Chapter Text
The first time Hiccup woke up, it was with a start. He jolted, heart nearly beating out of his chest as a dream he couldn’t remember evaporated back into the ether. Pain seared through his head and with a groan Hiccup fell back down onto the pillow beneath him. It felt as if his skull would split in two. Perhaps that would be better, in fact, as it would probably end his suffering.
Something shifted next to him, and Hiccup turned his head in the direction of it. There was a lit candle next to his bed, and the light was painful and searing. He shut his eyes, raising the blanket to cover his head.
“Toothless?” Hiccup croaked out. “Mom?”
“You’re okay. Get some rest.” Something heavy and warm settled over Hiccup’s shoulder, felt even through the blanket, accompanied by the familiar deep and gruff voice of his dad. Hiccup relaxed, flailing a hand out of his tightly-bundled form and grabbing his dad’s hand.
“Dad,” he breathed, only able to focus on that one thing. “Dad.”
oOo
The second time Hiccup woke up, his head still hurt, but not nearly as much.
He pulled the blanket off of his head and looked around the room. There was the faintest of light streaming in from the closed windows. The room looked familiar, but he couldn’t exactly place it. The candle that he seen lit before was now out, burnt low but seemingly snuffed before burning out on its own. Hiccup frowned a bit upon not seeing Toothless around, nor a proper bed for a dragon. Most houses in Berk had them by now. Perhaps it was in another room? Or the resident's dragon was too large to fit inside, and instead lived in the yard or on the roof.
As Hiccup shifted around, he found that his armor had been taken off, as well as all of his weapons. He was still wearing his pants at least, and his prosthetic was still attached, but there were bandages carefully wrapped around the right side of his chest and a dull pain that accompanied them. All of the rest of his things, including armor and weapons, he found in a pile near the foot of the bed.
Hiccup rubbed his head as he tried to remember what had happened; he blamed the strange gap in memory on the pain, possibly from a concussion. He could vaguely remember waking up for a short period of time. There had been somebody here, somebody with a deep voice… his first instinct was to say it was his dad, but Stoick had died half a year ago. Maybe Gobber? Or maybe he wasn’t on Berk at all and it was somebody he hadn’t known. He attempted to think back even further, to what he’d hurt his head doing. He could remember flying with the Toothless, approaching some unfamiliar rock formations as a storm ravaged around them. There had been a bright light… and it all faded from there.
“Toothless?” Hiccup whispered, as if the dragon would just suddenly appear out of the shadows. The room remained empty save for himself.
Setting the problem aside for now, Hiccup continued to inspect the room he was in. The bed was huge, clearly made for a man much bigger than himself. On the bedside table was a plate of bread and soup accompanied by cup of water. Hiccup immediately dug into the food, not having realized just how hungry he was until there was food in front of him. He looked around at the rest of the room and felt his heat plummet as he saw, mounted above the bed, a dragon skull.
Hiccup set the food aside so he could stand on the bed and get a better look at the huge skull. It definitely used to be a monstrous nightmare, the horns very distinct, and there were scratches in the skull that told a sickening story of what it had taken to down the beast. He looked around, now at his higher position, and his eyes lingered on another skull sitting on the other side of the bed - deadly nadder - and a map set up on one wall.
He recognized the islands on the map, easily able to pick out Berk on it. There were x’s in red, furiously scratched on, going out into the unknown mists of the map that Hiccup recognized as being where the dragon nest of the Red Death had been. There were also black x’s, set more around the islands. The edges of the map - in fact, the edges of most things in the room - were charred around the edges.
Hiccup sent out a silent prayer to the gods that wherever Toothless was, he was safe from these vikings who were apparently still at war with dragons.
The door to the room opened, and Hiccup froze where he was, relaxing when he saw Gobber come through with some more food. It also confused him, and he looked around the room again. This wasn’t Gobber’s house - that, he was sure of - so where was he? Why didn’t Gobber just bring him to his own room?
“Oh good, you're awake.” Gobber set down the food on the table in front of the map, smiling at Hiccup. “We were afraid you’d taken one hit too many to the head.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been told I’ve got a thick skull,” Hiccup shrugged, confused but comforted by Gobber's pressence nonetheless.
“Well, now that you’re coherent, I’ll go get the chief. A good thing too, he’s setting sail soon.”
