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Chapter Text

Maya Hart did not cry, she did not mope and she most certainly did not drink.

Still, she thought as she slipped the tiny silver flask into her coat and took a sip of her cocoa, the drink burning its way into her stomach, sometimes you needed a bit of a sulk. Which is why she was here, curled in a booth in a shitty diner.

Most of the waiters know her, so they don’t even need to take her order when she walks in, and instead she finds a plate of french fries waiting for her.

Its things like that that remind her that she really doesn’t need to be moping. She’s got it pretty good, all things considered.

The sound of the little doorbell ringing draws her attention. For most people, 1 am is a ridiculous time to visit a diner who’s crowning jewel of the menu is the hashbrowns, but for Maya’s people, it’s like 6 pm on a Friday.

Prime moping.

She looked to the door and took a sip of her patented Maya’s Chocolate- hot cocoa, with a special twist.

In walked none other than her very own Ranger Rick, blond head sticking out like a halo amidst the grungy diner.

“Hey, huckleberry!” She calls before she can think better of it. “What’re you doing here?”

“Maya?” He sounded shocked, but he still walked over to meet her. He slid into the booth across from her and she grins, pushing all thoughts of her prior moping aside.

“Gettin’ a taste for that city life, eh?” She quips.

“‘Eh’ is Canadian,” Is all he replied. “I’m from Texas.”

“Jeez, you must be tired, Heehaw. This is the most tired I’ve heard you.” Maya plops her head into her hands and gazes at his obnoxious, fanfiction blue eyes. “Alright. Spill.”

“Huh?” He asks, tilting his head. Maya rolls her eyes.

“Listen, I’ll only explain this once cause you’re new. This,” She gestures around herself, at the ripping fabric on the booth and mold in the corners of the walls. “Is the Diner Booth. Distant relative of the Bay Window, if you sit in the Diner Booth, you’ve got to say exactly what’s on your mind. No more, no less.”

“Bring a lot of people here, do you?” Lucas tries to make a joke but it falls flat. Maya took another sip of her cocoa, then wrinkles her nose.

“This is not strong enough.” She tugs the flask from her pocket and empties it in her cup, then stored the now-empty flask in the pocket of her oversized jacket.

“Maya, what-” Lucas began slowly.

“My mom brought her new boyfriend home and told me to make myself scarce for a few hours. I tried to get back in a few hours ago but the door was locked.” She takes a long drink, letting the drink burn her throat and relished the buzz that blanketed her mind after. “There’s my thought. Go on, Huckleberry. Your turn.”

Lucas sat quietly for a moment, watching Maya, who took another big drink. “I know I’m bad for her.”

Maya threw her head back and laughed. “Welcome to the club! Riley Matthews loves people who are bad for her, Ranger ol’ boy. Nothing new there.”

She held out the mug to Lucas.

For a moment, it hung there between them, the chipped white mug on a stained, sticky white table.

Lucas took the mug and drank, wrinkling his nose. “Where did you even get that?”

“Home.” She takes the mug from him and drinks again. The buzz has elevated to a solid ringing, but she has always been a lightweight. It wouldn’t take too long before she’d stumble back to her apartment, bang a few times on the door and pass out in the hallway. She’d wake up to her school things piled beside her and a cold, empty apartment. Rinse and repeat.

The two sit in silence for a bit, passing the mug between them until the cup was empty and Maya was frowning into it like the pure power of her displeasure would fill it up again.

“I don’t think I should be friends with you guys anymore.” Lucas says, breaking the silence. Maya looks up at him, startled.

“Why not? You too good for us now?” She tilts her head and grins. That was silly, of course he was!

“The opposite.” Lucas drops his head into his hands, breaking his eyes from Maya for the first time that evening. “I’m violent and aggressive. You guys are- you guys are soft and everything good in the world.”

He tugs the mug from Riley’s hand and tips it upside down over his head, draining the last thick sip into his waiting mouth.

“I’m the opposite.”

“Huckleberry, have you looked in a mirror? You’re quite literally a golden boy!” Maya ran a hand through her own pale yellow tresses.

“Please.” Lucas’s eyes flick away from Maya’s face, then back to her eyes. “I’m bad for her. You. Farkle. I hurt everyone around me and I can’t even stop it.”

“Then I’ll stop it.” Urgh, the alcohol was leaking into her voice. Maybe the vodka was a mistake. “I’ll stop it. You’ll go to hit someone and I’ll be like wooosh, and like no, bro, you’re losing your temper, and you’ll be all whoa, thanks Maya, and you and Riley will go riding off into the sunset.”

“You’d do that for me?” There was a note of sincerity in Lucas’s voice that sobered Maya right up.

“Yeah, ‘course. I give the best good person lessons. I was taught by the best, you know.” Maya watched Lucas’s face.

“Maya…do you mean it?” Lucas asks again, looking at her with watery eyes. Maya’s brow furrowed.

“Uh oh.” Maya fought back a giggle. “Are you an emotional drunk, Lucas?”

“I’m not drunk. I’m tipsy.” Lucas steps out of the booth and looks at Maya, waiting for her to move.

“How do you know the difference?” Maya asks, setting the mug on the edge of the table and following Lucas into the smoggy New York night air.

“Back in Texas, Zay and I would sneak out to bonfire parties.” There was another moment of quiet as they walked down the sidewalk together, Lucas kicking a broken shard of bottle until it spun away from him into the road. Maya ran her hand along the brick wall of a building next to her, ignoring the way it made the chill seep into her skin. “That was the first time I ever got in a fight.”

