NPOV

"Nath, Nath listan to me!" 

Nathan marches past me with his fingers knotted into his shaggy brown hair. Tears of frustration sting in his pained eyes.

"I didn't know he'd be here, you have to believe me!" I plead as he turns himself away from me. 

His hands fist tighter and tighter into the brown strands as he looks up at the plain white ceiling of the music school. His face is screwed up in agony as more tears flow down his cheeks. For a moment I'm scared he'll pull out every hair on his head when he whirls back towards me with eyes darker than I've ever seen them before. 

"Why do you always keep hurting me?" His voice is graveled with an emotion beyond my understanding. I take a step forwards in an attempt to get closer to him, comfort him but he immediately pulls back from my touch. 

"His car is in the parking lot, anyone with eyes would've seen that!" there's spit bubbling in the corner of his mouth. A red flush of anger taints his face.

"You lied to me, you thought you could fool me. Everyone always thinks they can fool me." His breathing is getting deeper and faster. I shake my head with a pale face.

"I didn't even see Will. He must've dropped by to pick up his sister," I say.

"don't lie to me!" Nath roars. 

A surge of anger flares through my body and heats up every inch of my limbs. My fingers itch from the warmth spreading in them. I wrap them up into fists.

"I am not, lying." I say without a single waver in my voice. 

"Oh please!" Nath yells dramatically into the empty hall, "I drove by to check up on you. Out of concern for you but the only one I should've been concerned about is me!" He slams his hand against his chest, the sound echoes slightly against the old walls, "you tried to trick me again." 

The little spark in me catches fire.

"I'm the one who tricks people?!" my voice rises. 

Nath's eyes grow smaller than chickpeas. He stands a few steps away from me on the checkered tiles, "What is that supposed to mean?" He asks as he slowly inches towards me. His feet stop on black. 

I exhale a hot breath of air, burn up from the inside out as I meet his dark gaze. 

"I'm telling you that I'm not lying. When you walked up to me at that tiny window, I was watching Summer, his little sister. I had no idea he was waiting on the parking lot for her. I didn't know he was here," I explain for the one hundredth time. 

Nath stays unmoving for a moment, his hair a mess, his clothes all fumbled... He looks like a cornered animal instead of the charming boy who asked my number in the supermarket a few ages ago. 

I don't recognize him in the gleam of the light. 

His eyes dart over me as his breath quickens. "I'm going to report him," he brings out quietly. 

My insides freeze over. 

"W-what?" 

He walks past me in a bow, towards the stairs. 

"He'll never leave you alone otherwise." 

I hurry after him with a throbbing heart, "Wait, Nath!" 

"I warned you, you didn't listen!" he says as he rushes down the steps.

"Nath!" I grab him by his arm to stop him mid-stairs. 

He whirls back to me, still a few inches taller even though he's standing on a lower step. There's a craze in his eyes that makes my stomach shrivel up at the sight of them. 

"Please don't report him." There's an undeniable crack in my voice, "he didn't do anything." 

Angered tears well up in Nathan's eyes. 

"You really don't see it, do you?" he grits out.

I slowly release my fingers from where they were holding him. 

"He didn't do anything." I repeat, stronger this time, "you did." 

My face already starts tingling in anticipation for the blow that's surely to come. 

"Take that back." he grips the collar of my shirt and pulls me towards him. Our noses nearly bump against each other as I drawn into the poisonous green seas before me. I can feel his hot breath on my cheeks. Every edge, every line, carved deeper with rage. I swallow thickly. 

"I thought you only wanted to hear the truth," I whisper hoarsely. 

His fingers grip tighter, his knuckles colour white. All blood leaves his face as fury and fear flickers in every shade over his expression. For a second or two, neither of us dare to breath in or out. 

"I'm going to go," he says in a broken voice as his fingers slowly unravel from the cloth. His shaking hands hover above my fumbled shirt before dropping to his side again. His eyes drop down. He turns back around but can't find the will in himself to take another step forwards. 

"He should've stayed dead when he had the chance." 

He clenches his hands into fists. His shoulders tense up like balls of marble as he takes another shaky inhale of breath.

"He's going to regret ever rising from his grave." 

He turns around to face me. I shake my head feverishly, "No, Nath, don't." 

My stomach itches from all the cuts and bruises, old and new, healed and scarred. The longer I'm trapped in his gaze, the harder it gets to ignore. I rub my hand against my side. 

"Please Nath just let him be, I'll do anything you want just leave him out of it, please!" 

He ignores me as he marches further down the stairs. 

"Nath, hey! Nath stop it, Nath!" 

He pushes his hands against his ears and squeezes his eyes closed. I race after him.

"Leave him out of it, hey, listen to me!" 

