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tysonrunningfox · 5 years

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Ripped: Part 23

Like...here, I can’t do this anymore, I’ve been sitting on the first part of this for forever. Please, join me in...whatever this is.

Ao3

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Four thirty-seven in the morning is not time to wake up, but Astrid doesn’t have much of a choice after Hiccup’s side of his bed goes cold and the wheels in her mind start spinning, skating across the last twelve and twenty-four and thirty-six hours. Hiccup exhausted beyond sanity at the hospital, Hiccup sleeping with his head on her lap. Hiccup with damp hair and wide eyes, laying her back on his desk. Hiccup laughing at a joke that could only be funny in the first hours of the morning, sleepy hands holding her close.

“I don’t want it to be tomorrow,” he’d whispered in her ear, voice hoarse and comfortable as he pressed a tired kiss to her jaw, pulling her leg over his hip like if he just arranged their limbs carefully enough, they could feasibly meld into a single person. “Tomorrow’s just going to be more hospitals and decisions and not enough…” He trailed off, palm dragging up the curve of her waist.

“It already is tomorrow, technically,” she’d looked at the clock until he dragged her face back to his, soft thumb on her chin.

“Well sure, if you’re still a stickler for a linear definition of time,” he smiled, bringing her back to her apartment hallway where she couldn’t help but notice he was charming and handsome under the stupid hat. “But cyclically, it’s not really morning until we sleep, is it?”

“We already slept,” she reminded him, difficult just so that he’d narrow his eyes in a cute, shrewd way and kiss her. He went further than that, rolling her onto her back and holding the sheets dramatically above his head before disappearing under them, breath ticklish on her navel as his hands made room for himself between her knees.

“No more of that then,” he’d laughed, kissing her hip, “no sleeping, no tomorrow. It’s a deal.”

The only thing more shocking than how quickly Astrid trusted Hiccup is how quickly she got used to him. As electric as his presence has become, it’s comfortable too, a secondary North her internal compass passively tracks when he’s in range to keep herself in alignment.

She bites her lip and sighs, staring at the ceiling for a ten count before giving up and rolling out of bed.

His closet isn’t a walk-in, but it’s larger than hers, and she finds a soft sweatshirt that smells like him hanging at the back of it. She pulls it on and pauses to touch the cold side of the bed, taking in the silence, as temporary as it is. He was right, there’s a whole day of hospitals and adult arrangements ahead of her, but after how easy and good last night was, nothing seems insurmountable.

She brushes her teeth with her finger again, looking around the bathroom at the old bathmat and Hiccup’s shirt from yesterday balled up in a corner. There’s a trimmer on the counter and auburn stubble in the sink and she finally starts to come around to the idea that sometimes when things seem too good to be true, it might just be because they are that good.

Hiccup wasn’t exaggerating how empty the kitchen is, but she manages to find a glass in one of the old walnut cupboards and get some water. She didn’t have much of a chance to look around yesterday, given she had better things to acquaint herself with, but since Hiccup isn’t back yet she starts scoping out the living room.

It’s a bachelor pad, obviously, old comfortable furniture without a decorative pillow in sight, video game controllers on the end tables and an empty beer bottle next to the remote. The rug is soft though and there are thankfully no Patriots posters on the wall, only two framed diplomas by the front door, both from the Berk Police Department. One is three years old and says ‘Snotlout G. Jorgenson’ in crisp black ink on thick white paper and the other was folded at some point and is starting to yellow around the edges, the name ‘Stoick Haddock’ handwritten in careful cursive script.

The frame of the older diploma is dusty and Astrid tucks her hand back into Hiccup’s sweatshirt sleeve to clean it off, and as soon as she does, it reflects the heavy deadbolt on the old door behind her turning. If months of living at a bona fide murder site honed her reflexes, last night’s uneven sleep dulled them because she freezes, holding her breath and watching the reflection of the door slowly swing open.

A single footfall heavier than any Hiccup would be capable of producing crosses the threshold and her heart sinks as she turns to face whatever she’s being dragged into next.

“Can you take any longer to open a door?” Snotlout’s improbable voice cuts through the sudden silence and he stumbles into the living room.

“The plan was for me to sweep the place,” Eretson follows him, teeth clipping the consonants as frustration pours around the dulled corners.

“Sweep the place? It’s my apartment, what are you expecting to find?” Snotlout throws his arm up and looks around for evidence that Eretson’s concern is unnecessary, but his eyes land solidly on Astrid.

He raises an eyebrow and she jumps, coming back to life all at once and dropping her glass of water on the way to yank down the hem of Hiccup’s sweatshirt.

Eretson doesn’t flinch at the sound so much as he condenses, pulling his gun from the holster on his hip and cocking it with a cold steely click. Then he sees what, or who, he’s aiming at and his grip goes slack, barrel of the gun pointing towards the slowly spreading puddle on the floor as his jaw works soundlessly, eyes wide.

“Good morning,” Snotlout says, slow blooming grin spreading across his pasty, stubbled face as he takes in her bedhead. She almost wishes his eyes would dip lower because if he were being pointedly creepy, she’d have a reason to yell and maybe regain her grip on the situation, but instead she’s wedged under the weight of his obviously amused observation.

“Why aren’t you in the hospital?” The question comes out shrill and she jumps back from the water starting to pool between her toes. The sweatshirt is far too small for current company and she yanks it down again, fisting the fabric beside her thigh and holding it there. Eretson is still frozen, wrist slack and eyes wide and she snaps. “Never mind, I don’t care, can you put the gun away?”

“Apologies.” Eretson directs his startled gaze to the floor and stands up straight, thankfully re-holstering his weapon.

Well, thankfully until the lack of weaponry renders the situation impossibly more awkward.

And cold. Drafty even.

“And shut the door!” Astrid orders, even though she has no authority, and Eretson looks at Snotlout for corroboration.

“Just got shot,” Snotlout looks pointedly at his arm and Eretson sighs, bright red as he resigns himself to shutting and locking the door, clearly weighing the consequences of being on the other side and wishing his lot in life were different.

Something truly awful must lurk outside the door for Eretson to choose to be in this living room right now and Astrid wishes she knew what it was so that she could make her own educated decision.

“Good morning,” Snotlout repeats and Astrid glares, holding the fabric tight around her thighs.

“We already did that.” She steps sideways out of the puddle, daring either of the men in front of her to say something about her state of dress. For once in her life, it’s a fight she wishes she hadn’t picked because everything in Snotlout’s slight grin says ‘good game, Champ’.

“Where’s Hiccup?” Snotlout asks, looking around for another target to embarrass.

“He went to get breakfast.” Astrid does her best to frame the sentence as an insult but Snotlout is unfazed. No, unfazed would be better, he’s a delighted audience.

“That’s my boy.” He’s more than delighted, he’s disconcertingly, disruptively proud and Astrid wishes she could hitch a ride on Eretson’s shoulders as he attempts to sink into the floor.

Her clothes are in Hiccup’s office, where they were enthusiastically abandoned the night before, which she can’t think about with Hiccup’s nearly mortally wounded cousin grinning at her like a proud coach.

They aren’t even her clothes, they’re Tuffnut’s clothes.

She wishes she could ask Hiccup where he is, but of course, no phone. Eretson is so absolutely mortally embarrassed that she half thinks she could ask to borrow his phone to call Hiccup, but she doesn’t have his number memorized. Snotlout probably does, but asking him probably involves details requested in the name of ‘bro’.

“I’m going to go get dressed,” she announces, trying for something official and feeling like an inadequate cat herder.

It’s impossible to set her shoulders and stalk to Hiccup’s office while keeping her ass covered, but she tries anyway, eyes locked dead ahead to give her periphery a chance to reorient. Snotlout follows, lurking in the doorway as she confronts the mess on the office floor.

Or no, not mess. Her clothes and Hiccup’s towel.

Snotlout whistles under his breath.

“Damn, on the desk by all his special books?” He laughs, “that’s like nerdy hot, I’d give you a wedgie if I thought you were wearing underwear.”

“Oh my god!” Astrid snaps, “if I didn’t think you’d bleed out, I’d—“

“Those are your clothes, from the hospital, does that mean Hiccup was in the towel?”

“Snotlout,” she hisses his name, “why the hell aren’t you in the hospital?”

“I’m proud of you two, really.” He nods, more encouraging coach than the creepy opportunist she knows how to deal with. She half expects him to clap her on the ass and tell her ‘good game’. “At the rate you were going, I thought you had another year of hand holding before anything happened. But then you fu—“

“Can you give me a minute?” She grits her teeth and he nods, hand held up in half surrender as he backs into the living room and shuts the door.

She takes a minute to breathe, leaning back against the desk and pressing her knuckles to her eyelids until she sees static.

“Where’s your mop?” Eretson asks, voice muffled through the door.

“What? My floor isn’t clean enough for you? Sorry, I was pretty busy being shot and almost dying, I should have mopped first though, I guess.”

“Just trying to make myself useful.”

She gets dressed with both eyes locked on the door, even though it seems like Snotlout is more likely to interrupt to congratulate her than to catch a glimpse of something he shouldn’t. She briefly thinks that she might not be cut out to be his ‘bro’ if this is the kind of involvement she can expect, but that’s not a train of thought she has time to catch right now, so she pushes it aside.

Last night felt like she and Hiccup were potentially the only two people in the world, or at least the only two that mattered. The only two she had to think about. But now it feels like the rest of humanity is butting its way back into her mind by way of one recently shot idiot and chasing any dregs of that peaceful feeling away.

When she opens the door, Snotlout is sitting on the couch, pouring over his phone. Eretson is lurking by the front door with one shoe on, obviously debating over taking the other off. Astrid’s shoes are next to the couch, vaguely under Snotlout’s legs, approximately where she abandoned them the day before as Hiccup left to shower.

She clears her throat and he doesn’t look up. Eretson doesn’t look away from his mismatched feet.

Snotlout doesn’t look good, that’s the obvious place to start. His face is nearly gray under patchy hospital stay stubble and the circles under his eyes look like bruises. She doesn’t know much about almost bleeding to death, but she’d assume a person should sleep more and move less afterwards and it looks like he’s been doing the exact opposite. He’s wearing sweatpants and a suit jacket that’s so oversized that its sleeve is cuffed above his wrist and his other arm is hidden inside of it, presumably in a sling or something to restrict him from ripping his stitches.

“What are you wearing?” She frowns, trying to place the jacket. It’s familiar somehow but she’s not used to it looking so absurd.

“When is it my turn to ask the questions?” He grumbles and she sighs.

“I don’t think I’m going to answer any of your questions,” she raises her eyebrows at his suit jacket, “and I didn’t realize harassing me required business casual.”

“Shit,” he looks down like he’s only now realizing his outfit might be out of the norm, “I fucking told you I was going to forget to give your fucking jacket back, this is not my fault.” He points a shaky, accusatory finger at Eretson who flushes over an absolutely stoic expression, rolling his sleeves up his forearms.

“You can keep it,” Eretson says, looking somehow larger and also more uncouth without his suit jacket as he decides to put his discarded shoe back on, apparently not planning on staying.

“Who said I want it? It’s itchy as hell,” Snotlout huffs, settling further into the couch and making no move to take the jacket off. “Oh, maybe I’ll need it when I have to sit on someone’s shoulders to pretend to be as freakishly tall as you are.”

“Or for when stripping doesn’t work out and you decide to become a flasher,” Astrid offers, folding Hiccup’s sweatshirt over her arm and pacing slowly, glancing at the door and wondering where Hiccup is. The handle of Eretson’s gun glints darkly and she pauses, turning her glare on him, “and why’d you point a gun at me? What could you possibly have been sweeping the place for, actually?”

“Grisly,” he says dumbly, a kid caught dually red handed next to a broken cookie jar.

“Why would Grisly be here?” She knows the broadest form of the answer even if the specifics are hazy.

Grisly would be here to do awful, nefarious things, and she swallows hard, waiting to be proven right.

“Because he shot Jorgenson.” Eretson squares his shoulders, bracing for an argument even as Astrid’s knees threaten to bobble.

She wishes she were shocked, then she could claim credibility instead of facing the fact that she half believed what Grisly was capable of just because Hiccup said it.

“He remembered?” She nods quietly to herself and Eretson relaxes, glad to not have to convince her.

“He is right here,” Snotlout grumbles, “and he didn’t have to because the idiot informed me that he came to the hospital to ‘finish me off’.” He rolls his eyes like he didn’t just tell her that someone connected with the police tried to kill him twice, “like he learned English from shitty mob movies or something. If Ruffnut hadn’t shown up when she did—”

“Oh my God,” Astrid cradles her head in her hands, staring at the floor and thinking of the day before, staring silent at a closed bathroom door and coaching Ruffnut through trying to do the right thing. If she’d stayed on the phone a second longer or if Ruffnut had turned around in the lobby like she’d threatened, Snotlout would be dead. Hiccup would hate her for making him leave the hospital.

Hiccup would be planning a funeral in his office instead of trying to get breakfast.

Hiccup.

“Where’s Grisly now?” She asks, dread creeping up her spine.

“Have you heard anything strange?” Eretson asks, back in detective mode, and Astrid shakes her head.

“No, but I can’t say I was listening for Grisly.”

“Yeah, you were too busy banging Hiccup on his desk.” Snotlout snorts, still not creepy. Still alive even though someone wanted the opposite. Thrilled to embarrass her, definitely, and so disconcertingly unconcerned with his own mortality that she feels coerced to protect him.

But Hiccup is out there alone, and if there’s even a chance he was right about Grisly, she doesn’t know how she’ll ever forgive herself for not going with him.

“Hiccup—he didn’t have any proof,” Astrid’s brain fills in ‘at the time’ as her eyes flick to the clock yet again. “But umm, he has a hunch that Grisly was connected to…what we talked about the other night. All of it, I mean.”

Eretson’s phone rings and Astrid jumps at the sound, wishing she’d been clearer or that she hadn’t talked at all. She won’t know which until he picks up and the way he’s looking at the caller ID makes her wary.

“This better be important.” He says, curt and responsible, and Astrid wants to snatch the phone away from him and put it on speaker. “A development? Explain to me how there can be a development on my case when I’m not working it.”

Astrid used to be the queen of ‘this better be important.’

For a while, in her teens, it seemed like a magic phrase. A filter that made people rethink before they added their petty issues to her already overfull plate. It felt like one of the only things she could say to make people hear her, to think twice about how many actually important things she must be dealing with to deny their request. And maybe it made her feel important too, to place herself in a position to rate other people’s problems on a scale she got to set.

Then she learned what it’s like when people rightfully push past it.

Important never means good. Important is never better.

“Who is it?” Snotlout asks, tensing on the couch until Astrid offers him a silent hand to help him up. He’s heavy in an amorphous, exhausted way that scares her, like all his weight has shifted to the wrong ends of his bones.

Eretson’s face falls under the weight of the importance he’s about to communicate, his eyes flicking between Astrid’s expression in limbo and Snotlout’s growing frustration, “when? No, take him to my office—it’s still my bloody case—that’s your job then, Johnson—Well, I’m on my way in now, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

He hangs up, exhaling one sharp breath and not so much puffing out his chest as making the most of the space he knows he takes up. It’s comforting, like a doctor trained to deliver bad news, and Astrid glares at him, willing him to spit out whatever it is so that she can shoulder her part of it.

People who hoard information inevitably drown in it and thinking of Hiccup’s books in the next room makes it hard to breathe.

“Is everything ok?” Astrid asks the general question, hoping against hope that it’ll keep the specific at bay. “Is Hiccup ok?” She tries the words on for size along with the lump of heavy concern in her chest that she can’t quite remember deciding to take on.

She did, of course, a long time ago.

It was there in the hospital when Hiccup looked at her for stability while his world spun out of control. It was there when he was too frazzled to function, when he needed to see the city for what it is and not what he wants it to be. It grew from a little seed of trust planted when she followed him into an alley, unsure of what she’d find but willing to take the risk.

Then, it didn’t feel like a risk at all.

“Grisly brought Hiccup down to the station on murder charges,” he says simply, and again, Astrid wishes she were surprised.

For months, she’s been reminding herself that if anything had gone differently, she could have ended up like that poor woman who trusted the wrong man in a dark alley, but because of Hiccup, that reality wasn’t ever really on the table for her. This one was.

“Murder charges.” It’s not a question, it’s another unfortunate sentence to try on, feeling out the edges of yet another situation happening to her without her input. “Who died?” Astrid asks because she doesn’t know what else to do. At this point, she doesn’t expect an answer, but the question was doing nothing useful overflowing inside her head.

It’s not doing anything useful in the open either. It flops on the floor like it’s dead itself and she starts planning for the worst, just in case.

“And all those morons just believe him?” Snotlout huffs, trying to inflate himself but leaking out of a painful, obvious hole.

“Says he caught him in the act.” Eretson looks like he’s lost many races training to win this one and the enemy is pulling ahead in the final sprint. “I’m heading in, it sounds like Grisly has my boss half-convinced to hand the case over to the NWF.”

“Those idiots couldn’t find the big bad wolf if he blew their house down or, I don’t know, shot another cop!” Snotlout gestures at his shoulder, “and yeah, I just called them pigs, indirectly, but I meant it.”

“Which is why I’m going to go deal with this,” Eretson crosses the room and almost gingerly helps Snotlout out of the suit jacket, sliding it back on like it’s bulletproof and he thinks he’s going to need it. Underneath, Snotlout is wearing a scrub shirt with a thankfully dry blotch of red-brown blood on the shoulder above a square of thick gauze taped to the wound. “Get that shoulder re-bandaged at least.”

“No! I’m just going to bleed out on the floor to spite you, specifically.” Snotlout does his best to take the sweatshirt Astrid’s holding but his face goes even paler when he yanks. “I’m coming with you.”

“Jorgenson,” Eretson’s tone would be patient if it were wrapping around any other word, but now it’s ill fitting, chafing at the seams.

“Hiccup didn’t kill anyone, you know he didn’t, I know he didn’t, and I don’t give a shit what that creepy fucker says—”

“He already tried to kill you once, don’t be stupid enough to give him another chance.”

“He already proved his aim sucks once, you mean,” Snotlout is giving up the fight though, clammy sweat blooming across his forehead as he leans back against the arm of the chair, catching his breath. “Oh fuck off, you don’t have to be so smug about it.”

