Ah, a nice lil bit of Serialcup.
-HTTYD-
Whether she'd had a shred of self-preservation knocked in to her, or just had some solid proof shoved in front of her face, Astrid wasn't sure, but she did feel a tiny spark of worry deep inside herself when debating how to talk to Hiccup about what had happened.
He was getting his mom up and ready for the day. Or night. Astrid wasn't totally sure what time it was outside, everything thrown off by injury and the like. She frowned when something started buzzing nearby, then realised it was her own phone. Glancing at the screen, Astrid groaned and flopped back on the pillow.
"Hello?"
"Astrid! Why in all the gods names have I had to hear about you being kidnapped through the news?"
Astrid winced.
"Because I've been unconscious for most of the time since I was found, and I have a concussion so I haven't been thinking very clearly. I'm fine, other than that. You can relax."
It was probably a little shameful that she hadn't bothered to contact her mother, but with everything going on, it really had slipped her mind.
"So, what really happened to you?"
"Oh, not now, please. I promise once I'm feeling up to it, I'll tell you all I can tell you, but right now I need more sleep."
That was a lie, but gods Astrid only had so much energy for difficult conversations and one was more pressing right now.
"Are you at home?"
"No, I'm at Hiccup's, he's juggling taking care of me and his mom. I'll let you know when I'm back home and you can come fuss over me then."
"You make it sound as though I'm being overdramatic when you could have been killed!"
"Mom, seriously, I need to go back to sleep. I'll call you, I promise."
She glanced at the time as she hung up, seeing it was almost midnight. It had been less than a day since she was released from the hospital, less than two full days since the initial kidnap. It felt like weeks, and she still ached all over and her head still twinged, but she felt less nauseous and dizzy when she got up for the bathroom. Which was an improvement.
"How are you feeling?"
Hiccup asked, seeing her stumble out of the bathroom.
"Alive. Ish. My mother just called and reminded me I hadn't called her, and she found out about the whole kidnap thing on the news."
Hiccup frowned.
"Did you tell her you were here?"
Astrid nodded, but was quick to assuage Hiccup's obvious fear that her mother was about to turn up on his doorstep.
"Yeah, but I told her she could see me when I can go back home, that I'd call her, and also that I was going back to sleep."
"Are you?"
"No, but it was the only way to get rid of her. How's your mom? And how are you?"
Hiccup shrugged tightly.
"Mom's ok."
His lack of answer and the tension in his frame said plenty about his reticence for the upcoming conversation, but Astrid knew it needed having. But first, she really needed something in her system, and Hiccup seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
"Come on, you need to eat."
She went, watching him as she waited. Valka watched her watch Hiccup. She could probably tell there was some unusual tension in the air. Hiccup placed down green tea and honey mixed with peanut butter on toast for Astrid, which she ate in silence but definitely felt better for. Hiccup sipped his own tea quietly, lingering grogginess around his eyes from the heavy painkillers he'd taken earlier.
"Will you be alright on your own for a bit mom?"
"Of course, I might go and watch a film in bed, warm these old bones a bit."
Hiccup went to see her to bed, taking Valka a fresh warm drink before he came back to Astrid, who had finished her tea by then. He gestured for her to follow him, which she did, both sat on his bed before he broached it.
"Alright then. Talk."
He'd been the one to suggest they needed to talk to begin with, but the way he looked at her... Astrid got the feeling he knew something was up with her. Taking a deep breath, Astrid debated making a more thought out starter, but decided to simply be honest.
"You scared me."
He nodded, but didn't say anything for a minute.
"Good."
Astrid blinked, surprised.
"Good?"
"Yes. If that hadn't scared you, I'd be more concerned. But that's not all that's bothering you."
He wasn't good at socialising, even now, but the predator in Hiccup could sense some things, and fear was one.
"No, it's not. You... you've been getting more violent, and not just a little bit. I'm starting to worry that line between you and the Night Fury is going to keep getting thinner. What happens when you lose control completely?"
Hiccup thought for a minute, then his shoulders slumped.
"I don't know. I can't stop, so I can only keep going. I guess I can try to cut back... I'm going to have to if I'm getting surgery on my hands. Unless... are you going to break up with me if I can't stop?"
Just for a minute, Astrid was in Hiccup's little murder room, his knife at her throat and his empty eyes above her.
"I... I don't know. Because I know that if you were pushed, you are capable of hurting me" she had the scar to show for it, small as it was "and I've had to really trust you not to this whole time. If you really lost control, would I get hurt again?"
If she really wanted to, Astrid could convince herself that she was safe. Could remember how Hiccup had been careful with her in between beating her kidnapper to the edge of death. Could remember how he took care of her, submitted to her, looked at her with love.
But he was a killer, and she was realising it was naive to automatically assume she was definitely safe.
