Coming Out Chapter 10: Revelations

A/N. This chapter and the following is a significant change in plot and scope, it is recommended to consider this chapter a waystation and to stop if you are reading the whole way through and pick up when you have time available to do so.

Fanfiction doesnt really allow images but if you search up "AO3 Kaffeekupz" there'll be artwork for the version of coming out on that site

Astrid's slackhands became clenchedfists. Her painful headache coalesced into a raging fire that lit between a pair of blurred eyes. The naked blade of her axe bit into the ground.

Why the fuck was Hiccup there? Why was she standing behind Astrid, in the middle of a narrow path between a rock formation, her mouth agape in shock and her skinny arms wildly flapping in that typical manner? Had she been stalking Astrid? Could she not have been?

Astrid angrily muttered to herself "Could people just leave me alone for five seconds?" Not only had she failed to kill a dragon during dragon training, failed to secure her place, failed to prove herself - now she had to suffer the indignity of whatever the fuck this is.

Astrid winced as she struggled painfully to hold her head upright, to stare Hiccup dead in the eyes, her body swaying as she leaned hard on her axe to stay up and level.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Astrid lashed out, no time taken for niceties, "What the fuck are you doing at the ass end of Berk anyway?" she spat out.

"Well, Hiccup?" She added, almost absently. Her mind kept lurching from place to place and it was hard to see the other girl's reaction when there was only one eye functionally available.

"Astrid?" Came the reply, the short length of her name drawled slowly with an open mouth and the question marks practically visible.

Almost… Almost... Almost... like Hiccup didn't expect to see Astrid here.

Impossible. How could Hiccup not expect to see her, Astrid thought. Hiccup's shaking hand clutching her wooden axe handle while the fingers of her other hand drew blood biting into each other said otherwise, said she had expected - nobody. Nobody would be here, in this place. Never more so now than ever, after only a few hours since the dragon training had ended.

All Astrid could focus on was how she had fucked up the dragon training and ran off like a bitch and Hiccup had clearly won - so Hiccup was obviously here to gloat or whatever she did after winning, Astrid thought hazily.

Her head was lolling to the side again, this time to the right and Astrid attempted to switch her vision to the other eye. She struggled to speak again. Her dry mouth was making forming the proper words a chore.

"Why. are. You. here?" Astrid croaked out.

"Why are you here?" Hiccup repeated, puzzled. Hearing the question turned around made Astrid bristlet, she was the one asking questions, and she wished her head would shut the fuck up with its pain warnings. She had enough to deal with, her arms still bleeding slowly and she wanted to scream in agony every time she tried shifting her weight from side to side to keep stable, her legs were near buckling under her and she was pretty sure breathing was difficult - when she could hear herself breathe.

Hiccup started explaining about something again and the brunette kept waving to draw attention to herself, like her flapping arms and the fact that she was the only other living thing here wasn't doing that already. "Like I just told you, I didn't know you were here. I'm uh... I'm here to, you know... Be by myself. Because I..."

"What? Why did you follow me?" shouted Astrid.

"What? No? I didn't..."

Astrid stuck a accusatory bloody finger out at the girl opposite her. " .me" Astrid repeated to herself a few times and struggled to maintain eye contact, Astrid's gaze flickering between the sight of her finger in its battered condition and the utterly bewildered Hiccup out in front of it.

Hiccup muttered something unintelligible and as she began to stutter Astrid couldn't stand the thought of hearing another false reply, why couldn't Hiccup just admit why she had followed Astrid?

"Admit it" Astrid croaked out again, just speaking the words becoming painful.

"Admit what? Astrid, you're not making any sense..."

Something in her head...

Snapped.

Maybe it was the headache that had increased to override levels or something else but in the course of a split second, Astrid changed from "barely hanging in there" to "enraged" and with the help of a surge of adrenaline Astrid raised her axe at Hiccup, her eyes narrowing and her haggard breathing forcing her to twitch as she leveled the axe out in front of her as she grunted out her accusation.

"You. did this. to. me"

Astrid thought of how close she came to winning, where she'd be right now if Hiccup hadn't fucked it up, that selfish prat had everything in the world and SHE wasn't the one who was going to be married off like a fucking slave. All of her anger that had been building up behind the scenes for the past few days, watching in horror as her life slithered from controllable to being controlled, from doing her hardest in dragon training - and then, realising all her effort was for nothing.

