I can do both, you know. But I'm kind of more of a Spotify kind of person these days. Easier to swap between my music and Will's podcasts. [ but...hm. ] Anyway it means that vinyls and I were both made in the 1930s?
[ this is. such a terrible joke but also he kind of has to go "yeah well." at this rate danny may as well know random bullshit about him, he thinks, not knowing danny's about to know more terrible bullshit in a few minutes. ]
[ he doesn't bother glancing up from a ramones album he's holding, but he can kind of pick what danny might be thinking. ]
It's just me. Will was actually born in the 21st century and he's been helping me adjust to anything I haven't managed to figure out myself. [ he could stand to explain, but no. that can be explained another time. ] But I've been living in the right century for the last five years. It's working out...better.
More like a timesink. [ ...or, well. ] Do you remember when I said that there was a long period of my life where I didn't remember who my father was and I thought I was just an orphan? When my father had my and Bianca's memories wiped, he kept us in a casino hotel. It was a special kind of hotel though where time doesn't seem to be moving. It always feels like you've only arrived, or that not that much time passed.
We were there for about seventy years before Father ordered one of his furies to come and get us in the hopes that we would be found and start training to fulfill the Great Prophecy.
[ he forcefully shoves the record back because he's annoyed. ]
But we didn't age or anything so we both looked the same and had the memories of time back in the 1940s. The culture shock was kind of unreal after a while.
[ he just...sort of exhales slowly, and shame's crawling to setting on danny's shoulder while nico shrugs. ]
Yeah, that's...not entirely inaccurate. Believe me, no one knows more about my father's behavior than I do. But he only did it because Zeus killed my mother and he was afraid we'd be next. Somewhere along the way, he realized we could be more useful to him, and then when Bianca died...
[ ...nope. ]
He's apologized since then. Or as much as the lord of the dead can apologize. But it's better. After everything, he wants me to be happy and that's more than some gods give their children.
I think it was worse after we got back because it was weirder that I wasn't alarmed by it while we were there. The whole...immersion thing. [ ... ] But it wasn't pleasant, no.
[ "unpleasant" is a nice word for "went mute for a while until will dug into his brain why he was upset." ]
Anyway this place has been one stupid thing after another, so I'm almost used to it by now.
[ smh wow this comic book is long as hell, how much more even is there--no
it's a lot to take in. and danny doesn't have the full context of what anything here is, or who these people are, besides vague memories of greek mythology, but the dread suffusing the whole thing gets across very, very clearly. ]
Whoa. That's--that's a lot. That...how long were you down there? How did you get out after that?
[ and then, with some hesitance and uncertainty: ]
[ you know. he could have done without that, thank you, oceanside. the comic ends and nico's outright scowling even if he looks a little uneasy having all of that pop up. ]
...to be honest with you I actually don't really know. Time in Tartarus doesn't make sense and it's not like I had a watch. Maybe a few days. Maybe a week?
Otis and Ephialtes put me in that jar. I don't really know what happened after that, other than I suppose they physically carried it out with me in it to transport it out of Tartarus and take it back to Rome to be used as bait for my friends. I was in there for a week. [ as you do. he doesn't seem to realize that he's subconsciously rubbing his throat a bit while he's thinking about that. ] Kind of a no air, no light situation. The others came and found me. I wasn't exactly conscious for most of the fight against the giants, but they defeated them and we got back to the ship to get out of there.
[ as for the rest...he frowns again. shame also seems to be listening as it kneads into danny's shoulder. ]
Nyx believed that my true nature was darkness. Pain, suffering, all of that. [ this next part is said as if he's mimicking someone else. ] "That’s who you are, Nico di Angelo. You are a demigod made up of trauma. Your very soul is one of darkness."
...I went back to Tartarus a second time because someone needed my help. A friend. Will came with me because he's an idiot but...he was never going to let me go back alone. I almost didn't survive the first time by myself. [ he glances at the ceiling. ] Bob was calling for my help and Nyx intervened. Started sending me visions to lure me back down there because she wanted me to accept who I was. When we got there, I suppose you could say my demons were far easier to create because they were right on the surface. It was easier to try and say that I was giving into that nature, that I only knew darkness and didn't belong in the world of light. But, I mean, she was still wrong. I'm not...like that anymore.
