Thank you fanfiction people for favoriting me! I feel so awesome and stuff! Yet I also feel SO bad for not updating for an incredibly long time. I had writer's block of a massive scale, and I only managed to remember everything only now. That and trying to channel Hiccup Haddock into my own fanfiction was very hard.

I've also realized that I got Hookfang's gender wrong. Sorry about that, I once read an old fanfic that said Hookfang was a girl.

So, anyways, enjoy the last chapter for How to Catch and Avoid!

Chapter 4: The End

Fishlegs was having a considerably uncomfortable week. Nerve-racking would be a better word for it, but he was trying not to think too deeply about anything in particular, lest he say something that would make him slip up and be murdered by his possibly sadistic, soon-to-be girlfriend and her possibly-just-as-sadistic girl best friend.

But it was getting harder and harder to not reveal what he just learned from Ruffnut. He knows he should tell Hiccup, but she did swear on her stuffed yak's honor that she will castrate him if he were to tell Hiccup about the bet, and, to his horror, Astrid, the honorable (usually honorable) Astrid Hofferson, actually backed her up.

"Legs," Astrid had said. "You are aware that if Hiccup finds out I've been ignoring him, and causing all this trouble" – she gestured wildly around her – "because of a stupid bet with Ruffnut, then Hiccup might just kill everyone. Remember that 'table incident' months ago? Do you want to be flipped over liked a stuffed yak?"

No, no he didn't.

So Fishlegs kept his mouth shut. He had figured out the whole dare days before when he overheard the two girls arguing over it in the mead hall, and if it hadn't been for the death threat on his genitalia (and the possible stuffed yak flippage), he would've run to Hiccup faster than anyone could say…something. But guilt is poisonous and since his very nature won't allow such betrayal on his best friend, it was practically a miracle that he lasted this long (a whole three days – just four days left). Even though he knew if he stayed quiet any longer, genitals be damned, he will spill his guts out like a drunken Gobber.

Especially if Hiccup is standing a few feet away, looking positively irked and absolutely depressed as he fixes the saddle on his dragon.

"I just don't get it!" Hiccup snaps. "Here I am, admitting my mistakes, trying to fix this, and she's not letting me – ouch!" He yelps when Toothless hits his face with his tail when he pulls the saddle on too tight. He takes a step back, only to trip backwards over a bucket and into a nearby haystack.

A haystack Hookfang was currently resting on (and he didn't look real pleased at the interruption the skinny human was making on his nap).

If Fishlegs's guilt were a person, it would be screaming and pointing at Hiccup, and it would be telling him "If that doesn't make you feel guilty and repentant, I don't know what will!"

Honestly, he so doesn't want to be caught in the middle of all this.

So, gathering the appropriate number of balls he promptly walked towards Hiccup to rid himself of the heavy burden that is the truth.

He really was going to blab, really, but then Gobber ran inside the academy, looking really dazed and shocked, mumbling about how the all-mighty Astrid Hofferson was sick with the flu.

"So, just to recap, I was unconscious and sick for four days." Astrid said as Hiccup handed her a steaming bowl of some horrible broth that her mother cooked. Her head was killing her and the broth wasn't helping at all. One look at it already made her want to pass out and die (Hoffersons were not known for their amazing cooking skills). She held it almost at an arm's length of her, clearly convinced that her mother's yak and herbs broth was not edible.

Seeing Hiccup taking care of her, acting like she didn't do anything crazy the past week, both hindered and helped Astrid's health. According to what she understood of Hiccup's version of what happened (he tended to babble and go off topic for some reason), he had spent the first three days of the previous week chasing after her, then, mysteriously, on the fourth day he heard that she had passed out inside her mother's kitchen and was bed ridden for a week.

"Half of the time you were bordering on delirious and the other half was you just being passed out and near comatose." Hiccup told his tired-looking girlfriend gently as he pushed the bowl closer to her. She glared at him, and he wondered how she even had the strength to make an evil eye that menacing. Mrs. Hofferson's broth must be better than it looks.

But I still would rather lose another leg than eat one of those.

