Haha, so as I was starting to edit this chapter tonight I accidentally spilled root beer float on my computer. My lap-desk needs a bath now but my computer is just a little sticky - but other than that it's okay!

Thanks again for all the reviews and support - I really do appreciate it! I'm glad you all are enjoying this story as much as I enjoy writing it.

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Chapter 11: Midnight Worries

Thursday left Hiccup exhausted. With his car still out of order, Hiccup took a cab back to his apartment and despite the noise from above, he collapsed onto his air mattress, which felt less…inflated than it should have been. He flopped his arm out and it landed into the mattress like a wet towel.

A leak. Great. That's just what he wanted.

He kicked his shoes off, fighting a bit with the heel of his fake foot, and crawled up into the middle of his flattening bed. He pulled his pillow over his head and if he'd had more energy he would have screamed out his frustration, but his lungs were using all their energy to breath.

His brain had been buzzing all day. He'd moved out here to get away from Berk and find his own way. And it had worked, for a while. But then every day had become the same. He slept, worked, and slept again, all while trying to ignore the emo-club that seemed to live upstairs. He'd wanted something new, different, and exciting, and in a way he'd thought that it would just appear, happen as a result of the move, but it hadn't.

Then Astrid appeared like a summer storm, fierce and sudden. She was different than anyone he'd ever met. She'd kept coming back, resurfacing. And she was offering him a chance to do something he'd never thought he would, school. But…school? It was exciting but seemed out of his reach. It was like a dream that he'd thought about but never honestly considered.

And living with a girl? Things between them were suddenly moving too fast. Thinking about it made his blood race, his face heat, and his hands twitch. Should he move in with a girl that he'd known for just a couple months? They'd hung out, even had sex, and could stand each other for more than ten minutes at a time, but what did they really know about each other? What did he know about her?

Hiccup threw the pillow with the unexpected question; what was her last name? Had she told him? For some reason he felt as though she had. Then he should remember, right? But at the current moment he couldn't find it. Maybe she hadn't told him.

Fine, forget about names. What was her favorite food? Chinese? She'd made that fried rice concoction. But…that didn't mean that Chinese was her favorite. She like coffee, he knew.

Great. Coffee. That's all he had. Her first name and coffee.

What was he even doing? This entire thing was bound to end in disaster, like everything else. Hiccup groaned. He couldn't calm his pounding heart. It was hammering against this chest like the beat coming through the ceiling. He pushed himself off the bed in a rush, fumbling over his legs and landing in a heap on the floor, cursing as he pushed up to stand.

He didn't change. His phone and keys were still in his jean pocket. He locked the door behind him and was bolting down the hallway. He wasn't sure what he was doing but his brain wasn't functioning properly. In what felt like a matter of seconds, he was standing in front of Astrid's door, knuckles rapping against the wood like the sky was falling.

"I'm coming!" he heard her annoyed and tired voice from the other side. There was a shadow underneath the door, a pause as the deadbolt was undone, and the door was thrust open a crack. Astrid's blue eye appeared through it, narrowed but alert, and a bit confused. "Hiccup?"

She pulled the door open the rest of the way and returned a wooden baseball bat to it's resting place beside the doorframe.

"Astrid, what are we doing?" Hiccup demanded.

"What?" Astrid raised a brow, choking down a yawn.

Hiccup pushed past her and into her darkened apartment. She was wearing her pajamas, a loose t-shirt and patterned pants, with her hair tied back in a messy braid. She'd been sleeping, he assumed, and was now watching his with sleepy curiosity. She closed the door behind him, refastened the deadbolt, and flipped the light switch. The room was suddenly filled with florescent light as he paced across the living room.

"Hiccup, what's wrong?" Astrid crossed her arms over her chest.

"I don't know anything about you." Hiccup said suddenly, coming to a stop, throwing his arms out wide.

"What do you mean?"

