To my fellow Canadians: I hope you remembered your poppy today.
To everyone else confused by that: In Canada today is Remembrance Day. It is the day we remember those we lost in past wars and thank our veterans and those who continue to keep the peace today. It is today because World War 1 ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, and we wear a poppy because of the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae (a Canadian). The poem is very beautiful and if you've never heard of it before you should Google it.
Hiccup had finally started to gain a little confidence in himself. He was just getting used to the handling of one of the most expensive and most powerful cars in the world, and then he saw the highway. Multiple scenarios of fiery crashes ran through Hiccup's head simultaneously. His nervous must have started to show because Toothless said something at this point.
"Hey, it's fine. You'll be fine. Besides, the car is fully insured." That last part he said with a smile. Hiccup was amazed just how much Toothless clearly trusted him. A little bit of his confidence returned, but if Toothless would have looked close enough he would have seen Hiccup's legs were still slightly shaking due to his nerves.
Fortunately for Hiccup's stress levels, the highway was jammed almost right away and all the way into the city so he got to drive slowly.
When they were finally going through the tunnel into Manhattan, Hiccup said, "I think it'd be best if we just took this straight to your condo. People might notice me getting out of a car like this and start asking questions."
"Alright, if you're sure. Do you remember the way?"
"No, not entirely."
Toothless gave Hiccup the directions and soon enough they were at Toothless' place. Hiccup very carefully parked in the underground and they took the elevator to the lobby, where Hiccup returned the car keys.
"So, when do you want to meet?" Hiccup started.
"Well," Toothless thought, "it's 4 o'clock now, so how about I pick you up at 9?"
"Sounds great. I'll see you then," Hiccup said before walking out the door.
'OK, so I have 5 hours to get home and get ready,' Hiccup thought as he started the walk to the southbound subway station. 'I wonder if I'll run into dad at the apartment.'
Hiccup did not run into his father at the apartment. He ran into him in the subway. Now that was awkward. Fortunately they did not have to speak to each other as they were on opposite platforms, but there was an awkward staring contest. Hiccup was left wondering what on earth his father was doing in the subway. Where was Gobber? And there was no way he was confusing him with someone else because no one else in New York City looked like that; Hiccup would bet a lot on that.
When Hiccup returned to the obviously empty apartment, the first thing he did was go to the shower. He needed to get all of this nervous stress sweat off of himself. He enjoyed a long, warm shower, and today the water was the perfect temperature. After finishing washing himself he just stayed and let the warm water cascade over his body. Hiccup did this sometimes; he just stood in the shower and pondered life. His thoughts wandered to school, his mom, and eventually to Toothless. It was after a moment or two on that last subject that Hiccup decided it was best to get out of the shower.
Hiccup spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out what to wear to the club. He had never gone to a club before so he had no idea what people wore. He even got desperate enough to google it at one point, but all the different results he got did nothing but confuse him further. Toothless didn't say which club it was or how nice it was, so Hiccup really had to be ready for any situation.
After walking around and thinking in his boxer-briefs for another few minutes, staring at his closet and all the clothes dangling therein, he finally decided. He grabbed a pair of extremely dark wash blue jeans, a light blue button up shirt, and a plain white t-shirt to wear under the blue shirt. He couldn't decide whether or not to button it up, but in the end he decided it did indeed look better buttoned. He completed the outfit with a pair of plain black dress shoes. Fortunately it wasn't supposed to be too terribly cold that night so he didn't think he'd need a jacket.
A quick glance at the clock on his desk showed the time was only 6:30, and Hiccup's stomach rumbled as if to confirm it was dinner time. Hiccup walked to the kitchen, but didn't want to eat much. Mostly because he was worried that if he had to prepare something he would splatter on his outfit and need to pick out another one. In the end his simple solution ended up being a little yogurt and a few crackers. Not much but it stopped his stomach from rumbling.
Hiccup decided to use the two hours he had left to do his homework. Basically just some math for his physics class. Generally it was peoples' worst mark in the architecture program, but Hiccup actually quite excelled at it. Although he may have made a few mistakes this time because as it got closer to nine he slowly got more and more excited. When he finished he glanced at his phone to see the time, but just as he read 8:59, Toothless' phone (which had been sitting on the table) started to ring.
