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Vials in his neck, filled with an almost-glowing, purple fluid. Burning in his veins. Dullness in his mind. Memories flitted through existence, coming to, almost grasping meaning, then disappearing. Nothing mattered save for the voice in his ear, the voice telling him to kill .
“Hiccup, stop! This isn’t you!”
Hiccup? Who was this Hiccup that this blonde woman was talking about? Why was she addressing him? He was The Assassin. His perfect assassin, his lovely assassin. He could remember the fingers carding through his hair, things being whispered into his ear as the collar was tightened, things about blood and death.
Really, the fight shouldn’t have gotten this far. He had been ordered to get rid of her in her sleep, and he’d tried, but she was fast, reaching for her axe and calling for her dragon. Now, he was facing both of them, but they weren’t acting on the offensive, were instead evading his attacks and not retaliating. Why? He certainly would have fought lethally with someone trying to kill him.
“Stop this,” the Assassin growled. “Stop with this Hiccup. I came to kill you and I intend to do it.”
The Assassin charged forward, sword bare. The woman deflected his strike with the blade of her axe. Sparks flew in the space between them. The Assassin was brutal in his attacks, not letting up, not tiring. He could not tire, and only slept when his master told him to. His master wasn’t here, but his orders had been clear. Kill the one with the Deadly Nadder. Kill her in her sleep.
The woman was clearly tiring. She was panting, sweat dripping from her brow.
“Hiccup, please , stop this,” she begged. She fell to her knees, dropping her axe. “Please.”
So… she was giving up her life just like that? The Assassin stepped forward, twirled his sword in his hand. He raised it-
The woman headbutted him hard in the groin. He lost his breath at the sudden pain that shot through him, dropped his sword. He doubled over, and as he did so, the woman went for the collar on his neck. She tore it off of him, and the vials came out of his neck, the glass shattering as they hit the wooden floor, the purple liquid spilling out of them.
It was the Assassin’s turn to fall to his knees. He brought shaking fingers to his neck, looked at the blonde woman. Memories flooded in, so fast that it felt like his head was exploding.
“Astrid?”
Hiccup collapsed to the floor and passed out.
Hiccup came to with a pounding headache and a horrible throbbing in his body. He felt something rising up, wasn’t sure what it was, but then rolled to his side and retched into a bucket that had been conveniently placed there. He stayed on his side on the bed, breathing heavily, shivering despite being under what felt like pounds of fur.
“Hiccup!” The voice was familiar, and he looked with heavy-lidded eyes to see Astrid running to his side. She laid a hand on his bare shoulder; he was naked under the furs.
“He’s awake?” came another voice. His mother’s. She came to join Astrid by his side, and a black figure that Hiccup recognized as well reared up on his hind legs behind them.
“Toothless?” Hiccup reached out a hand, but was too weak, and dropped it back to the bed.
“How are you feeling?” Astrid asked. She gently took Hiccup’s hand in hers.
“Like a Screaming Death chewed me up and spit me out,” Hiccup answered hoarsely. He looked around, found that he was in a house of some sort. What… what had happened? Why was he feeling so horrible? Was he sick with something? Why couldn’t he remember? Had he been gone long enough that a house had been built for him on the new island that they’d found?
“What happened?”
Valka and Astrid looked between each other. “We were hoping you could tell us.” Astrid said. “You were captured by Grimmel. What happened after that?”
He’d been captured? Gods, thinking was making his head hurt so bad, and his stomach was roiling like he was going to vomit again. There was a horrible burning in the side of his neck.
“Maybe that’s enough questions for now,” Valka said, gently pulling Astrid away to give Hiccup some space. “He’s looking rather green.”
Astrid nodded. She wiped something away from her eye. “Right. Right. I’ll go get Gothi.” She quickly left the room.
“Why do I feel so awful?” Hiccup asked. “Why can’t I remember anything?”
Valka gingerly sat on the edge of the bed, not wanting to jostle Hiccup. “You appeared to be under the influence of, um…”
“Of what?” Why wouldn’t his mother just come out and say it?
“Deathgripper venom,” Valka said.
Hiccup blanched. “Wait… I thought… I thought that could only influence dragons.”
