Who's ready for some Toothcup (friendship) fluff? I know I am! Brace yourselves, kiddies, it's coming at ya full force in this next chapter, which is brought to you by the song "All the Same" by the Sick Puppies. Never heard it? Check it out. I don't own that song or the band, by the way. If I did, I'd have money. And make them live with me and serenade me at random hours of the day. :Y
Eventually, the two of them made it out of the cave, though it really wasn't much brighter outside than it was inside. Hiccup stood up and brushed himself off, happy to finally be standing after crawling around in the caves behind Pixie for so long. He bent down and scooped the little one up in his arms, just in case there was some unseen danger lurking in the shadows. Even if Sky said nobody would care if she went missing, he knew he'd feel terrible. Not surprisingly, the moment her feet left the ground, Pixie began to whine. "Heeyy! Put me down! I wanna feel the grass between my claws~"
"When we find Toothless I'll put you down. I don't want you to get hurt." Hiccup replied as he began wandering about aimlessly. Normally, he would just call for Toothless, but with the dragon had been acting lately, Hiccup figured it was probably best to catch him unawares.
The young dragoness looked up at him sadly, her ears flat against her skull, "You know, you don't have to be so careful with me. They'll forgive you if I end up missing, like Sky said. I'm nothing special to them, just another mouth to feed."
"I used to feel like that, too," Hiccup admitted, deciding that he needed a break after crawling through the tunnels and walking around so much. He'd somehow managed to find the beach where they'd first landed- he recognized the charred driftwood right away. Sitting down against said log, he set the dragon down in his lap. "You want to hear that story?" He wondered, looking down to her. She nodded happily, always ready for a story, especially ones that were told just to her. It made her feel important, on some level.
"Well, back before Toothless came around, I was the most useless person on the island. My dad would hardly even show his face in public, he was so ashamed of me, which is bad, because he's the chief... Alpha, in your terms." Already, with just this little bit of information, Pixie was cutting him off.
"Your dad is alpha, too?!"
Hiccup smiled down at her, "Yeah, but my mom... She died when I was young, so I don't remember much about her. For the most part, it was just my dad and I growing up, and the whole time he hardly ever even looked at me, and when he did, it meant I had done something really bad." With a sad sigh at the memory, he paused and dropped his head back against the log. Startled by a head hanging over him, green eyes gazing into his own, he got to his feet all too quickly, knocking poor Pixie to the ground before falling back on his butt."T-Toothless!"
"Your father isn't that bad." Toothless corrected, coming around to the other side of the log to help Hiccup to his feet. "He doesn't listen to you all the time, but he's not always ignoring you. And he goes out all the time."
Gathering himself, Hiccup sat back against the log and drew Pixie into his lap, "He's better now. I was telling Pixie how things were before everything changed, but never mind that now, what's gotten into you, Toothless? You've been avoiding me since we got to this island!"
Toothless slicked his ears back against his head and averted his gaze, contemplating simply walking away from this conversation. Apparently, Pixie picked up on this and hopped out of Hiccup's arms, right into Toothless' line of sight, "Don't you dare run away! Hiccup's been really worried about you, and I know you're worried about him too, since you check on him so much. Are you that afraid of saying something wrong?"
The elder Pixie was taken aback by this. Well, by all of it. First a youngling blocking his path, then telling him what to do and assuming insane things? "You don't know anything about this!" He started to leave when he felt a weight on his tail. Glancing back, he saw Hiccup had a hand on it. He wasn't holding firmly to prevent him from leaving, just trying to get his attention.
"Please don't do this, bud. I don't know what awful thing you think is going to come of us talking, but I can assure you it won't." He said softly, absent mindedly stroking the scales on the dragon's tail.
"It already has!" Toothless protested, "I never should have brought you here!"
"What's so bad about it?" Silence fell between them before Hiccup finally tried, "I've been meaning to ask you, Toothless, why did you bring me here? You keep saying you never wanted to come back here, so why did you?"
Toothless lowered his head slightly, "Because you were so upset about the island being fake, because you really wanted there to be other Night Furies... I thought that giving you what you wanted would make you happy."
