It's Road Trip Time! The Berk Gang is going to Florida.
This Chapter took a little longer because I was working on how Hiccup and Co were actually going to from Minnesota to Florida. I want to make this and the rest of the story to be as authentic as possible.
Plus its finals week. Joy.
But Anyway.
Time to crank up the radio and hit the Holiday Road!
On the Open Road!
After a few weeks of preparation, making reservations and talking Astrid out of killing Gustav after he asked her out for the umpteenth time, it was finally vacation time. And thank god too, Hiccup was close to snapping.
It was Friday and Hiccup was finishing his shift at the auto shop. The shop was closed on weekends, so that gave him a head start on the trip.
Astrid had the day off and she and their friends spent the day packing Snotout's van. Or to be more specific. Astrid and Fishlegs would do all the packing, the twins would start beating each other up for entertainment and Snotlout would "supervise" the process.
Hiccup cleaned his work station and opened his locker to retrieve his stuff. He closed the locker with a smile on his face and was practically running towards the door.
"All right Gobber, I'll see you next Monday!" Hiccup told his boss who was counting the profits they made that day.
"I want pictures lad, and I expect at least one of you and Astrid." Gobber said in a stern voice.
"I'll try not to forget, bye Gobber!" Hiccup yelled as he was already in the parking lot before he could even finish his sentence.
He sprinted towards his car and sent a quick text to his girlfriend.
"Vacation Time!"
He sent the text, started the ignition and drove to his apartment trying not to go over the speed limit.
He fiddled with the radio until he was satisfied with a station. Hiccup couldn't stop thinking about how much fun he was going to have this week and the song helped out as well.
Can't seem to get my mind off of you
Back here at home there's nothin' to do
Now that I'm away
I wish I'd stayed
Tomorrow's a day of mine
That you won't be in
When you looked at me
I should've run
But I thought it was just for fun
I see I was wrong
And I'm not so strong
I should've known all along
That time would tell
A week without you
Thought I'd forget
Two weeks without you and I
Still haven't gotten over you yet
Hiccup made a left hand turn and was just imagining what was in store for him and his friends, Fishlegs getting all the characters to sign his book. Snotlout trying to act tough but secretly having a great time. The twins trying to find Walt Disney's frozen body.
And then there was Astrid.
Vacation
All I ever wanted
Vacation
Had to get away
Vacation
Meant to be spent alone
Vacation
All I ever wanted
Vacation
Had to get away
Vacation
Meant to be spent alone
Hiccup's mind went blank when he thought of Astrid. She came from a poor family who had to work for her accomplishments. He had done the whole Disney thing numerous times, she never had that luxury. So he was going to try his hardest to make sure that his girlfriend has the best time ever.
A week without you
Thought I'd forget
Two weeks without you and I
Still haven't gotten over you yet
Vacation
All I ever wanted
Vacation
Had to get away
Vacation
Meant to be spent alone
He tapped his steering wheel to the music as he turned again to see his apartment building from afar. He could just imagine himself relaxing by the pool with his lady friend while their friends scare the tourist with their antics. Oh how he was ready for vacation
Vacation
All I ever wanted
Vacation
Had to get away
Vacation
Meant to be spent alone
Vacation
All I ever wanted
Vacation
Had to get away
Vacation
Meant to be spent alone
The song ended as Hiccup turned into his apartment complex after a record nineteen minute drive. He saw a large black van pulled by his apartment (Hiccup and Astrid lived on the first floor.)
As he got out of the car, Hiccup saw his friends finishing packing up the van. They looked vacation ready. Fishlegs was putting coolers in the van while Ruffnut dropped a heavy bag on Tuffnut's stomach (Don't Ask.) and Snotlout was sitting in a lawn chair with sunglasses on drinking lemonade and barking orders at people.
Hiccup smiled when he saw his girlfriend exited their apartment. She was wearing a bright blue v neck long sleeved shirt with brown short shorts and blue chuck taylors. (Everyone else had similar outfits from before) At the moment she was carrying a large suitcase that looked incredibly heavy. Not liking how his girlfriend was overworking herself, Hiccup instantly walked over to her and grabbed the other side of the suitcase.
"Um excuse me young lady, you shouldn't be carrying that giant suitcase by yourself, you'll throw out your back." He told her.
Astrid smiled back as they gave each other a quick peck on the lips. She knew that he was always concerned for her safety and while she loved that about him, the tough athletic side of her wouldn't allow it. But she didn't want him to worry.
"Don't worry babe, I wasn't captain of the volleyball team for nothing." She said hoisting the suitcase over her shoulder in an attempt to show that she didn't need help…..only for her to lose her footing and nearly falling over with the large suitcase nearly crushing her.
