A/N: Chapter 3! Thank you all for reading and thank you for all the reviews. I appreciate feedback.
"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?" Hiccup asked opening his front door to the grey, bleak dawn for his wife.
"Of course not." Astrid said firmly. "I'll just head over to the healer's and be right back. It can't be anything serious and Alvis would get bored. Watch him here for a bit, I'll be home soon."
As Hiccup distractedly closed the door on her, he was surprised to see his son standing behind him, bleary eyed.
"Good mornin' Daddy." He yawned.
Alvis's bed was in the front living room they were now standing in. He must have been woken up by his mother leaving.
"Morning, pal. Sure you don't wanna go back to sleep?"
"Nope. Where'd Mommy go?"
Hiccup swallowed thickly, and tried to sound casual.
"You know how she was feeling sick yesterday? She's just gone down to the healer to see what's up."
He didn't want to worry Alvis or let on how worried he was.
"Anyway, looks like it's just you and me this morning. What do you say I make us some breakfast?"
"Okay Daddy!" Alvis smiled, trusting his father's nonchalance.
"Great. Let's get this place Al-proof first."
"How come, Daddy?"
"Because you are a little escape artist."
"I'll be good!"
"That's what you said the last fifteen times you escaped."
Hiccup picked him up as he locked the door and windows. He put out the fire in the living room fireplace and placed Alvis on the rug in front of it.
"Now sit here and play while Dad gets our food, okay, pal?"
Alvis sulkily mulled around with his favorite toys: a stuffed dragon he had had since birth that he called Smaug, a wooden sword Stoic had carved for him, and a red ball caked in mud from being kicked around in less clean environments.
Meanwhile Hiccup worked in the adjacent kitchen until he heard vaguely troubling scraping sounds.
"Al, everything okay in here?"
"Look Daddy!"
"Woah!"
The scraping sounds had evidently been the flint because there was a small fire in the fireplace again. Alvis had lit a twig and was holding the flame over his dragon's mouth.
"Look, look, Smaug can breathe fire like Tooth'ess!"
"Al, no!"
Hiccup grabbed the twig before it burned his son or his toy, threw it into the fireplace and doused the fire with a bucket of water.
"Who in the name of the Allfather taught you how to make fires?"
"Grandpa."
"Oh geez, thanks, Dad…"
Hiccup gathered the flint and tinderbox and locked it in a chest by the stairway.
"There, now you can't commit arson. I thought you said you were going to be good."
"I am being good, Daddy!"
"No, you really are not."
Hiccup sighed heavily, rubbing his temples.
"Just play quietly until Dad brings your breakfast, okay? Can you do that for me?"
"Yes, Sir!"
"Good boy."
When Hiccup returned to the kitchen there was several minutes of silence until a loud crash that almost made him drop a butcher knife.
"Oh, what now?"
He rushed into the living room to see his and Astrid's helmets fallen on the floor from their place on the mantle. Alvis' toy ball was rolling slowly across the floor.
"Okay. Okay. No problem. Just…no playing ball in the house, that a promise, pal?"
He put the helmets on the shelf in his and Astrid's room and went back to the kitchen for the second time. This time after a while he heard intermittent scraping and pounding on hardwood.
"What could he possibly be doing now?"
Alvis was sitting on the floor digging into the wood with his toy sword in intent concentration.
"Oh, c'mon Al, don't ruin the floor, your mother will…kill…me…"
As he approached where his son was carving he saw what Alvis was doing. It was a drawing and though it was crude and childish, he could tell what it was.
"Hey pal, is that a dragon?"
"Uh huh. It's Tooth'ess." Alvis answered absently, still trying to finish his artwork.
Hiccup took the sword away from him and said
"Hey why don't we have breakfast and after that I'll get you some paper and a pencil and Dad can draw with you, how's that?"
"You can draw, Daddy?"
"You bet I can! Just hold on a sec."
Hiccup ran to the kitchen and returned with their breakfast of cold lamb chops and a pitcher of milk. This time he found his son lying on the floor engrossed in a heavy, ornate book.
Their family's Dragon Manual.
"Al, can you read that?" Hiccup asked.
"Little! I know that means 'Tooth'ess'."
He pointed to a header on a page that was indeed Toothless's entry.
"Hey, you're right. That's read 'Night Fury'. It's the kind of dragon Toothless is."
Hiccup turned to a different page.
"This is what kind Mom's dragon is…and that's the kind Ruff and Tuff ride…"
The bleak dawn had long since dissolved into a bright late morning when Astrid opened the front door to see her husband and son at the table. The dragon manual was opened to a random page. Strewn across the table and floor were Alvis' doodles and Hiccup's sketches of dragons copied from it.
"Astrid, you're home!"
Hiccup got up from where he was sitting next to Alvis, who was snoring lightly, his head propped on the table.
"He tired himself out playing all morning." Hiccup explained. "He woke up too early today so he needed a nap."
"Was he good?"
"Very. So, what did the healer say…?"
"Well, you see…"
His parents' excited whispering voices woke Alvis up and he groggily rubbed his eyes.
Hiccup picked him up and hugged him.
"Guess what Al? You're going to be a big brother!"