Disclaimer:
This story could possibly be a trigger for anyone dealing with PTSD due to abuse, and anyone uncomfortable with these topics should reconsider reading.
With that being said, I hope you'll all keep reading!
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Astrid stomps irritated laps at the base of her bed, still in her fancy, silky dress as she tries to self-justify her indignance.
He tried—Urg.
He is the boyfriend, and it has been four months. Scott didn't even give her four months, and they were both virgins.
Does the number of dates rule apply?
What is the number of dates rule?
She hates feeling clueless.
The pop culture magic number always seems like three, but what even constitutes a date?
If you count watching a movie together at home, or anything to do with a hospital, then they must be in the hundreds by now. But if it involves restaurants and planning, tonight was their first.
Unless she's supposed to count carving pumpkins, which she still refuses to do, because that was sneaky and ridiculous.
Her heart twinges just remembering it.
She knows, rationally, that it's ridiculous to be upset. It was just so hot and nervous and…and…Hiccup is an eighteen year-old boy, and his interest isn't exactly shocking. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't at least hoping he wouldn't want it.
At least not so soon.
She's spent months dreading him acting like a dude, and when he does, she can't even really justify being mad at him for it.
Not that she's not furious, because she's absolutely enraged.
She's just not quite sure where she means to aim the emotion.
Why is it a big deal, anyway?
She should just go fuck him and get it over with.
It almost scares her to know that if she does that, fucking will probably become a regular thing, but she squelches the thought, grinding her teeth.
He's a virgin, it's not like it'd even be a big time commitment at first. Somehow though, opening that door seems like starting a descent down a long and winding spiral to their doom.
If she and Hiccup fuck, are they still…the same?
Will hugging him still be good? Will his kisses start to be a burden? Will waking up with him still be nice? Or will everything collapse into that fucking dance of pursuit and careful avoidance?
But if she doesn't fuck him…
Something already feels…stressed, near broken in the tension between them. The hallway is a canyon and…and…
God, they've never even argued.
Well, not really.
Sure, she yells, and he bickers and they snip at each other. But it's only when they're tired or stressed, and there's always that undercurrent of love and understanding, the implied reluctance to say anything too hurtful.
She feels lonely in empathy's absence.
What if she thinks about it? Maybe it was just something that she had not yet gotten around to yet. Maybe imagining it will get the ball rolling, in either direction.
She tries to picture Hiccup naked, and gets stuck, infuriated by her remarkably stubborn lack of imagination. She can envision every sparse hair sprinkled down his skinny stomach, but any further and her mind goes frustratingly blank.
Well, she's not scared to go settle this.
Her main emotion is anger when she throws her dress over her head, marching down the hall and knocking on his bedroom door. She hears him shift, then still and an irritable sigh tears from her throat. She feels oddly vulnerable in her bra and underwear in the hallway.
"I can year you in there," she groans, rapping her fist against the door in a rapid unsettling staccato. She swallows a heavy ball of something that feels like dread and knocks harder.
"Congratulations. You haven't gone deaf in the last half hour," Hiccup's nasal sarcasm drifts through the door and she snarls.
"Let me in," she tries and fails not to sound wildly malicious.
"Why?" He asks, and his pained tone makes her stomach churn.
"I'm in my underwear," she tempts tonelessly, and she hears him clear his throat.
"What?"
"You heard me," she wiggles her toes in the plush carpet, impossibly awkward. Does Hiccup exude an aura of incompetence or something? Why is she so…stilted. She juts her chest forward before slouching, dragging her palm down the door with a squeak. "Come on, just let me in. It's cold out here," she flirts with a flat tone.
"What are you doing, Astrid?" He asks, sounding exhausted.
"Just let me in—" She reaches down to rattle the surely locked doorknob, and the door opens easily. She flushes in spite of herself, nearly falling forward. "Oh, it was unlocked this whole time?" The question sounds like a projection of embarrassment and irritation.
Hiccup's anger freezes solid for an imperceptible moment as he realizes she is in fact, in her underwear. Obviously her nice underwear too.
She wasn't lying when she said she was cold.
He coughs, and forces his frown back into place, stubbornly staring at the wall in front of him.
Gah, is that bra see through? Either that's the most suggestive pattern known to man, or he can see—
No.
She's not winning this fight by being naked. She said she didn't want him.
The ache rushes back full force and he chews painfully on the inside of his cheek.
"Obviously," he mumbles. She steps inside and shuts the door behind her, lingering by the doorway.
