Decoy
It was one of the last places in Hiccup's world that was still quiet. Pressure swirled around Hiccup's head, encroaching in on his ears and pushing against his closed eyelids. On a whim, he opened them. The view under the water was just as spectacular as ever. The lake in the cove was peaceful that day, allowing Hiccup to see clear through to the bottom where ropey waterweed reached lazily upwards, woven with free-floating plants and the occasional cod. Hiccup's fascination with the world underwater nearly rivaled that of the world above the clouds. Neither were particularly crowded, but still teemed with energy and life as far as Hiccup was concerned. Most importantly, they provided ample open space he could call his own. Noise couldn't reach him if he put enough sky or sea between himself and the land.
Plus, he'd found a good douse in icy water was the trick to ridding his skin and hair of the fishy stench of dragon slobber. His armor, however, was still another animal altogether.
Clamping his eyes shut again, Hiccup reached up and kicked. He propelled upward, quickly breaking through the still surface of the lake with a sizeable, and very chilly, splash.
Toothless, who had until presently been curled contentedly at the water's edge, opened one eye to shoot his human a disgruntled glower.
"Come on, Toothless. The water's fine!"
The dragon made no effort to join his human in the water, rolling his one open eye with a decisive huff.
"I promise," Hiccup chuckled, tossing more water at the dragon. He cringed whining at the shock of the icy water. Toothless' head shot up from where it had been resting cozily against his forelegs, shaking the water from his scales. He scowled.
I will end you.
Hiccup laughed harder. "Aw, is baby-boo afraid of some chilly –"
His jibe went unfinished, morphing into an exhilarated scream when the exasperated dragon reared and plunged into the water quick as lighting. Hiccup threw himself in the other direction, attempting to maneuver close enough to the shore for his feet to swipe the bottom. Not that any extra propulsion would even remotely help his cause when he was pursued by a Night Fury who sought retribution for his ridiculous human's inane teasing. The dragon shot through the water, gaining on his prey within a fraction of a second.
Only a few moments into the chase, Hiccup managed to trip over himself and went tumbling forward into water, screams punctuated by chuckles in moments of broken character. Toothless stopped short of pouncing on the boy and instead swiped his tail across the water, sending a wave crashing over Hiccup just as he resurfaced.
Spluttering, Hiccup wiped his hands across his face. "Alright, bud, you got me. Call it even?" he suggested, rubbing his eyes with one hand and offering the other in a truce. Toothless considered the surrender for about a moment before spraying a mouthful of lake water squarely in Hiccup's face. At the boy's loud complaints, Toothless reared his head back and chortled.
"So that's how it's gonna be, huh? Have it your way!" Hiccup cried before releasing an onslaught of wildly aimed splashes. Toothless deftly avoided each attack, retaliating at every given opportunity with his tail and water-spitting assaults.
As Hiccup's return fire disintegrated into a mess of laughter and flailing arms – he really wasn't aiming at all anymore, was he? – Toothless decided he'd had enough. With decisive precision, he plunged his wings into the water and pushed forward. Hiccup's eyes bugged out of his head as the shadow of the resulting tidal wave fell over him, and the resounding crash as it fell drowned out his subsequent screeching. Tumbling through the water, Hiccup was pushed across the lake, surfacing on the other side spluttering and spitting a mouthful of water and algae. Toothless calmly slunk across the lake, sniggering as he approached. Shaking his head, Hiccup threw a derisive glance at the dragon's back as he proceeded to swim lazy circles around the boy.
"You know this win doesn't count," Hiccup reminded the dragon, who snorted in response, continuing on his circuit and blowing bubbles under the water. Huffing, Hiccup reached up to pull strings of pondweed from his hair. "You have a completely unfair advantage."
"Aw, let him have his fun. Someone needs to keep one over on you."
With a surprised yelp, Hiccup flailed gracelessly in the water before finding his feet again and whirling to retort to the girl's quip. Astrid perched cross-legged behind him on a boulder, leaning her cheek into her palm.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, finding it rather impossible to coax her gaze up to meet his.
"You think I can't find you when I want to? That's cute, babe." She brought her other palm to her chin, stretching her neck even further forward. Regardless, she managed to keep herself seated securely on the edge of the boulder. Hiccup wasn't sure what impressed him more: her ability to balance in such a position or her ability to keep her gaze so unwaveringly focused well below his face.
"Of course not," he deadpanned. "Was there a particular reason you wanted to find me?"
