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Even before he opened his eyes, Hiccup knew it was going to be one of those days.
He hadn't moved yet, hadn't so much as shifted his legs or turned his head, but he could already feel it, descending upon him like a heavy shroud, wrapping his body in layers of pain and fatigue, scrambling his mind and setting his senses on fire. And the warning buzz in his lower left leg — which didn't even exist because he'd lost it three years ago — painted a grim picture of what was to come in the next few hours.
Nausea settled itself in the pit of his stomach, skin crawling and joints preemptively aching at the thought of moving, of sitting up, of strapping on his prosthetic leg and forcing himself to stand. Of dragging himself to the Clubhouse and subjecting himself to the chaos of breakfast with the other riders. Normally he enjoyed eating with his friends, but when he woke up feeling like this, the laughter was always too loud, the overlapping voices too overwhelming, and any degree of touch too grating on his already shredded nerves.
And so Hiccup didn't move. He didn't rise. Not yet. Just for now, for the next few minutes, he could rest here in this in-between state, where the full weight of the pain and fatigue had not yet crashed down on him, where he hurt but not too much, where, if he focused hard on something else, he could almost convince himself that this was going to be a normal day with a normal level of pain and a normal amount of exhaustion.
Being an amputee on Berk was not unusual by any means — though Hiccup was definitely the youngest — which meant that Hiccup had already known a bit of what to expect when he lost his leg. Especially growing up with Gobber as a mentor. Hiccup knew all about phantom limb pain, and how the scar tissue on the stump often hurt, especially if there was bad weather brewing just over the horizon. Between Gobber and his two stumps and Bucket and his, well, bucket, the village had never been struck by a storm unprepared.
(A storm was on its way now; he knew this already. He and the others had spotted it on a scouting mission, blowing their way from the east. They'd hoped it would blow itself out by the time it reached the Edge, but based on the agony in Hiccup's stump, it was good that they'd made preparations just in case.)
So although Hiccup had dreaded the possibility of long-lasting pain after his amputation, he'd at least had an idea of what awaited him. Or so he'd thought.
Because what he had not anticipated was the full-body assault that had accompanied the phantom and stump pains. It, much like the amputation pain, ebbed and flowed, though it never fully receded. It usually settled like a coiled viper in his joints, stretched along his muscles, and brought with it a fatigue so staggering, so all-encompassing, that it had a physical presence, like millstones had been tied to his limbs and hung around his neck, like enormous, unyielding hands were pressing against his shoulders, pushing him down, wringing him out.
And today was one of those days.
Even as he lay in bed, completely still, Hiccup felt the unsettling phantom fingers creeping along the ghost of his left leg. The nonexistent limb felt hot and tight, and Hiccup gritted his teeth against the familiar shrinking feeling, like the skin was contracting around the muscles beneath.
And the stump itself — Thor, to say it hurt would be a massive understatement, with sharp spikes of agony slicing through the marred flesh like Nadder spines.
Hiccup didn't look at what remained of his leg more than he had to; he wasn't ashamed of his scars, didn't have some trauma reaction every time he saw them (at least, he hadn't in a long while). But the truth of the matter was that his leg was not a pleasant sight: A twisting, grotesque labyrinth of red, knotted skin, shiny burn scars and raised ropes of scar tissue overlapping one another in a sinuous dance. Still, the image of the stump had been scarred into his memory just as permanently as the scars had been burned into his flesh. And as bad as his leg looked, it hurt even worse.
And of course, it wasn't enough that his old battle wound had decided to act up today. It had, as it often did, chosen to invite its closest friends, inexplicable joint pain and debilitating fatigue, to join the party. And if past experience was anything to go by, this lovely combination would be enough to summon the miasmic brain fog that made thinking — arguably what he did best — a monumental effort. In short, a bad leg day usually affected every other part of his body and mind, to the point where simply getting out of bed and attaching his prosthetic was a victory.
