“‘Cause they say home is where your heart is set in stone”
- Home, by Gabrielle Aplin
Boyd/Erica
Because I miss them.
OH WOW EXCELLENT SONG CHOICE
so I was originally thinking this fic took place in a world where no one awesome dies, ever, and Erica and Boyd are piecing themselves back together after dealing with the Alpha Pack, push pull push pull, two steps forward and one step back, because Erica wants a boyfriend, not a crutch, and Boyd isn't always certain he's doesn't do stuff (sometimes stupid stuff, potentially rash stuff), because he doesn't see beyond the immediate benefit. Because they're both coming to terms with want being different than need, and that you shouldn't mix one up for the other, either way.
but now I'm thinking it's a future fic, where Erica escaped the Alphas or didn't get captured at all, where they split up when Allison was hunting them and Erica made it out. OR MAYBE JUST AN AU where Erica and Boyd had semi-bonded in high school over being nobodies, real nobodies, before graduating and going on their quiet little way, determined to leave high school and everything it held behind.
I've got a sudden and random vision of Erica at a florist/nursery, actually. It's a job she gets in college during her sophomore year when her gorgeous party girl reinvention starts to grate, just a little, starts to feel like a burden to keep up 24/7. This is fun, sometimes, dirt caked underneath her long chipping fingernails, the mulch that always gets in her hair no matter how carefully she braids it back.
"Fucking WOOD CHIPS --" Erica is in the middle of swearing when she walks into the front room. There's a moment where she can't decide whether or not she wants to be embarrassed she was swearing, but then she realizes the guy is --
"Erica," he says, and after a second he smiles. "Hi. How have you been?" It's not the reaction she usually gets when she runs into people from Beacon Hills; Stiles had nearly swallowed his tongue, and Lydia had raised a single eyebrow, grudgingly, which Erica had taken for a compliment. Then again, she thinks, she probably doesn't look so different right now. No makeup, terrible hair, ugly clothes.
"Hi," she says again, stupidly, because how in the hell did she forget the monster, massive crush she'd had on him, the way she'd finally forgotten all about Stiles?
aaaaaaaand then she helps him pick out a nice potted plant for his professor, because 'flowers would be weird, I think, but buying her cat a toy would be even weirder'*, and her natural sassiness comes back in full force by the time he leaves, snark and pleasantries exchanged. Aaaaand then he's back the next week, buying flowers for a sick friend, and she still looks like five miles of sweaty dirty road but it's not like Boyd hasn't seen her looking much, much worse, thanks camera phones. Aaaaand then the next week, with some explanation she didn't ENTIRELY pay attention to because wow, his biceps are straining that t-shirt, aren't they? and eventually her boss is like PLEASE PUT THE BOY OUT OF HIS MISERY, EITHER WAY and it dawns on Erica that Boyd likes her? Like. Wow. So she waits for him to come in again or possibly there's a little bit of facebook stalking (okay there was ALREADY facebook stalking, but now there's INTENT) and they date!
also I want Erica to show up to their date or hangout with his friends all vamped up, and Boyd is like "uhm" and Erica is like "oh shut up, I dress like this all time." "but I've never-" "not while I'm GARDENING" and it turns out she knows his friend Isaac from her writing seminar and oh my god, isn't Professor Deucalion the w o r s t? and a fun time is had with happy endings for all. basically I want a feel good romcom. that is what i want.
*true story, showing your appreciation for a professor/mentor can sometimes be weird