Depression and Fear

Hiccup Haddock was depressed.

His hearing had just taken another step down. It was getting harder and harder to hear. Even the seating aids were starting to become quiet, no matter how many times he turned up the volume on it.

But the bright side was that for the first time in a year and a half of knowing Astrid Hofferson, he wasn't being pushed around by a girl. Said girl still scared the crap out of him on a regular basis and made no shortage of dry, cutting remarks and sent enough dirty glares his way to wither an army.

And said bully was sitting beside him in World History. Right beside him. She seemed to be going through some sort of hormonal imbalance or something. At times she was some kind of new Astrid that kept her big blue eyes on the desk, her mouth a thin white line and bangs forming a golden veil over her face. And at other times, she was the fiery, snapping demon girl that he knew and despised.

But Sullen Astrid was different from Normal Astrid in another way. She seemed to sit... Close to him almost elbow-to-elbow, which freaked him out a bit. He was riding on the hope Astrid, while being a despicable girl with no moral compass, was at least a girl of her word,, and wouldn't beat the snot out of him if he said the wrong thing.

"What's this crappy project supposed to be," Sullen Astrid mumbled next to him. Her elbow was literally right next to his. He nervously pulled his arm off the row of desks, pretending to bend over and search for something in his bag.

He could practically feel her inexplicably revert to Normal Astrid behind him, her Death Ray glare of hate boring into his back and nearly searing a hole into his body. He shifted nervously as he bent down, prosthetic creaking in his pant leg.

"What was that?" Astrid snapped quietly, looking around for the source of the creak. Hiccup panicked. His eyes widened, and he was thankful he was facing away from his bully, so she wouldn't see the look of horror on his face.

"U-u-um," he stuttered, trying to force his voice to stay as calm as he could. She couldn't know. She really, really couldn't. She would see him as even weaker than before, and then pathetic if she discovered his hearing. The searchers knew about his disabilities. They were working on a way to keep Hiccup educated when his ears went silent. "The desk," he got out. "I-I hit it with my, um, leg." He continued.

His stump was aching under the cover of his leg. It was almost healed, but the operating word was almost. It stung like crazy, and made his severe limp even worse when the leg acted up.

Surprisingly no one had questioned when he returned to school after a month with an even more dysfunctional gait than before. They probably thought he'd jacked up his knee or something.

Astrid looked at him with contempt. "Clumsy looser," she muttered.

"Ray of sunshine," I grumbled sarcastically under my breath, and straightened with the exam assignment in hand. He laid it out on the desk between them. "OK, lots a stuff to do," he sighed, and Astrid looked at him like he had just declared the sky was blue.

"Of course there is, Useless," she snarled. "Why would it be a multi-month turn in time if it was short and simple?"

He gave her a dry look and a sarcastic shrug. "I ramble when I'm nervous."

"You don't normally ramble around me," she commented. It might have been his imagination, but her tone held a smidgen less ire than usual, as if she had burned out some of the fire that made her torment him so much.

"Well, Mr. Treacherous is lazy," he commented. "He might be using this as an excuse to not have to grade anything for a while. But..." He hissed out air through his teeth. "Given all there is on this worksheet... Evidently not. Summaries if the French Revolution, Neolithic Revolution, American Revolution-"

"I get it," she snapped, narrowing her eyes at him. He shifted his desk a little bit away from her, if only to make himself feel genuinely safer. He didn't like how close she was. She had to be playing at something, some new way to torture him. Make him think she actually... Didn't despise his soul as much as he thought, then BAM! Crush him, like s berry.

"Lots of revolutions," she muttered. "There has to be... He's got to be kidding here. A freaking skit. A filmed skit to present to the class. Must have costumes and props, depict a famous scene in one of the revolutions." She gritted her teeth, puffing out air though her nose and pouting in a way that Hiccup couldn't help but find adorable.