“Really?” Maya tilts her head, watching Lucas.

Lucas nods. “Some jackass was making fun of Zay’s dog.”

“His dog?” Maya repeats, not believing it for a second.

“It’s a cute little thing!” He held his hands in a small cup to show how small the dog was. “Tiny little baby chihuahua.”

Maya sniffs. “I hate chihuahuas.”

“She was so cute.” Lucas sniffs. “But he was making some joke, I don’t even remember. I was drunk.” He gave a weird little one shouldered shrug before pressing the crosswalk button and staring straight ahead at the blinking red hand. “Woke up with bloody knuckles and a black eye.”

“And the other guy?” Maya asks, stepping off the curb and jogging across the street. She looks up at Lucas, knowing this is where she had to leave him. She had to turn left, following the sidewalk till it cracked off into a path of gravel, to her rickety old apartment building. And he would go straight, past rows of nicely manicured shrubs to his apartment.

Lucas did the one shouldered shrug again. “They were able to rebuild his nose eventually.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, do you guys wanna swing by the cafe?” Farkle asks, swinging his already packed bag over his shoulder as Maya speedily shoves her papers into hers.

“Can’t,” She chirps. “Ranger Rick and I have plans.”

“We do?” He asks, looking down at her as she cheerily linked their arms.

“We sure do. Onward!” She declares, marching the two of them out the classroom door and into the disaster that is a high school hallway.

Lucas, to his credit, humored her until they reached the front steps of the school, when he planted his feet and refused to walk a step further, no matter how hard she pulled.

“Alright, Maya. Where are you taking me?” He crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow.

“C’mon, Huckleberry, don’t tell me you forgot.” Maya did not let her smile falter, and for that she thought she deserved some praise. “Your good person lessons? Orientation is today.”

“My good person lessons?” That must have thrown him, because when Maya tugs his arm he stumbles forward with her and she leads him down the stairs.

“Of course! Look, your crush on Riley, however cute-”

“I don’t have a-”

“Look, we all know, okay? Even Riley, but she’s pretending to not for your own sake. And it’s cute, and you will make an adorable couple, but it isn’t going to go anywhere till you feel good enough. So I’m going to get you there.” Maya beams up at Lucas, who was examining her face very closely.

“So what’s the plan?” Lucas says after a moment.

“I am glad you asked!” Maya lets go of his elbow but he follows behind her anyway as she leads him down the street to her favorite bench in Central Park. She plops down and looks at him expectantly until Lucas sits down next to her.

Tugging her phone out from her pocket, she opens the Powerpoint she made instead of chemistry. She flips the phone around so the screen was facing him.

“Okay. Picture this.” She taps the screen and the slide flipped to a picture of a small puppy. “This is Bear. Bear is a very small puppy. Bear looks up to you. Trusts you.” She flips to a new slide where she had very shoddily photoshopped a man kicking a dog.

Needless to say, she didn’t have a future in graphic design.

Lucas made a shocked face.

“What do you do?” She shoves the phone in his face.

“I- Maya, this is ridiculous.” Lucas rolls his eyes.

“Just pretend. Someone kicks a dog. What do you do?” Maya set her phone into her pocket and stared expectantly at the blond little southerner.

“Probably yell at them? I don’t know!” Lucas crossed his arms and raised a single, perfectly manicured eyebrow.

“That is not the Riley answer.” She tugs the phone back from her pocket and switches the slide to reveal a picture of Riley, written over with the words ‘what would Riley do?’. “See, to be a good person you have to empathize and like, not yell.”

Maya remembered how one time, in the subway, a random guy had tried to steal her backpack from where it was resting between her legs. She started yelling at him and Riley had sternly told her that yelling was rude, and he might have needed what was in her bag and she should think more about other people’s stories before getting angry.

If she could pass this message on to Lucas without him having to deal with the wrath of Riley Matthews, she’d consider this mission a success.

“But they kicked a dog.” Lucas points out unhelpfully. Maya rolls her eyes.

“Yes, but that is besides the point, Friar. Good person lessons mean you have to be willing to see past-”

“The evils of humanity.” Lucas finishes her sentence for her, and Maya wrinkles her nose, before sweeping her blond hair up behind her and securing it into a ponytail.

“Okay, fine, my wonderful powerpoint and Bear the puppy isn’t going to work.” She stands up and brushes her pants off while she waits for Lucas to follow suit. Once he’s standing, she marches off in the direction of a Mcdonalds. “Tell me about another time.”

Lucas, weaving around her so she was pressed to the inside of the sidewalk, raises an eyebrow. “Another time what?”

“You lost your temper! Look, man, you seem convinced you’re evil incarnate, and if all your Mr. Perfectness isn’t good enough for you, then you and I are going to have to get down into the nitty-gritty-ness if you’re gonna be ‘good enough’ for Riley.” Maya stops at a stop light, glancing up at Lucas. “You know she doesn’t care about that stuff though, right? She’d take you as you are.”

Lucas nods, looking ahead. “But Riley’s better then me. She shouldn’t have to settle until I know I’m good enough for her.”

Riley sighs as they cross the street, the little white man blinking in the crosslight across from them. “If you want to beat yourself up, be my guest.” She swung the door open, letting him walk through because she is chivalrous like that.

“But you’re buying.”

