Ok, so more recovery…more puzzle pieces falling into place…and some other stuff.
00000
Astrid can't remember the last time she was this uncomfortable. She blinks slowly, sitting up and cringing at the stabbing ache in her lower back. She reaches up to wipe her eyes, not bothering to free her left hand from whatever it's tangled in as she looks bleary eyed around the room. Her hand twitches without her permission and her head whips around, making slow sense of the too pale fingers gripping hers tightly.
He's snoring.
She can't help but grin when she hears the delicate chainsaw purr, sitting up and delicately stretching her neck.
And she thought sleeping with Scott after a race was awful.
Letting go of his twitching hand seems like a crime and she leans down, whimpering as she stretches her back, seam at the top of her jeans digging into the sore skin of her waist. Her abs protest the movement and she sits back in her chair, scooting it closer with a too loud squawk of rubber feet on the tile.
Hiccup shifts and mumbles, and her eyes itch, forcing her to blink away more of those horribly happy tears. His fingers squeeze hers and she responds, tickling his palm.
"Mrph," he groans, nose wrinkling as his eyes squint shut and flutter open, flinching away from the sunrise light trickling through the blinds. His head flops unevenly in her direction, and she wishes she'd thought to lay his bed back flat the night before.
"Good morning to you too," she croaks, throat shockingly raspy as she reaches over to his bedside table, pouring a glass of water and chugging it. She refills the cup, waiting for him to need it.
"Morning?" He coughs, stomach clenching and bouncing him against the pillow. She holds the cup of water up to his mouth and he drinks, hearty swallows tugging the cup against her fingertips. He drains it, and she pulls it away, setting it down with a clunk. "Still feels like last night." He blinks, squinting hard and rolling his neck slowly.
"My back says it's morning," she idly complains, voice light as she shifts in her chair, stretching her side with a muffled whine. He stares at her, mind churning impossibly slowly compared to its usual measured blur, and she blushes, feeling studied. His eyes on her aren't exactly unpleasant, but the deep searching is unfamiliarly charged. "What?"
"You actually stayed." He furrows his eyebrows at her like it's mysterious, and she shrugs.
"I'm shocked you remember asking."
"You're hard to forget," he fidgets, voice disembodied and honest, the unmistakable rasping of his bandaged leg against the covers sobering. "This is all kind of unforgettable." He mumbles, and they both glance at his foot before resuming comparatively safe eye contact. Hiccup never thought he'd live to see a day where it's easier to stare deeply into Astrid Hofferson's deep ocean eyes than look at his own two feet.
Foot. Whatever.
This should be…slapping him more. It should be more awful, more shocking, more horrible…but it's really just a fact right now. He lost three weeks, and a foot, and now he's here and he has to make the best of it. Maybe it will hit him when he tries to stand, when his internal equilibrium tries to adjust to the completely obvious loss of a ten pound foot.
But somehow he thinks that he might just be able to handle it. He doesn't let his fore-thinking mind wander down the hallway, doesn't let himself think about navigating stairs and hills.
One step at a time.
Or is it one-half step at a time? He smiles to himself, feeling a little crazy and unsure whether crazy is bad or not.
"What are you laughing about?" Astrid asks, half glad to see his smile, and half terrified that he's finally cracked.
"My brain feels better…kind of." He shakily pushes himself away from the recliner, unreasonably proud when he sits up straight, spine stretching deliciously with the motion. She leans forward, pushing him back with nervous fingers on his bony shoulders, earning herself a glare for ruining his success.
"And that's funny?" His glare deepens as he starts to sit up again, and she holds him back cautiously. "Can we wait for a doctor before you start walk—moving around?" She corrects herself awkwardly, sitting back in her seat and trying again to pop her neck.
"You have no room to talk, I've never seen you sit still for five minutes," she pulls a face at him and he laughs, coughing.
"More water?" She asks, and he nods, accepting the cup that she hands him. He drains it, fingers smoothing over the rim as he stares through the warped clear plastic base. Astrid reaches out then pulls back, thinking twice about taking the cup from his lap.
