#warnings: serial killer pathology? prison? judges profiting off of the system?

[tysonrunningfox]

Ripped: Part 24

Guys. This is...this. 

Ao3

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The ride to the station in the back of Grisly’s unmarked car is a blur that smells like the heavy stink of Hiccup’s anxiety, blood, and the new car scented air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. Grisly hums continuously, a tune that elevator designers would find too festive, and Hiccup can’t decide whether he’s better off thinking or not thinking, not that he seems to have a choice aside from staring wide eyed at the back of the passenger seat, arm throbbing from being wrenched behind his back.

He stumbles when Grisly half shoves him in front of a wall striped in foot wide increments, nearly smacking his forehead on a crisp number 6 before regaining his balance. Grisly produces a plastic board displaying a six-digit booking number and Hiccup’s name in block letters, the roman numeral ‘III’ included at the end like this is some kind of cosmic déjà vu, before handing it over and stepping behind the ancient mugshot camera.

Hiccup’s dad was arguing about funds to get that camera replaced when he died, and his presence haunts the room like a poltergeist too disappointed to step in as Hiccup’s savior.

“Say Guilty,” Grisly teases, canines sharp and somehow bright even though he’s standing outside the circle of garish light from the halogen lamp dangling above Hiccup’s head. “My boy, at least try not to look so stunned, I will be bringing Astrid a keepsake when I see her next. Not that she’ll be keeping anything for long.”

Astrid.

Her name snaps him out of his daze and his heart thuds back to life, slamming so hard in his chest he’s worried about it making him throw up what he kept in at her apartment. Grisly’s going to go after her, he has to stop him. There has to be a way to stop him, and Hiccup drops his booking number, reflexively struggling against the handcuffs.

“Now, Hiccup, this still has to look good in the system,” Grisly shoves the board back in his hands and he elbows the wall hard enough that it sparks up his arm, like the time he got caught trying to twist out of his dad’s stolen handcuffs and had to talk fast. “Some of that stubbornness you’re so famous for.   Show me how brittle that strong chin is.”

Grisly taps his own chin and Hiccup grinds his teeth, standing up straight and holding the board at a coquettish angle in front of his chest.

“Be sure to get my good side.” Hiccup is in the system. He’s stuck here as long as it takes to process him, and as long as he’s not in a cell, as long as he can see Grisly, Grisly can’t get at Astrid. She is safe as long as Grisly is with him.

Ask a few hundred Trip Advisor reviews averaging a solid four point two, he can fill dead space and captivate an audience.

“Right profile then,” Grisly indicates that he turn and he sighs, anything to keep sound coming out because if it stops, the paralysis might set back in.

“Wait,” he says as the camera flashes, heartbeat too fast and off kilter, like a hummingbird in a slowly tipping cage, “All Right, in the creepy comic sans note that you obviously wrote—”

“I thought it sounded like you,” Grisly steps into the light, only serving to wash the last ghost of color out of his cheeks, “blathering on like you do, saying nothing of substance.”

“Comic sans?” Hiccup snorts, breathing deep and leaning into his longest, best known role.

His dad used to say that he talked like his life depended on it, but Hiccup never anticipated the real test would be other people’s lives. People he loves.

“It’s easier to read.”

“Choosing Comic sans might be the worst thing you’ve done.” He watches Grisly’s narrow nostrils flare, the first crack in his manic veneer, and the little lively Snotlout in the back of Hiccup’s mind brags that antagonizing Grisly was the right thing to do all along.

It got real Snotlout shot, of course, but for Grisly to take the same tactic now he’d have to get Hiccup away from the cameras, which he can’t easily do mid-arrest.

Grisly starts patting Hiccup down by the desk in the intake room, thin, dry lips quirking when he touches the dried blood at the neck of Hiccup’s shirt and Hiccup turns his gag into a laugh.

“Are you dyslexic? I thought that was a myth.”

Grisly pats his front pocket before shoving his hand deep enough inside that parts of Hiccup retreat as far as they’re able.

“Do you want to hear that I was bullied? That I was small and slow in school and that made me cruel? Does it make your situation easier to deal with if you pity me?” His grin spreads slowly across his face, the only part of him that seems alive, and his fingers curl in Hiccup’s pocket.

“What happened at Astrid’s apartment might be your thing,” Hiccup makes eye contact with the outdated, image only security camera in the corner and takes a deep breath before glaring down at Grisly, “but it’s not mine.”

