4It's all at the end.
Get up, check the cars as they drive by, sit back down and instantly stand back up and repeat the process. Hiccup looked down at his watch to check the time, the small digital display reading 9:50 PM.
'Only about two hours of work left' Hiccup thought as he hopped up and walked out the door to the guard shack that he was working. Stepping into the frigid outside air, he averted his gaze to avoid looking straight at the headlights on the oncoming car. Once it got closer he looked back at the windshield to check if there was a parking permit sticker affixed to the windshield. Seeing one, he waved the car through before retreating back inside where it was only marginally warmer. Winter on Berk had never been something to scoff at, and this one was proving that point quite well.
'And another one, great' He thought as another car pulled through the intersection and onto campus just as Hiccup was about to sit back down. Working for Central Berk University's, or CBU, Public Safety Department had its perks and its drawbacks. While an obvious perk of working for the University he attended was he never had to worry about classes and work hours conflicting, working the front gate was dreadfully boring most of the time and downright frustrating the rest. Seeing the cars finally stop coming, he opened his sketchbook back up to start drawing once again. Working on the Night Fury design, the phone ringing interrupted him as he looked up to see that it was the other line ringing.
Noticing a car pulling onto campus, Hiccup once again got up from the chair and stepped outside. Noticing it didn't have a campus parking permit, he motioned for the vehicle to come to a stop as he stepped up to the curb in preparation to talk with the occupants of the vehicle, only to have it speed past and almost hit him on the way by as if the driver hadn't seen him or the stop sign. Watching the car go over the speed tables so fast it came down hard on the other side and make yet another divot in the asphalt with an incredulous look on his face, Hiccup walked back inside. As he grabbed the chair another two cars pulled onto campus, not giving Hiccup the time to sit back down. Sticking his head and torso outside the door frame, he instantly recoiled back inside.
"Aghhh, by Thor's Hammer!" He shouted as he snapped his hands to his face from the pain as it felt like somebody had seared his retinas, which with how bright the headlights he just looked at were, could be a possibility. Not even caring as the cars drove past him, looking inside the doorway as if looking into a fish tank, Hiccup kept his head in his hands, trying to get his eyes into an as dark environment as possible after staring directly at something brighter than the sun for a few seconds.
"Why would they do that?" Hiccup wondered aloud, trying to figure out what reason somebody would have to either have their brights on or put super bright headlights in their car when there wasn't anything but civilization for about fifty miles in any direction. Holding his head in his hands for a few more seconds until his eyes started to not hurt and he felt he could look at a light source once again. Not seeing any other cars, he sat back down and just rested his eyes for the next few minutes. Noticing another car pull onto campus he waited for it to get closer before looking out and stopping the vehicle.
"Hey, what brings you to CBU tonight?" He asked the driver once the window had been rolled down.
"I'm just coming to pick somebody up. Man, why did you stop me anyways?" The driver, somebody who was clearly not native to Berk, asked him.
"Where at? I stopped you because you don't have a parking permit on your vehicle." Hiccup answered the aggravated man, hoping it would stop at that as most times it did.
"Just right in front right here. I think it's because I'm not a native Berkian. I've seen you people let in Berkians that don't have permits." He insisted, placing his car in park to engage Hiccup in the conversation more.
"I can't speak for the other workers, but I only stop a vehicle if it has no parking permit as is my job description. But I can assure you if I let a car go through without stopping them, then they have either presented a valid student ID or given me a short answer to allow them through." Hiccup responded, keeping an eye out for the cars coming onto campus and getting stuck behind him.
"Well I've watched you a few times and I've seen you let people in before without seeing one of those."
"Sir, if I did not stop them then they either showed me an ID or told me quickly. I can't even see into the car through the windshield until it's too late due to the headlights and it being dark. If you want to file a complaint you can walk into the Public Safety office anytime from eight to six." Hiccup responded, trying to maintain a positive outside as the man basically accused him of racism; adding onto everything he was feeling at the time.
"No, I'm fine. But can I go now? I mean look at the line you created." The driver said, gesturing back to the line of cars that had stacked up behind his vehicle as he been arguing with Hiccup.
"Yes sir, have a good night." Hiccup answered, waving him through as he did the other vehicles behind him. Who either had permits of flashed a student ID at him once they were close enough. Finally able to go back in and sit down, Hiccup couldn't believe that man. Accusing him of only stopping somebody because of the color of his skin when he couldn't even see it till it was too late to stop the car and then accusing him of creating the line he caused.
