Chapter Text
The day was perfect.
Pleasant sunbeams fell on the Edge, only occasionally shadowed by rolling, puffy white clouds. On days like this, Snotlout thought, there was no better thing to do than sit around in the sunshine, basking in the warm glow, curled up near Hookfang, and accompanied only by the soft sound of Hookfang snoring.
"Oh, look at you! You've been growing so well!"
And the rambling of Fishlegs talking to his plants, apparently.
The spot he chose was right next to Fishlegs' peace garden, as the taller Viking tended to his plants. It was becoming a frequent spot of his, mainly keeping quiet company to Fishlegs as he worked and Meatlug played with other dragons on the island, being allergic to at least half of the flowers. Occasionally, Fishlegs would tell him to fetch this or that for him, and he pulled himself onto his feet to get it, accompanied by a complaint or two.
It was an unspoken thing between them; one day Snotlout just decided to rest there without Fishlegs objecting, and he'd been visiting ever since. Not even Hiccup, Astrid, or the twins knew about these… visits. Fishlegs never asked him why he always came here, and Snotlout was eternally grateful for that.
He sighed his eyes and pushed his helmet over his eyes, just focusing on Fishlegs' voice as he talked to his plants. It was nauseatingly cute; Snotlout hated how just hearing his voice made his heart skip a beat. After the first time, he told Hookfang and himself that it was boring and he'd never go back. The second time, he told Hookfang he was just making sure, and he was sure this was the last time. Now, he wasn't sure which " last time" he was on, and he didn't really care. As long as Fishlegs allowed him, he would keep coming back.
It was soft and dumb and very much the opposite of what a proper Viking like him should be doing, but he just didn’t know how to stop.
"It's almost perfect… " Fishlegs said, watering his cornflowers.
"Almost?" Snotlout asked. As far as he was concerned, this was about as close to perfect as a day could get.
"Well," Fishlegs started, "My peace garden is nearly finished, if it matters to you. I've got violets, chickweed, bellflowers, and several varieties of honeysuckle- nearly every flower you can think of. Practically every horticulturist's dream, if I do say so myself."
Snotlout opened one eye. "And what, aren't you proud of it Fishface? Plants are like, the only thing you talk about, besides dragons."
"Oh, no, I am! Of course I am, this has been a big dream of mine for a long time."
"...But what?"
"There's just- well, there's this one flower that I can't get my hands on. It would be the last one in the garden; I saved a spot for it right here, see? Right next to all my other orchids."
"So it's just some other dumb orchid, what’s the big deal? You’ve got dozens more.”
“It’s the lady’s slipper orchid,” Fishlegs corrected, picking out the stubborn weeds that refused to die, “They’re usually pink or white, native to forests, and pretty rare. I’ve been on the hunt for some for months now, but no matter what island we fly to, I can never seem to find one.”
“Well,” Snotlout said, “Having a mostly complete collection of useless plants is better than not having one at all.”
Fishlegs just shook his head, ignoring the useless part of the comment. “I mean, yeah, but haven’t you ever wanted something really bad, and you came so close to getting it , but never quite reached it?”
Yes, of course, he wanted to say, he’d faced failure so many many times. Moments that would have been perfect to ask the other out, to kiss him and intertwine their fingers and whisper gross, mushy things in his ear. Even now, with the sun shining down, turning Fishlegs’ blond hair into a golden halo in his garden of beautiful flowers. He looked more ethereal than Freya, Snotlout thought.
But there was no way in the archipelago he’d say that.
So instead, he turned away and shrugged. “ Nah .”
“Of course you haven’t,” Fishlegs deadpanned, “I don’t know why I expected you to understand, you’re… you.”
Something twisted in his stomach, but Snotlout ignored it. The only thing he seemed to be good at was ruining whatever few chances he had with Fishlegs in the first place.
He only stayed for a few more minutes, completely wordless, before taking Hookfang and leaving.
<-O->
Snotlout was almost 100% sure Hiccup was trying to bore him to death.
He, in typical Hiccup Haddock fashion, had called up a meeting concerning some recent dragon hunter activity. Something about dragon poison or something, Snotlout honestly couldn’t bring himself to pay attention.
“See, and when we went out 2 days ago, we turned up even more blue oleander- literal barrels of it within the Dragon hunter base.”
“We know, Hiccup, we were there,” Ruffnut groaned, seated at her side of the table, “You don’t have to explain everything to us like we’re baby yaks.”
“I’d rather eat some blue oleander than listen to the rest of this meeting,” Tuffnut said, and both twins snickered.
“I mean, I don’t get why we have to be here anyway. When we come across blue oleander, we burn it, we move on,” Snotlout said with folded arms, leaning dangerously far back in his chair, “Fishface is the flower guy, just talk to him.”
“This concerns all of us, 'cause we’re all dragon riders here- we need to all be aware of the plans we make so no one goes off-script, ” He shot a look at the twins.
“Well, you always give us boring parts!” Ruffnut protested, “What about that, huh? You just love leaving the fun bits to yourself.”
