Hiccup's mind was reeling, both a roiling mass of thoughts and a frozen well of disbelief. His fingers trembled with joy and fury, gripping Astrid's arms, indecisive whether to push her away or pull her closer.

Her lips were agony pressed against his; soft and sweet but imbued with a venom to kill the last vestiges of his common sense. For two years, he wanted to taste her kiss again; he craved it for far too long. As an unspoken and desperate hope was finally realized, the bile rose in his throat, bubbling up as a sickening reminder of how wrong it was.

A nauseous rage rippled through him. The pads of his fingers pressed into her skin with a bruising force. He tore her away from him with a gasp of relief and guilty disappointment. He could breathe again, and he hated that. He despised himself more for resenting the parting of their lips.

"No." He muttered, staring at their feet: three boots and one prosthesis, caked with black sand. "No!" he repeated, trying to convince both of them they did not want it. Or, at the very least, they did not want to want it.

Astrid tried to reach for him, to touch his face with a tenderness that might shatter him. "Hiccup-"

"No!" He jerked away, scowling; and the proud and fierce Astrid Hofferson balked. Anger swelled inside him, feeding off the renewed energy of suppressed heartache working its way to the surface, two years too late. "You don't get to do that, acting now like you need me!"

Astrid reached up to stroke the end of her braid: a mindless habit whenever she needed something to busy anxious hands.

"I never stopped caring," she replied evenly. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's why all this hurts."

Hiccup could not imagine she understood the extent of the pain she had inflicted on him, and was continuing to inflict right there, on that beach. How laughable it was, then, that she claimed to be suffering too.

He scoffed, squaring his jaw. "Then, why now? Why here, when there is nothing either of us can do to fix it? You're going to marry Stefnir! So what is it about stringing me along that is so damn appealing?"

There was concentrated blame in her eyes, directed at him, as if he was the cause of everything. "I can't seem to get over you! That's my problem–mine, as much as it is yours!"

Hiccup scoffed. She wanted to be both victim and perpetrator.

"Obviously it's my problem, since I can't ever seem to get away from you!" he snapped. "I've tried, then you kept coming around and making it impossible for me to get past this; to get past us–whatever we used to be! I'm tired, Astrid. Tired of not being anything more than your entertainment!"

"Is that what you really think I was doing?" she asked, eyes alight with outrage.

"Am I wrong?"

"I don't get any pleasure from this, Hiccup! Don't you think I would've stopped it if I could? But it's you; it's everything that is so infuriatingly you!"

"Oh, I'm sorry! Let me just become someone else to make your life simpler!" Hiccup snapped.

He did not know why they continued to shout and insult when it accomplished nothing. Before the lingering ghosts of old, mutual attraction came to light, there was nothing to debate, nothing to lament. Their misery was their own, and there was nothing to be gained between them. It would have been better to remain ignorant. There were no prizes to be won for their candor now.

"I don't want you to be anyone else, Hiccup! I just want..." Astrid smoothed her hands over her hair, glancing toward the night sky.

"What? Want what? Me, to be content with being your man on the side? To act like the past two years didn't happen?"

Astrid stared at him, her gaze unwavering as it bore into him with its disarming significance."You. Hiccup, I want you." Her voice was faint and small, barely above a whisper; defeated and vulnerable in a way Hiccup was not prepared to handle. Not when that tone was wrapped in those words. "I want you to myself," she added, "and I want you to come alive again, like you used to be. You're the one I want, not Stefnir."

And there it was. The final blow laid, in the admission that she wanted him.

Hiccup could not bear the weight of his unhappiness any longer. Two years of a meticulously crafted wall between himself and his feelings crumbled in an instant. Knowing Astrid's heart made everything impossibly worse, because there was no erasing it from his mind as they trudged down their diverging paths. She was unobtainable, wanting him while she was with her husband-to-be; and Hiccup, wanting her still while he was with his future wife, whomever that happened to be. Looks of longing would always pass between them, around Berk and in the Great Hall; but they would go home to other people with the knowledge someone else was touching the very skin their fingers yearned for.

His chest tightened. For the first time in a while, he was truly vulnerable, and Astrid could destroy him totally if she desired it.

"Don't," he pleaded, voice breaking. He stepped back, shaking his head with an extended hand to keep her at bay.

