a sort of prequel/companion piece that i had intended to write first but the prompt came in before i started so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

cw: blood, violence, hints of self harm and attempted suicide

disclaimed

...

Maya doesn't remember much of how it happened—she remembers not knowing where Riley was through all of math, all of lunch; remembers the instinctual surge of fear that pushed adrenaline through her veins, a familiar feeling whenever Riley's not around for more than five minutes, whenever no one can tell her where to find her. She remembers enlisting their friends, a coil of anxiety tightening in her chest as the minutes ticked by.

It's not that she's actively worried Riley will—well. It's not that she doesn't think that Riley is fully capable of spending more than a minute alone without spiraling or doing something terrible to herself. It's just that—that the incident only happened a few months ago, that sometimes Maya thinks about how close they all came—how close she came to losing Riley and she feels like throwing up.

And honestly? She just has a bad feeling about this.

So—that's how she ends up scouring Abigail Adams with the rest of the group. Maya's just about to search the library, about to check the spot in the back between the Agriculture and Horticulture stacks that Riley likes to inhabit when the thrumming noise of their school gets to be too much, about to start calling her parents when Smackle cuts her off, stepping out of the girls' bathroom just down the hall to her left.

"Maya," she whispers urgently, standing in front of the bathroom door, hand still on the handle.

Maya makes a U-turn away from the library entrance, heading towards Smackle, whose looking up and down the hallway all squirrely. "What's up? Did you find her?"

"I, ah—," Smackle stammers, shifting her weight. "Sort of. She's in here," she says quietly, nodding towards the bathroom.

Maya makes a move towards the door, frowning when Smackle blocks her. "What's going on, Smackle?" When the other girl doesn't respond, Maya presses, "Isadora?"

Fidgeting, Smackle finally answers. "She's crying. Inconsolable—she wouldn't even talk to—."

Maya doesn't stand around to hear the rest of her answer, shoving into the bathroom and feeling her heart sink to her toes when she hears, then sees Riley. Her girl is pressed into the corner of the small room, knees to her chest as her body is wracked with huge, heaving sobs. Riley's nearly silent in her crying though, little gasps and stuttering breaths that Maya's got burned into her memory serving as the only audible clue.

"Oh honey," she breathes, crossing the space between them in a few long strides. She kneels in front of her, reaching out to pull Riley's hair out of her face, tucking it behind her shoulders, between the wall. "Oh Riley," she says. "C'mere."

Riley doesn't resist as Maya gently rearranges her, pulling her close to lean against her; Maya all but wraps herself around her girlfriend in the process. Riley's shaking stills somewhat, her weight heavy against Maya's shoulder. They've had a few moments like this, more in the last few months than Maya'd have ever wanted, so she knows that there's not much she can do beyond holding Riley and rubbing her back and assuring her that she loves her.

They sit like that for what feels like hours. Maya hears the lunch bell ring, signaling the transition to fifth period, to the free that she and Riley usually spend in the back of the library. She figures that Smackle is still stationed outside the door, because even as the halls fill and the noise of the outside filters into the bathroom, the door stays firmly shut.

Maya'll need to remember to thank her later.

Eventually Riley stills in her arms, her breath no longer coming in shaky gasps against Maya's collarbone. Maya doesn't want to upset her again, but there's a slow growing anger that started when Maya walked into the room and has been expanding ever since and Maya needs someone to assign it to.

"Hey Riley," she says gently, struggling to keep her voice even. She waits until Riley's sat up, moved out of the circle of Maya's arms just enough to look at her. "What happened today?"

"It's—," Riley hiccups. "It's nothing—."

"Riles," Maya says helplessly. "Riley, look where we are sweetheart. Something happened."

Her girlfriend is silent for a moment, looking everywhere but Maya which is doing nothing but adding to her anger, to her fear. Finally, she murmurs, "Matt Baczkowski was laughing about me in Chem. When I—I asked him what his problem was, he said it was funny that someone as neurotic as me would be so messy." Riley's eyes dart to her arms, currently covered by her sweater, though Maya knows that Chem is the one class that requires her to go uncovered, to keep her sleeves out of the way.

