You've heard of the twelve days of Christmas? Get ready for the Eight Hangovers of New Years!
Tried to keep it T-rated, guys, especially when it got to 7 and 8 :P
Hope you enjoy this!
AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015! Cheers to Blood of Olympus and the prospect of the Magnus Chase series, along with the last of the Egyptian/Greek crossover mini-books!
I own nothing you recognize as canon.
The Eight Hangovers of New Years
Here are eight New Year's Day hangovers featuring our favorite heroes of Olympus. Our heroes—of age, mind you—are about to wake up after having passed out for the night. They had partied hard the night before, drinking and having a blast at a hotel party in New York—their children participating in their own New Year's party, of course, in Camp Half-Blood with the underage campers.
The Seven—plus Calypso—had gotten their hands on the most beautiful penthouse suite on the top floor of one of the grandest hotels in New York—courtesy of a certain daughter of Aphrodite. The suite contained two king-sized beds, one huge bathroom, one large couch fit for six sitting people at a time, and another couch that doubled as a hide-away-bed.
All eight of them had made the terrible mistake of drinking way too much. And now they pay the inevitable price…by experiencing the dreaded hangover! But not everyone has the same level of hangover.
So, in the order they all woke up, here are our heroes on New Year's Day. First to wake up, oddly enough, was Percy.
Birds
Percy awoke to terrible screeching.
His head throbbed at every shriek. Were harpies attacking the hotel?
He rose out of his shared bed, trying not to wake Annabeth. Percy, clutching his head in pain, staggered over to his jeans and pulled out Riptide.
The screeching and shrieking would never cease!
Percy groaned softly, stumbling to find out where the noise was coming from. After running into a few walls and nearly falling onto Frank and Hazel in their hide-a-bed couch in the living room part of the suite, Percy finally pinpointed the location of the harpies—or maybe they were Stymphalian Birds…Percy was so hung over, he couldn't tell which one it sounded like.
He shuffled over to one of the windows, pulling back the curtain slightly. He winced at the sunlight in his eyes, which was minimal considering the sun was just barely over the horizon, but he held firm when the screeching continued. He deduced it was coming from outside, so he slid over to the doorway.
He scooted out onto the balcony. The screeching was louder than an airplane now.
Percy clutched and clawed at his head a few moments. Then, he turned towards the source with his sword raised…
A few birds were sitting on the rail, chirping and singing. To any normal person, it might have sounded beautiful.
To Percy, though, it sounded like harpies flying at him straight from Tartarus. He capped Riptide and charged the birds, shooing them away with his bare hands.
"Devil birds," he muttered.
Room
Because Percy had almost fallen into bed with them, Frank was the next to wake up. He squinted around the room, constantly having to turn his head.
He stood up, shakier than a newborn faun, and tried to walk somewhere. Where? He had no idea. Maybe the bathroom…or the floor…
He collapsed on his hands and knees and groaned. He stood up again, and stumbled around. He somehow made it to the other side of the room, where the Graces were sleeping on their couch, but groaned even louder.
He clutched his head with both hands when Jason and Piper's couch kept moving like a tornado had grabbed it. The walls were spinning faster than the furniture, too.
Frank yelled, "Stay still!" Then, he fell onto one of the chairs in the room, and that was it.
Reflection
Thanks to Frank's little "Stay still", Jason started awake. He watched as a blurry Frank collapsed onto a chair in the corner of the room. He groaned a bit and detangled himself from Piper.
He deduced that his breath smelled pretty awful.
Piper wouldn't want to kiss Mr. Alcohol Breath, he thought. He knew she cared about his breath when they kissed, one of the only things she would rap about when it came to his hygiene—besides the showers of course.
So, Jason decided to try and make his way over to the bathroom in the suite. Without putting on his glasses…
He ran into a few walls, of course, and stubbed his toe three thousand times, but he made it. His head was swimming in agony.
I need some water…
He turned on the (very bright) bathroom light and staggered over to the sink. He grabbed a toothbrush, squirted some toothpaste on it, and lifted it to do the usual routine when…
…a hideous Jason looked back at him from the mirror. Maybe it wouldn't have looked so bad, but Jason was extremely hung over and his nearsightedness made the reflection a bit blurry, which made it much worse.