“You shouldn’t stay here,” Eretson checks his jacket pockets and pulls out a Ziploc bag with a handful of white pills in it and hands it to Snotlout who takes it, reluctantly grateful. “Either of you.”

“Oh we can’t stay here? You can’t kick me out of my own place, it doesn’t work like that,” Snotlout swallows one of the pills dry and winces as it sticks in his throat. It must be dry, like Astrid’s, like her automatic functions are on pause, waiting for permission to start working again. “And last time I checked, you still aren’t my commanding officer, so I’ll do whatever the fuck I want,” he says so that no one can say he didn’t.

“He can’t be anywhere on file,” Eretson tells Astrid, obviously done with the pointless argument, and she stands up straighter, glad for even the suggestion of something useful she can do. “Grisly might check there, especially now that he confessed his intentions, Snotlout is a liability.”

“I’ve always been a liability, thanks.” Snotlout rolls his eyes and Eretson’s jaw flexes at the comment. “Maybe we should go stay with Ruffnut, Grisly was scared of her for some reason.”

“No, the twins were suspects too, they gave information at the station,” Astrid thinks, tapping her finger on her chin and trying not to think about Hiccup’s developing penchant for touching her there. “Wait! I’ve got somewhere. Fishlegs didn’t give you his home address, did he?”

“No, would he have a record of any kind?”

“Absolutely not.” The first relief Astrid’s felt all day sweeps away just enough frantic anxiety to make room for dread, and Astrid doesn’t know any antidote for that but action. “Should I come to the station with you?”

“And leave me out?” Snotlout starts trying to stand up again but Eretson responds before he can put too much effort into it.

“You should stay out of it for now.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that?” The idea of backing off, of having less power in this already powerless situation, makes her want to scream. “He was with me last night, there’s no reason I couldn’t go down to the station and say so. I’ve been his alibi before, I am his alibi now. Someone has to listen that Grisly is behind this.”

“Last time you were his alibi, you ended up looking guilty by association,” Eretson reminds her.

“But—”

“And I got suspended and then shot,” Snotlout adds, forever helpful.

“Ok, but—”

“You need an alibi,” Eretson rubs his chin, “there’s no way Grisly won’t ask about you, you’ve been involved from the beginning.”

“She was with me,” Snotlout shrugs one shoulder, deflating a little against the chair, “no alibi like a cop alibi, right?”

“But I wasn’t.” Astrid is surprised to sound panicked, like even saying last night didn’t happen could take it from her somehow. Like lying could take the feeling that Hiccup’s apartment inexplicably feels like home away. That hasn’t faded, if anything it’s stronger, like being surrounded by his space is keeping her sane through the latest insane moment.

“That’s not bad,” Eretson halfway compliments, checking for his gun one more time, “that gives you a reason to leave the hospital too.”

“But I wasn’t with you last night,” Astrid shakes her head, “especially as a ‘reason for you to leave the hospital’ four days after you were shot—"

“Yeah, you were,” Snotlout starts texting someone, “it was super hot, I’ll tell people it was hot.”

“No, you won’t.” She tries to take his phone and he winces when he tries to hold it out of her reach.

“Too late,” he grins, “already told Ruffnut.”

“She won’t believe you!”

“She doesn’t have to, she just has to lie, and she’ll know that since she helped me sign out of the hospital.” He looks seriously at her, “the last thing Hiccup needs is you looking like an accomplice again and linking whatever Grisly says he caught him doing back to three other murders.”

“Never thought I’d say this,” Eretson clears his throat and looks purposefully at Snotlout, “but you’re right. Get somewhere safe, I’ll call when I can.”

“Ok, but before you go can you tell me I’m right again?” Snotlout asks as Eretson opens the door, “and maybe add in that I’m tall and muscular, because flattery is the best medicine.”

“You mean laughter,” Eretson deadpans, expression chiseled in stone as he shuts the door and leaves them in silence.

Astrid steps forward and locks it, trying to weigh whether she feels overwhelmed or entirely disconnected from everything that just happened. Maybe it’s both and that’s worse, and she lets out a breath that feels shaky but sounds slow.

“I’ll be right back,” Snotlout announces before disappearing to the bathroom, the sink turning on as soon as he shuts the door.

She lets herself think, for a second, what the morning would have been like if Hiccup hadn’t left. No less awkward with Eretson showing up here, of course. Then again, Eretson didn’t see Hiccup at the hospital, chances are seeing Snotlout out of it would have reactivated his Mother Hen Protocol and he would have been out of bed fussing, nudity be damned.

Snotlout would probably be furious at Hiccup acting like the wrong ratio of “sexy” and “nurse” while he wanted to be invasively congratulatory. Eretson might have actually combusted from awkwardness.

Grisly wouldn’t have been able to frame him. Or Grisly would have come here next, after wherever he found Hiccup. There’s too many variables missing, the tight setup she familiarized herself with in Eretson’s office sprouting roots and propagating itself into any number of possible outcomes.

The sink is still running in the bathroom and she can hear Snotlout splashing occasionally so she decides that the chances of him bleeding out in there are low, at least until she hears him hit the floor. The utter helplessness of being without her phone or the ability to search for anything on the internet gets the best of her and she grabs the remote off of the coffee table, turning on the TV and fiddling with inputs until she finds cable. Patriots re-runs, of course, and she mutes it before Snotlout can come out and decide it’s time for another of their great bonding marathons.

Like last night, apparently, which she can’t think about without thinking about Hiccup. Hiccup warm and safe, no part of him too far away for her to touch, their bedhead tangled together.

No, that won’t help anything. Getting somewhere safe might help Snotlout, but she doesn’t have Fishlegs’s number memorized or any way to call him. He must be working this morning though, since she isn’t.

If a few missed shifts get between her and safe harbor, she doesn’t know what she’ll do.

She’s looking for the news when she comes across a local channel, pausing when she recognizes Heather in an interview close up on a repeat of some Sunday night in-depth expose on the Grimborn murders.

“…course there’s something really compelling about looking at history through a modern lens, and I’m glad to see this unfortunate string of events connect people to the city’s past,” she says pleasantly while the camera pans up to show the Ripped Tavern’s pre-renovation grimy walls and a rack of Grimborn tee-shirts.

“I understand that the Berk PD has hired you as a Grimborn Expert to consult on the ongoing case?” A reporter that Astrid vaguely recognizes asks and Heather can’t seem to help but look a little smug.

Astrid’s thumb hovers over the channel button, her jaw twitching when she thinks about how happy Hiccup is to teach and learn and how imperious he isn’t, and she’s glad enough to have a distraction deflecting worry for frustration that she doesn’t change it.

“…really discuss that, given that the case is ongoing,” Heather continues with an almost flirtatious grin, like she’s getting a real kick out of keeping secrets only because she knows she’ll get to reveal them later, “but I think at this point in the investigation, the connection is inevitable. Obviously, whoever is committing these murders has not only a big Grimborn knowledge base but also a personal connection that they find motivating, for some reason.”

She thinks of Hiccup, motivated by seeing the city as something capable of surviving trauma and her stomach turns with the contrast to where he is right now.

“Given advances in modern forensics and the assumption that this ongoing string of murders will be solved, what do you think the chances are that it will provide insight into the original Grimborn murders?”

“The chances?” Heather snorts, “I can’t say anything about the chances, but whoever’s doing this really knows their stuff. I’m half tempted to visit their eventual cell and run a few of my pet theories by them.”

The bathroom door opens and Snotlout steps out, a fresh square of white gauze taped to his shoulder as he dries his face with the scrub shirt, pausing on the way to his closed bedroom door to frown at the TV, “Heather?”

“She’s talking about being hired to help with the case.”

“You can’t watch something normal for five minutes while I get change?” He mumbles on the way into his room, struggling with the knob for a second before getting it open and disappearing inside. “Nerd.”

“…paper recently mentioned the Admiral Haddock theory, do you think there’s any present connection to the Haddocks?”

Astrid didn’t know there was more than one. She didn’t know it was a family with a legacy aside from Hiccup and the freshly dusted diploma on the wall. It’s another link of the chain that Hiccup is somehow in the middle of as the noose tightens and she swallows hard, trying to focus on Heather’s words.

If a news channel is showing this as a rerun, that means there can’t be any news.

Except there’s so much that can’t be reported yet, and it’s not the first time recently she’s wished she knew less about the system that has her lying about whereabouts she’d never take back. She wishes she weren’t confronted with this reality, where Hiccup is in trouble and she has to contemplate what her life would look like without him in it.

“That theory is a joke,” Heather’s laugh is a little sharper, willing to lash out at the idea of feeling unheard, “it was the…the flat earth conspiracy of the day.”

“Can you explain what you mean by that?”

“It was…sensationalist and sensationalist on purpose, there’s no way that the Admiral could have had anything to gain from the murders.”

“So, you think whoever is committing the murders now has something to gain from it?” The reporter asks with a little too much interest and Heather is obviously reminded of something by an ear piece she’s not good at hiding.

“I really can’t discuss the current case.”

“Well, the bleeding stopped at some point,” Snotlout comes back out of his bedroom in a baggy black tee shirt that’s stretched at the neck like he struggled getting into it. The color makes him look paler and she almost advises him to change, but if Fishlegs is mad at her for missing work, a little pity might be on their side.

She thinks about asking Snotlout to use his phone to call a cab, like it’s nineteen ninety eight and people get their information from the news, but there are enough holes in this plan already that it shouldn’t matter if they get an Uber to the archives. The driver looks at Snotlout like Astrid is trying to use the first dregs of a zombie apocalypse to her advantage and she attempts to distract them with small talk, wondering how Ruffnut gets drivers to wait outside with a shovel.

It has been the longest few months of her life, and every city block dilates further. It feels like it takes hours to locate the service elevator down to the archives, but all of the lost time recondenses when she’s standing in front of Fishlegs’s desk, a half-dead Snotlout leaning on her shoulder and no miraculous news from Eretson propping her up.

She clears her throat, trying to remember if she’s ever missed a shift of another job and of course, coming up dry, “Hey, Fish.”

“Astrid?” He looks up, taking his one headphone out and jumping to his feet, “where have you been? I must have sent a hundred texts—”

“Sorry, I don’t have my phone, I know I missed…I don’t know how many shifts I missed but that’s not like me, I promise it’s not.”

“Seems like you’ve been doing a lot that’s ‘not like you’ since you started here.” Fishlegs crosses his arms just long enough for Astrid to freeze up. He looks mad, sure, but worried too and she holds out a placating hand.

“I can explain.”

“No, sorry,” he deflates, patting her shoulder apologetically and seemingly noticing Snotlout for the first time, eyes widening. “I was just so worried, with hearing how it went with the detective and knowing that I told him about Hiccup and the copier and—”

“It’s ok,” she cuts him off, shifting from foot to foot and debating whether she should offer Snotlout a chair or not. If she does, she’s half worried he won’t get back to his feet again, and he’s heavier than he looks, even after the blood loss. “I should explain, before I ask this favor, actually.”

“No, you don’t need to explain,” Snotlout insists, holding out his hand. His left hand, because his right is hanging lame at his side, “Snotlout.”

“Fishlegs.” He frowns at Astrid, “is it drugs?”

“See? He won’t help you if you explain. Do you want some?” Snotlout takes the bag out of his sweatpants pocket and holds it up. “Because if that’s what it takes—”

“Put those away,” Astrid hisses, helping Snotlout sit down in her office chair, “it’s not drugs, it’s—well, he has drugs because he just got shot, but—well, I need your help.”

“Back up, he just got shot?” Fishlegs sits on the edge of his desk, “who is he, again?”

“I just told you, I’m Snotlout.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“He’s a cop,” Astrid tries and Snotlout shushes her.

“Don’t lead with that, a lot of people don’t like cops—”

“We think Hiccup’s getting framed for murder, and we need to lay low, is your spare room still available?” She asks simply and Fishlegs narrows his eyes in his standard ‘more information required’ thinking face.

She tells him everything. Snotlout interjects with details she didn’t know, some of them he must have learned last night when he was evidently helping Eretson with the case. Fishlegs doesn’t ask much, and by the time she gets to this morning, her voice catching over describing how they learned that Grisly has Hiccup at the station for questioning, his frown is set in to the point that she worries she misjudged.

She was forced to trust Snotlout and Eretson and even Hiccup, in a way, if she didn’t want to go through all the hassle of making a formal harassment complaint. From the beginning, she chose to trust Fishlegs and if he throws that back on her now, she’s worried it would snap something tenuous deep inside her. An instinct that could be strong if it just has time to grow.

“Let me summarize. Instead of just taking me up on my offer to stay in my spare room before your apartment became the newest target of a Grimborn copycat serial killer,” Fishlegs pauses to swallow, “who you think is in league with the police, you got even more entrenched in the mystery, and now you’re asking me to essentially harbor two possible fugitives, one of whom was shot four days ago and might still have the well-connected murderer after him.”

Astrid squares her shoulders, “Yes. Please.” One please is just polite, but two is begging and she pauses, hoping she won’t have to and hating that she would.

“I’ll do it,” he nods, “I was just making sure I’m not biting off more than I can chew.”

“You must have a gigantic mouth, dude—”

“Thank you,” Astrid throws her arms around Fishlegs shoulders, effectively cutting Snotlout’s surely very complimentary statement off. “Seriously, thank you.”

“Hey, you’re welcome, no one would come up with a lie that elaborate for missing two shifts,” he pats her shoulder and she sighs, finally able to take an actual deep breath now that someone is sharing at least some of the weight on her shoulders.

“You haven’t met Hiccup,” Snotlout snickers and Fishlegs looks like he’s going to join in on the joke until he catches Astrid’s fallen expression and stops himself.

“I think I need a drink if I’m going to do this,” Fishlegs looks around at the stacks, the dust layers on the books separating stories that ended when they ended and those still growing with everyone who still picks them up. “I’ve never harbored fugitives before, but I think I can justify closing the archives for a day to learn the ropes.”

“That…sounds like the best plan I haven’t pulled out of my ass today,” Astrid laughs but gestures to the clock on the wall, “it is seven in the morning though.”

“Oh!” Snotlout perks up slightly, “I bet I know a place within our budget that’s probably open.”

#ripped #hiccstrid #modern au #serial killer tour guide au #coplout #lemon #for like a second but i don't know how the new rules work #fishlegs showing up at word 6200 and stealing the show #love him

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tysonrunningfox · 4 years

Note

“Is that like a nickname or something?” Snotlout’s lying back on the couch, tossing a box of tissues up in the air and catching it. He tries to lean up on his elbow, but it must hurt his stitches because he falls back again, the box hitting him in the face. “Because it’s stupid, and I hate it.” I lived for that moment...LIVED!!

He’s so stupid and I love him so much and also I’d die for him and he has carried this entire story on his brawny, stripper-like shoulders.

Also, writing this cracked me up and I’m so glad you noticed it!!

#ripped #coplout #my boy #tbh this paragraph helped me find my stride #because he's...like that #celtictreemuffin

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tysonrunningfox · 5 years

Text

Ripped: Part 17

Hey so this took forever because I had to edit it a bazillion times because...this chapter does some real heavy lifting. If none of you hate me just a little bit after this...I’ll be shocked...

Ao3

Astrid (2:37pm): yeah, sorry Fish, I’m not going to make it in to close tonight, I’m still at the station

Fishlegs (2:38pm): thanks for letting me know

Astrid (2:38pm): and I know I owe you, I’ll cover two of your shifts next week

Fishlegs (2:39pm): it’s slow anyway, just worry about keeping yourself out of jail

Astrid (2:39pm): not worried about that at all, I’ve barely been talked to

Fishlegs (2:40pm): that makes sense, given all the reasons to focus on Hiccup

Astrid (2:40pm): what reasons? Astrid (2:41pm): did eretson call you? What did you tell him? What reasons? Astrid (2:41pm): aside from the obvious bad luck, but they already know about all of that Astrid (2:42pm): Fish. Astrid (2:43pm): Fish. Legs. Answer me.

Eretson steps out of the interrogation room where he’s been talking to Ruffnut for what feels like forever, according to Astrid’s fully comatose ass and she stands up to hope for an update. Snotlout is leaning rigid against the wall across from her and he pretends not to notice Eretson until the detective addresses him.

“Jorgenson, the suspect says you were with her the night that she threatened the victim, can you attest to that? How serious did her threats seem?”

Snotlout scratches behind his ear and winces, “uh, I wouldn’t really say I’m a reliable witness for this one.”

“What do you mean you’re not a reliable witness?” Eretson’s face doesn’t move, Astrid half wonders if it still can.

“I mean that I’m…” Snotlout looks at her for help and she glares back at him, willing him to say something—anything—helpful. “Yeah, no, we fucked.”

“You slept with the suspect.” Nothing in Eretson’s miserable deadpan is a question.

“Yeah,” Snotlout snorts, quoting around his words with his fingers, “that’s what we did. ‘Sleep’. Uh-huh—“

“You slept with the suspect,” Eretson booms, his voice filling the sterile hallway and reverberating in tune with the throbbing in Astrid’s head. “The one time you were in the right place at the right time. The one time you could be fucking useful to an actual case—“

“I’m useful a lot, just because my life doesn’t revolve around you—“

“Not a reliable witness,” Eretson scoffs.

“It wouldn’t be ethical.” Snotlout crosses his arms, looking to Astrid for support, and her helplessness blooms into anger and she smacks his arm. “Hey! Assault on an officer—“

“I didn’t see anything,” Eretson shrugs.

“Not funny, that’s going to bruise.” He makes a big, stupid show of rolling his shoulder and Astrid glares at him.

“I’m not a reliable witness at this time,” Eretson sighs at the interrogation room door like it’s an obstacle he has no real interest in overcoming but he has to try anyway.

“Dude—“

“I think the soundproofing works both ways if you need to hit him more,” the detective whispers conspiratorially to Astrid, finally driven to something like humor, and she hates how much she wants to like him even when he has Hiccup on the other side of one of these doors.

“I will if it gets me out of here sooner,” she glances at the clock, resolving to get an answer from Fishlegs in person if he doesn’t text her back soon.

“Yeah, if you want assaulting an officer on your record, go ahead.” Snotlout is a familiar kind of antsy and furious and Astrid can’t help but relate to it after seven hours spent pacing a hallway and trying to put together all her friends’ futures out of barely overheard scraps.

