Found again (HTTYD FF)

★31★

Astrid couldn't believe her ears. Snotlout just admitted that he missed Hiccup! He'd never admitted anything like that before. He always bragged that he didn't miss him and that he didn't really care that he was gone because he was a true Viking. And true Vikings don't get caught up in their emotions. But now, after all these years, it was finally coming out that he missed him.

Astrid had suspected that Snotlout had it in him - that kind, caring side. He just didn't want to show it.

"So what? I missed him! You'd miss that stupid chicken of yours, too!" Snotlout snapped. He crossed his arms over his chest and turned to the other side, insulted.

Tuffnut gasped in shock. "What did you say!? How dare you insult Chicken!"

"There we go again," Astrid sighed. The arguments between Snotlout and Tuffnut were perhaps a little too frequent, annoying, and generally quite pointless.

"I'm not insulting anyone! It's the truth! She's just a stupid chicken you should have gotten rid of a long time ago!"

Astrid's gaze sought out Hiccup. After all, they had originally come here to give their old friend a proper welcome back home. He may have looked completely different, acting more like a dragon than a human, but he was still him. He was still the Hiccup they all missed so much.He was currently watching with interest what was going on between Snotlout and Tuffnut. Ears pricked in their direction, head cocked to the side. Toothless looked exactly the same next to him, ears high in the air and head to the side. It was as if they were copying each other's movements.

"What truth? That's not true-"

"Can you stop arguing already!?" exploded Astrid, interrupting Tuffnut. "We didn't come here for you to argue about that stupid chicken again!"

"You too, Astrid? I thought we were friends."

"Not now, Tuffnut." Astrid rolled her eyes. "Now we don't have time for all of us to argue about that chicken again."

"I agree with Astrid," Fishlegs spoke up. "We really should focus on more important things right now."

"And that's supposed to be...?" Ruffnut asked in a way as if she had just arrived and had no idea what had happened up to this point.

I'm going to kill them someday. I'm going to kill them all.

Astrid decided, for their safety, to ignore them for now and ask Hiccup herself. Before they came here, they had agreed together to ask him if he wanted to stay on Berk. With them. With his family. With her. Astrid hoped for a positive answer. She didn't know what she would do if he said no.

"Hiccup," she began. He looked in her direction. "We wanted to ask you something... important. You know, back when you lived here, we were all friends." Astrid shot an angry look at Snotlout and the twins. "Well, maybe not all of us, but that doesn't matter. What I'm trying to say is that we missed you. I missed you. So we decided to ask you if... if you wanted to stay here. Here on Berk."

For a moment, she heard nothing but the loud beating of her own heart. She grew hot and cold at the same time, a mixture of strange feelings swimming in her stomach. In the end, she didn't even know exactly what she was feeling. What she did feel with certainty, however, was apprehension.

Hiccup was quiet. He was silent - silent for a very long time, his gaze fixed on the ground.

Astrid was uncomfortable with his long silence. Even the twins understood what was going on, and hadn't made any stupid remark that she was sure they would have otherwise long since slipped out of their mouths. She was also concerned about the sounds escaping from the Night Fury. He was definitely saying something to Hiccup, and Astrid didn't know if that was a good or bad sign for her.

The Night Fury had quieted down, but Hiccup was still silent.

Astrid held her breath when he finally spoke.

"I-I don't know," was all that came out of him.

"How do you not know?" Snotlout asked. "You can't leave again. If you were planning to show up and tell everyone it was you and then disappear again, you shouldn't have bothered coming here in the first place!"

"I just don't know! It's not up to me!"

"Why shouldn't it be up to you?" Fishlegs beat Astrid when he asked the question. That was exactly what she wanted to ask too. Now she just waited tensely for an answer.

"It depends on the Berkians. I-if they don't want me here, I can't stay. And I'd have to ask the Alpha. We're only here for a little while. We have to come back in a few days."

"You don't have to. You can just stay here, what is going to happen?"

Astrid agreed with Ruffnut for once. What was stopping him from simply staying here if he wanted to do so?

"If we didn't show up, he'd send Cloudjumper to find us. I'm sure they'd think something had happened to us."

"Then you'll just send him away when he gets here."

"I can't do that."

"Why not?" Astrid asked this time.

"I'd get in trouble, Toothless would get in trouble. And I don't even know if I want to stay yet anyway..." Hiccup looked Astrid in the eye. It was the first time he'd looked her straight in the eye in all this time.

Astrid's heart sank to the pit of her stomach when she found uncertainty in those beautiful green eyes. He must have remembered something. Something he might not want to stay for. She decided to try to convince him that it would be worth staying. It gnawed at her conscience a little that she wanted to do it mostly for her own selfish reasons, not because she thought it would be better for Hiccup. He was probably happier in the nest, where he had lived most of his life. He probably wanted to go back. And that hurt her.

"What can you do?" asked Tuffnut, surprising both Astrid and everyone else. "I mean, you're not exactly human or dragon. So I wanted to ask if you could do anything special or anything."

"Tuff, not now-"

"I actually think it's a good idea to change the subject, Astrid," Fishlegs whispered in Astrid's ear. She pulled away a little. He'd startled her a little - she had no idea he'd been standing behind her the whole time. "Let's not talk about something we can't control anyway. Only time will tell if he stays here or not. And we don't know what the rest of the village has decided yet anyway."

I can influence it, Fishlegs. You'll see. This isn't something that can't be influenced. All it takes is a little convincing and it will be done, Astrid replied silently in her mind. I'll deal with the rest of the village later if there's any problem with that, she noted to herself.

Her intuition told her to keep Hiccup on Berk. And she trusted her intuition. There had never been a time when something had gone wrong when she followed her gut feelings. She had no reason to think otherwise now.

Maybe if she showed Hiccup how she felt about him, he'd decide to stay. For her. If he feels the same way. That was the only hitch.