"Where's Toothless?" She asks, "and Spike, she was in here, wasn't she?" It's nearly impossible to resist the urge to cross her arms over her bare self.
"Yeah, Spike was in here," he sounds malicious and she smoothes an anxious hand over her stomach. She can't tell whether she wants to him to stare or disappear. He's seen her in a swimsuit, she has no reason to be nervous of all things.
It's just fucking.
"And Toothless?"
"He got tired of all the sulking and went to lie out on the couch," he says pointedly and Astrid scowls.
"I'm tired of sulking too," she spits, and Hiccup frowns, his eyes wandering to her and getting stuck. His heart rate picks up and he flushes…that is…nice.
She's fighting so dirty.
Oh god, dirty is the wrong word. He crosses his legs and forces his eyes back to the wall.
"Then go do something, this is still the home base of sulking," he snarks and she takes a couple of slow steps towards him.
Why hasn't he done anything yet? She's standing in front of him mostly naked, and he's not even looking at her. She cocks her hip, frowning when he doesn't glance her way.
"You're right," she grits through her teeth, momentarily winning when he glances at her face.
"Call the media," she wants to hit him, but the space stretches in front of her like a canyon and she settles for snarling. She stomps indignantly, and apparently he finds her worth talking to again. "What am I right about, anyway?"
"We should fuck," she states callously, drawing malicious pleasure from his reactionary flush.
The control is familiar and she can't help but grin, letting salacious words flow to the tip of her tongue.
"That's not—that's not even what I was trying," he assures her, still bitter, and she rolls her eyes. Parts of him like the idea far too much and he hates the physical betrayal.
He gets to be mad.
"Well, we should. It's been four months, it's about time," she shrugs, forcing herself to be nonchalant.
She's never felt less nonchalant.
"I didn't realize we were on a schedule," he snips and she rolls her eyes, stepping closer and edging around the foot of his bed into his ever shrinking field of vision.
"We aren't. I'm just saying that it makes sense if you want to."
"Oh. It makes sense." He repeats, rolling his eyes and avoiding looking at her.
"What?" She snips, playing nervously with the skin of her elbow.
"What?"
"Stop repeating me sarcastically!" Why is she even here? Why is she even still trying?
What's his problem?
"You're already telling me what to do, excuse me for thinking you'd want to tell me what to say too."
"That's it," she snaps, jumping onto the bed and slugging him in the ribs, knocking him sideways on the bed. "You can't talk to me like that!" She aims her next punch at his arm and he flails and catches her fist, grip surprisingly strong. She yanks her fist back, and he doesn't let go.
Astrid definitely wasn't intending to land on top of him, fist still encased in his hand. She struggles, suddenly frantic as she feels trapped.
"Let me go!"
"So you can punch me again?" He's not exactly sure what he's doing when he struggles to spin her around, bracing her shoulders against his chest and sitting up. It'd be easy to push her off of the bed from here, and chances are she'd land on her feet, but something stops him. Something warm and soft and under his hands.
His grip tightens without his consent and she gasps, bowing against him like a coiled spring.
"Let me go." Astrid mumbles, too quiet as his warm hand on her chest sends her heart into frantic palpitations.
"I don't—You're going to punch me again," his voice is low and husky, taken over by some vestige of masculinity not drowned by embarrassment and hurt.
"I'm not going to punch you. Let me go." A mysterious tear runs down her cheek, salty on the corner of her lips as she pants, bucking against him and springing to her feet. Half of her misses the undeniably pleasant warmth of his arm across her chest.
The other half turns a sob into a snarl and she's suddenly not sure what to do with her hands. She wants to cover herself and slap him and grab him all at once and it's overwhelming.
"You should get dressed," he averts his eyes from her blissfully nearly nude form.
"I-I came here to have sex with you." She says, quiet and callus as her hand lands nearly fraternally on his shoulder. She grits her teeth and plants her knee on the bed beside his legs. Her still straight leg brushes against the denim of his jeans and she breaks out into head to toe goose-bumps.
Hiccup's eyes widen and he scoots back away from her, equal parts terrified and…well, only an idiot could be anything but interested with a half-naked Astrid this close to them. She clambers onto the bed after him, hands anchored on his shoulders, hissing as her bare legs come into contact with his thighs.
Her hands fist subconsciously in the shoulders of his shirt as her eyes widen, confused and entirely too warm.
Her heel nudges against cool steel and he's suddenly so utterly Hiccup that she kisses him, shoving her tongue nearly violently into his mouth.
