Yo I'm back with a new update :3 I was originally just going to do my headcannon in here but the way I wrote it combined it with the scenario of Hiccup's daily struggles.

So, lets get into to story, shall we? ENJOY MY CRAPPY HEADCANNON

It had been a week. A hectic week, too. Hiccup was positive that it was longer than it actually had been.

He had been bed ridden for the first three days. Not that he really wanted to; both Stoick and Toothless had threatened to tie him to the bed if he so much as tried to get out of it.

His dragon had stayed with him for those days. He kept him occupied with small talk and jokes, some of which referenced dragon culture. Hiccup wanted to dwell into it more, but Toothless had refused. "Saving that for a rainy day." He had said, "When you're better and actually want to learn instead of just distract yourself."

They didn't touch the subject after that.

By the second day, Hiccup was already bored, and had considered sneaking out of the house early in the morning, when Stoick was out and Toothless was still asleep. As soon as he had swung his leg-and-a-half over the bedside though, he found his legs were still too weak to support him anyway. So, that left him complaining, hoping that the two other members of the house (or even the other teens, when they came to visit) would let him get up and about.

And by complaining, he didn't mean the usual snarky comebacks and eye rolls, no. It was obvious that it was unsettling to watch. Hiccup had found out the hard way that, if he wanted to speak at all, he could only whisper. Well, scratch that. He couldn't even talk the first day. His voice was raw from the screaming. Screaming that he….didn't even know he had done. The only reason he knew now is because his too-sensitive hearing could pick up the conversations from downstairs.

Even if he wanted to talk at full volume, Hiccup found that it sent a stabbing pain through his skull from the noise level.

All in all, it sucked.

On the fourth day, when his dad finally let him wander around the house, he found more problems at hand.

First, his balance was off. The new weight on his back was offsetting. Hiccup found himself tilting backwards if he stood in one place for a while. Second, he couldn't exactly move too fast. He found that anything above a walking speed would send a shockwave of pain up and down his spine.

And his tail.

Although he didn't really want to think about that.

So, add that together with the first problem, and you can basically put the pieces together. He would quickly jerk to remain balanced when he felt himself falling, and hence the tidal wave of pain. Admittedly, it wasn't as bad as they were on Outcast island, but they reminded him so much of it.

The next thing he found out was that everything was disorienting and tiring. He had gotten his wish to get out of bed, but he might as well have stayed in it. Seriously. He found himself constantly dropping things; his whole body was shaky, and he was in a constant state of drowsiness, falling asleep at random times and waking up an hour or so later, feeling extreme hatred for allowing his body to succumb to the cat-naps. But no matter how hard he tried to stay focused on something, he couldn't get rid of the drowsiness.

Gods, it was so frustrating to feel like you got less than an hour of sleep the night before every single day. Well, that was kind of accurate too. The nightmares were terrible. Hiccup remembered vividly the first night after they had gotten home. He woken up in a cold sweat with the feeling of everything burning. It was the same nightmare that he had had for months after the Red Death, but this time the falling and burning alive was accompanied with the smell of blood and the ripping of skin.

Can you really blame him for screaming? Well, it wasn't really a scream…now that he thought about it…

Still hurt like Hel though.

The last, and two most annoying things Hiccup found were the bane of his existence.

First, and the worst by far, was the fact that everyone was, for a lack of better words, babying him. He knew that he was in a terrible state, heck, everyone who was on that island were probably in a bad state, but the constant checking up on him and telling him he's going to be ok in /that/ voice was just plain frustrating.

Especially since he couldn't find an argument against it. The fact that he found it comforting and calming was just as terrible.

Yes, he wanted to be independent, Thor, did he wish he could just get up and go to the Academy and be perfectly fine. But, try as he might, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Damn it. He was the son of Chief Stoick the Vast, the first ever Viking to ride a dragon, and had even been through bodily mutation before for Odin's sake! (Right?) Why couldn't he be stronger.

His mind was jumbled and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get that darkness to go away.

