EYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EVERYBODY

Im back with a new chapter :3

This week on Angst: It's Toothless' turn to be emo

VIVA LA ON WITH THE CHAPTER!

Two months had passed. Two long, eventful months that were a mixture between Hel and a stand-up comedian's show run completely on a mixture between mead and coffee.

Toothless was utterly exhausted, and he knew that there was still a long way to go before this blizzard was over with. It was just the beginning of the race to Hiccup's recovery day.

Autumn had set in full on now. The isle of Berk—well the side of it that wasn't covered in pine forest and other coniferous plants—had turned into an array of warm colors despite the ever growing (or should I say dropping) cold weather.

The few farmers on Berk had picked their crops in prepare for winter, bustling them off to their houses or marketers further into the village to prepare food for the upcoming feast and store for winter alike. Some were chewing on pieces of straw as they did so. Why, Toothless had no idea. He guessed it was the texture, as it was pretty fun to chew. They whistled along with the breeze that nipped at their noses and turned them cherry red. It was a good type of cold, just enough to make one shiver, but not out of uncomfort.

Dragons were helping out, too. Both those in full form and hybrid form. Ever since the not-so-pleasant reminder eight weeks ago, dragons were reconnecting with or finding out about their hybrid forms all around Berk. It was weird at first, for both species, but both were starting to adapt just as they did for the weather.

Children of both Vikings and dragons darted in front of Toothless' path, causing him to skid to a stop for a moment as they weaved through his legs, apologizing, before jumping into leaf piles and letting out shrieks of laughter. The then popped their heads out of the little hills like cuter versions of Whispering Deaths, shaking their hair, fur coats, and scales clean of the leaves. There was a crisp smell in the air—one of Toothless' favorites—that was a mixture of the sweet musk of decaying plants and the even fainter one of sweets being cooked (a rarity in Berk), and the sharp cold of the air around him. Toothless took a big inhale of air before trotting into the forest.

Trees and bushes alike created their own flames as their leaves lost their green hue and turned into the colors of a fire. Reds, Oranges, Yellows, the occasional Purple, even. They flickered like flames in the wind and looked like fairies as they were plucked from their parents and gracefully danced to the ground, joining the others in an on-growing red carpet that Toothless was walking on.

Toothless felt like anything but a star, though. (not that he understood the author's metaphor anyway)

No, Hiccup hadn't had a panic attack, nor had he snapped at anyone or even woken up from a nightmare last night. In fact, he was helping Stoick and the others with preparations right now somewhere in the village, hanging lanterns across the streets and directing people on where to go. Hiccup was just being a normal teenager doing preparations for a party with his family and friends.

And especially with all of the dragons in various forms, it actually helped blend him in a bit more. Toothless should be thankful that Hiccup was actually being able to experience a sense of normalcy.

The night fury didn't have any discernable reason to feel the aching melancholy in his chest, but he did. Despite the buzz of the oncoming celebration of the harvest and the cheerful preparations all around, Toothless was just having a bad day.

Okay well maybe that's not 100 percent true.

Yes, he was having a bad day, yes, the village did have an abnormally large amount of cheer in its atmosphere, but no, Toothless didn't not have any clue as to why he was feeling down.

As in, he could target the main area in which the unpleasantness was, but he couldn't quite grasp at the stick in the murk.

"Duck!"

Toothless immediately and instinctively pressed his body to the ground as a red mass flew over him, hitting the ground with enough force to send most of the leaves on the trees around him to the ground.

Toothless sneezed at the knocked up dirt, before his companion sat up off the ground, shaking the leaves off of his head.

"Hookfang, what are you doing?" Toothless asked, annoyed.

The nightmare clambered to his feet—feet and wings that is—and answered after a significant delay. "Well I was going to catch you by surprise, but you ducked out of the way too fast."

Toothless rolled his eyes, reaching a paw up to knock off a twig that had gotten stuck between his ears. "You do realize yelling at someone to duck out of the way of your ambush is not the best way to take you by surprise?"

Hookfang paused for a moment, as if confused. Finally he answered. "Oh! No I wasn't yelling at you to duck I was yelling because there was a duck."

Just like Clockwork, a duck fluttered in and landed in front of the Nightmare, quacking in a way that could have been a laugh.

"...Snotlout asked me to get it. Why? I dunno." Hookfang explained after the silence that followed.

"I'm more surprised that we have them this far up during this time of year." Toothless admitted, maybe or maybe not calling the author out on her sense of logic, "Aren't they supposed to be flying south?"

Hookfang shrugged, transforming into Hybrid Form so he could pick the duck up, which promptly let out a honk of surprise when he did so. "What are you doing out here, anyway?" He asked, preferring to stick to Dragonese.

