Hiccup is just three years old when his timer runs out.
The thing about soulmate timers is that they don't register when you meet your soulmate, but when you see them. In an ideal situation, you and your soulmate lock eyes from across a crowded room, then look down at your timers, realize that they've hit zero, and weave your way through the masses of people around you in slow-motion until you're standing in front of one another and seeing the world as if it's new because you've found your true love. It doesn't usually work out like that, though. Half the time you're staring at a huge group of people, nervously glancing down at your timer every other second because it's about to run out, and then suddenly it's hit zero and you're still not sure who you were looking at when it did and you start freaking out because you're afraid you've lost your shot. Most of the time you haven't, but sometimes you never do find whoever it was in the area that you would have fallen for. You don't get a redo. Some people live the rest of their lives with a zeroed out timer and nothing to show for it.
That's the worst thing that can happen to you, really. Some babies are born with zeroed out timers. It's illegal to look at another person's timer without their express permission - they have little covers that you're supposed to put on them and everything - except for the day that you're born. The doctor looks at it to make sure it's not zeroed out, and if it is he goes to your parents with that solemn doctor tone of his and gives them the awful news. It's every parent's worst nightmare, really, because statistics show that over seventy five percent of children born with zeroed out timers end up committing suicide during their late teens or early adulthood. It's hard growing up knowing you'll never find happiness.
Hiccup's never had that problem, though. He's born with his timer reading 3 years, 7 months, 26 days, 8 hours, and 52 seconds. He doesn't know it, but when the doctor takes the mandatory look at his watch he says aloud, "Lucky bastard." He's forty two and still has a year to go before his timer clocks out.
Hiccup really, really likes having a timer so close to being zeroed. His mother doesn't know how close he is, no one but that one doctor does, but she tells him stories about how she met his father and they get him so excited because his parents love each other and that's going to be him one day. He loves the story of how his mom and dad met.
She'd been walking down the street back to her apartment at nine o'clock at night, and her timer had had a minute left. She'd been on the verge of stopping at a grocery store or some other place with potential soulmates when this guy had come out of nowhere and tried to mug her. His mother always laughingly tells him that, for one delirious moment, she'd thought that guy was her soulmate, but as she'd been reaching for her purse for her pepper spray some random redhead with a crazy beard had tackled the guy to the ground. She was so surprised that when her savior got up she shot him in the face with her pepper spray, then spent the next five minutes apologizing and trying ease his stinging eyes by wiping them with tissues (his father always insists that she'd just rubbed it in and made it ten times worse). It wasn't until she'd been blushingly packing up her belongings that they'd looked at each other, then down at their watches, and realized that their timers were zeroed. They'd stood there for a moment, gaping and disbelieving, and then Stoick had asked Valka out for coffee and the rest had been history. ("See, son, a little - okay, fine, dear, a lot - spunk in a woman is what you need!")
Hiccup personally hopes that his own soulmate meeting goes down with a little more smoothness and a lot less pepper spray, but he'll take it any way he can get it. His only problem is that he's three years old and isn't awesome with numbers or attention spans or realizing that on the day of your soulmate timer's final countdown, you're supposed to glance at it every three seconds to make sure you pinpoint the moment when you see your true love. But he's three and naive, and when he wakes up that morning and sees he's got only hours left until he meets her, he's excited but he's not nervous. He doesn't even think about looking down at it again, because she's his soulmate and surely he'll know her when he sees her. That's common sense.
His mother takes him the the park that day. He plays on the jungle gym with a girl named Heather, envies the limber girl on the monkey bars who he's pretty sure is showing off for his benefit, watches a scary blonde girl beat up a guy for stealing her swing, and makes sand castles within the general vicinity of a black-haired girl in overalls. None of them strike a chord with him, so when he clambers into the backseat a few hours later he figures that they'll stop at the store or something soon and he'll meet her there. But then he looks down at his watch and it's zeroed.
It's zeroed.
He immediately starts screaming at his mom to turn around, and he's usually a very quiet and well-tempered kid so she's understandably concerned. Then he starts saying my time is up my time is up over and over and she realizes it, so they drive back even though it's no use. They'd stayed late, and all the girls he'd seen had left before they had. They're long gone, and he's dejected.
Stupid Hiccup.
He hears his parents talking about it in hushed tones that night, and his dad comes in his room after he's tucked in bed to talk to him. His bright red beard looks like fire in the dark, and usually that amuses him but not tonight. He rolls over so that his face is smooshed into his pillow and doesn't say anything.
"Son," his dad starts, then sighs. His dad is an awesome guy, the kind of guy who you can tell loves his family more than anything just by looking at him, but he sucks with words. Like, really sucks. He asked Valka to marry him through a text message. "Son... it's not the end of the world."
