Pairing: Nico/Rachel
Category: Percy Jackson & The Olympians
Rating: M [for swearing]
Summary: Theirs is a relationship so strained, it's on the edge of breaking down. Nico/Rachel. Rated M for swearing. PULL Submission.

Love You The Way I Want To

Nico

Nico admired the Christmas spirit in New York. Taxi drivers screamed a lot louder, people shoved each other a lot rougher, some stores would even close a lot earlier to avoid the large throngs of people who so liked to harass the salesmen. Christmas was a time of falling-outs, rows, squabbles, many disagreements and never-ending scream-fests. At least, in New York. In Nico's perspective, this part of Christmas was wonderful and fit him perfectly. At least, for now.

On the other hand, Christmas was equally as beautiful as it was stressful during the evening. Flakes of snow fell lightly onto Nico's capped head and every once in a while he turned to look up to the sky, wondering how Zeus was feeling at the moment. But then, at the thought of the king of gods, well, at the thought of any god, really, Nico swore quietly at the Olympians under his breath and accepted the sharp gust of wind that suddenly pierced his face.

Oh, but he didn't give a damn at the moment. Right now, he couldn't care less what the gods would do to him. Because if it weren't for them, he wouldn't have to be walking to a certain art show to apologize to a certain redhead because of a certain (stupid) spat they had about five hours ago.

Damn gods and their chastity laws.

Rachel

"He can hold a grudge, I know," Annabeth said reasonably, following Rachel around as the Oracle visited painting after painting, adjusting this, dusting that, moving this—almost driving Annabeth insane.

"'Hold a grudge?'" Rachel repeated incredulously. "He practically jumped off me as if I were some kind of corpse! Not that corpses should scare him, I mean, he is the damn prince of the dead," Rachel muttered to herself angrily. Annabeth eyed the Oracle warily. If Rachel stressed herself out like this, the people-filled studio would be glowing green with Oracle smoke and prophecies would soon be bouncing off the walls. Annabeth vaguely remembered Percy comparing the cause of Rachel's spontaneous prophecy outbursts to the cause of miscarriages: stress. Annabeth also vaguely remembered elbowing Percy in the stomach after he'd said that.

"He'll come around. He always does," Rachel huffed at that, this time actually taking out a pencil and adding a mark onto one of her paintings. Annabeth scoffed in horror and pulled Rachel away from all the paintings before she could ruin any more of her own masterpieces. Annabeth grabbed the pencil and threw it into a nearby trashcan.

"You know, I'm surprised this stupid Oracle of Delphi hasn't sent me any notice about Nico being a total asshole during my first public show," Rachel grumbled, letting Annabeth maneuver her away from the paintings and into a more secluded area: the bathroom hallway.

"Look. It's Nico. If there's one thing I know about him, it's that he loves you. A lot. And you know that, don't you?" Annabeth sat Rachel down on one of the benches next to the bathrooms, feeling like she was talking to a little girl who just couldn't understand that the damn ice cream truck wasn't coming back for another week and she would just have to wait.

(Then, Annabeth realized that she was comparing Rachel and Nico to a little girl longing for an ice cream truck. She would have to talk to Percy about his influence on her later...)

"I do," Rachel sighed. "I just don't know what's gotten into us lately. I mean, I know I've been busy with this debut art show for some time now, but..." she paused, contemplating the thoughts inside her head. "Even with this huge project, every free moment I have, I spend with him! But the fights are so... " Rachel didn't finish the sentence. Annabeth pulled a genuinely sympathetic smile.

"Rach, you guys will figure this out, I know you will," she said simply. Rachel sighed melodramatically once more.

"Maybe."

Nico

"Sorry, sir, you can't go in," the guard said. Well, not really a guard. More of a bouncer-wannabe-slash-personal-bodyguard-assigned-specifically-for-Rachel-by-her-dear-father. Really though, this guy couldn't look more sloppy. Standing guard in front of a door with a sign that said, 'Backdoor - Art show inside', he had on a brownish-green hoodie that really didn't bring out his eyes and his hair looked like it could use a good wash or two. Or three. Maybe four. The guy sagged his jeans to a level where it was just inappropriate for this man's age, and Nico swore he could see a pattern of red hearts on the guy's boxers. When Nico looked further down at the floor, the man's typical black-and-white Converse All Stars were dirty, muddy and could also use a good wash or four, and the shoelaces, once white and fresh, were now untied and yellow. First of all, guards didn't usually wear casual jeans and a hoodie (especially during a snowy winter). Second of all... he would pass as a hobo before he would ever pass as a bodyguard.

