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The trouble with eels starts far before Hiccup ever sneaks one into the basket of fish he’d brought for Toothless in the cove. It starts when Toothless is barely old enough to fly on his own for more than a jaunt to the water and back, when his body is small enough to fit inside one of the bigger ones’ mouths.
It tries, relentlessly, to get a grip on him, teeth snapping, itching to gnash against Toothless’s soft baby scales. He squeaks, flaps his wings but they’re waterlogged, and he can’t get out of the sea. He cries, screeches, calls desperately for help and it’s by sheer luck that his mother swoops in to save him. She berates him, kindly but sternly, for swimming too far out from where she’d been fishing herself. But really, it hadn’t been his fault at all! He was swimming with a friendly scauldron and he’d paddled a little too far into the sea.
Even though it was totally, completely, definitely not his fault, he lets her scold him anyways. He chooses to revel in the comfort of her folded wings, curled around his little soaking wet body. After all, warm scales are better than sharp teeth. He lets his mom squawk indignantly at him, melting into her warmth and care as she shields him from the eels with the protection of her wings.
This, a few scraps over fish later, and one very nasty bite on his ankle all lead to the way that he arches angrily at the yellow and black snake lying in the pile of delicious fish that Hiccup brings him. It’s small, a fifth of the size of the ones Toothless is used to dealing with out in the sea, but it’s still an eel.
“No, no! Okay, no,” Hiccup lunges for the eel, his tiny, unguarded hands reaching right for it. Toothless roars, but the eel is just as lifeless as the cod and the salmon, and Hiccup hands it limply from one hand.
Toothless is fairly certain Hiccup says something else, probably sardonic, but all he hears is alarm bells until the eel is safely thrown several feet away from them both.
Toothless will have to educate Hiccup on the dangers of eels sometime. Just because it was a little one, a baby perhaps, does not mean it would not have bitten him were it still alive. Toothless makes sure to give the wretched thing another growl, just in case, before digging into the pile of fish.
--
The next time they encounter an eel together, Hiccup is just as casual about it as the first time. It’s lurking in the water just beneath the surface, hoping to snag the same tiny fish that Toothless eats for an appetizer. Toothless shrieks, his head rearing upwards, and it knocks Hiccup’s foot into a different tail position. It throws them off of their flight path; they work well together, but it’s still not as smooth as Toothless used to fly before his tail was split. Hiccup uses what he calls a cheat sheet, a flimsy scrap of paper notating which way to move his foot to correspond with the position he needs Toothless’s false fin to snap into. Hiccup doesn’t know how to respond quick enough to Toothless’s jerky motions, and the two careen sharply into a sea stack not five meters from shore.
Toothless nearly gags on seawater, and he hears Hiccup already choking on it, his puny human lungs no match for that of a night fury. The dragon swims swiftly, wings beating more fiercely than they did when he was a baby, and he snags Hiccup out of the waves, swimming his way to shore.
Hiccup’s shirt is caught on Toothless’s claw, but the dragon drops him on dry land. He’s hacking and spluttering, water pouring off of him in droplets that are no match for the ocean coating Toothless’s wings. He beats them once, twice, three times to get the water off, and his scales dry quickly in the open air. Hiccup, however, happens to be in the unfortunate line of fire, and is hit with a tidal wave of Toothless’s doing.
“Ack- hey!” He shouts, coughing again as some of the rogue seawater pools in his mouth, rushing down his throat, “Why would you do that?”
Toothless grumbles, something meant to be about Hiccup’s slow reflexes, but has to dodge a fistful of sand flying his way.
Some of it lands on Toothless’s nose, and the dragon bats it away with the ridges on his forepaws. How dare you! Toothless gripes, glaring viciously at Hiccup, dirtying my scales, getting grit beneath my ear flaps.
“Now you know how I feel,” Hiccup sneers, “Night furies never miss, y’know! You splashed me on purpose.”
Maybe I did, Toothless grumbles, that’s the price you pay for getting me close to an eel.
Hiccup doesn’t speak a lick of Toothless’s language, all unintelligible clicks and growls and grunts, but he narrows his eyes at the preening dragon regardless.
“You know, that eel had you pretty freaked out. I’ve noticed that about dragons. Why is that? You afraid of ‘em?” Hiccup grins, and Toothless is sure that if humans were as expressive as dragons, that Hiccup’s pupils would be predatory slits.
Toothless huffs into the paw he’s grooming himself with, whipping his tail at Hiccup and smacking the handmade fin into his face. Hiccup swats it away, and Toothless grants him mercy instead of an all-out war. An all-out war that Hiccup would totally lose, with his scrawny arms and legs. Arms and legs that look like eels, slender and mischievous and wholly untrustworthy.
“You’re totally afraid of eels.” Hiccup snickers, and despite the human’s initial hesitancy towards him, Toothless’s mighty roar in Hiccup’s direction does little more than egg the laughing on.
“Big baby,” Hiccup mutters, leaning back on his palms in the sand and letting the sun dry his soaked tunics, “Giant dragon, offspring of lightning and death itself, your only hope is to hide and pray it does not find you, and a tiny, harmless eel has you ducking for cover.”
Harmless? Toothless roars, Hiccup’s hair blowing back from the force, harmless? Eels are vicious! One nearly ripped off my toe! I almost ended up in one’s belly! Harmless! Just wait, Toothless growls, turning firmly away from Hiccup and settling down into the sand with a testy huff, one day you’ll meet a big eel, then you’ll understand.
