Let's Give it a Year

Chapter 38

A few weeks had passed since their incident at The Cove, and neither of them had brought it up since. Instead, they made little jokes about the whole thing, laughing and teasing each other like friends do. To them, it had turned into a little joke, and they had gone - mostly - back to normal.

"Hey, have you seen my tie?" Hiccup asked as he came downstairs in a hurry, his shirt colour up and top button undone as he rushed down the stairs. Astrid was in the kitchen finishing up the last of her coffee and smiled at his slightly bedraggled look.

"No, but have you seen yourself?" She asked with a chuckle, "Hold on," She replied before rushing into the laundry room. Hiccup frowned at her before looking at himself in the mirror and attempted to fix his hair.

"Find one of your ties. This'll do, right?" Astrid emerged from the laundry room, flinging the door open, and handed Hiccup one of his ties with a kind smile. He took the tie out of her hand with a quick 'thank you' and turned towards the mirror to help put it on.

"Hey," Hiccup turned to look over at Astrid who had called to him. She looked nervous as she fiddled with her fingers anxiously. "Do you want me to help with that?" She asked, barely able to look Hiccup in the eye as she pointed at his tie with a small blush appearing on her face. "I mean, I understand if you don't want me to. It might be awkward, but... I just thought I'd ask."

"You want to tie this for me?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the odd request. But he smiled and nodded, taking a step closer to her while still holding the two ends of the tie. "Sure, if you could that would be great. To tell you the truth," He leaned in close. "I don't really know how to tie it myself." He smiled before standing up straight and letting go of the tie for Astrid to grab.

Astrid held the tie in between her fingers, delicately wrapping it around itself and tying it up for Hiccup. She could feel his gaze on her the entire time, a soft, warm appreciation mixed in with something else that she could never quite figure out. But as she finished and looked up to meet his eye, she swore she saw a flicker of it before he turned away.

Was it love?

"There you go, now you're looking smart!"

"Ah! Thank you, Astrid. You're the best." He said and smiled brightly.

The next moment happened completely unconsciously and without thought, as Hiccup reached down to Astrid's height and placed a small, gentle peck onto her cheek. There was nothing meaningful behind it, nothing to talk about. But it stirred up something within Astrid that made her freeze as she looked up to Hiccup.

However, he just smiled, unaware of the consequences to his actions, and walked away. He left Astrid behind in the spot she stood, without a look over the shoulder to check whether she was coming or not. But Astrid decided to ignore it; deciding to shrug it off as a mistake.

"It was an accident, he wasn't thinking. It's fine." She calmly tried to conclude, but her racing heart was giving her other ideas.

"What the hell was that, Haddock?!" Hiccup whispered sternly to himself, now out of earshot of Astrid. "You guys were just getting back to normal, and then you had to go and pull that?!"

He was stood by the car in the blazing sun, basking in its morning glory whilst waiting for Astrid, and scolding himself. He hadn't meant to peck her cheek like that, it was just an unconscious action that he had done out of reflex. But what could he do now? The deed was done, and the die had been cast. What more could be done?

"Hiccup?" A feminine voice called out to him and woke him up from his embarrassed trance and he gave her a warm smile. Astrid raised an eyebrow and smiled back. "You ready to go, or are you gonna wait there all day?"