Beginning of the Quest:

2 Days Later…

Stoick paused as he moved to walk off the ship and pick up another barrel of supplies. Looking up, he frowned so deeply in resigned confusion as he watched his son roll some sort of weird contraption down the wooden pathways that lined the cliff face and led down to the dock that his mouth all but disappeared into his beard and mustache. Hiccup was using his not very considerable body weight to counter the effects of gravity on whatever he'd decided to bring on the fishing trip, and Stoick could only watch the disaster waiting to happen with baited breath.

Without taking his eyes off the precarious situation slowly making its way down to the docks, he nudged Gobber (who was currently recoiling some rope left in a messy heap on the deck of his new longship from some lazyass that was going to get their arse kicked when he found out who the culprit was) in the side with a sharp elbow.

His long-time friend only grunted out a, "What?" between muttered curses, not taking his eyes off his task.

Stoick nudged Gobber again. Harder. "What in Thor's name is my son doing with whatever that is?"

Gobber looked up as the last coil of rope settled at his feet – well, boot and peg - along the rail of the Revenger (named in honour of the last ship that a Ripwrecker destroyed a few weeks ago during their first fishing foray of the spring). He grinned at the sight, much to Stoick's disgust. "Oh, that. That's the invention Hiccup's been workin' on and fidgeting with all winter. Surely he's told you about it."

The Viking chief grimaced and rubbed the back of his thick neck in discomfort. "Weellllll, he might have. I tend to tune him out when he's talking about scientific stuff I don't understand."

Gobber snorted. "I do that too, sometimes. But this one, you shoulda listened to. It's supposed to work sorta like a harpoon or bola or something, but catches dragons instead of killing them. Hiccup's on a mission to catch himself a dragon."

Stoick blinked at this startling piece of news, actually taking his eyes off of Hiccup's progress to gawk at his second in command. "What in the world for?"

The other man shrugged. "He never actually said. But I assumed it was to provide a dragon for the training arena that starts in two weeks to prove himself to be a worthy Viking to Hector, who's still giving his future son-in-law glares of disapproval when he thinks no one's looking."

Stoick growled as he clenched his massive fists. "I'll show him a glare of disapproval. I thought Hector got over his snit about Hiccup and Astrid's engagement."

"Enh, only when you're not around." An even deeper growl worthy of their dragon adversaries emerged from the huge Viking's chest, which inspired Gobber to quickly tack on, "But I'm sure it wouldn't matter who was engaged to Astrid, I think Hector's just unhappy that his baby girl is growing up and doing adult things."

Stoick's thundercloud expression cleared and a rumbling chuckle emerged instead as he returned to watching Hiccup fight with the contraption on the long, long route down the cliff. "Ah. Now that, I can understand. Last time I caught them snogging with their hands very much under each other's shirts, I told Hiccup he was lucky he was a boy, otherwise he'd be wearing a chastity belt and probably a locked on chestplate as well."

Gobber's jaw dropped and then he was guffawing loud enough to draw the attention of the crews readying the other two longships as well. "What…" he choked out a couple more laughs before getting enough control to ask, "What did the kids say to that?"

Stoick grinned. "Not much, other than, 'Daaaaaadddddd!' from Hiccup and they both turned a brilliant bright red. They didn't so much as look at each other for the entire training session. It was great. Hiccup was even concentrating on what he was doing for once."

Gobber was still chuckling fiendishly to himself when Hiccup finally pushed the sort of cannon-like contraption up the loading ramp and onto the longship. Panting and looking rather sweaty and about two steps away from falling over, the teenager raised an eyebrow at his father. "What's got into Gobber?"

This, of course, set Stoick off into his own round of robust chuckles that left no room for answers, making Hiccup roll his eyes and mutter, "They're just as bad as the twins, I swear," as he trudged back down the ramp.

Stoick and Gobber looked at each other and said at the exact same time, "No we're not!"

Magically overhearing, as women were want to do thanks to a trick of the breeze or whatever, Alga yelled from the next ship over, "Yes, you are! And maybe we should stick chastity belts on the men! More work would get done around here, that's for dang sure!"

Gobber, Stoick, and basically every male in hearing distance, including her husband and Hiccup, froze, and then, as one, they all turned to look at Astrid's mother with huge, alarmed eyes. Stoick sucked in a breath and then bellowed back, "No way in Hel's frozen underworld, woman!"

Alga shot him a cheeky grin across the narrow expanse of water. "We'll see."

Stoick turned his gaze to Hector – standing beside his wife and looking like he'd just been stabbed in the back - and mouthed, "Do something!" as soon as the other man could tear his astonished eyes off of his wife.

The Viking with many braids in his long ash blond hair stared at Stoick with a blank expression for a moment or three and then he brightened and mouthed back, "Right!" He then turned and scooped Alga up and over his shoulder, inspiring a screech from the blonde Vikingess.

