Hiccup's room looked the same as it had when he'd left it that morning. His blanket was thrown across the bed. His pillow was there, and the small fabric model of Toothless sat on the table along with a notebook and a scrap of charcoal. His desk was a mess, as usual, and the various pieces, projects, and drawings that made up his life were in their normal places, which meant they were pretty much everywhere. Toothless was out, probably eating fish down at the academy with the other dragons, so his bed was empty, too. Hiccup was alone.
At least, he thought he was. Hiccup stood quietly for a moment, making sure no one was in the house with him, that his dad hadn't come back in looking for something.
Then he rolled his eyes at himself. Stoick couldn't go anywhere quietly, and certainly not anywhere in the house. The wood creaked when his father looked at it, let alone walked across it. He was definitely alone.
Hiccup lifted the top of his desk slightly and slid his fingertips along the side, careful to avoid splinters. He'd built his own desk, one of the first projects he'd completed after learning all the techniques used in the forge. It didn't look like something built in the forge. It looked like a wooden desk. But when he'd learned how to join flat pieces at an angle, and how to hide the weight of internal metal by balancing it across different pieces of wood, he'd had an idea for improving his desk, which at the time had been built of scraps from old tables.
His fingertips hit the catch, and he pressed against it, waiting until he felt the spring-loaded clasp inside snap back before he lifted the top. Hidden inside was a slender metal box, just big enough to hold some maps, or assorted piles of paper. Maybe some pencils. And a book.
Hiccup knew from the moment he picked it up that the box was not empty, that no one had found it, let alone opened it. But he still had to check. Several hours of worrying weren't going to be relieved by rational logic. He had to see for himself.
Using the key that he'd hid in the drawer of his bedside table, Hiccup opened the box, still holding his breath, tense and silent lest anyone discover him. He knew he was being ridiculous, and would eventually laugh at himself. But not yet.
Inside the box was a large, dark red leather book, sewn with black cord and branded with a symbol and markings Hiccup still couldn't identify.
He opened a few pages. They were all there. He didn't spend too long turning them - he needed to get to the bonfire while there was still food left. But the sketches were all in place. The light coming in from the window above his bed was more than enough to highlight the drawing of a hand, a curve, a set of lines and arrows, all surrounded by a few words that Hiccup hadn't fully deciphered, but was pretty sure he understood. Somewhat.
The book was there, the information within it was still his. Its existence was still his secret.
Well, mostly his.
He put the book down on his bed, and glanced at it repeatedly as he removed most of his leather flight suit. The book wasn't capable of movement on its own that he know of, but he kept looking at it anyway, again with the knowledge that he'd laugh at himself. Eventually.
Unbuckling all the layers of his leather armor took some doing, but once he'd stripped down to his leggings, he relaxed even further. It was so hot and sticky lately, that if he wasn't flying, he was sweltering. Maybe he could design something lighter in weight, or with layers to remove if it got too warm, or add, since it was more likely to be colder soon than warmer. Warm didn't last long in Berk.
After pulling on a shirt he hadn't worn in a year, since most of the time flying above Berk demanded long sleeves, he ran his fingers through his hair. He felt strange, like he wasn't wearing enough clothing because his arms were bare, even though he knew the evening air would be humid and thick for hours, and he'd spend much of the evening sitting by a fire.
Then he sat down on his bed and opened the book again. It had been awhile since he'd looked at it, since that time when he'd felt like he didn't know anything and needed to study a book he couldn't entirely understand. Well, the text was troublesome. The pictures were pretty clear.
He turned toward the pages in the back, ones he hadn't spent a lot of time with because they were mostly text, paragraphs and sweeping arrows connecting other blocks of text, all written in a strange, curling language that he hadn't been able to entirely decode, no matter how much he tried. He thought he'd figured out a word, a handful of letters, but even using those tiny clues hadn't unlocked the pages and pages of text.
The last few pages of the book were blank, with one line of text written at the top. Maybe whomever had written it expected the next owner to fill in the blank spaces with his or her own knowledge. Hiccup felt his cheeks begin to turn red at the thought. He didn't have that much to add, but he had some ideas.
With shake of his head, he picked up the book and placed it back into its box. He locked it up, and hid it beneath the surface of his desk. He was scattering his drawings across the top to make it look like he'd been working on something when one sheet of paper caught on a rough edge of the wood.
It was a sketch of Astrid's hair, her braid over her shoulder, her face turned away, looking to the horizon. He'd drawn it ages ago, sometime the previous winter, one night when he'd been up late, unable to sleep, and unable to stop thinking about her. As it had in the past, drawing the things that were stuck in his mind made those images stop tormenting him, so he'd sketched for a few hours by the light of a small stub of a candle.
