A/N: This chapter begins what I have come to call "The Great Viking Sass-off", wherein Hiccup and Astrid compete to be the sassiest sassmaster of this fic.

Update 11/22/18: Minor typo fixes, nothing really changed


Chapter 2: The Boy with the Dragon

The light was brighter when she came around this time.

She opened her eyes to see two large green eyes staring her in the face. She shrieked and scrambled backwards, only to collide with something warm and solid. She screamed again and spun around to see Hiccup staring at her. He grabbed her arms.

"Calm down, calm down, you're fine," he said, holding her still. Astrid looked behind her. The dragon was watching her. "Give her some space, bud, you're scaring her."

"What?" Astrid asked, her eyes glued to the dragon as he backed away from them.

"I wasn't talking to you," Hiccup said. Gods, his voice hadn't changed much at all. She wondered how she hadn't recognized it immediately.

Well, other than the obvious reason that he was supposed to be dead.

She realized suddenly just how close they were. She had practically crawled into his lap to get away from the dragon, and he still had his arms around her shoulders while her hands gripped his shirt. She let go and shuffled away from him, into the rock column she'd been tied to earlier. He had cut that rope, but her hands were still bound together. She stared at him.

"Hiccup," she finally said weakly. "You died."

He sat back on one leg, his arms wrapped around the other bent in front of him. She noticed he'd removed his armor. "Except I didn't. I'd apologize for the disappointment but, you know, I'm me. I can always be relied upon to disappoint."

She continued to stare at him. Somewhere in the back of her mind it registered that he had actually ended up kind of attractive. "But you died. You got eaten by a dragon! I saw you!"

"You saw me go up against a dragon, you didn't see me get eaten. You got knocked out. Sorry about that, by the way. For both times. Back then and on the flight over. But I had to make sure you got out of the way, and then you were freaking out and starting to bother Toothless, and you were squirming so much I was worried you were going to fall out of the saddle. If you didn't hyperventilate yourself unconscious first."

"But-but," she spluttered. "I saw you go up against a dragon."

He nodded. "A Night Fury, to be exact." He jerked his head to her right, and she looked over at the dragon who was watching them from afar. Its pupils were no longer the slits she was used to seeing, but wide and square. It looked much less intimidating like that.

"It's the same one," she whispered. "I knew it. The way it always looked at me…" The dragon cocked his head at her. "It didn't kill you."

"Of course not." She looked back at Hiccup in time to see him getting up and walking to the dragon. It started wiggling its tail as he approached and when Hiccup ran a hand over its head it opened its mouth in a gummy smile. Toothless. "He was never gonna hurt me. You freaked him out, and I knew it was gonna be easier to calm him down if I got you out of that cove first. I couldn't risk you telling the village about him." Hiccup wrapped his arms around the dragon's head and it nuzzled close to him with a happy rumble.

"You weren't protecting me from him," she said slowly. "You were protecting him from me."

"I was protecting you both from each other," Hiccup said, scratching under the dragon's chin.

Astrid watched him interacting with the dragon. Without his armor she could see even more clearly just how much he had changed. He was still thin, but his shoulders were broader and under the tight fabric of his shirt she could see lithe muscle tone. His neck was thicker, and when the dragon nudged him and he laughed she could see the bob of his adam's apple. For the past four years whenever she thought of Hiccup she'd thought of the scrawny boy he'd been; at no point had she contemplated what he might have looked like if he had lived. And yet here he was, alive and grown up and looking like a man.

Which he was, when she thought about it.

It had been four years. She had grown into a woman, it only made since that Hiccup would have grown into a man.

Oh dear sweet Odin in Asgard above. They'd handed her over as a virgin sacrifice to Hiccup. That was just embarrassing.

Hiccup was the dragon master.

Hiccup was the dragon master.

She thought she might pass out again.

"It's you," she said, and Hiccup looked at her. "You're the dragon master."

"Dragon master is a bit of a stretch, I think."

"But you control them. I've seen it, you-" He let go of the dragon's head and turned toward her, pulling a knife out of his belt. Astrid screamed and scrambled to her feet. She tripped over the hem of her dress and stumbled into the cave wall behind her.

"Oh for the love of-would you just calm down?" Hiccup held up his hands. "I was just gonna cut those ropes."