"What time is it?" He looks at the clock on the wall, numbers swirling uncomfortably before he gives up with a frown.
"7:45," she offers, smoothing her watch onto her wrist, rubbing the deep indent where it had pressed through the night. "They'll be around with breakfast soon." His stomach growls audibly at the suggestion and they both laugh. Astrid pushes her bangs behind her ear, and the motion draws Hiccup's seemingly spastic eyes. "A little bit hungry there?"
"Yeah," he blinks, right foot shifting until he can hang it off of the bed, wiggling his toes. Moving feels wonderful, like dusting a filthy room, and he sighs, shifting his hips a couple of inches, breathing embarrassingly hard from the effort.
"So fidgety."
"I have a lot of fidgeting to catch up on," he folds his arms behind his head, stretching in a way that makes his ribcage stand out in stark relief against the generic white wall. Astrid frowns, biting her cheek and forcing her tone normal.
"And eating too."
"And the nagging," he jokes, and she glares at him.
"I'm just trying to help."
"I know," he shrugs, the motion exhausting and exhilarating. "I'm not used to you being so nice."
Astrid wrinkles her nose, hugging herself loosely and thumbing the seam at the bottom of her jacket. She guesses that's true, she is being awfully nice, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing.
Maybe she should do the selfish thing and blurt 'I love you,' that wouldn't be a particularly nice way to wake up, would it? Continuing the determined onslaught to flip his already confusing worldview upside down.
"I figure it's only right that you get a free pass while you're hospitalized."
"You haven't punched me in eons, I think the bruise on my arm actually healed." He glances down at his bicep—or the place where his bicep would go if it still existed—and looks up at her with mock excitement. Her hand balls into a loose fist and knocks against his arm with exaggerated slowness.
"Happy?"
"I didn't say I wanted you to punch me."
"Ugh, now I'm remembering why I started punching you in the first place," she snaps, tired and grouchy, and Hiccup smiles.
"There. I was wondering who the imposter was," he settles back down, seemingly pacified by her outburst.
"And I thought you'd be glad to have someone be nice to you." Hiccup shakes his head.
"You know me, glutton for punishment." Their eyes both flick back to his feet and Astrid sighs, broaching the difficult topic because obviously, he's not going to do it.
"Has anyone…have you seen it yet?" She mumbles, and he looks at her wide eyed, then back to the base of the bed.
"I..." He searches for something cheeky left in the swirling recesses of his still too slow mind, and settles for shaking his head, eyes focusing on an errant freckle scattered onto Astrid's sharp cheekbone. She lost weight too, or maybe that's just what happens when she doesn't eat for 12 hours.
Like a gremlin, or something.
Don't underfeed her, or she'll unleash her inner she-beast and stab you with her cheekbones.
His brain totters off track, and he struggles to pull himself back into the moment, staring at his foot and trying to remember why the blunt space is a problem. Right. It hasn't always been like that. He wiggles his nonexistent toes, frowning and struggling with the waves of complex weakness that surge around his head. Astrid resists the urge to grab his hand.
She's not used to seeing him think so hard.
"Do—should I…?" She stands up, walking to the foot of the bed and taking the edge of the blanket into her grip, looking at him cautiously. Is it like taking off a Band-Aid? Or something that should be done more gracefully?
"I think I've seen enough of my own inferiority for this morning," he mumbles, staring at the stark webbing of his too skeletal hands. He looks at the clock, trying to reason how much time he has left until a nurse will rescue him from the awkwardness with breakfast in hand, but the hands on the dial make no sense.
He wonders how many things fell out of his head.
Words seem normal, he can read the signs on the wall, and already knows far too much about the hospital's obligations, but the numbers blur together, swirling illogically.
"You aren't inferior." Astrid snaps, glaring at him fiercely. "Jesus Hiccup, you didn't use your brain for three weeks and you woke up with more than your drooling skills intact. That's further than most people get." It sounds horribly crude and she breaks eye contact, staring at the end of his shortened leg. She wonders if it hurts, but is too out of her element to ask.
