Sapphire: Eyyy, what's up readers? Hope you're looking forward to reading, because this beginning AN is pretty short. All I'd like to do is state that this story includes (what I hope can count as) humour. Well, that's it for now, please do read on and review! Don't forget the AN at the end!
Disclaimer: I don't own MFB or any of the characters used in this original piece of writing, nor do I make any profit from it.
Julian Konzern didn't really 'do' Christmas.
He respected those who celebrate it, for the most part but he honesty couldn't comprehend why everyone made such a big deal out of it. He wasn't trying to act like he had a stick up his butt every Christmas, he just didn't get it.
Little did Julian know that this would be the year that changed.
"Julian, there you are! We've been looking for you!" The voice of the youngest Konzern reached him as Julian walked into the lounge. Nero, Sophie, Wales and Klaus all sat in the middle of the room around several boxes.
"May I ask why?" Julian raised an eyebrow.
"Well, since we've got to leave soon," Sophie began as Julian approached the group. "In two days, actually, that means we've only got a short amount of time left to spend together. And since it's December, it's time to decorate. So why not do it together?"
Sophie was one of those people that was very much into Christmas, as was Nero.
"I don't understand your obsession with this holiday. Honestly, every year you lot insist on decorating everything and doing 'festive' activities you wouldn't care for otherwise." Julian eyed the boxes - filled with Christmas decorations - with disinterest.
"Ba, humbug, Mr. Scrooge!" Wales teased. "And every year you're such a Grinch. Cheer up Julian! It's Christmas! 'Tis the season to be jolly and all that."
Nero backed him up before Julian could reply. "He's right, you know. You never get in the Christmas spirit! Lighten up, celebrate like everyone else. It'll do you some good big bro."
Julian feigned his horror. "You're mad, the lot of you. Why, Klaus my good friend, you don't believe in all this really, do you?"
Klaus looked up from the string of lights he'd been untangling. "Well, being a little festive wouldn't kill you." He shrugged as Julian rolled his royal blue eyes.
"You're all mad." He repeated, sitting on a plush sofa. "Positively mad."
Nero grabbed his brother and dragged him onto thgthge floor to sit with the rest of them. "C'mon, Julian, help us decorate. Please?" Nero widened his eyes, putting on a small pout.
It took his sibling a few moments to give into his 'puppy eyes' trick. "Alright, fine." Julian grumbled. "But don't expect me to be all jolly and start singing those awful carols."
"That's the spirit! ...Kind of." Klaus said as Sophie and Nero cheered.
"What's our first completely useless task?" Julian sighed.
Sophie looked to her right and snorted. "Well, first you could help Wales untangle himself from those lights."
Wales had indeed gotten a string of Christmas tangled around his hands and arms, and looked rather distressed. His situation was all the more amusing when you looked to his right to see Klaus, who had a perfectly untangled set of lights across his lap.
The others, even Julian chuckled at Wales, who had a slight dusting of pink across his cheeks. "Ha, ha, very funny guys." The English boy muttered, trying to escape the ridiculously long string of lights.
Julian sighed and both himself and Klaus reached out to free their friend, as Nero and Sophie watched on, sniggering.
"Only you can get yourself into these messes, Wales." Julian stated as the poor boy pulled away the last of the lights.
"Yeah, um, thanks guys. Anyway..." Wales took ahold of some teal coloured tinsel from one of the boxes. "Shouldn't we be decorating?"
Much to Julian's displeasure, he was dragged around his mansion all day, being forced to drape tinsel across surfaces and wind it around every stair handle. The group found several places to string lights too, even around the stables in which Julian's horse Antonius stayed.
It wasn't too long before every room they were aloud into was adorned with the Christmas spirit, as well as everything. Wales was even scolded by Sophie numerous times for trying to decorate Klaus, who was not bothered in the slightest that the Blue Cetus blader kept wrapping tinsel around his arms.
Another thing that Sophie had somehow gotten her hands on was probably the most hated decoration at Christmas.
Mistletoe. She kept trying to hang it over doorways, and when her attempts were thwarted, she just dangled it over Wales's and Julian's head, causing them to go very red and throw a variety of moderate yet still intimidating threats at her.
But, the bladers had left the best until last.
"It's time for the tree!" Nero clapped in delight. Julian failed to see why the holidays made his brother more childish, but dismissed the thought.
