"People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me." -Søren Kierkegaard
He watched the driveway intently. Any minute now, his dad's car would be pulling up, and he'd be outside fumbling with the key for a half hour as usual. Hiccup pushed the curtain farther out of the way and glanced around the dark street for any signs of headights. None. His street was eerily quiet that night.
Hiccup sighed and retreated back to the kitchen where a steaming mug of tea was waiting on the counter. He didn't even like tea.
He sifted through the kitchen drawer and pulled out a pen, quickly scribbling a note on a piece of paper for his dad. Hiccup slipped out the back door just as the car pulled into the driveway. He took off down the sidewalk, still trying to pull his coat onto his thin frame. The only sound was the sole of his sneakers against the concrete. And then he tripped. Over what, he didn't know, but he ended up faceplanting onto the sidewalk.
"Hiccup? What are you doing?" A female voice behind him asked.
He tried to stand up and ended up stumbling over before pulling himself up and continuing down the sidewalk as he shouted "not now, talk to you later!". Out of breath and ten minutes later, Hiccup knocked on the door to the house at the very end of the next street over.
Gobber opened the door, eyeing him quizically and let him inside.
"Yer late."
"I know. I was waiting for my dad and-"
"Ah. Lemme guess, ye haven't told him yet?"
Hiccup puffed out his cheeks. "I was getting to that. Anyway-"
"Ye can't keep on keepin' secrets. Yer father's gonna find out and ye know it. It would just be a lot easier to tell him that ye don't want to follow in his footsteps. He'd be less mad. Couldn't ye just rebel like other kids? Egging houses and settin' pranks and such?"
"I'm not rebelling-"
"Ye know, when I was yer age I was off-"
"Gobber! Will you please just listen to me?"
Gobber mumbled an apology and took a sip of meade.
"I can't tell him about this. He'd think that it was stupid and make me stop. So please? Don't tell him?" He was pleading now.
With another sigh and a gulp of meade, Gobber nodded. "Fine. Ah won't tell him. Now let's get started, ah want to get to bed sometime in the next year."
Hiccup kicked at a pebble and sent it skidding across the asphalt. His jacket was zipped all the way up and his hands were in his pockets in an attempt to keep them from freezing off. It didn't seem to be working. Weather like this certainly wasn't unusual for January. In fact, it was probably warmer than it tended to be.
Streetlights flickered off and he sped up his pace. He wasn't going to make it before curfew. Phlegma always patrolled the streets late at night, looking for teenagers out of bed and out causing trouble. It was like a hobby for her.
A porch light suddenly flicked on. Hiccup quickly dove into the alley that connected the two streets. The owner of the house was out in her pyjamas, shining a flashlight in her yard. "Dang raccoons..." She muttered and went back inside. Breathing heavily still, he sank against the fence and slid onto the concrete. A growl interrupted the silence. Hiccup's eyes shot open and he glanced nervously around the alley. The growling got louder. He backed up slowly and reached around for a weapon.
Without thinking, he picked up a broken crate laying on the ground and chucked it at the darkness. A whine. And then silence again.
Oh Gods, did I kill it?
He reached into his backpack and pulled out his phone, shining the flourescant light into the alley. A dog. It was a dog. His heart was racing as he slowly crawled over to it, reaching one hand out to touch it. The dog whined again and Hiccup pulled away. Then, he noticed its leg. It had been tied up with rope and was laying on its side, barely breathing. Blood stained the black fur on its left leg, coming from at least three cuts on it.
"Who did this to you?" Hiccup asked. The dog didn't answer. It just lifted its head up and stared at him. Hiccup couldn't place the expression on its face.
He fumbled around for something to cut the ropes with and picked up a jagged piece of glass from a bottle, slicing himself accidentally as he did. Hiccup winced and wiped his hand on his jeans. He carefully walked towards the dog and kneeled down next to it, then cut each side of the rope off.
"There. You're okay-" Before he even got to finish the sentence, the dog jumped up and pushed him against a pile of garbage bags and barked loudly in his face. It stepped off and limped away down the alley. Hiccup felt like he couldn't breathe. His heart was pounding and his hand was aching from the cut. He got up and ran as fast as he could back to his house.
"Ah, Hiccup. There you are. What were you doing out so late?"
He was pressed against the backdoor, having just opened it, and looked anywhere but his dad.
"Oh, uh...I was just...jogging. I left you a note..."
"Well get to bed then. You have school in the morning."
"Actually, dad, it's Saturday."
"Oh." His dad looked away awkwardly. "So. Have a nice jog?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Good. Exercise is good. Put a bandage on that hand, son. It's bleeding pretty badly. Not even gonna ask how you got it. Knowing you it was probably another run in with trolls." He chuckled softly (which honestly wasn't all that soft) and began to go up the stairs, pausing at the top step to say, "'night."
"'night." Hiccup mumbled. He let out a sigh of relief and headed up the stairs.
