✨️ Hiccup Whump Prompt / Request / Challenge List ✨️
*will be updated as I write new ones*
All That Matters (T ▪︎ 2,285 words)
Prompt: Ransom ▪︎ Hiccup goes missing on his morning flight, and the ransom note Stoick finds in Toothless's saddle bag, written in Hiccup's own hand, reveals that he has been taken by a man who makes even Alvin the Treacherous look like a Valkyrie. The price for Hiccup's life is steep, but Stoick will pay any cost to get his son back from the monster who has stolen him.
What the Boss Don't Know, the Boss Won't Mind (T ▪︎ 2,518 words)
Prompt: Upside Down ▪︎ Ryker and his men decide to have some fun with Hiccup while Viggo is away on business, despite his orders to leave their prisoner alone. So when their fun spirals out of control and Hiccup nearly dies as a result, Viggo is far from pleased.
The Cracks Fear Made (G ▪︎ 1,234 words)
Prompt: Coma ▪︎ It has been four days since Hiccup was struck by lightning. Gothi has treated his surface wounds — strangely beautiful, branching burn marks, like a winter tree reaching for Valhalla. But the healer does not know if Hiccup will wake, does not know if he will be the same if he does wake. And so Stoick does the only thing he can do: He waits, watches, and prays that his son will come back to him.
Surrender (M ▪︎ 23,328 words ▪︎ 4/5 chapters)
Prompt: Surrender ▪︎ The Edge has been under siege for two weeks. The good news? The Hunters want only one thing. If they get it, they will leave the Edge in peace. The bad news? They want Hiccup.
Brave Face (T ▪︎ 2,138 words)
Prompt: Wrists + Chains ▪︎ We Are Family AU: Hiccup wants to be strong, to hold out no matter what Alvin puts him through. But he's also fifteen years old, chained in a cage about to be tortured. Kidnapped, far from his home in the heart of hostile territory, wrists a mess of pain and bruises. Dragons, he's used to. But cruel men willing to do anything to break him, wanting only to take what he refuses to give? These are uncharted waters, leaving Hiccup floundering far out of his depth.
Defy (T ▪︎ 2,280 words)
Prompt: Drugged ▪︎ The moment Hiccup sees the vial, he knows with crystalline certainty that Viggo has no interest in playing games with him today. But if Viggo wants him to drink its contents, he's going to have work for it - because Hiccup isn't going down without a fight.
Down to Earth (G ▪︎ 2,789 words)
Prompt: Crash ▪︎ The Eel Effect AU: Either the gods hate him, or he's their favorite punching bag. Because Hiccup can't think of a better explanation for the day he's had. But even curled on the ground, body broken and battered and bruised, Hiccup is more concerned about curing Toothless and getting the Eel Pox remedy back to Berk than his own injuries.
Target Practice (T ▪︎ 3,804 words)
Prompt: evil Johann, knife-throwing ▪︎ Hiccup is at the mercy of Johann, who wants to use him as target practice.
A Downed Dragon (T ▪︎ 1,931 words)
Prompt: Toothless's prosthetic taken to hurt Hiccup ▪︎ Hiccup fights when Ryker tries to take his prosthetic - so Ryker, knowing it will hurt Hiccup far more to see his dragon grounded, takes Toothless's instead.
Impulse Control (G ▪︎ 2,852 words)
Prompt: Dagur struggles with sadistic side/accidentally hurts Hiccup ▪︎ In a moment of panic and anger, a reformed Dagur lashes out and accidentally hurts Hiccup, shattering the trust and comradery he's worked so hard to maintain with his former enemy. AU of Sins of the Past.
Not a Hero (M ▪︎ 6,745 words)
Prompt: Dagcup + Forced Caretaking ▪︎ The Zippleback Experience AU: After Hiccup is brutally tortured by Ryker, Dagur does something neither one of them expects. OR Dagur's shifting feelings towards Hiccup as he realizes that what he's wanted for so long - to see Hiccup suffer - doesn't at all feel like he thought it would. In fact, it might not be what he wants at all.
In the Shadows (T ▪︎ 4,193 words)
Prompt: Mugged ▪︎ Hiccup knows he shouldn't separate from his friends in the Northern Markets. He knows he should stay on guard, shouldn't let his mind wander. But he does anyway, and the price is far steeper than he ever could have imagined. Or, Hiccup is mugged while visiting the Northern Markets.
A Gift for Viggo Grimborn (T ▪︎ 5,087 words)
Prompt: Weighted Net + Gag ▪︎ Hiccup goes from getting a gift to being the gift, and Ryker Grimborn gives his younger brother the best Snoggletog present ever.
To Hurt, to Heal (T ▪︎ 6,517 words)
Prompt: Viking Painkillers + Healer Fishlegs ▪︎ Sometimes healing cannot come without a lot of pain. Fishlegs learns this the hard way when Hiccup is shot with a barbed arrow and his friends are forced to hurt him even more if they want to save his life.
Never Break (M ▪︎ 2,700 words ▪︎ 1/2 chapters)
Prompt: Caving to Interrogation ▪︎ Hiccup hasn't talked. Nothing Viggo does to him will make him talk. Or so he thinks.
Defiant Ones (T ▪︎ 4,959 words ▪︎ 1/1 chapters)
Hiccup's father has warned him about Savage, a man as brutal and ruthless as his name. Never antagonize him. Easier said than done. A much whumpier Defiant One AU where Hiccup mouths off to the wrong person and ends up paying the price.
Of Metal and Ink (And Stolen Futures Ripped from Grasping Hands) (T ▪︎ 2,358 words ▪︎ 1/1 chapters)
The last time that Hiccup narrowly escaped Viggo's clutches, Viggo made a promise. And now that Hiccup and Toothless have been shot out of the sky by Hunters, helpless at the hands of their greatest enemies, Viggo follows through on his horrifying, future-shattering, life-altering vow, and rips Hiccup's freedom, birthright, and future from his hands with one touch of ink and metal.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Astrid Hofferson, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless
Characters: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Viggo Grimborn, Ryker Grimborn, Astrid Hofferson, Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon)
Additional Tags: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Whump, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Needs a Hug, Hurt Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Kidnapped Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, To Be Continued, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Torture, Branding, Whipping, Broken Bones, Interrogation, Caving to Interrogation, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Loathing, Blood and Injury, threats of amputation, Violence, Non-Consensual Touching, Chains, Whump, Rescue, Misplaced Guilt, Guilt, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Heavy Angst, Shame
The Zippleback Experience AU: After Hiccup is brutally tortured by Ryker, Dagur does something neither one of them expects.
OR
Dagur's shifting feelings towards Hiccup as he realizes that what he's wanted for so long - to see Hiccup suffer - doesn't at all feel like he thought it would. In fact, it might not be what he wants at all.
♡♡♡
Consciousness floated back to Hiccup like a petal in the wind: turbulent and fragile.
Fragmented memories scattered in the air around him, but even when he caught one, he couldn't make sense of it enough to understand it. Just flashes of light and color — suffocating darkness, the scratch of ropes, the rolling of a ship upon the waves. The stench of fear and sweat, cracks like thunder in a cloudless sky, screaming, sobbing, someone shouting. Laughter, dark, terrible laughter, pressing in on all sides. And pain. Lots of pain.
He felt it now, all over his body, gnawing his bones and digging into his joints and seeping into his muscles. Burning relentlessly into his left shoulder, arcing like molten blades down his back. His head ached like he'd overindulged in mead, and his stomach roiled with nausea at every surge of pain.
Gods… what had happened to him?
He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes — not yet, not with the way his head pounded in time with his heart — so he extended his other senses, tried to draw in as much information as he could through them.
He seemed to be lying on his stomach on something soft, maybe a bedroll? He could smell the the slight sweetness of grass, feel a cool breeze lift the hairs at the nape of his neck and coast over the skin of his upper back. Uneasiness spiked — where was his tunic? His armor? And his leg — he couldn't feel his prosthetic strapped to what remained of his calf. He had no memory of taking them off, and the alternative, that someone else had done it while he slept, made his skin crawl.
He heard the gentle crackle of a small fire. And footsteps, padding across soft grass, coming closer. And with those footsteps, a low, angry muttering. Even before he recognized the voice, Hiccup's body instinctively tensed, sending fear cascading through him and making the pain pulse louder, hotter.
"…I'm gonna kill him… no one messes with my stuff… I'll wear his skull as a helmet… I'll throw him into a volcano… I don't have a volcano… I'll find one and chuck him in it, gods-damnit!"
But as the mutterer drew closer, his voice came into sharp relief. And raw panic clawed at Hiccup's insides — Dagur.
The panic usurped everything, even the pain and sickness, and Hiccup's eyes snapped open, his breath coming in quick, short pants. And even the short breaths hurt, burned like someone had filled his lungs with lava, like his chest had been trampled by a herd of Gronkles.
Dagur stalked into view. In his arms he carried a bundle of kindling. Hiccup couldn't see much from his vantage point, belly-down on the ground with his head turned to the side, but he and Dagur appeared to be alone in a small clearing. The trees surrounding them looked half-dead, their sparse branches growing gnarled and stunted, what few leaves that remained glowing sickly green in the moonlight. A dying fire burned in the center of a ring of stones a few yards away from where Hiccup lay. Hiccup watched, his heart racing, terror coursing through him, pain suffocating him, as Dagur stomped up to the fire and tossed the kindling into the faltering flame; for a moment, the fire spluttered, then it roared back to merry life.
