[And Hiro nails the problem of the whole thing. "I'm not giving up on you." Nico almost wants to laugh. A bitter, broken shell of a laugh that should've held all the merriment in the world, but it wouldn't. He can count on two hands the amount of people who didn't give up on him. The ones who did, the ones who took one look at this bedraggled kid and thought that he was beyond saving, beyond simple acts of kindness, someone to give up and toss aside? Those are countless, and he'd faced them all alone for a long time.
He almost wants the other teenager to give up on him. On the other hand, Nico has a feeling that if Hiro does and proves him right, that everyone he wants to care about will leave him after finding out the entirety of who he is, all of that progress he's made on mending his heart might be completely undone. There's only so much he can take before he shatters so completely that he just can't heal from it. Tartarus did that once, brought him to the brink of shattering permanently, and, yes, there's something in Nico that will always be broken. Something that'll never be fixed for as long as he lives. But he's not shattered, not yet. He can still mend.
Somewhere along the way, though, without even realizing it, Hiro became one of those people Nico knows he can't lose like that. He didn't want that to happen, but, well, there's nothing he can really do about it now. He's dug his own grave, and he'll just have to hope it doesn't kill him in the end.
As for trusting himself...it's not that he doesn't. It's more that he knows that he can't always be there, even if it's the moment he's needed most. Nico's almost gotten Hazel killed once before. He's been pushed to exhaustion again and again, and couldn't help Reyna when she needed him most at points during the long trek back to Camp Half-Blood with the Athena Parthenos because of his constant pushing. It doesn't help that when Nico messes up, it's never pretty. It's usually traumatizing and might even get someone killed in the end. That's what it means to be a child of the Underworld.
None of those emotions and thoughts show on his face, though. This isn't the time nor place for that avalanche of emotional baggage. Not that Hiro's words don't penetrate. They do, they really, truly do. But that doesn't mean Hiro's convinced Nico.
So. He rolls his eyes in slight exasperation.]
You guess? You know I'm right. You have to get some kind of weapon blessed in order to actually kill anything undead. Of the two of us, I'm the only one with a natural ability to destroy anything undead with any weapon I use.
jesus fuck i'm so sorry for all of this introversion, but nico had a lot of feelings
He almost wants the other teenager to give up on him. On the other hand, Nico has a feeling that if Hiro does and proves him right, that everyone he wants to care about will leave him after finding out the entirety of who he is, all of that progress he's made on mending his heart might be completely undone. There's only so much he can take before he shatters so completely that he just can't heal from it. Tartarus did that once, brought him to the brink of shattering permanently, and, yes, there's something in Nico that will always be broken. Something that'll never be fixed for as long as he lives. But he's not shattered, not yet. He can still mend.
Somewhere along the way, though, without even realizing it, Hiro became one of those people Nico knows he can't lose like that. He didn't want that to happen, but, well, there's nothing he can really do about it now. He's dug his own grave, and he'll just have to hope it doesn't kill him in the end.
As for trusting himself...it's not that he doesn't. It's more that he knows that he can't always be there, even if it's the moment he's needed most. Nico's almost gotten Hazel killed once before. He's been pushed to exhaustion again and again, and couldn't help Reyna when she needed him most at points during the long trek back to Camp Half-Blood with the Athena Parthenos because of his constant pushing. It doesn't help that when Nico messes up, it's never pretty. It's usually traumatizing and might even get someone killed in the end. That's what it means to be a child of the Underworld.
None of those emotions and thoughts show on his face, though. This isn't the time nor place for that avalanche of emotional baggage. Not that Hiro's words don't penetrate. They do, they really, truly do. But that doesn't mean Hiro's convinced Nico.
So. He rolls his eyes in slight exasperation.]
You guess? You know I'm right. You have to get some kind of weapon blessed in order to actually kill anything undead. Of the two of us, I'm the only one with a natural ability to destroy anything undead with any weapon I use.