A/N: So the plan is still to update weekly but I don't know that it'll be like I update on a specific day. More like whichever point during the weekend I get a chance to publish. But I'm trying not to let there be delays of more than a day or two.
This chapter is one of those I have looked at too long. I'm still not happy with it but I may never be. I just need to stop looking at it.
Ready for more Haddock men being stubborn? Of course you are.
Chapter 35: Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object
The prison was so silent they could still hear the footsteps leading away from the building even though they were far away by now. It was a sharp contrast to the chaos the Great Hall had been when they had been escorted out of it. Some had been yelling, most had been gossiping with their neighbors, turning the news over and over again, asking aloud if they thought it was true, gasping at what it would mean for Berk if it was. In the madness Stoick had finally lost his patience and boomed over the crowd to return the prisoners to their cells. It had not missed Astrid's notice that he had not taken his eyes off her the entire time they'd been led out.
She wanted to buy them time; it looked like time had been bought.
She and Hiccup had not said a word to each other since the trial. Even now, in the silence of their respective cells they said nothing. Astrid rubbed absently at her wrists, mildly chafed from the manacles. One of them would have to bring it up at some point; although she wondered if it would be better if Hiccup didn't know…she could barely see him. She had sat down on her cot; he'd slumped down on the floor leaning against the bars of his cell. His face was blank and he stared at the dusty stone floor.
"Are you really?" his voice was so quiet she could have missed it if she wasn't waiting for it. He glanced up at her, and Astrid could detect the conflicted hope in his eyes and his voice. Her heart clenched.
"No," she said softly, and watched his eyes fall. "Not that I know of, anyway. I needed to buy us time."
Hiccup's expression remained neutral. "They'll find out before long."
Astrid hummed in agreement. "I know, but I can say that maybe it's too early to tell, or that I was pregnant and lost it after I was shot down. And anyway it'll put them off killing me for a while longer at least, long enough for you and your dad to try talking again. Stoick might be more open to conversation or compromise if he thinks he has a grandchild on the way. It might calm him down some. Make him a little less reckless. And more likely to try to salvage his relationship with his only son."
Hiccup didn't respond beyond a noncommittal hum.
"I'm sorry," Astrid said earnestly. "I didn't plan to do it until the moment I said it, so I couldn't warn you ahead of time, and your reaction probably sold it more than it would have if you knew it was coming."
Hiccup shrugged.
Astrid bit her lip. "Are you mad?"
"No."
"Are you disappointed? That I'm not pregnant?"
Hiccup didn't answer.
"Hiccup, please talk to me."
He sighed. "I want a child with you. This isn't the world I want to bring a child into, but hearing you say it…for a moment I didn't care."
Astrid's heart sank into her stomach. "I'm sorry. For getting your hopes up."
Hiccup shrugged again, though he still didn't look at her. "It's for the best anyway."
Astrid watched him for a long moment. He didn't move, didn't change his expression, didn't say anything. Finally she got up and went to the bars that separated their cells. She sank down beside them and reached a hand through the bars towards Hiccup. For a moment he ignored it, but finally he reached out for her hand and gripped it in his.
"I love you," she offered.
The smallest smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Hiccup let go of her hand to get up and move closer to her. He leaned against her against the bars and reached for her hand again. They rested their foreheads together and at the sight of Hiccup's small warm smile Astrid felt the beginnings of one of her own.
"I love you too."
Hiccup kissed her through the bars. "I'm sorry I tried to save you the way I did. Your dad caught me before the trial was going to start, begged me to help make sure they didn't take all of this out on you." He glanced down. "I should have known you wouldn't put up with that. I'm sorry."
"Hey," Astrid said, catching his attention, "If I forgive you, will you forgive me?"
Hiccup's smile made warmth bloom in her chest. "I guess we can just call it even. You definitely got my dad's attention, after all."
"I would hope I got everyone's attention."
Hiccup laughed. "Oh my gods, you yelled at the whole village." His grin was infectious. "That was gutsy, and stupid, and amazing. I've never been so terrified and so aroused at the same time."
Astrid laughed and Hiccup grinned and maybe, she thought, things would be okay.