--
“Toothless!” Hiccup yelps, a shrieking sound that should have been left firmly in the years before puberty. His hand clings onto the ornately carved bow of a ship, fingers clutching tight between the wooden teeth of a dragon. An eel, a real eel, one of the big ones that inhabit the icy waters far out from the coast of Berk snaps at his heels, sinking back into the water to gain momentum for its next lunge. Toothless watches him for a split second, his muscles already flaring with panic, with attack-kill-protect, and knows that if the eel is allowed to breach again, Hiccup’s going to need another false leg.
The way he moves must inspire the name the vikings have for him; it really is beastly fury. His muscles burn and his wings pump like weapons as he lunges for the eel, teeth extracted to snap tightly around the thick body of the massive eel. Adrenaline courses through his veins and fire rears in his throat without a conscious ignition. The eel’s life has ended- Toothless’s fangs took care of that in one swift bite. But it’s charred now, too, flames licking at the surface of the water in an unnatural rage. He drops the offending eel back into the water, letting it be a warning to its brothers: don’t touch the human, and angles himself so that when Hiccup’s grip finally fails, he slides down the back of Toothless’s smooth head and right into his saddle.
“Oh, bud,” Hiccup breathes, relief palpable in just the heave of his chest as he bends forwards over Toothless to hug him. His arms don’t fit around the dragon’s entire head, but he makes up for it with the way he nuzzles his face into Toothless’s broad forehead in a dragon-like gesture of affection.
“I thought I was going to die,” Hiccup admits, which has become a common occurrence for him ever since his first jaunt to the cove, but hasn’t worn off completely in shock value. Toothless feels the shake of his human’s limbs against him, hears the tremble in his voice, smells the rotting stench of fear slowly receding as Toothless glides them gracefully, calmly over the waves, though keeping a wide berth for any other especially audacious eels. He remembers the way he had shaken in his mother’s wings, beneath her paws that checked him over for any injuries, and as they approach dry land he knows just what to do.
All Hiccup hears is an indignant screech, and his head tunnels directly into the sand at full force. He gets a nose and mouthful of it, but Toothless’s wings are already rolling and pushing him upright, sand raining down on his face from his hair. It’s been unruly as of late, no longer lying flat against his head but sticking up at awkward angles that he has to fight back. These rebellious tufts are excellent sand traps, and more dusts Hiccup’s cheeks when Toothless roars mere inches away from his face.
You almost died! Toothless begins a lecture the way his mother used to: a good hook.
That eel wanted to eat you. He almost took your last good foot! Do you want to do that again? Do you want to spend three weeks in bed, looking and sounding and smelling like you are dead? Do you want me to have to sit by your bed again, worried that you won’t wake up? Do you want your dad to cry again? He cried the first time! He cried while you were sleeping! You love falling from the sky but no one can stand it when you land! You are supposed to stay locked into the saddle, not jump out of it like a fledgeling leaving the nest too soon. Eels are mean and dangerous and if I had not been there to save you it would have swallowed you whole! No more eels! No more flights over the ocean! No more jumping out of the saddle!
Hiccup’s eyes, wider than they’ve ever been, follow Toothless’s animated form as he screeches for all he’s worth. He’s pacing back and forth in the sand, flinging some Hiccup’s way each time his claws retract from the stuff. He grumbles, he growls, he points an accusatory wingtip or paw at Hiccup each time he makes a point.
Of course, Hiccup has no idea what point he’s trying to make, only that the dragon is very passionate about whatever it is.
If you can’t keep yourself safe while we’re flying then I will not take you flying anymore. Toothless finishes with a huff, realizing that he’s missed a crucial part of the mothering process; he has no idea if Hiccup is injured anywhere. His nose usually alerts him to the rancid stench of blood, but he noses forwards into Hiccup’s belly anyways, and the stunned man lets him do what he wants for fear of triggering another long, unintelligible speech.
Nothing broken, Toothless muses, nosing at Hiccup’s shoulder, nothing bleeding, he nudges against Hiccup’s side, no bruises to be found, nothing missing. You got lucky this time. Toothless gripes, baring his teeth to growl an inch away from Hiccup’s stunned face, and I will not let you test your luck again.
Growling at his terrible, foolish, fragile boy does not produce the desired effect. Hiccup doesn’t rumble an apology and hang his head contritely like a good fledgeling would. No, he closes the gap between them by the only inch remaining, his nose resting fearlessly, trustingly against the trembling of Toothless’s snarling maw.
“Thanks, bud,” Hiccup breathes, adoring, praising, and Toothless fights the urge to retract his teeth due to their proximity- something in his very core tells him that he can’t have them out this close to his boy, but he is trying to be intimidating here, thank you very much. He keeps them out, but then Hiccup’s hand smoothes the agitated ridges on his spine down flat, snuffing his furious fire.
Toothless’s teeth retract of their own accord, and his eyes slip shut as he pushes his great head against Hiccup’s own. Beneath the how could you be so careless? Is a how could I stand to lose you?, and Toothless lets himself revel in the way that Hiccup’s meager breath hits his face, soft but present.
Hiccup is alive, that eel is dead, and they’re on dry land, together.
Toothless’s mighty wings curl delicately around Hiccup, and he lays the two of them down on the sand. The sun hits and warms his scales, but Toothless’s own body heat keeps Hiccup warm while his wings shade the human. He tucks Hiccup’s scrawny form into his chest, clutching the boy tighter until Hiccup settles against the beat of his heart. He can feel the boy melting into him, knows it’s time for a nap whether he wants one or not, and Toothless feels tiny huffs of breath against his scales.
He tightens his wings around the boy, keeping him safe and cool and shaded, but his tail lays starkly black and red, outstretched towards the waves and resting against the sand; a warning.
Try and touch my boy, the tail says, to any wayward eels, I’ll burn the ocean before I’ll let you hurt him.