Fandom: Teen Wolf

Story Title: "Brighter Than Before"

Summary: Stiles hates group projects on principal.

Character/Relationship(s): Erica Reyes/Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Jackson Whittemore/Lydia Martin Isaac Lahey, Sheriff Stilinski, Melissa McCall

Rating: T

Warnings: Mentions of epilepsy, language

Story Word Count: 10000+ (so far)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable.

Notes: So this one was hard because unlike for all the previous one I didn't have anything pre-written. But I finally have ironed out the details. This will be five chapters, officially.

Brighter Than Before

Chapter Three

Lydia looks just as perfect as always: Not a strawberry blonde hair out of place, lips perfectly glossed, outfit impeccable. She is, and always will be, the most beautiful girl in their class. At the ten, fifteen, twenty year reunions, things that Lydia wouldn't be caught dead at when she has her P.h.D and model on her arm, that is how she'll be remembered.

But, for some reason, even all of that just doesn't seem to do it for Stiles anymore. He wonders when this happened, when he stopped liking Lydia as much. There's a part of him that will always be fond of her-third grade, okay, third grade-but it's not all consuming and heart stopping anymore.

"Dude, why are you staring at Lydia?" Scott asks behind his History book. Evidently he and Allison are in some sort of weird fight thing, and as such Allison is sitting with Lydia today. She appears to be also reading a book. Stiles didn't exactly press for the details.

"I'm just trying to figure out what happened."

"What happened to what? She looks fine."

"Nothing's wrong with her," Stiles says, suddenly feeling frustrated. "Just with me. She doesn't..." He had to stop and think about how to put this into words. It was harder than he thought. Stiles never has never had a problem with words. "It's just, all of a sudden, my ten year plan doesn't seem so perfect anymore. It's not as exciting or awesome."

"Isn't this a good thing, though?" Scott looks around his history book, but when he sees that Allison is glancing around the cafeteria he ducks his head again. "I mean, does this mean that you're over her? Finally?"

"You don't just get over Lydia Martin, Scott. That goes against the very definition of the universe." But it might have been true, for him. Getting over Lydia Martin was a scary thought for Stiles, really. She had been a security blanket more often than not, a familiar face in his late night jerk off sessions, someone that he could have feelings for without examining them too closely.

Scott doesn't have any retort for that though, instead just staring at a page about trench warfare. Stiles gets up, because the school's fish sticks are very questionable. "Dude, just suck it up and go talk to her," he advises, because this is beyond ridiculous, before walking to the trashcans to dump his tray.

As is his luck, that's where Isaac and Erica are sitting too, blonde heads stuck together as the look at something in between them. Erica's cast is still on her arm, bright purple, and she looks up as if she knows that he's there.

"Hey, Stiles," she says, grinning at him. Beside her Isaac gives him a nod and little else.

"Wow, you're happy. Any particular reason?" For some reason his heart has started fluttering just from looking at Erica and how pleased she is, how bright her smile looks. For some reason his stomach feels sick just thinking about it, and he has the strangest urge to run. But he can't-won't-do that.

Erica just looks at Isaac, giving him more a smirk than anything else, before answering. "No, nothing."

"Great, well, I'm going to head to the library." His voice sounds like he's about to pass out, or something. How embarrassing.

"Oh," Erica says, frowning at him. "Do you want me to come too? I can help. I mean we don't really need any more book sources for our project, but-"

"No, it's fine, you don't need to come!" he says, too fast, because even Isaac is looking at him funny. "Yeah, I'm totally going to be fine going to the library by myself. Because I know where it is." He rubs the back of his neck, wondering how he's going to get out of this situation. "Yeah, well, bye!"

He's pretty sure that he hears Isaac say, "He's totally going to go look at porn or something," and Erica's response of "Isaac!" before it sounds like she hits him with his book, but he doesn't stop. He just keeps going.

.

So clearly, Stiles finds that he only has two choices: he can pretend that he only has friendship feelings towards Erica. They stay on the path that they are walking now, and eventually he will get over Erica the same way that he got over Lydia. It might take seven years, but hey, he's done it before, and Erica is totally worth seven years of torment.

Or, he can ask Erica out on a date. They can date, and well...after that Stiles draws a blank. He doesn't have a ten year plan with Erica, and he's loath to draw one up. There's just...no need for one, and for them the future's sort of hazy at this point.

He knows that Erica likes him. Isaac had confirmed that himself, and he was her best friend. "Worst crush in the world," didn't really leave any room for guessing. But that could have been then, not now.

Even though then consisted of only three or so days. Really, they were teenagers, their feelings turned in the blink of an eye. Or so the media had led him to believe.

Stiles still hadn't decided what to do when he saw Erica in study hall. She was wearing a Batgirl t-shirt, and it was the tightest thing that he had ever seen her wear, and ripped jeans. Everything else was normal Erica though-the hair and the lack of make-up. There weren't two girls that were more different than Erica and Lydia. And maybe, maybe that was part of the reason that he liked Erica now.

"Hey," she says, smiling at him like she had in the cafeteria. She isn't looking at him like he'd somehow managed to get around the school's firewalls and getting into porn in the library. That much is comforting. "Want to sign my cast?"

