He doesn't know much, except that it's early.
Farkle feigns sleep as his bed partner sneaks out of bed, his shadow a long shape of bedhead and bare chest against the neatness of Farkle's bedroom floor.
Lucas is leaving; although practically a routine by now, it still stings every time it happens.
The smaller boy watches, silent and observing, as the athletic boy stumbles around in the darkness on a search for wherever he threw his jeans last night. He found his shirt, tugging it on as he cautiously steps around the room, hoping to accidentally step on his pants and recover them.
If Farkle's heart wasn't breaking the way it is, he would find it cute.
In the midst of lying to himself, Farkle almost lost count of how many times they've done this.
(Five. Five fucking times of him moaning and lusting and giving himself over to his best friend, breaking every personal he's ever written.)
But each time Lucas will try to stealth his way out of bed, searching for his clothes and then his shoes, before he'll tiptoe downstairs and leave Farkle an entire day to himself, wondering why he isn't good enough to the love of his best friend's life.
(Are they even that now? Best friends? Seeing your best friend's penis in the locker room is one thing, but what they've been doing has crossed all the platonic lines in existence, he's sure.)
Each time, Lucas will kiss Farkle's forehead in a way that implies he's holding himself back from something, but Farkle's never been good at reading people, so he's never figured out what, exactly, his friend-with-whatever restrains himself from every time he leaves.
Farkle would love to sit up one of these times and just ask, but he's too afraid. Too afraid that if he did do that, Lucas would leave and never come back.
Instead, Farkle pretends. Pretends that he's sleeping and everything's fine. Pretends he's straight and not bi or gay or whatever the hell he is now. Pretends that Lucas is an actual relationship and not a string of fucks.
(Farkle's so sick of pretending. But he's done it so much he's too afraid he would be bad at doing things the real way, so he pretends. At this rate, he'll pretend his way straight to hell.)
: : : :
Maya knows. Farkle doesn't know what, but he knows she knows something.
It doesn't surprise him. Maya plays it off well, but she's always been good at reading people. It's how she's become so good at playing what they want her to be.
What Farkle wants her to be is a friend, so early on Friday night, he and the blonde sit in the cushy couch in the Minkus family theater, eating popcorn and chocolate as they talk about why their lives are so screwed over.
"Maybe we're supposed to pass a test," Maya says thoughtfully, licking butter from her fingers. "Like, say, the universe thinks I'll actually deserve love by the time I graduate, and bang! I'm a goddess with loads of money and bigger boobs."
"Maybe the universe wants to see if I'm actually good at being gay, and Lucas is like my trial run," Farkle adds. He lets a M&M melt on his tongue, staring up at the ceiling. The room is so big, he can't actually make out the plaster, just a big, shadowy abyss.
(They tiptoe around the G-word, letting it hang between them like a toxic breath. That word is another discussion for another night.
(a night of his parents' fancy wine, probably.))
Maya, with her legs stretched out on the majority of the couch, taps Farkle's thigh a socked foot. He turns his head, signaling his attention.
"I know you're gay, and really, I couldn't give lesser shits, but what's with you and Lucas?" she asked, not unkindly, but not gently either. Farkle appreciates it; he needs something blunt and brutal that could shatter to the pitiful stupor he's worked himself into, and who better than Maya Hart.
"I don't know," he says honestly.
(At some, he's going to break down in a frenzy because of how much he really didn't know - he doesn't know if Lucas was actually gay or just sex crazy. He doesn't if he's actually a moderate size or not. He doesn't know how long this fuck thing will last. He doesn't know if he wants it to end. He doesn't know if he wants more; fuck, he's such a dumbass.)
"Hmm," Maya says.
They let the movie play. Farkle stopped paying attention hours ago, so he doesn't even know what's happening. All he can tell is that it's black and white and that the acting is terrible; it definitely hadn't won any Oscars.
"If he screws you over, tell me," Maya requests later, after there's nothing left in the bowl but kernels.
Farkle nods his consent, not mentioning how, technically, Lucas has screwed him over. In several positions. More than once.
: : : :
Sometimes, it keeps him up late at night, thinking about why he can't be enough.
(Fuck it; he hasn't gotten a proper night's sleep ever since the first time.
A sweaty August night -
Lucas, panting and tipsy and laughing and kissing -
him, scared shitless and panting and kissing and grabbing -
they had been so fierce, so intense, so desperate, their sex that night had almost broke the bed -
God, he loved every second of it -
fuck, he's going to hell.)
The Riley and Lucas story of middle school was long since over, had been ever since they entered high school and Riley started seeing other boys and learning how to sneak make-up and learn what made stupid boys drool.
Lucas is hardly the type to let his grades slip with a relationship, and it's not like Farkle valued education any less just because he likes guys now, so really, Farkle's having a hard time connecting the dots.
(Fuck fuck fuck -
connecting constellations out of the freckles on his back -
grinding and sweating and lusting and scratching and licking and biting -
fuck, he wants to trace every freckle again until his mouth can sketch out Lucas' back by heart,
good God.)
Maybe his parents had something against gay people, or maybe Lucas was secretly a homophobic ass.
(God, that can't be true. The Friar family would sooner eat toenails than discriminate against people for their sexuality.)
Fuck, maybe it's him.
Fuck, he really needs sleep.
(No way will his calc teacher accept his teenage sex problems as an answer on his exam tomorrow.)
: : : :
It's another one of those nights, the nights where Farkle doesn't feel like doing anything except being touched.
Lucas knows how to read him, and grips his hips, blinking at him through the streetlights piercing the night as he planets warm, open-mouthed kisses against his throat. On those nights, Farkle loses himself enough to close his eyes and imagine that, the next morning, Lucas will be downstairs, maybe in boxers, but preferably not, making him breakfast and waiting to kiss him good morning.
(It's complete bullshit, but a gay guy can dream, right?)
On those nights, Farkle is hungry for more than just sex. He wants hands to hold him, strong arms that will wrap around him when it's over and hold him close. He wants warm skin and a soft mouth and bare body parts that are fearless to press against his. He wants to stay awake and commit every second to memory, to keep close to him for the nights when he is alone, and his sheets are freezing.
(But he feels it slipping away, far out of reach in the inky night before it's even over.)
(So pathetic, so fucking pathetic.)
Even as Lucas gasps and his hips stutter, even as his fingertips become tiny daggers that bruise his hips, Farkle knows his fantasies will end up breaking his heart more than Lucas actually leaving will, which, really, is what sucks the most.
(He'll be damned if he lets this night get away from him, though.)
: : : :
Maybe one day, Farkle will grow a pair and demand that Lucas stays. Maybe he'll grow a pair and demand that the nights they spend screwing each other over has fucked his head too many times, and that Lucas just needs to leave.
Someday, perhaps, Farkle will find someone that actually cares and stays the night, someone he'll wake up to find downstairs making him breakfast and waiting to kiss him good morning.
Maybe someday that person could be Lucas.
Maybe.
(But for now, all he has are ripe, naked nights in the dark of his room and the twist of his sheets -
the grunt and moans of a baseball star above him -
the bruising force of hips snapping into his -
the smell of sex in his sheets for centuries after -
the eternity of heartache that awaits him if he continues to live like this -
but fuck it -
he's lost too much of his heart to give a damn.)
fin.