Chapter 12: Maybe
That had to have been the outlandish night of his life by a landslide.
Well, if you didn't count the time his cousin and his harebrained gang had snuck not one, but two goats into their expensive living room last summer when his father was on another one of his trips.
The TV cabinet still had a dented mark from hooves that Hiccup didn't know how his father hadn't seen yet.
But this one had to be in the top five.
Hiccup strolled his room, pacing back and forth, ruffling his already mussed hair in a edgy gesture. His sexy bad boy clothes as Camicazi liked to call, were forgotten and crumpled on his desk chair. He had taken them off as soon as he had fastened the door behind him.
Now, only with his pajama bottoms, barefoot and walking like a madman terrified of the girl who always got on his nerves who was only two rooms away, he was feeling mad.
In a few strides he was planted in front of his door with a torn poster - courtesy of his cat - of Metallica. He checked that the latch was on for about the third time.
He let out a frustrated sigh at how absurd he was being when his hand dropped dead at his side.
He had said goodbye, or something like that, to Astrid, rather given a curt good night that he hadn't even heard, next to the door of the neat guest room that was never used, and then he had darted to his room with his heart in his throat.
He was being stupid.
Well that wasn't news.
He flopped onto the edge of his bed with a suppressed groan, burying his face in his hands, sensing his little anoying, but rather cuddly, lovable cat Toothless jumping to his right and began rubbing against his forearm.
Hiccup knew that the clever thing only wanted to be fed, but he still smiled absently caressing the spot behind his black fluffy ears that he liked.
Hiccup didn't like feeling like this, he felt again just like that scrawny boy who was pushed in lockers and oushed in the ground. As if he were 14 years old all over again, a skinny, weak, useless mistake.
"Damnit Hiccup, don't open that door…" he crooned into the air.
So he hid behind the covers and decided not to think about when he was in 8th grade and had a crush on Astrid Hofferson.
Hiccup's bed was cold.
That has sounded bad.
The guest bed in Haddock's house was cold.
Better, still not right.
It was a room larger than her own, grayer too, with chromatic tones and an impersonal desing, looking as if it had never been used, but still without a speck of dust in it.
The girl wandered across the polished ash wooden floor, slackly thinking if the Haddocks would have one of those maids that she had only seen in crappy soap operas that her mother used to watch.
Perhaps it was the huge empty space, or that she would have to face reality and her family the next day, or that Hiccup Haddock was sleeping two rooms away.
Maybe it was everything, all tied up with a pretty lace.
Astrid took a wide breath, careful not to make a noise as if the boy had superhuman hearing. She stood in the center of the room and the fact that she wasn't going to get any sleep that night dawned on her without complain.
She carefully peered out the window as if someone, maybe Haddock, was going to show up in a Jason Voorhees mask tapping on the glass. You can never be too sure.
She thought about it when checking that it was locked.
The night was still pitch black, it couldn't have been more than 4 in the morning anyway, and the rich neighborhood of the Haddocks seemed to mock her with its white picket fences, stone walkways, and brand name cars.
She hastily drew the white curtains.
Deciding that she couldn't toss and hike all night, she pulled down the sheets that reeked of fabric softener and climbed into the padded enormous bed.
Unfortunately, though not uncommon, her dreams continued on their way to nightmares, which haunted her all night in a spiral that ended in a dark eye of unconsciousness.
The next morning was covered in deep gloom, a blanket of white dust that did not let her see more than the first trees of the forest next to the huge and empty house. Still it wasn't cold.
Astrid had gotten over her non sense fear of even making a sound by opening the door twenty minutes ago and she had been anchored with empty hands clenched into nervous fists on the clean white counter of the Haddocks' kitchen.
The Haddocks kitchen.
Oh man.
Maybe she should have slept some more or making some time watching the paint of the wall of the guest room for about two more hours and avoid almost 1 hour left, still, for the first class of the day.
And it was only Tuesday.
Maybe she should have just jumped out the bedroom window.
'Ah, hm, you're awake' the easy voice with an crampred tinge all over it almost made her fall off the stool. Astrid turned quickly, her hair loose from her cheeks pricking in a short breath. She cursed at herself for forgetting to braid it before stepping out. She already felt helpless enough in his presence.
Hiccup Haddock himself waited on his feet, tight posture and a little grope from foot to foot, an auburn nest on his head and unclear eyes at the drawing room door.
She turned just in time to see him pacing forward, a slight click-clack she couldn't quite define in the air, suddenly thick as bulletproof glass between them.
She decided to ignore it and mixed it in her hurricane of thoughts when the boy was already behind the bar, in front of her, and asking if she wanted some coffee between clearing his throat.
His voice was hoarse, he must have woken up recently, slightly deeper than his usual vivid tone. She felt a sudden, unsought tingle in her cheeks and decided to target on counting the sparkly specks on the marble counter as she let out a broken yes when she remembered that he had actually asked her a question.
The sound of cups clinking together with the ticking of the wall clock almost drove her crazy. She stirred fidgetly in her place.
'Hey, uuh, I just wanted to say that...'
Before she finished the sentence and tangled her hands even more, Hiccup turned on her so fast that he almost dropped a cup. He caught it in the air right before it hit the ground and pinned it to his chest, almost looking like he was hyperventilating.
Hiccup looked at her like a child who has been caught doing something wrong.
Astrid pressed her lips together, pausing as the boy slammed the cup back onto the counter with perhaps too much arm.
He was watching at her as if she was a cursed creepy old doll that just spoke.
