Santa visits Hotel Ferrero
Title: Santa visits Hotel Ferrero
Pairing: Juan Carlos Ferrero/Marat Safin
Other characters: Ancic, Tipsarevic, Gasquet, Baghdatis, Santa Claus
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4,235
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters and this is a fiction.
Warning: Bad language, possible disrespect towards Santa Claus.
Summary: Mario goes to work like any normal evening, only to find an interesting e-mail in his mail box.
Author’s note: This is a “Hotel Ferrero” spin-off, dedicated to crystaleyesd, as a part of the Secret Santa event on tennis_crack. Merry Christmas, sweetie :)
December 24th, 20th floor, Hotel Ferrero, Madrid, Spain.
“Boss! Boss!!”
Mario pounded on the door as hard as he could. He had never been so excited and lost at the same time. If he got it all wrong, his reputation as the world’s best vampiric assistant would be threatened. And, that was something that the Croatian wasn’t going to accept. But if he was right, his boss was going to love him until the end of his days.
“Boss!”
“Jesus! Just come in, Mario!”
As soon as he heard the name of tomorrow’s birthday boy, Mario yanked the door open and ran inside.
“Boss, I got a…”
His boss was all flushed, wiping a sweat off his forehead with the end of his elegant shirt sleeve. It was clear that Juan Carlos had been working on something else other than legal documents.
“What were you doing, boss?”
Normally, as a good assistant as he is, he wouldn’t have asked and would have rather started reporting for the sake of his embarrassed boss. But tonight, he had to ask. He was about to announce the most fantastic news that had ever happened in this hotel and he couldn’t afford his boss to be indecent.
“Nothing. You have something to tell me?” Juan Carlos put on his silver glasses and looked straight into his assistant’s eyes.
Mario narrowed his eyes and spotted a glint of sexual excitement in his boss’ eyes. Bingo, the boss had been doing what he thought that he had been doing; something that didn’t involve a pen and paper but rather a hand and an open fly.
“You’re lying, boss. Trust me, you don’t want to lie tonight!”
Mario had to yell in joy at the end, remembering why he had been in such a hurry to see his boss.
“Why would I lie? And, what’s so important that you have to tell me?” Juan Carlos fixed his glasses and moved his leg.
Mario walked up to the desk when he saw the Spaniard kick something with his right foot. The sound was unmistakably familiar.
“Oh God, is Marat under there?”
“What? Nonsense.” Juan Carlos held out a hand to see what his assistant had printed out for him.
“This is a sublime moment, boss. We don’t need him in the room at such an important moment.”
Mario put down his yellow scheduler and the valuable sheet of paper on the desk and tried to pull out the Spaniard’s chair.
“Mario!” Juan Carlos hung onto the edge of the desk.
“Boss! Let it go! I know that you’re hiding him!”
“I’m not hiding anyone! And, even if I was, it’s none of your business!”
“Oh, tonight, it is! You’ll regret it once you get to hear what I have to tell you!”
“Just tell me about it already! It’s not like Santa’s coming to our hotel, no?” Juan Carlos yelled as he reminisced about one of his childhood wishes.
He had always bugged his father to invite Santa Claus over to the hotel. Tired of his son’s constant bugging, his father had written invitational letters to the North Pole and young Juan Carlos had waited for an answer throughout the whole December. He had carried on with this special tradition even when he took over the hotel, but never once did he get a reply from the holy creature.
While the elder vampire let go of the desk and lifted a finger to wipe away a tear of disappointment, Mario seized the opportunity and pulled out the chair.
“Eek! Boss!!”
The red-faced Croatian quickly covered his eyes but the gap between his fingers was wide enough for him to see his boss’ open pants.
“Ah, no more fun for me.” Marat slowly crawled out from the desk after zipping up his lover and made a face when he saw that Mario had been watching all along.
Mario couldn’t care less about the Russian’s face and extended his long arm to pick up the sheet of paper and held it in front of his boss’ glasses.
As the seal known as the official seal of Santa Claus moved at the end of the paper, Juan Carlos’ eyes grew impossibly wide. As if it was gif. file made by a Christmas fan in the Harry Potter world, the red seal of Santa’s face was moving on the two-dimensional paper.
