Chapter Text
Tuesday 18th August 2020
Hiccup watches the door slam in his face. The impact of wood on metal is gone, but stays in his head, ringing through his ears like a ghost.
It takes him a while to believe he is really gone. Surely he must come marching through this door at any minute, grumbling furiously but still here , right? Hiccup stands and waits. Five. Ten. Fifteen minutes. No sign.
He keeps waiting.
He loses track of how long he stands there, waiting for his father to come back. He stands there until he blinks and the grainy wood pattern stays on his eyelids when he shuts them. He stands there until his stump begins to ache, and fades to being too numb to register pain properly. He stands there long enough for Toothless to stop rubbing against his legs and wait for him on Hiccup’s bed.
By the time the sun sets, he clocks that he isn't coming back just yet. He goes to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water, taking slow, careful sips like how he knows Astrid, Snotlout, Heather and Dagur would tell him to. His girlfriend never stops worrying about him, and his cousin and best friends -who may as well be frat siblings, they’re that close- would probably say the same.
The microwave clock chimes eleven, and Hiccup decides he needs to go to bed if he wants to stand any chance at a good day tomorrow. He has a full day of school, his head is pounding, his stump is throbbing, and he has to go to school or his dad will definitely find out.
Dad. Gone. Left.
The incoherent words swim through Hiccup’s mind, struggling to be seen as if swamped by quicksand. He was being irrational, as usual. His dad would never really leave him. He’ll be back tomorrow. Certainly.
His head still aching, Hiccup retires to bed, falling asleep to the purring of Toothless on his chest.
.o0o.
Wednesday 19th August 2020
Hiccup wakes in agony, certain getting out of bed -let alone to school- would be a miracle. He can’t place the pain, but the only way to describe it for sure would be everywhere. His head feels like someone has taken a hammer to it, while his leg is almost blindingly overpowered by sharp, stabbing pains. He is damp and slick with sweat, and the air is stale with human existence.
Yeah, no way can I get to school like this.
He wonders briefly if his dad would let him take the day off - surely he will when he sees the state I’m in , Hiccup thinks- before he remembers he left last night.
Business trips weren’t uncommon for his dad -Oregon’s state senator- but it wasn’t like him to just leave with no explanation. Usually, he at least left some money, told him how long he would be, and Hiccup would stare into the distance at that day until it came, and things would go back to normal.
But this feels like falling through the passages of time, unable to decipher a time structure. Hiccup likes routine. Hiccup likes predictability. Those make the world go round, give people something to hold onto when everything gets shaken up.
He lies in bed the whole day, grateful beyond imagination for Toothless’s automatic food dispenser. He might just pass out if he had to go all the way down to the kitchen. Toothless mews at his bedside, nuzzling his outstretched hand.
“I know, bud,” Hiccup says, his voice hushed with misuse. “I don’t want this either.”
In his belly, he feels a tinge of hunger. But that might just be anxiety, he tells himself. He can’t place what he feels, but he knows it isn’t good.
On the following days, he doesn’t even have the space to be hungry, or sad, or worried. He is just full of pain, pain, pain, everywhere he focuses his mind on. He’s certain he has a fever. Or something else, because he’s never felt like this before, not this badly , and he just wants to go to his friends’ houses with the gang, wants his family , and shitty movies and snacks that make them jittery with sugar, wants Astrid to lean against his shoulder, wants her hand in his, wants Heather’s soft singing voice, Fishlegs’s nerdy rambles, Tuff’s random jokes, Ruff’s playful banter, Dagur’s dark humour, Snotlout’s above-it-all attitude he uses to conceal how much he really does care.
Want, want, want. But he doesn’t have. He can’t. He can only lie in bed, helpless to do anything but wallow in his own pity.
.o0o.
Tuesday 25th August 2020
Six days go by, and the possibility Stoick may never come back looms ever more real. Hiccup, shaking with chills, finally manages to go downstairs and eat something, a slice of bread dotted with mould he scrapes off, and a snack bar for emergencies. A packet of dry pasta rests in the cupboard, but he knows he doesn’t have the energy to cook it.
