Burning Inside
Author Note: AU of Rucas as adults.
"You know what if you want her back or to make her jealous, or whatever your endgame is here, than I can't be a part of it." Riley stared at Lucas across their room of his parents' penthouse. "I can't watch while she wins you, not again."
"What do you mean not again?" Lucas took a single step forward afraid to try for a second or even third to close the space between them.
Riley froze mid move, "Nothing, it doesn't matter what I said. I'm not staying for this Lucas."
He closed the space between them, feeling that ridiculous, crazy, insane spark he'd been feeling for her since she stepped foot on the plane to come here.
She pulled away from him, picking up her suitcase and putting her purse over her shoulder, "Good luck Lucas, if Maya is the woman you want, if she's the woman you need you're going to need it. She already chewed you up and spit you out once."
"You're right she did." Lucas put his hand on the door and tried to keep her from opening it. "What do you mean by not again?"
"If it mattered you would already know Lucas, but it doesn't." she stomped on his foot forcing his hand to release from the door and she swung it open, knocking him in the face as she stormed out.
Lucas tried to go after her, hopping on one foot and trying to ignore the searing heat of pain on his face, "So you're just leaving?"
"It's better this way Lucas" She turned walking backwards, "its better this way. Go fuck that stupid blonde cheerleader bully, and regress to the asshole you were in high school because that's what you want isn't it. To be that guy again instead of the person you were always meant to be, the person burning away inside of you. You think I don't see it, you think I've never seen it, that's where you're wrong Lucas Friar I've seen you with your best fake smile day after day, pretending to be who Maya, Farkle, your parents, everyone wanted you to be."
He was stunned as he processed everything she'd just said as she turned to walk down the stairs, it took him almost a full minute to start moving after her again, missing her on the elevator, forced to take the stairs, missing her outside as she got in a cab and he hailed one following after her.
When her cab stopped in front his old high school hangout Topanga's, he'd suspected this was where she would run to, part of him had even been hoping, but he didn't think it was real as he watched her go up the steps of the building while he paid his driver.
"Riley" He called out, seeing the way her body froze as she put her suitcase down and turned to him.
Her face was streaked with tears, her eyeliner running with them as she looked to him. "You called me Riley?"
"Riley Matthews" He took a step forward, "My first day of school I took the subway, my Mom wanted me to take the town car with Farkle but I didn't want to show up as some rich kid because that's not who I am, who I was ever meant to be. There was this beautiful adorable brunette on the subway, looking as terrified as I felt when she lost her grip on the pole and flew backwards, almost running into a wall before I caught her and pulled her onto my lap."
She took a step down as he took one step forward.
"She was everything thirteen year old me could dream of, and I was a fucking idiot." He prayed she could understand. "I got to school and the blessing of being in class with her, was also the curse of being in class with my brand new step-brother and his best friend Maya. I apparently had a place in the social hierarchy that I didn't want, I was claimed by Maya the moment she first saw my picture, months before I ever stepped foot on a plane from Texas to New York. Even though every aspect of my being was burning to become your friend, you were like a flame and I was the moth, you were and still are a drug I crave, one I'm addicted to with only the sweet sample of innocence far too many years ago."
She took another step down as he took another step forward, she still didn't say anything.
"I realized you were too good for me, so I went with the flow, as stupid as it sounds, I allowed myself to be pulled into this awful world of popular and rich kids, parties that were nothing but blurs of drugs, alcohol and sex. Every morning after I would promise I would get out and find my way to free myself from this tornado of hell I was in and find a way to be worthy of you."
Riley looked down at the steps, still crying just a little bit knowing she was only a few steps away from him and took one more, while he took another.
"But I couldn't, I wasn't strong enough, not while I was around them every day so I escaped just like you escaped." He was desperate to reach for her, pull her to him. "So high school ended, six years of being a hot damn mess and amazingly I made decent enough grades so I went to Colorado. Everyone expected me to go to Texas, but God I'm going to sound like a stalker now, I went after you."
Riley scoffed, "You're Felicity, is that what you're saying?"
"The American Girl doll" he looked to her quizzically.
"You went to CU because I went to CU?"
He nodded, "I thought maybe I would see you on campus, and you'd give me a chance. Four years, nothing, I think I saw you on Pearl Street once."
"That really was you." She took another step towards him, "Why did you move to Denver?"
He took another step knowing only another from each of them and whatever space was between them would be closed, "I didn't want to go back to being that hot mess, look at me I couldn't make it a damn weekend without becoming one."
Riley just nodded, "When did you know it was me?"
"I knew the moment I saw you on the plane, the way you smiled to the flight attendant, the way you blushed when I ordered us both champagne, the way you gasped when I took your hand. I knew it was you Riley."
"Why did you let me go by Leigh all weekend then?" She couldn't do it, she couldn't take another step fear was burning inside of her.
He searched her eyes, "Because I didn't think you wanted me to know."
"Of course I didn't. Why would I want the boy who stole my heart far too many years ago to know this is what I became? Why would I open myself up to falling in love with you all over again as a man? Most important Dr. Friar, why would I open myself up to being rejected by you?"
"I would never, and could never reject you Riley." He cradled her face in his hands, "I look at you and see the rest of my life in front of my eyes."
Her lips quivered, "You do?"
"I do, I always have I was just terrified you would reject me."
"Never" she confessed letting herself get lost in meadow green eyes for the moment.
"Then why did you walk out?"
"I thought you wanted Maya."
"Never, I never did I don't even like her that much." He confessed, "She's demanding, controlling, and terrifying. I knew I couldn't be here single, I knew I needed someone with me because if I didn't have someone at this wedding I was open to her manipulations. I'm weak I'm not a secure western hero or anything like that."
"You are not weak." She caressed his cheek with the back of her hand, watching his eyes flutter shut at her touch as he leaned into it. "You took a crazy, ridiculous, leap of faith, and it just took almost a decade to pay off."
He was so tired of talking, of crying, of living in fear of missing her touch for the rest of his life as he pulled her in, kissing her, pulling her off the final step and deep into his embrace. "I love you Riley" he breathed as he held her close to him.
"I love you Lucas." She clung to him as she barely stood on the tips of her toes.
