Author's Note: This fic is dedicated to Musafreen, for two reasons. One, because this idea came to me when I was reading her excellently written and ridiculously over-organised How-To guide. Two… well, you'll see when you read it, Musa.
Under my fic-continuity, this takes place the year before Dinner with Death.
Anyway, please enjoy, please review, and a Merry Christmas to you all!
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. Tis all for fun.
A Very Mary Suemas
A Christmas Tale.
Nico walked slowly and begrudgingly up to the Big House, which was festooned in enough Christmas lights to illuminate the Mariana Trench.
Not that Nico was thinking about that. He was concerned entirely with the two or three hours of torture worse than death itself which lay before him.
You may wonder what it was that Nico was heading towards. Perhaps a ferocious battle against a legendary Greek monster? Or a duel to the death with a renegade demigod? Maybe even a Greek history lesson from some poor, ill-fated fool from the Athena cabin?
In fact, as the son of Hades trudged up the porch steps of the Big House, he was headed to something which, for him, was far, far worse than the aforesaid challenges.
He was on his way to a Christmas party.
That's not so bad, you may say. But consider Nico was a highly socially challenged son of Hades. Consider the fact that he hated crowds, and that there would be many, many people at this party. And consider the horrific notion that Nico would be expected to participate in carol singing. A Prince of the Underworld. Carol singing.
If you can appreciate that, you will begin to get a sense of the dread Nico di Angelo felt as he stepped into the main room of the Big House, which was as brightly lit and garishly decorated as the outside.
He stared around glumly for a moment, before spotting Annabeth and Percy, over by the buffet table. He hesitated, but the ever watchful Annabeth caught his eye.
"Nico! Over here!" she called cheerily, waving him over.
He shuffled over to them, trying to blend into the background. Maybe if he looked like he wasn't there he wouldn't get shanghaied into any Christmas-y activities or assaulted with a Santa hat or—
His instincts screamed at him just before a Santa hat was pulled over his head from behind. He span around with a snarky and/or barbed comment on his lips. However, his snarl promptly died out as he identified his assailant.
In front of him was Rachel Dare, Oracle of Delphi, in all her paint-spattered jeaned and duffel-coated glory. Such as it was, to Nico's crush-altered point-of-view. And Nico knew "jeaned" wasn't a word, but that was how he thought of it.
Said Oracle gave the embarrassed demigod a hug, while saying, "Look at you pretending you're not here! I can't wait to see you singing 'Silent Night'!"
Nico scowled. Darn, he thought. Foiled.
She led him over to Annabeth and Percy, and they got reacquainted. Nico was given a mountain of food on a paper plate, and thus the evening began.
An hour later, Nico was beginning to enjoy himself. The food was delicious, and whilst he was still lumbered with the Santa hat, he was starting to feel somewhat festive. Despite his better judgement, of course.
Predictably enough, however, things didn't stay wholly normal and happy for long. The start of the strangeness was when a passing girl slipped a green wreath over his head as she walked by. Nico had no idea how she got it on his head so quick, but there it was, perched precariously atop his Santa hat.
At first it rather annoyed him. However, after a moment, he began to feel rather strange. Positively out of character, even. He suddenly felt unusually confident and strong, and he suddenly wanted to flirt with any girl who passed him by. He saw, in the periphery of his vision, the girl who had put the wreath on his head, and, while she had looked ordinary before, now she looked like a wonderful princess with flowing, natural sapphire hair with perfect ruby red lips and beautiful, sparkling emerald-green eyes and—
Luckily for Nico's long-term sanity, Rachel reappeared and took the wreath off his head. His mind cleared, and he felt himself rise out of the sea of purple prose he had been momentarily engulfed in.
"What's this, Death Boy?" Rachel laughed, waving the wreath. She looked at the back of it and found three small wooden letters inlaid in the greenery.
"OOC." she read out loud, puzzled.
Nico shook his head, regaining his bearings. "Uh, nothing," he declared eloquently.
Rachel shrugged and tossed the wreath onto a nearby table. "Come on," she said. "The carol-singing is starting."
Nico fought to suppress a groan. The last thing he wanted was to look cranky and anti-festive in front of his crush.
So he let himself be led off to the slow torture that was 'Jingle Bells' being sung by a bunch of tone-deaf dyslexic teenagers and young adults. Apart from the Apollo kids, of course, but they were so conceited about their musical talent they were worse than the rest.
The strangeness continued a mere ten minutes later. Midway through the third carol, the same girl from before, or her identical twin, slipped a blue wreath, which Nico realised afterwards was really weird, onto his head. This time he was not engulfed in irrational feelings of "love." Instead, he felt an overwhelming urge to… write, of all things.
