This is a monstrosity of a oneshot, but there was nowhere good to break it, so what are you going to do? Get over it or die trying. Or something.
A seasonal-inspired Rachel/Nico fic, because I love them both individually and together? Yeah. They just really work for me.
Musafeen's When Doom Met Death (NOT Death's Dare as I originally posted, for I am an idiot and this is by the equally as wonderful greencoverses) makes me giddy for this pairing, and I re-read it as I was writing this. I think she manages to capture Raico (Rico?) much better than I do, so it's well worth a read.
The title is a bastardisation of a truly awful Cliff Richard song that epitomises so many of the things I hate about Christmas music. XD
Enjoy, I guess. Or do not. Free will means it's up to you.
Mission to Marzipan.
Whatever strings Nico had pulled to get this apartment, Rachel was always coloured impressed each time she visited. Granted, the strings can't have been that different from strings that she could (and had, in moments of severe weakness) pull by dropping her father's name, but still. Wow. Well, her apartment was bigger, sure, but she liked Nico's view more.
There were clearly more perks to being a son of Hades than Nico let on, even if the negatives probably totally outweighed the positives more often than not (time spent as a potted plant and hearing the call of the dead all the time being just two of the biggest negatives).
At the very least, the apartment made it easier to explain to her parents why she was always hanging out with Nico; all she had to do was drop his zip code and the building and they assumed Money, capital 'M', which did deflect a great deal of the suitors which would otherwise be thrust upon her.
It was mutually beneficial — Nico was met with less disapproval by her parents (not that he gave a rat's ass anyway), and she could use Nico as a deflector shield for society's most eligible bachelors. It didn't deflect all of her mother's meddling, of course, and parents still didn't approve of Nico totally, but the apartment helped. Plus, they were seriously close neighbours. When she had pointed that out to Nico when he had first moved in he'd acted as if that had never occurred to him, though.
Hmm.
The apartment building was on the Upper East Side and Central Park was spread out beneath it; the view of the Park today through the large plate glass windows that occupied an entire wall was glittering white with frost and snow under a weak winter sun. She could see skaters on the Wollman Rink making the most of Christmas Eve on ice.
The apartment itself was the very model of minimalism. Its white painted walls were dotted with violent slashes of colour, courtesy of canvases of her choosing. Interior decorator Nico was not and there were many areas that he needed a little help with, in her opinion. The kitchen was made of gleaming granite and stainless steel; it stayed gleaming because Nico only ever used the microwave. The dining table and end tables were made of smoked glass balanced on slight chrome frames, and black leather dominated the upholstery in the living area.
Rachel stepped off the elevator into the apartment, which looked empty. She frowned. Nico had said in their earlier Iris Message conversation that he was planning on staying put all day, so where the hall was the apartment's resident wiseass?
"Nico?" she called.
A hallway led off the main living area to the two bedrooms so she made towards it, pausing on her way at the kitchen. She opened Nico's fridge and took a look inside; the contents were just as sparse as the apartment, if you didn't count all the beer. There were several takeout boxes, a carton of milk, a lump of cheese decidedly past its prime and not a whole lot else. Not the fully stocked fridge everyone else she knew had on Christmas Eve, ready for the next day, but what she expected from Nico.
Rachel picked a takeout box at random and found a mix of egg rolls and some kind of noodles inside. When the contents passed the smell test she liberated the box of an egg roll and put it back in the fridge, taking a bite of her quarry she wandered down the hallway. It wasn't bad.
Cut to her puking her guts up a couple of hours later, maybe, but for now it was palatable and didn't taste like salmonella, and what more could you want from food?
Nico's door was the last one on the right. Had he not got his lazy ass out of bed yet? Or worse, gone back to bed for one of his naps, like he was a thousand-year-old man? The sound of loud music became apparent the nearer she got to the bedroom, and the more she heard the more concerned she got.
It was not what she imagined would be on Nico's playlist.
The door was ajar and she bumped it with her hip without even really thinking about it, slightly afraid that some kind of alien had beamed down and replaced Nico with one of their own kind. Of all the explanations, that seemed the most reasonable to her, because otherwise, why else would Nico be listening to—
Naked.
Rachel dropped the egg roll to the floor; it hit with pretty much perfect synchronicity to her jaw and bounced behind her. Nico had his back to her and the towel he was drying his hair with was the only piece of clothing in the immediate vicinity.
She got an eyeful of pale flesh, marked here and there with battle wounds, stretched tautly over what was actually a pretty damn impressive upper back (probably down to all that sword training). Her eyes wandered down the groove between his shoulder blades (and further) a little too far before she managed to stop herself. She was human and she had eyes after all, Oracle or not, and besides, Nico was nineteen now so it wasn't like she was one of those cougars who hang out at her tennis club for 'extra coaching' after hours. There. Rationalising: done.
But damn, Nico had grown up well, that was all she was saying.
After hearing herself she reconsidered. Perhaps she was being a little lecherous but the Oracle gig meant that she often had to go without a lot of things, gratuitously shirtless males (usually) being among them. You had to make the most of chances when they came.
"Huh," Rachel said, managing to pull herself together. "No one told me I'd be getting dinner and a show."
