Gobber was puffing and frowning and scowling all at once, and his face was turning the absolutely ugliest shade of red Hiccup had ever seen.

Hiccup stared back at him defiantly, with an almost eerie silence that echoed after his mentor's expected explosion, not daring to make a sound but also refusing to back down, because no.

He would not be swayed. This was a good decision, he told himself firmly, eyes narrowing a little further, and don't let him make you think otherwise.

("HE'S RIGHT!" a little voice, truly little, miniscule, weedy, sounding a lot like his seven-year-old self, caterwauled in the back of his mind.

"What do you know?" the twenty-year-old Hiccup snapped back mentally.)

Gobber continued to puff like an old grandfather fish and Hiccup could almost see the steam coming out of his ears like a bellows coughing out a cloud of smoke with each breath. The Viking was clearly gathering his scrambled wits about him, about to switch tactics from insulting his top-notch social skills to reasoning with him.

(Hah! Reason, Hiccup thought smugly. Reason, my friend. This was something Gobber would most certainly lose.

"You're being stupid and selfish!" seven-year-old Hiccup accused in his strident, unpleasant voice.

"It's not selfish if they win too!" was snapped back. "That's the whole point of win-win situations!"

"Daddy!" the obnoxious little waif wailed dimly.

Twenty-year-old Hiccup ignored that completely. Haddocks were good at that.)

It really seemed like things were about to come to a head, both Vikings tense and drawn up to their full heights with the master still half a head taller than his apprentice and more heavily muscled than the tightly coiled auburn-head could ever dream of being. They breathed in at the exact same time, Gobber with the great rush of a bellows filling with air and Hiccup like a sharp, biting wind-

When something fell with a harsh clang and someone let loose a startled and irritated curse from the forge.

Gobber's mouth opened and closed and he looked absolutely wordless, unwilling to say anything further with an eavesdropper the next room over.

Then he lifted a finger and jabbed it in his apprentice's direction.

"And you know what? You can start by attending to our guest!"

Hiccup straightened in an instant, downright shocked. His jaw fell sluggishly for a moment, eyes widening comically. "Wha…No! No, that's what you do!"

"And clearly I've been depriving you!" Gobber declared, turning away and waving the lad off with one giant hand. "Your people-ing skills are weaker than your muscles!"

This was said in a more serious and less jovial tone than usual but Hiccup, a bit caught up in the impending Task of Hel, didn't notice as he immediately flew to the defensive.

"My people-ing skills are fine! Honed to perfection!" he denied, waving his arms around wildly and almost catching his sleeve on fire from the burning candle sitting on the shelf without noticing. "You couldn't find anyone with better people-ing skills in the whole history of Berk!"

(Fifteen-year-old Hiccup joined Seven-year-old Hiccup in his helpless laughter on the ground, his nasally voice carrying a distinctly derisive chord to it that Seven's giggling didn't have.)

"Then you shouldn't have any problems."

Except Hiccup would have problems because he was Hiccup, Hiccup was sure. And he didn't need anyone to tell him that he really didn't have any people-ing skills at all.

Never had, never would.

"Uuuuuugh…I NEVER do this! Why?!" he demanded.

Gobber let the hammer-shaped hand fall onto the table with a more forceful thunk than he usually would. "Because if you think that THAT is a good idea, boy, you had better go out there and rescrew your head, the right way this time! Odin's Missing Eyeball, that is the most FOOLISH thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth, and I was with you when you were conceptualizing that blasted slingshot that threw around mushrooms of all the Thor-forsaken things!"

Now that, that invention, Hiccup recalled, was – is, he corrected himself – a complete success and Hiccup straightened with pride, very nearly sniffing. "It was a catapult, that was a highly explosive mixture, and I am a grown MAN, thank you very much!"

"They were mushrooms, it looked like a dinky little slingshot, and may I remind you, apprentice-mine," which Hiccup really was only in name any more but old roles were hard to leave, "that I am the master here and if I say you have terrible people-ing skills, then you have terrible, horrible, Odin-forsaken people-ing skills!" With an arm, he drew a surprised and stumbling Hiccup into a friendly hug. "But thankfully, you have good old Gobber to help you out, so stop waving your arms around and go-" Gobber thought for a moment. "Go learn how to people, you little troll!"

And Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, all six feet of him, was shoved into the forge by a meaty hand that disappeared back into the private room as quickly as it had come.

He wobbled for a moment, completely at a loss for what to do when his mentor tossed him to the figurative sharks, before falling into his default response that was, in fact, actually honed after years of dealing with the infuriating Viking who had, Hiccup knew, a heart of gold and, Hiccup knew even better, a tongue that the gods must have put in backwards.

He hunched a little and puffed himself up until he was stretched as wide as his sides would go. "Learn how tah people," he mimicked, waving a hand at the imaginary apprentice before him. The act fell away like a cloak in a moment, though, and he sighed wearily.

Really. This was getting old and he had at least another twenty years to go.

"Alright, hi-"

Hiccup blinked when his eyes caught sight of blue, not brown, eyes set in a face framed with the lightest blonde hair known to man, a color that belonged to only three people in the entire village.

