What was worse than being stuck in a hospital because your intestines thought this would be a great time to try and commit suicide, resulting in spending hours spent on the toilet whilst you shit your brains out, doubled over and sobbing and feverishly wishing you had never been born?
Having it happen on Christmas.
It was just Hiccup's luck that his bowels had picked the week of Christmas to flare up to the point where his parents had had no choice but to rush him to the hospital. This was nothing new though; anymore, because of his disease, he spent more time at the hospital than at home. He just hoped that his string of good days would last through the holidays so he could actually spend some time in the warmth and comfort of his childhood home with his parents. Guess that was too much to hope for.
Instead, Hiccup was currently spending the aftermath of the war his body was waging against itself on the porcelain throne, bent over so that his forehead almost touched his knees and his arms wrapped themselves around his belly. A cold sweat exploded over his skin, soaking every inch of him and making him shiver despite the uncomfortable furnace radiating from his core. Despite his best efforts, despite the fact that he was in fact legally an adult, he was sobbing like a child, tears dripping onto his bare legs. He couldn't help it; the pain was crushing him under its weight, and he wanted nothing more than his mom and dad to be there with him. But they had already gone home for the evening and told him they would be back bright and early the next morning. He could still remember his dad's huge hand smoothing over his hair with unbearable tenderness, soothing him into a sleep which he had been craving all day because he had been so tired….
But he hadn't wanted to say anything, no matter how much he wanted to beg them to stay the night. It was Christmas, and it was bad enough that his parents had been forced to spend it in the hospital with their sick son.
Hiccup stood up, intestines burning and stomach roiling like a thunderhead, and nearly collapsed. His legs felt like burnt matchsticks; brittle and frail. His thighs trembled and ached with the effort of holding him up as he washed his hands and flushed, ignoring the familiar sight of watery stool accompanied by blood. It wasn't until then that the awful smell hit him, along with the metallic sting of blood, and his trembling stomach proceeded to turn itself inside out. Hiccup had barely enough time to dive at the toilet with a hand over his mouth, before the other end of his body decided it wanted to evacuate everything that was inside it too.
However, he refused to call the nurses. He didn't want their help, didn't want their pity. He didn't want them to know how awful he felt. Any chance he got to hide his disease, he did. Hiccup was quite proud and stubborn, and his pride was often bruised by the fact that sometimes he couldn't make it to the bathroom in time and ended up shitting all over himself. He hated it. Hated it. When his parents were there, they were the only ones allowed to help him unless it was an emergency, and they weren't there right now.
Well, they were allowed, and one other person was too. Too bad she was already most likely asleep.
The bloody chunks of his dinner greeted him once more (great, more blood that his body couldn't spare). They burned up his throat, while some of it opted to dribble down his chin and neck, and Hiccup wished more than anything that his heart would just give out from the strain. He had been practically living in the hospital for the last ten years more than his own home. Ten years of dealing with the unimaginable pain, the cruel bullying at school, and the complete loss of his dignity with no end in sight. He wanted death. He begged for death in between the shooting pains that sought to tear him apart.
And then suddenly, he heard the bathroom door creak open, but felt far too weak to lift his forehead from the rim of the toilet seat to see who it was. Whoever was coming in might as well see it all anyway, seeing as he already a disgusting mess. He could imagine how he appeared at that moment: a young man kneeling on the floor and praising the porcelain gods, his legs splayed underneath him while his hospital gown had ridden up around his middle, exposing his naked bottom half. A sympathetic gasp followed by the patter of stocking covered feet came from the doorway a moment later, and then caught a familiar smell of berries sneaking through a pool of antiseptic. He rolled his head over, still unable to lift it, and even though his vision was extremely blurry, he knew who it was immediately.
"Astrid?"
She was kneeling beside him, stroking back his damp, sweaty hair with one hand while the other rested on his shoulder. Hiccup was gripped by an attack of shivers just then, his teeth chattering loudly.
"W-What are you d-d-doing here?" he stuttered. "It's f-four in the m-morning."
"I know," she said.
"The cancer ward is two floors above this one."
"I know."
She pushed her short, blond hair back with one hand so that she could see him better. "You think you're done puking?"
Hiccup had stopped shivering, but his insides were still quivering unsteadily. Still, he felt so empty, and his insides were burning so badly and in such a way that signaled that he was indeed done ejecting everything inside him. He nodded, eyes closing wearily.
Then Astrid was gone from his side, returning a moment later with a wet paper towel. Hiccup felt the cool wetness washing over his face as she wiped him down. She tenderly washed his forehead, his cheeks, even his eyelids, anywhere his skin shone with sweat. She ran the paper towel over his temples and up into his hair, cooling his heated scalp. Last came his paper dry lips, chin, and neck, and Hiccup couldn't hold back a moan of gratitude as she washed the drying and sticky vomit away.
