[ he hears all of that...and for the moment, his only response is burying his face in his knees.
maybe that was his own stupid fault for putting so much trust in someone, really, and that's sort of what he's thinking. that if he hadn't bothered trusting danny and hadn't bothered befriending him and hadn't bothered thinking he could be a changed person maybe it wouldn't be fucking him up so much.
he's trying to consider if it's better or worse to have trusted him in the first place. he's busy thinking this over, wondering if there were any signs...well. he did run into danny beating up a bunch of shit at tarkea. and he saw danny's memories. but at the same time there were other instances that didn't quite add up to what's going on. in a sense, he does feel like this is his fault for not pushing things a little further, for not questioning harder, for just believing that maybe he was wrong about this. it hadn't felt fair to accuse danny at the time when there wasn't complete, solid proof. it would've been like accusing nimona yesterday because of pink fur and an animal bite and knowing her history.
history doesn't always mean a person can't change. it's something he's felt very strong about for both nimona and danny, and maybe a little himself. he knows danny is right, that it's entirely possible someone would've gone after him for killing reigen. he can't entirely blame him for wanting to exist. for wanting to cling to the little bit he'd built for himself.
he can blame him for going about this stupidly, but that's his own private thought. he thinks about the conversation he could see with ace and danny, thinks about nimona telling him ace told her to avoid the treehouse, thinks about the horoscopes all over again and just--
--eventually there's another shuddery little sigh as he carefully speaks. ]
...tell me something. Were you just putting on an act for us then all those weeks where we were trying to be friends? Was that all just faking it, hoping it'd stick while knowing you would've jumped at any opportunity to hurt somebody else? [ a pause. ] Did you ever actually believe any of what I'd said to you, or were you blowing me off the whole time knowing it wouldn't stick?
I mean...at first, kind of. I only pretended to be Danny Fenton, the real one, in the first place because that's whose profile it was. And when I heard this was a place of heroes killing villains...I didn't want to make myself a target by straying from that mold.
But the quote on your profile always had me wondering. How much you could understand. If I could be honest with you. I was...yes, acting, pretending to be happier and nicer than I am, but I never lied to you. Everything I said to you was true of my life when I was still Danny. But I was scared to ever push further and risk ruining what I had.
[ with mounting horror, he realizes he's beginning to choke up, talking through building tears. he hasn't cried in years. he feels like a child. ] When you--when you saw that memory, of what happened to the Fentons, of what I did, I thought...this is it. This is the moment where he's been pushed too far and sees what a monster I am and leaves. But instead you...offered me somewhere to go. [ rubs at his eyes and sniffs ] It was the first time that my "second chance" really felt like one, rather than a last ditch effort to stay alive. Like maybe I could really become someone...instead of just the ruined, warped version of the person everyone actually cared for.
It...I can't tell you what that means to me, Nico.
...I wouldn't have killed if I hadn't been told to. I'd wanted to before, to just--up our chances of winning, take control of something here for once, but I was too worried of screwing things up to ever do it myself.
[ that's a plus... gently floats by. and he listens, and this feels weirdly remnant of a few different scenarios in his life where people did awful things and led awful lives but nico still tried to befriend them when they showed any signs of maybe wanting to change. he can understand keeping things under wraps to not make yourself a target. he can understand not actually explaining who you are to a bunch of strangers to blend in and not raise a flag.
that's literally what he did when he infiltrated camp jupiter. he was himself and just left out a few key details, knowing the roman army might've just killed him if he wasn't careful.
likewise he can understand being scared to push further and risk everything. that had been something nico himself feared time and time again any time he used his powers. he thinks about ghostifying bryce lawrence and the look of horror on reyna and hedge's faces before he promptly passed out. he thinks about apologizing for poisoning another friendship, thinking he ruined everything just because he let his control unravel and hurt someone. but reyna had forgiven him. there were other instances where things got out of hand, but nico had been forgiven and the entire purpose of his life now was trying to live a second time and get his own second chance for happiness.
so yeah. he gets it. he hears the way danny's voice chokes up and he listens to all of that and for a moment he continues keeping his face buried in his knees before he finally looks up. somehow danny crying is enough to snap him out of his own threat of tears, if only because he has to be the balance of the situation. ]
And then when the opportunity came, you took it and it didn't turn out the way you thought it would. Is that it? [ there's no ire to his tone, but there also isn't kindness yet. it's neutrality, mostly nico seeking to understand everything presented to him before making any judgments. ] ...I meant everything I said, too. I still think there is a possibility to make a second life better than your first so long as you work for it. As long as you're willing to change and try to do something better with it. That's...that's it. You can't have a second chance and not change how you lived the first time, and I'm sorry if telling you that the base components still being there made that harder to know how you wanted to live.
