Dragon Treasure, a DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 8 - Routine, part 1 (rough draft)
As time passed, things started to fall into a routine. Stoick still worked from home sometimes, but now that his wife was available and willing to look after Hiccup and Toothless, Stoick was able to go back to the office on most days. When Valka reported the situation back to the Sanctuary, she was permitted to take on the Night Fury and his treasure as a new research project, which allowed Valka to stay with the boys without having to take time off from work.
Marta grew more accustomed to Toothless, until eventually she started greeting him with the same smiles and crooning and motherly caresses as Hiccup received. Dr. Ikeda also grew comfortable around Toothless, and Will's enthusiasm soon lapsed into a more temperate affection and curiosity.
Marta was the one who had assessed Hiccup's tastes and needs after just a couple of meals, quickly defaulted to plain and oddly cooked fish the way he liked it best, and was now gradually getting him accustomed to a much more varied and healthy diet than he was used to.
After breakfast, Will would arrive to work with Hiccup on the subjects he liked less. It had been discovered from the placement test that Hiccup was almost completely illiterate - he recognized some words from memory rather than actually reading them. He only knew how to write his own name because Seth had taught it to him a few years before. Hiccup also knew almost no math apart from very basic addition and subtraction using his fingers. He would struggle with his reading and writing for an hour or two, then listen eagerly to a social studies lesson, which he liked better.
After that was when Dr. Ikeda would arrive on therapy days. Hiccup wasn't always upset after those sessions, but he sometimes was, which was why they left his favorite school subjects for last. After he'd been given some time alone with Toothless to recover, he would usually be willing to come back for some math and science lessons.
He loved doing science experiments with Will, and seemed to be particularly interested in mechanics. He began regularly taking apart various items to see how they worked, and on his own initiative, he started a project to make Toothless a prosthetic tail fin - not a cosmetic one like the dragon had worn for his circus performances, but a functional one to match his remaining fin.
"You really think that you'll be able to get him to fly someday?" Will asked curiously.
"We've always wanted to fly. I thought we'd never be able to, but now that you're teaching me all these things, I know we can do it. Like the Wright brothers, or Amelia Earheart." Hiccup smiled up at him. "Thank you, Will. I never would have known about all the things people have done if you hadn't told me. I wouldn't be able to do this without you." He gestured at the fin he was working on.
Will smiled back and affectionately scratched behind Toothless's head plates. "It's my pleasure, Hiccup. Thank you for being such an amazing student, and for introducing me to the coolest dragon in the world!"
Hiccup enjoyed working with Valka for her research, and learning everything about dragons that she took the opportunity to teach him. He and Toothless would show off for her, or she would teach Hiccup things about his companion that the boy had never known or at least been able to articulate. Just like Stoick, she also filmed them a lot.
"This is Hiccup," Valka narrated as she held the camera, "the first known human to be considered a 'treasure' by a dragon. As you can see, this dragon, whose name is Toothless, is treating his human with complete trust and affection, exposing his vulnerabilities without any hesitation or worry." She paused a moment to focus on Toothless wriggling happily on his back as Hiccup stroked his belly. "All right, now let's try a demonstration." She handed the camera to her husband. "Don't drop it, dear. Toothless is about to attack me."
"What?!"
Before Stoick could forbid or demand anything, Valka was marching away. She seized Hiccup, yanked him to his feet, and started to violently drag him off.
Hiccup yelped and protested, and Toothless snapped upright, staring for a moment in frozen shock. Then the dragon leaped to his feet and rushed after them, roaring. Valka let go of Hiccup and ran flat-out. Toothless chased her for a few steps, snarled one last time for good measure, then whirled around, gave a bark of concern, and trotted back to Hiccup. He gently pushed the boy to the ground and crouched over him, nosing at him anxiously.
Valka, breathless and grinning, returned to her husband and held out her hands for the camera. "I hope you kept it steady."
"Of course I didn't," Stoick grumbled as he passed it over. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."
Valka refocused the camera on the boys. "As you saw, the dragon was upset by the threat to his treasure, and has started to calm down and reassure himself now that the threat is gone. He does this by assuming a dominant stance, which asserts ownership, and by licking his human to refresh the scent-marks on him."
"Why does everyone always like filming me?" Hiccup complained half-playfully, making a face at the camera as he lay without resisting the dragon's ministrations.
"Hiccup, nothing like this has ever been captured on film before," Valka said gleefully. "This is wonderful!"