Xx
There were many unpleasant things about being in prison. She and Hiccup had some amount of privacy, but even as close as their relationship was there were some things they would rather the other not be witness to. They were regularly fed, and even if the food was not the best quality, it was better than Astrid expected. Apparently the "news" of her pregnancy was a factor in meal selection, as her meals had been noticeably nicer than Hiccup's. They did not have a fire beyond the torches at night, but the building was rather well insulated and she had been provided with extra blankets by a concerned Gothi after the trial. All in all, conditions were not bad. She hated sleeping alone, her hands tangling with Hiccup's through the bars, as they had moved their cots to the side walls, but at least she was near him.
No, the thing that was driving her mad was the boredom.
She had thought it was bad when she had first been taken to Hiccup's mountain. All she had to do was wander around. Now she didn't even have that. She had a small cell and nothing to occupy her time. They had taken her weapons and would not risk giving her anything remotely dangerous, which also included anything that a smart person thought Astrid Hofferson might be able to utilize as something dangerous.
Astrid had taken to exercising for lack of anything else to do, but even that could only go on for so long, and Hiccup complained that watching her run in circles around the small space was making him dizzy.
Gods, it had only been two and half days, and here she was talking as if it had been weeks. Astrid dropped down onto her cot and stared at the ceiling. Hiccup had been taken away for another talk with his father, and she had reminded him how important it was not to lose his temper. ("Astrid, you yelled at the entire village.") Now it was too quiet and lonely and boring. The only thing she could do was reflect that since Hiccup could not be trusted with a razor, he had grown a rather attractive layer of stubble. She didn't like the idea of Hiccup with a full beard, but a few days of stubble gave him a rugged, rogueish charm that she would find irresistible if they weren't separated by bars.
She heard the prison door open and close. Astrid didn't bother moving. She'd stopped leaping into a defensive stance whenever anyone came in. She'd also fairly quickly given up on attempting escape. She knew she wouldn't get far without a concrete plan, and the one upside of all of this was that Hiccup and Stoick might finally have a productive conversation.
Astrid didn't even look up. Her parents had tried once more to visit her, but she had hid in the latrine and refused to see them. After a while they had given up and gone home. They had yet to bring Brenna. Astrid both desperately wanted to see her and yet did not want her little sister to see her imprisoned.
She was so bored yelling at her parents didn't sound so bad right now, actually.
"You know, I feel a little insulted by what you said the other day."
Astrid sat up and spun around. "Ruffnut?"
Ruffnut grinned at her. She stood in front of Astrid's cell with one hand on her hip and the other on the baby strapped to her front. "If you remember, I did try to save you. You told me it was no use." Ruffnut twisted her mouth into an exaggerated frown. "And to think I would have named my baby after you."
Astrid grinned and jumped to her feet. "Ruff!" Ruffnut returned her smile and the two women hugged through the bars, careful not to crush the baby between them. The baby turned his head to peer up at Astrid and she gasped in delight.
"Oh, Ruff!" She cooed, running her fingers through the baby's black hair. "He's so...so..."
"So ugly he's cute?"
Astrid choked on her laughter. "That-that wasn't how I would have put it."
Ruffnut grinned and tapped her baby's nose. He had many of Snotlout's features, but somehow more squat. He looked like someone had squashed Snotlout's face down to fit on a baby's head. "It's okay; I know what he looks like. He's still young enough he looks weird but he pulls it off somehow. It takes a few months for any baby to actually get cute."
"He is cute, though," Astrid said, lifting a tiny hand and marveling over the little fingers and miniscule fingernails. The hand reached for her face and she kissed the tiny palm. "He's wonderful. What's his name?"
Ruffnut beamed. "Grufflout."
"Grufflout?"
"Yeah, apparently you can't be a Jorgenson and NOT have a name that ends with -lout."
"Well, keeps the trolls away and all that."
"Hey, just because you lucked out and got a weird name-"
"I got a normal name, thank you. They didn't have that whole 'scare away the trolls' thing where my mom came from."
"Right, right. So you're the baby name authority now?"
