#like theres just a snotstrid shaped notch in my heart and its just...pleased

[tysonrunningfox]

11-snotstrid

Hi, I’m tysonrunningfox and I’m a snotstridholic, and it has been...0 days, 0 hours, and 0 minutes since I last ranted about how the Buffalord Soldier is actually an iconic Snotstrid masterpiece, but this time I actually wrote it down, so y’all can watch me self destruct in real time.  

kiss prompts

11. “I almost lost you” kiss 

Snotlout stares.  Astrid knows that Snotlout stares, he’s always stared.  He stared at the toy he wanted to take from her when they were five and he stared at her ‘dragon-esque’ figure when they were in dragon training.  And he stares now, or at least the back of her neck prickles when he thinks he can get away with it.  

Usually, she’d hit him and tell him to knock it off, but the way he’s looking at her when she finally does catch him isn’t usual.  It’s hard-edged and serious and she half thinks if she asked him to do something, he’d listen.  

“What’s your problem?” She barks across the arena, biting her tongue against asking why he isn’t cleaning like he’s supposed to.  If he started back up again just because she said, she’d have to start investigating for other signs of Ragnarok, and she’s not quite ready for the next villain of the week.  

“Uh,” he coughs, voice annoyingly brazen even as he turns red and looks at his feet, broom whisking listlessly across the ground, “you, obviously.”  

“Right on schedule,” she huffs, a little relieved even though she doesn’t want to admit it.  “I figured you were saving up something big to fight with me about.”  

“Was not,” he drops the broom when she stands in front of him and pokes him in the shoulder.  

“Then why are you being weird?”  

“By helping clean the arena, like Hiccup told me to?”  He crosses his arms, smacking her hand away.  No, not a smack.  A push maybe. A flick.  “How is that weird?”  

“You’re Snotlout.”  She pokes him again and he doesn’t shove her back, he just keeps staring, that stupid, perplexed look on his face like he’s capable of thinking about something and not instantly blurting it out. “What?”  

“You almost died,” he snaps, suddenly irritated, but at least it’s an expression she recognizes. “Come on, the Scourge of Odin?  I’m sure you remember, you turned green and looked like shit and I about busted Hookfang’s wings off racing all around the archipelago looking for a cure—”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she rolls her eyes, but the motion is as hollow as his attempts at sweeping.  

“And then I had to escort you to the Buffalord’s island while you could barely stay on your dragon—”

“Thank you, ok?”  She forces the edge onto her voice, planting her feet even though the unfamiliar vulnerability in his eyes makes her want to leave and pretend this never happened.  All of it. Everyone else already is.  The Scourge of Odin, just another weekly shenanigan.  She likes it that way.  She doesn’t like anyone remembering her half dead, vision blurring as Stormfly tried to adjust under her shifting weight.  

“You don’t get it.”  

“No, I don’t!”  She gestures at him, “I don’t get why everyone else is over it and you aren’t, I don’t get why it was ever your problem in the first place.”  

Anyone could have flown back to Berk.  Anyone could have brought her to the Buffalord.  She still doesn’t know why Snotlout helped her onto Stormfly instead of taking the opportunity to throw her over his shoulder or something and drag her along on Hookfang.  

She appreciated it though. That’s what she should thank him for, except she doesn’t know how to say it and mean it at the same time. Especially when he looks so weird and furious.  

“Because you almost died—”

“Hiccup almost died! He lost his leg and I didn’t ever catch you staring at him about it and demanding ‘thank you’s—”

“That’s different.” He cuts her off, too quiet, and she wants to hit him for toeing that line.  

Snotlout stares because he’s Snotlout.  It doesn’t mean anything.  He’s Snotlout.  He’s gross. He’s the kind of guy who throws girls over his shoulder.  He doesn’t help them onto their dragons with only mild complaining.  He doesn’t race around the archipelago, desperate to solve other people’s problems.  

He’s Snotlout and that line is a chasm, a gorge through the center of the earth, and she scowls at him for pointing out how narrow gorges look from the wrong angle.  

“Why?”  She pushes because that’s the only thing that feels normal.  

“Because, if he died, I’m next in line for chief.”  His usual bravado is muted, and she doesn’t move as he awkwardly rises onto tip toes, like he’s trying to look her in the eye or something.  “But if you died, I wouldn’t get anything out of it.”  

He kisses her forehead.

It’s gentle like his hand under her foot, giving her a leg up onto Stormfly when she couldn’t see straight, and she hates the way her face warms up as she takes a step back from him and crosses her arms.  

“Weird.”  She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, like she can forget that gorges have bridges if someone is willing to build them, just how plagues have cures if someone is willing to find them.  “You just made it really weird,” she says, like he didn’t make it weird the second he did what would make her most comfortable when it could have been the last thing anyone ever did for her.  “Get back to cleaning.”  

“Fine.”  

“And stop agreeing with me.” She scowls at the sponge in the water bucket, ignoring the almost dutiful sound of the broom.