Summary: Modern AU. Hiccup always visited that Cat Café and Astrid is the new waitress. Watch their romance begins through Toothless's eyes. One-Shot.

I think this is one of my favorite one-shots I've ever written because it was a challenge for me to write in a cat's perspective and I think it turned out really well, cat-Toothless has a very interesting voice.

I don't own the cover image, it belongs to Eyoha over at DeviantArt, but I have permission to use it. The link for the original art is here:

www . deviantart . c (o) m / eyoha / art / Httyd - 2 - Hiccup - and - Astrid - 474835822 (without spaces)

Cat-Café

There came my human. Well, he wasn't exactly mine, but he's my favorite and I'm his favorite cat too, since he came for the first time almost three years ago and he comes here almost every day.

I live in a Cat-Café, a place where humans serve coffee for other humans and part of the profit goes to help street cats like me, we even have a special room where we stay most of the time. Once in a while, we escape to the part where the humans have their coffee.

And there I was, heading to Hiccup's favorite table in the corner, where he could observe everyone; his drawing book was already in hands and he opened it the moment he sat down. His attention came immediately to me as soon as I jumped on the chair closest to him.

He has grown so much this past three years. The first time I saw him, he was only fifteen and his mother brought him here to distract himself from a problem he was going through at the time. I was only a kitten, but was immediately attracted to him, however, he was scared at first —I have no idea why, I was a pretty baby then—, and he mentioned my very sharp baby teeth. Soon he changed his mind when I nudged him, wanting him to pet me. He changed his mind about me and told his mother "Look, he's so sweet it's like he doesn't have any teeth."

It was supposed to be a joke, but then the name Toothless stuck. And I have many names: Green Eyes, Black Cat, Shadow, Night Fury, Friday Thirteenth… Some are nice, others, not so much. But definitely the silliest one is my favorite because it was given to me by my favorite human.

Hiccup's hand caressed me the way I liked it and I kept nudging him whenever he thought he could stop. He brushed his long auburn bangs from his green eyes and grabbed his pencil and looked around the café, breathing in the smell of coffee I knew he loved.

He spotted some kids playing with a cat and his left hand got to work, putting the scene on paper. When his sketch was nearly done, someone approached him.

"Hi, may I take your order?"

"Yeah, same as always." He mumbled, too concentrated on his drawing.

"Would you mind telling me what it is? It's only my first day here."

He stopped drawing and looked up at the newbie girl. I could see his eyes going all over her and I don't know if part of it was because he was an artist and thus very observant, of if it had anything to do with his heart beating faster.

"Sorry… Astrid." He read her nametag, surprising her for a moment. "I'd like a Large Cappuccino and a chocolate brownie."

"Alright, I'll bring it right away." She smiled and walked away. Hiccup's eyes followed her to the counter and then he passed the page to start a new drawing.

Not to my surprise, it was the newbie girl. For a longer time than I wanted, he observed the girl and traced some more on the page. Tired of it, I meowed and he finally stopped going from the real thing to the drawing to face me.

"Hey, Bud. She seems like a nice girl, don't you think?" He whispered to me. "She's very pretty."

I guess, if you like a blue eyed blonde with heart-shaped face with a pretty smile…

"You've been around her for a while, right? What's she like?"

She's good at petting. And she smells like dogs, so she must have one at home, and maybe a parrot, too. I answered, but of course he could only understand meows. He smiled anyway and caressed me under the chin.

Hiccup soon got lost in thought, admiring his own work. Adjusting the bangs over her eyes, he didn't notice the waitress coming back. I had to act and prevent him from the embarrassment it was about to come.

"Toothless!" He said as I jumped and lied on his book, covering the drawing with my body. Human, you should be thanking me! And give me more attention, will you? Then he grabbed his phone to take a picture of me. That's it, Hiccup. You're here to praise and admire me.

"Here it is." Astrid said as she neared the table, putting the cup in front of him and then a plate with the small cake he called brownie. She glanced at me. "Hum… I'm sorry to intrude, but I wouldn't get to attached to him if I were you, people said that he is to be adopted today."

"Yeah, that'd be me, actually. My mother is bringing a box later so we can transport him safely." He petted my head.

"Oh, well, that makes sense." She nodded. "Sorry to bother you."

