The Twelve Days of Christmas
by Darkened-Storm
Summary: It's Christmas time, a holiday shared by beybladers from around the world. Max is in America with Judy and hopes to fit in with the All Starz while Kai is in Russia with the Blitzkrieg Boys avoiding any mention of the word 'Christmas'. Tyson and Daichi seem to do more arguing than decorating and Enrique is in Rome, doing as Enrique does, planning the biggest New Year's Party any of the beybladers have ever seen.
3 continents, 5 teams, many gifts, carols, holidays cheers, mistletoe, a little romance and twelve days of Christmas.
Characters: Tyson, Hilary, Max, Ray, Daichi, Hiro, Kenny, Mariah, Enrique, Julia, Oliver, Kai, Tala, Brooklyn, OC, OC and more.
Pairings: To tell you know would be to give away the ending... and apparently it's not a good idea to do that.
December 19
It's the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you "Be of good cheer"
It's the most wonderful time of the year
It's the hap-happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It's the hap- happiest season of all
Bakuten, Japan
The Granger Family
"Daichi!" Mariah exclaimed, her amber eyes narrowing as she stomped into the living room, brandishing a wooden cooking spoon. "What did you do with the candy canes?"
Mariah Wong was exhausted. She'd been shopping for Christmas presents all afternoon. There were only seven sleeps until Christmas Day and she still hadn't brought half of the presents she was supposed to have brought. Of course, there was only so much shopping you could get done with Daichi latched on your arm.
The little tyke had taken somewhat of a liking to her since she'd arrived in Japan only a few days ago. Joining Ray on his most recent travels around the world, the two White Tigers had found themselves in Japan with Tyson and his friends for Christmas.
Mariah had already sent Christmas cards home to Lee, Kevin and Gary (she'd wanted to make sure they got there on time) but she still had so much more to do. There was the Christmas Lunch to prepare, presents to wrap (of which she had hidden under her bed in Hilary's apartment, far from the stray fingers of Tyson and Daichi) and Christmas cookies to bake. The tree had only just arrived (Hiro had threatened not to get one if Tyson and Daichi couldn't get along) and the candy canes Mariah had brought to hang on the tree were missing.
And she knew the most probable culprit.
Daichi looked up from his seat by the fireplace where he was watching the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. "Why are you asking me?" he cried out in mock horror. "I didn't touch them."
Sitting across the room with a mug of hot cocoa and reading a very thick novel, Daisy Summers-Granger looked thoughtful. "Why would Daichi have anything to do with the missing candy canes?" she asked. She absentmindedly rubbed her very large tummy, inside which her baby girl currently resided.
"Because Tyson's been with me for the last three hours," Hiro said, as though that explained everything.
And in certain ways, it did. If Tyson had been busy helping his older brother pick out a Christmas tree, he couldn't possibly have had time to steal Mariah's candy canes, and Daichi, who had been home all afternoon watching Christmas movies (that were really intended for five year olds') had plenty of opportunities to eat them all and dispose of the evidence.
Tyson Granger grinned, rubbing the bridge of his nose smugly as he looked down at his teammate. "Looks like somebody got caught with their hand in the cookie jar," he said.
Daichi scowled. "Keep it up and I'll glue your hand to the cookie jar, Tyson," he muttered. Mariah watched the bickering teammates, somewhat amused.
"Guys, don't start arguing."
The oldest Granger son wiped the sweat from his brow and stood back to admire his own handy work. Their Christmas tree stood in front of the window, its tallest branch just touching the ceiling; he'd told Tyson it would be too big!
"What do you think?" he asked his wife.
Daisy lowered her novel, her ocean blue eyes peeking out from over the top of the book. "I think you need to move it a little over to the left," she told him with a small smile.
Together, though still not without difficulty, Hiro and Tyson shifted the tree to the left. Hiro looked back at his wife. "Better?"
Daisy shook her head. "Nuh-uh," she muttered. "Not that much. Move it back just a little bit."
Tyson raised an eyebrow at his older brother, who looked as though he very much wanted to say something to his wife, but thought better of it. Instead, he sighed and turned back to the tree, looking at Tyson expectantly.
"Whipped," Tyson muttered under his breath with a grin.
"Shut up Tyson and help me move the damn tree..."
"Hey, guys, someone's at the door," Daichi announced, helping himself to more Christmas candy.
Mariah stifled a giggle and left the room to open the door for Hilary, Ray and Kenny who walked in, their arms laden with many shopping bags. Tyson poked his head into the kitchen.
"What's all that?" the world champion asked.