With an animalistic scream, Nathan whips around and grabs me by my neck. The ground falls away from my feet as he slams me in a spin against the wall. The breath gets knocked out of my lungs as my head makes contact with the white plaster. I try to gasp for air but only a raspy sound leaves my lips as Nath's hands unwrap from my throat. My eyes fall closed.

I try to put down my foot, try to grasp the railing with my hands but the whole world slides away from my reach. I can only hear my own heartbeat thundering in my chest in that split second, I slipped.

His glowing eyes move past me in a haze as my back clashes against the sharp edge of one of the steps. I don't even have the air in my lungs to cry out. 

"Nico!"

I tumble backwards, the ceiling rolls over me. The lights flicker in my eyes before I clash down onto my shoulder with a sickening crack. A blistering hot pain shoots up from my shoulder blade and paralyses every muscle in my arm. My face is glowing against the cold tiles, a string of salvia drips down my lips. The effort to blink open my eyes is almost nauseating. 

"Oh God, oh god!" Boots race down the stairs before skidding to a stop before me. I try to turn my head towards him but an agonizing pain flares up from my spine so I quickly stop budging. I feel my cheeks getting wetter but it doesn't register in my brain that I'm crying. 

An unbearable headache splits my skull open and hazes every thought in my mind. The colours around me grow sharper, until they're piercing through my eyes. I close them slowly. I breath in some gurgling breaths, a strong metallic taste fills my mouth. 

"Nico, oh my God Nico!"

Nath falls to his knees, his hands dabble in a frenzy over my chest. He scoops one hand underneath the small of my back and I cry out in agony. Tears dangle on my jaw. He pulls his shaking arm back. My whole stomach churns from pain even long after the movement. 

"Okay, okay you're fine, you're fine, you hear me? You're fine." 

I open my eyes to look at him but only flashes and vague outlines seep in. His hand scoops up my cheek.

"Nico?" 

The pounding pain in my shoulder is like a second heartbeat, hot underneath my skin and dulling all the sounds around me. My head is impossibly heavy to lift. 

"Nico?!" He calls out frantically and slaps my cheek. I try to answer him but only a weak moan and a thick drop of red rolls past my lips. His gaze slides from my face to the growing puddle around my head. His mouth widens, his eyes shrink into distant green dots as he clasps a hand over his face to smother his wails. His whole body pitches forwards as tears spring into his eyes. 

"Oh no no no no no," he furiously breaths in and out, so fast, his lungs might explode. 

His hands linger on the side of my head before pulling back violently. 

"no no no no!" he howls more desperately now. I try to keep my eyes open but it's like there's lead in my lashes. A blur of black swims in and out of my vision. My fingers tingle harder and harder with every drip of blood that flows out of my body. 

Nath scrambles back onto his feet, stains of red on his jeans. Faintly I realize it's mine. 

He's shaking so badly, he almost drops his phone onto the ground. 

My eyes flutter open and closed and open and closed.

"Dad," his trembling voice echoes everywhere around me, "dad, I fucked up. I fucked up dad, you need to help me. Please. You need to help me."

I try to swallow down the bile in my mouth. Dark spots muddle my vision until it's almost completely gone.

"C-call am...ambulance," I bring out between shallow breaths. 

"No, no." Nath shakes his head, one hand clasped around the phone in a death grip. I can hear Kurt's confused voice babbling on the other side of it but I can't make out any words. 

"Kurt... k-help," 

Nath lays his hand over my mouth, smudging blood all over my lips. He barely puts any pressure on it but it still is impossible to breath. I want to pull back from his revolting touch but the pounding in my shoulder already worsens with just the idea of moving again. 

The pain in my back is mind-numbing, I bite my lip to not screech out in anguish as Nath tries to move me a second time. A white hot flash melts my brain away and a scream is ripped from my throat. He pulls his hands back just as quick as he laid them on me. More boiling tears flow from my eyes.

"Shit shit fuck!" he curses, "I can't move him! I can't move him dad!" he sobs in panic, "he's going to run his shitty little mouth and I'll end up behind bars!" 

Nath's voice distorts into one high pitched tune as my head lolls to the side. When he notices my drooping eyes, his hands fly towards me in hysteria. His pale lips are shouting orders while his hands fumble around but I can't even feel his fingers on my cheeks anymore. It's like little cold tingles of snowflakes melting on my blazing skin, they're barely there. Tears plunge down from his red eyes before he pushes his phone back into his pocket and bolts towards the door. Through a thickening cloud of black, I see his boots slam against the tiles. 

A blinding white light falls into my face before the door slams closed again and I'm shrouded in the smothering silence of the music school. No faint whines from clarinets or opera singing, only my harsh breathing, condensing against the floor underneath me. I slide my palm over the cold tiles. 