Though not ideal, the meagre amount of food fills him up enough to have something resembling energy. He pours himself a drink of water, refills Toothless’s food dispenser and water bowl, and crawls back up the stairs to his bed. The cold chills that racked his body soon turn to a hot flush.
Something is badly wrong; he knows that by now. No one is ill for this long, not even him and his famously shitty immune system. He doesn’t want to deal with this alone. He wants someone to stroke his head like he’s a little boy and take care of him.
He wants the gang. The sudden pain erupts in his chest like a volcano of longing, worse than ever before. He wants them here with him, to hold his hand, stroke his hair, crack the tension with a joke he’d pretend to find hilarious. And he could pretend -for a minute- that everything was normal.
.o0o.
Wednesday 26th August 2020
On the seventh day, it falls apart.
“What do you mean you won’t be back for a month?” Hiccup whispers into the phone, not daring to raise his voice in case he crumbles into tears.
“I mean , I got an important business call that needed attending to. New York doesn’t wait for you, son,” Stoick states, his voice gravelly down the line. “There’s food in the cupboards and money in the vault in the basement. You know the code. Be sensible.”
“Thanks dad. I’ll be fine,” Hiccup says. He doesn’t know why he did: he’s sick, tired, hurting, and no one seems to give a shit. Worst of all, it feels like his friends don’t care at all. If they did, they would come to see him. If his dad cared, he wouldn’t have left.
“Right,” Stoick says, and hangs up the phone. He doesn’t say goodbye. He doesn’t say ‘I love you’, but that one doesn’t surprise Hiccup as much. He drops his phone by his bed, and stares at the ceiling.
A new wave of pain hits him. And this one is even worse. It's an ache where someone’s rough hands and gentle, quiet voice should be. It fills the void that should be brimming with friendly mealtime chatter, supportive pats on the back, someone asking how his day is, hands wiping his tears.
It isn’t until the sun sets behind his curtains when he realises the ache longs for his father. The father he never had.
.o0o.
Monday 31st August 2020
The days have long since lost meaning, time a merely inconsequential being drifting in a space far away from him. On the maybe-tenth night (he can't be sure), he drifts in and out of a fitful stupor, dreams of being left all alone, slamming doors, hands choking his neck, and other, kinder hands trying and failing to catch him.
He falls to his death, and gasps awake, paralysed by terror. “Toothless?” He croaks into the night. “Bud, you there?”
Nothing. He supposes even someone as kind as Toothless has given up on him now.
The final pebble falls from underneath, and the mountain crumbles beneath him. Tears come to his eyes, one, then another, then they can’t stop. His limbs ache, and jolts of pain like lightning shoot up his arm when he tries to move them, so he lets the tears dry on his pillow. No one is coming. He is all alone.
His head, weighed down with pain, lolls to one side, turning towards his bedside table. The picture beside it is of him and all his friends two months after his sixteenth birthday. He is grinning from ear to ear, his arms around Astrid’s bare, suntanned shoulders. He remembers that day with fondness. They went on a day trip to the beach, and all cheered when he took off his shirt to reveal his fresh top surgery scars. They played volleyball, ate fish and chips, and swatted at gulls that tried to steal it, and listened to their shared playlist on the way home, riding into the sunset. It was one of the best days of his life. It feels so far away now...
The final dam breaks and he lets out a weak scream into his pillow. He doesn’t feel any better; in fact, it scrapes his throat to shreds. But he feels a strange sense of accomplishment at having dared to exist so loudly.
Though it aches, he reaches out and clutches the picture in its frame, and lies it on his chest. Right on top of his heart.
.o0o.
