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The night is clear. Hiccup lazily sprawls out on Toothless’s back, the way he’d seen Snotlout do before atop a reluctant Hookfang, and lets the night fury guide him away from Berk. They’d left Berk less than an hour ago, and so they had a long way to travel before they were deep in the forest, and could set up and begin the training exercise.
Toothless is warm beneath him, dry and scaly and deeply familiar, and the sky is asprawl with stars. One of Hiccup’s favourite things about living on Berk are these stars.
Hiccup inhales the pine-fresh air, and smiles crookedly at the sky. Berk is so busy, and this calm, surrounded only by friends and fresh air and the vast night sky… It’s so relaxing, Hiccup almost falls asleep.
“Hookfang!”
Toothless flinches backward, and Hiccup bolts up on instinct.
“What is it, bud?” he murmurs. Toothless yowls with alarm and confusion, eyes fixed on Hookfang.
The monstrous nightmare bucks against Snotlout, bares his teeth at him, and erupts into flames.
“Oh, that’s not good.” Hiccup jumps off Toothless, shaking his head. “That’s very much not good.”
“Hookfang! Heel! Bad dragon!” Snotlout is waving his arms and shouting at his dragon. Hookfang roars at his rider, and with one flick of his strong tail, he pushes Snotlout away and into the dirt.
The rest of the teens are on edge, but they can only stand about. There are no enemies in sight, so they can only edge away from the ferocious dragon; it seems, confusingly, like Hookfang is attacking them.
“Fishlegs!” Hiccup calls. “Do you know anything about sudden violence in monstrous nightmares?”
Fishlegs scuttles further away from the violence, arms raised defensively over his head, and just shakes his head at Hiccup. Great.
Hiccup heaves a sigh, and turns to Astrid, only to find her ducking away from Stormfly, her own arms raised.
“Stormfly— girl, it’s me! It’s Astrid!”
The Deadly Nadder lets out an animalistic shriek and ducks to bite at the blonde girl, who narrowly avoids it as she rolls behind a tree.
“Hiccup,” Astrid shouts, “what’s going on?!”
Hiccup opens his mouth to reply — something along the lines of ‘oh, my god, I have no idea’ — but is cut off as two more shouts erupt.
Barch and Blech have turned on the twins, trying to bite their heads off. Ruff and Tuff are laughing, ducking and rolling inbetween the dragons as they cackle at the violence.
Stormfly and Hookfang have been reduced to tumbling in the dirt, trying to claw and bite and kill each other. It’s animalistic, something primal and basic, and nothing like anything Hiccup has ever seen.
“Oh, no,” Hiccup says. “Ohhhhh, nooooooo. Er, Toothless, buddy—”
Hiccup turns to his best friend, and freezes. Toothless’s pupils have turned to slits.
“Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse,” Hiccup mutters.
Four feral dragons, trying to kill each other and destroy the surrounding foliage. Five panicked humans, plus Hiccup himself who is valiantly trying to not panic, but may be failing as he watches Toothless try to claw Hookfang’s eyes out.
His friends are on the other side of the squabbling dragons. Meatlug hoovers near them, ready to protect the humans. Strangely, the Gronkle looks wholly unaffected.
Hiccup spots Astrid waving her arms frantically at him.
“Get down, Hiccup!” she shouts. “It’s not safe!”
“I can’t!” Hiccup shouts back. “The dragons— I’ve got to help them!”
“You can’t!”
Hiccup ignores Astrid’s frustration, and ducks toward the dragons. When he was littler, Hiccup had thought dragons to be terrifying beasts. Now, they resemble that description more than ever, but Hiccup only has this deep need to help them.
He’s the dragon trainer, is he not? They’re big, strong dragons, but they’re his responsibility. All the members of the Dragon Academy are, human or not.
He rolls out of the path of Toothless’s tail, ends up even further away from Astrid, and accidentally catches Stormfly’s crazed eye. The Nadder hisses, puffs up the spikes on her tail and—
Hiccup cries out as he’s flung back, landing in the forest clearing.
“HICCUP!”
“Oh god,” he whispers, or tries to. His voice has been taken from him, replaced by an all-encompassing pain.
At first, Hiccup struggles to get back up. The dragons’ pupils are still razor thin, their teeth bared. He has to— he has to help his friends. His dragons.
