Archive of Our Own

"Fishlegs!"

Fishlegs practically leapt out of his skin when his hut door slammed open, rattling the jars on his shelves. "Snotlout!" he snapped. "How many times have I told you to stop—"

He broke off with a sharp intake of breath. Snotlout had indeed invaded Fishlegs's tranquil space loudly and without knocking (business as usual), but this time, he wasn't alone. Fishlegs's heart hammered a discordant rhythm against his ribs. Hiccup and Snotlout had just gone out on a simple patrol — how in Thor's name had this happened?

"Fishface," Snotlout grunted, "are you gonna just stand there gaping like a dead fish, or are you going to help me with him?"

Fishlegs started out of his daze and rushed forward, cursing himself for freezing like this (any healer worth their salt would tell you that freezing in the face of injury can be a matter of life and death). But gods— Fishlegs would never be able to erase that first look at Hiccup from his memory: White as death, arrow shaft sprouting from his left shoulder, blood soaking into his tunic and armor. Half-carried, half-dragged by Snotlout, who had a death grip on his waist, the only thing keeping Hiccup even semi-upright. Half-lidded eyes glazed, head lolling, his breath too shallow, too quick, hitched in pain.

"Here, lay him on the table," Fishlegs ordered, his mind fully clicking into healer mode. He hurried ahead of Snotlout and shoved the scrolls and books he'd been studying off his worktable with one swipe of his arm. Snotlout obeyed, and when he gently lay Hiccup on his right side, Fishlegs's breakfast threatened to make an impromptu reappearance at the blood splattering his hands.

The second Snotlout cleared the doorway, Toothless barreled in, pupils blown wide in panic. He nearly bowled Fishlegs over in his haste to get to Hiccup's side.

"Whoa — Toothless!" Fishlegs's heart broke at the sight of the Night Fury mournfully nuzzling Hiccup's right hand. Blood smeared on black scales as Hiccup's fingers twitched, trying to comfort his dragon even while actively bleeding out. But Fishlegs had no time to allow the heartache to settle in his chest, nor did he have the time to be anything but firm and blunt. "Toothless, I know you want to be with Hiccup, but if you aren't able to keep back, then you'll have to leave."

The Night Fury regarded Fishlegs with a derisive look so close to human it was uncanny. Then he growled, nuzzled Hiccup's hand, and backed slowly away from the table, settling himself in a corner. Another low, dangerous growl rumbled deep in his chest — a clear warning: fix him, or else — and Fishlegs gulped. "Don't worry, Toothless," he squeaked. "Hiccup's my best friend. I want him better as much as you do."

And with that, he turned his back on the dragon and focused all his attention on the rider. "Hiccup? Are you with me?" An inarticulate groan left Hiccup's lips and he made an admirable effort to open his eyes. "Uh, I'll take that as a maybe." Turning to Snotlout, he demanded, "What happened?"

Panic simmered beneath the blue of Snotlout's eyes, belying the irritation in his voice. "He got shot in the back with an arrow, Fishface, what does it look like?"

"I got that," Fishlegs murmured, leaning in closer to see the wound. It had pierced through the leather of Hiccup's armor, which wasn't really a surprise. With enough speed, a projectile could penetrate leather, but hopefully the armor had done its job and kept the arrow from embedding too deeply. Blood pooled around the shaft, but Fishlegs couldn't get a good look at the wound itself with the armor in the way. "Help me cut his armor off," he ordered.

At this, Hiccup groaned again. Fishlegs sympathized, because Hiccup had handmade every piece of his armor himself, had cured and cut and stitched and sewn meticulously. And he'd done a great job. It was great armor, very beautiful, and the thought of destroying something that Hiccup had worked so long and hard on made him ill. But Fishlegs didn't have a choice.

"Sorry, Hiccup," Fishlegs said, "We'll try to damage it as little as possible, but we have to work fast. You've already lost a lot of blood."

Hiccup didn't answer, just screwed his eyes shut and panted in pain as his friends set to work and jostled his wound. "I thought this was supposed to be a simple patrol," Fishlegs said, glancing briefly up at Snotlout.

"Yeah, well, tell that to the four Hunter ships we came across," Snotlout growled. "Armed to the teeth, dragon-proof everything. Shot Hiccup in the back as we retreated for reinforcements."