But Hiccup was there and quickly grabbed the suitcase so that Astrid wouldn't fall face first on the ground.
"You were saying milady?" Hiccup asked.
Astrid stared at Hiccup for a second, she HATED being embarrassed especially in front of Hiccup.
"Just put the suitcase in the van." She said rather rudely as they put the suitcase in the van.
Hiccup felt guilty for making Astrid feel embarrassed. He knew she wasn't mad at him, she was more upset that she felt helpless when she said she was fine.
Hiccup did not want her to start the vacation like this, so he had an idea.
When Astrid was caught off guard he grabbed her hand and spun her around putting her in a tight hug and giving her the cheesiest grin.
Astrid couldn't resist his cheesy attempts at showing his love. Sure it was corny, but it did cheer her up.
"You are so cheesy sometimes." She said smiling.
"And that's why you love me." He said.
The two closed in for a passionate kiss, until Fishlegs cleared his throat.
The two lovebirds turned around to see that their friends have been watching the whole time.
"Um, is this gonna be thing throughout the whole trip. Because I can always watch Fifty Shades of Grey for a poorly executed romance." Said Tuffnut.
"Yeah Romance and CGI….." Ruffnut started.
"Okay really didn't need to go there Ruff, Are we all packed?" Hiccup asked, desperately wanting to change the subject.
"Yep, all set and ready to go. We would've gotten done quicker if someone decided to help us." Fishlegs said glaring at the sitting Snotlout .
"Hey, I'm supervising. That's an important job." Snotlout pointed at Fishlegs.
"Yeah important at being lazy." Fishlegs whispered to Hiccup who laughed in return.
"What was that Fishbones?!" yelled Snotlout instantly getting up after the comment.
"Nothing!" whimpered Fishlegs who had his hands up in defense.
"That's what I thought." Snotlout replied as he sat back down.
Astrid looked over to Hiccup, she was debating on of inviting their friends was such a good idea.
"Why do I get the feeling that we're going to be the parents of this trip?" she asked him.
Hiccup in return saw what he was about to deal with for a week. Snotlout was threatning Fishlegs while the twins were taking turns smacking each other in the face.
"Harder, if I can't feel my face then I won't sunburn!" yelled Tuffnut as his sister smacked him across the face.
Hiccup then looked over to his girlfriend and put his hand on her shoulder.
"It's because we care too much Astrid." He said in defeat.
The sun was setting and Hiccup was locking up his apartment after changing out of his work clothes. Toothless and Stormfly were already at Gobber's place. He offered to look after everyone's pets including Meatlug, Snotlouts Rottweiler Hookfang, and the twin's pet snakes Barf and Belch.
He turned the key to lock the door and turned around to see that everyone was already in the van. He would be taking the first driving shift and everyone would get a turn to drive.
Hiccup stepped inside the driver's seat to see where everyone was at. Astrid was sitting next in front passenger seat as she would be driving next. Snotlout and Fishlegs were sitting in the middle row. And the twins were in the back.
"All right guys, who's ready for a vacation?" he said excitedly.
"Dude, I was born ready." Said Snotlout.
"This is so exciting." Squealed Fishlegs.
"Vacation, Vacation!" cheered the twins.
Astrid simply smiled and that was all Hiccup needed to see.
He turned on the ignition of the van, backed up, put it in drive and they were heading off to Orlando.
To Hiccup's surprise, nothing really went wrong during his shift. The Twins and Snotlout provided entertainment by providing prank phone calls to poor workers and playing the license plate game where they punch each other if they see a state other than Minnesota. Well the twins did the latter and Snotlout just enjoyed seeing them in pain. Fishlegs kept to himself by reading and Hiccup and Astrid would engage in small talk but nothing too serious.
After about four hours of driving, Hiccup pulled over to a gas station in Iowa so that they could fill up. Hiccup was relieved as he had just spent the last three hours staring at cornfields.
They pulled out of the van and stretched, Fishlegs went to use the bathroom and Snotlout and the twins went to god knows where.
"Astrid I think I just set the record for most corn seen by the human eye." Hiccup told Astrid rubbing his eyes.
"Hopefully Missouri is more interesting." Said Astrid stretching her legs.
"Yeah, that was so boring." Snotlout said appearing out of nowhere taking a big bit on a corn cob.
Hiccup and Astrid were startled with Snotlout's sudden appearance, but then their attention came to the corn on the cob in his hand.
"Um Snotlout, where did you get that corn on the cob?" asked Astrid.
"Oh well I bought it…at the gas station." Snotlout defended.