"You scared him!"
"He's all right. I just startled him, that's all; you're safe and everything is fine now."
"Everything's fine, Toothless," Hiccup crooned, caressing the dragon's head plates, "no thanks to her..."
Valka also helped a lot in improving Toothless's image to people with more unsympathetic opinions. After explaining into a camera for a while, she told Hiccup to pet Toothless and then gave instructions to Stoick and Will.
When everything was ready, Valka gave the signal, and Stoick started bellowing furiously as he manhandled Will and shoved him to the ground and pretended to beat him. Stoick was an extremely large, loud, and strong man; Will's frightened shrieks were genuine.
Toothless leaped to his feet in shock, staring at the men for a second. Then he trotted over to them and made an uncertain sort of roar at Stoick, who paused to shout that Toothless was an overgrown lizard who should mind his own business.
Toothless growled, then darted at Will and tried to pull him away. Stoick lunged at Toothless, who leaped out of reach and circled around, growling.
When it became obvious that Toothless was trying to help Will without injuring either of the men, Valka called an end to it. Stoick held out a conciliatory hand to the dragon, but Toothless growled at the offer and retreated to guard Hiccup, glaring. Stoick had to speak gently and move slowly for a long time, and show quite a lot of affection to Will, before Toothless started to trust him again. Even then, the dragon wouldn't let Stoick close to Hiccup until Hiccup went to shower his foster father with affection, trying to prove that there was nothing to worry about.
"There was quite a significant difference," Valka lectured the camera in the meantime. "It is already known that a dragon will go to any lengths to protect its treasure, which is why Toothless has acted aggressively toward anyone he thinks is threatening Hiccup. However, this exercise demonstrated that when the treasure himself is not in danger, Toothless's instinct is to rescue the victim without harming the attacker, if possible. Toothless has no thirst for blood, as was clearly seen when he initially tried to intimidate his opponent with vocalizations rather than violence."
They did the experiment a couple more times with different 'victims' and 'attackers,' including a version where Hiccup ordered Toothless to not interfere. The dragon obeyed, whining in distress and creeping behind Hiccup as if to hide. Valka gloated to the camera about the trust Toothless had in his human companion, so opponents no longer had grounds for claiming that the animal would disobey his handler.
When the 'victim' was Armando, who had very recently agreed to come back to work, Toothless still tried to rescue the groundskeeper even though the dragon had never met him before. According to Valka, this proved that Toothless even had some altruistic traits.
On their fourth attempt with different variables, Toothless could no longer tolerate all the playacting. He threw a brief tantrum and then simply carried Hiccup away from the confusing human madness, so the experiments were forced to stop. Valka didn't mind, since they'd pretty much gotten what they needed and she had started feeling bad about upsetting the poor Night Fury.
o.o.o.o.o
It took a while for Stoick to figure out why the boys seemed to love that particular bathroom so much. They took refuge in it whenever they were especially frightened or upset, and some mornings Stoick would find them sleeping in it. Hiccup always kept the door locked, which was problematic when he was hiding for excessively long periods or at inopportune times. The lock was easy to pick if necessary - until Hiccup sabotaged it. Stoick lost his temper and had the lock completely uninstalled, which sent Hiccup into both a tantrum and a panic attack.
"That room is your cage, isn't it," Dr. Ikeda said when Hiccup had finally calmed down enough to listen to her. "Your safe place."
"I need the lock," Hiccup wailed into his dragon's scales. "I need the lock. I need the lock... Make him give it BACK!"
It was a long time before Hiccup was able to feel truly safe without a locked door between him and the outside world.
o.o.o.o.o
Hiccup longed to go with Valka to the Sanctuary whenever it was time for her to return there. He hated that he was stuck in this country for several reasons, one of them being that he had to testify at the trials of Drago Bludvist, Eret Hunter Sr., and their men. "I don't ever, ever want to see Bludvist or Hunter again, but Stoick says it's their 'constitutional right' to be able to look me in the face when I accuse them... I wish they had to look into Toothless's face, too, he'd tell them exactly how horrible they are; but they won't even let him in the courtroom, it's not fair! Bludvist hurt him as much as he hurt me, he should have to look Toothless in the face, too!"
The separation issue started to become more and more of a problem, as there began to be an increased need for Hiccup to leave the house. Unfortunately, there was almost nowhere he could go while being accompanied by Toothless, and he absolutely hated the separation training.
