Work Text:
Gobber sighed out loud as he crossed off another location on his mental list of Hiccup Hiding Spots.
Where else could one scrawny teenage Viking—who had apparently sped out of his house so fast this morning that Stoick had only gotten halfway through "Horrendous" before he was out of earshot—have run off to?
Gobber grumbled to himself as he picked his way down the path out of the village proper. Hiccup could be halfway across the archipelago right now, propelled by teenaged angst and the fastest dragon on the island.
But, no; this wasn't normal teenage angst, not if Stoick's hurried explanation had been accurate. There hadn't even been a fight between the two of the two of them. If Stoick's account was to be believed, the two had actually been remarkably casual, up until Stoick had asked his son if he'd remembered to draw up the plans for some new dragon-related structure like Stoick had asked, at which point Hiccup had gotten very, very still, before footing it out of there faster than you could yell "NIGHT FURY". And even then, Hiccup hadn't been exploding out; he'd been curling in, retreating, almost completely silent as he ran out his front door.
Gobber wasn't what you'd call exemplary at interpersonal relationships, but he did know Hiccup, and if Hiccup was retreating into himself, that could only mean a few things: exhaustion, shyness, or shame. And exhaustion, shyness, or shame didn't usually prompt the lad to go on long, cathartic flights. So instead of wrangling one of the beasts to carry him off into the great beyond, Gobber had systematically gone down the list all of the places both new and old where his apprentice had been known to go when he needed to curl into a ball.
He started at the forge—no Hiccup. A peak into the Chief's house—no Hiccup. A quick glance through the stables—no Hiccup.
Running into Astrid in the village circle had saved him a slow, muddy trip to the Cove, which he and his peg leg were very grateful for.
"No, I haven't seen him all morning, and I didn't see anyone in the Cove when I flew over it," Astrid said, frowning, "Is he okay?" Beside her rider, Stormfly cocked her head.
"Physically? Yeah," Gobber confirmed, before stopping himself short. Astrid raised her eyebrows, cocking her head in an unaware imitation of her dragon.
Gobber hesitated for a second. He could have sworn that Hiccup & Astrid went official some time around Snoggletog, but you could never really be sure with teenagers. Still, there was no denying how close the two were. Hiccup probably wouldn't mind if Astrid knew about his emotional distress. Probably.
"Chief said Hiccup was having a rough morning," Gobber admitted.
Astrid nodded understandingly, still frowning slightly.
"I'm not surprised. He was...off yesterday," she sighed.
"'Off'?" Gobber asked.
"I was telling him about a new banking technique that Stormfly and I were trying," Astrid explained, "And he spaced out while I was talking."
"Well, yeah. It's Hiccup," Gobber said.
"Exactly," Astrid said, "I mean, I was a little frustrated, but at this point, I'm used to it. I normally just give him a little sock in the arm to make sure he's listening, and keep going. But this time, when I got his attention back, he got really, really quiet. And then he barely spoke for the rest of the afternoon."
"Oh?" Gobber asked.
"And it wasn't the way he gets quiet when he's stuck working out an idea in his head," Astrid said, "It felt like...old Hiccup."
Astrid didn't elaborate, but Gobber knew what she meant.
Definitely shame, then.
What a fun day this was shaping up to be.
After Astrid left (with a promise to be on the lookout for one wayward Haddock), Gobber began heading for the last place on the list.
The arena had only recently switched from training humans to training dragons, and Gobber knew that Hiccup hadn't spent enough time in it yet to establish any good hidey-holes in the ring itself. However, Gobber also knew about the vast amount of time that Hiccup had spent within proximity of the arena, because, before it became Hiccup's domain, it had been Gobber's, and, more importantly, Stoick's.
Gobber veered off the path before he reached the bridge, aiming for the clearing that marked the closest that a small(er) Hiccup had been allowed to get to the large, enclosed space filled with sharp weapons and lizards that breathed fire.
"And then we put him in a small enclosed space filled with sharp weapons," Gobber muttered to himself, "Eh. At least in the forge, you always know where the fire's coming from."