Nico yelped loudly and spun round in a panic, the red of a blush seeping up his face and down into his chest. Rachel gave an approving head tilt. Pectorals: check. Well, not great but they were definitely there and she did so hate to be choosy.
Oops. Less lecherous. Right.
He was covering himself with the towel that he had been drying his hair with and sputtering and fizzing intermittently with shock. His mouth was working like a fish out of water. He reached for a remote on the bed and snapped off the music.
"You, you…" He had managed to start a sentence but the shock robbed him of all follow through and he came to an impotent halt again. "I'm naked," he said eventually, totally unnecessarily.
"Yup," Rachel said, pulling off her scarf and fanning her face. "Merry Christmas to me."
"I'm a person," Nico said with a scowl. "Not something under a tree waiting to be unwrapped."
Rachel opened her mouth to unleash a quip about tying a bow somewhere but Nico shot her a murderous look and she decided to keep it to herself. It wasn't so much that she was afraid of Nico — this wasn't the first time she'd been on the receiving end of such a look — but the Oracle inside her quailed every time she got one, probably a residual from the whole Hades cursing her thing. Sometimes she had to listen to the spirit, just for a quieter life.
"Uh, you're still standing there," Nico said. "So… privacy, please?"
Rachel flapped a hand casually at him. "Yeah, yeah," she said. "I'm sorry; it's just that I thought your life was in danger." She left the room and closed the door behind her, sinking down to sit against the wall in the hallway.
"How did you figure that one out?" Nico's voice asked, the dryness in it only slightly masked by the door between them.
Rachel could hear the drawers of a dresser opening and closing as he apparently got dressed. Well, she guessed that was it for her Christmas present from the universe.
Bad, bad thoughts from a girl supposed to be the Oracle. She hoped it was too late to get added to the bottom of Santa's naughty list.
She sighed. Despite all the looking she did, dating was still solidly off the menu for her all the while she played host to the Oracle. She knew that, so why was this so hard?
"From the music I thought you were curled up on the floor in excruciating pain as you grew ovaries," Rachel said sunnily, pushing the melancholy down inside her. "I mean… Sarah McLachlan? You?"
The door opened and Nico poked his head round. He was scowling petulantly. "Okay, firstof all, you turn up unannounced and then let yourself into my bedroom without any kind of warning and it's me that gets shit for the music I listen to? And second of all, there is nothing wrong with Sarah McLachlan. She is the perfect remedy for the unholy amount of festive cheer that is going around. There are only so many times you can hear about sleigh bells and mistletoe and, and… fucking... Christmas in song form before you unleash a tide of the undead on the city."
"Oh yeah, because that's something that everyone can just do," Rachel scoffed, rolling her eyes.
Nico scowled. "You know what I mean," he said and disappeared behind the door again, slamming it firmly closed. "I don't care what you have to say about Sarah McLachlan," he said through the door. "Sometimes, all you need is a bit of misery to get you through."
"Those ASPCA commercials make me cry," Rachel said, spying the egg roll she had dropped earlier next to her. The bounce had thrown it clear of the threshold to the room and it was lying on the floor in the hallway. She picked it up and brushed imaginary lint of it, shrugged, and took a bite.
"Of course they do," Nico said, and Rachel could hear the eye roll in the tone as she finished the egg roll.
The door reopened and Nico — fully clothed, bah — appeared again. He strode past her, ignoring her outstretched arms begging for a hand to her feet, into the living area.
"Well, that wasn't very gentlemanly," Rachel huffed, climbing to her feet under her own steam and following Nico.
When she got to the living area, he was extracting a takeout box from the fridge. She watched him snap apart a pair of chopsticks and dig through the carton.
"If we're judging our actions based on antiquated gender roles, then how ladylike was spying on a man undressing?" He paused. "Did you eat one of my egg rolls?"
"No," Rachel lied. "Hey, antiquated. Big boy word. I am very proud of you. Also, you weren't undressing, technically. You were undressed."
Nico scowled at her as he shovelled noodles into his mouth. "Screw you. And are we really going to argue over the semantics of that?" he mumbled, barely intelligible over a mouthful of Chinese food.
Rachel understood every word of what Nico had said, which showed just how often he spoke with his mouth full. Either he needed to learn some manners or she should have at least got extra credits in college for her work as an interpreter.
"Hey, undressing sounds like I was stood there for a whilewatching," Rachel said. "Undressed is just like an instant moment of whoops, look. Nudity. I come off a lot better in the second scenario."
Nico snorted and said something which Rachel translated as 'Whatever' before swallowing his food. He was frowning pensively at the bottom of the takeout carton and then shook it for good measure. "I'm definitely missing an egg roll," he said.
"Enough with the egg rolls!" Rachel said, rolling her eyes. "Do you seriously not have anything better to do than catalogue leftover Chinese food?"
Nico shrugged with one shoulder and popped an entire egg roll in his mouth. "And Thai," he mumbled through the food in his mouth.
"Well, this is gross. And gods help me, does there have to be an apocalypse before you're motivated to do anything?" Rachel said exasperatedly.
"Not necessarily. I can get pretty excited around St. Patrick's Day when it's time for shamrock shakes," Nico offered.
Rachel actually facepalmed. "They're just green vanilla milkshakes."
