A/N: A httyd fanfiction? what is this? It's been months since my last post, and if you are disappointed because you were hoping this may be an update to Bloodlug, don't be too sad. BLOODLUG IS NOT DEAD. It is undergoing construction. I will hopefully be writing the third chapter of it tomorrow. There will be more of it. I promise.
Anyway this is very much NOT bloodug however, but that is okay. This is just a fluffy fic were Hiccup is hurt and the gang helps him. Just a One shot. Easy. Special thanks to DragonFireAlchemist for being my awesome beta. Go check out her work, it's simply amazing.
If you have any writing suggestions, feel free to message me! I love ideas and talking to people about the httyd universe.
This is set during Race to the Edge.
They find him half-buried in the heavy snow, as though he had simply collapsed and not had the strength to pull himself back onto his feet. Astrid nearly misses his half-submerged body, the only visible portion of him being the left side of his torso and his bright auburn hair. His scrawny body had curled in on itself in a feeble attempt to preserve body heat, though the snow that covers him would have sucked it away in minutes.
She assumes him dead at first sight.
Her sudden dismount and sprint towards the lump that is Hiccup is enough to alert the hovering Heather that Astrid had spotted something in the blinding white landscape.
Astrid trips on the slick ice but miraculously manages to make it to Hiccup's side, snow seeping into the thick wrapping of her leggings. She unearths him less-than-gently, hysteria quickly overwhelming her and choking off any words she might have had to say. Only a mournful moan fills the air as she rips off her gloves and fumbles clumsily with the latches of Hiccup's thick armor. While hesitant to rid him of any extra protection from the frigid weather, she won't be able to hear his heart with his armor in the way.
And that was assuming there was still a heartbeat to even hear.
Heather is shouting behind her, signaling for the other riders to converge with them, but Astrid has little thought for anything other than the tall boy in her hands. None of the rush would matter if Hiccup was dead. Nothing would matter ever again.
Finally she frees Hiccup of his protective armor and flings it to the side in the snow, already forgotten. She bends down so quickly that her hair is stuffed into the snow besides Hiccup's body as she presses her ear to his chest, praying to hear his strong heart thump beneath her. She puts the back of her hand directly beneath his nose, eyes squeezed tightly shut as she hopes against all odds that she can feel his warm breath.
There's a tense moment of stillness as the other riders look on, a few yards away from where they had emergency landed, their eyes wide with anticipation as the wind howls its frozen melody. It cut their faces and made snot slip from their noses without notice, their cheeks red and eyes watering. After a second in which they receive no response from Astrid, Snotlout looks to Fishlegs, desperation in his eyes before immediately looking back to the pair that was laying in the snow close by.
When Astrid rises and stares at the heavens for a moment, a watery smile breaking her face in two, Heather weaves her fingers into her hair and pulls, relief washing over her so strongly that it nearly knocks the breath out of her and renders her lightheaded. Snotlout digs the heel of his hands into his eyes before launching himself off his dragon along with Fishlegs, spurred back into action by the revelation that their leader was, in fact, still alive and in need of their help.
Astrid bent down after her prayer to Thor and quickly gathered Hiccup's stiff shoulders into her arms as she gently hauled his torso out of the frozen snow and held him against her chest, her sharp eyes scanning over his unnaturally relaxed form. She feels her heart catch in her throat. Hiccup's face was a porcelain-white and his lips were a deep hue of blue that told of a frozen body and ineffective lungs. He had dark-black bruises that sharply contrast against his pale face. They snake from his cheekbone all the way to his hairline and mar the stiff lines of his jaw. His nose was bloodied and crooked and some of his hair was plastered to his scalp with frozen blood.
And that was only what she could see on the surface. Everyone knew that some injuries would remain hidden until the victim was coughing up blood or falling asleep only to never wake up again.
She would feel much better if Hiccup would just wake up, but since that didn't seem likely to happen any time soon, she instead looked back where she saw the others rushing towards her and shouted. "Help me- we need to get him back to the Edge!"
