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Ruffnut has the sinking suspicion that Tuff’s wild insanity, insisting he’s turning into a lycanwing and scaring everyone half to death about him, threatening to do nothing short of jumping off a cliff – the moron – had a bit less to do with his sporadic moods and a whole lot more to do with Heather.
Ruff, personally, wants to find and strangle the girl a good half to death right now. Tuff, for as cringey and gross as it was, did really love her and she just upped and betrayed him. Honestly. Who would choose their brother over their friends? It’s so dumb.
So, yep, she thinks Tuff’s working himself up to the near-death nonsense was just as much his way of dealing with what happened to Heather, period.
They talked, and then she offered. And Ruff is mad.
“First of all, Tuff,” she says fiercely, sitting at her brother’s side, still uncomfortably shaken from the everyone-got-captured and then Heather and Tuff nearly dying, “Heather was nasty.”
“What? No, she wasn’t!” he argues, sulkily, sniffling like the oversized baby he is. Tuff is such a handful, but right now, Ruff won’t even complain. Her brother could have died. That’s just how big of a wreck the idiot is. “She promised me we’d get to spend our lives together, and then she just…”
“I’m starting to think your engagement was at least partly imagined,” Ruff points out, and Tuff breaks right off into his breakdown again.
Ughhh.
“Okay, no, I don’t mean that,” Ruff whines, shaking her sobbing brother’s shoulder. She’d look to the others for help, but right now, all that’s hovering over them is a worried Barf and Belch. Hiccup and Fishlegs went off somewhere, and she’s selfishly mad at them for vanishing right now. “I just mean, she’s really being a jerk, and we don’t have a choice to not fight her anymore.”
“I don’t think Hiccup does, either,” Ruff offers, because if it were up to her, she’d strangle the girl with her own axe. But she doesn’t think telling Tuff how badly she wants to murder his girlfriend is gonna make him stop crying. So she just awkwardly ats his shoulder instead.
“I was so certain I finally found someone who liked me,” he says sullenly.
Snotlout drops down beside them, grumpy and still covered in a few too many animal bites. Ruff still honestly feels bad about that. But who’s to tell? She’s awful anyway. “I know,” he offers sympathetically, “Girls can never be trusted.”
“Hey!” Ruff snaps, annoyed. “I heard you.”
“I mean, I was so nice to Astrid,” he continues, “And look where that ended up?”
“With you getting hit a bunch of times,” Ruff offers, “Yeahhh.” Because Astrid really wasn’t nice to Snotlout, even if the guy sort of digs his own grave most of the time. But Ruff still likes him.
And he’s wrapped in an insane number of bandages right now, and he still came to try to help, even if Ruff admits she did a good lot of the work herself. But they still, really, don’t deserve to have him stuck out here.
“And she just ran off,” Tuff fumbles, “Was I too mean? Was I too stupid?”
“Tuff,” Snotlout says, firmly – though with a definite streak of discomfort, “You might be stupid, but you know, I hate smart people.”
Doesn’t change how Tuff nearly died for that. She will never get the moment of sheer terror as her brother stood at the far edge of a cliff, about to jump off and meet whatever fate awaited him at the bottom.
“You know, if it helps anyone,” Ruff supplies, knowing full well this will help no one, “I’m not trusting anyone other than you guys ever again.”
“Ohhh, you trust me?” Snotlout gasps.
“Don’t push it,” Ruff grumbles, though, yes, she does. Their relationship might be as rocky as it rolls, but she does trust him. Honest and simple. Even if that kind of scares her. Because no one should ever trust Snotlout. Serious.
“I can’t trust anyone but Chicken,” Tuff complains.
Barf and Belch grumble loudly, both heads dangling upside-down over them. “Uh, ya sure about that?” Ruff asks, petting Barf. “Don’t worry, I still trust you,” she grumbles to the dragon.
Her brother’s dramatics annoy her unquestionably, but he’s overly sensitive, and to be honest, they’re all handling the Heather mess a bit different. Snotlout’s being a jerk. Hicclegs are ignoring everyone but each other, their dragons, and their weapon or dragon collection info. Ruff is just… being Ruff, trying to bottle up her frustration and mostly bullying Snotlout, and Tuff is internalizing everything and descending into a total chaotic wreck.
Ruff’s spent the last few days without him, which did nothing to help her own mental state.