"Can we just—"
"You're going to have to look at it sometime." She glances back up at him, her own morbid curiosity building in her throat like confrontation. She hasn't seen it since Thursday, and after weeks of making sure she was there to watch it heal, two days feels like an eternity. "And I figured you might do better…well in private." It occurs to her that while she has had weeks to come around to the idea of her taking care of him, no one has bothered to tell him about it. She blushes and scratches behind her ear.
Is this what it feels like to be Hiccup? To be one step ahead of everyone else in the room? She remembers hating how he always knew what was going on, but now she wishes he'd jump in and explain everything so that she doesn't have to.
"No offense, but you being here is the opposite of private."
"That's awesome," she snaps, sarcastic, grinning sardonically. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Great." For the first time, Hiccup realizes how frustrating sarcasm can be when it's coming from someone else.
"What?" Astrid sneers at the question, flushing as she steps back, crossing her arms. "Why are you so—"
"So what?" She asks, throwing her hands up, "This is—this has been a long three weeks." She deflates, shoulders sagging. Staying mad at him right now is seemingly impossible, the combination of her too full chest and his pale face equal parts emotionally stifling and enlightening.
"What am I missing now?" He asks quietly.
"Do you remember what I said about well…" Why is this so hard to say? In another life she would just blurt it out. She spins around, staring at the wall, or anything other than those brilliant green eyes that disturb her mental state. "Your dad's my—I volunteered—" She starts twice, failing miserably as frustration builds in her still impatient mind. All of this roots from two simple facts, and she can't talk about either.
Her dad. Hiccup.
Horrible hate, and confusing love.
Her own fear is disgusting, and she snarls, she's never been timid.
She whirls around. "I love you."
"What?—"
The door opens, and Janet enters, a tray with a bowl of oatmeal and a pudding cup balanced on her arm.
"Astrid, you're here awfully early today." She comments, smiling at a slack-jawed Hiccup. "But it's probably a bit more interesting with someone to talk to." The tray lands across the boy's lap with a quiet clank, and he flops back against the reclining upper half of his bed. "Good morning, Henry. You're looking more awake," She smiles and he glances at Astrid, heart pounding too fast in his chest before looking back at the nurse.
"Feeling more awake," he mumbles and she smiles, pulling a spoon from the pocket of her scrubs and setting it on the tray.
"The doctor is going to be in after you manage to have some breakfast. Then we can get you off the nutrient drip and you should start feeling a lot better." She bustles around the bed, checking his temperature and pulse, while he furrows his eyebrows, staring at the bowl.
He's crazy. He's in an insane asylum, not the hospital. His dad took Toothless, and he went insane.
His stomach growls and he operates on autopilot, picking up the spoon with too weak fingers and bringing a spoonful of bland sweet oatmeal to his mouth. His stomach gurgles uneasily around the food and he sets down the spoon, swallowing thickly.
"Take your time," Janet urges at Hiccup's nauseous expression, "Someone will be back to check on you two in a few minutes, I've got to deliver these results to the doctor." She writes something in a clipboard hanging at the foot of his bed, tears off a carbon copy sheet and leaves the room with a quiet click of the latch.
Astrid juts her chin out defiantly, walking around the bed to sit back on her chair, arms crossed in front of her.
"You should eat," she urges him, daring him to bring up what she just said. He stares at her, gulping slightly, like he's facing down an escaped tiger.
"So now I'm just going to eat?" He asks, clearing his throat when his voice cracks. "That's the plan?"
"It's breakfast time."
"Are you seriously—You…you…y—"
"I what?" Astrid asks, tugging her knees onto the chair and flinching as her exhausted quadriceps complain.
"You love…you? Love?" He stutters, and she sighs, burying her face in her hands. This is exhausting.
"I love you." It's easier to say the second time, more of a fact and less of a revelation, the words leaving a relieved taste on the back of her tongue. At least he knows. The more that Hiccup knows, the closer that the world feels to falling back into place. He sets his spoon down on the tray, cocking his head and thinking way too hard, headache in his forehead returning with a vengeance. She looks up at him, narrowing her eyes. "Eat your freaking breakfast!" He needs to eat, he needs to get better, and she directs her illogical anger towards his lack of appetite.
