Modern AU

Another short but sweet one. :)

. o O o .

Falling Slowly

I'm sorry. I thought I could do this alone, but I was wrong... I need you! Please?

Chewing on his lip, Hiccup's gaze wandered from the message on his phone's display to his partially hidden coworker and then back to his phone again. This didn't come unexpected, not really, but… Damn!

"Eret?"

"Yeah?" came the muffled reply from beneath the car.

"I need to ask you for a favour."

Eret grunted, then pushed himself back into Hiccup's view, one eyebrow raised. "That sounds ominous. What's up, buddy?"

"Could you take over the rest of my shift?" He hated to ask, but there really was no other choice.

"Uh…" Eret glanced at the other car parked in 'Gobber's Workshop', the one Hiccup had been about to check for necessary repairs. "I guess I could? Care to tell me why though? Did something happen?"

Again, Hiccup gnawed at his lip before giving a slight shrug. "Well, no. Nothing life-threatening or something. I just got a message from a friend and… and I've gotta go and check on her."

"Her?" Eret's eyebrow rose even higher, a smirk tugging at his lips. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend. Why have you never mentioned her?"

Hiccup rolled his eyes. He could point out that this specifically was why he'd never mentioned Astrid. Eret certainly wasn't the first to draw this conclusion. The wrong one... He sighed. "She's not my girlfriend," he corrected, even as the words left a strange aftertaste. "We're just friends. Best friends. We know each other since we were toddlers and kinda grew up together. Hiding beneath tables at garden parties and pretending to be adventurers and all that." A fond smile crossed Hiccup's face at those memories, but it disappeared directly again. "Anyway… she's having a rough day. I need to see how she's doing. Comfort her."

Now, Eret's smirk grew even broader, his eyebrows waggling. "Comfort her, eh? I've heard that one before."

"Not like that," Hiccup clarified, grimacing. Things between him and Astrid weren't like that. He hesitated for a second, then added, "Five years ago today, her parents died in a car crash."

From one moment to the next all smugness left Eret's face. "Oh, shit. Ah, sorry, man. I didn't mean to… Yeah, I can take over your job there, no problem. I didn't have any plans today anyway. Go, she needs you more than I do."

"Thanks, I owe you one."

. o O o .

After a short detour to the local supermarket, Hiccup let himself into Astrid's flat. He had a spare key to her place, just like she had one to his.

"Astrid?" he called, worried, as he placed the bag with his shoppings in her kitchen.

"I'm here." Her voice was small and weak, coming from her bedroom.

Without thinking twice about it, Hiccup went toward her, finding her wrapped in her blanket, and climbed onto her bed next to her to take her into his arms. It wasn't strange, not for them; they were so used to close contact. How often had they danced together at a club, just for fun? He knew everything about her, knew the scent of hair and that silvery clip she used to keep it out of her face.

But still… When she crawled right into his embrace, huddling against his chest without a word, something inside him fluttered. For the rest of the world, Astrid Hofferson was this incredibly tough woman who could take on everything, and Hiccup admired her for that. But she also had this other softer side, sometimes playful and sometimes vulnerable. A side she showed to nobody, not even to her occasional boyfriends – to nobody but him.

For a while, they stayed like this, neither of them speaking and the only noises his calm breathing and her occasional sniffling. Her near-silent tears seeped into his shirt, leaving a considerable wet spot as he stroked her back.

"I went to the graveyard," she whispered eventually after what easily could have been an hour of companionable and comforting silence.

Hiccup nodded against her hair, waiting for her to go on. In the previous years, he'd accompanied her on these visits so he knew how emotionally loaded they were for her.

"At first, it was okay. I told them what I'd been up to over the last few months. But then…" She trailed off and gave a helpless shrug. "It became all too much," she went on in a thick voice. "I felt so alone and… and I miss them so much!" She wrapped her arms around him, pulling herself closer to his chest.

Hidden between her golden tresses, Hiccup grimaced. "I'm sorry I wasn't there," he murmured.

Astrid shrugged again. "It's okay. You had to work."

Hiccup's grimace deepened but he didn't say any more. He'd offered to take the day off to support her. but she'd declined. Had said that she'd manage a day without him, that she would be fine.

He should have known better.

But this wasn't the moment to argue about who'd been right. Astrid became fidgety and he knew that she was done wallowing. What she needed now was a distraction.

"So, I went shopping before I came here," he announced in a lighter tone as he let his arms drop and sat back to look her in the face. "I brought ingredients for lasagna, cola, and snacks; how about a movie night? And a hot chocolate for afterwards?"

Astrid's face lit up in a beautiful way as she beamed at him. "That sounds perfect!" Then she frowned. "I'm out of chocolate powder though."

Hiccup grinned. "Don't worry, I brought that, too."

"The butterscotch flavoured one?" she asked hopefully, actually squealing a little when he nodded and threw her arms around his neck. "You're the best!"

. o O o .

Still wrapped in her cuddly blanket, Astrid stood in the doorway to her little kitchen and watched Hiccup do his magic. In the three years she'd been living here now, he'd cooked here far more often than she had.

Today, something was different though. The sight hadn't changed; it was still Hiccup, her lanky best friend ever since she could remember, turning here and there and humming a merry tune to himself. He'd done the same only last week, too. But still, something was different today and she couldn't pin down what it was.

No, that was a lie. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew what had changed. That afternoon, when she'd stood at her parents' grave and somehow had missed Hiccup's comforting arm around her more than anything else, something had shifted inside her. And right now, as she watched him cook for her after he'd dropped everything to comfort her before, it was shifting even more. And more still as they devoured delicious pasta, watched some stupid movie, and imbibed happiness in the form of hot chocolate in her favourite flavour.

"You're unusual cuddly today," Hiccup noted after the movie had ended. He didn't sound annoyed though, his arm comfortably around her shoulders. "Is everything all right?"

Astrid paused for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. Thank you, for everything."

No, she couldn't say what had changed, why his soft smile, the same he'd given her for all their lives, suddenly made her heart flutter.

Not yet.

But she would get there.

. o O o .

As so often, this one was inspired by a song. But it's an older German song and I doubt many know it. Congrats if someone recognises it though. ^^