Hello! Long time no see! I am submerged in a sea of academic writing right now, so of course I decided to do some non-academic writing to (procrastinate) balance things out! Here's chapter 20, in which there is takeout, tears and taken-forever-but-is-finally-happening!

Enjoy!

Chapter 20 – The Toothbrush Test

There was still a spring in her step as Astrid was on her way back from work a few days later. She had awoken to a text from Hiccup saying, 'gone on cleaning duty with three hours of sleep today! Hope you're having a better day than I am xx'. Accompanied by a follow-up: 'I could think of something that would turn this day around though – let's grab dinner later? Feels like we haven't seen each other in forever! Will be free from 6 pm.'

'That gives me another two hours to go through the usual household routine,' Astrid thought as she jammed her key in her lock and body-slammed her unwilling door. She decided to start with the state of her inbox (which, perhaps, may not even be considered a 'household routine task', but based on her logic it was, indeed, very urgent). Astrid had a bad habit of letting emails sit for too long, with a current proud count of 9,426 unread emails.

She turned on the kettle, sat down at the kitchen table and opened her laptop, absent-mindedly pushing the on-button as she thought back to what they had spoken about last night.

Hiccup had sounded so serious, anxious even. Part of her had known his job would have had to come up at some point, and she was glad they had talked about it. She'd always been aware that his profession was dangerous – danger had been the reason they'd met, after all. But then again, another part of her somehow knew that she wouldn't truly understand just how dangerous it was until something happened. Maybe it was the kind of thing you needed to see until you truly believed or were able to predict it. Either way, she knew she was willing to take the risk.

Her laptop's screen lit up. The notification centre binged. Astrid shook her head as if to shake off her heavy thoughts, reminding herself of the task ahead. Emails. Right. 9,427 now.

Her heart almost skipped a beat when she saw who the last email was from. Puffin Point Secondary School Secretary Office – Admission and Recruitment. "Oh, my God," she breathed out, her hand shaking as she reached out to click on the email titled, 'RE: Application for Assistant Teaching'. Astrid took a deep, shaking breath, closing her eyes for a second until she could read the mail:

'Dear Miss Hofferson,

Thank you for your application. I am delighted to inform you that you have been invited to an interview on Tuesday, 19 July 2019 at 8.45 AM. Please let me know if that date works for you – I do apologise for the short notice, there was an issue with our servers, and I have not been able to get out any emails for the past few days. I hope to meet you soon.

If you should have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

With kind regards,

Camilla Bog, Head of Administrations and Recruitment'

Astrid sat back, still shaking. 19th July. That was tomorrow. Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Before she knew what she was even doing, she had her phone in her hand and had dialled Hiccup's number.

"Astrid? Is everything-"

"I got the interview," she just said and Hiccup stopped mid-sentence.

"Wait, the – you mean the interview for the assistant teaching?"

Astrid nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Yeah," she got out, covering her mouth with her free hand, lips trembling. She felt overwhelmed, overjoyed and scared within every inch of her body at the same time.

"That's – that's amazing, Astrid, congratulations!" she heard him say on the other line, and she felt like she had to sit down despite never even having got up. "For when?"

"Tomorrow," she whispered. "8.45."

"Oh, wow. That's soon," Hiccup commented and Astrid nodded, feeling heat rush up and down her body at the thought of the whole thing.

"How are you feeling?" he asked and Astrid just sat there, feeling quite numb now.

"I don't know," she said. "Overwhelmed. Shocked. Excited. Mostly scared, though. I feel absolutely mortified. I didn't even know I'd get an interview. What if I don't-"

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there," Hiccup interrupted her, audibly smiling. "I'm gonna be over in two hours, I'm bringing food and ice cream and we're getting you thought this. Okay?"

"Okay."

A small smile crept onto Astrid's lips now as she closed her laptop and stared down at her kitchen table, the sound of the boiling kettle slowly fading in the background.

"We're gonna get you through this," Hiccup repeated on the other end of the line.

