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onetwothreefarkle · 6 months

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Hii!! I'm so so glad you're back :3 your fanfics were truly my faves. I've had this idea for a fanfic where riley wants to ask farkle to prom but is too scared to do so, so she makes a deal with him that if no one asks them to prom, they'll go together, and something happens and riley has to confess that she wanted to go w/ him and asks him w/ a poster that says: you, me, prom?

ahhhh thank you so much for enjoying my stuff and thanks for the prompt! i hope you enjoy this little fic :)

“So, are ya gonna do it?”

Maya’s face pops up as soon as Riley’s shut her locker door, eyes sparkling in a puckish sort of way that can only mean trouble. Riley clutches her AP Literature textbook against her chest, a brow raised.

“No.”

Maya groans.

“You promised! You told me that today would be the day! You said, and I quote, “Maya, if I don’t do it on this date, you’re allowed to make me buy you something from my mom’s restaurant for a month.” Look, I even have proof of you holding up the calendar with the big red circle outlining today’s date!”

Riley’s best friend whips out her phone, swiping through pictures until she finds what she’s looking for. She holds it up as if it’s incriminating evidence, but Riley doesn’t much care—well, she does, because that picture she took is downright unflattering and should be deleted immediately.

“Let me see that,” Riley demands, and Maya hands her the phone, clawing at her when she trashes it.

“Hey!”

“No one needs to see that picture, Maya. I’m trying to forget what my haircut looked like at the beginning of the year.” She begins to walk off, trying desperately to ignore Maya’s prodding to no avail.

“Riley Matthews, are you going to chicken out? I thought Matthews don’t quit,” Maya says, grinning when it stops Riley in her tracks. “Ha! I got you there.”

Riley moves to make her rebuttal, but the warning bell rings to alert them that they need to be heading to their next class, so she simply rolls her eyes, waving goodbye to Maya as she heads in the opposite direction.

“We’re tabling this, Matthews! Don’t think I won’t let this slide!” Maya calls out. Riley shakes her head, sighing as the weight of anxiety starts to lift.

Yeah, she’s aware she’s a coward. But she’s not about to do it—there’s being brave, and there’s being absolutely idiotic, and if she did go through with it?

It’d change a lot.

She’ll take the chance of being a coward any day over spilling her guts.

Riley’s never been one to believe in coincidence, so when Farkle swings through her window effortlessly later that day, she can’t help but damn fate a little.

“Alright, you, me, AP Literature. Now,” he says, tossing his bag onto her floor and landing on her bed with a thud. Riley pushes her feelings way down inside her, swallows them until she’s able to pretend they’re nonexistent, and glances up at him.

“Why does it feel like all you ever come to me for anymore is AP Lit stuff?”

Farkle scoffs.

“Please, we had a horror movie marathon last weekend. Plus, I brought a bribe. You do still take bribes, right?” he asks, pulling out a bag of sour gummy worms.

“Your bribe has been accepted. Gimme,” she thrusts her hand out, making a grabbing motion. Farkle laughs giving her the bag. She tries to tear it open with her teeth when she can’t rip it with her hands, whooping triumphantly when it tears.

“Don’t hog those. I want some, too.”

Riley wants to tell him he could bugger off, but she knows that sentiment would be null and void. She’d rather give up an arm than force him out of her space, and if that meant sharing his gift of sour gummy worms, she would.

“Leave the—”

“Blue-red ones, I know,” he finishes cheekily, pulling a couple of yellow-red ones out and plopping them into his mouth.

“So, AP Lit?” she asks. Farkle pulls out his textbook and notebook, settling himself comfortably on the end of her bed.

“Am I allowed to say I don’t love poetry? Because this class makes me not a fan of poetry,” he says, nose curling as he reads a question, “Why aren’t there any good science poems?”

“There are, you just aren’t looking for them,” Riley tells him simply.

“Lies. Name one off the top of your head right now,” Farkle jibes, throwing a gummy worm at her.

“The Old Astronomer by Sarah Williams. ‘I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.’ If I ever did get a tattoo, it’d be with that quote,” she answers, picking the gummy worm off herself and eating it. She looks back at Farkle, who remains . . . unconvinced.

“Pretty quote, still not interested in poetry. I think it’s the form.”

“Okay, what if I told you to look at the scientific method steps like a poem? Because it basically is. BOOM, exploded your mind with hot knowledge!”

“Riley, please. Don’t ruin science for me.”

Riley sticks her tongue out at him, gently kicking him in the thigh with her foot as she settled comfortably into against her pillows. She’s already finished her AP Lit homework, onto her AP Chemistry homework now, but she’s always ready to help Farkle when he needs it. The degree to which she’d drop everything for him, just for him, is downright . . .

Embarrassing.

But she’s learned to take it in stride. There’s something about his presence that always makes her feel a certain sort of way now, but she just reminds herself that this is Farkle, her best friend since she was five, and there’s nothing to be scared of.

