The only thing he can feel is pain. He can faintly hear Percy shouting for him, but he can't make out his words.

His vision blurs as he tumbles to the ground. He can feel rocks digging into his back, can barely see the pool of blood spreading out over the ground.

"Nico!"

Percy drops to his knees beside him, taking Nico's head into his hands and brushing his shaggy hair out of his face. Nico can make out Percy's face, tears bubbling in his eyes and lip trembling slightly.

Percy shook as he scrambled to wrangle a piece of ambrosia out of his knapsack. Grunting in pain, Nico raised his arm and grasped Percy's hand.

"Don't." He rasped. "It's no use."

Percy whipped his head to look at Nico, eyes widening in shock and hurt.

"Don't say that," Percy pleaded. "Please don't say things like that."

Letting his arm drop, Nico turned his head to look directly at Percy.

"It's the truth." The words burned his throat, and it got harder for him to speak. "I don't have much time left, and you know it."

Taking an insane amount of energy, Nico lifted his arm up once again and grasped Percy's face. He struggled to sit up, a sharp pain shooting up his spine as he did so. Percy kept a firm hold of Nico, making sure he didn't fall over.

Hesitantly, Nico brushed his lips against Percy's. He could tell the son of Poseidon was surprised, but he didn't move. After a few moments, Nico moved his head, opting to lean it against Percy's shoulder, pressing his lips against Percy's neck.

That was how the others found them- surrounded by golden dust, Nico practically in Percy's lap, cold lips still pressed against Percy's neck.

Authors Note: This was requested by @sizzy261 a year ago. I wish I could've gotten to it sooner, but life was like 'you wanna update? to bad'. The prompt was: 'Nico dies trying to save Percy and tells him his secret'. Obviously, I branched off a little from that, but I like how this turned out.