A/N: Hello readers, welcome to the new videogame streamer AU Twigman242 and I have been working on! The way this works is that Twigman242, in his story AxeGirl_Valkyrie, writes Astrid's POV and individual plays, while I write Hiccup. Later on we'll both write them playing together as well, as alluded to in this chapter.

If you have any suggestions for games for Hiccup and Astrid to play, let us know! We're open to ideas!

"Okay, let's finish up this district! It's got a bit of everything, some residential, some commercial, a bit of industrial on the other side of the highway. Now we just need a name for it! Any ideas?" Hiccup said, laying down the last road before turning to his second screen, showing the chat for his gaming stream. It was fairly quiet, at least compared to Astrid's chat.

Heck, his stream itself was a lot quieter than Astrid.

"You may have fucked my mother, but I nailed your father to the side of his house, cut his bollocks off with a rusty knife and shoved a bullhook up his arse!" Astrid's trash-talking echoed loudly through the open door, and Hiccup jumped up to loud protest of the cat in his lap.

"One second, chat," he said as he pulled his headset off.

"Sqwark! Cut bollocks off cut bollocks off!" Astrid's parrot, Stormfly, screeched as he reached the door, nearly tripping on his prosthetic.

"Hey As- uhm, AxeGirl, give me a warning when you start streaming so loudly!" he shouted into the living room, where Astrid was sitting on the couch, shooting up terrorists on the big tv screen. Thankfully she at least wore headphones, so the explosions and gunfire wouldn't disturb his peaceful city-building.

"Didn't I tell you earlier? It's a free weekend, so lots of noobs to kill! I'm gonna be here a while. Besides, you were so caught up in your highways, I didn't want to disturb you," she said loudly as KILL STREAK flashed on the tv. Hiccup could see her chat move rapidly, bird emojis and laughs spamming the window.

"At least close the door next time, okay?" he said, before doing just that. It wasn't perfect insulation, they were still looking into better options, but the door would at least stop him from getting banned for bad language.

With a sigh he sat back down in his comfy chair and put his headset back on. Toothless jumped right back into his lap and resumed his nap like nothing had happened.

"Sorry about that. So, any ideas for the name of the district?" Hiccup said, looking over the chat. Most viewers were laughing at the colorful language his girlfriend had used, and they seemed to agree 'Bollocks Bay' was the perfect name.

"Fine, Bollocks Bay it is. Toothless helped me name plenty of places, it's only fair Stormfly gets a say," he chuckled, typing in the name.

For the next hour Hiccup worked on his city, explaining how he handled traffic management and pollution when viewers asked about it. At one point Toothless jumped off Hiccup's lap to go to the corner where his toys were, prompting Hiccup to shift the camera. The 'Toothless-cam' was a staple of his streams: The big cat was often doing cute things while Hiccup played. Some of his viewers even kept a tally on how often he'd lose toys and beg the streamer to find them.

"Okay, that's good progress on Berkberg. That's it for Cities Skylines for today, it'll be back on Thursday as usual. I'm taking a quick break now, and I'll be back for some strategy in a bit. What do you want today, chat? I'm thinking either Stellaris or Total War. Let me set up a quick poll, and you vote on whether you want to continue befriending all the aliens or conquering Europe," he said, switching the stream to a fullscreen view of the Toothless-cam.

With the poll posted, he muted his microphone and left the room. The moment he opened the door he was met with more swearing from Astrid.

"Damn you campers! Come out and face me, you little shits!" echoed through the room as she respawned. Hiccup quietly walked closer, making sure to stay out of her facecam, and took a look at her chat. It was moving ten times faster than his own, with most messages being little more than strings of emojis. Hiccup was pretty sure he could decipher how Astrid had been doing just from the chat history of headshot emojis, RIP emojis, angry emojis, and others.

Astrid's eyes briefly left the TV to glance at him, a tiny smile the only sign she acknowledged him, before turning back to shoot at an enemy, cursing when she missed. Hiccup smiled back, before going to the kitchen to grab a drink. He preferred not to be seen on her stream. Or his own, honestly. Astrid's audience could get a bit weird about "The Valkyrie's boyfriend", and the less he was involved in that drama, the better. There was one follower in particular, Snotlout, who constantly flirted with Astrid and didn't back off when she said she has a boyfriend.

