This was inspired by Hell's Fiery Belle's story "She Could Do Better". I loved the idea and she gave me permission to run with it. Thanks!

There wasn't a whole lot to life in Berk. Life was simple. It was about survival in a harsh clime and little else. Not that there wasn't joy and happiness and celebration, but those happened as a part of that simple life, in between fishing and praying for a good harvest and building ships and killing dragons. The big things that made life sustainable.

But even in such a way of life, time was found for the little things. Jokes, gossip, idle chit chat.

Boys.

Astrid and Ruffnut had liked boys for as long as they could remember. It was hard not to, the very air of Berk being laced with barbarian testosterone. What else could a girl do but admit that there were plenty of hunky Vikings around? Producing baby Vikings was a necessary part of life, anyway.

No one knew about it, of course. Girls could like boys, but no one could ever know that. Girls liking boys wasn't… tough. And in the childhood and preteen years it was just gross. Girls weren't supposed to like boys and boys weren't supposed to like girls and that that was all there was to it. Besides, Ruffnut would terrorize any boy who came within ten feet of her and Astrid was focused on becoming the best warrior the village had ever seen.

Some reputations just had to be kept safe. Neither girl was willing to give up her individual definition of the ultimate Viking female for the sake of liking boys.

But throughout the years, from sloppily braiding each other's hair with chubby babyish fingers while their mothers gossiped to the more refined debates of weapon qualities, the discussion of boys crept into many private girls-only moments.

In the beginning it was the older boys, the whiny teenagers down in dragon training, that stole their hearts. The boys their own ages with whom they played on a daily basis? Eww. But as they all grew older and those boys in the arena married other girls who weren't even that pretty, their attentions had to settle.

Except there was one boy who would never be a settlement.

Hiccup.

They had always considered him cute, even in the beginning. He wasn't quite as annoying as the other boys and sometimes he even shared his toys. He was not as mean or stupid as the other boys. A few years later they decided he had good hair and pretty eyes. There was also his status as the chief's son. That was pretty cool.

Yes. Hiccup was quite a catch.

Not that Astrid or Ruff ever would say a word about it. No way. A girl never, ever, ever told a boy he was cute. It was rule.

Besides, Hiccup was shy, dorky, completely clumsy, and ruined everything. What would it look like to everyone else if you told such a boy you thought he was really cute even if those very qualities made him so very cute?

Yes, they were in agreement. Hiccup was a silly puppy who needed their care.

They were not in competition for him. They weren't to that stage yet. Besides, it wasn't like either of them was actually going to make any sort of move on Hiccup. It just wasn't done.

When adolescence attacked them all, romance became even more unacceptable. Because now the boys finally understood what the girls had known for years and they were just dumb about it. Snotlout was the worst. After the many moves he tried to make on Astrid, both girls decided there would be nothing said about romance or love or anyone being cute. It wasn't worth it.

But they still agreed Hiccup was cute. The cutest of the bunch. He was smart and funny and still had very nice hair.

The girls were head over heals for him. Like he would ever find that out.

Dragon training confused things, though. Ruffnut didn't understand why someone as adorable as Hiccup who was so cute and so hot (literally) while pounding all that big heavy metal would even need to bother with dragon training. He made weapons. What was hotter than a man who made weapons? He wasn't a fighter. He was…an intellectual, a higher level of manly evolution than her idiot brother. And she would continue to mock every stupid disaster Hiccup caused until he figured it out.

Astrid, on the other hand, was more or less fine with Hiccup joining. She liked competition, and maybe it would be interesting to see just what this cute boy could do with a sword and a dragon. But it only led to a long line of epic mistakes because that boy, as adorable as he was, apparently lacked any common sense when it came to taking on a dangerous, fire-breathing beast. There were only so many times she could think "awww, cute confused puppy!" before trading it for "that idiot needs to get with the program."

And when training would end for the day and they found themselves capable of a few moments of girl talk, it was invariably the same. The boy was an idiot, and too bad they were crazy about him.

The End!