"With mint flavouring," Nico corrected, jabbing another egg roll at her for emphasis before that one met the same fate as its predecessor.
"Wow," Rachel said, mostly to herself.
Nico finished his leftover takeout and tossed the empty container in the trash. "So, Dare," he said. "Did you come here for a reason or did you just feel like irritating me?"
"Why thank you, Nico, yes I would like some Chinese food. How kind of you to offer," Rachel said. "Your hosting skills are second to none."
"You already had an egg roll," Nico said flatly. "So, again… any reason for this flying visit? Do you need a fake date to piss your mom off again?"
Rachel smiled. "Ha, I wish. I thought she was going to have a stroke," she said fondly. "Me presented to society on the arm of a man with no discernible pedigree. And a ponytail. Best gala I've ever been to in years. But no. My parents are actually out of the country. They went to the Antilles so my dad could look at this hotel he was thinking about buying but long story short they called just now and I think he's going to buy an island instead. So now they won't be back until the New Year because of all the extra paperwork."
"Yeah. You've gotta hate all that island-buying paperwork," Nico said wryly, adding a snort for emphasis. "Also, I love how, in your world, people go out shopping for hotels and come back with islands and no one bats an eyelid."
Rachel gestured to the apartment around her and the view from the windows. "Uh, hi. I hate to break it to you, but you're in my world. This is a prime piece of real estate."
"It's not a private island," Nico said. He paused. "Wait, they left you alone for Christmas? Just so they could buy an island? You actually like Christmases that have other people. Even if they are your parents."
"Hey, I never claimed that they were stellar parents," Rachel said flatly. "But they're the only ones I've got. And yup. All alone for Christmas. In my big, empty apartment…"
"I don't like where this is going," Nico said.
"Relax," Rachel said. "I've just decided to throw a little party tonight at my place. Nothing big. I know everyone has plans for tomorrow by now but for tonight I'm going to buy a ton of lights and decorations and stuff and really go to town. My mother thinks that excessive Christmas lights are tacky so I've never got to do this before. It's going to be fun."
"A Christmas party?" Nico asked, wrinkling his nose and sounding as if the concept were totally alien to him.
"Sure," Rachel said. "What's wrong with that?"
"Uh, we're pagans," Nico said. "Or children of pagan gods, anyway. I've always thought that Christmas doesn't seem really that in keeping with that whole theme. I don't know why everyone insists on it."
Rachel scoffed. "Oh please. Everyone celebrates Christmas. Or, you know, whatever holiday. Hell, call it Saturnalia if you have to. Plus, I've seen you get pretty damned excited about Percy's mom's Christmas baking, so you can zip it with all of these 'Christmas isn't for me' comments, Scrooge. Besides, it doesn't matter who one of your parents is. I mean, when you were a kid, didn't you—"
She stopped herself quickly but it was too late: the damage had been done. It was unlikely that Nico remembered many Christmases with Bianca and his mom before the Lotus Casino and then afterwards… Yeah. Years trapped in a time warp and then having his strings jerked by Minos for a while after that probably hadn't been conducive to many happy childhood holidays for Nico. At least not ones that he remembered, anyway. And even after that, for the ones he did remember, he'd spent so many years wandering, especially down in the Underworld, that Rachel was sure she could count on one hand the number of holidays he'd spent in good company over the years.
She was an idiot.
"Nico, I'm—"
"Sorry?" Nico filled in for her. He flapped a blasé hand at her and when he spoke again, the casual tone in his voice was too precise to be totally genuine. "Don't be. I'm over it. If I weren't, I'd still be in therapy. A lot of therapy. And don't get me wrong, I like lying down on a couch as much as the next guy but that shit is expensive."
Rachel sighed. Nico was trying to deflect with humour. It wasn't working. "Just come to my party?" she said. "Percy and Annabeth are coming."
"Who else?" Nico asked.
Rachel opened her mouth, thought about it, and then closed it again.
Nico snorted. "No one else, right?"
"It's short notice," Rachel protested. "Not everyone is a freaky little robot like you. They make human connections in the real world which sometimes means that they have obligations to other people and places. This means that they can't always come the instant you call."
"Well, that's lame," Nico said.
"You're telling me," Rachel muttered. "Listen, just be there, okay? I'm going to have a Christmas lights switch-on worthy of the Rockefeller Centre." She paused. "And there will be booze."
Nico visibly brightened. "Oh, why didn't you just lead with that?" he asked. "I'll take booze over Christmas lights in a heartbeat."
"Naturally," Rachel said. "I'll see you about six."
When she'd had to go out not twice but three separate times to buy bags full of new power strips and extension cords for her Christmas lights because she'd scavenged every single one available in the apartment, Rachel had perhaps thought that maybe, just maybe, she'd overdone it. As well as the six-foot, fibre-optic Christmas tree she'd bought, there were strings and strings of lights to festoon it with. You could barely see the branches under all of the cables wrapped around it. There were also fairy lights decorating the bookcases and draped over easels, a grand piano, and a potted fern, as well as framing canvases on the walls.
The foyer with the elevator and the staircase was open-plan to what her mother called the reception parlour. It was one large rectangular room with black and white checkerboard marble on the floor, with living room furniture at the opposite end to the elevator and staircase. There was a wide archway to the left of the living room furniture which led through to the dining room, with the kitchen beyond that and a butler's pantry between those two rooms.