She thrusts a sharpie into his face and he takes and uncaps it, hovering above the cast while he decided what to write. There was a depressing lack of signatures on the cast. Her dad had signed it, and so had Isaac, and evidently so had Boyd. But other than that it was empty, plenty of purple space left to write his message on.

Stiles finally decides what to write, and it doesn't take long. He makes sure that his handwriting is neat, smooth and straight, so that she can read what he has to say clearly. He doesn't want something as stupid as his bad handwriting to get in the way.

Erica smiles when he hands her back the pen, but it fades slowly when she reads what he wrote. "Want to go on a date? Stiles," she says aloud, as if she isn't sure how the words taste in her mouth.

"What did Isaac tell you, exactly?" she asks, eyes flashing up to his face.

"Would you believe me if I told you that this has absolutely nothing to do with Isaac Lahey? But it has everything to do with you?"

Erica just stares at him for a moment before the corners of her mouth tremble. "Are you asking me out? Really?" she manages to say, finally.

"Why is that so hard for you to understand?" he asks. "Erica, you're pretty and funny and you laugh at my jokes, even the ones that aren't funny, and you aren't doing that fake girl thing either. I'm asking you about because I like you."

"What about Lydia?" she asks, but her eyes are shining, like she believes him. Stiles takes this as a good sign.

"Lydia who?"

She still hesitates for a little bit, but she runs the fingers of her good hand over his now dried words before she decides. "Yes. I'll definitely go out with you."

"Great," he says, and he feels like fist pumping and doing a touchdown dance all at the same time, but there's only so much movement that you can do in a desk without punching yourself in the face, so he decides to do nothing at all. He'll save his happy dance for after school. "Pick you up Friday at eight?"

.

Scott totally catches him in the middle of his happy dance. "Is this about Erica?" he asks, leaning on Stiles's doorway as he watches Stiles do the white boy version of happy twerking. Stiles immediately stops and looks at him over his shoulder.

"How did you know about that?"

"You asked her in the middle of class, it's all over school," Scott answers. "I just came over here to say congrats, you finally sucked it up and did it."

"Shut up, Scott, God," Stiles says, looking under his bed for his other game charger. There's only way to get away from this situation, and that's with video games. He chunks it at Scott's head but Scott ducks before it can hit him. "You know, if there was a Bechdel test for men we'd probably totally fail it."

Scott shrugs. "Probably, but that doesn't change the fact that I can kick your ass at Halo."

"You're on," he says, and they play until curfew.

.

The next day Stiles meets Erica at her locker. She jumps a little when she slams it shut and sees him standing there, but recovers enough to smile at him. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I was planning on being chivalrous and carrying your books to first period since your arm is broken and all. But if you're not into chivalry that's fine too, I'll just walk you to class. Which, admittedly, could still be as a chivalrous act, but we couldn't pretend it's not if you want."

"I have a backpack," Erica reminds him, laughing. "But you can walk me to class if you want."

"Sounds fine with me," Stiles says. He's about to start going off into another tangent when he hears someone brush by Erica and whisper the word freak. Erica stiffens for a second, but then she keeps walking, keeping the same neutral expression on her face.

Stiles decides that if she can ignore it, he can too, so he lets it go. It's only when some girl that he doesn't particularly know asks her, "Are you going to try to kill yourself today too?" that he opens his mouth to tell her to fuck off.

Because, seriously, that shit isn't cool. And it especially isn't cool when it's directed towards Erica. She wasn't even trying to kill herself, she had told him that herself.

"Don't," Erica hisses, grabbing his wrist with her good hand and dragging him past them. "I don't need you to save me all the time, Stiles. I've been dealing with this for a long time, okay? I can handle it."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have to," he protests.

"But I can. I was doing just fine without you, I don't need you to be all white knight and swoop in to save the day whenever I have a problem."

Stiles has a lot more to say about that, but the bell rang, which meant that the tardy bell was only two minutes away. "I have to go to class," he mutters, and walks away, feeling hot and angry all over.

.

Erica's sitting in her usual place in history, which Stiles takes as a good sign as he slides into the seat next to her. He tries not to look at her, though, which is difficult. He keeps trying to sneak looks at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Sorry," she says finally. "I know I keep everything more difficult than it has to be and I'm just really sorry. It's just...Allison told me what you did at the bowling alley and I'm grateful for it, it's just...I don't want you to see me like some sort of project, or something."

"You're not a project to me. Erica, you're you and if I want to punch someone in the face because they're an asshole to you that doesn't mean that I'm trying to save you. I know that you can take care of yourself. And, also, I most likely wouldn't punch anyone in the face because they could probably take me. If I did punch them I'd probably be running too."

In retrospect that speech doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Erica relaxes anyway. "Good," she whispers as the bell rings and Johnson starts shuffling his papers together. "Are we still on for Friday then?"

"Duh," he whispers back, because he's not going to let something as stupid as this petty argument get in his way.

.

The rest of the week seems to fly by and halt to a screeching halt at random intervals, as if it knows how badly Stiles is waiting for Friday. He walks Erica to class every day for the rest of the week, even though it means five minutes less sleep for him in the morning.