...huh. Must be some good friends, walking into a trap to save you and managing to win anyway.
[ he absently reaches up a hand to pet at shame as he listens to the next part ]
Calling darkness your "true nature" and then sending you all those visions...sounds like she was putting her thumb on the scale. Not "true nature" so much as "ways you'd be much more convenient to me."
I'm guessing you defeated her, if it's not an issue anymore?
Sure. They're pretty great. I doubt Hazel would've let them rest until they found me anyway though. [ he does not go into the idea that he was truly assuming they just wouldn't bother after a point. ]
That's a goddess for you though. Nyx has never known how to change in her entire life and couldn't fathom the idea of it. It's how we escaped. I didn't accept what she was doing. Or...I didn't accept that I wasn't capable of changing. [ he shakes his head. ] She's still down there in Tartarus, but I'm not going back anytime soon.
so here's the thing. first of all i, ty, love this. second of all, nico di angelo is just taking all of this in very, very slowly. like extremely slowly. and he's thinking about what danny had asked once, about trying to find the people who were gone, and he's thinking about who danny is as a person and every now and then his thoughts about danny get muddled with thoughts of himself because a lot of those emotions are, unfortunately, familiar. sometimes you lose everything good in your life and you know it's your own fucking fault for being born--no. not that far. for being something you didn't ever really ask to be and screwing up everyone else's lives along the way. sometimes you can barely find the strength or the willpower to plow through a meaningless life because the things that made living worth living aren't living anymore.
sometimes you just have a rage that builds up inside of you because everything is unfair and you can't figure out where to go from there. your anger bubbles over and all you want to do is punish yourself and punish people around you and drag people down to rebuild yourself and try to keep going. you don't need other people. you control your own fate for once, even if fate means destroying yourself just to mean something.
but it also doesn't entirely fit with the danny he's gotten to know, so he's letting the last of the panels fade before he turns to face him again. he doesn't speak immediately, just...sort of gauging what he's thinking. ]
...is there still a "you" and a "him"? Or have you reconciled with yourself since then?
[ the second danny realized what the memory was showing, he froze up like a deer in the headlights, tense and terrified. His fight or flight reaction is always fight, but this one time, just this one time, it's freeze. He's terrified to know what Nico is going to think of this, think of him now that the truth is out. So he watches carefully, barely even daring to breathe.
And even with the question Nico asks, he's still not sure. ]
Reconciled...with what, Nico? [ a beat as he considers, licks his lips, and then more quietly: ] You saw what I did to him.
[ he's now sitting here wondering who, exactly, he's dealing with but he doesn't quite say it that way. and maybe he should be a little more freaked out? i mean like. he truly just watched this dude rip apart a person with zero remorse but given the fact he's gotten so angry he's turned a person into a ghost and damned them to hell he can't say much.
granted, this was gruesome, so.
but no. this is still danny and it's the only reason he's approaching this with any semblance of chill. ]
I did. And I suppose what I'm really asking is what happened next. [ weirdly there's no judgment in the tone. it's equally quiet, and mostly uncertain in a way because he wants to understand and isn't sure if it's really his place to do so. (but he also seems to think danny literally destroying everything all the time makes more sense.) ]
[ the lack of judgement in nico's tone almost gives him hope...but he's terrified to truly entertain it. he hugs himself, a more vulnerable gesture than usual. ]
...the quote on your profile. How strongly do you believe that?
Strongly enough, or I wouldn't have said it to someone I brought back from the Underworld. [ pointblank. ] I think it's...difficult to make a better life with a second chance, but it's not impossible. The only person who can really determine what you do with your second chance is yourself. [ he tilts his head. ] Why do you ask?
That's what this is, for me. [ gestures down at himself ]
I've been a full ghost for...a long time. But my timeline is gone now, and being out of the timestream unmoored like that meant that I was going to destabilize and disappear. This, my human form now, it's just an empty clone body that I got shoved into to anchor me back to reality. One where none of that happened, and Danny and all his friends and family are still alive.