It had been hard enough to deal with back on Berk. But here, on the Edge, he didn't have his dad and a whole village full of enormous Vikings to keep things running smoothly when he could barely move. Here, it was just him and the other riders and the dragons, and it was every hand (or talon) on deck pretty much all the time.
As the leader of the dragon riders, it was Hiccup's duty to lead by example. So Hiccup, who had never been fond of taking it easy even when he'd not had so much responsibility on his plate, always pushed through the pain and confusion and fatigue, and battled his day like it was a hoard of armed Dragon Hunters. He tried not to let it show when he was having a flare, but he knew his friends noticed, even if Astrid was the only one who ever confronted him about it.
But today…
This was already shaping up to be the worst day he'd had in months. Definitely since they'd come to Dragon's Edge. His body felt like it had been buried alive, from neck to foot, as if a mass of earth and stone had been piled upon him and was slowly crushing him. A bolt of phantom fire seized his left leg and the taste of iron filled Hiccup's mouth — he'd bitten his tongue.
Hiccup lay there on his back, eyes still shut because he had not yet gathered the courage to face the day ahead, and mentally reviewed the agenda for the day: Inventory of volatile substances like Changewing acid and Monstrous Nightmare gel (the twins would be assigned patrol on the complete opposite side of the island), tactical dragon-back combat training (led by Astrid, of course), a census of the Night Terror populations, since the newest clutch of babies should have all hatched by now (Fishlegs was chomping at the bit for that assignment).
Hiccup himself was supposed to be working with Astrid and Heather, who were dying to try out Hiccup's newest stave and axe designs in combat. And Snotlout had a whole pile of ripped tunics, trousers, and leggings to mend. He had complained loud and long when Hiccup had given him the task, but when Hiccup hinted that Snotlout was the most adept in the group at needlework (he was), he'd snatched the basket of worn clothing from Hiccup's hands and strutted out of the Clubhouse with a new pep in his step.
And — gods — Hiccup was on dinner duty tonight. Even the thought of smelling food made his stomach twist. He rarely ate on bad pain days; the constant sensation of a red-hot knife under his skin and twisted into his joints and occupying the space his left leg used to be diminished his appetite and left him feeling perpetually queasy.
Hiccup had never willingly “taken a day off” at the Edge before. Now, he almost considered it. There was nothing planned for today that couldn't be done tomorrow instead. His friends would understand. Hel, they'd probably be happy to see him prioritizing his own wellbeing.
But no. As their leader and friend, Hiccup had a responsibility to his team. To Toothless. The dragon would be trying to nudge Hiccup awake any moment, eager for their morning flight around the island. Hiccup couldn't let him down.
He'd just do what he always did when the pain flared — get up, focus on one task, one moment at a time, keep to himself as much as possible, then escape the moment he'd finished his last task. Skip dinner, insist Toothless stay and eat with the others, hobble back to his hut. Fall into bed, too achy and exhausted to even contemplate removing his prosthetic. And then, inevitably, he would wake up the next morning regretting everything. He'd push through again, day after day, until the worst of the pain had gorged itself on his strength, mind, and identity and retreated back into the dark until the next assault. Because really, he asked himself, what else could he do?
So Hiccup summoned all his resolve and levered himself up onto his elbows. The effect was immediate: The fatigue draped over his mind and body compressed, clinging to him like static. At the slight movement, his stump spasmed and flames arced from his knee down to an ankle that didn't exist. A festering, gnawing pressure settled itself in the joints of his shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankle. But still, he rose, although the very air fought back against him, thickening like muskeg and slowing him down.
By the time he had heaved himself upright, Hiccup was panting from the effort and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. Gods, he hated how this pain made him feel. Not just the hurt itself, or even the fatigue, but when he was like this, he felt so… useless. Weak.
His swimming vision stabilized just enough to bring his surroundings from a whirl of light and color. Steeling himself, Hiccup glanced up at the skylight, shocked to see that the sun had climbed higher than he had anticipated. He'd slept past daybreak, which almost never happened, since Toothless was a strict enforcer of their early morning flights. Maybe his best friend had somehow sensed that something wasn't right and had opted to let him sleep. Hiccup turned to survey the rest of the room, fully expecting to see a worried Night Fury holding vigil while he slept.
