Warning: This chapter contains swearing, mentions of family and food.

I managed to get out of my writer's block pretty quickly and this thing came out of my little creative outburst. I'm actually really happy with it.

Writing about friends hanging out is probably my favourite thing ever, it's just really fun.

I'd also like to point out that Nico and Percy aren't related by blood- Thalia is Percy's cousin and Nico is Thalia's cousin- I wanted to make this change so that things wouldn't get weird.

I hope you enjoy this, and bonus points if you can figure out who Percy's pen pal is.

xxxx

Percy loved his mum; She was nice, she was pretty and she didn't get too upset over him completely fucking things up from time to time.

Yes, Sally Jackson was the type of mum everyone of his friends wished they had. They liked her so much, in fact, that it was normal to find them all camping over at his house for a number of hours.

Christmas was no exception, of course, and his mum took advantage of her situation to not have to decorate the house for the holidays. The teenagers were more than happy to do Sally a favour, especially if it meant they got to snack on some of her blue cookies. And so, there they were, hanging out in his living room and trying to set up a fake tree.

"No," Thalia said, squinting. "it's still not completely straight. Try turning it more to the left."

"I can't turn it more to the left." Nico called out from where he was, laying on his back under the said tree trying to make it look presentable. "It won't move."

"I guess you could say you're...left out of options." He commented before chuckling at his own joke.

"Percy," His cousin's cousin hissed. "once I figure out how to get out of here, I am going to punch you."

"No, don't get out of there. We're too close. I'll punch him for you." Thalia offered, before slapping him on the shoulder. "Try turning it to the left again."

Her request was met with a series of complaints from Nico, which were reasonable, seeing as he had been in that position for about half an hour now. The fake tree Sally had bought had sounded like a good idea at the time ("No more vacuuming pine needles off the floor!"), but the top part of it refused to stay up. Percy had suggested using duct tape, but he was dismissed by his cousin, with the guarantee that she'd figure out a way for it to work. Thalia wasn't a pine tree expert last time he had checked, but if her stubbornness meant he got to sit back and eat cookies, he was going to leave her to it.

"You know, if you have nothing to do, you could help us out here." Annabeth told him as she gave him a dirty look.

"I could, couldn't I?" He replied with a smirk.

"Shut up and sit your ass down." Drew said while she pulled a bunch of christmas lights from a box and threw them at him. "Go ahead and untangle these for me, dear."

Annabeth giggled as he sat down next to them and did as Drew told him. The girls busied themselves with unboxing various ornaments. On top of being a great mum, Sally also enjoyed collecting christmas decorations.

"It's done!" His cousin called out after a few minutes. "We did it!"

"Finally." Nico grumbled as he lifted himself from the ground.

"Don't be such a grump, now we can start hanging these!" He announced as he held out the christmas lights. It looked like they were more tangled than they were when they were handed to him.

"No, we can't." Drew stated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the planet. "Those are for decorating the door. These" She pointed at a string of lights sitting right next to her. "are the ones we're going to put on the tree."

"I thought we were going to put the red reindeer balls up first." Annabeth declared.

The other girl shook her head. "The lights go on first, trust me." She handed the said lights to her girlfriend. "Could you hang them up for me?"

As Thalia worked on putting ornaments up and Drew worked on guiding her, the rest of them were left with nothing to do. Once Percy managed to figure out how to untangle the damned things- how they got so tangled in the first place, he had no idea- he sat down on the couch between Annabeth and Nico. The later one was simply watching his cousin and her girlfriend slowly making the tree look good. Annabeth, however had gotten her laptop out. She was on facebook, he noticed, and had a chat window open.

"Talking to Reyna again?" He enquired.

She shook her head. "She's not online. Probably having dinner or something."

"Then why is her chat window open?"

"Stop looking at my stuff!" His best friend argued, pushing her hand onto his face to make a point. "And if you really need to know, she messaged me earlier but I didn't see it."

"What does it say?" Drew asked while inspecting a glass ball filled with paper snowflakes.

"Not you too!"

"Is it really so damn intimate that we can't hear it?" Thalia wondered out loud.

Annabeth sighed. "''I don't know what to get Piper for christmas, though. They're a hard person to shop for.' Are you happy now?"

"Tell her to get Piper the ugliest sweater she can find." Thalia advised. "She told me that's what she's going to give Reyna, as a joke."

"I'm surprised you're even talking to her." Her cousin confessed. "You don't give half a shit about these things, usually."

" Piper knows Jason. I need someone on the inside to get me some dirt on him." She joked.

"You're an evil one, you." Her girlfriend replied.

"If you wanted some dirt on Jason you could've asked me. I'm his pen pal. you know." Nico noted.

"But Jason's got the hots for Piper. It's different." She shrugged.

"My pen pal likes that pony show." Percy blurted out. "He's trying to get me to watch it. It's kind of awkward."

There was a collective laugh. "And here I was thinking that you already watched it." Annabeth joked.

"I'm gonna get you a 'My Little Pony' shirt for christmas." Drew added with a chuckle.

"Fuck you guys." Percy muttered. "I'm gonna get you all socks, watch me."

"I'm gonna get you a thong." Annabeth responded.

"Get us all matching thongs!" Thalia decided. "We'll start a trend."

"Friendship thongs?" Nico wondered.

"Friendship thongs!"

"May I remind you that my mum is right next door?" Percy said, trying not to smile.

"Shit, that's right." Thalia acknowledged. "If she hears us she might steal our idea!"

Percy threw a pillow at his cousin for that. A few minutes later, he was stuck in the same position Nico had been in a few minutes back,trying to turn the tree left, wishing the pillow hadn't knocked over the damn tree.