[A/N: Happy holidays!]

Toothless followed Hiccup into the healer's hut, his ruined tail fin scraping lightly against the hardwood floor. He watched Hiccup gather the healer's books, keeping near him in case he stumbled. Hiccup dropped the books on the table, and half-collapsed onto it himself. The spindly legs shook and the table rattled as Toothless warbled uneasily, shoving his head against Hiccup's side to help steady him.

"Poisons," Hiccup murmured. He ran a trembling hand through his hair, darkened with sweat. "Poisons." He flicked through the books, searching the pages in desperation. "I know I saw them somewhere. Where are you?" He opened two more of the books and flipped through the pages, accidentally tearing a few. "There!"

He pulled the book closer and scanned the page, tapping it with a finger. "There we go," he said. "A list of poisons and their symptoms." Hiccup scrambled for a blank piece of parchment and pencil. "I'll just write down ones that sound like they might be it, and then go back and figure out which one it is for sure. Then I'll whip up the cure with all the ingredients over there." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the rickety stands of medicinal ingredients against the wall. "Easy."

Toothless gave a quiet roar, distressed.

"Don't worry, bud," he said. "We can figure this out. I know it." Hiccup gritted his teeth and began to read through the list. "See?" he said, scribbling a note down onto the paper. "It might be this one." He moved onto the next one, and his frantic smile slid off his features. "Or this one," he said.

He slouched further over the table, his head in one hand as he continued to scan the book. "Oh, gods. This is gonna be harder than I thought." He cast a quick sidelong glance at Toothless, chewing his bottom lip. "This'll take some time."

Toothless rumbled his concern and cast a glance out the window. It was getting late now, the afternoon steadily giving way to evening. Sunset would come too soon. Toothless paced the floor around the desk, eyeing his rider. Hiccup was already staring at the book with a chillingly dazed expression, not at all like his usual sharpness. His eyelids fluttered occasionally as unconsciousness threatened to pull him under. His hand slipped on the pencil.

It would take time to identify the poison and figure out the cure.

How much time did Hiccup have left?

"You should be resting, should you not?"

Astrid looked up as Mala emerged from the shadowy night, approaching the fireside.

"You will be continuing your search at first light, I understand." Mala passed by the twins, who were slumped against Barf and Belch in empty silence. She stood beside Astrid and gestured questioningly at the vacant space against Stormfly.

"Yeah, we're heading out as early as possible," Astrid said, motioning for Mala to sit. "Snotlout and I will fan out in an easterly direction, since that's where Hiccup was last spotted. The twins will go the opposite way in case he and Toothless doubled back, or flew elsewhere since then." She rubbed her hands on the leather of her skirt. "It's the dragons who really need the rest."

"I am certain some sleep would be beneficial for all of you as well." Mala glanced around at them with a small frown, taking obvious note of their strained silence and defeated postures. "But I imagine rest is hard to come by when you are all so busy being worried."

Astrid's gaze flicked absently to Snotlout, half expecting him to protest as usual, but his scowl only deepened, and he said nothing. Something twisted in Astrid's stomach. "Yeah," she agreed.

Mala cleared her throat delicately. "Feel free to tell me if I am overstepping my boundaries," she said, "but I do believe you could all use a boost in morale."

"How are you gonna do that?" Tuffnut asked dully. "Got Hiccup squirreled away somewhere?"

Mala continued undaunted. "I am sure you have heard me say that hope is crucial for morale."

"I remember you yelling it at Dagur," Ruffnut said, one corner of her lips twitching up at the memory.

"Yes, that's correct," Mala agreed, laughing softly. "Perhaps if you can focus on the hope in the situation, your spirits might be lifted somewhat."

"What hope?" Snotlout folded his arms and glared into the flickering flames.

"Well," Mala said, "at least you know that Hiccup and Toothless are together. That should provide some comfort. I have seen the way the dragon protects him. Fiercely, resolutely."

Stoick had mentioned that, too, Astrid remembered, when she had first told him of Hiccup's absence. She remembered the subtle warmth of hope that had filled her then. She tried to feel it now. But there were too many days since then. Too many hours without Hiccup, without even a word or a sight or a trace. Too many loose ends and false trails.

"I guess you're right," Ruffnut said. Astrid glanced at her; she was frowning in thought.

Snotlout shrugged begrudgingly. "I mean, everyone is safer with their dragon than without."

Ruffnut sat up, a crease between her eyebrows. "You know, I just thought of something."

"What is that?" Mala asked.

"I've heard Hiccup scream a lot," she said.