She stood still and watched him warily as he crossed to her. With his free hand he took her gently by the elbow and pulled her up so she could detangle her feet from her skirts. As soon as she could stand on her own she jerked her arm away. His expression was unreadable as he stared down at her. (And wasn't that odd. When did he get so tall?)

"Astrid," he said softly, "I'm not gonna hurt you." He glanced at the dragon. "Toothless isn't gonna hurt you either."

She backed further into the wall but didn't stop him when he lifted her bound hands. His were rough and calloused but warmer and gentler than she expected. Her eyes didn't leave his face as he focused on sawing through the ropes.

"Well excuse me for not being more trusting of the guy who faked his own death to run off and side with dragons," she spat, and Hiccup's impassive expression gave way to a glare. He pulled the ropes away from her hand with more force than necessary.

"So you don't believe me when I say I'm not going to hurt you, and yet you're dumb enough to say something that would provoke me if I wereinterested in hurting you?"

Astrid had no response to that. She settled for scoffing. "You wouldn't dare try to hurt me." He flicked the knife up to her neck and she gasped and pressed against the wall.

Hiccup was wearing that blank, unreadable expression again. "I'm so very sure you believe that." He dropped the hand holding the knife. "I'll be right back. Try not to wander off; you'll only get lost." Astrid remained glued to the wall as he strode away.

"Where are you going?" she asked. Hiccup ran a hand over the dragon's head as he passed, and the beast, Toothless, apparently, rose to his feet to follow.

Hiccup turned a corner into another passageway and called over his shoulder. "To get something." There was a grumble from the dragon and she heard him add, "Yeah, I know, I know, but I couldn't just let them kill her."

Astrid had never been more confused in her life. She wasn't as terrified anymore, but she still didn't trust Hiccup as far as she could throw him. Which wasn't nearly as far as it used to be. Once the footsteps had faded into the distance she took a moment to really take a look at her surroundings. She was in a large cavern with several smaller passages leading away. There were partial walls here and there made by the meeting of rock formations, and on the other side of the cavern the rocks grew up so thickly that the ground wasn't even enough to tread on. She crossed the room, past the fire burning in the center, heading for the area of dim light by the side wall. As she got closer she realized it was moonlight. The cave opened there. She ran towards it, ready to escape and find somewhere to hide until she could signal a passing ship or at least think of a better plan. She grabbed the side of the opening and swung herself around to face it.

She froze.

Hundreds of feet down the near-shear drop the waves crashed against sharp rocks. She gripped the wall beside her and leaned forward enough to look to the left and right. There were other cave openings that she could see, but no pathway down. Out across the moonlit sea she could see nothing for miles and miles. No islands. No ships. Not even dragons. Wherever they were, they were completely alone.

Unless there were other dragons lurking somewhere in the darkness of the caves, but she didn't want to consider that possibility quite yet. The wind blowing in through the cave opening was frigid, and she backed away, rubbing at her arms. She peered down the cave passageways but could hear nothing and see nothing but darkness. She shivered. The caves were cold and the fabric of her dress was thin, not having been designed for practicality.

She sighed in resignation and sat down near the fire.

She was stuck in a cave with a ghost and a dragon having been offered up as a sacrifice by everyone she had ever known. As terrible as it was she had to admit that it was still miles better than the ending she had anticipated this day having.

Something heavy weighed down on her back and she gasped and spun around to see Hiccup wrapping a fur blanket around her shoulders. She hadn't even heard him approach.

"You looked cold," he said simply, and sat down beside her. Astrid looked around and saw that the dragon had not returned with him. "I told him to wait for me in my room. I thought it'd be easier for us to talk without him around."

Astrid turned back to him in time to have a small flask shoved into her hands.

"Drink," he said. "It'll calm your nerves."

She frowned. "My nerves are fine."

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "Mine aren't. You jump every time I so much as look at you and it's driving me crazy. So shut up and drink." Astrid glared and opened the flask. It was a sweet honeyed mead, and stronger than she expected. She coughed and handed the flask back to Hiccup, who took a long drawl from it. "So whose idea was the virgin sacrifice?"

"Where are we?"

Hiccup didn't answer. "I get that my dad is angry at you, or whatever, but this seems a little nuts even for him."

"When are you going to take me back?"

The exasperated sigh made another appearance and Hiccup took another drink from his flask. "I'm not."

Astrid's eyes widened. "What do you mean, you're not?"

