A/N: Hey look I'm back. Sorry for the ranting and the angry posting but I needed to say my piece, and then take some time away from this story to actually like it again. The pressure of a thousand screaming voices doing the fan version of mansplaining my own story to me was enough to make my fandom magnum opus more of a chore than a labor of love, and I needed time away to get back to wanting to get this thing done for myself. Everything is finally typed and edited and awaiting the final round of edits before posting. Current plan is to post once a week until the story is done, but since I will probably have everything done and ready to be posted by tomorrow night, I'm tempted to just post a chapter a day until this is done so I can just have it be posted and out of my life.
For my own sanity, and so that this can continue to be my labor of love I'm still just going to ignore all reviews until I've posted the whole thing and then go back and read them. Because at this point, the writing is fucking done. I'm done. I'm not rewriting or changing anything. What I post is what you get.
I can now confidently say there will be 43 chapters in total. This chapter is on the shorter side but the next chapter is massive, then the final few chapters are short but I wanted to split them up.
Chapter 38: Leverage
"Astrid, wake up!"
But bed, though.
"Astrid!"
But sleep, though.
"Wake up, come on! This is not the morning to sleep in!"
Astrid groaned and rolled over. But sleep. Sleep was nice. Sleep was friend. And it had been such a late night…
"Astrid!"
She blinked her eyes open and glared at the room around her. Still the same old dumb prison cell. She sat up, yawning. "What?" she mumbled. The sun was shining into their cells and she shielded her eyes against the brightness. The storm had moved on and it appeared to be a lovely day outside.
Oh. A lovely day for everything to fall apart.
"Get up, we don't have time to just lie around!" Astrid shot her husband a glare.
"Excuse me?"
Hiccup had his cot hauled up against the wall and was standing on it and looking out the window while eating an apple and frowning at something outside. "Stuff's happening. Get up," he said tersely. He nodded towards the cell doors. "Breakfast came while you were asleep." Astrid looked to see a tray of food waiting on the floor. She was starving.
"How long was I out?" she asked, frowning at the angle of sunlight as she tucked into her breakfast.
Hiccup shrugged. "I think it's almost eleven. You slept better than I did. Hurry up and eat. We have to figure out what to do and you need to see what's happening out there."
Astrid sighed. Hiccup was tense after last night; he had plenty of reason to be. It was somewhat encouraging to see him so focused after so long trying to take the long way around his problems. But even so he was anxious and on edge and likely not thinking as straight as he needed to be. He may not have slept as much as he needed, but at least he was eating. They'd likely need their strength today, in one form or another.
"You could tell me what's going on out there," Astrid said before biting into her bread.
"They aren't rebuilding."
"What?" Astrid asked around a mouthful of bread. "Mat m'you mean?"
Hiccup shook his head. "They aren't rebuilding. They spent part of this morning just kind of, patching up the most important things. They've been readying the ships ever since."
Astrid swallowed. "Readying the ships? What for? To go find your mom?"
Hiccup shook his head again. "No, you don't need that many ships to go find one crazy dragon lady. They're prepping all of them."
"Wait, all of them?" Astrid stood and hauled her cot over to the outer wall so she too could look out the window. In the harbor below she could see every able-bodied adult on Berk carrying weapons and supplies to nearly every ship in the harbor. "Not all of them," she said. "Not the local fishing ships, but every long range or battleship. What are they doing?"
"I don't know," Hiccup said, and though she couldn't see him she could hear the worry in his voice. "But I don't think it's good." She heard him jumping off his cot and pacing the room. Astrid continued watching the swirl of activity at the docks as she finished her breakfast. They had a pretty good view from here, if nothing else.
"Any ideas yet?" Hiccup asked after several minutes.
"Thought you were thinking of one." The pacing stopped and Astrid glanced back to see Hiccup giving her a deadpan frown. She shrugged. "It's hard to formulate a plan if you don't know what the hel is going on. I mean what are they doing out there? It looks like they're getting ready to go to war."