[ ...he frowns for a moment, trying to think how far he wants to take this. but he thinks, maybe, he can at least try this from a different angle. ]
Did I ever tell you about when Will accused me of being a murderer?
I...I guess so. I just...don't know how to be. [ outside of the murder and the destruction. who is he, really, if he lets himself be anything other than unstoppable? it's scary to not know. it's scary to not kill before he can be killed.
it's scary to become attached to people. people who can act unpredictably--die, betray you, reject you...be hurt by you.
that last bit breaks him out of the self-loathing cycle just enough though. the tears stop and he just looks up, utterly bewildered. ]
Usually, you don't try to do it by yourself. First bit of advice. [ it's dry, but it's true, and it's something he's also been working with nimona on. maybe this is just a thing about tigers. or maybe nico just understands kids who've been perceived and acted as violent monsters a little too much.
anyway yeah that's what he thought, you dumb ghost. it's maybe another experiment in the ever-evolving process of "nico letting people see parts of him he doesn't want to talk about in order to help them", but it seems to work enough to at least try to get danny to calm down. there's a point to this, too, but first...you know. a story. ]
Mmhm. It was, like, right before we got here and he felt bad about it afterwards but totally true. [ he pauses to that. ] ...we were in the Underworld, on the way to Tartarus to rescue a friend. Another world of advice: while boat rides can be romantic, maybe not on the River of Pain. But we had to take that route to get to Tartarus to begin with. The thing is that when you're traveling on a river like that, it...speaks to you. It tries to turn your memories against you, makes it hard to think outside of your own misery and...you know Will. He's a healer, and I'm very much not. And the river said... "You’ve killed so many, Nico di Angelo. You're a murderer. You've killed so many. What’s a couple more?"
He tried to argue that he'd killed people, too. People who'd died because he couldn't heal them, and I thought that's all he meant. Obviously that wasn't true. He argued that he let me kill someone, and even when I said he wasn't responsible for my actions, he argued that, too. How he shouldn't have allowed me to let it happen.
[ hm..."So cavalier with life. You take it away so easily. You distribute death like a badge of pride. Even when you tell your boyfriend you love him, you give him a ring in the shape of a skull." ]
And then he said... "You don’t even feel bad about killing him, do you?" And even though I knew I did, part of me still wondered if Will and the river were right anyway. That I hadn't changed at all, and that I deserved to be there. To be punished for what I'd done.
[ someday, child, we will teach you that you don't have to bare sensitive uncomfortable parts of yourself in order to help others, but it's not gonna be me bc i'm a hypocrite playing mr. 94 mental illnesses over here
danny listens, patient. ]
...I'm guessing you and Will both decided otherwise later?
[ looks at tsas where he's getting therapy from a wine god and sighs.
but anyway. a hand comes up and kind of rubs at some of the faint scarring on his cheek like he's considering the answer. ]
Something like that. Once we got out of the river things were a lot easier to think about, and we fought about other stuff instead. [ wry. ] But yeah, it turned out fine. It's...I mean I did do those things. I did send Octavian straight to his death in some weird kind of murder-suicide that I orchestrated. And there's all of the monsters I've killed. And there are the things Will doesn't actually really know because I've been too scared to tell him because I always figured if he saw how I was, he'd leave. We've talked about it since then and I know it's...a lot less likely now. But the point I was trying to make is that I kind of get it. You act, or you say things, and you always worry about what's going to be too much and what's going to push people away. Even when you're fighting against your own nature and you're trying to figure out who you want to be and what you really are.
It's easy to default to what you know and what you're used to. It's a lot harder to try something different when you're not sure of what the results will be. Which...sort of sounds like where you are. Or I'm projecting, I don't know.
[ more patient listening, where danny will look off to the side of the room. it sounds like nico's killed more than danny thought. ]
...it sounds right.
[ righter than he'd even be able to articulate himself: that need to be in control of something, to break things because at least the outcome of that is predictable and understandable and entirely your own. It's not something he'd know how to put into words, or even fully understand in the first place. ]
[ sometimes you are not a mass murderer but you have taken lives solely by being involved in three wars and other such things. he knows he probably shouldn't have just dropped all of this on him, but he feels like he had to explain so that danny understood why nico was saying what he was.
and now...they're here. ]
...I won't lie to you. It's very hard for me to know what I'm supposed to do about this. Your actions...hurt a lot of people. Including me. [ which normally he wouldn't acknowledge but considering danny saw how much he fell apart during reigen's trial there's no point pretending otherwise. ] And it was selfish to cover for this long because you were worried about losing the things you were building. Those were choices you still made.