Tuffnut’s credit and bar inheritance linking him to Gruffnut, Ruffnut’s too specific threats, and Hiccup’s knack for being at the wrong place at the wrong time are all spiraling, condensing on something Astrid feels looming even if she can’t see it. It’s like she’s looking at the sun, trying to find the source of the shadows while the answer hides in a dark spot in her vision.

“You aren’t even on duty, Jorgenson,” Eretson glares at the uniform Snotlout wore to look more official, and shakes his head, unimpressed. Maybe it’s Eretson’s sleeveless tee-shirt under his usual suit jacket or the dark circles under his eyes, like he spent all night working instead of planning his appearance, but his tolerance for Snotlout is even lower than usual.

Astrid has that in common with him.

“Why am I never on duty when things happen?” Snotlout snaps, forfeiting the staring contest and throwing his arms in the air.

“You aren’t, are you?” Eretson freezes, eyes narrowed, shoulders tense in clothes that suddenly look too small as his jaw flexes. “What are the chances of everything happening when you’re off duty?”

It’s a rhetorical question but Snotlout starts to answer anyway, counting on his fingers and rolling his eyes, “well considering two nights off a week, non-consecutive because fuck me, right? And you multiply that by three creepy murders and one gross foot, carry the—”

“In here, both of you,” the detective swings open the interrogation room door and practically tosses Snotlout inside with a firm grip on his upper arm. He ushers Astrid after him with a dash more patience, and then shuts the two of them in with Ruffnut. The sound proofing doesn’t go both ways, because Astrid can clearly hear the thud and squeak of Eretson stomping down the hallway in motorcycle boots that clash with Snotlout’s shined shoes even through a wall.

“Apparently if Eretson is in a bad mood, I get interrogated for being bad at math,” Snotlout stands by the table instead of sitting and Astrid stares at the stack of chairs in the corner, willing herself to get one.

The one-way mirror on the unfamiliar interrogation room wall sends chills up the back of her neck, triggering her rarely used flight response. There’s no fighting this, the lock on the door clicked automatically when it shut, and the looming feeling verges on oppressive.

“Why would he be in a bad mood?” Ruffnut snorts, “we’ve been having such a stimulating conversation.” She wiggles unperturbed eyebrows at Astrid and points to a bicep, mouthing something like ‘oh my God’.

“You realize you’re a murder suspect right now, right?” The shrill edge introducing itself into Astrid’s voice echoes off of the silent, watching walls.

“And that I’m right here,” Snotlout flexes anyway, his voice tight.

“All of you,” the door opens and Eretson shoves Hiccup and Tuffnut inside before turning and blocking Grisly in the doorway. “Not you.”

“How can I aid in the investigation if you shut me out of the interrogation?”

“Like he hasn’t been hassling me all day,” Hiccup mumbles, standing easily next to Astrid and twisting to stretch his back. She’d think he was being cavalier too if it weren’t for the straight, steady set of his shoulders and his never still hands hanging placid at his sides.

“Maybe we need some space to do our jobs without your creepy face butting into everything.” Snotlout doesn’t help anything and Eretson’s back stiffens as he forces his hand to relax.

“Shut up, Jorgenson.” He exhales and turns back to Grisly, white knuckled grip on the edge of the door, “this is still my case, Grisly, and I need the room.” He doesn’t wait for an answer before slamming it shut and this time, the click of the lock is a defensive measure.

“That’s basically what I said,” Snotlout huffs under his breath and Eretson ignores him except for an audible grinding of his teeth as he tosses a thick manila folder down onto the table.

“You,” he points at the twins, “have motive for Gruffnut Thorston’s murder. Jorgenson here has been off duty for every murder—”

“Consider this, maybe they knew if I was on duty, they wouldn’t get away with it—”

“Hiccup here finds the bodies,” Eretson plows forward, ignoring Snotlout’s interruption, “and sometimes takes Astrid, his alibi, along with him.” His sigh is heavy, exhausted, and Astrid hates the feeling of being engulfed by the slow expanse of his words, the truth of them filling every corner of the too small room. “Where’s the connection?”

“It’s The Venerable Grimdouche, obviously—”

“Shut up, Jorgenson!” Eretson starts pulling pictures out of the folder, some of them bloody, some of them blurry. Some of them streaked with sharp lines of glare from the too bright overhead light that must be in the evidence room. “One more sound out of your mouth not in direct answer to one of my questions—”

“But—”

“Sound, Jorgenson, not even word. Sound.” Eretson sits down but doesn’t look any smaller. If anything, he grows, joining his own bulk to the walls surrounding them. “And I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

Snotlout thinks about that for a second before gritting his teeth and waving Eretson silently on.

“How do you all know each other?”

“Well, Mr. Detective, sir, it all started twenty five years ago when I was a tiny little baby,” Tuffnut starts, “actually technically it starts like twenty-five years plus nine months ago, but I don’t remember that, thank God—”

“We’re twins, obviously,” Ruffnut, as always, caves to rationality only when she’s worried about her brother. “Astrid was my college roommate.”

“And like I said, I met Astrid when she moved into 324 Harbor Road and I was giving a tour to that address,” Hiccup says like he’s rehearsed it so often it’s boring now, a pneumonic device for a test he passed ages ago.

“How did you meet Miss Thorston?” Eretson makes a note and directs his next question at Snotlout in particular, who points silently at his chest and raises an eyebrow. “Do you need me to use shorter words?”

Snotlout’s jaw twitches as his red cheeks verge on purple, “I was just checking you weren’t going to arrest me if I made a sound.”

“Of course not, I asked you a question.”

“I met Ruffnut when I went over to Astrid’s apartment to…” he looks nervously at Hiccup, who shrugs, defeated, and waves Snotlout on, “well, you see, after Astrid learned that Hiccup was giving tours to her house, she started saying it was harassment, and I went over there to cool things down, you know? Let her know that Hiccup is the harmless kind of weirdo, which is still absolutely true, by the way, you think that string bean could kill someone?”

“I’m asking the questions here, Jorgenson.” Eretson turns to Astrid next, looking at her like she’s a panel of wall he’s only recently been told hides a secret passage. “What did you know about your apartment when you moved in?”

“That it was cheap?” Her blood rushes in her ears as she anticipates the next question.

“Were you aware of the Viggo Grimborn connection to that address?”

“Viggo Grimborn?” Tuffnut perks up, “wait, you guys think this has something to do with Viggo Grimborn? Why didn’t you say something?”

“I just did,” Snotlout crosses his arms, “I just said that Venerial Gono—”

“Jorgenson!” Eretson points at the cuffs hanging loose from the corner of the table. “What do you know about Viggo Grimborn, Mr. Thorston?”

“Only everything,” Tuffnut scoffs, “what does Gruffnut have to do with Viggo Grimborn?”

“He was found exactly at the second victim’s murder site,” Hiccup says gently and Astrid feels another jolt telling her to run. “The second victim was at the third site, the first was at the fourth.”

“Alice Roosevelt didn’t die in Berk, everyone who knows anything knows that,” Tuffnut laughs and looks around, surprised no one is laughing with him. “Come on, the secret fourth Grimborn victim? The Bright’s disease connection? Astrid, did you even read the dossier I gave you?”

The dossier.

“Roosevelt?” Eretson is good at his job. He’s competent, as Astrid noticed immediately when he appeared in her hallway, stony faced and professional with a video of her trespassing. It seemed like a good thing then. “Are you suggesting you know something about a theory concerning Theodore Roosevelt, future president of the United States, and the Grimborn murders?” He doesn’t wait for an answer to the question, digging through his folder for a picture near the bottom.

It’s Tuffnut’s binder, the one Astrid hasn’t thought about since she realized she and Hiccup had overheard a murder on their midnight tour. The one she’d given to him as punishment for making her read the Admiral Hiccup Haddock book.

“That’s it!” Tuffnut nods, “I’m so glad it made it to the proper authorities, I’ll assume you’ll get right on the suggested action in Appendix AB, the sweeping of national park memorials?”

“This binder was found at the scene of Jennifer Franklin’s murder.”

“That’s my bad,” Hiccup talks too fast, hands finally flailing, but it’s too late. “Astrid gave it to me when I dropped her off at her house after our tour and then when I was walking back to my place and—you know, found the—I dropped it.”

“I’d like to talk to Miss Hofferson alone for a moment,” Eretson gets up and opens the door, waving out towards the lobby, “the rest of you can wait outside. Give the front desk any updates on your information, we should be about done for today.”

“I’ll stay,” Hiccup volunteers, looking back at Astrid with wide green eyes.

“No, I should,” Snotlout insists, squaring up against Eretson in the doorway, like he’s going to shove his way in, but Astrid shakes her head.

“No, it’s fine, I’ve got it.”

All four of them are still peering through as Eretson closes the door.

“Sit down, Miss Hofferson.”

She takes Ruffnut’s chair and folds her hands on her lap to stop them from shaking.

“I talked to Fishlegs Ingerman,” Eretson starts, frustration melting away from his expression as he finds himself oriented on a new path, “and I’d like to run a timeline of events past you. First, you move into your apartment at 324 Harbor Road, then you’re startled by someone giving a Viggo Grimborn tour past the property. As I learned from Jorgenson tonight, he came by your apartment to protect Mr. Haddock from yet another trespassing charge and at that point, met Miss Thorston.”

“That’s all correct so far,” Astrid nods, torn between letting her mind rush ahead or focusing on every nuance coming out of Eretson’s mouth. Then again, she knows better than anyone that his perspective is the only one that matters now.

“At the Berk Archives, where you work with Mr. Ingerman, you asked him to help you solve the Grimborn murders as a way of stopping the tours.” He drums his fingertips on the table like he’s keeping a beat for his thoughts. “At some point, Mr. Thorston gave you his compiled theory—”

“Dossier.” She doesn’t want to hear the next part but can’t think of how to stall.

“Mr. Haddock took you on a private Grimborn tour on the night of Jennifer Franklin’s murder, there is video evidence placing the two of you near the murder site at the approximate time of the event, and now I know that the binder found at the scene was until recently in your possession.” His voice ramps up, more confident than loud and scarier for it, “the only previous evidence for Mr. Haddock not being at the scene of the crime was that he was walking you home.”

She nods, ‘previous’ floating like a ghost of the situation an hour ago.

“Then, the night of Dave Ralston’s murder, you were not only with Mr. Haddock on the tour you loathed so much, but you’re his alibi for where he was the hour before his tour, the window of time in which the murder was committed.”

“Fishlegs was there too.”

Eretson flicks through his notes and his jaw works silently for a second before he looks up at her, eyes narrowed to read the fine print on her forehead.

“You joined the tour in progress because Mr. Haddock was struggling to keep it moving.”

“I did,” she tells the truth because she doesn’t know what else she’d say. Some detached part of her is fascinated with this narrative, wondering how else the truth can twist around these moving benchmarks and warp into an unrecognizable picture.

“Dave Ralston’s foot was mailed from the archives on a day you were working there. Jorgenson and Mr. Haddock frequented the bar that Gruffnut Thorston had fraudulently bought under your friend Mr. Thorston’s name. Miss Thorston had been looking for him for months but hadn’t had any luck tracking him down.”

“Ruffnut put that together herself,” Astrid swallows hard, “she was with Snotlout and he mentioned something about Gruff’s and she took a risk—”

“They wouldn’t know each other if it weren’t for you. And you were leaving Gruff’s bar when you discovered Gruffnut Thorston’s body.” Eretson slides a picture across the table then. A picture of an alley with a disjointed body and blonde dreadlocks smeared across bloody concrete.

Astrid’s nose is numb as she looks steadily at the detective, “all of that is circumstantial and beyond that, none of it is forensic.”

“I’ll be in touch,” he stands up and opens the door, waving her through with frosty professionalism, “it’d be best for you to stay in town.”

The twins are nowhere to be seen, but Hiccup and Snotlout are talking by the front door. Snotlout sees Astrid first and taps Hiccup’s arm, nudging him to look up. Astrid forces her chin up at their instant worry, swallowing hard against the paralyzing fear trying to well in her throat. She’s not scared of people or places or things, but institutions are different. Institutions built on ideas that are grounded by fear.

It doesn’t feel particularly strong to be scared of fear right now.

“Hey, what’s up?” Hiccup rests his hands on her upper arms and rubs like he thinks she’s cold. Maybe she is, she definitely doesn’t care right now. “You know, he didn’t have to kick me out of the room if he wanted to make fun of Snotlout.”

“Apparently being an alibi is actually a kind of a shitty alibi to have,” she sighs and lets Hiccup pull her sideways against the wall to make room for someone passing.

The crisp footfalls pause, leaving the hallway in eerie silence until Snotlout speaks up, louder for having been silenced in the interrogation room.

“What do you want, Grisly?”

“Eretson is trying so hard to shut me out,” Grisly shrugs as Astrid turns to face him and the cold hits all at once, “I have to search for my information elsewhere.”

“Right,” Hiccup’s arm lands reassuringly across her shoulders, “you probably didn’t get much from making me look at mutilated corpses all day while describing how they got that way.”

“I mean, he probably got hard,” Snotlout mumbles under his breath and Grisly’s falsely pleasant expression shatters for an instant into a wolfish glare, more starving than his usual malignant patience. “Big weekend plans?”

“I don’t know what conclusions Eretson jumped to, Astrid,” Grisly says her name like a brag, “but rest assured, I’ll set his misgivings straight soon enough.”

“Really? We didn’t bond today?” Hiccup snorts, “you don’t want to chat about our weekends?”

“Well, I’m sure you two will be together,” Grisly laughs, poison dipped nails on a chalkboard, “however young Hiccup here managed to convince you that he’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, we all have eyes, Grisly, we can see she’s way fucking hotter than him,” Snotlout crosses his arms, “Get to a point or go start skinning cats or whatever you do off the clock.”

“Thanks for summing that up,” Hiccup nods at Snotlout and Grisly and then looks at the door, “I’ve had about enough police station for the millennia, how about you?”

“Fair,” she tries not to feel the chilled pinpoints of Grisly’s eyes on her face as she nods, “I just want to go home.”

“Oh,” he lowers his voice and even Snotlout has the social grace to look away, but Grisly’s still listening, frozen in the hallway with his gray uniform casting all of the walls into grayscale, “I was thinking, given the circumstances it might make more sense for you to come back to my place.”

“Given the circumstances,” she parrots, tone dull like ‘dossier’ interrupting Eretson’s interrogation. “I’m not scared to be at my place, Hiccup. It’s not like the locks haven’t been updated since eighteen-eighty-three.”

Astrid has never been one to swerve. Swerving implies losing control somewhere between this course and the next one. Astrid pivots. She finds one thing she trusts to stay still, one anchor in an otherwise unwieldy situation and she plants her heel, relying on the friction until she has a new direction.

“I didn’t say you were scared.” Hiccup is scared, she can see it and it makes her want to be stronger. To ground herself even in the midst of all these impossible, too clear theories spinning around in her head.

She told Hiccup that he didn’t seem to have much choice how involved he is in all of this, but maybe that’s not the same for her. Even if it is, she’s not ready to accept that yet.

“I’m fine at my place.” If she knows anything for sure, it’s that swerving is how people fall. “Where are the twins?”

“They’re talking to Johnson about the wrong name on the bar, it’s going to take a while,” Snotlout interrupts, ushering them away and glaring at Grisly one last time, “let’s ditch the creepy, nosy audience.”

“Oh, Jorgenson?” Grisly calls before Snotlout can get the front door open and he reluctantly turns around. “I talked to your superior officer, we agree it would be best if you were suspended for the remainder of this investigation. I’m sure you understand.”

“What?” Snotlout and Hiccup snap simultaneously.

“Given your friends continued involvement, we can’t risk any leaks. You can turn in your gun and badge at the front desk.” Grisly nods condescendingly before turning and disappearing into a back room.

Snotlout has to stay to fill out paperwork regarding his suspension and Hiccup offers to walk Astrid home, but she can’t accept. Not because she doesn’t want to or because his falsely blasé presence isn’t comforting, that would be easier, but because she has to go find Fishlegs and figure out what he told Eretson.

It's the truth, of course, just colored wrong and on an edge, like an Enquirer through a standard lens. She doesn’t tell him what happened at the station.

Hiccup texts, making fun of Grisly mostly, and maybe that’s what feels normal enough for Astrid to sleep after checking the deadbolt a third time. In fact, she oversleeps and somewhere between rushing to work and settling into the monotony of sorting through probably useless scraps of paper, she forgets to dwell on every detail of Eretson’s realization. Worse, she starts working through them, trying to see how they fit.

She hates that she’s still thinking about this logically, like she’s studying a case from afar instead of sitting vulnerable in the middle of one. She hates that she doesn’t blame Eretson for the targeted round of questions after her unfortunate circumstances clicked in a room full of suspicious people, all of their connections orbiting around her.

Above all, Astrid resents that she expects handcuffs when someone knocks at her door a little while after she gets home from work.

Her umbrella is still by the door and her hand hovers above the handle as she looks through the peephole.

It’s not Eretson. It’s not handcuffs at all, after yesterday.

It’s Hiccup’s top hat sitting a few inches lower than she’s used to on Snotlout’s head and she forgets the weaponized umbrella and opens the door. He claps his hand over his eyes and she cocks her hip, arms crossed.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re not flashing me or anything, right?” He peeks between his fingers with a shit-eating grin, like he just invented humor with that inane statement and Astrid almost slams the door in his face. “Kidding, geez, I know you’re into the hat, so I was worried it would be like reflex to—”

“Again, with less patience this time, what are you doing?” She sighs, caught between inviting him in and enduring the twitchiness that sets in whenever her front door is open for too long.

“I thought we could hang out,” he holds up a six pack in his hand and she narrows her eyes, scanning his expression. Usually, he doesn’t look much like Hiccup. Not nearly as much as Astrid looks like her own cousins, anyway, but right now, when he’s worried about her and lying badly about it, the resemblance is obvious.

“You’re here to guard my apartment, aren’t you?” She huffs, “I told you, I’m fine—”

“Yeah, you were really insistent about that at the station,” he rolls his eyes, “made you look super innocent, Astrid, good job. You know who wouldn’t be afraid of a murderer coming to their apartment? Someone who is the murderer.”