"I-I was thinking, and I mean, you like coffee. Your name is Astrid. Other than but, I don't know anything about you. And I-I can't be moving in with someone that I barely know, I mean, we've slept together, but what does that even mean? It's a big step and I don't…I don't know if it's a good idea. It's a lot, and I don't know what I think about it." While Hiccup spoke, moving his arms and shoulders a bit sporadically, he shifted from one foot to the other, and Astrid watched him silently. When it appeared than he was finished, she uncrossed her arms, and swallowed.

"Is that why you're here?"

"I-I guess." Hiccup shrugged, then nodded, "Yes."

His eyes were pinning on her for a reaction, anticipating anything.

"Because you don't know anything about me?" she asked. Her blue eyes were sinking doubt into him like ice.

"Yes." Hiccup nodded.

"I don't know anything else about you, either." Astrid said.

Hiccup opened his mouth but his words froze on his tongue. He swallowed. She was right. A calm, slight smile drifted across her pale pink lips. She was looking at him with an expression that he couldn't identify. They seemed to stand there in silence for hours, staring at each other, waiting for the other to make the next move, to fire the next complaint, to do anything. Finally, Astrid took a step toward him.

"Hiccup, you don't have to listen to me if you don't want to." Astrid said calmly. "It's not like moving in together is a major commitment, it's not 1950 anymore. Besides, finding a roommate anymore is much more of a crapshoot."

Hiccup nodded, shrugging his shoulders, knowing that she was right again. Her calm words were asserting strength into his doubting self-conscious fears.

"It's just…I don't know." Hiccup looked down at his shoes. He looked down at the carpet to see if he'd tracked dirt in. Luckily, he hadn't.

"What is it?" she asked, biting back a yawn.

"I just…I don't understand how…"

"How what, Hiccup? Tell me what's bothering you."

He burst. "I don't understand how a girl like you could honestly be interested in a guy like me."

"What?" Astrid asked, the tiredness vanished and her voice gained a sharpness that made the hair on his arm stand.

"You've got an angle, you have to. I-I…pretty girls like you don't talk to guys like me." Hiccup stammered. It had been on his mind since he'd met her and he couldn't stop it from flowing out into the air, like a poisonous gas, expanding faster than he could contain it.

Astrid opened her mouth but for a moment nothing came out. She was struggled with words, caught in her throat, and when her voice finally returned, Hiccup felt it stab into his chest. "What? 'Pretty girls like you?' What the fuck does that mean?"

Hiccup knew that he'd struck a nerve. Her voice was a pitch higher than normal. He swallowed, trying to find the words to back himself up. "I-I'm not…you're a pretty girl, Astrid, with a future, and friends, and I'm just…this…skinny nerdy weird guy that girls don't notice unless I'm in their way. I'm not strong, or handsome, or rich."

"So girls like me can only like a boy if he's strong, handsome, and rich?" Astrid's voice was acid.

"No, no, I mean," Hiccup fumbled, again. "I'm…a hiccup." Before Astrid could ask, "It's a thing that they did back in Berk. They call the runt of the little a hiccup…a mistake, unless, a…spasm. Because it usually died or got eaten…because it's a hiccup. And girls like you aren't interested in hiccups. Why would you be? I don't have anything. I'm just…a hiccup."

And his words were gone. He didn't know what else to say. He'd spilled his guts all over her carpet and was left to stand in them and gape and wait for her to clean them up or else he'd have to carry them back to his apartment in his arms.

"Hiccup," Astrid said. She took a step closer.

He dared to look at her. Her temper had faded and had been replaced with a comforting smile he hadn't imagined would be there. She was warmth, like fire, and it pushed through his worries and doubts. She came another step close and grasped both of his hands in hers.

