Okay, so now, everything is peachy for Nico. He's like some kind of mental mastermind. And now that you've got all that, you'll see exactly what Luke's part in this will be. And I think at the beginning of this fanfiction I said they'd all be normal by chapter 8, well, I lied. I want this to be a lot longer than I had when I first started writing. So yeah.

Also: Please please please please please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea sepleasepleaseplease please please please please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea sepleasepleaseplease please please please please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea sepleasepleaseplease please please please please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea sepleasepleaseplease please please please please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea sepleasepleaseplease please please please please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea sepleasepleaseplease don't forget to RE-FREAKING-VIEW! If I find out that you favorited and didn't review, I will track you down and choke you to death with chocolate chip cookies and stuffed narwhals. So serious. Dead serious in fact.

On with the chapter!

Chapter 8: Destruction

I skipped the next week of school. I know, I know, truancy is actually a crime and I'm going to have a hell of a lot of work to make up when I got back. But for now, all I wanted was to sit in bars and drink until I lost consciousness. I wanted to forget about that kiss with Nico. Gods! He was ruining my life without even being near me. I hadn't seen him since Saturday and now it was Friday and he'd called me a thousand times. I just… I couldn't. I liked knowing that he still wanted me, and I didn't want to ruin that want with my voice, or my laugh or my presence for that matter.

I was stuck in this haze, actually. The school had called my house, my mom had cried for hours, Paul had yelled and I had sat, just watching this crack on the wall get bigger and bigger. Soon our foundations were going to fall and there wouldn't be anything left except pain, broken bones and dust. I don't think either one of them called.

And when I was supposed to be showering, I'd sit there for literally hours without realizing it. The feeling of the water against my skin felt like death stabbing me all over and I hated it, but I deserved it for ruining everything in everyone's life, for holding her back. I mean, for holding everyone back. So I sat there and took the pain.

I missed 3 swim practices 2 meets and I hadn't actually swam in… I can't remember how long. But I didn't care because this tequila had a death grip on my heart and it was beating slow, and I liked the way it felt to be held under for way too long of a time. I don't know, it felt like I was finally drowning. Like, when I had been trying it didn't work, but as soon as I stopped caring all my dreams came true, to a point where I couldn't dream and anymore and I was loving it. Sick, huh.

For the first time, I walked into my bathroom, acting like I was about to shave, that's what I kept telling my conscience, and I even believed it until I felt the monster biting and nipping at my skin. Until I saw the blood drip down my arm and it was warm and welcome. I felt it too. It cut through this disgusting haze I was living in. I stung a little bit, it throbbed, it told me I was alive. I had a pulse, and blood, and I even felt it a little. I was still here.

A little.

I cut a little deeper with each slice. My skin tore open and my heart stopped at the sight. There was something under there, I was still here. I didn't want to be. I wanted my mother to hold me. Maybe she would if I ended up passed out in a pool. Of my blood. Maybe I'd swim in it.

Someone was knocking on my door.

"H-hold on!" I shouted. I turned on the water, rinsed off the razor, cleaned off my arm sloppily, and pulled my sleeve back down. The burn made my vision blur around the edges and it felt so good.

It was Nico.

He had slept, obviously. He was pale, but not sickly, like, almost green. His under eye circles weren't completely gone but they were only a light purple-ish color and he was wearing a black shirt with navy blue stripes and his jeans weren't black but dark gray. He still had bedroom hair, but he looked comfortable in the air.

"Hey." He said quietly. Quieter than usual. Meaning he wasn't completely okay, but getting there.

"Wha's up?" I tried not to slur my speech and I don't think he noticed that I was wasted.

"Why weren't you at school all week? Me and Rache had something to tell you." He said, walking back into my room and throwing himself face first into my bed, like he did when he was so pissed he couldn't even speak.

"You two finally got together?" I chuckled, feeling my arm throb, like the cuts were mocking me. Like they were saying I'd never be normal again, so I could stop with the façade.

"Ha ha. I actually need to talk to Riley, she was out Wednesday to Friday, stomach bug, you know I kinda like her."

"Yeah, I know. So what did you have to tell me?"

"We're planning a trip to Florida." He stated, like he did that type of stuff on a regular basis.

"Why?"

"Beaches are hot there right now. It's freaking frigid out here." (Did you recognize that? He said that it some earlier chapter! I'm so boss.)

"Um, okay." I was standing in the door of my bathroom and I could feel my warm blood dripping into my palm. It hurt like nobody's business, but at least I could feel it. I couldn't even bring myself to get all excited about Florida and its beaches and sexy girls, or the fact that on my first birthday we actually went down there and I took a picture with like… Minnie Mouse or something.

