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greenconversesTitle: Death's Dare
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Rachel/Nico, with appearances from the rest of the cast and the gods
Summary: After an attempt on her life, Apollo decides Rachel needs a bodyguard and who better to take the job than a certain son of Hades? Too bad they're not going to make things easy for each other, especially when it comes to their feelings.
Notes: So. Over the course of writing (and rewriting and rewriting) this chapter, I had a massive crisis with the plot of this fic that I needed to get through before finishing it. I had the breakthrough I needed earlier this week, and forced myself to power through to the end, so sorry if I haven't responded to any comments/emails/pms any of you've left in the last couple of days! I'll be getting all caught up within the next day or so.
Chapter Ten: Warnings
Surprisingly, Rachel Dare's idea of a fun night out with the boy she might have some vaguely romantic feelings toward did not include getting dragged down into the New York City sewers by a monster that looked like cross between an angry caterpillar and an unhappy squid.
Said fun night would also not include losing her favorite pair of gladiator sandals down the catersquid's gullet to avoid being eaten herself and then having to sort through the monster's innards to find them again after it had been sliced open either.
But when you were the Oracle of Delphi with a target on your head and the boy you happened to have some vaguely romantic feelings toward was the demigod son of Hades and acted as your bodyguard, you just had to deal with it, sewers, catersquids, ruined shoes and all.
"Ugh, there's no way I'm going to be able to save these," Rachel sighed, squinting gloomily at her shoes before tossing them back at the monster's smoking and oozing corpse. "I hope they were worth the effort, you stupid thing."
"Hmmm," Nico said, bending down beside her. He lifted his sword, the glowing silver of the Stygian iron casting just enough light so he could examine the corpse. "I'm pretty sure this one was after me this time."
"Oh yeah? What makes you say think that?" Rachel replied, reaching back to squeeze the slime out of her ponytail. She grimaced, trying not to think about what that slime was made up of exactly, and then wiped her hands on her jeans. "Because it looked pretty interested in eating me, if I do say so myself."
"It's a carrion crawler. I ran into them a few times in Europe, and New Orleans had a really nasty infestation of them a couple of years after Hurricane Katrina. They prefer the flesh of the dead, but they won't protest a living meal," he explained. "They probably just got you confused for me. I'm smell like a five star meal to these guys, being the son of Hades and all."
Rachel frowned, and glanced at him.
"Do you really?"
"Do I really what?"
"Smell like death. Because I thought all those kids at camp were just being assholes by saying those things, but if it's true, I'm going to have to apologize to a couple of people – "
Nico looked at her, exasperated, and then wiped his sword off on the carrion crawler's hide.
"I didn't mean literally, because I'm sure someone – like you, probably – would've told me that by now," he replied. "Monsters are attracted to smell of the immortal blood in our veins, and I can only assume mine smells like maggot infested corpses with the reactions I get from immortals and monsters alike."
"Huh," Rachel said, standing up. "Do you think I've got some sort of scent to me now that I'm the Oracle?"
That would certainly explain how these monsters had the unnerving habit of knowing where and who she was when they did decide to attack.
Nico stood as well and sheathed his blade, causing them to lose what little light they had down in the sewer. It took Rachel's eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness so she could see the demigod's outline next to her.
"If you do, it's probably not very strong. I wouldn't worry about it," he said with a shrug. "Besides, with the amount of slime you rolled in, you'll be reeking of sewer for weeks to come. No one, let alone a monster, is gonna wanna come near you."
Rachel huffed, glaring at his shadowy face. Even if she couldn't see it, she knew he had to have that damned obnoxious smirk on his lips.
"Wow, you just know the exact thing to say to get a girl eating out of the palm of your hands, di Angelo. I'm so impressed that I think that comment just bumped us back to 'occasionally holding hands status' of your slow moving relationship chart – "
Rachel squeaked as Nico's hands settled on her hips and pulled her against him, their clothes making disgusting squelching noises as they pressed together. Apparently he didn't have a problem getting near her when she was covered in slime.
She didn't have much time to dwell on that as Nico's lips were descending on hers for their first kiss in a week. All of Rachel's higher brain function shorted out, and she forgot all about being slime covered in a dark sewer and concentrated on the feeling between the two of them. Nico tasted like sweat and a little bit like dirt, but he was warm and wonderful and real, and that was all that counted.
"What – what was that for?" she replied breathlessly when they pulled apart long moments later. "I thought we were going slow."
When Nico said slow, he had meant slow. Like nearly glacier slow. Rachel had been fine with it for two or three days after their first kiss – she'd gotten the time she needed to sort out her feelings and decide that, yes, she wanted to see where this thing with Nico was going and if it could possibly turn into something more serious. But it had quickly gone from being fine to bordering on painfully ridiculous as Nico insisted on maintaining some distance between them; just yesterday she'd had to remind him that they had done worse things than holding hands out in public so he needed to chill out and just give her his hand already.
If their unresolved sexual tension had been bad before, this period of waiting had turned it into pure agony because now Rachel knew how good of a kisser Nico was, how the hard line of his chest felt pressed against, that she could make him tremble if she raked her nails lightly up his back. Although knowing these details made the fantasies all the better, she'd prefer to have the real thing in her arms than some imagined scenario torn straight out of a romance novel.
Nico's answer was another kiss, teasingly slow and soft, as if to show her there were benefits to going slow, and Rachel probably would've pinched him for being such an ass if she wasn't enjoying it as much as she was.
"Not that I'm complaining or anything," Rachel amended quickly, before their lips met again. Her head was beginning to spin from pleasure. "But you could've picked a better place than a sewer to kiss me, couldn't you?"
This caused Nico to pause momentarily so he consider this.
"Yeah, I guess," he said. "The monster corpse really doesn't do anything for the mood, does it?"
They glanced at each other, and Rachel let out a giggle, which was quickly joined by Nico's rough bark of a laugh. Their short burst of laughter quickly turned into loud guffaws that rang throughout the sewer tunnel, and as much as she loved making out with Nico, it was in moments like these she found herself truly wanting more of.
Rachel had to admit that, even if the first part of the night hadn't gone as planned, the second half was shaping up to be a much better.
She probably wouldn't have thought that, though, had she noticed the pair of glowing red eyes watching them closely from the far end of the tunnel.
*
In retrospect, Rachel shouldn't have been at all surprised to see a photo of her and Nico walking along 5th Street in the gossip section of the New York Post the next morning.
Being a New York heiress, this wasn't the first time she'd been featured in the gossip pages, although usually it was for whatever stupid company events her father made her attend instead of her personal life. But this photo would be something extra special for the New York City gossip crew, considering she both looked like she crawled out of the sewer system and was pictured with someone with Y chromosome. The information under the picture was already speculating if Nico was her boyfriend or not, and Rachel was thankful that they hadn't been holding hands (or gods forbid, kissing) when that picture had been taken otherwise the overall public embarrassment might just kill her.
