This little one came from an ask (yes, I am open to asks, please feel free!) by grimes19, prompted from my fic 'Something I Didn't Before'. It follows directly on from that fic but I posted it separately because it didn't quite feel like another chapter. Does that make sense? If you haven't read it, this should still be largely understandable (and, I hope, enjoyable) but I think it's best if you do. It's not that long and there's funny fluff! Reviews, comments, questions, asks, always much appreciated. Thank you lovely readers!

Grimes19 – you asked what Astrid was thinking during the kiss at the end of 'Blindsided'. I'm sorry this took me so long to find a way into, hoping you're pleased with the eventual result!

For Katveena Haddock whose kind comments made me feel creative today. Enjoy And for you, of course, as usual. I know this is totally against your own Hiccstrid headcannon, but I hope you like it anyway. You keep me writing! X

On the Subject of Kisses

"Goodnight, Milady."

The kiss Hiccup pressed to Astrid's lips was warm and firm and intimately familiar. And perhaps a little breathless, considering how their last hour had been spent. He turned and huffed the candle out, plunging the bedroom into a darkness softened only by the glow of the fire and Toothless' sleeping stone creeping in from the main room of the house. Astrid lay while he settled back into the mattress and listened as his breathing deepened and evened out, the tell-tale twitch of the hand still thrown across her shoulder a sure sign that he was very much asleep. Turning under his arm she faced him and, lying on her side, drank him in. In the faint glow he could have been the boy she married all those years ago, same strong jaw, same sleepy half-smile and, she chuckled, same unruly hair. Gently, she smoothed it back from his forehead and smiled to feel it still damp from their adventures in the rain earlier that evening. Their walk (inspired by Astrid telling V the story of how she had first realised she loved her father) had become a race, and then a puddle fight, leaving them both drenched and helpless with laughter and attracting some good-natured tutting and fond head-shaking from a few members of the tribe who were well used to their Chief and his wife and their antics. Hiccup shifted in his sleep, hair re-settling into the exact, crazed position it had been in and Astrid moved her hand away. Pointless really. Beyond those braids he tolerated for her sake, there really was no controlling the stuff. Closing her eyes, she waited for sleep, but it didn't come. She opened them again. She was tired, but her brain didn't seem to want to turn off yet. Something about the conversation with V, Hiccup's eavesdropping, their evening, made her want to spend some time wallowing in the memories she'd awoken. Memories of that perfect moment, oh, seemingly so very long ago.

"It wasn't perfect. And I always thought that if it ever happened, uh... And yes, I've though about it a lot. Uh, it had to be just perfect."

Astrid's heart was doing spectacular things. Somehow, it was managing to be both in her mouth and pounding frantically in her chest at the same time and if she'd had even a second to think about it, she might have been impressed by its abilities. But she didn't. Every tiny iota of her attention was firmly fixed on the stammering, blushing boy in front of her and the fact that he had just, finally, actually, admitted to thinking about kissing her, thinking about it a lot. And on the fact that she, desperately, overwhelmingly, wanted him to do it. Her brain decided to get in on the action, screaming at her 'Now! Now! Say something! Don't just sit there! Don't get embarrassed and avoid the subject like you usually do! If you're waiting for the opportune moment, this is it! It's now!' The voice in her head was very clear; she needed so say something to let that gorgeous, amazing, beautiful boy know that she felt the same about him. But what? Playing for time, she looked out to sea. And there it was. The view, the sunset, the peace and quiet after the horribly stressful days, and, mercifully, no company. How could it get better? So she did perhaps bravest things she'd ever done, and spoke.

"Well, this seems pretty perfect to me."

Smiling lightly, she hoped she wasn't trembling on the outside too. The look in his eyes as he realised what she was really saying… her heart demonstrated its additional skill of melting. While also pounding. Clever heart. Clever, clever heart. Oh dear gods, he was moving nearer.

"Yeah? Yeah, I guess it does."

And then he was there, suddenly close and getting closer. She could feel the warmth pouring off him, smell the leather/salt/spice scent that was just Hiccup and all she could see were those impossibly deep green eyes…and then his lips finally, gently, sweetly, finally met hers.

Astrid had been kissed before. First, little-kid kisses when the gang of Berk kids were six or so, playing at 'Ragnarok' and seeing their 'husbands' off to fight for Odin. Silly, giggly little kisses on cheeks and foreheads. Or, for the scandalously daring, actual pecks on the actual lips. Kids playing at being grown ups, fun at the time but just a game. Then, at ten, a daring kiss delivered hurriedly to the cheek of the Hooligan's newest dragon-killer on the day of his graduation, long admired from afar, taking a good deal of courage, and lost, unacknowledged, in a sea of enthusiastic congratulations. Nothing but wasted anticipation. Next, the night after their first time successfully fire-fighting during a dragon raid, when Snotlout had caught her off her feet and planted a huge wet smooch on her shocked face. In the half a second before she'd floored him and sprained his arm while he apologised and blamed the 'thrill of survival' , she categorised it as damp, unwelcome and just, urk. Finally, only a couple of Snoggletogs ago, a clandestine half hour spent in the shadows of the Great Hall after one too many tankards of mead with a very enthusiastic and attractive Meathead named Thuggory. Certainly instructive, and definitely exciting, but ultimately somehow unsatisfying. Even a quick repeat of the experiment the next day, under the docks before his ship left, had drawn the same conclusions. While her body might have been left a little breathless, her mind certainly wasn't. So Astrid thought she knew a little about kissing. The mechanics were clear enough and some of the sensations were, interesting, she supposed but really, the act itself seemed…incomplete. There was something missing.

