Little one-shot! :)

Disclaimer: If I owned HTTYD... the second movie would be coming out earlier and Hiccup would have his hands on an awesome sword by now.

Hiccup woke up.

The dark pressed in around him.

Dreams like that were the reason he hated going to sleep. Dragons with bloody teeth and pupiless pale eyes chased themselves in front of his eyes, snapping and roaring, flying with deadly speed.

He was too old to still be having nightmares about monsters, he knew. A few years ago, he had comforted himself with the thought that the dreams would stop when he was older.

He was older now, and yet, the dreams had not come to an end. If anything, they had gotten worse, until the night was a dreaded time, and his hours of sleep were short and fitful.

And there was no one to run to, no one to hug him and tell him that it was alright. No shoulder to cry into.

So he sat, frozen, his eyes open and dry, in the silent blackness. He didn't dare cry. Stoick had heard him crying before.

When your father is seven feet two inches, it isn't pleasant when he is extremely angry at you, and his bellowed lectures aren't fun to listen to.

Hiccup wanted to lean back and fall asleep again, but he couldn't bear the thought that the dragons would come back.

There should be some way to stop this! Some way! If I killed a dragon, then, then the dreams would stop. The blood running over my hands would be enough proof that dragons can't - can't hurt me.

He slowly relaxed back against his pillow, willing his stiff muscles to loosen.

But he couldn't sleep. His hands felt light and his mind was whirring. If I could kill a dragon. If I could kill a dragon, my nightmares would stop. Dad would be happy. Astrid - his eyes snapped open. He had banned that thought from his mind, but now that it had one word of coherence, it began to take shape with a speed that startled Hiccup.

If he could kill a dragon, Astrid might actually look at him - that in itself would be a miracle.

It was too tempting. He couldn't fall back asleep. He couldn't listen to the argument that he had tried a thousand times already.

He slipped out of bed, pulled on his clothes, grabbed a bag that hung on his bedpost, and quietly went downstairs, pausing for a moment to grab a dark candle from a niche set in a wall.

Once downstairs, he prodded the coals in the fire, so that they blazed to life, casting a dim reddish glow on the wood floor around the hearth. He then lit the candle from a small flame that licked over the charred wood in the fireplace.

He set it on the table, and, opening his bag, he proceeded to lay out a parchment and a few crude pencils he had made himself from bark and charcoal.

He drew for hours. Machines he dreamed of building, structures he dreamed of erecting, but most of all, dragons he dreamed of killing. Nadders. Zipplebacks. Gronckles. Monstrous Nightmares - what was that noise?

His pencil left the paper. His father hardly approved of drawing and writing - if he discovered that his son had lost precious sleep to make worthless fantasies appear on paper, he would not be happy. But - his father wasn't home... was he? Perhaps he had come back after Hiccup had fallen asleep.

But no - that wasn't Stoick. It was - he ran to the door.

He opened it, and was blasted with a wave of heat so strong that sweat sprang up on his forehead.

Dragons.