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"Okay Bud, Okay!" the laughing teen yelled shrilly, playfully batting the scaly snout resting on his chest. Toothless had pinned him down in his usual playful fashion, the various sketchbooks and notes that Hiccup had been updating laying scattered like so many white feathers of a startled gull. It had only been a few minutes since they had landed in this new vista and Hiccup had barely managed to draw a few neat new lines with his charcoal stick before his careful marking had been skewed violently, cutting short what would have otherwise been a beautifully revised map in progress. The nightfury as impatient as ever had bowled over the young man where he sat, suffocating him in licks and careful swipes with the flats of his paws. Such activities where of great amusement to him, better by far than watching those clever digits scratch lines on flattened wood pulp.

Hiccup's fondness for his closest friend made it easy to give in to such play, half halfheartedly fighting back when the dragon would separate him from his work, his laughs and resistance convincing the stocky dragon that he felt the same way, that the work Toothless brought him out here for was simply a form of foreplay to this game they would play. His musings distracted him from Hiccup's protests and he misses the moment amusement flips over to hesitant frustration. He allows Hiccup to stand only to watch closely, wriggling his haunches much like a kitten sizing up a ball of yarn.

Catching his breath, Hiccup stumbles back from the overeager dragon, gasping for air after being trapped under his weight for a moment too long. Kneeling down he collects his scattered notes and the unfinished map, frowning as he spots the tear where the dragon had made his hand slip. Finally he picks up his notebook by the spine and opens it to the current page, moments before the dragon makes his next move.

Toothless launches himself forward, lowering his head and bowling Hiccup's legs out from under him, a yell of shock and surprise amusing the dragon greatly as Hiccup is flipped onto his back, sinewy arms wrapping round the scaly neck to prevent himself from tumbling off entirely into the grass. Prancing on his paws, Toothless's tongue lolls out in delight, wide eyes cast over his back at the panicked human. Instead of a happy, giggling face, the dragon saw only an open palm approaching rapidly, he yelps in shock as it bounces off his sensitive nose, not a friendly pat at all but an angry slap. Stunned, struck dumb by the utterly foreign action, Toothless stopped dead, mouth still hanging open. His head fins prick up and he hears for the first time that Hiccup's pants are not from exertion and delight, but from panic and anger.

"Why won't you just listen to me for once!" Hiccup yells, the offending hand half raised as if he's considering going in for another corrective strike from his position, strewn over the well crafted saddle. "Once! I can't get anyone to listen, Dad won't listen, the tribe won't listen, my friends won't listen." He deflates and slips off the dragon, stalking back to his notes. The pages are scattered and trampled, he gingerly picks up his sketchbook now limp and dejected with the spine torn open. "Even Astrid doesn't understand what i'm trying to do out here" He growls, turning back to Toothless and fixing him with a accusing glare "and you, you!" he snarls, his voice starting to shake as pricks of moisture appear in the corners of his green eyes "I thought you'd understand how important this is to me, enough to sit still for more than five seconds for Thor's sake!"

Toothless stared down at this claws, unable to meet his gaze, he rubs his snout with the back of one. Hiccup had never struck him before, not in an attempt to cause pain in any case, it had been enough to make him understand. Of course he always understood, while human words had always been foreign to him, body language is not, his knowledge of it so precise that any barriers that would bar communication between the two had simply ceased to exist by the time his exile to the cove had ended half a decade ago. Still, he had missed Hiccup's frustration, or at least had opted to ignore it, till now.

By the time he plucks up the courage to raise his gaze, to find some way to explain all this in a way that a human could understand, Hiccup had packed up his ruined notes, stuffed haphazardly into his pack and now refused to listen to his best friend's apologetic warbles. "it doesn't matter bud, let's go home" he mumbles quietly, clambering up into the saddle.