Valka shook her head. “As did I, but, Grimmel must have figured out how to make a solution of it that works on humans.” She reached a hand out and touched Hiccup’s face. Her skin was cool compared to his. Maybe he had a fever. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Hiccup didn’t know what to say. He felt tired again, and his eyelids were heavy. He just made a small humming sound, closed his eyes. His mother slipped her hand from his face, and then he was gone.
“What do you plan to do with me?” Hiccup asked. He was trying to pretend he wasn’t afraid of this man that had captured him, but Grimmel the Grisly was scary, without a doubt. He was so nonchalant about everything he did, as if it was all within his right. Hiccup was chained up in his fort, arms raised above him to leave him open and vulnerable.
Grimmel laughed lightly. “A test, if you will,” Grimmel said. “I cannot seem to capture your dragon, so I need you.” He was doing something over at his desk. Hiccup couldn’t see what it was.
“You’ll never get Toothless!”
“Mm, we’ll see about that.”
Hiccup yanked on his chains, looked around. Okay, how could he get out of here? He had no dragon with him, but maybe his friends would come and rescue him… If they even knew where he was, if they weren’t too busy with the warlords that Grimmel had sent out to distract them.
This whole thing’s a mess , Hiccup thought.
Grimmel was humming to himself. It wasn’t a song that Hiccup recognized, but then again, he came from a different place; his accent was different from anything Hiccup had heard before. Hiccup didn’t like this, this casual way of doing things that Grimmel had. He wasn’t in the right, but pretended that he was.
Finally, Grimmel turned around, and Hiccup looked to his hands, because certainly that would be where his torment was coming from. Grimmel held something Hiccup had seen before, a syringe filled with luminescent, purple liquid.
Hiccup raised his eyebrows in confusion. “What? So you’re going to drug me like a dragon? That doesn’t work on people.”
Grimmel laughed, shook his head. “Hiccup, Hiccup, you have much to learn.” He strode over, his long legs getting him across the room in a few steps. “I’ve concocted a solution that should work on you.”
Oh. That… that was frightening. Hiccup yanked on his chains though he knew it was useless. Surely he would have marks on his wrists from the harsh metal. But how could he not fight? He was about to be drugged!
“And then what do you plan on doing with me while I’m in a stupor?” Hiccup asked.
“If it works, you’ll see.” A cruel smile tugged up the corners of Grimmel’s thin mouth.
Grimmel put a hand in Hiccup’s hair, tugged on it to reveal the side of his neck. Hiccup was breathing hard with fear, struggling. He definitely did not like how long the needle looked.
It was driven hard into his neck, and Hiccup gasped at the pain of it. Grimmel pushed down the plunger, and then Hiccup was in a world of pain. Burning enveloped his veins, raced through his nerves. Hiccup yelled. The needle was yanked out of him, and Grimmel took a step back, watching as Hiccup struggled. It felt like he was on fire.
“Make it stop!” Hiccup shouted. “Make it stop!” He’d never felt anything like this before. The pain he sometimes got in his leg was dull in comparison to this. Everything was.
Grimmel just nodded and went to his desk, wrote something in a journal. “Not the effect I thought it would have,” Grimmel said over Hiccup’s shouts. “We’ll have to keep trying.”
So Grimmel was just going to keep him here and experiment on him with dragon venom?! Gods, the thought of such a thing was utterly horrible and terrifying. Hiccup wasn’t something to be used and toyed with!
“Antidote,” Hiccup gasped out. His body was quivering now. “There must be an antidote.”
“Oh, there is.” Grimmel turned back to him, holding his journal and a piece of charcoal. “But maybe I just like watching you suffer.” He tapped the charcoal against the inside of the journal. “We’ll have to see what the long term effects are.”
The long term effects were not pleasant. Hiccup’s body was seizing without him losing consciousness, everything in him tensing and shaking and twitching. Grimmel took him down from the chains, laid him in a bed to let it pass. Once it did, Hiccup was too weak to do anything, too weak to get up and fight and escape. Everything in him was sore and aching.
“You’ll… you’ll never get away with this,” Hiccup said weakly, voice hoarse from screaming.