And Maya—Maya sees red. No, she sees white. She's blinded, wanting nothing more than to bury Matt Baczkowski. But Riley, as always, grounds her; she slips an arm around Maya's waist, shifting closer once more and asks quietly, "Can we stay here for a little?"

"Uh—." Riley's words snap Maya out of her terrifyingly violent fantasy, and she has to soften everything about her before she feels like she deserves to answer her. "Yeah, of course. We can stay as long as you need."

And she means it, too. She'll stay on this bathroom floor with Riley as long as she wants her, as long as it takes for some of the weight to slide off of Riley's shoulders. That said, she'll be having words with Matt Baczkowski as soon as she's able.

...

Maya leaves Riley at her sixth period class with a quick kiss and the promise of meeting her by their lockers afterschool. Riley nods, offering a wan smile before turning into her AP Lit class and closing the door behind her. Maya stays at the door for a moment more, hands curling into fists at her sides and counting to ten, hoping that the blinding rage would settle long enough for the day to end without incident.

And so she spends her sixth period half paying attention in AP Spanish. Matt Baczkowski sits in the second to front row, positioned just so that Maya can still see him in the corner of her eye even as she trains her eyes forward. He and his gang of assholes keep shoving a notebook between them, snorting with laughter whenever Profesora Verhaaf is helping another student.

Maya doesn't need to see the book to know that Matt Baczkowski is telling his loser friends all about how he tore apart what little light had made its way back into Riley's eyes. How he tried to tear down all the progress she'd made. How he had no fucking clue how much Maya wanted to end him.

Lucas leans over, nudging Maya's elbow. "What's up?" he asks, voice low as his eyes slide toward their teacher, at the front of the room and oblivious.

"Nothing," Maya mutters, vision tunneling when Matt Baczkowski and his merry band of dickfaces let out a round of laughter.

"Well," Lucas says evenly, reaching to pull Maya's notebook out of her death grip. "Your notes would beg to differ."

Maya tears her eyes away from the hole she was boring in the whiteboard to see what he's talking about and—shit. Her notes are crumpled and ripped and smudged beyond comprehension; apparently half attention doesn't serve her well.

"But now that I've got your attention," Lucas adds, yielding when Maya goes to take her notebook back so as to keep up the appearance of giving a fuck about anything other than the anger pounding through her veins. "What was going on with Riley?"

Maya wraps her fingers around the edge of her desk and holds them there, white knuckled. "Some stupid guy said something shitty," she manages to say. Lucas's brows furrow; Matt Baczkowski and his friends laugh again and Lucas glances over, glances back to catch the way Maya's grip on her desk tightens.

"How bad was it?" he asks, glaring at Baczkowski and his gang.

Maya's not sure whether he's asking about the actual comment or Riley's reaction, but Maya answers both, to cover all bases. "He joked about her scars," she says, swallowing hard. "Smackle found her sobbing."

Lucas clenches his jaw, muscle jumping as he grits his teeth, nearly mirroring Maya's own reaction when a fresh chorus of chuckling erupts from Baczkowski. "I'm going to kill him," Maya grits out, squeezing her eyes shut and trying not to think about Riley crying.

Whatever switch Lucas has that keeps him from fighting everyone that threatens his friends must get flipped, because his anger cedes to concern, his attention shifting away from Matt Baczkowski and centering on Maya. "No, you're not," he tells her. "Riley wouldn't want you to get in trouble because of him."

The final bell rings before Maya can respond or think about his words too hard. She pushes her things into a haphazard pile and stands up abruptly, shoving past Lucas on her way out the door. Maya's pretty sure that if she had to spend another minute within ten feet of Baczkowski, she'd actually snap and throttle him right there in the Spanish room.

She's disappointed but not entirely surprised when she reaches her and Riley's lockers and finds them devoid of Riley. She figures she can probably find her in the library, or maybe the bathroom again, but Maya's shaking with how angry she is and she can't come to Riley like this, not this furious, not this fucking mad. She needs to be softer, needs to be able to gentle her touch and keep her voice from raising. She needs to hit something first.

Maya's been in pretty good control of her temper for much of her life; she keeps a lid on her destructive streak because of Riley's influence, because of the unmitigated good in her life. But all that? It all goes out the window where Riley's wellbeing is concerned.