Astrid whipped her head towards Ruffnut so fast she felt something in her neck pop. She rubbed at the sudden warmth. "Are you serious, Ruff? How is that supposed to help?"

"No, no, I mean, when he's falling," Ruff added, like that made it better.

Astrid growled.

"You better start making sense, sis," Tuff said, "otherwise Astrid's gonna pummel you." He paused. "Wait, you know what? Keep going." He waved at her encouragingly, a hint of his usual mischievousness sparking in his eyes.

"Well, you know, he's always falling off things," Ruffnut said. "Toothless, cliffs, boats, Toothless, houses, you name it."

"When did he fall off a house?" Snotlout asked, frowning.

Ruffnut continued as if she hadn't heard him. "So he's always screaming, you know? I mean, natural reaction to falling off of things."

Tuffnut snickered, watching the murderous look on Astrid's face.

"But my point is this." Ruff looked around at them all with narrowed eyes. "Anyone else notice when he stops screaming?"

Astrid blinked.

"What does that even mean?" Snotlout asked.

"Duh!" Tuffnut smacked his sister's head. "When he stops falling, of course!"

"Wrong!" Ruff punched him on the arm, grinning. "You're wrong!" she sang. "Wrong, wrong, wrong!"

"Ruff, focus!" Astrid growled. "What are you trying to say? When does he stop screaming?"

Ruffnut smiled smugly. "When he connects with Toothless."

Astrid was silent, trying to recall the last time she had seen Hiccup falling. Was Ruffnut right?

"He'll just come in contact with Toothless, and the screaming stops." Ruffnut leaned forward, her face bright in the firelight, a real smile softening her features. "And they'll still be falling," she said. "Both of them, for several more seconds at least. But you don't hear any more screaming, do you?"

"Oh my Thor," Snotlout said, his mouth hanging open slightly. "I think she's actually right."

"That says a lot," Mala said. "That he would no longer be afraid when he's with Toothless, even if they are both still in danger in the moment." She smiled too, leaning back against Stormfly. "You see? If Hiccup Haddock feels such safety with his dragon, then perhaps you can find some hope in that."

A tiny fraction of the weight on Astrid's shoulders lifted. She nodded, letting out a quiet breath. "At least he's with Toothless."

"But you know what?" Snotlout sat up now, too, scooting forward like Ruffnut, his expression clearer, his movements more lively. "He doesn't even need Toothless! Remember when he and I got trapped by that Sandbuster at the Northern Markets?"

The others nodded.

"So it's just me, Hiccup, and that idiot Amos all alone in that cave. It's full of junk." He gestured around him, waving at remembered piles of broken chests, empty barrels, and rotted debris. His eyes were alight with the memory as he recounted the events. "We're separated from our dragons, we only have a few random weapons that got sucked down before us, and our only possible exit is this tiny hole in the ceiling, about this big." He made a small circle with his thumb and pointer finger, showing them. "And it's way up there." He stretched his hand above his head, pointing at an imaginary ceiling. "And there's a crazy dragon that could burst in at any moment. But Hiccup comes up with this plan. He tells us to stack the junk as high as we can, so that we can reach the hole in the ceiling, and in the meantime, he's going to build a cage."

Astrid grinned, enraptured; she had never gotten the full story from either of them.

"Amos and I somehow build this huge hulking tower of junk. It's swaying and creaking and all kinds of unsafe, but I figure at least Hiccup's built a cage for the dragon, so that should help, right? Well, I look over, and Hiccup's built–" He gestured vaguely. "Practically nothing! Just some planks propped up around the tower of trash." He ran a hand down his face, reliving the frustration. "That's not a cage! That's not anything! But then the Sandbuster comes crashing back into the cave. We run for the tower and start climbing it, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Hiccup jump off. He lands on one of the planks he set up. And you know what happens? It flings some piece of, I dunno, rock or metal or something, and it breaks right through one of the patches in the ceiling. So sunlight comes pouring out of it, which the Sandbuster hates, right?" Snotlout became more animated in his storytelling, his arms flinging in wild gestures on Hiccup's level.

"It backs away from the light, but Hiccup's already moved onto the next one. Another plank, another hole in the ceiling, another ray of sunlight. Amos and I are clinging to this swaying tower, just staring as Hiccup jumps from plank to plank without hesitation, grinning like a total idiot. And when he jumps off the last one and lands on the ground, there it is. Rays of sunlight surrounding the Sandbuster, keeping it in place." Snotlout shook his head in disbelief. "A cage."