A wave of raw fury slammed into Fishlegs. "Cowards," he spat.

They finished their work in silence, punctuated only by Hiccup's small gasps and whimpers. Every time Hiccup cried out, Toothless would growl from his corner.

"'m okay, bud," Hiccup slurred.

"Yeah, you'll be fine," Fishlegs soothed. "Snotlout, can you cut his tunic away around the arrow? I'm going to get something for the pain, Hiccup."

While Snotlout worked, Fishlegs hurried to his remedy shelf and grabbed a jar of sterile water, a rag, some willow bark, yarrow, honey, and needle and thread. Hopefully this would be a clean wound and they could simply pull the arrow out, use yarrow to slow the bleeding and honey to fight infection, and then stitch the wound closed. But with Hiccup, Fishlegs had learned a long time ago, nothing was ever simple. An oppressive cloud of foreboding descended on him, but he slogged through it, pushed it away.

Maybe this time will be different, he thought, so earnestly he almost believed it.

When he returned, Snotlout had cut away a large portion of the tunic around the wound. Blood leaked steadily from around the shaft, streaking down Hiccup's back and staining his skin red. "Hey, Fishlegs, do we need to get the others?" Snotlout asked, seemingly unable to take his eyes off his cousin's blood-streaked back.

"Not yet," Fishlegs said after a moment of thought. "I need you here right now, and it'll be easier to work with less people."

"You know Astrid will murder you for not getting her right away?"

"Oh yeah," Fishlegs answered. "But she'll get over it." I hope. He turned his attention fully back to his patient. "He still conscious?" Fishlegs asked, pouring a small amount of water onto the rag.

"Yep," came Hiccup's pain-laced voice. He didn't sound very happy about it. And Fishlegs couldn't blame him.

"Well, here, this should help some with the pain," Fishlegs said, handing the pouch of willow bark to Snotlout. "Here, give this to Hiccup, make sure he chews it." Snotlout obeyed without arguing — a sure sign of how serious the situation was. "I'm going to go ahead and start clearing some of this blood away," Fishlegs warned Hiccup. "It'll take a few minutes for the effects of the bark to kick in, but I really don't want to risk waiting when you're bleeding so much."

Hiccup groaned around the willow bark in response.

The amount of blood concerned Fishlegs, not just because of the visible signs of blood loss Hiccup was already exhibiting — sickly pallor to the skin, wavering awareness, lethargy, clumsy movements — but because of what it could mean for the type of injury they were dealing with.

Normally, arrow wounds didn't bleed this badly until the arrow had been removed. There'd be some blood, sure, but the shaft would typically stem the worst of the blood flow. This much blood indicated that this might not be a simple, clean wound, that some other factor had caused the entrance wound to enlarge, had caused more severe internal damage — or both.

He tried to be as gentle as possible, but any time the cloth came anywhere near the arrow shaft, Hiccup's whole body would tense up, and he would groan or hiss or whine in pain. With each new sound of distress from his rider, Toothless's growls gradually turned to anxious whines, until finally, Fishlegs glanced up from his work to see the dragon slinking closer, huge green eyes fixed on Hiccup.

"Toothless," Fishlegs said, biting back the rising frustration, "if you don't stay back, you'll have to leave, remember?"

Toothless didn't like that, raising his hackles and snarling at Fishlegs like he was the one who had shot Hiccup instead of the one trying to save him. But Fishlegs wouldn't be cowed. "I need room to work, Toothless. I can't treat Hiccup properly if you're underneath my feet the whole time." After a long, charged, moment, Fishlegs heard the slow, begrudging sound of retreating dragon paws. Fishlegs breathed a sigh of relief.

"Okay," he said at last, "I can see the wound. It's — oh, gods." He blanched as he caught his first real glimpse of the entrance wound. No wonder Hiccup was bleeding so badly! The arrow had not entered cleanly; the flesh around the shaft was torn and ragged, the wound gaping wide and deep. And there! Along the shaft, three quarters of the way down, near the head, he caught a glimpse of something odd, something that stole the breath from his lungs— Recognition hit him all at once; his stomach churned and bile rose in his throat. "Snotlout," he said with forced calm, "I actually do need you to get the others now."