She bites the inside of her cheek to hold back a useless, childish retort, but her nostrils still flare with the desire to blurt it out anyway. The standoff lasts until Snotlout breaks eye contact to look over her shoulder into her place and she steps aside.

“Come on in.” She shuts the door behind him and locks it, double checking the deadbolt with practiced fingers. “Was Ruffnut busy or something?” She asks and his shrug is unconvincing as he messes with the top hat on his head. The hat and the curtains are the only things that seem like they belong in the space right now. “Or did Hiccup ask you to keep an eye on me? Because that is such—”

“Hey, Hiccup doesn’t tell me what to do,” Snotlout opens a bottle on the edge of the countertop like he’s never had to worry about a security deposit, but he at least he offers it to her first. She takes it, waving the rest of his explanation on. “And Eretson is a pompous, tall dickhead who thinks he knows everything, but all of this creepy shit has been happening nights when I’m off duty.”

“I thought you were suspended,” she swallows back her flippant tone as soon as his face falls, “not—that’s not the same as off duty, that’s all.”

“No, suspended with pay is different than being off duty, since I’m suspended without pay it’s the same thing,” he opens another beer and grumbles under his breath, “if I’d shot someone on accident, keep the money coming, but make friends with Hiccup’s new, equally unlucky girlfriend…”

“If you were just going to get suspended anyway, maybe you should have vouched for Ruffnut when it mattered.”

He shakes his head, like he has grounds to be disappointed in her. “Oh, you mean before you came from behind and took the top suspect spot?” He says plainly and she appreciates the candor. “And I was serious, it would be kind of shitty for me to act as a witness here, especially because I was with her when some psycho gutted Gruffnut.”

“You couldn’t have just said that she wasn’t actually threatening him?” She fiddles with the soggy corner of her beer bottle’s label.

“Not in uniform,” he sighs, “not knowing what she’d do to convince me say something like that if she was the psycho who gutted Gruffnut.”

“She’s not.”

“I know that,” he scowls, “and Eretson knows that and he’ll find something that doesn’t make me one of those crooked cops who can be sucked off—“

“I don’t need to know that,” Astrid hits him again with less intent this time.

“I never get any appreciation for trying to do the right thing.”

“Why should you?” She frowns, “yet. Maybe I’ll appreciate your…near decency later when everything’s done turning out ok.”

“Right, like it’ll take that long before I do something heroic and win you over.” He winks and it’s all wrong under the brim of Hiccup’s hat.

“So you came over here to befriend me?” She raises an eyebrow, leaning back against her only chair and crossing her ankles. Having him here is comfortable enough for her to prod the conversation along. Not necessarily familiar, but better than being alone and jumping at every creak outside her door.

“I already told you, you’re my bro by extension.” He’s too sincere, which makes it awkward that they’ve discovered murder victims and been suspects together. “Plus, if we’re going get this friend-group going without Eretson tagging along or Ruffnut…” The sincerity deepens, uncomfortable, and Astrid bites back an apology on Ruff’s behalf. “Anyway, we’ve got to form cross-group bonds.”

“Right,” she nods, “for the good of the friend-group. That’s what I’m really concerned about right now.”

“Why do you think I’m taking this upon myself?” The bravado is back as he leans back against her counter, taking off Hiccup’s hat and twirling it on his finger. “You and Hiccup have been so preoccupied being Virgin Gorgonzola nerds—”

“Virgin Gorgonzola?”

“The first creepy killer guy, whatever, I don’t listen to any of the shit Hiccup says about him.” Snotlout is purposefully stupid in a way Astrid could never manage, even when it would have been convenient or even kind.

“Let me get this straight, you’re saying Hiccup and I are too preoccupied with Viggo Grimborn,” she enunciates carefully and he rolls his eyes, “and it’s bad for this ‘friend-group’ concept you keep mentioning?”

“It’s what he did with Heather,” Snotlout pauses and Hiccup’s hat tilts to one side, “you’ve met Heather, right? Black hair, really hot, works at the geeky bar where Hiccup’s weirdo tours start?” Something in her expression must prompt him to rephrase because he continues, “not that you’re not hot, you’re super hot, it’s just different kinds of hot. She’s like ‘stab me when I’m not looking, and I have no idea what I did’ hot and you’re like ‘punch me in the face in public and I know exactly what I did’ hot.”

She doesn’t expect to laugh, but that’s the first statement she hasn’t had to take seriously in what feels like forever.

“Not sure what that says about you, but thanks, I guess.” She weighs that and wrinkles her nose, “maybe I get you and Ruffnut a little more now.”

“Whatever, that’s not what we’re talking about,” he scowls at the new mention of Ruffnut, “when Hiccup was first starting to give his tours he met Heather and it was nice until Hiccup was too obsessed with Grimborn,” he says it right, pointedly humoring her, “to notice that Heather had a raging crush on him and everything got weird.”

“Didn’t Heather steal his research?” The concept of Heather having a crush on Hiccup settles off-kilter in Astrid’s stomach. Like that time Snotlout gave her a ride home after the second body was discovered, she feels silly to care about kisses and insignificant little spikes of jealousy when people are dying, but she can’t help it.

“Right, his research,” Snotlout quotes with an outturned pinky, holding his beer like he’s ready for tea with the queen. “Is that what you’re after? His research?” The protective but still suggestive way that Snotlout asks the question is perversely sweet, like he’s a doting chaperone who cares more about Hiccup than the concept of virtue.

“I can do my own research,” she diverts diplomatically and Snotlout frowns.

“I was using research as slang for di—”

“I’m aware of that,” she cuts him off, “I just don’t really think it’s any of your business.”

“You’d think that, but given our apartment’s thin old walls, I’ve heard plenty. None of it complaining.” He raises his beer in a toast five feet away from her and she wonders how shame is distributed among people and how Snotlout’s got lost. “Not that I’d listen to a friend on purpose, that’s a dick move.” His expression is more conciliatory than apologetic, offering to take honest responsibility for his delivery without promising to change.

The first time she met Snotlout, she felt a flash of kinship, because he cleans up after Hiccup the way she does after Ruffnut. His acceptance that he’s some shade of asshole deepens it further because lately she’s been struggling to walk the tight-rope between black and white.

“It might be easier for us to be friends if you weren’t so involved in my hypothetical sex life.”

“No,” he doesn’t even pause to think about that suggestion, “it’s way easier to try and get Hiccup laid than it is to come to terms with being friends with such a nerd.”

“Hey!” She looks for something to throw at him and settles for a box of tissues on her crooked coffee table.

“Don’t spill the beer—”

A dull, sure knock in the courtyard reverberates through the old, heavy window, the sound dodging through pulled back curtains and stalling Astrid’s laughter in her throat.

“And you said you weren’t scared,” Snotlout snorts, tone light but face serious as he goes to look out the window, shoulders stiff to fill a uniform he’s not wearing. “Oh shit, that’s probably the pizza I ordered, looks like the outside door is locked.”

“That door’s unlocked until ten,” she tries to shake off the startled tremor in her chest, “and you ordered a pizza? How’d you know I was even going to let you in?”

“I had the hat,” he puts the top hat back on his head, “I’ll go get it.”

She’s not scared. She’s balking like a horse who won’t cross a frozen river, caught between fear and stubbornness. She should offer to go with him, but that would be admitting it’s a two-person job to collect a pizza from the front door and she’s been too righteous to back down now.

The only thing worse than being scared is getting used to it, adapting to it, living with it like a roommate she never wanted.

“Sure,” she nods and the knock echoes again, the sound magnified by the narrow hallway as Snotlout opens the front door.

“Don’t worry, if it’s the murderer I’ll just bore them to death with my Hiccup impression,” he tips the top hat at her with a nasal ‘milady’ on the way out.

Outside, it looks like the pizza guy is giving up, disappearing behind the ‘Al, I. Safe’ wall on the way. Snotlout sees him though, jogging to catch up, the hat casting a long shadow in the sallow circle of the street light. There’s a pause just long enough for her to feel stupid.

The door is old, it probably locked behind Snotlout or was stuck shut with some mud and the pizza guy didn’t want to yank on it. She really needs to stop jumping at every little sound, especially given that she knows the other murders respected modern structures. They weren’t in the condos, they were out back at approximated locations. Hell, even if some crazy person is targeting her place, it’s more likely there’ll be a body in the courtyard.

The courtyard is hardly even her place. It’s her building, her sphere, sure, but off-center.

The sudden pop is so loud it rattles the window and Astrid flinches, sure the glass is about to shatter. The second pop comes before she has time to breathe or think or restart her heart.

Gunshots don’t echo like fireworks do.

Gunshots pulse, singular jolts of force against the wall of air, shifting reality a meaningful increment where fireworks just fizz and pop, making a scene for no reason at all. Gunshots echo off of old courtyard walls like flickers of remembered violence, and the throbbing leaves the pause between Astrid’s heartbeats feeling like dead silence.

She grabs the umbrella and runs outside.

#ripped #hiccstrid #modern au #serial killer tour guide au #coplout #gun tw #ngl i've been looking forward to this one ever since I had the idea like two months ago #working towards this moment

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tysonrunningfox · 5 years

Text

Ripped: Part 18

Hey so uhhhhh...here

Ao3

Before the condos went in, the East side of Downtown Berk was five generations of tacky all stacked together in narrow, street-facing Victorian buildings. The factories and lodging houses were mostly converted into apartments during the first world war, when Berk’s harbor was necessary to the war effort and suddenly people could regularly afford more than nightly rent. Then prohibition took effect and internal bathrooms were hidden to act as stills, speakeasies like Gruff’s used to be were nestled inconspicuously into the mouths of alleys, adding to the city center’s labyrinth. The depression brought back the web of shantytowns that again depleted for the war effort.

The forties and fifties brought back growth, but it stayed inside for the most part, those valanced rectangular windows looking in on mid-century modifications returning fifty-year-old lofts back to the open floor plan they’d had as workhouse accommodations. Cars replaced buggies and the weekly markets became grocery stores. The sixties and seventies meant avocado green refrigerators and shag carpet, and people ran cable through tight nooks in the old brick walls or mounted satellite dishes to sloped roofs.

By the eighties, things started to slow down, between the commercial fishing lane closing due to pollution and the particle board monstrosities down south gradually becoming more affordable than the city. That’s when Hiccup’s dad started on the force, clearing out squatters and enforcing the rules as the government turned some of the less historical buildings into public housing. The nineties were quieter, the streets respecting Stoick Haddock’s vast influence enough to stay clean.

Then Berk University got ahead of the dot-com bubble and an influx of college students started filling up cheap housing. And then they had the money not to waste time winding fiberoptic cable through a hundred years of walls built with no concept of building code, so they started building from the ground up, rewriting a city that had always embraced edits.

Hiccup stares up at the condo façade from the sidewalk in front of it, eyes following crisp white trim against pastel panels. The balconies above him are covered in houseplants and bikes that are necessitating the city’s replacement of old cobblestone in favor of asphalt bike lanes. The windows are double paned and soulless, their locks visible from four stories down.

“Hiccup?” A voice startles him from his architectural roast: urban condo edition, and he whips around to see Ruffnut, dressed for an office and holding an envelope in one hand. He’d warn her against walking alone at dusk, but they’re far enough from Astrid’s apartment that it doesn’t matter.

That and it would be a really creepy thing to say, so he’s glad he stopped himself.

“Hey, Ruff,” he looks between her and the door to the complex, “do you live here? Or…”

“Right,” she snorts, “I pay my rent with the family gold.”

“Oh, I figured,” he gestures at a sign advertising new units, starting in the mid eight-hundreds, “paying that much for a cardboard shoebox must be so reasonable for you with your connections.”

“All my connections, sure, a bunch of Gruffnuts.” She smacks her leg with the envelope and lowers her voice, “apparently the copy of the deed with Tuffnut’s signature forged on it was illegally downloaded at this address a couple of weeks ago.”

Hiccup’s eyes twitch automatically to the Neighborhood Watch Force seal engraved on the main door above a phone number and the number for a main office suite in the building. It would make sense if Grisly was the one to send the deed to the twins, especially since it was the only thing connecting Tuffnut to Gruff’s murder. And if Tuffnut hadn’t been connected, he wouldn’t have been questioned, and he never would have recognized the dossier, which connects the entire case back to Astrid.

Yes, it’s another whole basket of leaps adding onto Hiccup’s probable bushel of leaps at this point, but the dark hole that settles in his stomach when Grisly says Astrid’s name is as solid as the flat poured, brand new sidewalk he’s standing on.

He just needs something, a scrap of evidence that’s probably obvious in unit 110 of this exact building.

“Oh,” he tries to sound distracted, bored even, “so you’re looking into that?”

“I guess not,” she sighs, “I was expecting one of Gruffnut’s sleazy friends’ house or something. Anyone affording this place surely has something better to do than rip off my brother.”

“Maybe it’s someone working here,” Hiccup shrugs, “I mean think about it, the Neighborhood Watch Force office is here and they probably have all sorts of access after partnering with the police.”

“Why are you here?” Ruffnut raises an eyebrow, not as easy to lead as Hiccup had originally hoped.

She’s Astrid’s friend though, she saw how uncharacteristically addled Astrid was when Eretson wanted her alone.

“Hear me out,” he pauses until she nods him along, “ok, so I think Grisly has something to do with all of this.”

“Grisly?” She frowns, “the silver fox at the precinct with the unfortunate twin kink?”

“Huh?”

“The guy in gray.” The shake of her head is pointedly disgusted in him for his lack of vision, “with the Russian accent.” She waits for him to catch up, “you think he killed Gruffnut?”

“Not in so many words,” Hiccup winces, “or maybe—it’s just a feeling, but after yesterday with Eretson—”

“What is up with the cops around here, by the way?” She grins like he’s not the wrong audience to admire Snotlout’s biceps with. “Anyway, whatever, get to your point.”

“I already did. I think Grisly has some kind of influence or part in what’s going on.” He bites his lip before continuing, hoping he found the right company to say this. It’s something he would have said to Heather, back when she cared about the discovery of it all, but he can’t say that even she would have really gone along with it. Investigating a very much inhabited building with a security force is different than a boarded-up basement no one would buy because of the grotesque murder committed in it a century ago. “And I’m trying to figure out how to check out his office.”

“So you hop right from a hunch to breaking and entering?” She folds the envelope and tucks it into her pocket.

“After yesterday, Eretson thinks Astrid has something to do with the murders, and that’s entirely my fault.”

“Did you bring a lock pick or black spray paint or pantyhose or are we just doing this?” Ruffnut rubs her hands together and looks at the doors.

“Pantyhose?” He snorts, “I was going for more of a modern leg-line—wait, we?” He looks at her surprised and she shrugs.

“You’re crazy, I like crazy, I’m in. And it’s for Astrid.” She takes a step forward, “plus, if your hunch is right, maybe we can figure out who printed out this deed. Is the door locked?”

“I haven’t checked,” Hiccup points at the hours listed on the glass, “it says it closes at six though, and I don’t like the ‘appointment only’ in the fine print.”

Just then a woman walks mostly past the inside of the doors then freezes, squinting out at them and cracking the door to peek her head out. She has an ID badge around her neck and reading glasses pushed up onto her graying hair.

“Are you the Bensons?”

“Bensons?” Ruffnut asks.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m waiting for a young couple who applied for a condo online, but I guess that’s not you. Sorry!”

“N—”

“Yes,” Ruffnut cuts Hiccup off, her tone surprisingly confident, “that’s us. I’m sorry, I’m not used to the new name yet! Traffic!”

“I heard about that accident on the interstate and assumed you must have been stuck in traffic,” the woman opens the door and gestures them inside, “this shouldn’t take too long though, all the paperwork looks good. I assume you just want to have a look at the place before signing everything.”

“Thank you for accommodating us,” Hiccup looks around as the woman locks up behind them. When Ruffnut catches his eye she shrugs, surprisingly calm through the change in plans.

“Oh, it’s no problem, my office is right over here,” she leads them down a sterile hallway that belongs in a bank or medical center, the walls lined with black and white pictures of the buildings torn down to build this monstrosity.

She opens the door of Unit 130, right next to a shadowed Unit 110 and Hiccup grabs Ruffnut’s elbow to stop her from entering the woman’s office.

“I noticed on the door that Unit 110 is supposed to house the neighborhood security office,” he asks, trying to sound more like a theoretical ‘Benson’, who is apparently buying a condo, than himself, “is it closed at six on a Friday? That doesn’t seem very responsible.” Mr. Benson, the condo buying adult, is very concerned with how responsible people are.

“Oh, Grimmel is in all the time, you’ll see when you move in,” the woman laughs like old ladies do when Snotlout helps them across the street, “he introduces himself to all of our new residents as Mr. Grisly and acts all tough, but don’t worry, he warms up quick and everything has been so much quieter around here since he started.”

“Quieter?” Hiccup follows the woman into her office and sits down next to Ruffnut in the chairs on the other side of her desk, “what do you mean by that?”

“Given that you checked for security, I’m sure you’ve heard all those stories about how this used to be a bad part of town,” she rolls her eyes, “that was ages ago, we’ve really cleaned it up around here. Most people in the building work nearby, it’s a real community of young urban professionals like yourselves.” She pushes a stack of papers towards them and starts flipping through, “when was the wedding again?”

“The wedding?” Hiccup squawks and looks at Ruffnut, who has produced a ring and slid it onto her left ring finger since he last looked at her.

“Oh, it was just two months ago,” she winds her fingers through Hiccup’s and he freezes. He was just lying to get in the building, he didn’t think he’d end up in someone’s office in front of real estate papers, much less holding Astrid’s best friend’s hand while she’s wearing a mysteriously obtained ring.

Is this binding if Mr. Benson has to sign anything?

“Newlyweds,” the woman shakes her head affectionately and Hiccup nods, letting his eyes dart to the corners to check for security cameras. He doesn’t see any, but he didn’t see Grisly’s camera on the midnight tour either. “Oh! I just remembered, there’s one blank your income information that’s not quite filled out.” She points a manicured finger at a blank line labeled ‘Title’ above a number for income that Hiccup definitely doesn’t make in a decade. Maybe pretending to be the responsible Mr. Benson has some merit. “We just need your title to double check with the company.”

“Oh that’s my honey-pants,” Ruffnut coos, “he’s so modest, he just got a promotion and doesn’t like to brag.”

