I hope everyone had an absolutely wonderful holiday!
00000
Astrid can't sleep. She's been staring at the ceiling for hours, counting chips in the plaster and shivering no matter how tightly she hugs Spike to her chest. Everything seems so wrong.
She's thinking about home. She's thinking about family and loneliness and enemies and wondering when things went so bad. She remembers when her mom was almost happy, and her dad was a goofy sun between the frequent storm clouds.
She never knew her fraternal grandparents. Her grandpa died of a dreadfully common form of cancer when she was two weeks old, give or take. There are pictures of her somewhere, still newborn lumpy in the dying man's arms. She made him so happy, or so everyone told her. That was when her dad started downhill, he was never the same man after his father died. Apparently her granddad was a hoot, and a civil rights activist fly in the racist Swede milk of Lubbock, Kansas.
Her dad cried once, telling her a story after about six beers. When he was in first grade, he had a friend named Charlie, who was the only black boy in the class. The boy's mother died of a sudden heart attack, and Astrid's grandfather brought the family a ham while the rest of the town was boycotting orphaned misery through a racial blind. Lawrence Hofferson always had a smile, a joke, a kind word and a moral framework.
Her grandma was the spark that cascaded into a forest fire. Four foot eleven and too brave, the origin of that famous bold chin and the family alcohol tolerance. Red-headed and stereotypically Irish to the point of a handicap.
Beautiful.
Astrid's seen too many pictures, and every time she sees too much of herself in that alabaster, pin-up face.
Her grandma died when she was three, and for a while, her parents took in her dog, a spoiled Irish setter named Cam. Cam wasn't trained, and he peed in the house all the time, she still remembers the stains on the old carpet from scrubbing that same spot in the hallway over and over. That's when her dad's drinking got bad, when he dabbled in harder drugs and sent his brain back to permanent adolescence.
That dog hated Astrid. He bit her twice in two months before her parents gave him away to an elderly couple who spoiled him through a long happy life.
She remembers being so happy when her mom quit work and could suddenly pick her up every day from fist grade. Looking back, it was an ultimatum to keep her mom safe from the dangerous world, and out of sight. Still, those were the best years, when her afternoons were full of playing in the yard and everything went bad after she went to bed with her door shut tight.
Then she got old enough to notice the bruises, and old enough to talk back and earn occasional swings of her own. Old enough that she got herself yelled into corners over missed spelling words and lost soccer games. She blamed her mom for making him angry, even then she could see that it was out of his control.
Her dad yelling is inevitable, like minutes passing.
She thought her mom should fight. You have to stand up to bullies.
But that's how arms get broken.
She sits up, shoving her hair off of her face and swinging her legs off of the bed. She'll just go make some hot cocoa and watch movies until she drifts off on the couch.
Seeing Hiccup in the morning won't be too bad, will it? She won't want to kiss him or punch him anymore than she does right now, right? She'll be able to keep shoving him away when all she wants to do is pull him close.
It won't be as bad as Friday, when Heather left them all alone, and all she wanted to do was hug him.
She hates this.
Or maybe she'll get lucky, and if he sees her sleeping, he'll silently retreat and keep their paths from crossing. It's horrible what constitutes luck these days.
Spike follows her out to the kitchen, and she pours a mug of milk, shoving it into the microwave and staring at the glass plate turning like her reeling thoughts. She jumps as Spike lurches up, woofing at a shadow. She whirls around, fists habitually raised.
A bed-headed, wide awake Hiccup stands in mock surrender in the doorway. She deflates like a popped balloon.
"So you couldn't sleep," she crosses her arms and leans back against the counter.
"You couldn't either?" He asks and she shrugs, eyes itching more than really makes sense. She knows every freckle on his arms, every scar on his hands, and he feels like a stranger.
"Guess not," she laughs miserably. "Cocoa?"
"Nah, I only drink stiff brandy at this time of night."
"If I had any brandy…well, I probably wouldn't share," she admits and he smiles just enough to make her heart ache like someone's stabbing at it.
"Sure, cocoa sounds good."
"You should put on a movie or something. If you're staying up," she shrugs, feigning nonchalance when she'd like nothing more than to curl up with him on the couch and hold on too tightly. "Cookie?" She offers a package of trusty Oreos that she pulls out from under the counter.
