Tuff Love (A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction | Astrid x Tuffnut)

"I like you, like, a lot."

Tuffnut eyed Hiccup, who stiffed his fists before him.

Tuffnut didn't want to get into a boxing match with Hiccup, one of his own friends. Still, it looked like Hiccup was not backing down any time soon, and he would not take Tuffnut's early surrender as a settlement of the issue.

"Tuff, no!" Tuffnut heard Astrid whisper urgently. "Hiccup will knock your lights out!"

"He's drunk!" Tuffnut replied quietly. "I can take him, if he's man enough to swing!"

Astrid rolled her eyes. Vikings had a thing about their egos. "Don't," Astrid said for a final time. She felt Tuffnut's hand softly leave hers.

Hiccup shifted readily when the two images of Tuffnut before him squared up. Hiccup wagged his head, and his focus centered on the tough-lipped older teen in front of him. The villagers encircling he and Tuffnut had increased greatly in number since word had quickly flamed across the tavern that the chief was showing hands, and what Viking could resist watching a good fight? Screams for Hiccup's favor collided with shouts for Tuffnut to "take 'im out!". Astrid inched to the sidelines against her will by Ruffnut's safeguarding grip.

Astrid did look extremely gorgeous to Hiccup in her dress he had never seen before, but Hiccup didn't let his concentration waver too strongly. He tufted the dark brown hair in his eyes with a puff. He mirrored Tuffnut's threatening steps and false starts. He thought twice about daring Tuffnut when he felt like the floorboards were see-sawing like a ship on stormy waves, but he wasn't going to run away from an honest fight just because he had one too many beers to drink. Hiccup's Dad had said to him as a boy that if he started something, "ye oughta finish it". Now wasn't the time to let him down. Hiccup focused in the eyes of his friend, Tuffnut. They agreed on the same thing, to settle things fair-and-square, for Astrid's sake.

"Step down, son."

Hiccup answered to the voice, "Gobber?"

Gobber, the esteemed blacksmith of Berk and the man Hiccup had served under as a young apprentice, had rushed to the disturbance in the middle of the tavern as soon as he had heard Hiccup's voice shout in challenge. "Tuffnut, you've heard. Don't raise a'hand yet."

"Why not?!" Hiccup said. He was a man of nineteen now, he had finished his rites, and he was the leader of his people, and it wasn't Gobber's time to interfere, for his business was now his own to handle as he liked it.

"This isn't our way, I'll tell'ye that much!" Gobber said to Hiccup. There were traditions for times like these that Hiccup must have forgotten.

"I can handle this myself!"

The boy's glare didn't scare Gobber any. To Gobber, Hiccup would always be the twist-tongued and twig-necked lad with two left feet as he was at six years of age when Stoick sent Hiccup to the smithy to build some muscle and discipline. "Ye both have a liking for Astrid? Then, we we handle it civil, in th'old way. There will be a duel for the lady, and ye will choose the weapon, Hiccup."

Hiccup and Tuffnut faced each other.

Hiccup had feelings for Astrid, confused feelings, yet feelings, nonetheless. She was his first love, his first kiss, and she was the only girl on Berk that learned he wasn't so dorky after all. Astrid had been the first one to see Toothless and understand his love for dragons. He cared for Astrid, because she first believed in him. They had issues now, which were no fault of his, but they had a history and it was important to him. The weeks without her by his side had made him feel like half of him was missing, since Astrid had always been there. Hiccup wanted Astrid's love again, and he wished to show it. Hiccup spoke firmly, "Tuffnut, I challenge you. By blade."

"Ay'right." Gobber said after the noise from the villagers simmered. "What say you, Tuffnut?"

Tuffnut looked to Astrid. To feel his emotions for himself was one thing, but to admit to them in public, in front of Hiccup, Gobber, the villagers, and his own big sister was another thing entirely. By saying his feelings aloud, he would make them true.

He hadn't known how the kiss had began. At the start of his faintest memories, he and Astrid had danced until their bones were sore, laughing all the way, and had made conversation over their meal about everything under the ocean. Tuffnut had found himself completing her sentences at the same time that Astrid had spoken his own thoughts. At first, Tuffnut had alleged the sparks between them as circumstance, for he had used a special intuition to pair them together, but there was no denying that he and Astrid had chemistry. He and Astrid shared something real. Tuffnut had heard it in her snorts and laughter in the heat of the dance floor, where he saw Astrid's old boots twirl like he had never seen before in dainty circles around his feet. She had been full of spirit and a need to impress him.

Later, Astrid had laughed at something he had said, and she came close enough for him to see the freckles on her cheeks he had recalled from years ago. The plume of the lyre in the ballad had nearly convinced Tuffnut he was in heaven. Then, mercy, Astrid had kissed him, like she wanted him. Tuffnut had his share of liplocks with other women, yet they were all out of curiousity or because of silly, drunken games, and there had often been an audience for his embarrassment. That night, only the firelight had witnessed he and Astrid in a corner of the tavern that no villager had noticed as they had tarried to music. The air had sweetened with the scent of her lye. Had it been honeyweed?

Forget-his-own-name-perfume? Tuffnut hadn't known, but it had smelled charming on her-and lovely, and- -damnit- -it had been sexy as hell, and he had forgotten they were just friends, and her dress had been so cute and fluttery that he couldn't stop playing with the trimmings on her waist. He had fallen for her, he had claimed her lips, and he had almost lost his mind at hearing the notes of bliss Astrid gave him while arpeggios of the melody had screeched from some old lady's throat.

Tuffnut's life had been content until then. There were days he actually finished his responsibilities by keeping his geese fed or locking the gate of his family's flock before he and Ruffnut ran off to find the object of their next prank. Astrid had only been a familiar, pretty face to greet in the mornings on his way to meet outsiders from other islands on Berk who liked to hide away in the forest and waste time by doing nothing really important. Tuffnut had a nagging emptiness all that time, still, that none of his friends or even Ruffnut could fulfill. He knew there had to be more to life than scaring hogs down a hill with twigs. He had found it with Astrid, and he didn't want to lose it.

"Tuff, it's not worth it! !" Astrid shouted in the quiet. She heard the village murmur conservatively. "I don't want any of these idiots fighting over me because of some stupid tradition!"

Tuffnut approached Astrid and said gently, "Astrid, I don't really know how to say this."

Astrid saw Tuffnut clasp both of her hands.

"I can't replace Hiccup, but, I like you, like, a lot. If I have to fight him to prove it, then...that's what I'm gonna do."

Astrid's eyes jaded with shy feelings.

Tuffnut faced the onlookers and Gobber, and finally to Hiccup's green-eyed glower. Tuffnut declared, "as long as this isn't a fight-to-the-death kinda thing...I accept."