I wrote this one in the span of one single day after motivation hit me through a Tumblr post discussing the many dark undertones of RttE.
And thus this was created.
Enjoy!
Constructive criticism is appreciated.
Stolen Peace
Hiccup's decision had been easily made. Too easily.
After failing to convince Savage of his importance in stopping Viggo Grimborn and his Dragon Hunters and when attempting to trick him that Berk would pay double the amount the bounty promised ended badly, there was only one thought that ran rampant through his mind.
Get off the ship.
A straightforward goal, it was the execution that was a little... off.
With his hands tied tightly behind his back and his arms bound to his middle as an extra precaution, Hiccup knocked Savage's feet right from under him the second he turned his back on him.
In this one moment, he could've done so many things.
He could've kicked Savage's axe away from him, there were plenty of weapons he could go for and use to free himself with, even using his prosthetic to completely knock the former Outcast out was a better idea than what he actually ended up doing.
In a single bout of panic, Hiccup simply decided to... abandon ship.
Climbing over the ship's side with practised agility, he tried throwing himself overboard and he would've succeeded too if Savage hadn't recovered and pulled him back, instead flinging him onto the wooden deck and adding to the massive headache already pounding in his skull.
"Swimming home with your hands tied?" To Savage it was an opportunity to mock his prisoner. He grabbed hold of the metal leg with his free hand and braced himself with a foot on the teen's stomach before pulling it off with one harsh tug.
It wasn't pleasant. It was always humiliating if a foe seperated him from his prosthetic, a quick way to keep him from escaping.
That should've been the end of it, but it was right then that Savage was knocked out cold by Throk, who proved himself an ally send by Queen Mala after she had received word of the bounty placed on the Dragon Rider's head.
Hiccup didn't have time to think, to really contemplate his actions and realize what he had been about to do so willingly, so... easily.
Those days were lost to him. Later on Hiccup would find he had a hard time forgetting, but also remembering, what happened.
There were many bounty hunters hunting him for his prize. A lot of people who had lain their hands on him and brought pain again and again. There were beatings, he had been knocked out cold several times, a mysterious man he had seen only once before had even wrapped a chain around his neck and dragged him around like a pet, like a slave, property.
There were no breaks. Just stress and pain and fear and exhaustion.
In the end the Dragon Riders and his father had caught up to him just in time and saved him from Ryker Grimborn, who had been waiting on Sleipnir Island to bring him to his brother, Viggo. But being rescued and brought back home where he was safe and sound didn't take anything away from what he went through.
Hiccup had heard of traumas before. He would never admit to having any himself, he wanted to concentrate on what truly mattered and that were his friends and their mission, but it was clear that this event would leave a lasting impact on him. Both the bounty and meeting Viggo Grimborn.
How big of an impact, he had no idea until one conversation late in the evening.
It had been two weeks since then.
Fortunately, Berk did not have the exact details of his kidnapping, but they knew something had happened and their heir needed time to recover.
The bruises littering his body, particularly the very nasty one around his neck, were too obvious and Hiccup had been mostly confined to his house both because he was too sore to move around much and because his father ordered him to stay put.
But it wasn't only that. Ryker punching him square in the chest had left him with a bruised sternum and that made it hard to breathe sometimes.
Nobody was really surprised. That punch in his gut was strong enough to knock him unconscious.
His injuries were slow to fade away and the rest was certainly welcome, but Hiccup was already itching to go back to the Edge. Staying inactive for too long drove him mad and made him feel useless.
That was why Astrid had come that night, accompanied by Heather. They knew of his plans to move back to Dragon's Edge and had come to try and convince him that, perhaps, it wasn't such a bad idea to stay a little while longer.
They knew he needed to recuperate. In their opinion, despite the two weeks off, their friend still looked like he had been chained up and dragged behind a stampeding Gronckle.
Their attempts weren't working.