The flight home had been quiet, the uncomfortable silence stretching on and on, only broken by the occasional, naturally muffled flaps of Toothless's wings. Often the dragon looked back, craning his strong neck to check up on his partner. Hiccup had lowered his helmet, and the natural glare of the eye holes stared accusingly back at the uncomfortable dragon each time, even when he relaxed his neck to watch the horizon ahead he could still feel them burning holes in the back of his flat, scaly head. The sun lists sleepily on the flat ocean by the time Berk is within reach and still no words, spoken or otherwise had passed between the two friends, Toothless stretches his legs in preparation for landing, gliding nearly the full length of the compacted path between the wooden buildings before making contact, galloping smoothly to try and make the landing as comfortable as possible, not wanting to frustrate Hiccup further, who in his own mind would surely explode once again very soon.

"You go on ahead bud, i'm going to take a walk" Hiccup mutters, swinging his leg over the saddle and stepping onto the path while Toothless is still in motion. The dragon freezes, staring at the wandering figure and silencing a plaintive warble that threatens to begin in his throat. Hanging his broad head he plods on, following the path up towards the home he and his partner shared. Toothless, through everything, through every struggle and hardship had used Hiccup as a crutch, a supporting pillar to hold him up, as unshakable as the prosthetic that supports Hiccup now. Toothless held within him another belief, a belief that he offered something similar to Hiccup in return, a playful optimism and deep friendship to lift the human up into the clouds, not just his body, but his soul as well. Lately though...

The home on the hill came into view far too quickly for the dragon to finish the thought. He would like to keep walking, to stride through the fields, to pad stealthily past the sleeping, freshly sheared sheep, to slip into the forest. Growling softly he realizes that even if he walks to the other end of berk, the thought is just too large to form on his own and what wells up instead is an uncomfortable sense of worry that Hiccup may, right this second be having similar thoughts, thoughts that would be whole and fully formed in that intelligent mind of his. Thoughts that the dragon could have no say in right now, banished to this empty home. The dark interior swallows up the dragon as he clambers in through the roof, dropping down and knocking dust from the ceiling in the rooms below, he tries to find a comfortable position on his bedding, the saddle jabbing his sides accusingly, "if Hiccup wasn't mad at you he would be here to remove me" the saddle hisses in Toothless's mind. The dragon whimpers, settling on his belly where the straps don't dig in quite as uncomfortably, struggling to quiet his clumsy, fearful thoughts and the angry accusations of his discomfort.

In defiance of Toothless's expectations Hiccup had nothing at all on his mind as he wandered aimlessly through the village, there were no thoughts, no plans, no ideas. No the only thing that could be grasped by Hiccup was the swirl of emotion in his belly, anger and frustration clawed and nipped at each other egging each other into greater feats of strength, rocking Hiccup's foundations from the inside and materializing into fitful outbursts. He swings his arms and clenches his fists, smacking his flight helmet with his knuckles to try and force his head to work again, to knock loose some kind of rational thought. When that didn't work he then imagined that he would go to Astrid, that simply being in her presence would be enough to settle the angry whirlwind in his chest, to calm it down and replace it with the fluffy clouds of comfort and affection. He imagined that somehow those clouds would grow heavy as Astrid spoke to him and would eventually rain down enough water to drown the angry emotions below. "Yes, I need to see Astrid" He mumbled to himself.

With a destination in mind, a plan in his head he regained control of himself, his angry failings ceasing and he only now realized how humid the inside of his mask was from his angry panting. Lifting it he gasped, the cool night air washing over his damp face like a bucket of ice. Blinking he ground to a halt, finding his boots had carried him not to the quiet home of his beloved, but to Gobber's forge. Staring for a long while he eventually tried the door. It swings open with a groan and Hiccup smiled in recognition, reminded of how often Gobber would pester him to oil the hinges, something Hiccup had always forgotten to do, swept away by his own fledgling creations.

Making up his mind, Hiccup steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him. The coal beds were dead, white with ash and cold to the touch. The sight didn't surprise Hiccup as Gobber himself had told him that without the need to create weapons, there was no need for such a huge workplace, the small stall by the dragon stables that Gobber had set up had been more then satisfactory to form new teeth for elderly or overly scrappy dragons. Hiccup had no need for the place either after he set up his workstation beside his house, he hadn't felt the need for any large scale inventions since Toothless had utterly rejected the automatic tail fin Hiccup had invented for him.