"Put me down! What in Thor's name are you doing, Hector?!"

Hector 'patted' his wife's generously rounded bottom currently on display in tight grey leggings only, thanks to her flipped up leather skirt. He met Stoick's eyes and then winked before telling her, "I'm going to prove to you exactly why chastity belts on the men is a terrible idea."

"Ohhhhhh," the woman more or less moaned as Hector strode down the ramp of their longship and onto the dock.

Hiccup was still frozen, staring at his fiancé's parents with goggle-eyes as they passed him.

Stoick nudged Gobber again and whispered, "I don't know about you, old friend, but I'm both insanely jealous of Hector right now and very glad she's not my wife."

"Agreed," Gobber said with a slow nod of his head. "That woman is a spitfire harpy. And her daughter's just like her."

Stoick watched his son slowly walk up the wooden pathway, eyes fixed firmly on the planks and not on the couple preceding him (whose hands were awandering already). "Sometimes, I wonder if Hiccup actually knows what he's signed up for."

Gobber shrugged. "If he doesn't know by now, he'll find out eventually."

Thor's toes! Hiccup thought as he made his way back up to the village to pack a bag for the fishing trip and say goodbye to Astrid. There are definite disadvantages to actually knowing what the adults are getting up to in the bedroom. Now all I can picture is Hector bending Alga over their table or something and giving it to her hard until she cries, 'I was wrong! The men should never were chastity belts!'

Gods.

Now I'm all horny and it's me bending Astrid over. Bad Hiccup. Bad.

Quick, think of something gross!

Ummmm. Snotlout picking his nose! Week old stew! That Snoggletog drink Astrid made last year!

Ugggggghhhhh, that was gross.

Yep. That worked.

Shaking his head at himself, Hiccup wasn't surprised to see Astrid practically explode out of her house about five seconds after her parents entered it. Spotting him on the path further down the row of arch-shaped wooden houses, she jogged over to him. "Gods, Hiccup! I don't know what's gotten into my parents, but Dad just told me to get out of the house as he deposited my giggling mother on the counter and they were snogging already by the time I got to the front door!"

Hiccup grimaced in sympathy, but was somewhat mollified to know that his imagination hadn't been exactly right. Made it less gross somehow. "Yeah, you probably don't want to know," he said as he turned towards his house further up the hill and she fell into step beside him.

Astrid shot him a disgusted look. "Oh, come on. You know you can't say that and not expect me to not want to know!"

That was stupid of me, wasn't it.

"Fine," Hiccup huffed, and explained what he'd overhead and seen at the docks.

A minute later, as he held the door of his house open for her, Astrid was looking at him with the same goggle-eyed expression of 'holy yak!' he'd been wearing not too long ago. "You don't think all that started because of what your father said to us a few weeks ago, do you?"

"Undoubtedly," Hiccup muttered as he closed the door behind them with a touch more force than necessary. "The good news is that they were so occupied with laughing themselves silly, Dad didn't even have a fit about me bringing the dragon catcher aboard."

Astrid had followed him up the stairs to his loft bedroom and now she sat down on the edge of his bed. "I still think it's doubtful you'll be able to catch anything with that. Especially at sea."

"Oh, ye of little faith," Hiccup said with a teasing roll of his eyes as he went to his wardrobe and stuffed a couple changes of undershorts and socks into a leather bag. On top of that went his pencils and some blank paper from his desk in case he felt like sketching. "I have just as good a chance out there as I do sitting here in Berk. Maybe better even, since the dragons have a habit of trying to steal our catch before we get home with it." Hiccup scanned his desk and room, looking for other things that might be useful and ended up adding his collapsible spyglass, a small toolkit, a spare knife, and just for the heck of it - in case winter decided to make a reappearance or something with a sudden drop in temperature - an extra sweater.

Astrid leaned back on her hands, watching him with amused blue eyes. "I suppose you're right," she eventually said.

"Of course I'm right," Hiccup shot her a cheeky grin, then looked around his room one more time. Finding nothing more to add, he closed the bag and set it at the top of the stairs. Then he settled on the bed facing her, one leg folded up on the bed and the other foot on the floor, studying her face and not liking the serious expression she was wearing. "I sense a but here."

Astrid shifted so she was mirroring him. "Because there is one. I have a bad feeling about this trip, Hiccup. I spent all of last night tossing and turning, imagining your ship getting sucked under by another Ripwrecker, or you getting pulled right off the boat by whatever dragon you're trying to catch, or an early hurricane popping up out of nowhere and capsizing your longboat, or…"

Thor… Hiccup pulled her into his arms before she could name any more disasters. "Shhhhhhhh. I'll be fine," he said reassuringly as he stroked a hand down her blonde braid in a soothing motion, gently pushing her head into his shoulder as she sank into him and wrapped her arms around his torso. "The odds of any of that happening is almost nil. Dad's already promised everyone that we're going to avoid the new Ripwrecker territory. My catcher has a failsafe release mechanism. And it's still a whole month before hurricane season starts."