Nico looked at the guy's name tag.

"Edgar? Really? You're the best that Dare's father could come up with?"

"Excuse me, sir," Edgar said through slightly clenched teeth, "but I'd watch what I say about Mr. Dare. He has ears everywhere." He'd whispered the last part. This Edgar fellow had a light British accent and just everything about him didn't match. Edgar gave the sidewalk a good scan, most likely to check if anyone had heard Nico. Nico eyed him strangely.

"Whatever. Listen, uh, Edgar... I need to get into that show right now. I promised my girlf—uh, my friends that I'd be with them and I'm running a little late so if you could just—"

"Yes, sir, you are quite late. The doors have been closed since eight and it's already nine. I'm sorry, but I can't let you in. Those are my orders." Nico rolled his eyes.

Edgar continued, "And, er, you wouldn't happen to be—" he checked his hand. When Nico also looked at it, he caught a glimpse of something scrawled onto the guard's hand with black pen.

"You wouldn't happen to be, er, Nico di Angelo, would you?" Nico grimaced. He'd pronounced the last name as An-he-lo. Really now? Everyone pronounced Clarisse's last name right, but not his?

"It's An-je-lo. Why?" he asked shortly.

"I've been given specific orders to not let you into this studio." Edgar had the ghost of a smirk lingering on the corner of his lips.

"What?" Nico stumbled over his words for a few seconds, "By who? Man, ask the owner of this place! I've been here before, Jake and I are good friends, he's seen me for weeks now, he'll know me."

"Mr. Angelo," he still wasn't saying it right, "please note that you will not be entering this building at all tonight. Now, if you don't mind..." Edgar made shooing motions with his fingers and Nico scoffed. Who the hell was this guy? He looked like he couldn't even hold his own against a fifteen-year-old; he wouldn't stand a chance against Nico.

He clenched his fists, readying himself for a fight.

Rachel

Annabeth and Rachel had been sitting side by side for about five minutes now. Annabeth leaned back against the wall and thought about Rachel's and Nico's predicament. Rachel rested her elbows on her knees and laid her head on her hands. She kept her head down and thought about her and Nico's predicament. After a while, the silence became overbearing and she excused herself to leave the studio for a few minutes. To gather herself. To think through things. To get some fucking air.

Rachel stood right outside the venue's front doors. Since the building her show was being held at was right at the corner of this street, she could see the silhouettes of two men conversing angrily at the backdoor of the studio. She rolled her eyes at the typicality of New York. Even when Christmas drew near, people were still fighting. Like her and Nico. Always fighting.

The fights were constant nowadays. They used to be about the little things; why was that pillow on the floor; could you please remember to keep the presents under the tree; I wanted to watch this movie, not that; or Rachel, where the hell is my guitar—but they gradually evolved into slightly more heated things. 'Why were you late for our date', or 'I missed you at dinner, where the hell were you?', or 'Rachel, where the hell did you put my guitar?'

But only lately have the arguments been hurtful. Rachel's eyes misted over, remembering a few from the past week.

'If you're not going to be pleasant when my mortal friends are around, maybe you can just piss off.'

'I don't know where or why the fuck you hid my guitar, but I honestly can't stand any more of this—'

'You don't think I want this, too? You think it's decision that the gods just won't allow us to—'

Thankfully, at the end of the day, all of the fights blew over, Nico made Rachel a cup of hot chocolate and the two sat in front of one another at either his or her apartment. Then he'd usually take her hand and stroke the backside with his thumb. Then they'd sit comfortably together in a comfortable silence, a rare moment in their hurried lives. Later they'd find themselves curled up together, as close as the gods would let them, in one of their beds. Times like these were risky moments of their lives; bending the gods' rules. They'd be devoid of a few particular articles of clothing but with surprisingly strong restraint and will, they'd hold themselves back to a point where they'd be satisfied, but also to a point where the gods wouldn't blast them to Tartarus.

And that was the most painful part. Holding back.

Rachel now couldn't help but flashback to a few hours ago, when the fight occurred:

"You didn't have to bring that up!" Nico screamed from inside the bathroom. Before Rachel could really say anything, he'd already thrown the door open, struggling to put his pants back on properly. He was still so flushed—either because of their most recent activity or because of anger—that Rachel almost kissed him again. In a split second however, she remembered why they'd stopped in the first place and why he was currently making to leave her apartment and why she was standing and screaming at him wrapped in her bed's blankets. She was like an angry tigress, and wouldn't let her prey escape with such ease. If she could see herself, she would probably look like a mad woman right now, eyes like emerald fire, Nico like a shadow she just couldn't catch in her hands. But she wasn't going down without a fight. Without an explanation.