"You're going to try the couch?" He shakes his head at the offer and she stuffs three into her mouth, crunching too loudly.
"How'd you know?" she asks through a mouthful of crumbs, putting more milk into the microwave and stirring twice as much cocoa mix as is necessary into Hiccup's cup. She hands him the steaming mug and her entire arm lights on fire when their fingers brush against the ceramic.
"That's what you do, I know you," he shrugs and she can't help but watch him go. His bare foot sticks to the floor and his prosthetic drags a bit. She recognizes the sound and knows that he only has it buckled halfway. Like when she steps on the back of her running shoes, wearing them like clogs to jet outside and get the mail or something.
She wonders if he heard her get up and followed her out here. She wants to tell him everything. She wants to swallow it all forever.
She finishes making her own drink and follows him into the living room, curling up on her corner of the couch. He's across the room in a leather recliner, and the distance makes her want to scream.
"Do you?" She mumbles through a non-descript preview.
"Do I what?" He asks and she shrugs, looking at him pointedly. "Do I know you?"
"I guess."
"I tried," Hiccup sighs.
"Past tense?" She asks, even though she knows she has absolutely no right.
"I don't—you don't make it easy," he explains and she shrinks into the couch, sipping her cocoa and tugging a blanket over her lap. She's sleepier just looking at him.
She's got the distinct feeling that they aren't alone. That damaged, deformed Astrid Hofferson is peering over her shoulder like a golden ghost, keeping her strong and keeping her closed.
"So what movie?" She gestures to the TV.
"Titanic," he smiles mildly, staring at his foot.
"You know I only like the sinking part," she laughs because it's easier than sobbing.
"But you can't stay awake through the beginning."
"You're trying to help me fall asleep," she bites her lip, touched.
"I love you."
"I love you too," she shoves aside the irrational nerves and lets her stubborn privacy rear its ugly head and stare him down. If she wants to solve this, he needs her to shatter them, he needs to move on to someone who isn't destroyed. But all she can do is crack them, otherwise she'll break down. "It's not enough right now, I wish it were enough."
"Me too."
"I—I mean," she stares at him too deeply, thinking of everything she can't say and imagining how awful it's going to be when he finally leaves her. She tells the residual Astrid Hofferson energy lingering in her consciousness to fuck off. "Do you want to know why I hate Titanic?"
"Why?" He asks, torn between curiosity and being cautious for the surely flippant response.
"My mom," she exhales too hard grinds her teeth, struggling to let the ideas go. The lost ship on the TV is oddly fitting, and her personal exhumation reverberates through her brain as expressly forbidden. "I don't know if she was trying to teach me empathy or what, but she can't—couldn't watch a sad movie without commenting every two seconds. Saving Private Ryan. Titanic. Grapes of Wrath. Hell, Little House on the Prairie. Anything like that, anything where life was hard or anything. Just every few minutes, 'Imagine what it was like', 'Wow, what are they supposed to do', 'That's horrible!'," she laughs at the too strong memory, an errant tear winding down her cheek.
"I think that's the first I've heard you talk about her."
"God, and I'm telling you her worst habit. I promise," she groans in remembered frustration. "And she'd do this thing where she'd guess everyone's lines before they actually said them, and she was always—and I mean always – wrong. Hell, she'd spend so much time commenting that she'd lose track of the story and I'd have to play catch up." Astrid wipes her determinedly leaking eyes, "Movie theaters were a nightmare."
"So I should blame her when you hit me during movies?"
"At least your commentary is funny," she grant shim, taking a gulp of her cooling hot chocolate. Spike groans quietly from her roost on the floor. "You never talk about your mom."
"I was seven, and it was icy. One of those freaky late March snows, you know?" he shrugs, wondering why he's choosing this particular story. "She drove too fast and I mean, the woman slammed on the brakes for squirrels. When the cops found the dog tracks across the road and the stray dog in a den on the median, everyone who knew her knew what happened." He stares at the ground.
"Hiccup, I—"
"Recently abandoned pitbull," he drives the nail in and feels ten pounds lighter. He wishes she'd tell him everything. He wishes he didn't have to guess the worst of her childhood every five minutes.