“This can’t be possible.” The hotel owner snatched the paper and took a better look, holding his glasses for the perfect focus.
“I know! Only the true Santa seal can move like that on printed paper!”
Mario was too thrilled to even breathe properly. Every year, he had wished for Santa Claus to be generous and give him a reply so that his boss would have the perfect Christmas, but he had never really expected to get an answer from the Santa’s assistant.
While the hotel owner and his assistant had a hard time to get back to reality, Marat took the paper from his lover’s grip and looked at the seal with an interesting look on his face.
“Hmm… I bet this is from some witch who wants to mess with you guys.”
He crumpled up the sheet of paper and tossed it in the waste basket when the other two vampires yelled in horror.
“Marat!!”
“No!” Juan Carlos pulled his hair with his hands and Mario quickly reassured him that the answer had come as an e-mail and that he could always reprint it for him.
“You’re the best, Mario.”
The Spaniard jumped up from the chair and hugged the tall Croatian, standing on his toes. Mario muttered a half-hearted sorry to his boyfriend and put his long arms around his boss. He could feel Marat’s hands trying to pull him off but he did his best to hang on until he felt himself almost flying towards the door.
“Holy cow!” Marcos caught his flying friend and dropped him back safely on the floor.
“Boss threw you?” The chef couldn’t believe that his boss had moved onto throwing live creatures now.
“No! He did!” Mario pointed an accusing finger at the Russian. “He even wrinkled Santa’s reply!”
The Cypriot was also aware of his boss’ secret love for Santa Claus. He had always considered the Spaniard as one of his main rivals.
“Did you just say Santa? Oh my god, the love of my life finally found out that I work here!!” Marcos flew past Mario and went straight to the waste basket to rescue the holy sheet of paper.
Dear Mr. Ancic, the personal assistant of Mr. Ferrero who has donated the most to charity this year,
Mr. Santa Claus would like to accept your invitation and make a reservation for two hours if possible, from 11 p.m. 24th to 1 a.m. 25th. Mr. Santa Claus has asked me to squeeze in your prestigious hotel in his tight schedule so we would appreciate your understanding of the very short notice.
He would like to spend the first hour, giving out gifts to the hotel staff and guests, and spend the second hour in a room to recharge himself for intense gift deliveries which would follow shortly. Rudolph and seven other reindeers are also scheduled to join him, so we hope that you could give them a wide room.
Thank you for your kind understanding. He wishes to meet you very shortly.
- Charlotte, Mr. Santa Claus’ first assistant.
While Marcos blinked his eyes a few times and burst into happy tears, clinging to the disgusted Russian’s waist, Juan Carlos ordered his one and only assistant.
“Mario, would you be a better assistant than Santa’s and go fetch me that bewitched microscope for me? I want to check if this ink is what witches tend to use.”
The hotel owned one of those contraptions which helped them to recognize the legal witches whom they could trust enough to give a room. Unlike vampires and human beings, witches were supposed to carry official papers with a legitimate seal given from the Ministry of Tourism whenever they had to step outside traditional witch villages.
Mario smiled brightly and answered, “I’ve already checked, boss. It isn’t the same type of ink that witches usually use. I even sent a part of the seal to the Witch Technology Center in Valencia and they got back to me, saying that they have only seen this type of seal once before!”
“When?” Juan Carlos asked for everyone else in the room.
“When Santa Claus visited one of the tortured villages in Northern France where many witches had been hunted down in the 17th century.” The world’s best assistant was proud of his research skills and his boss had never been more grateful for that.
“You’re really the best, Mario.”
The Spaniard smiled softly before he put on a serious voice. “We have a situation here though; we only have twenty four hours left to get ready for Santa.”
“I’ll go bake a special cake for him!” Marcos wiped off his tears like a brave vampire.
“I’m ready to take notes for whatever you have to order, boss.” Mario picked up his scheduler and opened it.
“What? Are you guys out of your mind? Santa doesn’t exist!” Marat yelled with annoyance apparent in his voice. He couldn’t believe how quickly the three vampires assumed that the reply was from a real Santa.
“If you’re not willing to help, that’s too bad. But don’t say such horrible things about him, Marat. We’ve talked about this every single year.” Juan Carlos shook his head in disbelief.