But he hadn't burned this sketch like he had with so many others, the sketches he didn't want anyone to see. That was strange. Why hadn't he? He looked at the image closely, both evaluating the accuracy of his drawing and whether he needed to burn it. Maybe he could keep it, if he hid it well enough. It would cause some questions if someone, like his father or Gobber, found a sketch of Astrid among the things on his desk, but it would be even worse if those questioning knew that he was trying to preserve a moment so intimate and quiet, he wasn't always sure it had actually happened. Only he knew that he was drawing Astrid without her shoulder armor, capturing her a moment after she'd finished combing and braiding her hair late one afternoon as she sat with him at the hot springs. That her shirt had fallen off one shoulder, and her skin was bare, the light sliding over it before he'd traced the contour with his fingertips.
Hiccup lifted the top of his desk one more time, then slid the sketch underneath so it rested on top of the metal box hidden inside. He could probably keep it. For now.
...
Hiccup could hear Snotlout and Tuffnut from the steps of his house as he made his way to the bonfire tower. He was relieved, but not entirely looking forward to Tuffnut's continued discussion of his Book of Not Dragons. It might have been the same book, or perhaps not, but Tuffnut would want to talk about it about as much has Hiccup would want to not discuss it at all.
Hiccup made his way down the steps and into one of the plazas, waving to villagers heading home, or walking to Meade Hall for a drink, or a song, or both. He wasn't moving quickly, and didn't need to get to the bonfire tower immediately, so he had time to think, and to savor no longer being anxious.
Of all of them, Fishlegs had been first to hear The Talk. This was before everything, before the battle, before they'd come together at dragon killing school, before Hiccup had really befriended any of the others. Fishlegs had come to the forge on an errand for his mother, looking like the world had spun sideways beneath him, muttering and pale, so distracted he'd nearly taken his arm off when he backed into a sword Gobber had leaned against the wall.
It wasn't until a year or so later, late one evening after another dragon training session with Gobber that had nearly gotten them all killed, that Snotlout brought up the subject, probably to brag or embarrass someone, or both. He'd had gotten The Talk from his father around the same time as Fishlegs, but from the way Snotlout boasted of it, it seemed that the contents were widely different between the Jorgensen and Ingermann households. Fishlegs had argued with Snotlcut, and seemed to know a lot about women, probably because his mother had told him what she thought he needed to know. Snotlout, however, had boasted about… things that still didn't make sense. Hiccup figured that Snotlout had listened to his father about as well as he listened to anyone else. Either that or there was a good reason, or several good reasons, why Spitelout was still single.
The twins, Hiccup had no idea, but he was better off not asking.
Ever.
Every teen in Berk knew The Talk was coming, one way or another. It was one of the only times Hiccup had looked forward to a conversation with his father.
Hiccup smiled to himself as he made his way past the forge through the village. It had been one of the most awful, awkward moments of his life, and he had no shortage of similar moments to compare it to. He and his father had not yet learned how to talk to each other, not that they were consistently good at it now, and Hiccup had had no idea how to approach him. He didn't go out of his way to talk to his dad back then.
For most of a month, maybe more, Hiccup had waited for his father to sit down across from him with one of his deep voiced, "Son. We need to talk," invitations, probably in front of the fire.
But it never happened. Hiccup waited across from his father's chair, adding wood to the fire pit, sketching and plotting weaponry for the next dragon attack. He'd designed various kinds of bolas, then crossbows, and, during one long night, the device that had eventually taken down Toothless. Night after night, he sat, filled with equal portions of anticipation and dread at the possibility of his father's footsteps at their door.
When it finally did happen, Stoick chose a perfectly terrible moment. There'd been a dragon attack, and an entire group of houses had burned to the ground. Hiccup had inadvertently made the fire worse, though it had been a complete accident since he'd been trying to trap a dragon, not cause it to belch a wave of liquid fire onto the remaining houses that weren't burning.
Stoick was furious and frustrated, Hiccup was embarrassed and angry, so why Stoick thought that was the right time, Hiccup would never know. But Stoick had stood across from him, covered with soot and ash, flexing his arms and trying to tell Hiccup how sex happened.
The thing was, Hiccup had already learned the basics from overhearing other people. Vikings weren't modest — at least, many of those in Berk weren't, but when it came to actual information, half of what he overheard seemed impossible. And kind of stupid.
So he'd done a lot of thinking while he'd waited, and he had a lot of questions, but when the time came, he never got to ask them. Hiccup didn't know why Stoick couldn't talk with him, but he knew that everything his father said made him more confused, not less. Stoick had started more sentences than he'd finished. He'd picked up axes, gestured with them, then put them down. It was all war metaphors, campaigns and strategy and something about Nadder quills and….
Hiccup shook his head, thinking of it now with more amusement than confusion. His father could rip the head off a Gronkle, and battle an angry Monstrous Nightmare with his bare hands. Those weren't skills he used anymore, thank the Gods, but Hiccup had never known his father to back away from anything, to choose silence and avoidance rather than a full-speed-ahead charge.