"Of course, that's what your mom said." Hiccup added when Astrid finally took a tentative sip that she immediately regretted. "She wouldn't even let me in to visit until today – can you believe I actually had to bribe her to let me in? She told me you didn't need the emotional strain at the moment." As Astrid blushed and coughed, Hiccup tried very hard not to laugh. Mostly because he so doesn't want to be drop-kicked by another Hofferson (Astrid's mother already found him annoying, and had drop-kicked him out of the house several times after his many failed attempts to visit Astrid).

Astrid groaned at the thought of her mother gossiping with Hiccup (if gossiping meant violent drop-kicking and unhelpfully vague reports about her health) and the boy only chuckled cheekily. "If you're so against getting sick, might I suggest not taking dips in freezing waters and then going for a winding run around the island at this time of the year? I know it will be hard for you to stop yourself from swimming in waters that could give you frostbite and hypothermia, but it's not really very healthy." Hiccup says, and Astrid realizes that he's both trying valiantly to not mention the subject of their three day long chase and boldly but subtly getting her to explain the reason for it.

That fishbone, Astrid thought. Can't he stop being such a damn word smart ass for one day? "I really am sorry for avoiding you all week. I had to do it." She said, looking at him with earnest blue eyes. "I wasn't thinking clearly, and I never thought about how you would feel about this whole ordeal."

"To be fair, this was all Ruffnut's fault!" She continued defensively when he remained silent. "If she had kept her mouth shut, and not push me so many times, I wouldn't have done it."

Ruffnut? Hiccup thought, and suddenly something in his head clicked. Ruffnut!

"But, yeah." Astrid said bashfully. "I know I messed up. And…"

Astrid went on to say things that would probably melt even the heart of a block of ice, and boost the ego of the guy with lowest self-esteem around, but all Hiccup could think of was that time seven months and three days ago, when Astrid got angry at him for not actually acknowledging her as his girlfriend. Wasn't she with Ruffnut before that? Weren't they talking about something before that? She even asked him something that made his usually stoic shield maiden of a (not-yet) girlfriend glare at her best friend from across the table.

"Hey Hiccup, have you and Astrid sealed the deal yet?"

It was obvious that day many months ago that Ruffnut had only asked if they'd…have…did…that…thing…yet as a way to get them both to admit something seriously private and personal and to make them both uncomfortable and uncomfortably embarrassed (it worked), but then, only moments after, the same crazy female Thorston twin tells him something that indirectly sets him off to be the most romantic guy for Astrid Hofferson.

"She doesn't just look pissed, she looks heartbroken real good."

"Probably crying her eyes out now."

And now, months later, she says something again that sets off another daringly romantic moment between him and Astrid. One that's got him keeping a ring in his pocket and his dad asking for a bride price and Astrid being so adorably bashful (Vikings seriously don't get to see that every day, maybe only once every millennium or so).

Could Ruffnut have possibly orchestrated all of this just to get him and Astrid together?

"Hiccup, are you even listening to me?" Astrid's pissed off voice snaps him quickly out of his Ruffnut theory and back into gazing into his girlfriend's eyes. "Shit, you actually have me here, apologizing, feeling like shit, actually baring my shit soul for you and only you to hear, because I missed you a lot, and I felt really bad, like absolute shit, and I felt like a horrible shit person and you're – "

It was probably because she looked so amazing when she was angry like that. Maybe it was because she was telling him things that she would never admit to him in a million years. Perhaps it was even because she looked so badass, saying shit all the time. Perchance it was the sudden realization that angry, sad, or gone, or irate, Hiccup would still find her incredibly attractive. For Hiccup didn't even let her finish her rant (even though he was absolutely sure at the time that it was a bad idea). The question just popped out of his mouth (totally heat of the moment) and before he knew what was happening, Astrid slapped him.

And of course, the sheer force of the slap was enough to knock him unconscious.

Astrid almost slapped herself when Hiccup slumped on the ground, cheek red and out cold. She obviously had serious problems, considering she just slapped her boyfriend right after he said "Will you marry me?"

"Ruffnut could be an evil genius, and she doesn't even know it." Hiccup remarked as he and Toothless stood on the far corner of the Mead Hall, away from the whole party. Toothless only nodded as he stared at the drunken faces of every Viking in Berk as they almost literally drank an ocean of alcohol. People where dancing all over the place, and Hiccup was very sure that if no one was sober enough to stop it, Gobber's pants may just end up on the rafters (again).