She whistled loud enough that it pierced the sky and instantly prompted Stormfly to snap her wings out and appear at their sides almost like magic. She can hear Heather instructing the twins to fly ahead of them and prepare Dragon's Edge by boiling water, gathering blankets and bandages, and lighting the forge in Hiccup's hut. While Astrid would normally question their ability to be left alone, the stricken faces of Tuff and Ruff do reassure her that they are fully aware of how serious the situation is, and will- hopefully- act accordingly.
She turns back to the boys kneeling with her, and, while hesitant to so much as take her hands off of Hiccup, she knows that they need to get flying in order to save his life. The air while flying was frigid even on the warmest of Berkian days, but during a snow storm the size of the one that was headed their way, it would become deadly, and Hiccup was already frozen. So she helps Snotlout and Fishlegs get a firm grip on Hiccup's limp and uncooperative form before mounting Stormfly and getting as close as she can to them.
Hiccup is lean but tall, and that made manipulating him tricky. It takes Snotlout and Fishlegs a moment to really get a solid hold on him, Snotlout cradling him from under his arms and Fishlegs carrying both of his legs. Together they manage to get Hiccup hefted up and into the safe arms of the awaiting Astrid, and after a few moments of adjusting Hiccup and hooking his harness onto Stormfly's saddle, they take off towards the sky.
Heather flies as close as she can manage; that way, if something were to go wrong, she could provide a quick hand. Though one look at Astrid makes it clear that it would require the Red Death herself to pull Hiccup from her strong arms. She had him pressed firmly against her, one of her arms steadying his shoulders and the other gently pressing his face against her collarbone where his head couldn't loll limply and would be supported.
One part of their rescue mission that made her uneasy was the fact that they had no way of knowing what kind of injuries Hiccup had obtained from the Dragon Hunters over the course of his capture and escape. With how the gang had found him, she had simply pushed any other concerns to the back of her mind, from which they now slowly returned to fight for her attention now that they could only rely on the dragons to carry them back to the Edge as quickly as possible. There was not much else that she could do until they arrived back home, other than hold Hiccup closer and worry about the dark storm clouds that were chasing them from the east. They would have to out-fly the storm and hunker down at The Edge to wait it out. Thankfully Hiccup's insistence that they all keep Dragon's Edge well-stocked with any provisions they might possibly need meant that they were prepared for such a situation and could settle down to keep him alive on their own.
That didn't mean she wasn't apprehensive about it. Hiccup had yet to show any signs of waking and the blood matted in his hair warned of what could be a very serious head injury, and everyone knew that, if not treated properly, they could cripple even the fiercest of warriors. Living on Berk meant that everyone was fairly knowledgeable about how to take care of people who had been caught out in a blizzard, though it was a little rarer to find someone unconscious and buried alive in a blizzard with no decent protection such as a cloak. Hiccup's condition was obviously much more serious than the usual fare on Berk, and Astrid just hopes that the treatment for a severe freezing is the same as a moderate one, because it's all any of them know.
She'd have to remember to ask Fishlegs if any of his books had any information about it. With his brains, surely he would have heard of something that could help save Hiccup's life. She pressed his pale cheek more firmly against herself as she reminded herself that Hiccup was still alive and with her, and that he had survived worse before. It was strange to hold him and not feel his usual warmth, but rather, feel cold air radiate off of him. Normally Hiccup was always so warm from constantly working in the forge and climbing all the ladders on base or wrestling with Toothless…
Oh, Toothless.
The dragon had been left back at base while they had taken off to rescue their leader, too caught up with desperation to find him to think of a way that Toothless could join them. While unfortunate, Astrid knows that it was the right choice. Spending time trying to fiddle with Toothless's saddle until his tail locked so he could (mostly) fly on his own would have wasted precious time that Hiccup simply did not have. Just the thought of him being out in that snow drift for a second longer is enough to make Astrid close her eyes tightly.
"How is he?" Heather's sudden question is enough to bring her out of her trance and back to the present moment. She had almost forgot that the other girl was even there with her, Windsheer flew so silently. She looks over the side to spot her and takes in the expression on Heather's face. Just like her, Heather is still terrified that Hiccup might not make it.