The silence is horrible.
"Why haven't we done this?" She asks, the big secret dropping like honey down the tip of her tongue.
'My dad raped me'
It'd be that easy. Four words.
She managed I love you, what's one more syllable?
Everything, apparently.
"Done what?"
"Talked like this," she steps closer to the proverbial fire, daring him to ask her. Trying to put the seed of the idea in his brain telepathically. Just flat out ask.
She'd answer, if he'd just ask.
"We were busy, and you didn't want to," he answers, matter of fact, and she falters. He's right, telling him is selfish. It's pawning off her misery to make herself feel better and Hiccup feel worse. She should have been able to handle it on her own, but she couldn't, because she traded that strength for the mysterious joy of loving Hiccup.
"Fair enough."
What she doesn't say echoes far louder than what she does.
"Go to sleep," he tells her, standing with an awkward, half-buckled shuffle. "Thanks for the cocoa."
"Tomorrow, this talk probably won't matter," she muses sadly and he shrugs.
"To you? I don't know, but I won't forget," he ensures her.
"It's not that I forget. It's that—you make me feel—I hate when we fight. I don't think I've ever been so mad at myself for being mad."
"Goodnight Astrid," he tells her, turning and walking back to bed. That's true, he can hear it in her voice, solid and trustworthy, vocal granite that makes walking away seem foolish. He wishes she could say that in the daylight when she's in her right mind.
Maybe she's nocturnal.
He'd flip his schedule if he thought that would help at all.
00000
The lack of sleep is catching up to Astrid the next day as she wipes her eyes, yawning and leaning back over her calculus book, determined. She doesn't need help, she understands series, and it's not like Hiccup is here anyway, so there's no point in asking.
He left that morning around eleven, probably to go hang out with Heather, and ever since she'd successfully avoided him, she's been camped out on the couch, her calculus notes spread around her in a miserable aura.
She understands this completely.
She knows exactly what she's looking at.
Everything she's doing makes sense.
She growls and throws a pencil at the wall, and Spike runs up and rests her chin in her girl's lap, wagging furiously in attempted comfort.
"I'm not good at this whole positive thing," Astrid nods slowly, stroking Spike's head and smoothing her ears against her boxy head. "That's your job, and even you're kind of cranky today." The pit climbs halfway onto Astrid's lap and rests her smooth forehead against the girl's shoulder.
Astrid smiles and hugs the dog embarrassingly tight, breathing in the mostly clean dog scent and trying not to cry. She met Spike because of Hiccup, she wouldn't have this sweet dog if not for Hiccup.
She'd be at home, insisting that she didn't feel bad for letting that girl limp through the finish line alone. Insisting she didn't feel bad about breaking some kid's arm for absolutely no reason. She'd be texting Scott, fielding that day's advances until he was so tired of asking, he'd settle for crumbs.
"Ok, ok," Astrid gently pushes Spike back onto the ground, leaning down and resting her forehead against the dog's and stroking at the scruff of her neck. "I've got to do my homework. But we're going somewhere tonight, so I promise you'll get a walk." The dog grumbles low in her throat. "A long walk, with Ruff's dog, ok? A long playful walk." She hugs Spike one last time before nudging her away. "So, let me do this, alright?"
Astrid can't believe she's leaving for World's so soon. It's Sunday, so that means she only has two days of school to deal with all of this. At least Spring Break is right after the race, so she'll have a week to—
Her homework spins out of focus as she realizes Spring Break has become something awful. She remembers the month before, planning with Hiccup on a too late school night, studying for some test she can't even remember taking. They were going to have pancakes every day, and spend an embarrassing amount of time curled up together on the couch, making out and stabbing each other with too bony elbows.
It feels like a death when she realizes that's gone down the drain with the rest of them.
She lays back on the couch, curling her knees towards her chest and using them to rest her calculus book upright. The symbols swirl into mysterious, cryptic runes and she shuts her eyes, sighing too loudly and trying to collect herself.
Her toes curl in some horribly useless notes at the end of the couch and she gives up entirely, curling into a ball around her open book and facing the dark-screened TV.