"Orchestrating all of this, the dare with Astrid, the marriage thing, all of it, just to win a bet with Gobber? She's terrifying." He mock shivered as he said this.

On his far left he heard boisterous laughter and saw Ruffnut and Astrid laughing like lunatics at the sight of Snotlout and Fishlegs having a drinking brawl over Ruffnut's favor.

Lingering irritation at Ruffnut's antics aside, Hiccup was eternally glad that she and Astrid made up.

It wasn't easy at first, since Ruffnut was still very annoyed that Astrid managed to win their dare (since Astrid successfully evaded Hiccup for three days and managed to get sick enough for Mama Hofferson to quarantine her for four days). But once Astrid heard Ruffnut's theory, she happily told the crazy female twin that her feces services were no longer required. And that was enough for Ruffnut and Astrid to make amends.

(Weeks after this they all find out that Ruffnut didn't actually orchestrate anything, she just happened to have said the right things at the right times, unaware of its repercussions. She and Astrid will once again square off on the matter of whether or not she returns to cleaning dragon dung for a year. But that's another story.)

"I always thought Astrid was the one who was going to pop the question!" Tuffnut was heard remarking somewhere in the middle of the merrymaking fray. And Hiccup felt his cheeks burn when only seconds later he heard Astrid yell, "I did too!"

To be clear, this isn't his wedding celebration, or engagement party, or any other party that signaled the end of his bachelorhood. This was, to his eternal embarrassment (and to Astrid's eternal amusement), a "Hiccup actually has balls" party that Ruffnut threw because she apparently won an ongoing bet against Gobber about whether or not he was going to propose Astrid, or the other way around (he tried not to be offended when he learned that Gobber bet on Astrid being the one to propose).

Though it stung a bit when Astrid said no (and that was when he woke up and the pain from the slap subsided), he was a bit glad that she said it. Not then, anyway – he was pretty disappointed and a little bit annoyed. That day he was actually about to do an angry spluttering rant when Astrid managed to make him sit down.

"While I am currently so happy that you can't even imagine how much I want to thank you for proposing, I am also smart enough to know, and know you enough to know, that your proposal was totally a heat of the moment thing." She had said when he angrily sat down. He was about to say something he, at that time, meant, when she stopped him and continued. "I see you looking around, completely restless, and unsatisfied. You want to go out and explore, you're bored, and you have a dragon, and you want to fly out here and see other places. You don't want to be tied down, not yet. You still want to see what's out there, and to do things only you can do."

"You so don't want to get married right now." Astrid said when he couldn't think of a reply. "And you don't have to get married right now."

"B-but you," he remembered saying. "Don't you?"

"Not right now!" She said, blushing uncharacteristically red. "I mean, I'm not even 20 yet. I still want to do other things, just as much as you want to do things." She huffed, rolled her eyes, then punched him painfully at the side.

"But you do want to get married right? Someday?" He winced as he said this, both from the anticipation of her answer and the agony of her punch.

Astrid smiled, and if it was possible, blushed a shade of red no sane Viking would ever associate with Astrid Hofferson and blushing. It was impossibly cute, but Hiccup didn't have the guts at the moment to say it and to possibly lose his manhood.

But he did say it when he heard her say "As long as it's with you."

And to him, that answer was enough for now.

She was right after all. Like always.

Don't tell her he said that.

Did you expect this ending at all?

So in the end, no marriage. I didn't want them to get married (not yet anyway). I also wanted to at least connect things with the upcoming movie sequel as much as I possibly can (I like to think this fic happened a few years before the upcoming movie :D ). Of course I didn't do a very good job, but I'm actually pretty happy with this ending.

Thank you SOOOOO much (like to the 100th power) for reading this fanfic. You have all been wonderful and I'm really sorry if this wasn't the ending you wanted. Also sorry if there are any grammar mistakes.

Hiccup and Astrid never followed any Viking traditions on marriage in my fic; and I'm sorry if you find it mentally and physically jarring or something, but seeing how the movie barely followed any Viking traditions on anything and had a more modernized take on it, I opted to do the same.

RandomEarthling out!