Hiccup froze, heart in his throat, and stared at the trembling black mound of scales curled up on the heating stone. Though Toothless's eyes were closed, Hiccup knew at once that he wasn't asleep. When Toothless slept, it was like the bed he slept on (a rock). Though he could still sense and wake up at the slightest hint of danger, he slept soundly, solidly. Not fitfully. There was nothing restless about a sleeping Toothless.
Now, there was nothing restful about Toothless.
His obsidian scales caught the sunlight and made its reflection tremble on the walls. He kept fidgeting — his ear plates twitched, his nose scrunched, his lip curled, his limbs shifted and tensed, and his tail constantly moved. As Hiccup watched, a small moan escaped his dragon's mouth, and he took the end of his tail between his gums and began worrying it fretfully.
Hiccup's heart plummeted from his throat and sank down through the floor. Of course, he thought, Toothless's tail is acting up today too. If Toothless had sensed that Hiccup was unwell, he wouldn't have just sat there and let him sleep, watching him. He would have either gone to get someone or woken Hiccup to check on him. Hiccup would have caught on so much sooner, had his own brain not been reduced to smoke and fog.
Guilt curdled in Hiccup's belly at the sight of his best friend lost in his own battle with lingering, phantom pain.
Gods. I did this.
In moments like these, when the pain became too great for even Toothless, the embodiment of strength itself, it didn't matter that he knew Toothless had forgiven him completely. It didn't even matter that Hiccup had (mostly) forgiven himself. It didn't matter how many times they had joked that Toothless had "gotten even" by mangling Hiccup's leg saving him from the Red Death. It didn't matter how far they'd come, how close they'd gotten, how rose-colored and legendary his first meeting with Toothless had become to his tribe. And it sure as Hel didn't matter how much pain Hiccup was in.
Because in moments like these, Toothless was ravaged with pain from his severed tail fin, and it Hiccup had done the severing. Maybe not directly, with his own two hands, but it was his bolas that had shot Toothless down. He had targeted Toothless for his own selfish gain. Hiccup had not only stolen the skies from Toothless, but he had cost his soul-brother a part of himself.
Moments like these were a stark reminder that even though shooting down Toothless had ultimately brought boy and dragon, two halves of the same whole, together, and had led to peace between their kinds and saved thousands of dragons in the Red Death's thrall, it had come at a terrible price. A price that Hiccup felt he sometimes took for granted on the days when Toothless felt whole and unburdened by terrible pain, but one that he never wanted to forget.
"Gods, bud, I'm so sorry," Hiccup murmured, and Toothless blinked open glowing green eyes to glare half-heartedly at Hiccup. "I know, I know, we've been through this," Hiccup deadpanned, forcing his own pain and exhaustion down, hoping his dry response would be enough to divert suspicion. Toothless had enough to deal with right now — he certainly didn't need to be worried about Hiccup, too. "But I'm still sorry you're hurting."
Hiccup carefully pushed himself to his foot — biting back a groan of agony. Toothless grumbled and watched Hiccup with a somewhat distant expression, like he wasn't completely inside his own body. Hiccup knew that feeling all too well (even now, he could feel himself separating from his body, trying to peel away from the pain). So it was a really bad day for Toothless, too, apparently.
Usually, miraculously, their bad days tended to stagger, which was useful, since Hiccup could carry more of the weight (metaphorically) when Toothless was hurting and Toothless could carry more of the weight (metaphorically and physically) when Hiccup was hurting. Rarely had they both been down at the same time. And never with such bad bouts.
Well, our luck had to run out sometime, Hiccup thought bitterly. It usually does.
"Here, bud, let me help you out with that," Hiccup said softly, testing his balance. He wavered but didn't face-plant, even as his stump and missing leg howled in the jaws of torment and his joints creaked and burned with every movement. He left his prosthetic on the bedside table; with his stump so inflamed, it would be easier to hop and shuffle than to attach and walk on the fake limb.
