Work Text:
June 2016
Since he lost his left leg, Hiccup’s friends have been nothing but kind to him, and it makes him sick. It’s for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with his own personal bullshit, but mainly because he’s not sure if they even count as friends. Do they deserve that label, after avoiding him in public as long as they’ve known him? Do they think his missing limb is cool , in some sick and twisted way? Are they just being kind to him because they hope it will give them ‘goodness’ points for being nice to the lonely, disabled kid?
No , Hiccup tells himself, they wouldn’t think that way. They might’ve been afraid to publicly associate with him until now, but they’ve never been like- like that . They’re not bad people.
Yes, they’re not bad people, and that’s what makes Hiccup’s life ten times more difficult. If they were more hateable, he wouldn’t feel so guilty wishing for better friends.
But instead, they text him daily, asking him if he’s feeling better. Fishlegs reminds him to stay hydrated. Astrid tells him she’s here if he wants to talk. Snotlout sends him screenshots of his progress on the Sims 4 . Tuff tells him about Minecraft: creative mode, and Ruffnut rants about Kesha.
Slowly, their frequent messages (even when he’s sure they’re supposed to be in class at the time he gets them) begin to give him something to wake up for- something to remind him the world exists outside his hospital room. Something to carry on living for.
That feeling that beats inside him is evidence that they are all perfectly good people, that are maybe trying to do something nice and good for his worthless life. And that... that is the worst, most sickening part of it all.
So, when Ruffnut and Tuffnut suggest they go round to the hospital for a movie night, Hiccup can’t say no.
He, of course, regrets it the moment when they arrive with armfuls of luggage in shopping bags, and Tuffnut announces “ we’re here to decorate! ”
The expression of shock-horror on Hiccup’s face must be so intense, it’s comical, as Ruffnut and Tuffnut burst into laughter, and Astrid gives them both a look.
“Guys, give him a break.” She takes a seat on the side of the bed next to Hiccup, and only when Hiccup doesn’t smile does she hesitate.
“Sorry, may I sit here?”
Hiccup shakes his head, as if snapping out of a daydream. “Yeah, sure. Of course.”
“Thanks.” She bounces along a bit further, and curls into Hiccup’s side. Her presence is both welcoming and overwhelming. If the others weren’t here, he’d be more okay with it, but for now, they’re all crowding him, and Hiccup doesn’t understand why they love being around him all of a sudden.
“Hey, guys, get off the bed!” Astrid shoos the twins off the bed they were perching on.
“Ugh, you’re no fun, Astrid,” Ruffnut grumbles.
“I’m okay with that. Now behave. ”
Hiccup laughs to himself. It really is hilarious to see Astrid acting like a stern parent, even though they’re all the same age.
Snotlout and the twins disappear, and Fishlegs pulls out a laptop from one of his many carrier bags. He carefully places it on the edge of the bed, and connects the charging cable to a slot in the wall. Hiccup’s phone is charging beside it. He hasn’t had the heart to check it, even though he knows what will be there. He has his phone turned on noisy, just in case it’s her.
And it isn’t. It never is.
His mom - if she could even be called as such - hasn’t texted him since the accident. Not a ‘how are you’, not a ‘I heard what happened and I’m so sorry’ , not even a simple ‘I’m thinking of you.’
He wants to resent her. He really does. But he doesn’t have it in him. Maybe he’s better than that. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.
“How... how have you been?” Astrid eventually asks.
“Fine.”
The conversation ends there, and Hiccup is stifled and relieved by the silence.
Finally, Snotlout and the twins return with four foldable chairs in their arms.
“Where did you get those?” Hiccup raises his eyebrows.
“Empty rooms,” says Tuffnut, shrugging. “No one’ll miss ‘em.”
Hiccup momentarily considers jokingly lecturing them, like Astrid did beforehand, but realises - despite their efforts to be kinder to him - he barely knows them.
He instead lets the rest of them arrange their chairs beside him (everyone is crowding his bed now, and he doesn’t know how to feel about that), stringing fairy lights around the room - which he isn’t even sure if they’re allowed to do - and bringing out blankets and pillows.
It winds up that there’s not enough space for everyone to sit comfortably, so Astrid sits back down beside Hiccup on his bed. At first, she squishes to one plastic side, like she’s afraid of even touching him (he doesn’t blame her. He feels like eggshells- stable for now, but breakable with even a small touch.)
But he scoots closer anyway, careful not to disturb his IV drip, and Astrid eventually gains the courage to loop her arm around his neck. Fishlegs smiles, and Tuffnut mumbles something unintelligible that Ruffnut elbows him for, seeming to communicate something very urgent with her eyebrows alone.