Hiccup sighed as he started the water cooker for some tea. He knew Astrid could handle herself, and he didn't mind her showing her face onstream to hundreds of teenage boys. But he preferred his own chat environment in which it was more about the game and the way he played rather than his facial expressions.

Lost in his own thoughts, he didn't notice the swearing and cursing stopped, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when Astrid touched his shoulder.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," she said, moving to gently rub his shoulder.

"It's okay, just didn't expect you. I thought you were still shooting noobs," he chuckled, grabbing a mug for Astrid and pouring hot water into it.

"Eh, it's getting a bit old. Will probably switch to some single-player for a bit. I'm thinking of finishing Rise of the Tomb Raider," she said, grabbing a teabag and putting it in when he handed her the mug.

"If you're getting sick of streaming, you know you don't have to keep-" he started, but she cut him off.

"It's not like that. I genuinely like it, it's exhilarating, fun, and it even makes us money! So stop worrying about it. Sure, you got me into it, but I keep doing it because I like it. So I'm glad you started streaming, and you should be too. It's good for you, you know," Astrid said, sipping her tea.

"I guess you're right. It's just… I never expected us to become this popular. You know the numbers, the vast majority of streamers never get beyond 10 followers. And here we are with thousands of subscribers. It's a little… overwhelming sometimes," he said, and she nodded.

"Maybe we need to change things up a bit. You know, a lot of my followers also follow you, and they'd like to see us play together. You know, co-op games, multiplayer, maybe even just commenting on each other playing. If we do that you won't have to face all those people alone," she said, rubbing his shoulder again, and he ducked his head.

"I don't know. It's just… the camera... " he whispered, before taking a gulp of tea that all but burned his throat.

"Hiccup… You know you don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with. And we don't have to start out with full facecam. But I do think it'd be good for you if we work up to that. And look, they don't have to know about the leg if you don't want to. They don't have to know anything about our private lives. It's just that you were so… isolated after the accident. You didn't leave the house anymore, and even now you still don't do it much. But you interacting with your chat has helped you recover so much from that low point, more than you can see. You just need a bit more confidence. And I think streaming together can help with that," Astrid gently said, lowering her head so she was in his field of vision before standing straight, forcing his head up as well.

"I… I'll think about it. I promise," he eventually said, meaning it.

"Alright, take your time. Now, I'm gonna get back to shooting cultists with Lara Croft, and you should build more sewage pipes and trains," she chuckled, sipping the last of her tea before moving back to the couch and putting her headset back on.

"For the record, I'm probably gonna kill a lot of aliens, so it's not as cutesy as you think," he shouted, probably loud enough for her mic to pick up.

"Well then. Chat, if you're interested in my boyfriend's cutesy way of purging the xenos, go over to his channel at HiccupGame. He'll be starting there in about a minute. Otherwise, we're going back to some badass Lara Croft," Astrid laughed, taking her controller and switching the game.

Hiccup chuckled as well, pouring another cup of tea for himself before walking into his study and closing the door.

"Well, as I expected, Stellaris won the poll, so it looks like we're playing that. I hope you had a good break, because we're gonna have an intense war against the Robot Uprising!" he said as he booted up the game and pointed the camera back at Toothless, who had moved to his drawing table. The maine coon had made a bed out of his pencils, to the delight of the chat.

It made him chuckle, so as the game loaded he moved to pet the little pest. Astrid's words were still in the back of his mind, and he forced himself to not obscure his hand as much as he stroked Toothless' belly.

"Of course, this big beast is still the true master of the universe. Maybe next campaign we'll have cats conquer the galaxy," he said, rolling his chair back to the desk when he saw the game had loaded.

The chat rapidly filled with ideas for the Alien Cat Overlords, and it made him smile. Maybe Astrid was right, and streaming together wouldn't be so bad.

But for now he was happy to command his spaceships by himself.