Hiccup always manages to be productive with the Discovery channel on or something, but she can never focus. She misses watching TV with him.
She misses everything about him.
She wonders if he misses her too. Is this hurting him as bad as it's hurting her?
He's probably just as miserable as she is. He's probably just as lonely and sad and—
Suddenly, Heather makes sense, absolutely perfect sense and she feels worlds worse. She's…well, she's a jock and most of her friends are jocks, and it was easy to retreat into Ruff's jock lair and step away from the situation. And Hiccup…well he could have gone to Fishlegs, but then Ruff would know everything he said…and then she'd know, and his privacy wouldn't even exist anymore.
He's probably as lonely as she is. And as sad as she is.
He should move on with Heather, if that's what he wants. She should let go. She should try and let go.
But would that hurt him worse? Would that hurt him as much as it hurts her? Does he—Is he clinging to this shell of a broken relationship as hard as she is? He must be.
But if she told him—
Her train of thought is cut off by the door opening and Toothless unevenly plodding back into the room. Of course Hiccup follows, footsteps clicking and squeaking in time before he hits the carpet and the sound muffles in the thick shag.
And he wasn't with Heather, he was with Toothless. She feels impossibly worse.
She lets her eyes fall shut and pretends to be asleep at the last second, because well…she can't take some twisted continuation of last night's conversation. She can't take feeling so distant from him right now. She can't take looking into his eyes and seeing nothing but some unbelievably impenetrable wall between them.
Toothless trots around the couch and noses at her falsely limp hand hanging off onto the carpet.
"What's over there, bud," Hiccup walks around the couch and she hears him pause. "Come on, let her sleep," he urges, his voice quiet and sad. "Go lay with Spike…yeah, all the way. Come on, the rest of the way…"
She resists the urge to laugh when Toothless sighs, plopping down on the living room dog bed next to a warbling Spike.
She waits for Hiccup to disappear.
She wishes he'd just move her notes and sit down by her curled up feet. And she'd wake up in an hour sprawled across him and everything would be ok.
She doesn't hear him move.
Just as she's assuring herself that he's gone and getting ready to sit up, the notes at the base of the couch rustle and she freezes.
He picks up the notes by her feet and on the armrest and the few sheets that have fallen onto the floor. She hears him knocking the stack on the end of the couch to align the sheets, and part of her laments her loss of organization as the same time as her entire chest tightens. He sets the notes down somewhere and sighs.
"Astrid?" The voice is quiet, and gentle and she doubles her resolve, completely slack as her hand brushes against the carpet. "This is a bad idea…" he mutters to himself before leaning down and trying to grab the calculus book tucked into the nook of her body. His knuckles brush up against her stomach through her tee-shirt and she bites her tongue to avoid gasping at that strange electricity transmitted from his hand.
He gently tugs the book away and she hears him tuck the notes into it before shutting the book and setting on the floor next to her hand. Her heart threatens to beat out of her chest when he reaches across the back of the couch and pulls the resident throw down, tugging it carefully up over her shoulders.
"That really doesn't look comfortable," he mutters, his fingers glancing across her awkwardly extended arm. "But…you'd have to help me fix it." Her heart drops through her stomach and it's nearly impossible not to yank back her hand. "Ok, let's go bud, and you too Spike. We should let her sleep." Hiccup walks away, patting his leg, and the two dogs lurch to their feet, following him down the hallway.
Astrid's shoulder starts to ache from the odd position after a few minutes of horrible stillness. She deserves the pain, she deserves this ache for all that she's putting him through.
No matter what she does, he's there. He's trying to take care of her, and he's…she's not worth it. She's abundantly sure that she's not remotely worth all this trouble.
But he still wants to fix her. He wants to help. He came in here and picked up her mess and covered her up and tried, honestly tried. The only thing he couldn't fix…she's holding her arm out with her whole body weight, forcing herself uncomfortable. And he can glance by it, touch on it, and leave her tingling.
He probes what's bugging her, and tries to fix all of those problems that she pointedly ignores.
She would happily sleep like this all night, and wake up with a horrible crick in her shoulder. She'd refuse to go to the chiropractor, and it'd fester and get worse and worse.
