"I'm going to do it!" the girl screams. "This year is my year!"
She stands across from Hiccup, flinging her arms out into the air. She's clutching something between her fingers; Hiccup can't quite see from his distance, but he can tell it's cheap and alcoholic. Her hair is wild, strands tossed and tumbling out of her its braid, and the girl stumbles across the road, still calling out to no one in particular.
"This year!" she shrieks, tossing her hands wildly up in the air. Hiccup's surprised that she doesn't drop the bottle. "I'm going to make it through this year. Watch me! You'll all see."
It's a quiet night, a Monday night, no one's really out - not on the town anyway – but the few scattered people that are out are beginning to stare. People are giving her a wide berth, and one woman actually walks across the street to avoid her.
The girl doesn't seem to notice, she just keeps walking and yelling, until she's right in front of Hiccup. For a split second, Hiccup thinks that they're just going to walk past each other, and he'd go on and forget about the girl he'd seen yelling in the streets, but as she passes him, she stumbles. Instinctively, Hiccup reaches out to break her fall, his arms shooting out and grabbing hers so that she doesn't fall face first onto the floor.
"You okay?" he asks, holding her steady.
"Fine," the girl says. Her voice wobbles.
When her eyes flicker up to look at him, Hiccup sees that her eye make-up is running. Her eyes are a shining blue.
Someone passes by, grumbles and makes a scathing comment, and Hiccup finds it hard to fight the urge not to snap back.
"Come on," Hiccup mumbles. "Let's find you somewhere safe to sit down."
They keep walking a little way, Hiccup's hands hovering over her shoulders. He's hyper aware that they're strangers, and he doesn't want to cause her any distress. The moment she tells him to leave, he'll leave.
They find a bench, and Hiccup eases her down onto it.
"I'll call you a taxi, okay?" Hiccup says. "I'll wait with you until it gets here. What's your name?"
"Astrid."
She's not shouting anymore. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she's still, staring off into space. A tear trickles down her cheek, but she doesn't wipe it away.
Hiccup slips his phone out of his pocket and begins to dial.
"Wait!" Astrid says. Hiccup freezes. "Just… wait for a second, yeah?"
Hiccup lets his phone rest in his lap, and curls his fingers around the edge of the bench, unsure of what to say now.
"Do you think I'm pathetic?"
It's not the question he expects. It's not a question he knows how to answer.
"No."
It's the obvious answer, it's the one that springs up onto his lips as soon as she asks the question, but it strikes him as he replies that he doesn't know anything about this girl. He's known her for all of five minutes, but what he will say – there's something in her eyes, something scared, something sad. He doesn't think she's pathetic, not even a little bit.
"It's just…" she begins, and then the word vomit happens, word after word piling onto each other until she's talking so fast, Hiccup wonders if she's even stopped to take a breath.
"I caught my boyfriend with another girl, and I know this sounds so high school but I just thought it'd last, you know? And I keep kicking myself because I gave a man the power to upset me and I just keep thinking about how every knew, and everyone's laughing at me behind my back and I can't take that, I can't take it, I hate it."
She stops abruptly, like she wants to say more but can't find the words. Her arms shroud herself, and she seems to shrink. Hiccup notices that she's wearing nothing but a shirt and it's a cold night – goose pimples prick across her skin. He doesn't say a word, just shrugs his jacket off and passes it off to her.
"He doesn't deserve you," Hiccup says.
Astrid sniffs, but gives a small smile. "Thanks. You're supposed to say that, but thanks."
"Anyway," she says, sniffing again and tossing her hair back. "One night, I told myself. One night to go completely off the rails, then tomorrow I'm going to pick myself up and I am going to be okay."
"This year is your year, yeah?" Hiccup says, giving her a friendly nudge.
"Yup," she says. "Sorry. I've been sitting here running my mouth off, and I haven't even asked your name."
"I'm Hiccup."
Astrid snorts, more tears spurting out, but this time she wipes them away. "What kind of a name is that?"
Hiccup grins. "My Dad hates me."
Astrid lets out a giggle. More tears spill. She wipes them away. "Sorry," she mumbles.
"S'fine. Glad to see you smile."
"Tomorrow," she says. "Tomorrow, I'll be better."
"You will."
"This year. I'll make it my year."
"You will."
He calls her a taxi. She leaves with his jacket.
A week passes.