"I didn't say it was a bad name!"
Grufflout started giggling at their bickering, and the sound was so pure and beautiful that soon they were laughing too, which just made the baby laugh harder. It was like the bars weren't there, like no time or ill deeds had passed.
"So he really is Snotlout's, huh?"
Ruffnut scoffed. "Oh come on, like there was any chance he wasn't. I'd stopped running around by the time I got pregnant."
Astrid gently punched her shoulder. "I know, I just teasing you. How are things between you two now?"
"Well," Ruffnut said, sighing, "I think I might actually have fallen in love with that idiot."
"Really?"
Ruffnut shrugged. "I know, I can hardly believe it myself. Weirdly enough we actually work. And having a kid with someone…eh, it's pretty cool. I didn't know you could bond so much with someone over changing diapers."
That made Astrid laugh, which made the baby laugh, which only got everyone laughing again.
"So," Ruffnut began when they had calmed down. "You're not really pregnant, right?"
Astrid was taken aback. Her hand froze on Grufflout's head and she blinked at Ruffnut's knowing look. "I am pregnant. Not very far along, but I am pregnant."
Ruffnut shrugged. "Look, I'm not gonna tell anyone; I don't wanna do anything that's gonna get you killed. You don't have to admit you're lying to me if you don't want to, but I know what you're doing." Ruffnut raised her eyebrows. "Pleading the belly is the easiest way to get out of a death sentence. Even if it's not true it gets everyone to chill out long enough for you to figure out some other defense. Or to actually get pregnant."
Astrid frowned. Ruffnut was her friend, and she didn't want to lie to her, but she was also married to Snotlout, and Astrid couldn't risk Snotlout knowing the truth. He'd inevitably let slip to his father, and then it would all be over. "Ruffnut," she said firmly, "I promise, I am definitely, absolutely pregnant."
Ruffnut didn't look convinced but she shrugged it off. "Okay, however you wanna play this, I get it. Can't be too careful. But just so you know, we're all rooting for you."
This surprised Astrid even more. "What? Who is 'we'?"
Ruffnut grinned. "The old gang, of course. Me, Tuff, Snot, and Legs. We know you're no evil traitor, and Fishlegs thinks there's really something to everything Hiccup has said about the dragons."
Astrid felt her spirits rise for the first time since she'd been back on Berk. "Really?"
"Yeah. There's only so much we can do, and Snotlout has almost as many issues with his dad as Hiccup does with Stoick, so getting him to talk any sense into his dad works out about as well as trying to nail water to a tree, but we're trying to intercede where we can. Fishlegs has been doing as much research on dragons as he possibly can. And Tuff and Snot have been volunteering for dragon guarding duty, trying to learn more about them, see if they really are as docile as you and Hiccup claim. It's not much, but like I said, we're doing what we can."
It took Astrid a moment to find the words. "Ruffnut, that's amazing. I don't know what to say."
Ruffnut waved a hand. "Oh don't worry about it. You know I don't do sappy."
"I just…can't believe you guys are really helping out. Snotlout, even. Why would he want to help Hiccup? If Stoick and Hiccup patch things up, Snotlout could lose his place as heir."
"Exactly," Ruffnut said, nodding. "Even after years of being trained for it, Snotlout doesn't want to be chief. He doesn't think he's cut out for it. Spitelout's the one who wants it. For all their pride the Jorgensons didn't have that much status until they married into the Haddock family. Snotlout's not that bad of a leader, but even I don't think he's the best choice."
"What, and you think Hiccup is?"
Ruffnut shrugged. "I don't know. He's a lot like Stoick. And if there's a chance he can change things so my kid doesn't grow up in a world constantly under attack, then I'm willing to give him a chance."
Astrid was stunned. She felt tears in her eyes and laughed and she wiped them away. "Ruffnut…"
"Hey, what did I say about sappy?" Ruffnut placed a hand on her shoulder. "Look, I'm not promising we can save you or anything like that, I just want you to know you're not completely without support. But never mind all that, we have a more pressing issue to discuss."
"Which is?"
Ruffnut leaned in conspiratorially. "So, Hiccup," she began with a salacious smile. "Hiccup got hot."
