Riley's sixteenth birthday approached with Niel Sedaka and Christmas lights. As a kid, she'd refused to let her family put up decorations until after her birthday, but then she'd realized that Christmas was the best time to be a Riley, and that a week wasn't nearly enough time to be as festive as she required.
So the 3rd of December found her in the family room with Auggie, Farkle and Lucas, hanging stockings on the stairway railing (they'd used to put them on the mantle, but then Auggie's had caught fire and their mom had decided to hang the flammable decorations up in a place that was less of a fire hazard) and fighting with the plastic tree (Topanga insisted that it was better value-for-money and maybe that was true but Riley was pretty sure that her dad just didn't like carting fresh trees up the stairs each year, which… fair enough).
It had been a bit of a process, getting both Lucas and Farkle to be there; she'd invited them both for Christmas, because Farkle's dad was leaving on the 20th for a singles cruise through the Portuguese Islands and Lucas's mom hadn't been able to afford the plane ticket to come up from Texas {Riley had considered offering to fly her up, as a Christmas present- a group present from her, Farkle and Maya, even though the three of them had already known that it would be mostly-from-Farkle. Her plan had been cut short when Lucas had casually mentioned that she would be taking a train to see her parents, instead}.
{Lucas stayed at a nearby long-term hostel, most of the time, and they had a pretty strict no-overnight-visitors rule that they wouldn't break, even for his mom, and a train ticket and staying with her parents was cheaper than even a train ticket and a three-night stay in the city (again, both Riley and Farkle had tried to offer their places, but Lucas had looked at them stonily and just changed the subject)}.
When she'd eventually just invited Lucas to spend Christmas with her family, he'd tried to turn her down {"it's really fine, Riley," he'd tried. "They have a nice enough spread on Christmas. And there's only like five of us, so we get to eat so much"}, but Topanga Lawrence-Matthews (Attorney at Law) had refused that answer. And then when she invited Farkle, he'd tried to cite Lucas as an excuse {"c'mon, Riles, you don't really want me there. First Christmas with your boyfriend and your family, and you wanna invite the weirdo family charity case?"}, but her dad had called Mr Minkus and gotten him to insist that Farkle spend the Christmas with them.
And then when she'd invited them to decorate, they'd both tried to wiggle out of it again— Lucas with "we're decorating the hostel that day" (even though she knew he'd skipped out on decorating the hostel for the last two years) and Farkle with more reasoning about how she surely wanted to spend some time with just her boyfriend and her family (soundly trounced with the decorating-draft dodgers didn't get Christmas cookies argument). The two of them had been acting weird recently. She wasn't sure what that was about.
{"Hey pal, can we talk for a minute?" Lucas asked. Farkle started slightly, but then inclined his head, thoughts still on Riley, whose psychiatrist appointment had probably just begun.
They sat together in silence for a minute, watching the breakfast crowd at Topanga's breeze in and out with the steady dedication of people doing chores on a Saturday morning. Eventually, Lucas cleared his throat and awkwardly mumbled, "...so, you knew?"
It wasn't the first conversation of this nature Farkle had had recently. Obviously, he'd spoken with Mr Matthews outside the nurses' office, but Topanga had also cornered him when he'd been leaving 285 West Street. She'd been a lot less accusatory than Mr Matthews had been, but she'd still told him that, regardless of what his parents clearly thought, he was still a child, and he wasn't supposed to be able to be dealing with the sort of thing Riley was going through without help— that even full-grown adults needed help with friends experiencing mental health issues. It had been vaguely comforting, if he ignored the slight against his parents. Because she'd also told him that she understood, that she knew that sometimes there was no good option, and that she was still proud of him for doing the best he could (and, god, Mr Matthews and Topanga-Lawrence Matthews were really the perfect good cop/bad cop team).
Maya had asked brought it up during one evening during one of their tutoring sessions (she couldn't afford to pay a professional math tutor—with Shawn's income on top of her mother's, they now always made ends meet, but it wasn't always comfortable—and he didn't need the money, and didn't like being alone in his huge house, just the staff rattling around): "You could have told me, y'know."
"Riley didn't want you to think worse of her."
"Yeah, but she's not thinking straight. You knew that I could never think worse of Riley. That I'd only ever want to help," Maya had tried to argue.
"Sure. And if I'd told you, she'd never have trusted either of us again, and the next time it happened, she wouldn't have told anyone, and it would have just gotten worse and worse."
"It got worse anyway, Farkle!" Maya had yelled, and it was probably good that Shawn and Katy already knew about everything, otherwise they might have worried. "It got worse anyway, and we—her friends—got to watch it all overwhelm her in front of everyone, and there was nothing we could do about it, because we didn't fucking know about it in the first place."
"Maya, it's not me that you're mad at," he'd placated—
"Yeah, but I can't yell at Riley about it!"
They'd let it sit there for a minute. Blinking at each other in terse silence. Because he was mad at Riley too; the secrets were fucking difficult to live with (the ones they weren't keeping together, anyway. New Years was a joint secret. The panic attacks weren't, not anymore).
