Admittance."
"Supported tenfold."
"Half accepted-too many forces to cajole."
"Okay, now wer' gettin' carried away." Gobber starts back on the argument they were on before the car fell, "Why didn' yeh make lunch?"
"Gobber, I DID! I know it! I haven't forgotten in about four years!" Hiccup sighs, "I'm gonna see if I can find it."
They walk into the moderate break room at the back of the shop garage where Hiccup immediately strides over to where he would place the 'dry' food, only to find the space empty. He steps over to the refrigerator and checks the space reserved for the day's 'cold' food by the few two liter drinks already there; he even checks the freezer above the lower portion of the 'bloody freezin' ice box' to find only his microwavable pizza pockets and fudgesicles by Gobber's microwavable burritos and banana popsicles. The boy shakes his head, puzzled, and looks over the areas once more.
Still finding nothing, he starts talking to Gobber, "I did make it. We were gonna have beef-n-chicken taco salad with a side of some butter bread and now it's... Wait." Hiccup goes to the stove and steps onto the bottom drawer handle lightly. Then, he pulls himself to his knees on the counter by the under-ledge of the cabinets to get to the tupperware near the top of the middle door. Not finding what he was looking for, the teen sits on the counter to tell his Uncle what his thoughts are: "The tupperware I used is gone too. So, I had to have made it, and it must've walked off."
"Who d' yeh think took it? We only 'ad the one bloke come by... Oh. Neva mind."
"Uh-huh. Told ya before he even came in." Hiccup said blandly, and rolled his eyes at the all too familiar 'oops' expression passing on Gobber's face every time he realizes he ignored something Hiccup points out.
"Well, let's go buy somethin' from down th' street."
"Pizza and ice cream! Bad stuff!" Hiccup offers, and then tacks on one more word: "Please?"
"Whateva, ya little stick."
"Yeh-hes!"
On the way down the 'street' by foot, they find themselves under a sheet of rain. Ducking under overhangs the rest of the way there and most likely on the way back, they make it to the adjoining airport's roofed food court, and are pleased to find themselves only a bit drenched. The place's pizza joint is small but the general manager has been there for seven years, and most of the small staff knows them as well. This means as soon as they're spotted, the cashier signals to them, finishes the current customer transaction, then shouts back to the cooks,
"Hey, the Smithies're here today! You know what they'll need!"
"Okay!" the response comes, "One pizza, half o' it extra-cheese, sausage, garlic, an' bacon; the other pepperoni, bells, mushrooms, an' ham!
A new voice joins in, "Y'all don't usually come 'till right before dinner rush. What y' doin' today?"
"Th' Twins decided teh snoop today," Gobber supplies, "and snitched our lunch."
"The Twins from the old daycare group?" William, the manager, steps out into the open.
"More like a dumb, jump-scare-horror-movie-bully group, but y' know," Hiccup mutters, "I was looking forward that taco meat. Smelled good."
"Well men, we've got this one on the house if y' come back later 'r tomorrow?"
"What? Why?" Hiccup asks before Gobber was able to even start his own denial.
"Y' guys only take one pizza and I know y' don't make THAT much... Besides, this will only be the fourteenth in the seven years I've been here!"
"Those ah good reasons, 'iccup. They make more remakes fo' people than we've ever even eaten in two weeks alone."
Hiccup stays silent and stares determinedly at the counter when the pizza became ready. The two older men wait for his response calmly as the cooks in the back box up the pizza.
Hiccup finally relents after a another beat when he sees a customer walk up behind them, "Fine."
He takes the box and begins to walk the other side of the food court, calling back over his shoulder, but not really looking back, "I hate you, William! Just letting you know!"
"Yep! More than you know!"
Hiccup arrives at the Marble Slab & American Cookies shop when he realizes Gobber is a good bit further behind him...carrying a box of garlic bread sticks. That is what William had meant by 'more than you know.'
"He didn't!"
"Yes, yes he did, Hiccup. The customa before us didnae 'ave enough money for 'em, so he would 'ave had to 'ave thrown it away anyway."
"...That's...not too bad. Glad he didn't waste it; just wish he'd give it to someone else."
"Jus' take it, stick, so I c'n pay."
Hiccup does, and waits for the new cashier-in-training to get step-by-stepped through the order before them by talking to a shift manager they see often. Gobber, who had finished thinking out whatever mess he was getting, finally interrupts the quiet to order; he tries to vary his choices, meaning his usually looks like a mess. It now being Hiccup's turn, he ran through my very carefully developed, personal combos: did he want a Lotta Chocolate, Sick Sweet, Bite Cookies, or his Mix. He just went on ahead with what he'd thought earlier about wanting something sweet, and the Sick Sweet is made in a medium bowl so the boy could maybe save it for another time. That was not going to be the case this time around, he figured, and they walk to and sit down in the unoccupied entertainment/presentation room in the Main Operations Station. The only time it's ever really used, is for BIG meetings or when us 'Smithies' come by. Between eating and not-really-watching the television on the presentation wall, they talk animatedly.
After our lunch, we scramble back through the overhangs to the shop and laze around a bit before getting back to work. Gobber declares then that after the scare before lunch, I am done with the big stuff until he can fix the lift and check all the chains. Heading over to my work table, I pick up the first thing my hand touches and begin to fiddle and fix. We continue like this for several hours as Gobber contends himself to checking and rechecking each and every link on the chains while I fix parts that go into the bigger things before the man calls in the night.
The walk to the quadrupled apartment is sans words but permeated by the two taking turns whistling tunes they knew until they messed up. Gobber, with no family anywhere near [this place], lives with me-and I suppose my Dad as well, who basically lives out in his skytop office, so excuse the slip up. The fourth room would have been for a second child had my mother not been killed. It then would have been rented out if Gobber and I-mostly me-hadn't gotten to it first. I slaved away, slept away, read away, and occasionally sang away my time in this messy, office-d, inventor's, work room.