Hi everybody…long time no see…explanation is below the chapter. You guys all deserve one.
Hope you enjoy.
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Finishing a test early is always a mixed bag in Hiccup's opinion. There's that well deserved smugness of getting to relax in the silence while everyone else still has to pour over their exams, and there's the near silence of pencils scratching against paper that echoes some sort of man-made rain on a tin roof. Equal parts soothing and irritating, it always seems to open his mind in a soothing, relieved sort of way.
But it's also time for the nerves to set in, making him question every answer that he didn't instantly know. In a way he's lucky for the distraction that is Astrid, sitting off to his side and chewing on her lower lip and making his teeth deeply jealous. She's definitely something to think about aside from whether the answer to number five really could have been 172.4 m/s.
It also might make him prematurely gray, agonizing over every time her pencil hits paper. Is she remembering to assign her axes? Did she remember that ½ in the equation that she nearly refused to memorize because apparently it's 'absurd'? He's more nervous about her answers than he can ever remember being about any of his.
He tries to tell himself that it's because if he didn't teach her something right, she'll break his other arm, but that internal lie doesn't even begin to stick. She looks at his cast with way too much revulsion, and at this point, he just wants the thing gone. Not only does it itch like crazy, but there's this little hopeful blurb inside of him that yearns to keep Astrid around out of something other than regret, or angry guilt.
It's like, no matter what happens from this point forward, he helped Astrid Hofferson. And from here on out, there's that one physics test that he made happen. She can't pretend this never happened now, right? She can't just wipe him off of her hands like another nerd placated. He helped her, and now on some level she's stuck with him. Not that he wants to stick her with him if that's not what she wants.
He wants her to be happy. With her test grade, with her race times…a minute of happy Astrid is worth twenty lifetimes of sullen and perfect 'golden girl' Astrid Hofferson. And the fact that he even knows that's a possible distinction makes this broken arm worth it in some sick corner of his brain.
He misses Fishlegs being around. He doesn't have anyone who cares about the report of the withering condition of his unfortunate crush, and without the constant friendly mocking, his infatuation has bloomed into something raw and gritty, as uncomfortably self-effacing as it is wearying.
He hopes he's better than the thug of an asshole she's got, but the refusal to see him as anything but an ex-punching-bag makes discovering this opinion as a fact a distant impossibility. Even being a friend isn't much better, he shakes his head in a bitter salute to the rest of the brotherhood in the dreaded friend-zone.
Then again, he's never really been part of the brotherhood…and as much as he tries to convince himself that this is at least a semi-normal situation, it's not. This is Astrid, the girl he never knew could be so complete beneath that perfect, icy exterior. The dream girl all wound up in nightmares and shadows, and drowning in physics homework.
Friends is enough, who is he kidding?
Hiccup doesn't even notice himself staring at her until she moves suddenly, pushing back her chair with a shiny squeak before gliding up to the front of the room to turn in her test. He jerks his eyes away and focuses on an eraser shaving on his desk that kind of looks like a caricature of Jesus.
The staring. He really has to work on the staring.
At least until he's semi-confident he could beat sense into Scott if the thug decided to take issue with the staring. A few weeks…months…probably years at the gym and he might be good to take on Scott's left arm, so…
So yeah. He should really stop.
Hiccup has never been so glad for the bell to ring.
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Astrid wishes Hiccup would stop looking at her. It's the same feeling as the teacher looking over your shoulder during an exam, flooding your head with visions of every single answer being wrong. She can just hear his dumb nasally voice telling her that she's making it harder on herself by declaring those axes.
Screw that. The positive y axis is wherever she wants it to be…
Aah crap, two equations and three unknowns.
She glances up at the clock, nervously watching the second hand tick towards the five, eagerly counting down one of the 7 minutes she has left to finish. Astrid doesn't remember the last time she used up this much of her testing time. She usually finishes in half of the period, tops. This is crazy, and hard, and she just wishes it were over.
She glances down at her test. 45 of the 50 problems are filled in, and the rest are half worked into the ground on her scratch paper. She glimpses through her work again and resists the urge to groan.
It's one thing when something's wrong and it looks wrong, but it's a completely different thing when it looks right to her. She wishes she had another pair of eyes to look at it and tell her where she's messing up.
She wishes physics were more clear cut.
How is it even possible for this to happen? How can she just run up against something she can't answer? It's…bizarre.
She wants to hit someone. She just doesn't get stuck. That's ridiculous.
But she can't go anywhere from here, she doesn't know how to proceed. She can't think of any tricks, or any shortcuts. It's not a test where she can spin some sort of crap that sounds insightful, and she wishes for an essay exam. Why does science of all things have to be multiple choice? She hates science. She hates being cornered.
But for once, she can't deny that she's stuck.