"Why aren't you excited? It's gonna be so boss! Hot girls, the water, hot girls! I'm only bring my closest buds. So basically you, Rachel, Hazel and Riley. I'm still thinking about taking the twins."

The cuts were burning, like… well like hell and all I wanted was to pour rubbing alcohol over them and feel the burn all the way in my bones, but Nico was here and my vision was getting cloudier and cloudier and I could barely see anything at all, not even Nico's hair and it was two times shiner than usual. My spine was shaking and my teeth were chattering and I could feel myself getting sleepier and sleepier. I was dreaming about swimming in this delicious red water that tasted like my soul. It was salty, bitter, it was a little sweet and spicy too. I was swimming, not drowning for once because the water was me and I was just sinking into myself and it felt good.

"Percy…" Nico started slowly. I couldn't see him anymore and my body weighed a thousand pounds and I couldn't hold myself up so I was using the walls, and they were closing in, so I dropped them before they crushed me up.

I was on the floor and my arm was on fire and usually I wanted water, but the way this fire felt, I liked it, so I only wanted more. I wish I'd cut a little deeper, and maybe this would've happened sooner, maybe it would've hurt more, maybe I'd have more blood to drown in and drink down. Maybe maybe maybe, all this was for nothing and I'd be damaged goods forever. Maybe maybe maybe I'd done all this to myself for no reason and I was leading everyone down this horrible path of destruction and no one would be saved. All these maybes and I wasn't focused on the fact that everything was as black as Nico's eyes around me and all I heard was him screaming:

"Percy!" and dialing on his iPhone and finally finally finally after all this carnage finally after all this destruction and ruin I was really truly honestly really truly honestly after I drank myself silly, popped so many pills it's not funny, banged so many girls I probably have a disease, really truly honestly after I cut too deeply I was finally finally finally enough to make someone notice me. I was finally enough for Nico to see that I didn't need anyone to help me.

I could end the pain myself.

_Drowning_

For a while everything was nothing. There was nothing and everything at the same time, like I was drowning and suffocating and breathing and floating while this black tendril wrapped around my chest and strangled the life out of me. It didn't hurt. It felt like something cold was walking across my skin and nibbling at my pores. It felt like I was eating my mom's blue chocolate chip cookies when I was twelve. It felt like Nico and I were joy riding in Hades's car again, it felt like I was building my life and destroying it at the same time. It felt like I was kissing Annabeth and watching her walk away from me for the last time.

And as I watched this, I realized what I had done.

I'd been happy, I had been the happiest a teenager can get with relatively good grades, I swam better than anyone in the state, I had the greatest friends, my mom was happy and successful and everything was perfect and I flushed it all away, washed it away with liquor and girls and smoke and pills and blood, and I don't know where it all went but I wanted it back. But I was over and done and I don't even know where the hell I went, so how am I supposed to get my life back? How am I supposed to make sure everyone around me knows I'm okay when I can't even remember how to be okay?

I woke up and everything was everything, where it was supposed to be, how it was supposed to be except nothing because everything was white and bright and there was beeping and sniffing and snoring and so much more that was killing my eyes and stabbing my skull and just all together freaking hurt.

My mother was sitting in a chair, her hair all ratty, her skin pale. Nico was spread out on the floor, and I was pretty sure the nurses had tried to make him get up and carry his ass home. Rachel was sitting in the chair next to my mother with Nico's head in her lap, stroking his hair absently. She looked like she was strung out, probably from staying up all night painting, and fanfictioning and worrying. Nico looked like himself, and I tried to stop staring at him, but I couldn't.

I hated this. I was still here, here and still breathing even though I'd put all of the people who cared through this hell. I didn't deserve to be here still.

And you want to know what got me: I cut one time and I end up hospitalized.

Nico P.O.V

I just wanted to see him. I wanted to see him smile again, and I wanted to know if he was okay, I wanted to know if he wanted to go to the beach with me and Rache and I wanted to know if he was sober or if he was sleeping or passed out. I wanted to know if he'd watched the latest episode of Adventure Time or if he'd just skipped out on it. I wanted to know if he'd been partying without me because if he had I'd be pretty pissed. I wanted to know.

So of course when he out of nowhere just passes out and I see blood just pooling around him I automatically know.

That he's gone freaking crazy.

I know that he cut too deep, I know that he didn't want to be on earth anymore, I know he wanted to leave, leave Rachel, Riley, his mom, school, swimming, me. Most importantly, he wanted to leave me. I know it's selfish but what the fuck do you expect from me? He's my best friend and has been since the beginning of forever. Did he think he could just end it like that? Did he think that he could get off so easily.