"That was different. You were a threat then. Unless you've decided to turn me in, you're not a threat now. You're not the Night Fury's type."
Astrid sighed, leaning back in to the pillow behind her, thinking.
"No. I'll never turn you in. But I do need to think about whether or not I'm prepared to hang around forever waiting for the day you can't contain yourself anymore. You've only been doing... this for a few years, really. Are you going to keep getting worse for the next forty or fifty years?"
"I can hardly get therapy for serial murder. This isn't an episode of Torchwood."
Astrid felt her face scrunch in confusion, before she remembered the vague reference he was making about 'murder rehab'.
"No, I know. But... I'm not sure we can go on like this indefinitely."
It was hard to say these things to him, with the sight of his hand bruised and swollen serving as a reminder of everything he went through to save her. But she wouldn't have needed saving if she hadn't gotten involved with him to begin with.
Not that Astrid was blameless. Her getting Hiccup to write to her was what put the spotlight on her to begin with. But that didn't change what she'd seen, gone from words and photos after the fact to real, actual proof of everything Hiccup was capable of. She wasn't losing sleep over the guy who kidnapped her with the intent of raping and murdering her being dead, but the fact Hiccup was so coldly capable of such violence, and that protecting her pushed him to more extremes had shaken her.
"Call your mother back."
While she was thinking, Hiccup had stood, started pacing back and forth.
"What?"
"Call your mother back. See if she can come take care of you."
"Why?"
"So I can take you home."
Astrid winced. Hiccup noticed.
"What's the matter? Don't you trust me? If I was going to leave you dead somewhere, I wouldn't bother asking you to have someone waiting for you now, would I?"
Yeah... he was mad. It didn't seem the time to point out she'd noticed he didn't call his home her home, like he had earlier. Like Valka had when he was moving to rescue her. He actually left the room while Astrid called her mother, trying to ignore the shaking in her hands as she went to her call history, hit call and waited.
"Astrid? What is it?"
Why was she shaking? She could hear the sleepiness in her mothers tone, but words were alert and clear, as though she were panicking.
"I uh... can you come to my place?"
"Of course, but what's wrong?"
"Just... I'll talk to you when you get here."
"I'm on my way."
She heard a thud, and her mom swearing before she hung up - banging her knee or toe on the stupidly huge bedside table she refused to get rid of, no doubt. Astrid took off the t-shirt she had on. It was Hiccup's. She dressed and headed out to put on her shoes, still by the front door since she'd had no intentions of going anywhere for a while. Hiccup was already dressed, car keys in hand, waiting. He'd obviously overheard that her mother was coming, else he'd have asked first... wouldn't he?
He didn't look angry, but Astrid knew better than anyone how decieving his looks could be.
Hiccup opened and closed her door for her, and he waited for her seatbelt to be buckled before he turned the engine on, and he drove carefully so she wouldn't be jostled too much. But he never said a word, just pulled up outside her home and made Astrid realise she hadn't even remembered her keys when he handed them over to her. And he watched her inside, but she heard the car pulling away as soon as her door was closed. At least the press wasn't camped outside her home like they had been at the hospital.
Astrid slumped sideways against the wall and sighed deeply, knowing she only had about fifteen minutes before her mother was going to turn up. Less if the woman chose to break the speed limit, which she wouldn't put past her. Hanging her keys up on a hook - a habit she'd picked up from Hiccup - Astrid continued on to the living room, flipping on the light switch.
"Hello Astrid."
"Where's Astrid?"
His mother asked as Hiccup got back, quite possibly now the only person left who wasn't frightened of his dark moods.
"At home. Her home."
"What happened?"
"I think she finally got some common sense and decided dating a murderer was a bad idea. Not sure yet. She said it scared her, seeing me 'in action'. Which is good."
His hands balled in to fists, the pain in his swollen hand not really registering. He wanted to go out, to break something, to break someone, but that would have been stupid when so much attention was on the Night Fury, now that he'd been caught on film. After checking his mother was alright to be by herself, Hiccup took the ice pack from the freezer and headed to his room, resting the ice pack on his hands and using his laptop one handed, figuring he could at least see what happened with the live stream and whether or not someone recorded it.
Although that wasn't really going to take his mine off of Astrid. His discarded t-shirt on the bed was the one she'd worn to sleep. He was having trouble reconciling the woman who'd told him they couldn't go on as they were with the one who had held him as he slept earlier, but if he dwelled too much on that he'd get angry for letting her convince him to trust her and fall for her, only to reach her limit out of the blue when there were new eyes on him, which came about ultimately ecause of a stunt she'd asked him to pull with those damned letters.m
Seemed his mother was right all along. It was never going to last.
-HTTYD-
I'd like to apologise for realising too late that I forgot to write Astrid getting her phone back from the police, please just pretend that I did write it and I'll correct it some other time.
