She didn't sleep well. She couldn't remember ever being a heavy sleeper or a late sleeper, but it only got worse as she grew older. Astrid started at any light sound, her ears listening for the blare of the raid alarm even in unconsciousness. Her hand stayed buried beneath her pillow, wrapped around the handle of her axe. If nothing, she was always ready. Always prepared.

But she didn't sleep well.

That morning, she woke up to what she thought was an explosion. It was only a peel of faint thunder from the storm that had inched near the island but never arrived, but it tore her from her sleep nonetheless. After that, she couldn't force her body back into its distant dream. Judging by the moon missing from the black sky, it was near morning anyways. So she slipped out of bed and into a warm tunic.

Astrid didn't mind being up before the rest of the village. Usually her morning runs and training sessions were started just as the sun was rising, and she waved at passing villagers as she worked. But being awake while everyone else still slept wasn't bad either.

It was a little cathartic, really. Her brain had been buzzing before bed the night before, and it quickly resumed its frustrating noise after her feet hit the floor. She started her run with the intention of running away from the chaotic thoughts. The thuds of her feet against the earth settled into a rhythm that should have exorcised the frustration. But the burn in her chest and the sweat on her brow only became background nuisances for the irritating swirl of distraction.

Hiccup Haddock had saved her life.

The chief's irritating, useless, incessantly odd son had saved her. After the Monstrous Nightmare bit her axe-head clean off its handle and spat out the pieces, she'd been torn between making a clean escape and rescuing her favorite weapon. The first heirloom her mother had ever bestowed her. And if her mom's health didn't start improving soon, it'd be the last one.

Astrid hadn't even known he was around. Raids were chaos, and everyone knew everyone had to fend for themselves. Hiccup almost never left the forge during raids. But in the strange stretch of time between her lunging for her broken axe and the Nightmare opening its jaws to breathe an end to her life, the village baker had somehow found his way her.

"Don't don't don't!" he'd shouted, and the dragon swallowed its fire in surprise.

Narrowing its yellow eyes, the beast shifted his gaze from Astrid to the skinny Viking with no weapon in sight.

Hiccup had held out his hands, showing the Nightmare that he wasn't a threat. She'd thought he couldn't get more idiotic. But on her knees in front of a dragon with a broken axe cradled in her arms, she was in no position to judge. Instead, she watched him with shock and something like indignation as he slowly stepped aside. The dragon followed his motions.

"Hey, buddy," he said to the beast, as if they were old friends. "Don't– don't burn the pretty lady to a crisp. Let's just… just go our separate ways. You don't attack us, we won't attack you."

"Hiccup–!" she'd started to hiss, but then the Nightmare shifted on its clawed feet. Her heart pounded, and she watched wide-eyed from its shadow, terrified for the boy's life. It growled low in its throat, and then– unbelievably– it paced back and forth in front of the chief's son a few times before belching a little flame and taking to the sky.

Astrid still wasn't sure what she saw. Even after Hiccup took the pieces of her axe from her hands and ensured her he'd fix it, and even after the rest of the raid continued without any unusual instances, she couldn't quite understand. Hiccup took on a Nightmare with no weapons. And the dragon listened to his request.

It was bizarre. She'd killed her first Nightmare at fifteen, as the head of her class in dragon training. Hiccup hadn't even finished dragon training. Astrid was the fighter, the warrior, the one Berk could count on, and yet she'd nearly lost her life for a minor distraction. And damned Hiccup Haddock had been the one to save her. The irresponsible, selfish boy who hid in his workshop, in his bakery, with his hands buried in a bowl of dough. The village disappointment.

Her hands balled into fists at her sides as she ran, jaw tight and brain swimming with self-disgust. The ache in her side, the rubbery trembling in her legs– they were her punishment. For slipping up, for allowing herself to be caught in that situation. She had to be better– always had to be better. The village was declining. Her mother was dying. Everything was on the precipice of falling apart, and she had to focus or it would all crumble in front of her. There was no time for relaxing, no time for distractions. The dragons never gave up, and neither would she.

But gods she was so tired. She didn't sleep well.

The sky was still black when she finished her first lap around the village. The sight of the bakery suddenly pulled her up short, and she bent in half, resting her hands on her knees as she panted for breath. The windows were lit. She watched them flickering with light, a beacon of orange and yellow warmth in the chilly, black morning.