"Umm, I'm not exactly hungry now," his voice rises dangerously in pitch and he clears his throat before he starts attracting dogs.
"You need to eat," she crosses her arms.
"I think we should probably talk, or some—"
"What is there to talk about?"
"Umm, how about twenty days and the fact that you lov—don't make sense." Hiccup snaps and Astrid sighs.
"I'll make a deal. For every bite you take, I'll tell you something."
"Something?" He asks, her face fuzzier in his vision than it should be. His chest aches from the frantic pounding of his heart over the last few minutes.
"Something. We…You…" She wipes a hand over her face, sighing frustrated. "When did your freakish stuttering rub off on me?" She mumbles and exhales, exhausted. "You've missed a couple things. Obviously. I'll talk while you eat, then you can ask questions and fill in the rest of the gaps." She offers and Hiccup mulls the idea over, picking up his spoon and taking a small bite, swallowing thickly around the bland paste.
"Start talking."
"Hmm…Toothless is ok." Bite. "He actually had his leg operated on as well…he likes not wearing the harness anymore." Hiccup thinks about saying something, his mouth opens halfway before Astrid's look silences him. He takes another bite. "I signed at CU."
"That's great," he makes a show of garbling his words over a mouthful of cereal, and Astrid rolls her eyes.
He wonders if he feels lucky or terrified.
"It's easy." She pauses, watching him swallow and go for another spoonful. "Your dad asked me to stay with you when he's gone. I figured you might be more ok with that than some nurse." He nods, gulping another bite and forcing the paste down his throat. "That was before the foster drama. It's so stupid, I'm seventeen, they're a little late to play hero." She sneers, and shakes her head, wandering off track as she stares at the wall, doing her best to ignore his penetrating green eyes. "Anyway. I'm in the room next to yours for the moment." She sighs. "I'll find somewhere else if you really don't want me to…be around." Taking care of him sounds wrong; it's just…helping him as much as he helped her.
Just because he wasn't there for a lot of the help he gave, or because a lot of it was annoying and unintentional doesn't mean that she's not counting it. It doesn't matter how soft she feels, how disgustingly warm his blazing emerald gaze heats her chest, Astrid refuses to owe anyone anything.
"It's…" He starts, before taking another bite. He's sick of searching for words that don't float to the tip of his tongue like they used to. "I don't want a nurse. At least you don't think…yeah." She looks at him questioningly and he shrugs. "You act the same…I imagine most people won't." He mumbles and she shrugs, smiling sadly.
"Oh God," she groans, head falling into her hands as she flinches back from his impending reaction. "I botched our presentation. I…it was horrible, I freaked out and ended up telling the entire class that I loved you." The third time is even easier, sliding off her tongue like butter. She laughs miserably. "And I told everyone to call you Henry, and I still haven't heard the end of it. I don't know how badly we failed yet." He can't help but laugh at that, and she joins in, shaking slightly and hugging her knees.
"I hate hospital food." She continues, watching his Adam's apple bob with his next labored swallow. "The next milk carton I see is going to get…murdered. And the coffee, holy shit the coffee. It smells like toasted dog crap." He grins at the analogy, taking another obedient bite when she looks dis direction.
She's unhinged definitely, but there's the imprint of hinges that have always been missing from her unbalanced frame.
"I won the regional meet. That's where I was yesterday." Her voice falls away from the rhythm of his swallows as her eyes drift to the monitor hanging on the opposite wall, following the delightfully steady bump of his heart. "Ruff and Fishlegs visited a couple of times. I think Fish was here for you, but Ruff was here to make sure I still saw the sun. Your dad likes Spike, I caught them cuddling on the couch the other day." She blabbers, shoulders shrugging towards her ears as she glances at his emptying bowl. He takes another pointed bite and she sags into her seat. "Toothless resents me. He misses you." She laughs, resting her head back against the familiar chair, grinning. "Ruff wanted to help me sneak him in, but I didn't want to risk getting banned.
"You probably would have rather woken up to Toothless. I should have listened. She had some decent strategies…Apparently he looks kind of like her grandma…" She trails off, her own voice echoing in her head, annoying and uncharacteristically loaded.
