Archive of Our Own ^beta

Everything was moving so quickly.

They’d been officially dating for what, a week? A week at most. And now on one stormy , dimly lit midnight in Astrid’s hut, things were getting a little too real. Not to either party’s complaint.

Astrid had Hiccup loosely pinned beneath her on the bed furs, one hand carefully restraining both of his wrists in a crisscross above his head, the other held firmly but gently on his left hip.

Hiccup’s eyes couldn’t help but wander to her arms. Her large, toned muscles- the way the light of one distant, singular burning candle bounced off her slightly tanned skin- illuminating each fine bump. Each beautiful blemish. He was actually being held down by a goddess. He was sure of it.

“Like what you see?” 

Hiccup quickly darted his eyes back to look up at her face looming temptingly over his own, and he couldn’t help the playful scoff that left him. “That’s uh- one way you could put it.”

“Oh yeah?” Astrid warmly chuckled, her hand on his hip trailing to the hem of his already slightly risen tunic. They’d both already discarded of unwanted armour pieces, only in the bare minimum shirt and leggings-.

Astrid began slowly sliding her hand up Hiccup’s shirt, her finger’s featherlight touch deliberate and smooth- sanding upwards- all was going amazing- 

“ Wait-,”

Hiccup had completely tensed up beneath her within a matter of seconds- the hand rested now on his lower stomach seemingly having freaked him out- his face adorned with wide eyes and an almost fearful frown.

Astrid very quickly moved from hovering over him and released his hands from above his head, and watched as he scrambled to sit up right, immediately wrapping his arms protectively around his torso.

“I- I’m sorry- Hiccup- I didn’t mean-,”

“No- no it’s okay- it’s fine-,” he insisted. “Sorry- sorry I just-,”

“No you don’t have to apologise babe-,”

“Yeah but- I just freaked out- I’m sorry-,”

“Hey. Don’t apologise. Okay? You have literally done nothing wrong. You have every right to stop at any point.” Astrid firmly but lovingly stated. She was worried- and feeling a bit guilty. She hadn’t meant to freak him out; not at all.

Hiccup fell concerningly silent, sitting forward on the bed in a way that Astrid couldn’t see his face. She could just observe his slightly hunched posture and in turned shoulder’s, his fingers barely reaching his back from where his arms wrapped increasingly loosely around his body.

She also didn’t like how seemingly fast he was breathing.

“I- I didn’t mean to freak you out- Hiccup. I’m really sorry-,”

“No- no don’t- don’t apologise. Really. You uhm- you didn’t freak me out- I- I freaked myself out.”

Astrid’s eyebrows furrowed at his comment “You- what do you mean?”

Hiccup’s body almost deflated. He borderline crumpled in on himself, pulling his knees up to sit cross legged, tied in a loose knot beneath him.

Astrid’s frown only deepened. She was incredibly worried- and wanted to help.

“Hey if you’re not up for this then that’s completely fine-,”

“No! No I- I do want this- I just-,” Hiccup shot fully up right again, turning to face her on the bed with an almost panicked look on his face. “I-,” he stuttered and stumbled.

“Please don’t force yourself-,” Astrid gently began, very quickly interrupted by frantic speech.

“No- no Astrid I’m not- I’m not forcing myself I- I do want this- I- I want you. But I can’t- it’s-,”

“You can't what...?”

“I- I don't- just- just give me a second so- so I c-can-,”

“Hey- hey look at me, Hiccup,”

Hiccup’s eyes barely held contact with hers for long enough to register.

“Take a deep breath. C’mon do it with me. Breathe in ” Astrid nudged him, inhaling whilst doing an upwards motion with her hand, “And breathe out,”

Hiccup did as instructed, for one rare instance, and took a few calming moments to collect his thoughts.

He felt a bit embarrassed.

“What’s wrong?” Astrid calmly asked, her expression warm and kind.

Hiccup looked at her for a while- taking calming breaths in and out as he tried to articulate the words. “I uhm- just- I don’t-… I look ugly. Without- without clothes… on…” His voice trailed off into a mutter the further into the sentence he got. By the Gods this was humiliating. 

He loathed the look of sheer sadness that plagued her features at his words. 

“Babe… I promise you that you don’t,” Astrid hummed, her hand rising to gingerly rest on his back.

“No- No it’s- it’s bad. It’s really bad.” Hiccup muttered, shrinking shamefully in on himself again.

An ear ringing silence pierced through the bedroom, shattering the unspoken sanctity of any kind of confidence.

“…What is it that you think is ‘bad’?”

“I don’t ‘think’ it’s bad, Astrid. It just is.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“You- you wouldn’t if you saw me.”

“I would. And I do. I don’t think anything about you could possibly be ugly, Hiccup.”

