A/N: This is just all kinds of stupid. Happy holidays, my loves!
Nico whistles. He does. He never noticed himself doing it until he was around fifteen, after the Giant War, after the whole growing up thing. After the realizing he belonged at Camp Halfblood thing. But he started noticing it.
It got worse and worse as Christmas crept upon him, as, despite his standing as the son of a pagan god, Christmas is one of the only memories that's always a good one. His mother celebrated fiercely and infected everyone around her with the holiday cheer, and Nico never really was able to shake it off. He whistles every single Christmas song he's heard over his 70 plus years, most specifically the classic ones. He loves the classic songs.
Then, one Christmas season, other people start to notice the whistling.
He's sitting outside his cabin, sorting his Mythomagic cards again (shut up, they're still cool) when he blinks and realizes he's been whistling Jingle Bell Rock for the past few minutes. That's not unusual.
What's unusual is that someone else kept going when he had stopped.
"Hey," says Jason, popping out from behind the cabin. "I liked that one."
Scrabbling at his cards, Nico picks them up and shoves them (unsorted and unbanded, damn it all) into his bag. "This is my private space!" exclaims Nico, then winces at how stupid he sounds. "I mean, what are you – I give up." He offers Jason a sheepish smile. "I'll just go with hi."
"What are you up to?" Jason asks, sitting down next to Nico. "Oh, cool. Mythomagic? That game is boss."
"You play too?" asks Nico. "Seriously?"
Jason shrugs and lies down on the cold ground, his jacket protecting him from the cold. "Card games were kind of our thing at the Roman camp. Mythomagic, Pokemon, that kind of stuff during the day." He turns to Nico and sends him a smirk "And nothing's much better playing a little bit of strip poker when the praetors are asleep."
Nico frowns. "You WERE a praetor."
Jason chuckles. "Okay, when Reyna was asleep. What pack do you want for Christmas?"
"Huh?" asks Nico, confused by the rapid change in topic.
"For Mythomagic," Jason replies. "What do you want? So I can tell people at Secret Santa."
Nico, for the life of him, can't think of an answer, so he blurts out, against his better judgment, "Bangerz."
Jason's eyebrows shoot up. "What?" He's laughing, but not unkindly.
"I have a thing for ridiculous dance pop," Nico says, dropping his head in his hand. "We are never going to talk about this ever again."
"But I need to talk about this," says Jason firmly. "We need to talk about Miley Cyrus."
"We need to talk about anything else," says Nico. "You can suggest the Extinction 2013 pack of the Mythomagic cards."
"That and Bangerz," says Jason. "If only so I can borrow it."
"You don't listen to Miley Cyrus. Don't give me that," says Nico with an eye roll.
"I would have said exactly the same thing about you thirty seconds ago!" Jason replies. "Come on, Nico. Tell me what you want. What you really really want."
Nico drops face first onto the ground, wondering how he got stuck with Jason Grace.
The odds are not and will never be in Nico di Angelo's favor. After some simple logic and asking around, he makes the horrifying discovery that Jason has him for Secret Santa.
"Please tell him not to buy me any music," Nico says to Piper at dinner.
She turns to him. "Hello, good sir," she says, a forkful of spaghetti halfway to her mouth. "Who is he and why do you not want music?"
"For Secret Santa," says Nico, "I'm sure you know who has me."
"Actually, I don't," she replies. "Or I didn't. But I've got an idea now, since you asked me." Piper winks at him. "Totally going to go confirm after dinner."
"Please don't let him," Nico says.
"I'll see what I can do."
It doesn't work. Five days later he's sitting in front of all his friends, opening up his gift with dread. But it's not what he expects.
"Frank Sinatra Christmas?" Nico asks, confused. "But I – actually, thank you, Jason," Nico says with a sigh. "Thank you very much."
Jason shrugs. "What can I say, we've all heard you whistling those classic Christmas songs for the past month and a half."
Jason Grace is going to die and Nico's going to send furry little bunnies to do it.
It's still only December 19th, so Christmas music is still acceptable, but what he puts into his CD player is definitely not Christmas music when he puts it on shuffle.
Miley Cyrus starts singing about how she came in like a wrecking ball, and Nico scrambles to turn down the music before anyone hears.
It doesn't work.
"I CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL," yells someone along with Miley as they barge into Nico's cabin.
"Jason, I'm going to kill you," grumbles Nico over the music. "Kill you dead."
Jason's only response is, "ALL I WANTED WAS TO BREAK YOU OFF."
"You're awful."
Jason reaches over and drags Nico into another one of his bone crushing hugs. "Merry Christmas, you little Miley Man. And a Bangerz new year."
Nico di Angelo hates his friends. But really, he likes them. He likes all of them a lot.