"It's zeroed," Hiccup says, his voice muffled by his pillow. He's glad, because then maybe his dad won't be able to tell he's crying. He is a Haddock! Haddocks don't cry.
"Maybe hers isn't. Maybe she'll find you."
"Maybe she won't."
"Hiccup..." He can't see his dad, but he can feel him grasping the air as if that will somehow help him find his words. Hiccup gets that. He does that, too. "I understand... that you're upset. But... your mother and I love you very much, and even if you never find your soulmate - which I'm sure you will, really! - you'll still have us. Always. Son..." He can tell that his dad wants to say more, but the man is so verbally and emotionally constipated that it's really not going to happen. And if it does, it'll be painfully awkward for the both of them.
"It's okay, Dad," he says, and even sort of means it. "It'll turn out okay."
"That's a good man," Stoick says, with an unmistakable air of relief, and leans over the bed to cuff his son on the shoulder. The ow Hiccup mutters is more obligatory than indignant, and maybe his dad realizes it because the giant hand he rests on Hiccup's head is surprisingly gentle. "Don't worry about it, alright?"
"Alright."
"Alright!" He ruffles his son's hair and claps his palms together, then exits the room (but not before knocking over his son's toy box and nearly his dresser). Hiccup thinks he'd have an easier time falling asleep if he couldn't still hear his parents whispering out in the living room about what they seem to have dubbed 'the issue', but he manages it eventually. And then he dreams of blue eyes and a beautiful smile and maybe even some sort of invention that he can use to reprogram his timer and get a second chance.
... ... ...
Hiccup is just ten years old when he takes apart his soulmate timer.
It's not that it's exactly unheard of - there're a few research facilities across the world full of people trying to figure out how the Hel the timers work - it's just... unusual. The timers are gifts from the gods. You are born with a timer, and it is a part of you, and taking it off and examining it is like cutting off one of your fingers. Yeah, people take off their timers to check the back or to look at them more closely, but taking a timer apart is just... well, it's not normal.
But then, Hiccup's never been normal, so he takes it apart. He knows it's controversial and his parents would totally freak out if they saw him doing it, so he locks his door and barricades it with his desk chair as an extra precaution (not that it really matters because his dad could still break it down in his sleep if he wanted to). Then he situates himself comfortably on his bed and, with trembling hands, removes his timer for the first time ever.
It shouldn't be that big of a deal, really. Lots of people take of their timers, but only after they're with their soulmates. Soulmates fill the void that your timer leaves when you take it off, so it's okay. It's kind of a thing, really. People take them off and either put them somewhere for safe keeping or fasten them to a chain and hang them around their necks. Sometimes people with zeroed out timers chuck them into the ocean or some other place where they'll never haunt them with their emptiness again, but that means they've given up hope. Hiccup is different. He hasn't given up hope and he isn't with his soulmate, he's just a ten year old boy who's trying to get his timer to start ticking again.
His timer is a silver watch that's so light he can barely feel it. It's on his left wrist, which is relatively uncommon but not a huge deal, and it's got five different sections - for years, months, days, hours, and seconds. They all read zero. He's going to fix that.
He turns it around and looks at the back. There's nothing there, which disappoints him, because he'd been hoping for some sort of instruction manual for finding his soulmate. Words appear on the back of your soulmate timer when you need them the most, and they stay there forever - Hiccup needs some help right now, like maybe a map or a description or a name. But the words don't work like that.
They're always just sayings, usually from books or plays or even movies. Usually they're general knowledge or vague proverbs, but apparently they always work. Apparently they're foolproof.
Because knowing who your soulmate is doesn't necessarily mean smooth sailing. Stoick and Valka had fought for months after they first met each other (they still do, but it's nicer now), and they really had loved each other already but they also couldn't seem to quite get along. According to Valka, she'd walked out and was storming down the street when her wrist had burned. She'd known it was time, and she'd taken her timer off and read the back and it'd said when love is not madness it is not love and she'd known everything would be alright. And it had been.
He likes his dad's story a bit more, though, because he and Valka had already been married happily for five years when his quote came and all it said was for marriage to be a success, every woman and every man should have her and his own bathroom. Stoick had laughed for hours and followed the advice faithfully ever since, and credits it with the fact that he and Valka are still going strong.
So Hiccup knows his timer is eventually going to say something either profoundly confusing or practically useless, if it ever says anything at all, but that doesn't change the fact that he'd been hoping for something that was remotely helpful. No matter, though, it'll all be fine once he gets his watch counting down again.
