Update 11/22/18: Minor fixes and a sentence or two added here or there. Nothing major changed; this is one of the the chapters I was really happy with from the beginning.
It was also written the week I was supposed to go to Spain with my family, but instead had to stay behind because of a month-long health crisis that turned out to be from gastrointestinal reflux disease.
Chapter 6: Deals Struck, Deals Broken
Astrid stopped in the entrance of the forge. He was doing that again. Working shirtless.
It annoyed her to no end. It didn't seem safe for starters. The leather apron and gloves only covered so much, and there was still so much skin exposed to the possibility of sparks and embers and how he wasn't covered in burns she didn't know.
"I put a shirt on when I have to," was all he'd said when she'd asked.
She couldn't entirely blame him. As big as the cave was, there was no real airflow, and it could get stifling when he was working.
It was distracting.
The glow from the flames illuminated every sharp plane and angle, and when he was hammering molten steel she could see the flex of the strong muscles of his back and forearms. And his abs. Hiccup had abs. That was not a sentence Astrid thought she would ever be able to use, but it was true.
"Dragon riding builds up a surprising amount of muscle," he had said the first time he'd caught her staring. Astrid had considered throwing herself into the ocean out of sheer embarrassment.
And when he worked up a sweat? Rivulets dripping down his back, pooling in the dimples at the base of his spine, pants slung low on his hips and hair sticking to his forehead…
He was a sarcastic little asshole and she hated him. He had no damn right to be so attractive.
It made her think things she was not at all okay with thinking.
Because this was Hiccup. And he had stolen her glory in dragon training and made everyone think he was dead so he could run off with a dragon. Who even did that?
Well, Hiccup. Hiccup did that. And it was just crazy enough to feel totally typical of Hiccup to have done something that groundbreaking and insane. No one else would have even let a dragon live, let alone save it and then train it.
When she wasn't busy being angry at him, Astrid had to admit she was kind of impressed.
"Hiccup," she said, watching him work from the entryway. He ignored her. He did that a lot. She didn't let it deter her. "Hiccup," she said again, leaning against the cave wall. "Hiccup. Hiccup. Hey Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup. Hic-"
"YES ASTRID?" Hiccup was glaring when he finally spun around to face her.
Astrid swallowed and kept herself from taking a step back. She held up a bent sewing needle. "Last one bent. I need more."
Hiccup frowned, taking off his gloves and walking towards her. She could smell him; metal and leather and sweat and why was she noticing these things? "That's like the fifth one you've ruined. What are you even doing with them?" He plucked the bent needle from her hand and examined it.
"I'm sewing. It's one of the primary uses of sewing needles, as you might have heard."
Sarcasm had become so rampant in their conversations that they'd stopped rolling their eyes at it by now.
"What have you been sewing, steel?"
"Wool and linen? It's not my fault your sewing needles suck."
Hiccup glared at her. "My sewing needles are fine. Clearly you just don't know what you're doing."
Astrid scoffed. "My grandmother was a seamstress, Hiccup. I think I know my way around a needle."
She didn't like the way the corner of Hiccup's mouth quirked upwards. "That kinda sounded dirty." Astrid sneered at him as he walked to one of the work tables and began sorting through boxes.
"Ugh, what is it with guys and having to make everything sound dirty?"
"I don't try to make everything sound dirty."
Astrid rolled her eyes. It hadn't been completely eliminated from their conversations after all. "Well most guys do. Snotlout was the worst. The things he used to say to me…and he got even worse after he got married."
Hiccup nearly turned over the wooden cup he was sorting through. He looked at her with eyebrows raised and mouth hanging open. "Snotlout got married?" he said, incredulous. "Who the hel would wanna marry Snot?"
"Ruffnut."
Hiccup's eyes grew wider and his eyebrows drew dangerously close to his hairline. "Ruffnut married Snotlout?!" There was a high, disbelieving laugh. "How did that happen?"
Astrid shrugged. "Beats the hel out of me. I thought Ruff was crazy when she told me she'd accepted his offer. He and Legs had been chasing her for the better part of a year. Ever since I turned them down. She never showed anything but scorn for either of them." Astrid studied her feet, because there was a sweat drop that was working its way from Hiccup's neck down over his collarbone and it was distracting. "To be honest I thought Fishlegs had the better chance but I guess not. She and Snotlout got married May of last year. They've got a baby on the way."