"That doesn't make sense," Hiccup groaned, and his pacing resumed. Astrid looked out the window again. "They don't even know where they're going. Is my dad just going to go sail blindly into Helheim's Gate and hope he runs into the nest?"
Astrid sighed. "With the way things are going I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what your dad's plan is."
"But that's crazy!"
"I keep trying to tell you," Astrid began, leaning against the bars of the window. "He hasn't been the same since he lost you. And all of this…you two are a lot alike. Stress doesn't always make you think rationally. I'd bet he didn't sleep last night and is barreling down his tunnel vision towards ending the threat that keeps destroying his village."
"I'm going to ignore the part where you just said my father and I are a lot alike," Hiccup growled, then cleared his throat. "And at least admit that he's probably not thinking all of this through. Whatever this is."
"You two really are a lot alike, though," Astrid said quietly. "Stubborn to a fault, headstrong, not always willing to listen or admit you might be wrong, willing to do just about anything to protect your people…" she glanced at Hiccup, who was glaring at her again.
"You're not helping."
Astrid laughed despite the situation. "It's not necessarily an insult. Your dad has made a hel of a lot of mistakes and he hasn't exactly done right by me, but we could do a lot worse for a chief."
"I thought you hated my dad."
Astrid shrugged. "I don't hate him; I'm just not ready to forgive him yet." She frowned at the village below. "Desperate times and all that. I…I don't necessarily think he's a bad person. I think at some point he just ended up in over his head." She sighed. "They all did. Hel, we did too." She looked at Hiccup. "You have to talk to him again. Before those ships go anywhere."
"Yeah, and how am I gonna do that?" Hiccup asked, patting the bars of his cell door as he started pacing again. "We're stuck in here."
Just then the door at the far end of the prison opened and slammed shut. Hiccup and Astrid glanced at each other. Astrid jumped off the cot and curled up on it while Hiccup stood close to the door. They had not rehearsed an escape plan. That would have been a smart thing to do with all their free time, Astrid noted with regret. Still, if Hiccup could snatch keys or a weapon, or if she could fake sick to get someone to open the door, it really wouldn't be difficult to—
"HICCUP!"
Oh shit. They weren't getting out.
"Dad!"
Astrid rolled over and pushed herself up just as Stoick stomped into view. There were bags under his eyes and he was dressed for battle.
"What is going on out there, what are you doing?" Hiccup demanded immediately.
"Where's the nest?" Stoick growled.
Hiccup's shoulders heaved in a great sigh. "Dad, you cannot take on the nest!"
"You saw what happened last night. I won't go another day letting that monster live!"
"Yeah, I did see what happened last night!" Hiccup said fiercely. "Things are a lot fucking worse when I'm not helping out, aren't they?"
"I don't have time to argue with you about your methods, Hiccup. We're going to find the nest and destroy it, and that'll be the end of this whole bloody war. We can argue about whether dragons are good or bad later."
"I'd say now is actually a pretty good time to have that conversation!"
"Stoick, you can't possibly take on the thing that's on that island," Astrid interjected. "We've seen it and even we still don't have enough information about it to formulate a good battle plan. But if we can all calm down, figure one out, then we could go to the nest and take down the queen."
Stoick rounded on her. "So you're ready to tell me where the nest is then?"
"Well, yeah, but not without a solid plan, because otherwise you'll just-"
"What's wrong with the both of you?!" Stoick shouted. He glared at Hiccup. "If you want this war ended like you say you do then you'd tell me how to find the nest!"
"You can't take it!" Hiccup protested, his hands in his hair. "You have no idea what you're up against; this thing is nothing like anything you've ever seen before. I'm not giving you a road map to your death!"
"So you'd rather sit back and watch us all slowly die than tell us where we can go to battle for our own fate?"
"Hiccup, Stoick!" Astrid shouted, but both men ignored her.
"Taking down the queen isn't what I'm against; I agree it'd probably end the fighting, but you can't just run blind into this mess! Do you even have a battle plan?"
"We'll come up with one when we get there! If someone will even show enough loyalty to-"
"This isn't about loyalty!" Hiccup shouted. "You're talking about running into a massive battle against one of the biggest, deadliest dragons I've ever seen with no plan whatsoever!"