"He's… freezing. And blue. I just want him to wake up." Astrid has to talk a little louder to be heard over the screaming of the wind that rushes past them and slashes at their faces with its temperature. She knows that she probably sounds fairly pathetic, but with only her two closest friends and the wind to hear her, she allows herself a moment of self-indulgent heartache. She ducks her head slightly and quickly adverts her eyes back down to the boy in her arms, pressing the underside of her jaw securely against the top of Hiccup's head. Even his hair was cold.
"He will, once he's warmed up." There's a confidence in Heather's voice that, even though Astrid knows that Heather has no proof to back up her conviction, she still can't help but believe her. "He looks pretty roughed up, though. How do you think he escaped?" Heather's thick brows furrow beneath her tangled hair as her eyes catch on the blood dried on Hiccup's lax face.
"Well, knowing Hiccup, it was probably brilliant." And Astrid is not exaggerating, either. Hiccup had been captured by enemies before, and almost each time he had escaped, and the few drills they had run involving bindings, Hiccup always managed to wiggle free the fastest out of all of them. He was so lanky and skinny that somehow he just always managed to free himself.
The familiar roar of a Monstrous Nightmare startled her a bit, resulting in a tightening of her grip on Hiccup. One glance backwards informed her that Fishlegs and Snotlout had caught up with them, and not easily. She and Heather were pushing their dragons to fly as fast as they could while keeping enough energy to make it all the way home. They were still about an hour away from Dragon's Edge, and while their dragons could handle a lot, if they weren't careful about how they used their stamina, they would get stuck in the storm, and Hiccup would be in deep trouble.
"Is he awake?" Fishleg's voice cracks, either from fear or from pitch. His nose and eyes are red from the biting wind and fast speeds.
"No. He hasn't even twitched." Astrid calls back, raising her voice to be heard. She turns back to look at him with a frown. It was unusual to see Hiccup so still. He was always energetic, fiddling and fumbling around with something at all times. He tended to tap and jitter and rarely was he ever still. When he slept he would toss and turn and mumble about anything and everything. Even when he was exhausted he would still be pacing around and rolling his shoulders and clicking his hands. To see him completely motionless was unsettling.
"Think we'll beat the storm?!" Snotlout yells, his helmet skewed sideways and his shoulder bunched up to his ears in a feeble effort to stay warm.
"We have to. We don't have another option." Heather answers, voice firm. "We're not far out. We can make it." She looks over to Astrid and gives Windsheer a firm nudge. Together they speed up all the more, eyes set on the horizon where home lay.
They cut a trip that would normally take them four hours down to two, but, even still, each passing second makes Astrid's stomach twist tighter. Hiccup was certainly not warming up any. If anything, he seemed to be getting colder. His eyelids were starting to turn a frightening shade of purple, and his lips had regained no color. By the time the Edge comes into view, Astrid is itching to get working and get the situation under control.
There's a black lump covered in snow on the ledge of Hiccup's glowing cabin, and Astrid immediately recognizes it as Toothless. The poor dragon had probably stayed outside pacing the entire time they were gone, refusing to go inside and shelter himself from the weather in favor of standing watch for the return of his rider. Stormfly and Windsheer touch down on the landing strip Hiccup had made, and Astrid sees Fishlegs lead Meatlug off towards his own hut to gather some herbs while Snotlout lands near them. Between the three teens, they manage to carefully unload Hiccup from Astrid's lap and stave off the rather frantic Toothless from interfering. Once inside, Astrid is relieved to see that the twins had kept their promise and actually managed to get their jobs done. The forge was roaring and practically blasting heat into the hut, while Ruffnut had two large pots from the clubhouse full of boiling water over one of the forge's three open fireplaces. There was a pile of blankets taller than Astrid herself, and they looke as though they had been collected from everyone's huts. Tuffnut was wrestling with a Terrible Terror and some paper, and had made a fine mess of Hiccup's desk.
Heather decided that would probably require her attention first, and she went off to help Tuff send out what seemed to be Terror Mail to Berk, informing them of the situation they and Hiccup were in.
