Not So Fireproof on the Inside

Chapter 1 Introduction

A/N: Such is the result of me not being able to sleep :/ Mature content and language ahead.

Hiccup missed his father. Not a day went by that he didn't think of the gargantuan man that governed his life for twenty years. He wasn't the most understanding of parents and they weren't always on the best of terms, but he never once questioned his love for the viking who raised him.

Stoick the Vast had earned the respect of an innumerable amount of people in his lifetime, as is the nature of being a chief, especially one as great as he, but none held more admiration for him than his son. The burly chieftain had raised him by himself, even while in the throes of grief, and while his methods were far from perfect, Stoick had doubtlessly made Hiccup into the man he was. When he lost his father though, he couldn't help but feel that he had also lost a large part of himself.

All of his life, he'd wanted to be exactly like his father. Stoick was, intrepid and heroic, the perfect role-model for an aspiring, young ward. He'd been a shining example of all that a viking could be and the embodiment of everything he wished he was. Not much had changed of that, actually.

Hiccup didn't have much time to think on it, however. Now, almost all of his brainpower was being appropriated to his newfound chiefly duties. He'd never understood how his dad took to the responsibilities with such grace. His leadership was never questioned and his word was understood as law, but he was still loved by his people. He managed a seemingly impossible balance of authority and benevolence, one the new head of state couldn't even begin to replicate. In fact, the only thing he'd gotten done since assuming control of the island was beginning a statue of Stoick, to which, no one dared object.

The primary concern of the young chief since starting his reign was restoring the village. Drago (Hiccup seethed even now at the thought of the man) had destroyed much of the developed part of the island in his siege. His Bewilderbeast had left mountainous spires of ice in its wake, all of which needed to be cleared before reconstruction could take place. That logistical problem in itself caused a headache greater than any that could be subsided with any earthly amount of mead.

On top of that, he had to shelter the masses of people who were now without houses, set about securing the island to whatever degree was feasible to keep even just a few boats of miscreants from taking the whole village by storm, and figure out something to do with the ridiculous amount of dragons that now inhabited Berk. Yes, his life had gotten significantly more difficult.

It was difficult being accountable for the hundreds of people of his small nation when he hadn't even been given time to mourn the loss of Stoick's passing. He trembled as he remembered the still, dark night that was set ablaze with the light of his father's funeral ship. He'd loosed the first arrow himself and his friends had done the same soon after. It infuriated him that the war-time ceremony had not been befitting of a man as prodigious as he. Hiccup would rather have had the chief be entombed in a burial ship. It would have kept him closer, rather than sending his ashes to the bottom of the sea. Stoick deserved to be laid to rest in his homeland, not the strange waters of an island turned battlefield. Hiccup's only comfort was that his father was guaranteed a place in the hall of heroes. After all he'd done, not even Odin himself could deny him that much.

He felt cheated, though. For some reason, the gods had decided that he was only allowed one parent and they ensured that his world stayed that way. He had just seen his father truly happy for the first time in possibly his whole life, but then the man was gone. He'd only had both his mom and his dad in his life for a few, measly hours before one was taken away from him. And worse yet, it was carried out by his best friend.

Hiccup knew it wasn't Toothless' fault. He knew that the dragon had no will in the matter. That wasn't enough to stop his initial resentment. How could he not be angry at someone? Toothless seemed like the most tangible answer for that moment, but he realized quickly that he couldn't blame the Night Fury and instead turned his hatred on Drago. He still despised that monster of a person, but he wasn't the only one he'd come to loathe. He hated himself too. He should have listened to Stoick. He should have taken his advice for once. Instead, his stubbornness had cost him one of the lives he held most dear. He could still hear his father's warning echoing through his ears.

A chief protects his own.

Hiccup blinked himself out of his thoughts. He had no time for bitter reveries.

"-so, because of this, I think the first house to be rebuilt should be mine" a gravelly, thickly accented voice said.

Hiccup shook his head to refocus himself. His eyes took in the interior of the Great Hall, the large chamber bustling with a multitude of people. Spitelout was addressing him, but he hadn't been listening. The young man groaned as he dragged his hand down his face.

"Wait…what're you talking about again?" he asked drowsily. The Jorgenson patriarch furrowed his eyebrows in unhidden annoyance.

"Reconstruction priorities. I was saying that my hall would be the most advantageous place to begin" his uncle repeated coarsely, clearly finding some slight in Hiccup's inattention.

"And this is a completely unbiased opinion that has absolutely nothing to do with personal gain?" the chief asked, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

Spitelout calmly replied, "I can't deny that it benefits me, but…". He faltered in his argument for a moment before continuing, "With my son being the second best dragon rider, it'd make the village safer if he was able to get a proper night's rest".

Hiccup huffed a laugh to himself that held no humor. If Snotlout flew Hookfang all day, every day, for the rest of their lives, he wouldn't even come close to second best. Besides, Astrid and Stormfly were practically doing that already.