"They what?" Astrid looked up and stifled a giggle. She might as well have told Hiccup that his dad had grown dragon wings and flown off to join them. He looked somewhere between shocked, disgusted, and amazed. "You're telling me," he said slowly, "That not only did Ruffnut marry snot-faced Snotlout, but she actually consummated it? And is now having his baby?!" Hiccup frowned and shook his head. "No. No way. You're messing with me, you've gotta be."
Astrid couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of her. "Well, we like to joke that the kid may not actually be his. She had an affair with a sailor last summer."
Hiccup's eyebrows shot up again. "Seriously?"
Astrid shrugged. "Ruff's probably banged half a dozen guys since she turned seventeen. So at least there was no chance you would've been stuck here with her. Given the reputation she'd earned she really did quite well in marrying Snotlout. I mean she's gonna be a chief's wife one day, after all."
Hiccup paused in his searching through boxes. "She will, won't she? Gods, I forget that Snot's going to be chief with me gone. There's a scary thought," he joked, though his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. He pulled a new needle out of the bottom of one box and held it out to her. She took it from his hand and scrutinized it.
"And this one isn't going to fall apart?"
Hiccup shrugged. "Normally I'd say no, but your method of sewing seems much more destructive than mine, so who can say."
Astrid glared, before plopping down on an upturned crate and slipping the needle onto the loose thread on the hem of the skirt she was hemming. Camicazi must have been shorter than she was; one of the skirts was far too short on her to be anything approaching modest. Thankfully there was plenty of hem to let down. "Well, maybe I should just stay here and work so I can prove to you that your needles aren't suffering anything more than my excellent sewing skills."
Hiccup snorted as he returned to his forge work. She could see blueprints for Toothless's tail tacked up on the wall. Her best guess is that he was making repairs to some of the metal components. "What excellent sewing skills? You always used to complain about your grandma making you practice sewing."
Astrid paused, her needle halfway through the fabric, wondering when in their youth he had heard her complaining and how she hadn't noticed him listening. "I used to hate it," she admitted. "Then Brenna came along. Mom's hands were starting to get bad. Joints getting stiff, you know. I had to help make Brenna's clothes and diapers and things. And then, I dunno." She shrugged. "I liked making things for her. So I started making Brenna all kinds of things. Toys, dolls." She smiled. "She's got this little doll I made her out of rags that she carries around everywhere." She could picture the little girl now; smiling around the thumb in her mouth as she held her dolly close. She returned to her work. "I dunno. It didn't seem like such a chore after that."
"Hm," was Hiccup's only reply, and then he was back to hammering metal.
Astrid began to hum after a while; she hadn't even realized she was doing it until Hiccup said something.
"Are you humming?" Astrid stopped.
"I…I guess I am. Why, is it bothering you? Because I can do it louder."
She had gotten very familiar with the exasperated sigh Hiccup gave her just then. "No, I was just gonna ask what it was." He glanced over his shoulder at her. (Such lovely broad shoulders. No. Bad Astrid. Bad.) "I don't recognize it."
Astrid waved a hand. "Oh, you wouldn't. It's just this silly little song Brenna and I sing when she has bad dreams."
Hiccup laughed. "A bad dream song?"
Astrid glared at him. "It's not just bad dreams. She has night terrors sometimes. She comes into my room and we sing her bad dream song until she feels better and feels safe enough to go back to sleep. I'm the only one she'll let sing it with her." Her eyes fell and her expression turned sad. "I wonder what she'll do now." She started sewing again. There was a moment of silence where she worked and Hiccup stood watching her.
"I'm not poking fun," he said finally. "It sounds sweet. I take it you and your sister are close?"
Astrid couldn't help her smile. "Yeah, we're close. I mean, as close as you can be with a fifteen year age difference. Sometimes I feel more like her mother than her sister, but she's my everything." Her grin spread across her face. "She looks up to me more than anyone, wants to be just like me and everything. She used to try to drag my axe around sometimes, so I got Gobber to make her a little wooden one." She laughed. "She's a determined little thing. Always curious, always into everything." Her smile faltered. "The last time I saw her she was crying about not getting to go to my wedding. She's only three, she didn't understand what was happening." Her eyes dropped to the floor and her smile faded. "I wonder what they told her," she said softly.
