Fandom: Teen Wolf
Story Title: "Brighter Than Before"
Summary: Stiles hates group projects on principal. /Or the one where there are no werewolves in Beacon Hills but Stiles still ends up being the Batman to Erica's Catwoman.
Character/Relationship(s): Erica Reyes/Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Allison Argent/Scott McCall
Rating: T
Warnings: Mentions of epilepsy, language
Story Word Count: 4000+ (so far)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable.
Notes: For Mori, who basically is the whole reason that this exists. She listened to me when I whined and cried about how I couldn't write, and she helped inspire this fic, so thank her for it. Basically this is only part one out of (I think) only two parts. I'll try to post the next part ASAP, I promise.
Brighter Than Before
Chapter One
Stiles hates group projects on principal. He doesn't hate the 'project' part so much as he just hates the 'group.' He hates how, just because he's smart, people expect him to do the whole thing, like he has no life and is able to sit at home and work while they went out and party, or whatever.
(He actually doesn't have a life, outside of lacrosse practice, but it's not like they knew that.)
Stiles doesn't actually have to deal with this often, since most of the time he manages to snag Scott as his partner. Scott doesn't really contribute much to the idea, but he's always good for researching and getting books from the library, as well as cutting and pasting.
As is his luck, though, he gets stuck with Mr. Johnson's history class, who everyone knows eventually assigns a group project for the year, even if it might take him a while. It takes him a month to decide what they're going to be focusing on.
"The group project this year is going to be focused on the Civil War. You can choose what aspect of the War Between the States that you want to focus on, but it must be significant and on topic," Mr. Johnson seems to look straight at Stiles here, so teachers must talk. "I'm going to assign them with alphabetical order," cue the groans, which he might or might not have joined in with, "and so you have today to plan with your partner. We'll have other days to work on this in class, but not for the rest of the week."
Johnson starts listing off partners, but Stiles doesn't listen until the end, since he's an S and has been used to being at the bottom of the hierarchy of the alphabet. "Erica Reyes and Stiles Stilinski," he calls out, and Stiles begins to look around for his partner.
He's spoken to Erica a few times, once when they were at the hospital waiting room together and a few times in junior high, but not since then. She looks more or less the same, though. No make-up, sweatshirt, hair that looks like it needs to be combed. He has no idea if she's smart or not, which sucks, but he can handle this. Hopefully she knows where the library even is.
"So, do you have any ideas at all?" he asks when she sits in the desk across from him.
Erica says something, but she says it so softly that he can't hear. He's going to need a hearing aid just to get through this. Great. "What was that?"
"I said," Erica repeats herself, her volume increasing to almost normal levels, "that I'm not helping on any project that has to do with penis."
"What?" Stiles can't help but asking repeat himself because what. He's laughing though, because if the whole year with her is going to be like this it might not all be as terrible as he worried that it was going to be.
She smiles at him, in a way that's almost too sharp, and says "I heard what you wrote about for our first Econ paper."
Oh God. He sighs, like this is going to be a hardship that he's not going to be able to bear. He might have thought that before, but not now. Not necessarily. "Fine, no penises. I won't even draw hidden ones on our poster board for the observant to notice. We'll be completely phallic free."
"Well, as long as we understand each other," Erica says, still smiling and for a heartbeat he can't help but notice how pretty she is (not the Lydia Martin type of pretty—the kind that's glossed and polished—but still pretty) before that moment is gone.
.
Scott has met a girl. Not just any girl, though. According to Scott, Allison is beautiful and perfect and when she smiles angel's sing. When Scott points her out in the hallway, though, she is also...
"Standing right next to Lydia Martin. Man, you don't have a chance."
"You don't know that. You can't know that. She borrowed a pen from me. It has to mean something."
"Yeah, sure it does," Stiles agrees. "In a John Hughes movie, maybe."
Scott huffs but doesn't deny it. "I'm going to ask her out on a date."
"Sure you are. Maybe I'll ask Lydia out, and then we can both get rejected at the same time."
But Scott has this look on his face, and Stiles knows that look. It's the same look that he used to get whenever Stiles dared him to do that thing in sixth grade and he actually did it, and the one he used to use right before he got grounded. It's his stomach look, and Stiles has a bad idea about this.
"I'm going to do it. I am."
"I hope you get some more confidence, or at least more pens."
Stiles is still shaking his head when he walks into his study hall. Mrs. Anderson is face first in her solitaire game, just like she was when Stiles had her last year for study hall, and doesn't bother to look up when he's late.
He doesn't know where to sit, and sitting somewhere decent in study hall can mean life or death. Mrs. Anderson loves her seating charts. Last year Stiles had to sit next to some guy who picked his nose, and had been stuck there for the rest of the year.