Astrid laughed. "I know, right? Who knew?"
"So?"
"So what?"
"So what? Hiccup got hot and you are definitely banging him. I need details. I need to know if Hiccup Horrendous Haddock grew up into a sex god."
"Ruffnut!"
"What!"
"I'm not gonna—this is the pressing matter we need to discuss?"
"...Astrid. Come on, twerpy, clumsy, dorky little Hiccup. But oh, all that forge work, bet he's good with his hands-"
She sighed.
"...Hiccup Horrendous Haddock grew up into a sex god."
"That's my girl! Details, bitch!"
Xx
The feeling in this room was very different than it had been the last time they'd been in here.
Less tense, more…awkward.
Just as before neither had looked at the other as the younger of the two men was led into the room and to his seat. Just as before the older of the two men stared at his hands on the table long after they had been left alone in the small chamber. The air felt stiff and warm, and Stoick cleared his throat and removed his helmet. He sat it on the table and ran a hand over his head and the sweat gathering on his scalp.
It felt as if everything had changed in an instant; suddenly the whole situation was even more complicated than it had been to begin with. And suddenly…listening didn't seem like such a terrible idea. Or maybe it was just that he'd finally gotten some sleep.
Stoick cleared his throat again loudly and brought his eyes up to his son. Hiccup was looking at his lap. "So. Is Astrid really pregnant?"
Hiccup nodded. "Yeah," he answered quietly.
"You seemed surprised when she said it at the trial."
There was a brief pause. Hiccup licked his lips. "I knew she suspected it, she just hadn't told me for sure yet. Hearing it out loud though…" Hiccup trailed off. He took a deep breath and puffed it out. "I saw my life flash before my eyes."
Stoick softened despite himself. He remembered how he felt the first time Valka told him she was pregnant with Hiccup. That feeling that everything was going to change. "And…you're sure it's yours?"
That earned him a glare. "Of course it's mine," Hiccup snapped. "Whose else would it be?"
"Right, right," Stoick mumbled. Hiccup lifted his hands to rest them on the table and the light caught the gold band on his finger. "And you married her?"
"You were there."
"I'm not sure that counted."
Hiccup shrugged. "Who's to say it didn't? It may not be on paper anywhere, but in every way that matters she's my wife." Then after a moment, he added, "You know I'm not a kid anymore, right? This would probably go better if you stop trying to treat me like the bratty teenager I used to be." Stoick blinked. Hiccup was looking at him with a familiar expression, one of annoyed disappointment, but it looked more serious than it had when he was a grumpy teenager frustrated at his lack of freedom.
"I'm twenty years old. I've been halfway around the world. I've seen and done things you've probably never encountered, and I'm not proud of half of them. I've made a lot of mistakes. I've seen people die, some of them at my own hand; never because I wanted to, but sometimes that was the only way. I know what it is to make hard decisions." He looked away. "I know what it is to be a husband. I may not be the best at it but I've learned a lot of lessons on how not to treat a woman. I know what it is to be in love," then, quieter, "…to really be in love." He swallowed and continued defensively, "And you can't blame it on lust because Astrid wasn't my first and by far she was not my only option." Hiccup slumped into his chair with a sigh.
"As awkward as it is to admit something like that to my father, I need you to understand that I'm not the same child I was when I left Berk. I'm still me, I'm still Hiccup." He shrugged. "I know you don't want to accept that either, but I'm your son whether either one of us likes it or not." His eyes rose to meet his father's, and Stoick thought Hiccup looked tired. "And my whole life we've never been able to have a real conversation. Either because I was too young, or one of us was too stubborn or too angry or too…whatever. But being stubborn hasn't gotten us very far, so maybe for once you can see me as an adult who has been to hell and back and picked up at least some small nugget of wisdom along the way, and we can actually talk like equals for once."
Stoick was quiet for a long moment while he took all of this in. This young man was so different from the one who had defied him at their last meeting, or the one who had yelled at him in front of the village when his identity had been revealed. This young man made it so much harder now to think of Hiccup and the Dragon Master as being different people. This sarcastic, exasperated young man was behaving very much like the sarcastic, exasperated boy that had disappeared out of his life five years ago.