To the right of the furniture and behind a closed door was what Rachel called her snug and her mother called the sitting room. There were two bedrooms and two and a half baths on this floor, down a corridor to the immediate left as you exited the elevator, which made room for a vast drawing room (again her mother's terminology — it was Rachel's studio because the windows were huge and the view and the light in it were amazing), a guest bedroom and the master suite upstairs. The place was huge, with vaulted ceilings, chandeliers, high-end everything and Space with a capital 'S'.
To Rachel it was her gilded cage, less a bachelorette pad and more a cold, lonely tower of a nunnery that had been imposed on her by her parents. She would have been happy in Williamsburg, dammit, but no…
Still, she made the most of what she had (which just happened to be a lot). For today, she'd replaced two armchairs that were normally in the foyer with practically life-size light up reindeer whose heads would nod when she turned the power on. The windows behind the living furniture were framed with more fairy lights which had jolly Santa heads as their shades.
Santa also featured on the chimney breast, where a light-up frame depicted him halfway down a chimney, and in various places around the room either riding a motorbike or in a helicopter, as well as the more traditional sleigh pulled by reindeer. All would light up and flash when it was plugged in.
She had got in a stepladder and hung a star of Bethlehem from the chandelier in the double-height foyer and in a corner was a wrinkled white mass that would inflate into a huge, light up snowman that played Jingle Bells when she plugged everything in. Light-up candy canes were hung from the wrought-iron bannister of the sweeping, curved staircase that led up to the bedrooms and strings of lights hung vertically down from each step creating one big beaded curtain of fairy lights.
As well as lights, she had bought as much tinsel and as many other Christmas-themed decorations as she could find and at last they were all in place.
By the time she'd finished running around hanging things and desperately trying to find spare outlets in the daisy chain of power strips that lead around the living room and foyer of her apartment she was hot and could feel her hair rising into frizz under the pressure. Well, so much for that morning's visit to the salon, but then again no stylist had ever been able to tame her hair for very long anyway. Sighing, she pulled it back into a ponytail. That would have to do.
The elevator dinged and Rachel turned to see Percy and Annabeth getting out. They were bundled up against the cold outside, with fresh flakes of snow on their shoulders and hats. They were holding gloved hands and Annabeth had a bottle of wine clutched in her free hand. Percy had a bag with what looked like presents in his free hand.
They looked like they'd just stepped off the front of a family portrait Christmas card, all happy smiles and glowing red cheeks. All that was missing were matching Christmas sweaters. Rachel felt a pang of jealousy that she tried to crush, in the spirit of the holidays. Right now, there were no family portrait Christmas cards in her future, save for the one that her mother insisted on with the three of them and Rachel would rather chew broken glass than possibly still be doing that in thirty years.
"Hey!" she said, waving hello. "Merry Christmas!" She moved towards the elevator and gave them both a hug. Annabeth presented her with the wine and Percy gave her the presents.
"Aww, thanks," Rachel said, bobbing her head at them and grinning. "I'm glad you could make it."
Annabeth looked around the apartment and blinked at the decorations. "This is… wow. Did you leave a single string of fairy lights in Manhattan?"
"I think she shopped out the tri-state area," Nico said dryly. The three of them jumped; Nico had appeared on the stairs with no warning.
"Hey, I asked you not to do that," Rachel said, weariness that came with fruitless repetition tingeing her voice. "Scare the crap out of me in my own home, why don't you? I swear one of these days I am going to ask Apollo for a favour to permanently attach a very loud set of bells to a collar around your neck."
Nico cocked an eyebrow at her and folded his arms. "You could try. And what, should I have knocked first?"
Rachel snorted, the corner of her mouth quirking up as she thought about earlier. "Fine. Touché."
Percy looked between them. "Huh?" he asked. "This sounds like a fun story. Share."
"Alcohol first," Nico said, coming down the stairs and taking the bottle of wine from Rachel. He squinted at the label and gave an 'it will do' head tilt, then waved it vaguely at her as he walked out of the foyer and through the dining room towards the kitchen and glasses. "Thanks. This is in exchange for the egg roll," he called.
"I didn't take your freaking egg roll!" Rachel yelled. She had no idea why she was so insistent on lying about taking an egg roll. It wasn't that she thought Nico would be mad at her — they helped themselves to each other's stuff all the time. It was more that she couldn't believe that Nico had such an accurate recollection of his stock of leftovers, and probably that she wanted to screw with him some. Hey, it was fun.
She beckoned for Percy and Annabeth to follow her as she stormed after Nico, completely missing them exchanging knowing glances.
"You're a lousy liar, Dare," Nico replied matching her previous volume.
Rachel set her jaw and turned around, blowing a strand of hair up and out of her face in irritation. "Sit, please," Rachel said to Percy and Annabeth, gesturing to the couch. "Nico is apparently bringing wine."
Just then, Nico wandered through the dining room from the pantry and leaned against the doorjamb of the archway between the foyer and dining room. He had only one glass in his hand. "Oh, was I meant to share?" he asked, taking a long drink. "My bad."
"Not fair," Annabeth said. "You're underage for a start. So run along and get the grownups something to drink, will you? Mama's thirsty."
