Chapter Text
WARM UP
A loss is inevitable, like rain in spring.
True champions learn to dance through the storm.
-Kwame Alexander
April, Then
For the living, death is a thief, and Stiles Stilinski’s childhood is a flat-screen TV stolen right off the wall mount. Dining room chairs sit empty at the table. Fuzzy gray snow collects on top of the stereo and CD tower. No one dances to Beatles songs on the weekends anymore, no one sings, no one laughs. No one picks him up in their soft, powerful arms and swings him around in the air like he’s flying—like he’s a superhero —despite how big he gets. There’s a hole in his heart where his mother used to be, dark and deep and quiet, that his dad attempts to fill with “family” therapy sessions.
Stiles fills it with the rush of transgressions.
He can disarm most adults with his sunny smile, but not the shopkeeper at Howard’s. The only time the man cracks a grin is when he cuddles a small cat he lovingly calls Boof. Stiles’ fingers itch to pet Boof’s smooth calico fur. Whenever the shopkeeper notices him eyeing her shiny coat, he whisks her away to the stockroom.
Like he imagines any good hustler would do, Stiles surveys Howard’s hardware shop for days. He memorizes the employees’ schedules, and meanders up and down aisles of power tools, gardening supplies, and multi-colored paint cans. An eleven-year-old boy has no good reason to frequent a hardware store alone. His presence makes the ornery manager paranoid.
The proprietor—Harold “Harry” Howard—is the stuff of legend around Beacon Hills. A washed-up former athlete who peaked in high school, Howard never left their hometown, riding the coattails of his jock days far too long and working at his family’s business. These days, a thick carpet of salt and pepper hair covers his tree-trunk arms and pokes out from the collar of a pilled, beige sweater stretching over his beer belly. Long, greasy white hair combed in stringy ropes over a receding hairline accentuates a grizzled appearance. He hobbles around on a lame foot, wearing the old sports injury like a Purple Heart pinned on his breast.
The handicap makes Stiles bold. Despite the lumbering frame—and a rumor that he turns into a hairy, vicious werewolf on full-moon nights—Stiles thinks he can outrun Howard if need be. Last year’s growth spurt centered in his legs and feet, and the extra three inches of height have him feeling damn good about his odds. He wouldn’t risk it if the payoff weren’t worth the price. He’s young but not an idiot.
Some people might argue that claim. Some people might call Stiles Stilinski a dumbass, a juvenile delinquent, a bad son. Some people would be wrong.
The moment he’s waiting for comes one chilly spring morning. The pimply teenager refilling the shelves disappears behind the double doors of the stockroom, leaving Stiles alone in the store with the elderly owner, perched on a stool behind the cash register. His sticky fingers wiggle out from the pockets of his faded jean jacket.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Howard growls, not bothering to glance up from the small chunk of wood he carves with a sharp little knife. The fragment resembles a potato with wolf ears. “Think of the trouble it will cause your poor father.” Stiles feels seven years old again, his mother admonishing him from the stove without ever turning away from the sauce she’s stirring, knowing he’s stuffed his hand into their rabbit-shaped cookie jar. Stiles’ palm sweats. Guilt, fear, and bitter-sweet nostalgia sink claws into his lungs, deflating them like balloons.
“He’s just a guy who let an injury get the better of him,” Stiles’ dad had said when Stiles brought home the werewolf rumor. “Sometimes pain strengthens us, but other times it makes us mean.” He imparted the words like a lesson, like Howard deserved Stiles’ pity, his empathy, instead of his fear. Maybe his dad was right. Maybe Stiles shouldn’t…
Howard looks up, straight into Stiles’ wide, unblinking brown eyes. “Your mother must be rolling over in her grave.”
Screw pity. Stiles’ spine straightens. Rage and fire expand behind his ribcage, pushing his breath out in an audible whoosh. Stiles snatches his haul off the metal shelf with long, nimble fingers and strides toward the entrance.