“I’m doing this because I want to. Because it’s fun to make you and your friends and the police run around like scared chickens in their coop while the fox locks himself in with them.” He stands up, pulling a ring of keys out of Hiccup’s pocket with a self-satisfied chuckle. The keyring reads ‘Benson’ and Hiccup’s blood runs cold. “And as much as you frustrated me, all of it makes catching you so much better.”

“Well Mr. Benson definitely has enough money to sue me for identity theft,” Hiccup clears his throat, “so that’s not…great.”

“This is…brilliant,” Grisly’s breath smells like death. Not rot. Not the cloying, tired scent of road kill in the sun. The moment of death itself, when the electric impulses that used to be human evaporate into the air in a cloud of static and pain. Like he breathes that in and lets it seep slowly through him, preserving him in its singular, inevitable eternity. “That idiot woman is still looking for these, I can’t wait to tell her I found them in evidence.”

“Ruffnut got a fax from the condos,” Hiccup whispers to himself, and Grisly’s eyes sharpen, grin deflecting to grimace.

“I thought you were smarter than this.” Grisly steps away, rooting through a locker for a jumpsuit and shoving it at Hiccup, who drops it. “Your clothes are evidence. You can change behind the curtain.” He points at a small corner of the room separated from the rest by a shower curtain and Hiccup holds his hands up to be uncuffed.

Hiccup takes his time changing, pausing with his shirt off to scrub as much of the dried blood from his neck and jaw as he can, trying not to inhale. He waits for Grisly to make a run for it, to go after Astrid and Snotlout and leave him in the hands of another officer, but he just paces the room, his footfalls padded like a predator on the cusp of making prey aware of their presence.

The floors creak though, cheap rubber-backed rug squeaking against peeling linoleum, the decay of the room protecting Hiccup like history always seems to.

The jumpsuit and the underwear issued along with it are too big, threatening to fall down as he adjusts the orange cuff around his metallic left ankle. Grisly must see what he’s doing because he comments, voice smooth enough to highlight how rough it was before the pause.

“Usually I’d take something that could so easily be used as a bludgeon,” he sneers when Hiccup pulls the curtain back, “but in your hands…”

“If I’m so scrawny, why me?” Hiccup doesn’t pick up his own clothes, instead waiting as patiently as he can feign for Grisly to re-cuff him, far too tight this time, and add the pile of fabric to his evidence bag.

“It doesn’t take bodily strength to wield a knife,” Grisly points at his temple, “only strength of mind.”

“So that’s why you chose to frame me?”

“What does it matter? It’s done.” He checks his watch, which is impossibly immaculate given what the shiny band spent the morning reflecting. “Or almost done. It will be soon.”

“Then what’s the harm in telling me why you chose me?”

“I never had children—”

“Thank God,” Hiccup rolls his eyes and Grisly tries to ignore him, jaw twitching. He’s not a man used to being antagonized and the cracks are spreading.

Snotlout is smart, Astrid is brilliant, if Grisly is loud. If he’s off kilter, maybe they’ll react quickly enough. Maybe it’s about knocking him off his game while he’s still flying high from his morning indiscretions.

“Clingy, slimy little vermin—”

“Right, kids are slimy, not blood or—”

“But I was under the assumption that at some point they stop with the incessant questions.” Grisly’s voice trembles as his volume expands and Hiccup shrugs, forcing the motion flippant.

“I didn’t.” He exhales, “what came first, the Admiral Hiccup Haddock collection or you choosing me as your prime suspect?” He can’t help but be curious and given everything else going on, he hates himself for it. Or at least he tries to, maybe some hate manages to wedge itself in his brain next to everything else.

“Like I said Mr. Haddock,” Grisly doesn’t like repeating himself but seems compelled to tie off loose ends, “I’m in the business of making money, you and your tour are not.”

“But Heather…” Hiccup can’t help but laugh, a real shocked laugh that makes him worry that part of his brain is floating away with the controls and his confident ruse, “are you saying you framed me for murder because Heather is more marketable than me?”

Grisly doesn’t like being laughed at and his expression darkens, like he’s burning through his morning’s effervescence faster than he’s used to, and Hiccup wonders how long the camera will really protect him.