If it had been for any other reason, Hiccup didn't think he would have been able to fight his way across the loft to his storage chest. But for Toothless, he would do anything, shoulder anything, fight anything. Even his own body.
His arms felt tangled in spiderwebs or immersed in honey as he rifled through the chest to find a large canister of salve, and he bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted fresh blood when his leg seized violently. But eventually, he dragged it out of the chest and tucked it under his arm (his shoulders and elbows protested vehemently). Somehow he made it to Toothless's stone without collapsing. Toothless had adjusted to give him room on the stone, and Hiccup lowered himself down, trying to hide the stiffness in his joints.
The moment his body made contact with the stone, Hiccup wanted to curl up and melt into it, press his aching, battered leg and joints into the lingering heat and fall back to sleep. Better yet, he wanted Toothless to curl around him, envelop him in his warmth, comfort him with his grounding presence and the heat of his body.
Instead, Hiccup scooted back until he could lean back against Toothless's shoulder and gestured at his dragon's tail. "Can I see?"
Toothless regarded him suspiciously for a moment, eyes backlit with glimmering concern, and Hiccup knew the jig was up. Even in the throes of a pain flare, Toothless was too sharp, too observant (especially of Hiccup) for Hiccup to fool. He knew his best friend was in pain, too, and for a moment, Hiccup expected a battle of wills to ensue.
But Toothless, after pointedly looking Hiccup up and down and growling softly in the back of his throat, conceded and offered his tail to Hiccup, who grasped it gently, surprised. Fresh fear quickened his heart; if Toothless had given in so easily, how bad must his pain be? But behind the veneer of pain and tiredness was a calculating gleam, and Hiccup knew at once that Toothless had conceded for strategic reasons… but Hiccup was far too disconnected from his own mind and far too focused on helping his dragon to try to figure out what those reasons might be.
Hiccup didn't have the capacity to talk and work at the same time, not today, not with his mind and body in their current state, so wordlessly, he unscrewed the canister and scooped out a generous portion of bitter-smelling salve. It was pretty much the same as Hiccup's, just a bit stronger and with the addition of dragon nip, which, Hiccup and Toothless had learned after some experimentation, helped relax a dragon's muscles and ease spasms, even when applied topically. It wasn't a cure-all by any means, and of course, it did nothing for the phantom pain, but it did help ease the inflamed scar tissue, at least.
Like Hiccup, Toothless seemed to be too exhausted to communicate more than necessary, so they sat in a companionable silence, Hiccup working slowly with usually deft fingers stiff with pain. He'd done this so many times that the process came as naturally as flying. First he spread the salve over the raised scarring that had once been the base of Toothless's left tail fin, where the scales had never grown back.
He massaged it in, moving his fingers in small, slow circles. He pressed firmly in Toothless's most frequent trigger spots, applying the right amount of counter-pressure to offer at least some relief. Today, his fingers felt clumsy and rigid, and he had to take frequent breaks, but Toothless had relaxed marginally by the time Hiccup had worked his way to the scaled skin around the scarring, which meant Hiccup had been able to help some, thank Thor.
Hiccup massaged the area around the scar tissue as well, fingertips dancing (more like tripping) from muscle memory alone along the path of Toothless's usual pain. It felt good, occupying his hands and mind with helping Toothless, in spite of the pain and stiffness in his own body. Hiccup was about to start on the unmarred side of Toothless's tail (he knew the dragon often had referred pain in his remaining fin to match the phantom pain in his missing one) when a bolt of searing agony sparked from his left knee, racing along the damaged nerves of what remained of his calf and continuing seamlessly past the irritated stump, all the way to the tips of his nonexistent toes.
The spike hit so suddenly and so aggressively that Hiccup's breath vacated his lungs and his vision greyed out at the edges. His fingers clenched of their own accord, abandoning their important work, the nails biting into his palms. Nausea frothed in the pit of his stomach, bile crept up his throat, but with great effort, Hiccup managed to swallow it back down.
