she has sunlight in her veins

chapter four: full service

Could it be possible? Could Astrid Hofferson, actual perfect person, care about him? Could she be concerned for his welfare? Hiccup paced his study like a caged animal, replaying her words over and over and over in his mind. Surely that was what she'd meant... But surely not! Why would she? How could she? When he was Hiccup, social pariah - now with 10% less body hair thanks to handy new burns feature! - and she was... well, she was -

"Astrid!" The sound of Gobber's voice down the hall made Hiccup jump to attention. He cracked the door open just a little bit further and tried to catch the phone conversation happening in the lounge. "Yeah, of course yer can drop it back in. I'm not sure why it wouldnah be runnin' smoothly but I'll take a look. Tomorrow good? Good, aight, I'll see you then."

Steven's voice was gruff but noticeably calmer than when he'd last spoken to Hiccup. "More work?"

"Aye. Astrid Hofferson just had her mum's car in last Saturday but says it's not runnin smooth. Don't know how that can be the case, seein' as I worked on it meself."

Hiccup stepped away from the door. She was bringing her car back to the garage, when it had just been looked at. And Gobber wasn't bragging when he said that was strange, the man was a fantastic mechanic, he knew what he was doing. Which meant that there probably wasn't anything actually wrong with the car, and Astrid just wanted an excuse to come back to the garage. And why would she need an excuse to come back to the garage, unless she wanted to see Hiccup?

He didn't know how to process that information. And he wasn't even going to be at the garage tomorrow afternoon, as his dad had grounded him and he was meant to come straight home from school. Unless...

"Dad!"

Steven turned to frown at him as he skidded down the hall. He didn't say anything, but he gave Hiccup his full attention.

"Dad, I was - uh, well, I was thinking about this whole grounded arrangement we've got going on here -"

"You're not getting out of it, son, no matter what you say." Steven went to turn away, but Hiccup reached for him. He didn't quite touch his dad's arm, but the gesture alone was enough to stop him blocking him out.

"No, I know, I agree with you, I need to learn my lesson."

"Yes, you do." Steven stopped, as if only just processing what he was hearing. "You do?"

"Yeah, I do, but, like you said, maybe it's best I'm not left on my own. And you're going to be working late, right, I know you're really busy right now -"

Steven looked like he was waiting for the punchline of a particularly horrendous joke. "Aye..."

Hiccup took a deep breath and went for it: "So why don't I go straight to the garage after school, to help Gobber? That way you know I'm out of trouble, he gets an extra pair of hands..."

"Could always use an extra hand!" Gobber offered cheerfully, taking a swig from his mug and ignoring the look Steven sent him. Thankfully he'd been around the Haddocks so long that he was practically part of the family, and the awkwardness that always accompanied Hiccup and Steven's talks didn't effect him in the slightest.

"You've gotta admit, Dad, it makes sense." Hiccup crossed his fingers behind his back and tried to look as innocent as possible.

Steven looked warily from his son to his friend and back again. "What do you think of this, Gobber?"

Gobber shrugged. "It's not a problem with me. I could use the help, if I'm ta be honest."

Steven smoothed a hand down the front of his beard. "You'd go straight from school to the garage, nowhere else in between?"

"Yep." Hiccup tried not to look too eager.

"And once you've finished work you'll come straight back here."

"Straight away. Right back here. Nowhere else."

"Your homework?"

"I can do it at the garage, in between jobs." Gobber raised an eyebrow. Hiccup quickly amended, "Or I can do it after work, you know, if there's not time."

"And you'd still work on Sundays?"

"Absolutely."

Steven considered it for a moment longer, staring at his son as though trying to find out where he was being tricked. Eventually he sighed and said, "Alright, deal. You'll work at the garage after school."

"Okay, cool," Hiccup said, already turning to go. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Gobber. Thanks Dad!"

"Don't be late!" the mechanic called as he ran back down the hall.

Just before he shut the study door he heard his dad say, "I don't think I'll ever understand that boy."

Astrid was amazingly adept at avoiding people when she wanted to, Hiccup discovered the next day. He should have guessed as much from the lengths she'd gone to to avoid Scott, but Hiccup hadn't really ever been this desperate for her attention before, so her standoffishness had never seemed quite so cruel. As it was, he only caught her glancing at him a couple of times, and as soon as they made eye contact she looked away. He couldn't get close to her for the entire day.

He was having the opposite trouble with the Thorston twins. They'd been waving at him from a distance all day, and then they popped up on either side of him as he walked to last period, startling him so bad he almost dropped his books, which made them laugh hysterically.

"Can I see your scar?" Riley asked, leaning right over and grabbing at the edge of his bandages.

"What - no, I have to leave the bandages on, please don't touch that!"

"Did you hear that they've had to rebuild the science lab?" Tyler said.

