Fandom: Teen Wolf
Story Title: "Somewhere Between the Lines"
Summary: Suddenly she's not that hungry anymore and goes to the bathroom to think about the fact that she might have sort of a crush on Stiles Stilinski, who everyone knows is in love with Lydia Martin and has been since the third grade. /Or, Stiles and Erica through the years.
Character/Relationship(s): Erica Reyes/Stiles Stilinski
Rating: T
Warnings: Mentions of epilepsy, speculation for season three
Story Word Count: 2400+
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable.
Notes: For Mori, who listened to me while I cried about Teen Wolf and laughed at me when I started shipping this. It's a hard life. The very end could be considered a spoiler for season three from what I've seen floating around on tumblr, but it's probably not so? I don't know.
Somewhere Between the Lines
Everyone knows that Stiles Stilinski's mom is dying. Stiles has been missing a lot of school lately—leaving Scott McCall alone at lunch more often than not—and the teachers talk about it in hushed tones and huddled groups. This, of course makes the students curious about what they're talking about, and once one of them finds out the whole fifth grade finds out.
Everyone knows that Stiles Stilinski's mom is dying, which is why Erica isn't surprised to see him sitting on one of the lobby's chairs, his feet swinging because they can't yet touch the ground, and staring at the white walls with no expression on his face.
Erica knows the hospital. Her mom comes every few weeks for tests or something, and Erica has allergies that require shots once a month. She knows what it's like to sit alone in the hospital and wanting to be anywhere but there, but she doesn't know what it's like when your mom is dying.
She can't imagine her mom—mom who has to go to the doctor a lot, but who helps her with her math homework and makes her chicken with stars instead of chicken noodle soup because she understands that it tastes better and takes Erica window shopping—dying of anything, and she especially can't imagine waiting for it in a hospital.
Erica thinks, later, that this is why she goes to sit next to Stiles. The fact that she can't imagine what Stiles is going through, but she chooses to deal with it anyway.
Stiles turns to look at her when she sits next to him, so she takes this as a sign that it's okay if she starts talking. Everyone knows that Stiles's best friend is Scott, but maybe he and Erica can be friends too. Even if it's just for one day.
"Chadd made fun of Danny today," Erica starts off randomly, and she has no idea why she's even talking about this. She just doesn't think that Stiles wants to talk about why he's at the hospital, so she says the first thing that she can think of. "So Jackson punched him at recess and his nose was bleeding. It was kinda awesome. Like Superman, except Jackson's too mean to be Superman."
Stiles just blinks at her and swallows, and she thinks maybe he's seen Scott and maybe Scott's told him this story today, except then Stiles smiles just a little and answers, "Jackson would be the worst Superman of all time," and that's when Erica hopes that they can be real friends too.
.
Stiles and Erica do not become friends after their moment at the hospital in fifth grade, but Erica can say that she really doesn't mind. She doesn't pay attention to Stiles after that anyway, except to feel sad in a distant sort of way when his mom ended up dying with cancer.
All of sixth grade goes by without Erica thinking about Stiles for longer than how did he just trip over air? but then in seventh grade that changes.
She's waiting for someone to talk to in the cafeteria and she's people watching, the way her and her dad do sometimes when they go to San Francisco and walk around in parks. There's nothing interesting to look at, but then Stiles and Scott start laughing so hard that Scott has to get out his inhaler.
Everyone's looking at them funny, but they don't seem to care that much. Stiles's face changes when he's laughing—it brightens and does weird things to Erica's stomach. Suddenly she's not that hungry anymore and goes to the bathroom to think about the fact that she might have sort of a crush on Stiles Stilinski, who everyone knows is in love with Lydia Martin and has been since the third grade.
Erica's only twelve, but she's already re-thinking some of her choices in life.
.
Her seizures start in the eighth grade. Epilepsy, they call it when she goes to the doctor's, and all Erica knows is that this is ruining her life.
