A/N - This is something I wrote a while ago and I'm just now getting around to working more on it. There's more, and it has an ending, but I'm not sure when I'll update this. So don't wait up at night for it. I will, just probably not regularly or soon. I've got a lot on my plate lately.

X

Chapter 1: First Contact

Maybe this was a bad idea, Astrid thought even as her finger pressed the button underneath the dull brass 701. The old fashioned ding-dong thudded against her ribcage. She held her breath as no immediate response came. She could still run away. She could be a block an a half away before -

Footsteps. They echoed on the other side. Hardwood.

She realized that her hand still hung in the air and withdrew it back to her side as the deadbolt slid back with a heavy click. The antique doorknob turned and the door swung open.

"Hi," Astrid said. The other words dropped from her tongue and landed on the porch without a word.

She hadn't been sure what she expected the art student to look like, but it wasn't the young man she saw in the doorway. This "hiccup" was lean, tall, and had the most striking green eyes she had ever seen. Messy red-brown hair fell over his head and needed to lose about an inch.

"Hi," he said. He spoke with a kind smile, timid, slightly unsure.

She cleared her throat. "I'm Astrid. We spoke on the phone?"

"Oh!" His smile widened. His teeth weren't completely straight and the front two were slightly too large, but it fit his uneven grin well. Handsome, she might have said, if only to herself. "I should have know, I'm sorry. Uh, come in."

He stepped out of the way and Astrid crossed the threshold into his small, rented house. Her chances to escape dwindled as he closed the front door behind her. The main room smelled of turpentine and paint. Blank and half-painted canvases lay against the walls. Tubes of paint filled stained plastic crates. A half-eaten sandwich sat on a wooden stool.

"Did I interrupt?" Astrid asked.

"My bologna?" he smiled. It was more of a smirk, but without any sort of pretension, timeless even. "Not at all. So uh, are you ready to begin? The light is perfect right now."

She chest tightened. She could say no. "Sure."

He scooped up the sandwich with one hand. "Are you thirsty? Hungry? I can make you a bologna sandwich."

Astrid smiled without realizing. The knot in her stomach relaxed, but quickly tightened again. "No thank you."

He nodded. "Okay, I…uh, will leave you to it them. Just shout when you're ready."

He ducked into the kitchen, she assumed from the glimpse of off-white tile, and left her alone. Astrid sighed, forcing the air in and out slowly. She could still run. On the way, she had taken time to think over every possible escape plan and survival technique in the scenario that the mysterious artist turned out to be a creep. To her relief, there didn't seem to be anything of the sort about him. He had appeared as nervous about this as she was.

With the last of her prolonged sigh gone, she pulled her feet out of her boots. She worked methodically and kept her eyes on the swinging kitchen door. She unbuttoned her jeans, hesitated, and pushed them down her legs. Her underwear followed.

Why she had done it she would never be certain. A last attempt at freedom before the real world, perhaps. Maybe for the story to tell the girls on margarita night. Maybe because she could. When she had stood in the student's center coffee shop staring at the wanted ad for a nude model, something screamed in her head. Why not? She had ripped the slip of paper with the artist's number and called before her coffee was ready. Had she waited until after, she might not have done it.

Astrid unbuttoned her shirt and folded it onto the growing pile of clothing. Last came her bra. It didn't fold, but flopped onto the pile. Exposed. There was no other word for it. Were her breasts even? Had her underwear left a line? Had she shaved that morning? When he came through the door again, she would be naked; he would be clothed. Would he? Was this an elaborate rape hoax?

"I'm ready," Astrid said no one.

Hiccup reappeared from the door, fully clothed, sandwich gone. He didn't look at her as he stepped over to a red couch and padded the armrest. "Go ahead and sit down."

Astrid hesitated, and his eyes met hers.

"Are you okay?" He asked, his eyes locked on hers.

"Yes, I've never been naked in a man's house before," Astrid said quietly.

