A/N: How about that trailer, huh? I think I might've watched it upwards of 30 times now, it's actually rather pathetic. But my boyyysss.
But alas, it's still a year off. In the meantime, updates!
Two heads-up about this chapter! One: ridiculous amounts of mush ahead! Toothless/Hiccup bromance, big time! Two: This chapter is actually much shorter than most of the previous chapters. I tried to stick in a bit more, but it just didn't feel right. So, here you go.
"Hiccup?" Toothless asked that night, through the dark of their room.
"Hmm?" Hiccup was only a few breaths away from sleep.
"How old are you?"
It made Hiccup open his eyes and think. "Why?"
Toothless didn't answer the question, and instead said, "you measure age in number of winters, yes?"
"Yes."
"How many winters have you seen?"
"A little over seventeen," Hiccup replied.
"Oh," Toothless said. Quiet. "And… how old do humans grow to be?" He asked, poorly masked apprehension in his voice. Hiccup propped himself up on an elbow.
"Oh, I don't know. Sixty? Seventy? Eighty, if you're lucky. Some people say Gothi is ninety or a hundred, but I don't know about that."
"Oh," Toothless said again, this time sounding somewhat relieved.
"What about dragons?" Hiccup asked, aware that their conversation was turning to thinly-veiled morbidity, but not really caring.
He could almost hear Toothless shrug. "It depends on the species. Terrors do not live as long as bigger dragons – mostly because they are so careless, I think. But most dragons are slightly longer lived. Maybe, eighty to one-hundred and ten. I've heard of ones growing older, but they are rare."
"Oh," it was Hiccup's turn to sound apprehensive. "And… how old are you?"
"Older than you," Toothless answered. "I found myself at Berk long before your seventeen winters. I cannot be entirely certain, because of how the Queen fogged my mind for years, but I believe, by your measurements, I am forty-one."
Hiccup couldn't help it when his eyebrows shot up. Toothless looked so much younger – but perhaps dragons aged slowly enough that it'd translated when he became a human. Forty-one, Hiccup frowned. It was far too morbid to think it out loud, but he did some quick arithmetic and let out a small sigh of relief.
"I feared what your answer would be," Toothless admitted from across the room.
"Me too," Hiccup told him.
"But, it seems we are in tandem with each other once again," Toothless said, rolling over in bed. The covers rustled until he'd found a comfortable spot. "I am glad for it, Gicpa," He said, "I'm not sure what I would do, knowing one day I'd be here without you." He paused "You must promise me you will live as long as your species allows."
Hiccup actually laughed, because how was he supposed to control something like that? "Only if you do, too," he said.
"Or else, we'll go together, in some ridiculously spectacular way that no one will believe," Toothless said.
"We could try the peaceful old-age route, you know"
"Yes, that is good as well," Toothless hummed. Silence reclaimed the room for a moment, and then Toothless added, "But right now we are both young, which means we must be as reckless and as adventuresome as possible."
"Won't that be asking for worlds of trouble?" Hiccup asked.
"Of course. But we'll be there to get each other out of it again. And when we're both old and dying, we can laugh at ourselves for all the stupid and incredible things we did."
It was so, so morbid, and yet, Hiccup was smiling. "Sounds like a plan," he agreed.
They both fell asleep, dreaming of adventures that lasted a shared lifetime.
True to what Toothless had said, Stormfly returned the following night, exhausted but successful. She'd gone straight to sleep, and Astrid put aside whatever bitterness she held against her dragon for not saying goodbye so that she could make her as comfortable as possible after a long flight.
Hiccup had stayed up with Astrid all night waiting for Stormfly, trying to keep himself as calming a presence as he could, because Astrid was still worried up the wall even after Toothless' reassurances. With Stormfly home and Astrid finally at ease, Hiccup shuffled sleepily back to his house sometime after midnight. When he got to his room, he frowned, because what little consciousness he had left registered that Toothless was not there. Then, he heard the trees rustle, and realized that his window was open. He stuck his head out and looked up.
"Toothless? What're you doing up there?" His voice was hoarse from fatigue. A faded silhouette in the moonlight, Toothless turned to look down at him. He shrugged.
"Enjoying the night," He said. Hiccup frowned, because it didn't sound quite like a straight answer. Sighing to himself, Hiccup straddled the windowsill. He looked up and down, and around himself.
"How did you even get up there?" He asked incredulously. Toothless let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle. He scooted along the prow of the roof and reached out a hand.
"With two bare feet, not just one, so come on," and gestured for Hiccup to give him his hand. Hiccup took it and Toothless heaved up. Lately, Hiccup had been somewhat surprised to learn that, whereas he usually felt slighted when people pointed out his disability and all the things he couldn't do, when it was Toothless who said it, he didn't really mind.