She knows that it's not actually ruining her life, and that she will be able to live a reasonably normal life as long as she takes her medication. The doctors have all sat down with her and there have been pamphlets and prescriptions and the cards of youth therapists but Erica doesn't care.
She doesn't want this, doesn't need to be more of a freak than she already is.
Her new medication makes her break out and there are zits everywhere and she feels like everyone is staring, even though no one knows about the diagnosis. (Her first seizure had been at home, in the bathroom, and she'd hit her head on the sink hard enough to bruise, so they definitely noticed that.)
Erica always tastes blood before a seizure, and she can taste it now. It's almost like the blood is pooling in her mouth, but she knows that it's not, and then suddenly everything goes blank.
She wakes up in the hospital, a nurse cooing over her, and Erica knows that she'd just had a seizure in the middle of second period. The first thing she notices is that her pants are damp and she starts crying because she just peed herself in front of everyone.
Her parents tell her not to worry, that over the weekend someone will screw up or Lydia Martin will get a new boyfriend or something and so that no one will remember, but of course that's not the truth.
Erica's heard people compare middle school to being thrown into a piranha infested part of the Amazon, and that never feels more true before that moment. They swarm around in groups and whispers and Erica wants to melt into the floor and slip through the spaces in the title.
The whispers and hand covered laughter follow her around all day. Once or twice someone came up to her and laughed, or made a snide comment, and Erica honestly almost likes that better than the people that just go quiet when she walks up to them before having to walk away and laugh.
Instead of going to lunch she'd made her way to the computer lab instead, and got on YouTube and watched the video everyone was talking about. It was terrible, watching herself, hearing the laughter as she pissed her pants and the voice of the teacher reprimanding them uselessly.
Erica refuses to cry, though, not like she did in the hospital. Instead she swallows the lump in her throat and gets up. She can't pretend like what they're saying doesn't bother her, but she can ignore them the best that she could and forget the rest.
She's waiting to get picked up by her mom, when she sees the guy that taped her talking to Stiles and Erica just really wants to shrivel up right there. Stiles has to know—everyone knows—and she had avoided looking at him all day. She doesn't want to know what he thinks, and now she's getting a front row view. She hides behind the wall so that they won't notice that she's there and listening, but she can still see them.
"She seriously pissed herself, it was hilarious," the guy is saying, waving his phone in front of Stiles's face. "You've got to watch it, you're like, the last person who hasn't seen it."
Stiles stops walking and looks at the guy straight in the eye. "Nah, man. That's actually not funny," and walks away.
Erica knows that she's not Lydia Martin, and that Stiles barely knows who she is, but in that moment she can't help but wish for more. In that moment, Erica is completely gone on Stiles Stilinski.
.
Freshman year Erica has two classes with Stiles.
One is the best class that she's ever taken, even though it's just Study Hall and the teacher makes them sit in alphabetical order like a Fascist dictator. (Stiles was the one that had come up with that, saying it under his breath. Erica had laughed and he'd heard her, turning towards her with a tentative grin on his face like he wasn't sure that she wasn't being sarcastic, and started laughing too.)
Most of the time Study Hall is silent, and they do homework side-by-side and don't talk because the class is second period and Erica is pretty sure that the teacher nurses a hangover with her coffee cup glued to her hand. But sometimes, sometimes, they can talk.
On either side of Stiles and Erica are people that neither one of them would ever talk to in a million years , so it's like they're the only ones on a deserted island or something. And it's nice. Erica gets to talk to Stiles more in that class than she has in years.
She finds out that he loves Batman and they talk about the pros and cons of all the Bats and Birds of Gotham for the entire class period, once. He also thinks Hal Jordan is an okay guy, and Erica has to straighten him out on that because, hello, Hal's a douche. Comics are something that they can share, but there are other things too, other tv shows and movies and he quoted The Breakfast Club at her once and it was fantastic.
They're almost friends, sort of, even though they barely talk to each other after that class, hardly ever even wave in the hallway.