"This whole thing is a mess I don't know how to un-complicate," Astrid took a step forward, advancing on him while he was falling apart.

He was unable to do anything but stare into those plaintive blue eyes, gorgeous and damning. Her hand slid over his shoulder, down the ridge of his collarbone to his chest, stinging him with its unnecessary affection.

"Don't," he practically choked, seizing her wrist to stop its lethal descent.

"I should do what's expected of me and be happy with Stefnir. I've really tried, you know. I don't have much of a choice. It was supposed to be easy for me because doing what's expected is all I've ever done, but...I just can't..." She hesitated, caught on her words. The entire world seemed to stop spinning for them. "I just can't seem to fall out of love with you."

The proverbial coil in Hiccup's stomach snapped. He could not speak; he had no more words to give. He was transfixed by his hand on her arm, and her hand on his chest. It was the first contact between them in a long while that was not repulsive, but no other touch could compare to how badly it hurt.

Astrid's other hand caressed his cheek, and his eyes fluttered closed as her thumb brushed over his skin. He supposed it was meant to be comforting, like the way she swept her searing fingertips over the angles of his face, coming to rest feather-light on his chin. She traced the old scar there. Then, that same torturous hand was gliding around to the back of his head, through his hair, with an almost demanding reassurance. Feel better, it insisted; be okay with this.

He surrendered to her, leaning forward as her touch urged him to do, until his forehead was against hers. Everything in him felt limp and expended, so he relied on the support from the same person who had beaten him down until he had no fight left. He released her wrist and placed his hand on her lower back, wanting her closer to him, for he had no more strength to push her away. He wanted to give in and be consumed by the fire.

She had always made him so woefully pathetic.


Astrid's breath hitched when Hiccup guided her body up against him. She had forgotten how gentle he could be, especially when he had been fuming at her only moments before.

There had been a change in him–a relenting that she had not anticipated: an instant failing of his temper. She felt the tension evaporate from his body, morphing into palpable defeat. She had not intended for things to unfold that way. She had only wanted to talk to him, to explain; but then Hiccup's lips had been as wonderful as she imagined they would be, even two years later.

She should not have kissed him and she knew it.

The sluice gate opened to release a torrent she was not sure either one of them could stop now. He had thought she was toying with him; that she somehow liked all those days enduring his cool indifference and the melancholy of braiding his hair. The angry, hard lines of his face had been a different kind of aggravation from that feigned apathy she bought into.

He did not understand that it was an addiction, that she was compelled to be near him by something stronger than herself. If her presence was painful for him, then his was equally as painful for her. She could not keep herself from placing her hand on the glowing iron, burned by the fact that she was getting married and it was not to Hiccup. But it should have been, though it was never supposed to be.

Her hands roamed over him, exploring what was familiar and strange: the maturing form of the boyish frame she once knew well. His back and shoulders were broader, more defined, from riding dragons and a heavy blacksmith's hammer. He was solid beneath his tunic like she never would have guessed. He was still tall and lanky like the boy she initially fell for, but with the new, subtle musculature of the man she fiercely wanted. He was Hiccup, with all the unique allure of his inelegant awkwardness that kept her tethered, spinning helpless in his gravity.

She sighed, pressing her forehead against his. He withdrew slightly, but she cradled his head and held him in distressing proximity. She could sense his discomfort, see the clenching of his jaw, and feel the reluctance in his touch.

"Why?" he murmured, frayed. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"You know why," was her unsatisfactory reply; but she had already said it once: four letters of emotional condemnation. She would not explain herself a second time.

Their noses brushed as they shared a breath, hot, moist, and teeming with the energy of a gathering storm. Astrid could smell him: a combination of soot from the forge, leather, and the salt of the sea breeze that permeated everything around them.

"Hiccup," she whispered, imploring him for an equal response she had no right to ask of him.

Her head tilted, seeking the faintest contact that was jarring to the core as her upper lip skimmed across his. She felt every nerve, every fiber, thrumming with a need for another taste of him. Just one more shot.

"We shouldn't do this," he said, though his words held no real conviction. She could feel the enunciation of his words as their mouths hovered so close that the space between them was negligible. "We shouldn't..."

Then everything that was prudent and wise was lost in the way their lips melded together, firm and desperate. There was a rush of satisfaction, and Astrid hoped he felt it too; because that kiss, mutually sought, was incomparable to any other sense of fulfillment she had ever known.