Like the sudden boiling over of a pot that had been stewing for too long and the pressure rising enough to launch the lid and the pot's contents into a unsuspecting wall, Astrid finally exploded "YOU… YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU'VE RUINED EVERYTHING FOR ME, I LOST BECAUSE OF YOU..."

Tears started to well uncontrollably and she desperately tried to hold them off to no avail as they streaked down her face. "I'm gonna be married off.. and sold like some... fucking cheap fish... to the lowest bidder… because… because I failed... at dragon training!" Astrid sobbed out in gasps.

Hiccup just stood there, motionless. And to be honest, that was more incredibly infuriating and insulting to Astrid just then than if Hiccup had tried to fight back.

"Say something, for fuck's sake." Astrid angrily snapped out.

Still Hiccup said nothing.

The blood in Astrid's veins burned and if she gripped the handle of her axe any tighter, her knuckles would start bleeding.

"GOD-FUCKING. DAMMIT HICCUP. SAY SOMETHING" Astrid let out a scream of pure frustration and stomped her boot on the ground, how the fuck could someone be so passive? Did Hiccup really not care and would rather stare off into the distance than be confronted? Astrid stared for a moment and realized "Holy shit - is she just deliberately making me angrier?"

Hiccup was still looking at something else behind her, over Astrid's left shoulder, was she just being ignored or what? God, Astrid wanted to pin that bitch against the wall and -.

And -.

What the fuck was that.

Out of the corner of her eye, Astrid saw a pair of wings first open and then spread apart evenly, like they'd been concealed and came out of a rock or something. Then she saw the head next, pitch black and with two angry slits of glowing green eyes that were set in a perfectly smooth and round skull. Astrid turned to stare, no, gawp with strange fascination as the creature glided over the rock it had been hiding by, its every movement catlike and stealthy, barely making any noise. Its tail was quickly swishing from side to side with restrained patience like it was silently hunting its prey, waiting until the last moment to strike.

With conscious thought, her training kicked in, despite the pain and the anger, despite the fact that she was basically fucked anyway. Astrid fully turned to face the dragon and moved backwards to shield Hiccup who was bumbling something or other. She stuck an arm behind her and grabbed the smaller brunette by the collar.

As much as she hated to say it. Hiccup's life was worth more than Astrid's to the village. SHE was the chief's daughter, SHE was important, SHE mattered to Berk, SHE won the dragon training, SHE wouldn't be married off to some "better person". SHE wasn't expendable, like I am, Astrid thought. "Go!"

"What?" Hiccup finally stumbled outan annoying reply and Astrid's fingers tore into Hiccup's clothes and her dirty nails scratched at the skin beneath the cloth.

Furiously, Astrid turned around to face her future chief, grimacing as her side contortedin pain and glared at the puzzled girl. "The fuck is wrong with you? RUN!" She shoved Hiccup backwards with all her might and the girl smacked backwards into a rock.

"Astrid, I..."

"No, go!" yelled Astrid again as she planted her feet as solidly as she could.

Hiccup kept stammering but Astrid ignored her, she was busy dealing with...something. It didn't have the bird-like appearance and squawks of a Nadder, the fly-like, battering ram appearance of a Gronckle or the clumsy dual heads that a Zippleback possessed. It was black, pitch black, camouflaged for the night and...oh. Oh fuck...

"It's a fucking Night Fury, the lethal combination of lightning and death itself, fast, agile." Astrid realized. "No one has ever taken on one before and lived to tell the tale. Oh fuck…"

Astrid swallowed painfully, a dry mouth preventing any relief. She readied her axe, stained with the blood of a Deadly Nadder's legs and belly. She'd probably die, but well... She took some small reassurance that she wouldn't run, or hide. She'd face a Night Fury like any Hofferson would and she'd do her fucking best. Besides, a washed up reject who'd failed to kill a dragon mattered infinitely less than a future chief.

And now she also knew what a Night Fury sounded like.

She steeled herself one last time, fingers gripping her axe harder than before so the blood of neither that fucking Nadder or herself wouldn't ruin the grip. She'd need everything she could get.

But Astrid Hofferson didn't, couldn't, wouldn't.

Run.

He could smell the exhaustion, the anger, and the fear.

The angry human knew he was there but that was of no consequence to him; Hiccup was in danger and he was too close to the angry human for her to do anything to evade him. He leaped down from his perch on the rock with ease and started his slow pace towards the angry human, calculating the options for his attack.

