Advent to X-Mas Chaos

"You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights."

-Maya Angelou

Astrid thought as she watched Tuffnut being rolled past her cubicle by Fishlegs while he was tangled in Christmas tree lights and itchy tinsel. Those two had been in charge of planning their office Christmas party and Ruffnut, who also worked in the same department as her brother, Thor help them all, assured the office that Tuff and Fish wouldn't disappoint. That just made her all the warier now that the party date was today. She and several of her colleges in this office were part of the Media department of an up-and-coming Marketing firm. They couldn't afford any more fires, which incidentally increased when the twins were hired.

"So you excited about tonight?" Atali, who was in the cubicle next to her, asked while wagging her eyebrows suggestively. "I'm hearing Mark from Accounting is coming as well. You finally gonna ask him out?"

"About that....." Astrid groaned. "That's not happening."

"Okay, what did I miss?" Atali frowned. "Wait, you asked him already?!?! Girl spill!"

"Shhhhh, you don't want Godzilla to hear now do you," Astrid hissed. By Godzilla, she meant Mala who was their VP of Digital Marketing. A person that was positively draconian and tolerated no gossip in the office.

"Oh please, you're one of our best PR coordinators," Minden from the cubicle on Astrid's other side spoke up. "Mala has nothing to complain about."

Astrid still looked discreetly over to Mala's glass-walled office to see her on the phone. She pitied the person on the other end of the line but the coast seemed clear so then she turned back to Atali with the story. "So two months ago I asked Mark out to that little French bistro near the office for lunch," Astrid explained. "I decided that day come hell or high water I'd tell him I was attracted to him. Turns out he didn't feel the same."

"What?!" Atali gasped.

"No way," Minden added.

"The HELL!" Came from the cubicle directly across from Astrid. Snotlout, their Media assistant, had been assigned that cubicle and Astrid could already imagine the shorter man trying, but failing, to peer over the divide to look at Astrid with incredulity. "Was the man high?! You're like one of the hottest babes in the office. In the top 10 in the office rankings too,"

"Snotlout do you need another visit to the stern HR lady?" Heather, one of the Digital marketing consultants, who was working next to Snotlout's cubicle, and directly opposite Minden's, growled.

"No...." Snotlout actually whimpered. "She scares me more than Astrid,"

"He just said he was flattered but that I wasn't his type," Astrid continued and shrugged. "I felt bad for a bit but then I thought to each their own. Besides I still have a date for tonight,"

"You do?!" Nearly the whole office asked and Astrid forgot, most of these people were busybodies. They would listen in to anything juicy.

"Yeah, I was thinking of bringing him to the office party. Now I'm not so sure. I do want my boyfriend's sanity to stay intact you know." Astrid frowned as she said this.

"Astrid don't be a prune. We aren't that bad!" Atali nearly exclaimed to which Astrid merely raised an elegant eyebrow.

"Need I remind you of every surface of the office being covered in neon glow-in-the-dark sticky paper?" Astrid asked while crossing her arms as well.

"Oh come on. No one thought Fishlegs would take Ruffnut's dare seriously!" Atali retorted.

"Every. Thor-damn. Surface." Astrid grumbled.

"Look, just bring your mystery man tonight," Minden elbowed her lightly. "I doubt the party can get out of hand much. Godzilla will be there too. You'd have to have cajones bigger than Ghidora to try anything drastic."

"Yeah, what could go wrong?" Ruffnut snickered as she walked past with a stack full of manila envelopes.

Astrid should have seen the warning signs. She really should have...

-O-

"I mean... we could still turn around...." Astrid said as she looked at Hiccup, her date for the night. "It's probably not too late...."

"You were looking forward to this party, so why change your mind now?" Hiccup asked with a frown. "Okay, I get that we are two hours late with that incident on the road but the party is suppsoed to go past midnight. You still have time for me to meet all your friends,"

"Eh..." Astrid chuckled nervously. "Meeting my friends is kinda the....." She made a hand motion that conveyed trouble.

"So, you don't want me to meet your friends?" Hiccup now asked with a raised brow.

"It's not that," Astrid sighed. "Meeting them, you'd need to be mentally prepared. I'm just afraid they will scare you off, or set you on fire...."