“Well, it’s not bragging when you report that number for taxes,” the woman rolls her eyes and stands up, “while you finish these up, I’ll go get the keys to the place. They just got the new backsplash in and it looks amazing.”

“Sounds great!” Ruffnut says too enthusiastically and the office door shuts, leaving them in silence.

“What the hell was that?” Hiccup disentangles his hand from hers, “and where’d you get that ring?”

“It’s fake,” she looks at her hand, “or mostly fake, it’s for emergencies.”

“Right, most emergencies can be dealt with by pretending to be married, of course.” He deadpans, looking back at the door, “we should go, this isn’t working.”

“You’re giving up on our marriage after only two months? I didn’t take you for a quitter when I said those vows—”

“Ruff—”

“On a beach in Mexico and Snotlout and Eretson were both groomsmen and their rented formal speedos matched the color of the Caribbean.” She grins at him and he sighs, looking across the desk and trying to think.

There’s a key ring right in front of the woman’s chair, a tag on it clearly labelled ‘Benson’, and he takes it, tossing it up and down in his palm.

“While you happen to be describing my dream wedding, and we should talk centerpieces later, I have a better plan.” He lets the keyring dangle from his finger, “obviously, these aren’t in the condo. And even more obviously, she can’t see very well since she missed them on the desk right in front of her.”

“That’s not a plan, Sherlock Condo.”

“Funny,” Hiccup hides the keys in his pocket when he sees the woman coming back down the hallway, “just follow my lead, alright?”

“As long as it’s clear that I wear the pants in this relationship,” Ruffnut grabs a handful of his ass and squeezes just as the door opens. “We can’t wait to see the place, right honey-buns?”

“So excited!” His voice cracks and the woman looks suspiciously at Ruffnut’s arm.

“I was sure I left the keys up there, but I must have brought them down,” she starts sifting through the biggest drawer behind her desk and Hiccup makes his move, edging out of Ruffnut’s reach on the way.

“Here! I’ll help,” he purposefully fumbles the stack of papers they were just signing, sending loose leaf and a pile of knick-knacks all over the floor. “Oh no! I’m so sorry!”

“He’s a real klutz,” Ruffnut explains as Hiccup kneels down and starts spreading the mess, “outside of the bedroom, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m sure she does, babe, you’re not really being subtle about it,” his laugh barely forces through gritted teeth, “can you get down here and help me?”

“Oh, you two don’t have to do that,” the woman finally kneels down herself, squinting to try and make sense of the purposefully thorough mess. She reaches out to pick up a small sculpture obviously made by a child and her glasses fall off, onto the ground by Hiccup’s knees.

“Here, I’ll get those for you!” He announces, reaching at the same time as she does and barely beating her. Their hands tangle as she pulls the glasses back towards her face and he makes the move, fumbling with the snap holding the ID card onto her lanyard.

“That’s where I left those!” She finally puts the glasses on and Hiccup quickly shoves the ID behind his back, relaxing slightly when Ruffnut takes it. “I’ve been looking for my glasses all day and they were on top of my head the whole time.”

“I hate when I do that,” Hiccup shakes his head and stands up, trying not to flinch when Ruffnut grabs his ass again. This time she leaves more than claw marks behind though and he feels the access card in his back pocket.

“You’d lose your head if it wasn’t bolted on, dear,” she laughs, patting the back of his pants and he jumps.

“Let me go check the condo again,” the woman points at her glasses, “I might have better luck finding the keys, I’ll be right back.”

“Sounds great!” Hiccup nods.

“I’ll clean up his mess,” Ruffnut whispers on one side of her hand, like she’s telling a secret, “it’s what I’m best at. Men, right?” As soon as the door is shut again, Hiccup takes a big step away from her and she nods to herself, “that went well.”

“You kept grabbing my ass!” He whisper yells, cracking the door to check the hallway. It’s still empty and Ruffnut slips out behind him.

“We got the key, didn’t we?”

“I’m dating—well, we haven’t said the word, but I—Astrid, in case you didn’t remember.” He holds his breath as he presses the key card to the sensor next to the doorframe.

It turns green and he turns the doorknob slowly, half expecting a booby trap or Mr. Grisly sitting in the corner in a swivel chair that turns around right as he flicks on the light. His hand hovers over the switch for a second before he thinks better of it. The light would be too obvious from the hallway, anyway.

“I’m Astrid’s best friend,” Ruffnut scoffs, hurrying Hiccup into the office so they can get out of the hallway, “I’m quality control.”

“I’m sure Astrid can do that herself,” he lets his eyes adjust, glad to see the empty desk chair in the corner. When he’s sure he won’t instantly trip and announce himself, he creeps over to the computer, waking up the monitor and quickly dimming the screen as far as it’ll go.

“So she’s done her own inspection then?” Ruffnut crouches down next to him, wiggling eyebrows tinged blue by the generic background.

“Clues, Ruff,” he points at a filing cabinet, “we’re looking for clues.”

“I’m just fake married to you and you’re a nag,” she sneaks over to the cabinet and opens the top drawer. “It’s empty, there’s nothing here.”

“We’ve been here all of two minutes,” he frowns, scrolling through empty file after empty file. He checks the drive and no storage is taken up aside from operating system and installed programs.

“Who would keep their evidence in a room that Glasses the Idiot could access?” She scoffs, “hell, who doesn’t lock their computer?”

“Someone who’s not using it,” he sighs, “you’re right. It’s an office but he clearly doesn’t do anything here.”

“Guess some rich asshole upstairs illegally downloaded the deed to Gruff’s,” Ruffnut wipes her hands on her pants and points at the door. “Should we get out of here before Glasses comes back?”

“I wonder if there’s a way to get a residence list,” Hiccup glances at the empty printer on the desk and gets an idea. “Let me check the printer ink levels to see if he’s been using it.”

“Hiccup, there’s nothing here,” Ruffnut grabs the back of his collar and yanks, ignoring his sudden choking sound.

“At least let me shut the monitor off,” he fumbles for the button just as a voice pipes up in the hallway.

“Grimmel!” There’s just enough light for him to see Ruffnut’s nervous expression before he clicks it off.

“If you’ll excuse me Ms. Moore,” the accented voice is lighter than usual, more alive through the door than it was across an interrogation room, even over hours of gory discussion, “I’m in a bit of a hurry. I’ve got a rather time sensitive clean-up on my plate at the moment.”

“Just a second, if you have it, I’m just about to show two new residents—lovely young couple—their place and they were asking about your hours.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to catch them another time, Ms. Moore,” Grisly’s too bright voice draws her name out as the handle to the office half turns, and Hiccup doesn’t think, he just grabs Ruffnut’s arm and pulls her under the desk with him. It won’t do much if he sits down to check e-mail, but it’s better than nothing.

“The Bensons, I think they’re really going to like it here, they’re just in my office—Hello?” Glasses’s voice dulls slightly like she’s in the destroyed office next door.

The opening line of ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ pours out of Hiccup’s phone and he swears, yanking it out of his pocket and declining Snotlout’s call as quickly as he can.

“You have your ringtone on?” Ruffnut hisses, “do you know what year it is?”

“It’s Snotlout, he thinks it’s funny,” Hiccup shuts his phone off entirely and waits, wincing at the sound of his own breathing.

“Ms. Moore,” Grisly says as he opens the door, his accent crackling with some of its usual chill electrified, “I’m afraid we’ll have to continue this conversation another time.” He steps into the office and shuts the door across any further attempts at conversation. He mumbles something in Russian that Hiccup is confident calling an insult by tone alone and turns on the light.

In the dark, Hiccup didn’t notice the small sink against the opposite wall, but the sound of the faucet and Grisly’s creepily happy humming as he starts to wash his hands gives Ruffnut a chance to whisper.

“What are we going to do?”

“I’ll distract him, you make a run for it?” He offers and Ruffnut rolls her eyes, too comfortable hunched under the desk mid-trespass.

“If anyone’s distracting him, it should be me.”

The sink turns off but Grisly keeps humming, turning slightly so that if Hiccup peeks just barely around the tangle of computer cords, he can see that Grisly is holding something. Wiping something down maybe, from the scrap of cloth he throws away before he sets whatever it is in a drawer that he locks with a key from the ring on his belt.

Then Grisly wipes his hands with another wipe from a Clorox can, like a germophobic Bond villain in a lair far more grandiose than the security office at a poorly built condo development.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he hisses, double checking his cuff under his pant leg in case he has to run. Not that it’ll help much, not with catching Grisly suspiciously pleased with himself as he turns the sink back on and starts scrubbing his hands again.

“Follow my lead,” Ruffnut stands up from under the desk, leaning back against the printer and pressing its power button so that it lurches to life with a screech and a series of clicks. Grisly turns around, a flash of shock humanizing his features for a brief second as he stares at her, too stunned to check under the desk. “Hey Sailor,” Ruff greets in a pointedly husky voice, one hip cocked.

“How did you get in here?” Grisly stomps across the room and grabs Ruffnut by the arm, which only makes her grin wider.

“Does that matter?” She twirls the end of her hair in her free hand, pointing at the door with her chin as she bites her lip.

Hiccup takes the chance, sliding out from under the desk as quietly as he can and slipping around the corner, staying low like he anticipates a velociraptor in pursuit.

“What are you doing in my office?” Grisly sounds as addled as Hiccup has ever heard him and he freezes, trying to figure out how to get Ruffnut out along with him.

But with Snotlout suspended, Hiccup doesn’t know how he’d get away with trespassing, so he leaves that problem to five seconds from now Hiccup, sneaking a cautious arm up to the doorknob.

“Are you asking what we’re doing now or what I intend for us to do?” Ruffnut laughs, “because right now we’re just standing here and you’re kind of yelling at me, which could be hot if your breath didn’t stink so much. Wait, I think I have gum!”

Grisly yells, inarticulate in his frustration, and Hiccup opens the door just enough to slip through, popping to his feet and cushioning the sound as it closes behind him. He makes for the back door to avoid Ms. Moore’s office, swearing under his breath at his phone when it takes what feels like forever to power back on. Every second that passes without more than yelling from Grisly’s office feels more tense and more miraculous and by the time he’s outside, it feels like his head is going to explode with it.

“Come on, come on,” he whispers at the phone, trying not to give into the guilt that’s prodding him to run back inside. He can’t help Ruffnut if he’s caught too.

The back door to the building opens again and he freezes, looking around for something to hide behind but seeing nothing but an empty alley. He waits Grisly’s enraged, split glacier face to emerge but instead, it’s Ruffnut.

“You’re ok!” He grabs her hand and yanks her down the alley next to him, not pausing until they’re out on the street among a few straggling commuters. “How’d you get out of there?”

“Irritated him, mostly,” she shrugs, obviously proud of herself, “I figured he wouldn’t think anyone was trespassing for information if he thought a crazy stalker—in this case me—was trespassing to make a move on him.”

“That’s—that’s actually kind of smart.” Hiccup realizes he’s talking way too loud and starts walking, head ducked down like he learned ages ago for exiting alleyways incognito, “I don’t know why it worked, but it did, and that’s what matters.”

“Are you going to get your phone?” Ruffnut asks and only then does Hiccup realize it’s vibrating.

“Shit, yeah,” he stops and frowns at the screen. Berk United Hospital. He doesn’t think he owes the hospital anything, Snotlout’s insurance is pretty good, so he usually keeps up on those bills. “Hello?”

“Hi, I’m calling from the Berk United Trauma Ward, can I speak to Hiccup Haddock please?”

“Y-yeah,” he stutters, tongue suddenly too big for his mouth, “you are, I mean I’m him. What’s going on?”

“You’re listed as Snotlout Jorgenson’s emergency contact,” the voice on the other end dips, somber like nurses get when the news isn’t good, “he’s just been brought in.”

“Is he ok?” Hiccup asks when the voice doesn’t automatically explain, dizzy as he leans back against the nearest wall.

“What’s wrong?” Ruffnut mouths and Hiccup shakes his head.

“Are you able to come to the hospital now?” The voice asks gently, “it’s urgent.”

“Yeah, I—on my way.”

Hiccup knows hospital calls. He knows how nurses sound when they’re underpaid and overworked, how they sound the first time they call about a bill and the fifth. He knows appointment calls and rescheduling calls, because over the years he’s had hundreds.

He’s only had one urgent call and he knows it better than the rest. He knows it like he knows blood on pavement and the way even his dad looked smaller on a gurney, surrounded by machines that were still clicking off to rest before their next, hopefully more successful, use.

Ruffnut must get him a ride because he doesn’t do anything, he barely feels himself walking and then he’s standing in front of the check-in desk at the emergency room, his own hands unrecognizably pale and waxy on the counter. The nurse looks up and her eyes widen, and Hiccup realizes he’s shaking like he’s the patient. That snaps him out of it enough, because he doesn’t want anyone focusing on him right now, not when it could matter.

Unless it doesn’t anymore.

Unless that was the last time Snotlout would ever call him and he declined it, because he was doing something stupid, because he wasn’t where he should have been. Again.

Urgent calls don’t end well in his experience. Urgent calls end with his dad’s blood-stained wallet in a plastic basket, staring down at a beardless picture on a drivers’ license and wondering if he ever knew the man at all.

“Can I help you, sir?” The nurse behind the desk asks and he shrugs.

“I’m not really sure,” he swallows hard. He has to ask the yes or no question that’s wedged in his throat like it’s trying to shelter him from the answer by cutting off oxygen. One answer is the exact opposite of helping.

“Do you need to sit down?” She stands up, reaching out like she thinks she’s going to have to catch him and he exhales slowly.

“I just got a call about Snotlout Jorgenson?” He asks slowly, each word taking up its allotted measure of breath and leaving him with an empty chest that’s still not big enough for his pounding heart.

“I’ll look him up.” The keyboard clicks are deafening, each tap removing a barrier between Hiccup and the truth he doesn’t think he wants yet.

He thinks of the apartment and how empty it was before Snotlout moved in. That bedroom full of his dad’s things he didn’t want to look at, in case they belonged to a stranger. He remembers how it felt like the sound of his chewing echoed off of the empty walls, like he was living in a museum that regarded him as an impermanent exhibit, moving around hallways until he realized he didn’t belong.

“The Trauma Unit desk is on the second floor, the elevator is just down the hallway to your right.” The nurse’s face is urgent now, formal in that way doctors are when they have bad news they need to be inhumanly calm about.

“Yes or no?” Hiccup asks, hands shaking again as he stands away from the desk and runs his hand through his hair. “Do you know and just can’t tell me?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the words squeeze his heart in a vice that lets go too quickly when the sentence continues, “you’ll have to talk to someone at the desk upstairs.”

“Ok,” he walks towards the elevator before he keeps talking, because the urge to remind the nurse that his dad was on the first floor is overwhelming. His dad was on the first floor in a room near the back with a window looking out on where the cannery used to be before someone tore it down and built a motel. If they’re going to make an urgent call, they should do it right.

Hiccup follows the signs towards trauma, vaguely aware that his quest is a little ironic as his mind flicks again and again through what a day would be like without Snotlout. Another room full of things he can’t look at, this time because he knows too well who they’ll wish he was instead. He was with Snotlout when he got his driver’s license. He grew out that stupid moustache for it. He had the moustache in his academy graduation photo too, like polyester lint from his brand-new uniform stuck to his lip.

“Hiccup?”

Hearing his name makes him realize that he’s frozen again, ten feet back from the desk he’s been looking for, it’s helpful little sign reading ‘trauma’ like a lemonade stand banner advertising some neighborhood kid’s wares. The tile between his feet and the rubberized rug in front of the desk stretch and warp in his brain and he distracts himself, looking for whoever talked to him.

Astrid is handcuffed to a chair in the waiting room, her face pale and sallow and at odds with her determined expression. And he doesn’t have room to wonder why she’s here or why she’s cuffed, because the tiles between where he’s standing and her chair shrink, gravity shifting and pulling him towards her. He flops into the chair next to her, twice as heavy and half as graceful as usual as he throws his arms around her shoulders and buries his face in her neck.

“Hey,” she says like he’s a dog shaking in a thunderstorm, uncuffed hand rubbing his back, “did the doctor call you? I left my phone at my place so I couldn’t call—”

“Is he…yes or no?” He swallows hard and pulls back from the hug just enough to see her eyes, tensing at the sudden wave of trust that smacks him. She’ll tell him the truth, even if it’s hard, even if it doesn’t help, and for a second, he wishes he could let go of her rather than hear it, but he crossed that bridge a long time ago.

The second he handed her his Admiral Haddock book, he resigned himself to her most honest assessment, he just didn’t know it would matter so much.

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” she shakes her head, “he’s in surgery. I haven’t heard anything because Eretson cuffed me to this fucking chair.”

“He’s still in surgery,” Hiccup repeats to affirm it, waiting for her to say it’s a joke and trusting her too much for that at the same time. “It’s urgent but he’s still in surgery?”

“He was shot twice, Hiccup,” her voice is matter of fact but her hand on his arm is gentle, “his heart stopped on the way over, apparently—”

“So he is dead?” He shudders, “he’s an organ donor, he always said someone would be really lucky to get his organ someday—”

“Hey,” Astrid cups his chin, thumb pressed to his lips to shut him up, “he’s in surgery, that’s all I know.”

“That doesn’t help,” his laugh is fragile and he lets go of her to rub his hands over his face, elbows on his knees. “When they said it was urgent I expected an answer, that’s not an answer.”

“It’s not,” she agrees, yanking futilely at her handcuff a couple of times before stretching her other hand over to rest it on his back. “Not yet, anyway.”

#ripped #serial killer tour guide au #hiccstrid #modern au #httyd fic #coplout #also that whole thing with hiccups emotional trauma about his dad #and ruffcup faking married to buy a condo

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tysonrunningfox · 5 years

Text

Um, excuse me Coplout, just a few chapters ago, you were complaining about Eretson helping old ladies across the street, but now in Chapter 18, Hiccup’s POV reveals that he has seen you help old ladies across the street? So what is the truth, hmm?

The truth is that he lets old ladies squeeze his biceps while he helps them use the crosswalk buttons and for some reason he wanted Astrid to think he had bad boy charisma and he’s so stupid and I’d die for him

#rippedreread #coplout #he's a Liar and a Fool

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tysonrunningfox · 5 years

Text

Ripped: Part 12

So I was going to write more sacrificecup before this but I woke up yesterday morning like like...18 jokes in my head and had to get them all out before I lost them, so here is this.