Hiccup could only see Dagur's boots from this angle, and the second he saw them start to shift in his direction, he slammed his eyes closed, struggling to keep his breath even. He didn't want to let Dagur know he'd woken up, not until he had time to think, to plan, to remember. He had no idea what Dagur had done to him to make him hurt this much, nor why he lay on a comfortable bedroll by a cozy fire. If Dagur had captured him, he would have expected to be bound, maybe gagged, tossed to the side until he woke up and could be of use. It actually scared him more to be treated like a guest rather than a prisoner; what the Hel could Dagur be playing at?
Hiccup tried not to stiffen as he heard Dagur's footsteps circle behind him. It was a wonder, he thought, that Dagur couldn't hear his frantically beating heart. He heard the squeak of leather as Dagur crouched at his back; his breath hitched in terror. But a moment later, fear fled in the face of unbearable agony as something was pressed against his burning shoulder.
He jerked away from the touch, unable to hold in a strangled cry of pain when the motion doubled the pain in his shoulder and back. It felt like his skin was being peeled from his body, like he was burning away into nothing. Over the high-pitched ringing in his ears, he thought he heard Dagur talking, but he couldn't understand it. He just knew the exquisite cacophony of pain, the overwhelming sensations of fire and ice and acid burning deep into his flesh.
He realized what was going to happen seconds before it did. He had no time to get his arms beneath him, to prop himself up, and he doubted he would have had the strength to do so anyway. His nausea turned sharp and sour, his stomach contracted, and he heaved, bile spilling out of his mouth and pooling around his face. A terrifying vision of drowning in a pool of his own vomit rose in his head as he choked and gagged, but then he felt hands — rough and calloused, surprisingly gentle — grip him under the armpits and haul him partially up, supporting him. He somehow managed to hold his head up until he'd finished, but the second his stomach offered an uneasy truce, exhaustion bled into every inch of his battered body, his mind white with agony as all of his injuries protested.
Slowly, the fog in his mind and the ringing in his ears diminished enough for him to hear Dagur, still holding him up, away from his own sick, murmuring, "…easy, brother. You're all right. You got this, Hiccup." His voice sounded odd, almost… soft but with a bitter, angry edge that told Hiccup he could snap at any moment.
"D-Dagur," Hiccup gasped between painful gulps of air (vomiting had filled his chest with acid instead of lava, and every breath ate away a little more of his body, his control). "Wh-wha—?" He couldn't believe the way his voice sounded: shredded, raw, weak.
"Okay, come on," Dagur said, "let's get you on your side."
Somehow, he managed to shift Hiccup off the bedroll and onto his right side in the short grass. The blades tickled his shoulder and arm but not his side; only now did he realize that something — bandages, most likely — had been wrapped tightly around his chest and abdomen. Even in the midst of his physical distress, the uneasiness returned. Who had bandaged him? Dagur? But why? Surely Dagur was the one who had done this to him in the first place? He racked his brain, but he couldn't… he just couldn't remember.
"Okay," Dagur said again, and Hiccup watched his boots as they moved back into his line of sight. "Be right back. Don't move."
Funny, Hiccup thought, because Dagur had to know as well as he did that Hiccup couldn't move at all right now. Even staying conscious took tremendous effort, but he refused to pass out, not before he got answers.
A few minutes later, Dagur returned, this time with a couple of threadbare blankets. He lay one on the ground next to Hiccup, then helped roll him back onto his stomach, then rolled the other one up and wedged it under Hiccup's head, propping him up. Then he sat down within Hiccup's line of sight, and Hiccup got his first good look at his captor.
Dagur looked awful. His face had a sickly pallor, his eyes bright and dancing blithely on the cusp of madness. His skin looked drawn tight over his cheekbones and around his mouth. The remnants of a dark fury lurked in his countenance, sending shivers down Hiccup's spine. He sincerely hoped that whoever Dagur had been plotting to throw into a volcano earlier, it wasn't him. Because someone had certainly incurred the Berserker's wrath, and Hiccup could do literally nothing to stop Dagur for chucking him into a volcano, or burying his axe in his chest, or… or…
The icy weight of horror settled itself over Hiccup like seawater. He'd seen the way Dagur looked at him, still had nightmares about that night on Dragon Island, the way Dagur had kept touching him, grabbing at him and shoving him and pulling him close. He'd suspected that Dagur's interest in him had been more than what it seemed on the surface for a while, but meeting Dagur again on The Reaper had solidified it in Hiccup's mind. The way Dagur had looked him up and down, his eyes roving unabashedly, almost hungrily, the admission that he'd thought about Hiccup every day in prison, the way he still hadn't been able to keep his hands to himself…
If Dagur chose to follow those desires now, Hiccup wouldn't be able to fight him off. Dagur could do anything he wanted to Hiccup, take anything he wanted, and there wasn't a damn thing Hiccup could do to stop him.
But right now, Dagur didn't look particularly interested in hurting Hiccup in that way or any other. He just sat there, sculpted forearms resting on bent knees. Leaning forward, staring at Hiccup with an intense kind of scrutiny. Waiting, Hiccup assumed, but for what, he didn't know. He'd never known the Berserker to be quiet for this long though, and that unnerved him even more.
When Hiccup could stand the charged silence no longer, he cleared his throat and asked, "Wh-what happened?"
Dagur threw his hands up explosively and cursed, and Hiccup jumped, jarring his injuries. He felt bile rise again, but he managed to quell the nausea with a couple of halted breaths through his nose. "You don't remember?" Dagur asked, rage flickering in his eyes. "You don't remember anything?"
"Uh," Hiccup stammered, "I — I remember… some things? Maybe? Just, just snatches. Nothing… nothing concrete." He stopped talking and focused on breathing; he felt like he'd just finished climbing a mountain. Though why he would climb a mountain instead of flying—
A thrill of alarm shot through him. "Where's Toothless?" he demanded, maneuvering his arms beneath him and struggling to push himself up; the pain in his back crescendoed and white spots popped in front of his eyes. "What — what did you do with him?"
"Hiccup, you need to — stop trying to — Hiccup, LIE DOWN!" Dagur screeched at the top of his lungs.
The screamed command had its intended effect: Hiccup froze, heart throwing itself desperately against his aching rib cage, then he slowly, painfully, lowered himself back down. Dagur had risen to his knees, but now he sat back, apparently satisfied. Hiccup glared up at him with all the vitriol he could summon. "Where's my dragon, Dagur?" he asked in a low, steady voice.
Dagur spread his arms wide. "Not here," he answered unhelpfully.
Hiccup scowled. "I didn't ask… ask you where he isn't," he snapped. Gods, he couldn't get his breath!
"Look, man, I genuinely have no idea. He wasn't with you when the Dragon Hunters grabbed you off your island."
Hiccup closed his eyes, thinking hard. Straining to remember anything. If Dagur was telling the truth — and somehow Hiccup could sense that he was — then why would Hiccup be without Toothless? He and Toothless were together most of the time. He must have been feeling really stressed or overwhelmed to need a break from even Toothless…
The memories meandered back slowly at first, and not in the right order: Barf and Belch in his hut, sparking an explosion; an avalanche, being snatched from the air and then tumbling to the earth, desperately trying to reconnect with Toothless; broken prosthetics; Snotlout punching him in the face; hanging upside down while Barf and Belch happily butted him between their heads…
And then the memories picked up speed and some semblance of order: Stalking through the woods, trying to think, to calm down; a bag being thrown over his head; hands yanking him back, wrestling his arms behind his back and binding him tightly; Dagur and Ryker and a handful of Hunters sneering down at him on a ship sailing away from the Edge—
"Oh, gods," Hiccup breathed. Something itched at the back of his mind, something sinister, something that begged him to pick at it, to allow it to bleed into his memories, but terror filled him at the very thought of what that something might hold. Everything he'd just remembered, he knew instinctively that it paled in comparison to what had come after, and he feared that if he allowed himself to remember, he might never be the same. So he pushed it aside, pretended it wasn't there, beckoning him, cajoling him. He didn't want it. Instead, he focused on the fact that Toothless truly hadn't been captured with him, that he was safe. And he asked Dagur, "Where's Ryker? What happened to the ship?"
Dagur studied him sullenly for a couple of seconds, then jumped to his feet with the suddenness and ferocity of a Whispering Death erupting from the earth. Again, Hiccup jumped, and the pain, which had receded in the onslaught of chaotic memories, flared. He barely managed to bite back a groan and instead tracked Dagur warily with his eyes as he paced and pulled at his ragged beard.
"I didn't plan to do it," Dagur muttered, more to himself than to Hiccup. "I allied with the Dragon Hunters for a reason! I lost everything when you got me thrown in prison — my tribe, my armada, my wealth! I needed to start over, and the Hunters are wealthy. I figured I'd work with them for a while, start saving up gold, work on building up my armada again, and then take my revenge on you and your Night Fury!"
Hiccup narrowed his eyes. He had no idea where Dagur was going with this and couldn't be sure that Dagur did either. With a huff, Dagur plopped back to the ground, deflated. "I thought I'd enjoy seeing you get what was coming to you. I mean, you destroyed my life, threw me in prison, and foiled me at every turn! And it was fun, at first! But Ryker… what he did, the way he did it. And then, when he — well, you don't remember, but it was the final straw. I said it three years ago, Hiccup. I said you were mine, that no one else gets to hurt you except me."
