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Blessed be the days Hiccup was in charge of dinner, because it was a universal and mutually accepted truth that Hiccup was simply the one who everyone looked forward to eating from.
The rest of the boys were downright terrible- awful enough to warrant a ban from any kitchen had they not been expected to pull their own weight. Fishlegs wasn't horrible (he could cook a mean dish of potatoes), and Snotlout knew he could get away with getting Hookfang to light a few pieces of salted fish and call it a night.
Astrid, for all of her good qualities, didn't have enough grace or patience to be allowed in a kitchen, and vocalized very frequently that she shouldn't be expected to do all the cooking while others just sit on their ass. Ruff and Tuff were actually second place to Hiccup, as they weren't all that bad when they would learn to lighten up on the salt. Apparently, in Ruff's case, her mother used to subject her to kitchen work as a punishment.
It was customary, though, for young women on Berk, even shield maidens, to learn every domestic task in the book before the inevitable day they were to be wed off.
This ragtag group of teens certainly made for some...interesting dishes, but it worked out okay, because as long as it was edible, well, it was dinner.
But Hiccup. Oh, bless his soul. Hiccup was a Godssend.
Everyone looked forward to the day Hiccup was set to cook (every Thors'day and Lagurdagur, if the pattern stayed true), as his dishes were absolutely lovely. Tuff claimed that it was meant to be, considering "Haddock" was his last name. The whole Edge tended to smell of some strange blend of herbs and spices, and the Riders would be waiting with watering mouths for dinner to be finished.
It didn't stop at just one or two dishes; Hiccup had an impressive amount of recipes memorized- who knew there were so many ways to prepare a salmon?- all of which tasted very good in their own respective way. No matter what was being served, it was always expected to taste good.
Hiccup could be quite territorial when he was preparing food. He refused to allow anyone in the kitchen when he was cooking. Not even poor Toothless was, no matter how much whining he did. Everyone was simply teased with the smells and had to suffer with guessing what it was until he was ready to bring it out.
What was his secret? He said it might just be experience. Unlike the others, who hadn't had the real need to cook prior to moving to the Edge, Hiccup had been cooking for quite some time.
It came as a bit of a surprise, at first- it was unexpected that the former village outcast had such a delightful palate- but, as the Riders came to this conclusion one-at-a-time, it started to make perfect sense.
Hiccup, not only without a mother, but also considerably weaker than other kids his age, was frequently housebound. They didn't know the full details of it, but apparently, Hiccup had actually stayed inside the house a lot.
Chief's orders, of course.
They had seen it in action when they went back to Berk to visit for a few days, and a tad bit tipsy Stoick had come to join the Riders at a table in the Mead Hall while Hiccup was helping the cooking staff out.
During the old days, without anyone else around to work on household chores, and Stoick being busy running a village, young Hiccup had eagerly taken it upon himself to tackle the household chores.
Stoick told them of many stories, how Hiccup tried to transport a bucket of cleaning water heavier than he was and wound up drenched, or how many of their bowls had become splintered after they kept slipping from his hands, but considering that he was so young when he tried to approach the job, he had given him the credit of tenacity in the face of attempting to accomplish tasks more difficult than a mere six year old could handle.
Stoick said he didn't approve of it at first, wary about letting his already, um, "individualistic" son start taking on roles not typically appropriate for the male sex, but he couldn't deny that Hiccup excelled at what he did.
It's why he caved eventually, knowing that the younger Haddock was going to do it whether or not he had obtained his permission.
He had plenty of time to get good at what he did, too. With being confined mostly to his home, and cooking being one of the few things Stoick allowed him to do, it was no surprise that Hiccup got good fast. Granted, it was a rough start, at first, as Hiccup being notoriously clumsy didn't just go away the second he stepped foot near the fire pit, though once he had found his rhythm in the kitchen, he forbade Stoick from ever coming to cook again.
