Chapter Text
Voices surround him, swimming like fish in his head.
“-cup-”
“-’s awake-”
“-at in Thor’s name-”
“-iccup?”
“ Shut it! ” This voice is louder than the others, commanding and strong and steady. Astrid. “Hiccup, are you alright?”
He tries to answer, managing no more than a groan. It’s too bright and too painful, and somehow he still feels numb.
“Good. You’re awake, at least.”
To say he’s confused would be an insulting understatement. His head’s fuzzy, like it's stuffed with dried up clouds, and thinking hurts .
So does his leg, come to think of it. Someone’s taken his prosthetic off, and he can feel the slightly weightless motion of both legs being propped up on something. It’s nice and all, but it means someone -probably Astrid- was here, worrying about him when they had a mission to lea-
Oh Gods. The mission.
“Wh- what?” He finally gets out.
“Hiccup, just rest. You fainted,” Astrid says, bending down to his ear to speak to him.
“Yeah, like: one minute you were talking to us about our amazing plan-” Ruffnut starts,
“And the next, you were actively dying!” Her brother finishes triumphantly.
“Have some sensitivity, you two!” Fishlegs scolds. “He’s hurt, and he’s sick, and I’m not sure what, but something’s wrong , and-” he trails off, letting out a minute whimper. Hiccup can almost hear Astrid glaring at him, an unspoken ‘shut up’ dancing in her eyes.
“Don’t worry about that for now, Hiccup. You just rest,” she says, reaching her fingers into his hair and gently massaging his scalp. Words are on the tip of his tongue, but all of it goes out of the window at the immense waves of relief that crash over him. A small shudder of pleasure relaxes his shoulders. He feels soft and floppy.
It's a terrible fighting condition: if dragon hunters attacked, and the group was burdened with a leader out of action, they would be near powerless to stop them.
But somehow, none of that matters, under her touch, and the quiet bustle of Fishlegs ordering the twins around to get different ingredients, the silence as Snotlout packs the equipment away. They'll save the drill for another day.
Someone lifts him into their steady arms, and he feels the vague swooping motion of taking flight. A few minutes later, he lands, and the light that was scratching the back of his eyeballs leaves.
Astrid sits against his bed frame and lies him down on her lap, continuing to massage his scalp. He can see her iconic blonde fringe, soft (not like she’d admit it) over her eyes, curling around her sharp chin. With the midday sun highlighting her face, she really is gorgeous. Hiccup has half a mind to tell her, but he knows better than to do so: he’s not sure he’s ready to admit his feelings just yet.
The riders baby him for the rest of the day, and he’s too tired to object. He lets Fishlegs spoon willow bark medicine into his mouth to help with the pain, followed by a thick soup -courtesy of Snotlout- he swallows, alternating sips with water. He lets Ruff and Tuff ramble about their random family members and their many random adventures -some even elicit a laugh- and he lets Astrid hold him.
This, he thinks, isn’t too bad. Maybe next time a day like this arises, he could tell someone.