I got a second chance. Or--I thought I did. But then only a week later, I got pulled here.
[ he folds his arms over his chest, leaning back against a wall of the shop and assessing him for a moment. the demon shifts back to sort of wander from one of danny's shoulders to another, seemingly purring as it stares at nico as well. ]
Right. Without a physical anchor there would have been nothing attaching you to a living world. [ which he both does and doesn't get because not all of the ghosts he's met have had very solid forms like this. i see that danny got the naminé treatment. ] Sounds a little like a form of rebirth, but more sideways. So you're Danny, but not that Danny, but you replaced that Danny to make a more complete Danny who has all of the original Danny's memories from your timeline.
[ he frowns though because what is with this shitty timing. ]
I get that you might not even have an answer for this, considering, but...how do you feel about being in that timeline where they're there, but they aren't entirely yours the way you remember everything? [ he'll come back to the second chance thing in a second. ]
No. I didn't replace him. This timeline's Danny is still there too. Happy and whole, with everyone he loves around him. I'm just an awkward straggler no one knows what to do with--if they can even know about me at all.
But I have to...rebuild from the ground up. Everything. Except for Vlad, who's somehow "my dad" again. Ugh. [ puckers his face ]
So, no. I don't love it. It's awful. It's the worst. But it's either this, or total destruction. Not really much of a choice, is it?
Oh. [ that's actually much worse what the fuck. like. having to be there and watch that timeline's danny have everything that this danny wants but this danny can't entirely fit into the new life since he's been displaced out of time.
but still, nothing in his face changes as he seems to really think about this. ]
I don't know how I feel about this Vlad guy when he's the one who kind of put the idea in your head in the first place. [ first and foremost. but...he considers quietly. ] It's awful. It's a struggle. It's easy to feel frustrated and jealous and isolated when you're stuck looking at a life you wish you still had. [ but? ] But you could still in fact choose destruction, so I would say you still made a better choice.
[ there's a slow hum. ] The will to exist is still one of the hardest challenges a person has to face. But I do still think that you've proven yourself resilient enough to rebuild as long as that's what you want. I won't say it's easy. [ ... ] ...the quote is...something I said to my half-sister. Hazel. She'd been down in the underworld for decades before I found her and brought her back to the living world with me. Everything she'd ever known had completely changed, but she hadn't. I won't go into her whole story, but...her living life and the things that happened to her prior to her death weren't exactly kind to her either.
It'd be pretty easy for her to fall to the wayside and take another path, but...it's progress. She's doing better now. [ ... ] Rebuilding completely sucks, but I think it's worth taking a shot.
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I can do both, you know. But I'm kind of more of a Spotify kind of person these days. Easier to swap between my music and Will's podcasts. [ but...hm. ] Anyway it means that vinyls and I were both made in the 1930s?
[ this is. such a terrible joke but also he kind of has to go "yeah well." at this rate danny may as well know random bullshit about him, he thinks, not knowing danny's about to know more terrible bullshit in a few minutes. ]
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You're adjusting to all the 21st century tech really well, then.
[ readjusting his world view of nico and will to set all of his knowledge about them in like the 40s or 50s now ]
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It's just me. Will was actually born in the 21st century and he's been helping me adjust to anything I haven't managed to figure out myself. [ he could stand to explain, but no. that can be explained another time. ] But I've been living in the right century for the last five years. It's working out...better.
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Time travel, then?
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We were there for about seventy years before Father ordered one of his furies to come and get us in the hopes that we would be found and start training to fulfill the Great Prophecy.
[ he forcefully shoves the record back because he's annoyed. ]
But we didn't age or anything so we both looked the same and had the memories of time back in the 1940s. The culture shock was kind of unreal after a while.
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Yeah, I bet.
[ a beat, and he starts moving again. ]
I know you're...patching things up with him or whatever, but that's not very fatherly behavior. He sounds more like a jailer, to me.
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Yeah, that's...not entirely inaccurate. Believe me, no one knows more about my father's behavior than I do. But he only did it because Zeus killed my mother and he was afraid we'd be next. Somewhere along the way, he realized we could be more useful to him, and then when Bianca died...