This…this man was Hiccup. This was his son. It still hurt to think about, but he had to start there. He had to. Hiccup was all he had left of Valka. Hiccup, and the child that may well be growing in Astrid's womb. For Val's sake, he had to give this a chance. At least this once.
Stoick heaved a great heavy sigh. "Five years ago you left. Let's start there. You ran away and let me think you died."
Hiccup seemed to relax a little. "I shot down a Night Fury, not that anyone believed me at the time. But when the moment came I couldn't kill him. He looked as scared as I was, and I just couldn't do it. I cut him loose and that was going to be the end of it, but then I discovered he'd gotten trapped because I ruined his tail. So…I befriended him. Didn't plan on it, didn't necessarily mean to, it just sort of happened. And then I wanted to help him, fix him. So I did. And the entire village still thought I was the most useless dragon fighter who ever lived, and I was a dumb fifteen year old kid desperate for approval and his father's affection, so of course I used what I learned from Toothless to cheat my way through Dragon Training." Hiccup laughed. "I didn't even want to end up top of the class, I just wanted to make you proud. And it worked; you told me you were proud of me for the first time in my life."
Stoick bristled. "I'd told you I was proud of you before."
Hiccup raised his eyebrows. "Oh yeah? When? I was terrible at fishing, I was terrible at hunting, I had no appreciable battle skills or physical strength and you never paid much attention to anything I did in the forge even though I was actually good at that. Your love hinged on me being good at fighting dragons so that's what I tried to become."
That last sentence rung patently untrue, but Stoick couldn't find the words to refute it.
"I knew that if I told you the truth that it would all come tumbling down. Toothless was my best friend, my only friend, and if you knew about him you'd kill him. You'd disown me. The approval I had wanted for so long would be gone, and then I realized that you would never approve of the person I really was anyway, so I left. And given what's happened in the last few months you can't tell me I was wrong to think that." He dropped his gaze. "I didn't plan to fake my death. After Astrid caught me as I was trying to leave I had to improvise. I didn't realize I was subjecting her to years of trauma or that you would spend the next few years blaming her for everything." He gave Stoick a sharp look. "You're going to apologize to her for that at some point, you know."
Hiccup looked away and rolled his shoulders. "After that we traveled. Eventually we came back, started trying to help. Started getting between Vikings and dragons during raids, trying to keep damage and deaths to a minimum on both sides."
They were both quiet for a long moment. Finally Stoick cleared his throat and tried to find the words. "You let me think you died. You let me mourn you."
Hiccup didn't hesitate or look up. "It wasn't me you were mourning."
"I missed you!"
"I don't believe that." It was the matter-of-fact way Hiccup said it that hurt the most. He said it with no malice; it was not a statement meant to harm. It was just the truth as Hiccup saw it.
"Why would you say that?" Stoick demanded, his voice rising in desperation and anger and some other emotion he couldn't describe. His chest ached. His son had been the dearest thing in the world to him, and now here the boy was telling him that he simply didn't believe that.
Again, no hesitation. "You found out I was alive again but not who you thought I was and promptly disowned me, banished me, captured and imprisoned me, and then charged me and my wife with crimes that carry a punishment of death. Yeah, I feel the love." Hiccup glared at him. "Whoever you loved, whoever you missed, it wasn't me. I wasn't the son you wanted then and I'm not now. Whatever you want to call what you felt for me then and whatever you feel for me now, you can't call it love and you sure as hell can't call it unconditional."
Stoick wanted to tell him he was wrong, but the words stuck in his mouth. Hiccup wasn't wrong, not completely. But…that wasn't…he wasn't…Hiccup just didn't understand that he…oh gods… Quietly, Stoick managed, "That moment, when I saw you were alive…my world turned upside down. I felt hope for the first time in years." He took a shaky breath. "And then you destroyed it. The things you said, the things I realized you'd done; none of that was you. None of that was Hiccup. And it was like losing you all over again. I thought, that's not my son."