“Call Sheriff Stilinski!” The owner screams at the stock boy pushing through the swinging double doors, and Stiles sprints out of the store with his heart in his throat. Skinny legs carry his lanky body down the city street and around the corner faster than the older man could ever hope to catch him. He runs and runs until pieces of his torn soles fly off and his heaving breaths bounce off the buildings. He doesn’t mind; running, especially after shoplifting, feels like flying. It’s as close to the weightless, breathless feeling of swinging from his mother’s arms as he can get.
In the dingy back alleyway they agreed on as a meeting place, Matt Daehler waits, his back pressed up against the brick wall. He stands at attention as soon as Stiles appears, shedding his casual stance like a snakeskin. Disappointment and mistrust niggle at the back of Stiles’ mind whenever he sees the other boy. Matt isn’t a friend; he’s someone Stiles met in group therapy, unraveling his own Gordian knot of anxiety and night terrors from almost drowning in a friend’s pool. He isn’t someone Stiles would choose to hang around with, but after missing chunks of school the previous year, Stiles’ fair-weather friends abandoned him. A vein of malice runs through Matt, but the shadow of grief and death is cold and lonely, so for now, Matt and his meanness will have to suffice.
Matt’s eyes light up with wicked intent when Stiles pulls two cans of black spray paint from his threadbare jacket. He grabs one and clutches it to his chest. “Come on,” he says, glee raising the pitch of his voice. “I know just the place we can go.”
He leads Stiles down several blocks and through a busy intersection to a playground. They hop over the chain-link fence and head toward a dilapidated slide, where Matt rattles his can and sprays a giant penis on the rusted metal. Still running on adrenaline from his heist, the hiss of paint echoes in Stiles’ ears, and so does the rhythmic thud of a ball bouncing on asphalt nearby.
Stiles glances over at a group of gangly teenage boys playing basketball on the uneven blacktop. Weeds shoot up through cracks in the pavement, and only one basket stands at the end of the court, rim rusted and bent, and the net rotted away. Graffiti mars the dilapidated wooden backboard, and if paint markings ever garnished the court, they’ve faded to nothing.
Stiles and sports—or any physical activity requiring coordination—don’t mix, but Stiles and his father watch NBA games together on the old TV in their living room every chance they get. March madness carried them through his mother’s funeral and those awful first few weeks. Drafts focused his attention when his mom wasn’t around to go back-to-school shopping. The preseason games and roster announcement took their minds off the first horrible holiday season as a family of two.
Death stole a mother, but it also stole a wife, a partner, a best friend; sliced her from the prime of their lives like a doctor amputating a limb. Basketball—a sport neither Stilinski man cared for before Claudia’s passing—became the crutch supporting them when they lost their balance.
He turns away from Matt’s masterpiece and marches toward the crowd of older teens.
There’s a rangy-looking boy Stiles’ age haunting the edge of the court, shoulders hunched, spine curling as he watches the players with a woebegone stare. He’s vaguely familiar; a face Stiles has passed in the packed school hallway a few times. Tucked under one arm is a clean, neon-bright orange ball. His pant legs are about a half-inch too short, and the knobby bones of his ankles peek out of worn sneakers. Stiles knows the look—it’s the one he sports now that his father, who works every overtime shift available, is the sole provider of Stiles’ wardrobe. Single parents and growth spurts are about as compatible as Stiles and athletics.
“Why aren’t you playing?” Stiles demands, coming to stand beside the boy.
The boy pivots toward him, floppy black hair falling in a wave over his tan forehead. His dark, puppy dog eyes sweep up and down Stiles’ lanky frame, taking in his too-big red hoodie and his too-short jeans, gaze lingering on the can of spray paint in Stiles’ fingers. He shrugs. The weight of the world rests on his slim shoulders. “They won’t let me.” Utter defeat. “They never let me. I even brought a brand new ball today, and they still said no.”
