Authors note: This is a one-shot of Christmas with the 7 and friends and I hope yall enjoy it! It was written quickly as a writing exercise before I worked on my other story so excuse any errors! If you guys would like me to write this one-shot with more detail and more emphasis on characters let me know. I greatly enjoyed writing this and would love to take more time with it; matter of fact I might do that anyway. Happy Holidays!
It was December 24th and about 7 in the afternoon, the sun had set and the snow came down in heaps around the getaway house Percy and his friends had decided to get for the holiday. There was a Christmas tree standing proudly in the corner and the smell of pine and gingerbread floated through the house. Percy looked back at the couch where Annabeth sat in PJ's diligently watching the Harry Potter Marathon on the TV in the corner. He smiled upon seeing her with her reading glasses still on and her blonde princess curls pulled up into a loose ponytail. He heard Bing Cosby's Christmas classic "White Christmas" playing on the record player.
Once the fire was roaring once again Percy walked back to his girlfriend before sitting down next to her as she cuddled into his chest and joined her in watching Harry Potter. The holiday decorations surrounded them in green red and gold. The stockings with each of the demigod's names stitched into them were hanging gently over the fireplace. There were 12 stockings and half that many rooms. The stockings read; "Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, Reyna, Nico, Will, Jason, Piper, Leo, Calypso, Hazel, and finally Frank." The friends were spread across the house doing different activities and acting like mortals for the first time in a while. This place was a gift from the gods and was safeguarded from monsters and mortals alike, It was a second Camp away from the camps for the 7 and their close friends, and it was exactly the getaway that they needed.
As Percy and Annabeth snuggled up under a warm blanket and watched the Movies that never seemed to end they dozed into a peaceful sleep. In the kitchen Calypso, Leo, Jason, and Piper were in the kitchen belching out Christmas classic while also preparing to make a gingerbread house. The room smelled strongly of gingerbread. It was Calypso's first experience of Christmas and she was quickly falling in love with the festivities of the Christian holiday. Her face was beaming as she quickly started to pick up the words of the songs and started to sing along with the rest of them. Leo grabbed her one hand taking her waist and the other taking her hand and he started to waltz with her right there in the kitchen. Piper and Jason were impressed with Leos's skill and proceeded to join them in dancing around the kitchen. Casually switching dance partners and spinning them in laughter as the kitchen was filled with life and joy.
Earlier that year they had been faced with certain death… And Leo had died but they were blessed to be together in this moment, and they took it in stride. As they danced about in laughter another couple joined their mix in the form of Percy and Annabeth. Being roused by the ruckus from the kitchen they walked in and stood in the doorway with smiles upon their faces before also joining in the poor variation of the waltz that had seemed to be created, the laughter of the friends being together unsupervised, and the joy of not having to worry about life or death in that moment. Percy and Annabeth danced and laughed. When Calypso was finally passed off to Percy they made contact and the laughter seemed to fall off their faces leaving mirth in their eyes.
"Its been a while…" Percy said to the girl as they danced.
"Yes, It has. I see that you and Annabeth are happy." She said as a smile played on her face.
"We faced your curse in Tartarus," Percy said as the mirth melted off his face. "You cursed the woman I loved."
"Percy…" She started to say before he cut her off.
"No, I forgive you and she does too. It all worked out in the end, though Please just work on your vindictive side. It would mean a lot to me for you to learn to forgive rather than let your wrath control you." Percy said seriously as a smile started to creep back onto his face. As they moved to pass their parter off once again.
She smiled at him and said, "Thank you for your forgiveness and I will work on it." she said to him as she was passed off to Jason as Percy faced Piper and they danced wildly and flamboyantly exaggerating every move they made to the max. There was no talk between these two but rather just laughter. At the extent of their dancing, they knocked an empty cup to the ground and once the song finally came to a stop they saw their friends all standing off to one side of the room holding in their laughter.
"What?" Percy and Piper said as they separated from each other.
Annabeth chuckled and said, "You two are a couple of spazes if I have ever seen any."
Just then Frank Sinatras "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" started to play loudly over the record player and then a ding could be heard from the oven. Leo, equipped with oven mitts opened the oven and pulled the cookie sheet out of the inferno. On it, hot gingerbread in shapes used to build gingerbread houses. And on the second sheet, there were 12 gingerbread men to be decorated accordingly.
Piper leaned over and lowered the volume on the record player and got the candies needed to decorate ready. Percy grabbed the blue "Glue" that would be used to hold the foundation of the house up.
Up the stairs, Nico, Will, Thalia, and Reyna were playing an intense game of poker. Will was playing for fun but the others were gambling chocolate golden coins, and they were playing seriously. While Will's face shone with mirth as he took one of the coins from Nico's well-gambled stack of coins and unwrapped ikt and popped it into his mouth. The son of Hades slowly turned his gaze from Reyna to Will before saying stoically "What… Did… you… do?"
Will smiled at him with an easy-going nature about himself "I ate a piece of candy?"
Nico looked shocked and taken aback by his boyfriend's response before responding himself "The candy that I have labored over for the past hour… the candy that I have won fairly?"
Will laughed easily at Nico's building anger before saying "Yep. What are you going to do about it?"
