Found again (HTTYD FF)

✯30✯

"Hiccup!"

"Hiccup, get up!"

Hiccup shot up into a sitting position, trying to catch his intermittent, irregular breathing and calm his rapidly beating heart. He tried in vain to determine where he was, wide eyed, but his surroundings seemed unfamiliar and hostile at the moment, which made his panic even worse.

"Hiccup, you need to calm down! It was just a dream! Nothing more! Everything is fine!"

The distant voice seemed familiar to Hiccup, reassuring. It must have belonged to the Night Fury that had appeared in his field of vision.

Toothless.

"That's right, keep calm. Breathe deeply," he instructed.

Hiccup decided to follow his instructions, as it seemed like the best idea at the moment. He needed to calm down. He needed to breathe deeply. To slow his frantically beating heart. He needed to pull himself together. But this simple task seemed impossible. The events of the dream seemed so vivid and real.

They were real. Only to some extent, but they were.

"No! Don't think about it, don't think about it! You must calm down! The only thing you care about now is deep breathing, do you understand me? Concentrate on your breathing."

Hiccup nodded and tried to stop the rush of images and feelings from his dream. He closed his eyes and tried to focus only on his breathing, on the gradual slowing and deepening of each breath. As his breathing slowed, so did his heart. After a while, he was more or less calm.

"Can you hear me now?" Toothless asked.

"Y-yeah," Hiccup replied.

"What happened?"

"Ju-just a dream."

Toothless frowned and looked at Hiccup suspiciously. "It doesn't look like 'just a dream' to me. Spit it out right now."

"It was the dream." Hiccup curled up into a ball. Tears formed in his eyes, and they slowly trickled down his cheeks until they finally fell, wetting everything in their path. Hiccup took no notice of them, nor Toothless, as the dragon tried to distract him.

He knew that his mind was making most of it up. No such thing happened - yet the dream kept coming and coming. Hiccup couldn't help but be carried away by it every time. He wondered if it really could have taken this turn. They had seen him, then, and almost shot him down as he fled, but Toothless had stepped in and made sure they were both safe.

He knew it wasn't real.

But he couldn't help himself. What if...?

He wasn't paying attention to anything.

He had no reason to.

He just curled up into a tighter ball and let the waters of sleep carry him away. He was lucky the nightmare hadn't decided to come a second time that night, as it usually tended to. When it did come, it stayed for a long time.

~~~

When he woke up the second time, it was already morning. Toothless slept curled protectively around him. Hiccup didn't want to wake him, so he stayed put and pretended he was still asleep. He listened to what was going on in and around the house. He heard it all.

There was no one inside, but there was definitely a lot of commotion outside. Most of the Vikings close enough to hear were clustered uncomfortably close to the house Hiccup was currently in. They shuffled in place, muttering amongst themselves. About what, he didn't know - their voices were too muffled by the wooden walls, he couldn't understand a word. Then, a voice belonging to his father, echoed above the confusion. Hiccup didn't catch what he said, but the others listened. He could tell by the way all the voices fell silent at the same time.