Erica's the only person that he recognizes, and unless he missed something in history class she doesn't pick her nose, so he slides into the chair next to her, where she's sitting in the back corner of the room by the windows. For a moment it's like she's glowing, but then a cloud moves over the sun and it's gone.
She's reading a graphic novel and when he sees what it is he snorts. "Let me guess, Stephanie Brown is your favorite Batgirl?"
Erica looks up and smiles. "And Robin."
"Stephanie Brown was not a Robin."
"How can you even say that?"
"Because it's true, duh."
They spend the rest of the period debating Stephanie Brown. He's doing it mostly because it's something to talk about, and even though he wasn't sure about her when they got assigned to work on the history project together he actually likes her.
Just as he predicted Mrs. Anderson hugs her seating chart while assigning seats, and Stiles is seated right next to Erica for the rest of the year, which is nowhere near a problem.
.
"I asked Allison out," Scott tells him after lacrosse practice.
"Really?" Stiles asks, raising and eyebrow. Because really.
"No, but I asked her if she'd study English with me and she said yes."
"That's close enough," Stiles tells him, and is about to say something totally hilarious when he sees Erica out of the corner of his eye. "Speaking of studying together... hey Erica!"
She turns around and looks behind her, like she's shocked that Stiles is talking to her, or something.
"Yeah?" she asks.
"Did you get those books from the library?"
"Yeah, I did. Do you want them now?"
"Nah. We should set up a day to study together, though."
The nervous expression melts off Erica's face as she grins, tentatively. "Okay," she says before walking to catch up with Isaac Lahey, who she was clearly talking too before Stiles got her attention. When she gets to Isaac he elbows her lightly and Erica shakes her head.
Scott looks between them and asks, "Was that...?"
"Erica Reyes? Yeah." Scott raises his eyebrows. "What?"
Scott just shakes his head. "Nothing. Assassin's Creed after school?"
"Duh. Just try not to cry too hard when I beat you, again."
.
No one will ever be friends with Stiles the way that Scott is friends with Stiles. The two of them—they're on the same wavelength, totally in sync. Stiles can tell what Scott is going to say before he says it, and vice versa.
A best friend is a nice thing to have, in the tumultuous seas called high school, and Stiles is glad that he has Scott 100% on his side.
But Erica, slowly, becomes his friend too. It's weird that he's never really noticed her before, because while they disagree on most things comics, they both agree that the Batfam is the best and that DC totally kicks Marvel's ass. (Though they totally agree that the Avengers was one of the best comic book movies ever made.)
It's nice, having someone other than Scott and their usual sphere of friends to talk to. A lot of people don't like Stiles, and he gets it, really. But Erica never seems to mind whenever he talks and gets stuck on one thing before spinning a tangent on something totally unrelated the next.
In the end, he decides, he's glad that they were partnered together.
.
When Allison comes to sit at Scott and Stiles's table, it's not a big thing. She and Scott are dating, and
Allison's nice enough, and it's not a big deal.
But when Lydia, flanked by Jackson and Danny, come and sit as well Stiles could not be more surprised if Lydia had taken off all her clothes and decided to take a run through the woods naked. She doesn't sit by him, but Danny does, and besides she's close enough.
"Scram," Jackson tells an unsuspecting freshman, who had been looking appreciatively at Lydia, and the kid bolts like he's being chased.
Stiles tries to send Scott a what the hell is going on?! look but either Scott can't read his mind for once or he's just as confused as Stiles is.
"So, where are we going tomorrow night?" Lydia asks Allison, putting a carrot stick into her mouth. "You said you and Scott were hanging out tomorrow night, right?"
Eyebrows furrowed, Allison looks at Scott and says, "We were thinking about what we were going to do, we're not exactly sure yet..."
"Well, I'm not staying at home watching lacrosse videos again, so if the four of us are going to do something, we're going to do something fun," Lydia decides, like she's automatically.
"Six," Scott shoots out. "Six of us. Stiles is bringing someone too, right Stiles?"
Stiles is about to open his mouth and tell Scott no, because watching lacrosse videos sounds more fun than having to hang out with Jackson, but then Scott cues the puppy dog eyes. Even though he'd never admit it, he can't say no to those, especially because Scott's so earnest about it.
"Uh, sure. I guess." He kicks Scott under the table, and Scott winces, but otherwise no one notices.
"Sounds fun," Allison says to Lydia. "I mean that sounds fun, right?"
"You know what else sounds fun?" Jackson asks. "Stabbing myself in the face with this fork."
"Who are you bringing?" Lydia demands, ignoring her boyfriend.
"I'm not exactly sure yet, I'll have to look at all my options," meaning there are none and Stiles is going nowhere fast with this. Scott evidently realizes this, because as he is apt to down, he swoops down and saves the day.
"What about that Erica girl? You guys have that history project, right?"
"Sure." Stiles shrugs. "But we'd just be going as friends," he adds, mostly for Lydia's benefit.