“Duh… even five year old humans know that he doesn’t exist. Shouldn’t you just stick to getting ready for the year-end party?”
Now Marat could feel, for once, how it felt to be the only sane creature inside the room.
Knock-knock.
“Juanqui?”
As Richard peeked into the office, wondering if Juan Carlos was available, Marat groaned. Things were only going to get worse.
“Oh, Richie sweetie, come over here and see this!”
Juan Carlos jumped like a child and when the half-vampire recognized Santa’s seal with a dramatic gasp, all four of them started to run in a circle hand in hand, singing the carol “Santa Claus is coming to town.”
Marat watched the horribly childish scene with his mouth open, but no one in the room bothered about the anti-Santa’s presence.
‘This must be the most terrible Christmas Eve ever.’ Marat thought and let out a deep sigh.
And, it turned out that the Russian was right. At least two-third of the hotel staff in Madrid was preoccupied with their special missions and it was driving the bodyguard crazy.
“Don’t tell me that you believe all this shit too.” Marat asked Janko as they stood guard in front of the office like any other night.
“Well, it’s still nice to see that everybody is so excited.” The Serb smiled good-heartedly.
“So that means you don’t believe in Santa, right?” Marat was relieved to find another sane soul in the building.
“I guess we’ll see about that in…” Janko looked at his watch, “twenty hours or so.”
“What? We still have twenty hours left till that psycho arrives? Huh, actually, I’ll be surprised if anyone even shows up at that time.”
“I hope someone does. After all, boss said that we’re on a special duty tonight until we finish getting everything ready for Santa.”
“That’s pure staff abuse. He can’t legally do that, right?” Marat pouted.
“He’s the boss. What can we say? Plus, everyone else doesn’t seem to mind it.” Janko shrugged, desperately hoping that Santa Claus actually exists and will show up to give him a nice present.
“Hey, if he really comes, what do you want from him?”
Marat looked at his colleague as if he had used three condoms at once. “What?”
“What do you want for Christmas? Oh, come on, Marat, you must’ve wanted something, at least when you were a baby vampire, right?”
Janko couldn’t exactly believe that even for someone like Marat, there could be something called an innocent youth, but he was feeling the Christmas spirit enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“I remember that I wanted that wooden doll my neighbor used to have. It looked strong and had a huge bulge in its pants.”
“What?” Janko roared in laughter and Marat joined him shortly after. It felt good to talk to a sane person.
“So what do you want? Even if I’m sure that creepy old bastard will give you the exact opposite.”
The two laughed again until Janko put on a serious face. “It’s so hard to stay away from Tommy these days. I wish he’d give me a one-year flight ticket to a supersonic plane.”
“Wow. How specific.” Marat rubbed his chin. He knew that he was blessed to have his lover so close to him.
‘Ah, Juanqui… Oh, well, I suppose I can suffer a few more hours. Even if we’re all on special duty, he’s going to at least sleep for a couple of hours, right? Hmm, I just wish he wouldn’t make us wear stupid outfits.’
Alas! The only Christmas wish that the Russian had had gone out the highest window and down the deepest drain as he found himself standing on the hotel rooftop, wearing an elf costume. According to Juan Carlos, they were supposed to be Santa’s miraculous little helpers.
“Who says we have to wear this to greet that mother fucker?”
Janko poked the fuming Russian in the ribs and hoped that no one had heard him.
“Jesus, Marat. Shut up. We’re on the rooftop and boss might throw you if he hears you speak like that.”
The Serb would have been probably right if Juan Carlos had enough sanity left to hear anything else than the imaginary bells ringing somewhere in the dark.
“Oh!! Mario! I think I just heard the bells again! The reindeers must have huge bells on their necks!”
Mario cocked up his ears and tried to listen. All he could hear was the soft whoosh of the night breeze and Juan Carlos’ excited breathing.
“Uh, boss, I don’t hear anything. Perhaps you have better hearing than me.”
“You don’t?” The Spaniard fixed his elf hat and closed his eyes. “Oh! Now I can hear Rudolph humming!”
“Um, he’s humming?” The Croatian never thought that animals, especially reindeers could hum but maybe he was wrong.
“Yes, he’s humming a carol!” Juan Carlos’ eyes were wide open now.