She cupped his face in her hands, feeling the warmth of his skin in her palms like a promise that he would stay; that he would not recoil again.

He was kissing her back, slow and uncertain. With a conceited thrill, she realized no one else knew his lips as she did; and with a wave of shame, she knew he could not claim the same exclusivity. So, she kissed him harder, more fervently; crushing their mouths together in the hopes it would erase any traces of Stefnir that lingered there. She reveled in giving Hiccup what should've been his.

At that point, with boundaries crossed, it did not matter what was supposed to have been. After all, their people were never meant to live with dragons. Astrid was not supposed to have noticed the scrawny, fumbling boy who was never going to amount to anything great. She was always supposed to marry Stefnir–that had been decided long ago; and she should have never found a distraction from that duty to her family. But Hiccup had changed the course of everything that ought to have been, setting a new trajectory that wrested her violently from the perfect plan that had been laid out for her life. Just like that, he was at the center of everything. What was supposed to be was smothered to death by what actually was: his lips moving against her own.

She captured his bottom lip when breathing was imminent, drawing back with a parting suckle that she never felt Stefnir deserved. But he probably did. He was her intended, and he deserved it in a way Hiccup did not. Yet, there she stood miles from home, wrapped up in the attention of a man she could never be with like it was the last time. It could very well be the last time, if one of them managed to come to their senses.

It really needed to be the last time, for their sanity, for their dignity; and for the truth that it was never going to go anywhere but face-first into the dirt.

But, Odin help her. Astrid would never let it be the last time.

Hiccup gazed at her with a conflicted desire, breathing a little too heavily to be alright with any of it. His hand was still insecure and conspicuous on her back. He held her close to him, but not close enough.

She inched forward, feeling the rapturous guilt as her body fit against his with a flawlessness that insulted her scruples. Hiccup shuddered–or maybe she did–and his arms came around her in the death throes of his reservations. Stefnir faded into a distant second thought that was nearly imperceptible as Hiccup initiated another, more assured kiss.

Her hand ran through his hair; soft russet between her fingers that were no longer encumbered by false pretenses. Her other hand returned to his chest, gripping his tunic because it was the least dangerous thing she could do with it.

Somehow, she thought she could take a breath with their lips still connected, but Hiccup persisted; and everything became open-mouthed and ragged gasps. Suddenly, they had bounded into new territory, hot and urgent–and further than she had ever gone with Stefnir. The kiss was terrifying and exciting, wonderful and wrong. She leaned into Hiccup, coming up on her toes just as his knees buckled. They fell, and Hiccup caught himself. He was half-sitting, half-lying, propped up by one hand as Astrid landed in his lap, straddling him on the damp, black sand. Their position was ridiculous and compromising; perfectly shameless as if they had coordinated it.

And they did not stop. Not even a moment's pause to collect themselves.

She yanked on his clothes, dragging him up to meet her by fistfuls of green tunic. Two years of trying to behave, of trying to move on like a couple of mature adults, was wasted effort now. They had been contents under pressure, fated to explode in either screaming or colliding passions; or both, as it so happened.

Their kiss was clumsy and aggressive, too much grazing of teeth. Then Astrid found his tongue, coaxing it with a timid flick of her own. She melted into him when he responded in kind. A whimper escaped her and Hiccup sat up straighter, tightening his grip on her arms. His hold was possessive and it made her dizzy. She battled him, brushing her tongue against his in a bid for dominance; because they were equally matched in foolish desire and brazen stupidity.

His hands traveled down her arms with deliberate pressure, truly feeling and learning her. Astrid was too aware of his fingers and his blacksmith's callouses. Her arms were innocent expanses of flesh, but every bit of skin Hiccup touched became an erogenous zone. And they were heat: two blazing entities suffocating as they burned up all the air between them.

She was stroking him, rubbing over his chest like she was trying to ignite more sparks; stir up more friction. There would be nothing left of those pitiful, anguished teens. What would emerge from their ashes was anyone's guess. Maybe something beautiful, but likely something more tragic. The present was all Astrid could think about; not tomorrow or the next day. Not the regret, nor the mortification; not the queasiness in her stomach whenever she looked at Hiccup as she hung on Stefnir like the dutiful bride.