None of this seemed to make an impact on Hiccup. "Exactly," he said firmly, his glare unchanged. "You found out who I was, who I really was, who I'd been when I left this island, and it was enough to make you decide I wasn't your son!"
"Only because you were acting like a villain!"
"A villain?" Hiccup asked, scoffing. "I've spent the last couple of years losing my mind trying to protect the entire Barbaric Archipelago. I've been drinking myself to death from the stress of it all, only for the entirety of Viking kind to decide I'm the villain." Hiccup sighed in exasperation. "I'm just trying to protect people and dragons. Why does that make me the enemy?"
Stoick frowned. "Because you're not just trying to protect our people! You're trying to protect them! The dragons are the enemy, and you're worried about protecting them. Everything they've done to us for 300 years, and you want to protect them?"
Hiccup ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. "Look, okay, I keep trying to tell you, they don't raid us because they're inherently evil and want to cause us misery. They just do it because they have to."
"That's how survival works, so if it's their survival or ours—"
"No, no, just…listen, please?"
Stoick settled back in his chair and tried to reign in his temper. There was so much he couldn't get Hiccup to understand…but, he supposed there were just as many things he hadn't tried to understand, either. Hiccup took a deep breath. "They have a queen, like a queen bee only for dragons. She's much bigger than the biggest dragon you've ever seen. Enormous. We don't even know how big, I've only seen her head and it's massive. And she's certainly not tameable. I guess it's because she's their queen or whatever, but she can…control them, I guess. The food they steal, they don't even eat it themselves. Dragons mostly eat fish or hunt wild game for their own food. They raid us in order to bring food back to her. And if it's not enough she eats them, instead." Hiccup closed his eyes and shook his head. "It's awful. They're scared of her, but they don't just serve her out of fear. She has some kind of control over them. She can make them do things or something. I don't know exactly how it works, because she can't control them completely, but it's enough for them to obey her. And I don't know, it could be mostly fear or some kind of biological imperative to obey their queen, I don't know. But if she's not in the picture, dragons are perfectly fine. It's only once she steps in that things get nasty."
Stoick rubbed his chin in thought. "I suppose it sounds possible." He sighed. "Say I believe you, that there's this giant evil dragon-controlling dragon at their nest; what do you propose we do?"
Hiccup's chains clanked as he leaned back in his seat. "That's the big question. I thought maybe I could gain the queen's trust like I gained Toothless's, but she's not like other dragons. Dragons that big can live for centuries; I think after so many years of lazing around and being fed by her underlings she's gotten lazy and selfish. I've seen other nests. Other 'queens'. They're supposed to protect and provide for the dragons of their nests. This queen doesn't do that. She makes her dragons hunt for her."
Stoick let that sink in. He combed his fingers through his beard. If Hiccup and Astrid had managed to tame and befriend the dragons they rode, then there must be something to what the boy had to say. "So if what you say is true, then the real problem is the dragon's queen."
"Yes." Hiccup looked somewhat relieved. "The dragons themselves are generally friendly as long as they aren't being threatened."
"So if we kill the queen, we eliminate the dragon problem?"
Hiccup shifted in his seat. "Well, I guess, yeah."
"So then it's settled." Stoick put back on his helmet and nodded. "We sail to the nest, kill the queen, and then if nothing else, the dragon attacks won't be as bad."
Hiccup was frowning now. "Dad, you can't kill the queen."
Stoick raised a bushy eyebrow. "And why not? Even you just said she's evil. You can't seriously want to protect that dragon too?"
Hiccup shook his head. "It's not that. Dad, you haven't seen that thing. It isn't like anything you've ever faced before. You can't fight something like that and win."
Stoick scoffed. "Hiccup, I've been fighting dragons since I was half your size; there's not a dragon alive I can't fight and win. We'll take every able-bodied warrior in the village, plus Eret and his trappers. An army should be more than enough to take down one dragon."
Hiccup was still shaking his head, the lines on his forehead getting deeper and more pronounced. "Dad, this isn't just any dragon, you seriously can't fight this. If we're gonna beat this thing, we have to be smart about it. This isn't a rock you can bang your head against and crack it. This is going to take way more than brute force."