Ao3

Hiccup tried valiantly to talk Mr. Grisly into a Grimborn book containing actual information but all attempts were brushed off repeatedly with the insistence that he’d been given a budget to hire experts for that.

Hiccup didn’t miss the dig that he is not considered an expert at the level of A. M. Mildew, but he wanted Grisly out of the library more than he wanted to argue. He knows Astrid doesn’t need his protection, but the way Grisly looked at her was uniquely sinister and the lopsided kind of glee in his voice when he talked to her is stuck in the back of Hiccup’s mind like a popcorn kernel in his teeth.

By the time he finally gives up and watches Grisly leave the library with a single beloved but largely sensationalized book, the archives are closed, and Hiccup finds himself suddenly completely underwhelmed. Given that he has not shifted his schedule back while his tours are…temporarily postponed, he texted Astrid pretty soon after waking up.

All in all that was a pretty landmark start to the day.

He starts the long walk home, glancing wistfully into alleys as he crosses them. He can’t help but feel disconnected and exposed on the main streets, surrounded by false modernity made out of plywood with a million percent markup. He knows Snotlout is right. He does look suspicious and he’s hiding enough by not telling Eretson where Dave’s prosthetic came from, but he’s sick of it taking so long to get everywhere.

Plus, assuming a Grimborn copycat working backwards, doesn’t he just have to stay away from the second murder site?

Unless the order of the two murders was a fluke and he should be staying away from the first site, a stomach clenching thought that’s categorically impossible. He couldn’t stay away from Astrid now if she lived in a volcano or had a loft in Atlantis, not after she told him that she likes him. Him. She likes him. Astrid. The beautiful, violent toothbrush assault artist who makes sure he sees what she does likes him.

His phone buzzes with a slow to download text message, lagging from the library’s thick brick walls.

Astrid (5:21pm): how’d that go?

He stops short and a man in a suit slams into his back, glaring at him for interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic. Hiccup would thank the guy for restarting his heart, except talking is a little hard with it pounding in his throat.

How’d that go? Does she want…a review of some kind? Should he inform her of her 10.0 perfect score kissing skills but deduct a half a gold star for startling the hell out of him? Not that he minded being startled, really, but Astrid seems like a tough love type.

“On your left,” a bike whizzes by and he stumbles, still staring at his phone and barely snapping out of the haze with the insult that follows, “fucking tourist!”

“No bikes on the sidewalk, asshole!”

If he critiques her, does that mean she’s going to critique him? She doesn’t let him get away with anything else, after all. If he weren’t so giddy about her kissing him, he’d be more confused that she still wanted to after all that murder site sex idiocy that fell out of his mouth at Gruff’s.

Hiccup (6:04pm): I thought it was nice

He settles for neutral or something like it.

Astrid (6:05pm): I meant the creepy guy making you find a book for him

His heart drops. Of course she meant the whole Grisly thing, not—why would she be asking him how kissing was? She was there.

It’s a twisted kindness that he knows he’s said and done dumber things to and around her, so this probably won’t be the instance that scares her off.

Hiccup (6:06pm): right that makes more sense than you asking me to critique your kissing Hiccup (6:06pm): which was top notch by the way no comments, don’t change a thing Hiccup (6:07pm): so I do it anyway, fuck, anyway grisly is creepy as hell and I really hate that he’s investigating murders, it’s not fair because his breath’s death count is probably higher than any small time grimborn copycat

None of that made it better.

Astrid (6:07pm): I thought it was nice too Astrid (6:08pm): so you really think it’s a copycat then?

The morning’s roller coaster of emotions repeats in miniature and Hiccup pauses to unlock his front door and set his stuff down inside. Maybe his dad’s old chair has enough common-sense energy left to keep him from making more of an ass of himself and he flops into it.

Hiccup (6:11pm): no, we aren’t talking about grimborn, I forgot sorry

Astrid (6:12pm): it’s fine

Hiccup (6:12pm): no, we said we weren’t, let’s…talk about the next time we can not talk about grimborn

Astrid (6:14pm): is that a euphemism?

He blinks at that text for a second, trying and failing to shove his comprehension of it back into a neat little cube that will let him think or breathe or do anything but burn remembering how she felt against him.

Hiccup (6:15pm): Tomorrow?

And he has no money. Very minimal money at least. Not the kind of money that adults have for dates when there are euphemisms involved. Not that he’d pay for them like Viggo Grimborn luring some unsuspecting woman into an alley—this is why he’s single.

Astrid (6:16pm): Sure, what do you want to do?

Everything. Nothing. Ask questions and actually let her talk, for once, but that would require a personality transplant apparently and he doesn’t have time for one of those. Plus those probably cost money. Maybe he could pay for it with that frozen yogurt gift card, hell using a frozen yogurt gift card would practically be a personality transplant in and of itself—

Hiccup (6:16pm): frozen yogurt!!!

Astrid (6:17pm): so you’re…adamant about frozen yogurt, alright

Hiccup (6:17pm): oh no, I hate frozen yogurt, but I have no money and a gift card

Astrid (6:18pm): you know I can pay, right? This isn’t the middle ages, you don’t need to demonstrate your chivalry to me.

Hiccup (6:19pm): oh, I know, plus I’d cry if you expected me to put my hat down on a puddle so you could cross it Hiccup (6:20pm): I guess…this sounds weird but bear with me

Astrid (6:20pm): I think you just defined every interaction we’ve ever had

Hiccup (6:21pm): In a roundabout way, getting frozen yogurt sounds like a good idea because taking you places that I love has had really weird and complicated results, so maybe the answer is to take you somewhere that I hate

Astrid (6:22pm): it’s a date

00000

“Anything for me?” Hiccup yawns on his way out of his bedroom the next afternoon when they wake up, watching Snotlout juggle a shoebox sized cardboard box and a handful of envelopes through the door.

“Looks like a credit card offer and a student loan notice,” Snotlout holds out the box for Hiccup to take his mail.

“Two of the four horsemen of the adult apocalypse,” he tosses the credit card offer and opens the loan statement with a grimace.

“You know you can get those online right?” Snotlout sits down on the couch with the box in his lap, using the butter knife from his morning toast to open it.

“Hey, I sold my soul to the devil for an Art History degree, I want the hard copy receipt.” The number on the notice looks worse than normal though and it takes Hiccup a second to put together why.

It’s not about being able to pay for Astrid, she’s obviously not someone who cares about stuff like that. It’s about not…dragging her down. It’s different when Snotlout is the only one who sees him survive on ramen in the summer when tour interest goes down, Snotlout has seen worse. It’s different when he has a pocket of cash too.

He started doing tours for his own entertainment, he helped Heather start her company when it was all about the mystery for both of them. It was the notoriety that bugged him and that only amped up when the crime scenes got a fresh coat of caution tape.

But right now, staring at that number that really does keep growing when he doesn’t pay it, he’s reminded full force that he also does tours for the money.

“I’ve been thinking, I should start tours up again,” Hiccup sticks the mail to the fridge and nods to himself, “yeah, that’s a good idea, Berserker tours must be booking months out by now, I could get full share of the spontaneous customers. Any idea if there’s any issue at the crime scenes?”

Snotlout doesn’t mock him, which should be his first clue that something isn’t right, and when he turns around, Snotlout is staring into the open box on his lap with a pale face and wide eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“This isn’t my self-tanner.”

“You ordered self-tanner?” Hiccup raises an eyebrow and crosses the room to see what is so offensive to receive in self-tanner’s stead.

It’s not skin bleaching cream, which would have been apt.

It’s a foot.

A foot standing disembodied in the shabby cardboard box, almost waxy in appearance, harmless except for the dread emanating off of it. Hiccup’s never seen an unattached right foot before, and he can’t say it was on his bucket list. There’s a note taped to the lid of the box and smeared with streaks Hiccup doesn’t want to think about, so he tries to focus on the letters. They’re blurry either from damp paper or his struggle to keep his eyes still on them, but he can see they line up in neat rows.

It reminds him of a letter he saw in glass in a collector’s museum. A letter that had been delivered wrapped around a victim’s finger and sent to Deputy Detective Ryker over a hundred years ago. A letter that had led to his eventual stint in custody.

“Is that a poem?”

“It’s a foot!” Snotlout jumps up, holding the box at arm’s length and shuffling towards the kitchen, “I know you only have one but you should still recognize it!”

Hiccup leans over the box when Snotlout sets it down, squinting at the writing and willing his heart to slow down enough to let him read, “is that in comic sans?”

“It’s a fucking foot,” he starts pacing, pulling his phone out and presumably dialing the station. “Yeah, I’ve got human remains in a fucking box—no, they were shipped here, are you crazy, Johnson? Yeah, maybe send a car, that’s a fucking brilliant idea, great job!”

Thoughts of Grimborn letters, fingers, Snotlout’s badge, and disconcertingly, of Astrid wondering what he’d do if the murders continued rush through Hiccup’s head as he fumbles with his phone, snapping four or five quick pictures of the box, as close as he can to the message.

“What are you doing?” Snotlout snaps as he hangs up and Hiccup holds his phone up.

“Oh, you mean—”

“Yes, I mean, are you taking pictures of evidence for your creepy collection? Because it’s bad enough that I touched the box,” he shudders, “oh shit, I set it on my lap, did I get dead foot juice on my junk?”

“No—”

“Are you sure?” Snotlout is more preoccupied with his lap than Hiccup’s phone now, but it’s still better to pad the lie.

“No, I’m not taking pictures of for my creepy collection.” He’s taking pictures for another reason, so it’s not technically a lie, “I’m texting Astrid that I doubt I’ll be able to make our date today.”

Hiccup (4:00pm): I don’t think I’m going to be able to do anything today, do you want actual reason or wild excuse?

“Yeah, they’re sending a car over,” Snotlout huffs, “goddammit, I thought I had one day without Eretson’s smug face—but no, some creep had to send us a hacked off foot, great.”

Astrid (4:02pm): actual reason

Hiccup (4:02pm): snotlout received a package that he thought was the self-tanner he ordered, but actually was a disembodied foot, and there’s a blurry message with it in a font I believe to be comic sans

Astrid (4:03pm): I had to read that three times to make sure I didn’t accidentally say wild excuse

Hiccup (4:03pm): raincheck?

Astrid (4:04pm): Don’t go spending that gift card without me

“Dude, put your shoes on,” Snotlout throws Hiccup’s shoes at him, one of them hitting him in the side.

“Hey!”

“They’re outside,” he points at Hiccup’s plastic left foot, “that’s a secret, remember?”

“Shit,” the rush to yank his shoes on is a perfect capsule of the anxiety that multiplies over the next hour or so as a forensic team takes the box and swabs what feels like every inch of the apartment. Snotlout isn’t happy to be in the back of a police car, even if he knows the officers in front, and he’s less happy to be plopped in Eretson’s office on the wrong side of the desk.

It doesn’t help anything that they’re both still in pajamas.

“About the self-tanner, dude,” Snotlout clears his throat, looking out the office window and presumably checking if Eretson is on his way, “it’s going to be really natural and gradual, you weren’t even going to notice.”

“That’s what you want to talk about right now?” Hiccup’s phone burns a hole in his pocket, and he hates how much he hates Heather. He needs to show it to someone. Then again, Heather wasn’t trustworthy when he trusted her.

“I watched a video on how to apply it—”

“Yeah, did it include directions to the jersey shore?”

“You mix it with your moisturizer for the first week and the color grabs slower, plus I have black chest hair, it was going to blend!”

Eretson opens the door somewhere between jersey shore and moisturizer, as stony faced as Hiccup has ever seen him.

“Mr. Haddock, Jorgenson,” he sits down and starts typing efficiently, not so much avoiding eye contact as metering his attention where he sees fit.

“It’s Officer Jorgenson to you, thanks,” Snotlout crosses his arms, flexing too obviously, and Hiccup elbows him. Officer doesn’t make anything seem better right now. The whole reason Deputy Detective Ryker spent two months in custody as Grimborn was because they could blame the bungled case on him.

“You’re not on duty, Mr. Jorgenson, in fact I believe I overheard you planning a beach vacation, don’t let my investigation interrupt it.” When he does look up, it’s at Hiccup in particular, “at five o’clock this time?”

“I know how you love your job?” Hiccup shrugs and Eretson sighs.

“So, Mr. Jorgenson, you received a package of unknown origin—“

“I thought it was from Amazon,” Snotlout tries to kick his feet up on the desk but they don’t quite reach and Hiccup rubs his eyes to avoid seeing Eretson’s reaction.

Hiding his eyes doesn’t help, every ounce of repressed irritation comes through in the detective’s pinched voice.

“Was the package addressed to you?”

“I was expecting a package so I opened the package,” Snotlout scoffs.

“You didn’t check if your name was on it?” Hiccup hisses at him and he flings his arms up, still trying to look bigger.

“I ask the questions,” Eretson doesn’t quite pound his hand on the table but the intent is there, and Hiccup tries to mentally will Snotlout to behave but his skull has always been too thick for that. “The package was addressed to an SG Jorgenson, is that you?”

“Those are my initials.”

“And they stand for?” The detective readies himself to write it down.

“My names,” he deflates, “Snotlout Gary Jorgenson, but—wait, someone sent me a cut off foot? That’s super fucked up.”

“Yes, you’re getting it, murder is fucked up” Eretson sets down a picture of Dave, or his body, coroner sheet thankfully pulled up directly under his chin. “The foot was an exact match to Dave Ralston.”

“Well I don’t know that guy,” Snotlout lies semi-convincingly, “I definitely don’t know why anyone would send me his foot.”

Eretson turns to Hiccup, “I understand you knew Dave Ralston from the homeless shelter.”

“Are you saying I mailed Snotlout a foot of a homeless man I knew in passing?” Hiccup’s fear manifests as it always does, a reason to be indignant and loud. He thinks of that leg and how he can remember having it fitted, learning to hobble on it and imagining toes. “Because no, that didn’t happen.”

“Your alibi for—“

“I was at the archives, you can talk to Astrid, you can talk to Fishlegs—“

“The package was mailed from the archives yesterday in the last package pickup at 4:30,” Eretson glances out his office window and Hiccup does the same, trying not to wince when he sees Mr. Grisly, talking to someone he can’t quite see.

He can’t lie.

“I was—“

“With Astrid,” the detective fills in, “of course.”

“I have texts,” he fumbles with his phone, but of course his camera is still open, the bloody note tiled in the corner as the last picture he took and he shoves it back into his pajama pocket. If he starts tapping his foot, it might creak, he didn’t fully tighten it down before they had to leave. “I can send them to you or something. To keep the um…encrypted dates for official—“

“Well Grisly was there too, right?” Snotlout trusts the office’s soundproofing far more than Hiccup would. “Who says he didn’t do it? It seems like the kind of creepy shit he’d do—“

“That’s enough,” Eretson booms, the sound reverberating like a ghost off of the walls. Snotlout opens his mouth to continue and Hiccup smacks him in the arm, shaking his head.

“Guess that beach vacation is cancelled, huh?” He nods at Eretson in understanding, “good thing you can get the same golden glow from a handy bottle that won’t take us out of town.”

“I’ll be following up.” Eretson gestures at the door and Hiccup leans carefully on Snotlout’s shoulder to stand, making sure his leg doesn’t creak or buckle or give itself away when it takes his anxious weight.

“Sure thing,” Hiccup drags Snotlout from the room before he can decide to go back onto tiptoes or something equally stupid. Of course, that means it’s Hiccup’s turn to be stupid and he balks outside the door, eyes widening when he sees who Grisly is talking to, “Heather?”

“Hiccup,” Heather cocks her hip, holding a thick, official looking file that isn’t labeled with her usual red sharpie. Someone else’s file. A police file. “Nice…jumpsuit.” She looks down at his plaid pajamas and he knows her too well to ignore her concern. It’s deeply buried but there and he glares at Grisly. Not even Heather deserves to deal with Rasputin’s mangy ghost.

“Miss Berserker is the Grimborn expert we hired, she’s already been explaining the concept of Trader Johann to me,” Grisly grins and maybe he’s exactly what Heather deserves, “very concise and articulate.”

“Yeah, easier to feed conjecture in small bites—“ Hiccup starts, but Snotlout grabs his arm. “I don’t know though, ‘Zombie Trader Johann’ is a little hard for anyone to swallow.”

“When solving a mystery of this magnitude,” Grisly chuckles, “we must consider all angles. Right down to resurrection.”

“Hiccup, let’s go,” Snotlout tugs and speaks a little too loud, clearly for Heather’s benefit, “don’t you have that date to get to?”

“Are you still doing tours?” Hiccup ignores him.

“Dagur’s taking over some of them,” she tries to sound professional and he remembers her wide grin when he showed her the ‘All Safe’ wall for the first time. Astrid’s picture is a piece of proof she doesn’t have, and it doubles his compulsion to get it out there. “Are you still—“

“I will be,” he nods, “I’ve got some new evidence.”

“I’m sure you do,” Grisly cuts off the conversation and points at the door, “official police business, I’m sure you understand.”

“He does,” Snotlout grumbles, glaring up at Grisly as he shoves Hiccup along, either barely remembering to mind his leg or getting lucky that he’s not causing a limp. “When we get home, I’m going to take a shower, because I swear I got dead foot juice on my lap, and then I’m going to look up ‘how not to be weird and morbid’ in your freaking office, and shove whatever book I find that definition in up your—“

“Gobber?” Hiccup once again stops short as Snotlout tries to forcibly drag him from the police station yet again. Eretson must have snuck around while they were talking to Heather, because he’s at the front desk with Gobber, discussing some notes.

“Can’t say I’m glad to see you here,” Gobber chuckles, “but I’m always glad to see you. And oh, you have Snotlout with you.”

“Yeah, I know, you must be thrilled to see me too,” Snotlout grins, apparently finding a new thing to hold over Eretson.

“Eh.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m glad to be here, not really my choice,” Hiccup glances at the detective.

“Oh, I’m sure you look guilty for something,” Gobber leans sideways and whispers loudly to Eretson, “it’s his specialty.”

“No, assuming I’m guilty is everyone else’s specialty,” Hiccup crosses his arms, leg feeling shaky like it never does.

