The instant Hiccup got into Heather's car and fastened his seatbelt, he said quietly, "I didn't call you to come get me."

Heather didn't reply. In fact, she didn't say anything for the rest of the drive home, and her silence more than if she had started screaming at him, twisted Hiccup's stomach into awful, tight, nauseous knots. She kept her silence despite his attempts to get her to talk to him, anything to ease the ringing silence, the deep, calm chasm before the wild raging storm. Every instinct screamed at him not to follow her up the stairs and into their apartment, but he did it anyway, as if pulled by an invisible leash. Oh who was he kidding? She did have him on a leash. A leash, harness, choke-chain, muzzle, the whole goddamn nine yards.

The instant she shut the door and locked it behind them, Hiccup felt his blood freeze in his veins.

"Tomorrow you're quitting your job," Heather said, twisting the knob to make sure it wouldn't budge. It didn't.

Hiccup shook his head in disbelief. "Why?"

"Because I don't want you to see that girl again. She's the one you kissed, isn't she."

He watched her sweep past him to the window in their tiny living room, where she locked it securely. Hiccup tried to keep his hands from shaking, and swallowed hard to stop his stomach from lodging itself in his throat. His chest began to grow tight, and an unbidden rush of adrenaline coursed through him, a grim vanguard to a panic attack.

"I went to high school with her, you know," Heather was saying, but it sounded like she was speaking underwater, "Perfect, stuck-up bitch who got all A's and was the one all the guys jerked off to in the locker room. Why the hell she'd be interested in you I have no clue. She must have really fallen from grace if she finds you attractive."

Hiccup stifled a whine of panic, and tried to speak to distract himself.

"So what if I quit my job?" he shrugged, "Where do you suggest I get another one? There are women on just about every work force no matter where you go."

"So then you don't get another job. You'll just stay here."

Hiccup's mouth dropped open, unable to believe his ears. "In the apartment? You can't be serious."

"Oh yeah, I'm real serious," Heather's voice floated out of the bedroom, and he heard another lock click into place, "It'll be just like it is in the Middle East where women are locked in their houses all day and only their husbands can lay eyes on them. I think it's about time men got to see what that's like."

He shivered, feeling boiling hot and freezing cold all at once, like half of his blood had forgotten to pick up heat on its journey through his heart. His legs shook, and he collapsed in one of the kitchen chairs, despair crushing him and flooding his system like a dark, evil disease. His heartbeat began to resemble a hummingbird's, and he could feel his throat trying to swell and constrict his air intake. She seriously intended to keep him as her prisoner, like a child with a special toy that no one was allowed to play with but her. A warm body she could yell at when she wanted to, slap around if she felt like it, and then fuck through the mattress if it pleased her.

He had known from the beginning of their relationship that Heather was a feminist, and that was okay with Hiccup; he was one too. But this…it made him say something he had never told her before.

"No."

Heather stopped moving around, and went completely still, staring at him with a blank, disbelieving look on her face. "You want to run that by me again?"

Hiccup narrowed his eyes, and stood up to his full height, which was a good head above hers. However, the effect was marred by the hand he had placed over his trembling heart, the paleness of his face, and the wheezy, sick-sounding breaths that escaped him.

"No," Hiccup said again, more strongly, "This is wrong. This is going too far. I'm not your prisoner. I'm also not your punching bag, or a means to fuel your warped version of a feminist agenda. I don't know if anyone has ever told you, but feminism is about men and women being equal, not…whatever the hell you think it is. I'm just as much of an adult as you are, so if I want to leave the apartment then I have every right to."

That earned him a punch to the temple so hard it jarred his teeth and left him staggering. He was so dazed he couldn't lift his head, and it wouldn't have mattered if he could anyway; stars filled his vision.

"You shut the fuck up, you hear me?" Heather snarled above his head, "You lost all those privileges the moment you were born. Men think women can't think for themselves? What if the opposite was true all along? It's clear you don't know what's best for yourself, so don't worry about making those decisions anymore; I will make them for you."