Astrid spent the next two hours cleaning and tidying her flat. It was a feeble attempt at muffling the whirlwind of thoughts raging through her head, but still, it did help her to somewhat sort it out and get her feet back on the ground. It was one of the many advantages of cleaning: your hands are busy doing other things and give your mind time to figure everything out and get back down to earth.

She wrung the sponge out over the sink, tossed it to the side and leaned against the counter, breathing out and closing her eyes. 'It's gonna be nice to spend some time together,' she thought. It felt like they'd barely got to spend some time together ever since that alarm. The last few days had felt somewhat rushed, distracted by other things, quick text messages and hour-long stretches in-between texts. She'd missed him. 'It's silly, really,' she thought and pushed herself off the counter and shuffled over to her sofa and, with a long sigh, slumped down on it.

'I really got that interview, huh,' she thought, staring up at the water stain on her ceiling. 'I mean, to be fair, that doesn't mean I have the job by any means.'

She'd been trying to rationalise the whole thing for the last hour of her cleaning time and while it felt like she'd definitely got the nervous energy out of her system she wasn't really sure if she knew what to do about the whole situation. Show up to the interview, of course. No-brainer. But beyond that, she had no idea. What to prepare, to ask, to say about herself was completely and utterly beyond her. Maybe Hiccup would have some ideas – scratch that, she expected Hiccup to have some ideas. He always did, somehow.

The doorbell rang, interrupting her musings and Astrid jumped up from the sofa, half-way to the door thinking about how she hadn't even put the kettle on and if she had anything edible in her fridge or at least something they could throw together into something that closely resembled a nutritious-

"Hi," Hiccup grinned, dropped his rucksack and opened his arms and her mind went quiet.

Astrid closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him, breathing in, peace washing over her.

"Hi," she whispered back and tightened her grip around his middle.

"How're you feeling?" he mumbled and she shrugged into the embrace.

"Like I've got the most important interview of my dream job thus far coming up. You?"

"Like my girlfriend just got the most important interview of her dream job thus far coming up," he quipped back and she pulled back, squinting her eyes at him. He met her with a warm, genuine grin and gently cupped her face. "It's good to see you this excited. Sorry I've been so absent over the past few days."

"It's okay," she muttered. "We've both been busy ..." She trailed off as their faces moved closer and closer together until they met halfway in a soft kiss. Hiccup's hands gently roamed her back in a comforting motion as they parted again and he grinned at her.

"Ready to get some food on?"

"Oh yeah, I was gonna tell you, I don't really have anything in my-"

"I brought takeaway!" he announced cheerfully as he slipped off his shoes and plopped himself down onto her sofa, holding up his rucksack.

Astrid grinned, a bit more than relieved if she was being honest with herself. "You're amazing."

She let herself fall down next to him and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"I'll get us some plates in a minute," she mumbled into the fabric of his jumper and he chuckled, his arm coming around her.

"Oh, but don't you know that it is tradition to have takeaway straight out of the box?"

She squinted, a grin creeping up on her face. "Is it? I wasn't aware."

"Oh, yes. The ancient scripts demand it. Those are the age-old rules – sacred, even. One must follow them."

"Are you sure those 'ancient scripts' don't only apply to down-on-their-luck firemen who are sat in their basement all day long?"

"Oi!" Hiccup huffed indignantly. "It's a common room, I'll have you know."

Astrid laughed, gave him a kiss on the cheek and got up to get some plates and proper cutlery.

"So," Hiccup muffled between a mouthful of Pad Thai, "Walk me through this. How're we gonna go about the interview? You got a plan yet?"

Astrid furrowed her brow, looking at him while she slurped up her noodles unceremoniously. "'unno," she confessed after a few seconds and swallowed, setting her plat down onto her lap.

"I don't even know why they called me in for an interview, to be honest. I mean, I have a giant gap-"

"Hang on, I thought we went over this!" Hiccup interrupted her and set down his plate, taking her hands in his. "You're amazing. You wrote down why you're amazing. And they agreed and invited you."