“Aye, cops especially, so it’d be fastest if you let the handsome detective do his job—“

“Handsome?” Eretson isn’t used to being caught off guard and it doesn’t last long. “Of course, you were making a pass at me, and here I thought you were the only one in this damn town trying to help.” He collects his files, mumbling under his breath as he stalks back towards his office, clearly further from leaving the office than ever.

“Can’t it be both?” Gobber shrugs and Hiccup shakes his head.

“Twenty five years of friendship and you sell me out for a hot piece of ass?”

“I don’t think it counted as friendship when you were a baby.”

Snotlout scowls back towards the offices, “who cares about friendship? I’ve been working out just as much as he does, why does he still get everything?”

“For the best probably,” Gobber shakes his head, “you couldn’t handle me.”

Hiccup blinks at his father’s best and oldest friend, “you know, Gobber, thanks for that. Now I won’t have nightmares about mutilated body part mail.”

“Anytime.” He nods and this time it’s Hiccup dragging Snotlout outside.

Snotlout wasn’t kidding about the immediate shower, and he must have been serious about the ‘dead foot juice’, as he put it, because he throws his pajamas in the kitchen trash on the way back to his room to get dressed. Hiccup doesn’t like thinking about them in there and Snotlout agrees as he ties up the mostly empty trash as soon as he’s dressed, looking around at the ghost of forensic swab marks on almost every surface.

“Yeah, no, I don’t want to hang out in the foot-mail apartment right now,” he shudders, “Gruff’s?”

“Uh, sure,” Hiccup glances at his dad’s office door, wanting to print out one of the pictures he took and start deciphering it, but knowing if he wants to research right now it’ll be suspicious.

“I’m sure a girl as hot as Astrid already has another date lined up, you can talk to her tomorrow.” Snotlout sighs, “just put on some actual pants and come hang out until I stop thinking about…saw marks and—”

“Yeah, ok,” Hiccup doesn’t make him say it, swallowing hard against his own repressed memory as he changes. For the first time ever, he avoids looking down at his right foot and trips a little getting into his jeans because of it, but he shakes it off to engage full scale Snotlout distraction mode. “So, did you notice Eretson had a mustard stain on his shirt?”

“What? Where was it? Was it on his tie?” Snotlout snorts, “I bet he eats sandwiches like an idiot.”

Hiccup makes up enough details about the imagined stain to preoccupy Snotlout the entire walk to the bar, even throwing in a few fake laughs at a very bad impression of a British accent. He’s not quite cheerful by the time they’re sitting at the bar, but he’s cheered enough to start his version of the standard cop lecture.

“As little as possible actually means as little as possible in this situation,” he gives Hiccup a disappointed look, “like if you want to make Heather jealous, just tell her you have a date like a normal person, don’t say you’re going to start your creepy tours back up, especially at a time when that Grisly dick thinks Venison Greenland has something to do with the murders.”

“Ok, I’ll work backwards on that,” he numbers on his fingers, “Venison Greenland isn’t even clever, I am going to start tours back up, and I don’t care about making Heather jealous. And my date was cancelled by a surprisingly efficient postal shipment, which makes me wonder—”

“You can’t start tours back up right now, dude.”

“As I was saying, it makes me wonder if the person behind all of this has some sort of government sway,” Hiccup nods importantly.

“I can’t tell if you’re bullshitting me to avoid talking about Heather or not.”

“I don’t know why you always want to talk about Heather.” Hiccup stares at the row of dusty bottles above the bar and tries not to think about their comfortable nights at the Ripped Tavern, before things got contentious. Heather’s pet theory was Ryker before it was Johann and it makes his stomach churn.

“Because she was my friend too and I always thought shit would get weird in the group because you two paired off to have a murder themed wedding or something,” he shrugs, “not because you disagreed about research.”

“Snotlout, my issues with Heather are with her, if you want to be her friend that’s between you guys.”

“Are you kidding?” He snorts, “even before she teamed up with Mr. Grisly she screwed you over. Not a chance.” It would be sweet if Snotlout didn’t punctuate it by punching him in the shoulder so hard he almost falls off of the stool.

And if that package didn’t neatly line Snotlout up with Ryker.

“I’d have way better luck getting back at her by restarting tours than by making her jealous with some cancelled date.”

“You know what sucks? I used to be able to explain to you that girls care more about you moving on with another girl than they do about hundred-year-old murders, but now you’ve got Astrid whispering Grimborn in your ear—”

“Oh god, don’t go there,” Hiccup winces, “not today, haven’t I been through enough? Didn’t you hurt me enough by hitting on Gobber—”

“I wasn’t hitting on him, I just don’t know why he was hitting on Eretson when I was right there.”

“Probably because he’s known you literally your entire life.”

“Yeah, and so has your mom—”

“I’m restarting tours,” Hiccup cuts that off, “I need the money, for one—”

“Amen to that, Hiccup,” Gruffnut leans on the other side of the bar and glares at Snotlout, “it’s tough not being employed by the government to be a narc, isn’t it?”

“Just because I’m the only one with a job that makes money doesn’t make me a narc.”

“Oh, I do plenty for money,” Gruffnut numbers off, “I dress up as my dumb boy cousin and scam people, I wipe the counters, I pour beers for people, I sell alcohol for way more than I pay for it—”

“Except for the first thing, those are all just part of being a bartender,” Hiccup points out and Gruffnut shakes his head like it’s heavy with exhaustion.

“I know, right? I go above and beyond and I still barely make rent,” he whispers conspiratorially, “all the toilet paper in the bathroom is stolen from McDonalds.”

“I can hear you,” Snotlout shoos him, “so if you don’t want me to tell McDonalds—”

“See? Narc.” Gruffnut shuffles off to the other end of the bar.

“You could get a job, you know, with a boss and a paycheck and insurance that you don’t have to pretend to be my domestic partner to get.” Snotlout doesn’t need to know how much he sounds like Hiccup’s dad sometimes, it would go to his head.

“Yeah, I’m sure the five-year gap in my nonexistent resume would be great for that.” He sighs, “I guess I’m worried about…if I’m not giving tours, Heather’s basically controlling the whole Grimborn narrative in Berk and now she’s apparently working with Grisly, who—I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t think it mattered but he came by the archives yesterday—”

“I know,” Snotlout rolls his eyes, “Astrid told me.”

“Anyway, Grisly wanted a copy of that Admiral Haddock book, which means that the so called ‘experts’ at the station aren’t exactly people I trust with the truth.”

“Just a couple of weeks ago you were saying how shitty Heather was to be giving tours to active crime scenes.” Snotlout orders another beer, foot tapping against the rung of his stool, and Hiccup still never knows how to act when his cousin is worried about him.

It’s even harder when the feeling is mutual.

“I guess I was really hoping that this wasn’t connected to Grimborn,” Hiccup shrugs, “but now with the modern equivalent of the Ryker finger showing up at your—our door. Our door. I guess that me not doing a tour didn’t prevent the body part mailing, but maybe I could calm down the hysteria a bit while Heather is too busy to dump gasoline on the flames.”

And he can see what kind of information is spreading. Call him paranoid but this is all starting to circle a little too close to home.

“That’s stupid.”

“Well, I’m stupid,” Hiccup is at least keeping his promise to Astrid with that one.

“Yeah you are, given you’re actively deciding to harass Astrid’s apartment nightly when she’s your alibi for a bunch of sketchy shit.”

Hiccup opens his mouth to tell him that Astrid doesn’t mind, but then he remembers something she said when he thought she wouldn’t read a book, let alone go on a private tour with him.

“Can I borrow fifty bucks?” He stands up, “and I mean borrow, I will pay you back when this all works out.”

#ripped #httyd fic #modern au #hiccstrid fic #serial killer tour guide au #tw mild gore #tw comic sans #coplout #coplout is my life

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tysonrunningfox · 5 years

Text

Ripped: Part 10

This chapter is...so much, again, I...hope I didn’t mess a lot of things up but also I’m so excited for this to be out there

Ao3

Detective Eretson’s office isn’t roomy, but it looks bigger for the absolute lack of decoration. Snotlout has been complaining about him for a year, but there’s nothing on the walls except for a very official looking medal that Hiccup doesn’t recognize and the bookcase holds only a cardboard box neatly folded and marked “miscellaneous”. Hiccup can see Snotlout’s nametag on his desk out through the small vertical window, which is crosshatched with wire, the age old answer to bulletproof that actually makes it weaker.

Hiccup’s dad’s office had glass like that. They took it out after he died and replaced it with modern tempered glass, like there was no longer anything inside worth the falsely protecting.

Eretson brings Hiccup a cup of coffee from the breakroom, stale and obviously made that morning, but he accepts it anyway, taking the smallest sip he can while Eretson sits down and logs into his computer. The silence and clicking matches Hiccup’s speeding heartbeat and he clears his throat, fidgeting in the cold plastic chair. Something about the detective’s presence reminds him of his dad getting home after he’d done something wrong but it hadn’t been discovered yet. He learned young that confessing was easier than not, but his dad’s disappointment was heavier to carry than his own guilt.

“What? No bad cop routine this time?” He laughs, the sound echoing off of the undecorated walls, unwelcome.

“That was tired cop,” Eretson pushes his keyboard away and turns fully to Hiccup, eyebrows knit together in a heavy frown.

“What’s this then?”

“I’m good at my job, Mr. Haddock.” There’s swagger there but it’s buoyant, balancing. “And I’m good at reading people.”

“I’m guessing I say ‘won’t try to escape’?” Hiccup rubs one of his wrists and Eretson doesn’t flinch.

“This precinct lets you get away with a lot because of your father,” a jab that hurts worse than when Snotlout says it, “but not murder.” He flips through some photos from the crime scene and Hiccup swallows hard, trying to focus on anything but that flash of metal leg and regretting it. “People who do this don’t look at pictures of it like that.”

“I bet that’s true,” Hiccup remembers the guy who’d invited him over to see his collection.

“It is,” Eretson turns the photos over, “but that doesn’t explain why you keep finding the bodies.”

“So you think the cases are related?” It’s the only thing Hiccup has been able to think about for the last two hours. Or that’s not fair, it’s the only thing he’s been able to focus on.

He thought about his tour, and how it felt like the worst ever but he’s scared it’ll be his best reviewed. He thought about Astrid, one second blushing with her chin held high and the next pale and terrified, her shaky hand telling him to pull his foot out of his mouth and turn around. He thought about Dave and wondered if it hurt.

But he focused on all the reasons the murders can’t be related. Or all the reason, singular, and it doesn’t feel very reliable right now, sitting across the station from his dad’s old office, being lectured by strong, broad shoulders and an unshakeable scowl.

Lightning doesn’t strike twice until someone puts up a lightning pole.

“Your alibies check out. I talked to Gobber and he affirmed how you knew of the first victim. And I confirmed the tape—“

“What tape?” Hiccup can’t think of anywhere legal he’s been that would be taped and obtained by the cops.

“Right,” Eretson clears his throat and turns back to his computer, clicking again before turning the screen around. “This tape was recorded—“

“The back of the condos,” Hiccup nods to himself, watching grainy black and white footage of Astrid jumping and his arm curling her protectively into his chest. It’s a joke even here, she obviously doesn’t need his protection, but God he wanted to give it to her earlier as she shook, trying not to look into the alley and being unable to look anywhere else.

The memory twists his stomach, caught up in everything else. It was torture to see her scared after seeing her so passionate, defiant, happy. Embarrassed was his favorite, he liked it enough that he pulled off feigning confidence, even though the thought of her kissing him for revenge after trying to save his tour practically made him lightheaded.

Cameras. Astrid texted him that she’d talked to the police about cameras, this must have been why. He wonders what she thought when she saw it.

“This is approximately time of death, given the coroner’s statement and Miss Hofferson confirmed that you walked her home.”

“I did.”

“When does your first Viggo Grimborn tour begin?” He says Grimborn like an American idiom he finds deeply inferior and Hiccup wants to ask where he’s from, but the little Snotlout on his shoulder flicks him on the ear and reminds him not to yap without a lawyer present. He’s not sure when Snotlout got promoted to be both angel and devil, but now’s not the time to dwell on that.

“Seven or seven thirty, depending on the weather, and I try and get there half an hour before to let people know they’re in the right place.”

“Miss Hofferson says I can confirm with her coworker that you were at her job from five to six, approximately.”

“Sounds about right,” Hiccup wills his face not to move but Eretson’s eyes flash anyway, deadly like a predator that isn’t used to starving.

“So, the night of Jennifer Franklin’s murder, you’re attesting to the fact that you made it from 324 Harbor road to the alley behind the Ripped Tavern in less than half an hour, but you’re now claiming that being at the Berk Archives until six is enough evidence to say that you couldn’t have been killing this man at approximately six thirty, according to the coroner?”

Eretson isn’t flip-flopping or changing his mind, he’s trying to steer his investigational sailboat with a strong lean and Hiccup’s lower back throbs.

His doctor doesn’t like him walking eight miles a day on cobblestones and his hips agree. His back is usually willing to compromise but the last week avoiding shortcuts at Snotlout’s request has done a number on its resolve.

“I’ve been staying out of the alleys,” Hiccup realizes all at once that there’s no way to know that Dave was wearing his old spare leg and the angelic-devil Snotlout on his shoulder applauds him for keeping the secret, “Snotlout—Officer Jorgenson, I mean, said it wasn’t a good idea after the first murder.”

“He did?”

“He’s not particularly confident in my ability to take care of myself,” Hiccup flexes an arm and laughs, the self-depricating sound less welcome in the office than the awkward one. “Ask him yourself.”

“You can’t tell me about it?” There’s frustration there but not disbelief.

“I uh…don’t talk much.” He clears his throat, “I’m shy around authority figures, you know how it is, I’m sure.”

“That’s the first lie you’ve told,” Eretson stands up and opens the door to his office, “don’t—“

“Don’t leave town, I’ve got it.” Hiccup walks out into the lobby, freezing when he recognizes a man in a crisp grey uniform talking to a man in a suit that makes Eretson stop short.

“Detective Eretson, I’ve heard that you’ve met Mr. Grisly—“

“I have,” Eretson answers stiffly, holding out a tense hand at the end of a flexed arm.

“My pleasure,” the man in gray shakes it, everything about him mocking and superior for no externally discernible reason. His accent is Bond villain and he raises a charcoal eyebrow at Hiccup. “It’s good to see you again, Hiccup, it’s been too long.”

“Has it?” Hiccup never thought he’d feel like he was backed against the same wall as detective Eretson by the same force, “I thought you didn’t enjoy your private tour.”

“Enjoyment isn’t necessary for an experience to be…influential.” He laughs, “you didn’t get my joke, by the way.”

“Joke?”

“It hasn’t been a long time at all, I caught you with your hands full the other night.” He’s having as much fun as Hiccup isn’t currently and as much as Eretson has never had.

“With unsanctioned cameras,” Eretson crosses his arms, respectfully glaring at the man in the suit. “I’m close, Sir—“

“The approval just went through this morning, we can’t have the media buzz right now Eretson, I’m calling in all the help we can get.”

“Then talk to another precinct, don’t bring in a civilian organization—”

“Other precincts don’t have anyone to spare,” Eretson’s boss is conclusive, leaving no room to wedge an argument in before he continues, “and Mr. Grisly’s help has the additional benefit of being free, so you’ll take the information he gives you.”

“I’m sure it’s unbiased,” Hiccup mutters under his breath and Eretson scoffs, their momentary agreement lingering as Eretson’s boss walks away.

“I look forward to working together,” Mr. Grisly’s smile is predatory too, but starving. A lion under a gladiator arena starved to amp up its ferocity, but something about the gleam in his eye makes Hiccup think he bolted the lock himself. “This case so far is of particular interest to me.”

Everything impulsive in Hiccup’s body wants to say ‘Grimborn’ but his stomach twists against it, the ghost of a gag keeping the words in his throat. If it’s Grimborn, that means at least two more murders and he doesn’t even want to think about it, especially given his recent luck in stumbling across them.

“Great, more hobby detectives,” Eretson gripes, dismissing Hiccup with a look at the front door and yet another reminder not to leave town. Hiccup wishes that was more of an issue, but he wasn’t exactly planning a lavish vacation before a second murder shut down his tours.

00000

The shelter is busier than usual, and Gobber lets Hiccup eat if he works, so he finds plenty to keep himself occupied through the next week. Plus, people at the shelter are scared, getting there earlier, every day with new complaints about the Neighborhood Watch Force flaunting badges they’ve been told mean something now. Snotlout is furious but for once, as helpless as Eretson, even though the phenomenon doesn’t seem to be forcing any kind of bond. If anything, Snotlout is angrier, but that could just be the fact that he’s stuck on traffic duty during an important investigation.

Home is quiet though, and Hiccup is restless. As much as his back appreciates the break, he doesn’t need the extra time to think. He could research, given his renewed access and enthusiasm about the archives, but he can’t think about Grimborn without thinking ahead like a meteorologist tracking Hurricane Death. That and as much as he’d like to hang out with Astrid, he’s not sure she feels the same and if she doesn’t, he doesn’t know if he can blame her.

She’s been texting him, mostly pictures from the Berk Enquirer. She found some article from the summer of eighteen eighty-five suggesting an earthquake was actually caused by a dragon fighting ring in a giant arena under the bay and asked for his thoughts on the topic. He said it seemed plausible, given that no one actually knows what’s under the earth as it hurtles through space like a Frisbee and she sent back a string of angry emojis that made him laugh, but flat earth jokes aren’t necessarily communication.

“Oh my God, dude, what are you wearing?” He barely gets two steps in the door after helping Gobber check people into the shelter on Friday night before Snotlout’s outfit accosts him from across the living room. “Or should I say what aren’t you wearing?” Hiccup pulls down the collar of his tee-shirt to mimic the deep V of Snotlout’s shirt.

“What?”

“You left the part of your shirt that covers your lack of tan in your closet, you might want to check on that before you blind someone.”

“Very funny,” Snotlout grabs his jacket, “I’m going to go get a beer, want to come?”

“Even I know I shouldn’t spend my last five dollars on beer.”

“If you want me to cover you, just ask, don’t be so cryptic all the time,” he chides as he rolls his eyes, waving Hiccup along behind him.

“I wasn’t asking you to cover me.” Hiccup clarifies on the way downstairs and Snotlout shrugs.