In seconds the table they were playing on had been casually flipped and Nico had tackled will. Will's laughter rang out as Nico tickled his sides. A smile was written across Nico's face as will pulled the demigod down into a kiss to stop the onslaught of tickling. As they started to makeout Reyna offered her hand to Thalia and they left the boys to their business.
Thalia and Reyna walked passed one of the rooms upstairs where the door was wide open and the classic Christmas claymation "Santa clause is coming to town" was playing. Reya peeked in to see Hazel asleep in Franks's arms as he watched the movie vigilantly. When he noticed Reyna he put his finger to his lips to signal for her to be quiet. She nodded and then motioned for them to join them. Frank nodded and lifted Hazel's small frame moving them to one side of the bed before Reyna and Thalia joined the couple in the bed and cuddled up together with Reyna leaning against her fellow praetor and Thalia sitting lower in between Reyna's legs; giving Reyna free range to play with her hair, which she did absentmindedly.
After a few more minutes they heard Nico and Will stumbling after them; they peeked inside and saw that everyone was cuddled up in the bed watching the Christmas special. They smiled looking at each other and had a very quiet conversation before they nodded, smiled, and then looked at the comfortable couples that were on the bed; before rushing forward and jumping on all four of them rousing Hazel awake and essentially smothering the rest under them.
"WHats happening?" Hazel managed to get out from under the weight of her Half brother.
He looked up at her beaming with pride before responding with "Making sure you guys don't fall asleep! There is so much night to live."
Will and Nico rolled off of the four of them after receiving kicks and jabs from Thalia and Reyna's side of the bed. "Hey Hey we are going." Thalia and Reyna were laughing at his response as he moved away from the two in an effort to avoid unneeded bruising.
Once they were completely off the bed they settled for a large bean bag in the corner to cuddle upon. Will first and then Nico across his lap. Once the room quieted down again they focused on the movie, watching as the red-haired man called Chris Kringle taught the Winter Warlock how to walk.
Downstairs the remaining friends were struggling to make the Gingerbread house stand. Annabeth was in the corner doing math trying to figure out where they were going wrong. Percy was holding 3 pieces in place while Jason was holding the others. The frosting didn't seem to be holding which was concerning to Leo since he made the "perfect" recipe. The recipe was not perfect, and they were struggling. Annabeth was trying her best to come up with a way to make the current recipe work by using physics to hold the house together rather than the frosting "glue." after about 15 minutes of Percy and Jason holding it and complete and utter chaos taking over the kitchen as they looked for and edible solution Annabeth reached into her backpack and pulled out a ruler and protractor. She stepped up to her boyfriend and Jason and started taking measurements of the gingerbread walls and roof. She then started telling the boys how to angle it and told Piper to get a blow dryer from the bathroom. Piper scrambled out of the kitchen and came back holding a purple blow-dryer in hand. Annabeth started applying the glue once all the walls and ceiling were in place and told piper to blow dry the whole thing. By the end of the ordeal they had the most perfectly made gingerbread house any of them had ever seen; until Percy picked up the gingerbread man resembling Jason and took a bite.
Jason seemed shocked and then picked up Percy's cookie look alike and ate it. Percy smiled at this and responded "Glad you think I'm a snack too, bro."
Jason laughed with his friend before saying " Of course bro."
Snickers spread through their friends and they burst into laughter as well. As they were laughing hysterically the doorbell rand and Percy composed himself before approaching the front door, hand instinctively floating to his PJ pants pocket before opening the door revealing Poseidon, Zeus, Hades, Ares, Aphrodite, Athena, Hephaestus, and Apollo, all in ugly Christmas sweaters, all holding bags full of what looked like gifts, and Poseidon carrying a stack of Pizzas.
Percy goes silent looking upon all the gods. His eyebrows raised before he comes to his senses and opens the door wider allowing the gods to join in on their Christmas celebration As the gods pass the still baffled son of Poseidon they wish him merry Christmas before gathering in the living room. Annabeth comes out to greet her boyfriend and ask who it was before facing the multitude of Olympians standing in the living room putting bags down. When she sees her mother she rushes her and embraces her with a smile on her face. Saying "Mom! How are you here?"
Athena smiles as she hugs her daughter and says "We decided to celebrate Christmas with our kids."
Annabeth pulls away and a smile crosses Percy's face and he approaches his dad before calling to the whole house "Hey! Everyone get in here!" soon shuffles can be heard across the house and a stampede is heard coming down the stairs and more demigods exit through the kitchen before noticing their parents standing there. As each demigod approaches their respective parents with smiles and hugs going around.
Percy approached his father with a smile; his shock obviously passed and he embraced him. "Jeeze Dad, I haven't seen you since we won the war," Percy said happily.
Poseidon smiled at his son as they separated. "Yeah, that's why I'm here? Its been too long."
Percy smiled at the response before his ADHD kicked in and he asked: "Is that Pizza?"
Poseidon laughed before smiling and saying "Yep, help yourself." Percy looked around the room and called out "They brought us Pizza!"
The demigods seemed to cheer and walk away from their parents before each helping themselves to paper plates and in some cases up to 4 pieces.
As the demigods ate and talked to their respective parents there was a sense of serenity and how right it felt that they were all together on the holiday. They ate, talked, handed out gifts, and played games well into the night. It was the first Christmas they celebrated together and they guessed that this wouldn't be the last. It was beautiful and exactly what the tired demigods deserved.