Astrid Hofferson hated her apartment complex. The heating went out in the winter and the AC crashed in the summer. The stairwells always smelt vaguely of ham and the elevator creaked and groaned if more than two people were inside. But worst of all were the paper thin walls. She'd heard her fair share of couples fighting, of 'making up' and her friend, Ruffnut, who lived upstairs of her and was always walking around in those big, clunky, horrible, bargain basement boots that she'd had since 10th grade and refused to throw away. Ruffnut had a theory that they'd gained sentience and therefore could not be thrown away like common garbage.

And then there was the guy next door who was always singing in the shower.

Every morning at 8 AM she would be roused from her sleep by the sounds of the nasal crooning of whoever the fuckwad who lived next door was. Her minds eye pictured him as some sort of creepy, prematurely balding, stained shirt wearing, probably-owns-multiple-figurines-of-anime-girls, low life.

She may have been biased because of him always waking her up. But she'd never met the guy so she could concoct whatever image she wanted of him.

Now, to many other people, an 8 AM wakeup call would be helpful. A quirky little alarm clock like this might even be seen as cute! You could use it to always make sure you get to work on time, get the kids off to school and just in general make sure you get a nice and early start to the day. However, Astrid's job as a waitress in a bar that stayed open well past the witching hour didn't warrant an early wake up. Her shift didn't start until 5 PM so there was no reason she would ever need to wake up earlier than noon. That would still leave time for a nice jog, errands, bailing Ruffnut out from whatever trouble she'd got in the night before, and anything else that her day could possibly require.

8 AM though...

8 AM was torture. There was no reason the world even needed to exist before 10 AM and that was being generous. How the fuck someone could be singing so cheerfully in the shower at such a time was beyond her. Even if sometimes, just sometimes, he would sing songs from her favourite band; Night Fury. Most of the time she could shove a pillow over her head and fall back asleep. Occasionally she would have to get up to bang on the wall that divided her bedroom with his bathroom. And rarely she would have to pound on said wall and yell at him to "Quit your fucking singing or I'll come over there and remove your goddamn vocal chords and make you eat them". Those times he would yell back a meek "sorry!" and she would flump back into bed and try to catch a few more Z's.

This morning was not any of those mornings. One too many shots of Fireball Whisky had left her with a splitting hangover. Or maybe it was 3 too many of the shots of whisky. Either way, Astrid was not a pleasant person at the best of times- and Hungover Astrid made Normal Astrid look like a basket full of daisies and puppies. It had been some girls birthday at the bar last night and somehow she'd been roped into celebrating with them after her shift ended at 2. And let no one say that a group of 20 something year old girls can't go hard. Stumbling home at 5 in the morning, already with a headache on the way, she'd hoped she could sleep in till about 1, get McDonalds and be right as rain by the time her next shift started. But no. This motherfucker next door had decided to serenade her ringing ears with his dulcet tones.

Her thoughts turned to murder most foul...

"That's it." She threw off her covers and tugged on the closest shorts that didn't reek of booze, smoke, and party-girl perfume. Her apartment was a mess and it took her too long to stumble out into the hallway, dodging books, piles of clothing and boxes she hadn't yet unpacked from when she moved in a year ago. She was aware she was still wearing last nights black work shirt, and she had smudged makeup, and her hair was sticking up out of her braid in angles that defied gravity. But those things weren't important. She had an ass to kick.

The ugly yellow carpet of the shared hallway was harsh on her bare feet and the florescent light was making her headache worse but still she began to pound her fist on her neighbors door. Loud thumps echoed through the hallway.

"Get out here right now..." She yelled and took a moment to read the tiny name plaque on his door scribbled in slanted letters. Haddock. What a stupid name.

"Come out here, Haddock! Come out right now or I'm breaking down the door!" She heard the shower shut off and some rustling of a shower curtain.

"What do you want?" She heard him call from inside.

"I want you to get out here and apologize for waking me up for the millionth time or I'm coming in to break your arm!" Again, Hungover Astrid was not a pleasant person.

"Oh, geez." She heard the guy inside swear softly. "Okay, will you give me a second!"

There was a lot of rustling inside, some more swearing and muttering, and finally an odd 'clink-step clink-step' coming towards the door. Her fingers curled into fists and she got ready to let loose a string of curses that would make the surliest sailor blush like a school girl. And they all died on her tongue as soon as the door opened.

"Yes?" The person who opened the door was definitely not prematurely balding. And he wasn't wearing a stained shirt. He wasn't wearing any shirt to be precise. A towel was wrapped around his waist and his still wet mop of hair dripped onto his bare chest. He wasn't all built like her first boyfriend had been, all muscles and body-builder and chugging protein shakes, but there was toned definition there. Lithe and angular. A faint trail of hair started at his belly button and disappeared below the towel and she wanted to follow it because goddamn that was a treasure trail if there ever was one. Her eyes trailed downwards towards his legs and feet. Or foot. His left leg cut off early and was replaced with a high-tech looking silver prosthetic. That explained the 'clink-step' sound she'd heard.

"Uuuh, didn't you want to yell at me or something?" Her face blazed as she realized she'd been staring long enough to be noticed. Looking at his face she noticed stubble along the jawline, a faint scar on his chin and slightly crooked teeth. Big brows and green eyes and oh God this was not going the way she'd expected at all and her thoughts had taken a hard turn away from murder and were travelling due south into 18 + territory.

"Y-you woke me up again!" She yelled, trying to backtrack, and suddenly felt very aware of how gross she must have looked.

"Right, uhm, sorry?" He quirked up an eyebrow at her. "I'll try to be quieter."

