bakerstreet | the picture prompt meme.

"Aww, but I do imminent death so well." She didn't want to make jokes, but her stomach was twisting up with nerves and she didn't like that feeling at all. Deflecting was easy.

Of course, anything else she was about to say was interrupted by the pizza arriving, which she really did want to eat.

He bit back what he was going to say when the food arrived, sitting back to let her take what she wanted. Reaching for his coke, he took a sip and stirred his straw in it.

He knew what she was doing, he did it himself, but it didn't make it any easier to know when he wasn't quite sure why she was doing it. Would she rather he just jumped off a cliff? Maybe she regretted ever doing anything in the first place.

Erica wasn't the girl that got noticed. She wasn't the one that had the guy she had a crush on actually notice her and actually want to spend time with her. Maybe she was becoming that girl, but she still didn't quite fit into that space in her life. It was there, waiting for her to take it, but she kept sinking back toward thinking about the library. About the seizure and how she couldn't stop it. How being better, how all the things that Derek promised her didn't come through in the end.

She was going to leave. Maybe Stiles knew that, maybe he didn't, but a part of her had that loyalty to her pack that was now so strong because she had failed them.

So the crisis at hand wasn't whether or not she wanted to actually take something she had wanted for a long time, but it was whether or not she could handle the fact that she was getting it now -- instead of then.

Even as she folded her slice of pizza in half and started to eat it, she still allowed her other hand to slide over and rest to his thigh, because it was one thing she knew she could do.

If they wanted to have a little 'who didn't get noticed by their crush' pity party, they could both wear little princess hats and be the reigning champions. It had taken a long, long time for Stiles to realize that no matter how badly he'd wanted Lydia, that ship was never going to sail. In fact, it had been scuttled and had sunk before he'd even put it in the water. He was just too busy bailing out the water to notice he was already on the bottom of the ocean.

So he'd had to force himself to wake up and move on. And it was then that he'd noticed that he did, in fact, have options. He hadn't know about Erica's crush. She hadn't exactly made it as obvious as his had been, but it had stuck in his mind after he'd found out. It had apparently festered all on its own into something else.

Something that had him reacting to her when she'd teased him at his house and when they'd shared that moment in the shack. Her hand on his thigh had his pulse racing in reaction, but his own hand came down to rest over it, fingers twining through hers. It wasn't some saccharine declaration of love, but it was something, and Stiles wasn't stupid enough to ignore it.

Erica still thought that she'd win.

Either way, she was okay with his hand resting over hers. It wasn't much, it wasn't him saying that he wanted to start dating or anything -- which was that what he was trying to imply? She hadn't exactly been surrounded by females to help translate boy-code for dating. In fact, she didn't have anyone she could talk to about this.

She just had to rely on herself, which wasn't always the best thing. This was the girl that decided to self-medicate and stopped taking her pills.

"I think I need my other hand to eat."

"Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry." He untangled his hand from hers, resting his hand back on his lap in that spot she'd kept warm. What was he trying to imply? Dating? It wasn't out of the realm of possibilities. If Allison and Scott could pull it off, he thought he could make a valiant attempt with Erica. If she allowed it.

That was the rub. Would she? Did she ever think about it? He mused over this as she ate, his other hand still playing with his straw.

For the record, Scott and Allison barely pulled it off and last she checked they weren't exactly in the 'on again' part of things. She ate another slice of pizza and glanced to him with a bite in her mouth. Her hand went to cover over her mouth as she talked with food totally in it.

"Aren't you going to eat?"

That was different. There was parental interference and psychopathic grandparents and a death in the family. This was a completely different situation. He looked up at her question, a small smile appearing.

"I figured you should eat first. You're the one doing all the heavy lifting at the moment and I've seen Scott eat. We can get more if you want."

Swallowing, she glanced over to him, "You're just going to watch me eat? That's a bit weird."

"I'll eat after I know you've had enough." He wasn't the one getting his ass handed to him by Derek. He also wasn't the one washing off dried blood while waiting for her. If she needed to replete her reserves, she was going to get the chance.

Her hand remained over her mouth, waiting until she'd swallowed before she spoke again, "Yeah... that's still a bit odd. Just eat something so I don't feel weird."

He rolled his eyes, but he reached over and picked up a slice, taking a bite and chewing emphatically at her. "Better?"

"Yes," she nodded before moving to take another slice. She kept eating, mostly just finishing each slice before she went to another.

Eventually, she slowed down though, because unlike Scott she doesn't actually need to become a black hole for food.

He eats his piece slowly, watching her and trying not to look like he's watching her. He's still mentally going over the best way to try to convince her that she should give whatever they might have a try.

Her hand reached for the Coke, drinking it and using the dampness from the glass to help clean her hands off with the napkins from that dispenser she'd used earlier.

"Thanks, Stiles. I mean, for the food. You didn't have to do that."

"I told you, I wanted to." He wanted a lot more, but he was trying not to push. He may have gone all out with his affections for Lydia, but she'd ignored him. He'd needed to (or so he'd thought) to get her attention. Erica was here with him of her own volition. They'd done things that were... hot. He didn't have to try so hard to get her attention and now, now he wanted to see what else could happen.

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah, I'll probably get cake later." She shrugged. Cake was always a good idea. Especially when she doesn't have to worry about her weight... or her skin.

"Chocolate?" Why did it matter? Because now he was picturing her with a forkful of chocolate cake, and maybe how the icing would make lines over her lips when she pulled the fork out...

Okay, he needed to clear his head. He sipped his coke, washing away the thought. "I mean, get whatever you want."

Erica shook her head, "Not here and not chocolate. If you must know."

Of course, that didn't mean she was planning on telling him what kind of cake she was going to get either.

"Where?" And what kind. These were things he had to know. He had to know what to imagine she'd taste like.

Another sip of coke to try to drown those thoughts.

Her eyebrow lifted slightly, "Maybe I'll bake one." She's not sure. She might just go to the grocery store and buy a slice out of the cooler.

"You can bake?" Great. Thanks, Erica. Now he's picturing her in an apron, and nothing else, with a little flour on her cheek and pulling a cake out of an oven. Then licking the frosting. Oh god, frosting.

There was a touch of skeptical in her glance at his question, "Yeah... I can bake. I can cook too. What just because I went from being the girl no one looked at except to laugh at to the one everyone wants to be lab partners with you think I don't have any practical skills?"

An edge of a smirk came in at the end there, because Stiles knew that she definitely had practical skills.

"No, I just... whoa. I didn't mean that. Just, not a lot of girls I know can cook." This might be because he didn't know a lot of girls. Not well enough to know if they could or couldn't cook, anyway.

His cheeks heated at the smirk, gaze dropping as he tried not to remember just how practical her skills were.

"It's probably a family thing," she replied easily. Sipping on her Coke, she turned to face him more in the booth.

"Besides, how many girls do you know?"

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