Nico POV
'I can't believe I said that to him!' Nico thought as he sat on a park bench thinking back to the party.
"I didn't have a right to take away his smile, fake or not." Nico held his face in his hands, one thing he hated more than moping over his own situation was dragging someone else down to his level.
Hazel had told him after the party about Leo seeming off. Nico brushed it off but when he heard about his sudden reclusive life style, that's when the guilt started to eat away at him. Nico then got up to pace, 'what if I went to see him? Maybe I could try and apollo-gize ( sorry, Apollo puns, my weakness)' Nico shook his head, 'no, he wouldn't forgive me so easily for taking his sanity. Crap, what the Hades do I do? Maybe I should ask Piper, I don't know her well but she does know Leo...'
A noise broke him from his thoughts, something like groans of pain and laughing. Nico started to walk over towards the noise to check it out. The group was all there, well all but Leo as expected, Nico hid behind a tree, afraid to approach them quite yet, call it what you will but, well, Nico is a little shy.
"Really Seaweed brain?"
'Annabeth's voice?' Nico watched as Annabeth rolled her eyes at the two jumbled up demigods on the ground in front of her, Jason and Percy that is.
Hazel and Frank came out from behind them, hand in hand, while Piper also approached them.
"Leo's still not with you?" Hazel asked cautiously.
"No, he's really worrying me." Piper sighed.
"Is there anything we can do to cheer him up? Like a new wrench or something?" Annabeth inquired.
"I've never seen him like this. He's always smiles, always laughs, always bad jokes, but I expect that from him, that's how he deals with problems, he makes them into jokes." Piper said silently, almost like a whisper, "he must have found a problem he can't laugh at."
Nico clenched his heart, 'Gods that hurt. Did I really do this to him? Shit, shit, shit! I need to find him, I can't let him keep this up.' and with that, Nico rushed back to Percy's apartment.
When Nico made it to the apartment, he was covered in sweat, and panting slightly; after-all, he did run the whole way. He caught his breath some, then knocked on the door.
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'No response,' as Nico expected, "Leo, are you there? It's me..."
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Nico was about to leave when he heard footsteps cautiously approach. The door opened slowly, "what the hell do you want?" Leo asked in a dark voice. From what he could see of him, Leo had on clothes that looked maybe a week old with wrinkles everywhere, like they were slept in too, his eyes were bloodshot, and his hair was disorderly, more than his usual style, the bags under his eyes emphasized the point. Nico gulped at the appearance of the once charismatic jokester as he took a weary step back.
"Leo, I want to talk to you."
"Why? Haven't you done enough?"
"I... I hate seeing you this way... You're scaring the others Leo... They're worried about you..."
Leo paused, he looked down, then slowly, he opened the door the rest of the way. When Nico entered, Leo quickly slammed the door shut.