Toothless shrugged, trying to brush off the negative emotions. "I'm just going on a walk. Clearing my head, y'know?"

Hookfang squinted his eyes, ignoring the quacking of the duck in his arms as he watched the Night Fury walk past him into the deeper part of the woods. As the autumn wind blew by he caught a whiff of sadness in his scent. The red head sighed for a moment, grumbling under his breath as he swiveled his head from side to side, from the village to the forest to the village and then back to the forest again. He finally shrugged, and turned and ran to catch up to his fellow dragon. Snotlout could wait for his duck—whatever it was for.

It took him a bit to catch up to Toothless (he realized that the other dragon could cover a lot more ground in Dragon Form a lot faster than he could in his human form, but Hookfang had already transformed twice that day, having slept in Human Form last night, and was already feeling the magic drainage from his body.) The Nightmare jogged to catch up to the Night Fury, who only twitched his ears as an indication that he knew the other dragon was coming.

"Hey, hold up. Look something's wrong I know it is. You alright, T?" Why he called him T was beyond him. He was probably spending too much time around Tuffnut, who would almost exclusively call Toothless that.

Toothless didn't answer, only gazed up at the trees with squinted eyes, as if looking for something, before continuing on his way.

"Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to get some quiet place to think for a bit."

Hookfang rolled his eyes, shifting the duck to his other arm as he continued to walk behind the Night Fury. "Nah, something's definitely wrong. You're literally the only one on this island who is acting like this today. Well, besides Mildew but, he's like that every day the mother—anyway…" Hookfang censored himself, watching as Toothless stopped at an obstacle in the path: a tree that had fallen down, but managed to hit a steadier, thicker tree on its way to the forest floor, preventing it from actually reaching it. It hung at a position that was too small for a human to crawl under, but too tall for one to climb over it, eithe.

Toothless in his dragon form though, merely hopped over it like it was nothing more than a hurdle. Hookfang rolled his eyes, before jumping and using his wings to propel himself over to the other side. It was different and he hadn't really gotten the hang of it, considering his wings were on his shoulder-blades instead of attached to his arms. It was one of the reasons that Nadders and Nightmares refrained from transforming unless absolutely necessary. Not only was flying different, and quite frankly, annoying in that form, but they also grew an extra set of limbs so they could function properly as a human. It took a lot more magic than dragons like Toothless and Meatlug, who already had all the limbs they needed and would only require changing the shape of them.

Hookfang didn't even want to know what it felt like to be in Barf and Belch's, Timberjack's, or a Whispering Death's place when they transform. That must be one hell of a lot of magic used.

Toothless had led the two to a small ravine, which slowly dipped down into an evident pathway cut through rock by water over thousands of years, as the top of it was a considerable distance above their heads. It narrowed and widened and curved like the obvious creek that it obtained during the rainy season, forcing Toothless into his hybrid form when it got too narrow.

They finally popped out on the other side (they had to duck under a shield that was stuck in between the rock walls, thoroughly imbedded into it) and into the cove, as Hookfang now recognized.

"I never knew that was there." He thought out loud, turning to look back at the little 'pathway', "I always just flew in from the top, or crawled down from the top like the humans did over on that side…" He trailed off, gesturing to the little nooks and crevice's that had been chipped into the rocks a few months back for humans to crawl in and out easily.

Toothless snorted, and banged his boot on the ground, causing his heel, which had been slipping out of it, to go back into place. "Hiccup used to take that rout every day, showed it to me a few weeks back when we wanted some alone time away from Stoick."

Hookfang nodded, storing away the knowledge for later use. The duck quacked quietly, having given up struggling a while back. "So seriously." Hookfang pressed on again, watching as Toothless scaled a pile of boulders and laid down on the top of one, spreading his wings and arms out and humming as the sun hit his body. "Are you gonna tell me what's wrong or what?"

Toothless sighed audibly, tilting his head to the side as Hookfang came up beside him, setting the duck down on a place beside them. It immediately started picking at the remaining bugs that nestled between the cracks in the rocks.

"I dunno, 'Fang." He finally admitted, brow furrowing, "I just—can't place it…"

The Nightmare could have sworn he heard a pang of guilt in his voice. He frowned, and laid down next to Toothless, looking up at the grey-yet-happy-looking clouds of autumn above them.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?"

"Because we're friends? And friends don't like to see other friends sad?"

"We're friends?"

Hookfang paused at the Night Fury's question. When…when had he started considering Toothless a friend? Certainly not when the Queen was still alive… Toothless had become an orphan early on in a situation that Hookfang couldn't quite remember. Both the haze of the Queens control and his young age were factors in his lack of memory from back then.