Everything is beginning to blur. Usually, his eyesight is sharp and unfailing, but now, Hiccup can’t focus on anything. He’s pinned to the ground, robbed of his sight, defenceless. Every time he tries to sit up, pain grabs hold of him.
And… and Hiccups wet, drenched even, though he has no idea why.
“HICCUP!” Astrid screams. He tries to move, tries to make his legs take him to her, but he’s just flailing uselessly in the dirt. “Hiccup— god, no, stay still!”
“‘Strid?” Hiccup slurs. Her voice sounds far-off, the roar of the dragons even further away.
It’s getting hard to breath, now. Something bubbles up his throat, dribbles down his chin. He thinks he hears Fishleg’s sobs, hears the desperate lilt to Snotlout’s voice as he shouts Hiccup’s name, but he’s probably delusional at this point.
Hiccup tastes thick liquid in his mouth, and recognises the coppery taste immediately.
Blood. He’s bleeding. Badly. Oh, no.
Still, he fights off the fogginess starting to crawl over his thoughts. The dragons are still making raw, primitive sounds, and that means Hiccup still has a job to do.
“Toothless!” Hiccup shouts, though the sound is weaker than he’d like. “Toothless, bud—” Hiccup gags on a mouthful of blood, spits it out, and continues: “Toothless, please!”
The night fury is a black blur, all hackles and razor sharp claws. He cannot hear Hiccup. Not now, not like this.
The dragon is tangled up between Stormfly and Hookfang, taking them both on at once. Toothless can and will tear the other dragons apart, no problem, with his superior strength and mighty jaw.
Hiccup cannot let that happen.
“Toothless,” he tries weakly.
Hiccup wiggles his limbs, trying to find purchase on the damp earth, but all it earns him is more choked outrage from his friends. They really do not want him to move, and they sound frantic now; Hiccup can hear Fishlegs hyperventilating, Astrid screaming for help, even the twins are beginning to sound panicked.
But he can’t stay still! He has to help! He has to! (But he’s pined, and he can’t move, can hardly breath—!)
The dragons are in danger, they need help, and all Hiccup can do is buck under the pain, and writher uselessly on the ground. He’s— he’s helpless!
Hiccup struggles harder. He sees the dragons tearing into each other, dangerously close to him — yet not close enough for Hiccup to do anything. The dragons are injured ,All the dragons are covered in claw and bite marks, looking beat up in some way.
Except for Toothless.
The night fury is roaring into the night, the sound echoing and amplified through the emptiness of the forest. Stormfly pined beneath him, Toothless’s jaw begins to light up an ominous purple, aiming directly for the Nadder’s head.
Hiccup knows Toothless. He knows that if the night fury kills a fellow dragons, he will never, never be able to forgive himself.
“Toothless—!” Hiccup screams, flailing desperately on the ground. Adrenaline spikes through him, and he is almost able to sit up. He can see the other teens, huddled together several hundred metres away from him, on the other side of the violent dragons. He can see everything; how wide Astrid’s eyes are, how panicked everyone looks, can see Toothless about to fire.
Can see the huge Nadder spike that is protruding from his bleeding stomach (and that, he realises with a jolt, is what is keeping him pined, like a bug under a needle). Oh. Oh.
Toothless rears back, jaw wide open, and Hiccup almost completely forgets about his injuries.
“TOOTHLESS!” His best friend doesn’t even look at him. “TOOTHLESS, NO!”
Toothless’s roars are thunder in Hiccup’s ears, his purple flame bright in the darkness of the forest. The adrenaline fades as fast as it came; Hiccup has not even the energy to keep his head up anymore.
Hiccup pants into the night air. Toothless, he thinks, Toothless…
His thoughts are slipping away from him. The only thing Hiccup can see is the huge canopy of stars above him.
“Toothless!” Is that’s Gobber’s voice? The viking had followed them…? No. Maybe? Hiccup doesn’t know anymore. “Toothless, you— by the gods, HICCUP! HIC—!”
Hiccup blacks out.
Hiccup wakes up to shouting. He does not know how much time has past, just that the roaring of dragons is gone, replaced by the roaring of his heartbeat.
For a second, Hiccup is numb, eyes wide and staring at his terrified friends with confusion, before Gobber shifts his hold on the Nadder’s spike and Hiccup starts screaming.
