Low Blow

A/N: So, my friend, RazzlePazzleDooDot, convinced me to write this. It was originally a head canon by jackthevulture, I think, but RazPaz really liked it, expanded on it, and said she wanted me to write it, so here it is. It went really OOC and fluffy towards the end and it's really not my best work but I gave it a shot and this is how it turned out, so yeah.

The Haddock household was relatively quiet, peaceful and full of sunshine, the early morning atmosphere still pervading. Stoick the Vast sat hunched over a pile of old-looking papers, shifting through them, a leather-bound book with 'DRAGON' in Norse runes on the cover. The reason for this temporary peace was because, of the two inhabitants of the house, only one of them was awake, and his work was momentarily rather quiet, if exhausting. The chieftain's teenage son, Hiccup, still lay sleeping upstairs in his bedroom, but that didn't matter so much to the man: his child had been resting more and more often ever since he'd lost his leg, but he was also doing so much work around the village lately, getting people accustomed to dragons, that he deserved a bit more sleep.

The moment this thought occurred, however, Stoick heard the familiar 'step, clunk' of the boy's new prosthetic that signaled he had woken and risen from the bed and was making his painful way downstairs. It took him rather a long time to reach the kitchen, but Stoick beat back his urge to go up and carry his tiny son to the table; if the boy didn't start walking again as soon as possible, he was never going to get any practice, and he was never going to relearn to walk.

But then, he was putting too much pressure on himself, Stoick mused disapprovingly, watching as the boy winced and stumbled his way into the kitchen, leaning heavily on his dragon. The chieftain knew that the dragon was the reason his son was still standing there at all, maybe a bit less of him than before, but still solidly there, yet he couldn't help it; his hatred of the creatures still ran too deep for him to let it go in a week.

He shifted his papers irritably again, knowing that he shouldn't be so hesitant on giving the order as to what to do, but he couldn't help it; above all, he wanted his son's safety ensured, and he knew that was not going to happen. The irrational part of him wanted nothing more than to put Hiccup on house arrest for the week, but—

"G'morning," Hiccup mumbled blearily, collapsing, exhausted, into a chair across from his father.

"Good afternoon," Stoick replied without looking up from his work. Ironically, the problem he was currently poring over had to do with his son. He discarded another piece of paper.

"Afternoon?" Hiccup's sleepy green eyes widened and he glanced quickly out the nearest window. "I've been sleeping that late?"

"It's fine," Stoick muttered impatiently, "you need your rest…"

"What are you working on?" Hiccup interrupted, scooting closer to the table to get a good look.

"Just chief things," Stoick responded vaguely, instinctively turning a piece of paper over so only the white showed when Hiccup tried to get a look.

"Is it anything I can help with?"

Stoick rubbed his temples tiredly, considering the matter, and shook his head. "No, no, it's not anything…well, actually," he changed his mind mid-sentence, "actually, it is something you can help me with."

Hiccup sat up a little straighter in his chair, feeling a sudden burst of pride as he realized his father was actually speaking to him about something as important as his chiefly duties. "Yes?"

"Read this," Stoick shoved the piece of paper he had overturned towards his son, flipping it over again so it faced the right way. "Tell me what you think."

Stoick the Vast, the page began,

We've heard recent news of the island of Berk, and we're pleased, yet confused by one bit of news traveling like wildfire through the Archipelago: it appears that you have a boy called 'The Dragon Conqueror' upon your islands, and incredibly, he has made the attacks by dragon upon your lands discontinue. We are, of course, delighted, but curious: can you confirm whether this is mere rumor, or if it is actually true? As you know, the peace treaty between our tribes still stands, and we are traveling down to Berk in ten days to renew it. We hope, if our sources are to be trusted, that we will be able to meet your fabled "Dragon Conqueror". We will be seeing you in ten days' time.

- Mogadon the Meathead, chief of the Meathead Tribe

Hiccup, having just woken up, took in hardly a word of the letter the first time he read it, and the second time, only certain phrases and fragmented words jumped out at him; he did, however, get the gist and handed it back to his father. "So, what do you want me to do? Meet him?"

"No," Stoick shook his head vehemently. "That's the problem. They say they're coming here in peace, but reading between the lines, I'm betting they're prepared to change that if I don't let them see you. And if I do let them see you, I'm prepared for them wanting you for their own. That's why they're coming, that's the real reason. Hiccup, I think they want you, and I think they want you to solve their dragon problems for them."

"What's the problem with that?" Hiccup raised his eyebrows, clearly not understanding. "I show them how to train a dragon while they're down here, they renew the peace treaty and then they leave. Is that so wrong?"

"That's very wrong," Stoick snapped, swiping at his tired eyes to cure the blurriness. "You don't understand, Hiccup – if they see you, they'll regard you as a threat once they see the level of supposed power you have over dragons. They won't want to let you go."

"But," Hiccup offered, "but if they saw that they could have the same bond that I do with Toothless, surely they wouldn't—?"