Lydia takes a moment to process this before nodding and turning to Jackson. "What about bowling? You love to bowl."
"Yeah, with people that can actually play," Jackson sneers, and okay, Stiles's hate boner for this kid is completely justified.
"How do you know we can't play?" Allison asks. "You can bowl, right?" she asks Stiles and Scott. Stiles nods noncommittally, because he can, sort of. He's better at Scott at least, even though that doesn't mean much.
"I guess?" Scott answers.
"You guess? Or you can," Jackson asks.
"I can," Scott shoots back, evidently as done as Stiles with Jackson's shit. "In fact, I'm a great bowler."
.
"You're a terrible bowler," Stiles reminds Scott, who's looking distressed.
"I know, that was so stupid."
"And then Allison kept saying hang out, which is even worse because you don't hang out with hot girls, that's just terrible."
"I know."
"It was like a car crash, a bloody one that closes down two lanes of traffic, and you just dragged me into the middle of it. Hey, thanks for that by the way, because who knows if Erica's even going to want to go. And if she doesn't, then I'm going to be this big awkward fifth wheel because you had to get me involved."
Scott looks like he's about to let out another I know moan, but instead he just nods at Erica. "Look, there she is, why don't you just go ask her now. Please? I'll owe you."
"You already owe me until the end of time. Remember sixth grade?"
"Just go ask her," Scott says, because he hates being reminded of sixth grade. Especially because all of that was his fault and he knows it.
Erica's at her locker, gathering up her books, when she turns around and sees Stiles. She smiles at him, and he takes that as a good sign that this isn't going to be completely terrible. He likes her, at any rate, at least enough to hang out. He might not like her enough to have this be a completely triple date, but it's not her fault that she's not Lydia Martin.
"So, a bunch of us were hanging out tomorrow night at the bowling alley, and I was wondering if you wanted to come and help make it an even number? It'll be more fun in teams."
There's a part of him that's hoping that she'll say no so that he can bail out, but there's a bigger part of him—a surprising part—that's also hoping that Erica will say yes too. It would be fun to see Erica outside of school, and it's not like it's a date or anything. For them it'd be strictly friends only.
Erica clutches her books to her chest, and then she smiles at him again. Her eyes are bright and she looks genuinely happy to be asked. "I'll have to double check with my parents, but I'm pretty sure that I can," she tells him.
"Great, just text me, and I'll pick you up at six."
He starts to walk away, but Erica stops him. "Hey, thanks for asking me," she says. Her eyes are still glowing and that makes Stiles's stomach drop because he's never really thought about it, but Erica doesn't actually have that many friends. She's known mostly for her epilepsy. That was even how Stiles thought about her, before he got to know her better. The thought is a sick, heavy thing in the pit of his stomach, but he ignores it.
"It's going to be fun."
He's surprised by how much he means it.
.
Stiles explains everything on the way to the bowling alley, and when Erica laughs he finds himself laughing with her.
"So on a scale of one to ten, how terrible of a bowler is Scott?" she asks, looking at him across the jeep.
"He's in the negatives, there's really no comparison," he says. "I just hope that Jackson doesn't rub it in too hard when he kicks Scott's ass."
"Jackson's a douche. You can't count on him to be a decent person."
"Thank you. I've been saying this since kindergarten, but does anyone listen to me? No. The answer's always no."
"Hopefully he'll play nice for a couple of hours and then we can go home and pretend we didn't willingly hang out with him."
Stiles is still laughing when they get out of the jeep, but his good humor is ruined when he sees Lydia and Jackson sucking face. Great. Exactly what he wants to see when he wakes up in the morning.
Erica glances at him and whispers, "It's like a D horror movie, isn't it? They're too perfect, it's weird."
Scott looks completely nervous, as he should, but he smiles when he sees Stiles and Erica walk up with their shoes in hand. "Jackson and Lydia are out for blood," he tells them. "But you've got this, right?"
"Probably better than you," Stiles tells him, and Scott punches him in the arm.
They decide to play for ten rounds, and in teams. Lydia goes first, and Jackson helps her, guiding her hand like she's four years old and playing for the first time. It makes Stiles's stomach churn, especially when she says, "I'm so bad at this," but he chooses not to comment. He notices Erica's smirk, but he doesn't say anything about that either.
When it's Allison's turn, Erica leans over to him and whispers, "You know she could totally do that by herself if she wanted to."
"Duh," Stiles replies, fairly irritated the way he always is when Lydia pretends to be stupid. He knows that she's so much more than she chooses to act like she is.
"Well, since Lydia's purposely sucking and Scott just actually sucks, why don't we kick all of their asses just because we can? I'm actually really good at bowling."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Erica grabs a red ball and bowls a perfect strike. "All right, nice," Stiles tells her, and holds up a hand. "You're not going to leave me hanging, are you?" he asks when Erica doesn't seem to want to play along, but she rolls her eyes and slaps his hand anyway.