"No problem at all. It was nice of you to warn me, I'd like to know if I weren't the one taking him… It actually took me a long while until I could take him, my dad complained a lot, he doesn't like cats, but finally my mom and I convinced him to let me take this buddy home."

Astrid smiled and I think it was the first time she did it naturally and for real and not just because her boss told her she should be polite to the costumers. She turned to leave, but stopped after one step away. Then she looked back at Hiccup. The boy, however, was already on his phone, probably opening the app he calls 'instagram' to put my picture there, as he always does.

"And… I'm sorry, I couldn't help but hear you call him 'Toothless', is it because of 'Toothless the Cat'? Do you follow him, too?"

His jaw dropped and his cheeks got redder. He's always been so shy when people talk about his drawings…

"Hum… Yeah…"

"Really? That's so nice! I love his drawings!"

Oh, she does? Well, then, maybe she's gonna like what's down here… So I jumped from the book to Hiccup's lap. The result was as I had predicted, her blue eyes went automatically to the place I was before.

"Wait, you're the artist?"

He gulped. "Yeah… That'd be me…" Meanwhile, I nudged his brown vest over long sleeved green shirt.

"That's great! You never put any pictures of you, so I couldn't tell, but I love your drawings. I found the profile a couple of years ago and I follow you ever since! In fact, it was through it that I found out about this Café and started coming here once in a while…" She chuckled. "I call him Toothless because of it, too." She looked at her colleges behind the counter. "Do they know?"

"No… Only the owner knows because I asked him to let me place the comics in here, so I'd have to use the name of the Café… He loved the publicity, so he let me, but I asked him not to tell anyone…"

"Why not? I've been dying to know who is behind Toothless's drawings!"

I purred. I knew I was famous. Since Hiccup showed up the first time, I became his favorite model and soon stories were created until his mother suggested him to put them on the Internet. Of course I was instant success!

He shrugged timidly. "I… I…" He stuttered and then she looked again at the drawing on the table.

"Is that… me?"

He gulped. "Yeah. I like to practice drawing a lot of things in here. I have other drawings of people, but since you're new, I've just started… yours…"

I could almost listen to him asking her not to think he was a freak or a stalker. Luckily to him, the redness on her face and true smile told me she was far from thinking something like that.

"This is beautiful! No one's ever drew me before. Could I take a picture of it?"

"No!" He raised his hands, palms facing the girl. I looked at him, hoping he wouldn't freak out. "I mean… no, it's not finished yet. The proportions are a bit off and I have a lot to fix…"

"Okay, then…"

He took a deep breath. Yes, boy, calm down. You can do it.

"But, you know, you could give me your number and I could send it to you when it's done."

Astrid looked at him for a moment, as if the information just clicked in her head. And when it did she bit her lower lip. I could tell her heart was beating a bit faster, too.

"I guess that was the most creative way a guy has ever asked my phone number." She chuckled. "But artists are creative, aren't they?"

Hiccup nodded, smiling as natural as he could, not sure if he did it, though; he was such a dork.

Astrid leaned on the table and grabbed the pencil, writing down a sequence of numbers on the corner of the page.

"Well, then. Call me when it's done." She said before she walked away, glancing back at Hiccup.

Trying to contain his smile, he grabbed his cup and drank from it before he looked at me.

"Hey, Bud, who knows, maybe next time you see her, it'll be in our house… If I'm lucky." He proceeded petting me with a hand and eating his brownie with the other one. Once in a while, his eyes would go back to the blonde waitress.

That's it for this fic, but would you like to see a sequel for it? Maybe Astrid coming over to his house when they're dating?

For the curious people out there: I imagined Hiccup's problem 3 years ago to be of an accident, he'd been hit by a drunk guy and he ended up losing his leg. The thing is, it's really hard for me to imagine Hiccup with two legs, for me, having only one foot is already part of his character, but since I wanted to give him a break and because I don't know if people would be tired of seeing him like that, I didn't put all the details in this story.

Btw, I've never really been into HTTYD modern AUs, but lately I've been having a few ideas in modern settings, so maybe they'll appear around here (and if you have ideas for other ones, you can leave a review or PM me)

I hope you liked this cute one-shot, please review, I'd love to know what you thought about it! :D