The late shift at Bean & Gone was the worst.

The little coffee shop was tucked into one of the streets just off campus, and although it was tiny - barely enough room for the counter and few sets of tables and chairs - it was beloved by all. As part of the university, Bean & Gone always stayed open late for the students that wanted to stay on campus after lecture hours were over, but in Hiccup's experience, no sane person wanted coffee late at night, unless they were pulling an all-nighter. All the serious deadlines were a good few weeks off yet, so the shift was rarely busy.

Tonight though, business was slower than sludge, and it took all of Hiccup's effort to keep his head from slumping across the counter as he watched their one elderly patron - an old History professor, who may well have been alive in the dark ages he droned on about in lectures- as he sipped at the cup of coffee he'd been nursing for the past hour and a half.

"It's got to be cold by now," Hiccup muttered, his cheek slumped onto his fist. "There's no way it's still pleasant to drink."

His co-worker, Scott Jorgenson, whose laddish tendencies and rotten manners had earned him the nickname Snotlout, was similarly slumped next to him. "Dude's like eighty. His taste buds are all shrivelled up and dead."

"Maybe he likes it cold." This came from the third employee, Philip, who looked up from one of the coffee machines to give them both a blank stare.

Philip was the larger of the three, with a gentle smile but skittish limbs. His hands and legs always seemed to have a bit of a quiver to them, no matter what he did. He'd been christened Fishlegs by bullies in high school, but he'd taken it graciously in his stride, just as Hiccup and Snotlout had with theirs.

"Maybe he likes it cold because it reminds him of his own impending death," Hiccup said, groaning and finally giving in to the urge to drop his face across the desk, his arms dangling off the counter.

"You're more morose than usual," Fishlegs observed.

"He's pissing his pants thinking about tomorrow," said Snotlout.

"Eff off," Hiccup grumbled, his voice muffled in the counter.

Hiccup had another mock presentation in the morning, in preparation for his final, graded show. He liked presentations about as much as a splinter in the eyeball.

The evening crawled onwards, Hiccup spending most of his time slumped across the countertop, while Snotlout headed back to mess with their stock. Fishlegs hovered behind Hiccup, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"Hiccup…" he began.

Hiccup shifted his head to the side and cast one eye up at him. "I know that voice," he said. "What do you want?"

"I couldn't find anyone to check in on Meatlug, and I was wondering if—"

"—You were wondering if you could go home early to check on her," Hiccup sighed.

Meatlug was Fishlegs' old, lethargic dog with a lazy eye, a sweet little thing, if a bit ugly by most people's standards. Fishlegs adored her and doted on her like nothing else.

"For the last time—" There was a clatter in the back room as Snotlout dropped a bowl and kicked it out of his way, letting it skitter across the tiled floor before he bounded back up to the counter— "Meatlug can look after herself. It's not fair that you keep leaving us to deal with—" There was loud ping from Snotlout's phone, and he stopped in his tracks to pull it from his pocket, taking one look at the screen and letting out a long whistle as his eyes bugged out. "Wow, never mind, I need to leave too. You don't mind, do you, Hiccup?"

Fishlegs gave Snotlout an incredulous stare, before letting out a long sigh and turning back to Hiccup.

"Sorry, Hiccup, it's just that after her operation, she hasn't been the same, I just want to make sure that she's—"

Hiccup tipped his head back and raised his eyes to the heavens. "Just go. Both of you. I'll lock up tonight."

Fishlegs had the grace to look apologetic as he gathered his coat and bag from the staff room, but Snotlout barely spared Hiccup a glance, leaping over the counter and heading out the door. Fishlegs hovered between the two.

"Sorry," he said again, "I'll—"

"—I'll see you tomorrow, Fishlegs," Hiccup said.