Problem 5 looks like Chinese, and she can almost feel herself getting clammy…
It feels like the hardest thing she's ever done when she fills in the five unanswered questions with C, before shoving back like the test is burning her. She's just going to walk up and turn it in—
The cycle of pointless test advice given to stupid people in her presence runs through her head in a loop. Fill in every answer unless there's a penalty for guessing. If you don't know, it's probably C. If two answers look similar, it's probably one of them, guess and maybe you'll be lucky.
Luck. Astrid scoffs equal parts angry and defeated as she does her best not to slouch back to her seat. She doesn't have to be lucky, she's better than luck.
Except she's not. And she knows it as she angrily throws the blue pencil into her backpack. It would have gone better if she'd used the green one, and that's the bitterest thing she's thought all day.
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"I wish Scott were here." Astrid blurts, frowning as she sits down on the chair next to Ruff and Fishlegs. They're probably too busy sucking face to hear her, but she doesn't really care.
"Whoa whoa whoa, what?" Ruff shoves the huge boy off with a slurp and a thud as his knees painfully bang the underside of the table, making their food lurch on their lunch trays.
"I said, I wish Scott were here." Astrid's hands curl into fists, daring anyone to challenge the statement. If she knows anything, she should know that Ruff never turns down a challenge.
"Ok, that sounded even more ridiculous the second time. What the hell, Hofferson?" Ruff leans awkwardly close to Astrid's face, inspecting her pupils with a conspicuously serious face. "Did you hit your head or something?" Astrid shoves Ruff back, hoping that she'll fall but knowing the whole time that Fishlegs will catch her.
He does so handily, and receives a smarmy smile from his girlfriend before she's back on the trail, bloodhound nose locked onto the scent of Astrid's peculiarity.
"I said I wish my boyfriend were here, what's wrong with that?"
"Don't kid yourself, everyone knows you don't actually like Scott. Well, everyone but Scott. But seriously, the only times you've seen him in like the last week is to publically make out and hand over his math homework." Astrid scowls at Ruff's knowing, bored expression, wishing the other girl had gone for a scrawny nerd or a football player more interested in a catfight than protecting his woman.
Screw Fishlegs for being a decent guy.
"I like Scott. I mean, just look at him, what's not to like?" Astrid crosses her arms as haughtily as she can manage.
"I can't look at him, he's not here." Ruff drawls, popping a limp cafeteria fry into her mouth with a smirk.
"Fine then, Gladys."
"What?" Fishlegs questions and Ruff flushes then immediately blanches. The silence is clue enough that Astrid has dealt the final blow. Knockout, KO flashing in big red letters in front of an exalting video game character. Pinned. Bamboozled. Yahtzee.
Astrid has never been one to believe in auras or any of that bull, but she swears that Ruff is emanating this spherical pool of loathing.
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"So…H-How did you do on the test?" Hiccup walks up to Astrid after he's done taking attendance at practice. His clipboard feels chalky in that weird way that comes from clamminess and dry skin.
He's staring again, and this time he's only glad that she's wearing something that covers her…chest area.
Unlike earlier.
God, it's like she wants him to stare, the way she wears those…shirts.
Hiccup blushes for no recognizable reason and scuffs his toe against the grass, staining the toe of his shoe bright green over the dulling puce from the damp clay track. He hates how that track stains his shoes pink of all colors. He thought athletics were supposed to make you manly and sturdy, not decorated.
"You tell me. You were the one lurking over me the whole time like some creepy teacher." Astrid doesn't look up and Hiccup frowns. He never does know where he stands with her. And also she knows that he stares.
He can't tell whether to be terrified that he's been caught, or offended that she doesn't even see him as enough of a man to be enraged by his staring.
"I was just hoping that you remembered that ½…you know, in the absurd equation." Hiccup shrugs, and to his surprise, Astrid grins slightly.
"I really did call it absurd, didn't I?" She shakes her head, leaning down and grabbing her feet, head on her knees. "I was hoping that was a 1 am figment of my imagination." Hiccup laughs a bit, happy that he dodged a bullet.
"Nope, if you wanted to understand it, I could show you the calculus, but I figure you'd rather rip my arm off." Astrid looks up and smiles.
"Wow, I must look really shitty or something, the great Math nerd isn't trying to teach me calculus."
"No, not at all…I've just figured out that you don't like calculus." Hiccup shrugs, and Astrid can't help the slight grin that threatens to erupt. It's both a blessing and a curse when Gobber calls him over before they can say anything else.
Astrid knows that test didn't go well, and she knows she should be beating herself up, but something about Hiccup realizing that she doesn't like math, and accepting that, makes her smile. She's spent so many weekends on the couch in Scott's basement, hunched over homework, while he watched football games and practically berated her into enjoying it.