"Ruffnut. Ruffnut?" He blinked again, the idea of Ruffnut in the forge conjuring up an immediate note of confusion and another, bugled note of 'uh-oh!' "What, ah, uh…" Ruffnut had never been in the forge before. Ever. "I mean…" His gaze fell on the spears in her hand. Customer business, obviously.

And here he was, proving Gobber right. Determined to pretend the inept, one-sided spluttering hadn't just happened, Hiccup regained his bearings as quickly as he could. "Hi. Uh, how can I…help you today?" he asked, pretty proud of how steady his voice was with Ruffnut standing there with a slowly widening grin like that.

Dear Odin.

Her grin widened a little more, showing off a few white teeth.

"Spears. How much to sharpen them?"

Hiccup jerked when three spears were suddenly flying his way and two of them fell to the ground with a clatter as he barely managed to wrap his fingers around one. "Er, uh, three pieces of copper a piece," he rattled off automatically, his mind already flitting through assessments and calculations. "So that's nine pieces of copper, and, uh…you want repairs on them too? Ruffnut?"

Ruffnut ran a finger around the rim of the cold anvil, not looking at him.

Apparently he wasn't as fascinating as a hunk of oddly-shaped metal, Hiccup concluded dryly.

"What's Tuff usually do?" She didn't bother to turn around, instead inspecting the counter behind the anvil and reaching for Gobber's tongs.

"Tuffnut? He…full repairs if necessary." Hiccup examined the spears' metal heads. The shafts still seemed in fairly good, if worn, condition. "It looks like one of them's busted up pretty good. There are nicks all down one side of the blade." That and running a finger down it with growing confidence showed it was as dull as a bed post. What had the twins been doing with these, beating up rocks?

Although, sometimes Snotlout's head did indeed qualify as a rock, Hiccup snickered a little on the inside. Stubborn, short-sighted, selfish Viking.

("Hypocrite," he accused himself, pointing with a disembodied finger.)

Anyway. "It also needs a very good sharpening, like the second one, and the last one is pretty hopeless honestly. The tip looks about ready to come off, so the whole head needs to be replaced-"

"Yeah yeah yeah," Ruffnut cut him off, wholly uninterested as she poked at some dead coals, dumping ash on the floor. Hiccup's lips thinned, but at least Ruffnut wasn't destroying the place, his practical side assured him. He'd take an oddly curious Ruffnut over a conniving one any day. "How much?"

Hiccup obligingly ran a practiced eye over the spears. "For a new head? A new head, it would be, six silver pieces, I'd say? It's a pretty simple design and-"

She cut him off again, waving an arm of dismissal. The Arm of Dismissal, Hiccup thought sourly. He received it so much it ought to have a Proper Name by now.

"Yeah, sounds great. What's the sum?" his customer repeated, moving on to observe Gobber's collection of hands, back turned to him.

"…"

Abruptly, Hiccup's world snapped into focus so fast it felt like he'd been slapped.

"Nine silver pieces and two coppers," he answered with professional promptness, daring to glance at her back from the corner of his eyes as he turned to his worktable.

Ruffnut shrugged again, gaze suddenly caught by Gobber's tongs hand. She ran her fingers over the uneven metal. "Just do what you need to do."

With a sharp nod, Hiccup efficiently set to work reheating the fire and began removing the heads. He didn't let his calm, down-to-business manner betray so much as a hint to the thoughts running through his busy mind.

Stupid, he scolded himself as his hands worked silently on the spears almost of their own accord. Stupid! How could he have let his guard down! Never again, he reprimanded himself. No more slipping.

But the smithy, Hiccup felt as Ruffnut wandered freely around the place, was his refuge. His sanctuary, and Gobber was his…protector, of a sort. His…buffer? Gobber helped the village and Hiccup helped Gobber. Ergo, Hiccup helped the village. But only Gobber talked to the villagers and Hiccup only talked to Gobber. It was, Hiccup had long realized, a lonely way to live and maybe Gobber didn't always listen as closely as he should nor for the love of Thor could he say what he meant, but it was a life where he was never brushed off like some insignificant speck of dust on a shield.

Cough*RUFFNUT*Cough, he tried to broadcast telepathically.

The girl continued to ignore him, apparently determined to touch every single item in the room. Hiccup resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have a lot of reorganizing and cleaning up to do after she left.

And, Hiccup continued, switching his gaze again to the spears and determined to ignore her right back, Gobber didn't chatter over him as though he wasn't even there like Tuffnut did. Or pound his dignity into the ground (Snotlout) or stare him down like he was some lame, untrustworthy, useless wart the poor island was forced to put up with (Astrid's disdainful-at-best face).

(Or treat him like a hopeless hazard.)

(("Daddy!" Seven wailed again, muffled voice laden with fresh tears.))

Hiccup felt fairly assured that he had trained himself to live without the village, despite residing at the head of it, with a pretty good level of success.

Clearly, however, his…relapse…with Ruffnut showed he wasn't as well off as he had thought.

