Rating: T for language
Note: In 2012, a younger person in my life was reading The Battle of the Labyrinth and left it lying around. I picked it up, skimmed through it, and somehow decided that Nico and Rachel would be great together in a few years. (Fanfiction has eaten my brain and makes me come up with things like this.) Then I found out that Rachel later becomes a virginal Oracle, and I ended up writing this oneshot in early 2013. It was mostly finished by the time that Nico was revealed in canon as queer. Initially, I didn't want to publish this piece because I support LGBTQIA representation in children's and young adult media, and I didn't want to participate in queer erasure. But recently I was looking through my documents and was like, "What's 'you could be happy'?" And I clicked on it and oh. I liked it, and since I knew more about sexual orientations than I did when I wrote it, I felt like I could tweak and publish it without erasing Nico's queerness.
As I understand it, Nico's orientation is not explicitly homoromantic homosexual in the books. He could be biromantic bisexual, biromantic homosexual, panromantic pansexual, or etc. For some reason I decided that panromantic pansexual!Nico sounded plausible, so that's what I went with.
To be clear, I have not read any of the other books or seen the movies, so my knowledge of this series is limited. And yet this happened. Forgive the gaps in knowledge.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Rick Riordan, Disney Hyperion, 1492 Pictures, or 20th Century Fox. I make no profit from this story. Title from the song "You Could Be Happy" by Snow Patrol, to whom I also have no ties.
He's eleven when she throws her hairbrush at Kronos, and it's pretty much the coolest thing he's seen in his life. Like, who does that? The Lord of the Titans is attacking and you don't have a weapon? No sweat, reach for your plastic hairbrush. Nico didn't know much about the world then, and for awhile he thought it just must be a mortal thing—like, they don't have any powers or special training, so they've gotta fend for themselves with ordinary things, right? Except, he learned quickly, it wasn't so. Rachel Elizabeth Dare stood alone in general feats of awesomeness.
It's from her that he learns not to underestimate anyone. She doesn't look like much, kind of carroty red hair and paint splats on her blouse, and mortal to boot, but she is badass. She doesn't need powers, she doesn't need weapons; she just needs the Sight and her wits and she's good. It's cool but kind of annoying, because Nico has to work hard for things like that. But no matter. If more girls were like her, he would have a lot more respect for the goings-on at Camp Half-blood. She's no-nonsense. It's super impressive.
But she has this thing for Percy and that's kind of annoying, because she makes googly eyes at him when he's not looking and forgets to concentrate on the Sight. And overall, it's just gross. Teenagers are something Nico hopes he never understands. Plus, what's so great about Percy, anyway, that both Annabeth and Rachel Elizabeth Dare like him? What's with that? The guy's really not very bright, and sure, he's got some brawn, but still. Guys like that are a dime a dozen among half-bloods.
But yeah, Percy's really nice and accepting and pretty cool even if he is kind of dimwitted, and okay, yes, maybe Nico does get it. Everyone is in love with Percy but nobody has a chance except Annabeth, so they should all just get over him and get a grip on themselves. There are way more important things to be worrying about, anyway.
And then other things happen and Rachel Elizabeth Dare totally comes through, except she's crying over Percy and making stupid choices—who the hell wants to get mixed up with Apollo?—but, you know, everything can't be good all the time. And she is totally smart and would probably be good as an Oracle if, you know, she wasn't giving up the rest of her life to do it. But it's not something Nico loses sleep about. Much. He's got other things to think about by then.
But she still remains somewhat of a distant staple in his life through the years, because she's friends with Percy and Annabeth and he's friends with Percy and Annabeth, so Nico's bound to hear about her or see her now and then. She looks good. Happy, most of the time. Getting prettier, too. White doesn't quite suit her, but there's usually paint stains somewhere to even out the severity. It's not where he would have imagined her ending up, but she seems to be making it work.
She remains Rachel Elizabeth Dare in his head late into his teen years. It's just part of her, you know? Representative of her general coolness and pomp and circumstance. You can't shorten that. But after a while, somewhere in the time when Nico starts thinking about what she would look like wearing his shirt and kissing the living daylights out of him, she becomes just Rachel. Rachel, bella, come back to bed. The painting will still be here in the morning. Rachel. Rachel.