The second class with Stiles is the worst class of Erica's day.
Of course, of course, Lydia Martin is in that class too, and Stiles sits as close to her as she'll allow him to. Erica sits in the corner and wonders why she watches at all, why she likes a boy that is fixated on a girl who is so obviously out of his league that it's not even funny.
.
Erica hates gym.
Maybe it's a geek thing, maybe a seizure thing, maybe it's a thing where she just doesn't care but whatever. She'd managed to get out of it freshman year, but they'd stuck it onto her sophomore schedule and she hadn't been able to wiggle out of it.
The worst days are when gym's co-ed. Stiles is, of course, in the same period of gym that she is and he's always there. Sometimes it's okay, especially when Erica can thank whoever made gym pants because Stiles's ass looks great in them, but sometimes it's not.
Sometimes being days like today, when she has to rock climb in front of everyone.
When coach calls Stiles's name Erica's heart beats faster, the way it always does around him. But then coach calls hers and Erica wonders why and her heart stops and she can do this, she can do this.
(Of course Stiles would have a clear view of her humiliation, though, of course. This is Erica's life and everything is shit and God nothing can go write for her, ever, can it?)
When she falls she doesn't look at Stiles, just walks out of the gym and tries not to cry.
.
.
.
Stiles can't look at the crowd of mourners in front of him, so he doesn't.
He knows what he'll see anyway: Boyd looking at his hands, his face too set in anger to cry or speak or do anything. Boyd had carried Erica's body all the way to the Hale house and had held her hand as she faded away, blood flowing everywhere.
Isaac is crying, however, and Scott is sitting next to him with his arms around him. The rest of the school is there as well, Allison and Lydia sitting together, Danny beside them.
In the very back, where if Stiles wasn't looking he'd miss the black leather, is Derek. Derek technically didn't know Erica, so he couldn't come to the funeral, but Erica had been Pack so he couldn't just pretend that she'd never existed.
(Stiles had had to convince him to come, and Stiles wondered how many funerals Derek has been to, exactly.)
Mr. and Mrs. Reyes had asked Stiles to speak, because they'd heard her talk about him so much. He didn't know what to say to them, didn't know how to express the fact that Stiles and Erica hadn't talked much. He didn't know how to tell them about how Erica's voice had broke when she'd told him that she'd had the 'worst crush in the world' on him, and how he'd never noticed her as anything more than a friend. Sometimes less than that.
Stiles can't look at the crowd of mourners in front of him, so he doesn't.
Instead, he looks at the pulpit in front of him, noticing the grain of the wood and the smooth texture of it.
He wonders how many times he will have to speak about someone that's dead, and how many times he will have to pretend to have it all together on top of a stage.
"Erica Reyes was," he starts out, hating the past tense, "a bad ass." A few chuckles break out over the crowd and that's all Stiles needs to keep going. "You wouldn't think so by look at her before the leather jacket days, but she was. She had a heart of gold, though. She'd hit you in the face with a corroborator any day of the week, but then she'd turn around and give you a hug that made you feel like she put you together again."
Even when she couldn't be put back together, Stiles thinks, picturing the blood and her broken body and wonders why. Why, out of all of them, why Erica? She wasn't even the black guy in the group, the one that everyone knew was supposed to go first. (Boyd had been the one who said that, before he'd punched a hole in the wall the size of Australia.)
"I didn't know Erica as well as I could have, and I'm sorry for that. So sorry. But I will admit that she knew more things about comics that I did, and that she loved to laugh, and that she was one of the best friends that anyone could have had. Especially me. Erica will be impossible to forget by any of us, and I would have said that before she started wearing miniskirts too."
Stiles doesn't know how much longer he can hold it together, so he finishes his speech by talking directly to Erica. "Erica, I just want to tell you that you were right. Hal Jordan is a douche, and Stephanie Brown was a Robin. And I want to tell you that I'll miss you, we all will."
He steps down and walks, just walks out of the room and tries not to cry.