It all started that morning.
She had just finished hearing an incredibly insane and absurd to be true story from the twins about how Tuff was bitten by a stray dog which he believed it was a wolf and was going to turn him into a werewolf.
She chuckled, shaking her head as she pulled her next class book out of her locker when he was pushed towards her, slamming it shut.
"Agh!" she grunted.
Astrid heared laughter behind her as she peeled herself off the metal, her forehead throbbing.
"Hey!"
"Not cool, dude!"the twins complained.
Astrid rubbed her forehead, that would leave a good red mark. She snapped back to laughter with clenched fists ready to break anyone's shit.
Forest green eyes was the first thing she saw. Her posture fumbled before turning completely around. Hiccup stopped laughing when he noticed her looking at him and smiled. With that stupid crooked smile.
Astrid was so furious that she didn't even see the three other troublemakers next to him.
"Watch out Hofferson" Camicazi laughed.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? "she snapped taking a firm step.
Right towards Hiccup Haddock.
The boy leaned back somewhat confused by the attack just at him. But he quickly followed up with his amused smile and carefree posture.
"I don't know, what's wrong with you, miss perfect?"
Hiccup was sure he heard her growl as she narrowed her eyes at him.
The "miss perfect" shot through her like lightning. It wasn't the first time she'd heard it from Hiccup and his dumb group, which had gotten stuck with since her last year.
She wasn't perfect. She was far from it.
"Cut it out" she said in a serious tone "Can't you stop being assholes even for five minutes?"
Camicazi and the tanned boy who Astrid couldn't remember advanced toward her, snickering laughter and with murderous looks.
Astrid was about to take a step forward too when Hiccup ran ahead of her and suddenly cornered her against the lockers.
He was so quick that she didn't even have time to hit him a good right hand punch. The locker rattled against her and she heard her friends complain again.
"Yeah, smash her perfect little face Hicc!" she heard the brown boy screaming from afar.
Hiccup waited a few seconds before bringing his face closer to hers until Astrid could count each light and dark line of his glowing irises, ignoring his sadistic smile and mocking gaze.
"Oh Hofferson, I'm not even showing half the asshole I can be" his low, deep voice dripping with amusement and sarcasm.
It took Astrid a few seconds to react before her frown deepened and her eyes darkened, a small smile playing on her lips.
"You don't know what an asshole I can be either, dickhead"
She saw Hiccup go speechless for a few milliseconds before, to her surprise, narrowing his eyes and widening his smile as if that was just what he expected to hear from her. The boy pulled away from her neither too slow nor too fast without erasing his expression between amusement and something Astrid couldn't decipher.
That look was etched in her mind with fire as he walked away with his group.
Astrid could hardly heard the twins ask her if she was okay as they insulted the troublemakers.
And there she was now. Locked up in a dirty high school bathroom, letting some nonsense bother her more than it should.
Astrid looked at her reflection in the cracked and stained mirror leaning on the wash in front of her.
She sighed and wiped off the traces of water in her face with the sleeve of his light blue sweater and shot an annoyed look at her reflection. She fixed her bangs and by straightening she checked that nothing was out of place in her herringbone braid.
A flash of green eyes came to her for the fourth time in the last three hours since the "incident"
"Shit!"
What right Hiccup Haddock and his shitty gang have to fuck everyone off ?! What happens with that idiot who thought he was the best fucking living being in the world? What was wrong with those eyes?! How the fuck could they be so green!
And what about his smell of workshop smoke and wood?
What the fuck with her realizing that!?
"Agh!" she exclaimed against the mirror rubbing her eyes.
She could still feel the cocoon cornered to his body with both arms next to her head as if-
"Fuck, fuck, fuck-!"
"Astrid?"
Astrid jumped on the site, startled, watching her friend enter with a questioning look and confused eyes.
Ruffnut walked over to her, her hands in the pockets of her puffy coat at least four sizes up in a military green.
"Everything okay, Ast?"
The blonde made up her usual face and with the most natural voice she could, she nodded.
"All fine, Ruff"
The twin looked at her like "You can't go with that shit with me", but she didn't say anything.
"Really?" a funny smile in her face "You've been weird since the first hour" she opened her eyes as if shocked by herself "Wow, I never thought I would use weird to describe Astrid Hofferson"
Astrid rolled her eyes with a grin like a smile and smoothed down her sweater.
"Drop the shit. Nothing's wrong with me, really" she opened the bathroom door holding it for her friend "Let's go, we'll be late"
Ruffnut laughed loudly amused "Whatever you say Hoff!"
Crap. What was Astrid Hofferson's fucking problem?
That girl always managed to bring out the worst of him. Well, more worst.
Hiccup snorted, leaning against his cousin's stupidly red rusty old pickup.
"Jesus with Miss Perfect" Camicazi smirked with a dizzie laugh.
"Yeah, she thinks she is the best in the fucking world, with her perfect life and her good girl attitude"
"Yeah" exclaimed Camicazi with a laugh trying not to choke on her soda.
"Cut that Thugg, she doesn't even know your name" Hiccup smiled participating in the conversation for the first time since they got to the parking lot.
"Hot-fferson doesn't know any name except from this guy, you dumbasses" said Snotlout pointing to himself with a vain smile.
"Sure Snot, but asshole isn't a name" Hiccup inquired with a mocking smile.
Thuggory and Camicazi burst out laughing wining a dead gaze from Snotlout.
The blonde settled into her place on the hood of the van, crushing the empty can with one hand.
"What's wrong with her anyway, she's a perfect bitch, why are you so obsessed with her Snot?"
"Duh. She's hot "
The girl sat up.