Even if she weren't, what, five years older, she'd still be Apollo's Oracle and sworn to virginity, so sucks for him. She's amazing in his dreams, though. Keeps him company on his depressing travels through the underworld and overworld. She'd die of embarrassment if she knew, and, come to think of it, so would he. But that's not going to happen unless the Oracle screws up one day and starts giving Rachel telepathic abilities, which is so not a possibility. So Nico's pretty much fine with the way everything is.
Except the time comes when Annabeth starts getting overbearingly mothery and is like, Nico, you're getting up there in years, what's the holdup in settling down with someone? Well, yeah, he's had boyfriends and girlfriends and other lovers. Just none that he liked enough to want them to stick around. So if he didn't go crying after them when they decide to up and leave because he can't "emotionally commit," well, too bad for them. But then Annabeth starts accidentally inviting these weird chicks and guys over to dinner on the same nights Nico is meant to come over, and after awhile it gets to be way too awkward because Annabeth just does not take a hint.
It was hard enough to get over Percy, and now the only person Nico thinks he can open his heart to has sworn off men for life. So. He'll just be alone forever. That's nothing new for a son of Hades.
But then Rachel just starts looking so unhappy. Slowly at first, then so rapidly it's like a freight train of depression hit her. And he can't really ask about it, but he hears Annabeth worrying about her, and he gathers that Rachel has come to regret her choice. If that douchebag Apollo has been messing with her, he will have to answer for it, because Rachel just doesn't deserve that kind of crap. And Nico knows that Apollo can dish it out. That's why you don't get mixed up with Apollo. Nico had known that all along. But he hadn't said anything, because it hadn't had anything to do with him. Maybe he should have. Would she have listened?
Still, he tries to stay out of it, because it's not his business—he's got ninety-nine problems and she's not one of them—but as the months go on and her face looks sadder, it becomes harder for him to keep his mouth shut. She used to be beautiful—not just her looks, because gods, her body is gorgeous—but she also had this happiness from within that sort of lit her up from the inside. Rachel had always known who she was, and she wore it well, inviting the world to share it with her. That light's been slowly fading since she became the Oracle, until now, it seems like there's nothing left, just a wan and distant look. Nico can't take that.
So one night he shows up at her door in Manhattan. She opens the door and her eyes shutter when she sees him. He isn't quite what sure what to say, because questioning a past irreversible decision isn't going to make the present any better, but he's not the suave king of ghosts for nothing.
"Nico," Rachel says faintly, "what are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to you. Can I come in?"
She leads him to the couch in the midst of an apartment that looks like it hasn't received any attention in the past few months. There are unfinished paintings on easels shoved to the side, paint palettes gathering dust next to them.
"What's happened?" she asks.
"Nothing," Nico says. "I'm here for you."
"Why?" There's reserve in her manner, the way she holds her body away from him and pressed into the side of the couch.
"Do you have any tea?" he says, because this will be a conversation best had with something comforting held between Rachel's hands.
She blinks. "Yeah."
She brings the tea in a few minutes later, and he lets her take a few sips before starting. "So, you and me, we've always been kind of the outsiders in this whole thing. The mortal and the son of Hades."
Rachel watches him over the rim of her mug.
"So while you might be able to tell Annabeth and Percy that there's nothing wrong, you can't convince me."
Her hands tighten around the mug. "I don't know what you're talking about."
He shifts, trying to make his posture light and easy. "Something's wrong. You've been looking more and more miserable. Right now you look like you'd be glad if I told you I'd come here because I could sense you dying."
She stiffens. "Didn't you?"
"No, Rachel. You're very much alive."
They look at each other for a moment, Rachel caught and not knowing how to spin her way out of this.
"I'm here to find out what's wrong," Nico says.
"It isn't your concern."
"It is," Nico says, "because no one else can get through to you. Annabeth and Percy talk about it, how you seem like you're not there, but you won't let them help you."
"Maybe that's because they can't help me," Rachel says, giving up on pretenses.
"Well, maybe I can."
"You can't, either," she says. "It's something I have to deal with by myself. No big deal."
He frowns at her. "It obviously is a big deal, and what could possibly be so terrible that the kids of Hades, Poseidon, and Athena can't get you out of it?" But Nico knows. He only needed to speak to her in person to confirm it. He knows what it is, and it tears him up inside.
"Leave me alone, Nico," she says.
"Rachel," he pleads, and she raises her eyes to his questioningly. "You don't have to go through this alone. You were young. You were heartbroken. It's alright to say you don't want it anymore."