"So," Erica says, holding her books close to her chest at the end of the day. "See you tonight? Eight, right?"

"Eight. See you then."

She smiles and turns away to walk to the buses before turning back and giving him a kiss on the cheek. Then she runs away to the bus, leaving the imprint of her mouth on his cheek. It burns a little, but in a good way. Stiles covers the place that she kissed with his hand.

.

He's in front of Erica's house at eight o' clock sharp, wearing a different plaid shirt than the one that he wore at school. It's blue, and blue is totally classy, so it works. Her dad answers the door again, and just looks at him before letting him inside.

"What are your intentions towards my daughter?" he asks when they're both in the foyer, but he starts laughing when Stiles's mouth starts gaping like a dying fish. "I'm sorry, I just always wanted to ask someone that."

"Mark it off your bucket list, dad," Erica says from down the hall, and she's still rolling her eyes when she appears. She's wearing a black dress and silver headband and he's never seen her in anything that isn't jeans and it's...different. A good different. A great different.

"Wow," he says out loud. "You look great."

"You think?" she asks, grinning at him. She knows exactly how great she looks, and how different. "Thanks."

"Get the hormones out of my house right now, I can't take them," Erica's dad tells him, and Erica blows him a kiss before grabbing Stiles's wrist and walking out the door.

"Sorry about him, but don't worry. He's more embarrassing bark than bite, I promise."

"At least he's not like Allison's dad. He literally gave Scott a tour of their garage, which is full of guns and ammunition."

"You're kidding," Erica shrieks.

"Nope. It's one-hundred percent true, Scott will tell you the story himself."

"Wow," Erica breathes, shaking her head.

Stiles really doesn't want to talk about Scott and Allison all night, so he quickly segues the conversation. "So I hope you don't mind if we do the completely traditional thing right now. I was thinking dinner? I don't know, how does that sound to you?"

"Great," Erica answers. "I think that'd be really great."

Stiles takes her to the diner that he goes to with his dad, because he's comfortable there and for some reason it's important to him that she likes it. None of the deputies are there, and neither is his dad-thank God-and he counts that as a win.

"Stiles," Marie, the ancient waitress that seems to always be there when Stiles comes to the diner, says with menus in hand. "Is your dad with you-" she closes her mouth when she sees Erica behind him and quickly changes tactics. "Oh, never mind, you've got a hot date I see. Your dad said you might come here with one tonight but I didn't think she'd be this pretty." She gives Stiles a wink and he feels like putting his face into his hands.

"Let's just go sit over here," he mumbles to Erica, who's grinning at his embarrassment.

They both order cokes and Erica leans over the table to say, "You told your dad, huh?"

"And apparently he told the whole world."

When Marie comes with their drinks and takes their order, Stiles orders his usual-the burger and curly fries. He finds himself listening closely when Marie asks Erica, "Regular or curly fries."

"Oh, curly," Erica answers, and Stiles realizes that he'd been holding his breath.

"You're officially perfect," Stiles informs her when Marie walks away.

"Curly over regular, always," Erica says, but she looks down at the table and Stiles knows that she's pleased. "So how many days are you and Scott going to Wondercon?"

"Just one day, we can only afford two nights at the hotel. It took us all summer to get that money." He shrugs. "And speaking of which, have you read this week's Batman?"

"Of course, you're acting like I'm some people who have to beg to borrow two months of issues because they were too lazy to go get the from the shop before they sold out."

"I resent that," Stiles huffs, but Erica just laughs.

It's funny, how easy Stiles finds being with Erica is. It's almost like being with Scott, but better, because he totally wants to kiss Erica (and would totally be okay with having sex with her too, if it came down to that) after they're done talking. He doesn't want to kiss Scott.

They talk about anything and everything the rest of the night in the diner, and Stiles feels like he's on drugs or something. For once, everything in his life is going perfectly, and it's a beautiful thing.

He drives Erica home slowly, obeying each and every traffic law that his dad drilled into his head whenever Stiles had been studying for his permit. He doesn't want the night to end, but he doesn't know how to extend it without seeming creepy and pretending he didn't see her house.

He stops in front of her house gently and for a moment the only sound in the jeep is the soft bars of the jazz song that's playing out of the radio. "So, this was fun," Erica says slowly, drawing out her words.

"Yeah totally," Stiles spits out quickly, the thickness in the air getting to him. He's not sure what's so thick in the air, but it's something, something that's not quickly dissipated.

They sit in silence for a couple more seconds before Erica asks, "Are you going to kiss me or what?"

"Yeah totally," Stiles repeats, and then immediately wants to punch himself in the head. But then his mouth is occupied by Erica's, and it's warm and soft.

This is definitely different than he expected his first kiss to be. For one thing there's no lipgloss, like there would have been with Lydia. Instead it's just lips on lips and it makes something warm and heavy settle in the bottom of his stomach.

He can feel Erica start smiling on his mouth before she pulls away. "See you at school?" she asks as she opens the door of the jeep and gets out.

"Definitely," he tells her as she closes the door.

There will definitely be more white boy twerking when he gets home.