His hair was messy, covered in dirt and confetti, spiky in various places from dried sweat. His cheeks were flushed, his lips were cracked and almost bleeding, his nose had a bit of dried snot speckled underneath, and his eyes were bloodshot and puffy, like he had been crying—judging by how hammered he had been the night before, that was probably true…
His reflection made him feel like he had swallowed a glass of fresh paint. That certainly helped his hangover a lot…
He threw up into the sink.
Bathroom
Jason detangling himself from her had definitely made Piper wake up. She smelled the alcohol on his breath, even after he had gotten up from the couch.
When she watched his blobby form shuffle around the room, finally ending up in the bathroom, she thought, Good. Go clean up.
She closed her eyes for a few minutes.
Then she smelled her own alcohol breath and decided she had better follow her husband's lead. A shower sounded like a really good idea.
Piper got up and walked over to the bathroom. Impressively, she had done so without running into anything except the doorway—she had misjudged where she was placing her foot and had hit the frame.
She yelped.
Piper hissed a little, then opened the bathroom door. Jason was leaning over the toilet. Puke was all over the sink and the surrounding area of the toilet. Jason's head was hidden in the bowl, but he was groaning, so Piper knew he hadn't drowned in there.
The entire floor was messy, bits and pieces of Jason's sick splattered on the floor.
Piper grimaced. The whole scene in the bathroom made her own stomach churn. Suddenly, she could hear some carnival guy in the back of her mind shouting, "Give it a whirl!"
She forced the bile back down and stripped, closing the door behind her. A nice hot shower would do her good. While she was at it, she'd splash some onto Jason. Hopefully that might encourage him to get up and fix himself…
Sunlight
Meanwhile, a few hours after Percy had pushed the curtain back, the sunlight had filtered into the room. The light had steadily risen until it hit Hazel right in the face. If she moved, the sun didn't seem to go away. It was like Apollo was making the sun follow her as she shifted in bed.
The daughter of Pluto groaned in protest when the brightness seared through her eyelids.
Frank, who had woken up again and was a little bit better, sat down next to Hazel on the hide-a-bed.
"You alright, sweetheart?" he asked.
She looked at him, glad to not be looking at the sun. He was a little rough to look at, but she supposed she looked way worse.
"The sun," she complained. "It hurts…"
Frank smiled. "Is that because you're a daughter of Pluto or because you've got a migraine?"
"What do you mean by 'daughter of Pluto?"
He rolled his eyes. "Maybe you're like Nico and are a vampire in the morning?"
She looked away, but the sun glared at her and she turned back to her stupid husband. He was grinning like an idiot. Of course the hangover would make him more joking in nature…anything to distract her from her own hangover, she guessed.
"Or maybe you just don't like the sunlight?" Frank asked.
Hazel closed her eyes and covered them with her arm. "At the moment," she said, "I think I'd rather chew tacks than face the sun…"
Recycling
Annabeth rolled over in her bed. She felt the hangover instantly. She sat up and rubbed her temples, then reached for her bedside table.
"Need some water?"
Annabeth looked and saw Percy standing a few feet away with a bottle of water in his hand. He looked awful, his hair messier than usual, with bags under his tired eyes. She cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Didn't get enough sleep?" she rasped.
He frowned. "The birds outside were really annoying…"
Despite her slight headache, Annabeth laughed. "Poor baby."
Percy handed her the water bottle. "You certainly look better than I probably did when I woke up."
She took a few swigs. "I have a higher tolerance for alcohol than you, remember? My hangovers aren't as powerful."
"Probably a good thing, considering everyone awake right now feels terrible. Except Piper. She took a shower and looks and feels better than the rest of us."
"Who else is up?"
"Everyone except the Valdezes."
Annabeth chuckled. "Leo, I was expecting to stay in bed, but Calypso?"
"She drank a bit, too," Percy confirmed. "I think Leo rubs off on her more than she would like to admit."
The daughter of Athena nodded. Then, she looked at the floor.
"Why are there millions of bottles on the floor?" she asked incredulously. "I know we both didn't drink that much."
"I think I remember we all threw our empty bottles in here…" Percy frowned. "I don't know why we did that…Maybe because we thought it was the biggest spot to throw trash in?"
Annabeth stood up and picked up some of the bottles. She examined them, then began stacking them into a corner.
"What are you doing?" Percy asked.