Hiccup was trembling so badly he could barely stay upright, but with a great effort he managed to straighten up again. Still wheezing badly, he looked Heather straight in the eye. She looked like those religious fanatics who justified disowning their children or the killing gay people or whatever the hell because they thought it was okay to do in the name of God. The light was gone, and her eyes were cold and dead. She was serving some kind of god, or demon, or something, but Hiccup didn't want to stick around to find out what exactly it was.

"You're crazy," he said, shaking his head, "I guess I've known that for a while. But I can't stay here anymore, and I don't know if you should be left alone. I…once I get out of here, I'm going to call some help for"-

He never got to finish his sentence, because excruciating pain suddenly exploded in his lower belly, and he felt something tear. The air ripped itself from his lungs, and his legs gave out from the utter agony. He collapsed slowly onto the floor, hands clutching his groin, in a futile, instinctive effort to soothe the pain. But even as he lay there on the floor, she didn't stop. She wrenched his hands out of the way, and kicked him again, and again, and again. All the while, all Hiccup could do was moan weakly, a pitiful sounding lament that only expressed a fraction of the pain he was really in. A high pitched buzzing began in his ears, and his vision wavered, growing fuzzy and watery around the edges. He actually began to pray that he would pass out; anything to escape the hellish agony his body throbbed with.

Then, miraculously, Heather hauled him up until he was sitting on the kitchen floor. Hiccup whined pitifully, his head lolling drunkenly on his shoulders. He felt something warm, wet and sticky squish against his rear, and glancing down between his legs, his only passing thought was Heather was going to need to clean up all that ketchup on the floor later.

Suddenly, she was right in his face, yanking his head back by his hair, exposing his tender throat for whatever she had in mind. "I'll give you one more chance," she hissed, "One more chance to take back what you said and tell me you're sorry. Come on baby, tell mama what she wants to hear."

Hiccup flinched, and an irrational spike of anger drove itself through his heart. "My mama lives far away," he whispered harshly, "How dare you call me that. I'd rather be dead than be locked up in here."

Heather shrugged and kissed his throat before saying, "Alright, just remember you said it."

And then she shoved him to the hard, kitchen floor, straddled his waist, and wrapped her dainty little hands around his neck. In an instant, they clamped down like twin vises, and Hiccup had time to think one, truly terrifying thought before all other thoughts shut down.

I can't breathe!

His self-preservation instincts kicked into high gear, flooding his body with adrenaline and screaming at him to start struggling. He tore at her hands, trying with everything he had to loosen them, all the while bending his neck backwards in a futile attempt to open up his airway. He fought to buck her off, but the damage she had wrought on his poor insides before hindered his efforts greatly. After a few moments, he started coughing and his vision began to turn black at the edges. A warm, languid voice sang at the precipice of his subconscious, asking him why he was fighting, telling him it was okay to stop and just go still. It would be easier, he supposed. His limbs were beginning to feel too heavy to move, his head too light to focus. Sleep seemed like a really good idea, he had been so exhausted lately...

So, the hands trying to pry Heather's fingers loose began to go limp, and his arms dropped to his sides.

At that moment, a screeching black ball of fur shot out of the back of the apartment like a demon from the bowels of hell. With a war cry, it launched itself at Heather's head, hissing and spitting. Suddenly the crushing pressure around Hiccup's neck went away, and he gulped in a huge draught of air so hard and so desperately it immediately sent him into a coughing fit.

For several, agonizing moments, Hiccup could only lay there on his back and focus on filling his starving lungs with precious, delicious oxygen, practically destroying his windpipe with the effort to suck it in. Oh, he felt so sick, so dizzy and weak, like someone had scoured his insides with a laundry brush. Everything hurt, and he didn't trust himself to get up without feeling like he would immediately collapse again in a heap of dead, shaking limbs. However, he did manage to roll onto his side, whimpering with the effort, and crack open his eyes to see his savior.