She sighed. "I – okay, fine. But then what," she pulled her hands out of his, wildly gesticulating. "do I just turn up and go, 'hey, I'm great – hire me!'"

He squinted his eyes at her. "Okay, come on, stop messing with me. I know this is an important interview and you're stressed out but it's also nothing you can't do."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do."

"How?"

Astrid felt herself getting more and more irritated with the whole situation, and it wasn't even his fault at all. Why couldn't she just stop moaning about this and just … get it together? The fact that she couldn't get it together and – even worse – felt like she wasn't even good enough to be seriously considered for this job made her fume.

Astrid knew that really, what was hiding behind her anger was fear.

"I-" she started and was horrified at the tears welling up in her eyes as she spoke. "I'm scared. I'm so, so scared I'm going to screw it all up."

Hiccup's face fell as his heart dropped at the sight of her face.

"I – I'm going to go in there and I won't know what to say, and I'll screw everything up and the one – the one thing I was always sure about is going to be even further away from me than it ever was before."

Astrid was absolutely terrified. Becoming a teacher had been her only goal for such a long time, and she felt like she had everything to prove with this single – and first – opportunity she'd seemed to have got out of sheer and utter dumb luck.

"For years, this was the only thing that kept me going, the one and only thing that got me through being thrown out and cast away by someone I loved and who I thought had my back, and the one and only reason I'm still at this stupid fucking bar and let myself be yelled at by people I can't stand."

Tears were streaming down her face now.

"I just want to be someone. I want to be who I wanted to be growing up. I want to look at myself in the mirror and think, 'I did something worthwhile today'. I want to go to work and feel like I'm actually accomplishing something that's worth being proud of. I just want to be proud of myself."

She hid her face in her hands. "I'm sorry, this is stupid. I'm so fucking stupid."

"Hey," Hiccup reached out and slowly took her hands in his, pulling them away from his face and ever-so-gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. "You're not stupid so don't even try."

Astrid sniffed and gave him a shaky, half-smile. Hiccup's eyes searched hers, hands closing around hers again.

"Remember when I said not to apologise for having feelings?"

She nodded feebly and Hiccup smiled, lightly squeezing her hands. "I stand by that. Still mean it."

Astrid looked at him, tears still in her eyes, and she didn't know why she was still crying, and there were a million thoughts running through her head, but all she could say to him as she looked into his eyes was, "Can you stay here tonight?"

Hiccup stopped, and then the softest of smiles grew on his face.

"Of course."

Astrid exhaled, closed her eyes and sunk into him, against his shoulder. "Thanks. I love you," she mumbled and Hiccup could have thought about how this was the first time she'd said these words to him, or how he'd been waiting for the perfect moment, or for it to somehow be more significant. Instead, he just looked down to her, a soft smile settled on his lips, heart full of love, his mind calm.

"I love you, too."

Thank God she had a spare toothbrush. 'Sharing many things as a couple is great,' Astrid thought as she stood in her bathroom, hands on her hips. 'But a toothbrush is definitely taking it too far.'

"Got it!" she called out into the bedroom behind her and grinned as Hiccup popped his head through the bathroom door, face lit up.

"Nice, thanks" came the affirmation as she handed him the toothbrush and squeezed some toothpaste onto it. And so there they stood, side by side, brushing their teeth in silence.

Astrid had thought that maybe this would be weird. The last (and first) time they'd stayed the night they'd done this separately. And she'd always thought cleaning your teeth with someone else was awkward, that you were just kind of supposed to feel a bit stupid. But here she was, looking over at Hiccup and realising that she was absolutely fine doing this, her heart completely at peace. Maybe this was what love was, she thought to herself and looked at his reflection in the mirror and the way he blinked at her when he realised she was looking at him. Feeling at ease brushing teeth together.

'Maybe,' she thought and turned on the tap.

She waited for him to finish and said, when he turned to her, "I have a toothbrush – but no extra clothes."

"Didn't you keep my things? From the storm?" he asked and Astrid remembered the shorts and t-shirt she'd left carefully folded in the bottom of her wardrobe. With a small, "Of course" she went over to her wardrobe and handed him the clothes, somewhat sheepishly.

