Credit to Gnash for the title, it's a good song if you haven't heard it. I usually try to come up with my own titles if the one-shot isn't based on the song but it fit the story so well I couldn't not use it.

Nico's POV

"I'm not gay." What a way to get broken up with, Nico thinks as he tilts his head back against the smooth tiling of the bathroom wall, wiping a tear off of his face. It doesn't do much more than smear the moisture across his cheek and he groans, letting his legs go out in front of him. After four months of dating, hugging, kissing, Percy finally figured out that he wasn't gay. Maybe it took dating Nico to realize. It took curling up with Nico as they watch Netflix, dancing underneath the disco ball as the homecoming dance came to a close, kissing with their bodies so close that Nico can't tell which heartbeat was his and which was Percy's for him to figure out that he didn't like any of it, anyway. They could still be friends though, Percy had suggested with a hand on Nico's shoulder, the squeeze friendly but overall lacking any sort of passion. There didn't have to be any bad feelings between them, Percy had said. And Nico had agreed to be just friends. Friends with a one-sided pining that makes his heart ache in his chest. 

The memories of after are painful, the memories of watching Percy turn away from him with a smile, slipping into the passenger seat of Annabeth's car. They were just friends, too, Percy had said, but the glitter in Percy's eyes said otherwise. It was the same glitter that Percy's eyes used to hold when he looked at Nico, the glitter that made Nico at least believe that what they had was real. He misses when that glitter belonged to him. 

The memories of after that hold even more pain because that's when the shame came and the heart-wrenching, knee-buckling sadness. He can remember the eyes that had been on his back, the whispers behind him and the desperate feeling of needing to be anywhere but out front of the school, with pity and amusement at the slight hint of drama in his eyes. And that's when he ran. He ran when Annabeth's car had pulled out of the parking lot and when he couldn't take the eyes any longer. That's when he had turned on his heel and sprinted, the eyes following him until the doors to the school had slammed behind him. He had turned corner after corner, with thoughts jostling for attention in his brain. The thought that he's never run this fast in his life, that he shouldn't be at school past two-o-five on a Friday afternoon, the thought that he already misses Percy with everything in his heart. As that thought began to take up all of his attention, the most painful one out of them all he had collapsed onto the floor of the big store in the bathroom, curling up into a ball as a sob shook his back and the tears started to flow. 

He doesn't know how long he's been on the floor for. Seconds turn to minutes turn to hours but he doesn't seem to register time anymore, not that it matters if he loses track of time. Suddenly, he has a lot more time on his hands. 

He groans when he hears the squeak of the door opening, footsteps sounding lightly against the floor. Whoever was still in the school on Friday this late after classes ended clearly hate themselves because there's no other reason to put themselves through so much torture. The footsteps draw closer to Nico's stall and he wipes another tear off of his face. He considers asking the person to leave; it isn't the politest move, but he can't deal with the thought of being asked why he's on the floor of the bathroom an hour and a half past when school ended makes his stomach flip. But when the person speaks the pain that's clogging Nico's head and pushing the tears out of his eyes clears, just a little. 

"Nico?" 

Will's POV

The breakup was clearly supposed to be made private. Twenty minutes after school ended, in the courtyard at the front of the school that people rarely give a second look. After all, Percy had never been a bad boyfriend. Just straight, apparently. Their high school isn't an entertaining place; it's a normal, cut-and-dry brick building where students do their work, make friends and rush out of the building as soon as the clock hits two-o-five. So when the hint of drama arose the vultures swooped down and converged on the scene of the breakup, creating a crowd that Will is sure neither Nico nor Percy wanted. 

Students watched, breathless, as Percy took both of Nico's hands in his, running his thumbs across the backs of Nico's hands as Nico shook his head, forcing a smile onto his face as his eyes glittered with held-back tears. Will swallowed hard as he watched, the presence of another person at his side as Jason sidled up to him, his arms crossed over his chest as he shook his head. "Nico looks rough," Jason said with a sigh. "I feel bad." 

"Did you know it was coming?" Will asked, turning to face him. 

"Yeah. Percy told me yesterday when he finally realized he was straight." His frown deepened as he watched Percy's hand move from Nico's hands to his shoulder, giving it a light squeeze and a sad smile, one filled with pity. "At least he let him down gently."

"Yeah. I guess." Will's words were short and he usually has a decent amount of self-control, but he had trouble keeping the anger out of his voice. Jason glanced at him, smirking softly. "What?" 

"Nothing," Jason said. "You seem very passionate about this breakup." 

"Yeah. Nico's my friend. I feel bad. I mean, we're in public! He could have at least taken him somewhere private, done it so that everyone isn't going to be talking about it for the next week. I mean, it's so inconsiderate to just do it in the front of the school, and to let everyone watch like this." He crossed his arms over his chest as Jason patted him on the back, watching as Percy walked away from Nico, slipping into Annabeth's car. 

"Maybe you can have your shot now."

"I don't- I don't like him." Will glanced down at the ground, kicking a rock with his shoe. It skidded across the pavement, coming to a stop near a bush that sat pressed up against the brick wall of the school. "Besides, the timing is all off. I couldn't do it now." 

"Well, you've got a shot." Jason's hand fell from Nico's back and he glanced out to the parking lot. "Anyway, I've gotta go. Piper's waiting. But seriously, take that shot. You might not get another one." Will's eyes remained trained on the ground long after Jason left, long after everyone else had left for their respective weekends. He didn't want to admit how long he'd been waiting for that, the inevitable breakup between Percy and Nico. He had been longing for it for months and now that it was there, Will didn't think he could bring himself to ask Nico to hang out even as friends. He'd feel too bad. He sighed, shook his head and meandered away from the scene of the breakup, casting one more look at where Percy broke the news. He needed to go to Nico's favorite pizza place and get back to school before Nico had managed to drag himself away from the school. He needed to start being a better friend because it was clear that's all he would ever be able to be. 