Tuesday 1st September 2020
He wakes -properly- to the sound of a key turning in the door. His blood freezes with fear. Voices murmur; they are not happy ones Oh Thor, just be quick, Hiccup thinks, hoping his inevitable death would be merciful. Footsteps thud up the stairs, each noise like a firework in his ears. He screws his eyes shut, praying for the pain to stop soon.
Someone knocks on his bedroom door. He freezes. Dad? A myriad of emotions pummel him in the chest. A violent, swooping sickness seizes his throat, and he wonders if he might finally be sick, when a familiar face reaches his vision.
Astrid. Hiccup could’ve melted in relief. The pain is gone for a split second, as he takes in the sight of her. She perches on the edge of his bed, gentler than a feather. To Hiccup, it feels like being rocked in a fishing boat amidst a storm.
“Hey,” she says, breaking the insufferable pause. Hiccup is too drained to respond. Snotlout sits beside her, further rocking the boat.
“Hiccup, are you... are you ok?” Fishlegs asked, anxiety edging his voice.
He is not. He feels like hell. He hasn’t eaten a full meal in a week, at least. He last drank yesterday. He can barely sit up without pain oscillating through his body. He looks away from them so he doesn’t have to face making up a lie to stop them worrying.
He feels the vague presence of a hand near his, crackling like electricity. “Hiccup, is it ok if I touch you?” The muscles in his neck twitch like snapping joints when he tries to shake his head, so he musters all the strength he has and moves away. “Okay. That’s fine.”
He’s glad it is; otherwise, he might shut down entirely, and where would he be then? Left to be swallowed whole by his pain while the others scramble for a solution for a problem beyond all their capacity to fix?
Tuffnut whispers something in Ruffnut’s ear, and she replies with: “dude. He can’t speak.”
Which isn’t entirely inaccurate. Speaking rips his throat to shreds, and last night’s bout of crying didn’t help it in the slightest. But he’s sure he could form words if he had to.
“Are you able to speak right now?” Astrid asks, her tone understanding, or at least sympathetic. She might not be autistic like him, but she tries to understand. His dad never did. He nods in response, his muscles aching. “Do you want to?”
No , he thinks. But he can still try.
“He left.” His voice breaks like glass shattering on a pavement, the way it did when one of his old bullies threw a brick at him in a bookstore from the street. “He left me. He left. He left. He left.” He keeps saying, stuck like a broken record, mouthing the words when they become too painful on his sore throat.
“Your dad?” Snotlout’s voice wobbles with anxiety. Snotlout is never anxious, not like this, Hiccup thinks. “Hiccup, did your dad leave?”
It pains him, but he gives a nod of confirmation, letting free the truth he never wanted to be real.
“How long?”
Hiccup can’t answer. Astrid swears under her breath, every part the vicious, fiery, protective girl he fell in love with. She inches closer towards him, bridging the physical gap between them. Hiccup lets her. She is almost touching him, electricity crackling between them. Astrid is electric. Fire. Warm. He needs to be warm. He is so cold, and he is hurting and he needs her.
His hand shoots out and grabs hers, clutching it so tightly he hears a bone pop. He briefly wants to let go, but he needs her so much it hurts, more than the pains that consumed him for days, more than he needs the space, more than he needs to be ok. If he is hurting and broken, and Astrid and his friends -no, family - are with him, he might just be alright.
Astrid’s thumb brushes his knuckles, strokes the cracked, dry skin beneath. He feels his hand tremble in her touch. He wishes he could say it was from fear, not anything of her fault. Heather begins to tidy his room, orders Fishlegs to get Hiccup some water, sends the twins out of the room when their not-so-subtle whispers get too loud. Snotlout stares out of the window, horrified. Astrid’s hand remains in his.
“New York.” He finally says. “He went to New York. He didn’t leave me any food or money.” His voice cracks as he admits “I didn’t know what to do.”
Nobody knows how to respond; Hiccup doesn’t blame them. After a moment that stretches into infinity, Snotlout chokes out “Hiccup, come on. You- you need a shower, okay?”