Which he instantly scolded himself for because, again, he hated her. And she hated him with a passion. He decided not to comment on the adorable pout, because he honestly had an interest on his existence continuing till tomorrow.

"Like I said, lots of work between us. So," he sighed, leaning back into his chair and wincing as the raw stump inside his pant leg rubbed against the prosthetic painfully. He readjusted it to be in a more comfortable position and groaned loudly as pain spiked through it.

"What's wrong with you, Useless," she said, raising an eyebrow at him. He fidgeted nervously, and reached to scratch his hair, before deciding against it. He could risk exposing his hearing aids for his bully to see.

"Me?" He questioned, folding his hands over his stomach and crossing his legs. "N-nothing. Just a little sore."

A blank look was his reward for that answer. "Really?"

He nodded. "Uh-huh."

"You?"

"Yep."

"Sore."

"Yeah," he said. "I'm sore. I'm very sore. I'm..." He puffed his cheeks out and blew air through his lips loudly. "The... Um, I'm the sorest." He looked at her hopefully.

"What did you do?" She ask. "Pull a hamstring playing video games."

"N-No," he said, still shaking his head. "I had a very, very, really extra hard physical therapy session last ni-" CRAP! He shouldn't have said that. He shouldn't be having physical therapy. Normal two legged nerds do not have physical therapy.

Thankfully, she just rolled her eyes. He hated the way she rolled her eyes, as if she was so much better than he was. Like she was the few king Queen of the Gods or something equally haughty.

" you are such a liar. Why would you need physical therapy? God, your such a looser." She pinched the bridge of her nose, and he noticed something. He saw her eyes shift as the light caught in it.

"You wear contacts?" He blurted out, and her eyes shot open in surprise.

"What did you say, freak?!" She hissed and he stumbled backwards out of his chair I. Fear. OK, he was really, really stupid. She could snap his skeletal structure with a handshake if she wanted to. He was poking a bear here.

No wait, a bear? A BEAR?! She was a full blown fire breathing dragon with poisonous spikes, and he was poking her when she was already pissed off. Maybe he was still unconsciously pursuing suicide.

"Nothing!" He said a bit shrilly. "Nothing at all!"

She looked up at him through bloodshot eyes. Now that he was looking, he saw that the veins of red outlined the plastic lenses in her eyes. The sea blue behind them were looking like they were ready to drown him in his own blood.

"You-you-" the fire in her eyes was burning harder and more loathsome than ever before. "You little eel," she snarled. At least she was keeping the language clean this time. She glanced at Mr. Treacherous who was bordly reading the paper at his desk, not caring about his students.

She grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pulled him closer to her. "Tell anyone, you little undersized Fish-bone, and I will gut you," she raised her fist. "Got it?!"

"I got it," he winced, holding his hands in front of him. He really didn't feel like raging with her today. He wanted to go home. He wanted to play with Toothless and forget his problems and convince himself he was some semblance of OK.

Because he really wasn't. An adorable bully, gradual hearing loss, a leg that refused to leave him alone, and a challenging project was NOT helping matters at all.

He grimaced even harder as a new issue showed up: phantom limb.

Astrid Hofferson was afraid.

She stumbled out of her house in absolute terror. It was the dead of night, but she needed to get out of there. She needed to go now! Everything in her hurt. Her knees felt like brittle sticks, and her legs were burning in agony. Her back was bruised up badly and her arm had a cut she did not recall getting.

But it was because of her dad. She stumbled out on unreliable limbs, fumbling her way towards her car. She needed to... Just be anywhere but here!

Oh, God. Oh, God she felt like throwing up. She probably was going to throw up. Her stomach was boiling like a witch's cauldron, and she felt bile rising in her throat.

Her breath came in ragged gasps.

Oh, God. Oh, God what did she even do this time? She had just come home and he had freaked out. He'd grabbed her and dragged her, kicking and screaming, into her version of hell.

Once he was... Once she had the chance, she had made a break for it before he had a chance to stop her.