It takes another hour and an argument with the pizza guy about what the true meaning of Hawaiian pizza was by the time he slips into the bathroom with the proper form of Hawaiian pizza burning his hand with the grease sinking through the paper box. It's Nico's wallowing spot, he knows, from months of being Nico's go-to friend while he needed to complain about how Percy never wanted to hang out, or how he always seemed a little bit too close to Annabeth. But this time is different because those were tiny problems, nothing more than annoyances. This; the splitting of a relationship that was once so sweet, this could destroy Nico. And it might destroy Will, to see him through the breakup, be the shoulder to cry on and the friend who brings the pizza, but he knows he has to do it. Because that's what friends do. 

He hears a groan from the stall to the far right when he opens the door, the floor slick with water underneath his feet. The sink had broken earlier that day and the janitor had done a decent job at mopping up the excess water but there's still a slick layer of moisture on the floor, collecting pieces of dirt and grime. Nico must be desperate to sit on the floor of his usual stall, bearing the general grossness of the bathroom. But, then again, who wouldn't be desperate in a time like this. "Nico?" he calls out, stepping tentatively further in. If it isn't Nico and he's walking in on some other teenager sitting in Nico's wallowing stall, the situation is going to turn very awkward very quickly. But then he hears the sniffling stop, a shaky sigh. 

"Yeah." 
 

"It's Will." 

"Oh. Hey, Will." He sniffs again, the feet that had been lying flat across the bathroom floor pulling up to his chest. 

"Can I come in?" 

"If you want, I guess." The feet stand and Will walks over to the stall at the end of the bathroom as the lock slips out and the door swings open, Nico's eyes rimmed in red. He presses his finger into the bottom of his eye, the other hand wrapped around his stomach as if that action is going to protect him from the pain that runs rampant around the rest of the world. "You brought me a pizza?" 

"It's Hawaiian." 

"We're going to eat pizza on the floor of the bathroom an hour and a half past when school ended on a Friday afternoon?" Through the sheen of tears over his eyes, Nico laughs. "God, I'm so pathetic."

"No. We're so pathetic." He bumps Nico's shoulder, grinning. "Come on, sit down. You look like you need pizza." Nico smiles at the floor although his eyes are still brimming with tears. It's a strange sort of contradiction, but Wil understands it, the mixture of happiness and sadness. It's what he feels every single time he looks at Nico. 

The ground is damp underneath him but at least he isn't sitting in the soupy mixture of dirt and what's probably pee, so he considers himself lucky. The toilet hums softly next to them and Nico digs between the tiles with his nail, the same arm as before still wrapped around his stomach. His head leans against the wall and it hasn't even been two hours since the breakup but the circles underneath his eyes seem deeper, the worry lines across his forehead darker. It's clear that he won't be ready for a relationship anytime soon, and for a second, Will wonders what he's doing there. Being a friend, he reminds himself. If his lips can't be the ones that kiss Nico, at least his shoulder can be the one to cry on. "Have a piece," Will says, setting the pizza box on his leg and opening it, the grease of the pizza shining in the harsh lighting of the bathroom. Nico's face is stony but he takes a slice, staring hard at it for a few seconds before biting into it and chewing slowly. Will can see the muscles in his face moving. "Good?" 

"Yeah. Really good." Nico smiles at him and it's partially fake, but there's still effort, and Will is glad for that. "Thanks. You're a really good friend." This time it's Will who offers the partially-fake smile, the one that hurts the muscles in his face and makes his cheeks feel too tight. He hopes that Nico can't tell. He probably isn't registering much as he bites into his pizza, his gaze focused on the wall of the stall across from them. It's tattooed in the classic graffiti of any high school bathroom; someone's ex-girlfriend's number scrawled in angry pen ink, b+n scratched into the plastic with what was probably the tip of a paper clip, surrounded in a shaky heart. 

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Will asks quietly. 

"What is there to talk about? He dated me, finally figured out he wasn't gay and dumped me." He stares down at his lap, the pizza hanging limply from the tips of his fingers. The crust is bent sadly, a piece of the pineapple barely clinging onto the cheese. "Could've been a lot worse. I got lucky." His voice is hollow and Will reaches out a hand, setting it on Nico's back. 

"You're allowed to be sad, you know. You just got dumped." 

"Yeah, I know." He leans his head on Will's shoulder, blinking softly at the wall. Will pulls Nico tighter and he's nervous that his intentions will come off as too romantic but Nico sinks into the touch, sighing softly. "I wish I didn't have to be sad. I wish I could just get dumped and walk away with the same excitement for the weekend as before. Everything was so good two hours ago." He looks into Will's eyes, a tear still brimming in the corner. "This is good enough for now,  though. Thanks for being such a good friend." 

"That's what I'm here for." Will tries to keep the bitterness out of his tone but it's so hard as Nico wipes another tear away, his attention back on the wall. There's a world of graffiti to explore, a world of useless doodles that will keep his mind occupied. Wil understands it, the need to keep his thoughts busy as he fought to keep the yearning away. Because they're both hopelessly in love, pining for someone who will never love them back.

Hi guys, I know this probably sucks seeing as I wrote it back in September but I've been studying for my AP tests all week so I haven't had time to write something new, but I hope you liked this anyway!

Nina