HTTYD, Modern AU, High School AU. Hiccup/Astrid, with other pairings secondary in background. Please note that this story features mild violence, parental emotional and physical abuse of their child, explicit sexual content, an established relationship between Hiccup and Astrid, a depiction of and discussion of teen pregnancy, and Hiccup and Astrid are presently ~16 and a half years old at the start of the fic. If this is not to your taste, do not read.

Prologue

It was raining. Of course it was raining. As if things couldn't get worse.

Well, actually, they could.

Her parents could find her and drag her back home.

And at least the cold and the rain made the stinging welt on her cheek ache less as she walked down the nighttime streets.

Her pocket buzzed and she pulled out her phone—her phone, not the one that her parents had bought her, the one that had the tracking software built into it, the one that traitorously told her parents where she was and who she was talking with. That phone was back in her bedroom, between the locked door that had been shut behind her and the opened window that she had shimmed out of.

The cheap smartphone that she was pulling out of her pocket had been bought with her own money from a mall kiosk, and kept hidden. The number and contact information shared with only a few people.

Heather's name flashed on the screen, and she checked the message.

Astrid, where are you? Your dad is here, and he's looking for you, and he looks angry as fuck!

She groaned, even though she'd anticipated this. Which was why she hadn't gone to Heather's house.

The phone buzzed again.

Astrid?! Please tell me you aren't dead. Your dad says that you ran away.

She snorted. It was true, technically.

But didn't prisoners always try to escape from prison before they were consigned to solitary?

She carefully typed in a reply.

I'm okay. But I'm not going back there. I'm going someplace safe.

She continued walking, and then the phone rang. Heather's number came up.

With a sinking feeling in her gut, she answered it—and her father's voice came over the phone. "Young lady, you come home right this instant, or there will be hell to pay."

Biting her lip and hearing another man's voice in her head, she channeled that one instead of the more subservient one that her father had expected. "I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that charge. This phone isn't set up to take collect calls." She hung up. Then she started to hyperventilate, and a wave of nausea wracked her body.

Oh, not now, not now! was her thought as she fell to her knees and heaved, but she managed to keep her last meal—a couple of granola bars she had stashed in her bedroom—down.

She'd been getting way too much practice at that over the last week or so.

The phone rang again, and it was Heather's phone. But there was no way that it was Heather, so she rejected the call.

She did that repeatedly over the next few minutes, as it rang repeatedly.

Then it buzzed with an incoming IM.

Astrid, I'm sorry, they saw me typing on my phone and grabbed it. I'm on my laptop. Are you okay?

She weighed the options. There was no way that her father wasn't hovering nearby, looking for any clue as to where she was so that he could find her and drag her back home. But at the same time, Heather was one of her best friends, and who had given her sanctuary in the past. She deserved to know that Astrid was okay.

I'm going to Gary's house, she typed back, and gave a small smirk. That should throw her father off the scent long enough for her to get to safety, and Heather would understand.

And she did.

Gary's? Wait, Astrid, you're going to the Jorgensons? Snot always paws you up.

She could visualize the scene; Heather in her house, probably at the dining room table where they'd done homework so many times, hunched over her laptop, their fathers hovering in the background.

It's his fault, ultimately, she typed, and she kept walking, unable to feel her toes from the cold, her slippers soaked through, her skin feeling clammy despite the multiple layers of clothes she'd put on, and her backpack feeling like it weighed several tons. She was nearly there. She just had to keep walking.

Then the phone buzzed again. Yes, it is.

She pushed the phone back into her pocket and quietly exulted to the dripping sky about having good friends.

She had bought herself at least an hour—hopefully—between the time it would take her father to get to the Jorgensons, find out that she wasn't there, make false accusations at Snotlout, and backtrack her 'route'.

And she would need the time, because this was her last option to free herself.

Finally, she turned onto the last street. Her destination in sight, she took a deep breath, hoping that she wasn't about to make a big mistake.

Well, bigger mistake.