But it's harder to be completely angry knowing you were asked to do this, and that saying no likely would've ended worse. Especially knowing that the moon wants us to murder each other and build up the distrust between ourselves and us and the public. It's not a fair position for anybody. And it's harder knowing...that. That you're in the position you're in of trying to learn and undo old habits.
Make no mistake. I'm not going to soften the conversation with her. And I'm not going to tell her to forgive you or hate you less. [ just to be clear. ] ...but I do think she has to know there are outside factors in all of this that are in play because that changes things, and you know that as well as I do.
[ he's busy turning his attention back to danny, staring straight at him. ]
Did you have any inclination to kill Reigen prior to being told you had to?
It probably doesn't, because he's still dead and the way he died was...pretty bad, dude. I know--you already kind of explained what happened, but it's hard to grapple with. And I think...coupling it with losing Ace didn't help.
[ ... ]
Both of them mean a lot to both of us for similar reasons. I probably...should've been a little more mindful of the fact Sigrun had been killed, too, but we were only teammates and we didn't know that much about them. Reigen's someone who kind of saw so much about me, Nimona and Will and...he never judged us, you know? He actually kind of understood some things I haven't really been able to figure out. [ a pause. ] ...like why I hate my powers here, mostly. And Ace understood, too.
It's kind of one of those things where we had a lot of hope in these people, and it's something we're not used to, and now it's...they're gone, and we're trying to figure it out. I know you know this, I don't even know why I'm telling you this. [ probably because he hasn't really taken time to properly figure it all out outside of the initial burst of grief. ]
The good thing is we know we can bring them back. Otherwise there'd be absolutely no salvaging this.
[ he just looks down and nods. he doesn't quite understand, he never really got along with reigen (even though maybe, deep down where he doesn't want to admit it, he saw a lot of danny too) and didn't quite understand how much people cared for him until it was too late, but...he's learning.
and there's nothing he can really say to this anyway. it's more just reiterating the state of things: how bad he fucked up and why, and what to do next to fix it. ]
[ there's a slow, almost sleepy blink like he's not even sure why danny's asking. ]
Uh. I kind of meant the former but now I'm also curious about the latter. You brought me here for a reason. You told Nimona before you told me. Where do you want to go now?
[ damnit, that's the thing he's sensitive about. he sees those bubbles, watching them briefly and watching danny's expression and he raises an eyebrow gently. ]
...really? [ there's like zero judgment in the tone because again. the thing he is sensitive about. but he is obvious curious about that response. ]
[ he is hunched in so tightly, making himself so small, and gives the tiniest shrug of his shoulders ]
...I haven't had anything like that in over a decade. I forgot how...nice it could be. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I started to have it again.
[ ...you really are making it so difficult to be angry right now. ]
...I'm not going to say I completely get it, because it was only about five years for me. [ or seventy-five. ] But after my mom died and then after Bianca died, I didn't exactly have friends or people who cared about me either. It's one of those things you don't really think you need until someone forces it on you very annoyingly.
[ the image in his head seems to be of someone blonde...but not quite will. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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maybe that was his own stupid fault for putting so much trust in someone, really, and that's sort of what he's thinking. that if he hadn't bothered trusting danny and hadn't bothered befriending him and hadn't bothered thinking he could be a changed person maybe it wouldn't be fucking him up so much.
he's trying to consider if it's better or worse to have trusted him in the first place. he's busy thinking this over, wondering if there were any signs...well. he did run into danny beating up a bunch of shit at tarkea. and he saw danny's memories. but at the same time there were other instances that didn't quite add up to what's going on. in a sense, he does feel like this is his fault for not pushing things a little further, for not questioning harder, for just believing that maybe he was wrong about this. it hadn't felt fair to accuse danny at the time when there wasn't complete, solid proof. it would've been like accusing nimona yesterday because of pink fur and an animal bite and knowing her history.
history doesn't always mean a person can't change. it's something he's felt very strong about for both nimona and danny, and maybe a little himself. he knows danny is right, that it's entirely possible someone would've gone after him for killing reigen. he can't entirely blame him for wanting to exist. for wanting to cling to the little bit he'd built for himself.
he can blame him for going about this stupidly, but that's his own private thought. he thinks about the conversation he could see with ace and danny, thinks about nimona telling him ace told her to avoid the treehouse, thinks about the horoscopes all over again and just--
--eventually there's another shuddery little sigh as he carefully speaks. ]
...tell me something. Were you just putting on an act for us then all those weeks where we were trying to be friends? Was that all just faking it, hoping it'd stick while knowing you would've jumped at any opportunity to hurt somebody else? [ a pause. ] Did you ever actually believe any of what I'd said to you, or were you blowing me off the whole time knowing it wouldn't stick?
