Thank you for your wonderful reviews and for all the alerts and favorites, I really appreciate it. A sweet review always makes my day.

Before we get on with the show here, I would like to thank Loti-miko who pointed out my grave mistake of saying that Toothless had blue eyes when in fact, they are very much green. My humble apologies, and thank you again.

Also, to clear something up, our boys are just around 16.

All the mistakes are my own and please feel free to point them out to me.


You could say that our friend Hiccup was acclimated to pain, almost on friendly terms, in fact. After hitting the mat about ten times in the last five minutes, one should know that they've moved from a first-name basis to the "Your Dead to Me" stage. His face, his arms, his legs, his back, all of him really, ached horribly. A bell rang and the pressure behind his neck, forcing him to practically kiss the floor, was gone immediately. It was so sudden that Hiccup gasped and rolled over, coughing. His hand flew to his head and he groaned.

"Thank you for not hurting me anymore." he croaked. "I appreciate it."

"Yeah, whatever." Astrid said as she adjusted the tape on her wrists.

Hiccup pulled himself into a pitiful standing position and limped his way over to the side of the make-shift ring set up in the middle of the gym. He climbed under the rope and stumbled on his way down the small step.

He righted himself quickly and shook his head to dispel the leftover dizziness from the "fight". Note the quotation marks, boys and girls, for it wasn't much of a fight at all. It was more like "Let's all watch Hiccup get the crap beat out of him by a girl." And in Hiccup's defense, Astrid was a very strong girl. Well, actually, compared to Hiccup, most girls were pretty strong.

The shower room seemed oddly welcoming when Hiccup entered. He switched on the hot water in one of the few curtained shower stalls and stood under the stream for a good five minutes before he worked on washing off the grime of the day. He shut off the water and dried off with a towel that he brought in his duffel because he'd had enough experience with the school towels in the shower room to know that they weren't trustworthy.

He dressed in a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a hoodie before stepping out of the building to wait at the bus stop. When the bus came, Hiccup found himself slightly anxious, but not completely sure why. He searched through the crowd for somewhere to sit yet again, when he realized the source of his anxiety. The black-haired boy was not here. He wasn't at lunch either and Hiccup felt disappointed.

He shook the feeling off. Why should he feel disappointed? He'd only met the boy twice. And the time periods weren't exactly enough to have some heart-to-hearts and a cuppa. But he couldn't deny the small feeling in his chest that was screaming at him to get to know this boy. And Hiccup knew he should listen.

Hiccup returned to the spot beneath the tree again the next day. When he first arrived, the black-haired boy was not there. Hiccup's heart fell but he sat beneath the tree nonetheless. After half of the lunch period was over, he was just about to pack up and leave for it seemed to be a lost cause, when he saw the boy approaching the tree.

He paused and looked at Hiccup for a calculating second before he sat down. He looked quite worse for wear. His jacket was torn on the right shoulder, his hair disheveled, and a large bruise covered his left eye.

Hiccup jumped up, "Oh my god, are you okay?"

The boy looked up, "I'm fine."

"You don't exactly look fine to me."

"It's none of your concern."

"But what if I want it to be my concern?" Hiccup realized his voice had raised and he shut his mouth. "Sorry."

The boy nodded and looked away, almost ashamed to be seen in this state.

"If you don't mind me asking, does this." Hiccup gestured to the boys appearance, "happen often?"

He didn't receive an answer so he dropped the subject.

"I'm Hiccup." he said suddenly, holding out his hand.

The boy looked at his hand before shaking it slightly, "Toothless."

"Wow, what a weird name."

"Coming from the boy named Hiccup."

"Point taken."

There was silence for a while as neither of them did anything and just sat there.

"You weren't at lunch yesterday." Hiccup said hesitantly.

"Sick."

"Are you feeling better?"

"I guess."

"Oh... I saved you a brownie yesterday, you seemed to like them." Hiccup reached into his lunch sack and extracted a brownie. "Don't worry, this one's fresh."

Toothless' eye brightened and he took the treat, munching happily. Hiccup smiled and had his, content.

"These brownies are like crack, who makes them?" Toothless asked when he swallowed the last bite, licking his thumb to collect the crumbs.

"Oh, my god-father, Gobber. He's the coach and gym teacher here."

"You're god-father works where you go to school? Isn't that awkward."

"Eh, not really. Gobber's cool. Most of the time."

"Hmm."

They lapsed into a slightly tense silence. Toothless examined his torn sleeve, picking at the loose fibers. He shifted his fringe to cover the bruise to the best of his abilities. Hiccup frowned and observed silently.

The bell rang, pulling the two from their bubble so that they could gather their belongings.

"Well, I guess I'll see you later then, eh?" Hiccup smiled awkwardly.

"Yeah, see you later." there was a slight upturn of Toothless' lips and the boys departed.

It was a tentative friendship. They didn't know much about each other and it was too soon to delve into personal territory. So they skirted around the edges, avoiding certain topics and engaging in what they hoped to be (but wasn't) inconspicuous topic changes. If they broke the barrier this soon into it (for it had only been two weeks), it was likely to cause a fracture which could take down the tent, so to speak. And Hiccup couldn't afford that.

