The Flaws of being a Hiccup take III

Chapter 25: like me

Hiccup

Blinking several times to see if my eyes were deceiving me, I removed the remainder of his hair covering his cheek. My fingers traced the small pattern embedded in his skin. It looked so familiar. Such an intricate design.

Unfortunately, the wind was blowing too heavily for me to examine it further. Toothless' wings still spread out wide, gliding through the clouds with ease. Sometimes I wondered how he did that, especially during the most harshest times, when the wind was rough and the air was at its coolest. But then, he's kind of like an open fire most of the time.

A small sniffle broke me from my slight trance to the sight of this small boy, snuggling into my newly designed leather armour trying to seek comfort, but unfortunately just like the air, it was quite cold.

"hey its ok buddy," I rubbed his back soothingly, trying to coax him back to the lively boy that he had been moments ago. "nothings going to happen to you, I swear." I promised him, not a hint of doubt in my voice. Suddenly I felt so attached to him, this little boy who had clawed his way into my heart, much like Astrid, and embedded himself into my very soul.

"they're not coming back, are they?" the voice was so fragile, so small that I wasn't even sure that I heard him at all, until he repeated his question with a little more force this time so that I could truly hear him and the unforgettable hardness in his tone, so broken, so unforgiving, "are they?"

How could I answer that? What do I say to this small boy who had lost everything he had ever loved? Everything would be alright, would it, really? How could I lie to him, that or rid him of all hope altogether. I couldn't, for someone so young he was experiencing so much, I didn't know what to do.

So I didn't do anything, I had never been very good with the whole 'comforting' thing, even with Astrid it never seemed to work. She could even tell you that. I seemed to be hopeless at everything, everything except for this,  training dragons. It seemed that the only good thing that I had ever done in my life was meeting Toothless. All this greatness, how people see me, came from him. Not me. I was a nobody, fate had a slightly different destiny for me.

Losing my son, my father, now Astrid. I can't handle it, I don't know what I'm doing right or wrong anymore. Everything seemed to be spinning in one direction, and it wasn't the right one.

"Hiccup?" looking down into the enormous green eyes that greeted me, a small smile lifted the corners of my mouth. It ached, it felt like I hadn't been smiling in a while, not a proper smile anyway, not one I really meant. This one was real. "are you alright?" I could almost cry, somebody finally wondering how I felt, what impacts all of these disasters were having on me. His green eyes only widened as I remained silent for a few moments.

"no, but I will be," I managed finally, the smile stretching even further when his also did too.

"me too." he agreed, bobbing his head up and down like a fish, causing a low chuckle to escape my lips. Eventually Matthew unwound his small arms from around me, whipping his legs down into the proper position. "um, Hiccup?" he asked after a while of silent soaring. With only the sound of Toothless' wings slicing through the breeze like a overly sharpened dagger.

"yeah," his eyes meeting mine again, flicking back and forth across my face trying to decipher me as if I was a puzzle just waiting to be solved.

"can we go back down there again?" he asked me, his voice wavering slightly as he pointed down towards the vast ocean below. I was a bit reluctant, especially after what had just occurred. I didn't want another relapse.

"you sure?" I asked him warily. His face was as courageous as he could make it, stubbornness showing in the creases of his forehead and between his eyes, I noticed that these seemed to appear whenever he was trying to be truly serious about something.