#httyd drabble

“Hey Hic, need any help?” Eret, Heather’s husband called. Hiccup looked up to see the broad, cheerful man come up to him with his almost five year old daughter, Amber on his shoulder. 

“Nah, I’m good, thanks Eret,” Hiccup returned. “Hey Amber! It’s nice to see you!”

“Amber!” Nuffink had returned from his lap around the field and greeted his friend enthusiastically. He was already five and the two of them were best of friends along with Zephyr.

Amber squirmed wildly until Eret set her down, chuckling. Nuffink grabbed her hand and pulled her toward his sister, who was rifling through the bag of toys.

“Put everything back when you’ve found what you’re looking for,” Astrid instructed her eldest. “Wow, Heather, This thing is huge!”

“I know I didn’t have to make this much, but let’s be honest; we’re gonna eat all of it,” Heather rolled her eyes. Astrid grinned unabashedly and helped her unpack. Their husbands joined them on the blankets, chatting about the struggles with kids and car seats.

“People act like the Terrible Twos are the worst part and then you’ve gotten through it; nobody told you it’s just the beginning!” Eret was complaining. “And now she’s bigger and louder and stronger with a temper like her mother.” Heather whipped her head around and scoffed indignantly while Astrid bit back her smile.

“Oh I get you. And Nuffink’s just been getting bigger, y’know, so when he doesn’t want to go into the carseat there is literally no room left to kinda squeeze him in; if he’s not cooperating, he’s not going in and he knows it,” Hiccup ranted.

“He really has been getting bigger!” Heather exclaimed. “I mean it’s only been, what? A month? Since we last saw him but he’s already way bigger than you were at that age.”

Hiccup rolled his eyes, “Yes, thank you for reminding me how tiny I was. I am glad he won’t be so small though; being picked on sucked.” Astrid squeezed his hand in sympathy.

“But boy was he a joy to carry full term,” Astrid commented sarcastically. Heather cooed in commiseration. “Zephyr was small and on the early side, but Nuff was big and in no rush. Apparently he and his father inherited different things from ‘Stoick the Vast.’”

Hiccup sputtered terrifically and Eret choked on the sandwich he had just bit into. Astrid threw her head back and laughed at her husband’s expression. Heather wasn’t much better, forcefully patting Eret on the back as tears gathered in the corner of her eyes.

“It’s not like they haven’t heard it all before,” Astrid giggled. Her husband blushed, scratching at the attractive stubble at his jaw. It was almost thick enough to be a beard at this point. “And Heather’s totally returned the favor; I know all about Eret too.” Said man winced and swallowed his sandwich with difficulty.

“See this,” Heather declared, turning to him, “Is why I do the blowing in this relationship.” Hiccup and Astrid sniggered.

“I can blow just fine,” Eret said indignantly. “I’d be happy to provide a demonstration on Hiccup if you’re so set on seeing proof.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“Woah!” cried Hiccup, waving his arms around frantically. “No need for that.”

“For the last time, he’s taken, Eret,” Astrid drawled. “Been married for like, a decade.”

“Technically, our nine year anniversary is in five and a half months.” She shot him a look. “But, I’ve definitely been taken for over a decade by you. And, y’know, best part of my life,” he continued hurriedly.

“Smooth, Hiccup,” Heather teased.

“Besides, Eret, I doubt you could look as hot as Astrid on her knees,” he smirked. His wife flushed and swatted his shoulder.

“I mean . . .” Heather trailed off suggestively.

“I could’ve gone without hearing that,” Hiccup groaned. Eret puffed out his chest dramatically.

“Auntie Heather, I’m hungry,” Nuffink announced. Heather smiled and handed him a sandwich.

“I’m sure you are, with how big you’re getting,” she told him seriously. “Are Amber and Zephyr hungry too?” The little boy shook his head vehemently. Astrid opened the cooler for him to get a drink.

“Hey, bud, that is not a soda,” Hiccup said sternly as Nuffink grabbed a can. Eret chuckled. Nuffink pouted as Astrid handed him a bottle of water. They watched the little boy waddle back to the girls.