Fishlegs hands Astrid the laptop to put at the foot of Hiccup’s bed, and the movie starts playing. Hiccup doesn’t pay attention, but he hears them saying something about Iron Man, so it’s probably Marvel.
He’s never liked Marvel. He wonders if his friends know that. Are they even his friends, if they don’t know what kinds of movies he likes? It’s a stupid category to base friendship on, but he can’t help but wonder how much they actually know about him.
They begin to pass around popcorn and snacks, and guilt squirms in Hiccup’s chest. He can’t- he’s barely been hungry these past weeks. Plus, it’s not his food; his friends spent money on that!
“Would you like some?” Astrid hands Hiccup a bag of Smarties.
He thinks about the sickly sweetness scalding his throat. The unsanitized fingers that have been in that bag.
“No thanks.” He tries to smile.
“Okay then.” Astrid tips a few out, and eats them, colour by colour.
And really, Hiccup thinks, it's ridiculous to feel so greedy - for what exactly he doesn’t know, because what more could he want than this? Astrid’s arm is warm and steady around his shoulders, Ruff and Tuff aren’t trying to start a food fight with the popcorn, Snotlout is painting his nails, Fishlegs is reading, the fairy lights are soft and warm. It’s the picture-perfect frame of a perfect evening.
Only it isn’t. Because everything is wrong , and his friends all know it’s wrong, only they don’t want to talk about any of it. They refuse to acknowledge - beyond the “how are you feeling?” questions he’s sick of hearing - that they’re sitting in a hospital, because he almost lost his life. His tilting bed Ruff and Tuff can make go up and down is fun and all, but it’s there in case they need to do CPR on him. His IV drip is interesting to look at, and ask the nurses about, but it kept him alive for the week he spent in a coma.
And he’s lost his leg. There’s that, the glaringly obvious missing space where his left foot is- was . He isn’t oblivious; when they first came in, he didn’t miss the way Snotlout’s eyes flickered down to it and then back up, like he was somehow forbidden from looking at it.
He badly wanted to scream ‘yes, I know I lost half my left leg, but I’m still Hiccup!’ . Those words tingled on the edge of his tongue, but got lost in his throat among the ‘nice to see you’s and the ‘thanks for coming’s.
And he didn’t say it. And now everything he didn’t - couldn’t, still can’t - say, is trapped inside him. A volcano ready to burst.
And he’s normally more composed. He really is. But right now, he’s sick, and tired - he hasn’t slept properly in, God, weeks now. His IV drip hurts, his head hurts- worst of all, his left leg - what remains of it - really fucking hurts.
So it comes as no surprise to him when he starts crying.
It’s not surprising, but that doesn’t mean it’s not humiliating. The second he notices his eyes stinging, then overflowing, his cheeks burn, his face crumples in what he’s sure is a very ugly, pained expression, and worst of all he’s mortified, which only makes him cry harder.
“Hiccup?” Astrid’s thumb rubs his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“I- I...” is all he can get out, amidst his shoulders heaving. She gently guides his head towards her body- the space between her neck and shoulder, where Hiccup can cry in peace.
“It’s okay, you’re safe,” she says soothingly. “I’m here for you.”
“What’s wrong?” Snotlout asks, also uncharacteristically gentle.
“Did I do something?” Fishlegs asks.
“Is it the food?”
“Is it the movie?”
And-
Like an eggshell, he breaks.
“Shut UP! ”
Everything freezes. Astrid’s hand becomes tense on his shoulder. The twins stop shifting around. Fishlegs snaps his book shut. Snotlout lifts the brush from his nails; it goes slack in his fingers and falls limply onto his shorts. His other hand still dangles there.
None of them dare to move their eyes away from Hiccup.
“It’s not...” the fury drains from him in seconds. He doesn’t even have the energy to be mad. “I’m sorry. I’m just- I’m just so tired, and I feel so guilty- you guys are being so kind to me, and I’m just feeling like... like...”
Words fail him, and he buries his head back into the comfort of Astrid’s shoulder.
“You shouldn’t be so nice to me. I- I don’t even know why you’re being so nice to me, but you shouldn’t do it if I’m going to be so ungrateful,” he sniffles.
“Don’t be silly, H.” Tuffnut reaches across his twin, and pats Hiccup on the shoulder. “We want to be nice to you, because you’re you.”
Hiccup gives a watery laugh. “I’m not a very nice person.”
“You launched into the road to save a cat, H,” Snotlout chuckles. “That’s not just nice, that’s- that’s good.”
Hiccup smiles, but he wishes Snotlout hadn’t said that. Because now he’s thinking of Toothless, and his father stomping down the stairs- the blinding panic- running for his life- ice cream, the tanker truck...