Once perched atop the steep roof, the two scooted to the front of the house and let their legs dangle over the edge. Hiccup looked around, enjoying a view he'd never seen before. "I think you're the first person to climb up here," He said. Toothless hummed in response. The two sat in silence for a while, Toothless watching the stars, Hiccup watching the stars slightly less, because he kept looking at Toothless. Eventually, he asked, "So what are you really doing up here?"
Toothless sighed, because he knew he'd been found out. But it was Hiccup, so breaking his silence wasn't that hard, even if he didn't want to. "Thinking. I wish I could have gone to the Kindleline with Stormfly."
"Why?" Hiccup frowned. "Is there something else you think she should've told them?"
"No," Toothless said, voice mild. "Only, my Weyr nests very near to a kindleline post. If she – if we could have travelled just a few days more, I might've been able to see my family."
Hiccup fell silent. He felt guilty and sympathetic and jealous all at once. He wished that he could take Toothless there straightaway, but he also wished that he could stand protectively in front of him and shout mine when the other furies appeared. It was an awful, horribly selfish thing to want, and the fact made Hiccup feel so guilty he couldn't say anything.
"Last I was there, my uncle oversaw the Northeast Post, along the continental coast, just south of the northern mountains." Toothless smiled to himself. "He would always come back and tell us all sorts of tales from around the world. My father thought it filled our heads with nonsense, but he never did stop uncle from telling us stories."
"You had siblings, then?" Hiccup asked, curious but also inexplicably uncomfortable. He felt guiltier when he realized that he was uncomfortable because he'd thought all this time that he was Toothless' only family.
"Two younger brothers," Toothless said. His eyes looked far-off. "Mother always had such a horrible time, trying to control the lot of us," he said it quietly, without enthusiasm. He sounded sad.
Hiccup looked down at his hands. He bit at his lip and eventually said, "Maybe you could go back one day."
Toothless frowned. "Gicpa, I've not sent word to them for many years – they think me long dead, I'm sure."
"Well, all the more reason to go back," Hiccup said, warming to the idea. "They'd be happy to see you, I'm sure."
"Even if I thought it was a good idea," Toothless told him strongly, "It's not like I could just… up and leave,"
"Why not?" Hiccup seemed genuinely confused, and it stumped Toothless.
"Why not-" Toothless sputtered, "Hiccup, I couldn't just… fly off without you,"
"Of course not – I'd go with you."
The way Hiccup had said it, no-nonsense, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, made all words freeze on Toothless' mouth. He opened and closed his jaw like a fish and eventually looked away.
"I mean," Hiccup took the dragon's silence as disagreement, "Unless you don't want me to, – I know I'm not a dragon, and I know it's kinda a family deal, so I don't have to… you could still go. I still have the designs for that tail with the-"
"Don't you dare," Toothless actually smacked Hiccup on the arm. It didn't hurt, but Hiccup did jump. Toothless shook his head. "I hate that thing." He sighed. "No, I couldn't fly without you, Gicpa, not even if I wanted to."
"But the tail-"
"Has nothing to do with it. You do. I've flown with you for so long," Toothless' voice grew quiet, because it was a sensitive subject, "It wouldn't feel right without you. We've… we've mastered so much together, flown so far… I don't think I could do it on my own, without you on my back, reminding me."
The conversation felt slightly odd, of course, because Toothless was human at the moment, not dragon. But between a former-dragon and a rider who understood each other, it wasn't odd at all.
"You go anywhere you want, Toothless, anywhere at all," Hiccup said after a while, "and I'll fly all the way with you." They shared a meaningful look, but then Hiccup broke it when he said, "even if I'm not a dragon."
It made Toothless smile slyly. "I've actually always considered you more dragon than human," He admitted, turning his eyes back to the stars.
"Really?" Hiccup asked, feeling somewhat proud of himself.
"Yes. But whenever the illusion gets too strong, you go and do something idiotic like leap out of the saddle on purpose, age my nerves by a decade or so, and all at once I remember how human you are."
"Hrmph," Hiccup said, because he didn't know what else to say. Beside him, Toothless quirked a conceding eyebrow.
"Of course, I've always thought of myself as slightly more human than other dragons."
Hiccup looked over at Toothless' human face and human hands and human body. "Slightly?" He said, unable to keep from smiling.
"Oh, shut up," Toothless shoved the other boy through a smile, and Hiccup laughed. "you know what I mean,"
"So I'm a dragon and you're a human," Hiccup said. "Or both somewhere in-between."
"You wouldn't make a completely rubbish dragon, you know." Toothless told him. "Assuming you had a pair of working wings to stop you from falling to your death."
Hiccup scratched a cheek thoughtfully. "Wings. Huh. …I'll get on that." He looked over at Toothless. "You don't make a completely rubbish human, either. Even if you still can't put your trousers on straight," He said as he grabbed and jerked on Toothless' belt in an attempt to straighten it. Toothless rolled his eyes.
"The human dragon and the dragon human," He shook his head. "We're a pair of wodan, do you know that?"