Why?! Why, why, why, why?! Just freaking WHY?! She was a bully, yes, but this treatment had MADE her this way. She just didn't understand. When had she done to deserve this!?

She sat against the car seat, breathing heavily. A few more years, and see could leave. She could go without fear. Without complaint from the man who was ruining every aspect of her life. If she did anything now to try and escape him, he would find a way to come back and hurt her ten times as worse than before.

The man had taken everything from her. Kept her up sleepless nights with fear so much she had a burning headache very day from exhaustion, drove her to be vicious and cutthroat to where she couldn't be anything but angry and scared. She couldn't even remember the last time she smiled. She wasn't sure she remembered HOW to smile.

She held in a sob and fumbled for the keys, sticking them in the car as her father's gravely voice called out for her to stop. Demanding her to come back inside and take what she deserved.

She was a horrible person to Hiccup, but now in hell did she deserve what that man was doing to her?!

She slammed her foot on the gas as hard as she could, tires squealing as she darted out the driveway. Something smashed into the back end of her vehicle, and she shuddered, the bile rising even more in her stomach.

She was going to her it for this later. But right now she literally couldn't be there. She would go away for as long as she could. She was the Damaged Astrid in the Strong Astrid's clothes.

She drove for what seemed like hours, getting off her street, out of her neighborhood, going five miles, ten miles, who-the-heck-knows-how-many miles, before she was finally out of gas.

She turned the vehicle into a gas station, a trembling hand reaching into her purse for her credit card. Not finding the willpower to stand though, she just sighed and rested against the cloth seat, her skin shiny and slick with swear from fear.

He had almost killed her this time, she was sure if it. He had been pressing down just hard enough on her throat, holding her down and-no! No, no no! She was not going to admit it.

It was just a nightmare. Just a nightmare. That's all it was now. He was going to hurt her soon, yes, but not for another twenty four hours.

She forced the cramped up muscles in her thighs and arms to relax, and took deep, slow, calming breaths. She couldn't go home. She wouldn't go home. Not for now. She needed a place to hide out, a place to sleep. She fumbled for her phone, looking for somewhere to stay the night.

Heather? No, the raven haired girl was out of town with her family.

Ruff and Tuff? No, Hiccup had a measure if authority over the blond terrorists-to-be, for some inexplicable reason, but her orders went over their heads. Likely she'd end up in some stupid prank, and she wasn't in any state to tolerate them.

Snotlout. Enough said.

Camicazi? She might not leave with her car keys.

She scrolled down her contact list, further and further until she reached the one that the had added the previous day, when the boy she hated the most was making a fool of himself for no apparent reason.

No, no, nononono, no! Absolutely not!

She was not spending the night with Hiccup Haddock to get away from her father then she thought about it. Hiccup was manipulable. She could intimidate him into a place to stay the night, no questions asked or stories told, and she could but herself a few hours of peace.

With a sigh, she bitterly shook her head. She didn't really have a choice did she? No, no she really didn't. Everything south of her belly felt ether burning or acidic from the punishment, and she didn't want to even think about what he'd do once she got back. She couldn't spend the night in the car.

With a reluctant sigh, she pressed her thumb on the call button, bitter, stinging tears, trying to fight their way up to her face without her consent and singing tremendously. She wiped them away as the phone rang and rested her head against the headrest.

The phone buzzed on and on, as Astrid forced herself to calm down, her ribs were aching as air left her lungs, and filled them back in again.

Finally, the phone answered.

"Wha-what? Who is this? Hello? Whose dying?"

She felt the boiling in her gut skyrocket at the sound of his pleasing-aggravating voice. Why couldn't it be just one? Why couldn't it be so simpler. Why couldn't she just hate him like she wanted to?!

"No one." She answered. "But you will be if you tell any one about this."

Hiccup Haddock was confused.

He was in bed, during the dead of night. Toothless was on his bed, shedding his ink colored fur all over his master, enough to provide Hiccup with a new fur blanket.

