Gobber's ax was already buried in the embers of the hearth.
"We have to," Spitelout grumbled. Stoick sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes and face. He wasn't surprised, but it weighed like an anvil on his chest anyway. He could smell the heat of the metal as it began to glow.
The fever had become too much for Hiccup's little body to take. His foot had been lost in the final blast, but his leg had become infected since then. Even in the safety of the chief's home, which had been prayed upon and blessed for protection, his son suffered that which they could not see. Spitelout clapped a burly hand on the man's shoulder, comforting and bracing.
"If we act quickly we'll save most of his leg and tame his illness a bit."
"Is there no other way?" Stoick questioned his brother. One more try, for the sake of trying. Gobber finally shifted from his seat by the hearth, somber in his wisdom of the subject.
"Listen, Stoick, that leg of his is a stump now, no matter what we do. Taking off the infection while he's too far gone to remember is the only small mercy we can give him. At his age, you don't want him dwelling on what we're about to do."
Stoick was silent for a long moment. He turned on his seat, facing Hiccup's impromptu bedside. He'd hardly left his son in days, despite all the changes happening in the village. Good changes Hiccup should have been awake to see. The chief of Berk reached out, stroking Hiccup's hair back from his sweaty forehead with a massive, trembling hand, careful of the small burns on his face. He watched his son breathe in labored bursts and quiet moans.
"Very well..." He finally agreed. There was that anvil again; sitting square in his chest. And then he heard the thunk and scrape of the real anvil – the one Gobber had purified in the forge kiln and brought to the house specifically for this purpose. It might as well have been a butcher block...
"Here," Spitelout's voice broke through his thoughts. He handed Stoick a steep bowl of liquid. It smelled foul – a concoction he had been working on all morning at the fire: heated mead, sheep's gall, some vinegar, a few spices, and honey to make the taste tolerable enough to keep down. "He shouldn't remember anything, but this will help dull his senses."
Stoick knew how to read between the proverbial lines. Spitelout didn't have to say the "just in case he does remember parts of it, let's get him drunk off his gourd and numb as ice to make it even less likely" part. So he busied himself with taking his son into his arms and going about the chore of getting him to drink. It wasn't as if he hadn't nursed his restless child in the past, but to be tasked with this now, after all the years of awkwardness between them... Hiccup was fourteen, and Stoick hardly knew him.
The chief focused – really focused – on his boy who couldn't wield a weapon or sprint down a hill without tripping, the boy who read books and drew pictures and wielded his charcoal left-handed (Loki's trickery was strong in him...), the boy who invented contraptions that often did more harm to his fellow villagers than to the intended target, who's shadow was disaster itself, the boy who was exiled and disowned... This was the boy that had saved Berk and brought lasting peace. The boy who could balance an ax with his eyes closed, sharpen a sword faster than Gobber, and flew through the sky on the most feared dragon ever known before the Red Death like it was child's play...
Stoick's son was a man. A true Viking.
And now, Stoick tipped his head back like an infant and tilted the bowl to his chapped lips. Hiccup instinctively turned his head away, his fever-fogged mind stuck in the panic of battle. Stoick steadied him with a cradling hand to his head.
"Easy, son. Come on, drink up..."
Several sputtering moments later found most of the bowl empty, and the boy exhausted. He had, at least, begun to relax sluggishly into Stoick's hold, and father took a moment to just take in his son for the first time in far too long. From his boney shoulders and narrow chest, to his long fingers and slightly-too-large forehead. A freckled face with a scar on his chin, and the healed, gleaming burn scars of a blacksmith on his chest, belly and forearms (not too many, but enough to cause concern – did he ever wear that apron when Gobber wasn't around?). Still not much body hair, though... What was Stoick going to do with a practically hairless heir to the Hairy Hooligans tribe?
"Stoick," Gobber's voice cut into him like a knife, solemn though it was. "We need to do this."
One last bracing breath and a silent prayer to the gods, and he was prepared to face the quiet battle before him. He carried Hiccup to the hearth and sat down before the anvil. With a shaky grip he postured his son's back to his chest, and he held him. Spitelout removed the dressings on Hiccup's leg, and set the seeping wound on the anvil. The dark-haired man spared a moment to look sorrowfully upon their charge; in a rare moment of tenderness, he touched Hiccup's cheek. Stoick could have sworn he heard a near-silent "forgive me, nephew" under the crackling of the hearth.
"Looks like the gall has taken hold of him," Spitelout said, clearly this time. He reached down to hold Hiccup's leg still. Gobber took the ax from the embers, carefully avoiding the glowing metal as he clicked it into place on his arm. Hiccup wouldn't remember any of this, but they gave him mead and gall anyway, and braced him – and themselves – for Hel.
Gobber muttered an apology and raised his ax. For the first time in his life, Stoick could not watch the grace of a wielded weapon. He closed his eyes, held tight, and pressed his lips to his son's russet crown.
A little one-shot! So this was actually inspired by a 100 Themes Challenge. I did some research on the use of gall, but didn't find a lot of consistencies during my info-search. So there is a tiny bit of artistic lisence taken here, and I think that's ok because it's a fanfiction for my own sick and twisted mind. It may be tragically eronious, but it wouldn't leave my brain alone, and we all know how that goes. ^_^ I hope you enjoyed! I have a few more like this (some a little fluffier than others) if anyone is interested. I may post them later. Lemme know what you think! Reviews = love!
~mjb