"Help," my voice is so faint, my own ears didn't catch it. My wet fingers dabble over the empty pocket on my jeans. They wring at the cloth of my pants and shake harder at the nothingness they find inside. 

I try not to burst out in a tsunami of tears when I realize my phone is still at home, shattered into a million pieces.  

"Will," I shakily breath in. The tears burn my skin away with the memory of him. A warmth settles in my stomach at the image of his kind smile before wrenching into the most unbearable pain in my chest. 

Tears erupt from my eyes as I try to lift my upper body up. I slither with my legs through the shallow layer of sticky red, my arms wrapped around the railing of the stairs as I pull myself into a sitting position. 

My whole body throbs without ending. The world tilts around me as my vision darkens. My tingling fingers lose their grip and the only thing that stops me from toppling over is my own cheek pressed against the cooling iron. I push my burning forehead against it. The hallway spins around me as I'm barely able to keep the contents of my stomach inside of me. I moan quietly and sling an arm over my churning belly. My whole face is sticky from salty tears, smears of blood and pearls of sweat, all mixing together like a devil's cocktail. I lean heavier against the bar. 

"Fuck," I whisper before I break out in sobs. 

I want to pull my legs up to my chest but every part of me is burning with too much pain to even consider moving. 

"Fuck."

I close my eyes. 

In my mind I see Nathan run into the wind, hair floating like a brown cloud around him and hands coated in blood... Rain coat fluttering around his body as his boots keep slapping against the paved road. People will see him glance back over his shoulder and wonder what danger he's running from, unable to realize it's in fact he himself. 

Maybe he'll run forever.

Maybe he won't ever come back, but he'll keep racing through cars and ghosts with dazed green eyes. 

Maybe his dad told him to get away from the crime scene as quickly as possible, maybe he's getting his gun out of the third drawer in his bedside. The one I had held in my battered hand so many times. My itching fingers around the trigger, mind full of darkness, heart full of emptiness...

That one. 

The one I should've used ages ago.

But I couldn't figure out if it was meant for him or for me. So I never pulled. 

Maybe he'll come back with it and clean up the fluffy little rabbit with a broken leg in his trap. Clean up the red haze. His dad will frame another sucker for it and the Half-Blood House can go enjoy another worker's funeral. 

Somehow the idea of my friends gathered around my casket pulls at every heartstring in my chest as I nearly throw up from the overwhelming urge to bawl out my eyes. Vision coated with tears, I drag myself further over the floor. 

I won't let Summer bury another older brother.

I won't let Percy and Jayson lower me into the ground. 

I won't. 

I cry out in agony as I haul my whole weight closer towards the door on my elbows. I drop my head against the ground as my vision flickers black and a wave of nausea crashes over me. I breath in and out through the bile in my mouth. 

"Fanculo," I rasp. 

My whole body is shaking. I try to swallow back the new stream of tears but end up silently weeping with my cheek against a white tile. The pain is so overwhelming, I need to close my eyes for a bit. 

The door creaks open but I don't bother looking up again. All fight evaporates from my soul as two feet walk towards me. 

"Oh dear mother of God!"

I flutter my eyes open to see a purple head against the outlines of the hallway. The dim lights turn his locks into a strange hue. 

"S-steve?" the air escapes my lungs.

"Oh God, oh God, oh dear Lord!" He drops the drumsticks in his hands onto the floor and rushes towards me. 

The relief that crashes over me has me breathing through the tears. 

"I fell," I say as I try to inch closer to him. 

He falls down onto his knees and immediately holds me still "Don't move okay, I'm going to get you to a hospital." 

"I fell," I say again, rambling out of shock and fear, "I fell down the stairs." My own voice sounds slurred in my ears. 

"Nico, calm down, I'll call you an ambulance." 

His big hands are firm around my upper arms. 

"Don't. don't...don't ," I pant with a slight shake of my dizzying head, "he'll be mad." 

Steve didn't catch my mumbling in his furious search for his phone. When he fishes the thing out of his bag, I try to slap it out of his grip. He easily dodges me.

"Hey easy," he shushes. 

More helpless tears flow down my face. He watches me with wide brown eyes as I crumple before him. 

"Don't please don't.' I sob. 

He clumsily rubs the side of my arm in assurance, "I need to call for help Nico." He explains as equally lost as I feel. 

I can only shake my head, throat too constricted to bring out any sound. 

Steve's fingers grip anxiously around the phone. 

"What if I call Will, is that okay?" 

I look up at him with big teary eyes and try to nod without tilting the whole world around me. 

"Okay, okay, I'm going to call Will. Sit still." 