How could he live like he did? Content with baking bread, sharpening swords and inventing constantly-malfunctioning gadgets. How could he not feel the weight of a village on his shoulders? How could he stand by so easily while everything else burned? What was his secret?

How could he still manage to smile at her whenever they met?

Her feet took up their pace again, pounding out a reluctant pace. Her eyes, though, didn't move from the bakery. The door was wide open, a warm glow bleeding light into the pre-dawn shadows. Her legs slowed. Stumbled. For a minute, she stood and stared and listened to the buzz of her thoughts.

Then her boots were crunching over gravel. They pointed towards the open door, and then one after another, they pulled her forward. It was a magnetic tug that she didn't quite understand but responded to anyways. She rubbed the back of her hand across her face, scrubbing away sweat. Her fingers pushed frizzy bangs out of her eyes.

Hiccup looked much less awake than she was. She stood in the bakery doorway and watched as he kneaded dough with heavy eyelids and weary sighs. His expression was blank, and every now and then he'd pause to dig the base of his palms against his tired eyes. Somehow she knew that his job forced him to wake up this early every day. Still, it hadn't ever occurred to her that Hiccup might spend every morning like this: alone in the dark hours before sunrise.

"Hey," she breathed, chest burning with exertion.

His head snapped up, fingers freezing in a lump of pale, fluffy dough. "Astrid. Hey." Giving her a surprised grin, he coaxed his arms back into their familiar task. "What are you doing here?"

"Workout," she answered. The delicious heat of the small building called to her, melting her bones and teasing warmth back into her chilled cheeks.

"Cool." He started talking about something else– maybe his to-do list or how weird it was to see her there. But she wasn't really hearing him.

Astrid reached behind her for the door and slowly pulled it shut. Hand lingering on the brass handle, she let her gaze fall to his work table.

"Oh, you can leave it open," Hiccup told her, pointed with a floury finger. "The breeze is kind of nice. It gets hot in here."

She leaned against the wood, head resting back for just a moment as she found the latch and locked it shut. When her eyes flicked back to the chief's son, he'd gone still. He gaped at her, stunned and blinking.

"Astrid…?"

It was a short journey across the tiny room and behind his work table. Weird that it had seemed like such a chasm before. She stood inches apart front of him, closing the space between them when he took a step back and furrowed his brow at her. When exactly had he gotten taller than her?

Her fingers knotted in his hair and dragged his face down to meet hers. The kiss she stole was hard, wanting, more force and teeth than anything. Hiccup broke away, expression caught between shocked and dazed. But when she fisted his shirt in her hands and yanked him against her for a second time, he didn't pull back.

Her heart hammered and fluttered against her ribs like it was trying to escape. Astrid thought it had been hard to breathe during her run, but while kissing Hiccup, forcing oxygen into her lungs became an impossible task. His lips were warm and just a little chapped against hers. His hands hovered awkwardly at her sides until she parted his mouth and teased her tongue inside. Then his palms quickly found her waist.

She tugged at his shirt, holding him tightly in place. He tasted like smoke and honey, and she wondered what sensations she inspired on his tongue. Fire razed through her veins. The hair on the back of her neck stood at attention, following the shiver that raced down her spine. Her body recognized absolute pleasure before she even identified it as such.

Astrid needed this. Needed to take something for herself without questioning whether or not it was the right thing to do, how it would affect her family or the village, if she'd regret it later. She needed to understand how he could not care, and she needed him to teach her.

A pleased little whimper slipped from her throat. And it was like a switch flipped. Hiccup's hands became a little firmer at her waist, and he turned her just slightly. Before she could question it, he was pressing her back against his work table. She felt the edge of it digging into her lower spine. Undoing the knots of her fingers, she scraped up and down Hiccup's chest. She could feel the places that were still scrawny, especially the edges of his ribs whenever he gasped for air. But she could also feel muscle closer to his shoulders and sternum. Almost of their own volition, her hands tore his shirt upwards in an attempt to feel more.