“We’re just giving you what you can handle,” Astrid said.
“Who says what we can or can’t handle?” Tuffnut interrupted, “We could do all the sort of things that you and Toothless do with Barf and Belch!”
“Yeah!” chorused his sister.
Hiccup could feel a headache coming along. He pinched the bridge of his nose, “No, no , you can’t- they’re completely different classes, sizes, abilities -”
“Who cares about something dumb like dragon class,” Ruffnut said.
Fishlegs stiffened. “I care about Dragon class.”
“Okay, okay, we’re getting completely off track here. Ruff, Tuff, you guys can have different roles if you actually put in the effort to help plan out our attacks. And Snotlout, I can see you trying to sleep.”
Snotlout nearly fell out of his chair. “Me? Never. How could I sleep while my cousin makes such important plans. ”
Hiccup unfurled out a map of the Archipelago, ignoring the apparent sarcasm. “Here, I've marked all the places we’ve visited with large amounts of blue oleander, which should slim down their sites of production. What I don’t understand is, how they could get so much of it so quickly. Fishlegs, any thoughts?”
“Hmm, well,” Fishlegs started, “We’ve easily seen a few field-full’s of it from the Dragon Hunters, and I suspect that isn’t even a quarter of how much the operation spreads. Oleander isn’t the hardest plant to grow, but to have this much of it requires some extremely fertile soil as well as regular crop rotation.”
“See? That’s who you should have spoken to from the start,” Snotlout said, “Now just tell me where we’re going and when.”
“No, no, we can’t just leave on a moment's notice,” Hiccup shook his head, “What if it’s the wrong island, or it turns up to be a trap for us to leave the edge unprotected? We can’t afford to fall into a trap like that right now.”
“Astrid, can’t you tell your boyfriend to chill out for a minute or two? He’s more on edge than a pack of Prickleboggle’s.” Snotlout suggested.
“No.”
He shrugged. “Well, I tried.”
“I’m going to contact my father to see if he knows of any suspicious activity near these 3 islands since Berk does some trading near here.”
“And I could ask Heather to stop by here, just to check on things,” Astrid pointed at an area on the map.
By this point, the conversation devolved into Hiccup and Astrid planning together, with everyone else mostly tapped out. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were whispering to each other and giggling, probably planning some kind of prank to pull. Snotlout folded his arms and rested his head on the table, just waiting for Hiccup to say this meeting was over. He could just leave, technically Hiccup couldn’t make them do anything, but the last time he did that he was put on cleaning the Dragon stables, and he’d rather not do that again.
So all that meant he had to do some waiting, and waiting around doing nothing usually led to staring at Fishlegs. Funny, a lot of things led to staring at Fishlegs. The Viking had out his journal on horticulture, probably doing some extra research on blue oleander. He always looked cute when he focused, which was unfortunate because he did it a lot.
Every day Snotlout hated Thor Bonecrusher a little bit more, because if Thor Bonecrusher never happened, then maybe Snotlout would never have noticed how strong Fishlegs was, or how his eyes were this perfect shade of emerald green, or want to do horribly embarrassing things like kiss every freckle on his face. Gods, it was awful. He could already feel a blush creeping up his neck.
Fishlegs turned the page. He should probably stop staring before Fishlegs looked up and thought he was a big weirdo, he thought. Any second now, he would. Any… second now.
Fishlegs caught his eye, a confused look on his face. Shit.
He turned away, his face hot with embarrassment from being caught staring. He hoped for some sudden dragon hunter attack, or one of their dragons to burst into the clubhouse to save him from the embarrassment.
It didn’t happen.
<-O->
That night, Snotlout was pacing around his hut.
“He wasn’t mad at me, Hooky, Fishlegs is never mad. Except for uh, that one time with the Changewings,” He mused, “But other than that he’s barely ever mad. But he’s disappointed and somehow that’s worse?”
Hookfang huffed in indignation.
“Oh hush, Hookfang, I can deal with your disappointment. And Hiccups’ too, he’s basically always disappointed. But this is different. Me and my big stupid mouth- why can’t I just say the things I want to say instead of being a mutton-head all the time?”
Hookfang roared something that sounded like an insult.
“You’re on thin ice, mister. One more word out of you and I’m not giving you your oil tonight.” Snotlout threatened.
The dragon rolled his eyes but didn’t make any other comment.
“I just gotta do something that proves I’m not just a big idiot,” Snotlout said, retrieving a small bottle and sitting down. Hookfang curled up in front of him, and Snotlout began rubbing Hookfang’s favorite oil on his scales. “Something super cool and impressive, to make Fishlegs swoon and be all like ‘Oh my Thor, Snotlout, you’re so hot and awesome and brave, can you date me? ’Heh. Imagine that.”
Hookfang softly cooed, starting to relax.
“I could maybe give him the flower that completes his garden. What’s it called again? The Lady slipper orchid?” he thought, “Why they’d name a flower after some lady’s shoe, I wouldn’t know. Too bad it’s like, super rare and I’d never have any hope of finding one.”