“Whatever, dude, keep telling yourself that.” He looks both ways before continuing, voice low, “they still don’t know it’s your fake leg, by the way, have you heard anything from Eretson?”

“Nope, apparently I learned how to shut up at a really convenient time, I just needed some pressure.”

“Well keep the pressure on, I doubt your closed mouth is permanent, and they’re no closer to solving this, even with Mr. Creepy skulking around the station.” Snotlout shudders, “the guy isn’t even helpful, he just looms over everyone’s shoulders. He caught me online shopping the other day and he just watched.”

“It’s a good thing I’m sure you were shopping for totally work appropriate stuff, as you always do,” Hiccup raises an eyebrow and Snotlout glares at him.

“Shut up, Hiccup.”

Gruff’s is busy but not packed yet, and they’re lucky enough to get a booth along the wall. Snotlout sends Hiccup to the bar to get drinks and Gruffnut jokes about his growth spurt instead of asking for ID. That’s something that wouldn’t happen anywhere else in Berk these days, the bars down on the main street that charge ten dollars for some locally made shitty whiskey usually end up asking Hiccup for two IDs if he makes the mistake of shaving too close to going. It makes him want to ask how Gruffnut manages to pay rent if Heather is struggling, but he guesses this is a worse neighborhood.

Or was, maybe murders happening so close to the condos will equalize property values a little bit.

Who’s he kidding? They’ll probably skyrocket. He saw his first article relating the current duo of murders to Viggo Grimborn this morning and couldn’t help but read it. It got a lot wrong, even ascribing to the theory that the third victim’s fiancé did it to first scare her into staying off the street and then to cover his tracks, but Hiccup gets the feeling it did what it was supposed to. Someone at the shelter was complaining about motel prices doubling nearly overnight and Berserker Tours added a RSVP tab to the website that Hiccup told himself he wouldn’t check, but when he did it was scheduling three weeks out.

Snotlout dutifully doesn’t listen to Hiccup’s rant about it, staring idly around the room like if he looks bored enough Hiccup won’t know he’s looking for a target. It makes Hiccup think about texting Astrid for what must be the hundredth time this week, and he sets his phone on the table where his pocket can’t accidentally make that decision for him.

“…absolute lying, thieving sack of shit!” The insult rises above the noise of the crowd mid-sentence and a few heads turn towards the end of the bar by the door. Hiccup turns in the booth to investigate and thinks he recognizes the blonde woman yelling at Gruffnut, hands planted on the weathered counter. “Don’t play dumb with me, I know exactly how dumb you are and you aren’t going to get away with acting any dumber than that!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gruffnut whistles, cleaning a glass with a filthy rag, “must have been Tuff.”

“Is that?” Snotlout frowns, talking mostly to himself. “I think that’s—”

“Ruff!”

Hiccup recognizes Astrid’s voice instantly and jumps to his feet, but Snotlout is already across the room, holding Ruffnut back as she’s trying to claw her way over the counter.

“Let’s calm down here—”

“I don’t need a cop to protect me from my dweeby little girl cousin, Snotlout.”

Ruffnut’s yell is primal and she elbows Snotlout in the chest almost hard enough for him to lose his grip.

“You absolute piece of shit, if you don’t find my money I’m going to kill you and claim next of kin, you creepy body snatching—”

“Ruff, calm down,” Astrid tries again, catching Ruffnut’s arm before she can take another swing at Snotlout.

“I don’t even have to hide it, I can just disembowel it in the street at a specific location and—”

“Hey!” Astrid booms, shoving Snotlout and Ruffnut out of the way and evidently taking the problem into her own hands. “Just give her the money, Gruff. And while you’re at it, I’d like my fifty bucks back.”

“You never loaned me fifty bucks, that was Tuffnut.”

“How about a free round,” Hiccup inserts himself, leaning elbows on the bar next to her and waving sheepishly when she cocks her head, surprised but not unhappy to see him. “Or I’ll tell Snotlout to release the beast over there.”

“He doesn’t listen to you,” Gruffnut narrows his eyes but starts pouring four shitty beers anyway.

“I might not have a choice,” Snotlout grunts as Ruffnut flings herself back against him, trying to kick at the bar, “fuck, she’s strong.”

“Flattery won’t work on me,” she grunts, yanking Snotlout’s arm off of her waist and turning to face him. Her posture changes instantly, hip cocked as she twirls long hair around her finger, “oh, yours might.”

“This isn’t even the first situation this week that my good looks have diffused,” Snotlout grabs two beers off of the counter and hands one to Ruffnut, smiling smugly at Gruffnut, “you should be glad to have me around.”

“Yeah, I’ll be glad to have you around the day it’s legal to charge cops ten percent more.” He grumbles, walking to the other end of the bar to serve someone else, “can’t even have a bar fight with your cousin these days. Fucking nanny state.”

“So…” Hiccup looks at Astrid as Ruffnut and Snotlout head back to the booth, “there’s a story here.”

“Yeah,” she tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear, ponytail slightly crooked, likely from her own attempt to hold Ruffnut back, “I should probably tell it, I doubt Ruffnut has the attention span right now.”

Of course Ruffnut and Snotlout are sharing one side of the booth and Hiccup tries to be casual as Astrid slides in next to him, accidentally bumping his shoulder as she takes off her jacket and sets it between them. It’s not much of a buffer because it smells like her shampoo, floral even above the cigarette smell ingrained decades deep into the wood paneling on the wall, and Hiccup tries to focus on anything but the memory of encyclopedias falling in tune with his pounding heart.

“Guess what?” Ruffnut is too pleased with herself to really look annoyed, “after all, it turns out that Snotlout wouldn’t have minded you giving me his number. All that arguing for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” Snotlout stretches an arm across the back of the booth, “I didn’t mind holding you back, babe.”

“I mean I’d rather you didn’t hold me back,” she grins, “and we were wearing less or it was strategically pushed aside—”

“Oh my God!” Astrid chugs about half of her beer in a single gulp, cheeks practically glowing and a stern expression on her face. “I’m sorry about her, Snotlout, thank you for helping me save my friend from assaulting someone.”

“Again, I don’t mind,” Snotlout winks and Hiccup usually asks him how he thinks anyone could think that looks cool, but now he’s just remembering how stupid he must have looked doing the same at Astrid and asking her to kiss him again.

And then they found a body.

That’s still a change in tone he hasn’t found a way to navigate.

“I kind of do,” Ruffnut puffs out her cheeks and releases the air in a small, deflated puff, “the holding me back part, I mean. Free beer is my favorite, but it takes a lot of free beer to add up to a thousand dollars.”

“Less to fifty,” Astrid snorts, “I might be up to it.”

“That would be like sixteen of these on happy hour,” Hiccup turns his glass between his hands, “I’m not doubting your power, but…”

“After the week I’ve had, I might be up to it,” she shakes her head, obviously tired. It looks different than the kind of tired he saw when he showed up at her door too late or too early, or the kind of tired she was when she just had to wait for his eleven o’clock tour to yell one last theory down at him. It’s deeper and he hates that he knows why she can’t sleep.

“So, how do you guys know Gruff?” Hiccup changes the subject before it can drift naturally into Grimborn and all the ways its meaning might be changing.

“Are you kidding me?” Ruffnut points at her face and then absently over her left shoulder with a habitual thumb. “Oh, shit, Tuff isn’t here right now, that would be confusing.”

“He’s Ruffnut’s cousin,” Astrid explains, “and her brother’s doppleganger, it’s a whole long confusing story.”

“Well, I don’t have anywhere to be.” Hiccup tries to feel natural but Snotlout’s easy arm on the back of the other side of the booth makes his heart race when he even thinks about doing the same to Astrid. He remembers what she felt like against him, the strong set of her shoulders under his hands, the curve of her waist, and his entire body itches to pull her into his side now.

Not that there’s any indication she’d let him. She might see him and remember an alley she never wants to see again with him presenting it like Vanna White happily revealing the prize behind door number three.

“He takes my twin brother’s clothes and asks for money or stuff and when he gets it, he falls off the face of the earth again. Last time it was Tuff owing tax money so of course I gave it to him,” Ruffnut rubs her temple, “I’m too good of a sister, that’s the whole problem.”

“How alike could they possibly look?” Snotlout asks, grinning when Ruffnut is apparently happy to be blinded by his chest.

“It’s…kind of creepy, actually,” Astrid sighs, “I didn’t believe it until Tuffnut didn’t pay back some money I loaned him. He’s usually good about that stuff but he just kept insisting I never loaned him anything, and then I met Gruffnut.” She waves her hand towards the bar, ponytail swinging for emphasis.

“You know, babe, if you had a case for identity theft,” Snotlout waggles his eyebrows and Ruffnut pouts, crumpling into his side, head dramatically on his shoulder. He wraps his arm easily around her waist and Astrid sits up straighter, so rigid if Hiccup didn’t know better he’d think she was a wax statue.

A wax statue that had its post-forming makeup touched up by someone red-green colorblind trying to make an absolutely gorgeous Wicked Witch of the West, but still.

“I wish,” Ruffnut groans, “Tuffnut worships the ground the guy walks on.”

“I get it,” Snotlout nods, “that’s how Hiccup feels about me, some cousins just have that energy.” He grins, looking pointedly at Hiccup’s awkward arm, setting limply in his lap like he forgot how to move it. “Some don’t.”

“I get that you’re pissed, Ruff, I am too, but maybe it’s not the time for the disemboweling threats,” Astrid says it like the words are likely to bounce back at her so she doesn’t want to sharpen them too much.

“Why not?” Ruffnut snorts and gestures at Hiccup, “I’m in the right company.”

“Right, that’s me,” Hiccup nods to himself, “the disemboweled body guy. It’s good to finally officially introduce myself.”

This is going great.

“Oh, we’ve met,” Ruffnut raises an eyebrow, “how’s the tour business? I bet it’s picking up with some crazy mimic on the loose.”

“Babe, I’m not supposed to talk about it, but I can’t help myself around you so I’ll just say that the police have no actual reason to link the murders,” Snotlout tries to steer the conversation and Astrid glares at him. “Aside from, you know, some obnoxious weirdos or whatever.”

“If you’re not supposed to talk about it, maybe don’t talk about it.”

“I didn’t,” he rolls his eyes, “I said what we haven’t found, which is not the same as saying what we have—”

“How about none of us talk about it?” Hiccup tries, drumming his hands on the edge of the table, “anyone read any good books lately?”

“Nope,” Astrid looks at him helplessly then, wide eyes begging him to keep a secret. A bookish secret, apparently.

Oh, their secret. It makes sense that what happened at the archives would get lost in the whirlwind of finding a body, but Hiccup can’t quite stop himself from assuming she regrets it.

“Right, like it’s possible to avoid talking about it,” Ruffnut points at the TV over the bar, where the news is showing a juxtaposition of a picture of the alley from the Grimborn file along with a modern picture.

“…police response has been sluggish, given the repeated nature of the murders and the plausible connection to the Viggo Grimborn case—”

“I’ll put it on Sports Center,” Snotlout stands up and Astrid follows.

“What? So we can watch more Superbowl reruns?”

Snotlout grins, “not a Pats fan?”

“Don’t talk to me,” she shoves him hard enough that he stumbles and makes a bee-line for the tv.

“Is it because you’re a sore loser or what?” Snotlout starts in on his favorite argument.

“Well, there goes his night,” Hiccup tries to joke with Ruffnut even as he watches Astrid’s furious, irritated expression. She takes the remote from Snotlout’s hand and changes the channel, ignoring a few complaints at the bar. “Especially because it looks like Astrid has an opinion on the topic.”

Ruffnut narrows her eyes and Hiccup clears his throat, unused to the position of Designated Normal Person and unsure if he’s doing it right.

“So umm, football?”

“Did you do it?” Ruffnut whispers, leaning close across the table.

“Football?” Hiccup laughs, “yeah, look at me. I was a championship kicker, won the big game for the whole town and—”

“No, the murders,” she clarifies, shrewd even as she tries to look casual. “I’m just saying, it’s a little suspicious that you were giving murder site tours to my best friend both times they happened.”

“No, I did not murder two people.”

“Because I mean it, Astrid is my absolute best friend, and if you’re getting her entangled in some weird serial killer cult, she won’t be the one getting blamed for it.” It’s too matter of fact to be a threat, like the sequence of events already exists in a universe Hiccup really doesn’t want to get to.

“I’m not introducing Astrid to a murderous cult.”

“Well, I know you guys aren’t hooking up because if you were, she’d probably have something more interesting to talk about than stupid Viggo Grimborn.” Ruffnut looks him up and down appraisingly, “maybe.”

“I’m not introducing Astrid to a murderous cult,” Hiccup repeats the truth, willing his expression flat.

“HGTV?” Snotlout scoffs over the crowd, “right, for all the renovating you do in your shitty apartment.”

“It’s aspirational,” Astrid jumps and neatly sets the remote on top of the tv where Snotlout can’t reach it. “Unlike the NFL’s stance that their system is really totally fine even if the competition has devolved into who gets cheated by a bunch of—”

“That’s my cue,” Ruffnut drains her beer and stands up, “she gets on me for threatening my dipshit cousin and then she starts dissing the Patriots in a bar in the middle of Downtown Berk. I don’t know what she’d do without me.”

“Always a pleasure, Ruff,” Hiccup waves before slumping forward, smacking his forehead on the table a couple of times for good measure.

Astrid regrets kissing him, her best friend thinks he’s more likely to be into ritualistic murder than to have a chance with her. He’s broke. Someone might be a ritualistic serial killer and their shared interest in Berk’s history is making him more broke.

He expects Snotlout to start right in on making fun of his absolutely disastrous performance with Astrid, so he’s shocked when someone quietly slides into the booth across from him. He doesn’t expect to look up and see Astrid biting her lip and staring pensively at her beer.

“Where—”

“They just left together,” she cuts him off with an awkward laugh, “just so you know.”

“Ah,” Hiccup pushes his hair back, half-relieved and half-jealous, unsure where the feelings overlap. He’d love to not be here, but Astrid seems committed to being exactly where she is, so he’s committed. “So I’m stuck here for a while then.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” she shrugs a stiff shoulder, “you’ve met Ruffnut, it’s not like she’s shy about…well, anything.”

“Oh no, not—It’s not about her, it’s for my own good.” He laughs, wishing she’d sat back next to him at the same time as he’s glad to be able to see her face, slowly relaxing away from it’s coiled, anxious expression. “Snotlout’s a screamer.”

She snorts mid-drink, clapping her hand over her nose and coughing.

“Sorry,” he shoves a crumpled napkin at her before re-thinking it, “never mind, I wouldn’t trust anything on this table—”

“I’m fine,” she wipes her nose on her sleeve and pointedly changes the subject, “how have you been? Usually I don’t have to ask because I see you every night outside my window.” She doesn’t mention why he’s not doing tours and that makes it more obvious.

Or maybe it’s obvious all on its own and he’s just skirting the issue by making her snort beer out of her nose.

“I’m good. Fine. You?” He wouldn’t try to deny that he’s asking how traumatized she is. In fact, he probably deserves an award for not tacking on a rating scale. One means she needs a ride to a licensed mental health professional immediately, ten means she’s smart enough to never want to see him again because he’s obviously a weirdo dragging her towards the macabre and it’s not good for her.

He’s hoping for like a six, meaning she’d take a hug but won’t necessarily make him talk about it.

“I just said I’m fine,” her half smile accuses him of being a little bit stupid and he can’t help but remember how soft her lips were. How weirdly sweet she was when she tried to save his tour. How adorably embarrassed she was when she impossibly let it slip that she thought he did something sexy, like that’s a word anyone has ever associated with him, least of all someone like Astrid.

And then they found a body.

“Good.” As bad as Hiccup is at performing the role of Designated Normal Person, he’s even worse at having nothing to say.

“Thanks, by the way,” Astrid clears her throat, sniffing like there’s still beer where it shouldn’t be, “for not telling Ruffnut about…you know, the other day.”

“Which part?” Hiccup scratches the back of his head, “because I think she knows about the whole umm…finding a body part, given she thinks I’m the killer.”

“She doesn’t seem to get that people can have a shared interest and nothing more.” Her words sting but her blush doesn’t.

“Right, shared interests always lead to ritualistic murder,” he nods, elbows on the table as he leans a little closer to not have to say murder so loud, “I don’t see the flaw in that logic.”

“Either murder or the inevitable ‘sex in a murder alley’ she keeps insisting is a thing.” Astrid is either very cruel or has no idea of her ability to short circuit minds.

“Yeah, that sounds pretty morbid and drafty,” Hiccup laughs, his heart slamming around his ribcage apparently untethered, “plus, if ritualistic murder alley sex was on the table, your apartment is already a murder site so…” He swallows hard, wishing the floor would do the same to him. “Not a new one—"

“Don’t remind me,” she says seriously, clearly choosing not to hear the worst of what he just said, and he’s an idiot who can’t take an out.

“So no point in risking the public indecency charge, I guess.” He gestures between them and shakes his head, “not that ‘murder alley sex’ is a thing that exists at all, let alone with—you know, you. Or me. Or—"

“Don’t you mean my apartment isn’t a new murder scene yet?” Her laugh is humorless and heavy as she cautiously meets his eyes. “I hate to even say it, but do you think it’s a Grimborn thing?”

Hiccup’s stomach twists and looking into her tired face, he wishes he was a better liar, “I guess we’ll find out.”

“If it is,” she looks at him carefully, her assessment entirely perpendicular to Ruffnut’s, “if someone is killing people like Viggo Grimborn did, how can we just sit there doing nothing? If this—what are you going to do about it?”

He knows the correct answer to that question. It’s been drilled into him again and again since before he can remember. Hell, probably since before he could walk.

The police are dealing with it. The system works. Getting in the way only slows down the process.

But he can’t say that because Astrid knows that means nothing. It’s an empty thing he’d say to tell her to move on with her life while people are getting hurt, to pretend that mental blinders do anything other than hide suffering. And she’s too smart for that. Too smart and too honest to go along with it.

And she doesn’t scare easy.

“Probably something stupid,” he shrugs and she nods, apparently satisfied with the answer.

“Sounds about right.”

#ripped #httyd fic #hiccstrid #modern au #serial killer tour guide au #rufflout #coplout

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