This one is the one I felt should start off this collection: it's honestly pretty different from most of the others, but I feel like it just... belongs here. I don't know. Whatever. Enjoy it. (if you want to).
Gray
18.
Summary: Hiccup loves the gray days- they're his favorite.
It was the gray days that were Hiccup's favorite.
The days that were dark, and it wasn't quite raining, but after just a few minutes outside, you'd find yourself completely soaked. The days when everyone was miserable and didn't want to do anything. The cold days, full of wind and rain.
Those were Hiccup's favorite days.
He'd wake up, and practically feel the moisture on his blankets from the spitting rain, feel the pressure of the atmosphere in his ears and in his head until it felt like he'd burst. He'd yank off the freezing cold blankets and all but throw himself against Toothless' warmth. Not even Toothless wanted to get up and face the cold wet misery outside, so they'd sleep all morning, happy for a morning off.
After all, Gobber wouldn't be getting out of bed on a morning like this, so there was no point in a hurried morning flight before heading to the forge.
Finally, once they were too warm and restless to stay curled up any longer, they'd go downstairs and eat, and then Hiccup would snap the tailfin and saddle on. Hiccup would think of the gray sky and the rain and the cold he'd have to face on the way up, and he'd grab a fleece coat and wrap it around himself. Toothless would laugh, because Hiccup looked like an awkward and lanky sheep, and Hiccup would just grin.
Because the gray days were his favorite.
Hiccup and Toothless would look at each other, fling the door open, and escape into the sky as quickly as possible. Toothless would blow some fire while his head was still dry, just to see the color smoking against the ash sky. Hiccup would wrap the fleece against himself tighter, while Toothless grumbled about the cold.
And then they flew.
They didn't zip over the island and then trace wingtips and fingertips against the frigid sea. They didn't brush the top of the forest, narrowly missing trees, or freefall until the last minute off of a cliff or the top of the highest mountain peak. No.
This time, they just went up.
It was cold. And it was wet.
Hiccup's hands would be numb and he'd be shivering even though the fleece within minutes. But they kept going up.
Up, until they were part of the gray sky that stretched on forever, that covered everything, that made them feel like they were suffocating.
And then they were free.
Toothless and Hiccup would break through the clouds, out into the bright afternoon sky, leaving behind a sea of gray below. The air would be so thin Hiccup couldn't breathe but it didn't matter, nothing mattered except that they had escaped to a world that no one else could reach. It was just him and Toothless, free.
Up here, in the sky, they were one.
Up here, no one could tell where the boy ended and the dragon began.
Up here, there was no Hiccup; no Toothless.
They were Hiccup and Toothless.
Together.
Toothless' wings were Hiccup's wings, Hiccup's thoughts were Toothless' thoughts, Toothless' joy was Hiccup's joy, Hiccup's love was Toothless' love.
Two halves of the same heart.
Two halves of the same soul.
And they were so alive!
Hiccup would open his arms to the sun while Toothless stretched his wings out to reach it, shaking pearls of water from his scales. The sun was theirs alone today, the sky was theirs alone- the world was theirs alone.
Just for today, nothing existed, nothing mattered, nothing nothing nothing.
Nothing but the blue above, the gray below, the sun ahead.
There was nothing between them and forever.
Free.
Breathlessly free, until their lungs burned and their wings ached and their voice had given out with the freedom.
These days were Hiccup's favorites.
These were the gray days.