Medcember 2024

It is Viggo himself who puts Hiccup away in this jail cell. With an air of arrogance and smug with victory, he drags him inside and locks the door behind him. After weeks completely on his own, he finally came to him, just as Viggo thought he would. Because a home with his enemy is still better than no home at all.

"I hope you'll excuse your quarters, they are only temporary, of course. We have to make sure you're healthy before we let you join us," Viggo tells him in his usual suave voice. Though it's soaked in that arrogance that Hiccup despises.

Turning around to face him, Hiccup stares at him with a dead look in his eyes. He's covered in grime and dirt, scrapes and bruises. There's blood on him like he's been fighting every day for weeks. But then, suddenly falling without the entire group he used to lead and depend on can do that to a person. Especially if dragons were a part of that group.

"I told you, I didn't get bitten," Hiccup claims as he steps forward to grab hold of the bars, his tone hard. He just came here to join Viggo's stupid band of bastards and savages, why does he have to make it hard?

"Oh, I know, this is simply… assurance," Viggo puts a dramatic pause there. He takes great joy out of seeing the defeat in his young adversary. It does his soul good to see him broken.

Now to rebuild him in exactly the way he wants him to be. Now that will be fun.

"Don't worry, my Dear, it's only for a week. The men will be reassured and then you can begin your new life with us. After all your time spend alone out there, I'm sure a mere seven days will be a breeze," as he tells him, Hiccup's eyes narrow and he swears there's still a hint of defiance there. As expected of the young man, but he'll fix that soon enough.

"Now sit and don't cause any trouble," he orders him with delight. Still scowling, Hiccup does as he's told and takes a seat on that hard bed inside his cell.

"Good boy."

Viggo leaves him after reassuring him that it will only be a mere seven days of captivity before he'll be let out again and Hiccup glares daggers into his back.

Sighing, he hunches forward to lean with his elbows on his knees, except that makes him hiss and that is not a good idea. He came this far, the last thing he should do is draw attention to something he doesn't want attention drawn to.

It wasn't one of the Hunters who checked him for bites, it was Viggo himself and it had been a close call then, too. He made him strip half of him, made him go topless and even remove his binder "just to be sure." Made him take off his shoes and socks and even his prosthetic leg. But his arms, his legs, his upper body were all clear. Viggo put his hands on him and felt around. Hiccup is covered in blood and filth and injuries, after all.

Until it came time to remove his jeans shorts.

"No!" He had screamed, grasping his belt tightly. "There are people watching!"

And it had been believable enough of a lie that Viggo had simply barely hidden his smirk, his eyes promising the much younger man, in his late teens, that this is a gift he'll be opening later.

Unfortunately for him, it's Hiccup who will be doing the opening.

Sitting upright and trying desperately to keep his noises of pain to himself, he looks down and spots the tiny red blotch on the inside of his right thigh. Viggo really should've questioned just why his jeans- when Hiccup has only ever worn non-denim pants that cover every inch of his legs- suddenly ends just above his knees and is considerably cleaner than the rest of him.

But Hiccup knows when a prideful man is much too blinded by his own victory to notice the obvious.

That he's been bitten in the one place he hoped they wouldn't check. On purpose.

It took some planning. Safely capturing one of the undead to then get bitten by it before letting it go in the hopes that it would get at least one Hunter. The hours spend afterwards treating his wound when the Undead's Bite notoriously burns and burns and burns. It had to be cleaned, stitched and wrapped up in a way so that blood wouldn't immediately seep through clean clothes even if he tore stitches and make his entire plan fall through. The clean jeans he had to find before the walking dead. Because ironically, he had to keep his bite clean.

And then came the days of wandering back to Viggo's base, the days of pretending like the heat of the very sun wasn't radiating from his wound. Luckily, prior experience with pain helped with that fact. And luckily, his unbathed appearance helped cover up the fact that he's sick. He downed plenty of fever-killing medicine each day. Arguably doing his body a disservice, but it only needed to last him until tonight.