Nico scoffed. "I'm old enough to be your grandfather. And what's the matter — you think I'm going to go all juvenile delinquent on you?"
"Pretty sure we passed that particular fork in the road a good few miles back now," Annabeth said. "So, about that wine?"
Rachel rolled her eyes. "I'll get us drinks," she said to Percy and Annabeth. "Just can't get good help these days, huh?"
"Hey, I am not your help," Nico snapped.
"Sure you're not," Percy said. "Grab me a beer while you're up, please?"
Nico gave Percy a filthy look but otherwise totally ignored him, moving to plonk himself down on the loveseat perpendicular to the couch. Rachel left to get the drinks, giving Nico time to really examine the apartment's new décor. Rachel hadn't just gone overboard; she was bobbing in the middle of the Pacific totally stranded with the ship she'd tumbled over the rail of several nautical miles away.
And she was about to get eaten by sharks.
"I like what you've done with the place," he told her as she came back. "It looks like Santa's grotto if Santa and all the elves were on crack. Or meth."
"Who said Santa isn't on meth?" Rachel asked matter-of-factly, handing Percy and Annabeth their drinks. "I'm sorry, but making all those toys in time for shipment is going to need something a little stronger than Red Bull." She held up her hands and shrugged. "That's all I'm saying."
That warranted a pregnant pause from the assembled group as they digested it. "So… Santa's grotto is actually a giant meth lab?" Percy asked, frowning. "Wow. They sure leave that out of the tales they tell kids."
"That's going to be one major explosion when it finally goes," Annabeth said, and Rachel could see actual, serious calculations taking place behind the grey eyes. "I mean, given the size of a workshop that would be needed to create toys for all of the world's kids, if that same square footage were converted instead to be dedicated to cooking meth on an industrial scale, then… Well. It could end the world if it blew. Or at least the hemisphere."
They all took a beat to look nervous before taking drinks. The end of the world tended to get demigods antsy, because usually it was their job to stop it.
"Sorry," Annabeth said, shaking her head. "That was severely lacking in holiday cheer. Too close to shop talk. I'm done now. My brain doesn't take the holidays off."
"I don't know. I thought it was very festive," Nico said.
"You would," Annabeth, Rachel and Percy all said together, the combination of voices causing Nico to blink in surprise.
"So, anyway… You and Annabeth are spending Christmas with your mom, Percy?" Rachel asked.
Percy nodded. "Yup. And then the day after, Annabeth is getting on a plane to go and see her family and I'm going to follow on a train and get there in time to see the New Year with them."
The green-eyed monster rose its ugly head again and Rachel fought to slay it. There was no one for her who had a family that she had to split time with over the holidays. Not that she'd want to have them spend Christmas with her parents because, wow, there were entire vineyards that didn't produce enough wine to make it through the Spanish Inquisition that would bring down on whomever she was seeing, but still.
"What about you, Nico?" Rachel asked. At least he wasn't blissfully coupled up and about to reveal something that was going to make her insanely jealous.
Hopefully.
Nico wrinkled his nose. "After last year when I went down to the Underworld and was a Japanese peace lily until January 3rd I'm going to order pizza, get blackout drunk and you're going to leave me alone."
"That's your big plan for the holidays?" Percy demanded. "When you said you had plans, I thought you actually meant you had somewhere else to be instead of my mom's and that's why you turned us down."
"Hey, no offence to you, Perce. Or your mom. Especially not your mom. But Christmas on my own is my gift to myself this year, so…" Nico shrugged and drank more wine. "I'm looking forward to it."
Rachel made a buzzing noise like he'd just got an answer wrong on a gameshow. "I'm sorry, that's not the answer we were looking for. That's not what the holidays are about," she said crossly.
Her parents had abandoned her just in time for the holidays and as much as Christmas was rarely fun with them around, at least they were people to spend it with and she didn't get a choice this year. Apparently, she was going to have to spend the holidays alone no matter what because her parents were away and you couldn't invite yourself to someone else's Christmas dinner at 6 in the evening on Christmas Eve (Emily Post would have a posthumous fit), but Nico had had another option and he had turned it down.
"No, the holidays are about getting stuff that you want and this year, I want this," Nico said. "It's not up for discussion."
Rachel narrowed her eyes at him. Her nostrils flared and her lips thinned. "We'll see," she said dangerously.
It only took Nico waggling smug eyebrows at her to cause her resolution to crumble, though. She realised that she was never going to be able to persuade him to change his plans: he was a king amongst mules when it came to stubbornness. She let out an irritated humph. Well, if she couldn't get him to change his mind then so be it. So that was the game he was playing, huh?
"Fine," she said sweetly, taking a fortifying sip of wine. "Nico listens to Sarah McLachlan," she said to Percy and Annabeth.
Nico choked on his own mouthful of wine and had to spit it back in the glass. "What?!" he demanded.
"While naked," Rachel continued sunnily, smiling ever-wider at Nico's consternation, her face growing more and more sweet and innocent by the second.
Annabeth and Percy exchanged glances; Percy had paused with his bottle halfway to his mouth. They both burst out laughing at the same time.
"I'm sorry, what?" Percy managed. "Nico… what?"