She didn't want him to be quiet. Her mind was flooded with all sorts of sounds she wanted to try to make him make.

"Can I go now?" He jerked his head towards his apartment. "Because I'm pretty sure I've still got shampoo in my hair and not that it's not super fun talking with an obviously hungover girl in nothing but a towel but I should probably..." He trailed off.

"Just don't let it happen again, alright?" Her voice cracked as she whirled around back towards her own apartment. She didn't wait for him to answer as she scurried back inside and slumped against the door.

"...well, fuck."

Ruffnut loved her apartment complex. It was dingy and cheap- just the way she liked it. The stairwells always smelt wonderfully of ham. And the laundry room in the basement reminded her of a cheesy, 80's horror flick. Best of all were the paper thin walls. She was always up to date on the gossip, could always tell who was having a party that she could crash, and always knew when her friend, Astrid, was pissed off because she could hear her yelling and punching things from downstairs.

And there was the fact that she was on track to winning $20 from her twin brother, Tuffnut.

A month back her and Tuff had been at Astrid for a party. They stepped out around midnight to go buy smokes from the corner store and had run into Astrid's neighbor just as he was coming back inside. Well, more crashed into him seeing as they were already pretty messed up from a cocktail of … mind altering substances... They had helped him up, Ruff had wiped off any dust or dirt that clung to his backside, Tuff had invited him along to the party but he had declined and walked off into his apartment.

"Damn..." Ruff had slurred as she leaned against her brother. "I'd hit that."

"Pfft." Her brother snorted. "Like he'd touch your ugly ass with a 10 foot pole. Plus, doesn't Astrid have, like, dibs on that or something?"

"She's never even seen him, idiot. How would she have dibs?"

"Y'know. Proximity dibs! Like, he lives closest to her so she gets first run at him." He pushed her off his shoulder and they began to make their way towards the stairwell.

"No way would she go for him. From what she's told me he seriously annoys her with his weird shower singing."

"Yeah but she hasn't seen him yet. $20 says she bangs him within 3 months." The two entered the stairwell, breathing in the weird scent and taking a moment to wait for the stairs to stop moving like it was Hogwarts or something.

"Hah!' Ruffnut hopped up onto the railing- getting ready to slide down it. "I'll take that bet."

The two spit on their hands and shook on it, a loud wet clap echoing through the stairwell.

A month had passed and Ruffnut was feeling pretty damn confident about winning that bet. Astrid still hadn't even met the guy! If she could just make sure that they stayed away from each other for another two months that money was hers. Then she could introduce them and let Astrid have her way with him. It had gone well so far, always checking the hallway before they exited Astrid's apartment to make sure he wasn't out there, encouraging her hatred of him whenever she ranted about his singing, and once shoving her into a storage closet when she saw him approaching from down the hall.

She did want her friend to get laid, because that's what friends are for, but if it mean winning money from her brother she was totally in favor of postponing that coitus.

So when her phone rang so early in the morning she was miffed but not worried.

"Astrid?" Ruffnut grumbled as she answered her phone, staying under the covers and blocking out the light of the early morning. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Yes! I know, alright? I have a bit of an ...emergency."

"And this couldn't wait until it wasn't buttfuck o'clock in the morning?"

"You know that guy who lives next to me?" Oh shit. "The one who's always singing and stuff?" Oh goddammit.

"He's hot."

And there goes her $20 and all chances at bragging rights, floating up and into her brothers grubby little hands.

"Uuuh, so?" Ruffnut held the phone to her ear as she groped around her trash heap of a bed for some clothes. "I mean, not that I don't appreciate the Hottie Report but why is this an emergency?"

"Because I just went over to yell at him and he answered the door in a fucking towel!"

"Holy shit." Ruff sat straight up in bed and tugged on yesterday's shirt. "That good?"

"You have no idea..."

"Okay, okay. Since you're already awake why don't you go grab us coffee and then come up here and be ready to dish the goods."

"Don't you have a coffee maker? Why do you need me to go buy coffee?"

"The coffee maker has been re-purposed into a ramen maker. It's full of noodles right now so unless you want your coffee to taste like Top Ramen Creamy Chicken you're gonna have to go buy some."

"Ugh, fine." Astrid groaned. "And Ruff?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't not hit that."

AN: This was originally just a one shot, but then things started spiraling and I'm not good at controlling myself and now it's shaping up to be a full length fic and this is why I can't have nice things. This chapter was two chapters for a moment when it looked like it was gonna be just a short lil thing but I figured they would fit better together as the first chapter instead. So some weird formatting changes are happening here. Sorry if you read this previously and are confused.

Chapter 1 & 2 are now Chapter 1.

Chapter 2 is all new content.

A few things to address to people who reviewed it as a one shot. Apologies for the length of this but some people reviewed as guests which I can't privately respond to.

Is it gonna be Hiccstrid? You're darn tootin' it's gonna be hiccstrid.

Will Snotlout and Eret be here? Yep, sorry. Not in a romantic sense with Astrid or huge roles but they will be in the story. Them's the breaks.

Length/frequency of updates? Well this is pretty fun to write. So I'm hoping at least once every 2 weeks. And average around 2k bare minimum for length of chapters.

Juicy stuff? Uuuuuh. This thing has a T rating. If I write anything that I think warrants an M rating I'll put it in a separate one shot and post a notice on the next chapter, or a little blurb that says [the smut that happens here is contained in blahblahblah]

Sorry for making you wait for answers. If anyone needs answers immediately and doesn't wanna sign their name you can reach me on my tumblr, tipsymaple, and I should reply within a few hours (anon messages are always left on).