A few minutes later, the two of them are sitting in front of two Big Macs (Lucas’s) , a 10 piece Mcnugget (Mayas) and a large fry (both of theirs). As they ate, the silence quickly turned awkward and Maya is unsure of how to fill it.

“One time I decked this guy at a rodeo.” Lucas says thoughtfully before taking a huge bite of his Big Mac and chewing. “He was teasing this middle schooler about losing his event.”

“Did you know the kid?” Maya asks, popping a fry into her mouth.

Lucas nods. “Yeah, he was Zay’s little sister's friend.”

Maya nods, gears in her head already turning.

“So like, do you get upset when people threaten small things? Cause I could totally steal a hamster from Petsmart and like-”

“Maya,” Lucas cuts her off. “Don’t steal a hamster.”

“I could if I wanted to.” She swirls a french fry in ketchup and eats it before speaking again. “Alright, Ranger Rick, no hamsters. But I’ll figure something out.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Chapter Text

Maya is particularly proud of her latest good person lesson, all tucked away neatly in her backpack. She told Lucas this morning that she needed him after school, which was a good thing because Riley had her running around all day, collecting interviews for some school project or something. She tried to be peppy about it, but honestly, asking dozens of people how they felt about the removal of the lockers on the second floor isn’t really how she wanted to spend her lunch period.

But it’s okay, because the final bell just rang and Maya walks along with Riley for a stretch before telling her she has somewhere to be before booking it down the stairs and to the park, where Lucas is stretched out under the willow tree.

“You must have done well in obedience school!” She chirps, plopping down next to his feet and setting her backpack next to her. “What other tricks can you do? Sit! Speak!”

Lucas gives her a look, but he smiles all the same. “What’s todays’ lesson, teacher?”

Maya grins. “I’m glad you asked!” She unzips her backpack, fighting a little with the old zipper. She needs to remember to fix that, or it’s going to break pretty soon. She paws a few of her things aside, sinking feeling growing in her gut. She knows she put it in here this morning, she took extra care of the drying glue and everything. There’s no way it fell out, and if someone stole it she’s totally justified in committing murder.

“What is it?” Lucas asks at the stricken expression on her face.

“I don’t know where it is!” Maya grumbles, giving up and dumping the contents of her backpack on the grass in front of them. Her pencils roll around pointlessly, but her good person lesson is nowhere to be found.

She drops her backpack, wracking her brain for where it could have gone.

Maya took it off her desk, set it in her backpack…

And then took it out to make room for her lunch box and forgot it on her bed.

Groaning, Maya flops back. She would have whacked her head on a root if Lucas hadn’t lunged and caught her head in his hand.

“What is going on?” He asks incredulously. “What are you missing?”

Maya props herself back up and glares at the backpack like that would make it appear. “Today's good person lesson. I spent so long on it last night and just left it on my bed. So stupid.”

She grumbles to herself as she shoves things back into her backpack. How was she so forgetful?

“Can’t we do it without it?” Lucas asks.

“No,” Maya grouches. “It’s quintessential.”

“Okay,” Lucas says, and Maya can practically hear the gears turning in his head. “Can’t we go to your house and get it?”

Maya freezes. That is, technically, the logical thing to do. However…

However, since her mom stopped paying bills and they got evicted from their nice apartment, their new building is considerably less suited to hosting guests. She hasn’t even taken Riley to see it. Lucas is still staring, waiting for an answer.

It would be weird to say no, right? Normal people don’t not let other normal people see where they live. And she trusts Lucas. Maybe he won’t completely ice her out as a friend when he sees the weird mold on the ceiling, or Creepy Pete down the hall.

Plus, she worked really hard on her good person lesson. It’d be a shame for it to go to waste.

“Yeah,” Maya says finally. “Let’s do that.”

The walk to Maya’s apartment complex was stiff and awkward, not at all like the past couple of weeks had been. Maya finds herself longing for the easy conversations they’d been able to have over lunch.

Pretty soon, they’re coming to a stop in front of her ramshackle building, malfunctioning flood light and all.

“You can- you can wait out here,” Maya says, fishing her key out of her backpack.

“You sure? I can help you look, you know.” Lucas responds, sticking his hands into his pockets. She studies him through the corner of her eye. Lucas is her friend, but he’s still new. Their friendship still feels fresh, breakable. She doesn’t feeling like bricking that windshield just yet.

“No,” She says, turning away from him. “It’s fine. I’ll be quick.” She twists the key in the lock and opens the door just enough for her to slip in.

Shutting it behind herself, she exhales. The air still smells like the Pop Tart she had for breakfast, which means her mom didn’t open any windows like Maya told her too.

With a sigh, she walks as quickly as the creaky floorboards and grouchy downstairs neighbor will allow to her room. Nudging the door open with her hip, she steps in.

In her old apartment, Riley helped her decorate her bedroom. There was bright colors, patterns, lamps.

Now, though, she has a camping lantern on a pile of books next to her mattress. She knows it’s pathetic, but every time she thinks about buying something to spruce up the place, she’s reminded of all the other things she should spend her money on.

Including, her latest artistic endeavor, which is sitting on her bed. To the untrained eye, it would look like two magic eight balls duck taped together. But to Mayas’ extremely expert eye, so can see where she cut into them to replace the little answer cube with one of her own. In one eight ball, shaking it would give you a problem. In the other, a little picture of all of Lucas’ friends would pop up, and she glued a little bit of paper with “What Would Riley Do?” written on it in the corner.

