Hiccup winced inwardly as he limped into the empty Clubhouse. The ride over had been unpleasant to be frank. It had absolutely killed to use the pedal and he was pretty sure he rather would have run all the way here, than continue twisting his leg like that. The prosthetic would press into his irritated stump every single time he had to adjust the tail fin, causing an almost unbearable stabbing sensation all the way up his leg. And to make things worse, he could now feel the uncomfortable heat radiating from the swollen nub. This was almost as bad as his regular phantom pains, but definitely intensified. He staggered over to the circular bench in the middle of the room, lowering himself onto the edge with a stifled groan. Toothless cooed concernedly at his friend's behaviour. Mentally he scolded himself for letting Hiccup out of bed today. And the smell that he had noticed earlier was still lingering in his nostrils, and emanating from Hiccup, perhaps a little stronger than fifteen minutes ago. And if that wasn't cause for concern, Toothless didn't know what was. But Hiccup was stubborn. Too stubborn for his own good. Toothless ambled forward and rested his head on Hiccup's knees.
The warm weight was comforting, and the mere presence of his scaly friend was enough to lighten Hiccup's mood, if only a bit. He smiled and reached out to scratch Toothless on top of the head, making to Night Fury purr in content. Toothless' eyes closed blissfully as Hiccup continued to scratch his head. The familiar motion was also enough to calm Toothless' frazzled nerves. He was still worried about his little rider, but the worry was placated as he allowed old comfort to overtake it, just for this moment.
Hiccup sighed as the pain in his leg spiked and sent a rippling, burning sensation up his leg to his hip. His leg spammed slightly as the muscle contracted against the unfamiliar pain. Toothless' eyes shot open when his head was jerked off Hiccup's knee. His normally relaxed pupils instantly retracted and stared critically at Hiccup's poorly hidden expression of indifference. It was alarmingly clear that Hiccup was becoming more and more concerned about his leg and his aching head and stomach. Something was wrong, there was no denying that now, and yet still Hiccup refused to admit this. Toothless could hear his rapidly fluttering heart and quick shallow breaths, he could smell the sweat that was prickling on Hiccup's forehead and upper lip, and he also saw it in Hiccup's eyes. They were now brimming with exhaustion, confusion and fear. So when Hiccup coughed suddenly, Toothless nearly jumped through the roof. He had been so immersed in reading his human's body language that the sudden noise shocked him very thoroughly. "Sorry bud. I didn't mean to scare you.' Hiccup rasped rubbing his neck to try to ease the rough feeling that smothered his vocal cords. Oh Hiccup, you always scare me, Toothless thought as he nudged against Hiccup's waist with troubled eyes. Hiccup raised an arm and wrapped it around Toothless' neck in a hug.
It was to this scene that Astrid swooped in upon Stormfly. She hid a smile as she dismounted and sauntered over to the oblivious pair. It wasn't until she was within a few metres of them, that Toothless' ears perked up. He instantly disengaged from the embrace and whipped around, preparing to protect his rider. When his acid green eyes lit instead upon Astrid and Stormfly, he relaxed, his defensive posture melting away to be replaced by a puppy like demeanour, as he bounded over to be greeted. Astrid chuckled at his behaviour and relented, giving him a quick scratch. Toothless waited until she removed her hand from under his chin, before warbling at her and walking back over to Hiccup, who hadn't moved or spoken during the exchange. He was still sitting on the edge of the bench, but now he had his elbows resting on his knees, and his face in his hands. It was clear that he was trying to fight against discomfort. What was wrong though was a mystery to Astrid, as she quickly noticed Hiccup's body language. Instantly she hurried over to his side and placed a gentle hand upon his shoulder. "Hiccup? Are you alright?' she asked, concerned.
Hiccup had shivered slightly at the contact, but other than that he hadn't really reacted. He was now desperately fighting back the pain and nausea to prevent Astrid from discovering how rotten he felt. He was a Viking, and Vikings were not weak. And so he decided to go about the rest of his day with this mentality. "I'm fine Astrid. Just a little tired is all.' Toothless huffed indignantly at that one. Hiccup had said about as much to him this morning, and he had apparently decided to keep up this façade. How stupid did he think they were? Toothless decided to do something about this. He would show his stubborn little rider that it was okay to admit to weakness, especially the kind that omitted pain. He shook his head and warbled, stepping closer and nudging Hiccup in a way that clearly stated, tell her the truth. Hiccup pushed back against Toothless' persistent nagging.
