absolution ☾teen wolf [slow updates]

five [time to dance]

The relentlessly pounding bass of whatever song Danny had picked reverberated through the cool evening air as Aubrey and Stiles walked up the driveway to Lydia's house. From the corner of her eye, she noticed his hands jittering by his sides, and barely managed to conceal a smile. She had never known someone to be so nervous as Stiles was when he was graced with Lydia's presence, and he was heading straight into the lion's den.

"Put your hands in your pockets," she swiftly muttered to the boy stood next to her as she knocked on the door, which swung open to reveal Lydia herself, attached to Jackson by the hip. The jackass snorted when he got an eyeful of Stiles Stilinski in all of his sweaty, nervous glory, and Lydia smiled at her best friend with what looked like true affection.

The strawberry blonde said, "Aubrey, so nice of you to come back. Congratulations to your stylist, I gotta say ... you look bomb." Flashing a sarcastic grin, she turned back to Jackson and tugged him down to whisper something no doubt sexually explicit in his ear, and the couple abandoned the two losers at the door.

Aubrey turned to her date, if she could really call him that, and took in the rather put out expression on his face. He looked exactly like 13-year-old Aubrey, when she had innocently asked her parents to take her out to a nice restaurant for her birthday and her dad had decided on Chick-Fil-A. Not that there was anything wrong with Chick-Fil-A, but it didn't exactly scream class. He could have at least settled for a Chili's, or an Applebee's. Chuckling, she stepped into the house, beckoning him in after her, and led him to the drinks table in the kitchen.

"Pick your poison, Stilinski," she shouted over the thumping of the music, feeling it vibrate in her bones. He took a step towards the table, his eyes glinting in the low light, and scooped up a red cup and a bottle of whisky that Jackson had placed there earlier.

Aubrey sucked in a sharp breath over her teeth, tutting at the boy next to her as he let some of the amber liquid dribble into the cup. "Jack Daniels? That's a bit of a whisky move." Biting her lip, she felt her cheeks shake as she tried and failed to stop the laughter at her own pun - it had been a long time since she had properly socialised. Lydia probably should've screamed at her about her terrible, terrible puns by now, but somehow it had slipped the redhead's mind, luckily for Aubrey.

Stiles groaned and downed what little liquid was in the cup. "I'm gonna need to be blackout drunk to be able to hang out with you without wanting to hang myself from the very expensive light fixtures, I swear," he whined, solemnly rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"Then we'd really be hanging out."

"Oh, shut the hell up."

She chuckled, nudging the lanky boy's ribcage with her elbow and reaching over his arm that was pouring some ginger ale into the whisky-lined cup to grab herself a can of Sprite. When he glanced at her questioningly, she simply said, "don't want to harm myself or anyone around me just yet - I hope you're not planning on drinking too much either, seeing as you've gotta drive yourself home." She did not want to be responsible for another car accident.

Stiles pulled a so what? face, and without waiting for her consent, lifted the bottle of whisky to her can and let the liquid splash into the soda. "Y'know, a wise dude once said, and I quote, 'live while we're young', Aubrey."

"You totally just quoted One Direction at me - and if you 'live while you're young' by drinking and driving, you probably won't live to be old," she replied, rolling her eyes at him and taking a swig of her now-tainted lemonade. It wasn't too bad, to be honest, but she hadn't been planning on drinking at all - trust Stiles to mess up that plan.

His cheeks grew rosy as he spluttered, "I did n- One Direction? You must be mistaken because I- okay, yeah, what can I say? I'm a sucker for British boybands." He grinned at her then, a lopsided thing that didn't quite reach his hazel eyes, and turned to look at the students around them, breaking the stare she had been holding with him. Aubrey couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something about Stiles that she liked, more so than she liked Lydia or Jackson or even Allison. She guessed it was something to do with how genuine he seemed - with him, what you saw was what you got. But below that, there was that mystery with Derek Hale that he was obviously wrapped up in - a mystery that she wanted to solve.