Chapter 4

Nico awoke in a panic, grasping for the memories of colors that he could not see. He hardly registered his now awake state; even though it was light out, everything held a dark tinge that made some objects too colorless to even distinguish. His breath came in strangled gasps, and he recalled that Percy was gone. Forever. He would never be able to see his soulmate again, and was confined to the hell that was losing the colors in his world.

He stumbled out of bed, vowing to attempt to do something productive, like helping the rest of the seven find the House of Hades. He managed to find a mirror, and discovered that he looked a mess. His hair was sticking up at odd angles, and ugly tear tracks stained his face. He could hardly see the details of his face in the mirror, his face a dark enough color to blur his features. He assumed that his face was red, as it certainly felt so.

With a shout of anger, Nico threw the mirror across the room as hard as he could, taking satisfaction in the sound of the glass shattering and the handle splintering with the impact.

He quickly grabbed a random shirt and pants, and tried his best to wipe away all evidence of his tears. Nico knew he had to carry on as though nothing was wrong. No one knew of his connection with Percy, and it needed to stay that way. The less the others suspected of his attraction to a man, the better things would be.

He slowly walked up towards the common area of the ship, attempting to prepare himself for contacting the others after Percy's death. He would have to tell them about the death of Percy, and hell, Annabeth, but not now. It would be better for them to have hope, than to completely destroy all of them. They still needed to save the world from Gaea, after all.

He stalked into the dining area with a scowl on his face, grabbing some food absentmindedly, although he felt sick to his stomach. The others were already in the room, and were oddly somber and quiet after the loss of two of their own.

Leo looked Nico up and down. "What, are you colorblind?" He joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Nico's eyes flew open at the comment. Was it really that obvious? Did Leo know? His mouth felt dry, and he couldn't swallow. He hardly felt that he could move.

He contorted his terrified look into a glare that had sent many people running from him in the past. Leo just raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Got a problem, Death-boy?"

"Yeah, I've got a problem. You." Nico growled out, pushing Leo out of the way and slamming him into the wall before nearly sprinting back to his room, leaving the others with baffled expressions on their faces.

Nico didn't know how he could have messed up so badly in such little time. All he knew was that his life was falling apart, he was nearly blind and kept tripping over everything, and Percy was dead.

He buried his head under a pillow and tried to block out his thoughts. He silently cursed the Gods, the Fates, and anyone who could possibly be responsible for all of the crap in his life. The pain of it all was so intense, he probably dug up some skeletons miles below him.

Tears resurfaced in his eyes, and he wished there was something, anything that could take the pain away. He didn't care about the quest anymore, he would gladly let Gaea destroy all of humanity if he could just be at peace. The rest of the people on the quest could do it alone. They didn't need Nico anyway.

A/N

I really love Leo, but I wanted to show the relationship between Leo and Nico and how Leo's joking manner could affect their interactions. I'm not trying to paint Leo as like evil or conniving and trying to give Nico pain, but he merely made a tasteless joke, like he sometimes did in canon. So anyway, please review! (This story is getting pretty popular too for some reason, so I hope I met your expectations.)