"Christmas supplies," Hilary explained, placing the bags down on the kitchen counter. "I thought you know, there's going to be a lot of people, and you and Daichi eat enough to feed a small army between the two of you..."
"We just didn't want to make another trip out," Ray interrupted, seeing that Tyson was about to argue the he didn't eat that much. "The shopping centres are murder around this time of year."
Hilary looked flushed. "Yeah, that," she said.
"We also brought some decorations for the tree since you and Daichi broke all the old ones when you were throwing them at each other," Kenny said, pushing back his glasses, which were sliding off the end of his nose as he struggled with the bags. He looked around expectantly.
"Speaking of which, where is the Christmas tree?" he asked.
"Hiro just brought it home," Mariah told him. "It's in the lounge."
Kenny nodded and headed into the next room with a bag, brimming with tinsel. Hilary followed him, a look of determination on her face. "Oi, Tyson, stop eating and come help us decorate."
Tyson pulled a face and closed the door to the fridge, from which he'd been attempting to sneak a nice Christmas treat while Mariah's back was turned. "Why me?" he demanded.
Hilary glared at him. "Because I said so."
"But I – ouch, not the ears!" Tyson exclaimed as Hilary reached over to pinch his ear. He danced out of the way just in time. "Alright, alright, I'll help you."
Ray looked over to Mariah, smiling at her. "It looks like it's going to be a wonderful Christmas," he said to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. The pink haired girl looked away, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.
"Oh definitely," she agreed. "If those two ever stop arguing."
"We'd need one hell of a Christmas miracle for that to happen," Ray mused.
Mariah giggled and settled back into her boyfriend's arms. Yes, she thought to herself. It would be a wonderful Christmas.
There'll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago
Enrique Tornatore and Steph Summers
Rome, Italy
Christmas was coming. The evening of the 19th of December found a quaint little mansion in Rome covered in tinsel and Christmas lights. Inside, the suits of armour had been decorated, streamers of holly and mistletoe hung from the ceilings along the vast corridors. The tinsel had been hung on the tree, the presents were wrapped and hidden from the prying eyes of cousins with sticky fingers. All was well, and the house seemed to be orderly and calm –
"Bianca, wait – I meant to say you were wicked pretty, not pretty wicked – "
SLAM!
Damn, spoke too soon.
Steph Summers sighed to herself as she added yet another shiny Christmas bauble to the Christmas tree. She'd chosen a stunning silver fir tree because it was native to southern Italy and she was feeling particularly traditional around this time of year. Digging out the Christmas tree decorations from hurricane wreckage that was her Zio Antonio's attic had proved an interesting challenge – she was pretty sure she'd cleared out more than her fair share of dust bunnies for the holidays.
"The Italian Stallion gets shut down ... again," she muttered, downing the last of her hot chocolate and turning her attention back to the Christmas tree, just as her older cousin, Enrique, trudged into the lounge room and threw himself down on the sofa opposite the fireplace rousing Caesar, the giant golden Labrador from his slumber.
A stranger might not have guessed that the two were related. Where she was rather small, with long dark hair and brown eyes, Enrique was tall, with pale, wavy blonde hair that fell just over his ears. Absentmindedly, the Italian teen reached a hand down to scratch Caesar behind the ears.
"Another disastrous date?" Steph asked tentatively. She dodged the stray bauble he tossed in her direction with little effort. Caesar scampered after it and scooped it up in his mouth and returned it to Steph.
"Shut up," Enrique grumbled.
Poking a face at her cousin, Steph wiped the doggy drool off the bauble and hung it on the tree. Once she was certain the ornament wouldn't slip off the tree and break on the newly polished floorboards, she stood back to admire her work.
"What do we think?" she asked, turning to her cousin. "Is it beautiful?"
It had taken four hours, two hot chocolates, a dozen Christmas cookies, and all of her patience and careful attention to detail, but the Christmas tree had slowly been transformed from an ordinary silver fir into a beautiful work of art – at least, that's what she wanted to believe.
She tilted her head to the side, as if to inspect the tree from a slightly different angle. Strands of her long dark hair fell loose from her ponytail and into her hazel eyes as she did so. Enrique opened one powder blue eye to look from her to the tree and back again.
"Why are there no decorations on the top half of the tree?" he asked after a moment.
Steph's cheeks flushed red. "Because I can't reach that high," she admitted, throwing a pleading look in his direction. Caesar gave a bark of amusement.
Enrique rolled his eyes and got to his feet. "Give me some tinsel, would you," he muttered.
"Thanks, Enrique." She handed him a strand of tinsel which he proceeded to hang on the tree where she'd been unable to reach.