She picks it up and gives the first eight ball a little shake. Like she planned, the little answer cube doesn’t say something stupid, like “Answer hazy, try again.” It reads, “Bullies at school, mocking ___”. She flips it over to the other eight ball and shakes it, laughing a little when Rileys’ face pops up. Pleased, she turns to go when she comes face to face with Lucas.

“What the fuck!” She yelps, jumping backward a little. He reaches out, palms showing placatingly.

“Sorry, sorry!” He said, steading her. “You weren’t coming out. I got nervous.”

Maya sighs, tucking her magic eight ball contraption into her bag. “Yeah, I’m sorry. Mr. Green down the hall can get kind of weird-”

“What? No, I was nervous for you. I thought your mom might have gotten mad at you or something.” He says, shaking his head. Maya blinks.

She mentioned her mom being mad at her before school, offhandedly. She didn’t really think anyone was listening.

“Oh.” Maya whispers, blinking.

“Sorry for inviting myself in.” Lucas rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I just wanted to explain to your mom what we were doing.”

“My mom isn’t even home.” Maya whispers. Her mom is working again, surprise surprise, and won’t be home till ten.

“Oh. Well, alright then.” Lucas tucks his hand into his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “Coolio.”

“Were you listening? This morning, when I was talking about my mom?” Maya asks- demands, really.

“I’m always listening to you, Maya.” Lucas says, and something about the way he says it is so soft and genuine, Maya knows she has to change the subject.

“As you should. I’m always right. And, look at this!” She dumps the magic eight ball contraption into Lucas’s hands happily.

“Oh, wow, Maya, thank you so much!” He says, twisting it around slowly. “It’s…” he trails off, looking guilty and confused.

Maya sighs, but she can’t summon any ill will to him.

“It’s a practice tool. You shake this end here,” She shifts her device in his hands so the question side is facing him and gives it a little shake. The problem cube reads ‘Saying mean things about…’ “And it gives you a problem. And then you shake this end…” She twists the device and shakes it violently. To her surprise, her own little face pops up.

“And it gives you a person to think about. And it also has a little reminder.” She points to the ‘What Would Riley Do?” sign. Maya steps back, anxiously watching his face. She thought it was a good idea, because all the times he’s mentioned losing his temper, someone he cared about has been involved. “If you don’t like it, that’s totally okay. I totally-”

Maya is cut off as Lucas sets her contraption gently on the floor, and then not as gently hugs her.

The first thing she observes (mostly against her will) is how, though he lunged for her with a lot of force, his arms were gentle around her. She could feel his muscles under his shirt, but his arms felt like a blanket rather than a straightjacket.

She wraps her arms around him, slowly.

“Thank you, Maya. I love it.” He says quietly in her ear. Maya tries to shrug, but she can’t really with the way she’s holding him.

“It's really not that big a deal, dude.” Maya says softly.

“It is.” Lucas whispers. He holds her out so she can meet his eyes, but he doesn’t let go of her.

She appreciates it.

“No one has ever… I mean… you made this.” He says, turning his head and looking over at her contraption on the floor. “For me.”

“Yeah. It’s really not that big a deal, I mean. It wasn’t that hard to make.” Maya explains. “Just some hot glue, and-”

“No one’s ever made me anything.” Lucas blurts quickly, like he’s worried the words will vanish if he waits too long. “Like, with their hands. So, it is a big deal. To me.”

Maya feels something in her heart tremble.

“Never?”

Money is usually tight around her house, so she loves making things for her friends, and honestly, loves receiving them even more. Whenever Riley makes her a new headband or Farkle makes her a mixtape, it makes her feel… seen.

Lucas shakes his head.

And for a moment- or maybe longer than a moment, she isn’t sure- they stare at each other.

But it’s not the staring Maya is used to, the kind where she catches Riley’s eye from across the classroom and makes a silly face. This is special. Different, somehow, and Maya thinks it’s in a good way.

And that scares her.

She clears her throat, stepping out of his hold and pressing her device into his hands. “Well, I’m glad I was able to fix that. Now, why don’t we give it a test run?”

And she spends the rest of the evening perched on her bed, laughing at his ridiculous responses and trying her best to ignore the terrifying beat of her heart in her chest.

Chapter Text

This is a serious regression in their good person lessons, and the irony is not lost on Maya as she slips between the neatly manicured bushes in front of Lucas’s house and crawls over the fence into the Friar family’s backyard. He told her once that his bedroom looks over the hottub in the backyard, and she notes that this is true as she scoops up a handful of pebbles.

Praying it doesn’t shatter the window, she tosses one.

She misses.

The pebble bounces harmlessly off the side of the house, pinging down into the gutter. Gritting her teeth, Maya tries again.

She misses.

This time, the pebble lands on the other side of the window, which she figures is some sort of progress.

She throws a third pebble, and this time it’s a good thing she misses, because a bleary eyed Lucas slides open his window and pokes his head out.

Maya grins. “Ready for me to show you a good time, Cowboy?”

Lucas looks more confused than ever. “Maya? What’s going on, it’s the middle of the night?”

“C’mon, Hop-Along, we don’t have all day!” She throws another pebble, this time trying to hit him in the face, but it goes wide and clangs off the shutter.

“Hold on, I’m coming down.” Lucas’s head disappears into the house. Maya drops the pebbles. So, she doesn’t have a future in baseball. Big whoop.