It was Toothless, and he was still attached firmly to Heather's head, claws out and hooked into her scalp, body fluffed up so that he looked three times as big. She struggled to tear him off, but the black cat held firm, scouring his claws across whatever flesh he could reach and burying his teeth deep into her skin. When he saw that Hiccup's eyes were open, he immediately leapt off and stood in front of his boy, arching his back and snarling like Satan himself, his little white teeth bared in the clearest warning ever uttered by feline kind.

STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY BOY, BITCH!

Heather screeched something unintelligible, sounding remarkably like a cat herself, and chanced a lunge forward. However, Toothless growled loudly and slashed his claws forward, tail twitching, his green eyes flashing in a way that said he would hop back on her head in a second and remove every bit of skin left if she got one inch closer to his precious boy. Thankfully, she seemed to get the idea that the cat was completely psychotic, and hauled herself up from the floor, rushing to the bathroom to no doubt treat the deep lacerations that now decorated her face in a grotesque mosaic.

Hiccup took that moment to attempt to scramble to his feet. Easier said than done when you could barely feel your legs, and what you could feel of them was the consistency of rubber. He managed to get his legs underneath him, and like a newborn colt trying to figure out how to work the limbs for the first time, tried to push his heavy body upward. His legs held the weight for all of two seconds before they gave out and sent his lower half smashing back to the floor. He groaned, harsh and loud. His hands remained underneath him, elbows sticking out awkwardly while he gently leaned his forehead against the floor. His sides heaved with the air that whistled in and out of his raw lungs. His head was swimming the seven seas, and he could see sounds and smell colors. His stomach churned harshly, and Hiccup felt like if he moved wrong he would vomit all over the floor.

He felt a rough little tongue licking the side of his face, a few encouraging mews escaping around it. Letting his eyes roll to the side, he regarded his cat, whose eyes were round little moons of concern. His fur was still fluffed, but it was beginning to settle again. He pulled back and pawed at Hiccup's shoulder, his mouth open and pink around another loud meow. Hiccup sighed heavily, the air shaking as it left him.

"You're right bud," he rasped, "We have to get out of here." He worked his legs underneath him again, steeled himself, and muttered, "Come on, damn it, get up."

With a grunt, he hauled himself up onto his feet. Immediately, the blood rushed from his head down into his feet, and he stumbled for several steps until he caught himself against the door. He felt terribly faint, and he felt a stream of blood rush out of his backside with the new angle. His stomach rolled and heaved like a thunderhead, trying its hardest to turn itself inside out. Shaking his head and forcing his mind to take over his body for just one moment, he stood up again.

"Come on, Toothless," Hiccup said breathlessly, shucking on his jacket and holding his arms open. The black cat wiggled his butt and leaped into his arms, letting Hiccup zip his coat around him. After finagling with the lock, Hiccup limped outside and didn't stop until he was outside and all the way at the end of the street. But, no matter how badly his legs trembled, no matter how much his body screamed at him to just curl up in the snow where he stood and sleep away the pain, he didn't. He knew if he sat down, chances were good he wouldn't get up again.

Instead, he quickly reached into his back jeans pocket, and pulled out the little slip of paper Astrid had given him with her number on it. It was spotted with blood now, but it still served its purpose. He dialed her number in his phone with shaking fingers, and sent a feverish prayer to the heavens that she would pick up.

Someone up there loved Hiccup today, because after just three rings, Astrid's voice answered on the other end.

"Hello?"

Hiccup nearly sobbed in relief, and it took everything inside of him to tighten up his throat and keep his vocal chords from shaking too much. "Hey Astrid, it's Hiccup."

Oh hell, his voice sounded like shit. It really wasn't a voice at all, just a pathetic squeak that could have come out an animal dying in a hunter's trap. Apparently, Astrid noticed too because her voice immediately took on a tone of alert concern as she asked rapidly, "Hiccup! Oh my God, you sound awful, are you okay?"