Hookfang's mother, who had been the highest rank under the Night Furies and the Queen herself, had agreed to take Toothless under her wing back then. Hookfang couldn't stand it, having a night fury as his step brother. (Not that he considered him a brother at all. Not even an acquaintance.) He was constantly one-upped by him. Hookfang learned to fly? Hah, Night Fury learned to fly and caught a fish on the same day. He had been praised by a Knight? Night Fury got thanked by the Queen for his contribution in the fishing unit today. He got accepted to be a Squire? Nope, Night Fury had already been on multiple raids.

No, despite the fact that Hookfang and Toothless shared the same parent since they were four, Hookfang hated Toothless with a deep, deep passion.

It wasn't until the Red Death was killed that Hookfang actually started tolerating Toothless. At first it was because they had to, as their humans had formed a group, and then eventually an academy.

And then when they started training and working together and having to communicate, Hookfang found the Night Fury was growing on him just like the name his rider had given him was.

He had to guess it subconsciously grew into a friendship from there, without either one realizing.

Hookfang brought his arms up and crossed his hands over one another, setting them behind his head. "Yeah. Yeah we are friends."

Toothless was surprised that he found himself smiling.

"So you gonna tell me why you're sad now?"

Toothless huffed, flicking the tip of his tail and watching as the prosthetic didn't move as lively as his real tail fin did. "…It's stupid…" He said after a minute.

"Nah I don't think so." Hookfang said, watching the duck flutter to another boulder and peck around some more."If it's making you this upset it's gotta be somewhat plausible."

Toothless glanced to his left at the nightmare for a moment, before looking back at the sky, finding it easier to say it to something non-living. "…It's just…Hiccup—Hiccup isn't…" He huffed, agitated, and punched the rock beside him. "Hiccup isn't healing as fast as I want him to!" He admitted.

Hookfang pressed his lips together and picked up a pebble, tossing it at the duck and hiding a snort when it quacked, surprised. "Well he did go through a very painful species change, Toothless, and he was conscious the entire time on what he knew to be enemy territory and surrounded by said enemies. I doubt that he's going to just wake up one morning and go: hey Tooth, I want to learn how to fly! Can we do that today? Yah know?"

"Yeah, I know!" Toothless said too harshly, sitting up and throwing his hands out, shoulders hunched and wings shuddering, frustrated. He instantly checked himself with a fast huff. "I know." He said in a calmer manner, turning back to Hookfang. "I know that it's not the-the transformation itself that put him in that state, it was the circumstances they were in that caused the PTSD or whatever the Hel it's called, it-it's just I-I-I…"

Toothless took a shuddering breath and cupped his head in his hands, putting pressure on his temples until he felt his head would crack. He felt his eyes watering.

"I heard him call himself a monster, Hookfang." Toothless barely got out. Hookfang had to sit up using his shins to process the sentence.

"Oh." Was all the nightmare croaked out in the end.

Toothless got up and began to pace on the boulder, taking three steps to the left then turning and taking four to the right and then repeating. "L-like I know he doesn't mean like—but I just there's so many things I think of when I hear that and I know they call me the offspring of lightning and death itself and I just—" Toothless was just stuttering from one thought to another, not even bothering to finish his previous thought. Finally he stopped, forearms coming to rest on the top of his head as he took a giant breath. "What if Hiccup still thinks I'm a monster?" He thought out loud, "Gods, I know it's not true but I can't shake the idea of him waking up one morning and blaming all of this on me like he should because if I had smelled the witch in the first place then she wouldn't have taken my magic and would have never made that potion and Dagur would have never given it to him and he wouldn't even be in this situation a-and…"

Toothless trailed off.

"He should have killed me in those woods."

Hookfang felt a sickening thud in his stomach at those words. He couldn't move.

"It would have been better, for everybody…he would have gotten all of Berk's respect and…and he would still be normal and he wouldn't be having this trouble and I would be with my…"

Parents. He was going to say parents. Hookfang felt like puking.

The nightmare didn't even know how to respond. He didn't know if he could. This was nothing he had ever dwelled into before. Especially not with Toothless.

Suddenly his body was moving. Standing up, walking over to Toothless and setting his hand on his shoulder.

All on instinct. All without knowing what he was doing.

"…But the Queen would still be in reign. Vikings and dragons would still be at war. Hiccup's and our own loved ones would still be at risk every day fighting a battle we had no control in. And knowing Hiccup, he wouldn't be…happy…killing dragons."

Toothless was quiet. He was shaking and so very obviously trying not to. His fists clenched too tight, drawing a bit of blood. Hookfang could still see a bit of the rope-burn scars he had from that bola.

