Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own How To Train Your Dragon or any of its quotes. Thanks for reading!

Vikings were not a very clean people. They deplored soap and scrubbing and hot water and everything that had to do with cleaning. Except for three o'clock every day concerning the dragons, they relished in the mud and dirt and filth of their lives. Got crumbs on their mustaches? Who cares? Got a chunk of food in their beard? Oh, great, a snack for later. Got a blood soaked bandage? Wow, you must have an awesome wound!

That was why Hiccup was a peculiar Viking. Not only was he smaller, not able to handle huge weapons (or any weapon at all), and just a major hiccup when it came to the quintessential Viking things, but he also cared about keeping clean.

I know, perfectly strange, so weird! But he used harsh soap made from sheep fat and boiling hot water, most of the time reducing his freckled skin to red, burning skin. But he didn't mind, seeing as he was always clean at the end of the washing.

Not only did most of the Vikings love being dirty, but the dragons relished in filth. During the spring they rolled around in great puddles of mud. In the summer they loved diving into the disgusting waters of Berk, emerging with fish and scarfing them down whole, usually getting a smaller one stuck in their teeth that they forget about.

Toothless, like all the other dragons, LOVED getting dirty. Even when he was flying, he'd dive into the water, getting dirty water all over him and Hiccup, grinning while he did so as well to add insult to Hiccup's dirty injury.

One cloudy morning he did that, grinning when he turned to Hiccup, who let go of his saddle with one hand and wiped at his face with another.

"Toothless!" he said.

Toothless smirked.

"Bad dragon," Hiccup said, and then he took in a deep breath, setting his hand back around the saddle, and then coughed, saying, "oh, Toothless! You smell like the ocean!"

Toothless didn't care and so he rolled his eyes as he turned back to look ahead of him.

"Fish DIE in the ocean, Toothless. We dump disgusting stuff IN THE OCEAN." Toothless grunted and Hiccup didn't say anything more about it for a few minutes as they flew through the lower clouds. At one point, without Toothless's noticing, Hiccup got an idea, and a slight smirk came on his face as he turned Toothless, saying, "All right, it's time to get back. I've got stuff to do."

Toothless roared slightly in response and the two of them flew through the salty air back to the top of the dock of Berk.

Later that day, Toothless was let loose by Hiccup and was rolling around contentedly in a large field of dragon nip. He stuck his tongue out, rolling around, delighted, taking in the lovely, intoxicating scent of the nip. It smelled so fresh and fishy and wonderful—

"Toothless!" Toothless heard, and he stopped rolling around.

"Toothless! Hey, Toothless!" That was Hiccup. He instantly stood up on his four legs, sniffing the air. The boy didn't sound TOO scared or in trouble. Matter of fact, his voice sounded almost down right jolly, making Toothless still a bit wary.

"Toothless! Bud, c'mere!" he heard, and so Toothless walked carefully out of the field, wary of where Hiccup was and who he might be with, even ignoring the beautiful smell and feel of dragon nip until he could find his boy.

He came around a mountainous corner to one of the lakes in the forest to see Hiccup by the pebbly shore of the lake, standing in waist deep water, looking perfectly fine. Beside him was a large rag and a large bucket with his boots sitting limply next to it, and next to them was some bucket of goop or something. This made Toothless curious, and he moved in closer to the bucket to see what the goop was.

Hiccup turned to him and said, "Oh, there you are, Toothless. I was calling for you."

Toothless didn't notice him as he came to the goop and smelled it. He instantly stood back, his eyes narrowing, his nose burning. It was abrasive and smelt.

"Oh, you found that, huh? Yeah, it's this AMAZING invention I like to call soap," Hiccup said. He sighed as he reached out and plunged his bucket into the motionless water, hoping that since he was near but not too near the bank he wouldn't get any fish or old leaves or anything. His limp, noodle arms somehow managed to pull up the bucket of water, leaving the boy panting as he walked out of the lake.