“You’re coming to Amber’s birthday party next week, right?” Heather asked.

They’ve been working well, in a practical sense, as in they both have valuable intel at each of their carefully arranged meetings and they never ask where it came from.  But something had to give, eventually. 

“Sorry, Jetlag,” Hiccup says to cover a yawn, his voice a little lower in a distinctly sleepy way, “where did you get that information?” 

Then he pauses for her to answer, pushes his glasses up his nose and waits.  They’re not particularly stylish, blocky and black rimmed, obviously thick in a way that makes his eyes look bigger, greener between the bluish, exhausted tinge of his eyelids. 

Astrid can’t stop staring. 

Maybe it’s the vulnerability, the chink in the master thief armor, the humanity of it.  Maybe it’s just how his eyes look so big and green and his hair is flicking up above the arm of them where it meets the shell of his year makes him look huggable in a way she refuses to comment on. 

He looks like he’s warm. 

“Inspector Hofferson?”  He clears his throat, one eyebrow quirked above the thick rim of his glasses and she swallows hard. 

“Yes?” 

“Where did you get that information?”  He gestures to the grainy security camera pictures of the painting they’re after with a casual, long-fingered and freckled hand, and she blinks hard, clearing her throat. 

“I don’t believe we agreed on sharing sources, Mr. Haddock, if that’s changed—”

“No, no.”  He waves her off, scratching behind his ear, and his hair looks redder against the black of his glasses, glinting in the fluorescents.  “Just, I thought you might have shared the file on the server.  Again, jetlag.” 

He pushes his glasses up slightly onto his forehead to rub his eyes and she barely refrains from biting her lip. 

“Have you always worn glasses?”  She blurts out, which in the grand scheme of things is not the worst thing she could say. 

Hiccup pauses, readjusts the cursed frames on his face and smiles that lopsided smile that has always been infuriating in the past, when he was escaping her, but only looks soft now. 

“Since I was about six, I guess.  I got contacts as soon as I could, which wasn’t soon enough.  Are we here to go over my elementary school trauma or are we here to find the Night Fury?” 

He still has that singular way of referring to art like it matters that makes Astrid’s breath catch in her throat.  Like there’s something more than billionaire’s trading in status, like it still matters that at one point masters painted things with meaning.  And that’s why she’s here, working with him. 

It doesn’t matter how his glasses magnify his tired green eyes and somehow make his globetrotting look more sympathetic than glamorous. 

It doesn’t matter, and yet. 

“Of course.  Of course.”  She flips through her notebook, clicks between windows on her laptop. 

“What?” 

“I’m…” She clicks to the last few windows she has left, her expense spreadsheet and a comparison of best shoes to walk all day without breaking them in. 

“You’re what?”  He huffs, but it makes him paler, more stark behind the glasses, and his eyes are green, green, green.  Staring right through her in a way that she’s avoided previously so well that she got this job, which for the first time she recognizes is impossible. 

It’s the glasses, focusing that gaze.  Humanizing it.  Making the master thief into a tired, handsome guy who she’s unfortunately entwined with. 

“You look good,” she says, like an insult, even though it’s not.  “With the glasses. They look.  Your face…” She gestures, alarmingly like he’s rubbing off on her. 

He blinks, big green eyes magnified. 

She doesn’t like it.  Not at all. 

“Is that um.”  He clears his throat, adjusts his glasses again across the sharp bridge of his nose, “is that all?” 

“I still need to know you what you think of the pictures,” she forces her eyes to his, forces her mind to The Night Fury and where it might have ended up and what could happen if they don’t find it. 

Hiccup blinks at her and yawns, glasses rendering his sharp angles soft, all big green eyes and chapped pink lips, and she tries to keep a straight face. 

“Tomorrow?”  He asks, stretching like that helps anything, sweater that smells like airport and Hiccup riding up just enough to show that he’s not wearing a shirt underneath. 

“Sure!” She agrees too loudly, slamming her laptop shut.  “Tomorrow. That’s.  Great.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”