Climbing the stairs that had seemed so much larger only a few years ago, Hiccup smiles as he finds his old desk, covered in a thin layer of dust. He sits down gingerly, worried that his old stool might dump him onto the ground, unable to recognize him, but the stool took his weight, understanding that this was the same anxious and skinny viking boy, just older, stronger and wiser. Searching through the drawers Hiccup began to spread out his old notes, the rough paper curled and delicate, the markings somewhat faded but still decipherable. His anger forgotten he smiled and giggled like a loon, rediscovering old ideas, and flights of fancy. Bizarre and unworkable diagrams of contraptions, many crossed or scribbled out in frustration, only a few expanded on and perfected. Experimental weapons invented simply to slay funny looking figures and fearsome beasts, many sharing a likeness to a certain bully sporting a helmet with curly horns.

As the light faded entirely Hiccup lit a candle and continued to leaf through pages and pages of his old sketchpads, the pages getting less and less delicate as he travels from his past to his present. His good humor washes away the day's events and the frustration he had felt, until finally, he halts. His smile falters. And he runs a finger over the diagram of a ballista, and the neatly designed bolas it spits. With the hair on the back of his neck rising he slowly turns the page, and a charcoal black dragon spreads it's wings across the pages, one of it's tail fins smudged and redrawn.

Swallowing, Hiccup rubbed his chest, surprised at how fast his heart was beating. Through the rest of the pad, all of his designs, once expansive and fanciful narrowed down into a singular drive, a singular focus. Hiccup felt the same inspiration now as he had felt then, that same creative drive as he leafed through prototypes, iteration after iteration, failure after failure. To make a dragon fly again. Tossing the pages down hiccup stood once again, chewing on the back of a finger, his mind was working again, refueled by old passions as he sat down on the floor instead, crossing his legs. "there has to be a solution" He ponders, picturing in his mind's eye, his best friend, his muse, his problem to solve.

It was a tricky one, Toothless, unlike the other dragons in the village, is not an animal, no he is an emotionally intelligent, fully sentient individual. Hiccup understood this, even if he could never admit it to the others. He spoke to him like an equal and he knew that Toothless understood, even if he couldn't respond, the only reason Hiccup felt he had the right to give orders to the dragon was because of the friendship and understanding they shared. And when Toothless followed his orders it was not mechanical obedience, but a display of utter trust in his Partner. No, Hiccup could never train Toothless, not like an animal anyway, he could never tame him like one either. "But I can't let him walk all over me" Hiccup grumbles in frustration "He's not my singular creative passion anymore, I need time to myself" he complains aloud to the empty room "I just need to find a way to entertain him, to keep him quiet, I need some quiet time".

He began to think back through their time together, the memories flowing easily now that he had seen the journey laid out in a way his analytical mind could easily parse, all the designs he had created for his Partner pinned up on the wall as he paced back and forth. Perhaps food was the answer, Toothless had always enjoyed a good meal, but no, such a distraction was temporary at best and besides, he didn't want Toothless to grow fat and lazy. Abandoning the idea Hiccup instead remembered the properties of dragon nip, sitting down again he laid out the sketchbook Toothless had absentmindedly trampled and begin to sketch a tentative design, sketching a feedbag that could be stretched over a dragon's snout, perhaps even clipped to a bridle. Halfway through he even added a lock to the design in case Toothless tried to shake it off before almost immediately recoiling, the idea of drugging his friend, addling his wonderful mind for some peace and quiet turned his stomach and he quickly scribbled it out before changing his mind and tearing out the page completely.