No matter how many times she punched him, or slapped his hand away or put in headphones, he's just completely unable to accept that she doesn't like football.
It took Hiccup one night to respect her mathematical opinions, and it makes her feel…whole.
He looked beyond the empty power of a pretty face and actually acknowledged the opinions beneath. And the funny thing is, Astrid doesn't feel the devastating loss of power she'd expected with recognition of her humanity. Giving up perfection, in the case of one arguably insignificant person, makes her feel…forgivable.
As long as it's just Hiccup, right?
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With all the drama of her tests this week, Astrid almost managed to forget her meet this Friday, but as soon as Gobber starts lecturing the team after stretching, the steely nerves to prepare grips her gut.
It's the lair invitational, and everyone else is excited because it's not the hardest course in the world, and it's notorious for being fast. That's great when you're some junior varsity hack looking to have a new best time to report to your mommy, but when there's a division one school scouting you and counting course records it's something different entirely.
Astrid can see the course in her mind, she's done it three times before, and has always run a new personal best…but sprinting that uphill finish in less than that 17:33 course record is still daunting. Last year she managed a 17:40, and coming so close without crushing that record was absolutely shattering.
She'd refused to run for 3 days and gained half a pound. It was miserable. She almost broke up with Scott, because he'd won a big game that weekend, and being around his drunken celebration made her nauseous.
In her dad's words, he was disappointed, and attributed that 7 second error to laziness.
Sometimes she absolutely swears she's masochistic, because as soon as those bruises bloomed, she was back out there, running mile sets until Gobber yelled at her to stop.
This year though. This year is her year, she's going to do it. She's been training harder than ever, she's been eating well, and for the most part getting enough sleep.
Today, Gobber is letting them off easy, just a sprint workout, and he assigns her 10 two hundred meter sprints, mostly to stretch everything out.
Astrid doesn't protest when he assigns Hiccup to time her, that's fine. She almost smiles at him as she walks down to the track to join him, but it's a ridiculous impulse she scowls instead, and Hiccup looks away. She really hopes he's not going to be all timid and butt-hurt.
She jogs the rest of the way down the hill and drops her water bottle near Hiccup's feet, and he stays staring at it, awkwardly tucking his cast into his side.
"Come on, don't be like that. I just glared at you because you were annoying me." It sounds stupid to say it out loud, and Astrid walks out to the starting line, behind the other runners who are starting first. She likes having her own timer, it really does make stuff easier, and at least Hiccup is smart enough that he doesn't mess up her timer.
"And I'm not annoying you now?"
"Nope, now you're fine. Ready?" Astrid doesn't wait for an answer, instead sprinting off down the track, loving the feel of her shoes contacting the unyielding clay. She feels steady, and she can believe that she can do this tomorrow. She shoves the physics test behind her and focuses on the finish line.
She puts on a good show, striding around the curve of the track and down the straight away, enjoying stretching her legs, and heaving the cooling September air into her lungs. When Hiccup yells her time across the track she can't help but smile. Even with her knee feeling stiff, she's killing it.
Hiccup is torn. Astrid is actually being semi-nice to him, in her weird, harsh, wonderful way, and he doesn't want to get in the way of that. But she's limping, and while it doesn't seem to be slowing her down, Gobber will have his head if he doesn't report that the golden girl is tarnishing.
After Astrid's fifth 200, she announces she's going to walk a lap, and sets off in a rickety stride, arms above her head. It must hurt, the way that she's nearly hobbling right now, and that's what Hiccup focuses on as he dutifully reports to the top of the hill.
Gobber is on the phone, and he pulls it away from his ear, half eager and half irritated in a bizarre twitch of an expression as he looks at Hiccup expectantly.
"Astrid's limping." Gobber scowls and hangs up without saying anything to the person on the other end of the call. His phone immediately begins buzzing in his pocket, but Hiccup can tell he ignores it out of genuine concern. Then again, what coach doesn't get concerned when his star athlete is limping before the fastest invitational of the season.
"Well, why din't cha tell me sooner?" Gobber stomps down towards the track, hopping on his good foot occasionally. Astrid sees him coming and shoots Hiccup an acidic death glare that makes his skin crawl. He can hear the older man grumble something about another miraculous Hofferson recovery.
"Coach, I'm fine. It's just stiff. I didn't stretch enough. But I'm completely fine!" Astrid stomps, and she can't hide the slight wince of her knee when her foot strikes clay, but her expression doesn't give it away. She's positively snarling at Hiccup and his arm throbs, recoiling from her ferocity.
"Hop on yer right foot." Gobber challenges and Astrid glares at him with as much acid as she can manage while she hops on the foot. She doesn't waver, she doesn't flinch, and Hiccup can just feel her jerking away from their pleasant interactions. "Fine then. Go ice ya stubborn lass." Gobber gives Hiccup a remarkably subtle look of gratitude before taking his phone out of his pocket and walking away.