_Drowning_

I knew he was awake because the heart monitor started going crazy. I knew he was panicking because I opened my eyes and he was fidgeting like mad. I wanted him to squirm, I wanted to see him take in all the damage and destruction he'd caused. It was all his fault. All of this. It was his fault that we were in the hospital, his fault that I haven't really slept in months, it was his fault that I'd been listening to Ida Maria more and more to try and make myself happy, it was his fault I was so worried and shit that I hadn't had sex in like 2 months, and I'm the freaking man, so therefore, we all know something is wrong. It was his fault and I hated it and I wanted to make it better but I couldn't because he was way too far gone. He had drowned and he'd gone under and he wasn't going anywhere because there was no one left who could do anything for him except that nice lady behind the desk at the mental ward.

"Percy." I croaked. My voice was deep and raspy because I hadn't talked to anyone in 2 days. I'd given blood and I'd been poked and prodded and unconscious on the freaking floor for hours and I'd been waiting to talk to Percy fucking Jackson and now he was conscious so I could hear him.

"I-I'm sorry." He said immediately. His voice was flat and his eyes were closed and he looked way worse than usual, like me on a bad day, and it was literally painful to watch him like this.

"It's fine P-," I started, but his eyes snapped open and they were wild, and feral and just all together scarier than I'd ever seen them in my entire life.

"It's not! It's not! It's not okay because it's all down the drain. Everything, I'm going to quit swimming, heck I probably got kicked off the freaking team, I haven't been to any practices in like forever, and I screwed your sister and now you hate me, and I've been ignoring Rachel and Annabeth didn't want me, didn't need me and my mom doesn't care and Paul is such a douche bag that can do no freaking wrong and it freaking sucks because if you really want to know, he's not here because he's the one who keeps putting it in my face. All the alcohol, all of the pills, he keeps buying it and buying it and he's doing it on freaking purpose I know. I'm probably failing junior year right now, and it's this early in this semester, I drank literally all week, I missed school on purpose so I could sit around at bars and pick up sluts and get drunk. You know I've had more sex in the past week than I ever did in my entire life? It's ridiculous I hope I don't have some kind of disease, seriously. I mean, I've tried drugs before. We've smoked joints and did acid and I've popped pills, but this week, with these girls, I mean dude- they were hot and they did coke and meth and- I don't know I was just trying to get it all out. I was trying to drown out all this… bullshit, y'know? When you feel like no one gives two flying fucks and you just want to either climb under a rock and die or scream your head off to make someone look you in the eye and tell you that they can freaking hear you or something. I want someone to actually tell me, let me hear them say that they know that I feel like shit and that they want to… listen? Or… I- I don't- you don't want to hear my shit, do you? You think I'm apeshit crazy." He ground out, his voice was raw and he sounded like every breath hurt and ached but he kept ripping holes in the sky to make sure that I heard every sentence, every word, every syllable, every letter.

He wanted to be heard and I hadn't been listening. He shouldn't have had to use words, especially not lying in a freaking hospital bed, I should've just looked at him and known that he just needed someone to listen or something or just… give him a hug? And not one of those wimpy guy-one-shouldered-pat-on-the-back-handshake things that we always do. I'm talking about a full blown squeeze-the-living-shit-out-of-your-suicidal-best-friend-because-he-freaking-needs-it kind of hugs.

"I'm sorry. I'm a sorry ass best friend then, if you feel like you screamed directly in my fucking face and I didn't hear shit! I'm sorry, I should be the one who is sorry, the one who's sitting in the hospital, because you beat the shit outta me! Because I would let you, the gods know I would let you if that made you feel better, if that brought you out of this… hole I would gladly let you beat me the fuck up. I'd let you scream at me and I would do it happily, Percy. Just… please, do this for me."

"Do… what?" he asked skeptically, though I knew he somehow understood what I was saying.

"I need you to go to… therapy? I guess. I mean, I know you said you don't need it, but I need it. I really do. I just want to be able to know that you're not gonna pull this bullshit again. I mean, dude, you're the man." I laughed at the end, trying to make him feel better.

Like we were rebuilding after the demolition. After the destruction that is Percy freaking Jackson.

I kind of feel like that last line is a little deeper than you might think. I know in one chapter Percy said he used to be Percy freaking Jackson and he didn't know where that guy went. I feel like Nico is kind of saying, "Well hell, he never left. He was just… becoming himself?" like, maybe… I don't know like Percy freaking Jackson wasn't really Percy, so we had to go through this whole fucked up break everything stage so he could realize that he's still himself, just… a little more grown up. You guys probably think I'm psycho , but… it just fits for me. Yeah. Okay, so review please!