Drabble: stained with paint
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Nico/Rachel
Word Count: ~1,200
Prompt: How long has it been since you last slept? – Sentence Block from WriteWorld on tumblr
A/N: Sorry if they're not in character, but… I tried? Angst is so not my forte.
... ...
He can smell the paint fumes before he's even walked inside, so no, he's not surprised to find Rachel in the Hades cabin.
What does surprise him is the mess.
Her backpack and most of its contents thrown across one of the only two beds in this cabin, with paint tubes and brushes and sketches scattered all over the floor and Rachel standing in the middle of it all, her back facing him. Her hair's up into this messy bun that he's always found kind of annoyingly sexy on her (though he'd never say that out loud) and she'd pulled her painting apron on over the denim shorts and faded tee he'd seen her in before he left to talk with Chiron. On the little fold-out table beside her sits her souvenir mug from one of her trips to Paris, the one she always drinks tea out of whenever she's in the middle of painting. He's willing to bet the mug is empty, or at least that the tea inside is totally cold now.
"Dare, what in Hades—" he begins, stepping inside, but Rachel turns around and the look on her face makes him stop. "Rachel," he says, more alarmed now, because her eyes are kind of puffy and her cheeks are a little red and it's very obvious that she's been crying.
"Hey," she greets, sounding oddly cheerful as she turns back to her canvas. "I just can't get this painting right."
Tartarus.
He knows she's never even seen it in person, but the bleak streaks and colors, the jagged rocks and dark flames… It's unmistakable to him that she's painting Tartarus.
"Trust me, Rachel, you got Tartarus down perfectly."
She furrows her eyebrows at him. "Tartarus?" she asks, glancing back at the painting with a strange expression, as if she's seeing it for the first time. He pries the paintbrush and palette from her hands. "I… I just started painting things. I didn't even realize that that's what it could be. You're right."
"You mind saying that again so I can record that as proof? Percy might not believe me if…"
He trails off, glancing at Rachel helplessly. Oh, Hades. He hadn't meant to say that, say Percy's name. Rachel lets out a laugh, sounding a little bit hysterical and on the verge of more tears, and he grips her forearm and feels something pet against his skin—red and black paint, smudging off of her and onto him. He looks away. It looks too like blood.
"Are they alright?"
"I don't know," he admits.
She tries to put her hands over her face, but he holds her by her wrists so she doesn't get paint in her eyes. "They're in Tartarus, Nico. Of course they're not alright!"
He doesn't even flinch at her outburst. He just nods, even though she's not looking at him to see it, and asks, "When's the last time you slept?" Because he's taking a better look at her and he can just tell that she's been without sleep longer than you're supposed to.
"I don't want to go to sleep." She sounds tired.
"I don't care what you want. You need to go to sleep."
"I'm not going to—"
"Rachel," he hisses, and she finally looks him in the eyes.
He's still holding her wrists between them because, honestly, he's kind of afraid that if he lets go of her, she's going to throw a fit or maybe even collapse. She's staring back at him and he can't see the Rachel that loves to argue with him, that tosses back witty remarks and makes snarky comments about everything, and it's freaky. Percy and Annabeth definitely won't like coming home to find Rachel – or any of their other friends, for that matter – like this. He basically promised Percy that he'd look after things here, but that's easier said than done.
Then again, who is he to complain about a tough job? Percy and Annabeth are in Tartarus. Life's hardly trying to be fair to anyone right now.
"Let's try and get some of this paint off of you," he tells her, and surprisingly, she just nods.
He walks her over to the bed where she'd dumped her backpack out onto and sits her down on the edge of it, and she watches him as he cleans off a decent amount of it with a few dozen baby wipes and then rubs more of it off with a face towel dipped in baby oil (yeah, he's seen her do this more than once), patting her dry with a towel once he's finished.
Then, with a half-hearted push, she sweeps some of her stuff off of the mattress and onto the floor, picks up her empty backpack and tosses it aside. "What are you…" he begins, but she ignores him, pushing the rest of her things off of the bed, her pencils and water bottle and chapstick rolling across the hardwood. She doesn't even bother unlacing her shoes, just yanks them off of her feet and dropping them in the pile with the rest of her things beside her bed before pushing the blankets aside and… oh. She was just clearing off her bed.
He stands there as she's lying down, not really trusting that she won't decide to bolt at the last minute and go off to gods knows where, and then turns to leave once she's drawn the blankets over her shoulders.
Except, he feels her hand grasp his before he can even take a step, and he turns back around to look at her. Her eyes are closed, but he knows she's not sleeping.
"You were really just going to leave me like this?" Her voice is so soft that he thinks he imagined it for a second.
"I'll just be across the room," he points out.
"You're so dense," she mutters, eyebrows furrowing. He frowns at her, confused, but then feels her tug him very gently towards her. Again, he almost imagines it for a second because her grip was so light, but he knows that she'd actually done it.
He exhales. "Let me just…" He trails off. She lets go of his hand and he walks over and closes the cabin door before heading back to her bed. He steps out of his shoes and pulls back the blanket and she shifts closer to the wall to make room for him to lie down beside her. He hardly believes that this is allowed, but whatever. He doesn't care about that right now.
He tugs the blanket over their shoulders again, glancing at Rachel. He's lying on his back and she's on her side, facing him, and other than her hand that's gripping onto his shirt, they're not even touching. It's dark with the door closed now, but he can still see pretty well, his eyes focusing on the crease between her eyebrows and how long her eyelashes are.
He's not really sure how long he stares at her, or what he's looking for, exactly, but then Rachel whispers, "Good night," and he watches her entire face finally relax when he echoes the words back to her.
It's not a smile, nor does she really look peaceful,but she doesn't look so broken,either, so it's a start, and he falls asleep counting the freckles on her cheeks.