Then Maya texts her, and she remembers what it is exactly she’d been fretting.

i know the minkus boy is at ur house!

he just sent me a snap of u

u look like ur having a midlife crisis on ur bed there

better fix that by

i dunno

ASKING HIM THE STUPID QUESTION

Riley shuts her phone off, tossing it to the side to return to her Chemistry textbook.

Chemistry! She’s supposed to be studying for chem, and she will not—it’s absolutely out of the question—say the question that’s in her head.

I thought Matthews’ don’t quit.

Damnit! Maya’s right, Matthews’ don’t quit.

They shouldn’t.

“Farkle?” she calls out to him, ignoring the way he’s mussed his hair in an adorable fashion from being fraught by the poems laid out in front of him.

“Yeah, Riles?”

“So . . .” Just ask it. Ask him, you dummy! “Uh, are you going with anyone to prom?”

“Oh,” he blinks, as if not anticipating the question (he probably wasn’t, come to think of it), “No, not that I’m aware of. Why do you ask?”

Here goes nothing.

“Youwannagotopromwithme?” Riley blurts all at once, the words rushing out of her mouth like vomit. Farkle stares at her, his mouth opening and closing a couple of times as if he’s trying to gauge if she’s serious or not. In fact, the longer he doesn’t talk, the quicker Riley tries to think of a way to recover from this, because ABORT MISSION ABORT!!!

“You know, if no one else asks you? Or you don’t ask anyone else? We can just go as friends,” she supplies, chuckling nervously. Something flashes across Farkle’s face, something that Riley thinks is akin to disappointment, but as soon as it’s there, it’s gone.

He shrugs.

“Sure, why not?”

Riley sighs with relief.

“Okay, cool. Just let me know, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course.”

The night does not return to normal after that. In fact, it’s awkward up until the moment Farkle swoops back out the window with a goodbye and a half-hearted smile. As soon as he vanishes, Riley collapses face-down into her pillow, screaming into it out of pure frustration.

We can just go as friends.

Who is she?! That’s not what she wanted at all, but she chickened out because Maya was freaking right!

But if she had seen the look on his face before she added that . . . Riley made the right decision. She’s sure of it, because if she had been serious?

That’d probably be it, friendship over.

It’s . . . it’s better this way.

She’s certain of it.

. . . Right?

“So?” Maya asks as she arrives beside Riley’s locker the next morning, their usual meet-up. Riley groans, leaning her head inside the locker.

“I asked him and then added just as friends when he didn’t respond right away. So, you know, I kind of asked.”

“Just as friends?!” Maya screeches at her. Riley places her hands on her own head.

“I know! I know. I wasn’t able to go to sleep last night. It was a stupid thing to do anyway, it just made everything a billion times more awkward. Why did I let you talk me into this, Maya?”

“Alright, did he say yes to that, at least?”

Riley nods her head.

“Okay, good. We can work with that. We’ll just have you romance him at prom, no problem.”

“What do you mean ‘no problem’? Yes, problem! I am not doing that, Peaches. I’ve humiliated myself enough for one lifetime. I think I’m going to opt out of prom, maybe bow out of senior year in disgrace or something.”

She hears Maya exhaust a long breath before she’s helping Riley out of her own locker, spinning her around and resting her hands on her shoulders.

“Riley Matthews, you are letting your feelings for a boy get to you too much. Yeah, he’s Farkle, but you’re Riley. You’re magnificent and amazing and if he doesn’t like you back? That’s his loss, because he missed the mark.”

“Thank you, Maya,” Riley smiles softly, hugging her best friend. Maya hugs her back and then releases her, giving her a look that can only mean trouble if Riley knows her well enough (and she does.)

“Okay, you know what? This whole ‘friends’ thing isn’t going to work. I need you to ask him out for real, because I know you’ll hate yourself for it if you don’t. I know it’s a hard thing to do, but you know better than anyone about making hard decisions. So do me a favor and ask him again by the end of this week—properly, mind you—and then the two of you will live freaking happily ever after because if I know Farkle, he’ll be hard pressed to say no. That boy has spent too much of his life in love with you. It’s not any different now.”

Riley allows herself to soak that in.

Is Maya really right? He did love her, but Riley’s not certain that was a real type of love. But then again, Farkle’s never been one to half-ass things. He’s loved her so many ways, so why not love her the way she loves him now?

“I’ll do it,” Riley agrees against her better judgement.

Wednesday passes. She doesn’t ask Farkle to the prom. Thursday passes. She doesn’t ask. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all whirl by her quickly, but she still hasn’t mustered the courage to ask. Even after the wonderful pep-talk Maya gave her, Riley still couldn’t find it in herself to breach the subject with him because she was just scared.

Liking Farkle really scared her, and she didn’t like that at all. Because scaring her meant that these feelings were more than just a passing phase, that she was bound to be stuck in this limbo of he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not for the rest of forever until she broke it.

So Sunday night she plans to ask him Monday at the end of school, even gets Maya in on it so that she can’t back out again.

She can’t back out this time; she won’t do it.