Fishlegs gave him one last grateful smile, before he too headed out the door, leaving Hiccup alone, with only the gentle hum of the fluorescent lighting, and the steady slurps of the History professor in the corner, still making steady work on his coffee. After a few minutes of doing nothing but drumming his fingertips on the countertop, he headed back into the staff room and grabbed an old battered copy of Romeo and Juliet from his bag. If nothing interesting was going to happen this evening, he might as well use his time wisely. He perched himself on an upturned crate behind the counter and lost himself in the play, scrawling notes in the margin, and sticking post-it notes on important scenes.

He poked his head up over the top of the counter when the history professor rose from his seat, to give him a nod and a polite thank you, before ducking his head back down and getting right back to Shakespeare. When the last minutes of his shift rolled around, he stood, stretched, and left the star-crossed lovers on the counter, to start closing the shop up.

Just as he was flicking off the last appliance, there was a jingle behind him, and there was a gust of wind as the door opened. Hiccup's jaw clicked.

"We're closed," he said, without turning around.

"The sign says you close at ten."

Hiccup scowled. "It's nine fifty-five."

"Exactly. Not closed."

"Sorry, it's policy that we stop serving ten minutes before closing."

"It takes two minutes."

Hiccup gave a long sigh and turned around. He was rather surprised to find someone he recognised on the other side of the counter; Astrid Hofferson, a fellow English student, looked rather frazzled. Her jacket was half-slung off her shoulder, her hair was a mess, and she was rocking back and forward on her toes, like she was desperate to leave the building.

"I've already switched everything off."

She gave him a look, like she thought he was the stupidest man on Earth. "So, switch it back on."

"Astrid—"

"—How do you know my name?"

She froze, her eyes narrowed to slits.

"We're on the same course," Hiccup said. Her face was blank. "We share all of the same classes. I introduced myself to you on the first day, do you not remember?"

She eyed his name tag and raised an eyebrow. "I'd remember a guy named Hiccup."

"It's a nickname," he said, hotly.

Indignation was burning in the back of his throat, first that she was being the textbook rude customer, and second, that in two years of sharing the same classes, this girl didn't seem to have any idea who he was.

She hadn't made any sign of movement, and Hiccup realised, with a sinking heart, that she wasn't going to budge.

"What do you want then?" he said, the last shreds of his customer service manners vanishing along with his goodwill.

Astrid didn't seem to care about his manners, she just listed her order, counting her money out on the counter, while Hiccup began to flick appliances back on to start them up again. As her coffee brewed, Astrid hopped from foot to foot, her fingers drumming on her arms. Hiccup glowered at her from over the counter, and once the drink was ready, he screwed on a lid and slammed it onto the countertop so hard that liquid began to slosh out. Astrid gave him a filthy look, but took the drink anyway, turning on her heel without so much of a thank you.

"Keep the change!" she yelled, before disappearing into the night.

The door slammed behind her, letting in a big gust of wind before nothing but the sound of the coffee machine behind him and the lights above him filled the air.

"You're welcome," Hiccup said to the empty room.

Professor Vaughn-Stretton was actually clicking at her.

"Miss Hofferson? Over here, please!"

Astrid clenched her jaw and sucked in a breath. The professor wasn't even looking at her. His nose was in his books, one hand flourishing in the air as he snapped his fingers, like she was a dog and he was calling her to his heel. If he'd whistled, she'd have dumped his coffee right over his head.

She put on her best saccharine smile and headed to his desk. "How can I help you?"

"I left my briefcase in the lecture theatre, be a dear and go pick it up for me, would you?"

In her mind's eye, Astrid punched him. She curled her hand into a fist, and socked him right in his stupid mouth, knocking that self-assured, patronising expression right off his face and into next week.

"No problem!" she said instead, in that fake falsetto polite voice she'd been using all day. Then she turned on her heel and high-tailed it out of there, doing her best not to slam the door on the way out.

Assault, while satisfying, would look terrible on her transcript.

She marched down the hall, not paying attention to where she was going - and slammed right into another student, knocking them both to the ground. The stack of paper the other person was holding went flying, scattering across the floor.

"Sorry!" Astrid gasped, crawling across the floor and scrambling to help pick them up.