He frowned at her. "They dressed you up like a bride and offered you up to be, what? At worst, murdered? At best kept as some kind of sex slave?" He shrugged. "Or maybe the other way around, point is, that's messed up, and for the time being I think you're safer here."

She gaped at him. "With a traitor and a dragon?"

Hiccup's eyes narrowed. He had been barely concealing his aggravation for the better part of the night, she realized, and she was quickly burning through his patience. "With a dragon who's tamer than a housecat and a traitor who has no intention of raping and or killing you. Seems to me you're a lot better off than you thought you'd be a few hours ago."

Astrid ripped the flask out of his hands and took another drink from it. "Seems to me you're a lot less dead than I thought you were a few hours ago." She didn't care much for the mead but this whole night was much more than she wanted to deal with sober so she took another swig. "Excuse me for not being ecstatic to find out that I wasted four years being wracked with guilt over not being able to save someone who faked his own death so he could lead dragon attacks against his own village."

"I don't lead the attacks," Hiccup snapped, snatching the flask back from her. The bitter scowling expression he wore now was one thing that clearly hadn't changed over the years. "I mitigate the damage on both sides as best I can, but nothing more." He drained what was left of the mead and tossed the empty flask over his shoulder. "And I never planned on faking my death. I just wanted to get away from the village until I could figure out some way out of having to kill the Monstrous Nightmare. It wasn't until someone came after me that I had to change my plans."

"Oh what, so it's my fault you were hiding a pet dragon?!"

"No, it's your fault I faked my death." Hiccup paused and frowned pensively. "Although it is kind of your fault I ended up with a pet dragon. You were half the reason I tried to shoot him down."

Astrid's eyebrows shot up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Hiccup rolled his eyes and shrugged. "I had a huge crush on you and I thought that if I was the first person to kill a Night Fury then you'd like me. To a fifteen year old, it was sound logic."

Astrid blinked at him. "You had a crush on me?"

His eyebrows drew together and his mouth fell open, and for a moment he almost looked hurt, then he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head before giving her a humorless smile. "Of course. Here I always thought it was painfully, embarrassingly obvious how much I liked you, but no, you didn't even pay enough attention to me to notice."

"I, you, ugh!" Astrid's fist reared back and collided with Hiccup's arm.

"Hey, what-"

"Boo hoo, I didn't notice you liked me, I still noticed you were acting weird, and oh yeah, let's not forget the part where you let everyone think you'd died!"

"Oh and I'm sure they were all just crushed!" Hiccup shouted. Astrid was taken aback. She remembered Hiccup making quips and comebacks when he was teased throughout the years, but she couldn't remember him ever yelling. There was a coldness in his green eyes that reminded her of Stoick, and his lip was curled almost in a snarl. "I'm sure everyone was just devastated that Hiccup the nuisance, Hiccup, the walking disaster, had finally managed to do what everyone had been waiting for him to do for years, and finally gotten himself killed!"

"Your dad-"

"My dad?" Hiccup laughed bitterly and got to his feet, running a hand through his hair. "You wanna talk about my dad, Astrid? Because as close and loving as I'm sure we seemed to the general public," he said, biting sarcasm in every word, "Things weren't exactly happy families in the Haddock Household. My dad never gave a damn about me until I started doing well in dragon training, and as you've probably worked out by now, none of that was because I was actually fighting the dragons!"

Astrid got to her feet and followed him as he stomped around the fire. "Your dad mourned you!"

He rounded on her. "Mourned me? He didn't mourn me, Astrid. He may have mourned the dragon fighting prodigy I had suddenly turned into, but he didn't mourn me." She could see the tension in his jaw from where he was clenching his teeth, and his voice was lower when he next spoke. "No one on that island mourned me."

I did.

"That's not true," Astrid said softly.

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "What, you gonna tell me that you mourned me?"

Astrid looked at her feet. "You were a good fighter. O-or at least you pretended to be. You were brave, anyhow. And you were so young. And the chief's only heir. It…it was a tragedy."

You were weird, but there wasn't anybody else like you. You were never where you should be. You belonged in the forge, making all those crazy inventions you would babble about when I came to get my axe sharpened. You didn't belong on the battlefield but you were always so intent on being there. You were stupid and crazy and it was kind of endearing.

Hiccup snorted. "Yeah, I can tell you were real torn up about it."