"Have you finished addressing the invites for the New Year's Party?" he asked her.
She nodded and hung another decoration on the tree. Christmas was one of the few times in the year when Steph was separated from her teammates, who at the present time, were scattered across the globe, visiting their families for the Christmas break.
Tyson, Daichi and Ray were in Japan with Tyson's brother, Hiro and his wife, Daisy. Max had gone back to America to spend time with his mom. Kai and Tala had gone home to Russia to visit their sisters, Riikka and Mia, and Steph and Enrique's younger cousin, Becky, was currently jetting around the world on a trip with her parents.
Everyone had been invited to the New Year's Party and no self-respecting person would consider not attending a party held by one of the Tornatore family members. The Majestics, the Bladebreakers, the All Starz, the White Tigers, F Dynasty, Barthez Battallion, Justice Five, the Blitzkrieg Boys and the Saint Shields had all been invited, along with a number of Steph and Enrique's classmates from Bakuten Academy.
"I just have to put them in the envelopes," Steph said, brushing her hair out of her eyes. It had grown quite long over the break and she hadn't gotten around to getting it cut.
"Have you invited Matt?"
Steph nearly dropped the crystal bell she had been attempting to hang on the tree. Placing it safely on a lower branch, she looked up and fixed her cousin with a sharp stare. "Why would I invite Matt?" she asked him.
It was no secret that Matt Ishida was one of the most sought after boys in the senior year at Bakuten Academy, the school that Enrique and Steph attended. Tall, though somewhat skinny, with dirty blonde hair and mysterious dark sapphire eyes, he was the lead singer of the school band, the Teenage Wolves. His carefree nature and 'too cool' attitude always had the attention of the girls in their year. More importantly, Matt was one of her childhood friends, and Steph would rather be locked in a cage with a pride of lions than admit she'd had a crush on him since she was eight years old.
Enrique gave her a sheepish grin and ducked behind the Christmas tree. "Well, you guys are friends right?"
"Yeah, but I don't think he'd come," she said, hanging another, less breakable ornament on the tree.
Enrique, having decided she wasn't going to bite his head off at the suggestion, peered out from behind a reindeer hanging on the tree. "What makes you say that?" he asked.
Steph shrugged her shoulders. "Wouldn't he spend New Year's Eve with his girlfriend?" she guessed. This statement earned a compassionate, canine sigh from Caesar.
"You won't find out unless you invite him, will you?" Enrique reminded her. "The worst he could do is say 'no'."
Steph raised an eyebrow at her cousin. "That has to be one of the most mature things I think I've ever heard come out of your mouth." Enrique didn't often say things that were worth paying much attention to. Usually he liked to talk about fast cars, cute girls and his one true love, the Italian Football team.
Giving up on the tree – the lower part was heavily over decorated by now – she returned her attention to the stack of invitations on the coffee table in front of the fireplace.
"Is Julia coming?" Enrique asked, his expression eager.
Steph nodded and handed up the invite addressed to the Fernandez Twins. Enrique positively beamed. It was so obvious that he liked her that it would have been considered sweet if he didn't keep trying to deny it by going out with every girl on the cheerleading squad.
She folded the last of the invites and addressed the envelopes whilst Enrique finished decorating the tree. They may not get along all the time, but Steph had to admit to herself, she and her cousin made a pretty good team, when they weren't fighting over who got to put the star on the tree. (Enrique insisted he should be the one to place the star on the tree since he was the only boy in the family – and he was taller.)
As she sealed each of the envelopes with a gold star , Steph wondered briefly what her teammates would be doing. Hilary would probably be asleep, she realised, as Japan was quite a few hours ahead of Rome. Moscow, however, was only a couple of hours ahead of Rome and she briefly contemplated making a call to Tala, but then she remembered that Riikka had planned on getting their Christmas tree today and she had a sneaking suspicion that her red-headed friend would be in a pretty foul mood afterwards – he wasn't exactly the most cheery person around the holidays.
She finished sealing the envelopes and double checked them to ensure she had used enough stamps on each of the envelopes to mail them across the world. Then, together with Enrique and Caesar, she walked down to the nearest post box and mailed them off.
"You know, bella," Enrique said, putting his arm around his cousin's shoulder as they walked home together in the bitter cold and Caesar splashed in the puddles. "I think it's going to be a beautiful Christmas."
It's the most wonderful time of the year
There'll be much mistltoeing
And hearts will be glowing
When love ones are near
It's the most wonderful time of the year
Kai and Mia Hiwatari, Tala and Riikka Valkov,
Moscow, Russia.