The other inhabitants of the hall must have been eavesdropping on the conversation as other voices soon mixed themselves into it, making demands and pleas for their own homes. It seemed that every building on Berk had some strategic advantage that made it the optimal first choice. The droning, garbled sounds that rose from the gathering grated agonizingly inside Hiccup's head.

"Guys…" he groaned pitifully, but his anguish went unheard. The shouts grew more chaotic and heated as the Vikings, as aggressive as they were, took to arguing with each other.

"Guys…" he repeated, but the roars had escalated to bouts of swearing and insults. He tried again, only for his voice to be over-ridden once more as the arguments adopted threats of violence. A shoving match erupted in the center, slowly spreading throughout the assembly as more and more people involved themselves. As soon as the first punch was thrown and the cacophony of war cries sounded, Hiccup's brain no longer cared for diplomacy in the interest of saving itself from his suffering.

He stood up sharply, the wooden legs of his chair grinding against the gritty floor.

"Would everyone please just…" he started, raising his voice, but the relative squeak of it went unheard amongst the uproar. His jaw tightened painfully and his brow furrowed angrily at being ignored. He bellowed, "…SHUT THE FUCK UP!".

His harsh howl carried through the hall, bouncing off of the carved stone walls. Everyone halted in place, some even with their fists still cocked in the air. They all stared at him, mouths agape and eyes wide in astonishment at the sight of the fuming lad with a furious, red tinge to his face and pulsing veins popping out of his neck. His chest heaved with each irate breath and his blood boiled.

He'd had enough of these self-important, impatient reprobates. Growling to himself in some colorful language, Hiccup stormed out of the hall, paying no mind to those whom he had to shoulder past in order to leave, Toothless bounding after him. Whispers followed him through the massive double doors, but those who perpetuated them could jump off of a cliff for all he cared.

The chief burst into his home late in the evening, one of the few still standing, his black dragon crawling through the threshold with him. His foul mood radiated off of him as he sat down at the wooden, kitchen table, near the hearth. He laid his head down roughly with a thud.

Toothless curled around his friend and tried to soothe him by cooing gently from the floor. He offered his head to be pet, should the boy wish to.

Valka had cautiously watched them come inside. As his mother, there were no aspects of Hiccup's feelings that could be hidden from her, but at the moment, he wasn't making much of an effort. He was a grown man, however; a result of her time away from Berk and still a hard fact for her to accept. She resisted the urge to coddle him by occupying herself with stirring the boiling pot of stew in front of her. She probably should have been doing that anyway, considering that it was well inside the realm of possibility for her cooking to be set ablaze. But as it was, the house smelled good and such boded well.

Like the broth inside the cauldron, Hiccup simmered, and did so for a considerable amount of time. The only noises he made were the occasional frustrated sighs that escaped him as he pulled at the russet brown hair on the back of his head. It tested the older woman's resolve.

"Everything alright, dear?" she asked softly. He jumped ever so slightly as she had apparently ripped him from his contemplative bubble. He looked up at her with tired eyes.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah…I'm fine" he responded simply. He was a fair bit surprised when she suddenly spoke up. Truthfully, her whole presence in the hall still struck him as odd. It wasn't something he'd tell her, but it was altogether not very baffling a thought, considering that almost all of his life, she hadn't been there. He didn't hold it against her; it just felt weird to him.

"Hiccup…" she sighed disbelievingly. She took the stew off of the fire to cool and wiped her hands on her tunic. Her boy watched her wearily, his face sullen and bearing an unkempt bit of reddish shadowing. She sat at the table across from him. Her hand reached out to touch and she hesitated for a moment, unsure of the boundaries of their new relationship, but she ventured to rest it on his arm. He looked down at it and then back to her, a subtle amount of appreciation peeking through his discontentedness.

He covered her hand in his, bolstering her to talk more. Even with his snappy mood of late, he still held a soft spot for select people.

"I can tell ya miss him…" the woman spoke carefully. She was treading lightly as to not upset him more. He averted his eyes into the table, ashamed that he was jeopardizing the wellbeing of the tribe out of his own sorrow so obviously that even his mother knew. Valka would have none of this. She reached out with her other limb and lifted his chin up to face her. "…and it's nothing t'be ashamed of. Ya 've lost someone ya love. That's something no one can fault ya for being upset about" she added. He leaned into her touch briefly, seeking the comfort that only his mother could give him for the moment, but he eventually shied away from it.

"It's not about…Dad" he corrected, the words pained and thick in his throat as he talked. She raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Well…not just that" he amended, "It's…he tried so hard to prepare me for this. I was reading before any of my friends, learning about laws and regulations while they played, studying treaties through all of my life to be ready for being chief, but…I mean look at me! I'm not a chief. I was never going to be. Anyone else on this island would fit the job better and the gods know they could all take it from me if they wanted to. How am I supposed to be the strong, fearless leader everyone is expecting when I'm the weakest thing to ever walk on Berk?". Valka waited patiently for him to finish his ranting. She figured that he'd probably been interrupted enough for one day.

"And do ya think everyone believed in yer father because he was strong?"

"Well he was, wasn't he?" he shot back defensively.