[ ...nope. ]
He's apologized since then. Or as much as the lord of the dead can apologize. But it's better. After everything, he wants me to be happy and that's more than some gods give their children.
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...if you say so.
Wait, so this means our little casino trip a few weeks ago must have been extra awful for you, doesn't it?
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I think it was worse after we got back because it was weirder that I wasn't alarmed by it while we were there. The whole...immersion thing. [ ... ] But it wasn't pleasant, no.
[ "unpleasant" is a nice word for "went mute for a while until will dug into his brain why he was upset." ]
Anyway this place has been one stupid thing after another, so I'm almost used to it by now.
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[ like he says that, but unfortunately that's about the time a comic panel pops up. wheee sorry this is so long. ]
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it's a lot to take in. and danny doesn't have the full context of what anything here is, or who these people are, besides vague memories of greek mythology, but the dread suffusing the whole thing gets across very, very clearly. ]
Whoa. That's--that's a lot. That...how long were you down there? How did you get out after that?
[ and then, with some hesitance and uncertainty: ]
...what did she mean by "your true nature?"
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...to be honest with you I actually don't really know. Time in Tartarus doesn't make sense and it's not like I had a watch. Maybe a few days. Maybe a week?
Otis and Ephialtes put me in that jar. I don't really know what happened after that, other than I suppose they physically carried it out with me in it to transport it out of Tartarus and take it back to Rome to be used as bait for my friends. I was in there for a week. [ as you do. he doesn't seem to realize that he's subconsciously rubbing his throat a bit while he's thinking about that. ] Kind of a no air, no light situation. The others came and found me. I wasn't exactly conscious for most of the fight against the giants, but they defeated them and we got back to the ship to get out of there.
[ as for the rest...he frowns again. shame also seems to be listening as it kneads into danny's shoulder. ]
Nyx believed that my true nature was darkness. Pain, suffering, all of that. [ this next part is said as if he's mimicking someone else. ] "That’s who you are, Nico di Angelo. You are a demigod made up of trauma. Your very soul is one of darkness."
...I went back to Tartarus a second time because someone needed my help. A friend. Will came with me because he's an idiot but...he was never going to let me go back alone. I almost didn't survive the first time by myself. [ he glances at the ceiling. ] Bob was calling for my help and Nyx intervened. Started sending me visions to lure me back down there because she wanted me to accept who I was. When we got there, I suppose you could say my demons were far easier to create because they were right on the surface. It was easier to try and say that I was giving into that nature, that I only knew darkness and didn't belong in the world of light. But, I mean, she was still wrong. I'm not...like that anymore.
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[ he absently reaches up a hand to pet at shame as he listens to the next part ]
Calling darkness your "true nature" and then sending you all those visions...sounds like she was putting her thumb on the scale. Not "true nature" so much as "ways you'd be much more convenient to me."
I'm guessing you defeated her, if it's not an issue anymore?
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Sure. They're pretty great. I doubt Hazel would've let them rest until they found me anyway though. [ he does not go into the idea that he was truly assuming they just wouldn't bother after a point. ]
That's a goddess for you though. Nyx has never known how to change in her entire life and couldn't fathom the idea of it. It's how we escaped. I didn't accept what she was doing. Or...I didn't accept that I wasn't capable of changing. [ he shakes his head. ] She's still down there in Tartarus, but I'm not going back anytime soon.
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[ anyway, the comic panels come back and this time begin showing something from danny's memories. Enjoy my 5k fanfic, nerd. ]
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so here's the thing. first of all i, ty, love this. second of all, nico di angelo is just taking all of this in very, very slowly. like extremely slowly. and he's thinking about what danny had asked once, about trying to find the people who were gone, and he's thinking about who danny is as a person and every now and then his thoughts about danny get muddled with thoughts of himself because a lot of those emotions are, unfortunately, familiar. sometimes you lose everything good in your life and you know it's your own fucking fault for being born--no. not that far. for being something you didn't ever really ask to be and screwing up everyone else's lives along the way. sometimes you can barely find the strength or the willpower to plow through a meaningless life because the things that made living worth living aren't living anymore.
