IF someone tells you in just seven days they can make you a man, ask them if those are calendar or business days.

...wow. Combine a customer service job with watching a certain movie on you day off and your thought processes get really weird.


Hiccup was learning things that would help their marriage.

Like what to do when your devastatingly lovely warrior wife wants to do things that she wasn't physically able to.

It had been a long, lovely afternoon, and he wouldn't have traded it for the world. Even with the certain knowledge that they were so, so, so obscenely busted when they returned to the village.

But right now neither of them should have been ready for anything more than a good nap. Every time he had found release he had fought off the urge to curl up and sleep. Even with arousal prickling his senses and pulling his attention to Astrid's full, swollen lips, he couldn't deny that curling up in a bedroll was appealing.

But even with popping knees, bark marks on her back, and a body so tired it swayed when it tried to sit up, Astrid wanted to keep going. And he didn't know if it was because she loved him or she was grasping at her one last act of physical love for a while.

He laid back on the dirty forest floor.

"You're taking a nap now?"

"Hey. Come here. Relax." Hiccup said, "This is part of it. Let's pretend we are in bed. Our bed. Back home. It's our day off and you woke up a few moments before I did. What would you be doing?"

Astrid crawled over and laid down next to him. Her still-sweaty skin was cold, and the hand that crawled under his shirt moved back and forth, more trying to warm up than anything else. Her legs touching his made him realize how cold parts of him were.

"You like the left side of the bed, then?"

"I just like being against the wall."

"The wall in our bedroom is on the right side of my bed. We could move it, but with the size of the new bed, it fits better that way."

Astrid shimmied against his side. "The bed's done?"

"Almost. Fartette is still sewing the mattress."

Astrid crawled over Hiccup to his right side. "So where have you been sleeping?"

"In the new bed. The frame is pretty comfy. So long as Toothless doesn't light it on fire again."

"Why would Toothless torch our bed?"

"It's the way he makes his bed in the wild! You know when he can't hang off of something, like a tree branch, a cliff..."

"A support beam to scare your father at an hour of the morning that even Loki wouldn't be up in..."

Hiccup laughed. Oh man. That morning would be a drinking tale for the rest of their lives. "Right. He usually sleeps on heated stone. The bottom of our bed felt like stone, so he tried to heat it."

"Like a cat scratching at furniture to sharpen its claws." Astrid said. She squirmed. "If we were up early in the morning, I think I would be spooned up against you."

Hiccup obliged, rolling over on his left side so Astrid could spoon up against his back. Her leg comfortably wrapped around his waist, and her arm grabbed his shoulders and pulled him in close.

"Once I put down a few furs he got the picture. He usually spends the colder night in the bed dozing under them."

Astrid yawned. "Sensible. But he always learned fast. Makes you wonder if the rest of the furies are just as smart."

"I can't wait for this." He told her.

"This?" she asked, gently shaking his shoulder.

"Yes."

Her nose nuzzled into the crook of his neck, comfortable and content. "Yes."

His hand lazily rubbed at her leg, half dozing, half enjoying the feel of her skin. A long, thin scar he hadn't noticed on her upper thigh made itself known with every swipe.

"What do you say in a few minutes we find our clothes and sneak back?"

"We have unfinished business." Astrid murmured against his neck.

"You're not bad at it". He kept his tone even. No inflections, so sympathetic tone. It was a statement. She wasn't, really.

"I'm not as good as you." The 'yet' was clear.

"I've got no objection to you practicing, but you can't suck me dry every time you want to prove your worth."

As soon as the statement was out of his mouth, he wanted to retract it. He had no problem with Astrid occasionally going down on him to prove a point. Those blue eyes flashing up with him, determined to make him twist and need and beg. Her tongue running over every inch of his cudgel while her teeth scraped dangerously against his sensitive skin.

Just not... every single time.

It didn't help his case that he had abruptly gone hard as a rock.

"I won't suck you dry, but I am going to have you once more before we go back to the village."

Hiccup wanted to be flattered, but there was something else to all this. They had gone many, many times this afternoon, and even Astrid was too exhausted to continue. It was almost as if she was just stalling now...

"You can't stall us forever. We're going to have to go back eventually."

Astrid, face smooshed into Hiccup's shoulder, made a supremely irritated noise.

"What was that?"

"I. Said. I. Know." Astrid spat out.

Hiccup rolled on his back to look at her. Astrid had always been less able to hide her feelings when she was exhausted, and irritated despair was clear in the way she angrily stared at his shoulder.

"Isn't there a way we could get married now?" she asked, bargaining." Some of the lower islands might let us marry now. Or one of the Roman settlements would. We could fly down, come back, and all this... this wedding stuff would be behind us."

"Astrid, we can't..."

"People elope. It could be done. Tonight I could be curled up in bed with you and Toothless, and looking forward to the future instead of just counting down when it will happen."

"It would destroy your family." Hiccup told her.

The little twitch of Astrid's shoulder said that was pretty much the point.

"Ah. And it would destroy your mother."

"Twofer." Astrid agreed.

"We're the only surviving children of two great families, and everyone in the village wants to see us have a proper wedding ceremony. I want to see what you look like on our wedding day."

"And I want to lick you until you explode down my throat. It doesn't look like either of us are getting what we want."

"All right. If we get married later, you can suck me off now."

"I can see that's going to be a big sacrifice for you." Astrid said, grinning at his stiff cudgel.

"Marriage is all about compromise." Hiccup reminded her.

"And I'd be more than happy to compromise you all day... Astrid stopped, her head popping up. Wait. Did you hear that?"


NEXT WEEK: It's exactly what you think and they are out to get you.