"You look like you want to hurt somebody." Astrid looked up to see Heather Whitman gathering pages onto her lap, looking at Astrid with an amused smile. "Bad day?"

"Don't ask," Astrid groaned, gathering up the last of Heather's things and pulling herself to her feet. "If I told you I was going to murder someone you'd stop me, right? Like, you wouldn't let me go through with it, would you?"

Heather tilted her head to the side. "Vaughn-Stretton."

"Vaughn-Stretton," Astrid sighed, handing Heather the rest of her things. "I'm this close to jumping out of one of the top floor windows and taking him with me. Hey, did I tell you about last night?"

The previous night, after finishing her studies for the day, she'd headed to Professor Vaughn-Stretton's office, and found him mid-workflow. He'd apparently hit a breakthrough on his research project and had to simply drop everything in order to work on it. All evening, Astrid had been running around at his beck and call, filling every demand.

At nine forty-five, he threw his arms up in the air and groaned. "I need coffee."

Astrid blinked. "Coffee, sir?"

"Coffee. Go get me some," he said, opening his wallet and throwing a fiver at her. "Coffee shop closest to campus does the best."

"It's nearly ten, sir, it'll be closing," Astrid protested.

"Go quickly then."

"They stop serving after—"

"Miss Hofferson," he interrupted her, stopping her in her tracks. He finally looked up at her with a beady stare. "You know how lucky you are to be my assistant?"

"Yes, but—"

"Few people are given the opportunity to work with me directly. It's a coveted position."

"I know, but—"

"So, when I ask for coffee," he said, his voice darkening, "you get me coffee. I don't care what you have to do to get it, just go get it."

Astrid relayed the whole conversation from the previous night to Heather, who by the end, had her hand clasped over her open mouth.

"He must be getting worse with age," she said. "Not even Eret's stories are that bad."

"He's matured like sour milk," Astrid said, flicking through Heather's papers before handing them back to her. "I had it in my head last night that I was going to ask him about my final essay. I was going to show him, and make him read it for me, and instead, I was running around, abusing the poor guy behind the counter just so that his royal highness could get some fucking coffee at ten o'clock at night."

"He hasn't even looked at your term paper?" Heather said, arching an eyebrow. "Come on, girl, you've been working for him for what, three weeks, now?"

"Close to a month and a half, actually," Astrid said, dryly.

"A month and a half, and he hasn't even looked at any of your work? Wasn't that part of the deal of working for him?"

Astrid clenched her teeth. "It was supposed to be," she said. "But I don't want to bug him, or sound demanding, or petulant, or anything."

"Astrid, no. You can't let him walk all over you like this," Heather said sharply, hastily stuffing her things into her bag so that her hands were free to press firmly on Astrid's shoulders. "If you don't hold him to his promises he's going to keep getting away with treating you like a servant."

"He has seniority!" Astrid said. "If I rock the boat, I might lose all hope of getting his approval and his reference."

"No. You're not letting him do this to you," Heather said, turning Astrid on her heel and marching her back towards Vaughn-Stretton's offices. "You're going to go in there, and you're going to ask him to look at your work, and you're going to make him give you feedback."

"But I was supposed to get his—"

"No. No excuses. Get in there and make him listen to you."

Astrid had no choice. Once they'd reached the offices, Heather pressed a hand firmly behind Astrid's back and pushed her through Vaughn-Stretton's door. She stumbled over the threshold, blinking owlishly up at the professor, who was staring at her with an unimpressed look.

"Well?" he said, pushing his glasses up on the ridge of his nose. "Do you have it?"

Astrid frowned, silently cursing Heather in her head. "Actually, sir," she began, brushing herself down. "I was wondering if I could ask something of you."

Vaughn-Stretton gave a long sigh, like she was the biggest nuisance he had ever come across. "And what is that?"

"Well, uh," Astrid said, rummaging around in her bag and pulling out the most recent draft of her final essay. "I've been working with you for a while now, and I was wondering if you could possibly take some time to give me some feedback on my term paper?"