Gobber's one-sided conversation was interrupted by the sound of sniffling (human or dragon, he couldn't tell) maybe ten feet up ahead, obscured by a cluster of crowberry bushes. Success.
"Hiccup?" Gobber called, approaching the sound. The sniffling stopped.
"Hello?" Hiccup's voice sounded thin and strained. Not to mention oddly muffled.
"Just me, lad," said Gobber, as he reached the bushes and began picking his way through, "Should've known you'd be in the last place I looked. Thank you for that."
Entering the little clearing, Gobber got his first good look at the object of his quest. If he had been asked to describe Hiccup in that moment, Gobber would have said that that teen looked like he was trying to become as small as physically possible. He was perched on top of a large, flat rock, with his left leg curled in front of him and the right one drawn up to his chest. His head was buried in his folded arms where they rested on his knee, covered for once by the hood that normally hung down the back of his tunic. He wasn't tense, but there was nothing relaxed about the looseness of his frame. He looked limp. Defeated. Empty.
It was a sight that Gobber had seen before. That didn't make it any easier to see again. At least the dragon protectively curled up at Hiccup's side was a welcome change of pace.
"Stoick said you were havin' a morning," Gobber explained as he approached, "Asked me to check on you."
"Oh?" Hiccup's nonchalant tone was dampened by the fact that his head was still tucked firmly in his arms.
"He got caught up in a 'time-sensitive chiefly matter', Gobber said, making quotes in the air with his hand that he belatedly realized Hiccup couldn't even see, "or he would've come himself."
"Old habits die hard, huh?" There was no hint of bitterness in Hiccup's voice; only sadness and that weird sort of...apologetic understanding that had been underneath half of what came out of the lad's mouth since he was 13 or so.
Gobber would've preferred the bitterness. Hel, he would've preferred anything over listening to Hiccup be apologetic for his own existence. He'd heard way too much of that over the years, and while it started out as annoying, there came a point where it was too automatic, too genuine, and too consistent to do anything but contribute to that ever-present ache in his heart that a less emotionally-aware Viking would probably have asked Gothi about.
"Hey, now; don't start with that," Gobber scolded, "You should've seen his face. Looked like it was killing him to have to ask me."
"It did?"
It really, really had. Stoick the Vast was many things, but a complete idiot was not one of them.
"Everything is still so fragile," he had whispered to Gobber through clenched teeth, "If he thinks that I've gone back to not seeing him, he'll– I need him to know that– Gobber, what if he–?"
"I'll tell him, Stoick," Gobber assured, "And you should probably tell him yourself too, later."
The Chief nodded tightly, his expression still so anxious that Gobber might have found it mildly pathetic if he hadn't known the years of conflict and grief that sat just behind it.
"Between you and me," Gobber said to Hiccup, lowering his voice conspiratorially, "if we hadn't been in the Great Hall in front of half the village, I think he might have started crying."
The noise that came from Hiccup sounded like it was meant to be a snort, but ended up as something much closer to a sob.
Gobber swallowed hard.
With a groan, he settled himself down onto the stone next to the young Viking.
"Been a while since I've found you out here," Gobber said, keeping his tone casual, observational, "Remember when you used to run out of the shop when my back was turned? I used to check the entire village before I realized that you were down here every time, waiting for Stoick to be finished training the recruits."
"Gobber," came Hiccup's muffled voice, "Am I broken?"
Gobber opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment about Hiccup's graceful subject change, but then he thought better of it. Sometimes, snark about his conversational skills was helpful for Hiccup. Gobber had a feeing that this was not one of those times.
"What do you mean, 'broken'?" he asked instead, "Don't tell me the ole leg already needs a tune up? I thought draft number 6 was a real winner," he added, tapping Hiccup's prosthetic lightly with his hook. Worringly, Hiccup didn't move an inch.
"You've known me my whole life," Hiccup continued, "You've seen how I am. There's so much I should be able to do. And then I just...don't."
"You mean, like," Gobber's voice dropped to a whisper, "dragon-killing?"
"No!" Hiccup cried, lifting his head, "Everything else!"
His face, Gobber's heart sank to note, was wet.