He was going to die anyway. Just like Toothless, Astrid, Stormfly, Fishlegs, Meatlug, Snotlout, Hookfang, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, Barf and Belch, Heather, Windshear, Dagur, Shattermaster.

And all of this death for what? Because Viggo wanted him and Hiccup had said "no."

Well, he gets to have him now and Hiccup hopes he'll be everything Viggo has ever wanted.

Leaning down further, careful not to make any noises of pain, Hiccup pulls back the duct tape on his prosthetic leg. It made it look like there is some kind of huge crack in the plastic that he tried to fix, but it was no accident. This is place is always were he keeps his knife.

The last thing Astrid wants is to be sedated.

"Please, ma'am! Calm down, we're only trying to help!" The doctor in charge of her tries to tell her, but she's not listening.

"I don't need help! I drove us here!" The young woman argues as she tries to fight her way off the bed they put her on. She’s trying to pull her arms free, legs kicking because she’s afraid somebody will grab them, too. She refuses to lose.

"You're bleeding, please let us take care of you!"

"I don't care, I need to see my husband!" The husband she drove through every red light to get here after a simple camping trip went horribly wrong.

They’ve had them hundreds of times, the two of them loving to be out together in nature. Just them and no one and nothing else. Never before has anything ever gone wrong.

They were out in the woods, far away from civilization, to celebrate their anniversary. Some ignorant family was agitating a "cute and friendly" dragon that was actually showing signs of aggression. And Hiccup, her dear problem-solving husband and local dragon expert, tried to get involved and de-escalate the situation. Instead the family escalated it even further by yelling at him to mind his own business and the dragon, a Gronckle, attacked in retaliation.

It was like trying to pet a bear. They may look like oversized pugs, but they aren't dogs. They're dragons and he proved himself as one that day.

As a matter of fact, even strange dogs shouldn't be trusted! Astrid blames the internet. Just because it claims that Gronckles are the friendliest of all dragon species, doesn't mean they won't maul well-meaning husbands because someone decided that approaching grizzly bear-sized dragons was a very good idea.

"Please, ma'am. If you don't calm yourself, I'll be forced to use chemical restraints," the doctor tells her again as she and her team of nurses try to stop her from leaving.

It's not that Astrid came out of the skirmish unscathed. She knows of the deep clawmarks in her arms that are bleeding profusely, she got them by wrapping her arms around Hiccup in an effort to pull him out of harm's way. He would've been gutted if she hadn't.

But she didn't feel any of her injuries as she carried him all the way back to the parking lot. Didn't feel them as she put him in the backseat of their car and tried to make him wear a seatbelt as best as she could. Didn't feel them as she drove him to the hospital, wiping furiously at her eyes so her vision didn't blur as she sped down the road. Fighting her wannabe medical team, she can still hardly feel them.

"Hiccup needs me!" It's when she almost hits a nurse in the face, though entirely without intending to, that a needle with a sedative is brought forth. Astrid can feel the puncture, can feel the burn of the liquid being pushed inside of her and for a moment there's panic before it quickly begins to work.

Fishlegs became a healer for a few very simple reasons. First of all, he was just interested in the practice. Second of all, he wanted his passion for healing to be of help to his village. Third of all, he wanted to succeed Gothi and alleviate some of her troubles in her old age. But if he ever thought it would lead to this, he might've not been as thrilled to learn.

There was an earthquake. On an island such as theirs, that could be disastrous. Cliffs have broken off, trees have been uprooted as the ground beneath them moved, buildings still in construction collapsed. It so happened that Hiccup was one of the casualties recovered from the rubble and his injuries were severe.

He got impaled by wood through his groin on the right side.

Sure, he didn't get pierced through his gut and that means there are no vital organs in the way, but he could bleed out. He could bleed out very quickly. The splintered, broom-like piece goes through his loin, his hip and out the other side just below his rear.