"Stop it bud. Toothless stop.' He said, finally succeeding in shoving the large, reptilian head away. Toothless looked suitably affronted at this rebuke. Astrid was watching the interaction with confused interest. Hiccup almost never told Toothless to stop and leave him alone. Unless of course he was being offered raw, regurgitated fish. But this wasn't one of those times, so Astrid was undoubtedly puzzle by her best friend's behaviour. Toothless had backed off, cooing sadly. So he turned his gaze instead to Astrid. If Hiccup was going to play ignorant, then she would most certainly play intrigued. She would set Hiccup right, she always did, the only problem was getting her to clue in to something Hiccup clearly didn't want her to find out. Unfortunately for Toothless Hiccup was extraordinarily intelligent, and he knew his dragon too well. He knew exactly what Toothless was going to do and saw fit to stop him in his tracks. "Honestly Toothless I don't know what's gotten into you this morning bud.' Hiccup said, pretending to act baffled. Toothless threw him an 'are you serious' look. Hiccup stuck his tongue out at him as Astrid turned to look at Toothless with a scrutinizing gaze. Toothless looked right past her though and glared at Hiccup, clearly not amused by his diversion. Astrid meanwhile had followed Toothless' gaze and was looking back at Hiccup, clearly confused by their interaction.
"Umm, Hiccup-'she was broken off however by the, very noisy, arrival of Snotlout and Hookfang.
"SNOTLOUT, SNOTLOUT OI OI OI!' came the yell, as Hookfang burst through the Clubhouse entrance, his body aflame. Hiccup groaned at this, though he was secretly very glad Astrid had been interrupted. Now all he needed to do was avoid his friends all day, by giving them and himself countless jobs to do, so they wouldn't be around him long enough to become suspicious.
"Snotlout, how many times do I have to tell you NOT to come into the Clubhouse while Hookfang's on fire?' Hiccup asked, rubbing his face with his hand in a seemingly ticked off manner. Snotlout completely ignored him, as per usual, and dismounted Hookfang. He wandered over to them and stood, arms crossed smugly across his chest to await the arrival of the twins and Fishlegs. It didn't take long. Pretty soon, Fishlegs entered on Meatlug and started chatting away excitedly about the Dragon Eye and what they could do concerning it today, the kinds of discoveries just waiting to be explored. Hiccup could only nod and laugh in reply to anything anyone said, all the while watching Astrid out if the corner of his eye, it had not escaped his notice that she kept sneaking curious glances at both him and Toothless, who had lowered himself to the ground and was lying with his back to the group, tail draped over his eyes. The relaxed conversation continued until finally, finally, the twins arrived on their Zippleback. Hiccup waited impatiently for the playful, threatening banter to cease within the group. "Okay, should we get started?' he announced, making his voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, over Tuff and Ruff's continued 'painful ways to die' suggestion game. He had everyone's attention now, which wasn't so great as his head was now pounding with renewed ferocity, and his stomach had decided to rebel against being less painful than his head, and was fighting back with a vengeance. "Alright, so today I thought we could do some cleaning up around the island, just so we don't have to you know, worry too much about general maintenance later in the week.' The whole group was silent after that announcement. Ruff and Tuff were staring as though they couldn't quite understand what cleaning was, which they probably couldn't, Snotlout was glaring, hands on hips, Fishers looked confused and Astrid looked suspicious. "What?' he asked, seemingly innocently.
"Umm, Hiccup, I was under the impression that we were going to be investigating the Dragon eye today.' Fishlegs said half smiling as though hoping to snap Hiccup out of, whatever was 'wrong'.
"And, I thought you despised cleaning and that 'you would rather lose your other leg to a Scauldron, than ever do cleaning again'.' Astrid pointed out, one of her hands planted firmly on her hip. Her azure eyes were now the colour of steel, and they were staring piercingly at him, as though hoping to read his mind and discover what was up.
"Yeah well, I've grown up over the past few years, and I happen to believe that housework and cleaning are important parts of life.' Hiccup defended.
Astrid raised an eyebrow, 'Hiccup you said that only last week.' She pointed out.
'What, the 'rather lose a leg' or 'Importance of cleaning' part?' he asked innocently.
Astrid glared at him, not at all happy with his humour today. She opened her mouth to say something when he cut in front of her, 'So cleaning. Ruff, Tuff, you guys can clean out your huts and the segment around you boar pit. Snotlout, you can do the brush behind your hut and in your hut, Fishlegs you can do pretty much the same, in and around your hut, Astrid you can also do the same, and I'll cover my hut and the Clubhouse. When you guys are done can you please clean out the stables and then cover some dragon calls and target practice in the arena. I'll meet you down there when I'm done. All good? Everyone know what they're doing? Good, see you guys later.' And with that Hiccup quickly limped over to Toothless and woke him, mounted him and flew off, leaving the others to stare at him as he beat his hasty retreat.
"Well, that was weird.' Fishlegs said frowning as he watched Toothless spiral out of sight.
"That's one word for it.' Snotlout smirked.
"Yeah, that was the most unHiccup thing I think he's ever done. Right?' Tuffnut asked, looking to Ruffnut for confirmation. Ruffnut shrugged and looked out to where Hiccup had been mere seconds before he and Toothless had flown out of sight.
