Oh, I'll get flamed for this chapter. Oh well. The story must go on.
"I'm so sorry," she apologizes, for the thousandth time.
"It's okay, I'm fined," Hiccup says, for the thousandth time.
"It's not okay, you're still putting a D on fine!" she wails.
Astrid glares. "What were you doing here anyway?"
"I forgot you told me we weren't studying for the tests today. I wrote on my mirror last week about today so I wouldn't forget, and I forgot to wipe it off…" her voice gets quieter with each word. "Does it hurt too badly?"
"Nah," Hiccup assures as Astrid snaps, "Yes!"
"Shut it, Blondie!" Lindsay snarls. "Your nose isn't the bleeding one! Though that can most certainly be arranged…"
"Oh, you want to go there?"
Hiccup blinks. "Guys."
"Don't push me, Astrid Hofferson. The only reason you're even here is because of m-"
"I think Hiccup invited me here, not you, you—"
"He invited me here too!"
"Guys!"
"He just canceled on you," Astrid returns smugly.
Lindsay swells, her teeth flashing not in a smile but a snarl. "I don't need an invitation to be with my friend," she says, her words clipped and sharp. "Don't forget how I—" She looks at Hiccup. "I should go. Let you two get back to…" her voice darkens. Impulsively, she seizes him in a rough embrace. He feels her press her face into his shoulder before she pushes away, grabbing her coat almost savagely. She opens the door and rams into a solid wall.
"An' who's this?" His father asks, eyebrows raised.
Stoick takes in the scene before him: his son holding an ice pack to his swollen nose, a girl who looks like she's ready to pounce, and another fleeing the scene.
Lindsay recovers first. "Hi, sir. I'm Lindsay. Has Hiccup mentioned me?"
"I believe so. Excuse me, lassie." He slips awkwardly past her into the warm house. "Are you leaving?"
"Um." She tries not to look too tormented. "I was, but I can stay a… while longer." She's not going to run off the first time she's meeting Hiccup's dad. Not to mention, she's curious about Stoick. The way Hiccup represents him….
"And you?" Stoick asks Astrid.
"Astrid Hofferson."
Stoick pulls at his long beard. "Astrid. I know that name, don' I?"
Hiccup speaks up. "Dad, she's been in my classes since kindergarten."
Stoick grunts. 'Oh." Then: "Son, why are you talkin' like tha'?"
Lindsay bites her lip. Hiccup smiles self-deprecatingly. "Oh, you know me," he says. "Fell just a little."
"On the stairs," Lindsay adds. "He's an even worse klutz than me!"
"Hit my nose," he continues. Stoick nods. "I'm going to go change, son." He lumbers upstairs.
Lindsay mouths at Hiccup, "Thank you."
"No problem."
Astrid waits until Stoick's out of earshot. "What?" she hisses.
Hiccup shakes his head. "I'd prefer to not let my father know a girl punched me."
Lindsay smiles, grimly amused, and he doesn't like that at all. "I should go. Bye, Hiccup." She doesn't even acknowledge Astrid.
She tries not to, but still manages to slam the door on the way out.
Stoick asks Hiccup later, "Okay, which one is your girl?"
"What? My—? No! Just—no!"
Stoick looks very confused. "Hiccup, son, is there something you want to tell—"
"NO!"
"Well, son, you're in a room with two beautiful girls who both like—"
"Lindsay—is not—does not…she does not!"
"Really? So she didn't punch you?"
"I wasn't punched…" he protests feebly.
"Son, I've been punched in the nose before, I know what it looks like."
"I fell." It sounds unconvincing to even him.
"Son, my theory…"
Oh, how I want to hear this.
"You and Astrid are dating."
"Um, no."
"Close, then. Lindsay's jealous and punched you a good one, which was why she tried to escape, and why her eyes were red."
Crap, he actually noticed something for once.
"Should I talk to her?" He asks, uncertain.
"I don' know. Should you?"
This is why he doesn't talk to his dad.
Lindsay looks away in the hall.
She doesn't throw notes at him in English.
She skips lunch and he has no idea whether he should sit at the table.
She doesn't say anything to him at all.
He kind of wishes he was dead so he wouldn't have endure this.
