Chapter Text
June 2020
Hiccup Haddock always wanted to fly. Ever since he was a little boy, he watched birds and insects buzz through the sky, cutting through the air effortlessly. He envied them, the way they seemed to defy gravity while he was tethered to the ground like a rock.
The minute he was old enough to read, he devoured books. Books about adventures, stories of unlikely heroes and their ragtag group overcoming the odds to triumph over the villain. When he found a book about dragons, he fell in love with them. Scaled, fire-breathing power soaring through clouds without a care in the world... how Hiccup envied them.
When he worked out how to climb, he would at any time climb to the highest point available: tops of ladders, branches in trees, edges of swooping cliffs, even his rooftop, as he grew a bit older. Different circumstances every time, but always the same thought ringing like an omniscient bell in his head. Imagining what it would feel like to be weightless in the air. Imagining what it would be like to take off.
When Hiccup Haddock was a little boy, he dreamed of flying.
But those days are gone. He is seventeen going on eighteen, and he feels eighty already. He becomes more weighed down by the day, his bones feeling filled with wet sand while everyone jumps around him. He fills his free time in search of the highest point where he can just sit and be . He drags his friends to theme parks and rides all the rides that make him fly, over and over.
He likes the drop towers the most. He wonders what it would feel like without a seatbelt.
He disappears for an afternoon here and there, in search of high places, and stands on the edges, wishing he could fall without consequence. Wishes he could disappear with one final scrap of joy before his body would crash onto the rock of whatever cliff he chose in a bloody heap. His dad wouldn’t care, he never gave a shit for anything but politics and public opinion. Least of all Hiccup.
He still wanted to fly. He began to want to jump.
But no, he remained tied. Not by blood, but family: his friends, the gang , full of terrible jokes, chaotic pranks, unadulterated fun, and at the end of the day, the feeling he never got anywhere else: love.
He could never fly. But with them, he felt a little less weighted than usual. He had to stay, even if it was just to cling to that feeling.
Some day his time would come, and his time on the earth would be over. Some day, he would turn old and grey, and then his body would shut down, and then, then , he would fly. If he wasn’t dead by the time he was eighty, he’d make sure he went out with joy.
He could hold out until then... right?
He doesn’t.
When the day comes, it happens without him thinking. He stares out of the window in class, watching the birds. One soars, and the other watches. The first one seems to hold a pang of sympathy, as he waits for the second before flying off. The second caws sadly, watching his companions fly away. Hiccup bites his lip to stop from crying as he watches the second bird jump, flapping his wings a few beats, then falling.
He doesn’t see him crash.
And the final straw snaps.
He gives up on waiting.
“And who can tell m- Hiccup? Where are you going?”
“Bathroom,” he mutters, not looking anyone in the eye as he leaves. It is a blur when he reaches the staircase behind the sports hall, blur when he begins the steep ascent to the top.
The school bell rings, and students begin to trickle from the doors before widening into a pulsing rush of life.
He stands before them like a God. No, he was never that important. Like a prisoner at the gallows, overlooking the crowd. Holding onto a scrap of dignity before he dies.
“Hey look, it’s the freak!” Someone yells, pointing at him. “You gonna do us all a favour and die now?” He spots a distinctive flash of blonde amongst the crowd before they disappear. People begin to stare, and he wishes he could summon the strength to move his muscles, but all he knows is to stay still.
He supposes, if he really focused, he could lean forward and plummet. It certainly wouldn’t be as magnificent as a grand jump or step, but what does he care? He’ll never see any of these people again. Just a little lean, a little shift. Just that, and he’ll be all better again.
“Hiccup, NO! ” Someone screams. He turns his head just enough to see Astrid, sobbing and desperate, with her arm outstretched towards him.
“I’m sorry, Astrid. But it’s better this way. It really is.” A slow, dumbly happy smile spread across his face. “Don’t you see? I’ll finally be happy.”
“Hiccup! Hiccup...” she cries again, unable to form anything other than his name. Somehow, she seems to collect herself, and she climbs onto the roof behind him. “Hiccup, please. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes. Yes I do.” His jaw is set with determination.
“What about us? Me, and your friends, and Toothless? He won’t even know why you’re gone all of a sudden!”
Hiccup stops short, but only for a moment. Friends. Toothless. Astrid. They are nothing more than strangers, characters in a cartoon he might’ve watched when he was younger. They used to be important.
Now, the only thing that matters is the freefall. The sheer swoop of long awaited brilliance before he is gone. He will die happy. That is all he cares about.
“Hiccup, Hiccup please, ” Astrid pleads. “There’s another way, I swear there is.”
“No. No, there isn’t. This is the only way, Astrid,” he says calmly. He can faintly hear her crying.
It’s not flying. He won’t swoop up from the ground by some miracle. But it is close enough.
And really, this is the best way to die. Flying.
“Hiccup, NO! ”
He flies.