Not that it matters. Snotlout matters. Astrid matters. It’d kill him if he didn’t get to tell her how he feels, but in the context of this situation, that’s kind of a moot point, isn’t it?

“When I told you not to pity me, I meant it,” Grisly growls, rough as his grip on Hiccup’s arm. A purposeful, strangling grip that’s too practiced to make an empty threat. A grip that promises. “I crawled from under the weight of everything that made me pitiable. Born in a country that had no use for me? I made myself indispensable. I took the chances others would not, I made the choices that coddled, weak people could not, and I took control. I didn’t beg in the streets like a dog, I caught the dog, ignored its squeal and made the streets better.” He hisses, a fine mist spraying across Hiccup’s face as Grisly leans in, practically primed to bite, “I take control.”

“Dead people don’t really have a say though, so is it really control?” Hiccup’s voice doesn’t shake even as his knees do.

“Yes,” Grisly checks his phone with the hand not cutting off circulation to the part of Hiccup’s arm not already deadened by cuffs, the bright screen illuminating his face at an angle that questions the humanity of his features. The sharp jaw, the thin lips, the hollows of his cheeks still shadowed like every kill he makes drags him halfway down after the victim, “the judge is ready to see me about your bail.”

“So I wait in a holding cell,” Hiccup’s throat tightens at the thought of letting Grisly out of his sight. At different blonde hair in his hand, blood soaking a different floor.

“No,” the superficial cracks on Grisly’s veneer spread outward along his geometric edges and for the first time, Hiccup sees something like hesitance mirrored in his usually blank eyes, “he wants to see you too.”

“What’s to stop me from telling him all of this?” Things aren’t going according to Grisly’s plan, for maybe the first time since Hiccup stumbled across a body he wasn’t supposed to yet, and he dives in this time with his eyes wide open. “Maybe it doesn’t need to get to trial—”

“Go ahead,” Grisly’s smirk is cruel now instead of indifferent, like the lock is broken off of the predator’s cage and he doesn’t care that the zookeeper has a gun, “if you want to assume I’m the only one capable of cleaning up the rest of this mess.”

He’s not working alone. There must be NWF members willing to step in and Hiccup thinks of Snotlout, vulnerable in a hospital bed. Astrid, vulnerable in his apartment, finally soft after fighting it for so long. After twenty-five long years, Hiccup finally has motivation to be quiet.

He must nod and something in his numbed expression must look like understanding because Grisly practically drags him out of the door and down the hall to a small office sometimes used for legal rituals when the county courthouse is full. No one has to tell Hiccup to sit on the small plastic chair inside. He isn’t surprised when the door locks behind them.

He is, however, surprised to see the judge.

“Honorable Judge Treacherous,” Grisly tilts the title into something pedantic as he takes the floor, pacing back and forth with steps as even as the heartbeat Hiccup saw him stop couldn’t have been. “I understand you wanted to see the suspect in person to set bail, an unorthodox decision for a man in your…lofty position—“

“Captain Stoick Haddock was an old friend of mine,” Judge Treacherous leans his elbows on the desk and looks at Hiccup over his glasses, down his repeatedly broken nose. Hiccup knows his dad can take posthumous credit for at least two of those breaks and he swallows hard, fidgeting in the too tight cuffs on his wrists.

The jumpsuit makes him feel guilty, but not as guilty as his bloody clothes would have.

“Friend?” Hiccup asks, over-used voice croaking around the question until he clears his throat. “I didn’t quite get that impression.”

Judge Treacherous laughs, “I didn’t get the impression dear Stoick was raising a serial killer.”

“Me either,” Hiccup blurts, fingers numb with instant regret.

“Is that a confession?” Grisly’s eyes sparkle, somehow reflecting blood no longer in front of him.

“This isn’t a trial, Mister…Gruesome, was it?” Judge Treacherous curls his lip and Grisly stands up straighter, rigid like a scarecrow itching for dawn. “When will the officer…Ah, here, Detective Eretson,” Treacherous skims through a stack of papers in front of him, “when will I be meeting this Detective Eretson?”

“Well, as I’m sure you can see from the entire case history I’ve presented to you, Eretson has proven ineffective—“

“Sorry I’m late,” Eretson’s accent cuts through the creak of the poorly hung door as he walks inside, smoothing his suit jacket and standing shoulder to shoulder with Grisly, “train ran slow.”