"Aye; that he was, the strongest on the island, but was that the most important thing about him?" she returned, her calm demeanor making him look sheepish for his petulance.

"But no one ever questioned him. They all listened to his every command."

"That's true as well. Everyone followed his orders t' the letter, everyone except you" she answered, pointedly making eye contact. Hiccup saw her point but refused to acknowledge it.

"Right, so I'm a terrible leader and a reckless son" he puffed sarcastically.

"And going after Toothless? Was that reckless?" she challenged. The reptile in question perked up at his name and looked questioningly at his human, like he had been listening to every word they'd said.

"What would you call giving a scared, cornered predator the means to kill you?" he asked rhetorically. Hiccup's hand fell down to scratch the dragon's scaly skin, reassuring the beast who warbled contentedly, so as to show that he meant nothing by his comment. Contented, Toothless put his head back down onto his paws.

"Brave"

"What?" her son asked incredulously.

"Brave" she repeated, "It was brave of ya t' take that risk instead of doing the easy thing. Ya saved him. Tha' took courage and he rewarded ya". The Night Fury, without even opening his eyes, nudged against his rider's leg, showing once again that he was listening and that he agreed.

"It's not brave if I couldn't do it. It wasn't a choice. I couldn't have hurt him if I wanted to. In fact, I was trying to" he retorted, growing annoyed by what seemed to him to be a rose-colored view of the past. Looking back on it, obviously he would never have harmed his best friend, but before he knew the dragon, all that he wanted in the whole of Midgard was to mount his fire-breathing head on a stake. He was glad that he didn't, but it was still yet another example of his weakness.

Valka sighed again as she realized that the conversation would go back and forth forever. She took her hand back from her son's arm.

"Hiccup, nothing is going t' convince ya if ya don't want to believe it yerself" she said simply, standing up from the table and returning to the pot of food that must have cooled by this point through the talk. As she hoisted the cauldron onto the table, Hiccup made to reply, but was cut off by the door bursting open again and a hurried blonde stepping in. "Ah, evening, Astrid. Come t' join us fer supper?" the matriarch asked pleasantly, switching very eagerly from her serious tone.

"Good evening Mrs. Haddock. I just need to talk to your son" the girl greeted cordially through heavy breathing. She was red in the face and gulping for air, evidently having run to the household.

"Just Valka, dear; or Mom if ya like" the older woman corrected, winking upon the last part of her sentence. It brought a smile to her future daughter-in-law's lips for a moment, but it quickly disappeared when she looked to her intended. Hiccup examined her warily. She quickly dashed to his side at the table, taking a moment to rub Toothless' snout in passing to appease him. She took a moment to recover her breath before glaring at her fiancé.

"What's this I hear about the chief shouting and stomping out in the middle of a village meeting?" she chided.

"Please don't call me that"

"Well, you are…"

"Astrid…please" he pleaded pitifully.

The two shared a telling glance for a moment. Astrid was more than aware of his difficulties with the role and fulfilling the expectations entailed in it. She knew better than anyone else, having spent many a night offering her embrace as consolation. She looked at him sympathetically and relented. Her hand found its way to intertwine with his and he held her tightly, as if he was afraid of losing her.

"Can you tell me what happened?" she questioned softly. He took a deep, exhausted breath and raised their tangled hand to his mouth to kiss her knuckles lightly.

"Just…just the usual stuff" he admitted reservedly. He knew that it told her far more than what he'd actually said, though. Most of the time, she knew what he was thinking even before he said it. She'd had that power over him for a long time by then. She rubbed her thumb against his skin to show her understanding.

Valka quietly observed the two from afar. He'd done well for himself, her boy. She was happy that Hiccup had found a girl who saw him so completely through the all of the facades he put up. She'd make a good mother too.

Astrid leaned into him to whisper in his ear, far too quiet for the woman standing some good feet away to hear. Hiccup responded with a curt nod and the pair stood up.

"Mom, I'll be back later" her son declared nonchalantly, never breaking his hold on his treasured girl.

"Okay, dear"

"Sorry about dinner" he added apologetically. He knew that any cooking at all was no small task for the woman of rusty household skills.

"Oh, don't ya worry about it. I'll get Gobber t' eat some of this up. Just…keep yer wits about ya". She had a small degree of satisfaction in making him blush at her implications, as was her right as his mother. It was laced with a serious piece of advice, though. The last thing he needed to add to his stress would be…problems with Astrid.

A/N: For those of you hoping for a new chapter of TVoL or Fleeting Touches, sorry, but this is what is coming out of my brain at the moment, so this is what is being posted. If that's a problem, once again I'm sorry, but you should take it up with management. This idea has been in my brain for far too long and I needed it to leave. Chapter 7 of Fleeting Touches is very important and includes some things that I don't have an awful lot of experience writing, so I asked one of my best friends to beta read it. Chapter 25 of TVoL is just giving me a lot of trouble and until I figure out the direction it's going to go, typing anything is fruitless and not fun for me, so I won't do it. That's why it's taking so long.

Anyway, please tell me what you think of this new story concept. I'd love to hear your thoughts. :)

-Nick (ncham9)