During the first separation, when Ikeda drove Hiccup around the neighborhood for what was supposed to be just a few minutes, he had a panic attack, which she talked him through. He took longer to recover without his dragon's help, and they were gone for longer than a few minutes.
"Toothless," Hiccup said in distress, once he could breathe well enough to speak. "Toothless, we have to go back, we have to go back he's probably losing his mind, tearing the place apart, I have to tell him I'm okay, I have to-!"
"Ssshhh, Hiccup, calm down. Look, there's the house, it's right-"
Hiccup threw open the door and jumped out of the car before it had even stopped moving. He sprinted for the house, and yelled in horrified frustration when he found the front door locked. "Toothless!" he screamed, pounding on the door. "Toothless! Toothless! I'm here!"
The dragon's frantic roars were audible from inside the house, and Hiccup didn't even seem to hear Ikeda shouting at him from the driveway that she had the key and if he just waited for her to catch up-
There was a huge thump as Toothless slammed himself against the inside of the door. He roared; Hiccup, understanding what he meant, hurriedly backed away and yelled, "It's okay, Toothless!"
Before anyone could stop them, Toothless blasted the door to charred splinters. He took a single leap, thrusting with his wings for speed, and the next second, boy and dragon were all over each other, completely frantic to reassure each other of their restored proximity. Hiccup hugged him and kissed him and bit him as the dragon licked him and rubbed scent onto him and toothlessly bit him back, the two of them stumbling in little circles as if trying to get even closer.
Valka stared ruefully at the remains of the door. "You were right, I should have kept him in the cage...ohhhh, Stoick is going to be so upset when he finds out..."
Ikeda sighed as she watched the boys. "It was my mistake as well; I should have tried a different tactic first."
Hiccup had already been knocked to the ground by the time Toothless collapsed beside him in traumatized exhaustion. Even then, the pair continued to huddle close together on the front lawn for a long time, Hiccup crying quietly and whispering reassurances as Toothless bathed him, pausing from time to time to add his whimpers to Hiccup's grief.
Ikeda decided to tackle the root of the problem before trying another round of separation.
"Have you ever noticed a pattern to the panic attacks?" she asked during the next therapy session, already knowing the answer but wanting Hiccup to vocalize it himself. "Is there anything in particular that causes them?"
"Remembering the first time," Hiccup muttered. He gulped and struggled to continue. "Mostly just the first one, though; not really the second."
"Yes, I've noticed that, too. But I've also noticed a second trigger."
"..."
"What else have you noticed?"
"...I HATE when people try to make me leave Toothless."
"Yes, that is very upsetting to you, and I can certainly understand why. Can you tell me what it is, exactly, that you're afraid of when you think of leaving Toothless?"
After struggling for a little while, gasping for breath and clutching the dragon, Hiccup finally said, "I have to stay with Toothless. We're supposed to be together."
"Why are you 'supposed' to be together? What will happen if you're not together?"
She let him cry for a while, then gently asked the question again.
"They hurt me," Hiccup finally gasped out.
"You were abused because you'd been taken away from your dragon's protection."
"Y-Yes," Hiccup sobbed, then refused to speak again until she ended the session.
The next time the topic was brought up, Ikeda pointed out, "You said 'He left me' just now. Did you notice?"
"What?"
"When you were talking about the first incident, when Toothless was tranquilized. You said 'he left me,' as if Toothless abandoned you on purpose."
"He DIDN'T!"
"I know. But don't you think your phrasing is a bit indicative?"
"He didn't leave me! He couldn't help it! They made him fall asleep, it wasn't his fault!"
"Yes, Hiccup, that's true. But I think maybe, even though you know better intellectually, there's a part of you that feels as if Toothless abandoned you when you needed him most. It wasn't his fault, you're very right, but you can't help feeling like it's his fault."
"It's not fair," Hiccup sobbed, turning his face away when Toothless tried to lick him. "It's not your fault, Toothless...it's not your fault, it's not, it's not...!"
The next time they returned to the subject, Ikeda said in response to a conclusion Hiccup had reached, "It's very good that you feel that way now, Hiccup; that's excellent progress. But you know, I wonder if we're finished yet."
Hiccup tensed.
"Don't you think there was someone who truly did leave you behind? A guardian who didn't protect you? Maybe that's why it felt like such a betrayal when they incapacitated Toothless, because it didn't feel like the first time you had been abandoned."
Hiccup swallowed as he realized what she was referring to. Ikeda waited. Hiccup finally ground out, "It's her fault. Everything is her fault."