“Which one?” Marat only asked out of curiosity.
“Let me concentrate.” The hotel owner closed his eyes again and smiled, “Ah, it’s the beautiful Silver Bell, my personal favorite!”
While Marat made a mental note to get a doctor to check on his lover’s sanity once this whole mess ends, Mario was rather happy. His boss and he had clicked like they had never clicked before during the intense preparation and seeing the so-called lover all grumpy in the corner was a nice bonus.
“Oh my holy Santa of god!! Is that a sleigh over there?”
All of a sudden, Richard twinkled his eyes and pointed at a corner of the dark sky.
“Oh my god, you’re right!” Mario couldn’t believe what he was seeing but he could even see the shiny red nose of a reindeer who must be Rudolph.
Marat looked at his wristwatch to check the time. It was one minute away from the promised eleven o’clock. He could hear a huge laugh and some animal noise coming from the sky but he refused to look up.
‘No, there’s no such thing as a Santa Claus. I knew that simple fact for several centuries already. Someone’s messing with this hotel.’
The Russian gritted his teeth and only lifted his head when he heard that loud laugh again.
“Ho ho ho!”
Marat’s jaw dropped as he saw a fat guy in a sleigh land on the rooftop. This wasn’t happening.
“Welcome to Hotel Ferrero, Mr. Santa. It’s our deepest honor and pleasure to have you here in our humble hotel.”
The hotel owner welcomed Santa Claus with a huge bouquet of flowers and a warm cup of tea which Mario and Marcos had been holding each.
“Ho ho ho! You must be Mr. Ferrero. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Santa extended his hand and Juan Carlos took the honor to shake it.
“Ah, I so wish I could shake hands with him too!” Marcos whined at Richard who was wiping his eyes, all emotional to have seen Santa Claus with his own eyes.
“Don’t worry, guys. He’ll be giving out presents and I’m sure you’ll get to shake his hand.” Janko reassured his friends and saw their boss introduce Mario to Santa.
“Okay, I guess it’s time to bodyguard Santa Claus now.”
The Serb poked Marat in the ribs and the two creatures that were the only ones who didn’t believe in Santa’s existence happened to protect him while he walked down the stairs that led to the top floor and took the elevator to reach the lobby.
After a quick tour of the hotel, Santa finally took a seat in the lobby, in a huge armchair and ordered one of the security team to bring over his present sack.
“Ho ho ho! Who wants his present first?”
Santa asked in a generous voice and everyone became excited as a bunch of kids who had too many Jolly Rancher candies in one night.
“Me! Santa, me!”
“Over here!”
“Please pick me, Santa!”
The staff and customers all put on their best puppy eyes and Santa looked around the lobby with a pleasant smile on his face.
“Has everybody been good this year?”
“Yes, Santa!!”
Everyone answered in unison, of course except for Marat and Janko who still had their doubts about the mystery man. At first sight, he looked like a normal human being but when they were showing him around the hotel, he had saved a child from falling down, when he had been running dangerously near the pool in bare feet, with a snap of his fingers from the distance. Of course, prominent witches could do that even without their wands but something told the two bodyguards that the fat creature wasn’t a witch.
‘Hmm, whoever he is, he’s going through a lot of trouble.’ Marat thought as he saw Marcos raise his hand right in front of Santa’s nose.
“Okay, my child. You’re first, Marcos.”
“Yay! Thank you, Santa!”
Happy that Santa had even called his name, thanks to the name tag that Juan Carlos had specially ordered for the occasion, the Cypriot stepped forward with a copy of his new cookbook that he had especially signed with care just for Santa.
“This is my latest cookbook, Mr. Santa, and this is my dear Rosemary. It will be such an honor to the Baghdatis family if you could bless her.”
Marcos held out Rosemary who had a red and green ribbon on her waist. Santa nodded, touched his heavy, snow white beard for good luck and put his hand on one of Rosemary’s leaves.
“Ahh…” Marcos had never been happier for his dear child. Now all he wanted was to see Rosemary find her own love.
“Here. I could’ve picked one of the plants myself, but it’s always better for the father of the bride to take a look first. Ho ho ho.”