It's the most miserable, proudest moment of his life when he remembers the indignance, and builds the gall to shove her face away, focusing on prying her hands away from his shirt. She sits back, hovering above his knees, arms crossed and confused.
"You said you didn't want me," he reminds her, trying to be stern, and she rolls her eyes.
"That's beside the point."
This time when the world spins out of focus, it's muted and controlled. More like failing a test than jumping out of a plane.
"So it's not like you had some drastic change of heart, and suddenly want to have sex with me…" Hiccup affirms, smacking her wandering hand off of its obviously southward path, flushing crimson. "You're just here because you're supposed to be."
"It's been four months Hiccup, we're going to have sex at some point."
"And you sound so excited about that."
"It's not exciting!" She assures him, leaning over him and trying not to hate how vulnerable she feels. "It's just sex, I know you're a virgin, and it's seriously not a big deal. It's just what you do—"
"You know Astrid, you don't think a six minute mile is a big deal either, but I'm not going to go run one."
"Come on, don't you want to have sex with me?" She asks, taking full advantage of the power that she knows she has as she leans down, brushing her chest against his with an uncomfortable pang in her stomach.
Is the heater on? Is the thermostat set to eighty degrees?
"I'm a little more concerned about you wanting to have sex with me." He admits, clinging to anger with every last thread of his brain. God, those are barely even underwear. Do those count as underwear?
Is that a job? Deciding what counts as underwear?
Are they hiring?
Not for him, for Astrid, obviously. She has the perfect frame for deciding whether something is considered underwear or not.
"Again, that's beside the point," she grumbles, grabbing his hand and moving it towards her chest. His fingers glance the lace cup of her bra and twitch forward, warm and strange on her skin. The room is suddenly too small and she grimaces, shoving his hand away. "And I don't like that."
"So you're in here to have sex with me, but I'm not allowed to touch you?" He asks strangely, his mind drugged with expanses of sweet golden skin and feelings he should be avoiding.
She doesn't want him.
She's half naked and on top of him, and so wonderfully, overwhelmingly warm.
She doesn't want him.
She said it in plain words that she still doesn't want him.
God, he almost touched her.
"You don't need to touch me to fuck me," she purrs awkwardly, her teeth feeling clumsy in her mouth. He braces careful hands on her shoulders and pushes her away, trying and failing again to scoot out from underneath her.
"Can you not say it that way?" He hedges and she pouts, expression tentatively predatory as her hand roughly jerks at his belt buckle.
"Say it what way?" She asks, strategically fiddling with his belt. He pushes her hand away and it dives back, anxiously determined.
"You said you didn't want me," he reiterates quietly and she swallows, her throat thick and confused. She can hear her own breathing echoing in her ears like pounding drums.
"You keep bringing that up."
"It was kind of important, you know," he mumbles, skittering away from his half-naked girlfriend like he didn't even think was possible. "The whole admitting you've never been attracted to me—"
"Of course I find you attractive."
Not when she's this naked. He seems larger, more menacing than real life.
It sounds like she's lying, and even with the broad shoulders of the truth glaring her in the face, she's unsure.
If he were ugly, would this be easier?
If he were plain and pretty like Scott, or stupid, would this make more sense? Would it be clearer cut?
If she didn't like him so much, could she reduce her plane of thought to his dick and nothing more?
She doesn't want them to end, she doesn't want to cease feeling real, doesn't want to go back to cardboard after a life in canvas and vibrant oil paints.
"But you don't want me?" He reaffirms, confusing settling into its twin spot with misery.
"Can we not talk about it?" She asks, reaching behind her in a way that's trying—and succeeding—so desperately to be hot. She fiddles with her bra clasp and his eyes widen.
He gulps.
She blinks and glances down at her toes that are too cold, moving away from the steel of his fake foot.
His eyes widen and he stiffens like a lifeless plank beneath her.
"This is about my leg, isn't it?"
"What?" Astrid asks, taken aback.
She was too busy focusing on the fact that she's almost naked and he's about to be naked to even think about the total inconsequence that is his leg.
"It's about—Oh, wow, that makes so much sense," he grumbles, the world imperceptibly still and quiet behind the curtains of blood rushing through his ears, drowning out everything but the clicking together of an hours old puzzle.
Scott was…hot.
Even as a perfectly straight guy, Hiccup can admit that Scott Nout looks like an underwear model. Sure, he's dumb as a post, and a complete asshole, but that's what Astrid is used to. That's what she wants.
And if his scrawny, unappealing body weren't enough of a deterrent, he has to have the hideously deformed stump marring the end of his left leg.