If she told Hiccup she had a problem, he'd ignore her punching and her blustering, and drive her to the doctor. But she wouldn't even have to tell him, he'd pick up on it. He'd know something was wrong, and he'd weasel it out of her.
And God, he's stubborn. He's so unbelievably stubborn. He's not going to stop asking, is he? He's going to keep nagging and nagging and pushing and prodding and—
She's either going to tell him, or push him impossibly further away. But if…if what just happened is any indication, pushing him away is going to hurt him. He's…he's the kind of guy who picks up her notes, and tries to make her comfortable, and does a million other things every day to tell her that he loves her.
He loves her even if she can't give him everything he wants. Even if she's crazy and demanding and violent.
It's going to do more than hurt him if this falls apart. It's going to demolish him. It's going to tear him up just as much as her, if not worse. She'll have her secret, pinned underneath her like an inconvenient arm, keeping her alive with the pangs.
He'll be alone.
He'll be stuck with Heather, and probably, if she's actually as lucky as she feels right now, thinking of his relationship and how it crumbled.
Right now, it seems so simple. She's choosing between being uncomfortable and letting someone in. She's choosing between privacy and Hiccup, and she knows the latter is better.
Hiccup is better than lonliness, and feeling loved makes her feel safer than any empty room. She needs to let go of all this, for him, not for her. She just needs to tell him, so that he can…so that he can help her fix it.
Maybe it's not a big deal really, maybe it happens more than anybody lets on and there's a website she's too lazy to find. Maybe if he just had an hour, or a day, he could figure this all out and fix it.
But then again, maybe he's finally learned when to run. Maybe he's finally acknowledged that some things, like his leg, are unfixable and gone forever. Maybe she's shattered, and no matter how much glue he wastes, he's never going to be able to stick it back together.
But it's better to just let him know, isn't it? It's better to just let him try and fix her.
Maybe it won't work, and the couch is just uncomfortable, and they'll give up.
Or maybe she'll sit up, and he'll sit down next to her, and suddenly that arm will find some comfortable place between them.
00000
"Hey," Astrid knocks on Hiccup's open bedroom door after an hour of pretend napping, and two in her bedroom pouring over physics, and he looks up from his laptop, jumping a bit.
"Oh, hey Astrid…" he sets his computer on the bed beside him and looks at her expectantly. She almost leaves, suddenly awkward as she holds up her uncompleted physics problem and steps slowly into the room. It is more awkward in daytime, she kicks herself. "Hi, Astrid…"
She should have 'woken up' earlier. She should have said…something? Everything?
"Have you done the physics homework yet?" She asks, staring pointedly at Toothless napping on the foot of the bed. Anything is better than that ever-confusing eye contact.
"Isn't it due on Friday?" He says, slightly nervous and she nods.
"Yeah, but I'm leaving Tuesday after school so I'm getting it turned in early," she explains. The fact that she has to tell him this is a reminder of how painfully out of touch they are. He used to just know. They used to spend every minute together that they could. The worst part of starting track was missing driving home together, and now they commute to school in painful silence.
She misses talking to him. Just talking. Just letting words that she's not supposed to know spill out of her mouth and knowing that someone's listening. That someone cares.
She almost blurts the truth like vomit before frowning and taking an awkward half step towards him.
She should be tactful, shouldn't she? It's like saying 'I love you'—then again, she wasn't particularly subtle with that one…
"No, I haven't started it," he affirms and she sighs, turning to walk back to her bedroom. As she's passing through the door he calls out, stopping her. "I can look at it though, if you want." She stops, muttering nonsense under her breath and turning around, moseying back into the room, exaggeratedly casual. "Can I see the problem?" He asks and she bends over, handing him the paper from five feet away, arms stretching to cover the gap.
"If you don't know, it's fine." Why did she come down here anyway? This is just weird. She hates that it's weird. She'd give anything for this to be comfortable again.
If he were to ask what her problem is right now, she might just tell him. Even though it's daylight, and she's horribly exposed. Even if it might destroy them. Even though she's leaving so so soon.
She'd tell him.
"Give me a minute," he urges her, eyes tracing over her immaculate handwriting with inexplicable fondness. At least he can read her homework, it's not like a few weeks ago when Ruff asked for help and all of her g's looked obscene.