"What good would that do?" she says, halfway between a whisper and a retort. "I knew what I swore. There's no way out."
"That doesn't change the fact that you can meet it on your own terms. You should always be able to acknowledge what you want."
She says nothing and turns her face away.
"What do you want, Rachel?"
"Why didn't anybody warn me?" she says with her back to him. "Why didn't anybody say anything? They all acted like it was such a good thing, passing the spirit of the Oracle on to me, like I would finally have meaning and be useful. I would finally have a place. Nobody said anything about what it would really be like."
"I wanted to say something," says Nico. "I knew it wasn't right for you. You were too alive to be boxed off from everyone for the rest of your life. But I didn't think you'd listen to me. I was just the kid who played Mythomagic to you back then."
She turns back to him, and her eyes are wet. She's pressing her lips together and very obviously trying not to cry. "If you could see that, why didn't anyone else?"
Nico sighs. "I think they were all too busy looking at everything else."
"But you could see it," she says.
"Yeah," he says, watching her. "I could."
She starts to cry then, and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes to hide it from him. He lets her for a moment, and then goes over to kneel at her feet, reaching up for her hands. He tugs them down and wraps his own hands around them. "Rachel," he says, looking up at her, "what do you want?"
She looks at him through wet, red eyes, and he asks again, "What do you want?"
"What do you want?"
What do you want?
"I don't want to be alone." The dam breaks and it comes rushing out. "I want to be loved. I want to love someone. I want to share my life with someone and have children and not exist only for Apollo, but for myself and my family, too. I want to be free from him. I don't want the visions anymore. I don't want to be the Oracle. I don't want to be forever defined by a decision I made when I was seventeen. I just want to be Rachel Elizabeth Dare again."
He can't fix that, not all of it. "Rachel," he says, "you've always had meaning." He pauses because he wants her to hear this.
"What?" she says.
"You've always been the most alive person I've ever known, more alive than all the gods and demigods I've seen. For the longest time I couldn't understand how a mortal accomplished that. But then I figured out it was because powers and lineage don't really make a person. It's the person that makes herself. You always knew who you were and what you wanted. You used that like a weapon or a gift. You make you, Rachel. You didn't need a place to be given to you. You had already made your own."
She sniffs. "And then I gave it all up."
Nico squeezes her hands. "Not all. You're still Rachel Elizabeth Dare. You've always been. And Rachel Elizabeth Dare makes her surroundings accommodate her. You can still do that as the Oracle, as much as can be done."
"But how?" She looks so much like she wants to believe him, but is afraid she'll just hear a myth.
"Rachel," he says, and he prays to the gods that she really listens to him, "just because you're the Oracle doesn't mean you have to be alone. Any person who really loves you wouldn't give you up because of that. Anyone who really loves you will stick by you through anything."
"Nobody has, though," she says.
"Don't give me that crap," he says. "Percy and Annabeth and all your friends love you, and they've been trying to help you. You just haven't let them. Stop blocking them out."
Rachel watches him, waiting.
"And when you find that…person who you'll share your life with, don't push them away. I'm sure they'll want to share every part of you that you can give, and understand about the parts you can't. Yeah, the Oracle's always been alone, but that doesn't mean you have to be. There's nothing in the rules about that. As long as you keep your virginity, Apollo can't do anything. If anyone could figure out how to do that and still be in a relationship, Rachel Elizabeth Dare and the person she loves damn well can. You'll find a way to make it work."
"If we crossed a line, we'd both be killed," she whispers.
"Maybe he's willing to risk that."
Rachel's eyes roam Nico's upturned face quietly for a moment. "When did you get so wise?" she says finally, and her fingers curl into his. "You grew up when I wasn't looking."
He just watches her as her eyes wander his face.
"Nico," Rachel says, "how do you know all of this?"
"I've always been looking," he says, and her fingers come up to brush his hair off his forehead as his hand reaches up to caress her cheek, and she leans in first.
Later, he asks, "Are you sure? It doesn't have to be me. Anyone would be lucky to love you."
She wraps her arms around his neck. "I'm sure, stupid. I want it to be you."
He leans into her touch. "Well, we'll take it slow and see."
She pulls back a little to look him in the eye. "I'm not going to change my mind. I know what I want. You saw me. You can help me be who I want. You're someone I can love. I want to try this, as long as you don't change your mind."
"Rachel," he says, "bella, I'm always going to be yours."