College AU. Written 6/17/2014.

"Sorry," Astrid shrugged and wrinkled her nose at the bright yellow flier in her hand. "Amazing as that sounds, I've got a date with a physics textbook tonight."

Snotlout groaned and sat his elbows on the library table the blonde was currently occupying. "C'mon, you haven't come out with us at all this semester! You're always working or doing student council or something. Live a little!"

"Well, some of us have grades to maintain if we want to keep scholarship." She gave him an apologetic smile, but there was no heart in it. "If you guys ever decide you want to do a study group, though, you know where to find me."

It took a little longer to convince him that, yes, she was in fact going to pick physics over the Greek mixer, and no, she didn't plan on stopping by for a drink or two. There was a time and a place for letting her hair down, but it wasn't two weeks before finals at Snotlout and Tuff's frat house. She much preferred the laid back get togethers at Fishlegs' apartment, when it was just them and a couple of beers and she was much less likely to find someone's hand inching up her skirt. Advertising her self-taught self defense classes by dislocating the halfback's thumb was still the infamy of her sophomore year.

But after awhile, he gave up. Astrid was left alone. And the next person to slide into the chair across from her was actually the one she'd been waiting for.

"And where have you been?" she teased, looking up from her binder with a raised brow.

Hiccup gave her a crooked grin and slung his bag over the tabletop. "Sorry. Got stuck running scantrons for Dr. Genius." Rolling his eyes, he pushed his glasses up his nose in a pretty accurate imitation of their physics professor, who was neither a doctor nor a genius. "Haddock! My favorite TA. Run these by the grading room for me, will ya?"

Astrid shook her head at the impersonation and scoffed. "You're practically asking for it, when you spend all your time in the lab. Nerd."

"Next time I'll tell him I have a very mean, very impatient young lady waiting for me." Rifling through piles of notes and sketches, he dug his textbook out from the bottom of his bag. Doodles of fancy aerodynamic calculations and Toothless, his cat, spilled out, but he just shoved them back inside. "However, I come bearing gifts." He reached between the pages of the text and tugged out a thick packet. "The study guide for the final, fresh off the printer."

She eagerly snatched it from his hands. "I knew making you my best friend would come in handy!" Her eyes widening in excitement, she flipped through the unstapled papers with glee. "It's still warm."

"What do you think 'fresh off the printer' means?" His sarcastic snort earned him a thump to his forehead, but she knew he was long used to the abuse by now. He didn't even bother trying to bat her hands away anymore. "I thought you'd appreciate the advanced copy."

"All the benefits of sleeping with the professor, none of the work," she muttered under her breath. It was how Ruffnut described their relationship, usually while attempting to steal the answers from Astrid's homework.

It didn't take long for them to settle into their usual Friday night routine. She wasn't sure when it had happened, but sometime during freshman year, she and Hiccup had found themselves at the library at the same time. They'd been friends long before, having grown up together, but it wasn't until they started claiming the second floor of the library every Friday that they really got close. It wasn't even studying half the time. Sometimes they'd set up their laptops and watch movies. Sometimes they'd share a pizza while Astrid worked on student council stuff and Hiccup spent the evening tracking down parts for his part-time job at Berk's Garage. Once, on a particularly empty night, they'd turned up their music and taken over the library Breakfast Club style.

Unfortunately, with the end of the semester quickly approaching, those more eventful Fridays were few and far between. And with Astrid struggling under the pathetic teaching style of Dr. Genius, she needed every minute of her best friend's tutelage that she could get.

"It's just formulas," Hiccup always answered with a shrug when she asked him how he was so good at this stuff. "Input. Output."

That evening in particular was more work than play. Though they took the occasional break to engage in a Skittle war between the bookshelves, most of the night was spent with Hiccup leaning over her shoulder, pointing out errors in her calculations and blowing eraser shavings off of her once perfectly-white study guide. They'd often start out half-serious, spending more time wasting time than working. But then after ten or eleven o'clock would hit, the pair would settle. Sometimes Astrid put in headphones. Sometimes Hiccup got lost in his undergrad project.

They never stayed in one place for long, since the upper floor was almost always devoid of people (save them and the one half-awake part-timer watching the information desk). Usually they began at a table, but then they'd move to the big fluffy couch, to the book stacks, to stretching out on the huge red and white floor rug. Astrid's favorite place was the enormous glass window of the library's back wall, hidden behind the last row of bookshelves. It overlooked the campus' main square, where the fountain was located, and she liked being able to look up from her incomprehensible equations and watch people go by. It cleared her mind.

"Hiccup, look at this." She broke the companionable silence that had stretched between them to point out the window. "That guy's wearing a Hairy Hooligan shirt. That's that band you like, right?"

When he didn't answer, she turned to look at her best friend. They'd been sprawled out on their stomachs, lost in their own studies, so the quiet hadn't been strange. But now, seeing the boy asleep with his cheek pressed to a scribble filled notebook, the silence meant something different. Astrid snorted, shaking her head. "Dork."

She let her eyes linger on his face. His lips were parted just so, and his scruff was barely reaching that day-too-hairy mark. The way he had his head pillowed on his forearm, his glasses had been knocked crooked, and she could see his thick bronze lashes resting against his cheekbones. Her heart gave a little skip. Under the fluorescent lights, his freckles stood out so much she could connect them like constellations.

Astrid chewed on her lower lip. She twirled her pencil in her hand. And then, as quiet as a ghost, she lowered her face and brushed her mouth across his.

Sitting up, she scooted back against the window so she could look up to see him after every physics problem. Glancing down at her study guide, she tried to suppress her smile and will the figures on the page into an order she'd understand.

One day, she'd summon the courage to make him ask her on a real date. For now, though— Fridays would do.