"Thanks," he grinned. "I guess they're dry now, huh."

She snorted. "I guess." And after a moment of hesitation, "I'll, uh … turn around so you can change."

Hiccup laughed. "Isn't that my line?"

"Maybe. I'll still turn around though."

He chuckled and started unbuttoning his shirt. "Alright, suit yourself."

Busy silence ensued. Astrid was gnawing on her lip. The image of Hiccup in a towel standing in the doorway, her handing him his Tupperware burning in front of her eyes.

"Real talk though, would it bother you if I turned around?"

A pause, during which she assumed he swallowed down a smug grin. "Again, suit yourself." Astrid held her breath and swung around, rather unceremoniously and was met with the sight of a grinning, shirtless Hiccup who extended his hands to her.

"That bad?"

She snorted, letting out the breath she'd been holding. "That's not how I would describe it."

"Oh yeah?" He had a smug grin on his face now as he lightly took hold of her wrists and pulled her closer to him. "How would you describe it then, dare I ask?"

Hiccup was playing it cool but his face was burning, and his heart was beating so quickly he was afraid she might hear. Astrid looked at him with a smile that made his knees go weaker than the first time he'd had to slide down the pole at work.

"Quite literally the stuff of my dreams," she said and he was pretty sure one of his knees actually gave way, and he could have sworn he could actually feel the blood from his head rushing elsewhere.

Oh, God.

"You dream about me?"

She shrugged, coyly, stepping closer, one of her hands coming up to rest on his shoulder. "Maybe. Occasionally."

"Well," he paused and grabbed her free hand. "Care to share what happens in those maybe-occasional dreams?"

Astrid hesitated, eyes fixed on him, and that was the exact moment Hiccup decided to stop being a coward.

In a swift motion his other hand wrapped around her back, and he pulled her close, lips crashing down on hers in a restless frenzy. Hiccup's heart was beating up to his throat as he felt her arms wrap around his neck in return, pulling him down to her, her breath hot on his face as they shortly parted, stumbling as their lips met again and again, and suddenly they found themselves leaning against the wall of her bedroom. Their eyes met in a breathless second, and Astrid grinned at him, making his heart flutter. She kissed him again and Hiccup could swear he was floating. This wasn't real.

There was something about the wall on his back though that felt very real. Her hands roaming his chest also felt very real. Her lips on his skin were probably the realest thing he'd ever felt in his entire life. His hands cupped her face in an attempt to pull her ever closer, and maybe just to touch her and confirm to his nagging mind that yes, this was indeed real.

Her hands around his neck were pulling him back now, and together they stumbled forward, or backwards, neither of them really cared to tell, and Astrid's knees hit her bed. Without a second thought she let herself fall onto it, shooting Hiccup a quick look and caught a bright grin as he leant down to meet her lips again, and it was impossible to slow down. He started kissing his way down her neck, lingering at the spots where he drew a short gasp and grinned into her skin.

And then, suddenly, everything was going way too fast, and it seemed that suddenly they both started realising what they were about to do at the same time and time slowed down, their faces inches away from each other, hands on each other's clothes, his hands under her shirt.

There was a breathless silence in which their gazes collided.

"Are you sure?" Astrid asked, hesitantly pulling her hands away from his belt buckle.

Hiccup looked at her, his mind unoccupied by any other thought than this, "I love you," he blurted out, cupping her face.

"I love you, too," Astrid whispered and leaned her forehead against his, eyes closed, voice soft and small when she spoke again, "Do you want to wait? We don't have to do this now. I'd get it."

"I'm sick of waiting, I've waited way too long to even kiss you," Hiccup said determined. "I want this. I want you. Do you?"

Astrid looked at him and his heart skipped a beat.

"Yes."

A grin broke out on both of their faces after this, and it felt uncontrollable.

"You don't have to take your trousers off if you don't want to," Astrid whispered, gently stroking his face as she kissed him.