Speaking of the son of Hades...
"Is there a reason the phone in the kitchen is off the hook?" Nico asked as he leaned over the top of her armchair. She gave him a moment to notice what she was reading. "Holy shit, is that our picture in the Post?"
"Yup. Welcome to the glamorous world of being an incredibly minor celebrity," she replied, turning the page. "If the tabloids are interested enough in us, you might actually get to pretend to be a real bodyguard and protect me from hordes of paparazzi for a couple of days."
"Fantastic," Nico said sarcastically. "Is this printed any where else?"
"It's probably all over the Internet by now. If there isn't a thread rating your hotness levels on ONTD by the end of the day, I will be greatly disappointed," Rachel said. "And to answer your previous question, the phone is off the hook so I don't have to answer the angry calls from my father."
"Oh, right," Nico said, blanching at the mention of her father.
"Yup," she said again, turning a page in the paper. "He is not going to be pleased."
That was the understatement of the century, but she knew how to deal with her father's nuclear meltdowns. Nico, on the other hand, was still recovering from her father's visit the week before and could still be reduced to a nervous wreck if her father's name was invoked in the wrong context.
She waited for him to say something about how her father was going to sic the mafia on him to break his kneecaps and that he was going to have to go hide on her roof for the rest of the month, but instead he simply said, "So what's this Web site where people are going to rate my level of hotness? I wanna check it out."
Rachel folded up the newspaper and swatted him in the arm with it. He laughed, batting it out of the way, and leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. Rachel felt warmth spread straight down to her toes; she had been worried they'd be back to their slow, affection-less phase after the sewer incident last night.
"What? Afraid you're going to have share me with my Internet fangirls now?"
"Oh, please. Go be smug about your classically good looks someplace else," she sighed, reaching for the textbook at her feet. "I've got to read two chapters of art history before class today, and I can't focus with you hovering in the background."
"Because I'm so attractive your can't tear your attention away?"
She rolled her eyes.
"No, because you're a mouth breather and it's distracting," she replied, cracking open the textbook. "Now shoo. Go intimidate some pigeons on the terrace or something."
"Speaking of reading," Nico said, pretending like he hadn't heard her. "I'm going to go to library today. You want anything?"
She glanced over her shoulder at him critically. Nico wasn't exactly known for being a reader. She'd seen him with fantasy novels tucked under his arm at Camp Half-Blood occasionally, but he really didn't strike her as someone who enjoyed trips to the library.
"What do you need there that you can't find on the Internet?"
He shrugged. "Research. I've been thinking about looking up those monsters the Oracle painted last week, just to see if we can get any clues about what they are."
"That's a good idea."
"Why do you always sound so surprised when I manage to come up with one?"
"Because it happens ever so rarely," Rachel sighed, reaching up to pat his hand comfortingly. "Don't worry, Nico. Even a broken clock is right twice a day."
Nico glared at her, and then stalked off to his room, muttering something about how it was just his luck that he'd end up dating the most obnoxious Oracle ever under his breath as he went.
*
In the basement of the New York Public Library, right beside the Children's Room, there is a seldom-used door, a burnished brass number seven fixed in the center. The door, and the room it leads to, isn't in any of the library blueprints and was never planned by any of the architects. It simply appeared overnight in the early 1900s and has stayed there ever since.
Mortals usually walk right past the door, on their way to better, more interesting parts of the library, and not even the head librarian knows of its existence, which, all things considered, is probably for the best. For this door is the entrance to Athena's Library, the largest repository of knowledge in history knowledge even the gods have forgotten over time, and if this place didn't have the answers to Nico's questions about monsters and Oracles, then no other place will.
Nico had been to Athena's Library only once before, when he had been searching for clues about his mother years ago. Hades and Alecto had destroyed almost all evidence of Maria di Angelo's existence in the mortal world, including all of Nico and Bianca's original identification documents as well, and Nico had thought Athena's Library might hold all of the answers for him.
It hadn't given him much to go off of, vague pieces of prophecy and other gobbledygook that had only made sense after Bianca showed him what happened to their mother, and he really hadn't planned on going back anytime soon, but he still hadn't found any clues to the monster that had attacked him in Central Park and the lack of information was burning him up. For all he knew, this could be a clue to the identity of Rachel's wanna-be assassins and it was something he wanted to look into right away.
He certainly had enough time to visit the library while Rachel was in class, and it'd be a better use of his time than sitting around and scaring off pigeons while he waited for a non-existent monster attack. Whoever was trying to kill Rachel wasn't going to do it during the daytime, the last few monsters had proven that much.
The Head Olympian Librarian and Researcher was some poor kid of Athena's who had been granted immortality and subsequently banished to the library for the rest of eternity to sort inventory and yell at the immortals who forgot to return Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on time. If she had a first name, she certainly didn't want to tell anyone what it was (Connor Stoll had spent a week alphabetizing shelves after he had called her "Libby" during one memorable trip to the library) and preferred to just go by her title, The Librarian. She didn't seem to mind it, but being cooped up in this dusty old place had to suck big time. If Nico was ever granted immortality, he hoped he would be named the patron god of something more exciting than libraries.
Unlike her contemporary siblings, who all sported some combination of blonde hair and gray eyes, The Librarian had curly black hair and light brown skin, plus her mother's signature cutting glare, which she was now employing as she stared at Nico over the top of her cat eye glasses.
"Do you have your library card?" The Librarian asked in a bored tone.
Cards to Athena's Library were standard issue at Camp Half-Blood as there were usually a couple of trips there every summer, although the Athena cabin was always pressing for more so they could complete a project or two. Nico's card was usually tucked inside his wallet, behind his fake ID and crumpled up subway passes, but it seemed to have gone missing recently. He wasn't sure how, considering he barely ever used the thing.
"I thought I did," Nico replied, flipping through his wallet again and sighing when the search came up negative. "Do you really need the card? I've been here before."
"No card, no entrance. Those are the rules."
He frowned. He could just hear Rachel's voice in his head if he came back empty handed, mocking him for being such a great monster scholar by forgetting his library card.
"Oh, come on. You know I'm not some mortal who wandered in here by mistake. Don't you have me on file or something? Can't you look it up?"
The Librarian pointed to the gigantic mahogany filing cabin behind the desk. It had to be at least twenty feet tall and twice as wide, and looked like it contained the library records from as far back as the age of Heracles.
"Lord Zeus has yet to grant us the fund necessary to make upgrades for our filing system yet, and I am not going to waste my valuable time looking for your file," The Librarian replied irritably. "Come back again when you have your card, demigod."
"But this is important!" Nico said, leaning against the desk. The Librarian's eyes narrowed as his fingertips smudged the pristine surface of the desk. "I can't let it wait. It could be a matter of life and death."