He banged away at the metal on the anvil with a vengeance.

But where did she get off intruding on his safe place, he asked. That's what she was, an intruder! A nasty-

Hiccup's teeth clenched together as Ruffnut tossed something behind him. He refused to acknowledge her, no matter how nasty, chaotic, annoying, rude, and intrusive she was being, poking around like she owned the place. The redhead glared at the cherry red iron, and even though he refused to so much as twitch in her direction, keeping his stance turned at just the right angle to scream 'UNWELCOME, YOU!' he still discreetly kept his eye on the invader, the silent outrage building in his mind. She was completely at ease, he could tell by the loose way she held herself, how her shoulders curved in a downright relaxed manner, how easily she reached for-

Hiccup almost threw his hammer out the window in his haste.

"NO! DON'T!"

Pure unadulterated panic, hot and shocking, flew through him as he ran for the door, his breath shortening exponentially as the leather flap fell almost slowly back into place behind her as though to accentuate exactly how she was now on the other side. He threw it open again instantly, leaping into the tiny room.

Ruffnut, of course, continued to ignore him, enraptured by the small catapult sitting on his desk in front of his-his diagrams, his drawings, his journals, his life-

Hiccup could almost feel himself slipping into a frenzy as she reached out to touch it. "Ruffnut-!"

"What is this?" She ran a finger down one of the supporting beams and Hiccup rushed forward.

"No! No, don't touch that!"

He swallowed hard when she paused…then removed her finger and bent down to examine his good-sized Smoke Slinger even closer.

Idiot! Moron! Brainless barge rat! I should have moved it! he yelled at himself wildly. I should have moved it earlier! Aesir, Ruffnut should not be anywhere near this! She should not be in here!

He felt…violated at almost the most personal level, seeing someone not him standing in the midst of his den.

("OUT!" Seven agreed, voice rising like the screaming dive of a Night Fury.)

"Ruffnut! Would you please-"

"You know, it looks like some type of slingshot," she commented, hands on her hips in a casual, downright unconcerned manner.

Hiccup stuttered, hands twitching to just grab the girl and get her out. "Yes, well, no, it's really a sort of catapult, just a, a prototype! Nothing interesting, it doesn't even work, really-"

"So it throws rocks," she concluded, staring at it with a confused sort of expression on her face before it turned to one of disgust. "Rocks? That's dumb."

Hiccup huffed irritably through his nose, unable to reign himself in at the offense. "Of course it doesn't throw around rocks! That would be pointless, now would you just-"

He cursed his tongue as Ruffnut's interest sparked anew and she lightly hefted the counterweight. "So what's it throw?"

"No!" Hiccup denied. "No, I am NOT answering that, YOU are LEAVING MY WORKROOM RIGHT NOW-Ruffnut?" His eyes widened. "Ruffnut! NO! RUFFNUT!"

"One way to find out, right?" she asked over his protests, smirking that aesir-forsaken grin and Hiccup screeched, leaping forward as he realized that the weapon was loaded and her finger was resting right on the highly-sensitive, poorly-calibrated lever-!

SWOOSH!

-SSSSSHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...hhh-h`kht...shhh-PLBT..hh...hhh-kt.

The smoke hissed as it spilled, swirling into the air so thickly it was impossible to see so much as one's nose. A few hard-to-hear, unpleasant-sounding splutters announced the last of the expansive glop exiting its tiny and former package.

"…"

"…"

It, Hiccup dimly noted, his ears ringing with the deafening popping sound of the small explosion, smelled considerably better than it had last time. In fact, he couldn't smell anything at all although that might have been because the thick, clogging smoke was roiling around him so thickly that he felt he couldn't breathe at all either. By the time it had settled to about waist height – too heavy still to really match his vision, some unreasonably calm and detached part of him noted – he was still hacking and coughing, gasping in great bouts of air.

Someone else sounded like they were trying to forcibly remove their lungs from their chest cavity too.

Hiccup's expression turned dark. Ruffnut.

"Out."

His voice sounded small and distant to himself and he felt far away as his face flushed with anger and his expression drew together, sharp and angry. Very angry.

"Out!" he ordered again, breathing raggedly. "OUT!"

He thought he was being very clear with the way he stood ramrod straight in the center of the room pointing imperiously at the door with a punishing finger, glaring like an impending frost giant spelling certain doom at her.

But as she slipped out by the leather flap, she was wearing a wild grin that made it clear that she was only leaving the fuming, mistake-prone and destructive inventor…only for now.

Hey everyone! Sorry for the slightly late chapter; we've got a hectic week coming up and I was kind of sick yesterday morning. Thanks for reading, as always!

IMPORTANT UPDATE INFO: I will not be updating next weekend, because I'm moving back to school and have to adult for a while. Sorry in advance.

And special thanks to reviewers!

THEFIREKING - That is good to hear. Thanks for telling me :)

Stripesicles222 - Yep. I have to admit, slightly inspired by my high school years, the Princess Diaries where Amelia gets tied to her dinner chair, and old stereotypes. :D I had fun with both of these chapters.