"Awesome!" Tuffnut was squirming with delight, clearly imagining the chaos.

"Sounds like Hiccup," Astrid said. "Always figuring out things, coming up with these crazy ideas."

"Yeah, like when we all got captured by Dagur and Ryker that one time, and he snagged the muzzle off Toothless and told him to free the Skrill?" Tuffnut laughed madly. "You know, the dragon that was literally hunting him down? What made him think the Skrill wouldn't just fry him right there?"

"Oh! Oh!" Ruffnut nudged her brother. "What about the time Toothless wouldn't let Hiccup help him fight the Whispering Death, so he jumped off a cliff?" She cackled loudly, the sound carrying into the night. "Now that was insane!"

Astrid cracked a smile, and before she knew it, she was laughing with the rest of them, caught up in the fond reminisces of Hiccup's lunatic schemes. They were right; he was constantly doing things that appeared stupid, acting on plans that seemed crazy and impossible. It was how he operated, tinkering with fate, engineering his own solutions. He was reckless. Clever. Unpredictable.

Wherever he was now, whatever situation he was in, Astrid was sure what he would do. She recalled their conversation on Berk years ago, standing on a cliff overlooking the pier, watching the boats carrying Stoick, Berk's warriors, and a captive Toothless to guaranteed slaughter at the dragons' nest.

What are you gonna do about it?

Eh, probably something stupid.

Good, but you've already done that.

His eyes had widened in realization, his mouth curving into a grimly determined smile. Then something crazy.

Toothless waited for Hiccup to do something. Or, at least, to wake up.

Hiccup was sprawled on the floor in front of Toothless, his cheek pressed against the healer's notes on poisons that he had read through at least a dozen times. With every reading, he had gotten more desperate, more discouraged, more debilitated. He had had no luck identifying the exact poison that coursed through his veins, if that poison was even listed in the healer's books. The descriptions were vague and overlapping, and the cures maddeningly inflexible. What abated the effects of one poison exacerbated the effects of another. Taking an antidote would only be a gamble–a frightening, dangerous one.

Toothless whined and shifted his position on the floor. He didn't know how they would move forward, how they would beat this. If they could beat this. He clung to the rise and fall of Hiccup's chest, but even that was little comfort. The sound of Hiccup's breathing made his skin crawl, like something horrible was burrowing into his scales, nestling in his insides, scuttling around beneath his skin. Some dark, grim feeling that was making a home for itself inside him. Toothless growled quietly and shook his head but it did nothing to dislodge the disturbing feeling, the sinister idea that could not be uprooted.

Hiccup looked… worse. Not simply worse than before, but worse than ever. Worse than anything Toothless could remember.

The many times Hiccup had lingered just outside Death's door had all been different than this. After the Red Death, he had been beaten and broken, and yet mercifully unaware. He had slept mostly, a silent body in the house, a not-quite-lifeless figure that was also not quite there, either. But finally he had come around, his features crinkling in pain and awareness, his eyes flickering open again.

The time he had nearly drowned while freeing the Submaripper, he had been still. Still and cold, like one of the carved Viking statues that stood guard on the edge of Berk's waters. But finally he had sat up, salt water spilling from his mouth as he sucked in a stinging breath of air. He had struggled standing up, stumbled when he tried to take a step, but it was okay. He had come back. Again.

But this time, Hiccup was not still. He slept, but it wasn't the same. There was no semblance of peace this time. No vague notion of rest or quiet. He slept in torment. In agony. With a restless awareness of his circumstances. His brows were drawn together tightly, his jaw clenched. His muscles were taught, tense. His eyelids fluttered half-open intermittently, revealing the whites of his eyes as they rolled in his sleep, perhaps tracking the movement of some terrible nightmare.

And his breathing. It wasn't calm or quiet or barely there like the other times. It was loud, raw, rattling. It seemed to shake him the way it shook Toothless. Like each drawn breath was another casualty in a losing battle.

Toothless flattened his ear plates against his head, growling low. His claws protracted, grinding against the wood floor beneath him, carving deep grooves into it. He couldn't take another second of Hiccup's horrid rasping, the stiffening of his muscles as his body tensed and twitched. He couldn't stand another moment of Hiccup's suffering. But with equal strength, Toothless could not bear to leave him. Could not move away. Would not look away.

So he stayed. And waited, desperately, for something.

"I got it!"

Toothless roared in alarm as Hiccup shot up with a gasping cry, struggling to push himself up off the floor. Toothless moved around him with a worried warble and helped him to his feet.

