Seven
Mrs. Hofferson sits at the boy's beside and is in the process of laying a cool damp cloth over Hiccup's bandaged forehead when Stoick throws the door wide open with a terrific bang that was probably loud enough to wake the dead.
But evidently not Hiccup, as the boy doesn't so much as stir.
They'd had to move the pair from Gothi's little old shack a few hours ago, as they'd decided the rundown place was certainly not big enough to house even one injured, exhausted Haddock, let alone two and that ridiculously huge black dragon that follows the boy round. The only bed available at the healer's house was the one belonging to the pair that actually lived there, and Gothi and Wrinkly were really not sure what to do until the young Hofferson girl had burst into the room and demanded that Gothi should take at Toothless's paw.
Astrid had frozen in the doorway, her eyes fixed firmly on the unconscious boy in the bed, her face a sudden drastic shade of white. Gothi shakes her head despairingly and rolls her eyes at the girl as she totters over to examine the dragon that lurks and whines behind her, pushing the child out of the way with surprising strength as she does so.
Astrid stands at the end of the boy's bed and just... stares.
Old Wrinkly lurks worriedly at her elbow, clutching a handful of herbs as if he's worried she might faint too.
She finally tears her eyes away from the boy, looking up into the anxious green eyes of Old Wrinkly with a despairingly empty expression, as if she can't quite take in what she's seeing, and tries to ask What? But only her lips move in the formation of the word, no sound comes from her mouth, leaving her doing a comically accurate impression of a fish gulping and floundering about the sea before it's caught.
Fortunately, Old Wrinkly is quite proficient at lip reading, and he gently takes her shoulder, leading her away from the boy. Unfortunately she catches sight of Stoick, slumped groggily in the chair where they'd left him and freezes again, mouth agape once more and staring at him.
Wrinkly rolls his eyes and gives up then, wobbling over to his wife, who tells him in her own funny way that Toothless just has a badly sprained paw and minor lacerations. Wrinkly repeats this to the girl, who is shaking her head from side to side in an attempt to snap herself out of her stupor.
"Right." Astrid says, her voice stilted and choked as she finally looks around the room. She shakes her head again, as if still trying to clear it and takes in the cramped conditions, beginning to form thoughts with some kind of sense. "Well they can't full well stay here." She decides aloud. "We should get him... them..." she eyes Stoick warily, "back to their house."
Because home, of course, was the logical place she could think of.
"And the dragon?"
"I'll look after Toothless, he sleeps in Hiccup's room. It won't be too hard to keep an eye on them both. In fact," she thinks aloud "I can get probably my mother to help." At their sceptical look she adds; "I mean... she's not all tough and fierce. Remember; she looked after me when I was sick those two winters ago."
No one really wants to point out that Hiccup's condition is far more serious than the little bug the girl had caught. And No one really wants to ask how on Earth she plans to rope her terrifying, battled-hardened warrior of a mother into this. But, Wrinkly supposes, if anyone can get Mrs. Hofferson to do something like this, it's her daughter.
Astrid's face is set in a determined frown, and Gothi knows nothing's going to change her mind. She also knows how dangerous it would be to move Stoick's boy. His injuries are risky and deep, especially the blow the poor boy had taken to his head and the gashes on his chest. But Gothi also knows she hasn't the room to care for the child here, not in her little shack; her patients are usually left to heal in the comfort of their own home.
And she supposes that's exactly what they'll have to do. Take him home like Astrid suggested.
And so they do.
They take the time to pour some kind of noxious concoction down Hiccup's throat so that he won't wake up in pain, and find a stretcher from Odin-knows where. Carefully bundling the boy up in blankets they parade him through the stares of the townsfolk and drag a half-conscious Stoick with them to the Haddock family home.
Gothi makes herself comfortable in Hiccup's room as she tends to the boy, kicking Toothless and Astrid who's minding him out after her patience runs thin. Toothless had kept leaping up and nosing at his unconscious friend, no matter what either of them said, and it was probably doing more harm than good to the boy. She sends them to watch over the sleeping Stoick; who she had knocked out an hour previous with the same herbs she used on the boy.
She sits there for what feels like hours, never moving from her silent vigil, until, that is, she'd noticed the boy was beginning to develop a fever.