With much difficulty, Astrid wrenched her mouth from his. She stared into his eyes, so dark in the silver light of the evening. They both were breathless.

She could not bear to think about the humiliation to come; and though Hiccup was the only other person who would know, it was disconcerting because it was him. He mattered; what he thought, what he felt. Would he blame her? Hate her? Resent her for the heavier load they now had to carry?

"Hiccup," she murmured, moist lips brushing his cheek, "I shouldn't have...I'm sorry." Because an apology was in order, though she could not pinpoint one thing. She was sorry for all of it.

Yes, a little remorse was called for as she ground her hips down into his lap.

"This is wrong," he insisted, grasping her waist as her body rolled beneath his hands.

"I know, I know." She tilted her head back with a frustrated, hungry moan.

Hiccup closed his eyes, leaning forward until his head rested just beneath her collarbone, and his face was flirting with the valley of her breasts. She held him there, embracing him and gazing up at the unblinking, voyeuristic stars. He held onto her hips, mindful of the spikes of her skirt. She moved over him, dragging woolen leggings over leather.

"We have to stop this," he rasped, contrary to the way he pulled her closer. He mapped her contours as she rocked their lower bodies together.

Astrid wanted the fabric barriers gone. She wanted to feel the warmth of his fingertips gliding over her thighs; and his breath tickling her breasts. But that would kill them. If nothing else, that surely would.

"Hiccup, I don't want to stop," she admitted.

He had to do it. As unfair as it was, another burden was on him. Astrid could not be the one to end their tryst; to choose to submit to her conscience and be faithful to Stefnir. She had indulged too much; drank too greedily from the forbidden. Hiccup had to be the responsible one that pushed her away, rebuffing her advances for the sake of their mutual sanity.

He glanced up at her, and she captured his lips. There was no way she could not kiss him. She was not strong enough to resist him anymore. t

"This won't go anywhere," he murmured between fervent pecks. "This...we're only doing more damage."

Astrid knew that, but she could not bring herself to care as much as she should. Astrid moaned against his thin lips, absorbing every last bit of pleasure from their indiscretion. She could feel his excitement, swollen and hard, against her inner thigh. The awareness of his arousal turned her blood to fire.

"Tell me to stop," she pleaded. "Hiccup, you have to tell me-"

A firm, lengthy kiss interrupted her. It was scalding.

"I won't," he told her. "I can't."

"Why?" Their mouths ghosted over one another, teasing that time.

"Because I can't seem to fall out of love with you, either." He answered.

Astrid sighed, tasting and savoring the words in the breath they shared.

"Because I'm an idiot," he added.

"Hiccup..."

She groped at his belt, absent of any higher thought as the buckle clinked enticingly.

Then Toothless warbled, and it snapped Hiccup out of his trance. His brow knitted together over half-lidded eyes, and Astrid felt his caresses falter. His eyes flickered down to her staggering attempt to undress him; and there was the shameful rush she had been waiting for: the inevitable result of throwing prudence to the wind.

"You have to get off of me," Hiccup said, common sense returning with a vengeance. "Y-you have to-"

Astrid scrambled off his lap, covering her mouth to stifle the sudden urge to vomit. She could not look at him, staring out at the black waves glimmering so benign in the moonlight. Their last kiss was still tingling on her lips, beseeching for more. She despised herself for it. What had transpired between them, so desperate and brief, was over. All that remained in the aftermath was embarrassment and the threat of bitterness to follow.

"I'm sorry." Her throat was dry and her voice, hoarse. She swallowed hard and strode toward Stormfly, eyes downcast.

She was going to flee that beach and hurry home to Stefnir. She would never go near Hiccup again; she would spend the rest of her life as the loyal wife Stefnir expected her to be. No more blurred lines, overstepped boundaries, or challenges to convention.

"Stop," Hiccup said gently, and it was a request. Long fingers encircled her wrist with the sweetest grip. "Wait."

Astrid sighed, blinking tears of frustration from her eyes. Still, she didn't cry. Turning back to him, she willed herself to hold it together; to retain some self-respect. She was the instigator, and she knew it. He knew it. She had propelled them into calamity, trying to step back when it became too real, making an already horrendous situation more complicated because she was selfish.