Hiccup pulled his face away and frowned at her, half-smiling. "I'll keep my leg on if you don't mind. I'll show you another time."

"Sure, whatever you're comfortable with," she replied, softly, still stroking his cheek, and Hiccup's heart felt like it was overflowing with love for the woman in his arms. And so kissed her once more. And again. And again.

Astrid awoke the next morning, blear-eyed, glowering at her 7.00 AM alarm. She turned it off and rolled back onto her side. Hiccup groaned beside her and put his arm around her, burying his face in her chest. She chuckled.

"Morning, sleepyhead."

"Morning," he grunted and opened his eyes shortly to peer up at her, a slow grin blossoming on his face. "Sleep well?"

Astrid returned his smile and nodded, trying to suppress a yawn but then gave in. "Yeah. You?"

"Eh, so-so. Woke up a couple times," he replied. "Fell asleep quickly though." He peered at her, a cheeky grin on his lips and Astrid laughed.

"I know, I heard."

Hiccup sat up, feigning outrage. "Are saying I snore?"

She snorted. "Yeah you do."

"You know I won't believe you until you pull a tape, do you?"

"Absolutely."

They sat in silence for a while, a slow smile still hanging on Hiccup's lips when Astrid rolled over on her side to face him, her face inquisitive.

"Is it weird that we slept together yesterday?"

Hiccup's heart nervously skipped a beat. Oh, God, she was regretting it. Of course she was. He should have seen this coming. He could already see her telling him she definitely wouldn't consider sleeping with him again.

"What? Why would it be weird?"

"I don't know," she mused, resting her head on her arm. "We just never really talked about it before. It felt a bit … rushed? Like, um, spur-of-the-moment. I'm just … I just hope you're not regretting it."

Oh, thank God. She wasn't actually breaking up with him. Part of him was just rolling his eyes internally at the wild absurdity of his conscious mind. "Why would I regret this?" He reached out and gently swept a strand of hair out of her face.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I just thought … you know, 'cause we never really talked about it wasn't really sure if you even wanted to have sex with me. Like, at all."

"Are you kidding? I don't want to enforce any stereotypes here, but that's literally all I'm thinking about when I'm at work sometimes. Well, not all of the time. That'd be very unprofessional and unsafe for everybody," he said jokingly and got a small grin out of her. She didn't really look convinced.

"Astrid," he cupped her face and steadily held her gaze. "When I say I love you, I mean it. I've never felt this way about anyone before. Ever. I just have to see you and all rational thought goes out the window. The only reason I even waited to long to kiss you is because I was afraid you weren't gonna be okay with it. I also may or may not have tried to wait for the perfect moment, which I realised, there is no such thing as perfect. But you, this, us, all I know is it's making me happy and driving me crazy at the same time. I don't know how else to describe this feeling other than I love you and you feel like sunshine to me after a really rainy and stormy week."

Astrid hesitated, and suddenly she remembered Hiccup, the sun going up behind him, asking her if she was good with flowers, his eyes full of wonder, and she saw him grin, and then she understood, so she smiled and whispered, "To me, every moment with you is perfect. And I've never been great with flowers, but I can learn."

At that, Hiccup's eyes lit up, his smile widening, and suddenly they were gravitating towards each other again, colliding with a softness that created entire worlds around them.

Suddenly, that starry night in which he'd spoken to Snotlout and realised he was in love felt both incredibly close and an eternity away.

"I don't have the words yet," she mumbled, still smiling as she leaned closer, interlocking her hands. "But I love you," she whispered into the space between them. Hiccup grinned and closed the short distance between them, breathing the reply back into her skin like a secret just for them to keep.

Astrid suddenly pulled back, her eyes dancing over his face, smile blinding.

"So does that mean I'm stuck with you?"

Hiccup grinned, pulling her against him again as he leaned in.

"Precisely."

Thank you for reading and supporting IJAS and me for another year! I hope 2019 was a really great year for you and that you have an even better 2020 ahead of you! Merry Christmas to all the people who celebrate it! Take care, everyone and (probably, maybe even earlier) see you in the new year!