"What about this one?" Tala Valkov asked, pausing in front of one of the pine trees that were growing at the Tree Farm.
It was a typical December afternoon in Moscow. Typical minus 5 degrees Celsius, mostly cloudy and with a chance of snow showers. The perfect sort of day to curl up by the fireplace and finish his Call of Duty game.
But instead of sitting by the fireplace playing his Xbox, he was freezing his fingers off in the bitter cold whilst his twin sister deliberated over a bunch of pine trees, all of which, in his opinion, looked the same.
"The tree I picked had more leaves," Riikka grumbled.
Tala groaned and slapped his hand to his forehead in frustration. "Are you trying to be difficult?" he demanded.
Tala wasn't a very festive person. Despite having posed as an Abbott, Tala highly doubted that Boris had been a very religious man, let alone that he would ever have allowed them to celebrate Christmas. Tala was only too happy to treat the holidays with the same kind of disregard. His sister, on the other hand, seemed to have other ideas.
The days spent in Balkov Abbey were long behind them, and this year, Tala would be spending Christmas at his best friend's estate. Kai Hiwatari had graciously allowed his younger sister to host a Christmas Party for their team. Now, normally, Tala would have had many objections to this, and he would have voiced them very loudly, in a very Tala-like manner (with lots of not so nice words included in his speech) but there was something about the youngest Hiwatari that he couldn't say no to, that, and the fact that his sister would probably beat him up again.
Riikka brushed back the two strands of hair that had fallen into her face. Like her brother, she too had two strands of hair that always hung over her face. "I'm just saying that there isn't enough leaves on this tree for all the decorations I brought."
Tala bit his lip. Just how many Christmas decorations had she brought? "What is it with you and Christmas trees?" he asked her. "This one's too skinny, that one's too short, the one over there looks better, this one isn't green enough and now you're saying that this one– " he jabbed his thumb towards the tree in question, "doesn't have any leaves."
Riikka gave her brother an apologetic look, breathing into her hands and rubbing them together in a vain effort to keep warm. She knew she was being stubborn, and stretching her brother's patience thin, but this was their first Christmas together in over five years, she wanted it to be perfect.
"I didn't say it didn't have any – I just said it didn't have enough," she replied calmly.
Tala ran his hand through his hair in frustration but was prevented from saying anything more by Mia's outburst of "Hey guys! What about this one?"
Riikka and Tala both spun around to investigate. The younger Hiwatari sibling was standing a little over five meters from them, her long blonde hair falling over her face as she pointed to a nearby tree.
The tree in question was tall. Its leaves were a bright Christmas green colour and its branches were strong and spread out in all directions. It wasn't skinny, and it had plenty of leaves. It was the perfect Christmas tree, at least in Riikka's eyes. To Tala, it just looked like any old pine tree.
Kai was standing by the tree with his axe, ready to begin chopping. Their teammate, Spencer stood on the other side. It was quite rare to find a living object taller than Spencer, unless you were a member of the zoo, but this tree had managed it, dwarfing the tallest Russian by a head and a half.
"Wow!" Riikka exclaimed. "That's perfect Mia!" She ran up to the pine tree and threw her arms around its middle.
"Don't you think it's a bit," Tala struggled to find the right word. "Big?"
"She's finally decided on a tree that she likes, let's not argue with that," Kai muttered. Spencer grumbled in agreement. Both boys looked as though they'd very much like to be any place else than the Christmas Tree Farm.
"Oi! Standing around won't get this Christmas tree cut!" Riikka snapped. "Get your lazy ass over here, Tala!"
"No wonder Kai's always in such a foul mood around Christmas," Tala grumbled as he picked up the spare axe.
"There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow," Riikka sang as she led the way back to the Hiwatari Estate with Mia whilst Spencer, Kai and Tala carried the tree. "Hurry up boys, we're going to be late."
Tala scowled. "Yeah right. I don't see her helping us carry this ten foot pine tree!" he said loudly, emphasising the words 'pine' and 'tree'.
"Less talk, more walking," Riikka ordered.
"If I didn't have a tree in my hands, so help me I'd – " Tala grumbled. Spencer shot him a silencing glare from his position further down the tree.
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago
It's the most wonderful time of the year
There'll be much mistletoeing
And hearts will be glowing
When love ones are near
It's the most wonderful time
It's the most wonderful time of the year
HI again all. I never got to finish this story last year, so I'm going to try again this year. Happy Holidays everyone - Christmas is nearly here!
for Christmas, all I want is you (erhem... I mean your reviews =] )