Author's Note: A one-shot (that actually borders on being deep) to tide anyone over who is waiting for further chapters to any of my stories, or who has just plain missed me. Written for prompt #50: Oracle on the PJO yalit100 comm. challenge.
Disclaimer: I do not own PJO.
Tonight is a very odd night.
This is the thought that runs through Nico di Angelo's head. It had been shaping up to be an odd night for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't until just now that he's able to say, with absolute certainty, that tonight is a very odd night.
"Why is it called The Breakfast Club?" Rachel inquires out of no where, voice surprisingly steady, further proving Nico's thoughts on the night, considering that they are neither watching The Breakfast Club, nor had they been speaking of it. At all. Ever.
"What do you mean?" Nico asks anyway.
"I mean." Rachel looks towards the ceiling, a tight grasp on her glass of wine, searching for whatever it was she was getting at, apparently. Nico's not sure the ceiling will help her with that, but she goes on, saying, "I mean, they don't even have breakfast." A thought dawns clearly on her face. "They have lunch, though!" Rachel says, pointing at Nico, and it's almost an accusation. "Why aren't they The Lunch Club, then, hm?" She takes another hardy gulp of her wine.
Rachel's really quite a put-together drunk, all things considered. Considering the fact that their roles have always been reversed until this very evening, Nico knows that him drunk is not a pretty sight. He knows that he is an absolute wreck every time he has one too many (which is once too often), and that Rachel has borne witness to this one too many times. So it's only fair (and, if he's honest with himself, Rachel definitely has a reason to not be watching her drinking this night of all nights) that Nico bears witness to this unusual sight tonight, and that he take care of her as she has him so many times before. Because she's his friend, and he owes her, and she's had a rough week, dammit.
"I don't know," Nico finally offers, meekly.
But Rachel's already forgotten about that. "Let's leave here," she all but whines. "When did we decide we like Indian food, anyway?"
This actually gets Nico's attention. "You love Indian food."
"I do," she agrees easily, leaving Nico to wonder what the fuck she was talking about in the first place.
"Do you want me to get the check?" Nico says.
"Um, um, uuuum. Sure!" Rachel responds, all too brightly. She then downs the remainder of her glass of wine, goes to stand, stumbled slightly, and is caught by Nico's hand on her arm. Her hip, however, knocks into another couple's table, causing them to glare accusingly at Nico, as if he should have a better handle at the situation. He glares right on back, and that shuts them up.
Nico escorts Rachel to the front of the restaurant, arm around her waist if only to steady her, plopping her down in one of the few waiting chairs stationed by the head desk of the restaurant, earning a giggle. He digs his wallet out of his pocket, and uses all he has left (in the world) to pay for their dinner. Usually Rachel foots the bills, but she's in too much of a state in this moment to try to pay, and he's not going to take her card without her permission–even if she'd be okay with it.
Once that's done Nico helps Rachel stand again and helps her steadily walk out of the restaurant, and onto the busy New York City street. It's nighttime and the air is cool and smells "just wonderful," as Rachel remarks, but that doesn't seem to change the mentality of some choice New York City assholes who feel the need to shove past the young drunk girl. Nico throws out a few more glares and keeps Rachel close to his side, because the subway is just down the block and then it's only two stops to Rachel's apartment, and then it's that feeling of comfort knowing that he can actually keep her safe there, and then the following feeling of accomplishment that he will (hopefully) feel in knowing that he has now done for Rachel–if only once–exactly what she has done for him a million times over.
All the way to the subway and down the steps and through the turnstiles and onto the platform and then, finally, onto the train, Rachel keeps a running commentary going. In a (remarkably) slight slur, she comments on everything for the artsy mosaic on the wall to the homeless man sitting on of the benches to the "wiiiiiiind" that swoops over them as the train comes rushing into the station. Nico mainly just doesn't say anything, but he gives the occasional nod, if only to placate her.
Once they're on the train she's significantly more quiet, however, eyelids heavy, and the train (or just her, Nico's not sure) lolls her head onto his shoulder, where she rests until it's their stop and Nico shakes her and tells her "we're home," to which she responds, "no, silly, this is a subway station, pffft."
They are home within minutes, though, Nico opening the door with her keys after digging them out of her bag, Rachel leaning against, asking why he didn't just shadow travel them home, which is an interesting observation for someone so drunk to make. Even if they are Rachel Elizabeth Dare.
"Shadow traveling screws with drunk people," Nico says, opening the door. "You know this."
"I do not," Rachel claims, attempting to walk pointedly into the room, but the staggering sort of ruins the effect.
Nico closes and locks the door behind them, figuring that Rachel can trip now (just once!) if she wants to, because he has gotten them home. He has taken her to a restaurant, taken witness to her drunkenness, escorted her home, and gotten her safely back into her apartment. He is a Good Friend. He is paying her back for every time she's done this for him (or docking one point off, at least). He is victorious.