Santa Claus gave the chef a sheet of paper that didn’t feel like any other paper on earth. It wasn’t possible to wrinkle it and the map of a botanical garden was pretty much alive. There was even a witch who waved her hand and smiled at Marcos in the middle of the plan.
“Oh my god! I can find Rosemary’s spouse here?”
“That witch owns very rare plants, my child. I’m sure Rosemary will find the right one over there, ho ho ho! Next!”
Juan Carlos pushed Richard up to Santa’s chair, happy to see that the half-vampire was glowing with joy. Everything was wonderful. He had never enjoyed working more than the past twenty four hours and he was proud that he had been chosen by the holy creature for having donated the most to charity this year.
While the hotel owner took his time enjoying happy faces, it soon became Mario’s turn to get a present. The Spaniard watched the face of his favorite assistant and an amazing friend light up with delight.
“This is the perfect yellow scheduler, Santa!”
“I know, my child. Ho ho ho.”
“Even when I made a special request, they couldn’t make it like this!” Mario couldn’t contain his excitement.
“I even put little tricks on it. It won’t get any heavier even if you add more papers, ho ho ho.”
“This is absolutely perfect, Santa. Thank you so much. Boohoohoo...”
Juan Carlos had to hug the Croatian and pat him on the back until he could control himself and soon, the promised one hour passed more rapidly than anyone had expected.
“Marat, it’s your turn.” Janko gently pushed the Russian forward but the big vampire wouldn’t budge.
“Marat, dear. You’re the only one left other than me!” Juan Carlos’ merry voice melted the poor vampire’s heart and the grumpy Russian had to step forward.
“Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas, Marat boy. This is for you.”
The Santa patted him on the head and held out a present while Marat shot death glares at the old man.
“We say thank you, Marat.”
Juan Carlos’ voice was sharp and the bodyguard knew that it was in his best interest to do what he had been told. He quickly unwrapped the present with rough hands and realized that he got the hottest video camera on the market.
“Thanks. Even though I’m not sure if it’ll work proper… ouch!”
Marat rubbed the back of his waist where Juan Carlos had pinched with all his might. Damn, it hurt.
“Now, last but not least, my patient child. Come over here.”
Santa patted his lap and Juan Carlos didn’t hesitate to sit on it with a little amount of red in his cheeks.
“Jesus Christ.”
Marat didn’t know if it was the appropriate swear word to use on Christmas Eve but he had to say something. His lover rarely blushed, probably once every five years and now he was blushing on some other guy’s lap.
While the Russian thought about punching the Satan in the face, Janko managed to grab his wrist.
“Don’t even think about it. You don’t want boss to be a widower, do you? If you get hunted down by all those Santa lovers, he’ll really end up on someone else’s lap.”
Marat wanted to snap at his colleague who dare tried to stop his fist from swinging, but the look on the Spaniard’s face made all his anger disappear.
“Santa…”
Juan Carlos was touched to see his beloved pink striped blanket again. It had been a little over than a year that he had lost it in the fire and it had been impossible to find the same one. The factory that had been producing those had gone out of business for quite some time already and Mario couldn’t get him the same blanket that hadn’t been used before.
At first, he had given Marat full authority to pick up a new blanket, but whatever the Russian had bought, Juan Carlos just couldn’t get fond of it. He had missed his pink blanket so much and felt less warm, less loved wrapped up in the wrong blanket.
‘How on earth did he get that one? I bet he got it secondhand.’ Marat thought but wherever the blanket really came from didn’t matter right now. His lover was happy; so happy that he even gave Santa a kiss on the cheek.
“Ahahaha…”
Mario was giggling. It was extremely heartwarming to see his boss put on such a blissful look and at the same time, it was unbelievably satisfying to see Marat go red, puffing smoke out of his ears. The scene was too good and he loved every single piece of it.
‘Ah, I should write down about today’s events before I go to sleep in the morning.’
Mario caressed his new scheduler once more and couldn’t help but smile again. Santa had been kind enough to put a diary section at the end, and the best part was that only he could read the content written in special ink with the magic glasses that were enclosed.
‘Thank you, Santa. It was the best Christmas Eve ever.’
As Santa Claus got up from the armchair after finishing three pieces of Marcos’ cake, Mario shed a happy tear. Everyone seemed to be so happy and it was probably one of the very best days in his beloved Hotel Ferrero.