"Don't get them, get them, make up your mind!" Snotlout snapped. Then he paused, took a good look at Fishlegs, clocked the panic brewing in his eyes and demanded, "Why? What's changed?"

"Snotlout, go get the others!" Fishlegs shouted. "Now!" They didn't have time for this; Hiccup didn't have time for this.

Snotlout's face flickered ghostly white in the candlelight; his eyes glittered like they were embedded with shards of ice. "I'll be right back," he said, then took one last scared look at Hiccup and ran out of the hut.

Toothless surged forward now, panic burning bright in his eyes. Since there was nothing Fishlegs could do for Hiccup until he had more sets of hands, he let Toothless approach. The dragon whined, a low mournful dirge that sat heavy in Fishlegs's heart like a chunk of iron.

"Hey, bud," Hiccup whispered; he must have spit the willow bark out, but it should still be working against the pain ravaging his body. He sounded awful: pain woven into every syllable, his voice harsh and raw. With what looked like gargantuan effort, he shifted his right arm to hang off the table, an invitation. Toothless took it immediately, butting his head against the blood-flecked fingers. Hiccup shifted his pain-glazed eyes to Fishlegs, a single, silent question blazing in them.

Fishlegs heaved a sigh, then moved closer to Hiccup's head. Hiccup's sweat-slick hair hung in his face and stuck to his forehead; after a brief hesitation, Fishlegs brushed it aside, and to his surprise, Hiccup leaned slightly into the touch. He probably didn't even realize that he'd done that — Hiccup was not a very touchy individual. "Hiccup," he said softly, "the arrow is barbed."

Hiccup's lips tightened into a grim line, all remaining color leeching from his face. Hiccup was a blacksmith. He'd made his fair share of arrows over the years he'd worked for Gobber. Even if he'd never made any like these arrows before, he would certainly be familiar with the concept, and with how much more complicated this made the whole situation. "Can you pull it out without making things worse?" Hiccup asked with a detached resignation that told Fishlegs he already knew the answer.

"No, I'm sorry, Hiccup. It did a lot of damage going in, but the barbs will do far more damage if we just yank it out. And we're going to have to get to work as soon as the others get here to help me, because you've already lost a lot of blood. Not enough to be life-threatening, but if we don't work fast, it will be."

"So you push it the rest of the way through?" Hiccup asked this casually, like he was clarifying a dragon stat or asking about the weather. Way too casually. But on his face, fear mingled with agony, reflected in his eyes and the droplets of sweat beading his brow. His lower lip trembled the slightest bit, and Fishlegs realized for the first time that he was shaking. But despite his obvious terror, he projected a defiant courage that made gooseflesh break out on Fishlegs's arms. Gods, Hiccup was the bravest person he'd ever met. "Fishlegs?"

Fishlegs shook himself out of his reverie. "Sorry. Uh — yeah. We'll have to push it through to the other side so we can snap off the head and pull it out safely. The good thing is that it's not near anything vital, so we should hopefully avoid major damage or internal bleeding."

"And then what?"

Fishlegs bit his lip, glanced at the door. "What is taking them so long?" he muttered.

"Fishlegs." Hiccup's voice, weak and strained and hoarse, carried a clear warning. Fishlegs couldn't help but wonder if Hiccup knew how much of his father he had in him, how much of that power and authority and natural leadership he projected, especially in moments like these. "Tell me."

Fishlegs winced. "Yeah, I'm so sorry, Hiccup, but once that arrow comes out, the bleeding's going to get way worse. I won't have time to sew up both wounds before you bleed out. So I'll have to— oh, thank Thor!"

Sunlight spilled into the room as the door burst open and Astrid, Snotlout and the twins on her tail. "Oh my gods, Hiccup!" Astrid pelted to his side and gently took Hiccup's left hand in her own. He squeezed back weakly, offering her a weary smile.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey?" Astrid squeaked. "You get shot with an arrow, are bleeding out all over Fishlegs's nice table, and all you have to say for yourself is 'hey'?"

Hiccup didn't appear offended in the slightest. A breathy laugh left his lips and he squeezed Astrid's hand again. "I'll be—" he grimaced, "I'll be fine."