"We need to get his armor off." Astrid instructs while she and Snotlout carefully prop the frozen Hiccup against the warm stone of the forge. "Go upstairs and get at least two sets of clothes. The warmest Hiccup has. They're in his trunk in the corner and hung on some of the pegs." Snotlout springs up from the floor and goes to do as he's told- the first time Astrid can ever remember that happening. He must be more freaked out than she had originally thought.
Toothless had followed them in before anyone had a chance to turn him away, and he nudged at his rider with a mournful rumble. After hindering Astrid's ability to inspect the severity of Hiccup's head wound for the third time in a row, she finally snapped at him to go outside and round up Hookfang, then to wait outside the hut until she let him in. Unsurprisingly, it took her actually leading him to the door by his saddle to make him obey. Once Toothless was outside, she returned to Hiccup's side.
She hears Fishlegs enter the hut behind her and go to where Ruffnut was trying not to burn herself, and together they mix herbs and water into a hot tea. In the meantime Astrid was wrestling with Hiccup's thick and complicated armor. It had gobs of clasps and buttons and latches, and it took her a solid five minutes to free him of the oppressive shoulder pads and arm guards. Snotlout returns to her side and drops a heavy bundle of Hiccup's winter clothes next to them. Thankfully, while the clothes Hiccup had been wearing had been frozen stiff, they were quickly thawing out with the heat of the forge, and Astrid hopes that Hiccup's body will have the same luck. Freeing him of the wet clothes is slightly more difficult than she had originally predicted because they stick to his pale skin. She takes a moment to look for any hidden injuries that might be hiding on him, and frowns at the black bruises that snake around his chest and stomach, some of them an angry red and purple. He probably had a few cracked ribs in there, and stomaching food would probably be difficult, but she saw no injures that looked particularly life-threatening. After her inspection, she and Snotlout work as quickly as they can and manage to get him into two layers of the dry, clean clothes.
"Could you grab some bandages? He keeps them in the second drawer on the left," she mumbles as Fishlegs comes over. Together they lay out a decent layer of blankets over the wooden floor to keep the cold from seeping into the room. They could hear Snotlout digging through Hiccup's messy desk and finally finding his prize.
"Okay, these should keep the floor warm." Fishlegs says as he finishes laying down the final blanket. "Why aren't we putting him in the bed again?"
"Because we're gonna use Toothless. He's like a portable furnace in and of himself, and I want Hiccup as close to the forge as we can get him. He bolted his bed down after Tuffnut stole it, so we can't move it."
A distant "Sorry!" comes from where Tuffnut is releasing the Terrible Terror out the door and battling to keep Toothless from sneaking in through the crack of the door by sternly telling him off and trying to push him out with his foot.
"It's okay, Tuff, you can let him in now," Astrid calls over her shoulder. "And Hookfang and Meatlug too, but the others need to stay in the stables. We can go down there and light their fireplaces before the storm hits tonight." Instantly the door is opened and the dragons are filling up every spot of empty space.
"Move, Meatlug!" Ruff's gruff voice cuts through the air for the first time that night, and Astrid is frankly impressed with her sudden ability to stay on-task. Sure, it was just boiling water, but it was an improvement, to say the least.
She would have to remember to tell Hiccup.
The other girl comes over, carrying one of the large pots of hot water with Heather's help, and together they set it down near the stone of the forge. "Okay, this is ready."
"Hang on a second, Ruff. We'll get it in him in a moment, but Toothless is about to burn the whole place down." Heather kneels next to Astrid. "Let's get them situated, then we can do the tea."
In the end, Hiccup's pale form is wrapped in over five blankets and shares two with Astrid, and together they lay propped up against Toothless's warm side, facing the forge so Hiccup could receive plenty of its warmth. After some initial spillage, Ruff and Heather manage to get some hot tea down Hiccup's throat with the help of Astrid.
After getting Hiccup mostly patched up, most of the general commotion died down. All they could do at that point was wait for the tea and fireplace to warm him back up and return him to the land of the living. Astrid dared to look at his face again, and felt a breath of hope sneak up on her. Hiccup was still deathly pale, but his lips had mostly rebounded back to their original color and his eyes, while bruised, were no longer purple as they had once been. Her nimble fingers gently pushed some of his bright hair back from his forehead, relieved to feel that his hair had actually warmed up considerably.
