Hey guys! I know these kind of stories have been done to pieces but I felt the need to write one... So, here we are! So, basically, in this story they're all about 18 or so, being high school seniors, and I kind of felt the need to change names around a bit. Hiccup and Astrid are the same, for what reason, I don't know. But, anyway, thanks for reading! I don't own HTTYD or any of the characters used here. So, without further blathering, here we go...

"You ready for the big game tomorrow night?"

Astrid glanced worriedly at her friend Rachel "Ruffnut" Thorston, who was sporting a crooked grin as she fixed her blonde braids and stared expectantly at her friend. Astrid shrugged carelessly, though her lips were stretched into a grimace.

"I don't know," she said honestly, haphazardly shoving her duffel bag into her gym locker. "I feel like we're ready, but I know that we're not." Ruffnut just bobbed her head up and down as she followed her friend out the locker room door, both of them gripping their basketball shoes in one hand and their water bottle in the other.

"I mean, we've been practicing really hard over the past few weeks," the blonde team captain said thoughtfully, rubbing her chin. "But that doesn't mean we're ready. I mean, these are the Berserker Academy Warriors we're talking about! We've gotta go at least a half an hour after practice today to get ready…"

Astrid trailed off as the two reached the bleachers. Ruffnut rolled her eyes and plopped herself down, trying to work out a knot in one of her laces. "Yeah," she scoffed, slipping her shoes on. "Go ahead and tell the troops that. You've been overworking them you slave driver!"

Astrid glared down at her friend, giving Ruffnut a light punch to her shoulder before seating herself next to her. "We need the extra practice if we're ever going to keep being undefeated!" she snapped, slipping her shoes on and lacing them up in record speed.

Ruffnut, who had been rubbing her arm pitifully as she waited for her friend to finish, was chewing on her lip worriedly. "Well," she said after a bit. "You're not wrong. We do need to practice. Our free throws are getting a little sloppy." The blonde senior nodded with a victorious smirk and stood up, planting her hands on her hips.

"Okay girls!" she called out, referring to the members of the varsity basketball team scattered across the gym. The girls slowly made their way over to their team captain, basketballs shoved precariously under their arms.

"Alright, Coach Haddock couldn't make it to practice today, so let's get started! Let's begin with five laps!" Ruffnut and the girls groaned in mild, half-hearted protest but began running, their shoes squeaking and thumping against the court. Before Astrid's friend began running, she gave her a "playful" punch on her shoulder.

"Could've done a little less…" she said indignantly as she began jogging behind the other players. The team captain herself just grinned wickedly and brushed her braid behind her shoulder. Just as Astrid began to start running herself, she heard her name being called.

"Hey, Astrid!" She raised her head to where the gym doors were, her eyes searching for whoever the speaker had been, when someone came jogging over to her.

The guy in question was about 5 foot 11, with a mop of messy auburn hair and emerald eyes. He was tall and lanky, but still a bit muscular, like a soccer or basketball player, and he was quite attractive in a nerdy sort of way. He was wearing simple dark jeans with black converse and a plain button-up with the sleeves rolled up.

He had a camera strung around his neck and a pen perched haphazardly behind his ear, with a small notebook clutched in his hand. As the guy cracked a goofy smile that made his green eyes sparkle, Astrid's eyes widened at the stranger.

He seems so familiar... she thought to herself, gnawing on her lip. He must be in some of my classes or something. He reached up a hand to ruffle his messy auburn locks, while sticking his notebook into his back pocket.

"Hey," he said casually, his impish grin still very much on his face. "I'm with the school paper, and I wanted to do a story on the girls' varsity basketball team." She nodded and folded her arms over her chest, looking at the guy with mild interest.

"I was hoping I could take a couple pictures and you could maybe answer a couple questions?" he asked wistfully, holding up his camera in a hopeful way. Before she could stop herself her head was bobbing up and down. He shot her a delighted smile and retrieved his notebook and his pen before shooting her a look.

"You have some time right now?" She sighed heavily and nodded, immediately wanting to kick herself. Hard. and repeatedly. As mildly attractive as this dude was, she really needed to help her team practice for the big game against Berserker Academy.

Well, she thought. Would get some good rep for the team. Practically everyone reads the school paper.

As Ruffnut ran by, her cheeks tinted a light shade of red, Astrid stopped her with a forceful yank on her shirt sleeve. "Okay, once you get done with your laps, start stretches and the basic layup drill we've been practicing," she commanded in a somewhat forceful tone.

"Got that?"

Ruffnut, despite her flushed appearance, nodded and saluted her friend with a goofy smile. "You got it chief!" she said sarcastically as she began running again.

Astrid rolled her eyes as a smile tugged at her lips. When she turned back to the guy, she was a bit surprised to see him casting her a seemingly lovestruck gaze. Her eyebrows almost shot into her hairline as she looked at him.

"Uh…" she began awkwardly, as this dude was beginning to creep her out. "You wanted to ask me some questions?" He shook his head at her voice, almost snapping himself out of his sudden daze, before smiling sheepishly and scrubbing at the back of his neck. The somewhat endearing habit he seemed to have made something flutter in Astrid's chest that she immediately brushed off.

"O-oh yeah!" he stuttered, pursing his lips. "C-can we go somewhere more quiet?" She nodded and brushed past him, heading for the gym doors. He followed suit, chewing nervously on his lip as his face got really warm all of a sudden.