“Is Toothless...” he says shakily, “is- is he alive?”
Their faces fall. “We don’t know,” says Astrid. “I’m sorry, Hiccup.”
“Did my dad...”
None of them answer. They don’t know, and if they did, Hiccup doesn’t think he wants to find out.
After a moment of pause, Hiccup says “I was mad. At- at you guys. Because you weren’t- you didn’t hang out with me in school. As if you were afraid to.”
A chorus of ‘I’m sorry’s fills the room, and Hiccup smiles halfway. “It’s okay. I get that I’m not the most liked person.”
“Well that’s everyone else’s problem, because they’re missing out on an awesome dude,” Tuffnut says, beaming. He leans over to ruffle Hiccup’s hair, and Hiccup laughs softly. Something warm, and soothing spreads in his chest. Not forgiveness, not moving on- but the beginnings of redemption.
A nurse knocks on the door, and walks in before any of them can argue against it. “Visiting hours are over, you’ll have to leave now.”
“Aw, can’t we stay five more minutes?” Ruffnut asks.
“Visiting hours actually ended half an hour ago,” she says tiredly.
All seven of them stare her down. Ruff and Tuff pointedly crunch popcorn as loudly as they dare.
“We’re family,” Snotlout eventually says. “I’m his cousin,” he adds with authority.
“I’m sorry, but we need a friend or close relative to-”
“They can say,” a tired, rumbling voice says behind her. She jumps slightly, blinking in surprise, moves out of the way, and-
It’s Hiccup’s father.
Before Hiccup can even begin to think about the absurdity of it all ( why would he let me have this, why does he care, why- ) Stoick says “nurse, just... let them stay. Just for tonight.”
She gives the room a final look, sighs, and leaves.
“Thanks dad,” Hiccup says. Stoick just nods his head, and walks away. Once he is definitely gone, Astrid presses play on the movie, and Hiccup lets himself relax into her shoulder. That may be one of the kindest things his dad has ever done for him, and Hiccup doesn’t know how to process it.
He doesn’t notice Astrid’s thumb rubbing his shoulder until long after she started- it’s soothing, like the way a mother would soothe a screaming baby. Like his mother should be soothing him- if she ever did in the first place.
Those thoughts are bitter, and he tries to shake them off. Turning his attention to the movie, he watches someone, probably Captain America, blowing up a building. It doesn’t make any sense, considering he didn’t pay attention to the first forty minutes, nor any of the other movies in the franchise.
He... he can ask them to choose a different movie next time.
But there won’t be a next time.
Or, maybe, there could be.
“Hey, maybe we could make this a regular thing, you know?” Hiccup bravely suggests.
Snotlout gives him a look. “What, we get perilously injured and the rest of us come around?”
“Well- no . Not the injured part,” Hiccup says.
“Ruff and I have a pretty nice quality TV at our place,” Tuffnut says. “We don’t mind hosting.”
Hiccup, grateful for his friend - yes , his friend , he’s earned it - gives him a smile, and says “that sounds like a great idea!”
“Oh, thank goodness, ” Snotlout says dramatically. “I’ve got to get you guys properly into the Marvel franchise.”
Everyone groans. “Absolutely not ,” Astrid says definitively.
“What is your problem? ”
“Only that it’s one of the most overhyped franchises ever made, I mean, they could’ve stopped, like. Three films ago .” Astrid flings her arm out.
“Hey, why are we even watching this?” Tuffnut asks. “This movie sucks.”
“I thought it was good,” Fishlegs says quietly.
“Well your taste is terrible, Fishy!”
“Okay, sheesh, we’ll put a new one on,” says Ruffnut.
“And this time,” Astrid interjects, “Hiccup gets to choose.”
There’s a chorus of ‘yeah’s and ‘of course’s, and Hiccup feels a tiny bit of the tension in his body seeping away.
As the new movie starts, and Astrid hands Hiccup a chocolate bar she digs out of her rucksack, he listens to the sound of chattering on screen, and his friends rustling around him - Snotlout and Fishlegs are quietly and animatedly discussing the Marvel franchise, and Ruffnut is watching Tuffnut play Minecraft on his Nintendo Switch. They’ve kind of given up on the movie, and that’s okay with him. It’s nice to be in the same room together, sharing their space.
It’s nice to have them around. It’s nice to have friends.
And Hiccup might be wary of people, he might be constantly hypervigilant for bullying and teasing, but he can try. He can let himself get close. He might get crushed like an eggshell, but - for now - he trusts them to be kind.
And love always comes with loss. Love always comes with risk. But these people that surround him - who stay past visiting hours, late into the night, just to be with him - are more than worth it.