"And you think running off as soon as we found them made me happy?" Hiccup wondered dryly.
"What do you care? You probably didn't even notice! You've got other Night Furies now, you don't need me!" He drew his tail away from Hiccup, "Just like Snotlout said, I'm... I'm broken. All this time you've been putting up with me for the novelty of being the only Viking with a Night Fury, even made me a fake tail fin that I could use to fly with on my own so I'd be more like the real thing." The dragon's voice was cracking with each painful word, "I don't like seeing you with other dragons. I thought that if I distanced myself from you while you were with Sky it would be best..."
Hiccup's jaw was nearly hitting the ground he was so shocked. "That's what this is all about?! You think I wanted a replacement?" Toothless flinched at the word, as if he'd been smacked. "Toothless, buddy," He crawled over to the dragon and grabbed the sides of his head, turning it to look him in the eye, "You're my best friend. To even think that I'd consider you as a replaceable part of my life... Toothless, without you, I'm... nothing. I'm just Hiccup."
"You're just Hiccup now." Toothless reminded.
"Toothless, you don't understand. Everything I have now, I have because of you. My friends, Astrid... even my father." He heaved a sigh and sat back against the driftwood log, "You know what? Pixie, come here, I'm going to finish my story. It's about time you heard it too, Toothless." The elder dragon opened his mouth to protest, but was silenced by a look from Pixie, who moved to her place in Hiccup's lap.
"What I said about my father, that was all true, but it wasn't just him. I was the laughingstock of the village. Everything I tried to do I failed miserably at. I failed miserably at... Being a Viking. I couldn't fight, I could hardly hold up an ax, and even the others my age wouldn't spare me a passing glance, at least not without insulting me. Snotlout was the only one of them who would talk to me, and that was never in a good way. Astrid, she downright hated me. I was always in her way. Gobber was the only person who ever really talked to me, and that was mostly because he had to, because I helped him at the smithy." He ran a hand over Pixie's head as he continued, "My ideas were always disregarded and nobody ever took anything I said seriously. I was the son of the chief, Stoick the Vast, Hear His Name and Tremble, Ug Ug! And yet... I was just so useless at everything. They'd hardly even let me outside during dragon raids because they knew I'd just get in the way. But then, one night, after I'd just completed my bola launcher, I managed to sneak out and do the one thing that I knew would get me recognition. I shot down a Night Fury... But even then, when I found you, I couldn't bring myself to kill you. A viking that couldn't kill a dragon. How could I call myself a Viking at all? Well, after I realized you weren't going to kill me, I thought I'd try to make it up to you, after what I'd done to your tail, and, Toothless, you turned my life around. I started using little tricks I learned from time I spent with you when I was supposed to be fighting dragons, and worked my way to the top of the class."
Toothless looked at him curiously, "What tricks?"
"Well, there was the eel thing. I still don't get the whole dragons vs. eels thing, but it worked! Scared Barf and Belch back into their cage. The Dragon Nip we discovered, I used on Meatlug, and on that Terrible Terror I used the shiny trick with the reflection of the hammer... Oh, and scratching under the neck, I used that move on Stormfly. I was winning without fighting, but a win's a win, and so they decided that I was to kill Hookfang." Hiccup explained.
"You were to kill Hookfang? That's what I walked in on?" There was a slight edge in his voice, but deep down he was fairly certain that Hiccup wouldn't dream of such a thing.
Hiccup nodded, "And during that time, everyone suddenly started to like me, because I was winning. I went from being in the way to being a celebrity almost overnight. I, I knew I couldn't kill a dragon, so I planned to run away with you, Toothless, but Astrid caught me before I could get to you. She pinned me down and you saw her attacking me, so you defended me... Then, well, both of you know the rest." He heaved a sigh, "My point is, without you, I'd still be that in the way, worthless nobody. You're the first to ever look past how pathetic I was to what's inside and give me a chance to prove myself. In a way, you're not just irreplaceable to me, Toothless, you're the only one in my life who could never be replaced." Toothless stiffened at this. "I mean, even Astrid and my father, they don't see me. They see what I've done for Berk... And I want you to be the happiest dragon on the planet. That's why I wanted to find more Night Furies. I thought that you'd be happier if you were surrounded by your friends and family."