I love you.
Who says it like that, anyway? Of all the words in the English language, all the wonderful, emotive, exacting words she could have used, she stuck with the eight letter standby. Simultaneously making her bed and tearing her clothes off prematurely. She feels naked, in one of the most negative ways she can imagine as she runs through every impossible reaction.
He hasn't freaked out yet. Then again, the last thing he wants right now is a broken arm.
"I don't remember waking up at all, honestly." He admits, pushing the tray across his knees and flinching when it bumps against the top of his remarkably compressive bandage. Astrid looks up, his sharp inhale disconcerting.
"No pudding?" She asks, unfolding and leaning forward, grabbing the tray and placing it on the table beside her. She picks up the pudding cup and his spoon, stirring the chocolate goo with a too pensive expression.
"It's a texture thing," he wrinkles his nose, and she laughs, taking a heaping bite of the dessert.
"Of course it is."
"I'm glad you didn't try and smuggle Toothless in. He hates tile." Hiccup starts, staring at his uneven feet, letting the sight sear into his retinas. "He skids around and freaks out, growling at the walls."
"I think I know how that feels."
"I doubt Toothless resents you," It's hard, talking about his best friend in the too clean hospital room. He imagines the coarse warm fur under his fingers, stifling a yawn at the overwhelming and comforting thought.
"He…it's been hard." Astrid admits with a forcibly nonchalant shrug, trying to fend the weight of the situation from landing on her tired shoulders.
How is it only eight fifteen in the morning? It feels like she's been up for hours.
"Are you and my dad getting along?" Hiccup asks, and Astrid shrugs, smiling to herself.
"We've got enough in common." She doesn't bother mentioning desperation and necessity.
"Sports?"
"You." She blurts, painfully honest, and he blushes, silence settling like an awkward blanket.
Astrid hates the limbo, somewhere between crushed and elated, and part of her craves the predictability of her relationship with Scott. She always knew what he'd say, never wondered where anything was going.
He couldn't hurt her.
"I probably missed the baby picture embarrassment, didn't I?" Hiccup mumbles, wiping his hand over his face and Astrid laughs, caught off guard.
"No baby pictures…yet," she teases, leaning too far forward and nudging him in the ribs. It's like grade-school, and she wonders when exactly the hitting became something more. "But I know what I'm asking to see later."
"No! I have to be there to explain myself," he insists, laughing and fiddling with the edge of his comforter.
"I'll ask once you're home then," she amends and he glances over at her, serious.
"Do you er…know when that might be?" He laughs, "I'm surprised you're not insane, I'm already sick of this wall." He gestures ahead of him and she shrugs.
"Soon. Your umm…your leg is good to go home, but you need the outpatient evaluation for the…" she trails off, tapping herself on the forehead.
"So they need to test if I'm crazy?"
"No one thinks you're crazy," she snaps, "they just have to make sure that you aren't going to relapse." The last word is a resonating mumble, and he sighs.
"I'm not going to—"
"You better not." She threatens, and he has to smile.
"So, you missed me, huh?" She can't bring herself to hate his cocky tone as she leans back forward, tapping her fist against his arm. His hand is shaking more than earlier when he reaches up, grabbing her wrist and tentatively wrapping narrow fingers around her palm. She blushes and scoots her chair closer, getting comfortable.
"Little bit," her entire body feels too warm, like she's sitting too close to a bonfire.
"Astrid?" He starts and she looks at him expectantly, chewing on her lower lip. His eyes flick to his feet and her mouth, and she can see the geared down revolution of his still groggy mind. "It's—"
The door swings open yet again, and they lurch apart, hands tightening together as Hiccup's sometimes doctor walks into the room, glancing through a file and stopping at the foot of his bed.
"How are you doing today, Henry?" He asks and Hiccup shrugs, fingers tightening around Astrid's hand.
"Overwhelmed," he admits, and the doctor nods. Astrid slowly lets go of his hand and leans back, letting the doctor have Hiccup's full attention.