Grimmel ran long fingers through Hiccup’s hair, and Hiccup shivered at the unwanted touch. “Yes, Hiccup. Yes, I will.”
Hiccup awoke shivering violently, teeth chattering. He looked to see that he’d thrown off the furs in his sleep, and he weakly grabbed at them, trying to pull them back over himself.
Astrid was there in an instant, doing it for him. She put the back of her hand to Hiccup’s forehead.
“Gods, you’re burning up.” She went over to his desk, began mixing something in a bowl. “Gothi gave us just the thing for that though.”
“I-I remember,” Hiccup struggled to say. “I remember s-some of it.”
“We can talk about it later,” Astrid told him. She came over with the bowl, put a hand under Hiccup’s back to help him sit a little. The concoction Astrid made him drink was horrible, but if anything would help his pain and his fever, he would take it.
Hiccup laid back down after Astrid gave him some water, curling up under the furs.
“St-still cold,” he chattered.
“Hmm…” Astrid was pondering something. “Well, we are going to get married someday,” she said, and began taking off her clothes. At first, Hiccup didn’t understand why, but then he remembered that skin-to-skin contact was best for warming someone up. Once that was finished, she climbed under the furs with him, wrapped her arms around him from behind, pressing herself into him. “That a little better?”
“Yeah.” Hiccup was too afraid to nod, his head pounding furiously, his stomach sloshing. Maybe if he just closed his eyes and didn’t move, he’d feel better.
“What did Gothi say?” Hiccup asked after a while. His shivering began to stop.
“You’re going through withdrawal,” Astrid said. “Apparently you had a lot of the venom in your system. Your body got used to it, and now it doesn’t know what to do without it.”
“Oh.” Based on what Hiccup could remember, that made sense. It was frightening that such a thing had happened to him, but it made sense.
“I… attacked you,” Hiccup said after a long time in silence. “I’m sorry. I… I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You weren’t,” Astrid said. “You had Grimmel’s ideas in your head. He controlled you like he controlled the dragons.”
“I’m sorry.”
Astrid rested her head against Hiccup’s shoulder. “Babe, it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t hurt you, right?”
“No,” Astrid answered. “I think I ended up hurting you more, but you probably don’t feel that right now.”
“I do not,” Hiccup confirmed, not sure what she was talking about.
Astrid ran a hand through Hiccup’s hair, and Hiccup flinched. It made him think of Grimmel doing the same thing.
“What is it?”
“Just… something I remembered,” Hiccup answered. “Grimmel would run his hands through my hair.”
“Did he… do anything else?” Astrid asked, sounding terrified. She had the right to be.
“I don’t know,” Hiccup answered. Certainly he would remember if he’d been raped, right? But, then again, his memory was only coming back in pieces. Would he ever recover the full length of events that had happened to him since his capture?
Toothless suddenly ran up the stairs and hopped onto the bed. Hiccup groaned at his weight.
“Toothless, not now,” Hiccup grumbled.
“Sorry!” came Valka’s voice from down below. “Just took him for a flight, but he’s very happy to see you awake.”
Toothless got off the bed, went up to Hiccup, nuzzled his nose against his face. Hiccup smiled.
“Love you too, bud.” He reached up a shaking hand to pet him. The familiar feeling of his scales felt wonderful against his skin. “Where’s your girlfriend?” He hadn’t heard mention of the Light Fury at all in his sparing moments of consciousness.
Valka came up the stairs. “Haven’t seen her,” she responded. “She’s an elusive creature. We should just leave her be.”
Hiccup wanted to nod in agreement, but then thought better of it. “Yeah. Good idea.”
“How are you feeling?” Valka asked, sitting on a chair near the large bed.
“Horrible,” Hiccup responded honestly. “How long did Gothi say this could go on for?”
“She doesn’t know,” Valka answered with a shake of her head. “It will pass though. Your friends came to visit earlier. It was a hassle trying to get them to let you sleep.”
Hiccup smiled, closing his eyes. “Yeah, sounds like them.”
“Do you want me to go get them now?”
Hiccup could already feel himself drifting off. He was nice and warm and safe in Astrid’s arms. “No. Sleep,” were the two words he intelligently strung together.
