Author's Note: Originally, I wasn't gonna post this, 'cause I thought this was embarrassing. Oh, well, I hope you enjoy this. I came up with this idea in the middle of the night, but I think when I woke up, the dramatic juice was gone. So sorry about that. I'm trying to write a tragedy fic, and finally! My first one-shot.

I hope it's not too late:))

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Seriously, I'm a girl and not Rick Riordan.

:))

"Nico, man, I...we seriously need to talk." Percy said, scratching the back of his head as he sat on the ground. He grasped a seemingly empty black jar, almost like Pandora's jar, with Greek designs etched on the surface. Percy ran his fingers on the cold surface, trying to warm the dark object.

He stood. "Look, I...I'm not very good at people, not that I'm not good at talking but, I...was never good at noticing stuff, you know." he sighed. "A lot of people call me oblivious, and yeah, it's true. I just wasn't really good at reading emotions, unlike Thalia, Annabeth, especially Grover. You're good at reading emotions too, right?"

The stillness of the air answered him, and Percy caught his breathe.

"Yeah, you probably were, but who knows? Children of Hades are so mysterious." Percy chuckled. "I don't think I would figure you out even if I was Grover, and he has all those empathy powers." Percy walked through the wreckage of a cabin, passing walls of black steel. A charred photo lay in the ruins, which Percy picks up.

"Still, I'm sorry for not noticing." Percy stared at the photo as tears ran down his cheek.

Flashback:

"Percy! Help!" Nico yelled as hundreds of gegenes, Gaea's children, rushed towards him. His face was covered in bruises, his aviator jacket tattered, and his body was tired from summoning all those skeleton warriors, but still, monsters came.

"Nico! I'm coming!" Yet the sound of Percy's voice shocks him, as always. Percy rushes in front of him, and immediately turns the first twenty monsters into dust. Nico just looks in awe.

"Thanks..." was all he could say before Percy jerks him away.

"No time, let's go!" Percy yelled as they ran.

The whole camp was in flames, and demigods ran around, trying to save themselves. Arrows were fired, swords were swung, but monsters continue to destroy everything. Nico was naturally pessimistic, but even Percy could decipher that all hope is lost.

"Perseus Jackson." Boomed a voice. Percy and Nico looked up, and Polybotes stood before them. He chuckled as he saw the hopeless expression in their faces.

"You could've seen the world after this. So glorious! But now, you must pay." The giant raised his staff, green poison dripping off it. Percy gripped his sword as the giant got ready to kill him.

Until...

"No!" Nico screamed, and yanked him arm free from Percy.

"Nico! What are you doing?" He looked as Nico ran in front of him. He didn't know what he was thinking, but Nico couldn't bear to see his hero, the one who always saved him, the one he looked up to, crumbling in front of this giant. He closed his eyes just as the poisoned staff plunged deep in his shoulder.

He screams.

"No!" Percy tried to stop him, but he couldn't. The giant chuckled in amusement.

"So, You wish to meet your death first, son of Hades?" the giant taunted. Nico looked up to him, scarred, bleeding, his skin burning from the poison, but with a look of determination on his face.

"No, I reserved a spot just for you in Tartarus." He growled as he raised his own sword, the Stygian black iron cackling with power. He yelled defiantly, and struck the ground with his sword.

"What is happening?" the giant yelled just as the ground cracked open, releasing hundreds of skeletons and damned souls. Blackness covered the landscape as Nico yelled, and Gaea's minions were struck with fear, trying to run away before dissolving in a pile of dust.

Nico turned to Percy, who was standing in the middle, stunned.

"Go. NOW!" He yelled. "But.." Percy tried to counter, but the look on Nico's face said otherwise. He turned and ran for cover just as the whole place exploded in black light.

~oOo~

"So, I was thinking that, maybe I didn't gave you enough leverage..." Percy wiped his nose as he hold on to the photo.

"I always trusted you, Neeks. Really, I...I always thought we were friends." Percy hugged his jar. "When we first met, I really didn't notice you that much. I was so intent on saving Annabeth...and I'm sorry." He sighed. "You were annoying when you were ten, did you know that?"

He stared up towards the blackened sky, and down to the ground littered with corpses and lost weapons. The big house, the place were Percy has so many memories, were now nothing but a skeleton of his past, the paint turned into black charcoal.

"I almost turned you into wolf chow." Percy smiled as he traced the face of a skeleton on his jar. "I couldn't have thought that you were the same guy I saw in the field that day. I guess that's why they call me Seaweed brain."

~oOo~

"Hurry! His blood is running low! Get me some nectar, NOW!" The Apollo kids frantically run around, trying to save the fallen half-blood lying on the bed. But the half-blood in question didn't care, he knew he was dying. he's the ghost king after all.

"Nico." Percy sat beside him, his face a mixture of confusion, worry, awe, and sadness. Nico looked at the hero he has always dreamed of, until now.

"Percy...I...I'm sorry, I never meant to ignore you.." he started saying, but Percy shushes him.

"Seriously, Nico, you don't need to explain. You saved my life, really...just." Percy stuttered.

"No, it wasn't that I don't want to tell you...I couldn't. Jason, he knew..." Nico was feeling weaker by the minute, and the rotting skin in his shoulder isn't making his death less painful.

"I love you, Percy." Nico blurted out as tears fell on his cheek.

"Nico..you really don't need..."

"No, Percy. I'm IN love with you." Nico gasped. The intensity of the situation was nothing Nico imagined. Percy started to cry, tears falling into Nico's bed.

"You are my hero, Percy." Nico felt ridiculous, but if he would have a death wish, he would at least want to be free of his secret.

Percy gripped his hand tighter, his gaze softening.

"No, Neeks, YOU are my hero."

~oOo~

Percy stood on the beach, looking through the horizon.

"I really don't know what to say, Neeks. I'm so stupid. I didn't even notice it." He sniffed and opened the lid of the jar. "I hope you're happy were you are...but I'm sure you'll be fine. You are the Ghost King."

He emptied its contents, ashes, into the sea. He closed his eyes, and willed it to go further into the ocean. Giant waves carressed the blackened shore, and Percy let a single tear run down his cheek.

"I...I just wanted to say that I'm sorry...I'm sorry for leaving you all alone in this camp...I'm sorry..I wasn't the hero you deserved." Percy smiled, his usual, lopsided grin, tears staining his cheeks.

"I'm sorry for not noticing."

he turned towards the black landscape, scarred and destroyed by the lost war. The shadows shifted and flickered as the sun set, as if their own way of saying...

It's okay...

~oOo~

Review? Anyone? No?