He pushes himself back onto his feet and scrolls through his contact list. 

"I'm...I I'm sorry for being mean to you," I say before he can press the green phone icon with his fat finger. 

He pauses for a second while looking at me intently, "don't worry about that right now, alright?" 

I nod sluggishly and he adverts himself from me as he holds his phone next to his ear. 

I try to move myself up again to listen better to what Steve's saying but my arm crumbles underneath me. I fall flat on my face back onto the floor. I cry out. The world falters around me and gets coated in pitch-black darkness. The pounding between my ears is the last thing I hear before I'm submerged in complete nothingness. I don't even feel Steve shaking me. It's like I went down into this dark, deep pool of absolute numbness and silence. 

My eyes stay closed.

"Nico!" 

a voice keeps growing louder, pulls me out of my slumber. I feel the cold floor underneath me again and twitch my leg. The pain sparks violently through my limbs again and grows stronger with every second, I grow more conscious. 

"Will's almost here," the voice cuts in. 

I try to blink open my heavy eyelids. 

"That's it."

I groan as light pierces into my throbbing head. A strong arm hoists me up into a sitting position and keeps me locked in its embrace. Colours swirl into a sickening mash before me. 

"We just need to wait and keep still." His voice is too loud in my ear, it pounds inside of my skull. 

"Steve?" I slur. 

"Right here buddy." 

I squint at the brightly lit hallway. I could've sworn it was a lot more dim when I first set foot in it. My head pulses with a glowing pain. A cough rattles through my lungs and bounces against the walls. 

Steve just pulls me a bit closer while muttering another, "he'll be right here in a bit, you'll see." 

The door flies open, nearly falls out of its hinges as a dark silhouette races through it. I blink at the stinging light. 

I lift my head and it feels as if I need to crack my spine to do it. Steve quickly stumbles back onto his feet and straightens his shirt a bit.

My heart quickens its pace as I recognize his features. 

"Will!" my throat barely lets the sound come through. 

Black spots dance around the familiar face of Will, muddle his wide blue eyes and parted lips. I want to crawl towards him but every limb on my body is shaking out of control. 

"Will," I sob, "I fell." 

He stands frozen on the tiles for a split second as his eyes dart over the red trail around me. Tears drip down my cheeks as I keep staring at him. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." I hiccup. 

He flutters his gorgeous eyes open and closed in an attempt to wipe the scenery before him away but when they're open again, everything is still there, I'm still slithering in my own blood and Steve is still standing next to me in his red stained pants. 

"Will?" I squeak hoarsely. 

He starts walking my way with hunted eyes, quickening his pace until it turns into a full sprint. When he reaches me he quickly crouches down. I try to scramble towards him but his hands are already firmly cupping my cheeks.

"What happened?!" He croaks. His chest is moving up and down at record speed, his fingers are slightly trembling on my skin.

"I fell down the stairs," I whisper. I cry as I melt away in the softness of his touch. The familiar smell of pine trees invades my nose and it's enough to make me erupt into a bawling mess.

"Hey, hey ssh, it's alright, I'm not mad. I promise," he assures softly as he kisses a tear away on my cheek. My lip is trembling horribly. 

"Please make it better," I breath in shakily, "it hurts so much." 

Even in my dazed state I can see Will's eyes shatter into a million shards of blue as my tears run over his warm fingers. 

"I will," he promises with a cracking voice.

I sniff before another sharp cough makes my body stutter against the tiles. Will rubs the sides of my arms soothingly, in an attempt to warm me up a bit. 

"Okay, okay," he coos as he wipes some cold sweat from my forehead.

"I'm so happy you're here." I say in a whisper. I don't dare looking at him. My whole body is shaking for him to come closer, to wrap me up in his warmth. 

"Don't sweat it deathboy," he murmurs as he combs some tear drenched strands out of my face.

I'm loosing all my feeling in my legs. The pain in my back is enough to make me double over and gag in agony, still, I sit motionless on the floor. 

"Nico, I'm going to help you up alright?" Will's voice swims in and out of my head.

He wraps one arm around my middle. The moment he tries to pull me onto my feet, I scream out and crumble down onto the floor again. 

I moan hoarsely while shakily draping both of my arms over my stomach. 

Will's hands are on me but I can barely feel them. I keep my eyes screwed shut as he keeps me from slamming my head a second time against the ground. 

Static prickles between my ears. My head is one cloud of cotton, only muted shouts vaguely seep in. 

"Nico!" my vision warps around me. My head lolls around.

Will's scared eyes drill through my skull. 

"Nico!"

The two dots of blue grow tinier and tinier until they're completely swallowed by darkness.

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If I'd give you a free 'you can murder Nathan Miller card', what would you do with it? 

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