Chapter Text
Wednesday 2nd September 2020
Where am I? Hiccup thinks, his eyes scanning the strange room. Sunlight peeks through the drawn curtains, but the room is otherwise silent. He could get out of bed, but why should he? It’s so warm and safe here, and he has his stuffed toy cat in his arms, and another warm body beside him.
“Toothless?” The cat nuzzled his leg in response. “Hey, bud. Good to see you.”
With great effort, Hiccup hoisted himself upright, and gave Toothless a scratch on the ears. He nuzzled against Hiccup’s hand, purring affectionately.
“You know what, Toothless, I actually don’t feel so bad,” Hiccup said, traces of happiness in his voice.
“I’m glad to hear that,” someone said.
Hiccup jumped, his legs curling into his chest automatically. “ Thor , Astrid, a warning would be nice.”
“Good morning to you too.” Her playful demeanour softened into something gentler. “How are the pains?”
“Better. Still sore.”
“Well then, I have to prescribe you with strict bed rest and lots of cuddles,” she jokes, bouncing onto the foot of his bed.
“You’re not even a doctor,” Hiccup protests, but doesn’t complain as Astrid clambers across the double to his side. She plants a kiss on his cheek.
“Still warm,” she says.
Hiccup wonders if it’s blushing, or the fever, but he’s still too tired to think properly. Astrid snuggles up to his side, and he reciprocates, spreading an arm around her shoulder. He reaches for his medicine and a glass of water, and takes his Testosterone pills, and another mild painkiller. Heather cleared it last night, as long as he is careful. The glass of water is stale, but he doesn’t care. Astrid’s body is pleasantly warm and soft, covered in a fluffy, white jumper Heather bought her for her last birthday. Toothless crawls onto his lap, and purrs, his emerald eyes slowly shutting. Hiccup melts into them both.
Someone knocks on the door, yanking Hiccup out of his pleasant stupor. “May I come in?”
“Yeah, sure,” Hiccup says. Heather strides in, a fresh bottle of water in hand. She is polite enough to wear a mask, a medical one, no less.
“Good morning,” she says, her voice slightly singsong. “Nice to see you up.”
“Yeah, I’m feeling so much better already!” Hiccup exclaims, grinning.
“Miracle what rest and actually taking care of yourself will do for you,” Heather said, a shade too sincere for Hiccup to laugh. “Here. Drink this.” She thrusts the bottle into Hiccup’s hand, and he takes slow, careful sips.
“Have you taken your meds?” Heather quizzes, and he nods between gulps. She asks him more questions, checks his temperature, and thinks for a while, before she speaks again. “Hm. Your fever’s gone down.”
“So I don’t need to see a-”
“Nope,” Heather says brusquely. “You’re still seeing a doctor. But Dagur pulled some strings at the hospital and he’s got someone coming in to see you.”
Hiccup feels his heart leap. “So that means-”
“-You don’t have to go to a hospital. Hell, you don’t even have to get out of bed. But I’d recommend it. You need to get back on your feet. Or, well...”
“Yeah yeah, ha ha, very funny,” Hiccup rolls his eyes as he usually does when his friends joke about his prosthetic leg. Astrid squeezes his hand.
“Okie dokie, in the meantime, you need to eat something,” Heather says. Hiccup’s heart feels like it stops. Eating means food, and food means it has to belong to them. Water is fine, it comes from the tap, water bills are reasonable right now, but eating their food?
“I’m not hungry,” Hiccup says firmly before he thinks the words.
“Hiccup, you’ve eaten one slice of bread in a week. I’m impressed you’re not dying,” Heather says, in the usual honest way of hers. “I’ve got a can of chicken noodle soup, I’ll heat that up for you if you want.”
“Hiccup sits still and silent, but Astrid replies with “yes please. We’ll share it.” That is all Heather needs to hear.
Hiccup isn’t stupid. He knows exactly why she’s doing that for him. Astrid’s the only one who knows about his eating... issues. The squirming selfishness he felt whenever he ate more than anyone gave him, the familiar emptiness in his stomach. Amongst last week’s fever, the hunger pangs were almost welcome, like an old friend.
Astrid squeezes his hand, an unspoken ‘I’m here. We’ll do this together’ . Toothless rubs his head against Hiccup’s chin.
“Hey. If it gets too much, just say, alright?” Astrid says, her eyes safely away from his. “I can always tell Heather to go... somewhere.”
“It’s her house, and her food. Heck, Dagur probably worked the night shift for all they’ve given me.” Hiccup’s head thunked against the wall in despair. The pleasant drowsiness of the morning was weaning off, leaving the harsh realities of the day for him to face.
“Hiccup. They wouldn’t insist on housing and caring for you if they didn’t care about you,” Astrid said sympathetically. “They love you very much. And so do I.” She punctuated the final sentence with a kiss.
“No, you’re right, you’re right.” Hiccup made a shooing gesture, as if he could resolve the conflict right then and there. He’d grown up trying to bring the boiling conflict down to a simmer with carefully chosen words and meek, opinionless words. His friends were helping him get better, but even they weren’t enough. He’d heard Heather and Dagur talking in hushed voices last night; he caught the words ‘therapy’ and ‘struggling’, and the words made him sick, they were dirty, corroding, impure, a clear marker of how much he was ruined.