When the pain had receded back to nearly unbearable levels and he could speak again, he panted, "Gods, that hurt." The ringing in his ears faded, replaced by Toothless's anxious crooning. Hiccup blinked over at his dragon through tear-blurred vision and croaked, "I'm — I'm okay, bud." Toothless snorted in disbelief, and Hiccup was too wrung-out to insist on what was obviously a lie. So he reached for the salve again.
Toothless growled at him.
Hiccup blinked, fingers hovering over the canister uncertainly. "What's wrong, Toothless? Did I make it worse? Gods, I'm so—"
Toothless growled again, softer this time. With his nose, he nudged Hiccup's hand away from the salve. Hiccup narrowed his eyes, not willing to give up on Toothless's care so easily, despite how his own stump was begging for relief. Toothless first. For Hiccup, Toothless always came first.
When Hiccup reached for the salve again, Toothless, in the spirit of an enormous, scaled, and stubborn cat, used a forepaw to bat the canister off the stone entirely. Thankfully, the salve was viscous enough not to spill even as its container rolled languidly along the floor on its side.
Hiccup tore his gaze from the escaping ointment. "Toothless!" he chided, though he didn't have nearly enough self-control to keep the amusement out of his voice.
Toothless chortled — not his usual bubbly, energetic approximation of a laugh, but still, even pain-filled and weary, the sound of it filled Hiccup with hope.
"I'll take care of my leg after—" Hiccup yelped as Toothless clamored gracelessly to his feet (another sure sign that this was a bad flare; nothing about a healthy Toothless could ever be described as graceless), leaving Hiccup, who had been leaning against his flank, to flail for balance. "Hey, don't walk away when I'm talking to—" His eyes widened when he registered where Toothless was heading: A wide shelf at just Toothless's head-height (for easy dragon access on Hiccup's bad pain days), which held a small bag of Hiccup's pain management supplies.
"N-no, no bud," Hiccup protested, trying (and failing) to get to his own foot. "I can do that myself. You're hurting, you don't need to bring me anything."
Toothless, moving much slower and more carefully than usual, twisted his head around to regard Hiccup with a pointed, unimpressed expression. Hiccup didn't need to speak a word of dragon language to know precisely what that look meant (he had been subject to it many, many times). Ridiculous human, Toothless was saying. (Other similar interpretations would be Really? and This again? and I would've thought you'd have learned by now.) Toothless used his head to point to the upturned dragon salve, then back at his own tail, then to Hiccup's salve and Hiccup's leg.
Oh. That’s why he’d let Hiccup care for him without a fuss.
You take care of me, I take care of you, he was reminding Hiccup. Brothers.
Hiccup opened his mouth to argue but had no rebuttal, especially as the fog and the pressure and the fire pressed in on all sides, from head to toe, suffocating his mind, joints, and leg. He nodded, face screwing up in agony, and watched, heart overflowing with love for his best friend, as Toothless gingerly took the woven straps of the bag in his mouth and pulled it off the shelf. Moving like a dragon one hundred years his senior, Toothless made his way back to Hiccup.
Once Hiccup had the bag, Toothless circled back around and half-curled up around him, watching with half-lidded eyes as Hiccup unpacked the contents — a flask of willow bark tea, a smaller jar of salve, and a yak bladder that Hiccup would sometimes fill with heated water for localized pain relief (a bit gross, but effective). He set the bladder aside; nothing about his pain was localized today, and besides, Toothless was better than a yak bladder in every conceivable way. His body heat would be more than enough.
Hiccup drained the willow bark tea in three large gulps, then wiped his mouth with the back of his shaking hand. The tea pooled uneasily in his stomach but thankfully did not try to make a reappearance. His hands trembled so badly that it took two tries to get the lid off the jar.
Hiccup was much less sure and steady when applying his own salve than he had been Toothless's. Every touch felt like fire racing along his flesh, and the burning, shrinking, tightening lower leg pain had spiked in earnest now that his focus was not solely on Toothless's well-being.