Gothi frowns at this, her mouth wrinkling downwards, an old gnarled hand pressed to the boy's heated brow. Feeling the fire burning there, her frown deepens; she'd sincerely hoped she'd been wrong in her initial assessment. Worry clouds her world-weary eyes and her fingers knot anxiously in the hem of her tunic. She knows what fever can do. She's seen its cruel fingers steal away colossal, hulks of brave warriors. Men who fought valiantly to their last breath, as their brows burn and their bodies waste away under a fever's deadly onslaught.
There's not much she can do to treat it either. She knows of a few herbs she could grind into a paste that might help lower it. If, that is, she can get the boy to digest such a thing. In the mean time, water on his brow will help cool the child, and she carefully folds back his blankets to expose his chest to the colder air.
Such herbs are in her home though, not here. In her hurry, she only brought ones that might keep the boy sleeping restfully, and ones to heal and cleanse his injuries. She bangs loudly and grumpily on the floor with her wooden staff, and the girl Astrid comes running, trying to interporate her gestures with confused frowns and scrunched eyebrows. Finally, the girl gets the message and runs to fetch her mother. After all, it would do no good to just leave a child here on her own to look after the three of them.
And that's how Mrs. Hofferson came to be sat in Stoick's house, in his Hiccup's room, regarding the Chief himself standing at the door with pursed, frowning lips.
Stoick himself doesn't see her. He just stands in the doorway; leaning heavily on the frame and panting from the difficult climb up the stairs, and stares, open mouthed at the boy.
He's gotten worse since Gothi left.
Stoick's son's cheeks are hollow and flushed with fever, his skin damp and clammy, and a horrible shade of whitish-grey that seems dirty beside the brilliant clean whiteness of bandages he's swathed in. Bandages that are stained in places by a deep, unsettling red that almost matches where his cheeks are flushed a deep fever-induced pink. The blanket's been turned down to the boy's waist, exposing Hiccup's thin, rasping chest to the cool air, probably in the hopes to bringing down the child's fever. The skin between bandages is sunken and waxy and there are dark rings under the boy's eyes. Hiccup's small frame appears skinnier than ever, his ribs countable and his skin all but clinging to his bones. His tiny fingers seem skeletal in their flesh as Stoick reaches out to clasp the boy's hand and beads of sweat form on his skin and dampen his hair and bandages.
"What... what happened?" Stoick asks stupidly, his head far away; marvelling at the alien feel of Hiccup's hand in his own. Were the boy's digits always this tiny and fragile? Stoick's not sure. He gently flattens out the limp hand; uncurling the fragile digits so that his son's hand is pressed against his own. A sad, choking lump forms in his throat as he realises Hiccup's entire hand is easily smaller than the whole of his own palm.
"You fainted Stoick." Astrid's mother snaps coldly at him with her signature scowl, pulling the exhausted Chief from his thoughts. "Can't handle a bit of blood?" Her lip curls upwards "It's not like you haven't seen it before." There's a long pause before she gives a laugh, trying to make it seem like a joke, but it's tired and empty.
Because it's not funny at all. Not even to her. Because it's Hiccup's blood this time and...
"Sorry." She apologises a moment later, her hard expression softening as she looks down at his son, and Stoick wishes, not for the first time, that Val was here, so that Hiccup could have his own mother by his side, not someone else's and he feels his eyes blur with salt water.
Pull yourself together Stoick. He thinks to himself with a frown and a shake of his head. But then his eyes focus back in on Hiccup's tiny frame swathed in his bloodied bandages. He notices how the boy's long brown eyelashes cast soft, dark shadows on his fever-flushed cheeks, blending with the blackened circles under his eyes and the bruising on his face. Aside from the blood and bruises, the lack of colour in his skin was frightening. Almost like a corpse.
Stoick's earlier sick feeling renews itself with vigour.
Because Hiccup skin-tone is that awful shade bone white, veins clear and thin and so very blue; just under his almost translucently pale skin.
Like a ghost. Stoick thinks. Like a skeleton.
The veins pulse weakly as they struggle valiantly to keep pumping blood around Hiccup's body.
To keep his son alive.
Stoick's world spins again, and he has to take several deep breaths to steady it.
"How is he...?" he dares to ask, and the woman just shrugs.