The Librarian was far too refined to roll her eyes, but Nico knew she must have been sorely tempted to.
"I make no exceptions, even if that is the case. You won't step one foot in these stacks without your card," she said sternly. "If you need the information that desperately, you could always fill out a research request. It would probably get you more accurate information than your own search would as well."
"A research request?"
The Librarian nodded and snapped her fingers. A small stack of papers and a pen appeared on the desk, and she pushed it toward him. Nico wondered why she couldn't just do that to find his card.
"Fill out these forms in the lobby as best you can and attach any and all relevant facts that will aid us in locating the information you need," she explained. "Then return them to me, and my interns will begin gathering the information for you. You will receive a message when all relevant files have been gathered, sometime between the next four days and 75 years."
"Seventy-five years?"
"We've only had one request that was research that long, and it was for Albert Einstein. It was such a beautiful request, Athena herself helped do some of research. It was such a pity he died before we could give it to him," The Librarian clarified, her face softening as she reminisced over research of yesteryear. It was Nico's turn to resist rolling his eyes - academics. "A standard request such as yours will take no more than a week, maybe two if the records are out of file."
Nico huffed impatiently, staring at the stack of papers and then back at The Librarian. He hadn't exactly been lying when he had said it was a matter of life and death, although he made the situation seem a little more dire in hopes that she would be intrigued and help him out. Whatever information that could be gathered could wait a week...
"Oh, fine," Nico groused, taking the papers from her. It was either this way, or no information from Athena's Library at all. He could always just make due with whatever sources he found at the mortal library until then.
*
"How's the researching going?"
"Don't even get me started," Nico replied, closing his book with snap and tossing it on the coffee table. The seven other books he had borrowed from the New York Public Library stared at him mockingly from where he had piled them on the surface. "No offense, but mortals have no fucking clue what they're talking about when it comes to monsters."
At least, none of the mortal authors he had selected had any idea what they were talking about. Almost all of them contradicted themselves on the subject of Greek monsters, even some as simple as Pegasus. Although considering how many different variations they were of Greek myths, he shouldn't have been all that surprised. He had tried the Internet, but it was hard to Google something when all you had to go on was a description of a mythology creature no one in the Internet age had probably ever seen in person.
There was a reason Nico had decided not to go to college, and it was called research. He didn't have any patience for this sort of stuff, and reading tended to give him massive headaches anyway.
Coffee cup in hand, Rachel reached over to grab one of the books and then sat herself on the arm of his chair, crossing her legs over one another. Nico silently admired the slender line of her right leg as it bounced softly over her knee, idly wishing she was wearing a skirt instead of her patched up jeans so he could run his hands along smooth skin.
"'The Ultimate Guide to the Monsters of Greek Mythology,'" she intoned solemnly, before turning the book over to read off the back. "'Do you know the difference between your Medusas and Medeas? Find out in this handy guide, which will prepare you to meet with any foul beast from Greek mythology!' Well, that's bullshit. Medea wasn't a monster...at least not in the literal sense, anyway."
"I know," he replied. "The author also has my dad listed in there too, which really isn't fair. Out of all the gods, he's done the least nasty things to humans."
"You Hades kids just have it so bad, huh?"
Rachel flipped through the book carelessly, pausing briefly to examine some of the pictures, before setting it back down on the coffee table and turning to him.
"I almost think you'd have better luck finding your buddy from Central Park in my Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual," she said, taking a sip of her coffee. "I think I still have it in my closet, actually."
Nico stared at her, wondering if he had possibly misheard her or if the words Dungeons and Dragons really had just come out of her mouth.
"You play D&D?"
"I used to, before I found out monsters and heroes exist in real life. I wasn't very good," she added, shrugging. She caught the look on his face, and frowned. "Is there something wrong what that?"
Nico reached out and took the coffee cup out of her hands, setting it on the end table on the other side of the chair. Then he grabbed her by the legs and tugged her into his lap. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders to steady herself, her green eyes glinting with barely suppressed excitement as his arm went around her waist and pulled her flush against him.
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with that," he replied, threading a hand through her ponytail and pulling her in for a kiss.
He'd been dying to do this all day, get Rachel in his arms and keep her there as long as he could. Even though it had been his idea, it had killed him to back off and put some distance between them earlier in the weekend. But it had been a necessary step, to make sure they were both certain about their feelings and were willing to take this new step together. He didn't want to force Rachel into anything she didn't want, that she was one hundred percent sure about because she could stand to lose everything if things between them got too carried away.
And no matter how much he wanted it, Nico was not going to let things carried away between them. Rachel's well-being was his responsibility, and he'd be the worst excuse of a bodyguard or friend ever if he was the one who ended up hurting her in the end.
Although it was rather hard to remember what was so wrong about getting carried away when Rachel was whimpering into his mouth and everything about her just felt so fucking good –
"If I had known my old nerdy habits would've gotten this reaction out of you," Rachel panted, moving her lips along the line of his jaw. "I would've mentioned it a lot sooner. It might've saved us some trouble and time."
"Can't help it," Nico replied, his voice dropping as her mouth found the sensitive patch of skin just below his ear and sucked hard. For a virgin, she certainly knew what felt utterly fantastic. Maybe it had something to do with that stack of Harlequin novels he had discovered in the hall closet when he had first moved in. "Nerdy girls are hot."
She laughed breathlessly, moving back for another kiss. "Did I tell you I used to play Pokemon too?"
He pulled away from her, admiring the heated flush on her cheeks, her green eyes glazed with pleasure and full wet red lips. He'd always thought Rachel was pretty, but she was never more beautiful to him than when she looked like this.
"I knew there was a reason I liked you so much," he said, running his thumb over her lips softly before leaning again.
This kiss was different than all the others. It was full of heat and promises of more pleasure to come, and if that was any indication, things might have gotten more hot and heavy between the two of them, had the doorbell not decided to ring at that exact moment.
"Fuck," Nico groaned dramatically, throwing his head back against the cushion of the chair. "Were we expecting anyone or is that your dad finally come to kill me for that picture?"
"It's Friday, movie night," Rachel clarified, disentangling herself from his arms. "That'll be Percy."
Nico let out another groan. He'd had to suffer through the first of Rachel and Percy's weekly movie nights last week – they'd watched Disney's Hercules, which Rachel and Percy normally found downright hilarious, but it had reached new levels of hilarity upon their discovery that Nico had never seen it before – and he wasn't eager to do it again. He always felt like such an outsider when Rachel and Percy hung out; they had a whole history together that Nico had never been a part of and there was no easy way he could transition himself into that relationship.
"Can't you make him go away?" he asked, reaching for her as she slid off of him and out of his grasp.
"And tell him what? That sorry, we're canceling movie night so you and I can make out?" she said. "Yeah, that'll go over real well with him, I'm sure."