He thought maybe after whatever the hell that was last night, and how she avoided him today, she wouldn't ride him home, but she does. She smiles vaguely as he climbs in and turns the radio on automatically.
She's quiet, like she's off in some castle in the sky. They're turning in his driveway before she says, "Hiccup."
"Yes?" He realized he rushed his words, desperate to know everything's okay.
She's avoiding his eyes. "I, um. I have a…date tonight."
"A—who?"
"You know Fishlegs, right?"
He blinks. "Fishlegs?" He's never even seen her talk to Fishlegs.
"Yeah." She laughs nervously. "You guys are kinda friends, right?"
"Kind of."
"You know his real name is Ethan? I wonder if I should call him that. Or Fishlegs?"
Hiccup shrugs.
"We're just going to go to a movie," she says quickly. 'He's not my boyfriend or anything."
They both hear the unspoken yet.
She wonders why she felt the need to explain herself to Hiccup. He is not her boyfriend or something; she's allowed to go to movies with people. Besides, he obviously saw nothing wrong with tangling his tongue with Astrid's, so why should she hold back?
She stops the car. Hiccup gathers his stuff and waits for her. She shakes her head. "I can't. I have to get ready."
"Okay," he says slowly. "Bye."
He vents to Toothless about how she totally ditched him and she looked perfectly fine, and then he realizes she must have wanted to pull out all the stops for Fishlegs and he groans. "Girls are so weird," he mutters, and Toothless growls as if he agrees. "For real, bud. Be thankful there aren't any of you in America. You'll never have to worry about it."
Toothless purrs smugly. "Don't rub it in," Hiccup grumbles.
She still can't decide whether it was stupid or not to wear the dress.
Well, it sent a good message to Fishlegs. She is taking this seriously. Also, the dress is long enough she doesn't look like a harlot, but short enough that it flaunts her legs. But then, she is freezing. She still doesn't get her reasoning that she'd be fine in a movie theatre in a dress and a light cardigan. For an honors student, she is sometimes what can only be described as lacking in common sense.
The simplest solution would be to snuggle against Fishlegs and absorb some body heat.
But she hesitates.
Fishlegs is sweet. He's chivalrous. He even understood what she meant when she used the word 'canon' in reference to Sherlock Holmes. He's kind of like…
Hiccup.
See, this would be near the perfect first date if Hiccup would leave her alone. Stop it! She wants to scream as his disappointed face from earlier torments her. Go away! Just—go! She is sick of remembering him and trying to force him out of her head. She sees his mouth twisting into a grin; she sees him peeling himself off the wall; she sees him petting Toothless; she sees him walking slowly into his house, looking back like she's broken his heart. She hears how he laughs when she mimics Astrid's way of walking like she owns the world; she hears his heart beating as she cries into his shirt. She feels his arms around her.
She wonders if she really is insane. Let's review: Helped her worst enemy get best friend; found best friend kissing worst enemy and punched him; avoided best friend; went on date and can't stop thinking about said best friend. Where did she make her mistake, kids? How did she ruin everything?
She had good intentions. Good intentions mean nothing, a nasty voice whispers in her mind. End results matter.
What is this end result?
Hiccup and Astrid get married, Lindsay being Best Woman and dying to do something besides make a toast?
With that God-awful thought, the movie ends. She blinks and realizes she doesn't remember what happened past the first ten minutes. Great. This ride home might be tricky.
They climb into Fishlegs' Tahoe and start the twenty minute ride to her house. Lindsay breaches the safe topic of Harry Potter before he can ask how she liked the movie. What was it even called?
When they park, Fishlegs fidgets. She can read his thoughts; he's wondering whether he ought to kiss her. Should she let him?
No. It's unfair, because, well….she wasn't focusing on him tonight. "Fishlegs—" she begins, but he cuts her off with a smile. "I know. It's okay. You and me aren't… meant to be."
"I still want to be your friend. And I'm not just saying that," she adds quickly. "You're a great guy."
"Just not the right guy," he finishes.
"Yeah." She bites her lip. "I'll see you?"
"Sure."
She unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out. The cold air hits her legs and she winces; she wants to go in before she turns into an icicle. "Bye, 'Legs."
"Bye, Lindsay." He waves, his smile indecipherable, and backs out.