"I'm not that easily scared off," Hiccup laughed before he turned to his girlfriend as they stopped at a light, 2 blocks away from her office. "Wait, did you say set me on fire?"

Astrid gave another nervous laugh just as the light turned green. "I guess you're right. Given how we actually met, what's the worst that could happe-OH MY THOR! WHAT THE HELL!" She shouted mid-sentence when she noticed several firetrucks in front of her office building. The blue and red siren lights were still flashing as Hiccup parked the car nearby. The couple got out and Astrid, gripping her clutch purse and being mindful of her cocktail dress, crossed the street with Hiccup in tow. The building had been cordoned off and had garnered several pedestrian onlookers as well.

"Hey Gary!" Astrid waved one of the firemen she seemed to know down. Hiccup blinked confused at her as several others also waved back once they saw who it was. "What happened? Did the twins set Mildew's fig tree on fire again?"

"Again?" Hiccup mouthed wordlessly as he took in the exchange.

"Well we don't know yet," The fireman answered as he let Astrid and Hiccup through the barrier. "Your coworkers are still inside. Say is this the new beau?"

"How did you know?" Hiccup asked.

"Your completely clueless expression man," Gary clapped Hiccup on the back. "You'll get used to it. We get called down here at least once a week. Your girlfriend and her colleagues are so used to it now that they could easily pass the firefighters training." This comment caused more laughter from the men on scene as Astrid and Hiccup passed them by. Once inside the company lobby she could see all her coworkers in various states of disarray. The most noticeable thing was that they were all drenched.

"ASTRID OMG YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED?!" Atali came rushing towards her, wet and with hair sticking in odd directions. "Girl you missed the party of the decade!"

"I'm just two hours late, just what happened in those two hours that caused...." She made a handmotion towards the scene. "All this?"

"A lot, but before I get into that, two hours... did you have some..." Atali made a rather suggestive noise which caused Astrid to groan and Hiccup to laugh.

"No, damnit Atali get your head out of the gutter. We're late because Santa lost his reindeer and there was an animal control truck overturned on the highway. The police are still busy rounding up all the escapees."

Now it was Atali's turn to look somewhat sheepish. "Well you see....."

"Atali, I swear, if you tell me those incidents had anything to do with this party," Astrid grumbled.

"Alright, I'll just not say it," Atali mumbled just as Snotlout saddled up to her while carrying a punchbowl.

"Hey babe, I managed to save the eggnog. You want some?" The shorter man asked as he placed an arm around Atali's waist.

Astrid blinked incredulously and then asked "When did this happen?"

"Eh, tonight..." Atali laughed.

"Hey Snotlout," Hiccup greeted causing both women to pay attention to their men.

"Cuz, fancy seeing you here!"

"Cuz.... wait," Astrid then turned to Hiccup. "You're the fishbone of a cousin he tried to set me up with?" She then turned back to Snotlout and growled "HE IS BY NO MEANS A FISHBONE!"

"Wait, so that means he's also the cousin you used as a pinata?" Atali wondered aloud.

Hiccup scratched the back of his head and added "At the time I was a fishbone....And the pinata thign was a bet I lost,"

"Wait...." Snotlout now realized something as he pointed a finger at Astrid. "You're the girl that nearly clobbered him with her heels when you mistook him for a groper."

"And then she clobbered the actual groper with said heels. Yes, Snot. She's the one I've been mentioning." Hiccup answered.

"Okay, I guess the world is small. Though that still doesn't answer how reindeer and animal control fit into this disaster."

"Well then, you're going to want to sit down for this," Atali gestured to one of the tables that still had their chairs upright.

-O-

"So do you want it in chronological order or in terms of ascending chaos?" Atali asked nonchalantly as she, Snotlout along with Hiccup and Astrid made good use of the eggnog while the party dwindled down and the firefighters left.

"Ascending chaos please. I don't think I can handle chronologically." Astrid was already rubbing her temple.

"Well, I guess the least chaotic thing would be Ruffnut seducing the bartender Eret and making out with him in the coat closet." Atali relayed. "That however did lead to Tuffnut having to take over the bar and he made his signature cocktail."