Hiccup lets his cousin/pseudo-brother pull him to his feet, and slowly walk him to the bathroom. Astrid begins yelling and venting loudly, undoubtedly from pent up rage at the situation. Hiccup hears her mention his copy of The Great Gatsby -a gag gift from Snotlout- on his nightstand. He wants to go in there, and make a shitty joke, kiss her on the cheek and swiftly whisper in her ear that everything is going to be alright.
Instead, he sits, numb, staring at the bathroom floor.
Snotlout mumbles “just ignore them” and gently removes his prosthetic and all his clothes, save from his boxers and a vest. He smells terrible. That’s great. Just perfect, he thought, trying not to roll his eyes. He doesn’t have to try very hard. Movement is still painful, and he is infinitely grateful when Snotlout dashes form the room, and grabs a plastic chair.
“Sit on this, ok? Look, you-” he pauses, “you’re clearly not well. You should be sitting down and resting for as long as possible. I’ll clear out while you change, and I’ll be right here in the hallway.” His voice is gentle, soft, caring. Antonyms of how his dad spoke to him. “Call if you need me.”
He does in an instant, realising there is no way he’ll be able to get his vest off without straining his already aching muscles. The sudden exposure to air has him shivering awfully, his teeth chattering against each other. He’s terrible at this, he’s Hiccup, the weakling who stays out of sight, the pathetic child who is made to stay at home, the shame to his dad or he wouldn’t have left.
He is not here.
Hiccup doesn’t quite distinguish when the line blurs from his head voice to Snotlout’s real one, but when it does, he registers Snotlout’s hand stroking his bare shoulder.
“Hey. You ok?” Hiccup shakes his head, the cold enveloping him. “Oh Thor . Hang on, I’ll get Astrid.”
She comes in, a whirlwind of gentleness and careful touches, like he is a danger she must approach with caution. Or, perhaps, a priceless treasure to regard with care. Was she squeezing his hands gently, out of fear of breaking him, or fear he would break her?
A kiss brushes his forehead, sending his heart fluttering. Astrid whispers something to Snotlout; Hiccup catches the words ‘fever’ and ‘burning’.
“I’m just going to take off your vest, ok?” She says, gently removing the garment. She would ordinarily make a joke about how on Thor’s green Earth he could go for so long without a shower and not feel disgusting. Instead, she kisses his cheek, brushing his hair from where it was stuck to his sweaty forehead.
She half guides, half lifts him into the shower. He leaves his boxers on for modesty’s sake until she draws the shower curtain. The water comes in hot rivers down his skin, drawing a groan of relief from his mouth. He shudders. Goosebumps prickle his skin.
“You ok, honey?”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Warm.”
“The warmth will help. Take your time. Tell me when you want to get out, okay?”
Hiccup doesn’t think he could ever be able to stomach the words that would remove him from such a comfort. This is the best he’s felt in weeks: muscles slack from relief of not needing to stand, and the all consuming warmth.
“We can have another bath when you go to Heather and Dagur’s,” Snotlout says, so offhandedly it makes Hiccup start.
“What?”
“Oh, yeah...” Snotlout trails off, as if trying to find a gentler way to break the news. He gives up on trying. “Hiccup, you can’t stay here. You need somewhere, even if it’s just to get better. You’re ill, and you have been for ages and we-” his voice breaks off into a sob. Guilt burns in Hiccup’s chest. Snotlout never cries, not unless the situation is really bad.
“We should’ve been there,” Astrid says guiltily. “I’m so sorry Hiccup, I knew something was wrong, I should’ve been there, I-”
“No. No, it’s ok.” He shakes his head. The steam from the shower clears his throat enough to form coherent words. “Please. Don’t feel bad.”
“Okay. I’ll try,” Astrid says, both knowing full well she’ll beat herself up about it all the same.
Snotlout explains the situation, his tone calm but doing a shitty job of masking the worry he undoubtedly feels. Hiccup nods along, trying to take it all in. He is going to Heather and Dagur’s house. He does not have to stay here.