"Like he won't be able to tell what we were doing the minute he gets a look at you," Nico replied, gesturing to her mussed hair and kiss swollen lips.
"I wouldn't talk, Dead Boy. You're a little excited yourself," she snapped, her gaze flickering briefly to his lap and then back to his face. Both of them flushed as their eyes met, and she was the first to look away. "Why don't you go cool down and get some beer out of the fridge while I let Percy in? He said he would be bringing pizza."
Well, the pizza and beer would make movie night slightly more bearable at any rate. It was hard to be annoyed on full stomach.
Nico got to his feet and headed toward the kitchen as the doorbell rang a second time, causing Rachel to scurry down the hall, calling out, "I'm coming!" as she ran.
He flipped the light on in the kitchen, and nearly had a heart attack as the flood of light revealed a dark suited man examining the china cabinet across the room. Before Nico could make a noise of warning or go for a weapon, the man turned around, and Nico recognized that bland face instantly. He'd only spent a year of his life looking for this person only to find them lurking right under his nose, after all.
"Zeus's balls, Alecto!" he shouted, advancing toward the Fury. "You couldn't have given me a warning that you were dropping by or something? I could have vaporized you!"
Alecto cackled, not bothering to disguise her high-pitched, nails-on-a -chalkboard voice to fit with her image as a prim lawyer.
"I highly doubt that, not with the way you were carrying on in there," she said, indicating her head toward the living room. Nico flushed for the second time in a matter of minutes. "Some bodyguard you are, not even sensing the monster in the kitchen..."
"There aren't supposed to be any monsters in the kitchen!" he growled, getting into Alecto's face. Normally, he didn't mind his father's servants, but finding a Fury of all creatures, lurking in the one safe spot Rachel was supposed to have set of all sorts of emotions off inside him, the most prominent of which being anger. "I have this place warded to Tartarus and back. How the hell did you get in here without my permission?"
The Fury grinned at him maliciously. "Your wards are good, but even the best have the tiniest of holes. So long as your blood, the blood of the Underworld, is present within the wards, we creatures of the Underworld shall have permission to enter... whether you like it or not."
"Oh that's just fucking great," Nico said, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation. "Good thing I'm not worried about my dad trying to kill anyone in this apartment or anything." He noticed Alecto shifted slightly, and that was enough to set off alarm bells. "Or is he? Alecto...what are you doing here?"
The Fury straightened herself to her full height, which still made her a few inches shorter than Nico. He found it hard to be intimidated by her when she wasn't in her natural form.
"Your great father sent me to observe you, to see if certain allegations leveled against your character held any weight and if they did – "
Nico's mouth went dry, any lingering happiness leaving his body in a second. "What allegations?"
" – and if they did," Alecto repeated, giving him a pointed look. "I was to deliver this message to you."
She reached into her suit jacket, and pulled out a simple white envelope. Nico could see his name written in Greek in his father's curling script on the front, and knew whatever message was contained in that letter could not bode well for him.
"Might I suggest," The Fury continued dryly, handing the letter over to him and smirking at the sight of his trembling hands, "not making out with Apollo's Oracle in public from now on?"
Nico's heart sank down to his toes and he didn't have any energy to glare at her as he split the seal open and slid the letter out. It was written in the same script as the front of the letter, and was no more than a few sentences long – his father was a big fan of not dragging things out.
Nico, the letter began. Apollo knows. If you persist, make no mistake, he will kill you and I will retaliate in kind. Olympus will war, and your actions will have put the Oracle in more far danger than any of our enemies could have possibly dreamed. Do not tempt fate, boy, because it will not be kind to you in return. Stay away from the Oracle or lose her forever.
By the time he reached the last line and glanced up, Alecto had slipped away just as quietly and quickly as she had originally appeared. Apparently his father had not needed any comment from him regarding the contents of the letter, and Alecto hadn't wanted to stick around to see his reaction.
He leaned against the counter, staring at the letter helplessly. His stomach was tight with sick fury and heavy disappointment, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to crumple it into a little ball or tear it into thousands of tiny pieces. Of course the Olympians would finally interfere with him and Rachel once everything had finally come together, he thought bitterly. They couldn't have done it a couple of weeks ago, before they had kissed and gotten attached to each other?
But had he honestly expected anything else from their situation? What he and Rachel had wasn't something that was meant to last, and he had known that from the start. He had been deluding himself to think that they might get away with breaking the rules of the immortals.
"Hey, did you get the beer or I am out?" Rachel called from the living room, her voice snapping him back to awareness. He had just enough time to shove his father's letter out of sight into the back pocket of his jeans before Rachel entered the kitchen. She gave him a frustrated look as she noticed he had not, in fact, gotten any beer out of the fridge. "I swear, I ask you demigods to save the world, you do it no sweat, but one measly task like getting drinks and... what's wrong?"
Nico had moved toward her, pausing in front of her and reaching out to cup her face in his hands. His stomach swooped uncomfortably as he realized this would be the last time he'd get to be this intimate with her, that he'd have to tell her...
"What?" she repeated softly, her gaze growing concerned.
He had to tell her about her father's message, that Apollo knew about them and they couldn't possibly do this any more and that he's sorry for causing all this trouble, but his voice remained stuck in his throat. He had never been very good with words in the first place, so he stuck with what he was good with: actions.
He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers, trying to convey everything he wanted to say and more into a kiss. Rachel sensed the hesitance in him, and pulled him in deeper, and yes, this was everything he wanted to remember about being with Rachel Elizabeth Dare, this certainty in knowing someone out there knew what he craved and needed, and wasn't afraid to give it to him.
"So I got this really weird call from your dad today, Rachel – whoa!"
Nico and Rachel broke apart to find themselves once again find someone interrupting their moment loitering in the kitchen doorway. Except this time it wasn't an angry Mr. Dare, but one rather shocked looking Percy Jackson.
"Okay," he said slowly, taking the scene in with wide eyes. "Forget movies. Someone needs to explain this to me. Now."
Next
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Rachel/Nico, with appearances from the rest of the cast and the gods
Summary: After an attempt on her life, Apollo decides Rachel needs a bodyguard and who better to take the job than a certain son of Hades? Too bad they're not going to make things easy for each other, especially when it comes to their feelings.
Notes: So. Over the course of writing (and rewriting and rewriting) this chapter, I had a massive crisis with the plot of this fic that I needed to get through before finishing it. I had the breakthrough I needed earlier this week, and forced myself to power through to the end, so sorry if I haven't responded to any comments/emails/pms any of you've left in the last couple of days! I'll be getting all caught up within the next day or so.
Surprisingly, Rachel Dare's idea of a fun night out with the boy she might have some vaguely romantic feelings toward did not include getting dragged down into the New York City sewers by a monster that looked like cross between an angry caterpillar and an unhappy squid.