"Nico fucking di Angelo, do not turn your back from me!" She followed him quickly and, grabbing his shoulder, spun him around with a force so strong, Nico almost retaliated. Almost scratched back.

Almost.

Nico

Nico's first instinct was to draw his fist back and bring it right back up and uglify this idiot's face. Not that it needed anymore uglification. In fact, for the sake of Christmas, Nico decided not to attack this poor fellow. As a Christmas gift. Easy.

He took a deep, cleansing breath. Wrestled his body to stop following its primary Kill Now, Apologize Later instincts.

"Edgar," Nico began, his eyebrows furrowed in anger, "if you don't let me in now, I will become your worst nightmare 'til New Years Eve." Edgar raised an eyebrow.

"Really, lil' boy?" the guard taunted. Nico narrowed his eyes. "I know for a reason that you won't even be able to take one little, puny step closer to this door." Nico raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, yeah?" he leaned in close to the guard—and almost immediately regretted it. This guy probably hadn't owned a toothbrush in the past month or ... ever. Nico leaned back a little and glared at Edgar, "Try me."

But before the two could really get down to business, before Nico could show this guy what skinny little 21-year-olds could do to fat ass 30-something-year-olds like him, a voice, like the ones that interrupted important scenes during movies, spoke up.

"Edgar, stand down." The two males looked up and saw the star of the art show.

Rachel

Figures that Nico was fighting again.

"Edgar, the hell do you think you're doing?" Rachel shook her head at her so-called body-guard and walked around to grab Nico by the wrist and started tugging him towards the front doors of the building.

"Miss Dare, I–I, well, you see, it was strictly under your father's orders that I–"

"Save it for my father, Edgar. My instructions, not my father's, were to specifically be polite and helpful to anybody who wanted to get into my art show. You're scaring off the public!" Nico almost laughed at the look on Edgar's face but noticed that Rachel was still holding his wrist.

"My apologies, miss." Edgar retreated to his position in front of the studio door and avoided looking at Nico's direction. Rachel, in turn, began to drag Nico ever so gracefully to the proper entrance of the art show.

"And you," Rachel stopped in front of the building's doors and pointed one finger at her boyfriend, "that was the backdoor, Nico, you idiot!" He muttered something about not knowing where the front door was. She wanted to tell him a whole load of other things to his face right now. Things that would make him burn with hatred for her that would last for months, things that would keep them from ever speaking again, things that would make this whole situation hurt a little more, but things that would fix this whole ordeal.

Or she could just stay silent and pretend nothing happened a few hours ago.

But no. For Nico, she wanted to actually make this work out. Other guys came and went in the past few years but this di Angelo character was someone special. Sure, he was an asshole sometimes but he kept her on her feet. He made her think with his spontaneous, sarcastic. smart-ass comments that actually held a kind of wisdom behind them. When she was angry, he didn't comfort her but understood her, and that was more than she'd ever gotten from anyone else.

People were constantly trying to spoon-feed her luxuries and treasures, what with all the damn money her father made, but Nico kept it smart and simple. Whereas all of her other friends would have engaged her in a long, painful conversation about how to solve her most recent problem, Nico would tell her how to fix her problem with a sarcastic comment (that would somehow usually end up being the right answer), and go back to some book he'd been trying to translate in vain.

In terms of opposites attract, chemicals react and whatnot, they were the definition of that kind of relationship.

And even if Rachel had thought that she was looking for some kind of white knight a long time ago, maybe riding on a white horse and having green eyes, ebony black hair and a charming yet innocent smile, she never expected this. She would never have know that she'd end up with the pawn. The sidekick. The guy who loitered behind on the black horse because the white knight usually got all the attention.

And she never expected that she would actually enjoy it. She would never have predicted that she'd fall in love this easily.

So she didn't stay silent. Rachel sat Nico down on the nearest bench and told him all the things she wanted to tell him, no matter what the consequences would be.

Nico

Nico couldn't stop looking at this girl's eyes. If it were his choice, he would spend one hour every day just watching them. Studying them. Whatever. Who cared if it sounded stalkerish? They were breathtaking.

Nico hated fighting with her. He hated it more than he hated not being able to touch her when he wanted. He hated it more than not being able to walk around freely in public without being speculated by passerby's, without being picked out by the paparazzi, without catching a camera's flash at the corner of his eye and without chasing down the deepshit who dared take a picture of the two of them.

Nico had lost everything when he lost Bianca. But when he met Rachel, he felt somewhat rejuvenated, as if the Fates thought him worthy to get a second chance at happiness. And that second chance was Rachel.