Hiccup's skin writhed at Dagur's words; the idea of being claimed, of Dagur wanting to possess him like an object… it sent chills of revulsion down his spine. And the thing in the back of Hiccup's mind twitched again, reached out inky tendrils, begging him to look, to take a peek, to remember…
Dagur had started talking again; probably he had never stopped. His voice had risen both in pitch and volume. "…so later, when everyone else was occupied, I sneaked to your cell, busted you out, and stole the rowboat."
Hiccup blinked, his brain mired in pain and fog. "So… you're saying… you rescued me?"
Dagur laughed, loud and high and long and discordant. Hiccup desperately wanted to back away but even the slightest hint of movement set his back, chest, and shoulder alight. Dagur cackled for a good minute or so before abruptly changing course; in an instant, no trace of mirth remained on his face. "Yeah," he said, almost self-consciously. Then, as if to himself, "Why the Hel did I do that?"
Hiccup didn't answer — mostly because he had no idea, either. The decision to free Hiccup from the Dragon Hunters, to sever his alliance with the people who could have aided his rise back to power, contradicted everything Hiccup knew of the man. "So…" Hiccup prompted, "thanks for, uh, saving me? C-can you… get me back to my… my friends now?"
Dagur snapped out of his daze, irritation sparking across his face. "Excuse me?" he growled. "I risked my life, put a target on my own freaking back, ruined my alliance with the Dragon Hunters to save you, and you think I'm just gonna let you go back to your friends? Come on, I may have saved you from the Hunters, but we both know I'm no hero."
Hiccup's heart sank, fear bubbled up once more, shortening his labored breaths even further. "What in Thor's name d-do you even want with me?"
Dagur eyed Hiccup in a manner that reminded him far too much of a Deathsong considering its trapped and terrified prey. "Dunno," he said. "But I thought about you every day for three years, brother. I'm not just gonna let you go."
Hiccup felt the sting of tears bite at the corners of his eyes, but he pushed them back. Lying here, entire body screaming in agony, with no idea of what had happened to cause said agony, too weak and injured to even sit up, let alone fight Dagur off or escape, no armor, no tunic, no prosthetic… Hiccup had never felt so vulnerable, unsure, exposed. And the myriad unknowns bore down on him, slashing their talons of doubt and dread deep into his flesh. Bad enough that he was still a prisoner. But having no idea what Dagur planned to do with him? Of whether his friends had noticed him missing yet? If they'd be able to track him to whatever uninhabited little island Dagur had dragged him to? His breath caught in his chest, sending stabs of pain through his ribs, and a small whine escaped from his throat.
To his surprise, Dagur's fierce expression softened the tiniest bit at his distress. "Hey, calm down, okay? First things first, we gotta get you well enough to move."
Hiccup's desperation curdled into anger. "I don't want your help. And I'm not going anywhere with you."
Dagur snorted. "So what you're saying is you'd rather die from infection than let me take care of you?"
Hiccup's fury blotted out reason. "That about sums it up, yes."
Dagur's face darkened. "Too bad. I didn't get you off that godsforsaken ship just to watch you die."
"Whatever you plan to do with me, I have a feeling death would be preferable!" Hiccup growled back. Gods, everything hurt! The nausea was steadily building again, and his head hurt so damn much, and he just wanted to close his eyes and sleep and pray that when he woke up, he'd be back at the Edge, with Toothless, with his friends.
Dagur's fists clenched and for a terrible moment, Hiccup thought his captor was about to hit him. But slowly, the tension eased, and Dagur's expression evened out. Hiccup found himself almost impressed — he hadn't known that Dagur possessed any measure of self-control. (But if that was what impressed him, then the bar was literally in Helheim.)
"I am not letting you die, Hiccup. So either you lie still and let me check your back and treat your burn, or I tie you down. Your choice."
Hiccup felt his own control slipping at Dagur's words; the idea of being tied down brewed a whirling tempest of panic inside him. And at the mention of a burn, Hiccup's grip on the present began to slip through his fingers and the something in the back of his mind grew bigger and darker and pulled him in, thrusting the memories he didn't want, the things he was terrified to remember, into his unwilling hands.
He slipped into the past, he remembered, the memories throwing themselves at him urgently, violently—
♡♡♡
Ryker didn't want to simply torture Hiccup. He wanted to make a spectacle of it, to humiliate him on top of the pain.
Hunters dragged him to his feet, sliced through the ropes around his arms and wrists, threw him to the deck at Ryker's feet. "Armor and tunic off," Ryker ordered, eyes glittering in malicious anticipation. Slightly behind him, Dagur grinned, eyes never leaving Hiccup. Watching. Waiting.
"What? No!"
"You undress, or we do it for you," Ryker growled. His dark, soulless eyes flickered to Dagur. "I can think of one person who will be eager to volunteer."
Hiccup's stomach churned at the implication. He had no desire to undress in front of anyone, especially his enemies, especially Dagur. But having his armor and tunic forcibly removed would be far worse. So with shaking hands, he worked the buckles of his armor. The second he'd removed it, a Hunter snatched it out of his hands and tossed it aside. Sickened, feeling a horrible sense of violation creeping like gooseflesh across his skin, Hiccup pulled his tunic up, over his head. He avoided Dagur's eyes, but he felt them on his bare chest anyway, and he crossed his arms over his front protectively. It did nothing to stave off the chilly night air and even less to protect him from all the eyes boring into him. By this point, more Hunters had gathered around, completely encircling Hiccup and his tormentors, jeering and catcalling and making lewd comments that made Hiccup's face burn.
Ryker asked him again about the Dragon Eye, what he had learned from it. Hiccup refused, even knowing what was coming. He couldn't — he wouldn't — put innocent dragons at risk to save himself a beating. Whatever Ryker dished out, he could take.
Ryker was as strong as he looked, and he possessed far more control than Hiccup gave him credit for. Every hit, every kick, was precise, controlled. He mostly stuck to Hiccup's torso, his ribs especially, but although he bruised and battered, he did not break, and Hiccup knew that was only because he didn't want to — yet. All the while, Dagur watched, arms crossed over his chest, a strange look blooming on his face. Hiccup kept expecting him to jump in, to demand a turn, but instead he just stood there rigidly and glared.
Finally, when Hiccup let loose a particularly nasty string of curses aimed at Ryker's mother, Ryker's control slipped. The crack of Hiccup's ribs breaking rent the air, silencing the laughter of the watching crowd for a single moment before spurring it on, even louder. Agony lanced through Hiccup's chest, so acute that it absorbed everything but itself, made Hiccup forget where he was or what had happened, only that he hurt and he couldn't breathe…
He slowly came back to himself, and his eyes landed first on Dagur. The Berserker's jaw was tight, his eyes blazing, his fists balled so tightly veins popped in his arms. Hiccup didn't understand, but he hurt too much to care. Hiccup had only just gotten some of his breath back when Ryker grabbed his hair, shoved his face into Hiccup's, asked him again about the Dragon Eye.
Hiccup spat in his face.
Everything happened too quickly after that — Ryker backhanded him so brutally across the face that Hiccup blacked out for a couple of seconds, and when he came to, Hunters were shoving him back to the mast. They spun him around to face it, pushed him to his knees. A couple men wrapped Hiccup's arms around it and clamped manacles around his wrists, securing him tightly. Hiccup's arms were barely long enough to reach, so he had no slack; his wrists ached and his arms screamed at the pull on his joints and muscles.
Ryker didn't ask him a question this time. Hiccup jolted as something cracked in the air close to his head; Hiccup only had this warning of what was to come a second before the whip sliced into his back. The sound it made against Hiccup's flesh was like thunder, and the pain like lightning. Hiccup threw his head back and screamed; he hadn't meant to, didn't want to give Ryker the satisfaction, but the pain burned like a line of Fireworms parading down his spine.
And Ryker wasn't done. He didn't ask any more questions, not until the whip had fallen again and again and again… Hiccup lost count of how many stripes the leather cut into his back. He felt the wounds weeping blood, felt it dripping down his back, soaking into the waist of his pants. He sobbed, he thrashed, he screamed. Ryker only stopped when Hiccup's shouts had dwindled into weak whimpers. His torturer's breath came shallow and ragged; the bastard had winded himself whipping Hiccup.
"Here, Dagur," the Dragon Hunter said, his voice sliding down Hiccup's blood-slicked back like sludge. Oh, gods, was it not over? "Want a turn?"
But to his surprise, Dagur's response came clipped, harsh, and filled with barely restrained rage. "No, thanks. I'm just happy to watch." But he didn't sound happy at all.
To Hiccup's relief, he heard the whip fall to the deck. He rested his forehead against the rough wood of the mast, tried to stem the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. His breath came in hitched, desperate sobs, and with each one, it felt like his ribs breaking all over again.
Then a hand found the hair at the top of his head, and Ryker wrenched his head back hard — Hiccup yelped at the sudden, sharp pain in his scalp. He felt Ryker's hot breath on his ear as the man leaned in close. "Are you sure," he whispered, "you don't want to tell me about that Dragon Eye?"
"Go to Helheim," Hiccup snapped.