Said fun night would also not include losing her favorite pair of gladiator sandals down the catersquid's gullet to avoid being eaten herself and then having to sort through the monster's innards to find them again after it had been sliced open either.
But when you were the Oracle of Delphi with a target on your head and the boy you happened to have some vaguely romantic feelings toward was the demigod son of Hades and acted as your bodyguard, you just had to deal with it, sewers, catersquids, ruined shoes and all.
"Ugh, there's no way I'm going to be able to save these," Rachel sighed, squinting gloomily at her shoes before tossing them back at the monster's smoking and oozing corpse. "I hope they were worth the effort, you stupid thing."
"Hmmm," Nico said, bending down beside her. He lifted his sword, the glowing silver of the Stygian iron casting just enough light so he could examine the corpse. "I'm pretty sure this one was after me this time."
"Oh yeah? What makes you say think that?" Rachel replied, reaching back to squeeze the slime out of her ponytail. She grimaced, trying not to think about what that slime was made up of exactly, and then wiped her hands on her jeans. "Because it looked pretty interested in eating me, if I do say so myself."
"It's a carrion crawler. I ran into them a few times in Europe, and New Orleans had a really nasty infestation of them a couple of years after Hurricane Katrina. They prefer the flesh of the dead, but they won't protest a living meal," he explained. "They probably just got you confused for me. I'm smell like a five star meal to these guys, being the son of Hades and all."
Rachel frowned, and glanced at him.
"Do you really?"
"Do I really what?"
"Smell like death. Because I thought all those kids at camp were just being assholes by saying those things, but if it's true, I'm going to have to apologize to a couple of people – "
Nico looked at her, exasperated, and then wiped his sword off on the carrion crawler's hide.
"I didn't mean literally, because I'm sure someone – like you, probably – would've told me that by now," he replied. "Monsters are attracted to smell of the immortal blood in our veins, and I can only assume mine smells like maggot infested corpses with the reactions I get from immortals and monsters alike."
"Huh," Rachel said, standing up. "Do you think I've got some sort of scent to me now that I'm the Oracle?"
That would certainly explain how these monsters had the unnerving habit of knowing where and who she was when they did decide to attack.
Nico stood as well and sheathed his blade, causing them to lose what little light they had down in the sewer. It took Rachel's eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness so she could see the demigod's outline next to her.
"If you do, it's probably not very strong. I wouldn't worry about it," he said with a shrug. "Besides, with the amount of slime you rolled in, you'll be reeking of sewer for weeks to come. No one, let alone a monster, is gonna wanna come near you."
Rachel huffed, glaring at his shadowy face. Even if she couldn't see it, she knew he had to have that damned obnoxious smirk on his lips.
"Wow, you just know the exact thing to say to get a girl eating out of the palm of your hands, di Angelo. I'm so impressed that I think that comment just bumped us back to 'occasionally holding hands status' of your slow moving relationship chart – "
Rachel squeaked as Nico's hands settled on her hips and pulled her against him, their clothes making disgusting squelching noises as they pressed together. Apparently he didn't have a problem getting near her when she was covered in slime.
She didn't have much time to dwell on that as Nico's lips were descending on hers for their first kiss in a week. All of Rachel's higher brain function shorted out, and she forgot all about being slime covered in a dark sewer and concentrated on the feeling between the two of them. Nico tasted like sweat and a little bit like dirt, but he was warm and wonderful and real, and that was all that counted.
"What – what was that for?" she replied breathlessly when they pulled apart long moments later. "I thought we were going slow."
When Nico said slow, he had meant slow. Like nearly glacier slow. Rachel had been fine with it for two or three days after their first kiss – she'd gotten the time she needed to sort out her feelings and decide that, yes, she wanted to see where this thing with Nico was going and if it could possibly turn into something more serious. But it had quickly gone from being fine to bordering on painfully ridiculous as Nico insisted on maintaining some distance between them; just yesterday she'd had to remind him that they had done worse things than holding hands out in public so he needed to chill out and just give her his hand already.
If their unresolved sexual tension had been bad before, this period of waiting had turned it into pure agony because now Rachel knew how good of a kisser Nico was, how the hard line of his chest felt pressed against, that she could make him tremble if she raked her nails lightly up his back. Although knowing these details made the fantasies all the better, she'd prefer to have the real thing in her arms than some imagined scenario torn straight out of a romance novel.
Nico's answer was another kiss, teasingly slow and soft, as if to show her there were benefits to going slow, and Rachel probably would've pinched him for being such an ass if she wasn't enjoying it as much as she was.
"Not that I'm complaining or anything," Rachel amended quickly, before their lips met again. Her head was beginning to spin from pleasure. "But you could've picked a better place than a sewer to kiss me, couldn't you?"
This caused Nico to pause momentarily so he consider this.
"Yeah, I guess," he said. "The monster corpse really doesn't do anything for the mood, does it?"
They glanced at each other, and Rachel let out a giggle, which was quickly joined by Nico's rough bark of a laugh. Their short burst of laughter quickly turned into loud guffaws that rang throughout the sewer tunnel, and as much as she loved making out with Nico, it was in moments like these she found herself truly wanting more of.
Rachel had to admit that, even if the first part of the night hadn't gone as planned, the second half was shaping up to be a much better.
She probably wouldn't have thought that, though, had she noticed the pair of glowing red eyes watching them closely from the far end of the tunnel.
*
In retrospect, Rachel shouldn't have been at all surprised to see a photo of her and Nico walking along 5th Street in the gossip section of the New York Post the next morning.
Being a New York heiress, this wasn't the first time she'd been featured in the gossip pages, although usually it was for whatever stupid company events her father made her attend instead of her personal life. But this photo would be something extra special for the New York City gossip crew, considering she both looked like she crawled out of the sewer system and was pictured with someone with Y chromosome. The information under the picture was already speculating if Nico was her boyfriend or not, and Rachel was thankful that they hadn't been holding hands (or gods forbid, kissing) when that picture had been taken otherwise the overall public embarrassment might just kill her.
Speaking of the son of Hades...
"Is there a reason the phone in the kitchen is off the hook?" Nico asked as he leaned over the top of her armchair. She gave him a moment to notice what she was reading. "Holy shit, is that our picture in the Post?"
"Yup. Welcome to the glamorous world of being an incredibly minor celebrity," she replied, turning the page. "If the tabloids are interested enough in us, you might actually get to pretend to be a real bodyguard and protect me from hordes of paparazzi for a couple of days."
"Fantastic," Nico said sarcastically. "Is this printed any where else?"
"It's probably all over the Internet by now. If there isn't a thread rating your hotness levels on ONTD by the end of the day, I will be greatly disappointed," Rachel said. "And to answer your previous question, the phone is off the hook so I don't have to answer the angry calls from my father."
"Oh, right," Nico said, blanching at the mention of her father.
"Yup," she said again, turning a page in the paper. "He is not going to be pleased."