It's also fantastic just to have Astrid in the same room not presently glaring at him. It's like he's been persistently forgotten something, but the uncomfortable pressure of wondering about what exactly he's lost is gone in her presence. She's supposed to be here, with him.
That's the fact of it.
Seeing her sleeping on the couch was the most normal he's felt in days. Touching her, even if it was only accidental was…like coming home.
She struggles not to focus on the red glints in his hair. She tries not to notice the way his hands looks strong and steady where they hold her paper. She can't help but notice that he looks exhausted and as miserable as she feels.
She wishes he'd just ask her...she'd really tell him this time. She's not…she's not—the words won't come to her by herself. She needs the prod, she needs the shove.
If he asks, she'll really really tell him.
Really.
"Did I do anything stupid?" She asks after a too quiet minute, clearing her throat at the thin and reedy quality of her voice.
"Not that I'm immediately seeing…why do you think you've got a problem?" He follows her line of thought with the tip of his finger and wishes her live thoughts were so easy to read.
"Because my final answer is bigger than the speed of light?" She laughs humorlessly. She's been struggling with the same stupid problem for an hour.
It took her an hour to come and ask Hiccup for help. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
"That would be an issue…" He smiles crookedly and her entire heart throbs. "Give me a minute, I'll check your algebra." He offers and she scoffs, the urge to run overpowering.
"What were you just doing?"
"Checking your method. Which is good, by the way."
"I've been practicing," she shrugs, abruptly honest. "I've had a little less help than normal."
"Yeah…" He scratches his head, "you can always come ask for help, you know?"
"I know." She mumbles sternly, and he ducks his head, reading her elegant work. The silence is murder.
He misses her laugh.
That's probably what he misses more than anything, her raucous, unrestrained, snorting laughter. It's the least ladylike thing he's ever heard, and up there with the most beautiful. The absolute best sound is probably the moan deep in her throat when he kisses the nape of her neck and she's not expecting it.
He flushes and looks down, staring too hard at her homework.
"Aha!" He points at the critical flaw. "Here, you squared the denominator in the formula, but not after you plugged in the values, see?" He shows her the sheet and she's forced to lean forward to read the equation. Surely enough, she's missing the minuscule, neat exponent.
"Of course," she laments with a sardonic grin. "Can I see your calculator?" She gestures to the bed and Hiccup shrugs his assent, handing it to her. He's too excited when their fingers brush and he frowns when she jerks away.
Does she want him to corner her? Because that's pretty much the only way he ever gets this close.
Like yesterday morning when the door was locked and he let her in after her run. The way that she alternated staring at his face and his chest, analyzing a way through with anxious, almost pleading eyes. He should have hugged her then, and awkwardly stepping aside and waving her through like a bellhop did nothing for his case.
He should have kissed her so hard she forgot her own name.
But then the nagging insincerity comes back like the plague.
Kissing her won't fix anything. Until he knows why she was so upset, everything is broken.
Chasing after her is futile, weak. It's enforcing the incorrect idea that she's his commander not his partner.
Or last night? When she was practically an open book in front of him? He could have just asked her. He could have asked her what's wrong, and why she's acting like this. He can see in her eyes that she at least has an idea.
She needs to tell him, needs to trust him. Or nothing will ever get better.
God, what is wrong with him that he'll give up on Astrid Hofferson rather than just go along with whatever nonsense she comes up with? It kills to think that the reason he's not making out with her is that he loves her. And if she doesn't let go of her too tight grip on reality, he's afraid he'll be stuck with the Astrid Hofferson he always idolized, not the one who he actually knows.
She takes his calculator, shaking fingers fumbling the equation twice before she types it in correctly, smiling to herself when the answer comes up as a completely reasonable 10 to the sixth power.
"Did that work out?" Her smile is blinding, it's been too long since he's seen it. He glances towards the picture of them above his dresser, feeling far beyond obvious. Of course she's not even smiling in the picture, instead frowning at him in that delightfully expressive way.
It's…heart-wrenching.
Considering weeks ago he was thinking about how they'd make this work going to college, and now they can't look each other in the eye. And last week, the blurb where it seemed like it might be alright. Two days of near desperate bliss in a sea of worry.