Ryker just chuckled and wrenched Hiccup's head to the side, eliciting another cry of pain. "Are you sure?" he asked again, and he held something up for Hiccup to see, lit from behind by the guttering light of an enormous torch. Hiccup's blood turned to ice, his heart pounded a frantic tattoo against his broken ribs. His breath came short and shallow, his vision narrowed to the horrible glowing thing in Ryker's hand.
Terror surged through his bloodstream in a drowning cataract, and he renewed his struggles against the manacles, feeling splinters digging into his bare chest. Oh gods, oh gods, oh no, please, gods, no —
He couldn't give them any information. He couldn't. But if he didn't, then Ryker would do something unspeakable to him, take his identity and freedom and personhood, ravage his future, destroy him with one little sigil.
If he didn't tell them what they wanted to hear, Ryker would brand him.
Hiccup opened his mouth, whether to cave and tell them something, anything to avoid this fate (he'd lie, he'd give them false or harmless information), or to double down on his refusal, even Hiccup didn't know. But it didn't matter. He'd hesitated for too long, and Ryker wanted to brand Hiccup. He'd probably have gone ahead and done it even if Hiccup had told him what he wanted to hear.
The Dragon Hunter sigil seared into the flesh of his left shoulder, so hot that at first he didn't even feel it. He heard the sizzle of hot metal meeting skin, smelled the reek of burning flesh, heard the crowd behind him go quiet. And then he felt it — pain so consuming, a hundred times worse than any burn he'd gotten working in the forge, like one of the Fireworm dragons migrating down his back had made its nest in his flesh, curled up on his shoulder and cooked him while it slept. Fresh tears rolled down his face, he writhed in his bonds. A tinny ringing filled his ears and his vision faded at the edges. He felt himself detach from reality, the pain too much, too intense, too everything.
He didn't exactly pass out, not right away. But his body slumped against the mast, and his eyes slipped shut, tears still falling freely. His battered body shook with sobs that he couldn't control. He cried because of the pain, because of the mark burned into his flesh, because of what it could mean for his future and the future of his tribe.
He did not go gently into unconsciousness, but fitfully, filled with terror and dread and shame and all the scuttling uncertainties of a future going up in flame.
♡♡♡
"…brother?"
Hiccup blinked back to the present. Silent tears slipped down his cheeks. Oh, gods. Ryker had branded him, marked him as property of the Dragon Hunters. Even if he escaped from Dagur, he wouldn't truly be free. If anyone found out that he had been marked as the property of another…
Hiccup nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand brushed his arm. Hiccup jerked away, panting in pain and horror. "Don't touch me!" he cried. "Get away from me!"
Adrenaline propelled him up to his knees; he swayed but did not fall. He couldn't walk, wouldn't have been able to even if he'd had his leg, but it didn't matter. He just wanted to get away. He started to crawl, knowing he would never get far, that he couldn't escape his captor or the reality of what had happened to him.
But damn it, he could try.
Ultimately, Dagur didn't even need to chase after him. Hiccup's arms gave out after only a few shuffled paces and he collapsed onto his front, humiliated, hurting so much he could barely comprehend the pain. To his surprise, Dagur didn't rage at his pitiful attempt at escape. He just stood with a heavy sigh, grabbed Hiccup firmly by the right arm, and heaved him to his foot. His arm pressed into Hiccup's shredded back, but Hiccup was more concerned with the hand clamped around his waist, keeping him upright. Dagur carried more than supported Hiccup back to the bedroll, and carefully lowered him to a sitting position. Hiccup swayed but managed to stay upright, curling his right knee to his throbbing chest and folding his left leg beneath him. He wrapped his arms around his knee and dropped his head onto it.
"Ryker branded me," he whispered, and he didn't even recognize his own voice. It was too timid, too scared, too cracked. Too broken.
"Yeah," Dagur said, settling himself beside Hiccup. A weighted pause. "I tried to stop him. And afterwards, I was so mad I almost…" He chuckled humorlessly. "I may be deranged, but even I know better than to kill a man on his own ship while surrounded by men loyal to him."
"Why do you even care?" Hiccup asked. All the fight had drained out of him. A hollow had opened in his chest, deeper than his broken ribs, sucking everything but the physical pain into it. The fear, the panic, the rage all disappeared into the gaping blackness, rotting there with the last vestiges of his hope.
Dagur shifted uneasily beside him. He sat so closely their arms brushed. Hiccup didn't have it in him to recoil. "I told him, when I suggested capturing you to get your Dragon Eye knowledge, that I didn't care what he did to you, but that in the end, you were mine." A spark of revulsion rose up in Hiccup but flickered and died as the hollow consumed it. "And I don't like it when people take my stuff."
Perhaps something of himself remained, because at Dagur's words, a heat as terrible as the one on his shoulder rose up inside Hiccup. "I'm not yours. And I'm not theirs, either. I'm a person. Not a possession."
Dagur considered this for a moment. "Not in the eyes of Viking Law. Not really, anymore." The anger faltered, the hollow surged. Dagur was right. But then —
"But if anyone could change that, it would be you, Hiccup."
Hiccup glanced sidelong at Dagur, who stared stoically forward, the calmest and sanest Hiccup had ever seen him. "Why are you saying this? I thought you wanted — I mean, you said—"
"I know what I said!" Dagur shouted, then mellowed like nothing had ever happened. "But I don't think I like this version of Hiccup."
"The tainted version?" Hiccup snarled back.
"The defeated version."
This made Hiccup pause. "I don't understand."
Dagur laughed, but this time it wasn't loud or long or deranged. Just a little lost. Melancholy. "Me either."
A beat. "I really want to go back to my friends," Hiccup said. "I need them right now."
"Yeah," said Dagur, almost forlornly. "I know you do."
"So…?" Hiccup prompted. Maybe, just maybe, if he got back to Toothless, to his friends, he would be okay. He could get through this, he could find his way out of the darkness, purge the ravenous pit from inside of him. But alone, Dagur's prisoner? He didn't think he stood a chance.
"Let me treat you," Dagur said. "You can't move anytime soon, anyway."
"Dagur, please—"
"Huh," Dagur said, bemused. "I thought I'd like begging. Not really a fan of it either. Kinda a bummer."
The hope he'd thought had been consumed clawed its way up, poked its head out of the pit the tiniest bit. "Maybe you're not the same person you used to be," Hiccup ventured. "Maybe… something's changed?" Hiccup couldn't imagine how any of this would have changed anything in the Berserker, but maybe, if somehow, Dagur's hatred had shifted into something less violent…?
"I told you, Hiccup," Dagur snapped. "I'm not a hero."
"Yeah," Hiccup said. "I know."
A heavy silence. Then Dagur stood, and shook himself — honest to Norns shook himself like a dog — and said, "Okay, that's enough emotions for today."
Hiccup stared up at him, confused at the sudden, manic urge to laugh. Instead, he watched Dagur wander to the fire and stoke it, then grab a couple of corked clay jars and a clean cloth from a bag by the fire. "What's in the jars?" Hiccup asked warily.
"Water," said Dagur. Hiccup relaxed slightly. "And a disinfectant." Hiccup's heart stuttered; his whole body tensed. "Honey, vinegar, and thyme, I think? Grabbed these and some bandages before I broke you out, because they sure as Hel weren't going to treat your wounds."
"Dagur, take me back to my friends," Hiccup insisted. "Fishlegs is a healer. He can treat me."
"I told you, Hiccup, you don't need to be moved right now. Besides, I haven't decided what I'm going to do with you yet."
Hiccup's stomach turned. Trying to have a conversation with Dagur was like wandering around lost in the wilderness. Terrifying, confusing, and more than a little maddening. And it got you nowhere.
"Dagur—"
"Enough, Hiccup." Dagur didn't shout, he didn't scream, he didn't spiral into an embodiment of chaotic rage. He sounded worn, and tired, and about as lost as Hiccup felt. And that, more than anything else, gave Hiccup pause. "Now," Dagur said, "lie down on your stomach. I have to clean your wounds, and it's gonna hurt like Hel. Do you think you can be still and let me do that, or do I need to get out the rope?"
Hiccup ground his teeth together so hard they creaked, but he nodded. "Fine. You can treat me."
Dagur bared his teeth in a triumphant grin. "Finally! You're a hard nut to crack, Hiccup, I'll give you that."
"You didn't crack me," Hiccup snapped, surprised to realize he meant it. "A good strategist knows when to concede on small things in order to prevail in bigger ones."
"Sure, sure." Dagur waved him off distractedly, then sat down beside him as Hiccup lowered himself to his stomach, gasping at the pain ripping through his chest.
The revived hope dug its fingers in, stolidly refusing to fall back into the pit. It hauled itself up, squirmed and wriggled and crawled its way out. It lay on the edge of the pit, panting but alive, not daring to glance back down, lest it fall again.
Hiccup couldn't put his finger on it, but something had shifted. Something had changed between himself and Dagur. Dagur had changed, if only a little. And if he could rescue Hiccup, could put his own life and future on the line to get him away from Ryker, if he could sit here, ready to clean and dress Hiccup's wounds, then surely, surely anything was possible.
He'd escape, or maybe Dagur would, improbable as it was, let him go. He could get back to his friends. Together, they'd figure out how to move forward. He could, somehow, navigate the brand and the torture and the fear and shame and helplessness and soul-sickness festering in his mind, his heart, his body. Maybe, someday, the hollow pit inside of him could shrink.