As a last thought, before Astrid walked out, she turned and shot a look at her team, who were just finishing up their laps. "I need to go do something, girls. I'll be back in a minute. Until then, Ruffnut's in charge," she said over her shoulder before passing through the gym doors.

The team captain's words were met by a couple surprised gasps, worrisome groans, and a single triumphant laugh. Astrid led the guy into the utterly desolate hallway and leant up against the wall, folding her arms over her chest. The pair was to the immediate right of the gym doors, and they could hear the thumps of basketballs, the swish of the nets, and a few random shrieks that they ultimately decided to ignore.

"Okay," she said as the guy got his notebook ready. "Shoot."

He grinned childishly, which Astrid surprisedly found kind of adorable, and pressed the tip of his pen to a sheet of paper. She saw some questions messily scribbled at the top of his paper, and saw that there were only a few. She involuntarily sighed in relief as he started talking.

"Okay," he began, glancing from his notebook to her and then back again. "So how do you think your team's basketball season has been going?"

She felt an excited smile beginning to appear on her face that she immediately forced down. "Well," she began thoughtfully, not meeting the guy's eyes. "Pretty good, considering that this year is the first in a long time that the varsity team has gone undefeated."

And it was true.

The year before, Astrid had been the only junior on the varsity team. The years before she was on JV. She was well liked for her athletic prowess because, somehow, every time they were losing a game near the end, she just shot out of nowhere and scored enough points for the win.

But, the year before, she had broken her wrist three quarters of the way through the season and couldn't play anymore. They lost almost all their last games without the fearsome Astrid Hofferson on point.

She, being the new team captain her senior year, had won all the games through her excellent leadership and her strategy with plays and positions. The past years had shot through Astrid's head as the newspaper guy nodded.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he shot her an unreadable look.

"So far at least," he shot out almost absentmindedly, scribbling furiously on his notepad. She cocked an eyebrow at him, her lips forming a displeased grimace.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked bitterly, her words sounding more harsh than she had anticipated. His eyes widened. "Oh no that's not what I meant!" he tried to diffuse her, waving his hands around in surrender. "I just meant that the season's not over yet!"

She rolled her eyes upon realizing his slip of the tongue and reached a hand up to sweep her bangs out of her eyes.

"Okay," she said a little tiredly. "What else?"

He tried for an apologetic smile and bit his lip, his eyebrows knitting together. This, in turn, made for a completely awkward and strange face that had Astrid biting her tongue to keep from laughing. "There's been talk that the Berk Vikings could possibly go down against your rivals the Berserker Academy Warriors. Your thoughts?"

He looked at her imploringly, his emerald green eyes resembling a baby seal - something that's just too cute to say no to. Her facade melted at the cute newspaper guy as she let her arms drop weakly to her sides. She sighed deeply at the impending question, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

Even the mere mention of defeat hurt the team captain. "Well," she began, forcing herself to keep the hiss out of her voice. "My thoughts are that we've defeated this team before - numerous times in fact - and that it shouldn't be that big of an issue. We're going all the way to state this year."

The newspaper guy nodded, gnawing on his lip as he scribbled unreadable chicken scratch onto his notebook. "Okay," he said happily, looking up at the team captain. "Last question." She felt the corners of her lips begin to tilt upwards as she cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Hmm?" she hummed, casually resting her head against the wall. "Since the boys' varsity team this year ultimately failed because of poor leadership," he began with a slight chuckle. "The pressure is riding upon your team to win state for Berk High School. Are you up for the challenge?" S

he actually let herself grin, a small laugh escaping her lips. "I know we can bring it," she stated boldly, raising her head to look at the guy. "And yeah. Always." He smiled and slipped his pen behind his ear again, his hand lingering just long enough to brush his auburn bangs out of his eyes.

He haphazardly shut his notebook and shoved it into his back pocket. "Thank you very much," he said politely, though his impish and somewhat endearing grin deterred his professional mood.

"Now, can I take a couple pictures?" She opened her mouth to object, but immediately shut it. Ignoring his forest green puppy dog eyes, she sighed deeply. "Why don't you take some at the game tomorrow?" she asked almost harshly. Where or why the hard edge came into her voice, she didn't know. He shrugged.

"Okay."

She quirked an eyebrow at him, pursing her lips. He relented really easily, she thought to herself. Huh. He randomly shook his head before he held out a hand, a small smile forming on his lips. She gingerly took it, as if it were made out of lit dynamite, and loosely shook it twice.

"Thanks again Astrid," he said kindly. She looked carefully at his face, and noticed some random things up close that she wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

Like the fact that he had a light spray of freckles across his cheeks and nose, and he had darker flecks of bronze in his gorgeous green eyes. He had the start of light brown stubble across his jaw and underneath his lip was a horizontal white scar.

She cocked her eyebrow at the mark but said nothing. As he released her hand, and started to walk down the hallway, she felt the unnatural urge that she needed to know his name. That he seemed like a nice guy if you got to know him. She felt like she needed to know him, for some strange reason.

Before he turned a corner at the end of the hallway, she almost involuntarily blurted out, "Hey!" He whipped around, emerald green eyes wide. "I-I never got your name!" she called, mentally hitting herself for how lame she sounded.

Astrid Hofferson never stutters!

He smiled, a light chuckle escaping his lips.

"Hiccup," he said back. "Hiccup Haddock."