AMONG THE MIST LIES PAIN
A blanket of mist cradled the forest, making it even harder to see where you were putting your feet in the blackness of the night.
His footsteps were all she could hear, the screeching voices of the troublemakers now just a distant murmur. She swallowed and shoved her hands into her worn pants, maybe just to warm up a bit, or maybe just to feel a little more in control.
He had his back to her, his shoulders wider than Astrid had ever noticed before, tense and alert. It was a disconcerting change from his always carefree posture.
He walked on for a few more yards as if he was making sure his friends weren't going to hear or see them.
Astrid thought with amused grace that it was the perfect setting to murder her right there.
She looked up from her boots, tripping over the fallen dry leaves, stones, and crooked roots sticking out of the ground when she stopped hearing the boy's footsteps.
She saw Haddock standing next to a large tree still without turning around, so after a few more short steps, she too stopped at a safe distance.
Astrid waited for something to happen. What was all this mystery about?
Why would Hiccup Haddock of all people wanted to talk to her?
At 12 at night. In a forest. Alone.
A chill ran through her, she didn't stop to think if it was from the icy breeze that shook the trees or from the uncertainty of what was supposed to be happening.
An annoying little voice in the back of her head told her that he knew.
She shook herself off and focused on reality.
Astrid managed to hear his nervous sigh that filled the air, and at last, he turned and faced her.
His eyes a darker green than she remembered dislodged her. They were alert, determined and stony in it, as if he wanted to go through her, and yet they seemed totally natural, correct surrounded by the green of the forest around them.
Astrid heard herself gulping, shifting her weight to her leg somewhat nervously without really knowing what to do.
Hiccup stood there staring at her for what seemed like years. The damp mist, his eyes, the glorious silence, her home waiting for her in a few streets, the broken heat of her cheek overwhelmed her, drowning her.
Until Hiccup walked over to her.
He wasn't particularly fast, furious, or calm, but in two seconds he was in front of her and she could see the translucent cloud of vapor from his breath.
Astrid inadvertently stopped breathing in fear of making a sound. She saw the supernatural eyes of the boy quickly travel from her eyes, her face, then up and down and then back into her eyes. She wanted to take a step back but she couldn't even move.
"Put your hair back"
Wait, what?
His voice came out dark and calm and deadly and totally unexpected.
Astrid felt her heart pump faster.
Shit, he knew
And he knew that she knew he knew
Her legs finally responded shakily and she managed to do awkward footwork without actually backing off. Hiccup didn't move a muscle, the girl thought that an oak might fall on him and he still wouldn't move.
She moistened her lower lip, her eyes not knowing where to focus less on Hiccup's eyes that didn't leave her.
"What, do you want to bite me?" her tone was as sarcastic and mocking, natural, as she could.
The girl erased her smile when she saw that the boy didn't change his posture and glare.
Astrid went to plan B when the sarcasm failed. She crossed her arms trying to keep looking unchanging and normal and swayed her feet a little until she finally looked into Hiccup's eyes.
"What do you want Haddock" she gave herself a mental pat for her equally cold tone.
"Leave the shit Astrid "
His voice, almost like a growl, bristled her. She've never heard him so deadly serious.
Well, screw her always reliable indeference
"I don't know what you're talking about" Astrid faltered.
His eyes locked on hers, it was beginning to give her the impression that they were getting darker and darker.
"Astrid"
No one had ever said her name like that before. It sent an equally cold and warm chill down her spine.
She unfolded her arms in a more defensive stance.
But before she could devise another curt answer, his hand moved slowly up to her face and she felt her lock of hair slide off her cheek.
The cold air bit into the already less swollen bump, the back of his surprisingly soft and callused hand at the same time brushing her cheek lightly for a millisecond before picking the strand behind her ear gently and pulling away as if nothing ever happened.
Hiccup's eyes widened a bit alert before returning to normal, his brow furrowing more and more, a helpless glint in his posture.
He saw it before a few seconds, but the second time it was just as stunning.
Astrid bit her tongue hard as her eyes fell to the ground angrily, her body leaning unconsciously back away from Hiccup and his surely judgmental look.
The last person who she would want to see that, to see her like this, weak and helpless standing a few inches from her.
Silence crushed them until it seemed that time had stopped. Astrid clenched her fists.
"Are you going to explain that to me?"
"I tripped"
A quick enough answer for anyone to accept, but Hiccup Haddock wasn't just anyone. She heard a dry, non-amused laugh from the boy.
"Sure" he breathed poisonous "What really happened?"
Astrid found the courage she prided herself on to lift her head high enough to face the tall boy, her eyes on fire and her mouth tasting metallic.