"Don't stop on my account," the doctor laughs. "If my teenagers supported each other like you two do, I wouldn't be paying for military school." He chuckles too wholeheartedly, and the two teens stare at him blankly.
Hiccup re-grasps her hand.
Astrid wonders how many people Janet has shared her suspicions with.
"He's family," Astrid tests him, earning a confused glance that she answers with a beatific smile.
"Anyway, overwhelmed. That's perfectly normal." He makes a note and looks at Hiccup, resting his hand on the boy's short leg and pressing lightly in a completely disconcerting way. It feels like his shoe is unbearably tight, like his foot is utterly asleep. He wiggles his toes and they feel cramped as his brain starts to ache, processing the foreign sensation. "Any pain?"
"No?" He mumbles, his concentration devoted to not jerking his leg away from the invasive feeling. "It's not comfortable though."
"Alright," Hiccup visibly relaxes when the doctor steps back, approaching and shining a light into his mercifully equal pupils. "How does your head feel?" The lump of scar tissue under the man's thumb feels utterly foreign pressing against his skull and he blinks, flinching from the light.
"Slow," Astrid keeps his hand in hers even as he tries to pull back, folding in on himself.
The leg he can fathom, but if anything is wrong with his head…
"Anything missing? Anything confusing?" He asks, perching on the side of the mattress and Hiccup shrugs, staring at the clock.
"I can't…I can't read the clock right," he admits, flinching away from the swirling numbers. Astrid squeezes his fingers and he grits his teeth. "And I'm missing days."
"Ok, that's normal," the doctor comforts, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Hiccup's arm above the IV. "The days should come back in their own time, and don't be surprised if they don't always make sense." He warns and Hiccup resists the urge to glare at him.
Things make sense to him. To think that they wouldn't is nearly obscene.
"We'll fill you in," Astrid offers in the silence, and Hiccup nods, tight-lipped.
"About the clock. Can I ask you a few questions?" Hiccup shrugs his response and the doctor digs a piece of paper with a picture of a brain out of the file, reading a question off of the single spaced sheet. "What's 3 times 4?" He asks and Hiccup's face goes alarmingly blank, he blinks slowly, embarrassed color rising to his cheeks.
"I don't—I…" He stutters, flabbergasted.
"What's the integral of x squared?"
"One third x cubed." He blurts in response and the doctor smiles.
"How many square feet are in a three foot by four foot closet?"
"12," Hiccup answers, struggling to assign the answer to the first question that the doctor asked. His face is approaching a frightful puce color when Astrid pinches his palm, snapping him out of the frustrated daze.
"Ok, Henry, this is relatively typical frontal lobe deep trauma," the doctor explains, sounding confident in a comforting way as Hiccup's angry expression dissolves to concern. "You'll probably find a number of gaps, mostly associated with rote memorization and simple math. Most patients regain full utility in a few weeks with therapy, but you'll likely be finding blank patches for a couple of months."
"It's not…I'm—" Hiccup exhales, throat unnaturally thick as he chews on his upper lip, rephrasing. "So I'm ok?"
"You're going to be fine. But given your brain activity throughout the past few weeks, it's not surprising," the doctor chuckles and Hiccup sighs, zoning out as he goes through outpatient mental care with Astrid. He can feel her nodding through her fingertips, the soothing pulse balm to his frayed nerves.
"…The other day the doctor was saying that as soon as he woke up, we should get him on his feet. Should that be today?" Astrid's voice spikes, almost shrill, and he glances over at her, lost in the swirling flushing freckles. Too many faces at once, their nuanced expressions overwhelming his mind.
"Later, he seems done right now, and that's fine." The doctor touches his knee and he doesn't flinch, staring at the absurd sight of his leg tapered to nothing. "You've seen the physical therapy exercises?"
"Of course." Astrid nods, both nervous and eager for the responsibility as they both try to ignore Hiccup's tired glazed eyes.
"We need to move into doing those same movements while standing. We'll get him crutches later today, but for now, the more he moves and stands, the better. The amount of muscle mass he's lost is really unfortunate, and the faster he builds that back up, the more uneventful his recovery can be." The doctor continues and Astrid lets her eyes glance over his bony shoulders and skeletal wrists.