"God, I've wanted to, though," he'd admitted. "Like, all the fucking time. Every time she made me promise not to tell anyone."
"I love her so much," they'd burst out at the same time, and then laughed.
"She's my best friend," Maya'd said softly, and he'd rubbed her shoulder in a soothing gesture.
"Mine, too."
And now, Lucas was staring at him, hand at the nape of his neck, slightly grimacing. And Farkle sighed, because there was no way this wasn't going to be awkward.
"Yeah, Lucas. I knew."
"And you didn't think it was something any of us could have helped with?" Lucas's eyes were hard, even if his body language was still embarrassed. And Farkle just knew that this would be going downhill fast.
"Lucas, you were there the first time she had a panic attack. We had lunch together and she just stood up and ran to the bathroom. You had Feinstein-Chang and couldn't be late, so I went to check on her. We ditched school for the rest of the day. None of you ever asked about it."
"Man I assumed she just had her period or something and you took her to lie down."
Farkle scoffed in disbelief, "What, so a woman is having a bad time and that automatically means she's on her period? Fuck, that's real mature Lucas."
Lucas ran both his hands through his hair as he tried to respond—"That's not what I meant and you fucking know it. God, you're so fucking defensive of her it's insane. You're not her boyfriend, Farkle."
"Maybe you shouldn't be!"
It hung in the air, too loud even after it was said. The boys stared at each other, somewhat shocked that it had even been said aloud. It felt like Topanga's had fallen silent, even with the coffee machine whirring in the background and Katy Hunter's voice occasionally calling out names and orders.
"Not that— not that someone else should be. Or that — that she doesn't want you to be, or anything. Riley's happy with you. I don't get to make that decision for her."
Lucas stared at him, hands flexing and clenching, lips twisted into an ugly half-smile. "And the truth comes out," he noted wryly, "I fucking knew it. You like me fine as a friend, but the moment I get near one of your girls, it doesn't fucking matter what we've been through together. I'm not good enough for them."
"Lucas, that's not true—"
"Bullshit, Farkle! "
"Okay, boys, that's enough!" Katy Hunter was standing between them, hands on her hips. "Y'all gotta take this outside- you're disturbing the nice, paying customers. And anyway, I don't think you oughtta be talking about Riley or her business when she ain't here, yeah?"
"Sorry, Mrs Hunter," they'd mumbled in unison, and Lucas had spun on his heel and been out the door before Farkle could think to catch up with him, so instead he'd bought a danish as an apology to Katy and nestled himself in a sunny corner to worry about Riley in peace}.
"You have the most awesome hot chocolate, Mrs Lawrence-Matthews," Lucas told her mother, grinning broadly. Riley glanced around to check who all was watching, and when it was just Farkle, she kissed Lucas fast enough that she'd pulled back by the time her mom turned around to respond— "You have manners for the whole of New York," she told him, dropping an extra mini marshmallow into his cup as a reward, "the rest of these heathens think that hot chocolate is their god-given right."
"Thank you, mom!" "Thank you, O gracious Topanga, love of my life and mother of my children" Riley and her dad (somewhat) chorused.
"And the Lord said, let there be Swiss Miss," Farkle quipped drily in response. Her mom cuffed him lightly over the head. "I'll have you know, Farkle Minkus, that this is genuine Jummy Cocoamy Organic Hot Chocolate Mix." And anyone could see she was reading off the packet, but Farkle's lips quirked up in a half-smile and he accepted the kitten-print mug being handed to him.
" 'Course, Mrs Topanga. Didn't mean to besmirch the good name of the Lawrence-Matthewses." And Topanga Lawrence-Matthews rolled her eyes and kissed her son's forehead as he mumbled Mattheseseseseses.
"So. You've got a tree. And a stockings. And hot chocolate. What's the plan for the rest of the day?" Her dad asked, surreptitiously trying to push a marshmallow back and forth between his teeth till it turned to liquid.
"Well, I wanna watch Moana. Farkle wants to watch some weird World War 2 movie. And Lucas still hasn't seen Doctor Strange, so he's campaigning for renting it, but Farkle and I have seen it already and Maya's on some family thing with Shaun so she can't just decide and make us all watch whatever she chose, which is usually how we pick movies. And I think that we should watch my pick because it's nearly my birthday so they should be giving me preference, but Farkle says I can't use that until next week due to some immutable law of the universe, or something."
Her dad's eyes glaze over a couple of seconds in to the explanation, but her mom follows along, nodding seriously.
"Well, why don't you invite Zay and Smackle along and ask wheat they want to do?"
"Oh. Uh, mom, we're not really using 'Smackle' for Isadora anymore. She said it felt weird cause we didn't call anyone else by their last name."
"Right. Sorry honey," Topanga Lawrence-Matthews corrected herself apologetically, "So, invite Zay and Isadora."