'Is it there even anything worth living for?' Hiccup thought to himself as he sat dejectedly in the chair, his left leg giving slight protest due to being a prosthetic from the shin down from a car accident his sophomore year of High School. The same accident that killed his mother. Idlely rubbing when his stump was, he realized that for once the phantom pains felt slightly nice instead of the regular pain. Feeling the pocket knife in his right pocket, Hiccup set off on a line of thinking he had only had once before.
'Would anybody miss me if I died?' He thought, grateful for the absence of vehicles entering campus. 'The Twins and Snotlout wouldn't care, I'm just some random roommate that got placed with them last minute. Fishlegs might, but we were never that close. Dad might if he bothered to check in with me. Gobber would be sad, but he could move on. Astrid...' Hiccup didn't even finish the thought, knowing Astrid would be beyond devastated if anything happened to her Dragon-Boy.
"So that's two people out of the seven that might be affected if I end up dead. Pretty bad odds." He said, pulling the knife out of his pocket and opening it. The knife was certainly sharp enough to cut skin and draw blood, Hiccup having maintained and kept it sharp just as his Gobber had taught him. Thinking about the paper towel and tape that were kept stocked in the booth, he wouldn't have a problem making a makeshift bandage till he got home and could make a proper one. One voice in his head started going on about what would happen to his body should he cut, another went on about how much the phantom pain had felt so good and made the problems fade away, while a third voice was arguing against cutting.
Before he made a decision, however, he noticed a car pull into campus so he put his knife away and prepared to deal with them. Seeing a permit on the windshield he waved the car through only to have it stop next to him and roll down the heavily tinted window, which allowed him to see who it was.
"Evening Milady, what brings you to campus?" Hiccup asked.
"Well I thought I would come to see my Dragon-Boy at work, I know how hard the end of the late night shifts can be on you," Astrid said reaching out of the car to pull Hiccup into a hug. "And I figured you could use a pick me up." She said, pulling away from the hug and grabbing a cup out of a drink holder. "Here you go Hiccup, a Peppermint Hot Chocolate, specially made for you." Hiccups suspicions of if Astrid had the made the drink disappeared when he saw the logo for a well-known coffee house on the side of the cup.
"Thanks, Astrid," Hiccup said, both emotional and physically warmed by the gesture from his crush and current best friend.
"Wouldn't want you to freeze out here now, would we? Odin knows your thin enough to make it quick." She joked.
"Oh come on, you couldn't resist all this raw vikingness," Came the response from Hiccup, as he gestures to himself.
"Did you just gesture to all of you?"
"Why yes, yes I did." The pair held their composure for on a few moments before bursting out into laughter. As they came down from their laughter high another car pulled up behind Astrid.
"Well I better get going, don't want to hold up the line. I'll see you tomorrow babe." She said, shifting into drive.
"Milady." Came Hiccups response as she pulled away and onto campus. Hiccup waved the next car through and went back into the booth with his drink, taking a sip out of it as he sat back down in front of his sketch pad. The warm liquid sliding down his throat and started to warm the rest of him. Looking down at his sketch pad, and the multiple drawings that it contained. Everything from his designs for his engineering classes to drawings of dragons and people, especial Astrid.
'There might be some pretty horrible things in the world, but despite all that, there is enough good that is worth living for' he thought, putting his knife in his backpack before turning to his sketch pad and writing a small heading at the top of a page with a sketch of Astrid.
Is it worth living for?
Absolutely
Yes I know, this isn't a chapter for FTDATT or Moving On. But I couldn't not write this, it was so heavy on my mind. So I tend to do a lot of my writing at work, in fact, I wrote this over the course of a week, and during a particularly shitty day at work, I just started writing this one-shot. Everything that has happened to Hiccup during the hour or so that this takes place has happened to me, often multiple times per shift. Except for the racist thing, that's only happened twice and being brought food/drink, which has only happened a handful of time. There are a few people who just seem to drag me out of whatever foul mood I'm in, I don't want to say them here but you know who ya are. If you are ever feeling like that, don't hesitate to shoot me a PM, my inbox is always open.
It was the last hour and a half of a shift and this just came forth, surprising even me with how much I had gotten written in a short amount of time. There are some obvious changes, something I had to do so that it fits better with the HTTYD universe but other than that this is just my observations of the bad I see at work and a small portion of the good. Well, I guess I should get back to writing FDTATT before you all start forming angry mobs.
Semper Fi
Thearizona