They sat in silence for a minute, Snotlout rubbing the oil between Hookfang’s scales as his dragon blew calm breaths of smoke.
Then, Hookfang’s eyes shot open, and jolted upright, out of Snotlout’s care.
“Hooky?” Snotlout said, confused.
The dragon roared, walking in a circle and accidentally knocking some stuff over with his tail, before motioning for Snotlout to follow him.
Snotlout got up, following the Monstrous Nightmare out of the hut. “What’s gotten into you?”
Hookfang flew on top of the hut, circling around the big “S” Snotlout had painted in bright red, then roared.
Snotlout just stared in confusion. “Yeah, uh, that’s the “S” I painted.”
Hookfang shook his head, circling the giant “S” again.
“I… have no idea what you’re trying to say.”
The dragon growled in frustration, before picking up Snotlout by his claws and flying him up to the “S”.
“What are you doing, Hookfang? Put me down!”
The dragon released him on the roof of his hut, right next to the “S”.
“What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense! I know there’s an “S” here; I painted it!”
Hookfang groaned before flying off into the house, and later emerging with an axe in his jaws. He gave the axe to Snotlout and roared.
“My father’s axe? What do you want with this?”
Hookfang pointed to the “S”, then the axe, then back to the “S”.
Snotlout furrowed his brow, trying to think. “Uh… are you talking about my dad’s storehouse with the big “S” on it, like this? The one that got destroyed by the Singetails?”
Hookfang nodded frantically.
“But the old storehouse is gone, Hooky, what does that have to do with anything?”
The Monstrous Nightmare paused, trying to think of how to explain further. He flew over, picking up Snotlout with his claws again and beginning to fly away.
“You know it wouldn’t kill you to ask me to board you, right?” The Viking complained as he flailed around in Hookfang’s claws.
Hookfang dropped him in front of the Clubhouse, then hurried inside, with Snotlout following close behind. The dragon lit the lantern in the middle of the clubhouse with a little fire, then roared and motioned to the map still on the clubhouse table, with the turn of his head.
“Do you want me to… find the old storehouse on the map?”
Hookfang gave an enthusiastic chirp.
Snotlout went over to the table with the map. “Well, I think we were somewhere close to here,” Snotlout pointed to an island, “But the whole island probably is crawling with Singetails now…”
With his head, Hookfang nudged his finger over a little, to an island near the one with the failed storehouse.
“Here? This island we stopped at?”
Hookfang nodded again.
“But why do you want to go there? Can you show me what’s over there?”
Hookfang cawed, motioning for Snotlout to board him. The Viking hopped on the dragon, despite the saddle being taken off prior, and both dragon and rider flew out of the clubhouse into the night.
Hookfang landed near Fishleg’s peace garden, with Snotlout dismounting his dragon. Then, being as careful as he possibly could, Hookfang walked through the garden, trying not to trample anything, until he got to the one empty patch in the garden, pointing his head towards it and softly roaring.
Snotlout tapped his chin, trying to put together the pieces. He didn’t remember the entire flight to the storehouse island where his dad was, but mid-way through the flight, they had stopped, due to Skullcrusher needing a drink. On the island, there were a few Typhoomerangs here and there, a big stream of water where the Dragon’s drank from, that led into a big forest with little pink and white flowers-
Wait.
Snotlout gasped. “Hookfang. Are you telling me that the flowers on that island- they were lady slipper orchids?”
Hookfang flew over and nodded enthusiastically.
A smile broke out on Snotlout’s face. “Hooky, you’re a genius! ” He grinned, affectionately giving Hookfang a head rub.
Hookfang cooed and purred at the attention, happily accepting the head pats.
“Come on, we gotta get back home to chart a course! And you’re definitely getting extra fish for that, Fangster.”
And with that, Hookfang and Snotlout both rode home.
<-O->
“Hiccup!”
Hiccup jumped, accidentally dropping everything he was holding in his crate before looking up.
“Snotlout - how many times have I told you not to sneak up on me like that?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Snotlout brushed it off, “Anyway, me and Hooky are gonna be out for a bit.” Hookfang roared in agreement.
Hiccup started picking up his things. “And… why are you telling me this, exactly?”
“Because, Hiccup, isn’t that what you told us to do? That we can’t just fly off without telling anyone? Not even you can keep track of your own stupid rules,” Snotlout mused.
“They’re not st- okay, fine, go ahead.” Hiccup waved him off.
Snotlout raced off with Hookfang in the blink of an eye, back to the hut. In his excitement, Snotlout had already packed his things last night after he charted the flight.
“Alright Hooky, this should be simple;” Snotlout started, packing things into Hookfang’s saddle, “We fly there, get a few flowers, come back, and then Fishface can’t get enough of me! Simple.”
Hookfang roared and shook his head, seemingly unconvinced by his plan.
“Shut up, Hookfang, It’ll work,” He said, getting onto Hookfang’s saddle before the dragon took off.
And for his heart’s own sake, he hoped it would.