"She's visiting her grandparents in San Fransico this week. And Zay has a dress rehearsal for his ballet production—" Riley explained.
"No he doesn't," Lucas interjected, brow furrowed. "That's only next week."
"It's definitely today. He snapped me from the wings." Riley countered, dragging her finger across the lock screen and showing Lucas the picture (it was a good picture- or maybe, rather, a good snapchat. Zay was backlit, posing with his tongue out, positioned to that it seemed like the girl pirouetting on stage was standing on top of his head).
"I swear that was supposed to be next week. I remember it was the same day as the baseball boot camp."
"A baseball bootcamp? Lucas, it's mid-fucking-winter!"
"Language, Farkle!" Her mother scolded, and Farkle's cheeks pinked and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry Topanga." Her mom nodded sharply, gratified by the apology, before turning to watch Lucas answer.
"Yeah, but the coach is worried we're gonna get lazy or something, so he's running these conditioning camps every three weeks. They kill. But the next one's only on the third."
Riley met Farkle's eyes, silently pleading that he be the one to point out—"Lucas, today's the third," her father said, looking up from the exam paper he was desperately trying to get a hot chocolate stain off of.
"No it's not."
"It absolutely is," Farkle agreed, sitting down next to Lucas and opening his phone screen to prove it.
"Damnit. Goddamnit. Shit— uh, sorry, Mrs Matthews. Okay, it's only—" he checked his watch, "Five past. There's still like three and a half hours left. Okay. I gotta go. Thank you so much for the hot chocolate, Mrs Matthews."
He cast a quick, critical eye over the room from his vantage point in front of the door. Not seeing anything else he'd brought with, "Bye, Riles, I'll call you tonight."
He was out the door before Riley could blink, thesound of the door latching shut coming before she could even get out a good luck!. She stared at the closed door for a couple seconds before turning to look at Farkle, cheshire cat grin across her face.
"So. Moana?"
Farkle put his head down on the table and groaned.
{They did end up watching Moana, and Farkle—as predicted by Riley, and Maya, and Zay and Isadora—fucking loved it, even though he'd managed to piece together the entire plot five minutes into the movie. He loved it so much that he insisted on going with again when Riley and Maya went to watch it (which they allowed, because he always paid for popcorn and they'd said "any time").
And then, faster than she'd ever expected, she was sixteen. A brave new world, more or less. Her birthday was marked with a surprise party (a surprise sweet sixteen, the Sa-Sa-Sa, Maya was a fucking genius), and a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. She spent the day before on a thrift shopping spree with Maya at a market down in Bryant park, and the day-of almost vibrating out of her skin—she skipped her ADHD meds that day, didn't want to feel weighted down and quiet and heavy the way they sometimes made her feel, and she didn't think anyone would notice, but after they had cake Farkle pushed a cup of coffee into her hands with a short "caffeine is a stimulant, you know", and whenever she'd misplace the fidget toy Isadora had given her, she'd find it back in her hands a couple of minutes later (whenever she noticed that she'd been playing with the toy instead of picking at her cuticles or the scab on her lip, she'd smile at the other girl, and Isadora would grin back, hands on her own fidget—which was attached to her necklace, and fucking genius).
And then that evening when everyone had gone home, and it was just her and Maya in her bedroom, the way it had always been, they'd cuddled up together on her bed and found a website that let you watch all the Barbie movies, and marathoned through Barbie and the Diamond Castle, and Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper, and Barie in a Christmas Carol (their favourites, from girlhood. The ones with a pretty blonde girl and her pretty brunette friend who were as close Riley&Maya. The ones where the two best friends lived together and did everything together).
They fell asleep curled around each other and when Riley woke up to the sun streaming through her windows because she'd forgotten to close her curtains, again, she held still for as long as possible, happy to watch Maya, sleeping peacefully and next-to-glowing in the sunlight, golden hair fanned around her face and an old T-shirt of Riley's as her co-opted pyjamas}.
A/N: ...hi. Am I aware that this fic was last updated two years ago? Yes. It's been a bit of a rough go of it for me. The pandemic did whatever the opposite of inspiring me to write is. But in other news, I have Officially Been Diagnosed With ADHD (TM) which is wild. I am 22. I also have a boyfriend I've been seeing for nearly a year. And I built a video game! And I started a whole 9-to-5 job last week. And this chapter has been sitting in my drafts since 2021. And It's not even 3000 words but it wasn't gonna go anywhere else. After the Life Update, I actually have a very important thing I'd like to say: if some of the ways Riley's been acting in this fic feel familiar, go get checked out. Because I was writing this fic "as someone who didn't have ADHD" and I put a lot of my general mannerisms into Riley—things I now know I developed from having undiagnosed ADHD. If you are a woman, or female-presenting, or AFAB, especially, because ADHD gets missed in girls, a lot. I also changed my ao3 user name. I think that was after I last posted a chapter of now we're patriots, so you might be a bit confused.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.
hara_leah