Hello everyone, and welcome to Like a Brother! This is an idea that popped into my head a few days after I read the excellent Rilaya fanfiction, 'iloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou, she never says' by 'a-isforalison' and I encourage you all to go ahead and read that!

This is also a free-write, which might mean a different thing to you than it does for me. A free-write for me is getting an idea, and deciding to just write it all down without any planning, and without stopping until you get to a point where you feel like the story has ended. I also haven't edited this at all, as I don't do that with my free-writes, at least not straight way. This is hot off the press, finished just a few minutes ago!

In any case, I hope you enjoy this, and I'll see you for the authors note down the bottom!

God, he loved him.

He'd loved him from the moment he had laid eyes on him, but it had never clicked in his head, not really. It had hung around his mindscape, occasionally scratching at his conscious, whispering that it was there. It had tried desperately to worm its way in, latching onto his emotions. But he wouldn't let it.

Because it wasn't really there. He couldn't love him. It was brotherly love. Nothing more, and nothing else.

But brotherly love wasn't when you tossed and turned in bed at night, heart threatening to overflow with unbridled sadness because he wasn't next to him. Brotherly love wasn't seeing him in the hallways casually having a discussion with your girlfriend and being jealous that she was so close to him. Brotherly love wasn't the butterflies that fluttered in his chest when he squeezed his shoulder, or gave him a massive, friendly grin.

Brotherly love wasn't the intense desire to sweep him into his arms and kiss him until he couldn't breathe.

That wasn't the love Lucas Friar had for Farkle Minkus, but it was the love that Farkle Minkus had for Lucas Friar.

And that tore him up inside. He shouldn't have been into guys, why had he been made into guys!? It wasn't fair, he had found his princess, he was dating Riley! She made him feel happy and safe and calm... but that was it. He didn't want to wake up to her face on his pillow every morning, he didn't want to make sweet passionate love to her in his bed.

He did love Riley Matthews, but certainly not in the way that Maya Hart loved her. And not in the way he loved Farkle Minkus.

Farkle loved him like a brother. Farkle was always there to give him a smile and tease him, talk about how Lucas must've always considered him a 'threat' to his relationship with Riley. He wasn't a threat, though. Because he didn't want Riley like that.

And now Farkle was dating some fellow mathlete, a pretty girl with ginger hair and brown eyes and a curvy body who was almost as wacky and zany as he. But Lucas hated her. He hated her so, so much, because she was allowed to have what should've been his. She was allowed to kiss Farkle, he was allowed to hug Farkle, she was allowed to sleep with Farkle.

All he was allowed was the occasional big smile, and a pat on the back.

But that would never be enough.

Riley had cried when he had broken up with her. She didn't understand, and he felt his heart ache even more than it usually did. But it needed to end. He didn't love her, not in the way she loved him. He couldn't be her prince, she needed someone better than her.

But she wouldn't listen. She thought it was all her fault, tears streaming down her cheeks as she had wrapped her arms around him and begged and pleaded for him not to leave her.

He did, though. He left her, his girlfriend of three years, the person he had been leading on for whoever knows how long because he wanted to feel normal. He wanted to be attracted to girls, just like his father said was natural. But he wasn't.

He was attracted to boys, he was attracted to men. He was attracted to his fellows on the baseball team, not the cheerleading squad. He wasn't attracted to Riley Matthews and her cherubic like appearance. He was attracted to Farkle Minkus, teenage boy with the bowl cut, his eccentricities and all.

But he would never get him.

He'd received a text later that day from Maya, thanking him for doing the right thing. She had become a confident, in a sadistic sort of way. She should've hated him, hated him for leading on her best friend, and the person that she desperately wanted to be with. But she didn't. Instead, she understood. She understood far more than any person should how soul-crushing it felt to look across the hall at the one you love and not have them look at you in the same way. She knew how it felt to be so close to being able to touch the one you want to be with, and yet so far at the same time.

She knew it all. And so they had both cried over their respective loves, tangled in each other's embraces. Sometimes alcohol was involved, sometimes it wasn't. But it dulled their senses, and made the pain go away to be in each other's arms, at least for a while.

And Lucas was trying so desperately to make the pain go away.

Riley had moved on fairly quickly. It had taken her a month to feel comfortable enough to start dating again after losing her 'first love', but she had rebounded and was dating someone else, and Lucas was genuinely happy for her. She deserved to smile.

So did Maya. And she would smile, at least on the outside, as long as Riley was happy. He just wished she could be happy too.

And Farkle had broken up with his girlfriend. 'Too clingy' he had stated when asked, and said he was going to become a bachelor for a while, and focus on his schoolwork. He had also said, turning his eyes onto Lucas, that he was sorry for not spending more time with him recently, and that they would hopefully be spending a lot more time together now. He said that Lucas was the best friend he could ever ask for, and that when the right girl came along, Lucas would certainly be the best man.

And Lucas had flashed the charming grin that Riley had fallen for, and said that was fine. And Farkle had smiled back just as bright, and turned back to speak to Riley.

Lucas' smile never wavered. Not until he had gotten home, locked himself in his room, and sobbed into his pillow until he fell asleep.

Everybody else deserved to smile. But he didn't.

And there we go. What did you all think? As stated in the summary, the Lucaya is only there if you squint. After I re-read the scene in question with them, I realised that it could be interpreted that they were doing more than just crying. That wasn't my intention while writing, but if you want to interpret it that way, and you think it adds to the story, be my guest. I'd be fairly interested in actually doing something based on that, but that's details for another day! In any case, I hope you enjoyed, leave a review if you did, and have a great morning/afternoon/evening/night!