Hiccup never though Eretson’s presence could be comforting, but the way he glares at Grisly seeks to change that. Grisly’s suddenly tense shoulders back the notion up as he turns around, blood leaching from his face like it leached into Astrid’s carpet.

Astrid.

Panic grips his heart like a steel vice and he repeats the mantra of his morning to himself. Hiccup is in the system, he’s not going anywhere, and as long as he can see Grisly, Grisly can’t get at Astrid. She’s safe as long as Grisly is with him.

Eretson must see his panic, because he catches Hiccup’s eye and nods, his expression as unreadable as always and maybe Hiccup is lying to himself but there’s something comforting there. Something solid. And while Hiccup knows that the detective’s solidity isn’t necessarily rooted in his favor, it’s clearly planted against Grisly and that has to be good enough for now.

“Good old Berk public transportation,” Judge Treacherous attempts small talk, skimming through the file in front of him, “I thought you’d called me here for an offense you caught Mr. Haddock committing this morning.”

“Yes—”

“Where is that information in the case file?” Treacherous slides the manila folder towards Grisly, who bristles.

“I haven’t had a chance to include it,” his voice is mellow even as the hands folded behind his back twitch. “but the rest of the file is—”

“Very thorough,” Eretson cuts in, “it’s been my case for months—”

“And yet I’m the one lucky enough to stumble on the answer,” Grisly grins too bright, his façade slipping another inch under Eretson’s even stare.

“Stumble, right,” Eretson raises an eyebrow, “lucky.”

“Mr. Ghastly, I have to say I’m a bit confused to be summoned so early in the morning to set bail for a case I’ve been seeing discussed on the news for months.” Treacherous folds his hands, “if you honestly believe Stoick’s boy is the Grimborn Copycat killer, I couldn’t in good conscience let him back on the streets.”

If Grisly was pale before, he’s chalky now, complexion abandoning its noble cause to cling to the last dregs of life as his expression freezes into place like a wax effigy stretched over limestone.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if there’s even a chance that Mr. Haddock is connected to everything in this file, I’ll be making the decision to hold him without bail until a trial can shed proper light on the situation.”

“If there’s a chance—shed light—” Grisly sputters, “more than enough light has been shed, I saw him with my own two eyes, holding a girl up and slitting her throat—”

“I’ll need details for the report,” Eretson cuts in, voice level, and if Hiccup weren’t sworn to silence, he might laugh. Or cry. Or hug Eretson’s leg like the child Grisly accused him of being and hide.

“And I have those details,” Grisly struggles for his composure, a predator walking on wet tile for the first time, a janitorial bureaucracy rendering millions of years of evolution useless, “but to issue a remand without bail—to put this boy’s disrespect of the law on our taxpayers—”

“Taxpayers who pay taxes for the legal system to keep them safe from alleged serial murderers,” Treacherous would bang a gavel if he had one, but he doesn’t so he thumps a meaty hand on the desk. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“You haven’t even read the file! And you call yourself a judge,” Grisly’s voice cracks like his composure did as he flicks through the file, dropping half the pages on the floor, “the assailant worked backwards through the Grimborn murders, I caught him in the act of the first this morning. It stands to reason that he’s done with his spree—”

“You’re assuming someone reasonable doing the reasoning,” Treacherous looks to Eretson and then to Hiccup, his tone almost apologetic as he digs in his heels. “Letting a proposed serial murderer out on bail would be the end of my career.”

“House arrest then,” Grisly tries, “he lives with a cop, it’s perfect, there’s no sense in using the city’s resources to hold him at an overpriced jail.”

“Overpriced?” Treacherous snorts, “I picked out the bathroom tile myself, it was very reasonable.”

“Also, your Honor, the officer that lives with Mr. Haddock is currently suspended and on medical leave,” Eretson adds and Treacherous laughs before signing a piece of paper, presumably with his official recommendation.

“Held without bail until the trial,” he sets his pen down, “if the boy has already killed four people, I don’t trust an injured, suspended cop to keep him contained if he decides to work backwards through Bundy.”

“Look at the file!” Grisly shouts, the predator’s paw caught in a trap as he fought to remove a thorn, “it’s immaculate, from his research to the timing of the murders. Everything points to him! Every last drop of blood—”

“Mr. Garish, that is enough!” Treacherous stands up, towering even over Eretson, Hiccup’s dad’s ghost finally stepping into a pair of familiar if un-ideal shoes.