"But if we can come up with a plan, even the start of one, if Hiccup and I could survey the island again, we could come up with a plan and then-"
Stoick once again ignored her to focus on his son. "Do you have that little faith in me?" he hissed, his nose practically pressed to the bars of the cell. "I have won more battles and against steeper odds than you could ever know. I wouldn't take on this fight if I didn't think I could win it."
"But Dad-"
"We're hardly even going to need a plan if you don't tell us how to find the nest!"
"I can't tell you how to find it!" Hiccup threw his arms up in frustration. "Only a dragon can find it! And even if you could get there, how are you gonna-"
"Hiccup." Somehow that time she got through. Hiccup had noticed the realization dawning on Stoick's face, and Astrid saw the same realization and ensuing horror drain the color from Hiccup's face.
"No," he said weakly. "Dad, no, you have to listen to me. This is not a battle you can win. You haven't seen that thing. Dad!" Stoick turned on his heel and began marching down the corridor, but he froze suddenly and returned to Hiccup's cell, where his son was pressed against the bars, still trying to get his attention. "Dad, listen to me, you can't—"
"Hiccup," Stoick interrupted, his voice softer this time, and Hiccup fell silent. Stoick's expression shifted to one of sadness. "300 years of fighting and death and destruction. I have lost friends and family to this war. This war has destroyed my village, my home, my marriage…my relationship with my only son." His voice broke. "Hiccup," he said, his voice hoarse. "I love you. You may not believe it but I do. I always have. Even when I didn't understand you, even when I was disappointed or angry or confused I still loved you. Even now, through all this, as you stand here, defiant and practically a stranger to me I still love you. I didn't just love the boy I thought you were, I loved you, because you are my son." He took a shuddering breath. "I have always loved you. From the moment I first saw you, from before the moment I first saw you. From the moment there was just the idea of you, I loved you. From that first moment I knew there was life growing inside of my wife's womb, you were my son and I loved you." There were tears gathering in his eyes. "I have lost too much already. I have seen enough suffering and I have failed my family and my people for long enough. If trying to put an end to this costs me what hope I have left for you and I, then so be it. Even if I die today, I will have died so that no one else has to lose as much as I have lost."
"Dad," Hiccup croaked, his eyes wide and stunned. Stoick reached a huge hand through the bars, wrapped it around Hiccup's neck and pulled him close. He pressed a kiss to Hiccup's forehead through the bars. Hiccup froze and Astrid's breath caught in her lungs. The moment felt frozen in time, but all too soon it melted, and Stoick was moving away from the bars and storming off down the hallway to the exit.
Hiccup and Astrid both shouted after him, but their only reply was the door slamming against the wall as it was opened and slamming back into its frame as it shut.
"The dragon!" They heard after the door shut. "Get me that damned dragon!"
Xx
Astrid thought she had hit hopeless before. She thought she already knew rock bottom. But this? This was hopeless. Hiccup had shouted until there was no one left nearby to hear him. They watched the dark, bound figure as it was wheeled down to the harbor and lifted onto one of the boats, muffled roars audible across the island. They watched warriors file onto ships and then set sail. They watched the ships disappear over the horizon.
Hiccup had gone quiet.
All thoughts of getting a message to her mother to break them out had faded when a jittery Terrible Terror had dropped a roll of parchment into Astrid's cell. Her father had gone with the rest of the village's fighters. Her mother was at home with Brenna, but Stoick had left a handful of men behind, some of whom were guarding Ingrid, precisely to keep her from breaking her daughter out of jail.
Stoick had Toothless. They were sailing for the nest.
Astrid sat against the wall, Hiccup on its other side. "You know you can't just give up," she said.
"Why not?" Hiccup asked, his tone flat.
"Look, I know everything seems pretty hopeless. You've lost your dad, your dragon; your village is sailing towards disaster—"
"Astrid?"
"Yeah?"
"Stop trying to help."