And then lastly, was the fact that he got cold way more easily than he used to. Now, it wasn't as bad as the previous problem, but because it was so damn persistent, he couldn't do anything about it. And because of that, it was definitely the most annoying thing. He would be perfectly fine one moment and then not sooner than a minute later, he would be shivering out of his skin. Whenever this happened Toothless insisted on hugging him until he got warmed up. Hiccup thought it was weird at first but, it seemed to be the only thing that worked, so he grew to accept it.

It would happen multiple times a day, completely randomly. Toothless told him it was normal, that it was the body's natural reaction to this sort of thing, but he didn't tell him why it was normal.

Speaking of…

Hiccup shivered as the coldness suddenly set in. He had been drawing, you know, just to get his mind off of things, when it hit. He scooted closer to the fire, not wanting to stop, but not wanting to continue to feel like he was slowly turning into Berk during winter, either. It was late in the evening, and Toothless was out; his dad was writing a trade agreement to another chief at the table. He could hear the scribble of his pencil way louder than he should be able to.

He clenched his jaw, to prevent the chattering of his teeth, and resumed his drawing.

….only to have the pencil slip out of his tired hand and roll onto the floor.

Hiccup stared at the pencil for a moment, the statement "are you shitting me" clear on his tired features, before shivering again, and closing his journal. He set it to the side, and hunched over, stubbornly refusing to get up and get a blanket of any sort.

Stoick at some point, glanced up and realized what he assumed to be a position of sulking coming from his son, (he had been doing that a lot lately, hoping it would guilt trip the chief into letting him outside) was actually a vain attempt to keep warm.

He set down his pencil and stood up, grabbing a blanket off a nearby stool, and draped it over his son's shoulders, careful to avoid the wings that still hung limply behind him. Hiccup mumbled a thanks, and Stoick resumed his position at the table, starting the letter back up from where he left off.

The blanket didn't seem to help Hiccup though. In fact, it seemed as the minutes rolled by, his shivering only got worse and worse. Stoick had seen Toothless warm his son up by simply hugging him, but the winter blanket he had just draped over him seemed to be doing nothing.

The logic in this situation meant that there was obviously something he was missing. He would have to ask the Night Fury once he got back.

Not sooner than five minutes later, the raven-haired teen entered the door, took a deep breath, and immediately made his way over to Hiccup, enveloping him in his arms. Stoick watched, paying real attention to the action for the first time, and noticed that maybe it was Toothless that was keeping his son warm.

At first, Hiccup did nothing but continue to shiver in his dragon's arms, but then the shaking got less violent, and soon ceased to exist all together. The chief watched in amazement as Hiccup relaxed, and leaned back into Toothless, falling asleep as if he hadn't been freezing a moment before.

Toothless audibly sighed, and rested his chin on Hiccup's shoulder, eyes lazily watching the fire as it flickered lazily in the dark room.

"How do you do that?" Stoick finally asked, wanting to know the practical magic that had taken place in front of him.

Toothless blinked, surprised, before looking between Hiccup and Stoick, as if confused by the question. "What, you mean warm him up?" He asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

Stoick nodded, giving a look that obviously meant 'duh'.

Toothless tilted his head, brow furrowing. "I thought Vikings did this too? Isn't that why mothers carry their infants around for a year or two?"

"Toothless, what are you talking about?"

The same look on the Night Fury's face was mixed with a one of revelation, like one someone would use when they learned they had been mispronouncing a certain word their whole life. "So you don't….huh."

"So we don't what, Toothless?" Stoick asked, getting slightly annoyed by this point.

Toothless smiled, glancing at Hiccup a moment before turning back to Stoick. "Hatchlings can't regulate their body temperature, Sir." He said.

Stoick blinked a few times, before setting his pencil down and shifting in his seat, setting his forearms on the table and quirking his eyebrow in a disbelieving glare at the dragon. "They don't….what….Hiccup isn't a hatchling, Toothless."

Toothless snorted and rolled his eyes, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, duh, not mentally, physically, yes."

Stoick gave a look that told Toothless he needed more information. Hiccup may be as light as a toddler, but he didn't have the body of one.

"I mean, his dragon features, Stoick."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well….c'mere, I'll show you."