“It’s Grisly, your Onerous.”

The silence rings like high pitched static, the fire alarm between beeps.

Eretson clears his throat, “On second thought, maybe this case is better suited to Mr. Grisly’s particular talents.”

Hiccup’s stomach falls out from under him, and he looks around for confirmation that his ears aren’t making up worst case scenarios, like his actual situation isn’t bad enough. Eretson is patient in professional silence but Grisly’s face is contorting in confusion and rage as Judge Treacherous raises a doubtful eyebrow.

Grisly talks first, voice small, “You do?”

“Seeing how this is going, your Honor, I agree with Mr. Grisly, I might have been over my head with the unique complexities of the case.” Eretson gives Hiccup the barest ghost of a nod as he defers to Grisly with a subtle duck of the chin that’s anything but reverent.

“Well, finally someone is seeing sense,” Grisly attempts to regain his quiet, stealthy tone but instead his voice wavers, something uncouth bleeding into the edges.

“You can see my commanding officer about the transfer paperwork,” Eretson points vaguely down the hallway then turns back to Treacherous, “Captain Anderson, I know you two have worked together in the past.”

“I don’t know if I’d say ‘together’ quite so loud, Detective,” Treacherous chuckles, “that was off the books.”

“Apologies.”

“And if that is your decision, Eretson, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the courtroom.” Treacherous looks between him and Grisly, reacquainting himself with the changing situation.

“I think it’s what’s best moving forward.” Eretson nods, looking every shade as competent and a hundred times more mysterious than Hiccup has ever seen him.

“Once the transfer paperwork is complete and the file is updated,” Treacherous slides what’s left in the folder pointedly at Grisly, who trips over his own feet to bend and pick up the mess on the floor, looking more like the Ms. Moore, the condo manager, than Hiccup ever could have imagined, “then we can move forward discussing any warrants your investigation might need. Anything else?”

“No.” Grisly clutches the disorganized file to his chest like someone just used it to bludgeon him and he’s still recovering from the shock.

As soon as the door closes behind him, Eretson clears his throat again, approaching the desk with a natural sort of ease, “I was wondering if Grisly selected a public defender.”

“No, he did not, as he completely violated protocol.” Judge Treacherous laughs again and Eretson’s smile is slow and reserved, but unmistakable.

“I’d like to offer to represent Mr. Haddock moving forward.” Eretson presents the solution like it’s not impossible and Hiccup and Treacherous trade confused glances. “Is that a problem?”

Treacherous starts slowly, “Are you…”

“I’ve passed the bar, yes, I’ll have my paperwork faxed over.”

“Obviously,” Treacherous nods to himself.

“I’ll be taking the back interrogation room to speak to my client then, I’ll address having him moved to the county jail when we’re through.”

Grisly wants to kill Astrid and Snotlout, Grisly is on the case now. Grisly framed Hiccup. Eretson turned over the case to him, even though Eretson has never shown anything like trust in the man. Eretson has gone from savior to traitor to…lawyer in the most confusing five minute span of Hiccup’s life, and that’s saying a lot for someone who is currently being framed for a slew of violent murders.

Eretson sits down across the table in the interrogation room and starts babbling in legal-ese, the words going into Hiccup’s ears like the strumming of an out of tune base guitar until he opens his mouth, unsure what’s going to fall out until it does.

“You’re a lawyer?”

Eretson pauses, eyebrow raised, ghost of a grin haunting the corner of his mouth, “That’s what you’re asking? You should be asking my rate.”

“What’s your rate?” Hiccup parrots back at him and Eretson folds his hands on the table.

“You help me bring Grisly down,” he starts, deadly in a way that makes Hiccup want to hide behind him again. “And whatever you can get Jorgenson to throw in. Now, let’s start with what actually happened this morning.”

“Ok, ok…let me think,” he tries to pull back the veil of blood separating then from now and blushes when he succeeds, “so I was with Astrid—”

“I know,” Eretson surprises him by blushing himself, the pink in his cheeks exactly at odds with the rest of his appearance, “after that. Let’s start when you left the apartment.”

“Oh. Right.” He rubs the back of his neck, “wait, you know? How do you know?”