As if propelled by his increasing volume, Hiccup stood, whipping his hood off as his went. Gobber caught a flash of grimace on the tear-stained face as Hiccup put weight on his left leg, but it was gone in an instant as he started to pace. Something had shifted in the young Viking—clearly, whatever was blazing now had been gathering fuel for a long time. This morning was just the spark.
"I should be able to just go to sleep when I'm tired!" Hiccup continued, still yelling, "I should be able to pay attention to my surroundings so I don't trip over every rock and plant in sight! I should be able to listen to the whole story when Astrid has something to tell me! I should be able to remember that my dad asked me to do something important! And I want to! And then I can't!"
"Well, is it 'don't' or 'can't?" Gobber drawled.
"What?" Hiccup practically spat.
"You can't 'don't' a second ago, but just now you said 'can't'," Gobber shrugged, "Just wanna know what I'm working with here."
"Oh for the love of–," Hiccup's arms were flailing like a tree in a storm, "I don't know! I want to do things! But I still can't!"
"Okay, but–,” Gobber began.
"I thought that things would be better now," Hiccup continued, "now that I'm not trying to kill dragons! But now, I just get to discover all of the non-killing things that I also can't do!"
"Yeah, but–," Gobber tried again.
"I try to listen, I try to sleep, I try to remember, and now that I'm not wasting my time and energy on other Viking stuff," Hiccup snarled, "you'd think I'd be trying even harder, but it's still not enough–"
"Do a somersault."
Hiccup blinked, and stopped pacing so fast he almost tripped over his own foot.
"What??"
"You heard me," Gobber said. He sat back on the rock, waiting.
"Why do you want me to so a somersault?" asked Hiccup.
"Can you do one?" Gobber asked back.
"Yeah, last I checked," was the answer, "but what's the–"
"Well then," Gobber made a rolling motion with his hand, "Let's see it."
"So, for fun, or..."
"Odin's eyepatch, lad, just do the somersault," Gobber ordered, "I'll explain in a minute."
With intense confusion still written all over his face, Hiccup picked over the ground to find a clearer path. He threw one last baffled look at Gobber, who nodded with what he hoped was an encouraging look on his face. Hiccup sighed, shifted his weight, and launched himself forward, rolling neatly over his shoulder and pushing back up on his right foot.
Gobber pounded his hand on the rock in applause.
"Thank you?" Hiccup said, blowing hair out of his face.
" 'S impressive," Gobber said, "I remember when you couldn't do that. You figure it out on your own, or did someone teach you?"
"Astrid," Hiccup replied.
"Ah, yes," Gobber said, "And you practiced?"
"Lots," Hiccup nodded.
"Yeah," Gobber agreed, "Now—walk on your toes."
"Walk on my-– huh?" Hiccup stammered.
"Walk on your toes," Gobber repeated.
"Gobber, you know I can't do that," Hiccup said.
"You sure?" Gobber asked.
"Pretty sure, yeah," Hiccup replied.
"Not even if you practice?"
"Not unless you have some secret technique that I don't know about!"
"Nah," Gobber said, "I can't do it. And you're carryin' around much more advanced technology than me."
"So what was the point of asking me?" Hiccup asked, frowning.
"The point was to get you to say that there's something you can't do, even with practice," Gobber said.
"I still don't follow," said Hiccup.
"You couldn't so a somersault, you wanted to do a somersault, you practiced, you can do a somersault," Gobber explained, "You can't walk on your toes, you want to walk on your toes, you could practice, but you still can't walk on your toes. That's how it works."
"Right..." Hiccup said.
"Well, I've known you for a long time, Hiccup, and I'm thinkin': what if your brain works the same way?" Gobber asked.
There was silence in the clearing for a moment.
"...Are you saying I have a...peg leg in my brain?"
"Yeah," Gobber said, "Sounds stupid when you put it like that, but, yeah."
"...I used to be able to walk on my toes."
"OKAY so it's not the perfect analogy," Gobber yelled, "but you still see my point!!"
"I'm genuinely not sure if I do," Hiccup said. Gobber sighed.
"My point is," he said, "there are some things that you can't do, but then you practice, and you can. And then there are some things that you can't do, and you just...can't do them. 'Cause that's how you're...put together."
