timeshares | [Sandboxing/Voice testing/Thread continuations]

I can't say I was expecting company. What's one dead demi-god right now, right? Worth even less than we are alive.

I should have guessed about paperwork.

[And leaves it at that. Even Luke is not going to talk TOO MUCH shit about Hades in his own realm. He throws the paper ball and it vanishes as it hits the ground, smoothing back out on the table, all the fields empty again.]

...

It hasn't been an hour, has it?

[ Nico pads a little closer, his footsteps soft but still more solid than most other sounds down here. He considers the massive stack in front of them thoughtfully. ]

Used to be worse before Daedalus helped clean things up. But we had some hiccups.

[ He shoves both hands into the pockets of his jacket. Not the aviator jacket Luke saw him in before, but a similar design. ]

No. Couple years.

[There was a thought- an important and a big one.

And then a record scratch.]

Wait? This used to be worse?

Labyrinthine.

[ He smiles grimly at that. ]

You got caught at a bad time though. Doors of Death were open for a while, snarled everything up.

[There's something really unsettling about suddenly being really REALLY grateful for having indirectly caused the ancient inventor's death...

But then the rest...]

...

That one was NOT me.

I know it wasn't. Though I hate to see what you'd have done if Gaea could have resurrected you.

[ He stops at that to watch Luke's reaction. ]

[The expression is mixed. Relief at this not being an interrogation visit was the first and plainest.

Gaea... mother of the titans, the earth herself...

Were the gods fighting amongst themselves again? (had ANYTHING changed?) Or did the near rebirth and defeat of her son cause her to stir?

Looking at the stacks of paperwork he could hardly read... could he say he wouldn't have taken the offer, even if it was just to betray her?

He's silent a long moment, staring at not much of anything. Finally, he takes another sheet from the nearest stack.]

I couldn't 'handle' a Titan. I'm not sure there would be any choice besides "what she told me to do."

[ The fact that Luke admits that, doesn't seem to be eager to claw his way back to life and cause mayhem ... Nico wasn't really expecting Luke to, he admits, but that quiet response undoes a knot in his shoulders all the same. Now they might actually be able to talk.

... Now, he feel slightly more inclined to help. He starts by leaning up to take a page or two off the top of one of those piles. ]

No, probably not. They're no fun at all.

[ Was that a joke? His tone is awfully dry. ]

[More than a little surprise and a bit of wariness crosses the spirit's face at Nico's actions. None of this was going like he would have guessed...]

Heh... Not going to argue there.

[The tone was dry and... Nico wasn't someone he KNEW. Had the General's first mission not failed, it might have been different...]

With the past tense, I'd assume the Doors are closed. Still dealing with her?

[ Nico has too many feelings about prophecies dicking half-bloods over to hold too much of a grudge, even for someone who tried to kill Percy like five times. And not a small amount of sympathy for anyone involved with titans, however willingly. He'd made mistakes too.

So, he puts down a couple simpler forms in front of Luke, these mercifully written in actual Greek. ]

No. We put her back to sleep again - for another millennium at least. Took a lot to do it, though.

[He... didn't even know they were there. But the welcoming, familiar and most of all, immobile lettering was amazing. Oasis like this EXIST... there might even be fully ancient greek copies...]

Hey... uh.... thanks.

[Then...]

So I probably don't have any right to even ask this... but... Are, ah... they. [Okay? Of course not. There's no lack of bitterness to answer that.] How are they doing?

[ He snorts a little. Partly because Luke, of all people, asking him about them is a bit ludicrous ... and partly because, well. Percy is Percy, even now. ]

Percy and Annabeth are off to live in the Roman camp for a while, and just about everyone's going back and forth a lot. Also, there's a huge betting pool on when they're gonna get engaged.

[ His expression crooks faintly, almost a smile. Some private internal joke. ]

So, things are going unusually well.

[So when you betray one of your oldest friends in horrifying, terrible ways more than once, and try to kill the other guy some number of times... ... and they stupidly trust you anyway when you absolutely need them to... eh. You think about them now and then.]

Wait ... Live where?

Edited 2015-07-26 03:28 (UTC)

Roman camp.

[ He pauses, frowning a little. He'd known nothing about it until it had suddenly popped up on everyone's radar, but he'd thought that perhaps some of the older campers might have heard of it. Clearly not the case. ]

... I guess you didn't know about them either, huh.

