Hello.
Hiccup curled up on a navy blue beanbag in Fishlegs' room. It was spacious, as were all the rooms in the bungalow and the colours were cool, almost nautical. There was another giant flatscreen TV of some state of the art make playing a video game. You know the ones: with dramatic action and blurs of khaki with slits of colour running around a wasted, muddy landscape.
As far as he was aware, they weren't massively rich but he was pretty sure Fish's father worked with TV's and that this was his only contribution to their family. Trouble was, it was extremely difficult to get Fishlegs to talk about anything shoved in the box 'don't want to talk about it'. Forget getting blood out of a stone, it was more like getting frost out of the sun! If he didn't want, he didn't and, while that meant he was rather a positive person for the only son of a foster parent with an absent father, it also meant that any 'deep and meaningful' conversations were shut right down, and most of the time that suited him just fine. Except he really wanted to talk about Lauren. And Astrid. Definitely Astrid.
He knew next to nothing about pre-Hiccup Fishlegs, except his childhood was a rather scarring experience as apparently, deeply abused, cynical teenagers are not always the nicest people in the world to be around. Who would have though, eh? Oh that and the very potent nightmare involving much screaming and thrashing around.
Fishlegs had three dogs, that stayed clear of him if he stayed clear of them (fucking beasts, they were) all with something chopped off (ear, paw, tail - do they cost less if there's a bit missing?) and a very bad attitude (too many A-team binge-watches). His mother had a bit of a thing for baking, which meant that their house always smelt lovely (a rare oasis amongst his none-too pleasant smelling accommodations) and the fact that she was just so good at it was a bonus! He found that he suspended all his food rules in such a relaxed, calm environment and ate just enough to stop him feeling sick (he still remembers the first time he ever felt full, which was here, and the first time he threw up because he was so full, which was also here.)
Lumbering footsteps, muffled to thuds by the carpet, signalised Fishlegs' return just as effectively as the mounting aroma of chocolate and orange.
He smiled at his friend as he entered, before being distracted by his familiar ringtone (that was far too similar to his history teacher's for any kind of comfort)
"Hello?"
"Oh, hi Hiccup."
"Lauren.. Er what's up?"
"Do you mind awfully looking af-"
Suddenly her soft, almost shaky voice disappeared underneath a horrible crackling sound that almost drowned out a door slam and panting breaths.
Almost.
"Terribly sorry about that! I said do you mind looking after Ellie tonight?"
"I'm at work from seven to nine, but I can do after nine thirty? Is that too late?"
"No that's perfect! Absolutely *pant* perfect."
"Are you Ok?"
"Yeah. All good. Uhm... oh... BYE!"
Brow furrowed, he stared at his suddenly disconnected phone with a comical shell-shocked look that he was informed by a laughing, gargling Fishlegs was 'priceless'.
In the end, he joined in, played video games and stuffed his face with cake for half an hour before running to work and still managing to be 10 minutes late. Throughout his monotonous, exasperating shift, he tried and failed to ignore the niggling feeling that something was very wrong with Mrs Next-door.
oOo
Sweeping himself into a daze and drowning out all his thoughts with pulverising, trashy beats that weren't contained by his headphones, if the dirty looks were an indicator, worked right up until he knocked on an unfamiliar door and it opened.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
The smell was powerful, telling of copious alcohol that had not stayed bottled. Finally, the door stopped creaking- leaving a dark, musty hallway in it's place that stung like acid. The tattered, tan 'welcome' mat was kicked askew and clashed horribly with the scene that unfolded at the end of the hallway. All bad things went down in the kitchen, it seemed.
Two human lumps slumped on the floor, one over the other, surrounded by broken bottle and dark red, liquid splodges that the child he came here for smeared over her fingers as she played with the glass and her mother's hair, content in gurgling to herself. A porcelain wrist, marred and shiny with burns stood in stark relief to the dark floor and the couple's dark clothing. This was some kind of modern art- the new kind with coarse, ugly shapes and clashing colours thrusted together with reckless abandon; chaos in an allotted 50 ft.
The heap was still, and like a monster slain in battle it held a presence in the space, something foreign yet so predictable. He looked too large, slumped over her with a brown hand tangled in messy, coarse hair. Still, neither moved. The door creaking, a tap dripping, the boiler whirring clunkily, Ellie gurgling and banging glass against the floor- the cacophony of sounds joined up the make what was a death scene far too loud. Shouldn't it be deadly silent, the earth's memorial to lives lost? He told himself that his feet weren't trembling as he crossed the worn, splintered floors that held three lives he was intruding on - the pipes in the walls were whispering about him.
As if inanimate, he reached down and brushed a stranger's cool skin- did her eyelashes flutter? No. His fingers returned to their work of finding a pulse- did his foot just twitch? No. There was nothing as the stillness stretched out until, yes, he found one. The sluggish tha-thump of the very ill yet it was there. She wasn't dead, neither was he.
With that discovery, he turned his attention to removing shards of glass from the child, he should take her with him anyway. With the first door creak, he was on high alert. This was a dangerous, precarious situational he could not be unguarded. A dark, shadowed figure pushed the door open - nimble, iridescent fingers snatching up a 50p on the windowsill next to the door. He knew what the figure was here for. Suddenly the hooded face turned to him and he heard a breathy curse. Dark, penetrating eyes that may be monochrome and lifeless in the light too, (though it was unlikely) bored through him and they stayed in stalemate until he caught a flash of silver by the man's hip and it was time to run. So he ran, leaving behind two unconscious, unsafe people and a baby to whatever fate.
You know what they say: all the monsters come out at night.
He jumped a fence with only mild difficulty and sped through backstreets, running like an animal chasing prey. Except, he was chasing atonement, freedom, innocence. He was jarring his aching, unfit, unprepared body with every painful step and heaving breath in search of something even he couldn't begin to comprehend.
As he finally stopped running and trudged out into the night, he cast his eyes downwards and finally allowed himself to cry: quiet but ugly.
There was blood on his shoes.
Bye.