"I got it," Hiccup repeated as he gained his footing, leaning heavily against the nearest table. He huffed out a breath and looked at Toothless. He grinned. "I got it!"

Toothless watched him curiously.

"I know what to do!" Hiccup explained breathlessly. "It's simple!" He began making his way over to the far corner of the room, propping himself up on tables, shelves, and benches along the way, Toothless at his side. "If a sword is coming at you, and you don't have a shield, what do you use?" Hiccup increased his pace as he hastened through the room, now almost gasping. "You use–ah!"

Hiccup's leg gave out on him, and he collapsed onto Toothless' waiting head.

"You use…" He stopped and nodded at Toothless, who rose up until Hiccup was standing again, the Night Fury taking most of his weight. They headed more slowly towards the other side of the room. "You use another sword!" Hiccup finished.

Toothless rumbled in cautious agreement.

"Yes! So," Hiccup continued, pleased that Toothless was following along, "we use that principle here." He stopped in the corner of the room, and moved to lean against the wall beside a rickety shelf stacked with books and bowls and half-empty bottles. "We don't have an antidote. But we do have…" Hiccup latched onto the shelf and leaned heavily into it. Toothless rumbled an uneasy warning as it rocked precariously beneath his weight. Hiccup ignored this and pulled a dusty wooden box towards himself, discarding the lid carelessly and revealing a collection of small colored vials. He grinned triumphantly at Toothless. "Poison."

Toothless roared. It was a high-pitched, very stressed roar that clearly said, Are you out of your mind?

Hiccup ignored this too and dropped the box onto the floor. He collapsed beside it and began hurriedly sorting through the bottles. Toothless roared indignantly.

"Don't worry, bud," Hiccup checked the labels with clear urgency, his fingers moving quickly between each one. "I won't take the same poison, obviously. It has to be one that kills you the opposite way. It might counteract the symptoms, and they'll just–" he waved his free hand, gesturing nonsensically–"cancel each other out!" He looked up at Toothless with a hopeful grin, then went back to perusing the bottles. He pulled a small green one out of the box. "This should do," he said, bringing it towards himself.

Toothless used his head to lower Hiccup's hand and the bottle slowly but firmly to the floor. He looked into Hiccup's eyes with a distressed sound.

"Don't worry, bud," Hiccup said again, still smiling lightly at his dragon. But the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. There was tension there. Strain. He didn't look happy or relieved. He looked desperate. "I know what I'm doing," he said. "I read about all these poisons in the healer's books." He nodded encouragingly at Toothless. "This will work."

But Toothless moved his head forward to push Hiccup back until he was sitting up against the wall. He studied his rider seriously, without moving, without blinking. Finally, Hiccup's smile faltered.

"Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you, bud. I don't actually know if it'll work." He sighed, and his eyes drooped closed. His head fell back against the wall with a dull thunk. Now that he had stopped, it was like the manic momentum that had been propelling him forward had vanished. His breathing was labored, his skin flushed unhealthily. A sheen of sweat covered him, and the bags beneath his eyes made it look like he had been punched in the face. When he dragged his eyes open again, it was obvious that it took effort. Every single moment, Toothless realized, took effort.

The fingers of Hiccup's free hand twitched, and Toothless moved his head beneath them. Hiccup stroked his dragon for a few long moments, his heavy breathing the only sound amongst the silence.

"I'm dying, Toothless," he whispered.

Toothless let out a quiet wail and leaned into his human until Hiccup was half on top of him.

"If I try this," Hiccup said, moving the bottle with a twitch of his other hand, "there's a chance I might survive. I don't know if it'll work. I don't–" His breathing hitched. "It's only a hunch, to be honest. But if I don't try it, I'll die for sure, and that'll be like giving up." He was starting to slur now, his words running together–even his natural pattern of speech was failing him. "I don't…" Hiccup clenched the bottle in his hand. "I don't wanna give up."

Silently, Toothless swept his tail around and curled into a ball with his upper half on Hiccup's lap. He warbled softly. He understood. He didn't want Hiccup to give up either. But of course he wouldn't. Hiccup had fought hard through all of this, was fighting hard now for his next breath, and would continue to fight until he couldn't anymore. And Toothless– Toothless would stay with him until he couldn't anymore.

The vial of poison left Toothless' line of sight as Hiccup picked it up. Toothless heard him swallow. There was a quiet clink as Hiccup set the bottle down somewhere.

"Love you, bud," Hiccup murmured, running his hand slowly over Toothless' scales. "Glad you're with me," he said. Then he laid down on top of Toothless, and was still.