She figures that the art room will be a safe enough space to get some of that terrible anger out; Maya won't be able to punch a canvas, but throwing paint around always helps a little anyway. She hovers by her and Riley's lockers for a few more minutes, just in case Riley comes looking for her or wants to leave. When she doesn't appear, Maya shoves her books into her locker roughly and slams the door closed before marching towards the art room.

It's empty when she gets there, so she's free to grab a new canvas and all the paint she wants—burning reds and heavy blacks and harsh yellows, ugly greens and deep purples, angry like a bruise. She's not entirely sure what she wants to paint, just knows she needs something to do with all the energy in her palms. Without much fanfare, she sets to work.

She paints for nearly an hour and feels like she's barely made a dent in her rage. Her canvas looks very much like a bruise, her hands and jeans falling victim to the dark colors of her work as well. Maya takes a quick look at the clock on the wall above her and starts when she realizes the time. Riley should be ready to go now, right? God, she hopes so.

Regardless, Maya's done. She can't justify another bruised canvas and can't stay focused long enough to paint anything cohesive, so she shuffles her canvas onto one of the drying racks in the back of the room and puts her supplies away. If, when she washes the paint off her hands, she scrubs a little too hard—well. Who could blame her?

Maya's not sure what she expects when she walks out of the art room into the mostly abandoned halls of Abigail Adams, but it's not Matt Baczkowski leaning against the wall of the first hallway Maya turns down to head back to her locker.

His head is down, his attention on his phone, but he looks up when Maya comes to a dead stop at the beginning of the hall. "Hey Hart," he greets, as if he hadn't just reduced the girl she loves back to someone Maya hardly recognizes sometimes. As if he hadn't just dimmed a little of the world's light in the process. As if he didn't have this coming. "Did you get what the Spanish assignment was?"

Maya's hand is in a fist before she can think twice. There's a satisfying crack when it connects with Matt's Baczkowski's nose, blood spraying down his face and shirt. There's a dull roar of pain for Maya, starting in her knuckles and spreading, but the look on Baczkowski's face is worth it all.

Worth it, that is, until he winds up to retaliate, Maya moving just fast enough for it to be a glancing blow.

This might be where things get fuzzy.

Maya's not sure what herculean feat it must have been for all five feet of her to get all six feet of Baczkowski on the ground, but that's where they are when Lucas comes sprinting around the corner.

Farkle must have seen the first blow, Maya thinks, for him to get the news out so fast. He's to one side of the pair of them, sprawled in the middle of the hallway as they are, Maya throwing punch after punch after punch because—fuck, because it feels good. Who says something like that to a girl that kind? What kind of monster thinks it's funny to make such a soft person cry?

Lucas is yelling and so is Farkle and so is Matt Baczkowski—Maya's pretty sure she's yelling too, spitting out all the ways she's going to make Baczkowski's life hell if he ever so much as breathes in Riley's direction, but it's all drowned out by the roaring in her ears, the adrenaline rush she gets from each spike of pain as her fist meets Baczkowski's face.

"Fuck, it was a joke," Matt Baczkowski spits, spraying blood across Maya's shirt. "S'not my fault she's—."

Maya doesn't let him finish the sentence. "Do you still think it's fucking funny?" she hisses, hands fisting in the material of Matt Baczkowski's shirt, tightening the collar enough to make him uncomfortable. Maya's about to hit him one last time when Lucas finally gets a hold around her waist, dragging her up and off Baczkowski, leaving her kicking her legs through the air, hands still in fists.

"He's not worth it, Maya," Lucas says sharply, almost yelling into her ear; and, yeah, he's not worth it, worth the detention or suspension certainly heading her way, but Riley absolutely is. And this—this fucker, this piece of shit—Maya knows he was one of the ones that said shit in the beginning, already hates him from that and fuck, sometimes she needs to do something when Riley's hurting.