Under any circumstances, he could hear himself uttering sarcastically, Gee thanks, but right now all he could feel was overwhelming relief at hearing the concern in her voice. The wounded animal he was right now latched onto it and wouldn't let go for the world. "No," he whimpered shakily, "No, m' not okay. I need help. I need help Astrid, please."

000

The instant Hiccup's pitiful little voice crackled in her ear, Astrid knew something terrible had happened. And the way he hadn't even tried to deny that nothing was wrong, the way he had straight up told her he needed help, begged for it, had her heart aching in all sorts of ways too painful for her to describe.

She had just walked through her apartment door when he called, only had one arm out of the sleeve of her coat, but she didn't hesitate to slip it back through before she was trotting back down the stairs and out the door.

"Okay," Astrid replied, trying to sound calm even though her heart was beating in her temples, "Alright babe, you just stay where you are, okay? I'm going to come get you, stay where you are."

"Okay," he promised, "I won't move. Just…hurry Astrid. I don't feel good. I don't feel good at all. I just want to lay down and sleep."

Her breathing picked up and she ran the last few steps to her car, wrenching the door open and starting it all in one motion. "I know, sweetheart, I know," she soothed, "Can you tell me where you are?"

There was a pause that must have involved Hiccup looking at the street signs around him, before he said, "On South Salina. You know where that is? I'm at the end."

"Yeah, I do." She threw the phone on the passenger's seat and switched to speaker, pulling out of the parking lot without bothering to put on her seatbelt before speeding off down the road. There was silence on the other for a minute before she said worriedly, "Hiccup? Stay on the phone with me until I get there, okay?"

He sniffed. "Okay."

Oh yes, she was definitely going over the speed limit. "Can you tell me what happened?"

There was a heavy sigh at the other end. "Yeah. I didn't ask Heather to come get me today."

"I didn't think so."

"She took me home, and basically threatened to lock me in the apartment so that other girls couldn't look at me anymore. She got mad when I told her no and tried to leave."

Astrid swore, and Hiccup kept going. "So…yeah, she beat the shit out of me and tried to strangle me. Then my cat jumped on her and got her to get off. Oh yeah, I hope you like cats, because he's here with me. Heather hates him and I don't trust her not to kill him while I'm not there."

She paused as this information sank in, and nearly hit the car stopped in front of her. Jesus, had Heather really…? To Hiccup, that dumb, sweet kid who had the nicest smile in the world and told her she was pretty in her thrift shop dress? She felt like throwing up out her window.

Speaking of, there were sudden retching noises on the other line, and she waited until Hiccup was back on the line before she asked if he was alright.

"Yeah," he replied, and his voice was shaking badly, "Just threw up a little. Scared Toothless. Hurry, Astrid please, I feel really sick and everything hurts really bad."

That tore it. Astrid laid on her horn and passed a guy on a double yellow line, ignoring his middle finger in her rear view mirror. "I know, babe, I'm almost there," she said sympathetically, a hint of a plea in her voice, "Just hold on a little longer. Okay, there's South Salina, I'm going to turn down it right now…"

"Okay. I'm still here."

She mumbled to herself, craning her neck and resembling a giraffe as she scanned the street for him. "There you are, I see you! I'm coming!"

"Alright."

Astrid heard the phone click off the same time she saw Hiccup's figure in the distance lower it and stuff it back in his coat. Halfway up the street, she reached across the seat and threw open the passenger side door, gliding to a rolling stop. Hiccup practically dove into her car, collapsing on the seat with a long, low groan that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. His head fell back against the headrest, exposing his lean, white throat.

And the dark, finger-shaped bruises that encircled it.

Hiccup opened his coat, and a black shape slunk out of it. The cat, Toothless she assumed, regarded her steadily, and then hopped into the back seat, where he sat down as obediently as any dog. In spite of herself, she felt the corner of her mouth quirking up in a half-smile.