Stoick sighed, and stood up, walking over to his son and his dragon. Toothless leaned back, and pulled back the blanket that was still on Hiccup's shoulders, allowing one of his wings to be visible. The Night Fury the stretched out one of his own wings, and brought it next to Hiccup's.

"There's a difference." Toothless explained in the vaguest explanation Stoick had ever heard. At seeing the man's face, the teen rolled his eyes. "Look."

Stoick stared at the boy, wondering if he was serious, before peering at the two wings. He was surprised when he actually found a difference between them. Hiccup's wing, while Toothless' held shiny, pitch black scales that looked like they could resist the blade of a sword, actually wasn't as black as they had all originally thought; it was more of a really, really dark grey. The scales looked soft, and they didn't have the shine that Toothless' had. They looked more like….fingernails, instead of the gem-like structure of Toothless' scales.

"He has the scales of a hatchling." Toothless explained, "And the smell, too, but that's beside the point. Hiccup's wings are soft, weak." The dragon explained; Stoick reached out and rubbed one of the scales, finding in fact that they did feel soft, not like fur or anything, but they definitely weren't the same texture as any adult dragon's scales that he had felt before. Hiccup shifted and mumbled a bit at Stoick's touch.

Stoick thought back to all of the hatchlings on Berk. He had only gotten into contact with a couple, but now that he thought about it, they did have a different feeling to them, and they never strayed far from their parents, no matter how rambunctious they were.

"That means that, his scales aren't fire proof. Which also means that they let heat through them almost as much as human skin." Toothless explained, "Dragon scales aren't just for protection from outside heat, they help keep the fire within us inside as well. The scales of a hatchling just let the fire within them out like an open flame, which weakens our fire. Almost like when we reach our shot limit, except there's no way to stop the flame from escaping in this case."

"So…."

"So the parents have to keep their hatchlings warm by transitioning their heat to them."

"And that's why you…"

"Yeah."

"And he could essentially freeze to death if he doesn't…"

"….yeah."

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed."

The two glanced at Hiccup, who was snoring slightly, head resting on Toothless' shoulder, unaware of the conversation happening around him.

"Have you told him about that yet?"

Toothless sighed, bringing the blanket back up around his rider. "Nah, not yet, he's still really frustrated about everything. I can smell it. Just adding another thing to his list would just….make him see more helpless."

Stoick nodded in understanding. "He claims he doesn't want to be stuck in here anymore, and I know that that's true, too, but what he wants isn't always what he needs. He's in a worse condition than he's letting on, not just to us but to himself, too."

Toothless pressed his lips together, replacing his head on Hiccup's shoulder. "Yeah. He's more stubborn than a mule charging at a bull that's chained to a wall."

Stoick snorted, before turning back to the table, sitting down and picking his pencil back up. "You should be heading to bed, it's late."

The Night Fury grumbled a bit, something about him being a creature of the night, but stood up anyway, swinging Hiccup into his arms, and made his way up the stairs.

"G'night, Stoick." He called after a moment, startling the chief for a second. The man shook his head, smiling after the boy. It was weird. A year ago he wouldn't even have thought that dragons could be good, yet alone that he could have conversations with them.

"G'night, Toothless."

Yay, a new chapter in under two weeks, I feel productive XD I just want to reiterate the fact that yall can make requests on what you want me to write about. In a nutshell, the only rules are: no smut, be patient, and keeping the shipping to a minimal.

And noooww some feedbacks/answers:

TheNightFury: I absolutely looooovvvveee the review and that you love the story, but sadly, I have no intent on making this a Hiccstrid story, or any ship story for that matter. I wanted to focus solely on family/friend bonding. And although I DO ship Toothcup, I understand your reservations towards it; you don't have to worry about that in here XD

Nightfurylov3r: The growling thing sounds SOOOOO awesome, I'll definitely put it in later chapters :3

And lastly, Purified Sins: Thanks sooo much on the input, DON'T WORRY THERE WILL BE A LOT OF CUDDLES TO COME! XD I did have reservations on using the word amputee for Gobber, but I just couldn't think of any other words to use for him XD Thanks so much for your alternatives they shall be used :3

THANK YOU ALL SOO MUCH FOR READING THIS, IT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME!

Until next time. My lovelies :3

~icephantom