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“Hookie, I said I’m fine,” Snotlout grumbled, blinking the tiredness away from his eyes. He growled softly, his sunshine yellow eyes practically glowing in the dimming light, as if to say ‘I don’t believe you’ .
Snotlout’s grip on the axe tightened. “I told you, our next trip to Berk is in a week, if my d- if I look weak, and stupid in front of everyone, there’s no way they’ll want me as any kind of leader, let alone chief.”
His dad still hadn’t given up on that tyrannical obsession, some stupid fantasy that some day, something tragic would happen to Hiccup, and he would be next in line.
But Snotlout didn’t want to be chief! He wanted to invent weapons, and maybe lead the dragon riders when (or if) Hiccup becomes chief. If nothing else, he’d like to live in a world of peace where he could just spend hours in the sky with Hookfang: no missions, no hunters, just them and the clouds and the endless expanse of blue sky.
He loved that feeling: limitless, weightless, the world at his and his dragon’s feet and claws.
Best of all, in the sky, none of his dad was in sight. The few times he’d flown with him didn’t feel the same. His posture was taut, and he flew with alarming precision, like his dad was grading him.
Maybe he should have a short flight now, just to clear his head. His feet and knees were aching for how long he’d been standing on them like they were slowly being crushed with a vice.
Maybe that would take the fuzzy feeling away.
Snotlout practically crawls - baby baby stupid dumb little baby - and lets Hookfang take flight into the sky. A tiny cry escapes him as he does, and he can’t tell what it is. Fear? Excitement? Wonder? He isn’t sure, all he knows is that he’s very high up, and if he falls, he’ll hit stone-hard and ice-cold ocean, and that will hurt. More so than his father ever hit him.
Hookfang flames up, ever so softly, barely candlelight in the dimming sky. The heat slowly starts to seep through Snotlout’s bones: first creeping into his frozen toes, up his legs, through his aching back -oh Thor, sweet relief - easing the tension in his shoulders, finally, to his head.
To an alarmingly little sense of anxiety, his eyelids begin to droop, the world narrowing into bars across the centre of his eyes as consciousness battles his tired head.
But Hookfang doesn’t try to flip him off his snout, doesn’t even flap his wings any harder than he needs to. Suddenly, Snotlout realises Hookfang won't let him fall into the ice-cold ocean.
Hookfang snorts softly, as if he can hear his rider’s exhaustion, and flies back to his hut.
“Hooky-” Snotlout starts to argue, but finds he doesn’t have the energy to finish his spineless protest. Like a baby, he lets Hookfang carry him on his snout to Hookfang’s stall in the stables. The Nightmare curls into a spiral, and buries Snotlout at the centre, practically tucked beneath his wing.
He burrows into his dragon’s warmth in a way he hasn’t since he was a child, a handful of winters behind him, and his father wasn’t home to see him do something so weak and childish, such as sleep by the fire.
But this isn’t a fire. This is better. Hookfang is warm all over like the residual heat of a furnace, and his body heat soon spreads to Snotlout, rocking him to some realm between waking and sleeping.
And it is in this realm of semi-conscious, he finds his dad. He looks at his son with disappointment all over his face, and Snotlout’s heart pulses frantically, like a tiny, frightened child is beating its fists on the inside of his chest.
Crackling noises reach Snotlout’s ears before he sees the fire behind him. Hookfang’s wings are spread to their full length as means of intimidation, and he roars. His dad mutters something under his breath Snotlout can’t hear, and walks away, his back turned. Hookfang roars proudly at his rider/younger brother figure, and Snotlout wraps his arms around his long neck.
That is the last thing Snotlout remembers before -finally- he falls victim to sleep.