Tangled Vows

Chapter 4

"You're insane," Astrid muttered, watching Hiccup's expression turn into something gleeful and almost sadistic.

"No, I'm just having fun." He replied happily, clearly enjoying himself and the torture that he was placing Astrid under.

"Are you kidding me, though?" Astrid ignored Hiccup's obvious enjoyment over her dismay and tried to wrap her head around his request. "You want me to work here? In your store for three months?"

"Why? That's not a problem, is it?" Hiccup asked innocently, though Astrid could tell he was searching and hoping for a specific answer.

Astrid smiled smugly, "No. The wedding isn't for another nine months." She folded her arms victoriously as she saw the delight in Hiccup's eyes fade slightly at the new information.

Hiccup sighed. "Well, that's good then. You don't have any excuse not to work for me."

"Hiccup..." She complained, throwing back her head in annoyance at the irritable nonsense Hiccup was putting her through, all whilst smiling.

"It's simple. All you need to do is work here, with me. Then, stay at mine, and do the chores there." Hiccup explained his demands simply, as though he were just listing off groceries.

 Astrid's jaw went slack at the audacity that Hiccup was displaying before her.

"You want me to be your maid? To do your household chores for you, whilst also working a 9 to 5 at this store with you?" Astrid summed up, her irritation and confusion at Hiccup's demands being evident in her voice as she listed them off.

Hiccup nodded, "Exactly."

Astrid sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she exhaled. Somehow, this whole thing had gone from inconvenient, to ludicrous.

"Why are you doing this, Hiccup?" Letting her hand drop away from her face, Astrid finally obtained a better look at Hiccup. "I mean, seriously. I know that you don't like me, and don't particularly want me around any more than I want to be here. So, why are you asking me to stick around?"

"Because I want to see you suffer." Hiccup replied curtly.

Astrid was stunned into silence by his words, frozen in place by the harshness and brutality of that concept. Usually, Hiccup had been the quiet, innocent boy that everybody loved, and in fact continued to love, never before had Astrid encountered the vicious beast that was lurking beneath. As she stood before him there in that store, staring him down, she saw the flicker of that beast hiding behind his eyes and menacing her from the shadows.

A beast that was out for blood, specifically hers.

"You ran off after we came back from Vegas, disappearing from here, and I never got my revenge. I never got to watch you be awkward around me and try to avoid me because of what was said. Instead, you ran away. You took the coward's way out. Now, I'm making you square up to your past mistakes, and making sure you face the consequences. Because it wasn't just me that you hurt with what you did." Hiccup explained, arms folded across his chest and standing proudly behind the counter as he watched Astrid fidget beneath his gaze.

"And you think making me stick around will be punishment enough for my sins?" Astrid countered, not willing to step down from this fight. "I know what I did was wrong, and I know that I'm to blame."

"Good," Hiccup cut off any further words that Astrid had to say. "Then you won't have any problem sticking around." He leaned down and grabbed something from beneath the counter and threw it towards Astrid.

Catching it quickly as it intercepted her chest, Astrid looked at the object and realised that it was an apron. An apron with the hardware store's logo embroidered upon the front of it. Looking back to see a smirk ghosting over Hiccup's lips, Astrid realised what this was.

 He was handing over her uniform.

"Get that on, I have your first job for you." Hiccup announced, gesturing over his shoulder with a casual thumb and turning to lead her towards the back.

Unable to argue back, having already lost the argument long ago, Astrid followed along behind him with her backpack jumping about behind her.

Leading her into the back, Hiccup led Astrid towards a room filled with shelves and a floor covered in boxes. Many of these boxes had become overturned and emptied out on the floor, with some shelves having fallen onto one another in some kind of horrific aftermath. On the near side of the room as they entered this store room, was a workbench with some kind of mechanical object resting on top. Clearly, some kind of engine that Hiccup had been working on.

"What the hell happened here?" Astrid couldn't help asking as she looked upon the chaos that was in the store room. The area around the workbench was oddly clean and untouched, yet it was the shelves with the boxes upon them that displayed the most mess.

Hiccup sighed, digging his hands into his pockets and looking upon the mess with the same confused distaste as Astrid.

"Honestly, not entirely sure myself. Came down here this morning to find the place looking like this. Had I known you were coming, I would have done more damage than this for you to clean up. Unfortunately, I've made it easy on you." Hiccup shrugged, looking around the room at the mess and smiling lightly to himself. "You can handle cleaning this whole mess up by yourself, can't you?"

Astrid whipped her head around in shocked disbelief. "You want me to clean all this up? You know these boxes will weigh a tonne, right?"

Hiccup shrugged again, beginning to annoy Astrid with his indifferent attitude to the whole mess.

"So? I've seen you lift heavier things when we were younger. This sort of thing should be no problem for you." Hiccup announced, turning and walking away from her to leave her with the job.

"Are you kidding?" Astrid called after him, causing him to stop and turn back toward her. "You're leaving the heavy-lifting job to the weak, beautiful young woman?" Astrid complained, tossing her hair over one shoulder with a flick as though to enunciate her point.

Hiccup scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Okay, two things. One, in what universe are you considered to be beautiful? And two, when did you start calling yourself weak?"

Astrid felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her like she had been punched in the hut with a moment of sudden realisation. It had been so long since she had even tried to consider herself as something more than what society labelled her as. When she had moved to the city, it had just become instinctive to join everyone else in their thought processes, piling onto their ideas of being weak, beautiful women who require a strong man to be their saviour. After all, men like to have a hero complex about them when it comes to their relationship.

Something that Astrid had only recently started to think about. Something that she realised that Hiccup never had about him, because he never saw her as weak.

Even now, as she stands there still with remnants of the city embodying her, he still sees her for what she had once been. Not the city woman she had tried to become. He saw Astrid, the fearless Astrid Hofferson she had been when they were kids.

Not the same Astrid that she still felt like.

"Astrid, I have never thought of you as weak, in fact, you are one of the strongest people I know. Even as much as I hate you right now, I don't think that you're weak. Never have, and never will. You are so much stronger than other people will ever give you credit for." Hiccup replied earnestly, resisting the urge to take a step towards her. Instead, he cleared his throat and buried his hands back into his pockets. "That's the only compliment I will give you today, and possibly for the rest of the week. So, get to it. I'll check back on you later." He announced before quickly ushering himself out of the room and closing the door behind him.

Astrid watched him leave, unaware of the small smile pulling at her lips and the natural warmth beginning to intoxicate her chest. She had never felt flattered by Hiccup's compliments before, even though they were as rare as diamonds when they did occur. For some reason, that compliment meant a lot more to Astrid than she would ever say out loud.

Realising that she was smiling, Astrid slapped herself in the face and erased all positive thoughts about Hiccup from her mind. She scolded herself for being so easily swooned and turned toward the chaos of the store room.

"Come on, Astrid. You can do this." She pumped herself up, before casting her backpack to the side, donning her apron, and getting to work.