If there was one thing– one action– Hugo recognized with perhaps more visceral understanding than any other in the world it was the sight of someone hurrying away from a conversation they had no idea how to exist in the parameters of; he’d done it more than his fair share of times and likely would continue to do so until his version of running away involved a walker with those little tennis balls attached to the feet. He huffed out a hard breath at the stray tangle of that particular thought, a deep frown marring his features as he stared into his mug of mead and debated following Astrid– debated hurrying after her to explain himself or comfort her or just… be in her space if that wouldn’t make whatever she seemed to be dealing with even worse. He felt stuck in a way that was altogether unpleasant and he turned away from the bar so that the other bartender working wouldn’t be able to give him an utterly alarmed look the way he imagined would come the moment he, as he often did when he was stressed, began to talk to himself as though Toothless were there to be his sounding board.
“Would it be weird to try to go talk to her?” He asked aloud, his voice a low murmur that was drowned out incredibly easily by even the relatively mellow vibe in the bar at present. “I mean, what if she thinks I’m like, a creepy stalker or something? I guess I could just tell her that I get it, right? I run from tons of stuff that makes me uncomfortable. Well… I hobble, I guess,” he continued, laughing softly at his own poor joke before he took another sip of his drink and sighed slowly. “You gotta tell me what to do, bud…”
Hugo’s voice trailed off as his own annoyance at his inability to navigate any and every social environment he’d ever been in made itself abundantly clear in a fraction of a second. “But you can’t give me advice because you’re not here and you can’t talk– because I’m a loser and my best friend is a wolf.” He reached up to drag his fingers through his hair with his free hand, shifting his weight onto his good– fully intact, he corrected silently– they were both good– leg and turned back to the bar with an expression of resolve on his face that he’d always been told made him look infinitely more intense than he usually did. “Excuse me,” Hugo said, loud enough to draw the bartender’s attention without shouting outright. “Can you point me back to uh, As– um, Miss Hofstad’s office? I’ll just be a second. I swear I’m not trying to cause any trouble.” He smiled, a broad, dimpled gesture– his best smile, to hear his mother tell it and the bartender pointed him in that direction with a note of disinterest that Hugo was surprisingly grateful for.
He finished the rest of his drink in the short walk to Astrid’s office door– fumbling with a place to put the glass and finally settling for setting it on a small, likely decorative table in the hall before he stepped up to the door and knocked– twice, but firmly. “Hey, Astrid?” His voice cracked lightly on her name and he swallowed hard, shaking off the flood of embarrassment that reddened his cheeks a millisecond later. “I just wanted to check on you– are um, are you o-okay?” He asked, ignoring the stammer in his voice as he simultaneously ignored the urge to press his ear to the door to hear a response. “I’ll go away if you need that I just um, I just wanted to… well, I already said it, I guess. I got worried.”
Astrid felt as though her head were going to explode from the amount of thoughts running rampant through it at the moment. To say that she had been thrown off-balance by the admission from Hugo would be an understatement, and as she paced her office she debated why it had affected her so much. Hugo had always been there -- that one seemingly outcast kid that she had a soft spot for as long as he didn’t try to stray into the spotlight she had claimed as her own. She’d done her best in her senior year to get people to start referring to him as Hugo versus Hiccup, and she’d stopped her own teasing of him, though frankly she wasn’t sure why she had other than it just felt wrong.
While they were never close friends like others Astrid had, she couldn’t rightfully remember a time when he wasn’t around in some capacity. Even just bumping into each other at the grocery store, or sharing a wave across a crowded street. He’d been invited to her wedding, of course, though looking back she realized she’d hardly paid him any mind there, either. She’d always been such a focused person that it had taken until her divorce before she realized she had tended, in the past, to focus on the wrong things -- including the wrong people.
What did it mean to her that Hugo had always been there? What did he mean to her? Was this rush of butterflies, heart-beat-skipping moment of time a realization or simply a reaction to the attention she had shied away from since her divorce? She had tried her best to process those thoughts in the only way she knew how -- throwing an axe.
Astrid had a small set up in her office that was her own person throwing cage and generally where she went when she needed to think. There was nothing in this world - save for a hug from her mum - that centered her quite as much as focusing on a target and hocking a large, sharp object toward it with all her might. Amusing, really, considering she’d always considered herself to be akin to an axe - sharp, beautiful when taken care of, and dangerous if held by the wrong end.
She’d just finished her second throw when the sound of a knock at the door startled her, and she half-turned to face it, one hand on the handle of the axe to withdraw it from the wood. The fact that Hugo had come to check up on her sent another swirl of butterflies dancing in her stomach and she cursed under her breath at the feeling. She’d barely had any time to think -- how was she supposed to act now, knowing what she knew? Fuck.
“You can come in, Hugo.” She called out before both hands went to her axe and she pulled it free with a grunt. She was still holding the weapon when the door opened for a moment before carefully putting it back into it’s special case in her office. The axe that had started it all, gifted by her mother from the family line that used to be used for firewood. Meticulously kept and her most prized possession at this point, it needed to be in it’s safe spot before any sort of conversation was had.
Astrid stepped out of the caged area and took a few steps toward Hugo, her gaze as determined as ever even as she opened and closed her mouth a handful of times as she faltered for the right words. What could she say at this point? What would make the most sense? She wanted it to be right, but...
“Why?” Her voice was quieter than normal, more concentrated but firm. “How long--?” She stopped herself with a sigh, reaching a hand up to scrub over her features. “Did you mean it like I think you meant it?”