Lucas eventually stumbles into the grass lawn, sliding the door shut behind him. He runs a hand through his blond hair and looks down at her.

“Well?” He asks, tilting his head and crossing his arms.

Maya beams up at him, holding out her bag. The spray paint cans rattle against each other at the movement. “C’mon, Huckleberry, I need someone tall.”

Lucas stares at the paint cans, then Maya, then the paint cans. “How did you even get these?”

“I know a guy. Are you gonna help me or not?” Maya slings the paint cans over her shoulder and looks at Lucas expectantly.

Lucas just sighs and tugs the bag away from her. “Lead the way.”

Maya marches them both out of his backyard and down the streets, eyes flicking around ever so often. Sure, being with Lucas was affording her some scary dog privilege, but one could never be too careful.

Once she decides they’re a safe enough distance from his house that Lucas’s mother isn’t going to come barging down the sidewalk with her hair in rollers and brandishing a rolling pin, she starts talking.

“Normally, I don’t need anyone for this. But this project is special.” She says, ignoring how Lucas pauses at the crosswalk to push the button, then scrambles after her.

“And this project is?” Lucas asks, glancing both ways pointlessly. If there was anyone coming down the road, she would have seen their headlights.

“The art museum just raised their prices.” Maya took another turn, kicking an empty beer can along with them.

“This relates to spray paint how?” Lucas asks, looking up at the graying city night sky.

“Do you ever miss Texas?” Maya asks, looking up at the sky too. New York’s light pollution was terrible. She can count the number of times she’s seen stars on one hand. But she knows it must have been different in rural Texas where Lucas is from.

“What?” He asks, sounding confused.

“I mean, it must be so different here. There’s no stars.” She gestures up at the starless night sky, then to the streetlights and apartment lights acting in their place.

Lucas shrugs, making the paint cans rattle. “There’s parts I miss. Parts I don’t. I’m glad for the fresh start.”

Maya lets the silence sit between them for a moment, then nudges his shoulder with her own. “But?”

“But… I do miss the stars.” Lucas admits, gazing up at the sky. Maya stops her examination of his sharp jawline and gentle uptick of his lips to examine the sidewalk in front of them.

Someone needs to be watching for tripping hazards.

“And I miss the animals. Everything here wants to bite me.” Lucas admits and Maya laughs softly. She remembers during Good Person Lesson Number 4, they’d come across a rat in the subway and she’d capitalized on the moment to teach kindness to the less fortunate, like Riley had for her with a rat in her apartment, but the subway rat just bit Lucas and skittered away.

“I miss my friends.” He says softly, and Maya can feel his gaze on her. She looks over to see him staring at her in an odd way, shadows cast by streetlights giving him an odd, otherworldly appearance. “But I think I’m more glad I met you guys.”

“Yeah?” Maya asks, softly.

“Yeah.” Lucas stares at her for a long, blue-eye-filled moment before looking away. “Besides, none of my old friends would have even thought of good person lessons.”

Maya laughs at this. “Yeah, well, this is a serious regression. Don’t take anything we do tonight to heart.”

They come to a stop in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Maya used to spend hours there, partially to enjoy the AC, but mostly to admire the art. She knows the layout like the back of her hand, and the history of the pieces better than half the docents.

But they changed their pricing, and now students have to pay fifteen bucks to get in.

“Alright, Hopalong, this is our stop.” She turns and tugs her paint cans off Lucas’ shoulder, poking through them for her neon pink.

“Remind me, what are we doing again?” He asks, pressing his hands on his hips and standing like some sort of sassy matador. He scanned the building in front of them, taking in the white columns that dwarf the two of them.

“Art should be free.” Maya declares. “No paywalls.”

“So…” Lucas trails off, scooping the bag of spray cans over his shoulder again.

Maya gives him a grin, so wide she bets her teeth are flashing in the moonlight. She quickly closes her mouth.

“Let’s go make some art.”

****

Maya makes good use of Lucas in the four hours she spends painting. Her original purpose, sitting on his shoulders to reach higher then she could without him, is quickly forgotten when a random pedestrian walks by and nearly catches them in the act. Lucas spotted them and all but tackled her behind one of the columns, where they waited until the sound of their feet had faded. From that point on, Lucas was the official lookout.

Maya still tries to distract him, though. It never works, but she puts up a good effort. Eventually, though, when she’s perched on his shoulders and his hands are holding her securely in place on her calves, she sprays the last line.

As the paint leaves the can, a breath leaves her, too. It’s sort of poetic, like she’s breathing with the art.

Or, maybe the fumes are getting to her.

At least she’s done now.

She taps Lucas’s shoulder, signaling she wants down, and when he bends over she launches off of him and runs down the steps to the sidewalk. She really, really hopes she got the perspective right.

Lucas walks next to her, eyes never leaving the building.

“Wow.” He whispers.

Long, swathes of color covering the door and steps piece together to form the face of a child, with the round innocence of childhood still left in their cheeks, looking up at a butterfly in a net with a price tag around it.

The girl’s left eye looks a bit wonky, and you can hardly see the dollar signs on the net, but it isn’t her worst work.

“Maya this is…” Lucas reaches out, like he could touch the still drying paint. “Maya…”

“That’s my name.” She jokes, but her moment of basking is cut short when she sees the sun start to peek between buildings. Jogging, she starts grabbing empty spray paint cans from where they were scattered and throwing them back into her bag. Lucas stands there for a second behind her, before jogging along.

