Hiccup woke up again after an hour by another nightmare, having the same one as the last. He looked at the fire fading in the house, and kept staring until his father came through the door. Hiccup moved back a little, looking up at his father frightened and exhausted.
Stoick sighed, walking over to the food storage of their house to make them both some breakfast. No one dared to say a word as Hiccup looked at his father's every move. Not once did he dare to let his eyes close or leave his father.
He finished making their breakfast and sat it a few steps away from his son, then walked out of the house with his own food. Stoick walked down towards the forge, eating his soup and earning a few confused glances. He just ignored them and kept walking. From outside he could hear the pounding of weapons and the singing of a happy old Viking.
"Morning," Stoick said, stepping aside so his friend could work.
"Morning chief-," Gobber stopped talking as he noticed the unexpected bowl in his chief's hands. "Why are you eating here?" Stoick sighed, placing the bowl away along with his spoon.
"It's Hiccup. When I came home yesterday after the party, he had a nightmare. So I woke him up, but he just crawled as far away from me as possible, pointing his crutches at me as he yelled out terrified, 'Get away from me!' and begging me to stay away!" He explained, mimicking his son the way he understood him. Gobber didn't know what to say. He would always have an advice for his friend, but right now, he was blank. Sighing, they both stood there thinking of a thing that could help their hero.
"You know, he's been through a lot. There's nothing much more we could do but give him time to recover," Stoick nodded in understanding as he walked back to get his helmet for chiefing.
Vikings looked confused, yet worried, at their hero who passed by them on his way to the forge alongside his dragon. They noticed the bags under his eyes, the exhausting expression in his way of movement and the afraid, but shy, face of his. Hiccup thought that maybe helping in the forge would help him have something else to think of than his nightmares. At least then there would only be him, Toothless and perhaps Gobber.
On his way he noticed his father walking out of the forge, holding an empty bowl without his helmet. He guessed Stoick was going back home to their house to get his helmet on go on with his day as chief. Sighing, he walked with his head low, not wanting to look at his father again since he was sort of… scared of him. Somehow, he could hear his father sigh in an ashamed manner as he passed the two.
He reached the forge a few seconds later, not daring to hold his head high. Gobber hadn't noticed him and turned around with hot metal in his hand, almost knocking the boy over. "Hiccup! You know you shouldn't surprise a man with hot metal in hands!" Gobber said, taking the metal back on the anvil.
"Sorry, Gobber," He said low, walking over to his little hut with his head low. He didn't really know how he could work on Toothless's tail, other than sketching the parts, step by step. Just as he sat down in his little chair, Gobber walked in. This time without his hot metal that could leave a pretty good burn if it made contact with someone's skin. That is, if the person aren't dragon.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Gobber asked, moving his one good hand on his hook as if examining its smoothness.
"No," Was all he could say, pulling out a piece of paper and a charcoal pen.
"If you say so, but you know you have to talk about it some time. It won't disappear before you feel free," With that Gobber left, leaving Hiccup alone with his dragon to do some sketching for later. Only a few seconds after he left, another voice came from the room that he recognized not to be Gobber's. He couldn't make out what they said, but tried to eavesdrop. His concentration was interrupted by a knock on the door, and there stood Astrid.
"Hey," She said, laying down her axe.
"Hey," He said, looking up to meet her ocean blue eyes that could distract any men if they just took time to look deep inside them.
"I saw you walking to the forge so I just stopped by… What are you doing?" She asked, walking over to him and looked over his shoulder to see a few lines that could look like a tail, beside some explanations she didn't really understand.
"Just working on Toothless's tail fin, since I'm the only one who can do it…," Hiccup explained. Out of nowhere he yawned before going back to his work. There was an awkward silence and they both noticed. "Sorry, I'm not so good on making conversations with people," He said, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
"No, it's fine. By the way, that kind of brings me to why I'm here," She started. Hiccup looked away from his work and met her blue orbs once again with a confused face. She took a deep breath, taking a few steps back as she moved back and forth. "I just wanted to say… I'm sorry. For everything. The way I treated you after we had been such good childhood friends, the way I ignored you and the many times I just watched you get beaten up by Snotlout which was my fault. He tried to impress me by beating you up, but only if he had understood that it made me hate him even more, and-"
"Astrid, it's ok. I'm sort of used to it anyways. It's no big deal-"
"Yes it is Hiccup! No one should be used to get bullied and ignored by anyone. In fact, no one should even be bullied, and definitely not beaten up or abused by their own parents-"
"How did you know?" He interrupted her, staring at her in shock. One of the reasons was probably because he saw how guilty she felt, and the other because she knew about their little family issue.
"Well, everyone in the village does. It kind of came clear to us the night some of them shot you and Toothless down in the square, and you know how it goes. But I've known it for a while. Sometimes I would see you have freshly made wounds when I knew Snotlout hadn't beaten you up, because he never left our side. And I thought you just fell or something, but one night I was going to sharpen my axe at the forge and accidently heard you and Gobber talk about what your father had been doing to you. I'm sorry, Hiccup," Out of nowhere she embraced him in a hug, burying her head in his neck as she felt a tear threaten to fall. "For everything," She let go of him and looked directly into his forest green eyes. "I just wish I hadn't done that, and hope I could just take it all back,"
"Astrid, listen. It's fine. Besides, if you guys hadn't treated me like that, I would probably not have met Toothless, and the war would still be here. I'm actually a bit happy with everything that had happened. I mean, it all happened for a reason, but I just can't figure out why," He gave her a reassuring smile to lighten up the mood.
"Thank you, Hiccup. For being so kind to me, to everyone," She smiled back, placing a small kiss on his lips. She pulled away and looked over his shoulder once again, but then down on his feet as she noticed he still couldn't walk with his leg. "Do you… need some help?" Hiccup looked up at her with a tired look and nodded.
"That would be lovely," He said. Still awed over the sudden kiss that seemed to be getting into a small routine. Not that he'd mind, getting a few kisses from his crush every now and then. Astrid pulled out a chair and sat down, listening to Hiccup as he explained the whole contraption and something about Toothless's tail fin that could get useful in the future. For the rest of the day, they moved back and forth, well mostly Astrid, and worked on the new tail fin for Toothless. She had to get his metal leg from his house so they could measure the length and design of his new leg, but she didn't mind as long as it meant they would finally start over.