She should really be relieved that was so easy, he was so understanding. But something niggles at her until after she undresses, puts on her flannel gingerbread pajamas, brushes her hair, and brushes her teeth, until she's in bed staring at her ceiling.
He wasn't surprised.
He expected it, anticipated what she was about to say.
Not the right guy.
Oh, my God.
She dives out of bed.
Hiccup lays flat on his floor and stares at the wall. The handprint in exactly in line with his sight, burning into his eyes. Last week, he said something offhand about how his room had been the same color since they'd moved in, and the next day Lindsay showed up with a bucket of green paint and two rollers, declaring she had no idea how to paint and this should be interesting. It was. It took hours before they were satisfied with their work, surveying it proudly, encrusted with paint form their earlier painting-flecking war. "Not bad," Lindsay said.
"Not bad," he agreed. Lindsay painted her hand black and pressed her palm against the wall before he could ask what she was doing. "An artist signs her work," she explained.
He lays his hand over the handprint. Her hand is smaller than his, her fingers narrower. His mind latches on those fingers, the ones she coils when she's writing, the ones she taps during the last ten minutes of class, the ones she waves at him in the hallways, the ones she squeezed his hand with…
Should he know that much about her fingers?
Astrid's always been his dream.
Is that all she is? A dream?
Astrid's always been a fantasy, his fantasy.
Lindsay's real. She's rough and imperfect and sometimes she confuses him more than anyone, even the puzzling Astrid Hofferson, has, with the way she looks at him and how she avoids questions and even him sometimes like she's try to hide something. Yet, she's the most honest person he knows. She doesn't lie to him and never has, and he thinks it's rare to find such truth in someone. She's doesn't care what anyone says about her and he envies that. She's carefree with herself and nerdy and admits it. She's nurturing and tough about it, fierce when she protects someone; kind of like Toothless, really. She notices things about himself he's never picked up on and it's unnerving and fascinating that she asks about a scar he doesn't even remember getting. He likes how she shows all her teeth when she smiles, how she laughs loudly and exuberantly. He likes being with her, how he feels around her.
Is it weird, to think about her in a non-friend way?
He closes his eyes and imagines her lips on his, and it's strange but his heart is pounding. He thinks she'd be soft and modest in her kisses; then he wonders why he's pondering her kissing technique. She's not his girlfriend. She in all likelihood never will be. Are her hands calloused, like his, or smooth? How would that feel if he was holding them? No! She's his friend; his only friend. He can't mess this up. He can't scare her away.
His mind resolved, he gets up, stroking the handprint on the wall one last time. Allowing himself to think of the girl who it came from, one last time, before letting her slip away.
The door swings open as he enters the kitchen and she streaks towards him. It takes him a minute to realize she's crashed her lips into his.
She kisses him with her entire heart, and he can't breathe.
God, this is amazing.
Her hands ghost over his hair, caress his wrists. He's aware that he's reacting similarly, combing through her waves and touching the soft skin of her face. It feels like a firecracker's bursting in him and fireworks are spreading across the sky.
'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, oh
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, oh
You're gonna leave 'em falling down
So much for scaring her away.
She breaks away, her eyes wide as she gasps. "Sorry," she whispers. "I had to just see…" She shakes her head. "I'm sorry I've been so insane. It's okay if you're with her. The popular girl's finally figured the sweet nerd's right for her." Her voice cracks but she hides it. "I'm not going to get in your way." She steps away and he frantically catches her wrist. "What?' his voice shakes.
She flushes. "I shouldn't have done that. I've messed us up, haven't I?"
"What—no!" His voice is way too desperate. "No. Maybe…maybe the sweet nerd's not right for the popular girl who he's loved since birth after all."
She stares at him. "What did you, what just—?"
He kisses her and he swears this is the craziest thing he's ever done, but oh well because she's kissing him back and he now knows the texture of her hands. She pulls away again, and asks him in a bewildered voice, "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"
He laughs and pulls her back in.
Of course, this is the moment Astrid walks in.
"Way to ruin the mood," Lindsay sighs as Astrid starts to screech.
I feel the flamers coming...but bring it on! I tried to stick with the original plan, but it felt forced and poorly written. Then I went with what I was feeling and I love it. So...like I said: bring on the flames. I can stand the heat! :)