Astrid held him tighter, and Hiccup drifted off into sweet blackness.
Hiccup didn’t know how much time had passed. It could have been days. It could have been weeks. All he knew was that his body was becoming dependent on the injections of venom that Grimmel would give him. And now, he was withholding it from him for some reason.
“Please,” Hiccup begged. He would have gotten on his knees if he could, but he was weak, trapped in the bed. He grasped at a piece of Grimmel’s clothing. “Please. I need it.”
Grimmel ran a hand over his face. He liked touching his face and his hair. He hadn’t gone further than that, but sometimes he would curl up with him in the bed, pet his hair, whisper things into his ear, things about murder and death, things he wanted him to do. And Hiccup felt like he had to. Grimmel had called him his assassin. His lovely assassin.
“I like you begging.” He chuckled. “And weeks ago you didn’t even want this.”
“Weeks ago it didn’t do what you wanted it to.” Hiccup’s hand was shaking as it clutched at the fabric of Grimmel’s clothing. “ Please .”
“Oh, alright. Since you asked nicely.” Grimmel went to his desk, picked up a syringe. He came back over to the bed, knelt by it. “Show me your neck, darling.”
His neck was peppered with bruises and scabs, the result of Grimmel’s harsh treatment of him with the needles. He was never gentle about putting it in him, but Hiccup didn’t care anymore. He just wanted the venom, wanted the sweet dullness that it could give him.
Hiccup grunted as the needle was pushed into his flesh, moaned as the burning began to start, the liquid filling his veins. The burning would subside, unlike the first few times - Grimmel had finally found a solution that did exactly what he wanted it to do. And what he wanted was to control Hiccup the way he controlled his Deathgrippers. Now he could.
“Do you like it?” Grimmel asked, holding up the collar. “Made it just for you.”
It was like the straps that Grimmel put on his dragons to hold the vials of venom in place. The Assassin did indeed like it. That meant that the venom would be able to just stay in his system, that he wouldn’t need constant injections of it to keep going.
He stood before Grimmel, not trying to flee, not trying to fight. The chains had been discarded long ago. Grimmel came over, and he tilted his head for him to give him access to his neck. Grimmel ran fingers over his throat, then leaned down, kissed him there, and he made a sound of pleasure.
“When you return from this mission, you will be greatly rewarded.” Fingers going through his hair. Grimmel very much liked his hair. He straightened and fastened the collar around his neck. He went to his desk, then returned with three vials of the venom. The needles were long, but the Assassin didn’t care about that anymore. It was more a moan of pleasure than pain when Grimmel inserted them into him and twisted them into place in the collar.
“There we go,” Grimmel said, pleased with himself. “My beautiful assassin.”
“I need it,” Hiccup mumbled.
“What?” Astrid asked. Hiccup had no idea how much time had passed, how long he’d been in bed, but he finally said it. He wanted the shaking to stop, the aches, the headache, the sickness and fever. Astrid had been resting in the bed with him, holding him in her arms to keep away cold.
“I need it,” Hiccup repeated hoarsely. “The venom.”
A moment of horrified silence. “Hiccup, he- no. You can’t.”
“Where is he?” Hiccup asked, becoming agitated. “Where’s Grimmel?”
“He’s been moving around a lot,” Astrid answered. “We’ve been trying to track him, but it’s difficult.”
“He has what I need.” Hiccup sat up, began getting out of bed. Astrid rushed out of bed and to his side. She put two hands on his shoulders, looked him dead in the eye.
“Hiccup Haddock, you are not leaving this house.” Her voice was firm, commanding. It was nothing like Grimmel’s commands though, not like the way he’d whispered them sweetly to him.
Hiccup wanted to argue with her. He tried standing, but fell back to the bed. Okay, maybe he wasn’t. But gods, he needed the venom. Having so much of it and then suddenly being without it was horrible. They couldn’t have weaned him off of it though, didn’t have any Deathgrippers or know the exact solution that Grimmel had come up with.
“Okay, okay. You’re right. I just feel horrible.”