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I mean...at first, kind of. I only pretended to be Danny Fenton, the real one, in the first place because that's whose profile it was. And when I heard this was a place of heroes killing villains...I didn't want to make myself a target by straying from that mold.
But the quote on your profile always had me wondering. How much you could understand. If I could be honest with you. I was...yes, acting, pretending to be happier and nicer than I am, but I never lied to you. Everything I said to you was true of my life when I was still Danny. But I was scared to ever push further and risk ruining what I had.
[ with mounting horror, he realizes he's beginning to choke up, talking through building tears. he hasn't cried in years. he feels like a child. ] When you--when you saw that memory, of what happened to the Fentons, of what I did, I thought...this is it. This is the moment where he's been pushed too far and sees what a monster I am and leaves. But instead you...offered me somewhere to go. [ rubs at his eyes and sniffs ] It was the first time that my "second chance" really felt like one, rather than a last ditch effort to stay alive. Like maybe I could really become someone...instead of just the ruined, warped version of the person everyone actually cared for.
It...I can't tell you what that means to me, Nico.
...I wouldn't have killed if I hadn't been told to. I'd wanted to before, to just--up our chances of winning, take control of something here for once, but I was too worried of screwing things up to ever do it myself.
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that's literally what he did when he infiltrated camp jupiter. he was himself and just left out a few key details, knowing the roman army might've just killed him if he wasn't careful.
likewise he can understand being scared to push further and risk everything. that had been something nico himself feared time and time again any time he used his powers. he thinks about ghostifying bryce lawrence and the look of horror on reyna and hedge's faces before he promptly passed out. he thinks about apologizing for poisoning another friendship, thinking he ruined everything just because he let his control unravel and hurt someone. but reyna had forgiven him. there were other instances where things got out of hand, but nico had been forgiven and the entire purpose of his life now was trying to live a second time and get his own second chance for happiness.
so yeah. he gets it. he hears the way danny's voice chokes up and he listens to all of that and for a moment he continues keeping his face buried in his knees before he finally looks up. somehow danny crying is enough to snap him out of his own threat of tears, if only because he has to be the balance of the situation. ]
And then when the opportunity came, you took it and it didn't turn out the way you thought it would. Is that it? [ there's no ire to his tone, but there also isn't kindness yet. it's neutrality, mostly nico seeking to understand everything presented to him before making any judgments. ] ...I meant everything I said, too. I still think there is a possibility to make a second life better than your first so long as you work for it. As long as you're willing to change and try to do something better with it. That's...that's it. You can't have a second chance and not change how you lived the first time, and I'm sorry if telling you that the base components still being there made that harder to know how you wanted to live.
[ ...he frowns for a moment, trying to think how far he wants to take this. but he thinks, maybe, he can at least try this from a different angle. ]
Did I ever tell you about when Will accused me of being a murderer?
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it's scary to become attached to people. people who can act unpredictably--die, betray you, reject you...be hurt by you.
that last bit breaks him out of the self-loathing cycle just enough though. the tears stop and he just looks up, utterly bewildered. ]
He--what?
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anyway yeah that's what he thought, you dumb ghost. it's maybe another experiment in the ever-evolving process of "nico letting people see parts of him he doesn't want to talk about in order to help them", but it seems to work enough to at least try to get danny to calm down. there's a point to this, too, but first...you know. a story. ]
Mmhm. It was, like, right before we got here and he felt bad about it afterwards but totally true. [ he pauses to that. ] ...we were in the Underworld, on the way to Tartarus to rescue a friend. Another world of advice: while boat rides can be romantic, maybe not on the River of Pain. But we had to take that route to get to Tartarus to begin with. The thing is that when you're traveling on a river like that, it...speaks to you. It tries to turn your memories against you, makes it hard to think outside of your own misery and...you know Will. He's a healer, and I'm very much not. And the river said... "You’ve killed so many, Nico di Angelo. You're a murderer. You've killed so many. What’s a couple more?"
He tried to argue that he'd killed people, too. People who'd died because he couldn't heal them, and I thought that's all he meant. Obviously that wasn't true. He argued that he let me kill someone, and even when I said he wasn't responsible for my actions, he argued that, too. How he shouldn't have allowed me to let it happen.
[ hm..."So cavalier with life. You take it away so easily. You distribute death like a badge of pride. Even when you tell your boyfriend you love him, you give him a ring in the shape of a skull." ]
And then he said... "You don’t even feel bad about killing him, do you?" And even though I knew I did, part of me still wondered if Will and the river were right anyway. That I hadn't changed at all, and that I deserved to be there. To be punished for what I'd done.
