Hey I love loosefoot au. Do you have more you could write for that one?
Ehhhh I’m gonna try for you, but it’s not really one I ever planned on adding on to, because the characters aren’t exactly very themselves. But I do really love the original, so I’ll give it a try!
From the minute Mayor Haddock’s son rode into town on that beat up motorcycle, Astrid knew change was coming. He wasn’t extraordinarily handsome or strikingly debonaire– in fact, he caught his prosthetic on his foot pedal while dismounting and stumbled. But it was the way he swore when it happened, Cussed out loud in the middle of the street, right in front of City Hall and in broad daylight. Her father would’ve had a fit.
So of course, her immediate instinct was to introduce herself.
He was everything their sleepy little town of Berk was not. Whip smart and exciting, with an irreverent sense of humor and more words in his mouth than she had thoughts in her head. He knew about physics, history, even other languages. He explained that he’d spent the last few years travelling with his nature photographer mother, and he’d had his one foot on nearly every continent. He was learned and open-minded. He was cool without trying to be, though he’d laughed so hard he’d cried when she suggested it.
They just fit together. Instantly. Not long after that first meeting, she’d snuck him out to the abandoned train cars out by the old tracks. The ones they don’t use anymore since the state built a highway bypassing their town. While her parents thought she was at a study group, they sat on old tattered furniture and talked about the strict hand of supervision in this town. She showed him her secret stash of whiskey, and he showed her the tattoo on the back of his shoulder. It sent goosebumps over her skin when she touched the black Nordic runes with her fingertips.
Her daddy, as expected, hated him. All it took was seeing her and Hiccup exchanging secret smiles during the Sunday church service, and he instantly launched into a lecture about focusing on God and school and never fraternizing with that Haddock boy.
Those lectures never quite did work as well as he intended. Usually it did the opposite, making that fire of indignation burn in her belly. The next time she and Hiccup made plans, she made sure he picked her up in clear view of the house. Her father’s face turned fire truck red, and he was calling her name even as she pulled Hiccup’s spare helmet over her blonde curls and sped away.
“You’ve really never left Berk?” Hiccup asked her once while he was working at his uncle’s garage. She’d been perched on a tall stool with her elbows propped up on his work bench. “Not once?”
“Well, that’s not entirely true,” she amended, tapping the toe of her sneaker against one of the stool’s rungs. “My grandparents live over in Lucktuck, so we go visit them for Christmas and Easter.”
“But you’ve never even been up to the capital?” He’d paused over the hood of the car he’d been fixing up, giving her an incredulous look. The heat had him sweating, and somehow that made him look even more attractive.
“Nope.”
“Oh man, we’ve got to get you out of here.” Straightening, he grabbed a rag to wipe off his hands and approached her. “How about we go this summer? We’ll take my truck up the coast so you can see the ocean.”
Astrid couldn’t help but fight a smile. He remembered. She’d never gone to the beach before, but she imagined it was near magical. It was her dream to go swimming somewhere other than the creek behind the Thorstons’ place. Reaching for his shirt tails, she sat up and tugged him between her thighs.
“Where are we gonna sleep?” she asked, one eyebrow raised. She wrapped his arms around her waist and slid her hands over his chest. “The back of your truck?”
He snorted, looking offended. “I’m much classier than that, Astrid.” His thumbs rubbed circles into her back, making electricity crackle down her spine. “We’ll be in some seedy motel– probably one so cheap that the roaches are the size of mice.”
“Mmm,” she hummed, narrowing her gaze teasingly. “Sounds romantic.”
“Just picture it…” He leaned in and placed a kiss on her neck. “A television from the nineties…” Switching sides, he brushed his lips against her jaw. “Mysterious stains on the carpet…”
She laughed, even as he kissed a trail up to her ear and tightened his arms around her.
“If we’re lucky, the roaches will let us share the bed with them.”
Astrid opened her mouth to say something, turning her head to try and catch his lips across hers. But just at that moment, they heard the front door slam open, jingle bells clanging raucously. They pulled away from each other just in time for her father to come storming into the garage.
His eyes were like thunder, his expression dark. He glared at Hiccup, not shifting his gaze for a second. Not even when he jerks a thumb over his shoulder and says, “Get in the car, Astrid.”
They both looked to each other, and then back at her father, stunned. She slowly slipped off of the stool, but didn’t move for the door.
“Daddy, we’re just talking,” she informed him, hoping her firm tone doesn’t betray the shake she feels in her voice.
“I know what you were just,” he snapped back. Finally, he glanced at her for just long enough to jerk his chin towards the exit. “Now go to the car, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“No!” She surprised even herself by blurting her refusal. “You’re just going to yell at Hiccup when he hasn’t done anything wrong!”
“It’s okay, Astrid,” the younger man said, looking much more composed than she feels. “You can go, I’ll be fine.”
“I told you to stay away from this place.” There was steel in her father’s voice. “And I told him to leave you be. So it looks like you’ve both disobeyed my direct wishes.”
“You mean your orders,” she shot back. “And I never agreed to that.”
She could see a tendon working at his temple. His jaw was clenched so tightly it might have been welded shut. With slow frostiness, he said, “You’re already in a world of trouble, Astrid Hofferson. I suggest you say goodbye to Hiccup, get in the car, and wait for me to take you home– where your mother and I expect to have a very serious conversation about your lack of focus lately.”
As much as she wanted to be brave and angry and rebellious, there would always be something in her father’s voice that left her feeling quiet and small. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her side, and for a brief moment she rocked from one foot to the other. But then she shot Hiccup an apologetic glance, cheeks burning with shame. Mumbling a quick I’ll see you later, she cut her gaze to the floor and left the room. She didn’t look at her father as she brushed past him.
“I know you think because your daddy is the mayor that you can do just about what you want in this town–”
He was already tearing into Hiccup when she pushed the glass door open and stepped out of the garage.
At first, she walked straight towards her father’s Oldsmobile, feeling hot tears prick at her eyes. But then her feet slowed, and she took a look around Berk. Brown. Dry. Ugly. The antithesis of everything she wanted. And before she knew it, her feet were carrying her past the car. Past the parking lot. Past main street and past City Hall.
She’d walk straight to the ocean herself, if she had to.