“This is incredible.” He breathes, barely taking his gaze off the swathes of color covering the museum to help her pack her paints again.

“Thank you,” Maya blushes, though she isn't sure why. She's shown her friends her art before, but this feels…different.

Maybe crime made art more emotional.

****

Maya does her best to forget about her midnight jaunt, because sometimes she swears Riley can smell a guilty conscience. She manages to hold up pretty well too, ignoring all of Lucas’s glances during classes and avoiding the topic of anything art related.

That is, until she marches into Mr. Matthew's classroom to see an image of the Metropolitan Museum of Art blown up on the protector.

Would he believe it if she said she was going to be sick?

It wouldn't even be a lie. The nauseous feeling grows as she slowly walks to her desk and sits down. Her friends file in around her, Lucas giving her a look that she can't even begin to decipher.

Once the whole class is seated and the bell rings its death toll, Mr. Matthews starts talking.

“How many of you have been here?” He asks, and a spattering of hands go up. Maya keeps hers down. She can feel Riley’s accusing eyes on her already.

The hands fall back to their desks, and Mr. Matthews continues.

“Well, how many of you were aware that they just raised their prices?” Mr. Matthews is standing in the middle of the chalkboard, hands clasped in front of his body and mouth pressed into its favorite pose- a thin, disapproving line that makes Maya want to offer him some lip balm. Heads around the room shake, but Maya can’t bring herself to join them.

“And how many of you have seen this?” He clicks a button on the little remote he totes with him everywhere, and the image changes to Maya’s painting.

She chokes, eyes bugging out of her head. She just finished it hours ago, how was there already pictures of it?

“Graffiti is a Class A misdemeanor in the city of New York.” Mr. Matthews begins lecturing, walking between the rows of desks. Maya just knows when he gets to the ‘shame-shame’ part of this, he’s going to stop right over her desk and all her classmates will know.

She knows it's stupid, but some part of her hoped that if the Matthews did find out, they might be proud of her? Yeah, graffiti is wrong, but why she did it was right. She hoped- foolishly- that they might see past the whole “Class A misdemeanor” to her roots.

“Something of this size is going to cause a whole lot of problems for the people who go to this museum. They might even have to close it.”

Maya drops her head onto the desk as she hears his voice draw closer.

“Yes, Mr. Friar?”

That is off script.

“I disagree, Mr. Matthews. I think this is going to cause problems for the people who create the problems. I mean, it doesn’t take a- an art historian to realize that this work is about the price gouges at the museum. It’s saying- art is only good so long as it is shared. Honestly, this piece is some of the best art I think I’ve ever seen.”

Maya practically gives herself whiplash jerking around to stare at Lucas. He isn’t looking at her, not even a little bit. His blue eyes are fixed solely on Mr. Matthews, but his jaw is set like how it is in the last few minutes of a basketball game, when he’s got the ball and is tearing across the court.

Maya feels something rising in her throat. Butterflies or lava or vomit, she isn’t sure. She flings her hand into the air, blurts- “I have to go to the bathroom!” and bolts out of the classroom before anyone- Mr. Matthews or otherwise- can stop her.

Chapter Text

High school teachers need a serious reality check. No sane person grounded in today's reality would assign a word search for actual credit. And yet, here Maya sits, hunched over a word search with all her friends somehow unable to find “industrialization”.

Seriously, it’s got a z. How hard can it be to find a word with the letter z in a word search?

“That’s it. I’m killing Mr. Gonzalez and taking his place.” Farkle announces, dropping his book he was writing on to the floor with a clatter.

“You can’t murder people, Farkle.” Zay responds, not even looking up. “Hey, look, guys, boobies!” He flips his paper around with a stupidly proud expression.

Sure enough, the word boobies was circled, backwards and diagonal.

“Gross, Zay.” Riley says, shooting him a look. Maya giggles, but ducks her nose back into the word search.

Despite the word search being annoying, the bakery was warm and outside was wet and rainy, and her friends were making jokes that make her laugh, and she honestly can’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be.

Lucas elbows her side and tilts his paper so she can see. She leans into his side to peek over.

Across the first line and partially diagonal (technically against the rules of word searches, but she’ll let it slide) was the phrase ‘fuk word searches’.

“Think Mr. Gonzalez’s subconscious poked through?” He whispers to her, and she giggles in a decidedly very un-Maya-like way.

“What is it?” Riley asks, peeking over Maya, and Riley and Lucas share a Look.

Maya has been haunted by the Epic Love Saga that is Cory and Topanga all her life. The amount of times she’s heard their story is topped only by How Badly Riley Wants That Love In Her Life.

Lucas shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Maya curls her legs to her chest and rests her chin on them. Her word search flits, abandoned, to the floor.

Riley shrugs and turns her focus back to her own word search. Maya tries to do the same, but the stupid fluttery feeling is stuck in her throat again.

“How mad would Mr. Gonzalez be if we just didn’t do it?” Zay asks, brow furrowed.

“We can’t all get in trouble.” Maya points out, grabbing her word search and glaring at it. Maybe if the paper lights on fire, she won’t have to do it.

Or maybe Mr. Gonzalez will just get her another one and make her do it all over, because seriously, high school teachers may be the spawn of hell.

“C’mon, you guys, it isn’t that bad. We could have pages of math to do.” Riley points out, ever the optimist. It’s what Maya loves about her, but also what drives her up the wall some days.