Astrid leaned back, her eyes searching his, her hands moving from his back to his shoulders. The worry in her gaze made his chest ache that he couldn't ease her mind better. "I know all that. But that doesn't make the bad feeling go away. Do you really have to go?"

"You know I do, my heart," he said with remorse making his voice husky. "Dad specifically asked me to go with him on this trip for some last minute training before dragon school starts. He spent so many years all but pretending I didn't even exist that I can't turn down one of the few opportunities where I have him sort of to myself."

Her beautiful eyes softened with sympathy. "I know. I'm sorry for being a worrywart. I guess I just wish that I was going with you. My parents are going in their own ship, I could at least go with them and be near you. But for some reason, everyone wants me to stay home. And I don't buy the excuse of my being needed here to make sure the twins don't burn down the village." Her expression twisted up into a disgusted grimace that still somehow managed to look adorable.

Hiccup chuckled and then kissed her forehead lovingly. "I wasn't supposed to tell you this because your parents thought you'd be upset, but the truth is that we're also going to Berserker Island first to do some trading and they don't want you anywhere near Dagur. Not after what happened the last time we were there."

Astrid pulled even further away from him so she could cross her arms over her chest, her expression hardening. "What, that thing with the caves?"

"Yeah."

"That was nothing."

He somehow refrained from rolling his eyes. "Astrid, Dagur knocked me out and lured you into a trap in the name of saving me to make a serious effort at getting under your skirt. I definitely think that was something."

"Pshhhhwww," Astrid didn't make the same effort, her eyes rolling so hard, she probably gave herself a headache. "That deranged twit found out quickly enough that I'm not to be trifled with. He's lucky I didn't actually cut off his arm with my axe. I would love to have another opportunity to hurt him some more."

"I know you would. And that's why our parents think it's best that you stay away from the Berserker Tribe heir. You'd probably end up gelding him next and that wouldn't go over well."

She grinned, of course. "Undoubtedly. And I'd enjoy every moment of it."

He shook his head, cracking his own smile. "And I'd probably help hold him down for you. But since that isn't a very wise idea, you need to stay home this time."

She huffed a sigh, blowing the long bangs off the left side of her face for a moment. "Fine. I'll stay." Her expression fell into serious as she cupped his cheeks and jaw and held him with desperate fingers. "But you promise me you'll be careful, Hiccup Haddock. Promise! I don't want to lose you because you're determined to be a hero."

He cupped her delicate face in return with gentle hands. "I promise I'll be careful and I won't do anything deliberately stupid."

She snorted softly. "That'll have to do." Tugging on his hair, she pulled him closer and plastered her mouth to his in a kiss that was more teeth than lips and kind of hurt, but he didn't care; the emotions behind her desperation had him returning the hard kiss in kind.

But that didn't last for more than a minute before he was changing the slant of their mouths and easing the pressure, turning the kiss from desperate to sweet and hot. Her hands were clutching his hair now and his were… well… one was still on her back, but the other appeared to have grabbed her by the thigh to tug her closer to him so that she was straddling his lap. And since just the brush of her covered core felt like a dream against his rapidly expanding hardness, his other hand joined in, grabbing her round arse and pushing her even closer as his first hand pushed her spiked skirt up and out of the danger zone. Then that hand grabbed the other side of her ass and helped.

At the jolting intimate contact they both moaned into their kiss and Hiccup was pretty sure his eyes rolled up into his head for a second. With a rock of his hips and another pull from his hands, he made them jolt together again. Hiccup practically saw stars and Astrid pulled away from the kiss to pant in air. "Gods, that feels good," she managed to say between gasps. And with no further urging from his now only supporting (and very appreciative) kneading hands, Astrid was rocking against him on her own.

Every thrust against his aching erection had Hiccup that much closer to exploding spectacularly. And since he wanted it to last for longer than half a minute, he turned his concentration to kissing his way down Astrid's neck, determined to map the smooth and elegant length in finite detail. From experience, he already knew that he could draw some interesting sounds from her depending on where he kissed and sucked on her, but he thought now would be a good time to double check if those trigger spots still worked.

Nuzzling behind her ear with the tip of his nose as he licked just below it inspired the sexiest little hum from her that was nearly a purr, so he stayed there for a while until she was also shivering in his hold. He then kissed a slow and very thorough winding path down her neck to the spot just above the collar of her shirt that he knew was practically magic.

