Disclaimer: I don't own How To Train Your Dragon

So. Uh. I am definitely still Zelda trash for life, I just happened to see this movie and then I fell into this hole of Dragons that someone must have put here, how did that happen, and clearly the only way of escape is by digging deeper, see.
Or, the internet died one night and my hands slipped on the keyboard. Er. A lot.

I've officially decided to give up on dignity forever and just start using the "working titles" for my fics, it is an amazing and terrible life decision, sorry not sorry.

yes but how many times did you fail first

Stoick's finally laid down the idea that he can keep his boy safe and sound and in one piece by shutting him away at home, so when Hiccup comes stumbling in the door, one hand resting on Toothless' head and squinting in the firelight, he looks him over head-to-toe and grins as he says: "So, had a fun day, did you, son?"

Hiccup frowns and takes a moment to peer down at the blood darkening his already-waterlogged shirt. "Uh," he says. "Yeah, Dad, something like that..." He plasters his damp hair back from his forehead and licks his lips, thin traces of blood dried in the chapped lines of them, and lifts his other hand from Toothless so he can swing his arms towards the stairs. "Do you mind if we have this conversation after I get some dry clothes?"

Stoick nods and waves him off, not that Hiccup's waited for it. He's already mumbling C'mon, Toothless and letting the dragon more or less push him up the steps, warbling all the way.

But in a minute or two he's sitting at the table, his lap full of dragon and his father's hands on his face.

"I should really see the other man, eh?" Stoick jokes, feeling Hiccup's swollen and bloody nose.

Hiccup winces, groaning between his gritted teeth. He strokes Toothless' snout and takes a moment to gather his nerve and ask, "Is it broken?"

"No, lad," Stoick says, sitting back again, "you've only bloodied it." He studies the dark flush of blood already spreading across Hiccup's cheekbones and up towards his eyes, the bruises livid in his fair face. "It looks good, though," he adds. "Very Viking! Not like," he waves one hand, "you know, this."

Even with his eyes shut tight and his face already scrunched up against the pain, Hiccup manages to twist his features into a suspicious frown. "Did you just gesture to all of me?" he asks.

"No!" his father replies. "Not exactly. That peg leg, see, now that's very Viking..."

"Ha ha," says Hiccup. But his lips are quirked up, even though smiling hurts his face. Right now being alive hurts his face.

If he's honest, timing his jump wrong, bashing face-first into one of the sea stacks, having to haul himself out of the wintry sea and back onto the sea stack and into Toothless' saddle and then flying back home with the wind in his hair hurts his face, but that's not about to stop him from trying that again either.

Stoick's seen a few of his aerial acrobatics, enough to guess about all the ones he doesn't see. "I can hardly believe your dragon lets you pull such stunts," he says, running a knuckle over Toothless' ear. The dragon grumbles, though it's more a vibration in his throat against Hiccup's thigh than it is noise, his eyes half-lidded. "He's usually such a mother hen about you."

Hiccup shrugs his shoulders. "Well, you know me, Dad. I'm a Viking through and through, I can't help myself beating my head against a rock! Though I'd rather not do it so literally next time..."

Under the table Toothless chuffs in Hiccup's lap, because he's a good friend like that.

"Aye," says Stoick, laying his hand on Hiccup's head in spite of the grimace that creases his son's face at the touch, "that you are."