"Oh," Hiccup nodded. He blinked. "Really? I mean, I'm not saying I don't believe you, but…really?"

A pin poked her pride. She said sharply, "Why is that hard to believe?"

He stuttered and scratched the back of his neck. "I-I, uh, well, you're not exactly unattractive."

"I never had time," Astrid explained. The silence thickened and she longed for something to say. "The farthest anyone got was the zipper of my jeans."

Hiccup swallowed; his entire neck moved. "Well, you're safe here. I won't rape you. I promise. So…if you'd want to go ahead and sit down we can start before we lose anymore light."

Astrid stepped toward him and sat down on the couch. With his simple instructions, he guided her position, never touching, only pointing. He examined her with a look she couldn't understand. It was not lustful or even clinical. She watched him, watched his eyes as they floated over her body and moved it ever so slightly, to play with the shadows, he said. The sunlight streaming through the closed opaque curtains lit her perfectly, he said.

He stepped back. "Perfect, don't move."

He arranged his easel and stood to see her better. He began to dab in the array of colors. With the only sound of the wet brush against dry canvas, she let her eyes wander over the art-littered room.

"Look at me," he said softly.

Astrid looked back at him. His green eyes found hers. They wandered over her with the same expression, as if he were taking her apart, one tiny piece at a time and folding back the layers to expose the true underneath. While he painted, Astrid remained still, not from trying but from frozen limbs. Nerves stung up through her spine and legs and refused to move. Stage fright.

Slowly she began to relax. The soft light filtered in and warmed her bare skin. The worn material of the couch comforted her, pressing against the skin that she hid. He painted with his lips parted, eyes seeing colors and shapes that only he could, lost in the world that unfolded at the tip of his brush. The paintings behind him blurred. One caught her eye and she blinked until she saw it clearly.

"Look at me, Astrid," he said again, eyes on his brush. The painting stopped and he shifted his stare to her. "What is it?"

"Your eyes are the same color as the tree in that one," Astrid said without moving anything but her mouth.

He looked over his shoulder as the rest of his thin body followed. The painting was the first it a stack that leaned against the wall. The shifting, swaying colors of the trees matches his eyes with inhuman accuracy. He turned back around without a word and return to his easel.

"Keep looking at me," he said.

Astrid settled her stare back on him. He sat just outside the July sunlight. It touched only the tip of his worn shoes. Watching him felt like a foreign film; the words didn't matter. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the sunlight shifted across the paint-smeared floor.

"That'll do for today," he said, swishing the flesh colored paint from his brush, as if he'd dipped into her skin. He set it down on the small, stained table. "The light's too different."

He stood and so did she. His stare lingered on the scenery painting as she pulled herself from her meditative place on the couch. She pulled up her legs and set her bare feet onto the floor, knees squeezed together. But again his eyes were not on her. He turned to his own painting and blinked, focusing his stare on her, as if her presence surprised him.

"I'll, uh, let you get dressed." He vanished into the kitchen.

Astrid began to dress. Each layer felt awkward and instructive, as unreal as her nakedness first had. The feeling diminished as she slipped on her shoes.

"I'm done," she said to the empty room.

He reappeared with a white envelope in hand. "Here's for the session. Five an hour. I know it's not much, but-" He shrugged. "Maybe one day I'll be rich and able to pay better."

"Then you could afford real models," Astrid said as she took the envelope. It felt sour, cheap.

"You were the best I've seen," he said. Paint dried on his arm. Perhaps he was no man at all, but paint.

Astrid laughed, a bit bitterly. He'd had other girls laying naked on the couch? Instead, she bit that thought back. "I've never been paid for being naked before, either."

"First time for everything," he smirked. Then it vanished. "Does that bother you?"

She shrugged. "Not really."

"Good, I'd love to schedule another session with you," he said eagerly, relieved.

"Okay," she nodded.

A brightness flooded his face like the afternoon sun. Beautiful. "What is your schedule like? I've got a lot of time between semesters."

"I'm open all these next two weeks," Astrid said.