Stiles surveys the older boys, counting them, assessing their height, weight, and muscle mass. Searching for the weak link. “Why do you keep trying if they never let you?”
“I’m here a lot. See that building over there?” The boy shifts the ball higher into his armpit and points with his free arm toward the four-story white building down the street—the hospital.
“Yeah.” Stiles shudders. “I know it.”
“My mom’s a nurse at the Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. She doesn’t have money for a babysitter since my dad left—not that I need a babysitter! I’m eleven.” The boy puffs out his thin chest. “Mom just doesn’t want me home alone, so on her day shifts, she brings me with her to work. I hang in the cafeteria and get the lunch ladies to give me free brownies, but if the weather is nice, I walk down here, to the park.”
That explains the boy’s familiar face. Stiles probably saw him at the hospital. During the final weeks of his mother’s life, he hadn’t left the building at all, sleeping in a hospice chair.
The boy bounces his ball once—twice—then looks up at Stiles, something shy and hopeful peeking out from under his dark lashes. “I’m Scott McCall, by the way.” He offers the name like a gift he worries Stiles will rebuff.
Stiles smiles at him. “My name’s… Well, everyone calls me Stiles.”
Scott stands a little straighter and returns the grin. “I saved up two weeks’ allowance to buy this stupid ball, hoping they’d let me play.” He rolls his brown eyes. “I’m just tired of warming the bench, you know?”
Stiles thinks of his classmate Jackson Whittemore’s refusal to pick Stiles for every team sport in PE. Yeah, he knows what Scott means. Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one. “I have an idea,” he says. It’s a poorly planned out idea, but Scott doesn’t have to know that.
The ballers pause when Stiles walks into the middle of the pathetic concrete. He strolls around for a few moments with his eyes glued to the ground, disrupting their game. “What the fuck, kid?” one boy snaps. Stiles stares him down and shakes his can of paint.
He draws straight lines and dashes. He sprays circles. He finishes three minutes later. Outlined on the broken ground is a half-court, with a free throw line and another for three-point shots.
“Hey, Stiles! Are you coming?” Matt calls over to him. A stream of shooting cum and hairy balls completes his artwork. Stiles shakes his head. Matt gives him the finger. One boy on the court whispers to his friend, “What the hell is a Stiles?”
Stiles turns back to the players and tosses his paint can to the side of the court. It lands among old fast-food wrappers, garbage, and a solitary muddy sneaker. Scott scurries onto the court, coming to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, a united front. A sliver of the bleak loneliness pervading Stiles’ life melts away at the gesture of camaraderie. It feels damn good to be someone’s champion, the way his mother always was for him. Stiles prefers to march to the beat of his own drum, but he’s willing to try a bit of teamwork now, especially if it gives him Scott McCall. “Let us play,” Stiles demands, puffing his skinny chest out and lowering his voice. “Scott brought a brand new ball to use.” He nudges Scott forward.
Scott lobs the ball toward the biggest of the older boys. The ragtag team glances at each other, shrugging. The biggest of the boys shoots the ball back at Stiles, a hard-line drive for his chest. He catches it with paint-speckled fingers and grins at Scott.
“Okay, pansies,” the boy taunts with a cocky grin. “Do you think you can move faster than the lifeless corpse of my dead grandmother?”
Scott laughs, and the hole in Stiles’ heart doesn’t seem so dark and impossibly deep. “Hell yeah, we can!”
They run. They play. They belong. Stiles feels lighter than he has in two years. It’s better than the rush of stealing, and the sensation of flying expands between his ribs.
Stiles Stilinski holds a winning lottery ticket in his hands, but it isn’t a slip of paper. It’s an orange rubber ball.
