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Thanks to my wonderful Beta reader WerlynTellsNoTales for reviewing this chapter and the last!

Day 3 - Fishing

"You look like ya spent the night in Hel." Gobber pulled Hiccup back from edge of the boat after he wiped his mouth.

On this day, the third day, the men at the wedding went out as a group to fish for that evenings feast. Hiccup split them among 10 long boats. Most stayed within viewing distance of each other and Berk's lead vessel stayed closest to the Brawler's main ship. Hiccup knew his hung over state made him too inhibited to be on the same boat as Gunnar, so he maintained good proximity and stationed his bolder men on his ship.

"I think I'd be OK if I had more sleep," Hiccup groaned.

"Surprising – it looked like you headed out early last night."

"Yeah, didn't sleep well. Lots on my mind."

Gobber gave him a curious look, which Hiccup ignored.

Toothless had perched himself at the front of the longboat and watched the ocean flow underneath them. When he saw schools of fish, he waged his tail and Hiccup gave the signal to cast nets.

"Why was using dragons yesterday cheating, and using Toothless today isn't?" Snotlout asked.

Hiccup groaned and dropped down on a pile of rope and pressed his back against a fish barrel, "Because, today I'm hung over. And he wanted to come along - his helping is just a bonus."

"Good point, Chief." Tuff said as he plopped down next to Hiccup.

"You know, H, we came up with a new game last night – I call it 'Burn and Scream', like 'Punch and Puke' the name really tells you everything. One sees how long they can stand the heat of something on fire before screaming," Tuffnut laughed and held up a bandaged hand, "It's how I got this. And I lost another pair of boots, but not my favorite pair. Actually, they might have been a pair of my dad's old boots, so probably best I get rid of them anyway."

Hiccup grunted in acknowledgement, but kept his eyes down.

They sat silently for a few moments while Tuffnut gather the courage to ask, "Are we cool?"

Hiccup jerked his head up, "What?"

"Last night, you left while I was singing and I might have caused feelings, not intentionally, I mean…it was deeper, emotionally…which is to say, probably unexpected, and Ruffnut said maybe you were upset."

Hiccup looked up at the jagged horizon, where the waves cut against the sky "I felt sick when you started and had to go home." He released a weak laugh. "That Akevitt – crazy stuff."

Tuffnut also fixed his eyes at the place where the ocean stretched away from them, "Stoick was like a father to all of us."

Hiccup felt a twisting in his gut. Some found it easy to compartmentalize Tuffnut as a pure joker - the lighthearted guy who kept everyone laughing. It took over fifteen years of knowing him before Hiccup started to see more beneath that surface. To see a guy with daddy issues, worse than his own. Tuffnut's own father spent most of his time out at sea. During the infrequent occasions he spent at Berk, he waisted time drinking at the Hall and behind closed door with Mrs. Throston. His most redeemable qualities were that he was the nicest, funniest drunk one could ever meet and that he was a decent sea captain. However, his absence as a father meant that the twins and their younger siblings, of which there were many, had little fatherly affection. Mrs. Thorston loved her children and took care of them. But most of their disciplining and fathering over the years fell on Stoick as the chief.

Hiccup's eyes burned and he felt sick in every part of his body. Even his metal leg wanted to vomit. "I can't really deal with this, or things right now."

He looked back down at his feet. He noticed the longboat was taking on some water. Slowly, but still taking on water. And this was supposed to be the best one. There was a shortage of the wood needed to repair their ships, a forest fire a few years back took out Berk's best building trees, now the ones they planned on using needed about another decade to reach the level of maturity required to make the better ships. Berk needed to buy a new fleet or better wood. But with funds seeming low…

Tuffnut pulled him from his thoughts, "Things have been harder lately, like I don't know where things are going. And normally I like surprises and chaos, but-"

He was interrupted by Toothless releasing a terrified roared. The black dragon sprang back from his perch at the front of the longboat. His whole body shook as he jumped and crashed around the vessel like a feral animal.

"Toothless! What's wrong, Bud?" Hiccup raced over to him, but didn't make it before the dragon's wild movements caused him to slip over the port side, plunging him into the ocean.

Hiccup dove in after. Icy cold shocking his body. Rough waves impeding his every move as struggled to get into his saddle.

He pushed against the current, straining to reach the sinking dragon. Around him the dark water felt heavy and angry as it swallowed the sounds and images from above.

Hiccups fingers fumbled till he managed to get enough grip to pull into his seat and slide his metal foot into the stirrup. He felt the metal click as it engaged Toothless's tail, giving the dragon the extra lift he needed to escape the brutal waters.

When they finally burst into the air, Toothless hovered above the long boat, a spooked look still in his eyes.

"Looks like there was an eel on the deck." Gobber picked up a long black and yellow ophidian-like creature and tossed it off the starboard deck, opposite Toothless.

Hiccup rand his hands over the dragon's sleek scales and whispered soothing words as they landed. Toothless shook the water from his skin and rubbed his head against his rider as he calmed.

On the other longboat, just a few feet away Gunnar laughed hard, gripping his sides. "I'd heard dragons didn't like eels, but I didn't think they'd go crazy. Good thing you're the Dragon Master, cousin."

