I like It

A/N: I've not been in the mood for long (well, long for this type of writing) short stories. Hence this one and the previous.

Hiccup Haddock the Third shot up like a bolt to sit upright in bed. Something had woken him up in a hurry, but what was it? The young man sat still for a tense few moments, straining his ears and eyes for the source of the disturbance. When nothing happened Hiccup simply shrugged and fell backwards into his blankets.

The second his body hit the bed, however, a loud banging sounded from downstairs. So that's what woke me up Hiccup thought as he threw the covers back quickly. More banging on the door, it sounded urgent. Hiccup strapped on his prosthetic leg and ran out of the room and down the stairs, taking two at a time. The banging sound again, and the heavy wooden door visibly shook. He shot across the living room and threw the door open.

BANG BANG – The third knock of the sequence was cut off as the door flew open to reveal Astrid Hofferson, fist raised in preparation.

"Astrid!" Hiccup exclaimed, "What was so urgent that you had to break down my door?" The young woman rolled her crystal blue eyes.

"There was nothing urgent, Hiccup. I've just been knocking for five minutes, and I knew you were up there." Astrid looked as if she was going to say more, when her frustrated face was suddenly replace by a satisfied smirk. Hiccup followed her gaze and found that she was staring down at his bare chest. In his rush to answer the door Hiccup had forgotten to put a shirt on.

"I should do this more often." Astrid murmured under her breath. Now it was Hiccup's turn to roll his eyes as he walked back into the house with Astrid in tow.

"Give me two minutes," he said, "and I'll be dressed and out the door."

"Or you can stay like that." Astrid responded.

"Oh stop it, you." Hiccup ordered merrily. Walking back into his room, the young man rummaged through a drawer and produced a light green tunic. Threading his arms and head through the appropriate holes, Hiccup settled into the soft linen. Next he opened the cupboard where he stored his black and brown leather flight suit. Astrid watched as he slipped into and strapped on the individual pieces. It was a complicated suit to put on, but completely worth it considering the added benefit of short-term flight.

"Can you grab me that basin?" Hiccup asked, breaking Astrid's train of thought. She moved across the room and grabbed the porcelain bowl of water that Hiccup had referred to. A thin sheet of ice had formed over the top during the night, and Hiccup grimaced down at it.

"This isn't going to be fun." He muttered, before suddenly plunging his face into the icy water and scrubbing it with his hands. Surfacing moments later, Hiccup let out a yell. "That was bracing!" he said, shock written across his features. Astrid giggled at the look on his face, and stroked his cold cheek. The young woman paused suddenly, and ran her hand back across her boyfriend's face.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"You're growing a beard." Astrid said, with an insultingly large amount of amazement shown in her features.

"Am I?" Hiccup asked, absent-mindedly stroking his chin. True to her word, Hiccup found that he was in fact growing light stubble across the underside of his chin and cheeks. "Huh." He said dully. "Well I guess it was going to happen eventually. Come on, let's get down to the academy. Dad wants some dragon sentries trained for Berk."

Later that day, down at the dragon academy, Astrid and Hiccup were attempting to round up a few dozen Terrible Terrors. What had started as a simple training exercise had blown out of proportion into a large-scale round up operation. Finally, after much trickery and hard work, Astrid locked the gate of the Terrible Terror enclosure and turned to an exhausted and sweaty Hiccup.

"I don't think that the sentry idea is going to work out." She said, sitting down hard next to her boyfriend.

"Understatement of the millennium." He said between gulps of water. Hiccup brushed his long, auburn hair out of his eyes and passed Astrid the leather water skin. As she drank she watched Hiccup out of the corner of her eye. In the time that it took Astrid to finish the water off, she had watched Hiccup brush his hair out of his eyes three times. Wiping her lips, the young woman passed the water skin back.

"You're hair is getting long." She said. Hiccup turned to her, hair flipping about as he did so.

"I did notice that." He responded. "I've been thinking that maybe I'll grow it out a bit. I like it like this; it looks so much better than when I have my hair short." Astrid snorted.

"Maybe I can put it into some Viking braids for you." She joked. Hiccup looked at her with mock-intensity in his eyes.

"No! Gods no. You are not braiding my hair. No one is braiding my hair. I'm growing it the way I want to." And so he did, for a while at least. A few months later the two were sitting close together on the edge of a cliff somewhere, overlooking a beautiful forest they'd discovered that day. Astrid had her head on Hiccup's shoulder, and he had his arm around her's. The couple sat like that for a while, perfectly content with the world, before Hiccup felt a tugging at the hair of his lower right head.

"What are you doing?" He asked Astrid, who was fumbling about with the back of his head.

"Nothing," she said, "hold still." Hiccup did as he was ordered and sat still for a few minutes. Eventually Astrid leaned back, admiring her work.

"Ta Da. All done." Hiccup raised a questioning eyebrow and raised his hand to his head, only to have it slapped back down. "No touching." Astrid said angrily.

"What did you do?" He asked her. She giggled.

"Nothing. Just... put a braid or two in, but they're only small!" She added the last part hastily as Hiccup opened his mouth in objection.

"Astrid! I said I didn't want braids in my hair!" He reached up and yanked out the hair bands. Astrid immediately put on a half pout half scowl. "Don't be like that." Hiccup said, although his will was crumbling. "Oh come on! Braids don't suit me... Ok fine, do the braids." Astrid smiled in delight as her boyfriend's resolve crumbled under her attack on his affections. She grabbed two three tufts of his soft, smoke-scented hair and began to braid them with a leather strip. When she was done with her work Astrid placed a hand on Hiccup's chest and smiled up at him. He scowled back.

"You're lucky I love you." He grumbled, leaning down to kiss her. The kiss deepened, and seemed like it was going to go somewhere when all of a sudden Astrid pulled back and looked at Hiccup, holding her cheek.

"What?" He asked, worried he'd done something wrong.

"Your stubble scratched my cheek." She said in surprise. Hiccup's ears grew red and he began to get up.

"Sorry, I'll go shave it off..." He was cut off as Astrid grabbed his collar and pulled him back down to her lips.

"No," she whispered with a smile, "I like it."

A/N: I actually had quite a bit of fun with this one. It's nice to capture little snapshots of these two together, as opposed to writing a few chapters of them. That said I enjoy doing that to, and have some on the way in the not too distant future...