"Yes, they would." Stoick spaced out each word carefully so even a half-awake Hiccup could understand. "Vikings don't do things peacefully, Hiccup – it'll turn to war before you can even say 'let me show you'!"

Hiccup flinched slightly when his father rose his voice, but otherwise gave no sign that Stoick raising his voice had upset him. "But once they saw me – I mean, look at me! – it'd be clear I was no threat, right?"

"The Meathead tribe doesn't think like that!" Stoick snapped. "Everybody is a threat in their heads, Hiccup! They're the most paranoid Vikings—

"No, but…but listen!" Hiccup interrupted, wishing he could take to his feet but feeling certain that the moment he did, pain would explode in his stump. "If you don't allow them to meet me, they'll see this as an act of war, and they'll declare war on us! We don't want that, we need to prevent it! So, why don't we just calmly introduce me, show that I'm no threat—

"I don't want you to put yourself in danger! You nearly died just three weeks ago and you're already up and about again! You're not getting in circumstances like that again, Hiccup—

"Oh, yeah, because the Meathead Tribe is totally a gigantic, nightmarish dragon queen," the teen began sarcastically, but his father shot him such an ugly look that he deemed it best not to continue.

"You don't understand, you'll never understand the way real Vikings think!"

"Real Vikings don't think!" Hiccup didn't even consider the words; he just blindly tossed them out there, upset about the emphasis put on 'real', making his father draw back as if he had been slapped.

"This conversation is over," Stoick was instantly in chief mode again, cloaking his feelings and picking up his papers, shuffling them unnecessarily and making as if to stride from the room.

"So that's it then, you're just going to get us involved in a war when we finally made peace—

"This is not your decision! I'm the chief, it's my job to make the final call on anything!"

"Well, your final call in this situation could get tons of people killed, and could destroy the peace we've harbored with the Meatheads for what, thirty years now? That isn't very smart!"

"This is not your decision!" Stoick drew closer to his son's chair, towering over the small boy. "In the end, it is mine! You're too young to understand and you're not a leader! You follow my orders!"

"Because the times I did really helped!"

"What times did you ever listen to me? You can't follow orders to save your life!"

"I'm not the one putting my whole island at risk right now!"

"These are matters for the chief to deal with, and the chief alone!"

"Well, you're doing a pretty shitty job!"

"I will not be spoken to like that!"

"You won't be spoken to like anything when it involves me, will you?" Hiccup was barely aware anymore of the words that tumbled off his tongue; all he knew was that the gates that had separated the okay subjects from the not okay subjects had just been unlocked, and they were both attacking every inch of each other's flaws.

"What does that mean?" Stoick demanded angrily.

"Nothing," Hiccup responded, in a voice dripping with acid, yet he had fallen eerily quiet. "Only, remember that time when you disowned me and took away everything I had, and I lost a foot fixing your mistake?"

For a moment, they both stood, frozen, the origin of their fight quite forgotten, standing staring at each other. Hiccup's hand flew to his mouth, exploring his lips as if he wasn't sure whether he had really uttered those words or not.

The chieftain stood speechless, not just uncertain on how to respond, but unable to so much as move his lips. He had apologized for his mistake, asked Hiccup for forgiveness, though he knew he deserved it very little. To his intense surprise, his son had not only accepted his apology and forgiven him completely, but apologized in return as well for everything that he had done wrong on that day. Hiccup had flown off on Toothless, then, defeated the dragon queen and fallen into the flames, making everyone think he was dead, including his dragon.

Thank the gods, he had survived, but at a terrible price: his foot was gone, and there was only a bloodied, shriveled-looking stump in its place now, burning bright pink, red and slightly black from being scorched by the flames and receiving third-degree burns. But father and son, ever since that day, had gotten along better, and never spoken of the fight that had finally brought everything out into the open. Stoick, like everyone else, had assumed that Hiccup was simply over it; by nature, he was a forgiving person, and he displayed this nature that day.

But the awful words hung suspended in the air, waiting for a response, for Stoick to counter with something even worse. But he simply couldn't. To his surprise, he realized that his son's green eyes were filling with tears. Hiccup stood from his chair, wincing a little at the sudden pressure on his leg, but he bolted unsteadily from the room, clunking and tripping and stumbling the whole way, the first time he had run since it had happened.

And still, Stoick remained frozen in place, unable to move an inch in any direction, still barely able to process the words. For a few moments, he stood there, gazing unseeingly into space, the thoughts whirling through his mind dark and filled with guilt. Hiccup had every right to be angry with him, every right to be furious…he had disowned him, rejected him, and yet the boy had still come to their aid and lost a physical part of himself trying to right the chieftain's wrong. Toothless, meanwhile, darted out after Hiccup, but not before throwing Stoick a very dirty look.

At last, the man mastered himself, felt as if he fully grasped what had just happened, and ran from the room after the boy and the dragon, determined to fix his own mistake this time. "Hiccup! Wait!"

