Getting Through It
Summary: Written for AI-less Whumptober 2023 Day 10. Set during RttE, after the Shell-shocked two-parter. Freshly burned, Viggo runs from the volcano straight to Hiccup’s doorstep.
Warning: /
Rating: Mature
Characters: Hiccup, Viggo
Pairing: /
Words: 1 452
Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon
Prompt: Branding Scarring
Whumpee: Viggo
Author’s Notes: Saw these prompts and almost immediately thought of Viggo. He is actually a lot of fun to whump.
Enjoy!
@ailesswhumptober
XOXOX
Somehow, Viggo climbed his way out of the Edge volcano.
He doesn’t know how, everything is a blur. No coherent thought seems to pass through his mind as pain has taken everything from him. He’s completely blind, his hands are his eyes now while his feet trip over the smallest obstacles. All he can do is hope that he can find his way down to the beach and that some of his men are still around to help him.
Once again, he trips over something. He can’t even tell what it is, it might be his own feet he’s tripping over. He hits wooden planks, but the thought doesn’t panic him. Somewhere inside, he realizes that he found the base of the Dragon Riders instead of the beach.
Only one thought comes to mind; Hiccup.
“Hi-Hi…Hiccup,” his voice is wheezy, he stutters. The volcano burned his face, took his sight, and also stole his voice. His throat is raw, his insides feel like they’re on fire. Every new breath is a fresh kind of suffering.
He collapses completely, writhing in agony and clueless on what to do. The memory of the last time he cried escapes him, but he’s sobbing now, worsening his condition.
His world is pain now, he begs for mercy and release.
When a door opens and light filters out, he doesn’t notice. His shallow breaths and whispered pleas for help must’ve drawn someone’s attention.
“Viggo? Oh my.. Oh Gods!” Viggo barely realizes he’s no longer alone, a familiar voice doesn’t registers.
Hiccup kneels by him and rolls his nemesis onto his back. For the past few hours, he thought Viggo was dead. Now here he is after wandering to his doorstep, collapsed and struggling to breathe. Fortunately for him, Toothless heard his raspy pleads for help.
The Night Fury is there, his eyes go from his Rider to their enemy. He doesn’t say anything, but Hiccup can see that he’s just as disturbed as he is.
One look at Viggo’s face takes his breath away. One half is so badly burned, but there’s no dead, blackened skin. Instead, it is all red, wet, blistering, and some of it is even bleeding, encrusting his one good eye. He doesn’t need to be a healer to know that the one on his burned half is of no use anymore.
Hiccup pulls him onto his lap, the first step into dragging him to his hut. He’s heavy and limp in his arms.
“Hiccup,” the man wheezes, limp in his hold. “Plea… Please.”
“I’m here,” he tells him. “You’re going to be okay, Viggo.”
A part of him doesn’t want to. Not after everything this man has done. He drove him to the point of obsession, he threatened Astrid’s life, hurt countless people and dragons alike and all in the name of profit.
But that is a very small part of him and the majority of him tells him to take care of this man without a second thought. The others will be angry, but they also know him well enough to know that he would never say “no” to anyone in need. Not even when that someone is Viggo.
“Help me, Bud?” Hiccup asks and Toothless humors him. He lets Hiccup pull Viggo up on his back. He expected a reaction of some kind. A yelp, a cry, anything, but there’s nothing and a frown of sympathy decorates his face.
“In too much pain to say anything, huh? Been there,” he sighs and then he and his dragon return to their hut.
-XOXOX-
Just as he thought, the other Riders were angry with him, especially Fishlegs. Who he pulled out of bed for an emergency and then saw that the emergency was one of the worst enemies they’d ever faced. But he decided to help. Not just because Hiccup is one of his best friends, but also because he’s a healer and helping people is what he does.
But also as expected, the other Riders decided to accept his decision. The twins were easier about it, but Snotlout remained angry for days and Astrid was quite cool and distant around him.
Hiccup probably should have a talk with her, but right now, he spends most of his days with their patient.
Viggo still occupies his bed, so he curls up to Toothless at night. Right now, however, he’s just sitting in a chair by his bedside, a sketchbook open on his lap and a pencil in hand, feet on the edge of the bed near the foot end. His current work in progress? The vulnerable Viggo he sees before him day after day.
Viggo stirs slightly, a sign that he’s waking up. Healing herbs keep him knocked out for most of the time, a mercy.
Hiccup gives him a glance, but says nothing, deciding to let him wake up on his own time.
“Don’t you have work to do?” When he begins to criticize his work ethic in wheezy gasps, Hiccup knows he’s awake enough.
“Shouldn’t you be staying quiet like Fishlegs advised?” Hiccup retorts, though there’s half a smirk there.
Viggo coughs and freezes, not even daring to breathe. His airways, his throat, and the inside of his mouth are still very sensitive, it doesn’t take much to hurt.
“How’re you feeling?” Hiccup closes his sketchbook for a moment. The other gives him a look through his one working eye. He feared he was blind in both eyes, but it wasn’t so. He was lucky.
“I know you feel awful, I was asking for any changes,” he clarifies. He could practically feel the judgment in their patient’s gaze.
“Every day feels worse than the last.”
“I figured, but Fishlegs should be coming around soon enough with more pain killers and dinner. Those should do you some good,” he says. “I know that the easiest way to get through this is to just… be as much out of it for as long as the healer says.”
“Do you have experience?” Viggo asks, they’ve been kind of, sort of friendly with each other with him stuck in bed and completely dependent on the 19-year-old and his friends.
Hiccup lifts his left leg. Somehow, his elder forgot he was missing it.
“What is the story… behind your leg?”
“You somehow knew my full name before we first met, yet you don’t know how I lost my leg?” Hiccup asks credulously. It’s arguably the biggest story to come out of Berk.
“I’ve heard rumors.”
“And I’ve heard Fishlegs tell you not to talk,” he reminds him. The heat of the Edge Volcano burned the inside of his mouth, his throat, and presumably his lungs as well. Fortunately, theyappear to be minor burns. Otherwise, Viggo wouldn’t be talking as much as he is.
A moment of silence.
“I lost my leg fighting a dragon.”
“The Red Death? So the rumors are true,” Viggo says and Hiccup nods. He would’ve been more surprised if the stories hadn’t reached him.
“You know, I don’t actually remember losing my leg? One moment, Toothless and I were fighting and the next I woke up with a leg less. I accepted it kinda quickly, I was honestly just happy that everyone made it for once. It was the recovering itself that I had the most trouble with. Stuck in bed, not being able to fly… the pain.”
“So you do have experience,” comes Viggo quietly. Recovery can be such a wildly different experience for different people.
“Which is why I’m telling you that Fishlegs should be arriving soon,” Hiccup tells him and it doesn’t take Viggo long to figure out what he’s being told. The only way his young adversary got through the loss of his leg is because he had things to kill his pain with and even straight up knock him out with when he needed to be. They were small reprieves, but they would make a world of difference.
Leave it to Hiccup to know the right thing to say. A simple “everything is going to be okay” wouldn’t have cut it, even if genuine. What he needed was the reassurance that there would be an end to his pain.
Viggo would’ve smiled if he were able. Unfortunately, suffering has taken it away from him.
Hiccup puts his feet down and leans forward, squeezing the injured man’s shoulder in support. If it hadn’t been for him, Viggo isn’t sure how he would’ve ever made it this far in this recovery.
He closes his eyes. He’s tired, but all he can focus on right now is the excruciating burning in his face. Oh yes, without Hiccup, he isn’t sure how he’s going to make it through this.
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