Safe in the knowledge that her parents wouldn't see her for at least four days, Hiccup latched onto that spot lightly with his teeth and lips and then sucked hard, letting the pleasure of her rocking fuel the intensity of his reciprocating action.

Astrid very nearly screamed out his name. And fuck, did that make him feel like a god or something.

She somehow managed to ground down harder on him, their clothes getting shockingly damp between their mashed together bodies. And then she was shuddering in his arms, whimpering, "Yes, yes, yes, yes."

The knowledge that she'd just climaxed on top of him was more than enough for Hiccup to lose what little grasp of control he had left on himself. His head fell back and he came like a volcano in his undershorts, groaning out her name like a prayer.

When the final sputters of pleasure let go of their grip on him, Hiccup panted in some much needed air and opened his eyes to look at Astrid.

She was still straddling his thighs but no longer pressed against him, and gazing back at him with pleasure-soft eyes. Her face was flushed and so beautiful, it practically took his breath again. "Babe," she whispered.

Knowing exactly what she meant, he whispered back, "Yeah." We just found another way to satisfy each other that won't get her pregnant. Messy, but oh, so satisfying. "Might be the best goodbye ever," he added with a crooked grin.

Her eyes lit with a wicked gleam. "I bet I could do better."

He gulped as various possibilities for 'better' flashed through his suddenly depraved mind. "Uhhhhh, yeah, you probably could." He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her smirking mouth and then gently deposited her back on the bed beside him. "But not now. I need to change and get back to the docks, preferably before your parents get there or my Dad comes looking for me."

He was already suiting action to words by yanking off his boots.

"Poor Hiccup." Astrid was giggling as she flopped backwards on the bed, arms stretched above her head as she wriggled on top of the thick blankets like a contented cat and closed her eyes as she hummed.

Hiccup had to pause in the act of shedding his wool trousers and undershorts for a second to gawk at her, his manhood revitalizing itself by the moment at the enticing picture she presented. "Bloody Hel," he muttered under his breath. "You're trying to kill me."

Her eyes met his, opening a crack. "Perhaps." Then she closed them again. "I might sleep here while you're gone. Your bed smells like you. I like it."

He gulped again and somehow managed to shuck his lower-body clothing. Thor. Definitely trying to kill me. Now I'll have that image in my head forever. "My bed is yours," he squeaked out as he tossed the soiled clothes into the empty woven basket in the corner.

"I should hope so," she replied.

Grateful that he'd just washed his laundry in the stream yesterday, Hiccup pulled out another pair of undershorts and his spare set of trousers that were fortunately identical to the ones he'd just been wearing. As he hopped around on the hard wood floor, pulling his shorts on, he happened to glance at Astrid and found her now propped up on her elbow and watching him with that amused and adoring smile she wore sometimes that made him want to kiss her. (All right, everything she did made him want to kiss her, but this particular look more than anything.) Flushing a little, he pushed past the automatic embarrassment and snarked, "Enjoying the view?"

"Hmmmmmmm," she replied, smirking. "Flashes of bare arse on top of skinny legs and ending in wool stockings? How could I not be?"

Hiccup snorted and finished dressing as quickly as he could.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because only seconds after he'd finished tugging his last boot on, the door downstairs crashed open and his father was bellowing, "Hiccup! We're all ready to go and you're suspiciously absent!"

"Crap," the boy muttered. "I'll be right there!" he bellowed back. He leaned back on the bed and smacked a quick kiss to Astrid's grinning lips. "You'd better stay here till we're gone," he whispered.

"Way ahead of you, babe," she whispered back. "Remember your promise."

He had to kiss her again. So he did. "I remember. I'll be back and all in one piece before you can even miss me."

She grabbed his shirt in a fist and stared at him with practically glowing eyes, they were so intense. "You better."

Hiccup gave her a fleeting grin and then reluctantly pulled away. Dashing to his feet, he grabbed his sword and shield from where they were leaning against the wall and shrugged into their leather holders so the weapons settled perfectly on his back. He then grabbed his parka – because nights on the ocean were still bloody cold – and snatched up his bag.

"HICCUP!"

"I'm coming!" he yelled down the stairs at his impatient parent.

Before jogging down the steps, though, he turned and looked at Astrid one last time and found her standing right behind him. Geez, I didn't even hear her move. But Thor, she's perfect and she's mine. Raising a hand, he touched her cheek gently with the back of his fingers. "Love you," he breathed.

Astrid held his hand to her face for a moment, nuzzling into it as she murmured back, "Love you too." Then she pressed a kiss into his palm and let him go.

He drank in her big, sky blue eyes for one more endless second and then Hiccup turned and rushed down the stairs to undertake a journey to catch the first part of his five-step plan.

Because Hiccup was embarking on the beginning of his quest; which was to tame a dragon and learn to ride it so that he could find his mother and then convince her to come back home where she belonged.