"Okay guys," Fishlegs cut in. "We don't have time to waste. Ruff — I need you to go to your hut and get that strong cider you pilfered from Berk's anniversary celebration."

Tuff's hand fluttered to his chest, the very picture of politely scandalized. "I beg your pardon?" he demanded. "I'll have you know, my fine sister and I would never—"

"You would and you did," Fishlegs snapped. He looked pointedly at Hiccup, who, between Toothless nuzzling his hand and Astrid running her deft fingers soothingly through his hair, had drifted into a sort of half-conscious state. His chest still hitched with every breath, and every so often a soft whine would rise to the surface. He was already hurting so much already, but his current pain was nothing — nothing — compared to what was to come. What Fishlegs would have to do to him. "Look, willow bark isn't going to be enough for this next part. The only thing that might make a dent is the strongest alcohol we've got."

Ruff and Tuff looked at Hiccup, and Fishlegs saw the exact moment that the severity of the situation hit them full-force. All traces of mirth fled from their faces, and their eyes grew hard and determined. "On it," Ruff said simply, and she darted out the door.

"What do you need us to do?" Snotlout asked, his eyes cutting anxiously between Fishlegs and Hiccup.

"For starters," Fishlegs said, voice tight,  "we're going to have to push the arrow the rest of the way through."

"What? Push it through?" Snotlout shrieked. "Why not pull it out? Isn't that what you're supposed to do with arrows?" He glared accusingly at Astrid. "That's what she did when she got shot in the leg?"

Fishlegs didn't have the time to remind Snotlout that what Astrid had done, removing the arrow from her leg without any medical supervision or supplies, had been a very, very stupid thing to do. He'd had to have a very serious healer-to-patient talk with her as he'd patched her up when they got back to the Edge. "Well, that arrow wasn't barbed," Fishlegs said. Snotlout's mouth fell open and his face went white. "It's so deep that pulling it out would cause significantly more damage, and I am nowhere near experienced enough to try to cut around it. So we push it through — straight through," he cautioned Astrid. "So we have to do it slowly. By some miracle of Odin, the arrow went through the meat of his shoulder and isn't near anything vital—"

"What are you talking about? Hiccup doesn't have a scrap of meat on his bones," Snotlout muttered, but Fishlegs ignored his obvious grasp for normalcy and talked over him.

"—but any farther down, we risk getting too close to his heart and lungs. Snotlout, you and Tuff — and Ruff, after she gets back — are going to hold him down. This is going to hurt — a lot. And if he jerks around and jostles the arrow while we're pushing, well. Like I said, the arrow has to go straight through to the other side."

He cast his gaze around at each of his friends once more: Astrid, face leeched of all color except two red spots on her cheeks, lips pressed into a grim, determined line, blue eyes steely and even a little bit scared. Snotlout, fists clenched, smattering of freckles across his nose stark against bloodless skin, eyes wide. Tuffnut, eyes bright, expression fierce and determined, anxiety nesting in the downward curve of his lips and the tightness of his jaw. Toothless, pressed against the table beside Astrid, head resting between Hiccup's limp arms, pink tongue darting out to lick Hiccup's right hand, soothing, cleaning blood.

And Hiccup, eyes closed but breath too shallow, quick, and uneven to be unconscious. A single tear slipped down his cheek, even as he fought to keep his expression stoic, and Fishlegs knew without a doubt he'd been cognizant enough to hear and understand everything that had just been said. Fishlegs put a reassuring hand on Hiccup's back, felt the muscles bunched beneath his touch, fear and pain turning them rigid. "And as soon as we get the arrow out," he said softly, "we have to work fast — very fast. Toothless, you're going to have to move back for now, but when the time comes, you'll need to heat Hiccup's dagger. We're going to have to cauterize the entrance and exit wounds immediately." Another tear slid down Hiccup's face, but he said nothing. He'd already known that was coming, too.

"Oh gods," Snotlout gulped. Fishlegs just nodded. Yep, that about summed it up.

"Okay, let's get to work," Fishlegs ordered. And as one, his friends burst into action.

Hiccup could hear his friends from a distance, their voices strange, distorted, as if he lay far beneath the dirt and their echoes only just reached him. He only understood part of what they said, could only keep up with the thread of conversation for a couple of seconds before the pain fully captured his attention once more.

The pain.