Hiccup stepped away from his dragon and stood dripping and freezing on the deck. Gobber stepped toward him and put his hand on his chief's shoulder.

"Leave it," his old mentor wispered.

Hiccup shrugged off his hand and stepped to the edge of his boat, the other longboat only a few feet away.

"You? You did that?"

Spitlout and Eret moved behind Gunnar. A few men from Gunnar's tribe moved toward them, their fingers twitching toward sword hilts.

"That was foolish." Eret warned.

"Why would you do that?" Hiccup threw his hands up.

"Because fishing is boring and this made it interesting. We'll all look back tonight and talk about how funny it was when the dragon freaked out and you frantically jumped in after him." Gunnar smiled sadistically, "Come on, hero! Isn't this what you live for? Saving the day. Rescuing deadly dragons."

Hiccup grabbed the rope from the mast, with a quick flick, he swung over to the other boat, landing cat-like on the deck of the Brawler ship.

He pushed past Gunnar's men, putting his hand up to signal for everyone to stand down, "Stop playing games."

"Games? Games? Jokes! Pranks! Good ol' Viking fun. You know since you don't have real fun in Berk."

"Real fun? Tell me what's wrong with this fake fun, we've been having in Berk?"

"Fake fun! I love that!" The bald man threw his head back as he laughed. "You know: Hooligans don't go on raids; I know from personal experience they don't have loose women; you people don't use slaves for your lesser work; and you've all been hung over because you don't drink enough to have built up a tolerance."

Hiccup shook from the cold water and pent up anger.

"I'll show you fun." Faster than the others could react Hiccup slugged Gunnar in the nose.

Blood gushed out like it had exploded. The broader man cursed and covered his face.

Then men on the ships pulled out weapons. Gunnar released his nose and grabbed his knife to strike at Hiccup.

Hiccup grabbed his arm and lunged into him, knocked him backwards, crashing onto him, and banging his fist into the deck, causing him to drop the dagger.

Some men called for more blood while others called for calm. Eret pulled Hiccup off Gunnar, who sprang back up.

"It's over!" Hiccup yelled as he turned to everyone else. "Everyone stand down."

He looked at Gunnar, blood seeping over his lips. Hiccup swallowed his pride and offered him a hand, "I'm sorry. We're even."

Gunnar gave him a dirty look as he got himself up.

They squared off. Then Gunnar laughed again. Blood ran between his teeth, tricked down his beard to stain his shirt, and drip on the deck. And he still laughed. He put his arms around Hiccup and gave him a hug, "Keep putting on the show, hero." He whispered in Hiccups ear as he got close.

Hiccup tensed, but Gunnar backed off then turned around to the men as he yelled, "Nothing like a little blood spilling between family to make it a real event."

The rest of the men cheered and laughed.

Hiccup forced a smile to his face and fought the urge to vomit. He ended the attention of the crowd by announcing, "Show's over, let's get another few nets of fish then head back."

Everyone returned to their work. When the eyes of the men moved to other task Gunnar and Hiccup exchanged heated glairs. Hiccup knew they were not even. Especially not in Gunnar's mind.

A/N:

Thanks for your reviews, follow, and faves.

Yes, I am happy too that Hiccup and Astrid are on the mend and Hiccup will start to feel better. Sometimes with grief people just need to start acknowledging it. But the trouble is not over yet for other folks and problems.

In response to the guest reviewer who commented on Hiccup not being the type of guy who would go to a strip club type place – you are correct! And that is the point. The idea is human trafficking makes victims in unexpected ways – you will see later that in some ways the boys were also traumatized by their excursion. On another level – let me show how Hiccup described it:

"…We didn't know when we went in. Had we, I wouldn't have gone. I tried to turn around and walk out…[but]the Madam who ran the place, made us come in further [and we couldn't leave]. I don't like to remember it - it was not a good experience...It was actually – upsetting…I never want to go back to a place like that."

That sort of describes the way some people can fall into being trafficked – they go to the wrong place/trust the wrong people and can't get out.

As for the "I love you", I went back and forth about having him say it sooner, but in the end, he doesn't say it until they are on the mend, because if he said it before, he would have just been saying it to say it and that would have made all the other honest things he said seem false. I think it is something he probably said a million times previously, but at that moment, he is suffering from grief and feels nothing, which is common in grief sufferers, so confessing any emotion would have probably been a lie. Note, that Valka once told him he had "the heart of a chief and the soul of a dragon" but Astrid touches his chest and feels no heartbeat and his body is cold (which she finds odd because he is never cold). The idea I was going with, was that at that moment when they seem so far away from each other emotionally, he no longer is that person. Grief has stripped him of those things and he's doubting his leadership and who he is. Note that even the way he handled the tavern incident, he says he never mentioned it because his dad told him not to. But he is telling it now, so we see him breaking from what his father told him to do, so he is starting to try to be his own person.

And thank you for respectfully disagreeing and ranting. I like that you are thinking about the story, it is meant to be more cerebral.

And to the guest reviewer who asked for an update – you are in luck – this is a short chapter, but it was ready a day early.