He thinks Snotlout also mentions something about packing bags and transporting all his crap, but he tunes that out.
Hiccup turns off the shower, a fresh wave of chills wracking his body. He squeezes body wash out of the bottle onto his hands. They tremble, but he coordinates himself long enough to lather the stuff onto his body. He rinses and dries himself off enough to get back into fresh pants and a vest. Swallowing his pride, he calls for Snotlout in as loud a voice as he can manage to help him back into the rest of his things. He hands Snotlout a comb on the side, but he shakes his head.
“Ask Astrid, or something. I’m useless at hair,” he jokes weakly, and Hiccup stomachs a sarcastic laugh. He might’ve mumbled something like ‘don’t wanna hurt you’ but if he did, Hiccup didn’t hear it.
The pleasantness from the shower soon wears off, leaving him aching and cranky. Snotlout produces a red shirt with an intricate dragon pattern on it. Hiccup recognises it: it doesn’t aggravate his sensory issues, and short sleeved so it would emphasise his newly flat chest. He must’ve picked this one out carefully. He wants, suddenly, to throw his arms around his cousin and cry in an embarrassingly childish fit of gratitude. But, tired beyond comprehension, he doesn’t.
He limps out of the shower, his stump too sore to put his prosthetic leg on, and is greeted by the sight of a half packed bag in the middle of his floor. He drops to his knees and roots through it. Neatly folded tops and trousers, basic hygiene products, his bottles of testosterone and painkillers. His favourite black hoodie he can’t go a week without.
Then, his hands brush it, wrapped in a red and black flannel, at the side of the bag, placed with great care, as if someone was very careful to put it there.
“You found it,” he breathes, stroking the soft, stuffed cat in his hands. The one thing his mother left him. He shuts his eyes, breathes it in, and he can almost pretend he can still smell her, herbs and incense, things he couldn’t name, but felt like home once upon a time.
“Thank Astrid,” Heather says, smiling. Astrid mouths something to him he didn’t see through the tears blurring his eyes. She flings her arms around him, and he lets her. She whispers I love you s in his ear, kissing him on the forehead, while the others finish packing around him.
.o0o.
The tiny, red Ford Fiat is crowded with people, far more than is legal to have in a vehicle of its size, but no one cares.
Snotlout drives, Fishlegs sits beside him, anxiously twisting and counting his fingers. Ruffnut and Tuffnut sit with their legs curled to the chests against the back doors on the floor. They don’t make jokes; even someone as ordinarily happy as the twins can sense the severity of the situation.
Heather leans against the right door, her thumbs tapping on the screen of her phone. Hiccup can faintly see the contact name: idiot brother <3 . Dagur. Of course. He is going to stay with them. They are going to have him as a guest for goodness knows how long.
Too tired to really absorb any of it, he leans on Astrid’s shoulder, the stuffed cat on his lap, his fingers loosely laced into her’s. He watches her catch Snotlout’s eye and mouth something in the mirror, but he can’t decipher words through the buzzing in his head.
Hiccup would’ve driven his car if the thought didn’t make him so exhausted it seemed to split his skull in two. He is the reason everyone is cramped into this tiny car, violating a lot of laws they could get a formal warning for. But, at the same time, he likes it. It closes the distance he’s put between himself and the rest of the world his entire life. He can touch at least three people without trying, but their touch is not bad. It is not cruel. Safe. Good. Good and safe.
Normally, there is music blasting through the car, usually from Astrid or Heather, since all others have had their auxiliary cord privileges banned for one reason or another. Now there is silence. Not good, not bad, not awkward. Just silence. Sharing the space pain made them coexist in.
After what felt like an hour, Snotlout parks the car two blocks away, insisting “if people from school recognise my car in Dagur’s driveway, they’ll work out you were with me and target us.” Astrid helps Hiccup along a few paces, her hand under his arm, but when it becomes apparent from the yelps and hisses of pain he isn’t up to that, she scoops him up with her arms and carries him. Too tired to object, Hiccup lets her. His head leans against her, curling into the warm, safe gap between her neck and shoulder that seemed to be cut out for his face to fit.