"Yeah, I like cats," she said, "We'll drop him off at my place. He can even sleep on my bed if he wants. I miss not having cat hair all over everything."

Hiccup laughed, a hollow, wheezy noise that sounded like it hurt to produce. "Well, he'd be happy to change that for you. Cat drops fur like that sad Christmas tree in Charlie Brown."

She laughed for his sake, and then sucked it back in between her teeth when she caught sight of his seat, and subsequently the crotch of his jeans.

"Hiccup, you're bleeding!"

For some reason, those words made him shudder helplessly, and he put an arm over his eyes before admitting, "Yeah, I know. Can we please just go back to your place?"

Astrid bit her tongue against everything else she wanted to say, and simply started the car, made a three-point turn, and sped back out to the main road. They drove in silence for a minute, Hiccup keeping his arm over his eyes, as if afraid to show her the pained and ashamed look on his face, though he wasn't doing a very good job of it. She could see how tight his jaw was, see his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed over and over again like something was stuck in his throat and he couldn't force it down.

She could also see the moment his lower lip began to quiver and his chest began to hitch unevenly.

"I almost died," he whimpered, "I almost just died. The girl I thought I loved almost just killed me."

Astrid's grip tightened on the wheel, and worry swelled in her chest. She wanted desperately to say something to comfort him, but hadn't the first clue as to what that should be. She was afraid to touch him, for God's sake, afraid his fragile emotions would shatter into unrecognizable little pieces if she violated the sacred bubble of post-almost-death-experience that had hit him like an anvil. His chest heaved and his shoulders shuddered, and when he spoke again his voice was tight and wet with the threat of oncoming tears.

"How fucked up is that?" he said, "This girl took my virginity. She used to sing karaoke at bars with me and thought the umbrellas in the martini glasses were completely hipster. Heather was…a year ago I would have never thought…"

And then it was like a switch was flipped. Whatever fragile dam had been holding back his emotions burst, and it burst hard. One moment he was trying to keep his composure and the next he flat out gave up and flopped forward, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth, burying his face in his knees. His thin back heaved, and collapsed into a sob. There was no semblance of any self-control; it was the release of terror and the knowledge that his life had almost come to an end that day, and that he was lucky to riding in the car that moment and taking in the air he was at that moment. His sobs were loud and wet and utterly disgusting to his ears. He felt his face leaking all kinds of fluids; sweat, tears, snot, spit, and he didn't give a shit. His head was messed up in 50 different ways and there were too many emotions flying around at the speed of light to the point he thought he would burst.

He probably didn't even realize when Astrid pulled the car over onto the side of the road.

He also didn't realize at first when she placed her hand on one of his shoulders, and then the other.

However, he did notice when she began to rub his back and say in the most comforting, tender voice she had ever used in her life, "It's okay. I'm here, babe. You're going to be okay."

Hiccup shuddered, before he dove into her arms and buried his face in her stomach, back heaving afresh. She felt him dig his nose between her ribs hard, as if he were searching for a sanctuary inside of her, a place where he could be protected and nourished by her blood and her warmth. A place where no one could ever hurt him again.

Well, damn it all if he hadn't found it, Astrid thought determinedly.

She wrapped her arms around him tightly, laying her face on his back and rocking him back and forth, letting him soak the front of her shirt. Nothing coherent escaped him for many minutes, and Astrid was okay with that. She rather he expel this poison from his body so that she could fill his empty vessel with the light of her care and love.

As long as he let her in his life, she would make sure love was all he ever knew from here on out.

"I'm here," she murmured into the back of his jacket, "You're safe, now. I've got you, and I won't let anyone hurt you ever again. You're not alone anymore."

When the clouds will rage in

And storms will race in but you will be safe in my arms

Rains will pour down, waves will crash around

But you will be safe in my arms, in my arms – In My Arms, Plumb

A/N: More to come, ladies and gents!