It wasn't like he actually liked keeping secrets, he just knew that his father wouldn't understand. He didn't understand anything, really. There was no use in disrupting the perfectly okay relationship they had. Hiccup snorted. Perfectly okay. Ha.
He found some bandages in the bathroom and washed his hand with a washcloth and soap before wrapping the bandages around it. His hand stung terribly now, and he guessed it would for the next few days. The cut had been pretty deep.
Hiccup let his injured hand fall limply in his lap as he logged onto his email to see if he'd got anything from Miranda or whatever her name was. Sure enough, he did.
Ég er feginn að það er læsileg. Þetta tungumál er erfitt. Svo engu að síður, hvað finnst þér að gera að gamni? Eða er gaman, jafnvel til þarna?
(I'm glad that it's readable. This language is hard. So anyway, what do you do for fun? Or does it even exist over there?)
Hiccup regretted ever telling her that her Icelandic was perfect. It was a horrible decision, now that he thought about it, and it would have been wiser to just tell her that she could just write it in English. The whole language thing was a rather stupid part of the program, how were they even supposed to know their language? And what if they had the same language? Then wouldn't that make the whole thing rather useless?
I'm thinking too much into this. Probably more than they did.
He reread the email. What did he do for fun? Maybe she was right in thinking it didn't really even exist. He shrugged and began typing.
Yes, Icelandic is rather difficult. You'll get the hang of it someday. Probably. As far as 'fun', we actually don't have that here. Evil sorcerer forbade it years ago. But I'm interested in what you do.
Good enough. Though everything seemed good at two a.m.
The door to his bedroom opened and he quickly clicked out of his email. It was his dad, who glanced around the dimly lit room curiously before speaking up.
"I, uh, wanted to talk to you about what happened yesterday. Early in the morning seemed like a good time to have a heartfelt conversation." His dad sat on the bed, and the mattress nearly sunk to the ground under his weight. He reached for the dragon plush Hiccup always had on his bed, just so he had something to occupy his hands with. "So...if this is about not getting you that puppy when you were ten-"
"It's not."
"Just making sure...you really wanted that thing."
Hiccup wanted to ask him to stop making small talk, it only made things awkwarder, but he didn't.
"If you really want to go to the states, I can't...uh, there are some really nice universities here, too. Just so you know. I have some pamphlets in the kitchen-"
"I really want to go."
Stoick looked at Hiccup, probably trying to read him and figure out why. It's not like Hiccup had an answer.
"Okay then. But there's a tour next week for that nice school in Reykjavík, though. If you're interested."
I'm not.
Hiccup shrugged in reply. If going meant that disappointed scowl wasn't on his father's face then he'd go a hundred times.
"Is that a yes?"
"Sure."
"Good. I'm sure you'll like it, they've got some really great programs I think you'd enjoy. Your mother loved the art program there. "
He was going to ramble on for hours if he didn't stop him soon.
"Well, anyway...I better be getting to bed. It's late."
Stoick stood up. "Of course, of course. See you in the morning, hopefully."
Hiccup closed the door behind him and flopped onto his bed. After a half an hour, his thoughts began to wander to that dog he'd seen in the alley. He would go looking for it in the morning, make sure that it was okay. Sure, it tried to bite his face off but he couldn't just leave an injured dog on the streets. He was almost asleep when his phone started ringing on the nighttable next to him. Fishlegs.
"Hello?"
"Hiccup! Hi! Did I wake you?" Fishlegs sounded far too cheery for it being three in the morning.
"Nope." Hiccup replied, his voice still groggy.
"Great! So, I was just talking to Rapunzel-"
"Who?"
"My pen pal. I was talking to Rapunzel and let me tell you, she's perfect. Literally. We're gonna get married."
Hiccup laughed and shook his head in disbelief. "Marriage? Already? Jeez, Fishlegs. What happened to 'I'm gonna marry Ruffnut and have three kids named-"
"Shut up." Hiccup could practically hear him blushing. "Unlike Ruffnut, Rapunzel actually appreciates what I have to say. I wrote her an entire essay on my favorite species of dragons and you know what she said? Cool. Not even kidding."
He yawned and glanced at the clock. "Mhm. And you had to tell me this at three in the morning, why?"
"It's important. I've met my soul mate, Hiccup. We're gonna ride off into the sunset, with our hair flowing in the wind..."
"Sounds nice. Can I-"
Fishlegs gasped loudly. "She said she wants to skype with me! At seven her time! So that's..." Hiccup could hear him mumbling numbers on the other line. "Five here! That should be enough time for me to get ready. Hey, Hiccup? Is it to early to propose?"
"No. Not at all." He replied in monotone.
"I can hear the sarcasm, Hiccup. I don't like it."
"Mhm. See you Monday. Have fun with your girlfriend."
"She's not my-" Hiccup had already hung up the phone and was halfway back to sleep.
ugh fishlegs and hiccup are my brotp I just can't even with these two