Hiccup has been on fire before, but this— this is worse. His body is burning with this consuming pain, and his stomach! His stomach is this sucking mass, the pain so sharp and concentrated that it clouds Hiccup’s vision and steals all his thoughts.
Head thrown back, bitten down fingernails scrapping desperately at the dirt, back arching up as his body flails in agony. He kicks someone in the face, but he hardly notices.
The pain is in control, now.
“Hold him down,” Gobber instructs.
The teenagers all hesitate. Fishlegs has both hands fisted in his hair, in the midst of a full blown panic attack, and Snotlout has gone a deathly pale and is shaking minutely. They’ll all need to be treated for extreme shock later, in the early hours of the morning after they’ve gotten Hiccup to safety.
“Hold him!” Gobber says again. The authority in his voice stirs them to action, and they grab Hiccup’s limbs and force him back down.
“Oh, god,” Ruffnut says, very quietly. Her brother is completely silent beside her, and they’re both staring at the object wedged in Hiccup’s gut. They don’t comment on how awesome the spreading pool of blood is, how cool they think Hiccup’s injuries are, don’t even mention the flesh of Hiccup’s stomach they can see poking up around the spike — they just hold onto Hiccup’s one good leg and keep it still. Following orders.
“Stay with us, Hiccup,” Astrid murmurs. Her grip around his left forearm is strong.
Hiccup’s head flails from side to side, the boy screaming a soul tearing shriek as Gobber fastens his hold on the spike and tugs.
“I can’t pull it free,” Gobber says. All their hands are slippery with blood, but Gobber’s is the worst. “It’s not— Hiccup, I’m so sorry, my boy.”
Hiccup’s face is hidden in his left shoulder, but they can all hear his bone deep sobs.
Toothless’s soft mew is all the warning Gobber has before the black dragon shoves the blacksmith away, and takes the spike into his mouth. The teenagers scramble to hold Hiccup down even tighter, and then Toothless is pulling, and Hiccup is howling.
The spike comes out with one pull.
There’s a bloody hole in the middle of Hiccup’s chest. Fishlegs scrambles away and throws up in a nearby bush.
Before blood can soak Hiccup any further, Toothless gathers up a lightning bolt in his mouth and shoots, searing Hiccup’s wound closed. It will not fix his rider, but it does sear the wound close, saves Hiccup from bleeding to death before they can get him to a healer.
Torch light spills into the clearing. Adults are shouting in the distance as they run towards the group. Gobber raises his blood soaked hand in greeting, thanking the gods that the teenagers hadn’t wandered too far out of Berk; he can only imagine how badly things may have gone if this had happened any further away. Here, Hiccup’s screams were able to rally Gobber to action, backup nipping at his heels.
“Hiccup!” Stoick shouts, running toward the group with all his might.
Delirious, half paralysed from the pain, Hiccup can barely raise his eyes to look at his friends. He manages, somehow, and his gaze rests on an unharmed Toothless. He has a moment to think, ‘You’re okay… Thank odin, you’re okay,’ before his thoughts cloud over and his eyes roll into his head.
Stoick collapses to his knees just in time to see his son pass out.
The second time Hiccup awakes, he’s safely in his bed.
“Er…” Hiccup clutches at his head where a migraine is throbbing away, then clutches both hands to his stomach when the pain spikes more prominently there. “What happened…?”
Toothless makes a little happy noise and nudges his palm, green eyes big and brimming with happiness. The dragon has wrapped himself around Hiccup, wings half covering his rider, head resting along his thighs.
“Heya, bud,” Hiccup greets.
“Hiccup!”
Astrid bounds into the room. The bucket of water in her hands sloshes and drenches her tunic, but the girl doesn’t care, just flings the bucket down, and rushes forward, throwing herself at Hiccup’s bedside.
“You’ve been asleep for a very long time,” she tells him. She sits, drinking in the sight of him, a too-big grin crowding her face. Despite the pain, Hiccup is happy. After a lifetime of loneliness, it’s amazing to be surrounded by people pleased at his presence.
“What happened?” Hiccup asks.
Astrid bites at her lip.
“Well…”
“Astrid, please, just. Just tell me. I won’t freak out.”