After her drunken debacle, Astrid had woken wearing a stranger's jacket and smelling strongly of alcohol. Her memory of the night before was a little hazy, but she could just about form the conversation that she'd had with the stranger with a silly name in her head, and the embarrassment made her want to duck her head whenever she went outside.
She'd said that she'd be alright, and she is. Everything still hurts, but it's not unbearable. She'll survive.
She just didn't need to spill out her heart to a total stranger, that's all, even if said stranger was cute and friendly.
And she really doesn't know what to do with his jacket.
It's not until the end of that week that she thinks about the boy again.
She finds herself going out again, this time with a group of friends that decided she needed a girl's night, and it's actually not that bad of a time. She gets a little tipsy, not quite drunk, not drunk enough to start the whole tirade about a he-who-will-not-be-named again. It doesn't do much to quell the sadness, not really, but it takes the edge off.
It just so happens that when they leave and head for home, they pass by the very same bench that she'd met that stranger on. When they go by, Astrid sees a familiar figure.
"Hey, go on without me, I think I left something in the club," she says, stopping her friends a few metres in front of her.
"You sure? We can go back in with you," one of them says.
"I'll be fine. I'll ring you when I'm home."
The other girls leave. Astrid makes her way to the bench.
Hiccup looks wretched. He's wearing a shirt and a tie, the collar out of place and the tie all crooked. The same cheap bottle she'd had last time is next to him on the bench.
"Hiccup?"
He balks when he looks up at her. "Astrid?!"
Though his eyes are red-rimmed and he doesn't look good at all, Astrid feels something flutter at the thought he remembered her name.
"Can I sit?"
He doesn't say anything, just gestures at the seat. Astrid sits.
"Not your year either, then?" she says.
"To say the least."
"Wanna blurt your feelings to a total stranger?"
Hiccup takes a swig from the bottle. "My father hates me."
"You said that before."
A pause.
"He doesn't deserve you," she says.
Hiccup snorts. "Thanks. You're supposed to say that, but thanks."
He offers the bottle to her, and she takes a swig. It burns her throat.
"What happened?" Astrid asks, though she wonders to herself whether she's overstepping her boundaries.
Hiccup sighs. "I just can't do anything right. I try, but I'm still useless. Hiccup the useless."
"You're not useless."
"You don't know me."
"You made a sad drunk girl smile."
Hiccup opens his mouth and closes it again.
Another pause.
He casts one eye at her and looks her up and down. "Doesn't matter, anyway," he says. "It's just tonight. One night to go off the rails and then tomorrow I'll be alright again."
"Doesn't work."
"Pity."
"Give it more than one night. Give it a week or two," Astrid says, her hand covering Hiccup's.
Hiccup jumps a little at the touch, and stares down at their hands.
"This year is my year, yeah?" he says, and for the first time she sees a hint of a smile at his lips.
She brushes off the teasing. "Yeah. This year is your year."
It's her turn to call a taxi. He leaves with her number tucked in his pocket.
One week passes, and then another.
At this point, Astrid's given up all hope of Hiccup calling her. Maybe they just weren't meant to be anything other than a drunken encounter, but she had felt something there. A spark of familiarity.
But she was wrong. They were just two strangers that happened to meet twice, and she was holding onto something she'd made in her own head, and the best thing she could do would be to get on with her own life, and try and forget about Hiccup, even though thoughts of him were filling her head more than her ex.
By the third week, she'd convinced herself that there hadn't been any connection between the two of them at all.
Until:
you still have my jacket.
Astrid's heart leaps as she reads the text, and she breaks out into a smile at the one that follows after.
uh, this is Hiccup, by the way.
They meet later that week, finally, neither of them drunk, neither of them crying.
"Hi, I'm Hiccup Haddock," Hiccup says when they see each other, and sticks out his hand. "Thought I'd introduce myself properly now both of us are sober."
Astrid laughs – it's a really pretty laugh, and Hiccup notes the way her eyes crinkle and the way she tips back her head – and takes his hand. "Astrid Hofferson."
"Nice to meet you."
They sit at their bench, and this time it's coffee they drink, not cheap alcohol.
"How are you doing?" Hiccup asks, taking a sip.
Astrid shrugs. "Y'know. Okay. Not okay. Getting better. You?"
"About the same."
She nods, and the conversation lulls a little as the two of them sip their drinks.
"I think we're going to be alright," Astrid says, her fingers curled around her cup.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she says. "This year's our year."
"Yeah," he says, grinning. "Our year."