Title: Just a minute

Summary: "Can you not be my father?"

Disclaimer: What part of FAN FICTION is hard to understand? I don't own Beauty and the Beast, and I don't own How to Train Your Dragon. They belong to whoever they do. I'm not here to make money; I'm just here to entertain.

Stoick sat at the dinner table, at a loss for words. This was horrible!

In front of him sat Hiccup's report card.

It was the worst report card he'd ever seen. However, he wasn't too surprised, and was therefore not very disappointed. But that just made him feel much, much worse, not to mention extremely guilty for not being outraged.

Burk Viking Pre-training Program Report Card

Name of Child: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

Beginner Burping: 1/10

Can burp. At least. But not at will.

Gobber the Belch

Basic Aggression: 3/10

Will fight back when necessary, but refuses to take initiative!

Gobber the Belch

Beginner Rudery: -4/10

(Here was just a bunch of scribbles and scratch marks)

Gobber

Basic Weapons Knowledge: 9/10

Is very good at knowing things about the weapons. Not so good at using them. Has held a hammer and nearly killed someone. DO NOT LET HIM USE A SWORD. EVER.

Gormus the Grim

Beginner Ship Sailing: 1/10

Can not seem to find his sea legs. At least he doesn't get sea sick.

Gobber the Belch

Advanced Survival: 5/10

Is scarily competent at starting fires. Not very good at putting them out. Refuses to hunt or set traps, despite being an excellent shelter builder.

Gobber the Belch

Basic Beer Drinking: -1/10

Ridiculously light weight. Even mead gets him drunk. On a full stomach.

Baggybum the Beerbelly

Introduction to Bashy-ball: 0/10

An excellent strategist. But it still cannot make up for fact that he is on his team. Spends most of his time being sat on.

Rugged Rita

What was this? Stoick didn't expect his son to be the top of the class. But how could Hiccup get a negative score for Beginner Rudery? And nothing at all for Bashy-ball? Bashy-ball had been his favorite subject when he was younger.

He thought about it, and getting decent grades wasn't too much to ask from his son. Now he was starting to get mad. Mad and disappointed. He sat at that table waiting for his son, working up some anger to lecture Hiccup with when the boy got home.

It was nearly dark when Hiccup got home. He burst through the door and, without so much as Stoick's by-your-leave, he ran up to his room.

'At least he's working on his Rudery.' Thought Stoick.

Calming down a bit and starting to get hungry, the chief started making dinner. There was a bit of melancholy in him as he did. Valhallarama…

At some point Hiccup must have come down, because Stoick didn't notice his son until the boy was right beside him.

"Dad?" he said nervously.

'Ah' Stoick thought. 'He's come to face the music about his report card. Maybe I'll go easy on him.'

Hiccup couldn't seem to continue.

"Spit it out, boy." Stoick said as he carefully lowered an egg into some boiling water. Didn't want it to break.

"Could you not be my father?"

Shock would have been an understatement. Stoick dropped the egg into the boiling water and got scalded. For years people had been hinting at him, telling him in not so many words to disown Hiccup. Stoick would have wanted to see their faces now that the tables had been turned. It would have been funny, if it didn't make him so incredibly sad.

"What?" he all but bellowed

"Dad, your hand!" but Hiccup wasn't paying attention to what he was saying (as usual). The boy ran to get a rag and some snow from outside. Stoick sat on a chair and waited for him to return. The burn wasn't a big deal, but Stoick felt better because his son still called him dad. When Hiccup had fussed over it enough (his hand was starting to turn a bit red), he started talking.

"What's this about not being your dad?" Stoick asked.

Hiccup was now more nervous than he had been before. He looked at his feet and couldn't seem to know what to do with his hands.

"Could you not be my dad for a minute?" He asked quietly. Hearing it for a second time didn't make it sound any better.

"For a minute?" Stoick repeated, a bit numb.

Hiccup kept going.

"Pretend you're not my dad." He said "and tell me the truth."

He paused "Am I a freak?" he whispered.

Now that things were a bit clearer, Stoick understood.

"No, son you're not." And he said it with such conviction that he felt a bit proud of himself.

But apparently, that wasn't the answer Hiccup was looking for.

"You're lying!" he yelled. Nobody had yelled like that at Stoick in years. ('So much for that 3 in aggression.')

"You're my dad! You have to say that! I want you to pretend you're not and tell me! Honestly!" He continued shouting. "Am I a freak?"

Now, Stoick didn't take kindly to being called a liar, and he started getting angry. But then he looked down at his son. He looked down at his son's small freckled face, his suspiciously bright eyes, and the defiant set of his jaw. Stoick looked at poor, inadequate Hiccup, and couldn't find it in himself to be angry.

"I don't think you're a freak. Son." He said quietly (a feat for someone as loud as Stoick tended to be.) That seemed to take the anger right out of Hiccup, and he deflated, sitting down on the chair beside Stoick's.

Neither of them could think of anything to say after that.

"Hiccup?" Stoick asked as soft as he could after a while. "Who told you that you were a freak, Hiccup?"

"No one had to tell me." Hiccup said. Stoick was dismayed at the bitterness in his son's voice. "I figured it out on my own."

Hiccup then looked at his father in wry surprise. "I'm not stupid, dad." Between the staring, whispers, and the avoidance, he had picked that up on his own. Today had just been a particularly bad day. He'd get Dogsbreath back. One day.

"I wish your mother were here."

"Me too."

"Still," Stoick said. "Something must have happened today."

"Let's just say that some of the other kids are really good at practicing Beginner Rudery during Bashy-ball." Hiccup said wryly. He seemed so completely calm now that Stoick almost had trouble remembering that his son had been shouting at him just a little while ago.

They sat like that for a while. Until the chicken Stoick had put in the spit above the fire burst into flames.

"Odin's—!"

"Aahhh!"

They laughed as they put out the fire, and sat in comfortable silence as they ate what bits they could.

Hiccup may not have been the son Stoick imagined he'd have one day. He wasn't strong, he wasn't loud, and Stoick just knew that he wasn't normal.

But he wasn't a freak.

"Tomorrow, we start working out!"

"No, Dad—"

"I can't have those other kids thinking they can beat the chief's son at Bashy-ball whenever they feel like it! What would we do at the next Thing?"

"Dad!"

It was a temporary thing, this comfortableness with his son. But Stoick would take what he could get.

A/N: This is the first time that a formal kind of schooling has come up, and some of you may be asking "How do the event of DatD happen if there's school?"

The simple (and rather cop-out) answer to that is: Winter break. Yeah, that's right. I know.

I have a question. Does anyone else want some stories based on the other children? These are basically extended drabbles anyway. Would it be okay if I shifted the focus away from Hiccup from time to time?

Also, I want everyone to know that there are more kids in Burk besides Hiccup's core group. There are even more than the basic twelve in the books. It's not a small tribe. I'm just avoiding the OC trap for a while and focusing on developing the already existing characters.

Hiccup seesaws between acting childish and acting like an adult, I know, but isn't that in character for him? Also, the Thing is this, well, thing in the books that involve Bashy-ball. Yeah.

I'm also reminding people that they should send in ideas and prompts which I will, of course, credit. I just need some ideas to get the juices flowing.

As always, thanks for reading and please send feedback!