Hiccup faltered, brow furrowing as what Gobber said sank in, but by the time he’d put together words to ask what he meant, the man was already back out the door. Hiccup moved to follow him, but then thought better of it. He didn’t know what was going on here or what he would see out there. Better to stay in here, where at least this 'chief' was coming and he may get some answers.
Gobber had brought a candle with the food, and Hiccup carefully picked it up to get an even better view of the room. There were no other dragon skulls, but there was a rather large collection of axes and swords hung up on one of the walls. When Hiccup inspected them he found them all still sharp and touching one of the blades left a small knick on his finger. He winced, imagining them being used against dragons.
He couldn’t shake the familiarity of the room, and the more time Hiccup spent in it the more uncomfortable he became. He abandoned trying to figure out the room, and to get his mind off the anxiety of waiting, he inspected his wound on his shoulder, peeling back the bandages. Hiccup knew, of course, that it was the last thing he should be doing, but he was curious. What he found beneath, he was familiar with: puncture wounds that he easily matched up with Toothless’ teeth. They were well on their way to healing, and while Hiccup couldn’t exactly remember how he got them, he trusted that Toothless had a good reason for it. After bandaging the wound, Hiccup put his clothes and armor back on. He felt better just wearing it and breathed a sigh of relief as he found everything was, indeed, accounted for.
The door creaked open again, and Hiccup turned around.
Anything he was going to say caught in his throat at who he saw.
Stoick the Vast, his father, the man who had taken an attack from Toothless to save Hiccup, who Hiccup had sent off to Valhalla himself, was standing there, staring at Hiccup with nearly the same expression the man had worn upon seeing Valka for the first time in twenty years. He was absolutely speechless, approaching Hiccup slowly, carefully, one hand extended outwards. Hiccup felt tears welling up at the sight of his father, alive and breathing despite knowing that there was no way he could be here, absolutely no possible way.
Hiccup couldn’t stop himself from closing the distance between them and clinging onto the man who looked like his father, even still had the musty but warm smell he did, slightly salty, a bit ashy. The man wrapped his arms around Hiccup in return, and they just stood there for a moment, Hiccup drinking in the man that looked so so much like Stoick, that he desperately wanted to be. After a few heartbeats like that, Hiccup checked himself and pulled back, wiping away the tears and attempting to regain some semblance of composure, trying to be on guard because he was more confused than ever.
“Are you okay? You weren’t in a great shape when we found you.” Stoick’s eyes were critically inspecting Hiccup, and the expression of such vulnerability Hiccup had seen just moments ago was already fading, only a bit of it remaining.
Hiccup opened his mouth, trying to figure out how to respond to that. He closed his mouth again, searching for the words, and then finally spoke.
“I… yeah, yeah I think I’m okay.” Hiccup was aware he probably didn’t look very okay, shaking and on the verge of breaking down and hugging the man again. “Is… did I die? Is this Valhalla?” Stoick chuckled.
“No, it’s not Valhalla. We’ve been waiting a few days for you to wake up. So, boy, I am Stoick the Vast, Chief of Berk. What’s your name?”
And the world came to a stop.
Hiccup stared at his dad more, but this time in shock, brain working away. His dad… didn’t recognize him? Was alive to begin with? He’d been ready to just accept it, that he was dead or that his dad was magically back, but his dad not knowing who he was? It was crushing.
“Hey, uh, dad? Gobber said you’d be- oh. He’s awake.”
To make everything even more confusing, Hiccup himself walked in front of the doorway.
He was… so short. His freckles were way more pronounced than they were on himself, and Hiccup’s eyes were drawn to the leg, still flesh and blood, on the smaller boy. Hiccup was significantly older than this teenager in front of him. And when he saw this kid, the gears in Hiccup’s head started moving again, fast, as he processes what’s in front of him.
His dad alive.
Himself with his leg.
The room he was in he now recognized. His dad’s room in the last house they had before renovating it to suit dragons.
The conclusion he came to was insane, but there was no time to stop and debate it.
“Horrendous.” Hiccup - now Horrendous, apparently - said, prompting the younger Hiccup and Stoick to return their attention to him. Hiccup’s brow furrowed, but Stoick just smiled.
“Horrendous,” Stoick repeated, clapping Hiccup on the shoulder. “My son’s middle name is Horrendous.”