She fiddles with her bangs, not meeting his eyes. Her happiness has gone, and Hiccup fights the guilt he feels at that.
“We went into the forest for a training exercise, remember that?” She glances at Hiccup, who nods and gestures for her to continue. “We had only just set out, when our dragons turned on us. It was so scary; they looked as though they were going to seriously hurt themselves. And then…”
“And then?” Hiccup prompts.
“And then you tried to intervene, despite our warnings for you to just keep yourself safe.” She glares at him, all show, no real heat in the expression. “You just ran out in the middle of a bunch of fighting dragons, and Stormfly…” Astrid swallows thickly. “Stormfly sent out her spikes, and you got pined to the ground with a spike stabbed in your stomach. There was… there was a lot of blood.”
Hiccup places a hand lightly over his stomach. It’s wrapped thickly with bandages and he can feel the stitches that are keeping his flesh together.
“Oh,” he says.
Astrid nods, eyes downcast. Toothless warbles and bumps his riders hand, worried. Hiccup settles his hand on his snout, stroking his scales without thought.
Hiccup strengths wavers. His body is still healing, only kept together by thread stitches and the willpower. Still, Hiccup forces himself to fight the shuttering of his eyes so he can continue touching Toothless — patting the dragon’s along his nose, over his forehead, gently running his fingers over his ears; reassuring himself that his best friend is okay. Toothless’s eyes stay fixated on Hiccup, and the boy knows the dragon is doing the same thing.
Hiccup, hands ghosting over Toothless’s hide, keeps asking questions. Why did the dragons freak out? Is everyone okay? How long had he been asleep?
Dragon root, she tells him. A bushel of it, destroyed when Gobber took an axe to it. Everyone was okay, the dragons were bit bruised and a little injured but nothing serious. Fishleg still had nightmares, and Snotlout had thick purple bruises all over the right side of his face, but Hiccup was the only one seriously injured.
She won’t answer his last question.
“Astrid?” Hiccup presses. “How long was I asleep?”
She shakes her head, silent. Hiccup can see the deep purple bags under her eyes, and the way her lips purse, her hands balling into fists as though overwhelmed by the answer.
Hiccup assumes it was a long time.
Three weeks later, Hiccup escapes from the village. Everyone was getting to be a bit… much.
Hiccup understands. Apparently, he was unconscious for a long time, and they had almost lost him several times, and they were all so relieved he was okay.
Still. Half the village had been his room at all times and Hiccup, restrained to bed rest, had become overwhelmed by the constant presence of worried vikings. Especially uncharacteristically worried vikings. Fishlegs and Snotlout of all people had been choked up with tears when they first saw Hiccup.
(He does not want to think about what had happened when Stormfly had stopped by for a visit. Hiccup’s reaction was instinctual, his scream and hunched shoulders an unconscious action. Nadders’ still left him with shaking hands, and caused the pain in his belly to flare up.)
“Come on,” Hiccup urges. Toothless is taking him out of Berk, though Hiccup thinks the dragon only agreed because he knows Hiccup will try and sneak out by himself, and end up hurting himself further.
They fly to the tallest hill in Berk. Hiccup collapses into a content pile of limps on the damp grass.
What’s that sound? Oh, nothing? Sweet, sweet silence? Perfect.
Hiccup shifts closer to Toothless, and his tunic rides up. He hurries to pull it back down, and conceal the injury. It is still healing, but he will have an large, ugly scar on his belly for the rest of his life.
Toothless makes a soft sound and presses his nose against Hiccup’s thigh.
“I’m okay,” Hiccup says. Toothless nudges his leg again, gentler this time, and it gets him what he wanted — a soft smile from his rider. The boy, hand resting on the crown of Toothless’s head, still sounds sad, though, when he speaks. “No, honestly, bud. I’m okay. Really…”
Toothless wraps himself protectively around his rider, and Hiccup leans back easily. This is worth protecting, he decides. Even if he has to face a thousand outcasts, a thousand ignorant vikings, has to bodily take a thousand Nadder spikers to the gut.
Hiccup shivers in the moonlight. The sky is clear and awash with stars, as clear and perfect as it had been the night they’d stumbled upon the dragon root.
“I’m okay,” Hiccup whispers, and this time, he isn’t sure if he’s reassuring Toothless, or himself.