Hiccup couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was about the twins that got on his nerves so much, but he found himself being extra short whenever they were around. "Rebuild? No, they shouldn't be rebuilding it, it wasn't destroyed! Those desks are fireproof."

"Ah-ah, my good fellow, those desks may be fireproof, but you also spilled a highly corrosive chemical compound on them. It ate away at the desk until there was nothing left but a pile of twisted wood and plastic!"

Hiccup was not impressed. "Tyler. You're making that up."

"Am not! It's totally true, you can ask Fishlegs. Hey, Fishlegs!"

"Who's Fishlegs?" Hiccup looked around to see Finn walking in the opposite direction down the hall. At the sight of Hiccup and the twins he went pale and tried to walk away, but Riley grabbed his arm and pulled him over. Hiccup tried to give him a sheepish smile but it came out as more of a grimace. "Hey, Finn. I'm really sorry about yesterday, are you - are you okay?"

Finn stuck his nose up in the air. "I'm fine. But my t-shirt could not be salvaged. It was my favourite one..."

"I'm sorry, look, I'll buy you a new one -"

"Enough chitter chatter!" Tyler declared, spreading his arms and holding a hand up in both of their faces. "Fishlegs, did Hiccup completely annihilate the science lab or did he not?"

Hiccup spoke before Finn could answer. "Why are you calling him Fishlegs?"

Riley sniggered. "Because when you blew up the lab -"

"- For god's sake -" Hiccup went to protest, but Tyler shushed him.

"- and he got hit in the explosion, his legs went all quivery and he fell over and flopped around on the ground like a fish! Fishlegs, get it?!"

The twins were grinning like this was the greatest thing ever, but Hiccup just gave Finn the most sympathetic look he could manage. "There's no way that's going to catch on, so you don't have to worry-"

"Oh, like Hiccup didn't catch on?" Riley said, waggling her eyebrows.

Tyler looked taken aback. "Wait, that's not his name? Isn't Hiccup your name?"

"No, it's not my name -"

"Hiccup is totally your name, you're pulling my leg."

"I assure you, I am not pulling your leg."

Riley continued, "- Or Snot. That one's good, I give it til the end of week and that's all anyone'll be calling him."

"You've got people calling Scott, Snot?" Hiccup asked.

The twins hi-fived. "Yeah we do!"

The bell rang, and Finn and Hiccup started to slip away, making up excuses about class. Tyler leant in close and stared each of them in the eye before they could make their escape. "This isn't over, gentlemen. I may have forgotten why I was talking to you nerds in the first place but I will remember, and then you'll be in trouble!"

"Big trouble!" Riley agreed.

Hiccup and Finn just nodded and backed away, letting out a sigh of relief when they were a safe distance away.

"Do you think those two are just constantly high?" Finn asked, voice cracking.

"I wouldn't be surprised." Hiccup looked up at the other boy and rubbed the back of his neck self consciously.

What he had with Finn wasn't a friendship, he knew, but it was still the closest thing he had at school and honestly he wasn't too excited about losing it. Before he could say anything about it, however, Finn was saying goodbye and heading off to class. With nothing better left to do, Hiccup turned and went off on his own to English.

He practically ran out of school when the last bell rang, hurrying to unlock his pushbike and ride to the garage. He had to make sure he got there before Astrid: even if he was wrong and she hadn't booked this appointment just to see him again, it would at least give him a chance to talk to her. By the time he arrived at the garage he was sweaty and out of breath, but there was no sign of a silver Audi so he figured he was safe.

"Hiccup, nice of you to join the party!" Gobber hobbled out to greet him. "How was school?"

"Terrible," Hiccup said flatly.

His boss nodded sagely. "As it should be."

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "What's on for the afternoon?" he asked, trying to act casual.

"For you, nothing fun. Strict orders from yer father to keep ya miserable. So, paperwork it is!"

Okay, so that kind of sucked. But it meant that he'd get to talk to Astrid for sure, and even if all they got to talk about were the technicalities of what was going on with her car, it'd still make up for a whole night of paperwork. Hiccup started traipsing off towards the small room.

"Great, thanks. I'll just be here, then. In the office. On my own. Doing paperwork. Boring paperwork. Boring, repetitive paperwork."

Gobber raised one overgrown eyebrow. "You feelin alrigh?"

"Yeah I'm fine, just, argh, you know how I hate that paperwork," Hiccup said, swinging through the doorway. "Gosh darn paperwork just gets me so... mad."

Gobber continued to stare at him through the glass before shrugging and getting back to work. Hiccup immediately started rifling through the files, trying to see what time Astrid was due in. He couldn't find any record anywhere, so he had to resign himself to the fact that he was just going to have to start work and wait for her to show up. If she was going to show up at all.