"Yeah, it's the answer in the back of the book," she explains, with a small smile. She hands him his calculator, fumbling it slightly and grinning relieved when he catches it. "Sorry."
"It's ok," he sets it on the bed beside him, stopping to scratch Toothless's back as he looks back at Astrid. "Glad I could help."
"Me too…" she trails off, checking her watch and pointing over her shoulder with a thumb. "Well, I've got to go. I have a lot to get done between…well, now and a half hour from now," she sighs, exasperated.
"What's happening a half hour from now?" he pounces on the opportunity and her feet feel frozen in cement. She frowns and answers slowly.
"Ruff and I are hanging out." She sighs, rubbing her eyes and pushing her bangs out of her face.
"What are you guys doing?"
"A night hike, last time we talked," she laughs lightly, avoiding eye contact for the sake of momentary comfort. The superficiality is nice, not particularly rewarding, but nice.
"It's February."
"Late February," she defends and Hiccup shakes his head at her.
"It's barely twenty degrees out," he can't help the vice clamping around his chest. "And a night hike? Where are you guys going?"
"Lookout Mountain, not that it's any of your business," Astrid snaps, oddly gratified that he sounds like he legitimately cares.
"Is a night hike exactly a good idea?"
"Well, Ruff's parents are home, where else are we supposed to enjoy the pre-World's booze she procured…"
"So wait, you're going out on a hike, at night, with Ruff, and alcohol, in February?" He asks and she shrugs, pointedly nonchalant.
"Sounds about right."
"On a school night?" He asks absurdly and she nods. "And none of that seems incredibly smart to me."
"It's not smart," she admits callously, and the urge to climb on his lap and kiss him is completely overwhelming.
"You're very smart."
"Don't compliment me," she snaps, crossing her arms and feeling more alive than the last time they fought. The only thing that could make this better would be—well, that's out of the picture, no point in thinking about it.
"I don't like the idea of this hike," he asserts with a faked nonchalant shrug.
"When exactly did that become your business?" She asks.
"I—what if there are bears?" He suggests and she laughs.
"They're hibernating. And plus, bears are diurnal." She throws the line at him, remembering probably their only hike together.
"What?"
"Come on, you're the one who told me that." Her grin falls, "don't you remember?"
"Er…yes?" He lies, before it comes back to him and suddenly he's willing to trek to the shed on his back forty just to reignite some of that. Maybe they could huddle for warmth.
Or he could withhold his warmth until she told him what is going on in her stupid, beautiful, lovable, blonde head.
She ignores the flash of remembrance in his eyes in order to maintain her indignance.
"Of course you do." She blurts, before checking her watch again, projecting urgency. "I've got to go…"
"Astrid, this isn't a good idea—"
"Again, when did this become your business?" She snaps.
"It's my business because you're my girlfriend."
"We're on a break," the proclamation is deafening and she immediately regrets it, crossing her arms. "But…thank you for your concern."
"That's diplomatic of you," he snarks.
"I'm bringing Spike, I'll be fine."
"Spike's not going to stop you from falling and breaking your leg," he offers and she rolls her eyes.
"If I break my leg…" She'll be here all week with him. He can help her shower. He can make sure she actually takes painkillers. "You can say I told you so."
"Right, and that's such a consolation for you freezing on a mountain." She tries to hide her grin.
"I've got two pounds still to lose before Worlds anyway…less weight more speed," she says like a jargon, and Hiccup rolls his eyes.
"We both know you started trimming down when we erm…" he fumbles for the word, confused, "started this break."
"I've been putting in 70 mile weeks. It's normal," she defends.
"I think you're stressed about something," he hedges and she freezes. "Maybe—I don't know, maybe it'd help if you talked about it or something. With me. Or with someone else. I don't know." He babbles and she stares at him wide eyed and frozen.
It's the shot. She should just tell him. Tell him everything.
"You're right." She starts, her tongue impossibly heavy in her mouth, "I—" She needs to talk to him. She needs to…gah, how would she even begin to say this. Hey, she could just blurt it out. Take the old standby and charge into it head on. She chokes on the absurd words pooling in the base of her throat and coughs, averting her eyes to the floor. "It's Worlds. They're big."