"Oh come on, if we could just get out of here there's got to be something we can do. We have half of a half-assed battle plan if we can get to the dragons and get to the nest. We've just got to at least get that far." Astrid huffed. "You've got that big brain full of plans and you work best under pressure. Well, we're under plenty of pressure so get it to work!"
"What have I got to work with, Astrid?" Hiccup snapped. "I've got no dragon, no backup, no allies, no plan, no support, and any resources I might possibly have or any plan I could possibly enact don't really matter, because I'm in jail!" Hiccup sighed heavily and Astrid heard his head thunk against the wall between them.
"I helped build these cells, and here I am sitting in one."
Astrid frowned. "Yeah, the irony of that does kind of suck."
"I remember building them, too. You just started wearing short skirts that week, and I kept getting distracted."
Astrid rolled her eyes. "Glad I could be of some help."
She heard Hiccup sit up.
"I helped build these cells," Hiccup repeated, slower and softer this time. He stood, and Astrid looked over between the bars to see him standing, in the middle of his cell, staring at the door with wide eyes. "I helped build these cells."
"Hiccup, what—"
Hiccup raced to his cot and threw off the pillow and blankets, and then the mattress as well. He grabbed the cot and pulled it over to the corner of the cell. "I helped build these cells," Hiccup said again, propping the cot up in such a way that it teetered on one set of legs with the head wedged low into the wood of the door, and the foot a few feet off the ground. "The way the doors were built we had to test the locks once they were already installed on the doors to make sure the weight wouldn't cause the latches to bend and prevent the doors from being unlocked or opened. So while we were building and testing we installed a temporary failsafe in case the latches failed and someone got locked inside or one of the doors wouldn't open. Something effective, but something we could easily disable after the building was finished."
Hiccup used the low end of the cot to climb up the door. Astrid couldn't see what he was doing, the wall of her cell obstructing Hiccup from view above the chest.
"Okay," Astrid said slowly, frowning. "Don't see how construction stories from seven years ago are going to help us." Hiccup didn't answer. He appeared to be reaching for something at the top of the cell wall. She could hear his hand fumbling around on the wood. His hand paused and she heard him expel a quiet sigh.
"Oh, Thor give me this," he whispered. "Give me this one moment of monumental stupidity."
Astrid was about to ask what the hel he was talking about, then there was a soft click, the creak of wood as a whole wooden slat of the door frame shifted slightly in place, followed by Hiccup's manic laughter. "Hiccup, what the—"
Hiccup let go of the wall, jumping down onto the high end of the cot, forcing it down and the low end up.
The entire door lifted off its hinges and fell forward into the hallway, clattering as it smashed onto the floor. Astrid stared, wide eyed, as a grinning Hiccup stepped over the door and came to stand in front of her cell, holding in one hand a small cylindrical piece of wood.
"I was in charge of disabling all the failsafes," Hiccup said, beaming at her. "And you were wearing a short skirt that day."
Astrid stood and walked to her cell door, still staring. "So," Hiccup tossed the small piece of wood into the air. "Shall I find the keys and get you out of here, milady?"
"So you could have done that from the moment we were first locked in here?"
Hiccup's smile faded. "Let's just go."
"I am not ever in your life letting you forget this."
Xx
"If our weapons aren't in there they must be in the Kill Ring. That should be our next stop," Hiccup said as they burst into the sunlight outside the prison. "Once we—where are you going?" Astrid looked back and grinned. "To get some backup! I'll meet you at the arena!"
"Backup?!"
Xx
There were two men stationed as guards outside the Hofferson house, one at each doorway, and then one, Astrid knew from her mother's message, inside. The problem with this arrangement was that no one was guarding the side of the house Astrid's window was on, which made it fairly easy to climb up the side of her house, drop a rock around the corner and onto the head of one guard, and then drop a second rock to knock out the second guard when he came running to investigate the noise.
After ensuring both guards were out cold, Astrid sauntered around to the front door and knocked. "Hello?" Ack opened the door, and Astrid grinned at him. He had just enough time to register his surprise and open his mouth before there was a loud clang. His eyes rolled back in his head and Astrid stepped neatly out of the way as he fell forward and hit the ground.