It was so much easier to push through when it was for Toothless.
That thought hit him like a battering ram, momentarily stilling the awkward movements of his hands mid-stump massage. In the back of his mind, he had still been planning on going to the Clubhouse after ensuring that Toothless was as comfortable as he could get in his current state. He had to push through, he had to lead by example, he had to be everything for his friends and his dragons, even when he had nothing left, even for himself, because he'd given the last of his everything to Toothless.
Why was it so hard for Hiccup to admit he needed a day off when he fully expected Toothless to do so when faced with the same circumstances? Because Hiccup certainly didn't think any less of Toothless for needing time to rest and recover. Toothless was not weak, was no less a leader, because he could admit he was down. In fact, Hiccup admired him for it.
Not for the first time, Hiccup thought, I've got to learn to be more like Toothless.
Hiccup knew he needed to rest. He knew that if he tried to do even one of the tasks he had planned for himself today that he would end up in much worse shape. But he also knew that this… pride, or stubbornness, or "self-sacrificing bullshit" (as per Snotlout)… whatever it was, would drag him out the door anyway, kicking and screaming, if he didn't offer it a waterproof reason not to.
The pain in Hiccup's stump faded slightly as he gazed at his dragon, marked the gleaming black scales and the ridges of his face, the worried lichen eyes that reflected his own soul, the weary but determined posture as he supervised Hiccup's self-salving, making sure his rider took as good care of himself as he had his dragon.
Him, he thought. He is my reason.
Toothless was the reason for and the answer to everything in Hiccup's mind — half the time, he couldn't tell where he ended and Toothless began. Two distinct individuals with unique experiences and perspectives and lives, and yet, twin hearts beating as one.
Maybe one day, Hiccup would be able to take a day off for his own sake, because he needed it. But right now, he had his reason for taking care of himself, for taking time to rest, for taking the day off. Because, as Toothless had just so plainly illustrated, part of taking care of Toothless was taking care of himself, because he was to Toothless what Toothless was to him.
Hiccup gritted his teeth through the pain, his breath hitching as his thumb dug into a particularly tender trigger point, but a kind of peace had settled inside of him, a surety, immune to pain and fog and fatigue. When he sat back, shoulders aching, stump a mixture of inflammation and cool tingling from the salve, missing left leg searing with regular bolts of agony, he smiled at Toothless wearily.
"You up for some heat, bud?"
Toothless trilled approvingly, and Hiccup scooted off of the stone. Toothless rose once more to his feet, warming the stone with a small burst of fire calculated to soothe Hiccup's aches but not to burn. Toothless curled on his side, purring at the warmth, and opened his wing, an invitation.
"Astrid's bound to come check on us when we don't show up for breakfast," Hiccup panted through pain and exertion as he settled himself on the blessedly toasty stone and pressed his back against Toothless's hot underbelly. Toothless chirped in agreement. "When they do, I'll tell her you and I are taking the day to recover."
Darkness settled over Hiccup like a shroud as Toothless's wing cocooned him, trapping in the healing heat. Toothless's body vibrated with his answering warble; Hiccup could feel his pride at Hiccup's decision.
Hiccup chuckled, running his finger over the sleek scales of Toothless's underbelly. "Yeah, I figure the Edge will survive one day without us." Hiccup paused, tugging briefly at a thread of worry. "…right?"
Toothless chortled and Hiccup shook his head. "You're right, I'm being paranoid. Besides," he said, relishing the balm of warm stone and a warmer dragon against his aching body, marveling at how even the phantom pains, unaffected by heat or salve, seemed so much less when he was here, curled up against his best friend, safe and protected and not alone, "today, there’s really nowhere else I'd rather be."
Toothless cooed in rapt agreement.
Hiccup closed his eyes and sank into the warm embrace of his dragon — sharing each other's suffering as they shared everything else — underneath the leathery black umbrella of his best friend's wing.