“I was—in the interest of full disclosure regarding the case,” Eretson clears his throat, tone more formal as his face reddens, “at your residence along with Jorgenson this morning—”

“Snotlout?” Hiccup frowns, “is he ok? Is Astrid ok? I have to—Grisly’s going to go after them—”

“They’re somewhere safe,” Eretson nods, all business again, “now back to the beginning, tell me what happened when you left the apartment.”

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The county jail stands on the corner where Big Top 24/7 Video used to, in direct sight of the back of the police station. Hiccup can see his dad’s office’s window from the tiny, barred window of his cell and he remembers being nine years old visiting his dad at work and wondering why his dad couldn’t make time to take him to the circus.

After the rumors that the pollution in Berk’s shipping lanes was deforming whales were scientifically corroborated in the mid-nineteen-seventies, trucking took over. Of course, trucking companies were worried about carjacking in the largely impoverished downtown Berk, so a beltway smeared a swath of unpopulated buildings into a slick semi-circle of asphalt. And with all freeways come truck stops and motels with flickering Vacancy signs, and Big Top 24/7 sprung up between them like a necessarily evil lovechild woefully holding the family together.

Big Top 24/7 Video opened off of the first exit within the city limits, a round brick building with a conical fiberglass roof, painted in garish red and yellow stripes that allowed a circus motif to almost veil a secret. The advertisement of private rooms and VHS sales likely did nothing to fool passing motorists looking for a reason to take their eyes off the road for even a second, but it fooled Hiccup.

When he was a teenager looking for something—anything—worth fighting with his dad over, he used to wonder how his dad was ok with circus animals being caged and made to perform for people’s entertainment right in the station’s backyard, especially given his dad wouldn’t even let him get a dog on the grounds that he was ‘irresponsible’. Hiccup threatened to do something about it once when he was about thirteen, but his dad assured him if he even so much as tried to run in that direction, he could spend the afternoon in the holding cell.

Again, Hiccup thought that was pretty rich coming from a guy who met his wife at an illegal protest to protect Berk’s last resident population of hibernating black bears.

Big Top 24/7 Video was torn down about seven years ago for the new jail to go in, and Hiccup wasn’t talking to his dad enough to gauge any sort of reaction. He imagines now that it was something like relief, if only because it was one less thing to answer his son’s ever instigating questions about, but he never got a chance to ask.

His dad died before Hiccup put together the truth that the untouchable circus of his youth was actually a dingy but surprisingly long-lived scheme to bring truckers together in the homosexually word-playing name of VHS porn and other so-called erotic novelties.

But from where he stands now? Well, he’d prefer cheap, fuzzy handcuffs to the ones that bruised his wrists as Grisly dragged him in front of a judge who invoked his father’s name like a bar he’d never meet. He’d love a ground floor ‘private’ suite with a VHS player as old as he is in the corner that he could rent by the hour over the cell he’s stuck in now, especially because a glory hole might provide a means of escape more viable than the bars on the window.

Plus, he knows for a fact he looks better in largely ill-fitting themed-garb than he does in oversized, itchy orange.

By early afternoon, even he can’t conjure enough detail about the dreary view to distract himself any longer.

What if Eretson is wrong? What if Grisly isn’t spending the day tied up with paperwork and in fact, he’s already caught up to Astrid?

Grisly would gloat, Hiccup knows that. He knows it in more blood-spattered detail than he cares to remember, but the only thing worse than remembering it is foreshadowing a repeat performance, this time with the ghost of the blood of someone he loves thrown in his face.

He’s never planned a murder, obviously, so he doesn’t really have a handle on how long it might take.   He assumes it might take longer given that Grisly is surely going to try and make it look like an accident, since framing Hiccup while he’s literally incarcerated is sure to be a bit harder than framing him while he’s walking around alleys talking about murder.

But no matter how many times he tries to convince himself it could take days or weeks or even months for Grisly to clean up his mess, he flinches every time he hears footsteps in the hallway.

The stairwell door at the end of his floor creaks open and he wonders if Grisly will go for Astrid first, using the address he sent Dave’s foot to and cornering her. Another cell door swings open, scraping across the linoleum floor, and he wonders if maybe Snotlout is an easier or mouthier target to go after first.

A key turns in the exterior door to his solitary cell and he freezes, plastic slipper squeaking against his plastic foot and tearing the silence like wet paper.

No matter who it is, he’ll be stuck, for the first time in his life, with wishing he had said more even sooner and more often.