There was a long silence before Hiccup spoke. "Maybe they won't have to tell her anything. You'll see her again."
Astrid snorted. "How? You won't let me leave."
"Only because I can't trust you yet." Hiccup turned back to his work. "I don't plan on keeping you here forever. I don't think we'd both come out of it alive."
Astrid smiled in spite of herself. "You really don't like having me here, do you?"
He glanced at her over his shoulder, and she could see the slightest smile on his face. "Well, it could be worse." He grinned. "I could be stuck here with Ruffnut."
Astrid couldn't help laughing at that, and he joined her, and after that they fell into the closest thing to companionable silence they'd ever had.
"Hey Astrid?" Hiccup asked a few minutes later.
"Mm?" Astrid said, her needle in her mouth while she adjusted the fold of the hem with her hands.
He looked at her, eyes wide and bright and he looked more like the boy she'd known. "Did we just have an actual conversation that didn't involve yelling or insults?"
Astrid took the needle out of her mouth and blinked at him. "I think we did. We're not getting along, are we?"
Hiccup grinned. "Don't say that like it's a bad thing. If you're going to be here a while it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we learned how not to hate each other." His smile faded and he sighed, taking his gloves off and coming to sit on a crate beside her. "Look," he said, giving her a serious look. "You know, I hope, that I'm not keeping you here out of any ill will." She raised an eyebrow and he grimaced. "I know that things started out kind of rocky-"
"You think?"
"But," he pressed, "There's no reason why we have to spend all our time fighting. I really am sorry for how things started. And I'm not saying we have to be best friends or anything, but at least, I don't know, can we call a truce?" He held out a hand.
Astrid considered it. She looked at him. At his big green eyes and crooked, genuine smile, and he looked so open and friendly and Hiccup that her hand was rising to take his before she consciously made the decision to do so. She took her hand in his and shook, watching the way his larger hand wrapped around her smaller one. His hand was calloused but warm and solid in hers, and when he let go her hand felt colder than it had before. "Alright, fine," she murmured. "Truce."
Xx
Astrid wiped the sweat from her brow with a dirty hand. She blew her bangs out of her face and stretched her back, the muscles sore from spending so much of the day hunched over working in the garden.
A sudden gust of air sent her skirt flying as Hiccup and Toothless shot by. The speed at which they flew astounded her. It was hard to see just how fast they were in darkness, but in the afternoon sun Toothless's true speed became apparent. She'd seen dragons flying above her village all her life, but there was nothing like Hiccup and Toothless when they were in the air. It was astonishing; Toothless needed Hiccup to control his tailfin in order to fly at all, so how they managed the acrobatics and steep dives she had no idea. They shifted seamlessly from corkscrews to dives to gliding to shooting upwards into the clouds, as if they were one being. She watched them wing their way upwards, higher and higher until she lost sight of them in the clouds. Astrid was about to turn back to her gardening when she saw a speck falling out of the sky.
Hiccup. Hiccup was falling.
Without Toothless.
Her first instinct was to panic. He must have fallen off. Maybe something had happened, Hiccup didn't seem to be moving, didn't seem to be flailing or anything. A moment later she saw Toothless diving after him. He reached Hiccup and they both fell, side by side. Astrid's hand covered her mouth and she stifled a scream. Something must have happened. The tailfin had malfunctioned, or they'd hit another dragon above the clouds and now they were hurtling towards the ocean. Toothless might survive the fall, but Hiccup wouldn't.
Oh gods, he was going to die, and just like before she was powerless to stop it.
They couldn't have been higher than a few hundred feet when Toothless turned, his back to Hiccup, and she watched Hiccup reach out and pull himself back onto the saddle. At the last second they pulled out of the dive, black wings stretching open and Hiccup's whoop reaching her as they sped along just above the surface of the water, waves spreading from where they passed.
Astrid's knees wobbled and gave out, and she fell into the soft dirt, her heart pounding. They had been in no danger. Hiccup was just a daredevil. And she was going to kill him.