So Nico had no fucking idea whether or not he'd be given a third chance by the Fates if he lost Rachel.

Even if he did, though, the third chance wouldn't be and would probably never be as good as Rachel.

She was crying now. She called him a few names that would've made Clarisse whimper but Nico didn't say anything. He looked at her, watched her, listened to her. Because now he felt truly sorry for being such an asshole.

The problem was this: the gods and their damn chastity laws. They were trapped. Suffocating between the pressures of real life (fucking paparazzi) and their mythology lives, Rachel's and Nico's relationship was so strained, Nico had lost count of the number of times he'd thought that she was going to break up with him.

But if there were some way to change the rules and still let Apollo keep his damn pride, Nico would find it. Because the sun god and his stupid rules were the biggest barrier that started all these fights.

"If we're going to make it through this, Nico, I need to know that you're going to stay with me and that you'll be on my side the whole way," Rachel was saying. She brushed off a tear lightly before looking back at him.

"I've always been on your side," Nico said quietly. He got up from his seat and squatted down in front of Rachel so that they were looking straight into the other's eyes.

"I don't know what's been going on the past few weeks, but it's been eating my gut since I first snapped at you." Rachel held his gaze.

"And I can't just leave things like this." Nico's eyes turned stormy. "If there's a way to change the rules, to fix things so that it's fair for everyone, I will find it, and I will make things better. Damn the gods. Fuck 'em all." The sky rumbled angrily. "They can keep their pride as long as I get to love you the way I want to."

Rachel smiled. It was small, like the corner of her mouth tilting upwards, but it was the first genuine smile he'd seen from her in almost a month. And it was all the motivation that Nico needed.

He swooped down and kissed her gently on the lips, letting his own linger for a moment.

Rachel

"I'm sorry, Rachel," Nico muttered, leaning his forehead against hers. Rachel sighed and leaned forward into Nico's arms.

"I am, too," she whispered in reply. They stayed in that position for a while. Only when Rachel remembered that her debut art show was today that she decided to get up from her position and pulled Nico up off the cold and icy floor. She realized how cold it was and turned to Nico.

"You wanna come in and watch me end my show?" she asked him quietly. Now they had to take it slowly. Watch what they said. Ask simpler things. And think before speaking.

Nico smiled gently. He took her talented and minute hands in his larger, more calloused ones.

"I'd love to," was his reply.

Rachel led him by the hand into the studio, ignoring the little smirk Annabeth hand on her face as the blonde leaned against a far wall and inspected the scene.

This was only the first stage, Rachel knew. There were far worse things that would happen since Nico had practically vowed to change the chastity laws and mythological culture of never touching the damn Oracle. But for now, she'd end this show and take Nico home with her, make up for the time they've missed and maybe for a short while, alone in her apartment, they would be able to love each other the way they wanted to. No gods. No demigods. No public. No one.

Just them.

Oh, my. My, my, my. Sorry about the language, all. My first fic where there's a substantial amount of cussing and vulgarities.

Err… about this fic… I kinda just wanted a little cute fluff for the both of them, but then I realized… I'd not developed their relationship yet. Like, the idea of Rachel and Nico in love was approved in my head but I didn't know what it would be like, how it would be set up. So from a little Christmas fluff, this fic evolved into a monster!oneshot where I also kind of analyze Nico and Rachel from their perspective. Notice the switching perspectives: Nico in masculine bold and Rachel in feminine italics. :D

Most of it was fun to write but I had difficulties, and I'm sure they're obvious. I only edit these stories (PULL submissions, I mean) once or twice before posting them. So now, I must say this:

Critics will be embraced.
Flames will be embraced.
Reviews will overall be smothered.

Oh, and if anything is unclear, please, please, please, don't hesitate to ask in a PM to me or review to this story. Either is A-OK!

Aaaand… there have been a few hints of foreshadowing, predicting events and literary crap and what might happen in the future and holy shit, are they really going to change the rules? kinda thinking… I'm just going to say it: I'm thinking about a sequel. This is an analysis monster!oneshot. There may just be a few more other monster!oneshots to follow this. Who knows? I'd love your opinion.

Oh. Last thing. While I worked on this, the idea of Rachel's and Nico's age difference (a recent topic of controversy with this couple) hung around at the back of my mind. To clear things up a little: Nico - 21. Therefore, Rachel - 25. Please don't ask. People marry other people who are … like … 30 years apart. I think Nico and Rachel are okay.

Hope this wasn't too painful to read and will appreciate reviews.