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because i've been trying way too long to be the perfect son
[ Maybe we should slow things down, she had said, and at the time he had felt a mixture of disappointment and relief. He understands why that was, now. The overloading responsibilities of a chieftain; quite apart from rebuilding Berk, there were still normal, everyday issues to attend to and dragons to cater for, which added to a teetering pile of Do Not Want that he navigated as gracefully as he could. Astrid bore the brunt of a lot and his friends helped out, as did Valka, but that didn't stop every single villager from turning to him first and foremost when they had a problem. And he didn't have his dad to ask for advice, to sit beside at the end of a hard day, or to talk him down. It was so hard.
Yeah, Hiccup had agreed, the line of his shoulders easing as the frankly terrifying notion of getting married and having children was neatly brushed aside in one fell swoop. Yeah, okay.
He pretended later not to notice the way Astrid's smile had fallen, needing the breathing room.
Six months later, after a ship returned to the archipelago following five years away, he had taken no small amount of joy in having someone else to hang out with. Heather was more welcome than she knew. Admittedly, her last visit had captured Hiccup's interest in a way that wasn't entirely as innocent as he tried to convince himself, even if nothing had come of it, but he had still denied his attraction to her. Now, it was as if after a lifetime of wanting one girl his dick had decided to explore a completely different avenue of arousal that prominently featured his old friend and the only other gorgeous woman on the island. Heather was beautiful before (stunning really, Sure thing, Snotlout) but now her curves had a shockingly disabling effect on Hiccup's nerves, her hair was sleeker and longer, and her eyes reflected the exact shade of dragon-nip that drove him just as wild. In private, of course. It wasn't fair to dump all his tension and desires on her just because he quickly grew to enjoy their work in the smithy, or the way she was picky about which dragon he offered up for her to train. Even listening to her spout the sameboring rhetoric about herbs that Gothi had taught her, taking Heather on as an apprentice, was somewhat interesting just for the way it lit her up.
Today, he finds himself staring again.
After a particularly long and tiresome afternoon, with the snowfall of Winter Nights already resurging around early evening to send people running into their homes and out of the freezing cold, he offers Heather a home-cooked meal "By the Chief himself, no less" and shows her every welcome that a good host should, including ale. Not too much, but enough that he doesn't protest when Toothless bounds upstairs to sleep on his slab and Hiccup has the opportunity to turn his glance sideways where he lies on the furs near the fire-pit, a mug balanced on the belly of his tunic and an arm curled under his head.
Heather curdles something in the pit of his stomach just by being there. Full of delicious stew, languid and relaxed as the building storm howls outside the sturdy wooden walls, he blinks at her and comes down from laughing about something-or-other to say something stupid but too honest to keep behind his lips. ]
You look really good for someone who was smeared in soot earlier, for the record. When did you even wash that off?
[ With a smile in place under an openly approving, freckled expression, he sends her a flirtatious look brimming with a playful tease. ]
Yeah, Hiccup had agreed, the line of his shoulders easing as the frankly terrifying notion of getting married and having children was neatly brushed aside in one fell swoop. Yeah, okay.
He pretended later not to notice the way Astrid's smile had fallen, needing the breathing room.
Six months later, after a ship returned to the archipelago following five years away, he had taken no small amount of joy in having someone else to hang out with. Heather was more welcome than she knew. Admittedly, her last visit had captured Hiccup's interest in a way that wasn't entirely as innocent as he tried to convince himself, even if nothing had come of it, but he had still denied his attraction to her. Now, it was as if after a lifetime of wanting one girl his dick had decided to explore a completely different avenue of arousal that prominently featured his old friend and the only other gorgeous woman on the island. Heather was beautiful before (stunning really, Sure thing, Snotlout) but now her curves had a shockingly disabling effect on Hiccup's nerves, her hair was sleeker and longer, and her eyes reflected the exact shade of dragon-nip that drove him just as wild. In private, of course. It wasn't fair to dump all his tension and desires on her just because he quickly grew to enjoy their work in the smithy, or the way she was picky about which dragon he offered up for her to train. Even listening to her spout the same
Today, he finds himself staring again.
After a particularly long and tiresome afternoon, with the snowfall of Winter Nights already resurging around early evening to send people running into their homes and out of the freezing cold, he offers Heather a home-cooked meal "By the Chief himself, no less" and shows her every welcome that a good host should, including ale. Not too much, but enough that he doesn't protest when Toothless bounds upstairs to sleep on his slab and Hiccup has the opportunity to turn his glance sideways where he lies on the furs near the fire-pit, a mug balanced on the belly of his tunic and an arm curled under his head.
Heather curdles something in the pit of his stomach just by being there. Full of delicious stew, languid and relaxed as the building storm howls outside the sturdy wooden walls, he blinks at her and comes down from laughing about something-or-other to say something stupid but too honest to keep behind his lips. ]
You look really good for someone who was smeared in soot earlier, for the record. When did you even wash that off?
[ With a smile in place under an openly approving, freckled expression, he sends her a flirtatious look brimming with a playful tease. ]