When Monday rolls around, Riley thanks whoever is out there that, while they share classes, she and Farkle don’t share the same class periods. It’s what’s helped her endure her second semester of senior year; while she appreciates having him there, she’s not sure she wouldn’t waste her class time glancing at him across the room.

Her last class period of the day moves both fast and at a snail’s pace, so when the bell rings it surprises her so much that she takes her several minutes to gather her things. Riley’s never been more off her game in her entire life, but then again, she’s never had to actually ask Farkle to prom for real before.

(Well, she’s never had to ask Farkle out period. That was always his game, not hers. Too bad she can’t get pointers from him.)

Riley heads out to meet Maya at her locker, passing by the stragglers who haven’t made it out yet, but something catches her eye instead.

It’s Farkle, at his own locker, with a girl who has people standing with her, holding several letters decorated with fake flowers spelling out PROM.

Riley’s too late.

PEACHES

where were u???

i stayed at ur locker

like we planned

i even asked farkle if he saw u

he said he didn’t

so something happened

pls tell me ur okay ☹

Riley doesn’t bother texting Maya despite knowing she owes her best friend an explanation. She’s too busy wallowing in self-pity and the humiliation of rejection to deal with anyone right now.

She should’ve been quicker. She shouldn’t have been a chicken about it and just told him about her dumb, stupid feelings and gotten it over with. Anything at this point would be preferable to the sting Riley feels in her chest when she thinks about how she missed out on not just being Farkle’s date to prom but experiencing prom with him. It’s not the same without him by her side.

So no prom for Riley Matthews. She cashed in on her one chance at going Junior year, and as far as Riley was concerned, this probably meant her chance with Farkle, too.

But fate is not as kind to her, because Farkle climbs through her window, landing on the cushions of the bay window bench with a soft thud.

“What the heck,” he says, breathing out a sigh of relief when he’s spotted her, “Maya and I thought you died in a ditch! What were you thinking?”

Riley has no response for that. In fact, she’s pretty certain her brain’s shut off entirely for the foreseeable future, because in no way had she planned on encountering Farkle for as long as she could hold it off.

It’s now or never, Matthews, a voice that sounds vaguely like Maya whispers in her mind. Riley exhales.

Right.

“Are you going to prom with that girl?” she asks instead, eyes set with determination. Farkle stares at her, bewildered.

“What?! Your response to Maya and I worrying about your safety is some trivial question about prom?”

“It’s not trivial to me!” Riley exclaims, the burn of embarrassment bubbling up out of her. The intensity of her words must cross Farkle’s radar, because his eyes are widening.

“Riley? What’s going on?”

She makes a decision then, unable to fight with these godforsaken feelings any longer. She tosses the poster she’d worked painstakingly on for hours onto the bed, gesturing to it brazenly.

“I was going to ask you to prom for real today. I know I made a joke of it the other night, but I really meant it. I wanted to go to prom with you because I like you, Farkle. I’m tired of ignoring my feelings and pushing them away because I think it might benefit you. These feelings I have are real and they’re not going away any time soon, okay?”

Farkle’s eyes shift over to the poster, eyes tracing the words over and over again, as if it’s taking him a while to register it.

You. Me. Prom. Let’s do this thing?

It was hard for Riley to come up with a way to ask him that was both clever and meaningful, and she chose something that was between them and only them. He had once told her, “You. Me. Mars. Let’s do this thing.” It was always something that hardly meant anything to her back then but means the world to her now, or at least, it did before she realized she’d been too late.

“So?” Farkle asks, voice rough as if his throat had run dry. Riley tilts her head.

“What?”

“Are you going to ask me properly or not? We’re losing daylight here, Matthews,” Farkle says, arms crossed against his chest. Riley scoffs, rolling her eyes. She doesn’t quite get why he’s trying to be cruel to her at this point, but whatever.

“Farkle Minkus, I wanted to know. You. Me. Prom. Let’s do this thing?”

“Yes,” comes his answer, flowing off his tongue as if it’s the easiest thing he’s ever said in his life. Riley nearly jumps out of her seat but recovers at the last second.

“Yes?”

“Riley Matthews, yes, of course I’ll go to prom with you.”

“But—”

“No, I didn’t say yes to that other girl because I had already told you that we could go together. Sure I was kind of disappointed when you said it was as friends, but . . . you’re my best friend. It doesn’t matter what capacity our relationship is, I just want to be with you.”

Riley doesn’t get it.

“Wait, so what you’re saying is—”

“Riley Matthews, I’ve loved you since the first grade. I don’t think I ever stopped, really. So yes, I’ll go to prom with you as your date, because I’m so in love with you it isn’t funny,” Farkle tells her, giving her a gentle, lopsided grin. Riley scrambles off her bed the same time he rises from the bay window bench, the two of them embracing harder than she ever has in her entire life.

“I’m sorry I freaked out on you,” she admits into the crook of his neck. He chuckles, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

“It’s okay. You’re the same Riley you’ve always been, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

#awww adorable #riarkle #gmw #fic recs

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