Chapter Text
∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘ 𖤐 𖤐 𖤐 ∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘
The war is over, and Nico is alone once again, alone in some meaningless graveyard.
The war is over, and the world is saved. Nico should be happy because Olympus is safe, the camps are safe, the underworld is safe. Still, Nico isn’t- isn’t anything. He just feels numb. What is left to do now that the war is over? Where is his place if not at the frontline?
He knows could stay at the camps. Well, he wouldn‘t be shunned like he once was, but still-
Sure most of the campers are thankful for what he did during the war, but that doesn‘t mean they would want him around? He‘s not even a hero, not like the seven are either way. He‘s just Nico. Just the boy that sleeps between gravestones and talks to the dead. Just creepy.
Gods he wouldn‘t want someone like himself around a summer camp either.
He shouldn‘t care, he shouldn‘t care what others think, he should stop with the self loathing. He‘s seventeen. Of course he cares, of course he hates himself.
He should do many things, though he won‘t return, that‘s set in stone, like the names on the gravestones all around him.
But where does a boy like him go.
He hasn‘t really made up his mind yet as he fades into the shadows.
The shadows swallow lost souls.
His soul is seventeen and lost in this far too big world. His soul is seventy, has seen it all and is ready to rest. The shadows swallow lost souls, they swallow inert ones. Their hunger truly is endless.
Still they won‘t touch Nico even though he is lost. No, after mere seconds they spit him back into the world of the living. Weirdly, he‘s not in the graveyard anymore.
∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘ 𖤐 𖤐 𖤐 ∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘
Nico has traveled to a rooftop. The evening sun has just gone down, the shadows who brought him here dance with the yellow glow of old streetlights. Their warmth reflects on the buildings, streets and bridges of the city.
The taller buildings and bridges make the skyline seem familiar, but then again it’s dark. Everything looks familiar if one squints hard enough. Nico doesnöt really care, so what he‘s landed himself in a foreign country once again. He’s lost, but he knows everything there is to being lost. Not a big deal.
He sit’s there, figuring out where he is that is a problem for future Nico. For now he can give himself time to drown in self-loathing.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t.
The rooftop gives him a perfect view of the city. Hazel would tell him to appreciate the beauty of the night. She’s right. Even though the water that glitters darkly in the distance may be the enemy and even though the sky glimmering with stars is Zeus’s domain. This night acknowledging their beauty feels right.
The world is beautiful and all Nico wants is to leave it far behind. Well, maybe all he wants is to leave behind the world of gods and monsters the world that scarred him beyond recognition. The war is over, maybe he can try to. Nobody needs him there.
This city is beautiful at night, he could stay here he imagines. Go to school again, but he hasn‘t been to school since he was like nine it’s not like he could keep up. Maybe he could work though? In one of the bars in this city below him. If the fates grant him such a peaceful life, he doesn‘t dare to hope.
As Nico dreams planes above rush through the sky, their engines humming a familiar song. Waves crash against the city. He imagines being a boy having grown up here, being normal.
Nico sits there for minutes and minutes stretch into hours. From up here everything seems so, so small. People rush home for dinner, but Nico can barley make out their forms. The cars on the road are like ants. And he imagines that he is one of them not half a god.
From up here the world glows in a warmer light, maybe Nico should stay here forever, never talk to another demigod again, never talk to another god.
To be a boy having a part time job in one of these pubs, cursing about the customers and the low tips. It’s a dream. Because who would hire someone like Nico? He has zero qualifications. Gods he isn‘t even a legal citizen if he thinks about it.
And who is he kidding, the fates would find him sooner or later. They seem to hate him as much as he hates them. Still, he can dream, this night he let’s himself dream.
Below the city turns tired as more and more people retreat into their home. And Nico is tired too, he has been tired for a long time but that has never mattered before, has it? Down below the beautiful city sleeps, and Nico has grown curious.
The sky is pitch black when he climbs down the fire escape. What country have the shadows brought him to. Where is he?
∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘ 𖤐 𖤐 𖤐 ∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘
Down here everything feels wrong, down here where the details aren’t smudged by distance and obscured by darkness. Wandering Nico passes street after street gliding into and out of shadows of streetlights. Though no matter how many crossings he passes they all feel wrong.
He wanders further, but the cars are old, too old. Their form is wrong, they don’t- they lack sharp edges.
His attention is caught by a pub he walks by, one just like the one in that distant dream of his. If he were a normal boy he would apply somewhere like here, and as he has nothing to do with his life he stops and reads over a menu. But something must be wrong because the beer is advertised for 22 cents.
Some drunkards come out of the pub and give him weird looks. Not that Nico isn‘t used to it. But he knows that it‘s best to keep walking.
He walks and walks. Passes more and more pubs and the weird stares only get weirder, some people even call after him. But Nico has fought monsters, a few drunks won‘t be his end.
He lingers in a neighborhood that clearly was built by Italian immigrants.
An old Italian song, escapes into the street. One of the kind his mother would listen to.
Mamma, son tanto felice, perché ritorno da te.
La mia canzone ti dice, ch'è il più bel sogno per me!
And somehow Nico can‘t stop listening either, he lingers below the open window. And eventually he sits below one of these ancient streetlights glancing up at the sky.
Mamma, solo per te la mia canzone vola.
Mamma, sarai con me, tu non sarai più sola!
Quanto ti voglio bene!
And even though his Italian is bad as can be, even though he barely understands a word, even though it‘s cold in the street, this feels like home. Nico doesn‘t ever want to leave that moment. The shadows dance and only sometimes the song is interrupted by the sound of jets.
Mamma! Ma la canzone mia più bella sei tu!
Sei tu la vita. E per la vita non ti lascio mai più!
But like everything good, the song comes to an end, all that is left is the sound of fighter jets drumming through the air. Like an old lullaby from his childhood the engines engulf him.
∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘ 𖤐 𖤐 𖤐 ∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘
He is sore when he wakes up the next morning, last night feels like a dream. However, it isn‘t unusual for Nico to crash during shadow travel and sleep in a foreign country. It‘s an inconvenience at best.
He‘s cold and sore and really all he wants is a Happy Meal. It‘s that kind of inconvenience.
Nico get‘s going. Walking through the streets in the light of day - some things had been of last night but- everything is wrong.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Not the Tarterus kind of wrong, but still deeply unsettling. This city is too familiar. And he realizes that-
He knows this city he knows those mountains on the horizon, of course he does, he‘s been here a thousand times. Except the skyscrapers the truly tall ones that usually characterize the view, they aren‘t here yet.
He‘s been here with Hazel. San Francisco. Everything is wrong.
The old cars are still old, the beer price from last night comes to mind and Nico wants to burry himself and cry. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
This is San Francisco, but not the San Francisco he knows.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
This is too familiar. Too foreign. He was born here, born in this time. He has been here, here in this city. Don‘t panic.
He picks up a newspaper. Just to confirm.
It’s Juli 7th 1942.
1942.
San Francisco is a grim place to be. A jet rushes through the sky and the faces of the people around him grow grim. War. America is at war.
Nico keeps walking. He won’t stop, where could he even go. He knows being lost. He’s spend weeks on the street in a foreign time at thirteen too. If you are lost keep moving.
The shadows call, and they promise to bring him anywhere. Anywhere but to the future. Anywhere but home.
All he can do however is wander forwards, he walks until his legs are numb until he collapses onto the cold floor.
And all he really wants is a Happy Meal.
∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘ 𖤐 𖤐 𖤐 ∘₊✧── 𖤐 ──✧₊∘