It wove itself into every nerve, every fiber of his being, raced from the arrow shaft protruding from his shoulder down his arm and up his neck. It painted his every thought vicious red, blotted out everything that wasn't painpainpain.

And it would only get worse. Hiccup could scarcely imagine how much worse. Because as much as it had hurt to have the arrow pierce his armor and sink into his flesh, it had been quick. It had actually taken a couple of seconds for understanding to dawn on him, for the pain to hit. When it had, it had been ferocious and all-consuming, had built upon itself and stabbed and bitten deep whenever he'd been jarred or jostled. But he knew that having it pushed the rest of the way through, slowly, would be a thousand times worse.

And then…

Hiccup didn't remember when they had cauterized his leg. He'd been deeply unconscious (and even then, his father had said he'd screamed). The agony of the burns after he woke up, though, had been burned into his memory forever, and that pain had been a ghost of how much it must have hurt. He'd always been glad he had no memory of that part.

But now he was going to feel it anyway. Unless he passed out from the pain of having the arrow shoved through muscle and flesh. He hoped fervently, desperately that he would.

And in the meantime, Fishlegs had recruited everyone to help him treat Hiccup, and as a result, Astrid's soothing fingers had disappeared from his hair. A set of hands grasped his wrists in front of them, pinning them together and against the table. A weight had settled over his legs. And Fishlegs had sent Toothless away so that he wouldn't be underfoot.

A wave of resentment rose up in Hiccup's chest. Toothless's nose pressed into his hands, his warm breath on his skin, his reassuring presence close to Hiccup's side — how much trouble could that cause Fishlegs? Wouldn't taking Hiccup's comfort, his best friend, his heart away from him make things infinitely worse? Because as soon as he felt the void where Toothless had been, the cold, empty space his warm presence had occupied, Hiccup felt his brave facade slip a little more, felt panic gain a solid foothold in the pit of his stomach and the ache in his chest, felt the tenuous grip on his composure weaken. He looked down into the yawning expanse of hurt and fear and death and nearly succumbed to it.

He needed Toothless — needed him like he needed air. But he couldn't even protest the loss of his best friend's presence. He was beyond words; he could understand them sometimes, but their shapes were foreign in his own mouth, and when he opened his mouth, only groans and whines and gasps escaped.

Later, once he'd come back to himself, he would understand how unfair he had been to Fishlegs in this moment. He would acknowledge that as their healer, Fishlegs knew what was best, and that if he thought Toothless would be hard to work around, he'd had a good reason. But right now, in this moment, lost in a mire of stabbing, gnawing, roiling, boiling agony, Hiccup felt nothing but angry and hurt and betrayed when Fishlegs ordered Toothless to back away.

"Got it!" came someone's voice — Ruff, he thought — and a second later, he felt a small, calloused hand slip beneath his head. Long, nimble fingers brushed against his scalp as someone held his head up and put the rim of a jug against his lips. He cringed away, but Ruff's voice whispered in his ear, "Hey, hey, hey, Hiccup. No worries. Just me and some dope-ass cider. Trust me, you're gonna love what this baby can do to your pain receptors."

Hiccup didn't see how anything, even alcohol, could dull the rampaging pain, but he trusted Ruff (conditionally; not necessarily with his belongings, sanity, dragon, or prosthetic), so he opened his mouth. The cider tasted exactly like it had when Hiccup had tried it at Berk's 400th anniversary celebration, crisp and sweet with a hint of tartness and that heady leavened taste of strong alcohol. He'd liked it then, but now, with his stomach twisted in knots and the memory of what had happened after that celebration still firmly in the front of his mind, he could barely choke it down. He coughed and spluttered, but eventually he got several long swallows down — far more than he had drank all at once back on Berk.

At once, the alcohol began its work. A wave of dizziness stole over him, and he slammed his eyes shut, but the darkness only made it worse. His head went all fuzzy around the edges, like it had been cushioned in a thick layer of moss, and, to his surprise, the sharp edge of agony dulled somewhat.

"Okay, now Astrid! Guys, hold him still. Hiccup, if you're still with us, we're going to start pushing the arrow through."