But for now, he settled himself on his stomach, breathed as deeply as he could through the agony in his ribs, and reluctantly allowed his greatest enemy to take care of him. No matter how wrong it felt, no matter how much it scared him. Because in order to heal, he had to get back to his friends, and in order to get back to his friends, he had survive.
Just survive, he told himself as he felt Dagur slice through the bandages, felt the sting of the chilly night air on the open wounds and bit his lip against a rising cry of pain. Just survive, and worry about the rest later.
Hiccup's whole body tensed at the sound of a bottle uncorking, but it turned out to be the water. Dagur brought it to Hiccup's lips, helped him drink — Hiccup drank long and deep, the cool water soothing his abused throat. All too soon, Dagur pulled it away. Hiccup huffed in protest, then jerked back with a shout as the jar was replaced with something else: a length of scratchy fabric pushed gently but firmly between his teeth.
Hiccup struggled against the gag — Dagur said he wouldn't restrain him if he didn't fight! — but Dagur tied it off and grabbed Hiccup's face, forcing him to still his weak struggles and look at him. "I don't think we were followed, but just in case, we gotta keep you quiet. This is going to hurt, and if they hear you scream…" Hiccup forced his breathing to something approaching steady and wrenched his face out of Dagur's grasp. Dagur chuckled. "Guess I should've told you that before I… Yeah, okay. Makes sense. I'm still getting used to this whole 'treating wounds instead of causing them' thing."
Hiccup rolled his eyes but lay his head down on the bedroll, trying to calm his racing heart, trying to brace himself for the pain ahead. He tried not to focus on the way the gag rubbed the corners of his mouth raw, or the way it hurt his jaw, or the way it had been tied just a little too tightly at the back of his head. Instead, he breathed. In, pain, out, pain, in, pain, out, pain.
In the end, Hiccup almost wished he had taken Dagur up on the restraints. Lying still while his mangled back was cleaned, disinfected, and re-bandaged was all but impossible, the pain tearing muffled screams from his aching throat, making his body shake and jerk and writhe to get away. But he mostly managed it, and Dagur's hands remained oddly gentle. He worked quietly, quickly.
When he pressed a cool cloth to Hiccup's burn, Hiccup bucked as the pain exploded to treacherous new life, but after a couple of seconds, the intensity faded, the pain dulled, and Hiccup's body wilted in relief. Exhaustion rolled over him in waves, and his eyes slipped shut. He knew it would be sleep, real sleep, that he would sink into this time, not unconsciousness, and he was too fatigued, too wrung out by all he had been through, that he couldn't even muster up any concern about sleeping around Dagur.
He barely felt the gag being loosened and pulled from his mouth, or the hands arranging him more comfortably on the bedroll, draping a light blanket over his bandaged back, carefully avoiding the burn on his shoulder. He might have dreamed the gentle, tentative fingers gliding through his sweat-soaked hair before drawing reluctantly away.
He didn't hear the footsteps padding away, or the weary sigh as Dagur sat by the fire. Didn't see the firelight reflecting the confusion in his eyes, and the war raging in his soul.
Proof that I'm still making progress on this fic lol! (Tbh, it encourages and inspires me to keep writing when I share lil snippets of my WIPs 😊) This is from Never Break part 2, which is now nearing 5k words!
Sharing my AILESS Whumptober fics again as I edit them! :)
Bloodless
HTTYD - Rating: T - Words: 3,379 - Edits: Fixed some typos and awkward wording, and did some minor formatting changes.
Hiccup is captured by Dragon Hunters and tied far too tightly for far too long, and the consequences are worse than anyone could have imagined.
.
While immensely grateful to be rescued by his friends, Hiccup really wished they’d had time to untie him before making their escape.
He’d spent the past couple of hours tied up in the belly of a Dragon Hunter ship, courtesy of Ryker and his men. They’d taken his leg, and Ryker had personally bound his wrists behind his back so tightly that Hiccup’s fingers immediately began to tingle.
Now, as they finally reached the safety of the Edge, he noted with concern that while his shoulder muscles screamed at him and his arms ached fiercely at their unnatural position, he couldn’t feel anything below his wrists at all. He tried to twitch his fingers and had no idea if he succeeded. His stomach gave an anxious lurch — pain, he was familiar with. He didn’t like it, but he could handle it. Complete numbness toed the line of the unknown and brought with it visions of paralysis and amputation. What if something had gone really wrong with his hands?
Snotlout had to half-carry, half-drag Hiccup to the Clubhouse, as he had only one leg and no hands to steady himself with. Toothless followed behind, a great reptilian shadow, warbling his concern.
“I’m… I’m okay, bud,” Hiccup gasped as Snotlout deposited him next to the hearth. He watched over his shoulder as his dragon nudged his bound hands; an acute panic gripped his lungs when he felt nothing at the touch. “Well,” he amended, “I’ll be okay once these ropes are off.”
Snotlout shifted behind him to get a better look at the knots. “Uh, yeah,” he said, “that’s gonna be easier said than done. You guys need to see this.”
Hiccup’s heart skipped a beat as the others gathered around him. “What?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?” Fear made his pulse pound against his ribcage like a Catastrophic Quaken.
“Oh, Thor,” Fishlegs breathed.
Hiccup felt his breath hitch. “Guys, please — just, just untie me, okay? I… I can’t feel my hands.”
In answer, Astrid sat next to him and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It’s not quite that simple, Hiccup. The ropes are so tight they’ve cut into your skin.”
“I’m… bleeding?”
“Yeah,” Astrid said, “but the real problem is that there’s no easy way to cut them without hurting you. Dragon teeth won’t be able to get around them, and the knots are so tight and tangled, it’s going to take a while to undo them.”
“Ah,” Hiccup said blandly, replaying all the times he’d slipped through the Dragon Hunters’ fingers. “I see my reputation proceeds me.”
.
Snotlout’s stomach turned as he watched Tuffnut attack the knots securing Hiccup’s wrists together. The Hunters had used a thin but sturdy cord, and like Astrid had said, they’d wound it so tightly around Hiccup’s wrists that it bit into his flesh. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but the broken skin illustrated how cruelly Hiccup had been treated, and Snotlout had to force down his rage.
What had Snotlout truly concerned, though, was something that Astrid hadn’t told Hiccup about. In fact, none of the gathered dragon riders had mentioned it at all except in hushed murmurs as they watched the twins work.
Hiccup’s hands.
Those deft hands that had crafted an intricate prosthetic tail, a badass, bola shooting, crossbow shield that Snotlout absolutely wasn’t in awe of, an honest-to-Odin flaming sword, and so many other complex, geeky devices that Snotlout couldn’t even name them all…
The hands that were always moving, punctuating Hiccup’s words or fidgeting as he thought, that wrote out elaborate plans and sketched insanely detailed dragons in that dumb sketchbook he never left home without…
The hands that drew up blueprints and created stupidly accurate maps…
Those hands now looked more like they belonged to a corpse — stiff and swollen, a sickly white, nimble fingers puffy and limp. And hearing that Hiccup couldn’t feel them at all? Well, Snotlout didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he knew it couldn’t be good.
Fishlegs had insisted Hiccup lie down for this, arranging a pallet on the floor so Hiccup could lie on his stomach and rest while they untied him. And since the twins had so much practice with tying and untying (mostly tying, though) knots, they’d volunteered — actually volunteered, of their own volition — to do the honors.
For once they worked in near silence, only muttering between themselves as they crouched over Hiccup, long, agile fingers working the knots. They took turns, switching out every couple of minutes or so. They actually hadn’t been lying about being good at this, but it was still taking far too long for Snotlout’s liking.
Hiccup also kept quiet as they worked, just leaned into Toothless who curled protectively beside him, but Snotlout could feel the waves of tension rolling off him. It wasn’t just the way his arms had been wrenched behind his back, his shoulders held in that uncomfortable position for hours, his upper back pinched — even Snotlout, who Fishlegs had once described as having “the emotional intelligence of a dead cod,” could see the terror oozing from Hiccup’s every pore. And though he would never admit it, even to himself, that scared Snotlout more than anything.
Say what you want about his weed of a cousin — that he was scrawny, weak, bossy, a know-it-all, annoying, stubborn as all Hel — Hiccup, the kid who had battled a behemoth dragon at fifteen and won, was as close to fearless as a Viking could get.
If Hiccup was scared…
After what felt like days but had to be closer to ten minutes, Ruffnut gave a shout of triumph and shot to her feet. Snotlout watched, queasy, as Fishlegs carefully pulled the blood-crusted rope away. Hiccup didn’t so much as flinch, which was bad, because Fishlegs had to peel the rope out of the grooved flesh, and it should have hurt.
Slowly, Fishlegs helped Hiccup sit up while Astrid maneuvered his arms in front of him, placing those dead-looking hands in his lap. Hiccup groaned through gritted teeth as the pressure on his shoulders and back eased. Snotlout figured he’d be sore for a while. He knew from unfortunate experience that muscles held in the same position for too long cramped like Hel for days afterwards — thanks, Speed Stingers, for that lovely lesson.
Snotlout averted his eyes when Astrid placed a hand on Hiccup’s cheek; the friendly gesture seemed somehow intimate in a way Snotlout couldn’t quite understand.
“Thanks, guys,” Hiccup breathed, strain etched in every contour of his body, pain scribbled in the crease between his brows and the tightness around his eyes. “I won’t question your choice of Loki as your patron ever again.”