Here's where the real problem lies, she thinks—Maya's all but helpless when it comes to the monster under Riley's bed, the dark thoughts that permeate Riley's otherwise sunny life. Maya can't fight those—couldn't fight them when Riley was so depressed she skipped school in favor of lying in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling. She couldn't fight those thoughts on that godawful night. She can't do anything to help Riley through this. Her very best friend, her true love, her extraordinary relationship—Maya can't do a damn thing to help Riley and it's killing her.

So here she is, helping the only way she knows how. She feels some of the anger dissipating at the realization, some of the fight leaving her—enough so that Lucas feels comfortable loosening his grip on her. But then Matt Baczkowski is glaring at her and he mutters something that sounds awfully like, "You're just as psycho as your girlfriend," and all of Maya's anger—all of her pain and grief and worry, all the righteous fury, all the protectiveness that's hardwired into her when it comes to Riley Matthews—it all comes flooding through her again.

Baczkowski's looking down when Maya tears away from Lucas and goes for him again; he gives up a sharp cry of surprise when she knocks into him and sends him sprawling, catching his collar and hauling him up to be eye level with her. She chooses her words carefully, her anger not clouding her thoughts this time. "If you ever," she hisses, "even think about saying something like that to Riley again, I'll make your life hell." It's a promise she has no intention of ever breaking. "I will make you wish that you had crawled into the deepest, darkest pit and stayed there."

He gulps, flinches; Maya gets a sick rush of pride when she realizes that he's shaking.

And then she just feels sick when she hears a very quiet, achingly familiar voice whisper, "Maya."

Maya doesn't want to look up, but she does, drawn in like always. The moment her attention isn't on him, the moment her grip slackens on the collar of his shirt, Matt Baczkowski is scrambling away, standing and stumbling out of the hall, Farkle hot on his heels.

Lucas offers a weak excuse before running out as well, but it barely registers with Maya, too focused on the way Riley's looking at her, at her bloody hands. She looks like she's struggling with something, the way her eyes keep darting to the blood on the floor, on Maya.

Maya unfurls her fists despite the pain. All of her anger is gone, replaced by something much heavier. She lays her hands open, palms up, asking silently for everything to be okay.

"You weren't supposed to see—," Maya starts.

"Was this about—?" Riley asks.

They both stop short; Riley's eyebrows knit together as whatever internal struggle seems to end. Maya watches in muted wonder as Riley walks over, carefully stepping around Matt Baczkowski's blood. When she kneels beside her and gently pulls Maya's battered hands into her lap for inspection, Maya's sure her heart will burst. She tries to hide the grimace of pain that comes with the movement, but Riley's eyes snap to hers, worry evident.

Emotion makes the words stick in Maya's throat, taking two, then three and four tries before she can force them out. "I didn't mean for you to see any of this," she whispers, shame coloring her words. Because this? This part of her? She tries so hard to keep it hidden away; it's not that she thinks that Riley will push her away for it, it's that she's afraid she won't be deserving of Riley if she lets this part of her see the light more than it already has.

Riley seems to understand, nodding and whispering back, "I know, Peaches." She falls silent for a moment, dark eyes serious and soft as she studies Maya. And—god, she can't help it, she feels split open under Riley's gaze, all the softest and weakest and saddest parts of her laid bare, and Maya finds herself searching for the words to make this better, lips parting in an attempt to soothe whatever upset she's caused. Riley stops her, thumb brushing across her pulse point softly. "Let's get out of here," Riley murmurs. "You need to get your hands looked at."

Which—true. Maya takes a moment to look at—to really look at her hands, cradled in Riley's lap. They're already bruising which probably isn't a good sign, the knuckles split and starting to scab. Numbly, Maya nods, a little shocked at her own brutality. She lets Riley slip an arm around her waist, helping her stand and not use her hands, and she doesn't say a thing when Riley leaves it there, hand on her hip.

On the walk out to the parking lot, they pass Zay and Lucas making excuses to the janitor for the pool of blood Maya's left in her wake. Riley keeps her arm around Maya's waist, pulling her close to lean into her, which Maya is more than happy to do. Riley kisses her temple when they're walking to the car, just because. Maya stops and turns to kiss her fully in response, to remind them both that they're solid, built on a strong foundation. That these sort of waves aren't enough to kill, just to bruise.

They'll be okay, in the end.