And then —

The world shattered into fragments, each one composed of exquisite agony, of screaming muscle and tearing flesh and the slow, slow stab of something ripping him apart from the inside out. He tossed his head, he tried to thrash, but he couldn't move his arms or his legs and panic roared like a feral dragon inside of him. He heard screaming, animalistic, raw, desperate, tortured screaming, so loud and awful and terrifying — and he couldn't understand why it was so near, who would be screaming right in his ear, who was hurting them, why — and then above the screams he heard the sound of a Night Fury shrieking in panic —

And only then did it occur to him that he was the one screaming, because Toothless never panicked like this unless Hiccup was in danger or hurting or scared.

Skin tore, fresh blood welled, someone was crying, Toothless was screaming, Hiccup's screams had turned to sobs. A voice: "It's through!" Hiccup squinted his eyes open, tears clinging like bitter snowflakes to his lashes. His vision blurred in and out, but he had to know, had to see what was going on, what had happened. At first he didn't see anything but his own hands, large hands wrapped around his wrists, pinning him to the wood below. Then he glanced up.

And immediately wished he'd kept his eyes closed.

Because sticking out of his shoulder was a bloody arrow head ringed with vicious barbs. The flesh around the arrow had been shredded, bits of torn flesh hanging from the edges of the wound, blood seeping steadily from the hole around the shaft.

"Let's get this out." Another set of hands crossed into his field of vision, large, gentle hands, but they moved too quickly and Hiccup's stomach lurched. He squeezed his eyes shut again and focused very, very hard on not throwing up. A snap, another burst of agony, then the sudden relief of something horrible and foreign gone from his body. Oh thank the gods — the arrow was out!

But the temperature in the room had suddenly plummeted. Hiccup shivered uncontrollably despite the warmth of blood now flowing in earnest, spilling from the gaping wounds — both front and back, soaking into his clothes, pat-pat-patting like steady rain onto the table beneath him. He heard raised voices, and couldn't understand the words but could taste the terror engraved in them. They were scared, these people around him. Something was wrong.

But then he heard a word, a single name, and it guided him back to hazy awareness like a beacon of light on a foggy night. "Toothless — flame, now! He's losing too much blood!"

Another voice near his head. "Oh my gods — he's still conscious."

"Give him something to bite on — quick! We have to cauterize now."

Hiccup had a strange feeling that he should be terrified at those words, but although he could understand them on a basic level, he couldn't quite fathom out their deeper meaning. He felt something being pushed into his mouth — leather strap, he thought vaguely, though he had no idea how he knew this — and before he could even contemplate spitting it out, pain like nothing he'd ever experienced exploded on the back of his shoulder.

It was the kind of pain compounded infinitely upon itself, that chewed its way through skin and muscle and bone and feasted on your very soul. It burned and blazed and blistered and he screamed and sobbed and clamped his teeth down so hard on the leather in his mouth he was sure they would shatter.

And then, even as the pain at the back of his shoulder built up to a devastating crescendo, it attacked again, this time in the front. And Hiccup shrieked and bucked against the hands, hands, too many hands holding him down, and his ears rang and his head spun and the black behind his eyelids grew even blacker…

The pain flickered like an ember — red hot, glowing, fading, dying… gone.

And so was he.

"Oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods," Snotlout panted as Hiccup's struggles stilled and his body went limp. "Is he dead? I think he's dead. Oh my gods he's dead!"

Behind him, Toothless let out a keening wail.

"Would you two calm down?" Fishlegs demanded, handing the still-glowing dagger back to Astrid, who held it at arm's length like it was a poisonous viper. He placed a two fingers at the pulse-point on Hiccup's neck and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a weak but steady pulse thrumming beneath the skin. "He's not dead, he just passed out."

"And thank the gods for that," Astrid breathed, tossing the cooling knife aside and placing a hand on Hiccup's waxen cheek. Blood coated her hands — and Fishlegs's too — and it pooled around Hiccup's body, soaked into his tunic and pants and stained his skin like rust. Fishlegs knew that the sight of it pouring out of Hiccup's wounds, a deluge of strength and life and vitality draining out of his best friend and puddling uselessly around him, would follow him into his nightmares tonight, and tomorrow night, and the night after that… maybe even for the rest of his life.

And those screams, too.

Fishlegs shuddered. "You guys did really well," he said. "I'm proud of you." And his knees promptly buckled.

