Shame welled up inside Stoic as he watched his son, dejected, walk back towards the house with Gobber in tow. He had thrown his son to the dogs with no fatherly understanding or love to protect him from the tearing jabs of his peers, and now he had to listen to Hiccup as he laid bare Stoic's failures as a father.
"I really did hit one." Yes, Hiccup had hit one and Stoic hadn't trusted him enough to believe him.
"He never listens." No, Stoic hadn't listened when Hiccup had tried to explain his actions. And the worst part was that this hadn't been the first time. What if, when Hiccup had wrecked one of the bridges, his son had been telling the truth and he'd actually been trying to improve it.
And what about the time when Hiccup couldn't find his best hammer and had asked Stoic about it? He'd brushed off his son's concern with nothing more than a "Look for it tomorrow." It had taken Hiccup three days to find it, and Snotlout, who'd taken it in the first place for a mean prank, had let him find it with one end slammed into his stomach where the burly teen had whacked him. But when Hiccup came home with the bruises from the beating and tried to talk to his dad about it, did Stoic listen? Of course not.
Stoic tried to snap himself out of it. This was the son who'd betrayed him and everyone else. Bonding with dragons. His son was one of them, not his son at all. But his hardened expression didn't last past the next sentence.
"And when he does, it's always with this disappointed scowl, like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich." Stoic watched as his son did a painful imitation of his father. How could he have let Hiccup think of him like that? Unloving, disappointed? Granted, he had reason to be the latter, but that did not mean he didn't love his beanpole of a son, and he should never have let the lad believe otherwise.
But Stoic expressed himself with praise. That was how he showed affection. Hiccup just never did anything worthy of praise. So, really, Stoic's apparent lack of affection was really the boy's fault because he gave Stoic to outlet to use to express it. Right?
Wrong! Gobber shouted at him from the screen. You hate your son and everyone knows it! But how it hurt that such a declaration from his friend was only answered by casual sarcasm, as if Hiccup was already aware of the fact that his own father couldn't stand everything about him.
"I just wanna be one of you guys." But he wasn't and both he and Stoic knew it. Is that why you went to the dragons? Thought the distraught father. Were you one of them?
There you go, my second chapter and first Stoic-centric one. I can't believe the response this is getting, it's amazing!
Speaking of amazing, I say the sequel today. Go. Watch. It. Seriously, I'm going to go back and see that again.
I love reviews, and the first person to comment gets a sneak peak on a twist! Don't worry, I have plenty.