Hiccup couldn’t make words to reply. They wouldn’t come to him, and even if they did his mouth wouldn’t move to speak them. She was so sweet. So unbearably kind to him and his damaged self. If only she knew. Possessed the knowledge he held engraved onto his body. Maybe she’d save her kind words for someone else.

They sat in quiet together, one staring at the other with a lover’s worry plastered all over her face. She wanted nothing but to comfort him, but she wasn’t sure that was the best call right in that moment.

Hiccup could wordlessly feel her eyes burning on him. He both loved and hated it. He wanted her attention, he wanted to give her his attention- he wanted to share this time and be close to her. Only her. Always her. But he felt so bad. So scared and afraid. That moment might have been the most terrified and vulnerable he’d felt in a good long while. He didn’t want to be judged. He didn’t want to be rejected. But he wanted to be honest as well- it was- it was heavy. It was a heavy thought to have to grapple with in such a short amount of time.

“Hiccup?”

“ Hm - uh y-yeah?”

“…You know I love you,”

“I-… I know. I know. I love you too.”

“And you can talk to me about anything,”

Hiccup nodded.

“And that includes things you’ve never talked about before.”

Hiccup didn’t know if he was just making it incredibly obvious- he really hoped he wasn’t- that would be. Horrific. Or if she just knew him that well- that she could just tell this was a secret he’d been carrying on his own for a while now.

He knew it was the latter. 

“I don’t- I don’t know h- how to- to talk… about it…”

“Hm,” Astrid softly hummed, moving to sit a bit closer to his still slightly crumpled up small form. “You could show me instead.”

“I- no… no I don’t think that’s-… a good idea.”

“Why not?” Astrid quietly muttered, her question genuine, and laced with ever present, persistent worry.

“I don’t think you’ll… like it.” Hiccup felt like a melting block of ice. He was slowly drowning into a boneless puddle, devoid of his body. Devoid of it. Rid of it. He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arm around his legs.

“What is ‘it’, babe?” Came the soothing sound of her voice.

“Me. Me- just- ugh ,” Hiccup groaned in self frustration, moving his hands to briefly cover his face.

“Hey- hey c’mon.” Astrid sighed “Hiccup I’m gonna need you to be honest with me here, because you’re really worrying me.”

“I’m- I’m sorry I’m not- I’m not trying to,”

“I know you’re not trying to. But you’ve gotta talk to me, babe. We’re a team, yeah? And teams support each other.”

“R-right- right yeah, sorry- I know- I do know that- I- I want I talk to you, Astrid- I’m just- fuck it’s hard.”

She gave him a warm smile, a fond huff accompanying the expression 

“Believe me, I know.”

Hiccup smiled back at her. They both knew the others’ struggles with being open about feelings. But somehow they always brought out the difficult, deep down things that felt like falling from unimaginable heights, to a steady halting glide.

He took another deep, hopefully relaxing breath, his nerves admittedly flaring up once again. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears.

“I uhm- I-,” Hiccup stammered “I have a- a lot of- of scars.”

Astrid nodded after a second or two of thought. Her attention solely on him. “Your burn scars? From the red death?”

She- oh. right.

“I-…,”

How could he possibly tell her it was worse than that?

“Y-…yes... Those.”

“I’ve known about those for years, Hiccup. You told me ages ago.” Astrid hummed, her voice still soft and comforting.

“I uhm- yeah… must’ve… forgot.”

How did he tell her there was more? How could he even begin to say that to her- to her face, right there. How? What words could he ever even consider using without it being unfathomably awful?

Suddenly the idea of just showing her felt a lot easier.

“ There’s more.” Hiccup suddenly blurted out, heart pounding against his body.

“Oh- okay.” Astrid nodded.

“There-,” what was he doing what was he doing what was he doing what was he doing what was he doing. “Can- can I just- sh-show you…?”

“Of course you can, babe.” Astrid warmly replied.

Hiccup couldn’t look at her for long. He could only just barely move his eyes without feeling violently sick. He cursed himself for this- she was going to break up with him on the spot- he was sure of it- no normal person wouldn’t-.

But he nodded. Quietly. Nodded. Eyes locked forward, fingernails digging holes in his palms as he hesitantly- and oh so suspensefully, began to lift his shirt up.

The slight nip of the cool winter air hit his bare skin as he exposed his stomach- tingling in a strong zigzag of electricity along the large patches of his body that had been burnt four years prior. 

Astrid couldn’t help but reach her hand out to gently caress his side- the scar tissue so beautifully intricate beneath her finger tips.

“You’re gorgeous,” Astrid mindlessly whispered “So gorgeous.”

Hiccup didn’t even try to stifle his slight flattered smile, but it soon disappeared when he remembered what he was doing. What he was bound to eventually make visible.