Going from a 10 to a 5 is possible, and proven by the last few months.
Can he really blame her for not wanting to downgrade to three quarters of a man?
It's…it would have been impossible to really do this, right?
God, it's not…he shouldn't…
"Me trying to have sex with you has nothing to do with your leg," she assures him acridly, reaching back down jerking on his belt, utterly unsure of why her hands are shaking.
It's just fucking, and she's sure Hiccup isn't packing anything she hasn't seen before.
"Get off of me," he snaps, shoving on her hips harder than she knew he could. She falls onto the bed, smacking the ball bone of her ankle on the steel of his left foot.
"Ow! Shit," she exclaims as her foot goes entirely tingly, prickling ferociously. "What's your problem?"
"I don't need your pity!" he blurts, scuttling back to sit against the bedframe. Astrid nurses her ankle, smoothing her fingers over her obviously forming bruise.
"I'm not pitying you!" She rolls off of the bed, strangely relieved over her anger as she flings her arms wide. "But I have to say you're absolutely brilliant at rejection!"
The rejection should sting, she remembers when he didn't kiss her back and she thought the world might fling off of its axis.
It's a relief to snatch a dirty tee-shirt off of his almost tidy floor and tug it over her head, covering herself. It smells like Hiccup, and that fact is so overwhelmingly comforting that she thinks she might puke.
"I'm not the one rejecting you!" He tucks his prosthetic under him, the sharp edge digging into his tailbone with blunt, bruising honesty.
He's not whole.
He's done pretending.
"Last time I checked, getting naked and climbing on top of you isn't exactly the definition of rejection, Hiccup."
"Whatever," he grumbles, looking anywhere but her shaking, fired up radiance. "You said you didn't want me, Astrid."
He never had a real shot.
"Wanting you has nothing to do with sex!" She stomps, feeling childish and out of control. She wants to hit him, but that'd make everything so much worse.
"Astrid, wanting me has everything to do with sex!" Hearing something that makes sense but doesn't is enough to send the entire world off kilter. She should want him. She should want to want him.
Why does she feel this way?
This doesn't make sense.
She was so normal before Hiccup, so overwhelmingly normal. Normal friends, normal boyfriend, normal extra-curricular activities. Normal everything until she went home—
"That's your opinion."
"You wouldn't let me touch you," He insists, "in fact you acted pretty disgusted—"
"Well, why would you even want to touch me?" She turns the tables, only scarcely believing her own audacity. "It's just sex."
"You forget, I don't have your infinite experience—"
"Right, because I'm so promiscuous, Hiccup! Two isn't the highest number in the world—"
"Two what?" He stops her, voice quieting curiously.
"My number is only two higher than your big fat zero, that's not exactly—"
"Who besides Scott?" Hiccup asks.
Astrid's stomach drops to her feet and goose bumps assault her skin as she trembles, fists balling.
"None of your business."
"Yeah, because apparently having sex with you is none of my business," he sneers, suddenly mean, and a misplaced tear flows down Astrid's cheek. She wipes it away near violently, the blood blooming under her skin a welcomed distraction from the roiling emotions in her brain.
"Apparently not." She spits, voice low in her throat as she whirls, storming out into the hallway and back to her room.
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Is she promiscuous?
Is that really who she is?
Is that why Scott was interested?
She was fourteen, she didn't know what she was doing. And it turned out flirting was easy, too easy. Easy enough that she had him blushing and asking her out in a month.
Kissing was easy.
Is she a crappy kisser? Is that the problem here?
She's only ever kissed Scott, and there was the peck on the lips during spin the bottle in seventh grade, but who really counts that.
It's not like Hiccup knows any better than she does. God, he's only a step behind her, really.
And then everyone else was interested in her because Scott was, and it was a sprint up social Everest. Right?
She knows that Scott was all about locker room talk, the football team is probably still salivating over unrealistic stories involving her being naked. But no one thought those were true, did they? It's obvious just looking at her that she's not packing D-cups, and that she's more skinny than anything.
But she likes looking capable, likes the world knowing what she can run and do. She likes that people are afraid of her, and that she can keep people at a distance with nothing more than an overtly clenched fist.
But she let Hiccup in.
And her dad forced his way in.
She shoves that particular thought from her mind, shaking her head and burying her face in the pillow. It's uncomfortable. She's uncomfortable.
She's cold.
A large part of her wants to climb into bed with Hiccup. Even Spike curled by her feet is like a drop of warmth in a bucket of frigid misery.