Ten Years Later
Liam’s POV
April, Now
Liam’s stiff shoulder rests against a red-painted locker, the metal icy under his shower-warm skin, a stark contrast to the pungent, humid air entering his lungs with each measured breath. On the outside, he’s a freshly showered basketball player waiting for his friends to finish their beauty regimens and hit up the dining hall. Inside, he’s a hot mess, and the rest of his teammates exhibit the same trumped-up tranquility.
Mason Hewitt—Liam’s best friend and the Pioneer’s reserve shooting guard—scrubs at a non-existent speck of dirt on his Puma sneaker. Beads of sweat glisten at his hairline. Vernon Boyd, the team’s center, perches on the lacquered wooden bench in front of the cubbies, jaw violin-string tight but stocky fingers loose as they fly over his phone screen, texting his girlfriend, Erica. The identical twins Aiden and Ethan stand shirtless at the sinks, comparing circumferences of their identically chiseled biceps, but their brown eyes shift toward Coach Finstock’s office every few seconds. Two sinks down, Sixth man Isaac Lahey uses super hold gel to style his wayward curls into something manageable, the skin at the outside edges of his eyes pinched.
In the pocket of his athletic shorts, Liam’s phone buzzes. He ignores it.
A few lockers away, Substitute Corey Bryant pulls an oversized sweatshirt over his head, bottom lip caught between his teeth. His body leans away from the barren cubby with the brass nameplate that reads Scott McCall, Captain. Brett Talbot’s lanky body lays flat on the bench behind Corey, looking like a corpse in a casket with his closed eyes and folded hands resting on his chest. If Liam knows Brett as well as he thinks he does after being teammates for a year, a Buddhist chant plays on the air pods snug in his ears. But even meditation can’t smooth the worry wrinkles off his forehead.
Liam’s phone vibrates again, right up against his hipbone. He sighs, fingers reaching for it when the door to the coach’s office bangs open so fast the hinges scream.
Liam’s shoulder peels off the metal as his spine straightens. Mason slips his shoe onto his foot and steps closer to Liam. Boyd pockets his phone mid text. The twins pull on t-shirts and turn away from their mirrored reflections. Corey slams his locker door and moves further away from Scott’s empty cubby, and Brett jackknifes up off the bench so quickly Liam doubts anything played in his air pods after all. Nolan, Nathan, Garrett, and Greenburg, the benchwarmers, look up from the Tik Tok they’re watching on Nolan’s phone.
Bobby Finstock stalks out of his office, eyes slit and shifty. If their coach feels remorse about making them wait around on a Thursday evening at dinner time, he doesn’t show it. A wild mane of black hair stands up from his head in all directions, like an electrocuted cartoon character. Derek Hale, a starter like Liam, draws everyone’s attention like a magnet as he walks out of the office behind Coach and sits down on the bench, never glancing at his teammates. Derek’s aloofness isn’t new. For eight months, Liam shared the court with him, and Derek never said anything to him that wasn’t directly related to a play.
Liam’s phone jerks again—once, twice. He slides a hand into his pocket and silences it.
Coach sucks his teeth, glancing at each of them. “Where the hell is Stilinski?” The shout echoes off the lockers.
“Right here, Coach.”
Stiles walks around the corner with one damp white towel wrapped tight around his slim hips and another slung over the back of his neck, draping over defensively raised shoulders. The last shower turned off over ten minutes ago, and dry patches of dark brown hair fall onto Stiles’ forehead. He comes to stand next to Liam, mismatched orange and blue flip-flops slapping against the tile floor with each step. Derek Hale winces with each loud, wet smack.
“Put some damn clothes on, Stilinski,” Coach grumbles. Derek winces again. “This is a locker room, not a goddamn day spa.”
Finstock claps his hands, and they all jump. “All right! Listen up! As you all know, McCall’s gone. He abandoned us to—”
“Scott’s studying abroad for a year,” Stiles interrupts, voice diamond-hard. “He’ll be back on the team for his senior year.”
“Shut up, Stilinski. Never interrupt me again. McCall decided he’d rather go freeze his balls off in Russia than—”
“He’s in France,” Stiles corrects, but Coach ignores him.