Astrid caught him, and Snotlout hurried to help, and then the twins. Toothless rushed forward in their absence, bunted Hiccup's hands, licked blood and tears and sweat from his face, whining softly, purring, chuffing.

Fishlegs's friends guided him to his bed, where he sat, body trembling, stomach pitching about like a ship in a storm. "Oh, Thor," he murmured, swallowing hard. "I can't believe I just—"

"You saved his life," Astrid said. "And you had to hurt him to do it. We all did. I'm proud of you."

"I need to get Hiccup," Fishlegs muttered, "get him back to his… his own bed. Clean him up. Put honey on the burns, bandage them—"

"Whoa, big guy," Tuff said, patting him on the shoulder. "You look like you're one yak pie away from yakking. Sit down."

"But Hiccup—"

"We can handle the rest," Snotlout interrupted, crossing his arms over his chest. "We're not completely inept."

"You just rest, Fishlegs—"

"But—"

"If you don't stop saying 'but', I'm gonna kick yours," Ruff said, her voice strangely gentle.

"We've got this," Astrid reassured him. For the first time, Fishlegs noticed that her face was streaked with tears. All of their faces were, he realized.

Gods, that was the worst thing he'd ever seen.

"Okay," Fishlegs said in a small voice. "Okay," he repeated. He watched as if from outside his own body as his friends returned to Hiccup's side and began tending to the burns. Once he'd been bandaged, Snotlout lifted him gently and carried him out of the hut, Toothless and the other riders behind him.

And only when the door shut behind them did Fishlegs curl into himself and cry.

Hiccup woke feeling as if he were still in a dream. Which was odd, considering he didn't even know if he had been dreaming at all.

The world had a strange, otherworldly quality to it. It shimmered at the edges like concentrated stars. He groaned.

Toothless's head popped into view at once, tongue lolling out of his mouth. When he saw Hiccup's eyes open, he warbled in delight and did a victory lap around the loft, sending Hiccup's papers on his desk scattering, and nearly throwing himself off the edge in his excitement.

From below came Astrid's voice. "Hiccup? Are you…are you awake?"

"Y-yeah?" Hiccup called back, or tried to; his voice came out a reedy rasp. "I… I think so?" He paused, frowned. "Why… why are you down there?"

"We're all down here," Snotlout yelled up irritably. "After we finished treating you and got you back in your own bed, your dumb dragon bullied us all down the ladder and tries to barbecue us if we even think about coming up there."

Hiccup blinked, stared at Toothless in confusion. Toothless gave him his most innocent face, huge, fathomless pupils in a sea of lush green, the face he knew damn well Hiccup couldn't stay mad at.

"Bud?" Hiccup asked. He raised his right arm to touch his dragon's nose but it shook so much he couldn't hold it up for more than a second. He couldn't believe how weak he felt, like all his limbs were made of metal, weighing him down. At least the pain had receded to manageable levels for the time being, but if past experience had anything to say about it, he'd be feeling the arrow wounds and the burns very acutely in the near future.

Toothless gurgled at Hiccup, then narrowed his eyes and growled softly at the ladder.

It hit him. Oh, poor Toothless, Hiccup thought. He'd watched all of it from across the room, seen the pain his friends had been forced to put him through to save his life. So once Hiccup was safe and sleeping and healing, Toothless had driven them all out to protect Hiccup. Because he thought the other riders might hurt him again.

"Oh, bud," Hiccup whispered, somehow managing to raise a quavering hand to scratch clumsily behind an ear fin. "They didn't want to hurt me. If they hadn't done all that, I would have died."

Toothless snarled at the very concept of his rider dying, then crooned and bunted Hiccup's forehead. Hiccup laughed, and even that winded him. "Let them come up, okay, bud?" he murmured against the dragon's sleek scales.

Toothless hesitated, then huffed and retreated to his stone next to Hiccup's bed, heated it with a gout of purple flame, and curled up on top. He kept his head up and his eyes alert, though, and from his stance, Hiccup knew he'd be supervising this and any subsequent visits very closely. Which was sweet, but also really annoying. His dragon could really be a mother hen sometimes.

"Okay, I'm like 90 percent sure he won't maul you if you come up now," Hiccup called down.

