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Hiccup is weak.
He’s always known. It’s why he used to get bullied, it’s why he feels inadequate around his father, it’s– it’s why he hates himself. And he used to think that it would be okay eventually, that once he transitioned and just figured himself out, he’d finally feel less… useless, but the fact is; Hiccup isn’t strong enough to live like this anymore.
And he never will be.
It’s the middle of a school day, and Hiccup has been planning his demise for weeks now.
He’s listening to Nirvana in one ear and his friends’ mindless chatter in the other. Kurt Cobain’s raspy voice is singing something he can’t decipher but is probably about being terribly sad, and he sighs and pulls his earbud out.
“What do you think, Hiccup?” Astrid says, nudging him, and Hiccup blinks. “Huh?”
Fishlegs gives him a weird look. “Are you okay? You’re acting… weird.”
Hiccup closes his fist around his earbud cable, standing up and pushing his chair away from the table. “I just– I’m going to the bathroom.”
He doesn’t go to the bathroom.
When Hiccup was ten years old, he played Yandere Simulator, and he would always push his rivals off the roof.
Students aren’t allowed on the roof of Berk High, but Hiccup’s friend group has been climbing the stairwell in secret for years now, and he knows the route like the back of his hand. So he drags himself to the edge and just stands there, staring out at the café just off-campus that he stops at some mornings, at the parking lot, at the bike racks, at the football oval, and he thinks it’s a little bit sad that this is the last thing he’ll ever see.
Hiccup steps closer, and as he does so, he sees a student peer up at him from the grass and run towards the building, pointing, shouting, the freak’s going to jump! He’s doing us a favour! Or– or, that’s what Hiccup thinks they say. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care to find out, because now there’s an entire crowd surrounding the building and teachers are there too and out of the corner of his eye he sees Snotlout and Astrid, and they disappear, and he’s glad he locked the door behind him.
And he’s not crying yet. He hopes not to. You can only have so much weakness-
“Hiccup?”
Hiccup whips his head around, trembling, and there’s a harsh knock on the door. “Hiccup?” Astrid says again, a hint of urgency in her voice. “Hiccup, I need you to open this door.”
“No,” Hiccup says, shaking his head even though she can’t see him. “No, I can’t-”
“You know how to pick locks, right? Do it,” she says quietly, not to him, and a moment later, the door slams open, and Snotlout and Astrid burst through. Hiccup looks away from them determinedly, but as they step closer, he shouts, “Don’t– don’t come any closer, I’ll–” and he knows it’s wrong, but he takes another step towards the edge– “I’ll jump, if– if you c–come any c–closer.”
They both immediately step back, and Snotlout fiddles with his hands. “Hiccup, you don’t– you don’t have to do this, okay? You know you don’t h–”
“I do have to,” Hiccup says quickly. “There’s– it’s, it’s better. If I do.”
“What makes you say that?” Astrid asks softly. “Who is it better for?”
“… Everyone?” She shakes her head. “Not for us. Not for me. We’d miss you so much, Hiccup– and you–” her voice trembles– “you deserve to live. I don’t want you to live for us. I want you to live for yourself, and– and we can be a stepping stone if that’s what you need, but you have… you have a valuable life ahead of you.”
“I’m weak,” Hiccup whispers. “I’m too weak to keep on living, Astrid.”
Snotlout takes a tiny step closer, and Hiccup lets him. “You’re not. You’re strong, Hiccup– so strong.”
“No. No, no, no,” Hiccup insists, shaking his head and grabbing at his hair. “No, you’re– you’re wrong. I c–can’t keep doing this, I can’t.” And Snotlout takes another step, and another, until he’s barely three feet away, and he extends a tentative hand, and–
And Hiccup lets himself be pulled away from the edge, and only when they reach Astrid does he let himself break down, crying, shaking, hardly able to breathe.
“I’m s–sorry, I’m sosososososo sorry, sorry, sorry,” he sobs, and Astrid squeezes his arm. “It’s okay. You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay.”
Snotlout takes Hiccup by the hand once he’s stopped crying enough to see clearly. “Why did you do that, Hiccup? What happened?”
And all Hiccup can say is–
– all he can say is that he’s too weak to keep going.