"I've gotten awfully far with brute force," Stoick countered. "Just because you don't want a dragon to get hurt—"
"That is not at all what this is about—"
"Doesn't mean that you can stand between our village and the best way to end this war!" Stoick pulled a map of the archipelago from his belt and spread it out on the table. He grabbed a pencil from a nearby table and tossed it towards Hiccup. "Now, nest. Location. Now."
Hiccup hung his head and heaved a sigh. "You just don't get it," he said, eyes closed and shoulders slumped. When he looked back up at his father Stoick felt the boy looked older than his years. "I won't tell you where the nest is. Not if you're going to run headlong into a plan that'll get you and everyone else killed." And then he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "If you're gonna do this then you have to be smarter about it than that."
Stoick glared. "Fine. Keep protecting them." He stood and swept the map and pencil off the table before dropping back into his own chair and mirroring Hiccup's crossed arms. Silence overtook the room again. Stoick just didn't understand. Did Hiccup not know who he was talking to? Did he not know what Stoick had achieved in his life? How many dragons he had killed? How many battles he had won? And Hiccup refused to lead them to the one dragon whose death could end the war? Stoick huffed. Perhaps the boy was more concerned about the safety of the dragons after their leader was no longer incentivizing them to protect themselves.
Stoick finally pushed the matter out of his mind and forced his gaze back onto his son.
"There's one other matter to discuss," he grumbled, and Hiccup met his eyes.
"Which is?"
"The matter of succession." Hiccup straightened up in his seat.
"Oh?"
"Snotlout doesn't want to be chief." He watched Hiccup's eyebrows rise.
"He doesn't?"
"No." Stoick rubbed at his eyes. "He can't get up the nerve to tell his father but he did get the nerve to tell me. He says he's not cut out for the job. And…well, the reason he was in line for the throne was because we all thought you were dead."
Hiccup was frowning again, his mouth slightly open in confusion. "Uh-huh."
Stoick gave him a sharp look. "As far as I'm concerned, you've not proven yourself worthy to be my heir."
Hiccup's frown deepened. "Okay."
"But," and here Stoick had to run his hand over his beard again. "If Astrid really is pregnant, with the legitimate child of my son, then…" Stoick blew air out through his lips. "Then her child will be the heir. I was hoping to retire sooner rather than later, but, if I have to wait a while longer for a suitable heir then I suppose I can."
Hiccup's frown was melting into something like pleasant surprise. "You're willing to make my child your heir?"
"Your child rightfully would be," Stoick stated, glaring at a crack in the table. "I don't know who you are anymore. Maybe I never did. But there's hope I can get it right with this one, I suppose."
Hiccup looked less pleased with this statement. "Right. Because gods know you completely fucked it up with me. Hell, maybe you'll actually like this one."
And Hiccup's face momentarily betrayed enough genuine disappointment that Stoick was about to correct him, but Hiccup cut in by shaking his chains. "Can I go back to my cell now? I'm not telling you where the nest is, and I think we've established that I'm never going to be the son you wanted, so I guess we're done here."
Hiccup refused to meet his eye, and after a long moment where Stoick's chest ached so much he could scarcely breathe, he nodded and said, "Aye. I guess we are." He stood and banged on the table twice, alerting the men outside to come and collect their prisoner. As Hiccup was leaving the room Stoick caught sight of the map on the floor, and the mist-covered areas beyond Helheim's Gate. "And Hiccup?" The boy looked back at him. "Astrid better be telling the truth."
Xx
Stoick sat alone in that room for a long time after Hiccup had left.
His son believed he never loved him.
His only son, the only thing left of his wife, the dearest thing to him in the world-even now, even after everything-believed that he had never been loved by his father.
Stoick buried his face in his hands. He'd always tried to protect his people. He'd always tried to protect Hiccup. And now Hiccup, uncooperative, sarcastic, stubborn, every-bit-his-son Hiccup, held the key to ending the war and saving his people, and seemed completely unwilling to use it. He had to protect his people. He wanted to protect his son.
But what if…for the greater good, he couldn't protect both?