A plasma blast would endanger Hiccup and if it missed, it would just alert the angry human. He'd need to get close, use his armored tail to knock down the angry human, then swipe at her with his claws and rip. He knew she was injured but he was not so foolish to call her easy prey. The girl: angry. human. blonde. bleeding. His nose detected that she was still slowly bleeding in several places. The stench of dragon-killer written all over her and that axe, the blade and haft covered with the blood of a dead Nadder, that same blood soaked into the ripped clothing and mixed with her own bright red wounds. Toothless's focus on protecting Hiccup was joined by that of cold fury, the need to avenge that dragon upon its killer.

He positioned himself, crouching as he moved slowly towards her, poised, prepared to strike as soon as the angry human made a mistake. She turned and faced him fully and she pushed Hiccup behind her, forcing his Hiccup back into a rock; he snarled as he saw that. If Hiccup was injured, he'd rip the angry human's organs out whole from her body and leave them for the carrion birds to eat.

He came closer, tail held still and primed for a sweep. Claws ready to be unsheathed. Jaws slightly parted to intimidate the angry human with the threat of a bite. The angry human circled in a defensive move familiar to him and put herself between him and Hiccup. He needed to get past her to protect Hiccup, he must protect Hiccup.

Close enough.

Toothless lunged, wings quickly flapped open and closed just as quickly, bringing him the burst of speed he needed to close the gap and get within range, but the human still dodged his rush. Barely. He almost caught the human's leg and Hiccup screamed. Toothless ignored the noises and focused as the human shouted a war cry and riposted with a slashing axe strike. He dodged the attempt to cut his nose off by raising himself off the ground on his back legs and countered by kicking up dirt in the human's face. The sudden spray of gravel and twigs caused her to recoil and almost fall over as he landed back on the ground.

The human picked herself up, barely in time, readying herself for another strike. But she was slow, her movements halting and jerky. Toothless could see that she was tired, her body weakening with every second, her face drained of energy and she was clearly unable to call on the surge of needed adrenaline like he could.

Toothless capitalized on this. He brought his tail forward in a whipping motion, smacking the human in the chest with it. The blow sent her flying and sprayed specks of dead dragon and human blood from her bload-soaked clothing to coat his nose. He growled and advanced. Hiccup was shouting again, pulling at his tail as he moved between her and the blonde human, and he voiced a gruff growl - couldn't she see that he was defending her?

The angry human winced, bleeding from somewhere beneath her torn tunic and staggering badly; Toothless eyed the situation and quickly considered his next move. It'd take less than a minute to finish her off, now that Hiccup was out of place to be affected by a plasma blast, and Toothless charged a shot preparing to incinerate the threat.

Two small hands pushed his nose up, two familiar scented hands that the Night Fury had registered as friend. "Toothless! Stop!" came the friend's voice.

What?.

"Toothless!" screamed Hiccup.

His ears crinkled in confusion.

Hiccup's tone was anything but what he expected, it was the opposite of approval. It rang with fear, uncontroled fearl. Fear for - for the angry human? "Toothless! Easy!" screamed Hiccup, even more urgently and loudly.

The angry human collapsed, the axe she was holding on to, more for support than to threaten, fell to the groundand Toothless' senses picked up a face full of bewilderment, exhaustion, and confusion. But Toothless knew she wasn't done yet. His ears picked up a resurgence of her breathing, rapid and quick, trying to bring her struggling body back under control. His eyes saw a head lolling and struggling to stay straight, teeth grinding against each other, and shaking limbs trying to remain standing.

But the human clawed herself back up, hands scrambling to her belt to find a hunting dagger and she stood unsteadily on the crumbling dirt beneath her heels. Now with a new weapon in hand, Her fingers grasping around the hilt and her other hand outstretched for balance, the intent clear in those eyes, but also raw fear and raw adrenaline, the black of the pupils dilating so widely that irises vanished from the whites of her eyes like so many other humans he'd seen when terrified beyond coherent thought.

"No!" The angry human winced as she panted out her defiant response, clutching her side with one bloody hand and the bloody knuckles of the other whitening as the tightened their grip on the hilt of the dagger. "I- I- can't...".

She lurched forwards again, slower this time with each step echoing with pain.

The angry human stopped to steady herself, attempting to draw on whatever energy she could find, limbs and body trembling. "I- I nee- need to." Toothless could hear her saying, no, whimpering. "I must…"

Hiccup put an arm up in front of Toothless, shielding the other human from him, telling him to stop - to stop now!

