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"My friends dared me to buy 20 condoms but i didn't realize that the cute cashier would be working tonight so i avoided eye contact as i piled them onto the counter and please stop laughing so hard, oh my god it's for a dare okay i've never had sex in my life and once you stopped laughing, i swear i fell in love with that sparkle in your eye as you grinned wildly at me and asked me out for a drink" AU
Treasure Island
"Almost there."
Hiccup beams with pride at the impressive-looking jenga tower made out of various gum packets at the counter. It was, as he found out just recently, a much more entertaining way to kill some time in-between rush hours. He's come a long way since reading food etiquettes out of boredom - he's mature like that.
(He swears he's never going to drink soda again.)
Sleeves up and tongue out, he focuses on the finishing touches of his architectural debut. He starts another layer when the bell at the door rings, announcing someone's unexpected visitor causes the tower to sway dangerously to the sides and Hiccup tries to catch the fallen gum, trying his best to act natural.
Read: Press multiple gum packets to your chest while trying to ignore that the person that just walked in is the girl you have had a crush on since she punched a ball flat a few years back.
Astrid.
Astrid who, unlike all the other times she's ignored him in the past few years, actually locks eyes with him this time. As he stands there. Hugging gum.
Well, this is sad.
She stares at him for a brief moment, her eyes sliding to the gum. He sees her bite her lip, or maybe he's imagining it (maybe, probably), as though she's trying to stop herself from smiling. Laughing, more like it, he corrects himself quickly.
Astrid and her laugh-smile disappear in one of the aisles and he shudders a breath of relief, flooding the counter with gum. He quickly stuffs the packets on the right shelf, pretending the packets have never moved from their designated place and he has never made an idiot of himself. Never ever.
He fixes the collar of his shirt in the blurry reflection in the soda machine. His hair sticks out in every possible direction, he realizes with a grimace. His attempts at smoothing it out turn out to be utterly useless as his hands shake and heart races, eyes sliding to the aisle Astrid disappeared in.
He takes a deep breath and calms himself down.
It's Astrid. Just Astrid. Astrid and her groceries. Puh-lease, what's the worst thing that could happen?
Hiccup fixes his name tag as he notices a flash of blonde hair coming his way. He stills.
And chokes on his own saliva.
(Quick advice for the future generations: gods apparently do not have a grasp of what a rhetorical question is supposed to be.)
His mouth goes dry as he stares at a mountain of packaged condoms sprawled in front of him.
"Uh," he responds intelligently.
Astrid raises her head to meet his eye, the lightest of red tinting her cheeks. She stands there, surprisingly confident for a girl with two armfuls of condoms blatantly displayed right before them.
He manages to swallow down (no, Hiccup - stop) the initial shock and punch the first item into the cash register. He needs to count them, oh boy.
Twenty. There's twenty of them.
Astrid is certainly….full of surprises.
"Is that, um," Why is she staring at him like that? Thor's beard, he's going to die here. What a way to go, truly. "I-is that all?"
"Yes," her voice cracked at the end, though her face remained unfazed. Gods, he can't take it anymore.
"C-cash or-" he is interrupted by her slamming down the exact amount of money she needs to pay. He yelps slightly. Would anyone be as kind as to, maybe, end his misery since Astrid seems unwilling to cooperate?
"Would you, uh, would you like a bag?" he only sees her nod, before he shifts his eyes away.
He's open to all ideas. Seriously.
She stuffs her newest purchase into a plastic bag without a word almost...angrily. Or maybe she's stressed. But Astrid doesn't get stressed.
Huh.
He is halfway through mentally writing down his last will when he catches a movement outside the store.
If someone asked Hiccup what he expected to see today at work, a Mount Everest of condoms and Ruffnut Thorston making disgusting kissy faces by the window were not in the top 10. Or top anything actually.
And he'd gladly live all his life without seeing that.
Astrid must have gathered something else was going on behind her back (his ready-to-bulge-out eyes might have been a clue) because she turns around as well. Her hand goes to grip the end of her braid, various shades of red coloring her face once she realizes who it is and what the "who" is currently doing.
He knows that face. It's the I-will-axe-you-in-half face. He involuntarily shudders. (He admits it's kind of maybe really awesome at the same time.)
"Gods-" she grunts, pinching the bridge of her nose. Hiccup can't help but find it endearing. Is he embarrassed out of his mind? Yes. Is the crush still present? Also yes.
(He might be a hopeless case, yes, he knows.)
Astrid hugs the bag closer to her chest, making her way towards the exit hurriedly. Hiccup is torn between wanting to hide under the counter and pretending this never happened, and seeing Ruffnut making kissy faces at the pavement.
Both tempting. Both very possible. And yet…
"Hiccup," Astrid stops by the door and turns to face him once again.
He stares at her and it takes him a moment to remember that, ah, yes, he's Hiccup. Though having realized that quite valuable information, he lets out a strained noise because, apparently, words and normal communication in general is simply overrated.
"It was a dare," she informs him.
"Uhm," he responds as a normal human would, of course. Astrid rolls her eyes and raises the plastic bag.
"This," she wiggles the bag in the air, suddenly appearing much smaller and much more self-conscious.
"Oh," he gets it, finally, and feels a wave of relief wash over him. He hasn't realized how badly he needed to hear something like that; however selfish that makes him sound.
"Sorry," she shrugs awkwardly and he takes a moment to marvel at the thought of Astrid being awkward to begin with. She throws a thumb the window's way. "Ruffnut is stupid."
"She got 76 on the last te- wait, you don't mean literally, do you?" he cringes at his own flabby mouth for opening without thinking…...again. To his surprise, though, Astrid laughs. It's not sarcastic, or mocking, but...genuine?
"Only you could say that," she shakes her head with a smile.
"I...honestly don't know whether to feel offended, or not," he allows himself to grin teasingly. He doesn't know why he suddenly feels so at ease, but he has a feeling he can. And when she smiles back, Odin's ghost, when she smiles back, he soars.
"Definitely," she winks - winks! - and he is back to his pre-dying state, except for all the best reasons. He thinks so, at least.
"Definitely yes, or-"
"Are you free tomorrow?" She, once again, manages to throw him off guard - not that he's complaining much. Read: at all.
"Yes!" he splutters out before he remembers that he should probably at least pretend to be the slightest bit of smooth. He tries to lean forward on his arm. "I mean I will, uh-"
His elbow slips on the slick surface of the counter and he coughs. "need to check if-"
Astrid quirks an eyebrow with a smirk.
"Yes, I am free, ma'am," he quickly adds. She smiles in satisfaction.
"Good."
Before he can register it, his arm is roughly pulled out towards her. She takes one of the cheap pens with dragons stickers they always try to sell to kids and writes something down.
"That doesn't wash out," he points out with a grin. Astrid glances at the numbers written over his arm before settling on the blue dragon on the pen.
"Even better."