But that's what Stoick had done, and Hiccup, out of mercy for his father and himself, had allowed it.
"It's ok, Dad. I get it."
"Ye do?" A look of such relief had crossed over Stoick's face. "Ye do. Aye. Good talk, then."
Hiccup had shaken his head in reply, but Stoick had been heading for the door and hadn't seen.
Hiccup had gone to bed that night utterly baffled by what his father had tried to tell him, and stayed up late, trying to match what he'd overheard with the random assemblies of words his father had spoken. Nothing fit, or made sense.
Hiccup understood now, more than he had then, that his father was better at plans of attack than at using words. Stoick fought his way through problems, instead of talking his way around them. It was one of the very basic ways in which they were different. At first, he'd been angry at his father for not being able to explain, for not making sense the one time Hiccup had wanted to hear everything he had to say. It wasn't like he needed the information. No one in the village took him seriously, let alone showed interest in him. But he still wanted to know, and had felt frustrated and left out that there was knowledge he was supposed to have, but didn't.
Then, late one night that same week, Hiccup woke in the darkness to the sound of Gobber and Stoick talking by the fire below. This happened pretty regularly, since neither man had what could be called a quiet voice. Normally Hiccup would have gone back to sleep, but the growing anger in Gobber's voice had woken him further.
Gobber was lecturing Stoick.
Hiccup had nearly fallen off the bed trying to lean closer to hear every word. Once he'd realized what was going on, there was no way he was going to miss that conversation.
"He needs to..get on as himself, too, Stoick. Not just as chief."
"I know that, Gobber. Don't remind me." Stoick usually sounded grumpy, but that night, his voice had been soaked in despair, a dark, miserable tone that Hiccup had never heard from him before. "Valka would have smacked me for waiting this long, and for doing a poor job of it."
Hiccup could not have been more shocked. Stoick rarely if ever mentioned his mother.
Goober sounded surprised as well, and cleared his throat before speaking. "Even so, Stoick, just because you've been the chief and… onlythe chief for this long doesn't mean Hiccup will do the same."
Stoick hadn't answered, and Hiccup hadn't been fully sure what Gobber meant until, after a heavy silence, he spoke again.
"I know you don't plan to marry again-"
"No, I don't." Stoick's tone had been clipped, every letter pronounced, a sure sign he was about to lose his temper.
Gobber's voice was equally sharp, and full of disdain. "But if you don't fix this, if you don't figure out a way to explain… he needs to know. And you're failing him, Stoick."
Hiccup had never heard Gobber speak to Stoick so bluntly, nor tell him he wasn't being a good father. The legs of his father's chair had screamed against the floor as Stoick stood up abruptly, prompting Gobber to shush him.
The silence that filled the house had been equally dangerous. Only the intermittent cracking of the fire and the subtle creak of Stoick's leather armbands reached Hiccup's ears. Hiccup knew that noise. Stoick was flexing his arms against the confinement of the leather - something he did when he was furious enough to punch something, or someone. What Gobber had said made Stoick so angry, Hiccup was honestly afraid for him.
The ominous quiet continued. Hiccup wondered if his dad had mastered silent methods of killing people.
"That's not the life you want for him," Gobber continued, still alive, though the anger had gone out of his voice. Hiccup blew out a breath, as quietly as possible. "But if you try another big talk, you'll scare him off entirely. Do ye… do ye want me to speak to him?"
"Ach, no, that seems…."
"Bad idea, I agree. But Stoick, you have to-"
"Prepare him. I know, I know." Stoick still sounded angry, but his anger was less volatile. Where his words had been swift and knife-sharp before, now they were almost puddles of misery.
After that, Hiccup heard Stoick and Gobber cross the room and leave the house, their voices fading as they walked together down the hillside.
The following morning at the forge, Gobber had been extra talkative, which for Gobber was saying a lot. He'd demonstrated a lot of the forge tools that day, especially anything spiked or pointed. He'd been waving things around, things Hiccup already knew how to use when working with metal, and….
Hiccup shuddered as he neared the stairs leading up to the bonfire platform. He didn't like to think about that afternoon. It was like a bad dream he did not want to remember.
"Hiccup!"
He turned. Astrid was running down the path toward him, a smile growing across her face.
His heart stopped for a moment. Her hood and shoulder armor were gone. She was wearing a blue shirt with arm gauntlets, but her shirt had no sleeves. Her hair was in a loose braid falling over her shoulder, and for a moment, she looked as she had that afternoon at the springs, and when he'd sketched her months later.
The sun wouldn't go down completely for a few weeks, and evening still looked like mid-day, but the light was gold and silver in her hair, and he stopped to wait, watching her run toward him with joy.