"Hey! I'm hot too"
"Yeah, but more in a wild wolf pack way than a woman way" laughed Snotlout.
Camicazi jumped off the car so fast that none of the three boys could see her move.
"I give you three seconds"
The boy started running across the parking lot, yelling in a not very manly way.
Hiccup shook his head with a smile as the blonde practically flew after Snotlout with her fists raised.
It wouldn't take her long to get him.
He heard Thuggory sit where the blonde had been and came back to reality.
"I hate to admit it, but Snot-face is right"
Hiccup looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Um?"
"Yeah, she's hot as hell" he rasped, "I wouldn't mind having fun with her for a bit and showing her what a real man is," he added with a dumb smile and a weird look in his eyes that gave Hiccup a bad feeling.
The auburn frowned a little and looked away, not knowing why he was suddently upset. Thuggory was the last to join the group around the middle of last year.
He first befriended Snotlout and eventually joined them.
Hiccup didn't have a definite opinion of him other than he could be a bit, more a lot, of a dick and too loud at times, but he didn't care either.
But shit, he had to agree with him on that. Astrid "perfect" Hofferson was pretty. Okay, very pretty. Hell, very hot. Not for nothing was she the girl all boys had been drooling over for since the first year.
If you took away the pedantic personality, perfectly perfect, too intelligent for everyone as if she were the queen who could pass over the world, of course.
Hiccup grunted inside. Crap, it did bother him.
That morning when Camicazi pushed perfect Hofferson, he had only giggled when he saw the always indifferent and cold girl about to bust the crap of everyone's face. It was weird and strangely fun to watch.
Since last year, more for the last quarter, his gang had it sight on Astrid, well, her among fifty other people of the school.
He had never participated, other than verbally. Anyway, apart from pushing her and tripping her, they didn't do nothing really big.
But this time, unlike the previous ones, the girl thought that he pushed her.
What? That wasn't his style at all, please...
But Miss Perfect stood there with the courage to break his smile with a punch like no one else had ever dared. That caught his attention. At least the girl wasn't a cowardly lady in distress. He'd give her that.
But then she spoke. What she said didn't matter much to him, they had said much worse things to him. It was more the tone.
It was as if she believed that she was better than everyone else just because she was pretty, smart, and perfectly perfect.
He saw the fire behind her unbelievably blue eyes always icy except now, and he didn't know what possessed him, but before he wanted to register what he was doing, he pushed her against the lockers and his body.
He noticed her golden locks fluttering over her cheeks and her forehead, her eyes confused and stormy like raging seas, her pink and small lips that he hadn't noticed before and a smell of familiar metal and lavender clouding his senses.
Then she smiled at him and responded as he hadn't expected, and left him caught like an idiot for the rest of the day.
"Shit"
"What is it?"
He said that out loud?
He looked away from the brunnete to look at his shoes.
"Nothing" he sighed "Absolutely nothing"
It was finally the last hour.
Astrid sighed, practically sunk into her seat by the wall.
She had always liked science class, but man, it was too cruel to put it at the last hour of the day.
The subject was so heavy and, honestly, boring, that within two minutes of Professor Patinski's speech on chlorophyll her mind just shut off.
She glanced distractedly through the class of students just as bored as she was. She believed she saw a boy lying on top of her textbook foaming at his mouth.
No one was going to check if he was still alive? Then she heard a snore coming from him and she shrugged, until her gaze wandered to the end of the class. Okay...
His brown hair was messy and shiny thanks to the sun coming through the window next to him. He was absentmindedly writing something in a notebook, half leaning against the window and his eyes bored.
Damn Haddock.
She forced herself to look straight ahead again with a frown now.
That boy had the ability to anger her just by showing up.
Thor, why did they have to share half the subjects? It seemed like she wouldn't get rid of the trouble boy until she left for college next year.
The monologue ended eight minutes, Astrid counted them, before the bell to rang.
The teacher, a skinny woman with glass-bottomed glasses and hair full of gray previously blonde, caught the attention of the class with several claps.
"Children! Now we will talk about the quarterly project"
A groupal complaint filled the class until the teacher shouted again.
It was the first time Astrid had this teacher, but she heard from the twins that every trimester she sent out a large project that counted a large part of the grade and that almost everyone scanned.
Astrid sat up straight in her seat. She was going to approve that. She had to.
"The project will be worked on both in class and at home throughout the term and will be presented at the December science fair. It will count for 57% of the final grade-"
More moans at loud.
The blonde made a grin. 57%? That was more than half of the grade! Geez...
"Silence everyone. This quarter's work will consist of Berk's natal and non-natal plant category, well classified and researched," she reported, sitting behind her desk. The project will be in pairs- "
The class cheerfully celebrated not having to do the work alone. Astrid cursed to herself preferring to do things alone as she used to.
"Guys! Let me finish, geez" the students were silent "The pairs will be made by me" she remarked.
The class yelled in disagreement, sinking the teacher's voice again.
"Hush! Hush!" she yelled over the voices "Now I'll say the couples ..."
Astrid disconnected again with an annoyed sigh. She hated collaborating on a project when her grade depended on it, especially when she didn't even know anyone in that class.
Thor, the gods really hated her...
Hiccup rolled his eyes hearing names he didn't know come and go. He really didn't care about it. He didn't do that job last year, he wasn't going to do it now.
"Astrid Hofferson..." called the attention of Astrid the teacher, the auburn raised his head towards the blonde without realizing it. He sitted comfortable in his chair and chuckled at the poor idiot who had to work with miss perfect for the whole next months.
"-With Hiccup Haddock "
The pair turned comically at the same time to each other across the classroom in shock.
The gods really hated them.