Tuffnut rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. “So does that mean we’re allowed to blow Snotlout up all we want and you won’t yell at us for it?”
“No!” everyone but the twins intoned, Snotlout’s voice in particular louder than anyone else’s.
“Boooo-ring!” Ruffnut booed.
A small smile played at one corner of Hiccup’s mouth, and despite everything, Snotlout thought for a moment that it would all be okay.
Then Hiccup winced, a finger twitching. “I… I think I’m getting some feeling back.” He didn’t sound super thrilled about it.
“That’s good, right?” Snotlout asked tentatively. No one answered, just stared at Hiccup’s swollen, pallid hands. “Right?” Snotlout demanded.
Fishlegs knelt in front of Hiccup and lifted one of his hands, turning it palm-up as he considered.
And Hiccup screamed.
.
It all happened so abruptly, Hiccup felt like he had been plucked from one world, a world of dark and terrifying quiet, of so cold it’s numb, of disquieting nothingness, and thrust into a world of painpainpain, of thousands of Fireworm dragons swarming on exposed skin, of sensations compiling on sensations, loud, buzzing, stabbing, screaming—
He had hated the lack of feeling. But now he wished it would return.
After a few minutes — or it might have been hours, days, for all he knew — the pain subsided just enough for him to return to himself, and he realized belatedly that he had been the one screaming. His face was wet with tears he hadn’t even known he’d cried, and as he blinked through them, he saw his friends gathered around him, all pale faces and huge eyes and trembling hands.
When he spoke, his voice came out thin and cracked. “What…” he panted, squeezing his eyes shut against a wave of pain, “…in Thor’s name… did you do to me?” Beside him, Toothless whined, and Hiccup felt his heart break a little at the desperate sadness in his best friend’s eyes.
Meekly, Fishlegs raised a shaking hand. There were tears in his eyes. “I moved your hand.”
Hiccup swallowed back a gasp of pain when he tried to twitch his fingers. “And?”
“And nothing!” Snotlout snapped. “He picked up your freaky little hand and you just…” He trailed off, and Hiccup knew it had to have been almost as bad to watch as it had been to experience, because Snotlout almost never found himself at a loss for words. He glanced down and got his first real look at his fishbelly white hands, all stiff and swollen, and he immediately understood Snotlout’s accurate, if insensitive, description of them.
Panic mingled with pain and a parade of bleak futures raided his mind — he’d never seen hands like these attached to a living person. What if, somehow, his hands had died? What if he lost them too? His stomach rolled and bile rose in his throat. Gods, his hands were his life, his work, his craft. If he lost both of them now… he shuddered.
“It was terrifying,” Astrid said, dragging Hiccup from the horde of what-ifs. As he regained some control, Hiccup became suddenly very aware of how closely she sat to him, how one hand rested on the curve of his neck, the other on his right arm. “You would’ve thought we were torturing you.”
Hiccup took a shaky breath. “That’s what it felt like.”
“Well, it was the most uneventful torture I’ve ever seen,” Tuff scoffed. “Usually there’s knives and whips and stuff but this was just…” He glanced at Ruff, who took his hand and lifted it to eye-level. “That,” Tuff finished. “It was that.”
Everyone stared open-mouthed at the twins for long moment before turning their attention to the more pressing issue, placing the question of when exactly Tuffnut had seen actual torture on the collective back burner.
“Fishlegs, what is going on?” Astrid asked, electric blue eyes fixed on their resident healer with an intensity that could fry an egg from ten paces.
Fishlegs chewed his bottom lip before answering, a sure sign of bad news. “Okay, I’ve never seen this done, but I know from studying under Gothi that when performing an… an amputation—” His eyes twitched the slightest bit to Hiccup’s leg, “—healers will tie something — a rope, a strip of strong fabric — above where they plan to cut. The tightness of the rope stops the blood flow to keep their patient from bleeding out.”
Hiccup tried very hard not to think about this in relation to his own missing limb.
Fishlegs continued, “And Gothi even told me that the same principle applies to slowing bleeding on bad arm and leg wounds. You tie something tight above the wound to slow the blood flow until you can sew it up or cauterize it.”
“I don’t get it,” Ruffnut announced, to the surprise of absolutely no one. For once, though, everyone else seemed to be trying to figure out exactly where Fishlegs was going with this, too.
“So… how does this help us figure out how to fix Hiccup?” Snotlout demanded. “He’s not even bleeding anymore, genius.”
“He’s getting there, Snotlout,” Astrid snapped. “Slowly,” she added, shooting Fishlegs a sharp look, “but he’s getting there.”
Catching the hint, Fishlegs hurried to finish his thought. “The thing about this method is that you can’t leave the binding on for too long. If the blood supply is cut off from a part of the body for too long, the affected area can basically, well, die. Gothi said there have been men whose hands or feet have fallen off because of this.”
A ghastly silence.
“But don’t worry — we obviously got the ropes off before it got that bad.”
“So, Hiccup’s hands aren’t just going to magically fall off?” Tuffnut clarified, sounding vaguely disappointed.
“No,” Fishlegs answered, throwing a venomous look Tuff’s way.
Tuff shuffled his feet. “Just checking.”
Fishlegs rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I don’t know exactly how to deal with Hiccup’s, uh, unique situation, but it stands to reason that elevating his hands would allow gravity to get the blood moving from his hands to the rest of his body. It should relieve all that pressure that’s built up. Theoretically.”
Biting back a cry of pain as an abused muscle in his shoulder contracted, jolting his burning hands, Hiccup gasped, “It… it’s worth a try.” His stomach twisted at the thought of moving his hands again, but he relaxed slightly when Toothless trilled and bunted his side.
Hiccup took a deep breath, fighting desperately against the urge to curl up in a protective ball around his hands. He knew in his gut that Fishlegs was right, that the way to recovery lay not in avoiding the pain, but fighting right into the very heart of it. He tried to raise one hand, choked on a yell as the small movement sent splinters of agony through the appendage.
“Guys,” he groaned. “I don’t think I can do this by myself.”
Without hesitation, Fishlegs took one hand and Astrid took the other, while Toothless moved behind him to support his back. Snotlout and the twins gathered close, offering their support by being there, by taking this seriously, by being willing to do whatever it took to make Hiccup better. It meant everything to Hiccup, and he made a mental note to tell them once this nightmare had ended
Bracing himself, he nodded at his friends and leaned back into Toothless’s flank. Astrid and Fishlegs raised his hands to his heart and held them there.
Hiccup screamed, sobbed, trembled as the unbearable pain enveloped all his senses — but he didn’t pull away from the hands holding him steady, didn’t fight the new hands that braced his arms and rubbed soothing circles into his back. He faced the pain the only way he knew how: with reckless abandon, sheer desperation, and the solid reminder of the ones who believed in him, with the assurance that no matter the outcome, he wouldn’t have to face it alone.
.
Over the course of the next hour, Hiccup experienced pain worse than anything he had ever suffered before — including after his amputation. It was like every nerve in his hands and wrists had sprung to unholy life, thrashing against his skin, flaying him alive, burning like Changewing acid through flesh and bone. The willow bark Fishlegs sent Snotlout to fetch didn’t so much as touch the pain. A couple of times he felt himself detach from his body, drifting toward the shores of unconsciousness, but then the pain would surge and he would jolt awake, wishing more than anything to sleep.
He sat there, supported on all sides by his friends, his dragon’s warm body, rumbling with comforting purrs and trills, flush against his back. He endured the pain, somehow, even though in the moment, death seemed like a kinder option.
At long last, the agony lessened, faded into what he would later only be able to describe as aggressive tingling, like he was being poked all over with a sewing needle.
His ears rang and his head swam and he felt himself succumbing to sleep at last. As he faded away, he felt — he felt! — someone touch his hand. “Look, the swelling’s going down,” he heard someone say, and he thought it might be Fishlegs. “His color is coming back!”
“So he’s gonna be okay?” Astrid’s voice sounded strange — more watery than usual. Hiccup vaguely wondered why.
“I think so. I think it worked.”
The sounds of exhausted laughter mixed with tears, of Toothless’s triumphant rumble, so deep in his chest Hiccup felt it more than heard it—
These mingled with the strange feeling in his hands, the softness of the pallet beneath him, the warmth emanating from the fire, the small, calloused hand on his brow.
Hiccup flexed his fingers as the darkness took him, just because he could.
.
After Hiccup finally fell asleep — or lost consciousness, none of them were really sure — the riders sat back, pale and shaking. Toothless occupied himself with gently licking sweat and tears from his rider’s face.
No one said anything for a good long while.
Snotlout eventually broke the silence, his voice hoarse and eyes suspiciously bright. “That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
The others murmured their assent.
“I need to clean and wrap his wrists,” Fishlegs said eventually, rising to his feet to collect his supplies. “The last thing he needs is an infection.”
After he had gone, Snotlout watched Astrid arrange Hiccup’s hands at his sides. She let her touch linger, an abnormally soft expression stealing across her face for a heartbeat.
Snotlout looked at his cousin’s hands. They looked like Hiccup’s hands again, mostly. Not so puffy and pale. Like he could wake up and start tinkering on a new project.
Snotlout closed his eyes as a wave of emotions — raw, so tangled up he could scarcely understand them — crested over him, settling so densely in his chest he couldn’t breathe.