"Toothless, Hiccup—needs you. Not only because of this, but because you are his best friend. Hel, you're his brother." He was certainly a better one to Toothless than Hookfang was, that's for sure…

"Toothless…I—I think…" Hookfang was running out of things to say. He wasn't good with emotions, yet alone talking about them. He grew up under the influence of the Queen and now lived with Snotlout, of course he wasn't good with comfort.

Nonetheless, Toothless slumped, and brushed Hookfang's hand off his shoulder, looking down at the ground and letting out a huge sigh. Somehow, by a miracle of the gods, Hookfang's words reached the Night Fury.

"Thanks for that…I needed it." Toothless said awkwardly. "And sorry, about all the dark emo stuff…I'm a creature of the night, it's part of my nature." The night fury said in an attempt at a joke.

Hookfang simply nodded, even though his conscious was screaming at him to dwell into it more. It could wait for another time.

"There you are!"

The two dragons and duck started and turned their attention to the entrance in which they had come.

Hiccup was standing there, a smile on his face and a perky jump to his step. "We need your help in the village, we're running short on people."

"How did you find us?" Toothless asked in Dragonese, half because he wanted to see if Hiccup could understand and half because he was too exhausted to speak Norse, even if it was only three in the afternoon.

Hiccup's ears twitched as he processed the sentence, taking a bit longer to respond, although still in Norse. "I followed your scent—gods that's weird to say. Actually, it's weird to do, too…"

"Nice to see you're embracing your inner dragon, Hic." Hookfang called out. The Viking only rolled his eyes.

"Oh yeah, by the way Hookfang, Snotlout asked me to tell you that he really needs that duck? Whatever it's for? Why do we even have a duck this far north during this time of year? Aren't they migrati—"

"I think the duck's sole purpose is to integrate a bit of humor into this angst chapter." Hookfang said, "I think the author just wanted a reason for me to appear this chapter, but didn't have an idea as to how. Hence, the duck."

There was silence all around the cove as the two other hybrids and the duck itself tried to process the sentence.

"Wow. You've been spending wayyyyy too much time with Tuffnut."

"I really have! Just today I called Toothless 'T'. Only Tuffnut does that!"

Hiccup snorted and rolled his eyes, stretching his wings a bit. "Well anyway, get back as soon as you can. We would really appreciate the help!"

"We'll be there in a few minutes!" Toothless called after his rider's retreating form. The two dragons watched the cave entrance for a minute before the night fury thought out loud.

"…I thought about running away a couple of times. Thought it would be safer for Hiccup. Found that I couldn't do it. Not only because I knew he couldn't survive without me in the long run, but because he wouldn't."

Hookfang looked over at his step-brother—he was suddenly growing a liking to the title—he was looking at the creek entrance as if he could still see Hiccup there. A flame of pride, sadness, and love all in one flickering emerald green.

"I wouldn't live without him, either."

Eyyyyyyyyyyyy done with the chapter!

So I turned sixteen three days ago

Yehaw

I also have my (second) drivers test tomorrow as long as the weather stays good.

Why second in parenthesis you ask? OHOHOHOHOHOHO WELL

I went into my first drivers test in all the glory that Hiccup was when he first encountered Toothless in the forest that day, shaking and holding my keys like he did his dagger.

I got into the car with the instructor, and despite the literal feeling of wanting to puke out of fear, I passed the driving part of the test with stellar flying colors.

And then came my demise in a term called parallel parking.

I pulled up to the parallel parking cones with the same confidence that Hiccup had as he was climbing higher and higher into the air in a certain test flight we all know too well,

And then hit my turn signal to go into the spot, just as planned.

I started backing into it, with all the grace of Toothless' flawless flying,

And then hit the MOTHERFUCKING CURB

SO YEAH I FAILED BECAUSE I HIT THE CURB IN PARALLEL PARKING MY DUDES DO YOU FEEL THE SALT DRIPPING OFF MY WORDS

FJGH;IOHGVMRTUEOUTSOGSMLKFHGSERUHGESRUGEAHGURGHA;UGOHXSPAOERGHAN

Okey done

also it feels really weird to be writing about autumn when its almost summer but I already miss my favorite season ;_;

I have snoggletog ideas and knowing my timing theyll probably come on here mid summer lmao

also: Hope yall enjoyed my Hookfang-Toothless step-brother Hc/AU(?)

i wanted it okayyyyyyyyyy

anyway, Ill see u next chapter my lovelies :3

Oh yeah, and also bc both of these were requested and/or mentioned during the last few reviews:

I will be bringing the witch back AND

Hiccup will learn to fly, but that'll be later on in the story ;)

CYAAAAAA

~icephantom