Time ticked by torturously slowly, and he felt like he was barely making a dent in the paperwork. He was just about to bang his head against the desk over a particularly painful invoice when Gobber entered the office. The space suddenly seemed a lot smaller with him in it.

"Can I get a hand with this?" he asked.

Eager to get away from numbers, Hiccup followed him back into the workshop. He was looking forward to getting his hands dirty, but soon discovered that Gobber didn't actually need his help - he just needed someone to pass him the right tools while he worked under a car. And maybe he had felt a little bit sorry for Hiccup, cooped up in the office. But he'd never admit that.

"You know," his boss said, voice muffled, "you shouldn't take what your dad said to heart."

"Which part?" Hiccup muttered, swapping out spanners without even looking.

"All of it, probably," Gobber replied. "Ya know what he's like when he gets mad -"

"Do I ever."

"- and ya can't hold it against him."

"But I feel like that's the only emotion I ever get from him, Gobber. That or, or disappointment. When I see him - which is almost never, by the way, sometimes I forget we even live in the same house - he just scowls at me like he's been cheated or... or someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich." Hiccup put on an imitation of his father's Scottish brogue, "Excuse me, barmaid, I'm afraid you've brought me the wrong offspring. I ordered an extra large boy with beefy arms, extra popularity and football skills on the side. This here, this is a talking fishbone!"

Gobber laughed loudly. "Where do you come up with this stuff? No, no, you're thinking about this all wrong. It's not so much what you look like, it's what inside that he can't stand."

Hiccup stared down at his boss's one good leg, remaining silent until he wheeled himself out from under the car so he could see the death stare he was giving him. "Thank you for summing that up."

"No, look," Gobber said, sitting up on the bench, "I mean there's your dad's way, and then there's your way. And your way makes your dad uncomfortable."

"Speaking of uncomfortable, I'd like a new conversation please," Hiccup said, wondering how his life could possibly get any sadder.

"Alright," Gobber said, shrugging. He lowered his voice and asked, "How's it going with the ladies?"

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, way to get the mood back on track."

"Aw come on, I've seen the way you look at Astrid -"

"Please!" Hiccup quickly checked over his shoulder to make sure she hadn't arrived just in time to hear one of the most embarrassing conversations ever had between boss and employee. "Astrid wouldn't come near me if she was on fire and I had the only bucket of water in the whole town."

"I dunno, you two looked pretty cosy in that office on the weekend," Gobber waggled an eyebrow in what was really quite a disturbing manner.

"Not romantically, she wouldn't." It hurt him to say, but Hiccup still thought it was the truth. Even if she cared about his wellbeing it didn't mean that she had even the slightest attraction to him. Not that he could blame her for that, with the whole fishbone thing. "How do you know her anyway, how are you on a first name basis?"

"I've known her family for years, I've watched the wee lass grow up. Thought you knew that?"

"Of course, how could I forget that you know every single person in this remarkably small town?"

"Hey," a voice said from the garage door, and both men immediately straightened. "Can I pull her in or do you want me to leave her out there?" Astrid asked, gesturing over her shoulder to a silver Audi.

"Astrid!" Hiccup almost dropped the wrench he'd been holding. He carefully placed it back in the toolbox and then tried to figure out what to do with his empty hands. "Hi, Astrid, hello there, welcome. What can I do -"

She cut him off, no nonsense. "Something's wrong with the brakes, they're slipping."

Gobber coughed and shoved Hiccup forward and grabbed a pile of bolts out of the toolbox. "My, uh, manly apprentice here will service all of your needs. I have to, uhm, go... get some... uh, I've just gotta go." He vanished through to the smaller secondary workshop, shutting the door behind him.

Hiccup was going to kill him. "Gobber," he said by way of explanation, offering Astrid an awkward smile.

She didn't return it. "I'll go get the car."

Once the car was in position and Astrid was out of the driver's seat, Hiccup determined to make this as natural as possible. He could talk to Astrid without being awkward, that was definitely possible. No problem at all. He raised the car, reclaimed the wrench from the toolbox and said, "So, the brakes?"

"Mhmm. I can't afford a whole new set of brake pads tonight, though, so just let me know what the problem is and I'll come back in." Astrid remained standing while he lowered himself under the car. He hit the underside with the wrench as he went and an uncomfortable clang reverberated beside his ear.

"Careful! That's my mum's," Astrid chided.

Hiccup silently cursed himself. He heard her take a few steps, and realised that it was easier to talk to Astrid if he couldn't see her face. Maybe this was the golden opportunity he'd been waiting for. "So, uh, I saw you at practice at lunch. Looked like you were in... good form."

"Yeah, my goal kicking's still sloppy though. I'm lucky I didn't roll my ankle out there today with my current form." Her voice came from across the workshop.

