Title: Lines in Pencil
Author: lucayaprompts

Disclaimer: I do not own Girl Meets World.

original prompt: Lucas finds sketches of himself in Maya's sketchbook and teases her about them.

Lucas knew this was wrong; in art class, they were told that an artist's sketchbook was as personal as a diary. Pieces of their soul were left on the pages, and if you looked hard enough, it would reveal their deepest secrets. But Maya had left the book at the bakery and it hadn't felt right to just leave it there. So he picked it up and vowed to return it to her first thing tomorrow morning.

Except it was taunting him; this was a ticket to understanding Maya, who was always something of an enigma to him no matter how hard he tried to figure her out. And it wasn't like he was an art critic; even if there were secrets in there, he doubted he would be able to read them as easily at their teacher said they could. What harm would looking through her sketches really do?

He'd 'fess up tomorrow.

The first couple of pages were just little cartoons and shading exercises, nothing that wasn't in his own mediocre sketchbook, but things started to change about ten pages in. The drawings were getting more detailed, more work going into them. There was one of Riley, her eyes tight and closed as she laughed, and the beginnings of one of Farkle. But the next page was finished - at least to his eyes - and it was… of him?

He resisted the urge to scoff at his own face staring back at him, a hand tipping his cowboy hat down and his collar down all the way up with a lariat around his neck. He wasn't that country, he muttered to himself, flipping the next back.

And there he was again.

There were at least half a dozen portraits of him, in various states of finish, and in all different ways. There was one that looked like he might be underwater with angry black marks running through it, as if she'd gotten frustrated and gave up. Another digging through his locker at school, his backpack at his feet holding more detail than anything else. There was even one that looked like she'd caught him sleeping in the library.

The most interesting one, he thought, must have been how she saw him in class when she looked over her shoulder. There was a hint of blonde waves and a layered shoulder in the foreground, but the focus was on him as he scribbled down his notes. There was a crease between his eyes and on the side of his lips he never knew he had; he found himself running his fingers over his own skin, trying to see if they were there now and sure enough, exactly where she'd drawn them, they were there. How often had she watched him without him knowing?

He wanted to keep looking, but part of him told him he'd already looked enough. Maybe their teacher was right and this was something she didn't want anyone to know about; just because he was in her book didn't mean he had a right to look in it.

His plan had been to just leave the book on her desk but she caught him doing it, glaring at him and snatching it out of his hand.

"Where did you get this?" she demanded and he tried to shrug like it was no big deal, but he couldn't really get her sketches out of his head and he was sure it showed on his face. "You looked, didn't you?"

"They're really good," he said, hoping a compliment might mellow her out but… it was Maya. She wasn't so easily plied.

"Don't get any smart ideas Bucky," she said, pointing her finger into his chest. "You're just easy to draw and I get bored listening to you talk."

"Oh, is that right?" Lucas smirked. "Is that your way of telling me you daydream about me?"

"In your dreams," she scoffed, but she clutched the sketchbook a little bit tighter and he couldn't resist the opportunity to get under her skin.

"Is that why you drew me in a literal knight in shining armor costume?"

All Maya could do was groan, that noise she made when she had nothing left to say but wanted to have the last word.

"They really are good," he whispered to her halfway through class and her pencil stopped moving across the paper instantly. He smiled to himself until a wadded up piece of paper landed on his desk, torn haphazardly from her sketchbook. It was him again, sprawled on the floor while Maya, her skin tight and clinging to her cheekbones, clawed at the back of his head, drippy creepy letters spelling out "brains!" in the margins.

He laughed; being a muse - or whatever she thought of his as - wasn't so bad.