"Argh! Just pull it out!" Hiccup cries out, his hands in Astrid's for support. Toothless is pacing and whining, wanting to help and tear it out himself, but rationally knowing that he can’t be of use.

A crowd surrounds them as Fishlegs kneels by him and tries to figure out what to do. Because it's not like he has any medical supplies immediately on hand. Sure, he can use someone's tunic to put pressure on the wound once the wood is out, but then what? He doesn't have needle or thread or even fire at hand, nor a knife sharp enough to operate on his friend with.

"Try to stay still, Hiccup," Fishlegs pleads with him, as his thrashing to physically get away from the pain doesn't help. With every look downwards, with every cry, with every thoughtless attempt to move, a little more blood escapes. Still, the plea earns him a glare from Hiccup's betrothed.

"If he could, he would!" She shouts and Fishlegs is immediately apologetic.

He goes back to staring down at the piece of wood imbedded in his friend’s body.

He could tell Hiccup to quiet down, to please stop screaming, but if he could he probably would. Hiccup doesn't have a low pain tolerance. Because he lost his leg and the months of recovery that his burns required, it's incredibly high. He doesn't seem to notice the bleeding head wound, nor his increasingly more purple right wrist. That hand still grasping Astrid's so tight, like the injury isn’t even there. So when he screams because he’s been impaled , they know it's torture.

He hates this. He hates this so much. He's a healer, meant to help people and that includes his friends. He knew this beforehand. Watching Gothi bring such relief to people like the friend before him in his recovery years ago is what drove him to seek an apprenticeship with the old woman.

But he regrets it now like he has never regretted anything in his life before.

With a cloth, he once again tries to wipe the blood away. Gods, he wishes he could see in there and know exactly what’s going on in there. How is the wood in him? Does it sever his supply of blood? Or did it conveniently miss it? Did it graze bone? Pop his hip out of place? Fishlegs hates that the uncertainty is always suffocating when it comes to the people he loves.

"Fishlegs," Hiccup breathes. "I trust you, so… so just-"

Another cry interrupts him and he squeezes Astrid's hands. The pain is constant, but there are worser waves crashing into him.

Grasping the piece of wood with his hand and bracing the other on his friend's thigh, Fishlegs pulls and hopes that his mind blanking on everything he's ever learned doesn't kill Hiccup and leaves Berk without a chief once again.

It’s not for the first time that Hiccup returns with Toothless, dismounts and just… drops down onto the grass. He glides out of the saddle until he sits cross-legged and sighs. Toothless lowers himself to settle behind him and turns his head to face him. He softly warbles quizzically at him. He wonders if his human is okay. It takes Hiccup a moment to notice, his elbows on his knees and hunching forward, his eyes closed. So Toothless bumps his shoulder and draws his attention.

“I- I’m okay, Bud, don’t you worry about me,” Hiccup tells him when his dragon asks him again and he pets his nose. Which Toothless doesn’t appreciate as he snorts and takes his nose back. He doesn’t want reassurances, he wants answers. Truthful answers.

Flying together used to energize them both, but in the past couple of months, it’s more and more often that it leaves Hiccup exhausted instead. And it’s not just flying as work in the forge, chiefing his village, his work with dragons, it all leaves him with this blanket of weight around him that he can’t seem to shake. Something of what is almost like a fog settling in his brain every day at almost the exact same time of day, his head aching. Sometimes he even wakes up with that blanket wrapped around him and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t get out of it.

Astrid, Fishlegs and Valka have already tried to make him visit Gothi, but Hiccup dismisses any and all concerns. Simply stating that he just needs to adjust to running the village on top of everything else he was already doing. It takes time, that’s why he feels so awful and for no other reason.

Toothless would believe him, if not for the fact that they’re sitting in their cove after a flight and Hiccup is so tired that he watches him fall asleep upright. His eyes closed, his neck struggling not to drop his head.