I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know.

][

"…It's blue."

Nico's obvious statement is tinged with suspicion and uncertainty as he stares at the abomination– er, delicacy, that was placed before him. The recipe called for a simple chocolate chip cookie, and at the looks of it, it was a simple chocolate chip cookie, and a pretty damn good one, too. It's fresh out of the oven, radiating a sweet aroma of chocolate and the slightest hint of nutmeg. Although the cookie had cooled, the center was still moist and chocked full of half-melted chocolate chips. They were the kind of cookies made for a Nestlé Toll House advert, and The Pillsbury Doughboy himself couldn't have concocted something this perfect. It was the poster-child of cookies, the Zeus of desserts, if you excluded one tiny, insignificant little detail:

"It's blue."

He can hear Percy snort beside him, making a huge mess out of cracking eggs while being extremely bemused by the Ghost King's incredulous expression. If Nico weren't so distracted by the eyesore of a cookie in front of him, he'd make some remark about how the Son of the Sea God dropped half an eggshell into the batter. "Of course it is. Here, we dream of blue Christmases."

Nico wasn't exactly sure what he'd signed up for when agreeing to spend Christmas with the Jacksons, but it wasn't this. "How is it… That's not possible." Percy just laughs, and is soon joined in by Sally and Paul, all of whom seem to believe that this sort of thing is normal and natural and not all out-of-the-ordinary.

"It's amazing how far a little bit of food coloring can take you," Sally says, forcing Nico to take notice of the tiny dial of dye in her hands. His tired eyes widen in amazement as she squeezes a few drops into the bowl of cookie dough in front of her, turning the batter into a bright, artificial blue with just a wave of her magic wand - which was actually just a wooden spoon, but Nico was convinced that some sort of sorcery was occurring in her apartment's tiny kitchen.

While Nico wonders about the possibility of Sally being a descendent of Circe's or Hestia's, Percy says, without thinking, "Seriously, dude? You raise ghosts from their graves, but food coloring freaks you out?" Nico ignores Paul's extremely disturbed expression ("That goth kid can do what with Happy Meals?") and delivers an unamused glare to Percy - who seems rather surprised that he'd accidentally vocalized one of his internal snarky remarks.

"I'm not freaked out," he says, but it comes out pitifully unconvincing. "I'm just– is that even edible now?" Percy actually appears offended by that, as though Nico just committed an act of blasphemy by questioning his unnaturally-colored cookies, but Sally lets out another charming laugh. She gestures for Nico to come over, looking so at home in the kitchen, with flour on her apron and her fingertips stained with blue dye, whereas Nico is beginning to feel like Batman at a Strawberry Shortcake convention.

"Nothings changed except the color, we just happen have an affinity for blue foods in the Jackson-Blofis household." She hands him a small spoonful of blue cookie dough, and Nico glances at it warily, not sure what to expect from it, but with Sally's welcoming smile, he finds himself unable to refuse her. Despite his better judgement, he eats the raw cookie dough, chewing slowly and allowing his taste buds to override the rest of his senses.

One taste sends him back to when he was twelve years old, at a holiday party without cheer set at a black-stoned castle where everything changed. He remembers being given a stale, store-bough holiday biscuit with too much sugary icy and powdery sprinkles. He isn't sure why he thought of that depressing moment when tasting Sally Jackson's blue cookie dough, because that meager sample was something… otherworldly compared to what he was given at Westover, or any of the other places he'd been dropped at before discovering Camp Half-Blood. The recipe, minus the food coloring, is simple, but Nico feels lightheaded when trying it. Nico briefly wonders if Sally spiked the batter with ambrosia, but his veins aren't filled with fire, and the cookies taste so genuine despite the food coloring. It's as though an anvil had been resting on his chest for centuries and that sugary concoction managed to take the weight off, and he can finally relax, finally breath. He doesn't realize he's smiling until Percy gives him a knowing look, an obnoxious one that just screams Told you so, but Nico doesn't care as much when he sees Sally beaming at him, wearing an expression that's so tender, it can only belong to a mother.

"Congrats, you have salmonella now." And just like that, the atmosphere goes back to being lighthearted. Paul nudges his step-son with one hand and stifles his laughter with the other, while Sally rolls her eyes and flicks flour at them both. Although Nico was still worried about getting some kind of food poisoning from this little get-together, he finds it hard to believe that he's going to die from cookie dough after literally going to hell and back, and manages to compose himself, merely shrugging in response to Percy's good-natured teasing.

"You laugh now, but I'm pretty sure your cookies might actually kill me." Percy scowls, and looks at his batter, trying to figure out what was wrong with it while simultaneously remaining oblivious to all the eggshells and excess clumps of salt swirling around. Nico smirks, feeling victorious, and even laughs when Sally makes a small comment about how she's had a few close calls whenever Percy would go into her kitchen.

Percy pouts at the both of them, but quickly recovers from his bruised ego. He rolls up the sleeves of his green Christmas sweater, and cracks his flour-dusted knuckles. "Is that your way of challenging me to a bake-off, DiAngelo? Because it's on."

Nico cocks an eyebrow. "You can't be serious."

But Percy is very serious. And competitive. He wastes no time conjuring up an electric mixer and getting to work on combining his mess of ingredients together. Nico's still unsure of what exactly is happening, but Sally leads the way by handing him four large eggs, instructing him to crack them in one bowl while she helps measure out the rest of the ingredients. It's a strange activity, and while Nico isn't used to blue foods or getting his hands coated in brown sugar, the whole setting feels nostalgic. If he replaces the rustic apartment in New York for a tiny villa in Italy, blue chocolate chip cookies for zeppole, and the Jacksons for the ghost of a family he once had, he can almost grasp the wisp of a memory buried deep within him.

Percy's playful taunts knock Nico out of his reverie, and the sight of the Olympus's Hero slipping on baking mitts makes the corners of his lips turn upwards, and he suddenly feels like he's twelve again, being easily amused by the little things in life. After all, it's Christmas. He has all of next year to sulk and brood. He deserves at least one day of bliss, one day where he can ignore the hell raging beyond the borders and bake the best goddamn blue chocolate chip cookies the world has ever seen.

"Bring it on, Jackson."

A/N: This was written as a Secret Santa gift for the Secret Santas of Olympus Project on tumblr. The prompt was simply, "Nico being happy."