She hadn't really thought about it, but somehow she had stacked the bottles into a lovely architectural design. A sort of table design held up by inter-locking pillars—it looked like it was fragile, but it was actually strong enough to hold itself.
"Huh," she said. "Why is it that hangovers produce the best designs?"
Percy shrugged, chugging his own water. "Never thought about it, but whatever…"
Annabeth smiled. "I need a shower," she announced. "And so do you."
Percy's eyes twinkled.
"Not at the same time, Seaweed Brain," she scolded. "Be mature."
"Never."
Meeting
Calypso had actually never had drank so much in her life. It was all Piper's fault for suggesting a drinking contest—right after a drinking game. The finalists had been Leo, Calypso, and Annabeth. Calypso thought she'd handled her alcohol pretty well…Until she and Annabeth had bonked their heads onto the table in defeat.
The former Titan vaguely remembered Leo cheering like he'd won the Olympics, then throwing up all over the table. It was gross, but she had just laughed at his misery.
She looked over at her husband, still asleep in bed. He had his back to her, snoring louder than a helicopter.
Calypso rose out of bed and put on a robe. Oh yes, she and Leo had had a little fun after the ball dropped. It was the most exciting time she'd had with the son of Hephaestus, and the loudest, that was for sure. They had collapsed on top of each other soon after they finished their romp.
Now, Calypso felt sick, dizzy, and above all gross. But, she swallowed her pride and opened the door to the living room.
Everyone was sitting on the couches, putting a few ice packs to their heads and drinking water. They all looked at Calypso and said, "Hey."
She waved and yawned.
Percy wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Have fun last night?"
"Yes," she answered simply.
"Sounded like it," Hazel commented. She had sunglasses on, which Calypso almost found funny until she realized the sun was being just as hard on her head.
She looked around the room, at all the grown men and women who looked utterly terrible in their own ways. She shook her head, grabbing a bottle of water herself and holding it up, like she was toasting.
"Never again," she declared.
The others held up their glasses and bottles. They all agreed, "Never again."
"Good Morning!"-Leo
After a few more hours, everyone was sharing a breakfast brought up by room service. It was ten o'clock now, and everyone's hangovers had dimmed down. They had all showered and brushed their teeth, feeling so much cleaner than last night—especially Calypso, who had flushed when the realization finally hit her that everyone had heard Leo and her last night.
Annabeth was writing down a few notes on the bottle table thing she had designed, determined to make it even better. She would give Leo the design and dare him to build it.
Hazel had finally removed her sunglasses and could resume doing normal, non-vampire-like things.
Jason finally found his glasses and looked more like himself, though his eyes were still a little red.
Piper kissed him, happy that both of them had lost their morning alcohol breath.
Frank was able to stand and look around without the room spinning, so he was much more coordinated now. It was a big improvement over when he first woke up and had fallen over multiple times.
Percy didn't mind the birds anymore. He made Annabeth promise not to buy the kids pet birds, though…
Finally, when they were all done eating, they all stared at the place at the table that had an empty space. It was made for Leo, with a plate of waffles and eggs and a glass of water with Tums placed there.
"Why isn't he up yet?" Piper asked.
Frank shrugged, reading a book, unconcerned.
Jason smiled. "He did win the drinking contest. Probably suffering by now."
Everyone chuckled. Calypso stood up and walked over to their bedroom. The rest of the Seven followed, wanting to see how he looked.
Calypso opened the door, letting the sunlight flood the awful, smelly, shame-filled room. Clothes were everywhere, and Calypso blushed when she noticed her underwear hanging on the lamp near the bed.
Leo was curled inside the blankets, only his foot sticking out.
Calypso went over and shook his ball-like form. "Leo," she cooed, trying to be gentle.
He stuck his head out a little. Terrible wasn't even close to how he looked. Death was closer. Calypso tried not to laugh.
The others weren't so kind.
Piper went right up to him and said in an over-cheerful voice, "Goooood morning, Sunshine!"
Percy grinned. "Wakey, wakey, eggs and bacy!"
Leo glared and hissed at them, like a cornered cat. Then he burrowed into his blankets.
Calypso rolled her eyes. "Good morning," she repeated in a gentler tone.
From underneath the blankets, she heard Leo growl, "I hate you all."
Everyone, even Calypso, laughed.
A/N:Happy New Year, everybody :) *raises glass of champagne*