Toothless railed noisily at Hiccup's insistence that the angry blonde human wasn't a threat, when the angry human's intention was clear. She was going to attack him and then... then move on to attack Hiccup; why couldn't Hiccup understand his whines and body movements? He was protecting her. Repaying her. Repaying her for All that she did for him when he was in danger.

He moved to break free of Hiccup's grasp, to warn her of the angry human's intent, to tell her of the danger she was in. He readied that needed, necessary, final plasma blast, the one that would disintegrate the angry human to ashes even as the angry blonde staggered towards him, weapon in hand and preparing to strike at them both.

"Shit" grunted Astrid as she realized the minimal chance of her attack's success.

"Astrid!" shouted Hiccup, cutting through both Astrid's and Toothless's tightly focused attention on each other.

"Hiccup?" blurted Astrid. The angry blonde's response was barely audible to Toothless, coming out in a short, painful burst but Hiccup's erratic hand movements were enough to relay that the angry blonde was listening to Hiccup.

He wanted to help, his head turning frantically from his Hiccup to the angry human as they began - shouting? - at each other. "What was Hiccup doing?: thought Toothless; he couldn't protect her like while she was acting like this.

Hiccup's words, full of steel and resolve, forced the angry blonde human to look at her, replacing the hostile expression on the angry humans face with one of confusion. "Put the dagger down, Astrid!"

"Hiccup? You. Need. To. Run" gasped out Astrid in halting pants as she continued facing the Night Fury.

"No! Stop, Astrid! Put the dagger down NOW!" repeated Hiccup, even more forcefully.

"It's going to-" The angry human coughed, flecks of blood spraying the ground between them. "Attack...You..."

"Astrid, he's not the monster you think he is." shouted Hiccup urgently, keeping herself between the two combatants.

"He's a fucking dragon, Hiccup, they..." The angry human pointed its dagger at Toothless, the sunlight glinting off the blade.

"Stop!" Hiccup commanded, her voice slowly turning heavier and more authoritative, back straight and shoulders back.

"Why?" shouted Astrid, still focused on Toothless.

"He's not attacking me right now. You are."

Hiccup stepped forward and grappled the dagger out of the other human's hand, its blade turning away from them as the tip buried itself in the dirt. The other human's resistance slowly faltered, Toothless detecting her scent turning from one of barely restrained panic and desperation to a mix of utter bewilderment and exhaustion as the rigid support of one of her legs gave way, and suddenly she was falling backwards.

But Hiccup supported the angry human, to Toothless's own continuing curious confusion. She helped the angry human sit down and fed her from some sort of bottle. The angry human's head lolled to the side and eventually she collapsed completely prone on her back. Toothless watched Hiccup help the angry human that wanted to kill her, and was now puzzled rather than enraged as the fury of battle left him.

"Why?" He sat on his haunches, studying, learning. "Why would Hiccup do this?" he thought. He'd seen humans kill dragons for nothing when all either wanted was the fish. Toothless had witnessed dragons kill dragons and humans for fish or when they were agitated, even humans end the lives of other humans over shiny objects. The angry human was the same as those other humans, but Hiccup had shown kindness towards both him and the other human? Why? He didn't know, he had no answer, no way to rationalize what he'd seen.

Humans were complicated. His gut feeling told him that he should regret ever flying near this island. But a bigger feeling responded that he wouldn't have met Hiccup if he had not.

The two humans were talking about something in hushed tones. Toothless couldn't pick up the language or understand it, but from the emotions he could sense, it was something personal between the two of them, they clearly had some sort of history between them and well.. That was about all Toothless could puzzle out. Maybe the angry human didn't want to kill Hiccup after all, or maybe she did beforeand didn't now; he just didn't know what to make of it.

Hiccup finally sat down, moving to a spot away from the two of them, human and dragon. Toothless moved over to sit near her like he'd always done, but was shoo'd away with a dismissive hand from Hiccup. He obeyed, taking the gesture as an opportunity to study the two humans when they would eventually interact again, but from the safety of a warm rock that had been bathed by the sun. He had carefully noted that the formerly angry human was several lengths away from her dropped weapons, but remained wary for signs of renewed hostility as he watched them both.

His ears picked something up again.

"Oh Thor, what the fuck have I gotten myself into?"

With thanks to ASATanker for the edits.

And to Azzy for the paid artwork.

Next chapter! Hiccup and Astrid finally face each other down, Toothless is still confused.

While you wait for the next chapter, feel free to check out my other fics ranging from Skyrim, to Cyberpunk to She-Ra!