"Hiccup, you can't be serious! Have you actually looked at yourself the past few days? You need your rest!" Astrid argued, raising her voice. To say that she thought Hiccup's plan to go back already was madness would be an understatement.
"And I can get that rest back on the Edge aswell. Where I can also be sure that we're staying on top of Viggo and his men." Hiccup wasn't giving in. Arguing with Astrid Hofferson was a difficult feat to accomplish, but this was one discussion he couldn't let her win. He knew where they were needed, where he was needed, and that wasn't here on Berk.
"You can barely even talk!" Her hand gestured wildly at him as she sat at the table and it was a good point she brought up.
"My voice is doing f-" Further backed up by the cough that interrupted him.
"My point exactly!" Heather stared at the two as they argued, trying to feel like she wasn't a third wheel in this talk. All she wanted to say, Astrid had already told him.
Hiccup's coughing didn't cease for a little while and the two young women decided to give him some space to gather himself. It didn't sit well with them how he subconsciously rubbed on his throat, they knew of the chain the masked hunter had wrapped around it.
Another reason to keep him home. Hiccup's wounds weren't just purely physical.
"Hiccup, please-" Astrid tried again.
"No, Astrid, sitting here and doing nothing is exactly what Viggo wants me to do."
"You can't just keep driving yourself into the ground either! You have limits! Limits that you reached two weeks ago and that you need to heal from!"
This wasn't getting them anywhere. No matter how long they could keep arguing about this, it didn't look like either Haddock or Hofferson wanted to cave in. Both had noble goals, but only one was in the right.
Heather watched them go back and forth. She had tagged along to provide some back-up, but now she wondered if it hadn't been a little smarter to wait for Chief Stoick to come home first. He could've helped keep his son home.
This? This was futile.
Both Hiccup and Astrid ended up frustrated and angry with each other, but they were gathering their thoughts and that provided them with a few seconds of tense silence.
Astrid tapped her fingers on the wooden table, her face contorted in a look of fury. Hiccup paced, unable to stand still. If anything, he looked even more tired than before.
"I overheard Savage saying something."
That's when Heather decided to speak up.
It would probably shock Astrid aswell, but she was prepared for that. It was time to give Hiccup a little bit of a perspective, just like he had given one to her sometime ago.
"What do you mean, Heather?" Hiccup's voice broke as he spoke, he really needed to let it and himself heal properly.
"When we found Savage's ship, he blamed you for getting captured in the first place." She started and Hiccup found himself quietly agreeing. If he hadn't been so stubborn and just made his dad aware of the bounty, none of that would've happened and he and the other Dragon Riders would've been on Berk.
"It made your dad really angry-"
"It made all of us angry. Blaming the victim..." Astrid interrupted briefly.
Heather glanced over to her, found her sitting back in her chair with her arms crossed and her face turned away from both her and Hiccup.
It hurt her that he refused to take care of himself like this. And Heather knew she was about to make it a whole lot worse.
"Anyway, your dad had almost killed him for it. Toothless managed to stop him in time, but Stoick was ready to kill Savage for it, for putting the blame on you. But that wasn't all he said." What she was saying drew Astrid's attention too as she gazed back at her best friend from the corners of her eyes.
"What else did he say?" Hiccup had enough of this conversation, so his constant restless pacing told them, but he wasn't about to silence her either. That wouldn't be fair to her, he knew they meant well.
"Savage said, and I'm only quoting him now, but he said "I should've let him drown". Those were his exact words." Heather finally arrived to the point she wanted to make and Astrid straightened in her seat.
"When did he say that?!" She spoke, her fingers itching for her axe and a certain Outcast-turned-bounty hunter to use it on.
"When we were heading for Sleipnir Island. I was the last one there, I don't think he expected me to hear him." Heather answered before she turned her attention back to her other troubled friend.
Who stood there, staring at her, as if something he had completely forgotten was now returning to him.