There was nothing missing in Hiccup's kiss. It was short but sweet, gentle yet pressing and overall, just right. Even as they broke slowly apart and she settled her head on his shoulder, as his arm came around her and they watched the view in near silence, that was the only real thought in Astrid's head. The rightness. Nothing really like her fevered imaginings, but so much the better for that. It wasn't that the kiss hadn't been exciting (it had, the inner trembling was definitely more pronounced), that she wasn't incredibly pleased and relieved and happy (she was, the little voice in the back of her mind was still whooping with joy) or that she didn't want to do it again (she definitely, definitely did. And then again.) but through the swirl of warm relief, excitement and joy there was only one over-riding thought; that kiss was right. Why in the name of Odin hadn't they ever done this before? (She didn't count those few shy kisses she'd planted on him when they were little more than kids, when she was swept up in the excitement and turmoil of dragons and near death escapes and she hadn't got words to talk to him properly. Those hadn't been kisses in the way this was.). They should have been doing this for years if it was so, so complete, so overwhelmingly good! One more thing Astrid could add to her list of things she knew about Hiccup Haddock. He hadn't been her first first kiss. But, and this was the rock around which her world now revolved, Hiccup would most definitely be her last first kiss. And her last kiss. And all kisses in between. She pressed just a little more closely into his side.

They were sitting in companionable, dreamy silence, simply enjoying the warmth of each other's company, when Astrid yawned. She stifled it quickly with her hand but Hiccup sat upright, chuckled.

"Yeah, you're right I guess. Long days, we ought to sleep."

Standing he put out his hand and pulled Astrid to her feet. And then didn't let go. Hand in hand, they wandered slowly back towards their huts and she allowed herself to be led in a happy daze. Her mind was a mass of pink, fluffy clouds lit by the sunshine of their joined hands. A small part of her smirked at her newly soppy self. The rest of her didn't care.

Outside the huts they parted reluctantly. Hiccup released her hand so slowly and then, just as their fingers parted squeezed it, and darted in for a second, even swifter and sweeter kiss, stunning her all over again. He grinned, sheepishly.

"I'll, um, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"

Mentally, Astrid shook herself and smiled. "Tomorrow. Yes, sure, tomorrow."

The second the door to her hut closed, the clouds cleared and Astrid was suddenly buzzing with adrenaline and excitement. She rushed out onto her balcony, interrupting Stormfly's peaceful end-of-day sunbathing with her quiet squeal and the quick patter of a victory dance. Bouncing uncontrollably, Astrid threw herself at the blue dragon and hugged her tightly before turning a few elated cartwheels across the boards.

"It happened Stormfly! It happened! Me and Hiccup! Kissing!" She stopped to jiggle the little dance again, hugging herself and tapping her feet. "Kissing! Oh Stormfly, it was…it was….Gods!" She needed a word to describe what had just happened! A big, huge, complicated word to sum up the big huge events of the day. But what word? What did you say in the face of such amazingness? Such perfection? Did such a word even…

"YES!"

The shout echoed across Dragon's Edge, but it hadn't come from her. Startled, Astrid looked up to see the silhouette of a black dragon flying into the twilight, the rider on its back pumping both fists into the air in victory and yelling to the sky,

"Yes! Yes yes yes YES!"

Grinning, Astrid leaned against the balcony rail and watched as the pair barrel-rolled away into the clouds.

Me too, babe," she laughed, "Me too."

In the soft dark of their bedroom, Astrid's puff of quiet laughter stirred Hiccup. He opened one eye to see Astrid looking at him and yawned blearily.

"Y'ok Milady?"

"Fine, love, just thinking." She replied. "Sorry to wake you."

"Thinkin' 'bout?"

"Not much. Kissing mainly."

"Kissing." He chuckled. "Perf'tly normal this time of night. C'mere."

She found herself being rolled over and tucked into his warm body, slotting as little spoon into his big spoon. Arms tight around her he dropped a kiss onto her hair.

"There. 'nother kiss to think about. Go to sleep, I promise more in th', "he yawned again, "mornin'. Sound like a deal?"

Nestled into her favourite place in all the world, drawn down into sleep at last and with the promise of kisses to come, there was only one answer Astrid could possibly give.

"Seems pretty perfect to me."