That was the understatement of the century, but she knew how to deal with her father's nuclear meltdowns. Nico, on the other hand, was still recovering from her father's visit the week before and could still be reduced to a nervous wreck if her father's name was invoked in the wrong context.
She waited for him to say something about how her father was going to sic the mafia on him to break his kneecaps and that he was going to have to go hide on her roof for the rest of the month, but instead he simply said, "So what's this Web site where people are going to rate my level of hotness? I wanna check it out."
Rachel folded up the newspaper and swatted him in the arm with it. He laughed, batting it out of the way, and leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. Rachel felt warmth spread straight down to her toes; she had been worried they'd be back to their slow, affection-less phase after the sewer incident last night.
"What? Afraid you're going to have share me with my Internet fangirls now?"
"Oh, please. Go be smug about your classically good looks someplace else," she sighed, reaching for the textbook at her feet. "I've got to read two chapters of art history before class today, and I can't focus with you hovering in the background."
"Because I'm so attractive your can't tear your attention away?"
She rolled her eyes.
"No, because you're a mouth breather and it's distracting," she replied, cracking open the textbook. "Now shoo. Go intimidate some pigeons on the terrace or something."
"Speaking of reading," Nico said, pretending like he hadn't heard her. "I'm going to go to library today. You want anything?"
She glanced over her shoulder at him critically. Nico wasn't exactly known for being a reader. She'd seen him with fantasy novels tucked under his arm at Camp Half-Blood occasionally, but he really didn't strike her as someone who enjoyed trips to the library.
"What do you need there that you can't find on the Internet?"
He shrugged. "Research. I've been thinking about looking up those monsters the Oracle painted last week, just to see if we can get any clues about what they are."
"That's a good idea."
"Why do you always sound so surprised when I manage to come up with one?"
"Because it happens ever so rarely," Rachel sighed, reaching up to pat his hand comfortingly. "Don't worry, Nico. Even a broken clock is right twice a day."
Nico glared at her, and then stalked off to his room, muttering something about how it was just his luck that he'd end up dating the most obnoxious Oracle ever under his breath as he went.
*
In the basement of the New York Public Library, right beside the Children's Room, there is a seldom-used door, a burnished brass number seven fixed in the center. The door, and the room it leads to, isn't in any of the library blueprints and was never planned by any of the architects. It simply appeared overnight in the early 1900s and has stayed there ever since.
Mortals usually walk right past the door, on their way to better, more interesting parts of the library, and not even the head librarian knows of its existence, which, all things considered, is probably for the best. For this door is the entrance to Athena's Library, the largest repository of knowledge in history knowledge even the gods have forgotten over time, and if this place didn't have the answers to Nico's questions about monsters and Oracles, then no other place will.
Nico had been to Athena's Library only once before, when he had been searching for clues about his mother years ago. Hades and Alecto had destroyed almost all evidence of Maria di Angelo's existence in the mortal world, including all of Nico and Bianca's original identification documents as well, and Nico had thought Athena's Library might hold all of the answers for him.
It hadn't given him much to go off of, vague pieces of prophecy and other gobbledygook that had only made sense after Bianca showed him what happened to their mother, and he really hadn't planned on going back anytime soon, but he still hadn't found any clues to the monster that had attacked him in Central Park and the lack of information was burning him up. For all he knew, this could be a clue to the identity of Rachel's wanna-be assassins and it was something he wanted to look into right away.
He certainly had enough time to visit the library while Rachel was in class, and it'd be a better use of his time than sitting around and scaring off pigeons while he waited for a non-existent monster attack. Whoever was trying to kill Rachel wasn't going to do it during the daytime, the last few monsters had proven that much.
The Head Olympian Librarian and Researcher was some poor kid of Athena's who had been granted immortality and subsequently banished to the library for the rest of eternity to sort inventory and yell at the immortals who forgot to return Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on time. If she had a first name, she certainly didn't want to tell anyone what it was (Connor Stoll had spent a week alphabetizing shelves after he had called her "Libby" during one memorable trip to the library) and preferred to just go by her title, The Librarian. She didn't seem to mind it, but being cooped up in this dusty old place had to suck big time. If Nico was ever granted immortality, he hoped he would be named the patron god of something more exciting than libraries.
Unlike her contemporary siblings, who all sported some combination of blonde hair and gray eyes, The Librarian had curly black hair and light brown skin, plus her mother's signature cutting glare, which she was now employing as she stared at Nico over the top of her cat eye glasses.
"Do you have your library card?" The Librarian asked in a bored tone.
Cards to Athena's Library were standard issue at Camp Half-Blood as there were usually a couple of trips there every summer, although the Athena cabin was always pressing for more so they could complete a project or two. Nico's card was usually tucked inside his wallet, behind his fake ID and crumpled up subway passes, but it seemed to have gone missing recently. He wasn't sure how, considering he barely ever used the thing.
"I thought I did," Nico replied, flipping through his wallet again and sighing when the search came up negative. "Do you really need the card? I've been here before."
"No card, no entrance. Those are the rules."
He frowned. He could just hear Rachel's voice in his head if he came back empty handed, mocking him for being such a great monster scholar by forgetting his library card.
"Oh, come on. You know I'm not some mortal who wandered in here by mistake. Don't you have me on file or something? Can't you look it up?"
The Librarian pointed to the gigantic mahogany filing cabin behind the desk. It had to be at least twenty feet tall and twice as wide, and looked like it contained the library records from as far back as the age of Heracles.
"Lord Zeus has yet to grant us the fund necessary to make upgrades for our filing system yet, and I am not going to waste my valuable time looking for your file," The Librarian replied irritably. "Come back again when you have your card, demigod."
"But this is important!" Nico said, leaning against the desk. The Librarian's eyes narrowed as his fingertips smudged the pristine surface of the desk. "I can't let it wait. It could be a matter of life and death."
The Librarian was far too refined to roll her eyes, but Nico knew she must have been sorely tempted to.
"I make no exceptions, even if that is the case. You won't step one foot in these stacks without your card," she said sternly. "If you need the information that desperately, you could always fill out a research request. It would probably get you more accurate information than your own search would as well."
"A research request?"
The Librarian nodded and snapped her fingers. A small stack of papers and a pen appeared on the desk, and she pushed it toward him. Nico wondered why she couldn't just do that to find his card.
"Fill out these forms in the lobby as best you can and attach any and all relevant facts that will aid us in locating the information you need," she explained. "Then return them to me, and my interns will begin gathering the information for you. You will receive a message when all relevant files have been gathered, sometime between the next four days and 75 years."
"Seventy-five years?"
"We've only had one request that was research that long, and it was for Albert Einstein. It was such a beautiful request, Athena herself helped do some of research. It was such a pity he died before we could give it to him," The Librarian clarified, her face softening as she reminisced over research of yesteryear. It was Nico's turn to resist rolling his eyes - academics. "A standard request such as yours will take no more than a week, maybe two if the records are out of file."