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danny listens, patient. ]
...I'm guessing you and Will both decided otherwise later?
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but anyway. a hand comes up and kind of rubs at some of the faint scarring on his cheek like he's considering the answer. ]
Something like that. Once we got out of the river things were a lot easier to think about, and we fought about other stuff instead. [ wry. ] But yeah, it turned out fine. It's...I mean I did do those things. I did send Octavian straight to his death in some weird kind of murder-suicide that I orchestrated. And there's all of the monsters I've killed. And there are the things Will doesn't actually really know because I've been too scared to tell him because I always figured if he saw how I was, he'd leave. We've talked about it since then and I know it's...a lot less likely now. But the point I was trying to make is that I kind of get it. You act, or you say things, and you always worry about what's going to be too much and what's going to push people away. Even when you're fighting against your own nature and you're trying to figure out who you want to be and what you really are.
It's easy to default to what you know and what you're used to. It's a lot harder to try something different when you're not sure of what the results will be. Which...sort of sounds like where you are. Or I'm projecting, I don't know.
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...it sounds right.
[ righter than he'd even be able to articulate himself: that need to be in control of something, to break things because at least the outcome of that is predictable and understandable and entirely your own. It's not something he'd know how to put into words, or even fully understand in the first place. ]
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and now...they're here. ]
...I won't lie to you. It's very hard for me to know what I'm supposed to do about this. Your actions...hurt a lot of people. Including me. [ which normally he wouldn't acknowledge but considering danny saw how much he fell apart during reigen's trial there's no point pretending otherwise. ] And it was selfish to cover for this long because you were worried about losing the things you were building. Those were choices you still made.
But it's harder to be completely angry knowing you were asked to do this, and that saying no likely would've ended worse. Especially knowing that the moon wants us to murder each other and build up the distrust between ourselves and us and the public. It's not a fair position for anybody. And it's harder knowing...that. That you're in the position you're in of trying to learn and undo old habits.
[ he scrubs both of his hands over his eyes. ]
...did you tell Nimona yet?
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...I did.
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How badly did she react?
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Yeah, that sounds about right. [ mumbled. ] ...I can't guarantee she'll ever forgive you. But I can try to talk to her when she comes to me.
[ because he knows she will, because that's what happens when you're close to people, maybe. ]
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[ he's busy turning his attention back to danny, staring straight at him. ]
Did you have any inclination to kill Reigen prior to being told you had to?
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...I told her as much but I don't know that that makes much of a difference. He's still dead, after all.
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[ ... ]
Both of them mean a lot to both of us for similar reasons. I probably...should've been a little more mindful of the fact Sigrun had been killed, too, but we were only teammates and we didn't know that much about them. Reigen's someone who kind of saw so much about me, Nimona and Will and...he never judged us, you know? He actually kind of understood some things I haven't really been able to figure out. [ a pause. ] ...like why I hate my powers here, mostly. And Ace understood, too.
It's kind of one of those things where we had a lot of hope in these people, and it's something we're not used to, and now it's...they're gone, and we're trying to figure it out. I know you know this, I don't even know why I'm telling you this. [ probably because he hasn't really taken time to properly figure it all out outside of the initial burst of grief. ]
The good thing is we know we can bring them back. Otherwise there'd be absolutely no salvaging this.
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and there's nothing he can really say to this anyway. it's more just reiterating the state of things: how bad he fucked up and why, and what to do next to fix it. ]
...I know.
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...okay. So...what do you actually want to do now? Have you thought about that?
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What?
...you mean like here, or...in general? Philosophically?
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Uh. I kind of meant the former but now I'm also curious about the latter. You brought me here for a reason. You told Nimona before you told me. Where do you want to go now?
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[ he trails off, chewing on his lip hesitantly. as soon as the answer comes to him, he almost feels terrified of actually voicing it.
...I want to have more friends.
And then, with even more dawning horror, face starting to turn pink under a blush: ...I want to be cared about. ]
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...really? [ there's like zero judgment in the tone because again. the thing he is sensitive about. but he is obvious curious about that response. ]
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...I haven't had anything like that in over a decade. I forgot how...nice it could be. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I started to have it again.
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...I'm not going to say I completely get it, because it was only about five years for me. [ or seventy-five. ] But after my mom died and then after Bianca died, I didn't exactly have friends or people who cared about me either. It's one of those things you don't really think you need until someone forces it on you very annoyingly.
[ the image in his head seems to be of someone blonde...but not quite will. ]
It's really been that long, huh?
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