“Next time I see Ryker,” Snotlout said, voice hollow, “I’m going to kill him.”
No one argued. Snotlout stayed by Hiccup’s side with the other riders while Fishlegs treated the wounds on his wrists. He carried a limp Hiccup to his hut, under Toothless’s careful supervision. Snotlout settled him on the bed and gently removed his boot and, after a moment of hesitation, his metal leg. Hiccup always took it off when he slept in his hut, and Snotlout knew he’d be comfier without it. Toothless settled on the floor by Hiccup’s bedside rather than heating his sleeping stone at the foot of the bed. Toothless lay his head on the edge of the bed and watched his human sleep with half-lidded eyes.
Snotlout looked down at his cousin, so small, and the echo of screams rippled through his mind. After a long moment, he left the hut, where the other riders had gathered.
“I could’ve done that,” Fishlegs said.
“I know,” said Snotlout.
A beat.
“He’s gonna be okay,” Tuff said, more earnest than Snotlout had ever heard him.
“Of course he will.” Astrid said it defiantly, like a challenge, to her friends or the gods or the Norns, Snotlout didn’t know.
“We should go,” Ruff said. “Right?”
“Yeah, he’s completely exhausted,” said Fishlegs. “He’ll probably be out for a while.”
“Okay,” said Astrid. “Let’s go back to our huts, get some rest. Toothless will let us know if he needs anything.”
.
When Hiccup woke up the next morning, he ached like he’d just crash-landed Toothless on rocky terrain, his bandaged wrists screaming at him with every move he made. But his hands, while a bit weaker than usual, were no longer stiff and swollen. It would take time to get them back to normal, but he was confident now in his recovery. Despite the pain circling his wrists, he reveled in every curl of his fingers.
He left his hut, an overjoyed Toothless in his wake. Hiccup stepped back in surprise at the sight that greeted him: All of his friends, fast asleep, curled up outside of his hut, backs against the uncomfortable outer walls. Even Snotlout, head back, mouth wide open, drool trailing down his chin.
Keeping vigil, staying close, making sure they would be right there if he needed anything during the night.
For him.
Hiccup shook his head in bewilderment, unable to keep a bemused smile off his face. He scratched Toothless under the chin, ignoring the pain in his wrists, and lowered himself down between Astrid and Snotlout, resting in the knowledge that however difficult and painful the road ahead, he wouldn’t have to face it alone.
I have two Dagcup ideas for requests that I made up, but it’s totally cool if you only want to write one or even neither!
1. Dagur is trying REALLY hard to be a good person now and has even been considered successful at it for a few years now. However, he’s always struggled to keep his hands to himself—especially when it comes to Hiccup—and has a bit of a relapse. (I just want Dagur to struggle with his more sadistic side regarding Hiccup (like gleefully-crushing-him-with-his-own-shield levels of sadistic as seen in the Night and the Fury) even post-redemption. It could be anywhere from a minor, scary slip-up, to a full on premeditated moment).
2. Forced Caretaking (at any point in time!)
P.S. I finished reading your Whumptober fics! They were a blast, right up my alley, and helped me get through the month :)
Oh wow, thank you so much!! I'm so glad that you enjoyed my Whumptober fics and that they helped you through October. That makes me so happy!! ❤️ I love both of these ideas and I plan to write both! I'm posting the first one now, and I'll reblog this post with the second one when I write it!
This fic is an au of 5x13 "Sins of the Past." I really hope it's what you were looking for and that you enjoy! ((I realized after the fact that you had requested this take place a couppe years after his redemption, so I'm sorry that I missed that part of the request. Everything else checks all your boxes though, I think!) Part under the cut because of length.
...
On the whole, being Hiccup's friend was a lot more fun and rewarding, not to mention a Hel of a lot easier, than being his enemy.
Most of the time.
Because the thing was, when they had made their peace, one of the first things that Hiccup had done had been to set clear boundaries. (Dagur assumed he had not attempted to do so before because he knew said boundaries wouldn't be respected.)
His big rule: Keep your hands to yourself. Easy enough, right?
Well. For most people, maybe. But when it came to Hiccup — and only to Hiccup, how annoying was that? — Dagur had a constant compulsion to touch.
And back when he was the enemy, Dagur had done just that. He hadn't exactly been gentle, either. That fateful night on Dragon Island, he'd grabbed and hugged and wrapped his arm around Hiccup. He'd shoved him, pulled his hair, nearly crushed him to death under his shield. And that stuff was tame compared to some other things he'd wanted to do but hadn't had a chance.
And the worst part? When he became Hiccup's ally, those compulsions hadn't magically gone away like he'd hoped they would. What did change was that he did some soul-searching and realized some things about himself. Realized belatedly that there was an actual reason he'd been so obsessed with Hiccup, that he'd always been so handsy. He had no idea if Hiccup knew about Dagur's very complicated and confusing feelings for him. He hoped to Hel he didn't.
And to make matters worse, Dagur worried that if he did slip up and break Hiccup's rule, he might fall back into old habits and be too rough with him! Especially with Hiccup being so skinny and Dagur being so muscly, and how he sometimes forgot his own strength because the only way he really knew how to touch was roughly—
So, yeah. Hiccup's one big rule turned out to be the one thing Dagur struggled with the most. Yippee.
But Dagur had been determined to make up for his past, to show Hiccup just how much he had changed, to prove that he could control his impulses and keep his hands to himself. It wasn't easy — though Dagur assumed personal growth rarely was — but he'd managed. Mostly by always keeping his distance so he wouldn't be tempted.
(And for the gods' sake, why did his hair have to be so fluffy and shiny?? It would be so much easier to control himself if Hiccup looked just a little less… touchable!)
On the rare occasions where Hiccup initiated physical contact (usually a handshake), Dagur would make contact for the briefest amount of time possible, then back away a healthy distance.
And it worked. Until today.
Because Dagur had been practicing mindfulness since he'd changed. He'd managed to tone his deranged-ness down to a suitably non-violent degree. He'd practiced self-control, always put in the work to keep his volatile emotions firmly in check. But today was different; all the control he had worked so damn hard to maintain crumbled at his feet.
Heather was missing. She'd followed some bogus tip from that idiot Trader Johann, and had gone to that cesspool, the Northern Markets, without backup. Looking for their father who Dagur now knew to be dead. And no one had seen her since.
And then, here Hiccup was, trying to keep Dagur from riding out immediately to search for her! The hypocrite! Because—
"If it were Astrid who'd disappeared, you know damn well that you'd just swoop in to save her without a plan!"
Hiccup threw his arms up in the air, exasperated. "That's not—"
"It is true," Dagur snapped. "And you know it."
Hiccup crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight. His metal leg squeaked. "Maybe," he conceded. "Because that's what being in the middle of a mess like this does to you, it, it chips away at your reasoning. But acting purely on emotion will only get you killed!"
Dagur snorted indignantly. "Oh, I'm sorry, is that not actually your whole thing, Hiccup? Acting on emotion? Jumping in with no regard for whether you make it out of a situation alive as long as everyone else does?"
Hiccup flinched slightly and Dagur felt a nasty triumph rise within him. He pressed on, feet carrying him forward, closer, into Hiccup's space, propelled by his anger. "Why is it only when my sister is in danger that you refuse to throw yourself into the jaws of the beast to protect her?"
Now anger sparked on Hiccup's face, lighting a fire in his eyes. "Because, Dagur, something is off about this! I can't entirely explain it, can't put my finger on what exactly— yet — but there is more going on here than a false lead on your dad!" His voice and eyes softened somewhat. "If we charge in after her, dragons blazing, without any kind of a plan, we could end up putting more than ourselves at risk. We could get Heather killed. Surely you see that?"
Dagur's teeth ground together; he cast his gaze around the otherwise empty Clubhouse as if hoping it might offer some answers. When it didn't, he turned back to Hiccup to see the absolute last expression he wanted to see on his face: Pity. Gods-damned pity. He'd take furious, hurt, even, but pity. Nuh-uh.
But he bit back the nearly overwhelming urge to lash out, with words or fists. Because he'd just realized that he'd come nose-to-nose with Hiccup. And he was angrier than he'd been in a long time. Hel, he didn't even know if he was actually angry with Hiccup! Maybe Heather, for going off on her own like that? Maybe himself, for not being there to stop her? But in the end, it didn't really matter. Hiccup stood in front of him, and, even if he did have some good points, he was trying to keep Dagur from searching for his missing sister. So there was only one person for his rage to descend upon. And Dagur had sworn he would control himself.
"You know what?" he said stiffly, taking a small step back. "This is pointless. We're wasting time arguing about this. I'm going to find her. Now."
"Dagur—" Hiccup's hand landed on Dagur's arm, pulled him back.
That did it. The last thread of control slipped through his fingers, and Dagur snapped, his anger and fear wrestling back the control he'd pried from their vicious jaws. Before Dagur even realized what was happening, he'd grabbed Hiccup's biceps and squeezed. Hard. "Don't you dare try to stop me, Hiccup. Heather may be disposable to you, but she's everything to me."
Hiccup's face had gone white and something akin to fear flickered across his features. "Dagur," he said softly, a slight hitch to his otherwise steady voice. "Let go of me."
"Oh, so it's okay for you to grab me but not for me to grab you?" Dagur snapped, giving Hiccup a little shake.