And then she had taken another paper towel that had been rinsed under warm water, and gently cleaned his crotch, bottom, and thighs. At the moment, he felt too sick to be embarrassed, and he wouldn't have been able to stop her anyway. She probably would have snapped at him that she wanted to do it, that she didn't care about the mess and just wanted to take care of him when it was clear he couldn't take care of himself.
"Let's get you back to bed, alright?" Astrid draped one of his arms over her shoulders, and hefted his limp body upright. Hiccup could hear her grunting with the strain, and thought she muttered something about how freaking heavy he was, but still dragged him out of the bathroom all the same.
Before he knew it, he was in bed, but unfortunately also still in a tremendous amount of pain. His gut still felt as if was continuously roasting over an open flame, and when he wrapped his arms around it again, he found that it had become hard and bloated. Hiccup curled in on himself helplessly, drawing his knees up to his chest and letting out a long, low whine.
"Oh Hiccup," he heard Astrid breathe, and then felt the bed dip with her weight as she laid down next to him.
He immediately rolled over and buried his face in her chest, feeling the tears start up again. His breath hitched and his shoulders shook, and Astrid wrapped her arms around him, drawing him closer to her. She placed her head atop of his, shushing him.
"It's bad tonight, Astrid," he gasped, "I can't get comfortable. And I'm so tired, I just want to sleep."
She buried her nose into his hair and mumbled, "Yeah, I couldn't sleep either last night because I felt so sick. I had another chemo session that morning. On Christmas Eve. Stupid hospital has shitty timing."
The two of them just laid there for a while, Astrid talking him through his pain and trying to take his mind off it by telling him how her Christmas went. Hiccup didn't really listen, but instead focused on the rhythm of her voice, feeling it vibrate in her chest against his cheek and letting it ground him through the pain. She kept him close and rubbed a gentle hand back and forth over his stomach, and Hiccup found the repetition of the movement more calming than anything.
More than anyone, when his parents were gone, Astrid always seemed to know what he needed. He had met her a year ago when she had been transferred to this hospital for better treatment for her cancer. They didn't warm up to each other at first, but one day he had felt terribly sick like this and no one was around to help him. That had been when Astrid had found him and called a nurse. From that day on, they had been inseparable, and the girl seemed to feel it was her personal duty to protect Hiccup. But Hiccup couldn't really talk; he felt a similar duty towards her.
She understood everything. She understood his fierce pride and stubbornness because those same qualities were present in her, except even more so. She understood the want to be independent and utter, agonizing frustration of not being able to be. She understood his bouts of anger, depression and the terrible pain that was the source of it all.
She also learned that no matter how much he pushed people away sometimes, he was really terrified of being alone. And he felt a surge of love so strong towards her for that, that it pushed the pain out of the way with the force of a hurricane.
So here she was, curled about him like a second skin and giving him a reason to live another day.
It was a long time, long enough that the sun had begun to appear in its earliest form in the morning sky, before his stomach and bowels began to calm. They seemed to cool, settle, and stop their nauseous twisting, as if trying to reshape themselves and revolt against their given nature. Hiccup uncurled from his tight ball and began to relax, his muscles going soft and his breaths becoming even. Astrid sensed the change and kissed his forehead. Hiccup breathed in her scent and let it smooth his rattled, overtaxed nerves. Her scent meant safety, a haven in a boiling, endless sea of agony and fear.
It was love in the far reaching, dark face of death.
"Pain going away?" she asked, and he nodded once.
She looked down, or at least Hiccup thought she did. His eyes were beginning to droop under the crushing weight of fatigue. Now that the pain was fading, his exhaustion had begun to reassert itself in earnest. It had been a busy day, and he was already so weak and tired all the time, and then the pain liked to keep him from sleeping at night or taking naps during the day…
"Go to sleep then," Astrid told him, "I'll stay with you just in case."
"Thank you," Hiccup murmured, and he really did mean it from the bottom of his heart.
As he fell into sleep, he could have sworn he heard her say those three, precious little words that he still didn't have to courage to say to her, but perhaps his optimistic brain was hearing things. It didn't matter, because that night, with her scent in his nose and her warm body shielding him from the demons Pain and Death, his subconscious formed a soft, tender dream. It was unlike anything he remembered dreaming in a long time. He was with Astrid, and her hair was long, the color high in her full face. There was no pain in his body, and they were flying in the sky, leaving all of their earthly problems behind.
They were free.
A/N: No idea where this spawned from. Btw, Hiccup has Crohn's disease in this and Astrid has brain cancer, in case anyone is curious.
