The first time Hiccup notices Ruff and Tuff (not just the twins), they're 16 and still figuring everything out. He never stuck around them long enough as a kid to really notice anything about them except that they were loud and scary. Now he knows them a bit better, and they're definitely still both of those things, but they're more too. Each day he sees new things; how Tuff won't eat chicken, how Ruff doodles birds in her notebook during class. And suddenly one evening, how they sulk like nobody's business after dinner when it's time to go home. And how everyone else seems to know why but him.
"What's up with the twins?" He leans over to Fishlegs as they walk to their own homes through the evening mist.
His friend shrugs. "I think their dad got back from hunting today."
"...Ok," Hiccup murmurs. "They have an argument or something?"
Fishlegs looks at him funny. "Usually." He says miserably.
It doesn't sit right with Hiccup, and so the next morning when the twins don't turn up to classes, he goes looking for them. He eventually finds them on the beach; the grey light is fading and so it isn't until he gets closer that he sees how Ruff is lying on the sand and Tuff is sitting above her, watching her sleep. He flinches back when Hiccup approaches, and as he raises his head Hiccup sees the bruises.
"Tuff, what happened?!" He blurts out in alarm.
"Shh-" Tuff's eyes widen but Ruff has already woken up, sitting bolt upright and turning to face him. She has a split lip, cleaned up but red and sore. "Sorry we weren't at practice today, Hic." He rolls his eyes, but doesn't raise them to meet Hiccup's after.
"It's fine, really." The boy manages, a little dazed. "Are you- what happened?"
"Nothing. A misunderstanding."
"Well was it nothing or was it a misunderstanding?"
Ruff frowns and wraps an arm across her middle. "Nothing." She says fiercely. "So you can go back to your do-gooding elsewhere, Haddock."
The twins' dad got back last night, Hiccup thinks. He's 16 and not a child anymore, and he knows more about the world than people tend to assume.
"Don't lie to me, guys. You're smarter than that."
The corner of Tuff's mouth quirks up, but it's half-hearted.
"Your dad do this?"
"No!" Ruff pouts, even as Tuff looks at her wearily.
"Ruff please... You're hurt bad this time."
Ruff wavers. "Don't tell him we told you, or I'll pull your kidneys out and feed them to Barf and Belch." She concedes shakily.
"Oh, guys..." Hiccup breathes, moving closer. He pulls his satchel open, reaches for one of the many clay pots he keeps in there at all times. It contains a salve for bruises, something Gothi gave him after one too many falls when flying Toothless. He hands it to Ruff wordlessly, and she snatches it, still frowning. "Can I join you?" He asks carefully. Tuff nods. The boy seems to hear his thoughts, and as Hiccup opens his mouth again interrupts.
"We know it's not normal." He stares at the sand. "So you don't need to lecture us."
"I... Wasn't going to." He concedes, and it's true. "How long?"
"Since forever, numbskull." Ruffnut has pulled the lid off the jar and takes her brother's face in one hand gently, more carefully than Hiccup has ever seen her move. "I think you're the last person on Berk not to figure it out." She continues as she starts dabbing the salve onto Tuff's discoloured cheek.
"The others know?" Hiccup starts. His stomach drops when he remembers Fishlegs' defeated tone last night.
"It'd be hard for them not to, the grown ups at least, and besides there's no rule against it."
That much is true, and although it is not rare for viking men to use violence both at work and home, Hiccup's own father could never raise a hand to him. It chills him to think that the Chief of Berk has been letting this happen under his nose all these years.
"There should be." Hiccup says fiercely. "When I'm Chief, there will be."
Both the twins turn to look at him then, wide eyed and comically frozen where they sit. He's never talked about being Chief before.
"And what are you gonna do, H?" Tuff says finally. "Execute all the men who beat their kids? Banish them from the island?"
"I'd do it now if I could." Hiccup reiterates. "I'd send your dad to a place so far away he might never get there."
The twins are taken aback - its unusual to hear their friend talking like this.
"We're okay." Tuff says softly, but his sister's quiet shivering says otherwise.
"Come home with me tonight." Hiccup barely phrases it as a question. Ruff shakes her head.
"It'll be worse if he realises where we've gone." She says with an empty look in her gaze that suggests its happened before. "Once, Tuff ran away in the night, and we couldn't find him for days..."
Hiccup remembers the incident, vaguely - people calling for the boy, out with torches in the woods, praying to the Gods a dragon hadn't found him before they could. He remembers Ruff sobbing, inconsolable.
"Dad was pissed when I finally came home." Tuff takes over the story. "I was so sorry, but it didn't matter. It would've been better if I'd just stayed put." It's said matter-of-factly.
"That won't happen this time." Hiccup insists. "Stay with us until he leaves on his next trip. You seriously think my dad will let him near you guys if you don't want him to be?"
"We don't want to start anything, Hic." Ruff shakes her head ever so slightly. "But thank you. Really."
They sit like that for a while, watching the waves crash down onto the shore and fade away again into the glittering ocean. Once the twins are done with his healing supplies, Hiccup packs them away again, making a mental note to get some more from Gothi that they can keep in their house for easy access. His mind is still half on the main problem at hand, thinking about how he can keep the twin out of harm's way, or rather out of their dad's.
"Astrid said she was going to get some target practice done this evening if you guys wanted to join her." He suggests. The siblings brighten up.
"Hey, I could test out my fire shooter!" Tuff grins.
"I already told you, that's a stupid name." Ruff rolls her eyes.
"It does what it says, sis! At least it's supposed to..."
"Astrid will kill you if you set her hair on fire... and I'm gonna watch!"
Tuff jumps up from where he'd been settled in the sand, and pulls his sister up with him. "Last one there has to jump in front of the bullseye whilst Astrid is axe throwing!"
The two of them set off, Tuff jogging just slightly slower than normal to allow Ruff, still hugging one arm around her ribs, to have a fighting chance.
Hiccup follows, albeit much less frantically. There is an important conversation that he needs to have with his father, and weapons training will have to wait.