Astrid bristled. "I thought I had failed to save you! I thought you had died saving me! I've spent four years having nightmares about you getting torn to shreds by that dragon."

Hiccup was quiet for a moment. "Feeling guilty isn't the same thing as missing me."

They were both silent after that. Astrid reached up and tried to tug off her bridal crown, but it snagged on her hair. She yelped.

"Here, let me." She looked up to see Hiccup, calmer now, stepping towards her and reaching for her crown. She watched his face as he carefully detanged the loose hair from the crown and lifted it off her head.

"That's all you're taking off," she said quietly. Hiccup didn't answer her. He turned the crown over and over in his hands and frowned at it thoughtfully.

"Is this an heirloom or did they make it for the occasion?"

"Made it for the occasion. No need to waste my mother's on me. Wanted to save it for my sister."

"You don't have a sister."

"Brenna," Astrid said, thinking of the teary-eyed little girl who had been tugging at her skirts just hours earlier. She should have said goodbye. She could tell herself she didn't care about the rest of them, but Brenna...Brenna deserved a goodbye. "She's three and a half. She was born after you…" She didn't finish her sentence.

"Does this have some kind of sentimental value or can I keep it?" Hiccup asked. "I could use the scrap metal."

Astrid looked at the gold mock crown. She scowled. "Melt it down for all I care."

Hiccup nodded. He looked up at her. "You look exhausted."

"Well it has been a little bit of a trying day," she snapped, shrugging.

Hiccup hung the crown on his belt. "Come on," he said, pulling his flaming sword off its hook on his boot and lighting it. "You can have my bed." He started off down the same corridor he'd disappeared down earlier and after a moment's hesitation she followed.

The pathway was large, more than roomy enough for Toothless, and every so often they would pass what looked to be another chamber. Finally they entered into another cavern where another fire was burning in the center. Like the first cave, this one had a central area where the ground was smooth surrounded by a more open area with rock formations blocking the ground. Pushed away from the fire were three large wooden chests next to a table and chair littered with loose papers. At the side of the room was a smooth stone wall, at the base of which was what Astrid assumed was a bed. It was more nest than bed, in her opinion. There was no wooden structure to support it, instead it seemed to be a large pile of furs and cushions and blankets.

When they entered the dragon curled up on a stone slab to their right stood and stretched. He gave them a strange warbling noise and looked at her curiously. "There are candles in the desk drawers if you need them, but that fire will last you until the sun comes up. Toothless and I will sleep in the front room. Shout if you need anything. Literally. If you start screaming, Toothless will hear you and wake me."

Astrid nodded, at a loss for what else to do. "What happens tomorrow?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Hiccup didn't answer immediately. After a moment he simply said, "I don't know. Ask me then." He looked up from Toothless and gave her a tired smile. Tired, but genuine. She wondered how long it had been since he'd had any real human contact. "Goodnight, Astrid."

She only nodded in reply and wrapped the fur blanket tighter around her shoulders. He left the room, the dragon following him, and she waited until he was gone to approach the bed. There were blankets and pillows printed with patterns and motifs she'd never seen before, and some dyed in colors she didn't know it was possible to manufacture. There was still so much she wanted to know, and so many things she needed to say, and more than a few punches she still wanted to throw, but for the moment she was utterly exhausted and decided that forcing Hiccup to take her back to Berk could at least wait until the morning. Her dress was not the most comfortable thing she'd ever worn, but it was all she had, and she did not intend to deign to ask Hiccup for anything else quite yet. She lifted some of the furs and climbed in.

It was the softest bed she'd ever been in. She hadn't even realized how tired she'd been until she sank into the cushions and furs. It was warm, and soft, and, and…it smelled nice. Like Hiccup, she supposed, it was his bed after all. Sort of leathery and musky but…with smoke, like the forge. She liked it.

No. She didn't. Because this was probably what Hiccup smelled like, and she did not like Hiccup and therefore did not like how he smelled.

Her tired mind felt fit to suggest that it might have been easier if she'd just been murdered by a demon dragon master. Less confusing anyway.

Gods, she needed sleep. She hadn't slept well in days, not since before they told her they were giving her up.

She meant only to rest her eyes and think of a way out of this whole mess, but her eyes were very soon drooping and her thoughts turning to other things.

"I did miss you," she mumbled sleepily to herself, thinking of that strange bumbling boy she used to watch from afar. "I did miss you…"

Xx