The two had been snoring in peace, Hiccup's prosthetic beside the bed and hearing aids on the nightstand next to his cellphone, when-

"MORTAL COMBAT!" The singer's voice screamed int his bedroom. The Thorstens had reset his ring-tone to that as a prank, but he hadn't figures it out yet. It until this moment anyway.

Toothless's shot open, and he sprang to his paws, barking like an aggressive chainsaw with a grudge. One of his enormous paws slammed into Hiccup's gut, waking and winding him in one go.

"GAH!" He yelled clutching his spleen as the old video game them played out from his cellphone beside him.

he sat straight up and shoved one aid in his warm bleary eyes and weary head trying to find the source of the disturbance. "Too-Toothless, what's wrong bud?" Then his groggy mind grasped that that music wasn't coming from in his head-he'd only started hearing it after he had put the hearing aid in.

He snatched up his phone. The caller ID was missed as he hurriedly slammed his thumb into the green 'accept call' icon on the screen and pressed it to his ear.

"Wha-what," he garbled out, half alert, half asleep. " hello? Whose dying?" He wasn't entirely sure why he added that last part, but OK. It fit his clownish behavioral patterns. Toothless jumped at the bed and whined at his charge, as if to ask, why did your puny human device interrupt my sleep?!

He waved the dog away with his hand. Soon, the voice on the other end spoke up. "No one. But you will be if top you tell anyone about this." Her voice as gravely and thick.

"A-Astrid?" He stuttered.

"U-Useless?" She mimicked cruelly.

He sighed and shook his head in annoyance readjusting the hearing aid in his war and scratching the top of his head. "Why are you calling?" He questioned, then yawned loudly. Toothless whined, as if saying that he wanted to go back to bed too.

The bully on the other end of the line went quiet. She seemed to be wrestling with herself, if the frustrated little grunts were anything to go by. Was it pathetic he thought frustrated Astrid was cute too?

Hiccup pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed. Why did she have to even sound adorable? Why couldn't she be big and unlikeable, instead of having the face of a girl that could actually be kind if nice.

He shook his head and waited for an answer. He was patient for a really long time, even beginning to hum the Mortal Combat theme-Damn the twins they had gotten it stuck in his head now- until Astrid finally answered him in a choked voice, like she had when she offered him the cease fire.

"I-I need a place. To-to stay." She spat out at him. "I can't go home right now, and my other friends are not-I can't-I don't-"

While this was all very amusing to Hiccup, seeing the girl he detested (well, hearing, but you get the idea) reduced to stuttering an explanation. But it turned out to be kind if painful to listen to that. Honestly, he'd rather loose the other leg than listen to Astrid Hofferson be a stuttering wreck. It was like, a crime against the universe or something.

The sky was blue, Toothless was black, Berk was cold, and Astrid Hofferson didn't stutter. Those were some of the few absolute truths in Hiccup's life. And he shook his head. "Aaaaand, you want to stay here?"

Silence.

"What's in it for me?" He asked, just for kicks to see what kinda reaction he would get out of her.

"What's in it for you?!' She snarled angrily. "What's in it for you is that I don't make your life even more miserable after we hand in the project!"

Hiccup shook his head. He should have seen that coming. He really, really should have seen that coming. But like an idiot, he didn't and he rubbed his head again. "Fine, fine Astrid," he said, exasperated. He was braver to her over the phone because, unless she had some kind of freaky powers, she couldn't hurt him through telecommunication. At least, not physically. "You can spend the night here."

"OK," she sighed, sounding a smidgen less angry than before. "OK. You love in the big house in Chieftain Drive, right?"

"Yup."

"See you in a minuet."

"OK." She hung up, and it was a few minuets before Hiccup realized what he'd just agreed to, and, more importantly, with whom! When it did shock and horror filled him. "WAIT, WHAT?!" He screamed so loudly, Astrid might have even heard it.