After a few minutes of sitting in the mud and letting her heart rate return to normal Astrid stood on shaking feet and picked up her shovel. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly. Hiccup was fine. Hiccup had always been fine. She had no reason to worry. She had no reason to care so much. She exhaled slowly through her mouth and wiped the moisture from the corners of her eyes. She was being silly. He was fine, and she had no reason to be this emotional about it. But for a moment she had been truly frightened, and not just because she would be stuck here if he died.
She was just in the middle of digging a hole for the cabbage plants when she heard Hiccup's shout behind her.
"What are you doing!?" She looked around to see Hiccup jumping off of Toothless's back as soon as the dragon's feet had hit the ground. His eyes were wide and frantic as he ran over to her, his hands thrust into his hair. "What, what what is this? What have you done?" his voice was high pitched, almost cracking as he turned in circles, staring at the plants sitting in various baskets and jugs and other makeshift pots.
Astrid put her hands on her hips. "I'm gardening."
Hiccup stared at her. "You're only supposed to pull up the weeds, Astrid, not the whole garden! Oh, Odin." He ran his hands over his face and stood helplessly among his half-dug up garden.
Astrid rolled her eyes. "Calm down, Hiccup, I'm just rearranging things. Your spacing is horrible. By the time I'm done with it you'll be able to grow more things and grow them better. You've got roots that are getting tangled and space that you're wasting, as well as plants that are really not planted deeply enough, and don't even get me started on that herb garden." She laughed. "Although I gotta wonder what exactly you need some of those for."
Hiccup ceased his panicking long enough to give her a confused frown. "What do you mean by that?"
Astrid raised an eyebrow. "Mugwort? Pennyroyal? Handing those out to your fisherman's daughters?"
Hiccup blinked at her. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He shrugged. "But to be fair I don't know what half those herbs are even for. I broke into a healer's shop one time and just decided to plant one of everything. I figure if I ever get really sick I'll just try one of everything to see what helps."
Astrid laughed. "Yeah, because that is not at all likely to get you killed." She gave him a smile that managed not to be completely patronizing and pointed at the plants in question. "Moon Tea ingredient, Moon Tea ingredient; not a Moon Tea ingredient but has the same effect on its own; Moon Tea ingredient in some recipes, and," she pointed at the last plant and raised her eyebrows suggestively, "for after Moon Tea fails."
She watched Hiccup's ears turn red. "So that's what those are for."
Astrid giggled. "Yeah. Like I said, I wondered if you handed them out to your fishermen's daughters."
Hiccup didn't meet her eye while he spluttered out his response. "I don't, I don't hand those out to the girls I—that'd just be weird, and sleazy, and—no, that's not-I didn't even know what they did."
Astrid pursed her lips. "So, what, do you just, like, leave them to deal with your bastard offspring on their own?"
Hiccup's cheeks reddened to match his ears. "I don't—I, I do my part to make sure they don't get pregnant, okay?" he muttered. Astrid hummed, unimpressed. He looked at her from under his bangs. "And besides, all this 'your fishermen's daughters' deal, that's—you're making it sound like I've got a harem out there or something, and it's not like that." He dropped his gaze and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "It's not like it's something I do very often. And it's less like I've gone and found a bunch of different girls, and more like a couple of the same girls who I'm sort of friends with and I run into them every now and then in port and we…spend time together while we're both there. That's it."
Astrid raised an eyebrow. "How many is a few?"
"What?"
She shrugged. "Look, you're telling me you've turned into some sort of womanizer. Can you blame me for wondering how that happened?"
Hiccup huffed. "I'm not a—look, you're making me sound a lot worse than I am."
Astrid sat down on the grass. "Well, then tell me what you are, then. How did Hiccup Horrendous Haddock end up such a skirt chaser, huh?"
He rolled his eyes again and sat down near her, and Toothless padded over and rested his head on Hiccup's lap. "Don't be such a prude. I'm not a skirt chaser just because I've had sex a few times, okay?" he mumbled. He looked at her, at her raised brows and curious expression and sighed. "Alright. Well, you know I was never exactly popular on Berk, and I got used to being on my own, so it takes a lot for me to really feel lonely. But every so often, I do want some company." Toothless lifted his head and grumbled indignantly. Hiccup laughed and scratched behind his ear. "Some human company. So, I go into towns. Get the things I need, spend some time around people who don't know me as Hiccup the screwup. Sometimes those people are girls."
