Percico: Stories to Be Rewritten

"Percy...." Nico was standing in a meadow of lavender flowers, dark Greek style armor covering his muscular body. He was about twenty years old now, taller, and in the reflection of the small stream that separated him from the person across him he could have sworn at first glance was his father. Like an marble statue carved by the best craftsman, his skin gleamed in sweat, his breath coming out in heavy huffs like he had just ran through fire and brimstone, his greasy black hair tied back in a short ponytail. "Percy Jackson, please, listen to me."

The older boy was across from him, his black hair flowing in waves around his creamy tan skin, his armor stripped off and thrown to the side so he was stark naked in the full moon's glow. He knelt in the soft grass, a dagger in his hands with a something on the very tip of it. A mantary tail. "Nico, I have to..." He looked up at the Ghost King, his normal sparkle dying in is deep sea eyes. "You know how the story goes."

Nico shook his head. "Precious, please, there is always another way! We can find it! Together!" His voice sounded desperate, like a child's. " don't throw away your life to appease your father! Poseidon wouldn't want his own son's death to be in his name!"
Nico set one foot into the stream, daring to cross it to get to his best friend. He wasn't going to loose that one person he cared the most for in his life. Not again. He had lost too many in the past to let this happen in front of him. But as soon as his foot touched the water, Percy set the stream into a frenzy that forced him to step out and back away.

"Please, Nico.... Don't stop me." Raising the dagger in the air, he hesitated. He couldn't feel those dark auburn eyes stare into him, burring holes into his already scared skin. Then, he forced his hands to move, to stab himself in the chest.

But just before the blade could get close enough to pierce skin, Nico screamed across the small gap in a final effort to save his friend from himself.

"No! Percy!" No was on his knees, eye level with the defeated son of the sea god, pleading with him. Tears were forming in his eyes. "I can't lose you, too!" Percy stopped, looking up at Nico shocked. He stared at his friend, his half-cousin, his right hand in battle, the only one who stood by him when he needed someone the most, with hallow eyes that reminded Nico of the spirits he would call on for guidance. "Don't leave me here on this earth without you!" Nico screamed, his sobs catching in his throat as he tired to speak through them. "I-I- Percy, I-"

Percy's smile caught him off guard, silencing the poor son of Hades in shock. "I know Nico Di Angelo." Lifting the knife again, a tear escaped his eyes as he tried to keep the smile from fading from his lips. "I love you too." And as Nico watched in horror, Percy Jackson stabbed himself through the heart.

Nico bolted upright in his bed, screaming in horror at the nightmare that had he had fallen into. Looking around in a panic, he took deep breaths to calm himself down. He wasn't in the lavender field anymore, but in the Hades cabin safe in a black sheeted bed. The room's darkness enclosed around him like a security blanket as he forced himself to shake off the fear that was clouding his mind. That dream had been too real, too real for his liking.

Nico untangled himself from his covers, whipping off the cold sweat that was covering his body and making his boxers stick to his skin uncomfortably. He began to pace the cabin floor in frustration, the nightmare playing like a broken record over and over in his head. There were too many things that were horribly real, the dagger, the lavender field, the armor, everything! He remembered Grover taking them to the field when they were looking for a place for Percy and Annabeth to go on a picnic a few years back. Nico had always wandered back there when he wanted to be alone.Then there was the dagger. Last time Percy had him over to the Poseidon cabin, he had noticed the dagger in a glass case, made from the spear-tip of Odysseus' murder weapon. And the armor was hanging in his room, or at least his armor was. It was made specially by Hephaestus himself. Percy and Jason both had matching ones, theirs representing their fathers as well.