"You're going to be fine," he assures her, wishing he were standing.
"I—" she pauses, checking her watch and looking at the door. Leaving is the last thing she wants to do. "I've got to go, I've still got another problem to do before I head out."
"Do you want help?" He offers quietly, and before she knows it, she's sitting on the bed beside him, accepting a notebook to use as a lap desk as graciously as she can and showing him the last problem silently. He's eerily close looking over her shoulder and she can feel his breath against the side of her neck.
The warmth returns, low in her stomach and she freezes, back straightening.
"So…how do I start this…" her voice is too quiet, far too quiet.
"Ok, this one isn't so bad. It's just the standard V equals k q over r," he starts and she writes obediently. She hates how the numbers make more sense just sitting here, with the too warm aura surrounding Hiccup practically steaming her side.
She misses him so much it's like a punch to the chest.
"Oh! And then I solve for q and plug it into this equation?" She asks, pointing at the given equation in the problem and he smiles, gap-toothed and glorious.
"Exactly," he hands her his calculator and she scoots back on the bed, crossing her legs and carefully entering in the calculations.
"Do you have your book?"
"Yeah, it's in my backpack," he mumbles, bending over and pulling the hefty text out of his bag. She pointedly looks away from the way his shirt rides up his narrow ropey back, the pale six inches of freckled skin mysteriously alluring. He hands her the book and she silently flips to the answer page, smiling to herself when the answer is correct.
"Thanks," she writes down the number, neatly boxing it in and standing, pointedly ignoring the way she subconsciously leans towards him on the way up.
'My dad did more than just hit me.'
It should be easy. She should just tell him.
"And you're still determined to go?" He asks, more than a little concerned.
"My dad—" she starts, her voice sounding remarkably strange over the din of her frantic heartbeat. "Never mind."
"What?" He asks, sitting up straighter.
"Nothing."
"You said something about your dad?"
"No, I didn't." She flushes fuchsia, checking her watch and spinning in a tight circle, flustered. "Look, I've got to go. Ruff—I—Do you want me to check in when I get home?" She offers, and the image of crawling into bed with him and curling up, so unbearably warm floods her mind.
"I'd rather you not go." Maybe if she stayed, they'd talk.
Her resolve to leave doubles.
"I'm going. So…check in or no?" She reiterates, her throat shockingly thick.
"Yeah, that'd make me feel better."
"Ok. So…" She stares down at her homework, thumbing the edge of the paper and glancing up at too green eyes, feeling two inches tall. "I'll see you later, I guess."
"Yeah. Later."
He could come up with a million horrible things that are making her this upset and wrong, but it's seems like a violation. He's stuck staring at the door.
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Schedule of events to this point:
Friday, 2/14 – Valentine's Day
Monday, 2/17 – Blind Side with Ruff, Meet Heather at Prosthesist
Tuesday, 2/18 – Push-up bra premier, Dinner with Jerry, Bowling with Heather
Wednesday, 2/19 – Knock out Tuff's tooth
Thursday, 2/20 – Talk with Scot Nout
Friday, 2/21 – Inhaler adventure
Saturday, 2/22 – Angry Make-out, Fishlegs at Home Depot
Sunday, 2/23 – Video Games with Heather
Monday, 2/24 – Stay home from school and make-up
Tuesday, 2/25 – Heather drops by for Research, Talk with Gobber
Thursday, 2/27 – The infamous bending incident, Lesbian relations with Ruff
Friday, 2/28 – Official 'break', Empathetic Track meet, Movie with Heather
Saturday, 3/1 – Sex Talk with Fishlegs, Nighttime talk
Sunday, 3/2 – Couch "napping", Night Hike with Ruff
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So, I hope that schedule helps put everything in perspective, I'll continue updating it with all my following chapters.
And I really really love this chapter. It's gone through a lot of incarnations, but I'm loving it a lot, and I'd really love to hear what you all think of it. Also, thanks to Midoriko-sama for the amazing idea, and I hope I did it justice.
Thank you all for your reviews! I know that it's a difficult and busy time of year, and it means more than you all know that you took the time to tell me how I'm doing here. And Lionheart, I have a schmancy kitchen-aid now, no stirring required.