Astrid picked at the grass by her feet. "You still haven't said how many."
Hiccup was quiet for a minute as he frowned at the dirt.
"Wow, you're actually having to think about this," Astrid said, not sure if she was more surprised or disgusted. "Must be a lot."
"Not really, I was just drunk a few of those times." Hiccup replied, chancing a glance at her. Those green eyes were so piercing in the waning sunlight. "And I haven't slept with all the girls I've met in port. Not all of my dates went that far. I've only actually slept with…four girls? Yeah. Four."
Astrid shifted. Four girls. "I'm not sure if that's higher or lower than I expected." She looked at Hiccup, who was blushing again.
"Two of those are friends who I meet up with whenever we're both in port. The other two were one night things. And then there have been a handful of girls I sort of dated but never slept with."
For all his smugness the other day Hiccup was looking rather uncomfortable now; she wondered at the change. Astrid looked down at Toothless, who was falling asleep on his master's lap, his wings outstretched along the ground and tail flicking back and forth lazily. He really did look like a giant housecat.
"So how did this all start?" Astrid said, ripping the grass up more forcefully and trying to decide the best way to phrase her next question. "I mean when did you stop being so…" she waved her hand around, "Like you were, and started being all…" she felt her cheeks heating up as she gestured to Hiccup.
Her gaze flickered to his face and she saw him giving her an amused smile. "When did I stop being a talking fishbone?"
Astrid busied herself scrubbing dirt off her fingernails with the hem of her skirt. "Well you're still kind of a fishbone, but…yeah."
"I started shooting up awhile after I turned sixteen. I grew half a foot in the space of a summer. I spent half my time sewing that year just trying to keep up with all the clothes I was outgrowing. I didn't even realize how much I had changed until I met up with this girl I'd met before and she looked at me like…" he shrugged. "I dunno, like I was worth looking at."
Astrid wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. "Was she one of your girls?"
Hiccup couldn't meet her eyes as he mumbled his answer. "She was my first, yeah." He cleared his throat. "See, that first year after I left Berk, Toothless and I travelled a lot. We avoided people for the most part, except for when I had to sneak into villages to get supplies, but one day we flew by this little fishing boat getting attacked by some marauders and well, I couldn't just leave them. So we swooped in, scared off the pirates, and surprisingly the family on the boat weren't really afraid of us. They'd seen dragons before but where they came from they didn't really attack. The parents didn't really trust me much, even though they were thankful, but they had a daughter my age, Heather." He smiled.
"Nothing happened then; she was nice and friendly but—well we were just kids and I spent all of a day with them. But then a couple years later I ran into her again in port, just by chance. We hung out a bit, just catching up, and there may have been mead involved. I mean, we weren't drunk or anything, but inhibitions were definitely lowered. It started out just us joking around, you know, 'Oh, how am I ever gonna meet anyone, we're always sailing, we're never in one place long enough for me to meet any guys.' 'Oh, how about me, I run around with a dragon', and then the more we talked the less it seemed like a joke. She was pretty, she was a friend, and she commented on how much I'd changed, and at some point we both just thought, 'what the hel?' and…yeah." Hiccup nodded.
Astrid hummed. Saving people from marauders. That sounded more like the Hiccup she remembered. Stupid and noble. "You still see her?"
He nodded again. "I see her the most. She's the closest thing to a real friend I've had in a long time, and she and Toothless get on alright."
Astrid cocked her head to the side. "She's not afraid of him?"
Hiccup shook his head and shot her a smile. "Nope. And you wouldn't be either if you gave him a chance." Astrid's eyes swept over the great black dragon, spread out and dozing in the grass.
"So do you love her?" she asked, watching the way Toothless smiled in his sleep as Hiccup stroked along his head.
