bakerstreet | the picture prompt meme.

After their little incident in the shack, it felt to Stiles like Erica was avoiding him. He'd wanted to talk to her about it, or what it might mean, but she'd scurried off before he could do that and he hadn't seen or heard from her since.

A week later, Stiles was getting a little anxious over it. Had he overstepped his boundaries? She hadn't said no, in fact, he'd been sure she'd encouraged him, but this whole not talking to him thing was making him have doubts. He'd so very casually asked Scott how Erica was doing and had gotten a look and an answer of 'she's okay', but that hadn't been enough. Was she okay? Was she plotting his demise? Was she planning on creeping in and suffocating him while he slept? These were things a guy had to know.

So he texted her. Okay, maybe he could have done that at the beginning, but he'd needed the anxiety to push him into making the first move. It was a casual text (as casual as he could make it), just a simple, "What's up?" Casual or not, it didn't stop him from chewing on his thumbnail the entire time he stared at his phone, waiting for a reply.

Returning from that shack Erica spent most of her time training. She didn't want to focus on the things that had happened and if anything it only made her want to become stronger, to be better because she didn't want to be a risk to anyone. The school day would end and she'd head to Derek's where they'd spend most of the day and into the night with drills. Isaac had Lacrosse and Boyd had work, so that meant Erica got the brunt of it. She didn't mind. It wore her out and took her mind off of things she knew weren't exactly important right now.

Derek had just set her shoulder, telling her to walk it off, as if she could just walk her way through the sharp pain of feeling as though she had shards of broken glass grinding between her bones. She retrieved her phone, thinking that Isaac would've told her something or that Boyd would be asking if she wanted anything to eat when Derek was done trying to mostly kill her.

Instead she had a text from Stiles. Exhaling, she kept walking it off and sent back a simple reply: Not much. Training w/derek

That had him wincing. Derek wasn't exactly the coddling kind. His method was less tough love and more tough luck. He sent back another text. How long? Free after?

Right. Because that didn't sound desperate at all. Or like he had any ulterior motives. Nope. Just Stiles being nosy. That's how he'd play it off, unless she said yes.

Her hand rubbed at her neck, tipping her head slowly from side to side as she tried to work the stiffness out. It wouldn't take long, but she just didn't appreciate the uncomfortable part of training. It was good, though. It kept her active and Derek made sure that she didn't have any seizures. It seemed like the Kanima toxin had been the trigger before, but she wasn't taking many risks.

She read his reply and paused in her pacing to respond. It took her a moment, mostly because she thought she heard Derek yell something, but he was silent.

Why?

And here was where he felt his palms get sweaty. He wiped them off on his pants, staring at the screen before typing in his answer. He stared at it again, pulse fluttering before he made himself hit send. Dinner?

Derek was calling for her, but she yelled back at him that she was texting her dad. Yes, Stiles you have just been regaled to the position of being lied about.

idk. why?

Not quite the answer he was looking for, but it was better than a no.

Want to see you.

Hey, look at that. He'd managed to send something without a question mark.

She had to set her phone down before she saw that, so Stiles would be waiting on a reply for another few hours. Her lip was split by the time she managed to get a second to step away from what Derek considered practice. Granted, it was her fault she was bleeding and she knew that it would heal soon. It was just annoying. Derek was annoying.

Erica glared at him from across the room and he just shrugged at her. She flipped him off and he glared at her. Yes, this was productive training. Boyd was coming in anyway so she didn't have to take his end of the line aggression. Nope, Boyd would be getting the brunt of that.

I don't want to be five years old here, but why?

That was it. She'd blown him off. The Stilinski charm had sent her running in the other direction and she couldn't even be bothered to tell him what it was he'd done wrong.

He was an utter failure. His brain played everything back on a loop and he kept seeing things in different lights. Maybe she hadn't said yes. Maybe she hadn't liked it as much as he'd thought she had. Maybe he had bad breath. His mind circled around all the maybes and the what ifs and he almost didn't hear his phone go off a few hours later.

He found himself picking at the loose thread on his shirt, the one that kept his button on. The one that was now unraveled and, oops, where did his button go. Nevermind. He can deal with that later.

I want to talk.

She took a seat on one of the broken down couches and nearly sank to the floor. Dammit, Derek. Get some actual furniture. Once she got up again, she leaned against the wall.

why does that require dinner?

