Chapter Text
“Can you please just stay still for a little longer?” Hiccup whispered under his breath while struggling to hold onto a small wriggling green dragon.
The beady-eyed little dragon ignored Hiccup’s pleas as he clawed at his hands, trying to get him to loosen his grip and let him scurry away.
“N-n-no!” The dragon protested, hissing. “Hiccup make poor T-T-Toothless stay up for the last t-t-time! T-T-Toothless won’t do it anymore!”
Hiccup sighed in frustration as the greengage dragon continued to struggle, his swipes at his hands proving useless, as Hiccup had gotten into the habit of wearing thick gloves to bed, specifically to counteract his dragon’s attacks.
“Please, Toothless,” Hiccup practically begged the small dragon. “I promise I’ll give you a nice big herring for breakfast tomorrow.”
The little dragon ceased his struggles for a moment, considering the offer.
“And I won’t make you send a letter back for… two weeks,” Hiccup added.
That’ll be a pain to explain, he thought to himself, but he knew it was worth it to try and get his disobedient dragon to do this one task.
“F-f-fine,” Toothless decided, huffing smoke directly into Hiccup’s face. “But only because T-T-Toothless is such a generous dragon to his mean M-M-Master.”
The small garden dragon stopped struggling completely, though he still huffed blueish grey smoke into Hiccup’s face. But the Viking was used to it by now.
Hiccup sighed in relief as he brought his arms down, took off the gloves and rearranged himself around his bed sheets, pulling out a piece of paper that had been hidden underneath his pillow. (Just in case Toothless was disagreeing more than usual and accidentally set fire to Hiccup’s bed, which did happen one time. Hiccup had to come up with an excuse to tell his father, and he eventually settled on “Toothless was hunting a mouse, and accidently set the bed on fire.” That whole incident nearly caused Toothless to be banned from sleeping upstairs with Hiccup, but luckily, he had convinced his father otherwise.)
Hiccup placed the paper on his pillow and flattened it out to read it. Toothless yawned, either from boredom or exhaustion, and his eyes closed, snuffing away the light Hiccup had been using to read the paper with.
“Toothless!” He hissed quietly.
The dragon grumbled under his breath and opened his eyes again, bringing back the light like two little spotlights as they hovered vaguely near the piece of paper- a true representative of Toothless’ enthusiasm for this whole ordeal.
Hiccup sighed again, rather on edge, as the dragon’s eyes lit up the paper so he could finally read it properly. He skimmed past the introduction (as it was the only thing Hiccup had been able to read before Toothless started to protest earlier), and moved straight on to the middle of the letter.
‘Anyways,’ it read. ‘I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since we’ve seen each other, and that in only a few days, I’ll get to see you again!’
Hiccup smiled at the words, though the implications made a shiver of nervousness go down his spine.
Right. That oh-so special day. He wasn’t looking forward to it, not at all. But…
‘If it means seeing you again, I’ll sit through any old boring ceremony thingy,’ the letter continued.
Hiccup gave a slight chuckle. He would probably do the same.
‘Don’t laugh at me,’ the letter warned. ‘But I may have written some poetry because of how much I miss you.’
Hiccup gave a slight wince, but smiled anyway. He could tell that every single word in that sentence must have taken minutes to write. Poetry, huh? He thought to himself. That’s bold.
He shifted around slightly to get comfortable. Let’s hear it then, he grinned at the paper.
‘Roses are red, so is your hair. Hiccup, you are beyond compare.’
Hiccup gave a soft laugh. It was rather crude, compared to some poetry he had read and written, but it was genuine- from the heart, and it made him smile.
‘I hope that didn’t make you regret even talking to me,’ the letter started up after the block of poetry, and Hiccup gave another soft laugh, practically hearing the strained embarrassment pour out of the paper and directly towards him.
‘I am looking forward to seeing you again,’ the letter started to wrap up. ‘So, I’ll see you in a few days. Hope my “poetry” didn’t scare you off, a good friend.’
Hiccup smiled, folding the piece of paper and lifting his sheets to stash it under a floorboard next to his bed frame. Placing it on top of the most recent letter, Hiccup carefully set the floorboard quietly back on, and then pulled himself back into bed, pulling up the covers.
He didn’t even need to tell Toothless he was done, as the dragon had fallen asleep from boredom just as Hiccup had read the last line.
Shuffling around on his mattress so he didn’t disturb the sleeping reptile, Hiccup rolled over onto his back and looked up at the ceiling.
A few days… he thought to himself, smiling. A few more days, and I’ll get to see him again.
With all of that excitement out of the way, Hiccup closed his eyes and easily fell asleep.