"There are some things that I'm never gonna be able to do," Hiccup said slowly, "because of how I'm put together."
"Yeah!" Gobber said.
"And that applies to...all of...?" Hiccup gestured to himself, sweeping his hands from his head down to his boots.
"Yeah," Gobber agreed, waving his hook, "all of this."
"No matter how much I want to walk on my toes, or pay attention, or remember, I'm never going to be able to," Hiccup stressed.
"I dunno how many times I can say it: yeah," said Gobber.
"I…I'm–," Hiccup stammered, visibly peeved. Gobber sat back, trying to remain neutral-faced at the rather funny sight of Hiccup's mouth repeatedly opening and closing like a fish.
"I'm sorry," Hiccup snapped once he'd finally found his words, "is that supposed to make me feel better?!"
"Well, it's not supposed to give you the warm fuzzies!" Gobber cried, "It's supposed to make you stop beating yourself up!"
It was almost funny how immediately all the fight drained out of Hiccup. Almost.
"Beating myself up?" he mumbled, trying to inject a weak laugh, "What are you– what do you mean? I'm not...I'm not beating myself up."
"Right, 'cause the last 3 minutes were healthy and reasonable self-criticism," Gobber deadpanned. Hiccup said nothing, staring at the ground like he was trying to set the underbrush on fire with his glare. Gobber rolled his eyes.
"Look, Hiccup," he started, "Being hard on yourself for the stuff you can't change...it doesn't do anything but make you mental."
"No one in their right mind would fault you for not being able to walk on your toes, because they can see with their own eyes that you can't. I can't see the inside of that noggin," Gobber said, "but I can see how hard you try. How hard you've been trying. If you've spent this long, and you still can't do something, stands to reason that you're not built to be able to do it, and I'm not gonna fault you for it."
Hiccup still didn't reply. He hung his head so that his hair hid his eyes, but Gobber knew they were screwed shut against the tears that threatened to fall. He felt the ever-present ache in his heart flare up again.
"Stop trying to walk on your toes," Gobber said emphatically.
Hiccup's voice was very small. "What else am I supposed to do?"
"Well," Gobber scratched his chin with his hook, thinking.
"If it's something you don't have to do, forget about it! But if it's something you do have to do—and yes," Gobber held up his hand, cutting Hiccup off just as his opened his mouth to interject, "listening to every word out of the mouth of the girl who you've been making moony eyes at since you were 8 does count as a necessity," Hiccup snapped his mouth closed, "—if it's something you have to do, you find a workaround. Come at things from a different angle. Do a second draft of the design and see what comes of it."
"A second draft," Hiccup repeated. Gobber could see the gears turning behind Hiccup's eyes, latching onto the language that they both spoke fluently—that of the workshop.
"Yeah. Say I want to...climb a tree," said Gobber, "What's the base design that most people have to do that?" He held up his hand, Hiccup tracking the movement with his eyes.
"First draft; works for most people; oop!" Gobber continued, tucking his hand behind his back, "First draft no longer an option. Can't do it. Don't even have the materials to try. What do we do?" he lifted up his hook, "Workaround."
Hiccup tilted his head. Gobber was on a roll now.
"Wanna go for a walk? Great," Gobber said, "First draft!" He used his hand and hook to point at his & Hiccup's right legs simultaneously. Hiccup cracked a tiny smile.
"First draft no longer an option?" Gobber cried, then leaned back on the rock and kicked out his left leg. Hiccup stood with his arms crossed, unmoving. Gobber looked pointedly down at Hiccup's prosthetic, then back up. Hiccup stared at him.
Undaunted, Gobber wiggled his peg leg in the air and raised his eyebrows. Hiccup sighed, smile growing the slightest bit bigger, and stuck his own left leg out, hopping a little to keep his balance.
"Workaround," he said drily, mimicking Gobber's gesture from earlier, but this time pointing at their prostheses.
Next to the rock, Toothless made a happy sound. He lifted his tail up into the air, waving the red and black fins over the Vikings' heads.
"Atta boy, Toothless!" Gobber cheered, "See, he gets it."