She held out her paper and cringed at how crumpled and folded it was from having been shoved in her bag.

So much for looking professional.

The professor eyed her paper with disdain, and they stood in silence for a few long seconds before he let out another sigh. "Fine, give it here," he said. "It's not like I can do anything without my briefcase, anyway."

Astrid stood in awkward silence, her right hand clutching on to her left arm, while she waited for him to read over her paper. It was an agonising few minutes, and aside from a few stray sighs and one or two tuts, she couldn't decipher what the professor was thinking.

She was put out of her misery when, finally, he wrinkled his nose and looked back up at her.

"You've got a lot of work to do on this, Miss Hofferson," he said, sternly. "Your writing is sloppy. Your main argument is weak. Are you sure that gender is really the avenue that you want to go down?"

"My whole thesis is about the author's treatment of women and how that reflects on both the time period his works are set in and the period he was writing from," Astrid stammered. "I thought there was plenty of stuff I could talk about, like—"

"—Yes, well, I'm not convinced that this a strong enough argument," Vaughn-Stretton said, "I mean, can you really call Hemingway sexist?"

"…Are we talking about the same guy?"

Vaughn-Stretton ignored her. "Listen, if you really want a good example of how to talk about gender," he said, opening up his desk drawer and pulling out a piece of paper, "you should really read Henry Haddock's work."

Astrid's jaw clicked.

Henry Haddock.

"He really has a wonderful grasp on feminist theory, he has a true understanding of gender politics, his work is wonderful, really…"

Oh, what Astrid would give to go a day without hearing about Henry Haddock.

Professor Vaughn-Stretton's personal favourite, Henry had been the bane of Astrid's existence since their first year, and she didn't even know what he looked like.

Always the top of every test, always the highest mark on every paper, Vaughn-Stretton brought him up almost every seminar, showering him in glowing praise in almost every class, and no matter how much Astrid had tried - and oh, had she tried - she couldn't get a look-in. Not her polished papers, nor her perfect presentations served to impress the professor, and though she spent all of her free time doing nothing but running around at his beck and call, serving every demand, even the ridiculous ones - like buying him coffee at ten o'clock at night - and yet somehow, Henry Haddock didn't have to say a word in class and he was still Vaughn-Stretton's favourite.

Astrid took the paper from Vaughn-Stretton rather more forcefully than she meant to and scanned the page with her eyes. "Okay," she said, a few minutes later, "but he's basically making the same points as I am."

The professor gave a derisive snort. "Mr. Haddock is remarkably skilled at presenting a nuanced point of view…"

He kept talking, but at this point Astrid was tuning him out, focusing on her breathing so that she didn't strike Vaughn-Shithead right between the eyes and knock his stupid glasses right off his face.

When Astrid looked up a few moments later, he was still talking. "I can set up a meeting between the two of you, if you like," he said. "I'm sure he'd be happy to tutor you."

"That won't be necessary," Astrid said, curtly. She slipped Henry's essay back onto the desk.

"Suit yourself," Vaughn-Stretton said. "Now, I believe I asked you to get me my briefcase?"

Astrid didn't dignify that with a response, she just turned on her heel and marched out of the room.

On her way out, she stormed straight into Heather, who looked up at her with hopeful eyes. "So, how did it go?" she asked, her voice two notches brighter than usual.

Astrid didn't answer. She kept walking.

"That bad, huh?" Heather said as she stumbled forward to match Astrid's stride.

Astrid stopped short. "Heather, when they find him dead, his stupid old man glasses stuffed down his throat and a knife sticking out of his back, you'll testify on my behalf, won't you?"

"Of course," Heather said. "Providing alibis for your friends' homicidal tendencies is basically rule one of girl code."

The corner of Astrid's mouth twitched.

"C'mon," Heather said, her hand brushing against Astrid's shoulder. "It can't have been that bad, right?"

Astrid let out a long sigh and let herself drop onto a bench nearby. "I can take criticism. I can take negative feedback. I can't take him babbling on about another student who's apparently better than me in every single way."