"Nice."
Ingrid beamed and hefted her cast iron frying pan. "I tried to tell them taking my weapons wouldn't be much good."
Astrid was about to reply when her mother tossed the frying pan aside and pulled her into a tight hug. Astrid melted in her mother's embrace. It was the first time in months they had held each other without the obstruction of prison bars or danger or broken hearts. The familiar smell of home almost choked her. She didn't want to leave this moment, just held by her mother, safe and protected and far from the looming disaster. But it couldn't last forever. She pulled herself from her mother's grasp. "I don't have much time. We've got a plan, or at least most of one, I just needed to come see you. I don't know where my axe is, and-"
"Ah!" Ingrid reached down and took a set of keys off Ack's belt. She went to a storage chest against a wall and used the key to open it. She pulled out Astrid's axe and presented it to her.
"Oh, hello old friend," Astrid said, taking the axe almost reverently. She looked at Ingrid. "Mama, thank you, for all of this."
"I told you," Ingrid said, her mouth set in a hard line. "I'm not letting anyone hurt my baby again."
Astrid's smile faltered. "You know, we might not come back from this. We've got a plan, but this is still dangerous."
Ingrid nodded. "I know. I trust that boy will protect you as best he can. And your father went to help you if he could."
Astrid sighed. "He shouldn't have gone, it'll be so dangerous."
"SISSY!" Astrid barely had time to put her axe down before the tiny blonde blur few across the room and hurled itself into her arms. "Sissy! Sissy!"
Astrid squeezed her baby sister tight. "Brenna…." She buried her nose in the little girl's soft hair and choked back tears. "Brenna I've missed you so much." She was heavier and taller than she had been the last time Astrid had seen her. When Brenna moved to grin at her Astrid was struck by how much baby fat had melted away. She was looking less and less like a toddler and more and more like a little girl.
"You're home!" Brenna squealed, her little feet kicking in the air. "Are you home for good now?"
Astrid's heart sank. "No, not yet. I'm sorry, but it's just a quick visit."
Brenna's face fell. "But why?" she pouted. "It's always just a quick visit! When are you coming home?"
"Soon, soon," Astrid insisted, hugging Brenna tighter. "I have to go save the day first."
Brenna perked up at that. "The super secret project?"
"The super secret project."
"Astrid," Ingrid interrupted. "Time?"
"Right." Astrid handed her sister to her mother despite Brenna's protests.
"I'm sorry, but I have to get going," she said. "But I love you so much and I'll be home soon."
Brenna sulked anyway, but with the clock ticking there was only so much she could do.
"What do you need me to do?" Ingrid asked.
"Stay here," Astrid said. "Watch Brenna. And, possibly, one other kid."
Xx
"How is that supposed to help?!"
"You're not listening," Tuffnut repeated, rolling his eyes. "I'm not saying the giant catapult could fling us all the way to the dragon's nest, just to the boats."
Snotlout collapsed into his chair and buried his face in his hands.
"Oh, we're going to be no help whatsoever."
"Guys, we can't just give up," Fishlegs interjected. "They left us here to keep the village working; we can't pass up the opportunity to help Hiccup and Astrid. We just need to figure out how."
Ruffnut groaned. "What are we supposed to do? The boats are all gone. How are we going to-" Before she could finish, the door was kicked in.
"Come on losers, we've got a day to save. Ruff, I've already found you a babysitter."
"Astrid?"
"Hofferson, what the hel!"
"Astrid!"
Astrid raised an eyebrow at them all and crossed her arms over her chest. "This village sent me to my death, and not a single godsdamned one of you stepped forward to save me." She put her hands on her hips. "You motherfuckers owe me. So put up or shut up, and let's go, because I am calling in my fucking favor."
Xx
A/N: That failsafe was a Chekov's gun I have been waiting to fire for over a year. Hiccup was always going to get them out that way. Now, if you think you know where this is going...you aren't ready. Bring tissues. Because of course I'm not just going to transcribe the ending of HTTYD1...