"Nothing special," she replied, craning her neck around to her right. Hiccup tried to plant his feet more firmly against the lake bottom, but only succeeded in tottering back and forth in the unstable sand before finding his center again. She could sit there and stare all she liked, but he wasn't about to turn around for her. Still, he didn't necessarily want to do anything to stop her present…appreciation.
Poorly masking a chuckle, she rose to her feet. "I thought you said you were going to invite me next time you went swimming?"
"It wasn't exactly planned," he replied, pulling fingers through his knotted hair. Glops of dragon slobber still stuck to patches of it. At least he couldn't smell the fish anymore. Throwing out an arm, he gestured to the expanse of the water, "But you are absolutely welcome to join."
In response, Astrid swiftly pulled off her boots and armor, discarding them in a pile next to her perch. They were quickly joined by her leggings, skirt, and top before she leapt from the boulder into the water, taking a quick breath before diving smoothly beneath the surface. He tread forward to meet her when she resurfaced breathless and all smiles. Hiccup grinned.
"Nothing like jumping into freezing cold water to shake up your afternoon, eh?" he laughed.
"I can think of a few other 'somethings', actually," she replied, reaching forward to wrap her fingers around his wrists. She kicked back, keeping her grip on his arms, and guided him back toward the boulder where she had previously been perched. Before he'd could take the lead and close the gap between them, Astrid pulled closer, resting her arms around his neck and pressing her mouth to his, eliciting a startled grunt from the boy.
From the way her lips took his, he could tell she wasn't much interested in swimming. Not that Hiccup was complaining. He quickly wound his own hands around her waist. Encouraged by her subsequent sigh and the way her spine softened against his palms, he lifted one hand to cradle the back of her neck, pressing deeper into the kiss. He savored the sensation of her fingers combing more and more vehemently through his hair, tugging him through the water, of her lips prying apart his own. When her mouth moved to the base of his jaw to travel down his neck, he allowed himself to breathe again, pressing kisses into her hair.
At this point, she had turned them around so that his back was securely pinned against the boulder. Water lapped steadily at the small of his back and trickled down the back of his neck where Astrid's fingers still tugged at his sopping hair, but it barely felt cold to him anymore. As he let his eyes flutter closed, her arms trailed down his back, dropping below his waist and tugging his hips against hers.
As quickly as they had closed, his eyes were wide open again. "What?" Astrid asked, putting all but a hair's breadth between them. Her breath ghosted over his tingling skin.
"Nothing," he replied honestly. "Is that what you had in mind when you said you wanted to 'go for a swim?'"
She smirked. "Are we desecrating your cove?"
Hiccup laughed. "That depends on your definition of 'desecration'," he replied. "If you stick with a broader one we might as well consider the whole island desecrated by now."
Besides, it wasn't as if they'd done anything particularly heinous yet anyhow. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup couldn't see Toothless anywhere near the water. He'd made a habit of venturing off whenever it looked to him like the blonde girl would be keeping his human all to herself. Presently, Hiccup certainly didn't mind giving her as much time as she liked.
He moved to kiss her again, but she stubbornly held her lips just out of reach. "So you don't mind?" she asked, still smirking.
Oh, she was just teasing him now. He answered by tightening his arm around her waist, pulling her to him.
"Okay, then," she laughed, slowly lifting her face to his. Hiccup let his eyes fall closed.
Moments later, he greeted by one freezing shower more than he could have possibly asked for that day. As he swatted and spluttered for the umpteenth time that afternoon, he could hear Toothless' snorting accompanying Astrid's raucous laughter. The Night Fury had, apparently, not been too far off at all, maintaining his post silently on top of the boulder, poised to leap down launch his final attack while the girl sufficiently distracted his target. Would the two of them really turn against his so ruthlessly?
"Get him, Toothless!" she cried between bouts of laughter. Suspicions confirmed. Hiccup whipped his head around to stare her down. He let his jaw drop open, obscenely offended. "Gods, Astrid, whose side are you on?"
In lieu of answering him, Astrid instead lost her composure entirely, ceasing her efforts to join Toothless in relentlessly splashing the boy and collapsing onto her back in the water and laughed even louder.
Hiccup swore he would never let her lure him into letting his guard down in the cove again.
Water fights and sort of sexy times. Hiccup can't let his guard down for a second around those two.
This was an exercise in writing without second-guessing every other word and refusing to restrict myself from light-hearted dribble drabbles.