Hiccup smiles at her sleepily and she pats his hand awkwardly.
"Uneventful is good."
00000
"What?" Hiccup bolts upright, head foggy and buzzing as his hand squeezes down on too warm fingers. Astrid glances up from her book, wiggling life back into her fingers as she raises her eyebrows at his alarmed expression.
"Good morning sleeping beauty." She mumbles, turning the page and folding down the corner to mark her spot.
"I was asleep?" He hates how nothing seems real, hates how time is drowning in a fog.
"For about 3 hours," she answers, setting her book on the bedside table and offering him a glass of water that he takes gratefully, arms more solid than they've been since he woke up. "You snored like a bear the whole time."
"Sorry," he mumbles, handing her the empty glass.
"It's fine. Coma patients don't snore," she gently takes her hand back, stretching her fingers. "It was reassuring." He leans forward, sitting up and stretching his arms behind his head with a quiet groan, glancing over at her when she doesn't encourage him to relax. It's a fight to keep his head straight and he feels his face flush with effort as he rolls his neck slowly.
"What? No shoving me back onto the bed?" He asks, half hoping that her warm hands will appear at his shoulders.
Given the choice between dwelling on the absurd feeling of a hand on his nonexistent foot and hoping for the warmth of demanding hands keeping him still, he'll choose the second every time.
"The doctor said you should try and get up," she flicks her eyes to the crutches propped against the wall.
"Get up?" He asks and she shrugs, obviously conflicted.
"You should have been up weeks ago, for the leg."
"Because that makes perfect sense. You obviously are supposed to walk around to fix a missing foot." Missing foot. Missing foot.
His foot is gone.
It sounds more normal now, less shocking, and he gulps, hanging his good foot off of the edge of the bed.
"It's for circulation." She gripes, not exactly in the mood for his sarcasm.
He stares at her meaningfully before scooting towards the edge of the bed, stupidly brave as his toes touch the cold tile. His other toes feel cold and he flinches.
He wonders if Toothless feels his front leg too, wonders if he used to fall over when he ran, waiting for support that didn't show up. He wonders what it was like, waking up alone after being caught in that trap, wounded and confused, hungry and dazed.
"Crutches?" He asks, and Astrid raises her eyebrows at him, standing and grasping the aluminum side tube in a loose fist.
"You're doing it now?"
"I'm sick of laying here." He snips, too honest and coarse as he reaches for the crutch. She gives him her hand instead, wrapping fingers around his palm and giving him a light tug. His knee trembles when his foot touches the ground and she frowns at him. He ignores her doubtful expression, stubborn as he shakily shoves up onto frail tip toes, lowering his heel as she helps tug his weight over his foot.
There's something inspiring about standing and he grins briefly, bouncing twice against the mattress and popping up to a tentative balance, leaning too hard to the right as his left toes search for the ground, curling and uncurling within the cage of his mind.
The tiles spin, and the word love whirls around his brain, distracting and inspiring.
The sheets fall to the floor, pooling around his foot as he looks down, taking in the blunted state of his other leg.
Astrid grunts lightly, pushing into him with more force than should be necessary as she holds his shaking back steady, gaze fixed on the side of his face as his green eyes widen.
He bobbles, locking his elbow and laughing sarcastically to himself.
"I always knew my lack of upper body strength would come back and bite me in the ass."
00000
I'm so glad I ended this with a little bit of determination. I worried that it might be out of place, but hey, it makes me really happy to not end this chapter with a passed out Hiccup.
So…confessions!
Un-dealt with confessions too, as fun as they are!
This chapter…I find it extremely necessary, and leading up to more fluffy satisfaction. I hope that the hand holding and explanation of progress is satisfying for now.
Also!
The brain injury totally happened to my grandpa. He was in a car accident and had his math skills messed with. I thought it was an intriguing detail anyway. I really hope that I've managed to maintain the organic relationship growth, and I hope to have the next chapter up relatively soon!
Keep reviewing…the more I get, inevitably the faster that Hiccup will react to Astrid's little admission…then again, grabbing her hand was a pretty big lurch forward…