Maybe he would be okay after all.
She bent down to his exposed forehead and planted a firm kiss upon it before weaving her fingers deeper into his thick hair. "If you guys want to go to bed, I think you probably can. We should be okay."
"Are you kidding? No way, Missy. We are in it for the long run!" Tuff exclaims while throwing a rough arm around his sister and yanking her to the side.
"Oh yeah, no way. Sleepover in Hiccup's hut!" Snotlout let out a whoop before bashing his head against Hookfang's and stumbling slightly. "We're gonna go get our pajamas, then we'll be right back." Together he, Ruff and Tuff, and Fishlegs went sprinting out the door while hollering. Astrid couldn't help the slight smile that finds its way to her face before turning to Heather.
"I think they're probably still worried. Besides, our own huts are cold, and all the blankets are here." Heather's smile is as warm as the fire she stands next to. "I think we'll all feel better with a little sleepover. I'm gonna change and light the stable's fireplaces." Astrid watches her go before turning back to the boy in her arms.
"I think we got pretty lucky, huh?"
Six hours later, Astrid awakes to a silent hut, save for the soft breathing of her friends and the crackling of the blazing fire, kept alight by a dozing Toothless. She had not meant to fall asleep, intending to keep a silent vigil over Hiccup as he warmed, but the quiet and warmth had gotten to her. One glance around the room confirmed that all her friends were soundly asleep. Heather and Snotlout had lounged against Hookfang, each wrapped in separate blankets, while Fishlegs looked to be wrapped in Meatlug's fat little arms.
She didn't immediately spot the twins thanks to the fact that they had completely curled into Toothless' side, and the dragon had covered them with his warm wing, cuddling them into oblivion. She wasn't even surprised. Somewhere along the line, Toothless had grown especially fond of the twins for some reason, perhaps picking up on Hiccup's protective nature around them.
She glances down at Hiccup to see if he had regained any of his normal color, only to freeze in her tracks, her eyes caught on Hiccup's drowsy eyes blinking slowly at his surroundings.
He was awake. He was finally awake. He also somehow manages to beat her to the punch.
"Hey." His voice is quiet and scratchy from disuse, and his foggy eyes catch on her startled face. He had gained back some color, and his skin was no longer cold to the touch.
"You're awake." She whispers back, disbelief sneaking its way into her voice as she used her hand to push back his hair again. His eyes close at the soft motion. "How do you feel?"
"Mm. Warm. Kinda achy, like maybe I took a dive off of one of Tuffnut's cliffs." His eyes open again, eyebrows raising in question. "Did I fall off of one of Tuffnut's cliffs?"
Her laugh may be a little watery and if she swipes the back of her hand across her eyes, Hiccup ignores it. She's just so relieved. He's still there with her in all of his sarcastic glory.
"No. No, you did not." She takes a moment to simply relish in the relaxed look on his face and the sight of his eyes being open and (mostly) alert. "You got caught in a blizzard."
Hiccup grunts in acknowledgment, and Astrid would bet that he only vaguely remembered in that moment. The wound on his head didn't exactly look like a love tap, and there was a pretty good chance it was messing with his memory a bit.
"The twins are snuggling my dragon." Like her, he doesn't seem overly surprised, just amused. She glances over at the drooling siblings.
"Correction, your dragon is snuggling the twins."
"Mm..." She can't help but laugh at him again as a slight scowl of confusion develops on his face as he watched Tuffnut grab one of Toothless' legs and completely wrap himself around it, dislodging his blanket in the process.
"I'm going to go back to sleep now." He informs her matter-of-factly, eyes drooping shut once more.
"Are you sure? I should really make you drink more tea first-" Astrid started to peel off one of her blanket layers, only to be immediately stopped by a lump of Hiccup. He had rolled slightly so he was curled up on her completely, his face limply nuzzling her collarbone.
"Mm... no. You can't move. You're warm." She let her head drop back against the solid form of Toothless behind her at his undeniable logic, her smile growing. She wrapped her arms around him once again and let her cheek fall against the top of her head.
"Alright, dragon-boy."
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