Hiccup jumped up, dropped his normal phone, picked up Toothless' phone, his wallet, keys, and the fake ID and bolted towards the door. He didn't even lock the door in his excitement. It had barely even been five hours but he was really excited to see Toothless again.
After the phones fourth ring, Hiccup decided it would be best to at least acknowledge Toothless, so he picked up, gave a quick, "on my way," and hung up again. Hiccup was pretty sure that this was the slowest elevator ride of his life.
When he finally did reach the bottom floor (ten stops later), Hiccup made sure he was the first person out of the elevator and sped to the front doors. In his haste, however, he did manage to keep an eye out to make sure his father was nowhere to be seen.
As Hiccup suspected, Toothless was there in the Bugatti. He walked over and jumped in, trying to hide the fact that he was perhaps a little too overzealous from Toothless.
"Wow, excited much?"
Well, that failed.
"Just a little. Don't judge, it's my first time going to a club. I'm excited to see what it's like," Hiccup defended.
"I'm not judging! I remember my first time too. It was a little awkward at first but in the end it was a lot of fun," Toothless said with a completely straight face. Hiccup, as soon as Toothless had said that, was trying to determine if the double entendre in the sentence was intentional or an accident.
There was an abnormally large number of pedestrians on the street that night, so Hiccup didn't say much as to not distract Toothless while he was driving. It didn't take long though before they pulled up to a building on East 54th Street and Toothless stopped the car. When they got out, Hiccup was shocked to see Astrid standing there waiting for them. Toothless, however, was not.
"Astrid, nice timing. Just back to the warehouse please," he said as he tossed her the keys. Astrid didn't say a word, she just nodded and got to work.
As Hiccup was distracted, he didn't notice Toothless come up beside him until he had his arm around his shoulders. Hiccup supressed the surprised noise that was forming in his throat but he could definitely feel the start of a blush with Toothless being this close.
"Welcome to Lexicon Night Club Hiccup. Come on, let's go." Toothless said as he started pulling Hiccup forward with him.
"Uh, Toothless, there's a line, don't we have to wait?" Hiccup asked, confused.
"Not when you're on the list," Toothless smiled. With his arm still around Hiccup's shoulder they bypassed the line and walked right up to the bouncer. Hiccup could already feel the vibrations from the music inside the club.
The only thing the man did when they walked up was point to Hiccup and mumble, "ID."
If Hiccup had any type of cool before this point, this is where he came closest to losing whatever he had. Suddenly he was extremely nervous. What if the guy knew it was a fake? Would he call the cops? Would his dad find out? Not wanting to seem suspicious by delaying, Hiccup pulled the ID out of his pocket and handed it to the bouncer, barely managing to keep his arms from shaking. Toothless must have noticed something was wrong because he squeezed Hiccup's shoulder and gave him a look of concern.
As it turns out, Hiccup's concern was all for naught. The man just barely glimpsed at the piece of plastic before handing it back and opening the rope barrier without a single word. That started to ease Hiccup's nerves, but they shot right back up again inside the club. Toothless had gotten them a private booth, and right after they sat down, more scenarios started running through his head. What if he ordered a drink and the bartender or whoever asked for ID again but realized it was a fake? What if someone was watching the security cameras and noticed he was underage? To anyone these concerns would seem at least partially irrational, but to Hiccup they were entirely real.
After a few minutes Toothless got them a couple of drinks and they started chatting about nothing in particular. The music was really loud though so they had to lean in really close to each other to be able to hear, not that Hiccup minded. Hiccup took his first sip in the middle of one of Toothless' sentences and was actually surprised. This was his first time having alcohol, and he had heard that sometimes the first time you have it it tastes disgusting, but this actually tasted really good.
After the second drink Toothless asked Hiccup if he wanted to go on the dance floor and dance a little, but Hiccup declined saying he wasn't a very good dancer. Toothless scoffed at the excuse but dropped it at the time.