Annabeth could barely speak for laughter; she had tears glittering in her eyes. "Is this related to the not knocking story from earlier?" she said eventually, in between fits of giggles.
"It is the not knocking story," Nico growled. "And it requires context. Sometimes, you just need a bit of gloom and misery to offset the infectious Christmas cheer. That's all. It's like an inoculation against all the happy singing so I don't go insane and unleash an army of zombies and make this a Christmas for all to remember. That's it."
Percy had his bottom lip tripped firmly between his teeth to try and prevent the escape of any more laughter. "Why… why were you naked?" he asked, cracking up again as he did so.
"Hey! It's my apartment!" Nico protested. "Why don't I get to be naked if I want to? I did nothing wrong here. You're as bad as Rachel, turning up unannounced when I'd just got out of the shower and giving me shit for the music I listen to."
Rachel shrugged. "Hey, you gave me access to your apartment," she said.
"For emergencies," Nico said. "Like, emergencies that could result in an imminent disembowelling, for me in particular, not an emergency like a Christmas Eve lights switch on party. Although to be honest, so far? I expect they're equally as pleasurable." He paused. "Actually, you know what? I think I'd rather be examining my colon right about now."
"That can probably be arranged," Rachel said. "All you have to do is stand still for long enough. Especially if you keep opening that big mouth of yours."
"Bite me," Nico said. He sighed, his eyes roving over Rachel's unlit decorations. "Shall we get this over with? I'm kind of fascinated to see how this turns out."
"Let me guess: morbidly so?" Annabeth inquired sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him.
Nico narrowed his eyes are her and drained his glass. "You may bite me, too."
Rachel stood up and crossed the room. Behind the Christmas tree was a veritable python's nest of wires and cables, the coalescence of all the electricity requirements of the room's lights. There was one extension cord she had to plug into another to have all the lights kick in and make her very own mini Vegas Strip.
Godsbedamned, if this didn't bring festive cheer into her life then she didn't know what would.
"Okay," Rachel said. "Thank you everyone for coming to the first annual Dare Christmas light switch on. Three—"
"Can't wait," Nico said.
Rachel glared at him. "Two," she said pointedly, "one!"
She pushed the extension cords together and the pile of electrical wires and power strips at her feet actually hummed audibly for a split second with all of the current before there was a loud pop and the entire apartment went pitch black.
There was silence for a few beats and then Nico said, "Well. I'm getting more wine."
"Waaaay ahead of you," said Annabeth. She clicked on a flashlight as she walked through the dining room towards the pantry.
Rachel sighed and pulled the extension cords she was still holding apart again. So… this wasn't exactly the way she'd imagined it. Apparently, no festive cheer for her at all this year. Maybe she had been ogling Nico for too long earlier and had been bumped to the top of Santa's naughty list.
"You must have tripped the circuit breaker," Percy said, getting off the couch and walking over to her. "Where is it?"
Rachel blinked. "Uh…"
Annabeth suddenly screamed and both Percy and Rachel spun around, but then there was the thunk of a punch and Nico laughing from the kitchen and they both relaxed.
"Nico!" Annabeth chastised angrily. "Don't do that. I could have killed you!"
"What, with your banshee screech?" Nico asked. "Please. And sorry, I was sitting in one giant shadow. I couldn't resist."
He followed her back from the kitchen. They both had full glasses of wine and Annabeth had another beer in her free hand for Percy. In Nico's other hand he was holding the neck of a new bottle of wine and the corkscrew.
"Where's the circuit breaker?" Annabeth asked Rachel as she and Nico took seats on the couch. "You must have tripped it."
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Yes, thank you. That's exactly what Percy just said. And I don't know where it is. I'll call someone."
"To reset the circuit breaker?" Percy asked. "I can do it. If you can find it."
"Yeah… good luck with that," Nico said. "Circuit breakers are for mere mortals, not Park Avenue princesses." He jammed the spiral of the corkscrew into the cork of the wine and twisting with violent good cheer.
Rachel turned to him with her nostrils flared. "So tell me, Nico, where is your circuit breaker?"
Nico opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again. He muttered something quietly into his lap and pulled out the cork from the bottle by way of answer.
"Thought so, princess," Rachel said, walking over to the elevator where there was an internal phone for the building. "Just sit tight. Two minutes."
"Two minutes means you forfeit your share of this bottle," Nico said cheerily. "Just so you know." Nico sipped his wine and stared at Annabeth's flashlight, which she had balanced on its end in the middle of the coffee table to best illuminate the space around them. "I can't believe you carry a flashlight around in your purse," he said. "No wonder it's so big."
"I can't believe any demigod doesn't carry a flashlight," Annabeth said. "Who knows when you might need it?"
Nico rolled his eyes. "The inside of your purse must only be a handful of fluffy butterscotch candies away from being the purse of an eighty-year-old woman."
"Fine," Annabeth said, sniffing. "You know what, that's fine. Maybe the next time things get bad and you need something out of my geriatric's purse, like, I don't know, nectar or ambrosia I'll have traded down to a clutch the size of a deck of cards and you can bleed out. Just don't do it on my shoes."
"Okay, so the gigantic purse is a touchy subject," Nico said. "Got it."