Heather sucked in a breath. "He didn't."

"Oh, he did," Astrid said. "My writing stinks, apparently. Henry Haddock's writing is a gift from the gods, though. Henry Haddock, by the way, who I only know because Vaughn-Shithead brings him up in every other breath. I've never even met him."

"Henry?" Heather said, her eyebrows raised. "He's not that bad of a guy, actually."

"Wait, you know him?"

"Yeah," Heather said, "except he doesn't like being called Henry. He goes by Hiccup—"

"—he WHAT?"

The morning shifts at Bean & Gone were just as bad as the late ones.

There were a steady stream of students coming in and out of the shop, all of them stocking up on caffeine for the day ahead. They all looked about as awake as Hiccup felt, and he found that, for the first half hour of his shift, he worked on autopilot, letting his muscle memory take orders and make drinks, while his brain took the time to catch up to his body.

He was quickly brought back to reality though, when one customer marched up to the counter and slammed her hands down onto the countertop.

"Henry Haddock," she said, her voice spitting venom.

Hiccup almost took a step back from the counter when he was met with the furious face of Astrid Hofferson, who was leaning so far across the counter that they were almost nose-to-nose.

"What can I do for you, Astrid?"

"You're Henry Haddock."

Hiccup blinked, his eyes shifting away for a second and then back at her. "I know I am."

"You're the Henry Haddock that's been beating me to the top spot in every single class," she said.

Hiccup couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up from the back of his throat and came sputtering out. It was definitely a mistake. She looked affronted, her hands twisting into fists on the table top.

"So…" Hiccup said, his laughter falling to an awkward chuckle when Astrid didn't budge from her spot. "You gonna order, or…?"

There was a long pause, and Hiccup watched as Astrid's expression changed. Her shoulders and hands relaxed, and though her face was still red, she offered him a smile. Not a nice smile, Hiccup noted to himself. A dangerous smile.

Then, without taking a breath, Astrid said, "A venti salted caramel mocha frappucino with five pumps of frap roast, four pumps of caramel sauce, four pumps of caramel syrup, three pumps of mocha, three pumps of toffee nut syrup, double blended with extra whipped cream."

Another pause. Astrid did nothing but glare.

"You're serious?" Hiccup said, his mouth gaping open.

Astrid kept staring at him.

"Who would even drink that—"

"—are you going to make me it or not?"

Hiccup waited another breath, and wondered for a moment if this was some kind of elaborate prank, before stammering, "Can you repeat that?"

Astrid rolled her eyes and repeated the order again, without taking a breath, again.

His fingers couldn't get to the screen quick enough to punch in her order. It took him another three tries to get it right, and by the time he'd finally managed to do it, there was a queue forming behind Astrid, a long line of people growing steadily more impatient.

Making the drink took even longer, not helped by the fact that he had to check and recheck the order to make sure he'd made it exactly right. Hiccup had a feeling that Astrid wouldn't except any mistakes. Once it was made, Hiccup handed it over and fought the urge not to make a face. Who in their right minds could drink this high maintenance sickly-sweet mess?

But Astrid took it, gave him a similarly sickly-sweet smile and headed to one of the tables, drinking the whole thing in about two minutes. He couldn't appreciate the train-wreck in action, as he turned back to face a huge line of people clicking their teeth in impatience.

Astrid watched him from her corner, a satisfied smirk on her face, and Hiccup was sure that she'd done it on purpose.

Astrid showed up at Bean & Gone every day that week.

It was like clockwork; she'd figured out the exact times that the shop was at its busiest - and Hiccup was pretty sure that she'd memorised his entire shift schedule too - and she would stride up to the counter and order the most complicated and disgusting sounding drink that she could. She'd watch him struggle with it, make him repeat the order over and over again, and then she'd sit and drink the whole thing, keeping her eyes on him the whole time.

He didn't know what he'd done to piss her off, but he did know, with all certainty, that Astrid Hofferson was going to be a problem.