Then he remembered that it hadn't been the only thing to silence the dragon's mind, he shut his eyes, a vision swimming behind his closed lids, a foggy night, sitting astride Toothless as his ear fins suddenly shot up, vibrating and twisting this way and that, some unseen and unheard vibration in the air manipulating the dragon, those normally expressive eyes narrowed down into uncomprehending slits as Hiccup had implored him to turn back. Hiccup swallowed as he opened his eyes again "some kind of vibration" he whispered. It was a possibility, but how could Hiccup replicate a sound he hadn't heard himself, that no instrument could produce, even if he could. Those slitted animal eyes. No the idea was too terrible, he wouldn't even consider it, though the musing was too curious to discard completely and Hiccup filed it away in his mind for later.

"There's nothing, nothing at all" Hiccup grumbled in frustration, the candle had run down to almost nothing and he was still no closer to unlocking the puzzle box that was Toothless, no closer to finding a way to amuse Toothless in a way that wouldn't tear Hiccup away from his work, he even considered using a different dragon to explore and map far off lands, but he could trust no dragon as completely as Toothless, and besides. He couldn't betray him like that, leave him abandoned on Berk and run off with some lesser dragon.

The well of creativity was dry and he knew it, nothing more would come to him tonight, he stared down at his notes and diagrams. Even the ideas he originally abandoned had been revisited, different delivery methods for the dragon nip sketched out, close up sketches of Toothless's head fins, slitted and unslitted pupils, rough sketches of the deceased dragon queen. All these ideas spiraling into half sketched devices, that if Hiccup squints, don't look dissimilar to implements of torture. Numerous ideas created in an attempt to potentially silence and subjugate his friend. Hiccup groaned and covered his face shamed by where his mind had taken him, he couldn't let anyone see these, not the villagers, not his father, not Astrid. Toothless, gods if Toothless saw these.

Hiccup wanted to burn it all, burn the whole forge to the ground to cover his shame but instead he shoved the notes into the drawers of the desk, snuffed the candle and nearly ran from the forge, not forgetting to lock the door properly on his way out.

Toothless jerks awake as the front door creaks downstairs. He listens intently as he hears boots being cast aside followed by bare feet padding up the stairs, he glances up to the open trapdoor in the roof and notices that the sun is still setting, no, not setting, it was in the wrong place. It was rising, and Hiccup has been gone all night. Toothless shuts his eyes again and whimpers. Hiccup has been gone the whole night, he couldn't bare to be near Toothless the whole night. He can feel his presence as he enters the room and hears a gasp of frustration, surely Hiccup must still be mad and Toothless waits for him to yell again, he flinches as he feels cold hands stroke his side. "I'm sorry bud" Hiccup whispers, and Toothless waits for him to say it, to say that he can't stay with him anymore "I forgot to take your saddle off, that can't be comfortable, i'm such an idiot".

Toothless continues to pretend to be asleep as his saddle and harness is unbuckled, the young man grunting as he pushes gently, rolling the dragon and manipulating his limbs in order to remove the saddle. Finally the straps are pulled free and Toothless listens to Hiccup packing them away, soon after feeling him kneel close and begin to stroke his head, scratching under his chin. "it wasn't your fault bud, you can't help it, i'll love you no matter what and..." the viking hesitated and Toothless had to scrunch up his toes and bite his tongue not to squirm in happiness, Hiccup isn't mad and he isn't going to send him away and- "And i'll fix it, I'll find a way, you'll see" Toothless feels a delicate kiss being pressed on his forehead "you're going to love quiet time, promise".

As Hiccup strips off and clambers into bed, Toothless stews in confusion, He knew the tone Hiccup had used, a sort of determined, frustrated tone. Toothless felt a sensation like that himself sometimes, when trying to reach a bothersome itch, or when squeezing into a doorway that's slightly too small. Hiccup, his beloved Hiccup has a problem that he can't yet solve, and as Toothless feels the sun's morning rays touching his back, he realizes that whatever it is....it was focused on himself. He grins toothily and wriggles in delight now that Hiccup snoozes quietly. Hiccup isn't mad with him, and he's got a puzzle to solve. Not a dumb puzzle like drawing maps on paper while ignoring his best friend, no this time Toothless would be able to participate without being admonished and everything would be like it was again.

Toothless fell asleep easily after that, purring happily, fancying that he understood everything. While understanding nothing.