"I'm not sure." She aims for a cool tone, but concern seeps into both it and her face as she looks down at the child. "His fever's very high, but Elder Gothi's just gone to get medicine that will hopefully bring it down."
All Stoick is capable of is nodding, all his joints sore and aching and his head pounding, and it's then finally that they give out, sending the frowning Father collapsing onto the grainy wooden floor by his son's bed. Hiccup's hand falls limply from his grasp, slipping gently from between Stoick's numb fingers. It dangles lifelessly over the side of the bed and it's all the man can do to sit and stare at it.
Astrid's mother huffs and rolls her eyes at him despairingly; vacating her chair and pushing him roughly up into it instead. She perches on the side of the bed, careful not to disturb the boy, and stares sadly at his empty face. She's never seen a child so still, so... weak. Not even when Astrid was sick those couple of winters ago, for her daughter had battled and fought and complained though every second of it. Her heart aches to imagine her girl like this.
And so she sits at their sides; a silent vigil that goes on for what feels like forever. Broken only by the changing of the damp, quickly heating cloth on the boy's forehead and what may or may not have been a broken sob from Stoick.
The woman doesn't dare look at him to find out.
Finally, Gothi returns with some foul-smelling potion or other for the boy, and Astrid's mother gets up awkward and stiff to quickly leaves, only to be replaced by Astrid herself, who explains that Toothless is sleeping peacefully in Stoick's room. Stoick chokes out an almost hysterical laugh at this, as the mere idea of the dragon being in his room would be totally unacceptable at any other time.
Any other time.
But right now there are tears at the edges of his eyes, threatening to fall, and a hard, uncomfortable knot in his chest.
Gothi makes Stoick sit on the bed and gently gather his son's limp body into his arms, allowing him to rest, sitting up, against his chest so that the old healer can aid the boy in drinking the healing broth. Hiccup's head is tilted back against Stoick's shoulder and Gothi rubs softly at the boy's throat with old, wrinkled fingertips to coax him to swallow. Stoick's tears break free then with a choking sob that wracks his whole chest, little pearly droplets dripping down his face and plipping sluggishly off his nose and into his tangled mess of a beard, at the feeling of the fine hairs on Hiccup's head softly tickling his neck, and his son's fever-warmed weight in his arms. Where he should be safe.
Where he should always be safe.
The three of them sit there through Hiccup's most crucial 24 hours, helping the boy be to drink the odd, healing concoctions Gothi provides and seeing him as he softly moans, but never wakes. Guilt tugs softly at Stoick's consciousness. He should have checked the ice better. He should have made Hiccup walk in his eye-line at all times. He should have never even planned this whole crazy trip. Gobber pops in to bring them something to eat at some-point, but it barely registers with Stoick as he tells them how everyone in the village wants to know what happened.
"Hunting." Is all Stoick can get out, "I should never have..." eyes remain still fixed on the boy and carefully neither Gobber nor the two women push him to say more. The Chieftain knows he'll be in for a grilling from them later. But not now. He can't do this now. Not when...
He finds himself, once again, really, really, desperately wishing Val was here... she'd know what to do... It's just... he can't...
He never eats the stew Gobber brought him.
Finally, Gothi leaves the boy in their watchful care with her strict, adamant instructions. Hiccup should be aided to drink this coloured slop every hour and this one every four, his fever should be monitored at all times and the cold cloth on his brow changed as frequently as possible to keep him cool. If anything at all happens, if anything changes, or if he wakes, she should be called immediately. She's just down the road. Astrid could run it in two minutes.
It would be fine.
It will be fine.
Right?
...
A/N: Another chapter! Yey! :)
Hope your all enjoying this story, drop me a review if you are to let me know!
(I give you free virtual cookie? Ze chocolat chip kind.*Attempts vaguely Russian-y Accent because cookies and actually I just sort of sounded like a really appalling Go-Compare meerkat of some sort as I read that aloud just then...* And on that note... I'll give you another one if you understood either of those references. I also can't do any accents to save my life. I'm just painfully British. Silly Lenle. *Hands round cookies to make up for it.*) :D
I also really, really need to draw a cover for this story...
Thanks for reading and putting up with me, you beautiful, beautiful people,
Lenle.