She knew that he was willing to help, but his dad…

She got to the plain and extremely neat house, and heard a dog start to bark. Hugging her arms around herself and feeling the squelch of her soaked hoodie under her fingertips, she walked up the neatly manicured path to the door and knocked.

It opened nearly instantly.

"Hi Hiccup," Astrid said tiredly to her secret boyfriend, the one that her parents didn't know about, the unassuming nerd that they let tutor her, not seeing his weediness as a threat to their perfect daughter.

"Astrid!" he said, clearly surprised to see her, despite the fact that she'd messaged him a little while after she'd climbed out of her bedroom window and asked if she could shelter with him. Despite the fact that he'd clearly been waiting by the door, given how quickly it had opened. He looked her up and down and stepped back from the door. "Gods, you're soaked. In, in!"

She smiled tiredly at him and stepped into the warm house, a small but naughty part of her mind reflecting on the difference in his voice between him saying that she was soaked… and saying that she was wet.

As Hiccup shut the door behind her and locked it, she finally, for the first time in hours, stopped moving. It was wonderful, and for a brief moment, as Hiccup stared awkwardly at her, she just paused, luxuriating in the warm air and the feeling of safety.

Her father would never think to look for her here.

Then a massive shiver shook her whole body, and Hiccup was there, hugging her. "Gods, why don't you have a coat on? Your clothes are drenched!" he exclaimed. Small puddles were forming on the tiles around her slippers, and Hiccup stepped back and looked her over. His demeanor changed from anxious to practical, and he said, "We need to get those off before you get hypothermia. Strip. I'll get a laundry basket for them."

The little naughty voice commented that of course he wanted to see her naked again, but she ignored it, aided by her exhaustion, and they busied themselves for a few minutes with getting her soaked layers of clothes off in some semblance of order and into the laundry basket. As she peeled out of drenched shirt after drenched shirt, Hiccup left to get her his robe, and some towels, which she accepted gratefully.

When it turned out that even her innermost layer of clothes had been soaked through by the October rain, all the way down to her skin, Hiccup wordlessly stripped off his shirt as she stood there, shivering, the towel not warm enough, and handed it to her. She gratefully took the thick cotton shirt with a sarcastic comment written on it and pulled it on, rather than ostentatiously ogle his wiry body like she would have normally. She luxuriated in the warm, dry, Hiccup-scented shirt against her chilly skin. Then she pulled out a fresh—and dry—pair of panties from her backpack as he took up the soaked bundle of her clothes and went to toss them into the dryer.

Watching his bare back leave the room, she pulled on the panties, shrugged on the thick cotton robe, and slumped into an armchair, exhausted. But rather than let herself fall asleep, she looked around the room. It was extremely neat and organized, with photos of Hiccup and his imposing father in his uniform, and a few of a woman that she guessed was Hiccup's mother being the primary personal touches. It was her first time here, which, she reflected, was pretty fucked up given how long she and Hiccup had been together.

A big black dog came over and started to sniff at her.

"Toothless! Down!" Hiccup said, coming back into the room as he pulled on a fresh shirt. The dog laid down at the foot of the chair and gave them both tired looks.

Astrid didn't blame him; it was around midnight, if not past it. And she had other reasons to be tired.

Hiccup picked up a fresh towel from the pile and started drying her hair, undoing the tight braid and working out the water as he unbound her hair. She luxuriated in his touch, like her old cat Stormfly getting petted, or being honest, like herself whenever he touched her, until Hiccup suddenly paused. She whined and opened her eyes to see him looking at her face. He looked her in the eye with a questioning expression, and she nodded. He reached up and then held her gently, reverently, by the chin, examining the darkening handprint on her cheek. "Who…"

"My father. That's why I'm here," she said softly. She could still feel the slap that had knocked her to the floor, and her scalp was sore from when her braid had been pulled.

"Why?"

She wordlessly rummaged in her bag, pulled out the thin plastic stick and held it up for his inspection.

Hiccup took it, uncomprehending. And then he looked at it more closely and she watched the blood drain from his face.

"Yeah," she said even more softly. "I'm pregnant."'