Because food is good? Are you hungry? If she said no, he knew she'd be lying. Scott was like a human hoover, sucking down everything to keep up with his heightened metabolism. Whatever she did over at Derek's, he knew the pack all ate like they were starving. He could at least offer the bribe of something to eat to spend time with him.

Anyone noticing a pattern here?

Dammit. Her head rolled back and connected to the wall with a heavy thunk. She was starving and there was no way she wanted to go home and try to fish her way through the fridge and cook something. She wanted to just sit there and let her body heal while people brought her food. She was planning on meeting Isaac up at the diner when he got out of practice and before he went to work.

Except she was hungry now. She whined a bit to herself, then sighed and replied back to Stiles.

where?

It wasn't that she didn't want to see him, but she had been working so hard all week to clear him out of her system and she wasn't really sure if it had worked. Repeated exposure wasn't going to help.

He'd wanted to say his house, but that might be a bit too soon. A bit too intimate for her when he wanted to talk about, well, intimate things.

Pizza place on 4th? If she didn't want that, he'd pretty much say yes to any suggestion she made.

Boyd came by her and tried to snag her phone, but she managed to keep it to herself. There was a moment or three of small talk, mostly with Erica explaining Mr. Cranky to him and letting him know that she'd been run through the gamut a few times. It hadn't gotten easier.

When he ducked back to go find Derek, she replied to Stiles.

thirty minutes.

c u then :)

Okay. Okay. She'd said yes. And he had thirty minutes to make himself look presentable and use as little smelly crap while doing it. No, wait, make that fifteen minutes because he had to drive there.

Shit. He dropped his phone and went to go change his clothes and freshen up just a little (maybe a lot) before bolting down the stairs and throwing himself into his jeep, peeling out of the driveway and heading for the pizza joint.

He got there with a minute and a half to spare.

She tried really hard not to smirk at the little smiley face he tacked on the end there, but she was amused. She didn't go home and change, because honestly she didn't care what she looked like. Why should she care? Everyone that recognized her now knew that she didn't always wear black sweatpants and racer back tank tops. Plus, she didn't give Stiles enough time for her to go home and change. So when he arrived she was already in the booth. Her hands clutching to the napkin dispenser, using the reflective surface to try and clean off some of the blood that she hadn't realized was still on her bottom lip and forehead.

Oops.

She doesn't see him enter, and keeps dipping the edge of her napkin into her water glass to tug at her skin and remove the rest of the flaky dry blood. Her hair is up in a high ponytail, straightened from earlier in the day but the sweat and the activity has made the undersides of her hair start to wave and curl again. A few strands dropping near her temple were already starting to show that crimped wave that she always had trouble with.

He sees her inside and gets out of the jeep, victory flagging as he realized she'd beat him. Damn. He opens the door and comes in, hands in his pockets and an almost shy step to his gait -- before he saw what she was doing. Then he came over and stopped by the table, sliding in on the other side and stopping her hand. "Hey, whoa, what happened? Who did that?"

Her one hand set the dispenser down with a thunk as the other slipped away from his touch to push the wadded up damp napkins aside.

"Huh? Oh, no it's just ... training. It's healed, it's fine." She tried to shake it off, stretching her arms across the table for a moment and then sitting back up to slouch against the back of the booth.

His brow creases in a frown as he looks over at her. No, it was not fine. Derek needed a serious lesson in how to do things without breaking the people he did them with and Stiles was okay with mentally calling him a bunch of very insulting names at the moment. "How bad was it?"

Her eyebrow lifted in a moment of wondering why he was so concerned. "It's the same as it always is and I can take it, Stiles." She was actually capable of handling more pain than the rest of the pack, so she was fine to get knocked down a few times.

"I can handle it."

"You shouldn't have to." Okay, so he was a little on the older style side with not wanting to hit girls. So what? Werewolf or not, she shouldn't be being tossed around just for Derek's shits and giggles.

He leaned back in the booth and took a deep breath, reaching for a menu. "What do you want?"

Erica frowned, "I shouldn't have to? I'm a big fan of surviving to actually graduate, so if I have to train harder and learn how to fight better - I'm going to do it. Split lips and dislocated shoulders and all."

Her frustration had been with Derek and now it was being shifted onto Stiles.

"He's too rough on you." On all of them, to be exact. He was less about talking and more about getting them to comply with threats and pain. That was a pretty shitty leader in Stiles' view and that was what Erica had to deal with. He kind of hated Derek a bit for that.

Stiles Stilinski | Teen Wolf | OTA

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