The pace he was taking his shirt off would probably count as seductive if he weren’t on the brink of cardiac arrest from the implications in his own head.

He could still technically turn back- but he’d already committed to it- and- and gods the way Astrid was looking at him- the way her hands gently soothed the dormant burning of old wounds.

He felt so many conflicting emotions that he might just start crying.

Hiccup eventually got the red fabric of his tunic over and off his head- only the sleeves still hanging limply onto his arms.

Only the sleeves.

He didn’t pay mind to the visibility of his burns. Those- those were irrelevant to him at the moment, those were tame. Those weren’t the self mutilated-

Astrid must’ve noticed his long hesitance to pull the sleeves off, because she started doing it for him. And he didn’t stop her.

The fabric slid form his arms smoothly, discarded off to the matress- and Hiccup watched- he watched in real, actual, in front of his two own eyes time, as his betrothed’s face dropped.

Her mouth hung slightly open for a few, heart stopping moments. Hiccup could feel his erratic pulse in every single centimetre of his skin. His scarred, damaged skin…

“Oh my gods,” Astrid just barely whispered, the words more of a light exhale than anything actually discernible.

Hiccup’s expression was hard, eyes solely staring at Astrid’s downturned face- watching for even a slight micro expression from her that would indicate disgust or- or revulsion at the sight of his arms.

But nothing. In fact, it looked more like she had been punched in the gut.

Hiccup’s skin tingled in a not unpleasant sensation as she oh so carefully slid her hands underneath his thin wrists. Her expression was one of almost devastation- only diluted by a small portion of confusion.

“Did- did you-…?” Do this?

“Yes.” Hiccup swallowed. He knew what she was asking him. And he wasn’t going to lie about it. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. “It- it was- they’re from a while ago- I-… I haven’t… done it in- in a-ages…”

Astrid takes a good few, long, painful seconds to give a slight nod at his attempt at a reassurance. Hiccup had never seen her so- unsure. So… so upset. Her thumbs gently pressed to his pale, scarred arms. The thin little lines resting calmly against her palms. She rotated each of his either wrists to gain a better view of what had been done, taking in each and every single one of the marks that threatened to make her tears spill.

Hiccup’s jaw trembled as he desperately searched for words to say in the deafening silence. Whatever defenses he still had the strength to hold up blared their wicked screeches right through his very soul, shattering and stabbing at his heart.

“I- I know they look- they- they look weird- and- and I promise I’m not- I don’t do this stuff anymore- I’m not like that-,”

Astrid didn’t seem to be registering anything he was saying. She was just so horrifically fixated on the sight before her. The wounds of her loved one’s own hand on his own flesh. Burning a hole in her memory for-absolute-ever.

He was starting to panic a little- because- because she hadn’t really reacted - she was just- silent. And it was worse because he was being left in suspense. She could be thinking anything- anything at all. And that was terrifying.

But that suspense didn’t maintain for all that long, only stretching out the fleeting few seconds it remained into something more dreadful due to a racing heartbeat. Hiccup observed her carefully, eyes catching the fluttering of her eyelids, long lashes smoothed by the specks of distant, yellow light. And her slight hesitancy to move- but eventual motion to move her head down. 

And she kissed his wrist.

“I- what- what are you doing…?” Came the never quite so stammered voice of Hiccup. He felt as his skin pleasantly sparked at the contact from her lips, the feeling something so soft, not even just in a physical way, that he didn’t know what to do with it. His unknowingly held breath found a quick escape from this lungs at the intimate sensation.

“What you deserve,” Astrid hummed, and she kissed his wrist again, and again, and again. 

She was kissing his scars.

“As-Astrid-,” he breathed out, reflexively jolting his arm away-

“Please- let me…” She quietly requested, finding herself unable to let go of him. She pulled the limbs back close to her, and continued her gentle loving of the old wounds.

Hiccup was so tense- every muscle in his body was twisted up into a knot- tangled and torn in ways he couldn’t ever hope to describe. He was so- this was- overwhelming- overwhelmed. Over- too much-

“They aren’t weird ,” Astrid murmured against his delicate skin, brushing a lovingly soft thumb in circles over his palm “They’re beautiful, just like the rest of you.”

He made some phonetically indescribable noise at her words, the sound very quickly leading to tears. Lots and lots of tears… Each time the feeling of her lips oh so gently pressing to one of his many- dozens of scars crossed through Hiccup, his eyes only reflexively burned more.

“Don’t- please don’t lie to me-,” 

“I’d never.” Astrid looked up at him briefly, before switching to his other arm. She was going to kiss every single one of them. No matter the time it took “They’re part of you, and you are so beautiful.”

“No- no pl- they- no-,”  Hiccup virtually sobbed “They aren’t- they aren’t they’re so ugly,” His voice cracked. Words quick spoken and fixed.