“—than lead this team to victory in the playoffs. McCall’s out for an entire season, plus this year’s finals, so that means you need a new captain. Pronto!”
Silence greets Finstock’s declaration. Every man in the room—aside from their loquacious leader—holds their breath.
“Someone strong!” Coach continues. He paces back and forth in front of them, nodding his head like a mad scientist. “Someone with guts! Someone to whip this team into shape! A real leader.”
Mason’s elbow digs into Liam’s side. No one has higher hopes of Liam making team captain than Mason.
Coach pauses, relishing the drama. “Lucky for you, I know just the person.”
Mason’s hand falls to Liam’s shoulder. Stiles sways closer, brushing against Liam’s side. The twins glance at Liam, then at each other. Isaac wraps a scarf around himself, even though it’s a balmy eighty degrees inside the room, and sweat rolls down the taut line of Liam’s spine under his tank top.
“It could definitely be you,” Scott’s smiling face said last night through the computer screen. He’d answered Liam’s frantic call despite the nine-hour time difference, rubbing sleep from his eyes and never losing patience. “You’re a great player, Liam. You’re the backbone of our team and a born leader. You can handle it.”
“I don’t know….” Liam said for what seemed like the tenth time in their short video call. ”I’m not you. I don’t have your patience or your optimism. What if Finstock makes me captain, and we lose every game?”
“Look, Coach will do whatever the hell he feels like doing,” Scott continued. “I wouldn’t put it past him to call the name of someone who doesn’t even attend East Bay.” Liam laughed. “If he calls your name for captain, I believe in you. And maybe you’re a different kind of leader than I am, but different doesn’t equal bad. Coach blows smoke up our asses about winning, but he really wants us to be a team. If you’re playing as a team, you never really lose. Believe in yourself.” Scott ended his pep talk with a shoulder shrug and a crooked smile.
“Oh god!” He face-planted into his pillows, jostling the laptop. “Next year is going to be horrible.”
In front of Liam, Coach stops pacing, burly chest puffing out and top lip curling. “Your new team captain, for the playoffs and next school year, is Derek Hale.”
Relief. Guilt sweeps in, chagrin and sorrow too, but the latter emotions can’t hide Liam’s initial reaction to the news.
Mason’s fingernails dig crescent moons into Liam’s shoulder, and Stiles’ jaw hits the tiled floor. The twins eyeball each other with stone faces, masters of telepathic communication. Boyd leans forward and nudges Derek, and Isaac nods in Derek’s direction. The benchwarmers glance longingly back at Nolan’s phone.
“Scott wanted Liam to take over,” Stiles says. The angry words slice through the body wash-scented tension. All eyes swivel toward Stiles, but Derek’s are the last to reach him, taking a roundabout journey with pit stops on everything from the gray cement walls to the mold-stained grout between the tile.
“Last I checked, McCall wasn’t the coach of the East Bay Pioneers. I am.” Finstock digs his thumb into the chest of his blue polo shirt. “You think you can abide by my decision, Stilinski? Or is there going to be trouble?”
“Derek was already captain last year, and you replaced him with Scott,” Stiles charges on, ignoring Finstock’s question. “A captain is someone the team trusts and respects. Why put Derek in charge again instead of Liam? That doesn’t seem like sensible coaching.”
Jesus. Growing up an athlete, Liam’s played with a terrible mix of teammates before, but Stiles and Derek are oil and water. Derek doesn’t make the top of Liam’s list of favorite teammates, but there’s an element to Stiles and Derek’s inability to bond that he can’t figure out.
Corey learned through the gossip grapevine that Derek benched Stiles and Scott their whole freshman year after Stiles talked shit at their first scrimmage. Stiles probably belonged on reserves, at least most of the season. Scott didn’t. When Finstock made Scott captain, the youngest in the history of the Pioneers , Derek and Stiles’ volatile relationship worsened.