“Soup’s here!” Heather announced cheerily, balancing a tray on one hand while opening the door with the other.
Great. As if I need another reminder of how freakish I am, my girlfriend has to watch me struggle to finish a small bowl of soup.
Astrid takes the lead, thank Thor , passing a bowl to Hiccup and taking one herself. She takes a spoonful, blows on it, and swallows in one gulp.
“It’s not too hot,” she says, a clear message that he needs to eat. He takes a spoonful, blows on it despite her reminder, and tips it into his mouth like a glass of water. He swallows. The soup is warm, flavourful. He doesn’t feel like rocks are in his stomach. He has another spoonful. And another. And another.
Astrid finishes way before he does, and he lets her. He takes small sips of the broth, avoiding the lumps of chicken and noodle he secretly finds off-putting, hoping no one will notice. The warm liquid slips through the lumps of guilt in his throat, and settle comfortably in his stomach.
As another spoonful apsses his lips, it occurs to him how he hasn’t eaten in a week, maybe more. He isn’t unused to going without food for a long time, Thor knows his dad would lock him in his room without sustenance as punishment if he was feeling it. But, even with the persistent nausea and muscle pains, although faded into the background, leave him feeling hungry. He finishes the soup in time for Heather to return with commands to get his ass into some fresh clothes, Dagur’s hospital friend’s doing a favour and she will not let Dagur even joke about offering to pay that favour through sexual means in front of a room full of people. Hiccup and Astrid’s eyes crease with laughter, and Hiccup realises how good he feels, goofing with his friends, poking fun at Heather’s loving disaster of a brother, hinting at meme in-jokes that have withstood the test of time in their friend group.
But the feeling, as it always does, fades in favour of more prominent matters. Hiccup is reminded of his current issue when someone knocks on the door, three firm raps. Heather sobers up almost instantly, crying “I’ll get it,” already midway down the stairs.
Astrid turns to her boyfriend with a look of utmost concern. “You ok babe?”
“Yeah... I guess. I just- doctors, and medical stuff has always made me a bit nervous. Spending time with Dagur” - and living with him , he tacks on- “helps a bit. But still.”
“How about this: I’ll hold your hand, and you squeeze it three times if you’re uncomfortable. We’ll go from there. Sound good?”
Hiccup beams at her, his incredible, loving, genius girlfriend, who somehow has more emotional maturity than anyone else -except maybe Dagur, or Fishlegs- in their group could ever hope to have, and thinks: I love you . He doesn’t have the courage to say it aloud. And that’s ok.
His hands shake when he tries to put his prosthetic leg on, and Astrid helps, securing the bolts with her deft fingers. She runs a comb through his hair, and makes him drink a bit more water. They sit on the bed together, petting Toothless between them.
Then, the doctor arrives.
She is surprisingly gentle, a woman named Mala, with a sharp sense of humour and a soft British accent. She doesn’t care he is in his pyjamas, doesn’t even ask why he has a prosthetic leg. She is gentle with him, moving his limbs with practised care, and probing his body with a gentle finger. She takes his temperature, and is glad to see it has gone down another half degree since Heather measured it earlier. Finally, she prescribed Hiccup some tablets to take. He accepts them with a nod, his lips feeling glued shut.
He doesn’t need to use Astrid’s hand signal. Though, he mentally bookmarks it for another time.
Mala exchanges more pleasantries Astrid mostly replies to, and leaves the room. He can hear the faint hum of Heather thanking her for her time, and letting her out the door.
Only when the door handle closes does Hiccup fall backwards onto the bed, spread out like a starfish, utterly exhausted.
“Hiccup? Honey?” Astrid gently touches his cheek. He doesn’t reply. “That must’ve taken a lot out of you, huh?” He hums in response. “How about we go downstairs and watch a movie?”
He nods, his head feeling heavy. Forget pain, he is numb and fuzzy all over, like he is softened with cotton wool.
Astrid scoops him up once again, and sets him down at the entrance to the lounge. His legs shake beneath him, like the knee joints are hinges without the screws, but he makes it to the sofa, gratefully flopping onto it. Astrid joins him, as do Heather and Dagur. Heather opens Dagur’s Netflix account and flips through the channels until she finds a movie they all like.
Hiccup vaguely follows the plot, something about a high schooler whose letter to himself became a suicide note or something. He privately thinks it's very confusing, but the others seem to enjoy it. Five minutes in, Heather sends a text to the group chat, saying whoever wants to come to her and Dagur’s house for a movie had better hurry up because the plot’s just getting good.
Fifteen minutes later, and by a miracle only achieved by the biggest force of chaos in America, Snotlout, Fishlegs and the twins arrive. Snotlout carries a six pack of beer, the twins bags of popcorn, while Fishlegs hands Hiccup some books he’d been meaning to give him.
“To give you something to keep your mind on while you settle in,” he had said, and really, isn’t that the truth? Isn’t Hiccup settling in? Are Heather and Dagur not having him for quite a long time? He’d have to get a job (he is determined not to become a freeloader) and pack up his old things, obviously, and there was no telling when his dad would get back...
You know what? Hiccup thinks, as Astrid leans in closer, warm. Safe. I can think about that tomorrow.
And think tomorrow he does, but that is a problem for future Hiccup. Present Hiccup is content to wait until then.