"Oh, ouch, that would have - yeah, no, you don't want that." Hiccup started unscrewing the bolts, focusing on each one at a time and trying not to wonder what Astrid was looking at.

"How's your arm?"

"Oh, yeah, it's fine. I'm... tough, you know, this is, this is nothing." Bolts undone, Hiccup wheeled himself out from under the car to swap his Allen wrench for a lug one - just in time to see Astrid reaching up towards an old racing photo on the wall, one of Gobber holding up one of his trophies in front of a gleaming car.

"Really? It looked pretty ba-" Her skirt was riding up.

Hiccup's brain malfunctioned. "Oh no it, it's fine. Totally fine. Barely even hurt. I mean, didn't hurt. At all. It was more of a, a singe, than a burn, really." He didn't even know what he was saying.

"Oh. Did you know Gobber when he raced?"

"Yeah. Well, kind of. I was really little but him and my dad have been friends since they were like... our age. Younger, actually." Hiccup found the tool he was looking for, but hesitated about going back under the car. "You know, this apprentice thing is just my, sort of, on the side... I'm mostly here to earn some cash so I can race myself."

She was still on tip toe, staring up at that photo, and her skirt was still tantalisingly short. Hiccup was trying not to stare, but how could you not -

There was clang as he dropped the lug wrench onto the cement floor. Astrid lowered both feet back to the ground and his head cleared somewhat. He reclaimed the tool and set about fixing the car, and she continued her exploration of the garage. He reappeared just in time to see her leaning over his notebook, which he'd carelessly left open on the office desk.

"No, you're not actually supposed to -" But it was too late. She was tilting her head to the side and staring at his designs.

"What is all this?" she asked, carefully flipping the page.

He scrambled up and across the workshop. "Oh, uh, those? Nothing. Just some stuff I'm working on. Just, ah, confidential, upper-level development. I can't really talk about it, so..." Seeing that she wasn't deterred, he went back to the Audi with flaming cheeks. He hadn't shown anyone his designs before, not even Gobber.

"Is this... Is this a design for a motorbike?"

Well, it wasn't like he had anything left to lose. "Yeah, it is."

"Doesn't look like any bike I've seen."

"That's because it's not like any bike you've seen. I'm gonna make it. From scratch."

"Oh. I'm more of an old fashioned buy it off the shop floor kind of girl." He heard her step out of the office and breathed a sigh of relief.

"You wouldn't want something custom made, just for you?"

"Well... Yeah, I mean, but who has the time for that?" She hesitated for a second, and then said brightly, "I can't wait for the race tomorrow. Finally get a chance to show Scott that he's overrated, I am so excited."

"Y-yeah, I am so excited for you," Hiccup said, eyebrows furrowing. He was almost done with the brake pads but Astrid was proving to be extremely distracting. He tried to focus as he secured the new ones in place.

Especially when she turned around to stare at him. "What, you didn't hear?"

He shrugged.

"There's a race happening out on the edge of town tomorrow and Scott thinks he has it in the bag, but not this time."

"And you're happy because... you like to watch Scott lose?" Hiccup couldn't fault her on that - he'd love to watch Scott lose - but there was a kind of manic gleam in her eye that made him wary.

"No, stupid. One of the guys has pulled out, meaning that a spot's finally opened for me! And I'm gonna show him who's boss."

"You - you are?"

"Yeah! You really didn't know? It's all anyone's talking about."

"Yeah, well, no one talks to me, so..." Feeling completely disheartened, Hiccup lowered the car. "It should be all good now."

Astrid pursed her lips and got into the driver's seat. He took a few steps back as she started it up and rolled forward and back a couple of times, testing the brakes. "They feel completely different," she said out the window. "I told you I couldn't get new brake pads."

"Oh, I just tightened a few things, rebalanced and finessed them... We're a full service outfit here." He winked at her. He actually winked at her. Oh gods.

She didn't seem to notice. She just brushed her fringe out of her eyes and said, "Huh. Thanks."

She got out of the car and followed him into the office to sign off on the paperwork and payment. She glanced at his notebook as he hurriedly tucked it away, but didn't say anything. Once it was all done, she offered him a small smile. "Thanks, again."

"Sure. No worries."

He watched her go, waving her out of the garage. As soon as he turned around to clean up Gobber reappeared.

"Those brake pads are coming out of your paycheck," he said gruffly, but a smile was visible beneath his moustache.

Hiccup just shook his head.

a.n. i know nothing about cars omg i'm actually going to have to do research for this story god please forgive any mistakes i make, or creative liberties i take! such as, hiccup should have been wearing goggles and a mask for that entire last scene but that would have made the talking awkward so i decided he didn't need them this time around.

also i'm australian so i might slip up occasionally and use the australian term for something rather than the american, hope it's not too confusing.