'Not the Zippleback!" Astrid groaned. "Wasn't that cocktail banned last year?!"

"Yeah, but Mala wasn't there to keep an eye on him. She had her hands full chasing down reindeer after yelling at Fishlegs for ordering the wrong ice sculpture."

"Ice sculpture?" Astrid questioned and then looked around. Her eyes landed on a very suggestive ice sculpture of a voluptuous female in a rather suggestive pose on the buffet table.

"Fishlegs was supposed to order a Phoenix. Instead he misheard her and ordered a Female." Snotlout laughed at that. "Oh now that was a sight to see when Mala laid eyes on it."

"So.... reindeer? How did those fit in?" Hiccup asked as curiosity got the better of him.

"Alvin from Accounting was supposed to be our Santa and Tuffnut wanted to make it authentic so he brought in actual reindeers." Atali answered. "The reindeers got loose after they were spooked by our Dj, which led to them nearly trampling Santa. Mala and several others went to track them down but....."

"But what?" Astrid asked, not realizing she was leaning forward slightly at the story.

"I think I should explain about the DJ first. So the DJ that arrived was pretty much high off his rocker. So Tuffnut had to find a replacement. Cue Dagur from Security. He's saying he can Dj so Tuff lets him. There was some techno music playing and he changed it to.... Get this. The Polka."

"The Polka?" Astrid muttered with a frown.

"Yeah, he even yelled GET YER LEDERHOSEN READY TO PARTY!" Atali explained while making wild handgestures, "Polka music comes on, reindeers get spooked and all that. Next thing you know Mala's chasing the deer, Santa's having a Zippleback to calm his nerves and one of the reindeer ate Heather's project." Here Atali pointed to Heather who was asleep and leaning against Fishlegs near the bar. She seemed to be covered in what appeared to be ink and Snotlout clarified that before Heather had a run in with the reindeer she was finishing up a project and got into a fight with the copier. She apparently lost, but still got her copies only for them to be eaten.

"Right, So Mala wasn't there to stop the Zippleback from being distributed and you know what that meant."

"How can I forget. So people started stripping?" Astrid asked with a straight face. Hiccup made a mental note to never try this Zippleback.

"Pretty much. Polka music was playing, people were stripping, Alvin was bellydancing on a table while waiving his Santa coat around. Even that sourpuss Mildew from HR was having the time of his life. He brought his sheep Fungus by the way. Tufnut probably shouldn't have fed Fungus alcohol."

"Oh Thor," Astrid now groaned.

"That's where animal control came in." Atali stated. "Fungus ran out on the sidewalk so they took him. Mildew then borrowed Dagur's Harley and went to save him." This elicited another groan from Astrid. "Then someone's clothing caught fire, the sprinklers went off.... And well here we are now."

"At least I saved the eggnog!" Snotlout proudly declared.

"You have got to be kidding me!" A voice came from somewhere near the bar and the group could see Ruffnut taking in all the aftermath with her hands on her hips. Behind her was a very kissed-out Eret. "I went for a little smoochy-smooch and missed all the good stuff?!"

"Cheer up sis! I saved you a Zippleback!" Tuffnut, with a tie wrapped around his head like a bandana, said from behind the bar as he produced a cocktail glass with some smoking liquid in it. He then turned to Astrid and Hiccup and asked "Did you guys want one too?"

"NO!" Both immediately answered.

"Say, the night's still young. What do you say we catch a movie or something?" Hiccup asked his girlfriend.

"Oh, I'd love to but first," Astrid smirked as she held up a piece of mistletoe she had found laying on the table.

"Who am I to go against tradition M'lady," Hiccup said before he kissed her. Neither of them heard Snotlout gagging nor Atali telling them to get a room. "Shall we?"

"We shall," Astrid said as she took Hiccup's offered arm and wished everyone still there Happy Holidays.

Snotlout looked at Atali and asked "Want to start a betting pool on when they'll get married?"

"Heck yea!" was the answer.

The End

AN: I woke up from a long foodcoma and nearly forgot to post this. Happy Holidays everyone!

Vala: (Dressed the Porg up as a reindeer)
Harry: (Watches the Porg fall forward from the weight of the antlers)