"I'll go back to Stefnir," she declared. "I'll leave you alone. I won't speak of this to anyone. You can just-"

Hiccup kissed her, and she wanted to disappear, closing her eyes and grimacing. He had shook his head while she spoke, then boldly claimed her lips to add further insult to reason; and it was a deplorable thing, because she could only relish in it in spite of her reservations.

"I don't want that and neither do you," he replied, sounding annoyed, fed up with her hurtful vacillating.

Astrid did not know where he had found the sudden confidence to speak for them both, even if it was true.

She stepped back from him into the open arms of her renewed sense of responsibility, because it was safe there. Everything was predictable, and everything was simpler.

She mounted Stormfly, tucking her hair behind her ears with trembling fingers.

"I'm...I'm going back to Berk. No one knows I left. They'll be looking for me." She blurted out before Hiccup could argue.

She was going back to Stefnir and her parents; back to the Astrid that did as she was told: the girl that everyone could depend on. Her word was her bond and she did not give in to unrealistic fantasies.

"Whatever this is, Astrid, I'm not leaving it here."

A shrinking, but audacious part of her was glad he was so determined. That whisper of temptation wanted her to stay on Dragon Island and find out just how far they were willing to go, where they would stop, and if they could truly dissolve two years of a sullied relationship.

But she nudged her dragon with her heels, retreating into the night sky and leaving Hiccup where he stood.


Stormfly returned to her stall with very little guidance. She flapped her wings and cocked her head to the side, considering Astrid with curious yellow eyes. Astrid tried not to look at Stormfly. Her dragon did not need more reason to fret over something beyond her capacity to understand.

"Good girl. Thanks for the flight," Astrid cooed, stroking Stormfly's snout before leaving the stables.

If she was lucky, she could make it to her bedroom without any further interactions. She needed to collect her thoughts and sort through all of the indecent rubbish without Stefnir or her parents adding to the pile.

But that would have been too easy; the kind of good fortune of someone actually deserving of it.

Footsteps and the eager jangling of armor captured her attention like a skittish rabbit in a snare trap. She turned around with swelling dread, recognizing that particular melody of rattling metal. She knew well the towering, chiseled frame before her eyes even met his face.

Stefnir hurried toward her, alight at the sight of her. He was impressive in the interplay of bright moonlight and shadow, flashing off his armor and defining his wealth of muscle. She wiped her sweaty palms on her tunic with a wavering smile she hoped was convincing in the darkness.

"You weren't at dinner," he said, quirking an eyebrow. "I was beginning to wonder where you'd gone."

He hugged her and she tensed, fingers curled and rigid above his shoulders. Her hands trembled and she settled for patting his back awkwardly, uncertain what feelings might be betrayed while holding him.

"I was out flying," she replied, wiggling out of his embrace without being too conspicuous. A tender hand on his chest was affectionate enough, but she withdrew it almost instantly. Her expression was placid though her insides squirmed.

"Where to?" he asked, rubbing her arms like he always did-which suddenly felt like a foreign and unwelcome contact. She wished he did not want to feel her skin. His hands were too large and assertive in a way she previously had not noticed.

"Just...around. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention." She was trying not to sound too perturbed.

touch repulsed her more than it should. For the first time, she had another caress to compare it with.

"You should tell me before you just up and leave like that," Stefnir told her with a small, exasperated smile much too similar to a parent's mild criticism.

"I didn't realize I needed an escort."

She was a dragon rider, damn it. She'd been pioneering dangerous stunts on her Nadder before Stefnir had even named his Monstrous Nightmare.

"As your future husband, don't you think I deserve to know these things?" He tugged at the end of her braid, childishly emphatic, as if she could not understand his meaning otherwise.

"Maybe if you believe I'm doing something duplicitous?"

Stefnir chuckled, gripping her waist and pulling her flush against him. She bristled everywhere their bodies met as he leaned in.

"I know you better than that," he whispered.

He kissed her and she screwed her eyes shut, lips tightly pursed beneath his. Her mouth felt besieged, tender and abused from earlier. She wanted to shove him away, no longer accepting those thicker, rougher lips.

His hand snaked beneath her braid to the nape of her neck, holding her where she stood, frozen in place by her family's inescapable commitment to his.

Sacrificing her own desires for reputation and honor was the Hofferson way.

As Stefnir held her, a dragon flew overhead, camouflaged against the black of night like only one species she knew of. And it was all she could do to keep from screaming.