Maya groans, flopping her head back on the sofa. Lucas chuckles and brings his hand up to run through her blond hair slowly. She told him, in a moment of utmost confidence and vulnerability, that she likes it when people play with her hair. Her mom used to do it, before she got wrapped up with work and booze.

“I think I’d rather do the math.” Zay said, dropping his paper on the coffee table.

Lucas chuckles at his friends joke like he always does, even when Zays’ jokes aren’t all that funny. But Maya likes that about him.

He twists a lock of hair around his finger before retreating from her hair and standing up. “I’m getting more pastries. What do you guys want?”

The friends all chorus their responses. Maya stays quiet. She can’t afford another treat. Truthfully, her 20 dollar emergency fund was overstretched by her first pastry. She still sits up and leans over the worksheet, rubbing her temples.

She can feel Rileys’ eyes on her, questioning. She knows. God, does she know.

She knows Lucas isn’t hers. Lucas is golden goodness personified and she’s…

The other week she’d needed to talk to her math teachers about retaking a test. She’d wound her way into the teachers lounge at the heart of the school. The door was ajar, and they couldn’t hear her walk up.

But she could hear them.

“...perfectly bright girl.” Her art teacher was saying. That made her happy, she loves that class.

“She’s just some kid from the wrong side of the tracks, if you know what I mean. She’s a dime a dozen.”

Maya felt her hands start to shake. She ran off, leaving the math test with a bad grade and the teachers to gossip.

She hadn’t been able to stop shaking that night, and random tears kept falling like she was yawning.

She hadn’t been able to forget it, though.

That’s how she knew it was true.

And Lucas deserves better. He deserves Riley, who’s a one in a million optimist.

“Order up!” He says, walking up with plates balanced on his arms like a waiter. Riley laughs at the sight before rising to her feet and helping him distribute the goodies. Maya just watches.

They look good together. They will be good together, once Lucas gets his head out of his ass and realizes he doesn’t need their good person lessons. Truly, she’s only kept doing them out of selfishness. She wants to pretend, just for a little bit, that Lucas cares about her.

She eventually trains her eyes back on her paper, hunting for the illusive final word.

“Hey,” Lucas says, sliding down and sitting next to her. “Here’s yours.” In front of her, he pushes a plate containing a single raspberry scone in front of her. Maya blinks.

“I didn’t-” She starts to point out.

“I know, but you like them.” He says it so simply, like the only determining factor was if she liked the scone or not. “Hey, look.”

He reaches over her shoulder, dragging his finger across letters in the center of the word search.

“Industrialize. Found it.”

The friends all cheer and start celebrating the mind numbing tasks' simple conclusion, but Maya just hangs in the air, caught in the trap of crystal blue eyes and a lopsided smile.

She’s in trouble.

Chapter Text

Maya isn’t sure how she knows Lucas is in the fight. Nothing about what the redhead who came bolting down the hallway, yelling about a fight in the locker room could have led her to that conclusion. Still, she somehow knows that one of those assholes is her asshole.

She books it towards the sports wing, leaving a flabbergasted Riley in her dust. She’ll apologize later. Right now she has to get to Lucas before he makes any choices he’ll regret later.

She can tell she’s getting close by the frequency of teenagers, a large crowd already beginning to form in front of mens locker room entrance. She wiggles through the door and shoves down the twinge of embarrassment at going into the mens room. Pretty soon she’s sandwiched between a kid who smells like he’s never even looked at a stick of deodorant and her lab partner from second period. Both of them are a good deal taller than her, so while they can peer over the heads of the crowd, Maya is left to squeeze between shoulders, not bothering to mutter apologies. Someone’s foot jams out in front of her and she stumbles, slamming into the person in front of hers back. This time, she does apologize, only briefly before shoving past them to the eye of the hurricane.

In the clearing, Lucas has Henry pinned to the wall and is pummeling his face almost methodically. Maya doesn’t know Henry, she’s heard he’s pretty good as captain of the basketball team, but she can’t help but feel sorry for the poor fucker.

This Lucas isn’t anything like the Lucas she knows and- cares for. There isn’t any remorse in his eyes as Henry’s nose explodes with a cascade of blood down the front of both of their shirts.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Maya shouts, voice somehow louder than the cries of “fight!” and Henry’s pained grunts. Neither of them react, though, so Maya is forced to charge into the fighting ring and snatch Lucas’s hand as he draws it back.

In that single moment, she’s afraid.

Not of him. Never of him.

But that she won’t be able to stop him.

She can feel his strength under his fingers, knows that if he wanted to, he could flick her off easier than a fly.

And she knows he would never forgive himself.

She throws everything she has into the single hand braced over his fist, willing him to stop.

He does. He keeps the hand pinning Henry to the lockers stationary, but twists his head to look at Maya.

She switches her grip to brace around his wrist. “You’re done,” She snarls, turning and tugging him off.

Again, she knows he’s only following her because he wants to. But she can hear Henry drop to the ground, a puddle of bruises and blood that is someone else's problem. Right now she has her own to deal with.

The crowd parts like the sea for them. Maya’s grateful she doesn’t have to navigate weaving Lucas through the horde. He isn’t doing anything other than marching behind her.

When they finally clear the crowds, Maya knows they need somewhere to lie low. A teacher would be on their way, and she needs time to deal with Lucas before they have to deal with explaining whatever the fuck just happened. She tugs Lucas down the hall to the girls bathroom, where she slams the door open loudly.