However, he didn't want to write about something logical or cogent. He wanted to write about the glorious heroine, Percia Pegasus Perfecto Jackson, with her mystic super special powers and her hyper-divine good looks. He wanted to write the tale of how Percia saved the world from all the bad Greek deities in one go, without breaking a sweat. Or getting scared. He wanted to write abo—
Fortunately for the English language, someone tapped Nico on the shoulder just then. He jumped in surprise, and the wreath toppled off his head, and with it went his writing… ambitions, to use a diplomatic term. An extremelydiplomatic term.
He span around (again), to find it was Percy who had unintentionally saved him. Which figured, really. Percy seemed to spend his life doing things by accident.
The aforesaid hero of Olympus offered Nico a blue chocolate chip cookie, clearly baked but a few hours before. Nico scarfed it down with all the finesse of a zombie stampede, and nodded his thanks to Percy, before turning back to the carol-singing.
A short time later, when the carollers had opted for a break, Nico was standing by the fireplace, trying to spot the weirdo who'd put those wreaths on him. He couldn't find her in amongst all the other people, and he was starting to get rather annoyed.
Just before he stalked off into the crowd to look for the girl, he felt something slip onto his head. He felt with his hand and, lo and behold, it was another godsdamned wreath. He went to take it off, but then he noticed the mistletoe hanging over his head. He turned slowly, to face his tormentor.
She had dark hair and light blue eyes, and there was something about her that seemed not quite there, as if she didn't belong. Nico only barely registered all this, now overcome with an overwhelming urge to take the girl in his arms and—
Well, you get the idea.
He took a step towards her, hands starting to reach out, head bent to one side for the kiss, when the strangest moment of the night came to pass.
Just over the weird girl's shoulder, a window in the air appeared, enlarging and tearing itself open. After a moment, a man stumbled through it. He was wearing a long leather coat and jeans, and he was holding two pieces of carved wood, one short, one long.
He raised the short piece of wood and pointed it at the girl, and he roared, "Fuego!"
The girl was engulfed in flame, and she shrieked a terrible, unearthly shriek. Her face and body seemed to melt away, and beneath her flesh mask was a small, flabby creature. A troll, in fact
Within a few moments, the creature was gone completely, burnt down to a few cinders on the floor. Nico stared at the man, stunned, as did nearly everyone else in the room.
He stepped forward, small piece of wood held high. He also wore a grey cloak over his coat, which Nico realised was called a duster. He knew this because it was something he always wanted for Christmas, but never got.
The man put up his left hand in a gesture of supplication, and said, in a Chicago accent, "Hey, folks. I come in peace."
Everyone continued to stare at him blankly.
He sighed, before lowering the wood, and said, in a more official manner, "My name is Harry Dresden. I'm a Warden of the White Council, and I'm here hunting a small pack of Outsiders known as Mary Sues."
Dresden caught sight of the wreath on Nico's head, and he moved towards the son of Hades. He put out his hand and said, in a funny voice that sounded like Yoda from Star Wars, "Surrender the wreath, you must."
Nico tore the wreath off his head and handed it to the weird guy.
Said weird guy tore the wreath in four pieces, while saying, "These creatures were summoned by the Grilnaf lord, a vampire of the Yellow Court. I followed them through the Nevernever to here. Very dangerous creatures. They make you succumb to their will, incite hero-worship, and drain all creativity from their victims. There's a damn good reason they're Outsiders.
"They get at their victims through small objects they secrete on the victim's person. They can then influence the poor fool's mind. Why am I telling you this? The more people know about these creatures, the less power they have, for some bizarre reason."
Nico didn't have a bog's notion what the man was on about. He did notice the use of "them," however.
"Were there more than one of them?" asked Nico carefully.
The man nodded and opened his mouth to say something, before his eyes widened and he exclaimed, "Down!"
Nico dropped to the ground just as another one of the creatures came flying through the air towards Dresden. The guy - whom Nico was beginning to think seemed a lot like some kinda wizard - quickly incinerated the troll.
That done, the wizard dashed around the room, wood held high. He found and roasted one more Mary Sue, and he picked up the two wreaths from earlier and tore them apart.
Chiron had finally gathered his wits enough to ask a question, and he stepped forward. He didn't get a chance, however, as Dresden, his work done, dashed back over to the window in the air, through which Nico could see what looked like the inside of a temple.
The wizard waved at everyone, before leaping through the hole. The window began to close, before its progress paused. Nico watched it nervously.
Dresden popped his head through the hole and called out, with a big grin on his face, "Oh yeah! And have a very Mary Suemas!"
His echoing laughter lingered on in the air as the window closed and the weirdest Christmas party Nico had ever had, concluded, everyone dashing off to the safety of their cabins as if a creature from the darkest part of the universe had just appeared in front of them.
And for all they knew, it had.
Fin.