"we should be lovers instead..."

i.

There are too many things he doesn't want to admit about his best friend. How he was the first person to ever approach him so willingly, especially in a place as danky as the subway. His dark eyes, so full of kindness, it made his heart sting.

Farkle isn't used to getting looks like that.

It wouldn't be so bad if the looks stopped. But they don't. They continue, long past their first subway ride together, and finding out they have all their classes together.

Lucas Friar, god of the seventh grade, keeps staring at him. Staring at him with eyes so dark and kind and trusting.

It scares him a little.

(a lot.)

Farkle isn't used to looks like that. He doesn't want to be, because he knows if he does get used to those kind of eyes following him, he'll want more than he'll ever get.

And that may break his tiny genius heart.

ii.

Ninth grade is a completely different playing field. He only has two classes with all three of his friends in it, and Lucas in only three.

It's terrifying, exhilarating, and freeing all at once; he's never experienced something like this before.

It's a foggy Thursday when he catches sight of Maya's canvas. It perfectly captures a stormy candid of a busy city street. Women frozen in mid-step, magazines or newspapers held over dark hair; briefcases over expensive suits.

For the first time in two years, Farkle doesn't think about what it would be like to have Maya draw him. Instead, he thinks about her drawing his knotted feelings for Lucas.

He thinks about her drawing the current condition of his heart, so full of pumping blood and moving with a steady rhythm, but close to falling to pieces because of one person.

(because of a boy.)

The thought of her canvas stained with his emotions scares him so badly Farkle turns away, taking the blankness of his own page as a comfort.

He has never been good at expressing what he feels.

Later - a while after art, but not long enough for his hands to not smell like dusty paint and old paper - Lucas slings an arm around his shoulders, talking about his day as if Farkle isn't a stone against his side.

The stillness of his friends sinks in only after they are both seated on the subway. Farkle looks out the window, watching gray and dull stripes of paint whir by in a messy blur.

"Hey, you okay, bud?"

("No, because I'm pretty sure I'm falling in like with you.")

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

His skin burns as if touched by molten rock when Lucas squeezes his shoulder, holding on until the first stop.

(He can't breathe.)

iii.

"I wanna kiss you."

There is something so incredibly forbidden about kissing a drunk person. Farkle knows his best friend will remember none of this - his alcohol coated breath, his spit ladened lips, his flushed cheeks - and maybe he would find the courage to say no if Lucas wasn't so close, his lips so easy to reach.

His last coherent thought is how he should drive his friend home; he's drunk, stumbling, and looking green under his red cheeks.

But then Lucas is laughing. And his eyes, so dark and kind and wide as his face swings impossibly closer.

Now their lips are connected, and Farkle can't remember why his lungs are burning.

Lucas tastes different than he thought about. He tastes like whatever spiked punch he got his hands on, but a little like artificial sweetness too. As if he's had a cough drop in his mouth recently. His mouth and tongue still taste of cherries.

Farkle sees stars, his vision growing dim even beneath the solidified darkness of his eyelids.

A century. Time comes and goes, years being defined in the firm press of the taller boy's fingers against his forearms. So firm, so certain that for a fleeting second, he forgets that sharp tang is alcohol and his friend is slipping his tongue into his mouth while under the influence.

When they pull away, reality crashes against him so fast and sudden, it knocks whatever regained breath out again.

He's looking up at his best friend's dopey face, lax under the alcohol in his system, and they should really be at home right now, studying for their chemistry exam tomorrow because Ms. Wegner is the fiercest tenth grade teacher alive. Farkle should really be secretly watching as his best friend chewed on the tip of his favorite blue highlighter as he spun in his desk chair, quizzing him on formulas he knows by heart.

But Farkle is stuck there, his lips burning.

(As if they're about to melt off and destroy all his chances of ever getting something like that to happen to him again.)

iiii.

He has seen Lucas shirtless before. Too many late-night cram sessions and lockers next to each other in the boys' locker room making sure that has been a must over the years.

(But the sight is still spine-tingling every time it happens.)

This is a different sight than over the years, though. Because Lucas' eyes are intense, determined as he stands in the middle of Farkle's room, hair and jeans dripping with rain as he holds his soaked shirt in his hands.

"I really want to kiss you," he says softly.

(Alcoholic lips; the burn of contact; the firm press of calloused hands; the perfection of a naive moment.)

Farkle feels the heat of his best friend's hands too soon to react right. He should pull away, grab a blanket, and offer his friend the bed because that's how he was raised.

But Lucas doesn't push him away. The heat of his wet hands soak into the fabric on his sweatshirt, into the skin of his arms - all the way to his pumping blood.

He doesn't even mind the wet bundle of fabric dampening his socks. He can't mind anything over the nonexistent distance between Lucas' bare chest and his layered one.

"I'm going to kiss you."

He doesn't hear the words until Lucas Friar is actually doing it. Kissing him and holding him as if Farkle is the most important person to ever be alive, the person who holds the secret to the world.

An eternity.

It passes in a flurry of fragmented seconds.

(The fling of thick fabric across the room; the press of bare chests; of lips against burning skin; the sound of a creaking bed disappearing into another restless city night.)

There is a brief, stinted second of eye contact, Lucas resting above him with dark blond strands against this tanned forehead, panting so heavily, Farkle feels elation at the thought of him doing that to the boy in front of him.

"Keep kissing me," he whispers.

Street light shadows play against his walls.

He can't see them; they don't exist.

Nothing exists except the pure essence of two seventeen year old boys, burning with raw passion and kindness and energy.

fin.