And he's helping her to forget, at least temporarily, the last thing that she wants on her mind in this moment.
The fact that she's not the Oracle anymore.
Rachel, without a word, makes a beeline for her bedroom, and the directness and determination of it sort of throws Nico off guard, so he immediately follows.
When she gets to her spacious room, lit only by the strings of lanterns she has hanging from her ceiling, she immediately plops on her back in the middle of her big, white bed. She pats the space next to her forcefully and repeatedly, until finally Nico comes and lies on his back next to her.
Just as he's about to ask her if she wants to sleep, Rachel speaks, saying, "Why are you so weeeird around me?"
"What?" Nico says, startled.
"You're like Apollo," Rachel goes on. "Sometimes you're all fun and all 'hey, Red, let's play Monopoly, doesn't that sound fun?' and the next you're all, 'oh, dangerous red girl, grumble grumble.'"
Nico is silent for several moments. "Okay, then," he says, because the last thing you do with a drunk and previously sad/angry/emotional person is argue with them.
"So you agree!" Rachel exclaims, pointing at him once again. "J'accuse, di Angelo! J'accuse."
Nico lets that roll about the room for a few beats. "Okay," he agrees again.
"I think," Rachel says, interrupting herself with a hiccup, "that Apollo got too much of the grumble grumble and that's why he didn't want me anymore." Her voice gets quieter and quieter as she finishes the sentence, and at the end of it Nico is stricken by how much she sounds like a small, vulnerable child in that moment.
He's so not good at this, this comforting shit. Letting someone go get drunk and then helping them to not get into any bar fights or get hit by a garbage truck on the way home, he can handle. But escorting someone through the minefield that is such an emotional change as letting go of something that has so abundantly been a part of your life for such a long time, he cannot. Even if that's something that he has more than enough experience with.
Finally, he tries for the truth. "You didn't want to be the Oracle anymore, Rach," he reminds her quietly. "It wasn't Apollo. It was you. So he found someone else." A twelve-year old girl with stunning blue eyes and the ability to see all the monsters hiding under your bed at night.
"Oh," Rachel says. And then she does the impossible (but, for a drunk person, is really more in the category of Very Likely, and later Nico will probably look back and feel stupid for not even allowing the possibility of this event run through his head).
Her lips are not nearly as sloppy on his as he would expect, and he finds this intriguing for a few reasons. The main ones being that she's wasted and that she hasn't kissed anyone since she was sixteen and she decided kissing Percy Jackson was a Good Idea.
Even more appalling still, however, is the fact that Nico doesn't put the lid on this jar the minute it opens (metaphorically speaking). Instead he manages to kiss her back and roll her onto her back, continuing to kiss her while thinking about how little saliva there is being exchanged is actually very impressive.
He's still leaning over her, ignoring all of the parts of his mind that are telling him to stop this right now when Rachel breaks the kiss. She smiles up at him and her cheeks are flushed from the wine, and now this. "I can do this now," she says, a look of wonder on her face. "Isn't that cool? This is allowed!" she exclaims, driving the point home. She cranes her neck to catch her lips with hers once again, but he rolls off of her and onto his back once again before she can.
"Wha–?" Rachel begins, confused.
She stares at him, dumbstruck, and Nico decides that he's going to do the right thing. If only tonight. Because he's already been exactly the kind of friend that one should be when their friend is no longer the oracle and therefore decides to get tanked. And he might as well carry that right on through, and finish the night with abang–although, Nico thinks, that's probably not the best way to put it considering this night is totally not ending with the kind of bang that five seconds prior seemed quite likely. If the night were to end with such a bang, Nico just knows that everything would be ruined. Because you can't get something good right after dealing with something awful, right? There's a cooling down period. The calm after the storm. And Nico knows, from personal experience if nothing else, that he and Rachel have to ride that out. And if Nico keeps being a good friend and a good friend only for just tonight, something good might actually come out of that. Especially considering the fact that Rachel's a twenty-four year old virgin, and probably doesn't want to maintain that status for much longer, and Nico's more than okay with that.
And anyway, there are just certain lines you don't cross with someone a bottle of wine and two glasses of beer later.
"Haven't you thought about it?" Rachel inquires, voice more heavily slurred now, and Nico knows exactly what she's talking about.
"Yeah, sure," he says, trying to lie this to rest for the night. "But I'm tired and I don't want you to think of that as me in prime performance condition," he finishes, feeling sort of lame, but Rachel laughs heartily.
Eventually she closes her eyes and falls asleep, saying that they will be discussing this further when "the breakfast has left my head."
It's only as Nico is falling asleep too, all at once, that he allows himself to think–for the first time in his life–that maybe good things can come out of bad situations.
If only on very odd nights.
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