He set the bucket on the shore and looked to Toothless, who still looked perturbed about the soap.

"Hey, it's okay, bud. Sure, it SMELLS, but it'll help you feel clean. It has a . . . a good burn," and since his dragon was fireproof, Hiccup was none too worried that his dragon would feel terribly burned by the fatty soap.

Toothless relaxed a little, and Hiccup put a hand to his forehead, looking from his giant dragon to the bucket of water and sighing, said, "Ohhh, man. How is this going to work? Well, um, I'll just have to experiment."

Since Hiccup was not about to drag that bucket of water one more step, he called for Toothless to come to him. Only because he trusted the boy did the dragon move toward him and the smelly soap.

"That's it, bud," Hiccup said, and he bent down and taking up some of the soap and pushing back his shirt sleeves, starting to mix a bit of the soap in with the water. He ended up with a few bubbles, which was all he needed to see that the soap was dispensed throughout the water.

He grabbed the giant, threadbare, patched rag and dipped it into the water. He then gave Toothless a sideways look as he brought the rag out, and taking a step forward, said, "Okay, bud, this won't hurt, solemnly swear."

Toothless looked reproachful, but allowed Hiccup, who he knew to be a careful person, to start scrubbing at him with the rag. His ears slowly perked up; it was wet, cool in the summer heat, but had a slight burn to it. It didn't hurt him, of course, and as he turned to look at his human, he found it oddly pleasant, and listened to the command of standing up on all four of his legs.

"Hey, this is going well," Hiccup said, and he hurried back to the bucket, re-dipped his rag, and then hurried around to Toothless's tail. He washed at the prosthetic as well, knowing that it was just as stinky and disgusting as the rest of Toothless. The Night Fury had made it every bit a part of him as if it was one of his own legs. Hiccup did frown, though, unamused, when Toothless swatted him in the face with his tail.

Hiccup coughed and looked around the tail to Toothless, who was grinning to himself.

"Not cool, Toothless," Hiccup said. He shook his head and worked around Toothless's body, climbing onto his back and discarding the saddle onto the ground to get into the dirty bends of Toothless's skin. More than once Hiccup found a particularly disgusting spot and nearly fell off of the saddle onto the ground, which was a good thing; since he wasn't in the air, he didn't fall to his death.

The two friends spent an hour together by the lake. When Hiccup came out of the lake, setting on the bank the fifth bucket of water to rinse off Toothless's dark back, the dragon bumped him gently with his snout, pushing him backwards.

"Whoa! Geez!" and Hiccup felt into the bucket of water, his arms and legs sticking out at odd angles, making the dragon snicker.

Hiccup rolled his eyes but smiled despite himself as he stood up, almost completely soaked. "You think that's funny, bud? Sorry to disappoint you, but I already took my Saturday bath. I'm not due for another five days."

Toothless didn't look very disappointed as Hiccup finished climbing up his back to pour water down it, and resisted the urge to roll into the lake to get the rest of the bubbles off of him, but for the boy's sake, he didn't do so, and so stood perfectly still until Hiccup was done.

"There we go, bud," Hiccup said, stepping back, holding the bucket to himself. "I think I'm done."

Toothless frowned at him.

"Oh, yeah. You're—um"—a long drip of water fell down Toothless's back—"still . . . wet. Hmmm." Hiccup looked thoughtful for a moment, and then brightened, saying, "I have an idea."

Within two minutes the saddle was easily fastened back onto Toothless's back. Hiccup, still as dripping wet as Toothless, was on top of his saddle, secured onto it, and the two of them shot into the sky, Toothless's wings flapping happily as the water whooshed off of them into the wind.

"Woo-hoo!" Hiccup yelled, throwing his arms up.

Toothless smirked and the two of them dove into a smooth wave of water, soaking the both of them and rendering Hiccup's careful cleaning useless as they emerged, dripping.

Hiccup frowned and said, sighing as Toothless laughed to himself, "Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile."

Thanks for reading! I certainly hope you like it; BROTP.