"Whose fault, Hiccup?"
"You KNOW who! Her! My mother. I hate her."
"What she did hurt you very badly, didn't it."
They weren't able to continue during that session, but when they were, Hiccup cried and journaled and drew things and tore things and burned things and shouted and allowed Ikeda to hug him, one of the very few times he tolerated a human's comfort. "She left me," he whispered. "Why did she leave me? Why? Why?"
"Your mother was very sick, Hiccup," Ikeda said softly. "What she did was very wrong and she has no excuse for it, but maybe it will be easier for you to forgive her if you can understand how much she was hurting, too."
Once Hiccup was able to process and deal with the pain of those memories, the panic attacks stopped. He still absolutely hated leaving his dragon behind, but at least now during the separations, he was depressed and cranky and withdrawn rather than desperately suffering. Which meant that the next problem to deal with was Toothless, since the dragon's separation anxiety had a different source.
It broke Hiccup's heart whenever he returned to find Toothless wailing or despondently grieving, and he couldn't seem to make the dragon understand why he kept leaving or that he was determined to always, always return. "I'll come back to you," he sobbed, hugging the dragon tightly as Toothless made those horrible desperate whimpers. "I'll come back to you, I promise. I promise!"
One time, he screamed at Ikeda in frustration, "Of COURSE he throws a fit whenever I leave! We've been together our entire lives, the only times I ever left his sight were when they dragged me off to rape me!"
"Exactly, Hiccup. That is precisely the problem."
"What?"
"Toothless has learned to associate being separated from you with seeing you wounded in body and soul when you return to him," Ikeda explained. "You are very precious to him, and he thinks you will come to harm if you leave him. You reinforce this belief by returning to him so frantic and desperate that he thinks you've barely escaped an attack."
Hiccup made a face, not liking that she was right.
"Let's try something. The next time you return from a separation, act as happy as you can, and greet him with excitement. Teach him that your return is a reward, not a relief."
Hiccup completely forgot to try it the next time. The second time, Ikeda reminded him before they pulled into the driveway, and Hiccup made an attempt at sounding happy when he greeted Toothless, though it sounded very fake to him. He got better at it with practice.
"Hey, bud! Hey~ Toothless, hey! Yeah, did you miss me? Did you miss me~? I missed YOU, I am soooooooo happy to see you!"
It didn't happen overnight, but they were persistent, and Toothless gradually improved. They were able to stop locking him up in the cage whenever Hiccup left. Though Valka reported that the dragon was quiet and inactive and sad whenever Hiccup was gone, Toothless seemed to get more joyful and excited rather than frantic when he greeted Hiccup upon the boy's return.
They did experiment with having the boys try to communicate long-distance, but recorded videos of Hiccup seemed to confuse and upset Toothless. The dragon initially reacted better to live feeds, but he still quickly became distressed and unhappy, and would eventually throw the same kind of tantrums.
"It's because he can't smell you through a video screen," Valka explained sadly. "I suspect that he doesn't process the digital images of you the same way a human would, either, and I'm sure he can detect disturbing differences in your voice as it's being conveyed through technology. When he can see you and hear you, but it looks and sounds wrong and he can't smell you at all, the poor thing must feel like a human would who's being haunted by a ghost."
So they gave up on the video idea and just concentrated on lengthening the separation periods. The boys were eventually able to handle one hour easily, and two or three hours without getting overly distressed.
Hiccup still hated leaving, but grew resigned to it as long as the reason was justified. When he did set foot out of the house, it was for important errands such as a much-needed dentist visit and a trip to the courthouse to be familiarized with the setup and procedures. He refused to get his hair cut until Valka offered to do it herself - she was one of the very few people he trusted enough so far to handle sharp blades close to his head.
To be continued...
Author's Notes: I have no idea what sort of techniques/etc. professional therapists use. All my knowledge in that area comes from personal experience in my own life and the lives of my loved ones and people I know.
To clarify about forgiveness, it's not just a religious idea; it has secular relevance as well. To quote the Mayo Clinic Web site, "forgiveness can lessen [the wound's] grip on you and help you focus on other, more positive parts of your life. . . . Forgiveness doesn't mean that you deny the other person's responsibility for hurting you, and it doesn't minimize or justify the wrong. You can forgive the person without excusing the act. . . . forgiveness is possible - even if reconciliation isn't." Forgiveness is important for your own emotional health.