“Don’t- don’t you dare-,” Astrid began- her voice raw as it possibly could be. The sound so quiet yet so powerful. “Don’t you dare say that,” 

Hiccup let out a loud sob, his arms trembling in her horrendously loving hold. He couldn’t bear to lay his eyes on the sight of her touching those wretched things he dug into himself. Those barbaric escapist crimes. Those parts of him that didn’t deserve love. They didn’t deserve the intimacy of quiet, unconditional tenderness. They didn’t deserve to be kissed and cared for and held- the untainted parts of himself could barely even accept that. 

“Are they only on your arms?” The question was calm, gentle.  Astrid savoured every single countable moment that Hiccup was allowing her the privilege- the honour, the trust. To do something as sacred as this.

Hiccup froze up even further at her question, because the answer was no. There were other, various places. But he knew telling her meant those places received love that they surely did not deserve and he didn’t want that- he wanted the clean- presentable parts of himself to only have access to the luxury of that good feeling.

But he couldn’t deny the monumental comfort he was finding in it.

“I uhm- n- no-…no.”

Astrid moved to sit up straight again, her hands loosely falling down to be limply holding his quivering ones. “Where?”

“Th-they- it- it doesn’t matter- I don’t-,”

“It does matter. It matters so much I can’t put it into words,” She countered, voice incredibly tender. “You deserve the absolute world, babe. You deserve to be loved and cared for and saying that your scars ‘don’t matter’ is not something that I will ever be able to hear you say without fighting you on it.”

“B-but-,”

“No- no buts. I don’t want to hear it. Hiccup- I can’t listen to you talk about yourself like this. I don’t-,” Astrid briefly trailed off, eyes undeniably watering as she kept catching glimpses of his arms. “You aren’t ugly. These aren’t ugly. Nothing about any of you is ugly, Hiccup. Nothing you could ever say or do, confess or admit to, would ever, in a million years, change my mind on how breath-taking you are.”

Hiccup’s words congealed in his mouth, rolling up into a curled, twisting mess that only managed to manifest as a strangled whimper.

Astrid looked at him for a few moments, thoughts at war in her mind. A gentle sigh escaped her lips, and she continued her tender words.

“Where else are they?”

The ruthless pounding inside Hiccup’s chest was a strong deterrent to give her the answer- his ears physically ached from the echoing sound reverberating through his entire body

“Th- thighs-,”

A brief hesitative glance froze over Astrid, before she nodded. She reached to take hold of his waistband, but paused.

“…May I?”

Something about the look in her eyes- something about her in general-

“Y-Yes.”

Astrid move to carefully pull his leggings down, not letting the sorrow show on her face as the countless scars on his legs were slowly revealed. She left the fabric at his knees, her hand beginning to lovingly graze over the soft skin jigsawed in with burn scars and sharp marks.

Hiccup’s legs trembled under her touch, his posture rigid. His knuckles were white from the force he was gripping the furs beneath him with, and his lungs had his breath held hostage under the pretense that he was in serious danger at that moment.

“Can I move you?” Astrid suddenly asked.

“W-what?”

“Just- are you alright if I move you? Just- just a bit.”

“I don’t- I- … sure?”

Astrid nodded, noting his confusion at her request. She carefully slid her hands under his legs, and swivelled him around on the bed so his legs hung over the edge, and he was sitting up.

“W-why are you-,”

Hiccup cut himself off as Astrid stood, and knelt down on the floor in front of him

Her hand returned to his left thigh, her rough fingers softly passing over his beautiful, uneven skin.

“That- that tickles,” Hiccup managed to huff out a small smile, the tear stains on his cheeks now illuminated by the distant candle.

Astrid looked up at his face, and smiled back, indescribably happy to see that warm, increasingly unfamiliar expression return to his features.

“Better than it hurting,” She hums

“…Yeah,”

A period of unmoving silence crosses over the two, Astrid’s eyes lingering on Hiccup’s shaking legs.

Before she began kissing those scars too.

Her head lent down, lips softly pressed to a long, pale line dug into his already pale flesh. Both strong, tender hands held each side of his thigh, soothing circles rubbed into his skin by each of her thumbs.

It was a different feeling to when she had kissed his wrists. It was so familiarly foreign. It was somehow, in some way, even more intimate. And that hadn’t seemed possible only minutes prior.

Hiccup couldn’t watch her for longer than a second or two. Each time her ruthlessly tender touch would quell the trembling of his limbs it would make him feel physically ill. But in a way that felt good. In a way that left him without any protests or arguments. In a way that left him only able to experience that exact moment through touch- because if he looked- if he saw those thin reminders of the past- everything about now would crumble.

And for once, he could admit to himself, that he liked being cared for.