Our favourite European bladers returned to the lounge, where a massive tree now resided. The workers of the household must have brought it in while they where decorating every other inch of the mansion.
Before he knew it, Julian was being pulled towards the tree by Nero, and Sophie pulled out even more boxes of decorations from seemingly nowhere.
"I didn't know we even owned this much Christmas stuff." Julian muttered as Wales handed him some white lights.
"Well you do now. C'mon, let's put all on the lights first, then the tinsel. The baubles are the best bit!" Wales said as Sophie took all the lights off him, to avoid him getting caught up in them again.
So round and round the tree each person went with a different set of lights, trying to successfully put the lights on the tree and not bump into each other.
Unfortunately they were only half successful: Sophie bumped into Julian, who then bumped into Wales, who then bumped into Nero, who then fell into the tree. Leaving Klaus to laugh at the lot of them, because those who hadn't fallen into the tree had just fallen onto the floor.
Julian was the only one who wasn't laughing, as he felt rather undignified from falling over onto his face. Although he didn't notice, he was actually smiling just a tad. Sophie, Wales and Nero were on their feet long after Julian was, and they were breathless from laughing.
"C'mon you lot, what are you waiting for - ?"
"Christmas?" Wales interrupted Klaus.
"Hilarious, Wales." Klaus threw a piece of silver tinsel at the redhead.
Everyone then went for the tinsel, to throw and wind around the tree.
Except one person.
"Guys, what the heck are you doing?"
Nero looked to Julian. "Huh?"
"Someone put pink tinsel really close to red tinsel."
His friends slowly turned to give him incredulous stares.
"What? Oh, don't give me that look. Especially you, Sophie, your mother is a fashion designer. If anyone should know a bad colour combination when they see it, it's you."
"Julian, earlier you couldn't care less about how the tree looked." Sophie pointed out.
Wales continued. "Yeah. You said, and I quote: 'I honestly couldn't give one about this stupid tree, it's only going to be here for a month anyway -'"
"Yes, well, if you lot are going to insist on having the blasted thing, you could at least make it bearable to look at." Julian huffed, marching up to the tree and shifting the tinsel so that the red and the pink were very much apart. "There. See? Doesn't it look better now?"
"You really are something else, you know that right Julian?" Klaus chuckled.
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Time for the baubles!" Nero butted in and thrust a box upon his brother.
A short while later...
"I think we did a pretty good job." Nero said as he admired their handiwork so far.
The tree now stood proudly, dressed in magnificent festive decoration. Baubles and striped candy canes hung from dark green branches and lights flashed and sparkled from past those branches. It was an explosion of glorious, chaotic colour.
Even Julian came to the agreement that the tree looked splendid, much to the surprise of everyone else in the room, who half expected him to throw a hissy fit at the complete lack of order on the tree.
"Ah, it's lunchtime! Hurry guys, we've gotta eat fast so we get to my surprise in time so we can bake later!" Nero started pulling his friends to the dining room.
"Wait, what? Baking? I wasn't informed - " Julian was dragged off before he got to finish, wondering how the hizzidy heck the rest of his day would play out.
"We're here!" Nero announced, bounding into the unknown building. He'd not permitted anyone to ask questions about their destination for the whole car ride or to get a good look at the building as they entered.
He didn't regret it, for Team Excalibur's surprise pleased him greatly.
"An ice rink!" Wales and Sophie exclaimed.
Nero nodded with a grin and sped off to get ice skates.
"You have to be kidding." Julian had to be physically pulled towards the ice rink. "Ooh no, no, no. I will not -"
"Julian Konzern!" Sophie whipped around. "Your brother was thoughtful enough to think of a surprise for us all, so the least you could do is try to enjoy it!"
Julian blinked in mild shock at being spoken to so forcefully. Surprisingly, Wales took a more gentle approach to convincing his friend.
"Julian, you know fine well that Christmas is a time for family. It's a time to just let loose and focus on what's important. And let's face it, at the end of the day, your pride really isn't the most important thing. It's the ones around you. So, please? Give it a chance? Give Christmas a chance?"
Klaus held a pair of skates towards Julian, as the blond realised his friends did have a point. He was being a bit stuck up. That, and his brother was making puppy eyes again. There was no way he could say no.
After everyone wore skates, they set out onto the ice, their balance as unsteady as the steps of a newborn fawn.
Nero was the first to fall over, laughter bursting out of his good soul and then out his mouth. Klaus soon followed him, muttering mild German curses under his breath with a slight smile.