Hiccup's probably warm, wonderfully warm spooned around Toothless. The wolf wouldn't mind her wiggling in between them, arm over his furry shoulder and Hiccup's big hand resting on her waist.
She does like him touching her, really.
She likes it, it's just confusing.
Sure, when she did stuff with Scott, sometimes it felt good, but never on purpose. That was never the intention.
And yeah, the first few times were different, she was young, and thought she was in love. But things change, and reality takes over, and it became monotony.
Hiccup is just as clueless as she used to be. He doesn't get that all those romance movies and porn and all of that are wrong. It's just a physical thing, entirely a physical necessity for him, that she undertakes as his girlfriend.
He should be grateful that she's willing to do him, even though it's going to ruin every facet of their relationship that she loves. She's going to miss kissing him, and cuddling him, and taking walks with the dogs. Hell, she'll miss people-watching in hospital waiting rooms, guessing what people did to get hurt.
She already misses his voice, she misses the way that even his eyes smiled when he looked at her. She misses his careful hands on her back while she kissed him.
That's insane of course.
She saw him yesterday…it's only 3 am, so they were fighting barely four hours ago.
It's not like they broke up, right? Breaking up requires the words 'over' or 'dump.' It's not something that can just materialize out of some cruel words and take her life in its hands.
Hell, she loves him and she still tried to have sex with him, that's got to mean something. She's never considered something rash like that before.
She guesses that it shouldn't have taken her by surprise like it did. Of course he would eventually want to have sex with her. And he's definitely preferable to sex that she's had before. She's sure he'll be a walk in the park, a figurative day off, and it might even be ok. There had been times with Scott that were better than the rest, mostly the sober times, when he didn't go so hard, or so blindingly fast. There were times when she could almost see what everyone talked about on the horizon, looming and confused somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach.
If Hiccup were like that, it'd be ok.
It's the attentiveness that kills her.
She's still got chills remembering the way his eyes traced over her body, even while he was clinging to his righteous indignation. The way he looked at her, sweeping over every freckle, every imperfection, it was blazing. Blazing and terrifying.
God, he was face to face with every flaw, noticing every little thing that kept her from blending in, from staying where she was supposed to be.
She wonders what he thought.
What if he saw the same thing Scott did? The same thing her father eventually saw—
She can't lie here anymore, she might actually go insane.
Astrid rolls out of bed, stumbling to her dresser and fumbling a pair of socks on in the dark room. She shoves her feet into her running shoes and wrangles herself into the comforting compression of a sports bra, forgetting her jacket as she jogs down the hallway in her tee-shirt and flings herself through the front door.
It's barely below freezing, and the cold feels more bracing than anything as she sprints down the driveway, legs churning at the gravel.
Fucking Valentine's Day.
It's always been stupid, always been a day of double whammies. The pre-punishment intending to scare her off of having a boyfriend, followed by the actual boyfriend.
This year was supposed to be different. This year was supposed to be Hiccup.
Wonderful and quiet and warm. It was supposed to be calm and empty of appearances for appearance's sake.
And now it's three in the morning, and she's sprinting uphill, face frozen solid with mysterious silent tears streaming down her cheeks. She can't tell whether her hands are numb or whether she's just given up feeling them. Her knee throbs under the thin flannel of her pajama pants as the wind starts cutting through the fabric in earnest.
She should have brought Spike, at least Spike still looks at her like she's the Astrid she wants to be.
She's so confused. Why didn't he want her? Why wasn't it an obvious decision?
The hypocrisy of expecting to be wanted while not doling out the same emotion is lost on her.
It's three thirty when she bursts back inside, seized with fits of shivering in the face of the warm air. Spike greets her, concerned, and she scratches her head with absent numb fingers, stumbling and panting back to her room.
She stops at Hiccup's bedroom door, pressing her ear against the wood.
She can hear Toothless snoring, the sound surprisingly delicate and wheezy. Mostly though, she can hear Hiccup's too hoarse breathing, labored and absolutely awake.
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OH MY GOD!
You guys are amazing. 38 reviews on a first chapter over a weekend?
Like seriously. I like it so much, that I got really excited/depressed while studying for finals and threw this thing up nine hours early. We'll see how long this posting schedule works, eh?
Also, I'm attempting to respond to reviews on this story! Again, this might not last because I'm going into finals, and that's going to take precedence over review responding. This is already written so it won't mess up my posting though, so have faith!
Anyway, I need something to be excited about today, and I would really really really love any feedback that you guys feel like I deserve!