He seemed to notice it because he went from pale to a redder tone than his shirt. He made very uncharacteristic faces, moving his hands from side to side. He looked like an orchestra conductor 'S-sorry' he said, she guessed he was referring to the cup, or having interrupted her, she didn't know.
Though she felt like laughing. Seeing Haddock fussy and all awkward as a pubertal teen kind of maked up for her own nervousness. She couldn't help an off smile.
'I just wanted to say…' she resumed, the boy blinking at his full attention, still red.
She cleared her throat and tried not to look at him 'Thank you. For, letting me stay, an all' her voice came out amazingly soft and Hiccup couldn't help but swallow at the sound of it. She seemed so...little, unprotected, not the type of punching before asking.
Astrid made the mistake of looking up into the boy's broad and incredibly striking green eyes, who seemed...stunned.
The auburn took a hand to stroke his neck and then he crossed his arms, almost hugging himself.
His gaze locked on the ground at his bare feet, and his cheeks turning two shades of deeper pink.
Hiccup then too made the mistake of looking at her, her hair, strangely loose, contrasting with the pale of the morning like a sunrise around her face and her elusive and dazed eyes. A violet-pink tint in her cheek.
She had always been unable to read to him. That had left him sleepless a few years ago when he impossibly wanted to know everything.
He felt that he was back in his old ways and he wanted to laugh, to laugh because Astrid Hofferson was wedged in hollow home, feeling the need to turn to him, to him of all person who he knew well that she hated, because she couldn't be in her house.
He suddenly felt like hitting something.
Astrid was inspecting him steadily, his jaw was suddenly clenched and he was tapping his fingers repeatedly on his forearm. She looked him up and down, then to the kitchen, to the ceiling, and back to him.
Had she said something wrong? Was she so low that she didn't deserve to thank the 'oh so great' Hiccup Haddock?
"Oh, it's-it's nothing" he eventually managed to say, and then looked at her, suddenly deep in thought. 'Really '
And then she went flat, with all the profanity she was thinking stuck in her throat. Had that been…sincerity? It had sounded like that. And he was looking into her eyes. Why was he looking at her like that?
Seconds twisted over them like a steamroller until she felt a flush rise up her neck and she lowered her head hard to count the flecks on the counter over again.
She heard the boy clear his throat, but she didn't want to look. His voice was now normal and more awake. It somehow brought some sense of regularity, if you could say that, to all of this.
The ding of the microwave that must be more expensive than her house made her jum for the second time.
She heard him switch a few more things until she had no choice but to look at the yellow cup -the Winnie the Pooh cup, she smiled inside- that the boy silently placed in front of her before sitting down in the same place as last night, another steaming cup in front of him.
His knuckles were white and when she looked at hers, gripping the mug like hot iron she noticed they were too.
This seemed to be their thing. Uncomfortably drinking, arguing, and more arguing followed by an even more awkward silence.
She let out a small thank you before taking a sip to fill the silence. She was so tense that she almost didn't notice the coffee melting her tongue. Although she couldn't taste anything, she couldn't help but recognize a familiar note of...
'Cinnamon?' she blurted out aloud looking at the cup. Hiccup looked up at her, raised eyebrows hiding in his disheveled attempt of bangs. It must have been a record or something because Haddock started babbling uncomfortably again.
She always had her coffee with cinnamon. They both knew it, although Astrid didn't know why Hiccup of all people knew it. Maybe she was just a paranoid lunatic who thought things too much, but anyway 'How did you know that-?"
"Oh! I take it with cinnamon too' His blush and his broken voice made her want to probe further, but she sensed a weight on her chest that she couldn't shake going further with each minute passing in the clock.
The flash of her house swarmed uncontrollably through her mind, a large figure and eyes watching her, following her everywhere. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the suddenly slow silence soothe her.
And she decided to look at him, because, why not?
At his cheeks dotted with flecks of freckles and pink, at his averted and startlingly embarrassed eyes and she thought… Maybe. Maybe one day she could take off that weight.
She didn't know how Hiccup Haddock fit in there somehow, but for now he didn't seem too bad.
She almost thought she caught a glimpse of a lanky, stooped teenager she used to saw in the halls. She smiled and took another short sip.
Hiccup cleared his throat then. He normally loved the silence, really, but under the scrutiny of the great miss perfect Hofferson he felt like crushing himself with a shoe.
He looked for a quick way out of a word he had never said before.
'School?'
Astrid woke up in the haze of her mind and glanced out the large window, the sun was beginning to scratch the mist and the clock was closer to o'clock.
Had it really been that long? Wow.
The girl smoothed her hair suddenly awake 'Yes, right, class'
'Don't want to be late, do you?
And then Astrid smiled at him. She really smiled at him, in that way that marked her strawberry lips and let her teeth show, and marked her little dimples and her almost invisible freckles that he saw well.
'Of course not, Hiccup. I take copilot'
And maybe, maybe she wasn't so bad, maybe this wasn't so bad and maybe he could forget that his cheeks were hot and that he was babbling like a idiot in more than he had in two years.
Maybe a schoolwork on stupid plants with Astrid Hofferson wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
And when he sat down again, this time in his car, with Miss Perfect strangely not not belonging in the passenger seat at his right, going through notes and books on her lap, of course, and scolding him because they were going to be late, he repeated each sentence in his head and started the car with a bang.
He decided to drive at full speed, to play a little, maybe to not make her late and definitely not to think that he had called him by his name.
'Belt's on?'
He thought he saw her smile 'Shut up'
But maybe it was almost impossible not to think about it.