There were obviously still questions forming in his mouth– she could taste them as much as she could feel them coming. But he allowed her to pull his shirt up and over his head. It fell to the floor at their feet, and then she was spreading her fingers over the hot skin of his chest. His palm found the curve of her lower back and shoved their bodies together so that his stomach was pressed tight against hers. Astrid explored his shoulders, his arms, his back. Her nails dug into his flesh when he sucked her lower lip into his mouth and gently nibbled.

Something dug into her collarbone. It was just a faint nuisance at first, but the harder they tried to meld their bodies together, the more the thing stabbed into her. After a moment, she summoned the strength to lean back and search for the source of the bruising. She found it quickly– a black charm of some sort hanging from a leather cord around Hiccup's neck.

"What's that?" she exhaled, brow knit together with curiosity.

When he realized that she was staring at the vaguely triangular black stone, a shadow crossed his face. The hand that had been so nicely kneading the flesh of her hip like bread dough lifted to cover the charm. He grabbed the necklace and lifted it over his head, tossing it on the counter behind him.

"Just a necklace," he answered, and then green eyes searched her face (warily?) for a half second before his mouth came crashing against hers once more. There was a new fierceness to this kiss, an urgency that made her almost feel like he was trying to distract her.

And it was working. Her thoughts dissolved, and the black little stone flitted from her mind. When his arms wrapped around her and lifted her feet off the ground, every other fleeting worry flew away. Hiccup eased her up onto the work table, clumsily knocking his bowl of dough aside to make space. Through some unspoken instinct, her knees parted, and his narrow hips slid between her thighs. Her ankles locked around his back, and she detoured a trail of open-mouthed kisses down his neck.

Hiccup groaned, and the noise was so unbelievably exciting. That hidden place at her core gave an almost painful twinge in response. It was almost laughable– she was throbbing with desire, growing warm and wet and dizzy, but he was still being excruciatingly gentlemanly. His hands refused to slip from the safe expanses of skin between her breasts and her hips. They squeezed her waist, awkward but obviously aching to travel elsewhere.

Astrid took control. Grabbing his wrists, she dragged his touch to the frantic rise and fall of her breasts. Then she tightened her knees at his hips and pulled him forward until her skirt was crushed fabric in her lap and she could feel him there. The press of him was nice. But the hard length of heat burning against her was indescribable.

He groped her breasts hesitantly, experimentally. She couldn't help but notice that he approached her body like a machine– learning the survey of it before testing her, studying her, seeing what made her hiss and what made her moan low in her throat. When he scratched a nail over the nipple trying to harden through her bindings, a surprised expletive of arousal leapt from her lips. Her hips surged forward, into that scalding thing at his groin, and then Hiccup was the one making noises of pleasure.

Astrid's eyes fluttered open. The sky outside was lightening just a fraction, almost like the day was waking up with her. It wasn't just her body coming to life– it was the newness of experience. For a moment, there wasn't a village outside the bakery to protect and defend. It was the knowledge between her and Hiccup and the fires they were both attempting to contain. She knew how reproduction worked– she was well aware that their most intimate parts were separated by just two thin layers of fabric. And instead of fearing for the island for once, she was afraid of how incredible it felt to have him rocking slowly into her.

Her mouth traveled further, the freckles on his shoulders like little electric sparks on her tongue. What would it be like? To have a man there? Hiccup– for it to be him? He would be gentle, she knew, because even with the rough way their hips surged against each other, his hands were steady and soft on her breasts. He would be patient and studious and work out her frustrations with his hands the same way he worked dough. Maybe with him, she could feel like a woman. Not a warrior.

"Astrid," he whispered into her hair. "Astrid." Each burst of her name against her forehead was matched by a jolt between her thighs. Then his hands slid back down to her waist. To safe territory. "As much as I'm going to hate myself later for saying this… You have to go."

Her hands slid over the warm skin of his arms, unwilling to lose the smooth friction. "What if I wanted you? Right now."

All of the air seemed to escape him in one choked sigh. But then he pulled back just barely so that she couldn't reach him with her mouth. "I… I like you, Astrid. But I don't want to do that with you like this. Here."

She wet her lips, eyes searching his cringing expression. His breathing was just as heavy as hers, hot panting as they both chased their breath. And she found the sincerity in his gaze, the reluctance.

She realized that apparently Hiccup Haddock cared more than he ever let on.