"You bought corn on the cob…at a gas station." Said Hiccup
Snotlout was about to say something until the twins showed up from the nearby cornfield with a large bucket of corn.
"Check out all this corn we got!" Said Tuffnut.
"Thanks for telling us where to get it Snotlout." Said Ruffnut.
Hiccup was about to say something when he heard an angry voice from the cornfield.
"Hey who took all of my corn?!" yelled the voice who Hiccup and Astrid assumed that it was the farmer's voice.
Hiccup started to panic.
"Okay break over, we gotta go know!" he said in a panicky tone.
And within seconds, Astrid took over the divers sear and were already on the highway. Normally Hiccup was scared of Astrid's crazy driving but this was an exception.
"That was so wrong guys!" Hiccup yelled at the twins as he took a bite of his corn cob. "But man is this delicious."
"You could've had us arrested! Can you passed the salt?" Astrid continued eating her own corn cob.
Snotlout was simply enjoying his corn, until he frowned at a discovery.
"This needs more butter!" he demanded as Fishlegs gave him some.
"That's more like it." Said Snotlout as he took a big bite.
The Twins simply laughed at their victory.
Besides the "Corn Fiasco" Astrid's shift went by quickly. It was almost three in the morning and the group's energy had died down drastically. They pulled after they got out of St. Louis and were heading towards the Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee area. They decided to go through Missouri so that they wouldn't hit the Chicago traffic.
They went to a rest area just out of the St. Louis area. Astrid went to get a drink and Hiccup followed suit to use the restroom. It was Snotlout's turn to drive and the twins wanted to move to the middle row. So Snotlout decided to wake a sleeping Fishlegs up to move him to the front seat.
"All right Fishlegs wake up." Snotlout told Fishlegs who didn't even move an inch.
"Wake up!" Snotlout yelled as Fishlegs was still in a deep sleep.
"I think he might be dead." Said Tuffnut.
"Let's poke him to find out." Ruffnut said.
While they were trying to see if Fishlegs was in fact dead. Astrid went over to the nearest vending machine to grab her drink. The whole rest stop was dead and was starting to look like something out of a horror movie. And whether she would admit it or not, Astrid was starting to get scared. She wouldn't mind so much except she had a weird feeling that she was being watched. As she put her quarters into the slot, she could've sworn that she saw a shadow run quickly. Astrid turned around fast, but no one was behind her.
"It's okay Astrid, just breathe." She said to herself.
The vending machine dropped her raspberry iced tea very loudly causing her to jump. Cursing silently, Astrid grabbed her drink and proceeded to walk slowly.
"There's nothing to be afraid about." She said.
She continued walking until she heard a loud clanking sound and that got her blood flowing. Now she knew that someone was following her and immediately got into defense mode.
"I know you're following me, I'm not afraid of you.' Stammered Astrid, fear still fighting to come out.
Soon she heard a groaning sound and she could see a shadow from the distance that was slowly heading towards her.
Her heart started beating at a fast pace but she wasn't going to back down. She put her drink down and slowly went towards the shadow, Astrid cracked her knuckles and neck and started running and let out a battle cry.
She literally jumped on the shadow and started beating the living crap out of it.
She kept punching and kicking until the person started speaking.
"ASTRID OW STOP OW ITS ME!" cried the voice while Astrid had it in a choke hold.
Astrid knew that voice but hoped that it wasn't who she thought it was.
"H-hiccup?" she said quietly.
Hiccup looked up at Astrid. He looked awful, he had multiple bruises, and his shirt was torn and had a large cut above his left eye.
"Hi, any particular reason why you decided to beat the living crap out of me?" he said weakly trying to pick himself off the ground.
Astrid just put her hands over her mouth. She just physically beat up no no correction, assaulted her boyfriend who did absolutely nothing wrong. She was in complete shock.
"I-I thought you were someone else." She said pulling Hiccup off the ground.
"Boy that guy was in for a real treat." Laughed Hiccup.
"How are you laughing about this, I could've killed you!" yelled Astrid.
"But you didn't." said Hiccup wiping blood off his face.
Astrid just looked at her boyfriend and went back to the van. Hiccup could've sworn she was about to cry.
"Man I've made her cry more in five years then the first sixteen years of her life." Said Hiccup as he went to the van.
When he got back to the van Snotlout was already in the driver's seat.
"Dude what took you guys so long and what happened to you." He asked the bloodied and bruised Hiccup.
"I'd rather not talk about it." Said Hiccup who saw Astrid in the back row with her head down and her eyes slightly puffed and red.
"I'm gonna sit in the back." Hiccup told Snotlout.
"You better not get blood on my seat." Snotlout warned Hiccup.