He and Astrid are no stranger to each others’ pain. Hiccup once piggyback carried Astrid all the way to her house when she twisted her ankle on the lumpy field around the falconry centre. He stood against her doorframe when she stubbornly insisted -through a hacking cough- that she was well enough to go to school, and made her take cough medicine and some soup. He sat beside her in hospital when she broke her arm right the week before the netball finals while she cried out of sheer frustration.
In turn, she did the same. She stroked his forehead when an infection from his leg left him bedbound for a week. She carried his things when he twisted his wrist in an ‘accident’ they all quietly knew was Stoick’s doing. When he was so close to jumping from the goddamn roof of the school, she held him close, skipping class to hold him in the abandoned music cupboard to have a good cry.
But something feels different about this. Maybe it is the way they all finally know how bad things are. Maybe it is the way they have all seen him for who he truly is: weak. Tired. Broken. Pathetic.
Either way, Hiccup is too tired to think too much about it. So he lets his body drift in and out of sleep as Astrid carries him home.
They approach the driveway in silence. Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Snotlout and Fishlegs are notably absent, having gone home. Hiccup squints against the sun. He can’t tell the time of day, nor decipher whether the gang even mentioned going to school. The word in his brain sends a pang through his chest, so he focuses on Astrid’s warm hands on his aching body. His hands are always cold. She always holds his hands in the winter, laughing about how his feel like blocks of ice.
She swings him to his feet in the gentlest way possible. Hiccup -and fails- not to stumble. Thankfully, Astrid’s hands remain by him, one supporting his chest, the other under his right arm.
“Brother!” Dagur throws his arms out in the shape of a hug, but doesn’t lean in for one. Hiccup is grateful for that at least. “How long will you be staying, and how many towels will you need?” He asks, his tone joking, and he means well, but Hiccup takes it to mean ‘ how long do we have to put up with you?’ He’s too tired to be hurt by the statement, so he shakes his head.
“A while,” Heather replies for him. “But he’s more than welcome.”
“Of course, of course.” Dagur nods, as naturally as if commenting on the weather. “You’re welcome for as long as you need, brother.”
He reaches to pat Hiccup on the shoulder, but Heather bats his hand away, shaking her head. She mumbles something about “no one but Astrid can touch him right now, you need to ask before-” but Hiccup doesn’t catch the rest of it as Astrid scoops him back into her arms, and gently lays him down on the sofa.
Her fingers -light as butterfly wings- brush his forehead. “Holy Hel Hiccup, you have a serious fever.”
“Oh... that sucks, yeah,” he mumbles. He anticipates the inevitable punch to the arm for such an understatement, but none come.
Astrid kisses him on the forehead, whispers something about getting blankets and medicine, before leaving. If Hiccup shut his eyes, he really could be back at his hom- no, there was never home, his house , he technically lived there, doesn’t mean they had to be family.
Someone knocks on the door. “Come in,” he croaks, sounding like an old bullfrog. The person who enters doesn’t comment. As she comes into his view, he sees a familiar set of green eyes and raven-black hair.
“Hey, Hiccup. How are you feeling?” She takes his hand in hers. Her smile is kind. The genuine kind, not the faked, mocking smile he was so used to seeing from his old bullies.
“Bit better. Shower helped.”
“That’s good.” She nods, careful not to be too loud.
“Heather,” he mumbles, not caring how pathetic the words coming out of his mouth sound. “Can you and Astrid stay with me for a while?”
“Of course!” She exclaims, her voice still hushed, as if to say ‘don’t be a dummy, of course we will’ . “Astrid’s just helping Dagur set up your room. She didn’t want to leave you, but I told her I’d look after you in the meantime.”