Toothless was an enigma. He dived up and around topics like a Olympic swimmer or a mouse from a cat on catnip. He seemed to avoid his home life the most. And no, don't jump to the conclusion that this was his way of protecting the deep dark secret of some kind of neglect or abuse. Because it wasn't. He never spoke of his parents in the fashion that would make one assume that he was afraid of them in any way, or that he was hurt. It was almost like he avoided the topic because there was something about his parents that he seemed to have deemed embarrassing. Hiccup wanted to know, but he didn't pry for the fear of losing his new friend.

And, at the risk of sounding cliche, Hiccup could say that whatever he had with this young man, Toothless was his only friend. You see, people don't normally talk to or hang out with or whatever you want to call it with Hiccup. He wasn't quite sure why, but the people seemed fairly unpleasant, so he was more than happy to do most of the avoiding himself.

"Hiccup!" a voice called as someone hit him over the head. Hiccup jolted out of his thoughts and looked around, startled and ready to defend himself in what would surely be a spectacular display of awesomeness. Obviously.

"Dude, calm down, it's just me." Hiccup turned around to see Toothless looking adequately amused.

Hiccup stood up straight, "I knew that." he defended.

"Sure you did."

"I was... uh..." Hiccup trailed off, apparently not skilled enough to come up with a proper excuse when needed but was perfectly able to make a fool of himself daily.

"Hey!" he recalled, rubbing his head, "Why did you hit me?"

"I was calling your name for the past minute or so. It's hardly my fault that you can't pay attention to your surroundings. And you call yourself a wrestler. For shame Hiccup, for shame." Toothless sniffed in mock haughtiness.

"Oi, shut up. For your information, I would rather not call myself a wrestler, thank you very much." Hiccup crossed his arms.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I don't like it."

"It's because you suck at it, isn't it?"

"That is ridicu-... maybe just a little."

Toothless stuck out his tongue and Hiccup blew a raspberry, showing the world how wonderfully mature they were.

Hiccup sighed and leaned back on the bench where he and Toothless were waiting for their bus. "It doesn't really matter. I mean, it's not like I ever have to go in the ring."

"Why did you join then?"

"I did it for my dad. He was a champion when he went here and he wants me to be a champion too."

"He didn't ask you?"

"Nope. but that's dad." Hiccup used the topic and flipped it, "Do you do any after-school activities?"

"Nah, I don't really do... school things." Toothless frowned at his awkward wording.

"Do you do anything at home?" Hiccup tried, digging a bit into Toothless' personal life.

"Oh, you know, this and that." Toothless said dismissively. "Oh hey look, the bus."

Hiccup furrowed his eyebrows but got up nonetheless, following Toothless into an empty row near the back. They didn't say much for the rest of the trip.

When the bus pulled up at their stop, they filed out the small door, thanking the bus driver who just grunted in walked together the rest of the way until the fork where they split to go their separate ways.

Hiccup stopped himself in the middle of the road, turned around, and jogged over to Toothless' road. He ran up to the black-haired boy and stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. At this point, many things happened at once.

Hiccup was suddenly aware that he was facing the opposite direction. Rapid jabs were applied to different areas of his body and in the frenzy he was unable to tell how many and where exactly he was hit.*

Then, another thing became painfully aware to Hiccup. He could not move. His breath quickened and a feeling of panic washed over his body. He struggled against invisible bonds but it was like the rest of him had decided to rebel and just shut down. He stopped trying and just breathed. In and out. That's right, Hiccup he thought to himself, just calm down.

"Hiccup?" a very surprised voice exclaimed. "Oh my god. Oh god. Shit, I'm so sorry."

If Hiccup had the ability to turn his head slightly to the side, he would have had the opportunity to witness Toothless promptly flipping his shit.

"I didn't know it was you... And I thought that... oh my goodness." Toothless ran his hands through his hair. He could safely say that he was at a loss. He would have to drag Hiccup to his own house because he didn't know where Hiccup lived and he wasn't going to very well leave his friend in the middle of the street. He sighed.

"I'm going to lift you up now, don't freak." Toothless said slowly. He bent over and reached under Hiccups arms and hoisted him up. He was much lighter than Toothless expected. And thus, Toothless began the long haul of dragging Hiccup to his house at the bottom of the street.

"Dude, do you ever eat?" Toothless asked absently. "Oh, yeah, don't answer that."

"This should definitely wear off soon, you know. I just wasn't sure who that was. It was a reflex, really." Toothless adjusted his grip, "You have really bad reflexes you know. You could've blocked that or something. I mean, you're in wrestling, man."

Hiccup was rolling his eyes and defending himself in his mind. It didn't do much to help the case, but oh well.

"I should probably warn you though," Toothless said, "My family is a bit... eccentric? Strange? I'm not sure what to call it. But you'll see I guess." he heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I tried to avoid this, you know, you meeting my family and all. I think that they certainly have the capability of scaring off potential friends. But it can't be put off any longer, I suppose."

Toothless pulled Hiccup up a driveway, "Here we are." he said. Then he frowned and awkwardly placed Hiccup on the front porch in order to turn and open the door.

He breathed in deeply and unlocked it, "Mom? Dad? I'm home and I brought a friend... kind of."


A/N: Cliff-hanger much? Why yes, yes it is.

*: In movies, it's highly exaggerated when they say that a few pressure points can completely paralyze a person suddenly. But it is possible for you to hit a series of points to paralyze certain parts of the body to make some semblance of a pseudo-paralysis, which is what our friend Toothless did here.

Thank you for reading and don't forget to review!