Nico huffed impatiently, staring at the stack of papers and then back at The Librarian. He hadn't exactly been lying when he had said it was a matter of life and death, although he made the situation seem a little more dire in hopes that she would be intrigued and help him out. Whatever information that could be gathered could wait a week...
"Oh, fine," Nico groused, taking the papers from her. It was either this way, or no information from Athena's Library at all. He could always just make due with whatever sources he found at the mortal library until then.
*
"How's the researching going?"
"Don't even get me started," Nico replied, closing his book with snap and tossing it on the coffee table. The seven other books he had borrowed from the New York Public Library stared at him mockingly from where he had piled them on the surface. "No offense, but mortals have no fucking clue what they're talking about when it comes to monsters."
At least, none of the mortal authors he had selected had any idea what they were talking about. Almost all of them contradicted themselves on the subject of Greek monsters, even some as simple as Pegasus. Although considering how many different variations they were of Greek myths, he shouldn't have been all that surprised. He had tried the Internet, but it was hard to Google something when all you had to go on was a description of a mythology creature no one in the Internet age had probably ever seen in person.
There was a reason Nico had decided not to go to college, and it was called research. He didn't have any patience for this sort of stuff, and reading tended to give him massive headaches anyway.
Coffee cup in hand, Rachel reached over to grab one of the books and then sat herself on the arm of his chair, crossing her legs over one another. Nico silently admired the slender line of her right leg as it bounced softly over her knee, idly wishing she was wearing a skirt instead of her patched up jeans so he could run his hands along smooth skin.
"'The Ultimate Guide to the Monsters of Greek Mythology,'" she intoned solemnly, before turning the book over to read off the back. "'Do you know the difference between your Medusas and Medeas? Find out in this handy guide, which will prepare you to meet with any foul beast from Greek mythology!' Well, that's bullshit. Medea wasn't a monster...at least not in the literal sense, anyway."
"I know," he replied. "The author also has my dad listed in there too, which really isn't fair. Out of all the gods, he's done the least nasty things to humans."
"You Hades kids just have it so bad, huh?"
Rachel flipped through the book carelessly, pausing briefly to examine some of the pictures, before setting it back down on the coffee table and turning to him.
"I almost think you'd have better luck finding your buddy from Central Park in my Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual," she said, taking a sip of her coffee. "I think I still have it in my closet, actually."
Nico stared at her, wondering if he had possibly misheard her or if the words Dungeons and Dragons really had just come out of her mouth.
"You play D&D?"
"I used to, before I found out monsters and heroes exist in real life. I wasn't very good," she added, shrugging. She caught the look on his face, and frowned. "Is there something wrong what that?"
Nico reached out and took the coffee cup out of her hands, setting it on the end table on the other side of the chair. Then he grabbed her by the legs and tugged her into his lap. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders to steady herself, her green eyes glinting with barely suppressed excitement as his arm went around her waist and pulled her flush against him.
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with that," he replied, threading a hand through her ponytail and pulling her in for a kiss.
He'd been dying to do this all day, get Rachel in his arms and keep her there as long as he could. Even though it had been his idea, it had killed him to back off and put some distance between them earlier in the weekend. But it had been a necessary step, to make sure they were both certain about their feelings and were willing to take this new step together. He didn't want to force Rachel into anything she didn't want, that she was one hundred percent sure about because she could stand to lose everything if things between them got too carried away.
And no matter how much he wanted it, Nico was not going to let things carried away between them. Rachel's well-being was his responsibility, and he'd be the worst excuse of a bodyguard or friend ever if he was the one who ended up hurting her in the end.
Although it was rather hard to remember what was so wrong about getting carried away when Rachel was whimpering into his mouth and everything about her just felt so fucking good –
"If I had known my old nerdy habits would've gotten this reaction out of you," Rachel panted, moving her lips along the line of his jaw. "I would've mentioned it a lot sooner. It might've saved us some trouble and time."
"Can't help it," Nico replied, his voice dropping as her mouth found the sensitive patch of skin just below his ear and sucked hard. For a virgin, she certainly knew what felt utterly fantastic. Maybe it had something to do with that stack of Harlequin novels he had discovered in the hall closet when he had first moved in. "Nerdy girls are hot."
She laughed breathlessly, moving back for another kiss. "Did I tell you I used to play Pokemon too?"
He pulled away from her, admiring the heated flush on her cheeks, her green eyes glazed with pleasure and full wet red lips. He'd always thought Rachel was pretty, but she was never more beautiful to him than when she looked like this.
"I knew there was a reason I liked you so much," he said, running his thumb over her lips softly before leaning again.
This kiss was different than all the others. It was full of heat and promises of more pleasure to come, and if that was any indication, things might have gotten more hot and heavy between the two of them, had the doorbell not decided to ring at that exact moment.
"Fuck," Nico groaned dramatically, throwing his head back against the cushion of the chair. "Were we expecting anyone or is that your dad finally come to kill me for that picture?"
"It's Friday, movie night," Rachel clarified, disentangling herself from his arms. "That'll be Percy."
Nico let out another groan. He'd had to suffer through the first of Rachel and Percy's weekly movie nights last week – they'd watched Disney's Hercules, which Rachel and Percy normally found downright hilarious, but it had reached new levels of hilarity upon their discovery that Nico had never seen it before – and he wasn't eager to do it again. He always felt like such an outsider when Rachel and Percy hung out; they had a whole history together that Nico had never been a part of and there was no easy way he could transition himself into that relationship.
"Can't you make him go away?" he asked, reaching for her as she slid off of him and out of his grasp.
"And tell him what? That sorry, we're canceling movie night so you and I can make out?" she said. "Yeah, that'll go over real well with him, I'm sure."
"Like he won't be able to tell what we were doing the minute he gets a look at you," Nico replied, gesturing to her mussed hair and kiss swollen lips.
"I wouldn't talk, Dead Boy. You're a little excited yourself," she snapped, her gaze flickering briefly to his lap and then back to his face. Both of them flushed as their eyes met, and she was the first to look away. "Why don't you go cool down and get some beer out of the fridge while I let Percy in? He said he would be bringing pizza."
Well, the pizza and beer would make movie night slightly more bearable at any rate. It was hard to be annoyed on full stomach.
Nico got to his feet and headed toward the kitchen as the doorbell rang a second time, causing Rachel to scurry down the hall, calling out, "I'm coming!" as she ran.
He flipped the light on in the kitchen, and nearly had a heart attack as the flood of light revealed a dark suited man examining the china cabinet across the room. Before Nico could make a noise of warning or go for a weapon, the man turned around, and Nico recognized that bland face instantly. He'd only spent a year of his life looking for this person only to find them lurking right under his nose, after all.