“Can I have another shower please? A warm one?” He asks, surprised at how little he fears asking. The feverish chills and aches already sapped him of his energy; why should he try to preserve it now?
“Sure. I’d just like to give you some paracetamol I’ve dissolved in here,” she holds a cup half full of water, “and take your temperature if that’s ok?” Hiccup nods, and obligingly swallows the liquid. The taste is bitter, even with the sugar heaped in, and Hiccup cringes.
“You can take some more tomorrow if you’re up to it,” Heather says. “Now, I’m going to take your temperature. I’m going to stick this in your armpit, is that ok with you?”
“Is it clean?” Hiccup mumbles.
“It’s medical equipment. Of course it’s clean, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Heather says briskly, rolling up his sleeve. Her fingers brush against old scars, neat, even slashes from a worse place in his life. She tries not to flinch, and sticks the thermometer in his armpit. After a few moments, it beeps. Heather cringes.
“What?”
“One hundred and three fahrenheit,” Heather reads.
“Oh shit,” Hiccup deadpans, mostly from exhaustion draining his voice of energy.
“We can call a doctor tomorrow, but how about that shower now?” Heather suggests. Her voice is so kind and gentle, she can almost make the daunting prospect of a doctor’s trip sound easy.
“If I can make it all the way,” Hiccup says lightly, intending it as a joke. Heather frowns, thinking for a moment, then knocks on the lounge door. Astrid and Dagur come in at once. Astrid rushes to Hiccup’s side.
“Hey honey,” Astrid says, each worried line in her face carved with love. “Can I pick you up?” He nods into her shoulder, as she holds him close for entirely longer than she needs to. He feels the softness of the sofa disappear from under him as Astrid carries him to the bathroom, careful on the stairs. Heather and Dagur are in front and behind them respectively, in case she slips and falls, but Hiccup knows Astrid would never let that happen.
She sets him down on another plastic chair Dagur luckily had the foresight to put there. As Astrid’s gentle hands peel his clothes off, a thought suddenly occurs to him.
“You must think I’m weak as shit.” He chuckles lamely. Astrid doesn’t laugh back.
“Never.” The one word holds so much raw power Hiccup is shocked nothing shatters. Astrid cups his jaw with her hand so he has no choice but to look at her. “Hiccup, we could never think you’re weak. You're one of the strongest people I know.”
“She’s right,” Heather nods, her body turned away from the bathroom door. “You’re strong as Hel. But right now, you’re hurting. Being hurt isn't the same as being weak.”
“You’re allowed to be hurt, okay? We would never judge you for that,” Astrid says, her voice warm like the sun on a summer’s day. She punctuates her sentence with a kiss to the cheek, and even though he’s sixteen, Hiccup swears he’ll marry her someday. “Come on. Let’s get you into the warm.”
And she does, and so much more. She pats him dry, and helps him into his favourite black star pyjamas. She carries him to the guest room, and Hiccup notices the unpacked essentials bag on the bedside table. Everything he needs -phone, torch, bell to ring for help, painkillers, glass of water- is comfortably within reach. She places his prosthetic leg where he always leaves it, by his bedside table. She holds his hand and talks about mundane things: progress in training Stormfly; the mishaps involving a hungry Red Kite, spare scraps and a misplaced Jesse; the stupid things racist and transphobic guys in her History class said before she punched them. He doesn’t react, and she doesn’t expect him to.
She tucks him into the bed, a double with a soft mattress, and he sinks into it instantly. Heather comes in and sings a lullaby, and drowsiness creeps into Hiccup’s mind. Dagur pats his hand, and tells him he won’t let anyone hurt him while he sleeps, that if they try they’re gonna mess with him, and Hiccup makes himself smile for him. Astrid comes and kisses him goodnight, whispers something about bunking in his room in a sleeping bag for the night, and curls up on the floor beside him.
As Hiccup falls asleep, he lets himself think that things might just turn out okay. No, more than okay. He deserves more than that. Things might actually turn out good.