I have a half-sister there. Daughter of Pluto.

[He shakes his head after a moment's thought. A half smile twists his lips.]

I wouldn't have turned down the extra help, if I did. Unless the Roman Olympians are better parents...

[His tone was plainly doubtful.]

[ Another snort. They both know too well how that goes. ]

No, not especially. But the community's ... different. More room for families. College. Non-half-blood descendants living with them as well.

[Luke... doesn't say anything to that. He would seem absorbed in the paperwork. The second page was almost done, his own Greek lettering tight, small and slanted. ... But the expression on his face was a complicated one... Some mix of grief and anger, edged by an old childhood fear.

Even WITH a situation like that... it's not like he could have gotten his mother there. (If he wanted to. DID he want to?) It's not like he'd have been let out of camp to try. ... Or that his father would help. If he wasn't important enough for a satyr, then what were the odds of a broken, discarded mortal woman?

.. It didn't matter anyway, now.]

Edited 2015-07-26 10:48 (UTC)

Yeah?

[There's no air for a spirit to sigh. But there's something of a blurring around the edges as the other half-blood seems to calm himself down.]

So who's even left? You're not there now. [The statement has the edge of a question.]

[ Mothers getting dicked over by immortals: another thing Nico can absolutely sympathize with. How different would his own life had been if he, his sister, and his mother had been allowed to live in the Roman camp? ... Probably not much, given that prophecy. But it's a nice image all the same. Nico mostly remembers the modern world, though, so he isn't sure he would have enjoyed growing up in the 40s.

And that question... He's not sure how much to say. There were casualties, of course. But perhaps none that Luke would recognize. And certainly... ]

Most lived through it. A lot more than yours.

[ Still artfully avoiding the question of why he's here and not above. ]

[It seems to work... Luke glides over it as well.]

Touche.

[There was no remorse or regret. Not there.

He would regret the decisions he made, how he'd lost control with failure after failure and how it spun it that far out.

But not the war. Not the cause. Not the heroes that died beside him.]

I was talking about choosing to move there... But that answers a lot too.

[ He shifts a bit at that. Could he live in the Roman camp if he wanted to? Certainly - he'd been a go between long enough that he's used to it. Still a go between when he visits his sister. But... There's at least one reason to stay close to the Greek side when he can. ]

Sure. But Will is in the Greek camp. He gets grumpy if I'm gone too long.

[ Maybe the name rings a bell, maybe it doesn't. Will Solace, son of Apollo, one of the healers, and actively on Percy's side during Luke's conflict. Gay as hell. Literally, given the wistful way Nico's mouth twists. He's still not 100% casual about this with the living, even with Jason's badgering... But moving on from Percy to a boyfriend of his own site has helped.

Besides, Nico always was better at talking to dead people. ]

Will... Apollo, right? We hosted him for a few days. [The last offered by way of an explanation... but there were honestly few of that era that he hadn't kept up with before he betrayed them, or that he could have been regarded as a friend of.]

Well, well... [And then... there's an expression ... Nico hadn't seen before. Bright, amiable. A little bit of the wicked mischief most sons of Hermes were known for showing.

His memory of the healer was far, FAR younger, but ... There was nothing anyone in Camp Half-Blood liked more than romantic gossip. Life was far, far too short not to enjoy any way it came.]

So another happy couple. Next you'll tell me Thalia found someone Artemis didn't smite on sight.

[ Now Nico flushes a little; that breath of pink in his face might just be the only colorful thing in this part of the Underworld. Of course he knows that romance gossip is huge in camp - hadn't he just mentioned the Percabeth betting pool? - but suddenly being the subject of it, after assuming he would never, ever find anyone himself.

Yep. Blushing. And a little stammering. ]

So - you know him. Good. Uh. [ He's lovely, like the day to Nico's night, something he hadn't at all gotten used to yet - ] He's nice.

... I think Thalia's about the same.

[He would, if he thought about it, had a couple million feelings about the news about Thalia. Much like the news about Annabeth.

Fortunately, there was something nostalgic and frankly fun RIGHT THERE to focus on. He hasn't had any good gossip and the time to enjoy it IN YEARS.

Luke pushes himself up to sit on the edge of his desk (careful of the stacks of paperwork waiting) and sets his elbows on his knees, the PICTURE of attentive.]

Just nice? Come on. Surely there's more than that.

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