"Zeus's balls, Alecto!" he shouted, advancing toward the Fury. "You couldn't have given me a warning that you were dropping by or something? I could have vaporized you!"
Alecto cackled, not bothering to disguise her high-pitched, nails-on-a -chalkboard voice to fit with her image as a prim lawyer.
"I highly doubt that, not with the way you were carrying on in there," she said, indicating her head toward the living room. Nico flushed for the second time in a matter of minutes. "Some bodyguard you are, not even sensing the monster in the kitchen..."
"There aren't supposed to be any monsters in the kitchen!" he growled, getting into Alecto's face. Normally, he didn't mind his father's servants, but finding a Fury of all creatures, lurking in the one safe spot Rachel was supposed to have set of all sorts of emotions off inside him, the most prominent of which being anger. "I have this place warded to Tartarus and back. How the hell did you get in here without my permission?"
The Fury grinned at him maliciously. "Your wards are good, but even the best have the tiniest of holes. So long as your blood, the blood of the Underworld, is present within the wards, we creatures of the Underworld shall have permission to enter... whether you like it or not."
"Oh that's just fucking great," Nico said, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation. "Good thing I'm not worried about my dad trying to kill anyone in this apartment or anything." He noticed Alecto shifted slightly, and that was enough to set off alarm bells. "Or is he? Alecto...what are you doing here?"
The Fury straightened herself to her full height, which still made her a few inches shorter than Nico. He found it hard to be intimidated by her when she wasn't in her natural form.
"Your great father sent me to observe you, to see if certain allegations leveled against your character held any weight and if they did – "
Nico's mouth went dry, any lingering happiness leaving his body in a second. "What allegations?"
" – and if they did," Alecto repeated, giving him a pointed look. "I was to deliver this message to you."
She reached into her suit jacket, and pulled out a simple white envelope. Nico could see his name written in Greek in his father's curling script on the front, and knew whatever message was contained in that letter could not bode well for him.
"Might I suggest," The Fury continued dryly, handing the letter over to him and smirking at the sight of his trembling hands, "not making out with Apollo's Oracle in public from now on?"
Nico's heart sank down to his toes and he didn't have any energy to glare at her as he split the seal open and slid the letter out. It was written in the same script as the front of the letter, and was no more than a few sentences long – his father was a big fan of not dragging things out.
Nico, the letter began. Apollo knows. If you persist, make no mistake, he will kill you and I will retaliate in kind. Olympus will war, and your actions will have put the Oracle in more far danger than any of our enemies could have possibly dreamed. Do not tempt fate, boy, because it will not be kind to you in return. Stay away from the Oracle or lose her forever.
By the time he reached the last line and glanced up, Alecto had slipped away just as quietly and quickly as she had originally appeared. Apparently his father had not needed any comment from him regarding the contents of the letter, and Alecto hadn't wanted to stick around to see his reaction.
He leaned against the counter, staring at the letter helplessly. His stomach was tight with sick fury and heavy disappointment, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to crumple it into a little ball or tear it into thousands of tiny pieces. Of course the Olympians would finally interfere with him and Rachel once everything had finally come together, he thought bitterly. They couldn't have done it a couple of weeks ago, before they had kissed and gotten attached to each other?
But had he honestly expected anything else from their situation? What he and Rachel had wasn't something that was meant to last, and he had known that from the start. He had been deluding himself to think that they might get away with breaking the rules of the immortals.
"Hey, did you get the beer or I am out?" Rachel called from the living room, her voice snapping him back to awareness. He had just enough time to shove his father's letter out of sight into the back pocket of his jeans before Rachel entered the kitchen. She gave him a frustrated look as she noticed he had not, in fact, gotten any beer out of the fridge. "I swear, I ask you demigods to save the world, you do it no sweat, but one measly task like getting drinks and... what's wrong?"
Nico had moved toward her, pausing in front of her and reaching out to cup her face in his hands. His stomach swooped uncomfortably as he realized this would be the last time he'd get to be this intimate with her, that he'd have to tell her...
"What?" she repeated softly, her gaze growing concerned.
He had to tell her about her father's message, that Apollo knew about them and they couldn't possibly do this any more and that he's sorry for causing all this trouble, but his voice remained stuck in his throat. He had never been very good with words in the first place, so he stuck with what he was good with: actions.
He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers, trying to convey everything he wanted to say and more into a kiss. Rachel sensed the hesitance in him, and pulled him in deeper, and yes, this was everything he wanted to remember about being with Rachel Elizabeth Dare, this certainty in knowing someone out there knew what he craved and needed, and wasn't afraid to give it to him.
"So I got this really weird call from your dad today, Rachel – whoa!"
Nico and Rachel broke apart to find themselves once again find someone interrupting their moment loitering in the kitchen doorway. Except this time it wasn't an angry Mr. Dare, but one rather shocked looking Percy Jackson.
"Okay," he said slowly, taking the scene in with wide eyes. "Forget movies. Someone needs to explain this to me. Now."
Next
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 04:03 am (UTC)Don't worry, you'll be getting more than that on ff.net. ;)
That was just a quick summarization.
But seriously... <3
no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 02:33 am (UTC)Yaay!
Date: 2010-04-18 05:58 am (UTC)This Chapter= WIN
Despite the whole thing with hades' letter, this was so great!
Update soon!
and I agree...<3
Re: Yaay!
Date: 2010-04-19 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 03:53 pm (UTC)♥
no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 10:44 pm (UTC)And the warning. Poor Nico, he's finally getting what he wants and now he has to give it all up. That final kiss was amazing, with him trying to tell her everything he felt and her just knowing that something was wrong.
And PERCY!!!!
Loved this whole chapter.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 02:36 am (UTC)I'm glad you enjoyed it! :D
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 01:14 am (UTC)Athenas Library <3 Amazing.
And for some reason my mind keeps thinking hm I wonder how long it took Annabeth to be ok with Percy and Rachels Friday movie nights xD
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 06:48 pm (UTC)Thank you for the comment! I'm glad you liked it.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-25 05:31 am (UTC)Three words: YOU. ARE. AWESOME.
Date: 2010-04-26 02:49 am (UTC)I literally squealed when the words 'ATHENA'S LIBRARY' hit my retinas.
Lol at Percy's comment at the end. My heart goes out to Nico, though: the kiss at the end was such a bittersweet moment.
Amazing chapter!
Re: Three words: YOU. ARE. AWESOME.
Date: 2010-04-30 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-08 03:10 am (UTC)So, I used to hate Nico/Rachel fics because the only ones I ever found had crappy writing, crappy plots, or were just altogether crappy....
You've officially changed my mind about said pairing :P I'm in love now.
And this chapter is just as good as all of the others; I've read this twice now, hah. I think Nico's just doomed to forever get the short end of the stick, but imagining the look on Percy's face at the end was just priceless.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 07:37 am (UTC)That is all.