The door opens and he braces himself for Grisly’s maniacal grin, almost stumbling from the strength of his refusal to show shock when he sees Heather instead, pale and wide eyed, hair disheveled under a crooked police uniform hat.

“Thank fuck I guessed the right room,” she shuts the door quickly behind her and leans back against it, breathing hard. She’s wearing a police uniform jacket too, one that’s simultaneously way too big for her and way too short in a disarmingly familiar combination of borrowed hoodie and crop top.

“Heather.” Hiccup says dumbly, forgetting how to ask questions when he’s so busy trying to force the answers.

“I knew you were on this floor and I had to guess it’d be a smaller cell since Grisly said you were by yourself, but—“

“What are you doing here?” His second attempt at a question goes better, not that Heather gives any impression that she heard him.

“But I guessed right, so now it’s just…keys, I guess, which one of these is for the cell gate thingy.” She starts rifling through a ring of a few dozen keys, trying a couple of them in the barred gate between them but having no luck.

“I didn’t realize you’d officially joined the force.”

“Unless the cell key is on the other ring in the office that I can’t get into—“

“Was the official police tailor unavailable when they assigned you a uniform?” Hiccup laughs at his own half joke, shoulders so stiff they feel brittle, like he’ll shatter if she keeps looking through him like he’s not here.

“It’s Snotlout’s spare,” she pauses, swallowing hard and shoving one stretched cuff back up her arm from where it was covering her hand. He doesn’t need to ask if she heard about Snotlout getting shot, the sympathy almost verging on apology in her expression is enough.

“Ah, could have guessed that,” he nods, “I swim in his crop tops too. Or shirts, I mean shirts.” The joke falls so flat he almost thinks Heather is going to cry, but he’s glad she swallows it back, since it would probably make him cry too and he’s not going to give Grisly that satisfaction.

“I’m not here to chat, I’m here to get you out of this cell.” She goes back to sifting through her key ring and Hiccup frowns, nearly collapsing onto the hard, metal bench against the wall of his cell. “Just give me a second—“

“You can’t break me out of jail.”

“I have Snotlout’s badge too,” she flashes him the shiny shield in her pocket, “that’s how I got in here.”

“Yeah, I’m in jail for murder, remember? You might have heard the judge said ‘no bail due to serial killings’?” He presses the heels of his hands against closed eyelids, “you can’t just let me out.”

“But you didn’t do it,” she says with such conviction that he wants to ask if she knows who did and he resents the distance she put between them more than ever.

No, they’re both to blame for the distance. He had what he thought were better reasons at the time, but they both said things they shouldn’t have and now they’re on either side of a barred cell wall.

“I got arrested for it.”

“Yeah, but that’s—I know you didn’t do it—”

“It doesn’t matter what you know!” He shouts, louder than he knows he should, suddenly full of resentment for even the implication that she could help him. It’s easier to know that no help is coming than it is to shove off insufficient help in the name of the ill-fitting position of ‘voice of reason’. “You can’t exhume Johann for a confession and you can’t just let me out of jail.”

“Johann?” She snorts, but she gives up on the keyring too and Hiccup’s heart falls even though it’s what he was hoping for, “you think this has anything to do with Johann?”

“Doesn’t everything?”

“I…” She deflates the rest of the way, hugging Snotlout’s jacket tighter around herself and leaning back against the wall, yanking at her braid in frustration, “Admiral Hiccup Haddock.”

“You know my military career wasn’t quite that successful,” he rests the back of his head against the cold brick and stares at the ceiling, “and since when do you call me by my full name?”

“Grisly played me for Admiral Hiccup Haddock,” she continues, slumping down to sit cross-legged on the floor, keys forgotten in her lap. Maybe she just needed to talk.  

As much as he’d like to, he can’t find it in himself to blame her.

“I know the feeling.”

“Do you?” Heather snorts, “he had me go on the news and talk about how absurd the whole theory is, I—any credibility I had—“

“Right, Grimborn credibility,” Hiccup cuts her off, gesturing at his jumpsuit, “I guess I’ve got that in spades now, you know, since Grisly framed me for a series of modern copycat murders.”

“I guess you get it then.” She has the sense to look at least a little sheepish and Hiccup sighs, rubbing his face.

“I’m sure that misogyny makes it worse.”

“Absolutely,” she nods, “I’d look way less stupid decrying the now practically proven Admiral Haddock theory on the news if I were a man.”