"Thanks for the visual aid, bud," Hiccup called, almost grinning. He set his left leg back down on the ground with a wince. Gobber grimaced.
"Still pinchy?" he asked.
"Eh, a little," Hiccup shrugged, limping over to sit back down next to his mentor.
"We can tweak it more," Gobber said as Hiccup settled onto the rock, "You know what they say: 7th draft's the charm!"
Hiccup blew a long breath out.
"Workarounds are hard," he said.
"Hah!" Gobber barked a laugh, "Don't I know it!"
"And I can see my leg," Hiccup continued, "I can't see what's going on in here." He waved a hand around, gesturing in the general direction of his head.
"True. That does make it harder," Gobber agreed, "But you can do it"
"Can I?" Hiccup asked.
"'Course you can," Gobber nodded, "You've been doing it."
"I have?" Hiccup asked.
"Yep," said Gobber, "Know how I know?"
"How?" asked Hiccup.
"Because, if you hadn't spent your entire life practicing looking at things from a different angle," Gobber said, pointing, "that dragon, a bunch of other dragons, and a whole mess of Vikings wouldn't be here right now."
The dragon in question snuffled quietly. Hiccup laid his hand on Toothless's head. He blinked, and his eyes looked suspiciously shiny. Gobber could feel his own eyes start to well up a bit as he regarded the boy sitting next to him.
"Do you get what I'm saying?" Gobber asked after a minute, "Cause if you don't, you might have to go ask your dad to keep explaining; I'm not sure how much more figurative language I have in me."
Hiccup huffed an almost-laugh. Then he took a deep breath.
"What you're saying is," Hiccup said slowly, "not being able to do certain things—the brain peg leg—means that I've always been looking for workarounds. To find workarounds, you have to be willing to look at things from a different angle. You have to allow yourself to entertain possibilities that other people might just...shut down. Notice things that otherwise get ignored."
"So, if I wasn't so...used to having to consider things that none of you guys even have to think about, I wouldn't have been willing to entertain...I would have shut down..."
Hiccup's voice dropped to almost a whisper, like the words would run away scared if he spoke them too loudly.
"I...that day in the woods. I never would have noticed how frightened Toothless was."
There was a pause after that hushed pronouncement. In the silence, Gobber imagined all the ways that things might have gone if Toothless had died that day, if Stoick had gotten the warrior of a son that he had thought he wanted, if Hiccup had been any less himself. Entire stories hung in the air, unspoken.
Unsurprisingly, he found that he didn't like any of the endings.
"You were willing to let yourself see something that the rest of us couldn't," Gobber started.
Hiccup's head jerked towards Gobber like he had forgotten that Gobber was still sitting there. He hummed with embarrassment and turned his gaze back to the ground. His hand hadn't left Toothless. Gobber chuckled.
"You were willing to let yourself see something that the rest of us couldn't," he began again, "and see where that got you. Where it got all of us."
Hiccup nodded without looking up, but Gobber could see the corners of his mouth starting to turn upward.
"Now, don't go gettin' a swelled head about this–," Gobber continued.
"Oh no," Hiccup interrupted, shaking his head, "No, I won't; trust me."
"I wasn't finished yet!” Gobber griped, "Thor's braided beard hair; can I get all the way through one sentence today?"
"Sorry," Hiccup said, ducking his head a little.
"As I was saying," said Gobber, "don't go gettin' a swelled head about this, but your dad wasn't kidding when he said we needed all of you. That includes all of your mind. There's more in there than smithing and dragons."
Hiccup squinted.
"I don't know," he said with a wry smile, "There isn't much."
"Eh, you're young," Gobber said, "You've got time to stuff it full of wisdom. And useless things. More useless things than wisdom, in my experience, but you never know. You could get lucky."
"I think you're plenty wise, Gobber," Hiccup said.
"Never said I wasn't!" Gobber cried, "Just that there's usually more of one than the other. You can't even imagine the amount of useless things I have in here." He clanked his hook against his helmet for emphasis.
Finally, Hiccup laughed. Cackled, even. When he was done, Gobber put a hand on his shoulder.
