Audience

Hiccup's hand was up Astrid's skirt.

He didn't know how it had gotten there, exactly. One second his fingers had been stiff and stinging from the cold air around them, and the next they were resting between the fur inside her skirt and the woolen surface of her leggings. It was amazingly warm up there, on her buttocks. The feeling was starting to come back to his fingers.

To his vague astonishment, she didn't draw away from him or knee him in the groin or smack him upside the head. Instead he felt a smile come across her lips in his, and her nose and cheeks were a shiny pink and steamy breath spilled from her nostrils. Hiccup was surprised that he had dared to touch her. Usually he was afraid to, unless it was a hug. He never knew with Astrid whether he'd come out giddy from kisses or bruised from well-aimed knuckles.

They kissed in the glittering whiteness of the dawn, their hair damp from the falling snow. The thick rabbit fur around the collar of Astrid's deep blue coat wavered in the breeze. Hiccup felt her teeth chattering and wrapped his free arm tight around her shoulders.

They didn't need to come up to breathe. They'd gotten pretty good at that.

Hiccup was so bold as to start moving his hand around, and Astrid seemed to enjoy it, pressing herself closer up to him, her tongue seeking warmth behind his teeth. He felt dizzy and squeezed her posterior and she snorted and said something along the lines of how it wasn't an overripe fruit; he didn't need to be so gentle.

Snotlout and Tuffnut stifled their snickers as they watched them.

"Man, look at Hiccup go," Snotlout hissed gleefully. "Didn't think he had it in him."

"I know, right?" Tuffnut agreed. "Oh, by the way, Legs, you owe me five."

Fishlegs sagged sadly as Ruffnut let out her signature snorting cackle, clapping him on the back.

"I can't believe you actually thought he'd wait until they got married, Legs."

Fishlegs shrugged. "I dunno. I'm allowed to have faith. It's not like he's going to cart her off to his house and..." His voice hushed. "And lie with her."

As though the gods themselves were mocking him, Fishlegs watched as Hiccup suddenly swept Astrid up in his arms and carried her up the snowy hill towards the smoking chimney of his house, their lips still glistening on each other.

Snotlout and Tuffnut fell to the ground in laughing fits.

"We're Vikings," Ruffnut said slyly. "It's an occupational hazard."