"And there was me thinking that you two could give it a rest because it was the holidays," Percy said good-naturedly, shaking his head at them. "Guess I overestimated the spirit of the season."
Annabeth and Nico exchanged confused glances and then looked at Percy. Annabeth was frowning and Nico had his head tilted to one side.
"I don't get it. We are in the holiday spirit," Annabeth said.
"Yeah, Percy. We're having a bad time, getting drunk and fighting. It feels pretty festive to me," Nico added. "This is what the holidays are all about."
Annabeth exhaled a noisy sigh and clinked her glass against Nico in a toast. "Amen," she said, and then they both took a drink. "I mean, now all I need is ten relatives asking me if there's something wrong with me because Percy hasn't married me yet, my step-grandmother telling me that she had three kids by my age because she didn't bother with school, and my great aunt Rita trying to tell me how they're bussing Mexicans over the border to steal her social security and I'll be set. Throw in a vat of cinnamon whiskey to dull the pain and I might as well be home already."
"Oh, please let me have a Chase family Christmas," Nico said. "That sounds amazingly awful. Like a car crash. I mean, being turned into a Japanese peace lily is easy compared to that."
"Believe me, I'd rather go twenty rounds with Persephone," Annabeth said. "I love seeing my dad and my brothers, and things are much easier with my step-mom now than they've ever been but Zeus' sandals by the New Year I'll probably be on the waiting list for a liver transplant. If one more person asks me if it's too warm for me at home because I live in New York now, which is apparently the North fucking Pole, I swear to the gods I won't be responsible for my actions. As if San Francisco is in the tropics or something. Honestly."
"Why do you go home?" Nico asked. "Stay if it's going to drive you insane."
Annabeth blinked at him. "What do you mean, 'Why'?" she asked. "It's the holidays."
"I never get why people are willing to torture themselves endlessly over this time of year," Nico said.
"Because that's what it's all about," Annabeth said. "Duh. Except if you're Percy, of course, because his family is wonderful and Christmas with them is a dream." She turned to Percy and slapped him on the knee. "It's so not fair."
The lights came back on at that second and they all cheered. Annabeth turned off her flashlight and stowed it back in her purse. Rachel came out of the coat closet off the foyer and wiped the dust from her hands onto her jeans.
"Done!" Rachel said. "I never knew that that's where the circuit breaker was, but at least I know now."
"So, the big Christmas lights switch on is postponed?" Percy asked with a grin.
Rachel sighed. "I guess. I was trying to make Christmas, but apparently you can't run Christmas out of a single outlet."
"Hey, it doesn't matter," Percy said. "We're all here and there's booze. According to these two, it looks like you've done a pretty good job at creating Christmas."
Rachel smiled sadly, staring emptily into the middle distance. "I tried," she said quietly as she moved back to join her guests, morosely taking into account the decorations that should be blazing with light about now, a distraction from the lonely chasm she could feel forming in her chest.
She should have known that she was overcompensating when the bill for the lights had sent up enough of a red flag with her credit card company for them to call her to check it was her who was spending the money and not someone who had stolen her wallet. Her credit limit may be, uh, limitless (oxymoron, she knew) but even a freaking credit card company had been shocked at her indulgence. She sighed and mentally pencilled in a week of charity work some point the following year, something she always turned to in order to assuage the guilt of sudden splurges of rampant consumerism.
Still, she had thought that if she was going to be alone at Christmas the least she could expect were some Christmas lights out of it, just to try and inject some semblance of festive cheer. Nico's holiday plans, spending the day all by himself, seemed so daunting to her. She liked her own company as much as the next person, but during the holidays she felt like she had to be surrounded with people, even if it was just her parents, or the loneliness would squash her flat. The thought of everyone else enjoying themselves while she didn't get to participate… it wasn't something she was looking forward to.
Still, that was tomorrow's problem. Right now, she had good friends. Right now, it was tonight.
Nico's bottle of wine didn't last very long; luckily, Rachel had plenty more. By the time Percy and Annabeth got up to leave, it was after midnight and none of them were walking particularly steadily as they made their way towards the elevator. Percy and Annabeth retrieved their coats from the closet and pressed the button for the elevator.
"Thanks for inviting us, Rachel," Annabeth said. "It was great."
"It would have been better if I'd actually got the lights working, but you know," Rachel said. "Maybe next year. Merry Christmas, guys."
Percy grinned. "Sounds good," he said, leaning in for a hug. "Merry Christmas, Rachel." He nodded to Nico, who was standing behind Rachel with his arms folded. "You too, runt, whether you want it or not," he added wryly, laughing when Nico flipped him off.
Annabeth also gave Rachel a hug as the elevator arrived. She tried to hug Nico but he wouldn't unfold his arms to let her, so instead she clipped him upside the head and glared. Percy and Annabeth both climbed in and turned to face Rachel and Nico.
"Are you coming, Nico?" Annabeth asked, her finger on the door hold button.
Nico shook his head. "Nah, later," he said, walking up to stand next to Rachel, so close they were actually touching, a feat which his personal space bubble rarely allowed. "The night is still young, yada yada. Plus someone's got to make sure she doesn't break her neck taking the lights down."