Except that he doesn't. He works for hours, feigning a stomach ache to get out of dinner and a school project so that he can stay up late, but he makes absolutely zero progress. He kind of already knew that this would happen, because these things were made by the gods and he's ten and he can't even figure out how to take the back off of the thing, much less access what's inside, but he's upset about it anyway. Maybe if he was stonger like his dad he'd be able to pry it open, or maybe if he was smarter like his uncle Gobber he'd be able to invent something to open it, or maybe if he were lovely like his mother he'd be able to fix it by pleading sweetly with the gods to help him out. He is none of those things. But he is a Haddock, and even though he's smaller and weaker and more useless than most Haddocks he is still a Haddock and Haddocks are stubborn. What he lacks in size and strength and beauty and mind he makes up for with his pure, inherited hard-headedness.
Maybe he can't do anything, really, but he can certainly do... something. And he does. He spends every night from eight o'clock until bedtime tinkering with his timer. He never does manage to open it, but he tries lots of crazy stuff like dipping it in hydrochloric acid in the hopes of corroding it until it falls apart (it's zeroed out anyway, it's not like he has anything to lose) and purposely leaving it out in the road so that a few dozen cars run over it. It doesn't even get a scratch. Say what you will about the gods and godesses, but they sure do know how to craft a watch. None of them work, but he keeps trying. Crowbars, screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches - they all clutter up his desk, making it look more like a workbench for a blacksmith than a preteen's homework station. He keeps trying.
He takes walks to the park a lot. He knows she's his age and probably hasn't gone to this kiddie park in years but she just feels so close and she'd been here within touching distance seven years ago and he'd missed her. He hopes that doesn't haunt him for the rest of his life. He closes his eyes and tries to remember the faces and voices of the girls he'd seen here. He can't. Maybe he's got it all wrong, maybe his soulmate is one of the guys that was at the park. He can't remember them either, and in any case he's fairly sure he likes girls. The boys at school are meaner to him than the girls.
His soulmate probably still lives in town, unless she's moved which he's pretty sure she hasn't because his dad is the mayor and he knows when people move. He'd probably tell Hiccup if a girl moved. Probably. His dad is quite confident that Hiccup's soulmate will come to him, but Hiccup isn't so sure. His dad got a happy ending but a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't find their soulmates, or they lose them or they never had one to begin with or they're stupid like him and don't even realize they've seen them until it's too late. But Hiccup will not give up.
He even writes it on the back of his watch with a sharpie, the only thing he can really do to mark the surface of his timer. Don't give up. He doesn't know what his quote is going to be, if he ever gets one, but that's the one he needs to see every time he feels like it's all hopeless and for naught. Don't give up.
Don't give up.
He will not give up.
... ... ...
Hiccup is just fourteen years old when he gives up.
He feels like a failure and a hypocrite and a stain on the Haddock title but he just can't. He can't keep looking. A wire fuse shorts in their house and there's this fire, and he's in his room staring at his timer and he doesn't even realize the house is burning down until the flames are lapping at his door. It's around eight PM, and his dad is at the office and his mom is out shopping and for a moment he worries that they're going to blame him for burning down the house before he realizes oh, right, he ought to be worried about the house burning down. He slips his watch back onto his left wrist and bolts. His room is on the second floor, too far to jump without serious injury and there's nothing to climb down on, so he takes a deep breath and heads for the hallway. He doesn't remember most of the experience, but he knows that at one point he just wants to slump down against the roasting walls and give into everything but he looks at his timer and the sharpie still says don't give up and so he doesn't.
But he does.
He lives, and really he's quite lucky because he manages to get out with just a little bit of head trauma and, well, a missing left foot, but he genuinely is fine. It's weird for a while, but he gets used to it. It's just a foot. The worst part is his parents, who cry for ages afterwards (particularly his dad, which is equal parts amusing and unnerving) and won't let him out of their sight for more than six minutes at a time. He's settled almost comfortably into his life as a one-footed individual (and every time he says something ridiculous he adds on "whoa, guess I really put my foot in my mouth there" and it's hilarious... to him) when realizes that he only has one foot.
His parents love him because they're his parents and it's... it's their duty. But who could really love a cripple? No, that's ridiculous, of course someone could grow to love a guy with one foot, but... not when that guy's him. He's already got enough going against him, and now he's got a stupid prosthetic leg that makes this annoying clink-tap noise every time he takes a step. And... and when he finds his soulmate, and she sees him, he knows. She's going to stare at him, at his scrawny frame and his missing foot and his freckly, awkward face and think crap. She's going to be so disappointed. She's going to wish her soulmate was someone else.
And... and he can deal with that. If she ever finds him, he can deal with her disappointment. He's used to people being disappointed in him, even if they never say it out loud. But he can't go looking for it. He can't keep actively trying to find someone who's going to at least initially wish he were someone else.
So he gives up. He doesn't give up, because he still vaguely hopes that he'll be with his soulmate one day, but he gives up because he doesn't believe he'll ever find her. And he's okay with that.
Really, he is.
Hiccup sighs, takes off his stupid prosthetic leg, and goes to bed.