"You're hurting me," Hiccup shot back. Dagur did a double-take: Oh, gods, that was fear on his face! And all because…
Dagur released Hiccup's arms and backed away like they were venomous snakes about to attack. All his anger drained from him, replaced by sick dread and crushing guilt. He flexed his fingers; he hadn't realized how hard of a grip he'd had, but his fingers ached from how tightly he'd squeezed. Nausea curled his insides.
"Oh gods, oh gods," Dagur breathed as he watched Hiccup rub his upper arms, wincing. "Hiccup, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean, I shouldn't have—" He took a step forward, not thinking, only wanting to fix, and his heart thudded to the floor when Hiccup staggered backwards, that same fear lurking in the set of his jaw and the brightness of his eyes.
Dagur stopped moving and just stood there, watching Hiccup, feeling the world collapse around him. Was this it, then? Had he just lost Heather and Hiccup on the same day? In one moment of vulnerability, he'd shattered all the fragile trust he'd worked so hard to build between them. Hiccup could never forgive this; Dagur would certainly never forgive himself, he—
"It's okay," Hiccup said. "I forgive you."
Dagur blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I get it," he said. "You're worried about Heather, and I was in your way. You lashed out. The important thing is you stopped when you realized what was happening."
Dagur blinked again, slowly this time. Trying to process. Fresh irritation welled up inside him. "Are you kidding me?"
Hiccup fixed him with his signature Dagur, you're so weird look. "What?"
"There is no way you're forgiving me. Just like that."
Hiccup looked lost. "But I… did?"
"No. You need to have some self-respect, damn it! If Viggo apologized for putting a bounty on your head, would you just forgive him?"
Hiccup shifted his arms, trying, Dagur knew, to hide his pain. It didn't work. At all. "Well, no. I'd have no reason to believe he meant it. But—"
"Exactly!" Dagur crowed, tossing his hands in the air and hating himself even more when Hiccup jumped at the sudden movement. In a more subdued tone, he said, "If you don't forgive Viggo, you don't forgive me. Got it?"
"Yes, but—"
"So repeat after me: 'Dagur, you vile piece of human filth, I do not forgive you for hurting me, and I hate you for all time.'"
"Oh my Thor, this is ridiculous," Hiccup muttered. "Look, Dagur, if Viggo apologized to me for anything, I wouldn't forgive him, because I'd have no reason to believe he was genuine. But I have seen how much you've changed, and I know it hasn't been easy, either. You've had to work for it. And I believe you when you apologize. So I forgive you."
"But—"
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't exactly feel all warm and snugly about you right now, either," Hiccup interrupted. "And you were right — that shouldn't have happened. You shouldn't have lost control. And yeah, you'll have to work some more to regain some trust. But you're trying. And that's more than most people do."
Dagur felt tears stinging his eyes but he forced them back. If he burst into tears, he would be tempted to throw himself onto Hiccup and weep into his shoulder, and that would probably not help with the whole regaining trust thing. So he squared his shoulders, sniffled, and said, "You should let me take a look. Make sure nothing's broken."
Hiccup blanched. "Ah… no. No." Dagur tried not to let his hurt show on his face. Hiccup's reaction was more than fair. "I promise you, nothing's broken. Just sore. Bruised." Dagur gave him a look. Hiccup sighed. "Okay, very bruised. But I'll be okay."
Dagur clamped down on another round of tears. "Gods, I'm so sorry!" he said, grabbing at his hair. "I've been working so hard on impulse control, to keep from touching you—"
"Wait, what?" A look of vague confusion had joined the pain on Hiccup's face.
"Impulse control," Dagur repeated. "It's the practice of controlling one's impulses."
"I know what—" Hiccup started, but Dagur interrupted him.
"For example," he said, casting his eyes around the room for inspiration. How did you explain something like this to the guy that knows everything? His eyes alighted on a large spider lounging in its web in one corner. "I look at that spider, and I tell myself, 'I can't eat that.'"
"Dagur, I know what — wait. Are — are you telling me you want to eat that spider?"
Dagur shrugged. The thought had crossed his mind. "Maybe. But I won't. Because impulse control." He offered a small grin. "Get it?"
Hiccup huffed out a short laugh. "I've been trying to tell you — I know what impulse control is! I just… you have to practice it… to keep from touching me?"
Dagur chuckled nervously. "Well, duh. I mean, that's your one rule, right? Hands to yourself. Don't hug unless you're hugged first, and all that?"
"Yeah, I guess. But I guess I didn't realize—"
"How hard it is to keep my hands to myself?" Dagur shifted self-consciously. "Yeah. There are," he cleared his throat, "some things I've realized lately. About myself. And you. But mostly… mostly me. Things that honestly explain a lot, I think, of our early days. You know, the touchy-grabby stuff? But I… I can't go into them right now, Hiccup, because I don't really even understand them myself, and besides, we really need to make a plan if we're going to rescue Heather—"
"Wait," Hiccup said, and Dagur couldn't quite get a read on his expression. Mostly, he looked overwhelmed. Oh, great, he'd said too much. Now Hiccup knew that, at the very least, Dagur was physically attracted to him. Maybe even that those feelings had grown into something more. Surely, Hiccup knew that Dagur wasn't going to act on them? That he'd never come between him and Astrid? That this was yet another battle that Dagur would run into alone, axe swinging? But then Hiccup blinked, and his expression cleared, and he continued, "You're going to make a plan? You're not just rushing in?"
Dagur shrugged self-consciously, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, we wasted all this time arguing about it, so we might as well waste a little more and make a plan that won't get us all killed."
Hiccup shook his head. "You know that logic doesn't even kind of make sense, right?"
Dagur tapped his temple. "They don't call me Deranged for nothing, brother."
Hiccup smiled, a fragile, tentative thing. "Right. Uh, well, whenever… whenever you're ready, you can talk to me about… about whatever it is. Okay? But for now, we make a plan to find Heather, get her back."
Dagur nodded, but hesitated as Hiccup turned to leave.
"What?" Hiccup asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"The other riders. They aren't like you." No one is. "If they find out what happened, they'll—"
"They won't."
"But I can't ask you to lie—"
"I don't have to lie about what they can't see, remember? Long sleeves?"
"Right. But, still, if I am a danger to you—"
"Oh my gods. Dagur. Please. Let's… just find Heather. We can figure everything else out. Once she's safe."
"Okay. You're right. And Hiccup— I'm sorry about what I said. I know how much you care for Heather."
"I know you know. Like I said, you were scared and angry, you lashed out. It happens to the best of us."
"Even you?"
"Let's not go crazy." They shared a laugh. Hiccup reached out a hand, his face tight with pain, and Dagur forced himself to breathe past the guilt pressing in on his chest and took it. Then he let go. And it wasn't even that hard.
"Hiccup, you really need to let me look at your arms," Dagur said. "I could have really hurt you."
Hiccup hesitated for a fraction of a second, a no hovering on the tip of his tongue, but to Dagur's surprise, he nodded curtly. "Okay. You're right."
By the time Hiccup got his bracers off, his face was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and his breath hitched in his chest. Even the tiniest movements seemed to cause immense pain, and Dagur's anxiety and guilt compounded on themselves. But when Hiccup rolled up first one sleeve, then the other, Dagur saw that there was — thank Thor — no swelling. So he probably hadn't cracked anything.
But what he did see was bright red indentations, his hand prints painted like blood on Hiccup's biceps. He knew instantly that those hand prints would turn to lurid bruising. He may not have seriously wounded Hiccup, but he'd still hurt him. Badly.
"See?" Hiccup gasped, voice weak. "I'm fine."
"I'm so sorry, Hiccup," Dagur said again.
Hiccup slowly, painfully, lowered his sleeves and replaced his bracers. "If you don't stop apologizing, I'll feed you to Toothless," Hiccup said without any real heat.
Dagur paled, realizing just how lucky he'd been that Toothless had been napping on his stone in Hiccup's hut and not in the Clubhouse with them when he'd grabbed Hiccup. He really would've ended up Toothless chow, and then Hiccup wouldn't have had anyone left to selflessly forgive.
"You ready to get the others?" Dagur asked. "Make a plan? Save my sister?"
"Thought you'd never ask," Hiccup quipped. His face still looked drawn and pale, but determination smoldered in his eyes.
And things didn't exactly feel how they had been before Dagur had slipped up. But Dagur had worked hard to get to where he'd been before this whole mess, and he would work even harder to earn Hiccup's trust, earn their newfound comradery, once again.
Because Hiccup, well. Hiccup was worth it. Being friends with Hiccup was worth it. And even though it wasn't always easy, Dagur knew he'd always, infinitely, prefer to have Hiccup Haddock as a friend than as an enemy.
Even… even if they could never be anything more. It was enough.
How to Train Your Dragon ▪︎ 14,983 words ▪︎ Rated T ▪︎ 2/2 chapters ▪︎ Viggo Grimborn/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (one-sided) ▪︎ Chapter 1 ▪︎ Chapter 2
Midnight Scrum AU. Rescue doesn't arrive in time, and a triumphant Ryker drags a battered, bruised, broken Hiccup to his waiting brother.
Hiccup expects torture. He expects death. He expects anything but fire and fury at Ryker's treatment of Hiccup. And he honestly isn't sure what terrifies him more - the humiliation and pain Ryker heaped upon him... or the strange softness in Viggo's eyes as he strives to fix what his brother broke.