Oh, and Astrid nearly died last week or so, so…
Everybody’s a mess.
Actually, why is Astrid not screaming and beating everyone up? She’s been awfully quiet. Oh, well. At least Ruff doesn’t have a broken rib, so she’s not whining.
Barf grumbles happily and licks her head.
“Okay, uh,” she grumbles, “Too much slobber.”
Barf grumbles at her and pulls his head back – they’re just worried. Heathshear going rogue took a toll on the… Barfelchnuts, too. They definitely heard about Tuff’s near-death, too.
“I just don’t know how I’m ever supposed to trust anybody again,” Tuff offers, shrugging. “And I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Never do it again,” Ruff tells him fiercely, shaking his shoulders.
“Ughh. No promise. But –” he lifts his arm as Belch stubbornly shoves his head into his lap just to get his attention. “I wanna see fire again. It’s been forever since I saw fire.”
“You’re not starting the base on fire,” Astrid interrupts fiercely, entering the clubhouse. “So, don’t even think about it.”
“That’s easy for you,” Ruffnut snaps back, immediately edgy, “You get to have fun all sorts of other ways.”
Tuff’s head is sort of drifting closer to her shoulder now, and Ruff does her best to not squirm awkwardly when her brother just slouches against her, exhausted and miserable.
“Yeah, you got many other ways,” Snotlout agrees, “The beauty queen that everybody loves. What do you know about not having friends, never knowing when somebody’s gonna walk out and leave you alone?”
Astrid’s shoulders go rigid with irritation, And Ruff is fully expecting her to start yelling or hitting, but for once, she doesn’t take the bait, and slowly heads to Tuff instead. “I know more than you might think,” she snaps shortly to Snotlout – definitely a bit cranky – and crouches in front of Tuff. “Is he okay?”
“Uh, not really,” Ruff snaps, “He sort of just found out his girlfriend is evil, and it happened about a week ago, but it feels a whole lot more real now than it did then. You’re lucky you’ve never been in love.’ She shudders. The fluttery-ness she gets about Hiccup is just different, okay?
On the positive side, Tuff doesn’t start hysterically wailing again, or Ruff would probably lost lose her mind entirely.
“Regardless of where Heather is or isn’t, you still have us, okay?” Astrid asks, hand on Tuff’s shoulder. “And we’re not going anywhere. Except I might head off to bed, so I don’t accidently axe Snotlout’s head off.”
Tuff’s face slowly morphs from sad to a confused oh, and Ruff gapes at the blonde as she makes a quick exit, too.
“Wow,” Tuffnut blurts, “She’s never that nice.”
“It’s scary,” Snotlout whines, his eyes as wide as they get.
“Tell me about it,” Ruffnut whines, “Who knew Astrid could be nice?”
“Can you sleep at our house tonight?” Tuff asks, tugging on Snotlout’s arm, “I mean, normally we sleep over at Hiccup’s, but I sorta almost got you killed, and, uh, consider it an apology?”
“Fine, whatever,” he gripes with an eyeroll. “I’ll sleep over, you’re both so whiney.”
“And you’re a jerk,” Ruff accuses – they’re back to normal again. This is much better.
“The jerk nominates we set a fire before bedtime,” Snotlout offers, raising a hand.
“Yess!” Ruff yells excitedly, scrambling to her feet and climbing on Barf. It feels really, really nice to be out flying again.
Snotlout goes searching for a few jars of Monstrous Nightmare gel and they quickly discover the glory of blasting and blowing them mid-air. The flying sparks it spews rain epically down around them, like… okay, whatever, but someone should seriously use these for parties. They’re glorious.
“Hey, do you think we could make these different colors?” Ruff calls, giggling and finally happy and alert again over the next explosion round. “Then we can take them to Snoggletag next year.”
“Huh. Not a bad idea,” Tuff supplies.
“Guys!” Hiccup yells from somewhere, “What are you do – wait, is that our Monstrous Nightmare Gel supply? What are you doing?!”
“It’s called having fun,” Snotlout calls chipperly, one eye literally bandaged and not to mention everything else, leaning on Hookfang’s horns to probably trying not pass out. “You should try it sometime.”
“You’re going to bed,” Hiccup says fiercely, “And you two are grounded.”
Ruff jolts. “What?! You can’t ground us!”
“That’s not faaaair!” Tuff wails.