Hiccup ignored him grabbed a clean shirt and paper towel to clean his cut.
He sat down next to Astrid who was still extremely upset.
"Um you left your drink at the rest area, I got it for you." Hiccup said holding Astrid's drink.
"Thanks." Astrid said quickly without even looking at Hiccup.
Hiccup HATED seeing Astrid like this. She didn't blame her for beating him up. It was all just a misunderstanding. He should've seen the bench in front of him, instead of banging his shin on it. Astrid was only trying to protect herself and Hiccup was about to do the same with Astrid.
"Those boxing lessons are really showing Astrid." Laughed Hiccup but his girlfriend still looked down. She obviously didn't find that joke to be funny.
"Come on Astrid, I'm not mad I actually think it's funny." Hiccup said.
"But I don't." Astrid spoke up but not too loudly as she didn't want anyone to hear her.
"I assaulted you Hiccup, I should've known it was you. But I was too afraid." She said softly.
There was an awkward silence that was only rivaled by Fishleg's snoring. Turns out Snotlout and The Twins realized that Fishlegs wasn't dead and Tuffnut was now in the front row next to Snotlout and Ruffnut was sitting next to Fishlegs.
"Well in my defense, I shouldn't have slammed my shin on the bench." Hiccup said jokingly showing a bruise on his shin.
Astrid looked at the bruise and then the picture started to come together.
"That explains the clanking sound and groaning." She laughed.
Soon the atmosphere turned from sad and depressing to funny.
"You actually thought I was a stalker?' laughed Hiccup.
"Don't laugh, you were very convincing." Astrid told Hiccup.
"Well I've been told that I have that effect on women." Hiccup said with pride.
"Now who would say that?" Astrid asked.
"…Toothless." Hiccup said silently.
It was then that Astrid started to laugh hard. She had to control herself so that she wouldn't wake up the others.
"It's so true, you've seen the way he looks at me." Hiccup defended in a serious tone, this only made Astrid giggle even more.
"Oh my god. I love you so much." Laughed Astrid. Hiccup simply smiled, his goal was complete. He made his girlfriend happy again.
"Come here you." Hiccup told Astrid as he put his right arm around her shoulder and she placed her head on his shoulder.
"Besides, you always said you thought battle scars were hot." Said Hiccup.
Astrid giggled at Hiccup's attempts to make her laugh.
"My boyfriend, always focusing on the positive." She said.
"And you're not getting rid of me anytime soon." He said with a wink.
The two pecked each other on the lips before Astrid made a discovery.
"Oh my god Hiccup look." She told him.
Hiccup looked where Asttid was looking and laughed at the discovery.
Ruffnut was asleep…..on Fishlegs. Ruffnut had her head on Fishleg's shoulder and his arm was wrapped around Ruffnut's waist.
"Oh this is too good, you know he's had a crush on her for the longest time." Hiccup told Astrid.
"Right, When will he be a man and finally admit his feelings?" asked Astrid.
"I don't know Astrid but hopefully something might happen during this trip." Said Hiccup.
Astrid thought about the trip and how it was getting closer and closer. She was getting even more excited and gave Hiccup a quick peck on the cheek without even thinking.
Hiccup was caught off guard by the kiss.
"What was that for?" he asked.
"That's for taking us on this vacation, it really means a lot to me and everyone else. They won't admit it but they're grateful." She said.
Hiccup smiled at the situation. Yeah his friends drove him nuts and were constantly annoying. But he wouldn't trade them for the world.
"We should probably get some sleep. We'll be in Florida tomorrow." Said Hiccup.
"Sounds good to me." Said Astrid as she laid on the car seat with Hiccup right next to her.
They looked at each other with joy and proceeded to fall asleep in each other's arms. It was perfect.
The front seat on the other hand was different.
"I spy with my little eyes, something black." Said Tuffnut looking around the road.
Snotlout looked as if he was going to explode.
"Let me guess Tuff, is it the sky?" he gritted between his teeth.
"Man you are so good at this!" said an excited Tuffnut.
"That's because that was the answer to the last two hundred three times we've played this stupid game!" Snotlout said angrily.
Tuffnut looked at him and then the sky. And then he had an idea.
"Oh oh I spy with my little eyes, something…black."
And as the van kept driving on the highway, the only sound that could be heard was Snotlout's cries of agony.
"Please, make it stop." Cried Snotlout.
Whew, this was a tough chapter to get out. I don't know, I just had serious OCD with this chapter. I wanted it to be perfect. My main goal was to expand the Hiccstrid relationship and show that they are really there for each other.
Up next, the gang finish their drive and head to Disney World.
(BTW The song was "Vacation." by The Go-Go's, I don't own it)