“I know.” Astrid looked like she wanted to run fingers through his hair in a loving gesture, but didn’t. She’d learned to stop doing that given how badly Hiccup had reacted to it. She sighed. “I know.”
In the next few days, Hiccup finally began to feel better. He still craved the venom, but he was able to get out of bed and go for light walks around the island and look at all the new buildings that were being erected. The resilience of his people made him smile.
Naturally, his friends would join him now that he was able to remain conscious throughout much of the day. He wanted to fly on Toothless, but his saddle and tail fin had been hidden from him. Probably for the best though, given how he wanted to return to Grimmel, get on his knees, and beg him for the venom. He had scars on his neck from where he’d brutally inserted the needles. He doubted they would ever go away.
And now, they’d found Grimmel. Hiccup wanted to go with his friends on the mission. They fought him on this, but Hiccup felt fine and clear-headed, felt like he could do this. Finally, they relented.
Now, they were in a cave system, facing off against Grimmel and his Deathgrippers. Hiccup had Toothless fighting by his side, and it felt good to be doing this with his friends. It felt like revenge for everything Grimmel had done to him and his people.
But then Hiccup caught sight of the vials strapped to the Deathgrippers, the purple venom that he’d gotten so lovingly used to. He reached out for a Deathgripper, wanting to take it from the dragon, but Astrid’s axe cutting through one of the dragon’s tusks pulled him from his stupor.
“Hiccup, what are you doing?!” Astrid cried.
“You know what he’s doing,” came Grimmel’s voice. He had yet to actually take part in the fighting, was watching his dragons do all the work. Now, he appeared from the darkness, a crossbow held at his side. “Did you come back for more, my assassin?”
With a yell of anger, Hiccup charged at Grimmel, sword at the ready, flaming. Grimmel drew a shortsword from a sheath at his hip, used it to block his attack.
“You’ll pay for what you did to me!” Hiccup yelled. He fought desperately, but Grimmel countered each one of his attacks. He was a good swordsmen, but Grimmel was better. His friends were busy with the dragons though, and couldn’t help him.
Grimmel shoved Hiccup away, lifted the crossbow. “Maybe I’ll finish what you couldn’t.” He aimed it at Astrid.
“No!” There was a click of the bolt being released, a whoosh, and Hiccup jumped in the way. He grunted as the bolt pierced right through his armor, went into his side. He went down to his knees, clutching at it. Blood came out black against his glove. He dropped his sword, the flames on it going out.
“Hiccup!” Astrid screamed, rushing to his side.
Grimmel looked shocked that Hiccup had done such a thing, that he’d jumped in the way. Evidently, he didn’t want to lose “his assassin.”
Hiccup lost focus, didn’t really know what happened next. He saw Grimmel and his Deathgrippers flee, leaving him and his friends and mother alone in the cave.
“We have to get him back to New Berk,” he heard Valka say. He was moved onto Toothless’ back, a scream leaving him. They’d left the bolt in so that he wouldn’t bleed out.
Hiccup was unconscious for most of the flight back, and for most of his treatment. He screamed when they pulled out the bolt, when Gothi quickly applied stitches, and then he was gone.
While he was unconscious he dreamt of Grimmel. He dreamt of the sweet, sweet venom. There had been multiple rounds of the experimentation, of the venom not working, but when it had worked, Hiccup had come to love it. He’d come to love Grimmel’s voice in his ear telling him to kill his friends and his fiancée and his family, telling him to kill Toothless. Now, he was without that venom, without that voice, and he craved it.
Hiccup woke in pain, and was quickly given something for it. He’d been unconscious for a long time, but he was going to live. Something about that deeply upset him. What was the point of living if he didn’t have the venom?
Eventually, Hiccup healed, and was able to help with the building of New Berk. He and Astrid got married and she moved in with him. The Light Fury would come to visit Toothless every once in a while, and Toothless would go to visit her. Everything seemed perfect.
But he didn’t have the venom. There was no way to get it. His craving would wake him at night and leave him pacing in frustration till the dawn. He never told anyone about the continued craving, not even Astrid. Really, only Toothless knew about it. Toothless was someone he could confide in better than anyone else.
Years passed and his children were born.
And still there was something missing from his life.
He did not have the venom.