The simple recipes he passed onto his son soon became complex dishes that even some of the resident housewives had no idea how he managed to throw together.
Then he couldn't decide whether he was greatly impressed or disturbed that Hiccup seemed suited for these deeds surprisingly well. It was pleasant, yes, to have dishes whose taste resembled his late wife's cooking (he had once let that slip to Hiccup and the lad was beaming all week), but he said he couldn't help but wish that he could take pride in some more Viking-like qualities his son could have been good at.
Then his voice lowered, perhaps tinted with the solemn laces of shame, that there had once been a rumor that surfaced that he had been ashamed at how well his son fit the submissive role a tab bit too well, a rumor that came laced with the unspoken implication of further embarrassment for their tribe's leader. There was a certain look on Stoick's face that suggested the rumor to be true, although he expressed that he would have preferred for Hiccup to never hear it.
(They were pretty certain he had, though, as they once recalled him hanging his head in shame after walking past a gossiping group of wives.)
Hiccup, on the other hand, just didn't care. Over the years, he had accumulated his own repertoire of household chores and tasks to do, anything in the name of making himself useful. Whether it be learning to stitch clothing or handle laundry, he had found some way to learn it, even if he had to teach himself.
Perhaps it was his natural desire for knowledge that drove him, as his overactive brain hungered for anything that could be of use, though he was well aware of the fact that, really, he just wanted to do anything and everything to do away with his reputation of being known as "useless."
It mildly terrified and excited Hiccup at the same time, knowing that he would be the only male youth on Berk who knew how to do these things. Besides, he expressed that (while casting a short loving look at Astrid) he knew he would feel bad if he were to never lift a finger to help with anything around the house.
Maybe it was more typical for women to do these tasks, but wasn't it useful for everybody? Who cared if it was for women?
It was one of the many things Hiccup had been relentlessly teased about, as his already small size and girlish figure led to a lot of boys his age- and sometimes, even the adults- saying that he was much like a woman, and that he would be much better at aiding the women working in the Mead Hall for dinner.
Which he had actually done. Several times. He was twelve, and it only lasted for two months, but he thought he did a pretty nice job, if he said so himself. Though the women on staff appreciated his help, after much hesitance, plenty of others expressed their distaste with him working near foodstuffs. Plenty of complaints came in either housing extremely petty grievances, or just straight up lies in order to get him away from the food (which Hiccup thought was ridiculous. The food tasted as well as it usually did).
The days when Hiccup cooked, he was usually coming directly from his forge, meaning that there was always the faintest charcoal smell that clung to his hair when he would first walk into the Clubhouse, quickly overpowered by many herbs.
One evening, he fell a bit behind schedule and rushed over without changing, still wearing his leather protection apron while he washed the soot off his hands and tried to see what he could prepare with the ingredients on hand.
And when the Riders trickled into the Clubhouse, each taking a seat as they waited for dinner, they were each stricken with the same thought as they caught sight of their auburn friend:
Whoa. He could be somebody's mom.
Something about the apron just made it click. There was a wave of nostalgia that passed over them when they saw it, and, in a rare agreement between all parties, they surprised Hiccup when he came back to the table by asking him if he would wear the apron more when cooking.
He apparently made it himself. Among other things, Hiccup also happened to be amazing at sewing. That was first attributed to the leatherwork he had done in the forge, and it made sense that he'd know basic stitching with all the inventing he does, but Hiccup blew them out of the water by knowing how to sew sew. Like standard, regular, traditional sewing.
He said he first learned how to do it when he was briefly the "apprentice" of the tribe's needlepoint woman, an elderly Mrs. Hansen, before he had been assigned to the forge.
Unlike most of the elders- or even adults, for that matter- she believed that in order to be a good leader, a chief must learn how to be proficient in everything, even if he did not need it. Coupled with Hiccup's desire to find something he was good in, he spent many hours joining the grouchy seamstress who taught him some basic sewing skills after seeing him miserably fumble with a hole in his leggings.
