This was part of a shipping AU prompt challenge on Tumblr. I really enjoyed writing this one. :D

Criticism is appreciated!

Online Angel

Breathe... Just breathe...

Hiccup needed to keep reminding himself of that.

Just breathe and it will go away eventually.

It was a lie, but still he felt like this was the best solution he could think of. His pain medication was downstairs in a kitchen cabinet and he did not have the energy to get up and go get it.

There was also no way Toothless could grab it for him, though he certainly would not have minded to do him this small favour. The hallways and doors just weren't fit for a growing Night Fury such as himself.

Hel, his father could sometimes barely fit, which didn't say much as Stoick was a mountain of a man.

Then there was also Sharpshot, a small Terrible Terror his father had adopted for him for the very reason that Hiccup would not be alone when confined to his room. But the cat-sized dragon had been let out a little while ago to stretch his wings and was not expected to return in at least half an hour.

"Oh, come on." He whimpered as he rolled over, some part of him glad that no one would get to see him like this. Haddocks had always been proud people. Even all the way back to the days of the old Vikings of Berk, of which they were the descendants.

He could hear Toothless send him a long comforting warble through the open window, something that eased him at least a little.

It was the Night Fury's way of telling his young Rider that he was not alone. It was all he could do when unable to be by his side. That blasted house wasn't big enough for him to move around in without knocking things over left and right.

It frustrated the dragon to no end and Hiccup could hear it.

For a moment he allowed himself to smile at his dragon's affections. His stump of a left leg still burned, but at least he could still appreciate Toothless. He felt just a little bit less alone.

But the glee he felt was small compared to when he heard his phone buzz on his nightstand.

His heart fluttered at the sound, skipping an entire beat as a dozen butterflies settled in the pit of his stomach.

Biting through his pain, Hiccup moved to lay on his side to face the buzzing phone so that he may pick it up, quickly unlocking it with a few swift moves of his opposable digit.

He noticed an unread message and the butterflies grew wilder.

"Good morning! Just got out of bed, still waking up. You?"

Another beat was skipped as Hiccup read his newest text from Astrid, a girl he had befriended some months ago not long after the loss of his leg. They had met online and still she made him feel this excited to be talking to her.

"Been up for hours. Time difference and all." Was his reply, which his mystery text pall could notice wasn't as cheerful of a greeting as she was used to receive from him.

"Leg bothering you?" She knew. Of course she knew.

Hiccup had met Astrid online one day while he had only just been discharged from the hospital. Stuck inside with barely any way to hang out with Toothless and already no real human friends to speak of, the boy had scoured the internet. He browsed and searched until he came across one 'HoffWithAnAxe1' on a site mostly dedicated to memes, the perfect place for a bored mind.

They had bonded over disliking a meme that had sprung forth from this supposed real Berkian tale of how a man and a woman were about to be wed. The woman fought hard to gain her lover's attention, but his love was reserved only for ores and metals.

Historians often speculated this was a cautionary tale parents would tell their children before bed to warn them about being greedy, but then somebody just said "what if the dude was just really into scrap metal lol?" and thus the scrap metal meme was born.

Hiccup had never liked it. Some unknown part of him almost felt offended. He had never dared to speak his mind until he came across Astrid, who thought the meme as tasteless as he did.

For what reason neither of them really knew. Everyone besides them thought it was hilarious. Even his cousin from his mother's side, Snotlout.

Astrid wasn't even sure why she had an account on that site in the first place. It was far from the places she was usually on.

After an extensive discussion about the scrap metal meme, the two kept stumbling onto each other again and again until the two had eventually decided that they should just share personal contant information and be done with it.

Astrid was the one who send the first text and they have been talking to each other ever since.

"Yeah, it's my leg again. Couldn't go to school today. Dad told me to stay home and rest. As if I can get out of bed." Though his stump still burned and ached, Hiccup felt a little bit of energy return to him with each text he and Astrid shared.

He had told Astrid about his situation fairly quickly when one night he was in need of someone to vent to when getting used to his prosthetic wasn't going as smoothly as he would've liked.

Though it must've been a big shock to her, she had accepted it instantly, had not asked any questions he may not have wanted to answer and instead provided him with a patient listening ear.

Hiccup was certain that night was the first time he felt some kind of spark ignite something warm in his chest and it has been steadily growing ever since, nursed and raised by their daily contact.

"Oh right! How are Toothless and Sharpshot?" Astrid asked, knowing about the boy's dragons from all the times he could not stop gushing about them and all the photos he had send her way through the months. She had quickly been made aware of how much of a dragon nut he was.

Likewise, he had quickly come to discover just how fierce of a personality she has and that it was the Hofferson tradition to give their children an axe at some point in their lives.

It sounded like such a Hooligan thing to do and it was soon after that Astrid had come clean and told her internet pall that she was from Berk too. It was just that her mother's work took them all over the world ever since she was little.

Hiccup could not believe his luck. The first girl he ever had such a good connection with turned out to be from his hometown too.

No longer quite as busy with the pain from a leg that we no longer there, Hiccup immediately responded.

"Does it matter? Toothless' head is to big to fit through the door and Sharpshot ditched me." His answer no longer spoke of his exhaustion. Instead his dramatic flare shone through for her entertainment.

Usually Astrid would then respond with some sign of her amusement, but instead she had their conversation take an entirely different turn. And Hiccup wouldn't have it any other way.

"Hiccup...?"

"Yeah? You okay?"

"Mom said we're moving back to Berk soon."

Butterflies and skipped heartbeats could not compare to the absolute happiness he felt upon reading that last text.

Hiccup shot upright in bed as he read it over and over again.

It had seemed impossible at first, but his pain had been forgotten. Instead all he knew in that moment was the excitement of knowing that the girl he had met online months ago when he was at his lowest, the same one who had quickly become his crush as they conversed, was finally coming to Berk. They would finally meet each other face to face.

"Hiccup... I can't wait to meet you."