He glances at Lydia and her eyes are narrowed, but she cheers for Jackson just the same when he bowls a strike too.
"You're up, McCall," Jackson says, smirking as he sits down.
"You can do it, Scott," Allison assures him. This doesn't help, because Scott gets a gutter ball first thing, which cracks Jackson up. Stiles puts his face in his hands because he remembers the words I'm a great bowler and can't believe that this is his best friend.
"Jackson, mind shutting up?" Allison asks, annoyed, before going over to Scott and whispering something in his ear which makes him perk up...but doesn't make him any better at bowling, even though this time he at least hits a few pins.
"That could have gone better," Stiles informs Scott as he picks his ball, and Scott shrugs, going back down to sit next to Allison.
Stiles remembers bowling from elementary birthday parties, and he and his dad went a few times. He's not as bad as Scott or Lydia, and he hits eight pins and finishes them up easily. Erica's holding her hand up when he comes to sit down and he high fives her back, because at least he doesn't leave people hanging.
Out of everyone they're in the lead, and it's nice. Or at least until Lydia proves that she actually can play, which makes a muscle in Jackson's jaw twitch. Erica gives him a look that clearly says I told you so, and Stiles just shakes his head.
Even though Allison's average at bowling, she and Scott have no chance, so eventually Stiles and Erica and Jackson and Lydia are neck in neck. The last round is all up to the girls, and Lydia gets a split, and is only able to hit one pin, leaving the other one up.
"You can do this," Stiles whispers to Erica, who shrugs.
"I know," she tells him before she gets a perfect strike.
Stiles leaps out of his seat and cheers, because they beat Lydia and Jackson by five points, and it's not every day that he gets to beat Jackson at anything. Erica's smiling, but it gets wider when he hugs her in celebration.
"I told you we'd kick their asses."
"I'm never going to doubt you again," Stiles promises, still high on Jackson's defeat.
Jackson looks murderous, though, and he turns to Lydia with an ugly look on his perfect face. "We just lost to a girl who still pisses herself." He makes sure his words carry, and for one moment there's nothing but silence, and no one seems to know what to say.
It's a horrible thing, watching the joy on Erica's face die slowly. The corners of her mouth start trembling and she extracts herself from Stiles's grip. She walks to the bathroom and doesn't look back.
"Wow, you really are a piece of shit," he tells Jackson once the swinging door closes behind her.
Allison's glaring at Jackson, and her face is actually terrifying. Stiles has never seen her anything but pleasant before, but he can clearly see her stabbing her best friend's boyfriend without feeling bad about it. Even Scott looks like he wants to punch Jackson, and Scott never looks like that. He can't read Lydia's face.
Allison moves like she's going to follow Erica to the bathroom, but he stops her. "No, I'll go get her." He feels a weird sort of guilt, having brought her here and exposing her to Jackson. There was no way that Stiles could have realized just how deeply Jackson's crappiness went, but he still can't help but feel responsible anyway.
Even hearing Lydia tear into Jackson as he walks away ("How could you even say that, it was just a stupid game." "God calm down, it was just a joke." "Well let me tell you, that was not funny.") doesn't give him a sense of satisfaction.
He waits for a little while outside the door before Erica finally walks out, eyes red and phone in her hand. She looks surprised to see him standing there, waiting for her. "Are you going to take me home?" she asks.
"Of course," Stiles tells her, and they don't go back to the others, instead walking straight to the jeep and not looking back.
The ride is silent, and Erica just looks out the window or at the dashboard or fiddles with the sleeves of her sweatshirt, just anywhere not at him. He feels that same guilt again and wishes he knew what to say, but for once his mouth chooses to stay shut.
When they reach her house Stiles finally has a clear enough idea of what he wants to say, but Erica beats him to the punch.
"You didn't know something like that was going to happen, right?" Erica asks. "I mean, you just asked so suddenly and I've never hung out with any of them before and I just...you didn't know. Right?"
Stiles honestly feels offended that she even feels like she has to ask. Erica might not have been his first choice, but he never would have hung her out to dry in front of Jackson on purpose. "What? Erica, how would I, why would I? No, I didn't know, what kind of guy do you think I am? I mean, I should have guessed something bad was going to happen because Jackson, but I didn't bring you specifically so that he'd humiliate you like that. I would never do that."
"I'm sorry," she says, voice soft, just like the first day that he'd spoken to her in class. "I just had to ask. This whole thing has just been so surreal, you know? You wanting to be my friend and everything."
"I-" Stiles tries again, but he finds he doesn't have anything that he can say that would make this better.
"No, it's fine. I'll see you in class," she says, and walks out of the jeep and slams the door lightly, and it's as if she'd never even been there in the first place.