"I don't care that you're not the strongest or hottest, or have the most money. I don't care about any of that. I don't know what it is about you that I like so much. You're sweet, honest, clearheaded, and…amazing. You have beautiful eyes that remind me of summer. And then you've got those narrow hips, gods, and this self-conscious thing you've got is…adorable." Astrid knelt down to peer into his downcast eyes. "And when we talk it's like you actually care about what I say, you listen to me."

Hiccup could only stare. He liked that about her, too. She listened. She always had an open ear to whatever his concerns or worries were. Like tonight, she had let him rant and wail and she'd remained quiet and simply listened.

"Hiccup, you say that you don't know anything about me, but I don't really know that much about you, either. Shit, I don't even know your real name." Astrid smiled, exhaustion returned. "Look, my morning class got cancelled tomorrow, and I'm not pressuring you, but if you'd like to stay and talk then you are more than welcomed to. I'd love you get to know you better."

The swelling fear in his chest had deflated. It had been absorbed into the warmth that Astrid spread. She reached around him and hung her arms around his torso, hugging him tight, and then whispered into his shirt.

"What?" Hiccup asked, gingerly fingering a stray hair that dashed out of her braid.

"Whatever you want to do is fine. But I'm exhausted." Astrid yawned. "Someone woke me up."

"Sorry about that. Did you want to talk or sleep?"

"We can talk until I pass out. And then, if you stay, we can talk in the morning." Astrid smiled into his shirt.

"Okay." Hiccup nodded.

"You want something to sleep in?" Astrid asked, looking him up and down.

"Oh, uh," Hiccup shifted.

"Or, if you're a boxers kind of guy that's fine to." Astrid nodded. She walked over to the light switch and flipped it off. She vanished into the bedroom and Hiccup heard her flop onto the bed.

Hiccup emptied his pockets onto the counter, phone and keys and a receipt he didn't remember, and followed her into the darkened bedroom. In the dark he wasn't embarrassed when he unbuttoned his jeans and pushed the down his legs and left them in a heap on the floor as he walked to the bedside. He sat down and pulled his shirt over his head. It had been sweat through that day and he'd hate to smothering a dirty shirt on Astrid's sheets. Of course he wouldn't have showered before he'd just barged over here. He probably smelled, too.

I kind of like it, she'd said.

"I'm glad you decided to stay." Astrid mumbled. She laughed, sleepily, and added, "Too bad it's not storming, right?"

Hiccup didn't smile. "Astrid, what does that mean to you?"

"Storms?"

"The sex."

"Oh." Astrid sighed. "I don't know…it's just sex, you know? It's like, on the weekends, you go out, drink, dance, and find someone to have sex with, and maybe you're friends afterward and maybe he ends up being a giant dick and you never talk to him again. It's…like a thing that we do."

"That's it?" Hiccup asked. "It's just a thing you do on the weekends? Like watching a movie? It's that casual and normal?"

"I don't know. I guess so." Astrid said quietly. "Why? What does it mean to you?"

"It's…a thing, you know? It's special, not casual, but…it's like the most powerful thing two people can do, like a ritual of love, and trust." Hiccup could hear the words coming out of his mouth, in his voice, but it sounded…silly. But he believed it. It was just never spoken, never given a definition. Before Astrid, it hadn't needed one.

"I like you, Hiccup, I really do, but I'm not ready to say that I love you." Astrid said, plainly, like she was speaking of the weather on a cloudy day. In that same tone she added, "Do you love me, Hiccup?"

"No, I don't think so." Hiccup said. He liked her, but when he thought about her he felt a balloon of doubt in his chest. "I really like you, but love is a strong word."

Astrid didn't say anything. Hiccup waited, and after a prolonged pause, he whispered, "Astrid?"

She was asleep. Her even breathing was soothing, calming like rain, and much more pleasant to fall asleep to than the booming music of his strange neighbors. With the warmth of her pushy comforter surrounding him it was easy to find sleep, to find that nook on the mattress that cradled his body just right, and drift into the dreamless bliss that would swiftly usher him into the morning.

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