"You really... mean that, Hiccup?" Toothless asked softly, pawing at the ground nervously.
"Of course I do!" The boy flashed his signature lopsided grin, "You know, I was never really angry when you kidnapped me. Well, perhaps a bit that I didn't have any warning, but... I've always thought that if life on Berk made you uncomfortable, I'd leave with you and never look back."
"What about your father? And Astrid?" Toothless wondered, finally meeting his gaze.
Hiccup shrugged, "I'd be sad about them, and I'd miss them, but really, I'm used to my life without them. My life without you? It's just scary to think about." Toothless nuzzled against Hiccup's chest, purring loudly. The boy reached up to hug his dragon around the neck, "I'm sorry, buddy. I'll be more clear with you about things like this in the future. It'll be easier now that I can actually talk with you."
"It's fine," Toothless said, pulling away and shaking his head a bit, "I jumped to conclusions. We're both at fault... I was just so scared of losing you-"
"Never gonna happen." Hiccup said firmly.
Pixie, who had been more or less ignored throughout this entire conversation, finally piped up, "What does that makes me?"
With a chuckle, Hiccup replied, "You're a real friend, too, Pixie." She brightened at this, and Hiccup continued, "But I would like to see if the other Night Furies are interested in checking out life on Berk. Not to replace you, but to join you. Maybe if Flamewing sees how my father and I interact he'll learn a thing or two about being a dad."
"We can ask..." Toothless agreed, a bit more self-confident now. "Just don't be offended if they reject you."
The boy yawned, "I know... But I'm hoping I'll be alright to go home tomorrow. You know the twins and Snotlout will get into all kinds of trouble without me there to tell them they're being idiots."
"Don't push yourself," Toothless warned, genuinely concerned.
"I know. I think I'm going to rest out here a while. Would you bring Pixie back home for me? I don't want her to get into trouble on my account."
The tiny dragon huffed, "I don't want to go! I want to stay here with Hiccup!"
"I'll be back soon," Toothless promised, and with this, he retracted his teeth and lifted the runt off the ground in his mouth, carrying her back into the caves with a much lighter heart.
What all of them had somehow failed to notice was the watchful gaze of Sky, who moved in front of Hiccup once Toothless and Pixie were out of sight. "Touching display of affection," He commented, nearly scaring Hiccup out of his pants.
"S-Sky! What is it with you Night Furies and sneaking up on people?!" He scolded, taking a moment to calm down. "What do you want?"
The sapphire dragon turned his gaze to the sky and replied thoughtfully, "Is that really what people are like with dragons on Berk? The way you are with Pixie and Toothless?"
Hiccup hesitated, "For the most part, yes. It wasn't always that way, but now, like I said, dragons are as much a part of our village as the humans."
Sky seemed to consider this for a time before announcing, "I'll speak with Flamewing about these matters; you needn't waste your time. If it comes from you he'll never listen, he's too proud. Personally, I'm interested to see what life is like there, and... I know Pixie's grown attached to you."
Hiccup beamed, "Thank you, Sky," He said softly, then watched the dragon walk off into the night. Things were going to be different around Berk from now on, Hiccup could just feel it.
Thank you all for the suggestions! I still need more people to talk to me about shenanigans or no, though. I'm thinking of making a different (and shorter) chapter just for them and give a warning that they are shenanigans so people can just skip if they don't want to read it. Thing is, I know it detracts from the seriousness of the story, but sometimes silliness is the medicine we need during serious times. Plus, you KNOW they're going to get into trouble without Hiccup around, and I'm probably going to have to reference, "What happened while he was gone" with a bunch of Peter Griffin-like flashbacks. "Like that time when I..." So... Yeah. Review please, and give me more input on shenanigans! Right now it's a tie between opposing opinions of two people, I feel like that's a bit unfair.