“Everyone out!” She shouts, hoping that for once, someone will listen to her. She presses forward, guiding Lucas behind her. Two girls standing at the mirror glance at her, then Lucas, and wisely decide to make themselves scarce. Maya listens to the door slam behind them.

Maya lets go of Lucas’s wrist. He stays stationary, looking a bit like a boat without an anchor. She points to the sinks lining the wall.

“Sit.” She grunts, slinging her backpack off her shoulder and onto the slightly damp concrete floor. She unzips the biggest pocket, noting how the rough tug finally causes the zipper to give way and rip from the fabric. She’ll have to sew it on again tonight. Maya doesn’t let it distract her, though. She starts rooting around between folders and granola bar wrappers for her emergency kit. She knows it’s in here somewhere…

Tugging out the polka dotted pencil pouch, she turns to face Lucas. He’s sitting in one of the sinks, hands resting in his lap and eyes trained on her.

“You better not have broken anything, because I am not qualified to deal with that.” With nimble fingers, she tugs out a singular wrapped antiseptic wipe and rips open the packet. She lets the plastic fall to the floor and holds out her hand expectantly.

Lucas just stares at her, wide baby blues conveying nothing of his mood. Maya rolls her eyes. She should be more sympathetic, he could be in shock or something. But she doesn’t have it in her to simper over him like Riley would. She just tugs one of his hands free from his lap and slowly begins wiping blood from his knuckles.

She works in silence, cleaning up the mess until she can see the pink abrasions dotting each knuckle. He winces and gasps a little as she wipes over them with the antiseptic wipe, but she ignores him and reaches into her pouch for the bandaids. Regrettably (she doesn’t regret a thing) she only has various themed band aids, so Cinderella goes on his pointer, Mickey Mouse on his middle, Rapunzel on his ring and Daisy Duck on his pinkie. She lets the wrappers fall to the ground around them like snow, dropping his hand and reaching for the other. This was the hand that was actually doing a lot of the hitting, so she’s ready for it to be worse.

Lucas extends his hands less this time, making her step between his legs to reach it. She can see her focused expression in the mirror behind him. She sets to work on his right hand, opening a new antiseptic wipe.

“You gonna tell me why you went all Rambo on the poor fucker?” She asks lightly, gently wiping around his knuckles. She thinks of all the times he’s told her he’s been in a fight, and compares them to what she knows of Henry. He doesn’t seem the type to mock little puppies, or little kids. Maybe he was secretly bullying one of the middle schoolers touring.

“Maya…” He grumbled, and she could feel him trying to catch her eye. She pretends she doesn’t see and keeps wiping his hand. “He was being a pig.”

“Well, you would know, Farmer Boy.” She brushes the wipe over his knuckles quickly, ignoring how he hisses out breath. She leans over his leg and starts rummaging in her pouch where it’s resting in the next sink over. She stands up straight again, quickly unpeeling bandaids. “But don’t worry, I don’t think Riley made it down. You should be-”

“I don’t care if Riley saw.”

His words seem rough around the edges, so unlike the polished front he puts up. These words belong to the boy sitting in a sink in front of Maya, watching her with blue eyes she finally meets.

Maya swallows thickly, suddenly aware of how close they are. His legs are resting on either side of her hips and if they were the same height there would only be inches between their lips.

She watches his Adam's apple bob. “Maya, I-”

Maya stumbles back, frantically slapping bandaids on his knuckle and then scooping up her pouch. She tugs out a Tide pen and all but throws it at Lucas as he eases himself out of the sink, looking confused.

“You could use that on your shirt, I don’t know if it’s gonna work, but you could try-” She dumps the pouch into her backpack and doesn’t bother fighting with the broken zipper.

“Maya-” Lucas tries to interject into her rambling, but she cuts him off.

“I have to get to class but you should wait for a bit before leaving, there might be teachers lurking, and-” She swings her backpack over her shoulder, nearly smacking Lucas in the chest.

“Maya-”

“I’ll catch you later, right, Huckleberry?”

Maya bolts from the bathroom, door swinging shut behind her before she can hear Lucas’s last, pitiful-

“Maya?”

******

The sky is dark outside as Maya sews under the glow of her battery operated book light. Her mom forgot to pay the utilities again, so until Maya can find where she hid the bank information, she’s working by candlelight.

She channels her inner Riley to help romanticize it, pretending she’s some poor farmers daughter embroidering for her hope chest in the dead of night.

It only part way works, because her backpack smells like cafeteria pizza and antiseptic wipes, but she makes do. She works slowly, methodically, all while trying to banish the way Lucas looked gazing at her that afternoon.

It didn’t work.

She didn’t understand what he was thinking. She is not the sort of girl you looked at that way. Maya is the sort of girl you notice walking next to the girl you look at that way.

After stabbing herself for the fifth time with the needle, Maya eventually throws her backpack and needle and thread to the corner. She’ll figure something out tomorrow.

She knows she should go to bed, but the fire escape outside her window seems to be calling her.

She knows Riley will hear, and she’ll probably get a lecture about it on the train tomorrow, but Maya just can’t bring herself to care. The night offers so many more intriguing opportunities than listening to her friend.

Slipping into a jacket that was bunched on the floor, Maya slips into the night and lets spray paint fumes whisk the confusing day away from her.