The boy was not getting very far on a tender stump of a leg, but at the sound of Stoick's voice, he put on a rather feeble burst of speed, heading for the trees of Raven's Point Forest, which were closer, instead of the village streets.

"Son," Stoick called weakly, continuing the chase and overtaking him as they reached the edge of the forest. Hiccup tried to keep running, but Stoick held tight to the arm he had managed to grab, collapsing on the ground and tugging his son into his lap. Hiccup wouldn't look at the chieftain, staring down at his prosthetic as though it were the most fascinating thing ever.

"I'm sorry," Stoick whispered, feeling the crushing guilt consume him once more.

Hiccup refused to meet his eye. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, it was…I mean, it was a complete overreaction—

"Listen." The simple word made the boy pause mid-sentence, looking up at his father as if afraid of what the man would say. "If anybody should be feeling guilty, it should be me. I'm the one who did everything wrong – I disowned you and I rejected you. To make things worse, I made such an awful mistake that you had to come fix it. You were forced to fight a man's battle, even though you're just a boy, and the worst part is, I forced you to do that. I had no idea that what I'd done would have such dire consequences on you, but it doesn't excuse me at all."

Stoick cradled his son gently, trying to force his chin upward so they had to meet gazes. Hiccup's green eyes still flicked restlessly around, resting on tree trunks and moss, anywhere but at the man in front of him. "I…I…" And then, to his surprise, shock, and complete embarrassment, instead of making a wonderful argument and apology at the same time, as he had been planning to do, he burst into tears, streaming down his cheeks and pouring down his chin. He tried weakly to wipe them off, but Stoick pulled him into a tight hug, ruffling his hair gently and kissing the top of his head, whispering apologies as he did so.

"I'm s-sorry," Ironically, he gave a slight hiccup as he tried to talk through his tears, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, his voice slightly muffled due to the fact that he was crushed against his father's chest. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say it, it just slipped out and I know it's stupid to be crying about it, but…"

"You haven't done anything wrong." Stoick whispered, reluctantly pulling away to let his son breathe.

"I didn't even realize…" Hiccup sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve now. "I didn't even r-realize that I was still upset about it, I mean…b-burying it worked when Astrid and the others apologized, I d-don't understand why it's not working now, but it's not, it just hurts worse than anything…"

Toothless lurked on the edge of the scene, glaring at Stoick as he wrapped his wings around the boy, as if he'd very much like to steal his rider away then and there and run off with him, but was barely resisting.

For what self-control the dragon was showing, Stoick was grateful. He needed to talk to Hiccup now, when the boy wasn't hiding behind a smile and didn't have the option to run away. "Why didn't you just talk to me?" The chieftain demanded gently of his son as he studied the freckled, tearstained countenance.

"You never listen…" And then Hiccup fell into another round of sobs, but he wasn't shying away from his father anymore; he was crying freely into the man's shoulder. "And I knew talking about it w-would only upset you, so I tr-tried not to, I really did…"

"Look at me." Stoick took careful hold of the boy's chin, reminding himself that Hiccup was weaker than he, and not to touch him too roughly. "You will only upset me more by hiding your feelings and thinking that you can't run to me. I want you to come to me when you're feeling like this, I want you to open up to me."

"What's the point?" Hiccup sobbed.

"The point is so that something like this – and here Stoick paused to gesture, not just to his son, but to himself as well – "doesn't happen again! So we don't get into a shouting match just because we don't talk about anything!"

"I…I didn't know if you'd care," the boy whispered brokenly, wiping a stray tear off his chin. "I didn't realize that you'd actually care whether or not I was still upset, I mean, I just thought…if we didn't talk about it, it would go away. And I only made it w-worse, I'm sorry—

"Stop apologizing," Stoick ordered him softly, brushing his tear-stained bangs away from his forehead. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"Then why does it feel like I have?"

"Because," Stoick began heavily, "because we've never said a word before when we're upset with the other. But I want that to change."

Hiccup pulled uncertainly away from his father, wiping at his streaming eyes and glancing up at him, unsure.

"I want you to talk to me now when you need to. I don't ever want you to think that you can't talk to me, because you can."

"But I've never been able to before!" For a moment, Hiccup was frightened he would start crying again, but he forced the tears back. "Before I was the hero of Berk and everything, before you loved me or whatever, you were always—

"Before I loved you?"

"Um…well…I mean…you didn't…you didn't love me before, right?"

Stoick felt something within him break off, shatter into a million pieces as he gazed down at his tiny son's tears, still running down the freckled and flushed cheeks because of him. "I always loved you. I've loved you for as long as you've lived, even before. I loved you before you were born, son. And I loved you after. And…" and here Stoick thought about avoiding his son's eyes, because the two of them had honestly never uttered the words since the day Hiccup had turned ten, but he forced himself to hold the boy's gaze, "…and I still love you, and I'll love you always, I'll love you forever. Nothing could make me stop loving you, I promise. Nothing in the world."

Hiccup gave a small sniff, took another savage swipe at the stubborn tears and whispered tremulously, "I love you, too."