sometimes you just have a rage that builds up inside of you because everything is unfair and you can't figure out where to go from there. your anger bubbles over and all you want to do is punish yourself and punish people around you and drag people down to rebuild yourself and try to keep going. you don't need other people. you control your own fate for once, even if fate means destroying yourself just to mean something.
but it also doesn't entirely fit with the danny he's gotten to know, so he's letting the last of the panels fade before he turns to face him again. he doesn't speak immediately, just...sort of gauging what he's thinking. ]
...is there still a "you" and a "him"? Or have you reconciled with yourself since then?
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And even with the question Nico asks, he's still not sure. ]
Reconciled...with what, Nico? [ a beat as he considers, licks his lips, and then more quietly: ] You saw what I did to him.
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granted, this was gruesome, so.
but no. this is still danny and it's the only reason he's approaching this with any semblance of chill. ]
I did. And I suppose what I'm really asking is what happened next. [ weirdly there's no judgment in the tone. it's equally quiet, and mostly uncertain in a way because he wants to understand and isn't sure if it's really his place to do so. (but he also seems to think danny literally destroying everything all the time makes more sense.) ]
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...the quote on your profile. How strongly do you believe that?
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Strongly enough, or I wouldn't have said it to someone I brought back from the Underworld. [ pointblank. ] I think it's...difficult to make a better life with a second chance, but it's not impossible. The only person who can really determine what you do with your second chance is yourself. [ he tilts his head. ] Why do you ask?
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I've been a full ghost for...a long time. But my timeline is gone now, and being out of the timestream unmoored like that meant that I was going to destabilize and disappear. This, my human form now, it's just an empty clone body that I got shoved into to anchor me back to reality. One where none of that happened, and Danny and all his friends and family are still alive.
I got a second chance. Or--I thought I did. But then only a week later, I got pulled here.
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Right. Without a physical anchor there would have been nothing attaching you to a living world. [ which he both does and doesn't get because not all of the ghosts he's met have had very solid forms like this. i see that danny got the naminé treatment. ] Sounds a little like a form of rebirth, but more sideways. So you're Danny, but not that Danny, but you replaced that Danny to make a more complete Danny who has all of the original Danny's memories from your timeline.
[ he frowns though because what is with this shitty timing. ]
I get that you might not even have an answer for this, considering, but...how do you feel about being in that timeline where they're there, but they aren't entirely yours the way you remember everything? [ he'll come back to the second chance thing in a second. ]
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No. I didn't replace him. This timeline's Danny is still there too. Happy and whole, with everyone he loves around him. I'm just an awkward straggler no one knows what to do with--if they can even know about me at all.
But I have to...rebuild from the ground up. Everything. Except for Vlad, who's somehow "my dad" again. Ugh. [ puckers his face ]
So, no. I don't love it. It's awful. It's the worst. But it's either this, or total destruction. Not really much of a choice, is it?
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but still, nothing in his face changes as he seems to really think about this. ]
I don't know how I feel about this Vlad guy when he's the one who kind of put the idea in your head in the first place. [ first and foremost. but...he considers quietly. ] It's awful. It's a struggle. It's easy to feel frustrated and jealous and isolated when you're stuck looking at a life you wish you still had. [ but? ] But you could still in fact choose destruction, so I would say you still made a better choice.
[ there's a slow hum. ] The will to exist is still one of the hardest challenges a person has to face. But I do still think that you've proven yourself resilient enough to rebuild as long as that's what you want. I won't say it's easy. [ ... ] ...the quote is...something I said to my half-sister. Hazel. She'd been down in the underworld for decades before I found her and brought her back to the living world with me. Everything she'd ever known had completely changed, but she hadn't. I won't go into her whole story, but...her living life and the things that happened to her prior to her death weren't exactly kind to her either.
It'd be pretty easy for her to fall to the wayside and take another path, but...it's progress. She's doing better now. [ ... ] Rebuilding completely sucks, but I think it's worth taking a shot.
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