"The world isn't built for second drafts," Gobber said, "and sometimes that makes it harder to see how they can be anything but awful. But, between you and me, the two of us are gonna have a much better time than most of the village if we step on a bear trap."
"We have a 50% chance of having a better time, Gobber," Hiccup said with a snort.
"Yeah. We'll have a much better time half of the time," Gobber agreed. Hiccup rolled his eyes with a fond smile.
"And, uh," Gobber said after a moment, "it took all of us a shamefully long time to see it, but that second-draft brain of yours can do things that Stoick's never could. Or mine. Or anyone's."
"True!" Hiccup said straightfaced, "It can read."
"You little–,” Gobber spluttered, lightly smacking Hiccup upside the head as he giggled at his own joke.
"I know, I know," Hiccup said, still chuckling, "You guys can read."
"Yeah, and that's also not what I meant, you mutton-head," said Gobber, "There's...there's something in there."
"Yeah, like you said: a peg leg," Hiccup agreed.
"Odin's undies, Hiccup!" Gobber cried, as Hiccup snickered, "Stop dodging the compliment!"
Gobber watched as almost every emotion a teenaged Viking could experience played over Hiccup's face. Then the mess cleared, leaving Hiccup with a mixture of caution, contentment, and a faint glow of pride that made Gobber feel choked up.
"Okay," Hiccup said simply. Gobber nodded, not trusting his voice not to crack if he tried to speak. He tried to swallow his emotions down.
"Astrid's said something similar before, actually," Hiccup added.
“Has she now?" Gobber asked, voice thin but thankfully steady, "She's smart, that one."
"Yeah..." Hiccup agreed.
"No, no; wipe that dreamy smile off your face," Gobber ordered, "I am not listening to all of that again."
"All of what?" Hiccup asked, smiling dreamily. Gobber rolled his eyes.
"Are you seeing this, Toothless?" asked Gobber, leaning around Hiccup to speak with the Night Fury on his other side, "A pretty girl with an axe kisses him a few times and his whole head flies to the moon."
Toothless growled, then snuffled twice, then growled again.
"That's what I'm sayin'," Gobber replied.
"I can't believe you guys are literally talking about me behind my back right now," Hiccup whined.
"We could do it in front of your front, if that's better," Gobber said, leaning forward to look past Hiccup. On Hiccup's other side, Toothless poked his head forward and turned to look at Gobber, chortling.
"Unbelievable," Hiccup said with a shake of his head. The hand that had been on Toothless's nose moved back to scratch around his earflaps, and the dragon made a contented noise, settling in closer to Hiccup.
"Yeah, it is unbelievable," Gobber agreed, "He's abandoned me for scritches." Hiccup chuckled.
After a few minutes spent in contented silence, Gobber cleared his throat.
"Well," he said, slapping his hand on his knee and pushing himself up to stand, "I'm gonna head back. Got some stuff waitin' on me in the shop."
He took a few steps, then stopped.
"Wanna come with?" he called, turning back towards his apprentice.
Hiccup shook his head.
"We're gonna stay out here for a little bit longer," he replied, scooting sideways on the rock. Toothless thumped his tail in agreement, then plopped the top half of his body down on the rock next to his Viking, tail curling around to rest by Hiccup's foot.
"Suit yourself," Gobber shrugged. He took a few more steps, then stopped again. This time, he turned all the way around.
Hiccup and Toothless looked at him questioningly.
"You...alright, now?" Gobber asked, almost holding his breath.
Hiccup took a breath, then looked down. Toothless snuffled and cocked an earflap. Gobber, rapidly accepting his defeat, was about to start yammering something about going to find Astrid when Hiccup lifted his head to reveal a small, warm smile.
"Yeah," he said, "Yeah. I am."
"Good," Gobber said with a nod.
"Thanks, Gobber," Hiccup said.
" 'Course, lad," Gobber replied.
He turned and stomped away before he could do something stupid, like start bawling with pride at the Viking Hiccup was growing up to be.
As he walked further from the spot, Gobber could hear the indistinct voices of boy and dragon blend together and then fade into the distance.
"He's alright," he thought to himself