Rachel's thought that she felt the infinitesimal brush of his fingers against hers for a split second and a frisson like an electric shock passed through her, as if a miniature lightning bolt had just shot between their hands. She swallowed nervously, convulsively, well aware of the wine they had both consumed (and not just because most of the bottles were lined up on the coffee table).
She thought that her heart actually skipped a beat. Virginal Oracle. No boyfriends. Strictly window shopping only. Oh, gods, Apollo was going to smite them both so hard the second he looked up from whatever atrocity he was penning right at this second and saw them so close. They were close enough to touch, to do things that she had been trying desperately not to think about for at least the past year, or maybe longer...
"Okay," Percy said. His face remained impassive, but Rachel though she detected the vaguest hint of something there, like amusement, at what he was seeing. Percy wasn't as obtuse as people made out. "I'll see you both soon. Have a good one." He glanced up above Rachel and Nico's heads and his eyes lit up mischievously. "Say," he said, as Annabeth took her finger off the button and the doors began to close. "Isn't that mistletoe?"
Nico looked up and saw a spring of mistletoe hanging over the elevator, right above his and Rachel's heads. He looked down and opened his mouth to bite out a retort, but he saw just a tiny slice of Percy's grinning face and his cousin waving at him as the doors closed and he vanished from sight.
Rachel looked up as well, and then down again at the floor. What had possessed her to hang it there? She cleared her throat. "It… is mistletoe," she said casually. "Huh."
There was wine buzzing in her ears and thrumming through her head. She should have laid on something more than potato chips to soak it up with. She turned to Nico and she felt a blush creep into her face.
Nico hesitated too, flicking his eyes up to the mistletoe and looking at it impassively. "And it is Christmas," he added eventually, gnawing on his lower lip and meeting Rachel's eyes.
Rachel's heart started to hammer faster and she was sure she flushed a deeper shade of scarlet. "It is," she said, and it came out as a breathy whisper totally against her will. She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. "Christmas, I mean," she continued, words tumbling out now like a runaway freight train. "It's Christmas, with the happy holidays and Santa with his 'Ho, ho, ho' and presents and toys that need way too many batteries and freaking lines a mile long at the grocery store, and—"
She was cut off when Nico leaned it to kiss her.
Her knees all but buckled — was it the kiss or her body telling her to duck and cover to avoid the smiting? — but then she realised that Nico's lips were slightly salty from the potato chips and suddenly she didn't care. Let Apollo and the Oracle be tomorrow's problem. Right now, Nico's hand was on her waist and her eyes were practically rolling back into her head and little bitty problems like getting blasted to smithereens went out of the window on a tide of need.
Nico reached up with his other hand to cup her face, and then his fingers were in her hair pulling the hairband free. As her hair tumbled down around her shoulders she thought that maybe she was making a low moaning noise, or maybe that was Nico. It was impossible to tell.
The broke apart at the same moment, breathing heavily. Nico looked shocked at what he had done; she was sure she had an expression that mirrored his. Rachel closed her open mouth and swallowed, and Nico shoved his hands into his pockets awkwardly.
"Oh," he said, extracting a hand from his pocket and reaching up to rub his jaw. "Oh. I should… yeah. Probably go now. Um. Rach, I…"
She held up a hand to cut him off, because he was about to apologise for something that she was not remotely sorry for. "Don't," she said. "I'm not sorry if you're not."
Silence fell for a little while. Rachel began gathering her hair up again into its ponytail, but she had no idea what Nico had done with the hairband and let it all fall back again. She wasn't sorry, and Nico hadn't said that he was, either. That could only be a good sign, right?
"Apollo—" Nico began.
"Probably doesn't care about anything so PG-13," Rachel finished, silently adding I hope.
"Oh," Nico said again, and she watched him relax before her eyes, his shoulders de-hunching. "Okay. Well, that's… good. Because you know, we escaped electrocution earlier when you blew the circuit breaker and it would suck to get all crispy fried and smote and stuff after we just dodged that bullet."
"Yeah," Rachel said, because what else was there to say? Nico had just kissed her. And she had kissed Nico back, pretty damn hard. So what else could she say but agree with his shocked assessment of the situation?
She had no idea what was going to happen. They were both still alive (so far) but that didn't mean anything. She reminded herself that they were only a couple of days past the Winter Solstice, the time of year when the gods' powers were at their weakest, and perhaps Apollo didn't have the necessary energy to make with the zapping right now. Maybe that's why they'd got away with it.
Or maybe, just maybe, he approved? Was that possible?
She hoped so, because was that seriously all they got? How far could she push their luck tonight? Her heart was still pounding in her chest and when she realised that she still had a fistful of Nico's hoodie, she'd been clutching it so hard her hand cramped reflexively when she tried to let it go.
"Listen, about tomorrow…" Nico started, rubbing his jaw again. "If you're going to be on your own…"
"You'll split a pizza with me?" Rachel asked.
Nico wrinkled his nose and looked at her as if she'd gone mad. "Rachel, it's Christmas. I was going to say we could order two."
"Try and stop me," Rachel said. "And I'm getting anchovies all over mine so you don't even get a look in."
"Bitch," Nico said.
"Emo," Rachel shot back. "What happened to your day by yourself?" she asked. "I thought you didn't want company?"
"I didn't," Nico said. There was a pause. "So… More wine?"