"I told you, I tripped"
She used her best "stop fucking with me, it's over" tone, but of course it didn't work.
Hiccup's frown deepened, his gaze darkening, and he moved further if possible toward her.
"That's a punch" he really didn't ask.
The girl felt her cheek burn with the affirmation.
"Then why do you ask if you already know? " she spat with a broken smile and cold eyes.
Hiccup seemed a little, calmer? when she agreed with him. His tone somewhat softer when he spoke:
"Who did it?"
He didn't seem demanding or commanding her to tell him, but still Astrid managed to move a single step away from him and from the nearness of his body, wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes. She closed them for a few seconds.
"Nobody"
Hiccup let out an impatient nasal laugh "Astrid-"
"Nobody important" she stopped him with a sharp tone raising her voice.
This seemed to silence him.
Astrid lowered her dead arms to her sides and turned her back on the boy without moving away. She looked at the treetops above them in a circle marking the clearest stars she had ever seen.
For a moment she just breathed and looked up lost in the sky and the her hazy thoughts.
"It was him, wasn't it?" his voice had almost sounded normal, somehow sad at the same time "That man"
Astrid looked back at the ground.
She didn't need anyone's pity.
"What do you care" she said as cold and deadly as he could.
"That's not-"
"What" he turned sharply towards him, stopping him startled. Her voice echoing through the trees "Do you think you can comfort me, do you think you can help me, that you can make me believe that you care, Haddock?" Astrid gave a wry laugh "Please, we are not friends, we are nothing"
"Who is he"
Her words drived by rage falling on deaf ears.
The boy's posture seemed confident and in control when inside he was screaming. To her, to him.
To whatever it was that turned that girl into the icy heart in front of him.
Astrid snorted, rolling her eyes.
"Didn't you hear me?"
"I heard you, and now it's my turn to speak" he took a step towards her "It was that man, am I wrong? Is he your father?"
Hiccup asked knowing the answer, but he wanted to hear it from Astrid's lips anyway.
"It's not your problem"
"Astrid"
"Hiccup" she sneered.
"Gods, you're worse than me ..." he kicked a rock whispering to himself.
He ran a hand through his hair, flipping it back in a nervous gesture.
He saw the girl squirming uncomfortably, taking several steps forward and then to the right as if she didn't know where to go, what to do.
He didn't really know what he was doing either. Wanting to help Miss Perfect in the middle of the night with the amount of shit he already had on his own, but still not backing down.
Thor, that beer really must have upset him.
"Is not my father"
Her words felt like a breeze. Hiccup found himself feeling partially relieved. He watched her posture now still, her arms wrapping protectively around her, her head lowered and her brow furrowed to the ground.
"So who is him ...?" He asked again in the warmest, most careful tone he could muster by taking half a step toward her.
Astrid shrugged reluctantly "My mother's boyfriend" she smiled dryly "Nobody important"
"It doesn't look like it" Hiccup said more normally.
They looked at each other for a few seconds, a bit blurred by the low fog and darkness staining the forest.
Hiccup gulped, going through thousands of sentences in his mind, something that wouldn't make him look even more idiotic in Hofferson's eyes. It was giving him a headache so he just shook himself and he said the first thing that came to mind.
"Are you okay?"
He saw the girl's cynical smile cut across his face, the most dangerous sight he'd seen so far: Astrid Hofferson "Miss Perfect" with a bruised cheek, blazing eyes, and absorbing darkness behind her. Hiccup swallowed hard.
Bad idea, bad idea
"Cut this Haddock, it doesn't suit you" she said with a more or less natural tone with an underlying coldness.
Before he could screw it up anymore, the girl turned and began to walk cautiously back toward the road.
Hiccup caught up with her in a few quick strides and stopped her by the arm before he could think it through "Wait-"
Astrid turned her head to look at him with a mixture of confusion, warning and something else he couldn't identify. Hiccup realized what he was doing, he looked dislocated at his hand holding her warm forearm before releasing her as if she was on fire. Astrid took a step back and looked at him with a dry smile tinged with exhaustion and sadness.
"You can stop pretending you care about me Haddock, I'll survive"
And she turned to the road leaving him speechless.
Hiccup watched her fade into blackness before cursing out loud.
He caught up with her at a fast pace that he hid when he stepped on the asphalt, not wanting to let the girl arrive alone with his friends.
The somewhat drunk and too loud voices shook his head, suggestive phrases and hisses he didn't want to understand.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and stood next to his cousin's red van.
"Let's go" he didn't ask. Hiccup ignored the drunken protests of the gang and looked at Astrid with all the courage he could muster into her eyes.
She looked back at him with skepticism and wary confusion. Hiccup made a subtle gesture with his head towards the van "I'll ride you home"