Julian did a very good job of keeping his balance, as did Sophie until she skated into Klaus, so they went crashing down and spinning across the ice.
"Wales, you can skate?" Julian watched his friend with wide eyes as Wales skated past, quite content.
"Now it's my turn to laugh at you lot!" Wales stuck out his tongue as he went past again. Nero grinned devilishly and then shoved Wales over... When his tongue was still out.
The result? His tongue stuck to the ice, and everyone howled with laughter. "That's not funny you guys!" Wales unstuck himself and clicked his tongue. "Ah, that feels weird..."
Julian, while caught up in his laughter, had let go of the side of the ice rink, and had skated across to everyone else. It was just as the focus of his friends shifted off of Wales, that he lost his balance and fell onto his side with a massive SMACK!
The other teens bit their lips, trying not to laugh to preserve their friend's dignity. To their delight, it was Julian who creased up laughing at his own fall. Nero joined in, and soon they were all having to actually sit on the ice because of how hard they were laughing.
Klaus was the first one to realise that that was a grave mistake, for he was the first to try to stand. "I have as much grace as an elephant seal." He grumbled good-naturedly as he slid over for the fourth time in a row when trying to stand.
The rest of the time at the ice rink was spent slipping, falling over and laughing until their sides ached. Wales was the only one who managed to skate all the way around the huge expanse of ice with falling, which confused and impressed the rest of them.
When they did return home, they tried to make gingerbread and other Christmas based goodies. Key word: tried.
Klaus was the only completely successful person here, managing to make a range of biscuits and cakes with no faults.
Sophie was doing well until she dropped a bag of flour and it went absolutely everywhere.
Julian added salt instead of sugar to the cookies. "They taste like your attitude now Julian!" Wales had joked, and Julian threw a spoon at him in reply. (It didn't miss, of course: hit him right in the forehead).
Nero was also doing okay until he set fire to his gingerbread and burnt his cookies to a crisp, and it was discovered hhat he enjoyed setting fire to things a bit too much.
Wales didn't do spectacularly well baking wise, his problem is that he fell victim to basically every casualty that occurred, the most memorable being when he slid on flour that was all over the floor, smacked his head on the kitchen counter and fell flat on his back.
A few things they had all done, though, was laugh, grin and just joke overall. Team Excalibur may be stern looking and intimidating in the bey dish, however behind closed doors they behaved like very different people. They did know how to put their pride aside and have a little fun - yes, even Julian learnt how.
And boy was he ever grateful for that.
They were all in the lounge, laying about across sofas or sitting on the floor, recounting their favourite parts of the day. Julian let his friends and sibling talk amongst themselves as he looked on, letting his thoughts wash over him.
The gratitude he felt towards the individuals he was looking at was almost immeasurable. They had each been by his side and taught him things in different ways, and they had all be ever so patient with him, reassuring him over and over again that it's okay to not be proud. It's okay to forget about your image for a while.
Nero, his fiery little brother who he loved with all his heart,had supported him since as long as he can remember and has always been there to listen.
He recalled one training session that had gone horribly wrong: Klaus had been the one to remind Julian that setbacks were fine, they happened, you just have to get up again.
Wales had been the person who sat by Julian in the waiting room where bladers prepared themselves after he'd been defeated by Damian, and he'd said that everything would work out, that Julian just needed to hang in there.
Sophie had a way of coaxing Julian out of making stupid decisions and showing him that there's always another way.
The bladed of Gravity Destroyer was outraged that it had taken him this long to see not just what Christmas was really about, but also what his friends had been doing for him this whole time.
So when Nero asked him what he thought about Christmas now, he smiled. "You know what? I think I like it."
A cheer rose up from his friends, and Julian's smile split into a grin.
From then on, he decided he wasn't going to wait until Christmas to love and appreciate this second family of his.
Sapphire: Well that was long and sucky, sorry about that! It was a bit rushed as I wanted to get it done for like, yesterday, but the file on my laptop got messed up. Also: I wrote this alone and, like I said, in a rush, so please excuse any errors and hopefully they'll be fixed soon.
Now, dear readers, I wish you all a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays if you don't celebrate Christmas! I hope with all my heart and soul that you have a wonderful and safe time doing whatever you're doing! Have fun, and thanks so much for reading!
P.S. If you're able to leave a review, please do, I love reviews! 3