"Did you throw yourself overboard, Hiccup?" It wasn't a simple question, but Heather's soft and inquiring tone almost made it seem like one. She wanted him to know he could trust them with his answer.
"Hiccup?" Astrid made a small and scared noise. Throk had told them Hiccup had been bound tightly when he found him and they had seen the ropes. But for as impulsive as he could be, he must've known there were a million other things he could've done that didn't involve meeting a cold and slow death by drowning in the ocean, where his body could never be found.
"I'm..." Hiccup was at a loss for words and he looked off to the side, afraid to look them in the eye.
But as they patiently awaited an answer, he did see what Heather wanted him to see.
Hiccup had almost taken his own life. Right then and there, on Savage's ship. And voluntarily so.
Ryker had claimed that Viggo wanted to kill him by his own hand, that was why the bounty had been placed on his head, but Viggo said a lot of thing and many of them were lies constructed to benefit nobody but himself.
The fate that awaited him if those bounty hunters did succeed in delivering him to the Grimborn brothers, while the rest of the world believed him dead... Hiccup realized he would much rather risk death than face it.
And he almost did.
Without a second thought.
"Hiccup..." Astrid moved to stand up, no longer angry, but rattled instead.
"I... wasn't... trying to, I..." He paused.
"I think you're right. We should stay on Berk a little while longer." That perspective Heather never mentioned was made clear to him and Hiccup caved in.
He never feared the Red Death, Alvin and the Outcasts or Ryker enough to let it stop him from fighting them. He may have felt something akin to fright for Dagur, but that still couldn't compare to how ultimately terrified he was of Viggo.
And that fear had almost cost him his life, his father his son, his friends their leader, his dragon his Rider.
Perhaps, he did need to heal.
"Hiccup...?" Astrid was at his side then, while Heather stayed seated at the table. Her hand gingerly grabbed his.
There was a look in his eyes that she did not like. It implied that something had broken inside of him just then.
There were tears he was trying to blink away.
"I'm... I think I'm gonna go to bed. And rest." Astrid drew back when she heard him speak up again, she knew that all he wanted was to be left alone now. Left alone with his thoughts.
"Don't tell the others?" She hated that tiny voice that left him. She couldn't say no to that.
"We won't." Astrid made the promise in Heather's stead too, who nodded.
Without another word spoken, nothing more needed to be said, Hiccup simply retreated to his bedroom. He didn't tell them goodnight and neither of the girls did either.
They remained downstairs and watched him go, let him close the hatch that led to his room. A sure sign that he wanted to be alone.
Toothless was already up there, it was fine.
"Astrid?" Heather stood up and approached her best friend, laying a hand on her pauldron. She could only imagine how hard this must be.
"He didn't even deny it. So... what you said is true?" She turned to face her, heartbreak evident in her watery eyes.
Heather didn't need to answer.
"Oh Thor..." She felt like she needed to sit down.
"We should go before Stoick comes home. He doesn't usually stay away for this long, does he?" Heather managed to draw her away from the Haddock Household.
Right now Astrid needed some peace of her own and it was time to return home, where Heather also stayed for the time being.
She had already racked her brain over this issue the past two weeks, now it was Astrid's turn to give this a place and somehow not tell the other Riders or Stoick. This had to stay between the three of them.
Well, the four of them.
Toothless probably heard the entire thing.
While they left, meeting a tired Stoick on their way out, Hiccup sat on the edge of his bed.
His Night Fury's head on his lap, he embraced him and hid his face away. He hated being this weak and helpless when there were so many people counting on him to be strong, but he clung onto him as if he was his one remaining tether to this world. Toothless let him, he knew his Rider felt lost.
They had always been so in tune with one another.
"I'm not gonna leave you, Bud. I would never leave you." Hiccup promised him in whispers, but the dragon didn't respond.
Steadily learning human customs, he had one foreleg wrapped around his Rider's back, imitating a hug to let him know he was there.
He had heard everything.
And he would never leave Hiccup's side ever again.