Yeah, Hiccup thought, Trust me, I know. When he was younger (even younger than his mini replica before him), he had tried to convince the entire village to call him Horrendous instead of Hiccup. It didn’t work, probably since he was, well, Hiccup, and his attempts only made Snotlout call him Hiccup with even more vigor, treating the word like a taunt.
“Thank you for bandaging me.” Horrendous put his hand over where the bite was. Okay. In the past. He could probably deal with this. He felt his face flush a bit with heat at he suddenly realized what had happened moments before. “Uh, D- Chief Stoick, I’m, uh, you look a lot like my dad, he was killed not too long ago-”
“It’s okay.” Stoick held up a hand to stop Horrendous’ stuttering episode. “I was no help either. You look a lot like somebody I once knew, too. Now, why don’t you follow me to the docks. I’m departing on a voyage to find Helheim’s Gate. I wish you’d woken up sooner, so that we could have talked more.” Stoick led the way outside, and immediately Horrendous noticed just how empty the village seemed without dragons everywhere. It was almost eerie, like a bad dream, but the pain in his shoulder told him this was no dream. This, as impossible as it seemed, was real.
“Where did you find me?” Horrendous asked. Maybe it could lend some clue to how he ended up here.
“A few days ago, you washed up on shore. Hiccup was actually the one that spotted you.” Stoick nodded over to his son, and Horrendous was hit by how ironic that was. “You looked half-drowned, and your wounds suggested you were attacked by dragons. You were the only one we found, though, so if you had a crew, they probably didn’t make it.”
“Why were you sailing so close to Berk?” Hiccup asked, seeming to have forgotten what he had planned to tell his dad in favor of find out more about Horrendous.
Horrendous did his best not to wince as an idea came to him. It could work, and help him stay close to his family while he figured this out, but… if felt like a low blow. But what choice did he have?
“I was, uh, looking for a cousin of mine,” he said, disliking how the lie sat bitter in his mouth. “Her name is Valka.”
Stoick came to a stop.
“She was my wife. I’m afraid she was killed in a dragon raid.” The grief was still so fresh in Stoick’s voice. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”
“Oh,” Horrendous said, stomach churning. Not only was he not Valka’s cousin, he knew that she was alive and out there, with Cloudjumper and the Alpha.
“But if you’re part of her family, you can stay as long as you need to.” Stoick smiled at Horrendous, looking over his features again. Horrendous looked so much like his mom that it wasn’t a hard lie to get Stoick to believe.
They walked in silence for a moment as the memory of Valka passed over them. When they reached the boats, Hiccup stepped forward, clenched fists shaking a bit, and Horrendous knew what the other was going to say.
“Dad, listen, I can’t- The whole Dragon Training thing-”
“You’ll finally be a real viking,” Stoick proclaimed proudly. Horrendous and Hiccup both winced at that.
“No, you’re not listening. I- dad, I really think I should just stay Gobber’s apprentice. I mean, somebody has to keep repairing weapo-”
“I was a blacksmith’s apprentice,” Horrendous cut in. He knew how this conversation was going to end, but maybe he could something out of it. “If your son is worried about the forge so much, I could help out your blacksmith so Hiccup can focus on his Dragon Training. If I’m staying, I need to do something to earn my keep anyway.”
Stoick grinned and gestured to Horrendous.
“See, Hiccup? The forge will be fine.”
Hiccup made a sound like he was going to protest again, but Horrendous put his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder before he could get anything out.
“Hiccup, why doesn’t you show me where your forge is so I can get acquainted with it?”
Hiccup looked back to his dad, but Stoick was already on board the ship, helping with the final preparations. Hiccup sighed with his whole body and, with a groan, said,
“Yeah, follow me.”
The forge was smaller than the one from Horrendous’s time, but that was to be expected. Gobber didn’t need the room for all of the riding equipment he wasn't making and/or fixing, and he also didn’t have several dragons running around. Hiccup half-heartedly showed him where the furnace and tools were and Horrendous half-heartedly listened.
Okay. He’d secured a job, a fake name, and a fake reason to be here. Now he just needed to find out how to get home. Hopefully without messing things up too badly. Horrendous hadn’t thought much about time travel before, but sometimes Fishlegs would talk about paradoxes and stuff from books he’d read. None of it ever sounded any good, but Horrendous would just have to pray that he would make it back to his time safely.