Stiles’ fiery stares and the way Derek’s eyes slide over Stiles when he isn’t looking tells Liam there’s more melodrama than Corey’s sleuthing uncovered. Unless his antagonistic teammates hire a skywriter or take an ad out in the school paper, Liam doubts anyone will ever know the whole story.
“It’s not your role to wonder about my leadership skills.” Coach scrunches up his tomato-red face. “I’ll do my job; you do yours. And your job is to play ball and listen to your coach and your captain. Now, I’ll ask you again. Is there going to be trouble?”
“No trouble, Coach,” Aiden says, smoothly sliding next to Stiles and turning him toward his locker with a hand on his naked shoulder. Defeat and resignation suck the wind from Stiles’ sails, and he moves like a rag doll under Aiden’s hands. “Stiles is just a little lost without his best friend. I’m sure what Stiles meant to say was, congratulations, Derek.”
The rest follow up with felicitations and celebratory slaps on the back. Derek locks eyes with Liam. He nods. Liam nods back.
“I won’t let you down.” Their stoic captain addresses the entire locker room, but he speaks expressly for Stiles’ ears.
“—can’t fucking believe it. That guy? Come on.” Stiles whispers hotly to Aiden as he jerks on his clothes. Derek grimaces again before he drags his duffle bag out of his locker and heads for the door.
“Let’s blow off some steam,” Aiden suggests. Stiles slams his locker closed. “It’s two-dollar drafts at Butter tonight. I’ll be your DD.”
A lanky-fingered hand slams down on Aiden’s back. “I don’t care where we go, as long as there’s no karaoke and I can drink until I forget that I have to answer to Derek Hale starting next practice.”
“You’re just jealous I have the voice of an angel,” Aiden hefts Stiles’ gym bag over his shoulder like it’s full of feathers. “Ethan!” he calls to his brother across the room. “Drinks at Butter tonight. Ten o’clock. You in?”
“I’m out, Bro,” Ethan shakes his head. “I have an eight AM class tomorrow.”
“You want to join them?” Mason asks, but Liam shakes his head. Haggling with bouncers over his fake ID doesn’t sound like an appealing way to spend his evening. “We can do something else instead. Go get a pizza?”
“I’m okay, Mason. It’s Thursday night. Do your usual study date with Corey.” He winks at Mason’s blush.
“I’m sorry, Liam,” Corey says, summoned by the sound of his name. He pats Liam on the arm. “You would have been a great captain.” He and Mason exit the room with their heads bent together, hips swaying magnetically toward each other.
One by one, the rest of the team files out. Liam and Coach face each other across the empty room. “He’s right,” Finstock says. For once, he’s not yelling. “It was a tough decision because you’re going to be a fine captain one day. You’re just not the one this team needs right now.”
It’s everything Liam’s been thinking, summed up perfectly. “It’s okay, Coach. I get it.”
Finstock slaps him hard on the back, forcing the breath from Liam’s lungs like a gun blast. “Good man. Now, get the hell out of here. Wreak some havoc like the other kids, but not too much. Do you hear me? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He stalks back into his office without waiting for Liam to reply.
Before the echo of the slamming door fades, Liam’s cell is out of his pocket, and he finds seventeen missed text messages, all from the same number he refuses to store in his contacts. You know the number by heart , his traitorous brain supplies.
The weeks-old running conversation begins with a flirtatious, Did you mean to swipe right on my pic, or were your fingers just tired from me stealing every pass you put up?
The newest seventeen, however, are anything but amorous.
I tried to stop him , the most recent one says.
He’s drunk and angry , reads the one before.
I think he could be dangerous.
“Fuck,” Liam whispers into the empty locker room, scrolling up to the start of today’s notifications. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He sees Donovan’s name written in the first message, and dread settles into his chest, kicking relief—so short-lived—to the curb.
There’s going to be trouble.