"Did any of you guys notice how he was limping?' Astrid asked suddenly, a concerned and thoughtful frown on her face. Fishlegs nodded as the twins recoiled in mock shock.
"What, Hiccup limping? Never!' Tuffnut exclaimed dramatically, causing Ruffnut to cackle.
"Yeah Astrid, the guy has a fake leg. Of course he was limping.' Ruffnut snorted.
"Guys, I'm serious. He's been acting weird all morning. And earlier before you all arrived, Toothless was acting strangely too. Almost like he was trying to tell me something.' She said, almost to herself, but more explicitly for Fishlegs, and unknowingly to her, Snotlout, who was listening closely. He and Hiccup may not be close, but they were cousins and unbeknownst to anyone else, Snotlout really did care about his scrawny, fishbone cousin.
"Hmmm,' Fishlegs hummed thoughtfully, one hand rubbing his chin as Meatlug rubbed her head against his legs. "So Toothless was trying to tell you something was wrong?' he asked turning to Astrid, who nodded,
"It was weird. He kept making noises and nudging me and Hiccup. It was clear that Hiccup didn't want him to clue me in, because he interrupted and told me that Toothless was the one who had been acting strange all morning. The look on Toothless' face said everything though. He was really worried about Hiccup, and that probably means it's something serious.' She concluded. Fishlegs was listening intently and obviously running the scenario through his head.
"We can't just ask Hiccup though.' He pointed out reluctantly, 'You know what he's like. Ask him about anything concerning his health and he either tells you he's fine or clams right up, making it downright impossible to get him to answer anything truthfully.'
Astrid groaned, 'That's only because he doesn't want to be a burden on us. He seriously thinks that the less we know the less we'll worry about him, and that it he tells us he's fine we'll just leave well enough alone.' She gripped her hair, frustrated at how thick he could be sometimes, 'He honestly doesn't get that we care about him, and that if he is sick he won't be burdening us at all.'
"Yeah, he can be really dumb like that sometimes.' Snotlout cut in, 'for a smart person he can be really stupid.' Astrid and Fishlegs stared at Snotlout, shocked at the fact he was joining in on this conversation and not just stuffing around like the twins were now, playing 'who can breathe in the most of Barf's gas without passing out'. Needless to say, that wasn't constructive towards the current problem at all.
"Okay, so how are we going to help him if he won't admit to being hurt or sick?' Astrid asked the obvious question, and the one which was nagging her. Because when Hiccup dug in his heels, he dug them in hard, and they would be extremely hard pushed to get him to admit anything.
"We need to trick it out of him.' Fishlegs said thoughtfully.
"How do you expect we do that? I mean Hiccup isn't much of a Viking, so instead he's like the smartest person ever. He'd see it coming from miles away.' Snotlout said, leaning back against Hookfang, who had fallen asleep in a patch of midmorning sun.
"All we need is to wait. The worse he gets the fuzzier his mind should get, and by that time it should be pretty easy to fluster him so much he just yells the truth at us.' Fishlegs said, smiling grimly.
"That's depending on a whole lot though,' Astrid said doubtfully, 'and I don't like the idea of waiting for him to get worse before we 'annoy' him to the point of admittance.' She remarked. "And even then, he might not tell us anything. The guy's stubborn as his dad, which is saying a lot. He might just decide to take the details of his sickness to the grave.' As soon as Astrid finished that sentence, she cringed at her poor choice of words in the current circumstance.
"Well we'll just have to hope for the best.' Fishlegs supplied dully. Astrid rolled the plan around in her head and thought about it deeply, exploring ideas for an alternative. Finding no better way to get Hiccup to fess up, she reluctantly agreed to Fishlegs' plan.
"Okay, I guess you're right. We'll just have to hope Hiccup consents. Snotlout are you in?' she asked, turning to look at the, uncharacteristically serious young man.
"I'm in. I know that I don't show it but…I do care, somewhat, about the talking fishbone.' He admitted, blushing furiously as he spoke. Astrid couldn't help but grin, it must have taken a lot of courage for him to admit to something like this, it was Snotlout after all, and emotion wasn't something you often saw in him. "And if either of you ever tell him that, I'll deny everything or say it was only because I accidently breathed in too much of Barf's gas.' He warned to a tensely smiling Astrid and Fishlegs.
"Now all that's left to do, is find Hiccup before he hurts himself.' Astrid said, moving over to mount Stormfly, along with Fishlegs who mounted Meatlug and Snotlout, who had to wake an irritable Hookfang and then deal with the aftermath of the Monstrous Nightmares temper. After all of them where ready, save the twins who were happily chasing Tuffnut's chicken, completely oblivious to what was going on; they took off into the bright, blue sky.