Since then, he had, supposedly, been her assistant again sometime after starting work at the forge. It was when Stoick was trying out new methods of keeping his stubborn son away from danger (they vaguely remembered that time, where they had noticed that Hiccup seemed to disappear from the forge, and they could go days without seeing him anywhere). It didn't last for for long, though, as many complaints about the forge not putting out weapons as quickly as it used to led to Hiccup being placed back in again.
Hiccup, unlike the cooking, at first seemed very embarrassed at the other's finding out he could sew. In fact, his face shone a brighter red than his father's hair, and considering that they caught him in the middle of singing his heart out while doing it, he very much looked like he wanted to sink and melt into the floorboards.
It was rare for male Vikings to sew, and even rarer for others to find out that they could. Then again, Hiccup was never really one to conform to what's normal, so the additional little factoid came as no surprise to anyone.
After being outed to the Riders, Hiccup began designing stuff freely, seemingly comfortable enough in front of his friends to no longer feel the need to hide it. He would ask the others for input, use them as reference for designs, even make some things for them occasionally as a thank you for being by his side.
Instead of holding out on a passing trading ship having something he needed, Hiccup instead gathered whatever scraps of fabric and material laid around and made it himself- apparently there was a new flight suit in the works?- and although they didn't say it frequently, the things he made were pretty damn good. If the forge or chiefdom thing ever went south, then Hiccup had a decent fallback of becoming a seamster.
He had made it a point to teach all of them basic needlework- a lesson that came with mixed results, mostly lots of frustrations and sore thumbs- but none could do it with quite the same care and sophistication as Hiccup could.
Quite frankly, he was the only one good at any repairs.
Hole in socks? Go to Hiccup. Ripped bottoms? Hiccup. Minor alterations needed on your favorite tunic? He's your guy.
From what they had observed, Hiccup was also quite organized. Not to a compulsive degree, mind you, but he did pitch a very small fit if things were not tidied the right way. One of the few ways to incur Hiccup's wrath was to leave a communal space an absolute mess (and, even scarier, he always somehow knew exactly who did it).
It never ceased to amaze them that Hiccup could balance so many things, and still do them all all extremely well. Here they had been so wrapped up in becoming excellent Viking warriors that they had failed to accumulate basic life skills that would help them out in the long run.
Sure, he divided the work up between everyone to make it equal, but if things were to go wrong, or if something were left unfinished, it would undeniably be Hiccup who would square things away.
Hiccup was their leader and all, no matter who denied it, but was it really fair for them to let him run around and handle everything himself? When would they finally intervene?
Maybe they were taking advantage of him. It was something they had considered before. Not just the cooking. The cleaning, the sewing, the comfort. Hiccup had always looked out for them, always the one they could turn to in time of need, and they knew he had the tendency to take on many burdens, even to the detriment of caring for himself. They promised that they would support him just like he did in turn, but who could honestly say they had offered anything?
Their company? Their loyalty? Their compliance, if that? Where did the blurred lines start and end, the ones that defined where they weren't just relying on a friend, but ultimately playing into that poorly-hidden fear of his that would do just about anything to still feel useful, to feel needed?
And when would Hiccup finally realize that, too?
Until then, they continued to turn to their lanky friend, but with a newfound appreciation for him than before. Hiccup was only this way because he was barely allowed outside. He was only so inventive because he needed to find new ways to contribute something. Was only a master at so many of these skills because he was looking for any and every way for someone to look at him in approval, for a change.
That all explained the savory dishes, the pleasant smelling laundry, the extra strong stitching in their best clothes, the offered shoulder to cry on when it all became too much. Hiccup did that because, yes, he was a genuine guy, kindhearted with the interests of others always in mind, but he was only like that because he needed to find something that made him feel useful.
And considering that he still did all this for them after they treated him like that, well, they really needed to find some way to make it up to Hiccup.