After the third drink Hiccup felt like he was relaxing a bit and he was really enjoying the conversation with Toothless. He stopped constantly glancing over to the door and the security cameras. He probably knew where every camera in the room was at that point. It was at this point that Toothless also reminded him to watch how much he drank. The first time a lot of people don't realize until it's too late. Hiccup promised he would and Toothless dropped the subject, hoping Hiccup would know his own limit.
After the fourth drink (and the first shot) of the evening Toothless had finally gotten Hiccup to just get up and go out on the dance floor. Hiccup was stiff at first, but with a little encouragement from Toothless he got going a little. Although even after he got going Toothless stayed abnormally close to Hiccup. If he didn't think Toothless was straight he would have thought he was almost flirting with him with how close he was. But that was a ridiculous thought. Right?
After the fifth drink (also a shot) of the night which was drunk on the dance floor, a girl came up to Hiccup and started dancing with him. She was shorter than average but wore excessively tall heels to make up for it, was in a little black dress, and had wavy brown hair that stopped around her shoulders. He sort of turned away but at the same time he didn't want to be rude by just ignoring the girl. He also noticed Toothless had moved away from them so he chatted with the girl momentarily but then told her that he had to go back to talk to his friend. Fortunately she got the message and left him alone, and Hiccup was relieved that she didn't look upset. Instead of going over to Toothless though he went back to their booth, and Toothless followed him.
After the sixth drink (again a shot) they were back to chatting.
"I saw you dancing with that girl," Toothless said, giving Hiccup a smile.
"Yeah," was all he got in return.
"Why didn't you talk to her? I think she thought you were good looking," Toothless asked with a wink at the end.
"Well," Hiccup started, not sure of what to say, "she wasn't really my type."
"Oh. Well what is your type?"
Before he had the chance to answer, they were brought two more drinks from the bar. Hiccup took a sip, and he didn't know what it was about that one drink that set him off, but suddenly he didn't care anymore.
"Guys."
Toothless needed a moment to register that, but even after that he didn't respond right away. The first thing that went through his mind was, 'Wow, so Stormfly was right about that.'
Realizing he had stayed silent and not wanting Hiccup to think that he was disgusted or anything, he decided he needed to say something. He would have told Hiccup that he was gay too but he thought that may have seemed a little awkward. In the end he just said, "Alright, cool," before changing the topic once again.
They continued to chat about less sensitive topics through drink eight, and they only stopped talking half way through drink nine when Hiccup made the conversation take a sharp turn.
"What time is it?" Hiccup asked seemingly out of nowhere.
Toothless looked at his watch before responding, "just past one, why?"
"Oh, it just doesn't seem like it's actually been three and a half hours since we got here. Where are the bathrooms?"
Toothless couldn't help but notice the slur in that last sentence. Toothless pointed towards the restrooms, and when Hiccup stood up he had to cling to the table for dear life. Now Toothless was really concerned.
"Hiccup, are you ok?" Toothless asked with genuine concern. He'd had a feeling that he should have cut Hiccup off earlier, and now he realized he should have. There was no way that stick of a boy could keep up with the number of drinks Toothless was having, but he had been matching him all night.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Hiccup said, but Toothless barely understood through the slur. Even Hiccup knew something was wrong at this point, he just didn't want to admit it. He should have listened to Toothless and watched how much he drank.
Hiccup started to walk towards the bathrooms, and that was when Toothless knew for sure something was wrong. He had never seen anyone stagger that badly before. How on earth had Hiccup managed to hide it so well up until this one point?
As Hiccup continued his trek to the bathrooms, he didn't notice Toothless get up from the table and start to slowly follow him. Hiccup also didn't notice anything special in the last moment before he stumbled, vomited, and blacked out.
Don't drink too much kids! Seriously, you won't know it's too late until it's too late. You'll feel fine one second, but there'll be one sip that'll send you over the edge. And sometimes that feeling comes all at once, just like it did for poor Hiccup here. You do it once and you will NEVER do it again.
Next chapter: On or before November 18
The best way to help a hangover is water. And lots of it. For every review, Toothless gets Hiccup to drink a glass. Help Hiccup out, won't you?