Astrid steps forward and shoves on Hiccup's shoulders, yanking back at the last moment so that he only totters backwards rather than sprawling onto the ground. Later, she'll antagonize over how weak she must have looked, acknowledging Hiccup enough not to follow through on a real push.
"Seriously? You had to go tell on me?" Hiccup holds his hands up in surrender and takes another step back, glad that he didn't fall flat on his ass. Then again, this relief does nothing to cut down on the terror urging his heart into a lively tattoo.
"You were limping, Gobber told me to tell him. That's all." Astrid crosses her arms.
"So I show you one moment of weakness, ask for help with one stupid, useless physics test, and suddenly you're trying to make me look like some pansy? I can handle my knee Hiccup. I've been handling it alone since it first got jacked, and it's still bending just fine." Hiccup laughs, a shy and muddled wheeze of a laugh anyway, and Astrid flushes beet red. He's going to laugh at her? She thought she was fine, that she hadn't lost any edge.
"I don't think you're weak, Astrid." Hiccup takes a shallow breath, his diaphragm feels shaky in his chest. He can't tell whether it's fear or nausea, and he looks at Astrid taking a deep breath. She doesn't look scary, and that's startling. She looks unsure, for once, and he can see her feigning left, away from her injured knee.
Sometimes, it hurts how strong and beautiful she is when she's not perfect.
"Then stop doing me favors." Astrid barks, frustrated. "I don't need your help."
"I know you don't need my help." Hiccup swallows. "You said friends, you said that before I ever did. Have you ever considered that I want to help you? I liked helping you with physics Astrid. I love physics, and I wanted to help you hate it a little less. I like it when you win, it's the closest you get to happy." He admits in an ungainly rush and Astrid has the gall to look embarrassed.
"I'm going to go ice. No sense in destroying the knee I need tomorrow." Astrid admits with a flushed but carefully blank face. She wants to hug him, but a hug out of happiness rather than desperation seems even more pathetic. "Hot date tonight?" She's uncomfortable with how natural it feels to fall back on wry humor when the situation turns shaky. It's so…predictable, and she hates it.
"No." Hiccup looks at her, suddenly offended like he's never had a hot date in his life. Then again, he most likely hasn't.
"If I'm not busy later, we should work on the project." She walks away before she falls into that idiotic urge to hug.
She shouldn't have hugged him in the first place, it unlocked some awful hug door to fragility, and now she feels inexplicably cold as that stupid needy place in the pit of her stomach tugs towards scrawny arms and gap-toothed shy smiles.
She wishes Scott were here.
Hiccup is smart enough to realize that Astrid's gently departure is as close as he's going to get to her acknowledging his embarrassing speech. And he's ok with that. He's horrified that those words ever came out of his mouth.
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Astrid leaves the trainer's room with a bag of ice and a wrapped knee, and she feels shockingly bouncy as she leaves the building, striding out to the parking lot. She couldn't have failed that test too miserably, there are three more, and she can bounce back. Freshman year, coming from behind was her specialty and sometimes she misses the dark horse rush.
And if Hiccup, who somehow has seen the worst of her worst moments, doesn't think she's weak then she's fine. She spins and opens the door with her back, to keep her gym bag from sliding off of her shoulder, and she ambles out to her car with a near skip in her step. Scott is down on the football field and he waves.
She feels giggly and warm, like the freshman Scott wooed, and for once she doesn't curse at every car that cuts her off on her way home. She even manages to convince herself not to check on that disheartening physics grade until after her race, so that she can focus.
Her father didn't have the same inclination. And she's her mother's perfect daughter, perfection is absolutely necessary.
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So…I know I've been gone from this story for over a year and I'm truly sorry for the wait. I'll keep my explanation short, because I know a lot of you are just hear to read. Basically, my dad went to jail for something he didn't do, and I had to get a second and sometimes third job to help with the money and keep everything together, all while I kept going to school full time. It was hard beyond hard, and I had next to no spare time, so writing fell to the wayside.
Then, when he got out, and some more money came into the house, and I could quit some of the jobs…I was out of touch. I hope I reined it in, and I feel like I connect to this story again at this point in my life, not in the same way as before, but in a way just as bright and magnetic.
I hope to continue writing and getting chapters out to everyone reasonably quickly, I'm still an engineering student after all, and my life is governed by homework and tests. But I'm doing my best to be back, and I hope that this chapter was worth reading.
Yes, it's a little slow, I revised the outline a bit, and this chapter mostly became a jumping off point for me, getting back into the swing of things. Not to say that there isn't any plot…I mean, that cliffy…
I'd love to hear any reviews that you guys feel I deserve! Thanks for sticking with me through all this, if you come back it means more than you know.