"A pair of what?" Hiccup frowned confusedly at the word.
"Madmen, insane people, touched in the head," Toothless translated. "You and I are right weirdos."
Hiccup laughed, but didn't answer. Instead, he began looking at his leg. "Maybe we could swap," he said, lifting his prosthetic. "You get my leg and I'll get your fin."
"What, and shall I stop with my tail whilst you flap with your leg?"
"Yes, and see who's the better flier then, why don't we?" Hiccup was smiling with mirth.
"You'll fall on your arse and force me to come and rescue you, but I'll end up stumbling over my tail-leg and whacking you in the face," Toothless said, fighting the rising feeling of laughter in his throat.
"And the whole village will laugh at us, because they won't realize that I'm the dragon and you're the human,"
"Perhaps we'll have to do something to convince them?" Toothless suggested.
"I can stuff my face with raw fish," Hiccup jibed.
"And I'll make myself a horned hat and wear a giant fur vest."
"With room for wings?" Hiccup asked. The mental image made Toothness snort
"And a fake leg on my tail," he said.
The two finally broke character together and dissolved into the laughter that they'd been holding back, happy noises echoing into the night. Eventually Hiccup realized the mistake.
"We should be quieter," He hissed, trying to suppress his giggling, hoping they hadn't awoken Stoick or any of their neighbors. Toothless had his laughing under control, but was still smiling,
"Is that why the villagers call you 'Dragon-Boy?' because you are actually part dragon and you never told me?" Toothless jested.
"And you've actually been human this whole time, and somehow managed to fly."
"Maybe."
They took a quiet moment to calm their laughter and faces, aching from smiling.
"Well, in any case," Hiccup said at length, we'll both fly back to your weyr someday. I promise." And he meant it.
Toothless nodded. "Only, I'll be the one with wings, so perhaps you ought to give me my fin back."
"You'll need my leg too, of course."
"Yes, but only if you're attached to it. Neither fin nor foot do much for me any other way."
"They could, you know."
"I don't want them to," Toothless said honestly. Hiccup smiled, and looked down to hide just how touched he was at the gesture.
"Okay," He told his friend quietly. "We'll fly together. Wherever we want to go."
The conversation died after that, replaced by calm, companionable silence. Hiccup suddenly remembered how exhausted he was, and begun nodding off to the sound of the soft breeze, the lapping waves, and the chirping of crickets. Toothless breathed in the cool night air appreciatively, his nocturnal nature not quite gone from him, even as a human.
Toothless didn't realize that Hiccup had leant his face up against his shoulder, and didn't hear it when the Viking begun to snore softly. But when Toothless went to point out a constellation and turned to see Hiccup drooling on his sleeve, he realized the other boy was asleep. He laughed softly and shook his head, and immediately went about getting Hiccup off the roof.
"I would've thought you would seem heavier, now that I am human, and smaller," Toothless told the unconscious body as he clambered in through the window, carrying Hiccup, "but it seems you are always as thin and light as a willow branch." He carried Hiccup over to his bed.
"Tóðléas," Hiccup slurred, and Toothless laughed.
"I will never understand how you humans manage to speak in your sleep," he said, but he was smiling, because Hiccup was speaking to him, and in the Dragonese that he'd taught him. After setting Hiccup down on the mattress, Toothless took off his prosthetic and begun unwrapping his stump, as he'd seen Hiccup do for himself every night.
"Tóðléas," Hiccup said again through heavy sleep.
"Yes, that's me," Toothless said, amused. "I don't suppose you remember anything else I taught you, do you?"
"Broþor," Hiccup said, and Toothless froze. He turned clear, wide eyes on Hiccup's face, but the boy was clearly still asleep.
Toothless didn't remember ever teaching Hiccup that word. It was a word Toothless himself hadn't heard in many, many years.
"Broþor," He repeated to himself, as if to confirm what Hiccup had said. Toothless realized then that one of the other dragons must've taught Hiccup that word, that the viking must've asked. Toothless wondered why Hiccup would need to know the word. Unless, the fury realized, he'd intended to use it for Toothless.
There were many emotions that Toothless had determined were exclusively human in experience. But this feeling, he remembered from his days as a dragon: the feeling of being deeply touched. Smiling slowly, Toothless finished unwrapping Hiccup's leg, and pulled the covers up over him.
"Of course, Gicpa," he said softly, mixing Norse and Dragonese in a way that felt right between them. "Who else would you drag with you around the world?" He smiled. "Even if the vikingr die out and all the dragons fade from the earth, Gicpa, I will still be – I will always be your brother."
"Broþor," Hiccup slurred again, this time quieter, because he was falling further asleep.
"Ic beo hér," Toothless said. He closed the window and slipped into his cot. He'd meant what he'd said. Even if Hiccup couldn't hear him through his sleep, Toothless had meant it for always.
I'm here.