"No." She looked at Hiccup. He was watching her closely. "Don't get me wrong, she's a good friend, and she's nice and we have fun together, but she's not…anything more. I've never really been in love." His eyes dropped to Toothless. "Well, I mean I thought I was in love with you, but I hardly knew you." Astrid watched his hands trail over the small spikes on Toothless's head. He had such nimble hands. There was something about them she liked. That she'd always liked. They used to draw her attention when he was working on things in Gobber's forge. Hiccup spent half the time looking like he didn't know what he was doing, but when he was working with his hands it was like…that's what he should always be doing. "I've still never really liked anyone as much as I did you." She looked up at Hiccup's quiet confession.
"You wouldn't have liked me if you knew me," she found herself saying.
"If you'd known me you still wouldn't have liked me," came Hiccup's quiet response.
For a split second she considered telling him that she had liked him. But he was right, she hadn't known him. Maybe if she had she wouldn't have felt the same. The mutual hostility of the last few days seemed evidence in favor of that theory.
"But you know who you would like if you got to know them?" Hiccup asked, a smile spreading across his face. Astrid raised an eyebrow and he grinned at her. "Toothless."
"Hiccup…"
"Astrid, you're stuck here with him too; you might as well give him a chance. He won't hurt you."
Astrid sighed. Beyond that first day Toothless had shown no signs of aggression towards her, even when she was shouting at Hiccup. He didn't seem to like it, but he also seemed aware that it wasn't something he should get into. But he was a Night Fury, that should count for something, shouldn't it?
A Night Fury who had caught Hiccup when they were both falling though the sky. She looked at Hiccup, at the grin on his face, and then at Toothless, sprawled out on the ground and enjoying the dying sunlight.
She took a deep breath. "Fine."
Hiccup's grin split his face. When he smiled at her, genuinely smiled at her, he looked so much more like the boy she knew and less like the stranger he had become. He reached for her hand and she let him bring it slowly to Toothless's snout. The scales were warm and smooth under her hand, and she experimentally stroked up and down the dragon's nose. "See?" Hiccup said, "He's fine, he's-"
Toothless's ears perked and his head snapped up, eyelids opening to reveal pupils narrowed to slits. Astrid gasped and jerked her hand back. She didn't know what she'd done wrong, but then again Toothless wasn't even looking at her. "What did I do, what's-" Suddenly a hand was gripping her chin and pulling her head up. Astrid stared out across the ocean. There in the distance, so faint she could barely see, was a small grey smudge against the darkening sky. "What is that?" she asked.
"Dragons, heading out on a raid." Hiccup released her chin. She glanced at him. His brow was furrowed and a frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. There was a grumble and she looked at Toothless. He was standing up, shaking out his wings and stepping nervously from foot to foot with his ears down flat. He barked and whined, obviously restless. Hiccup stood and wrapped his arms around the sleek black head. "I know, bud, I know." The dragon's eyes softened and his pupils grew and rounded. "She must be hungry tonight."
"Where are they going?" Astrid asked as Hiccup climbed into the saddle and pulled his helmet out of his bag.
He sighed, not looking at her. "They're headed for Berk."
He'd pulled on his helmet and he and Toothless were diving off the cliff side before she had time to say another word.
Xx
Stoick stared, horror-struck, at the skies above his village.
They were everywhere. Soaring over the sheep pens and the yak fields. His people were fighting back bravely but there were so many of them. There hadn't been this many of them at once in a long, long time.
Dragons. Swarms of them.
And among them, leading them, swooping down and destroying their catapults, was the rider and his Night Fury.
Stoick's blood boiled. He hefted his war hammer and swung it into the metal bracers of one of the bonfire torches. The clanging filled the air as he glared at the skies and bellowed, "DRAGON MASTER!" He watched the black shape pass him by, barely low enough to be seen in the torchlight. He didn't have to see the rider's face to know he was looking at him. "We had a deal!" Stoick roared, the clang of metal on metal punctuating his every word. "WE. HAD. A. DEAL!"
The Dragon Master turned his attention away, and a second later he and the dragon had dove out of sight. Stoick heard the screams as another catapult exploded, but his eyes were fixed upwards, as the Night Fury came into view again. The Dragon Master threw something high into the air as he passed overhead.
The object caught the light and for a second Stoick caught a glint of gold, before it was falling, falling, hitting the ground and rolling towards him.
Astrid's bridal crown came to rest at his feet.
Xx