One by one, his friends ascended, and Toothless didn't maul any of them. Though he did fix Fishlegs, who came up last, with a scathing look that would have made a lesser man scuttle back down the ladder and out of sight.

But Fishlegs just hunched his shoulders to his ears as if ashamed. His eyes were rimmed with red, tear tracks down his cheeks. When he spoke, his nose sounded stuffy and his voice hoarse, and Hiccup could tell that he had been crying very recently.

"How — how are you feeling, Hiccup?"

Hiccup let his gaze wander languidly from one friend's face to the next, heart skipping at how pale and shaken they all seemed — even the twins. He'd known it had been bad, but it must have been really close.

"I — uh — the pain's actually not — not the worst right now. Mostly I feel… weak? Exhausted?"

"You lost a lot of blood," Astrid said, glaring at Hiccup like nearly dying of blood loss had been his idea. She gave him a strained, thin-lipped smile. A dried drop of blood lingered at one corner of her mouth; she must have missed it when she washed up. "Especially after we took the arrow out, you…" She trailed off, eyes haunted, distant.

"It was like a waterfall, H!" Tuffnut chimed in, voice chipper but eyes clinging stubbornly to sobriety. "A blood waterfall. A blooderfall, if you will. Would've been a magnificent sight—"

"If it hadn't been coming from your shoulder," Ruff cut in. "Because I gotta tell you, that really harshed the vibe."

"Hiccup, I swear, I'm never going on patrol alone with you again," Snotlout cut in. "That was the worst thing I've ever seen, and I once accidentally walked in on my parents—" Hiccup's eyebrows shot up as Snotlout's face turned bright red and he backtracked, "Actually, never mind. Point is, worse thing I've ever seen."

A moment of silence as all the riders gaped at Snotlout, but the spell broke when Hiccup snorted in laughter. Suddenly everyone was howling, even Snotlout (though he hadn't stopped blushing). Hiccup's shoulder burst into fiery agony when he chuckled, the motion pulling at his wound and stretching the angry burns beneath the bandages, but right now, he didn't care. He was alive, the worst was over, he was back with his friends. He looked at his dragon; Toothless alone did not seem amused. The look he cast around to the chortling riders could only be described as loftily judgmental, which only made Hiccup laugh harder.

But he stopped laughing when he realized that one of their number hadn't joined in the joviality other than a half-hearted chuckle that had quickly faded into stormy silence.

"Fishlegs," Hiccup called out, barely able to get his mouth around the name, frustrated at how weak his voice sounded, at how quickly the laughter had drained him, how he could barely keep his eyes open any longer. "What's… what's wrong?"

"I…" Fishlegs shrugged dejectedly. "I hurt you," he said bluntly. "So much. Hiccup, I've never heard anyone scream like that before. And it's because of me."

Maybe it was the blood loss, or the pain, but Hiccup didn't understand at all. "You saved my life," he said.

"Well, yeah, but—"

Ruff rolled her eyes. "Again with the buts," she groaned.

"He can't help it," Tuff informed her with a straight face. "He's a but-man. He likes big buts and he cannot lie."

"Oh gods," Hiccup muttered. He had actually no idea what the twins were talking about, but it sounded as strange as ever. "Okay, listen closely, Fishlegs, because I'm about to pass out," Hiccup said, struggling to hold the fragmented pieces of reality in place around him long enough to console his friend. "You saved my life. End of story. You are… you are an incredible healer, and an incredible friend. Yes, what you had to do to keep me from bleeding out… it hurt. A lot. But if you hadn't done it, I would be dead."

"Maybe I could have found another—"

"Stop," Hiccup interrupted. "Please. Just… let yourself be a hero, Fishlegs. Just… just this once. Without the guilt." His vision went black at the edges; the darkness gnawed its way closer, eating away at his consciousness.

Fishlegs sniffled. "I — I'll try."

"Good," said Hiccup. "Thank you… Fishlegs."

This time, when he fell asleep, it wasn't to the discordant lullaby of fire and ash and smoke and torturous, insurmountable pain and the smell of his own burning flesh. He went quickly, quietly, peacefully, and relatively comfortably, the pain just a whisper in the back of his mind, and the presence of his friends and his dragon more than enough to ease him gently into a restful, healing sleep.