“Right, men get to make mistakes like that without it ruining their reputation.” He sighs, “I have to ask, ok? Just…when you say you know I didn’t do it, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” she winces like she always has when she lies, looking up through her eyelashes, “you put spiders outside—“

“You’ve worked closer with Grisly than anyone.”

“And I’m sorry for that, if I knew—”

“That he’d play you?” Hiccup hangs his head, running a hand through his hair and trying not to think about the crust near his face. “He only chose you because you’re more marketable than me, he practically admitted it. It could be you in here.”

“The name doesn’t help your case,” Heather twirls the keys around her finger, “there has to be some way to fix this, I—you have to have an alibi, or something.”

“An alibi,” he shakes his head, “not this time, I—I can’t bring Astrid into this. Not again, especially not now.”

“She’s been involved the whole time! Hell, she was just a suspect—”

“I just can’t.”

“What’s so different about now?” Heather looks like his friend when she’s worried and there are a million logical ways to answer that question. He could start with Grisly and end there, but instead the day catches up to him and his resolve breaks, his last important secret falling out of his mouth.

“Because I love her.”

“Oh.” Heather bites her lip, uncharacteristically quiet as she fidgets, scraping some gum off of the sole of her boot with a fingernail.

“Oh?” He prods.

“Does she—I mean does she know?” She continues before he can answer, slouching a little further against the wall, “as in does she know there’s a possibility of it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Does she know that she’s your alibi for last night in particular?” Heather gestures at nothing, verging on frustrated and Hiccup frowns at her.

“Considering she was in my apartment with me all night and we slept together, I’m pretty sure she’s aware that we were together. Why do you ask?”

“Ok, ok, no need to be so defensive,” Heather holds her hands up.

“No need? Not like you just inferred I was stalking Astrid—”

“You hang out in a lot of creepy alleys near her apartment,” she laughs, “I had to check.”

“Your confidence in me—or lack-there-of is…” He trails off, “I missed it. I—friends? Please? I don’t need any other enemies.”

“Yeah,” she nods, “no one will believe me if I publish Johann now anyway…” Something in his expression wards her off of the topic like even she’s hesitant to rock a newly patched boat. “If we’re friends again, does that mean I get to give you relationship advice?”

“No—”

“Shouldn’t it be up to Astrid if she wants to be involved or not?”

“I just…Not this time, it’s too much to risk, I can’t…of course she’d want to be involved and—”

“Well then, what the hell else am I supposed to do? You won’t let me break you out, you won’t let me find your alibi, I’ve been working for the guy that got you into this mess and defamed me and there’s nothing I can do to redeem myself?”

He likes that she phrases it in terms of redeeming herself, not helping him. It makes it distant, comfortable, and gives him analytical breathing room he hasn’t had all day.

What could Heather do?

What hole exists in Grisly’s perfect plan that Heather could bore into? Hell, how’d he get so much right about Grimborn going off of Heather’s sensationalized tour information and an Admiral Hiccup Haddock book?

“That’s it!” Hiccup sits up straight, lowering his voice at Heather’s alarmed expression. “He had to fuck up somewhere. Not on the framing for murder, obviously, he’s good at that, but at the Grimborn. If he’s saying I did it to mimic Grimborn and you find somewhere in my Grimborn research that I disagree with what the modern case says—”

“Then it points to someone with a different Grimborn theory than you,” she stands up, tucking the stolen keys carefully in Snotlout’s jacket pocket. “It’s something, I can do that.”

“It might be enough, I think Grisly’s starting to crack under the pressure.” Hiccup lets himself hope for a second, not so long that he can’t shut it down before the long, lonely night ahead, but enough to make the dull light through the window seem livable. “Get in touch with Eretson, he seems to know where Astrid and Snotlout are, they can help.”

“Right, like I’d ask Snotlout for help with research this important.”

“No, I mean Astrid, she’s…she’s brilliant, ok?”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Heather scoffs, voice soft as she reaches for the handle to the room’s outer door, fingers lingering on the knob for a second, “take care of yourself, don’t drop the soap or—”

“Don’t remind me, I already had Grisly in my front pocket today, just…go. Don’t get caught stealing Snotlout’s keys.”

“Right,” Heather nods, somehow leaving the room a little more hopeful, if lonelier, than she found it.