A/N: DON'T ROAST ME FOR THIS YOU GUYS I'VE NEVER DATED ANYONE BEFORE THIS IS JUST WHAT I THINK I'D BE LIKE IN A RELATIONSHIP AND KAT IS PRETTY MUCH ME BUT BETTER SO I'M TRYING TO WRITE IT ANYWAY???

also idk how frequent updates are gonna be g12 is literally kicking my ass

With summer slowly coming to a close, Katherine had experienced many things in the time span of a month. She'd taken up hiking as a pass time, which was utterly entertaining as Mason, Corey and Liam all insisted on joining her; a good portion of the last two weeks had been spent in a batting cage for practice; and she'd had Lydia explain all of biology 11 to her over the phone so she could take notes and not have to pay attention in class.

But the majority of her time had been taken up by Liam.

Things had been awkward at first, since neither of them had ever dated their best friend before, but they slowly fell into a comforting pattern that consisted of Criminal Minds, cupcakes, morning walks along the coast, Clue, excessive cups of coffee, and usually bickering. Katherine was unbelievably thankful that things hadn't changed as much with their dynamic, as she wasn't interested in a lovey-dovey sappy type of relationship.

Which was exactly why she didn't find it all that surprising to hear Liam's frantic, apologetic voice come in over the phone to cancel a date for the second time that week. The first time was because he'd been stressing out over just how quickly things were changing for them, which she'd understood, so she just told him to reschedule.

This time, it was because he'd forgotten he had lacrosse practice.

Knowing he felt bad enough about it, Katherine had simply changed into a pair of shorts, a baggy tee shirt she'd stolen from Malia ages ago that she tied at the ends, and then her vans. She'd stuffed a box of pop tarts into her backpack along with an AP psychology textbook she wanted to read before the school year started in order to have notes already taken for when things inevitably went to shit, and had dragged him out to the car where she said they had better get to practice then.

She'd gotten a kiss square on the mouth for that.

That was exactly how she found herself sitting on the cold metal bleachers at seven thirty that evening, a half eaten pop tart in hand while her textbook was open to page 145 wile she scrawled in a notebook on her lap. The team was out on the field already, excluding Liam and Corey. The latter of the two along with Mason were trying to deal with the idiot she'd spent a year and a half crushing on.

"Stilinski Jr!" She heard Coach Finstock yell, and simply waved with the hand holding the pencil rather than looking up. "Where's your boyfriend!"

"He's just having a bit of a mid-life-crisis, Coach!" Katherine yelled back, jotting down a brief line of notes that only she could possibly understand. "Give him, oh I don't know, five minutes!"

She knew Liam and Corey could hear her from the boys change room, so she annunciated particularly well because of it.

Sure enough after just two minutes, she watched Liam barrel out onto the field and to a spin mid air just in time to save the scrawny freshman goalie from a shot that definitely would've gone in.

As much as she would've loved to watch more of the practice — sarcasm — Katherine forced herself to continue jotting down short-hand notes in the messy chicken scratch she called her hand writing. It was relatively peaceful, she had to admit. The sound of gear slamming against helmets, stick clashing against stick, the occasional swear word and snarky comment rising above everything else from Coach who was blowing his reason for no reason other than he could.

She was in her studying zone right up until the point where everything fell silent.

When she looked up, she noticed the team all staring at the opposite end of the field, so she stepped up on the bleacher she'd been sitting on and followed their gaze. When she realized she still couldn't see anything over the crowd of teenage boys, she stuffed her things into her bag and jogged down onto the field. "Everything okay, Scott? I've never see you all so—" her heart lurched as she realized what they were all looking at "—quiet...okay what the fuck."

A wild animal was standing on the field.

For a brief moment before realizing what it was, she thought it was just Malia as a coyote after she'd eaten a raw deer or something because if Katherine were being honest with herself, the at wasn't such a far cry from her reality. But soon began to realize that coyotes were much smaller than the thing standing in front of her.

"That's a wolf," someone stated behind her, and she instinctively rolled her eyes at the familiarity of their voice.

"Thanks for the truly brilliant observation there, bub," she muttered to Liam without looking at him. She opened her mouth to say something sarcastic again, only for it to snap shut immediately as a low growl rumbled past the animal's lips.

Okay fuck this.

"Everyone back," Scott ordered calmly, though she could hear a tinge of protectiveness flare up in his voice.

Liam was tugging her backwards before she really had the chance to complain, and for a moment she was surprised to see that there was one other player — a human, as far as she could tell and or remember — that didn't move. Then she took note of just how tense he was, and realized he was too scared to move.

So, swallowing her own fear, Katherine darted around her boyfriend and grabbed the back of the kids shirt with a sharp yank, just as Scott was beginning to nudge him back saying, Nolan, go.

Then she was standing next to Liam again as a string of drool fell from the wolf's teeth. It's aggression soon dissipated as it tipped it's nose to the ground and breaking eye contact with Scott, and she could only guess he'd flashed his red eyes.

Katherine watched it turn and slowly walk away, and immediately felt something emotional tug within her. It had only seemed territorial, and now, from what she could see, it was nothing more than scared. So she hardly even hesitated for a second before darting around the rest of the guys near her, jogging up the bleachers until she had grabbed her bat from the pocket of her backpack.

Once her feet were on the field again, she was following the wolf at a far distance, moving slowly enough that she wasn't making much noise or appearing as a threat. She ignored Scott's wave of get your dumbass back here right now before I phone your brother as she ducked down the narrow path into the woods that the wolf had taken.

Since she knew him and Liam would both be following her no matter how many times she told them to fuck off, Katherine trailed slowly after the line of pawprints until she could see the poor animal, still covered in blood, and only approached it when it laid down on an incline, dried leaves and dirt acting as a pillow for it's head. She kept her bat raised until she heard it let out a low whimper, lowering it's head sadly to her.

"Hey, buddy," she whispered softly, setting her bat down and holding her hands out to it so she wouldn't appear threatening. She kept it close to her, though. Just in case. "What's going on? Are you hurt?"

With her phone in her back pocket, she was ready to phone Deaton in a moment to come and pick up the animal, but she felt her heart break when it only curled in on its self the way she did when she was having a panic attack and scared out of her mind.

"Oh, Honey I know," she whispered, scooching closer to it. She had pulled her phone out and was scrolling to get to Deaton's contact when something pressed against her knee, and she flinched.

The wolf's nose.

She stared down at it for a moment, unsure why it was touching her, only to then realize that it's chest was no longer rising and falling with the movement of breaths. It had died.

"Kat?"

Humming quietly in response to Liam, Katherine gently settled her hand down onto the patch of blood in the wolfs fur to see if there was an injury, but she wasn't able to look long enough before suddenly spiders were emerging from the body and she was being yanked off her feet and away from it's body. "What the hell, Liam?" She snapped at him, knowing full well that they were crawling all over her bat bow.

Scott wordlessly reached over and dragged it towards her with a stick, then used said stick to smack all the spiders off.

It looks like I'll doing my favourite type of cleaning tonight; baptism by fire.

Since Liam didn't answer she looked up at him, and was surprised to see a look that she could only describe as mute horror, and followed his eyes to see what he had seen. That was when she found herself looking at an entire pack of wolves laying dead on the other side of the incline where it fell back down to flat ground, all in similar shape to the wolf she had sat with as it died.

"Okay what the hell," Katherine whispered softly, her heart lurching as Liam tangled his fingers through hers in a secure hold. "I swear to god when I find who killed them that person is going to be in way worse shape and have to survive with the results because oh my god, Scotty—"

"—I'm not sure this is a who situation, KitKat," Scott cut her off gently, though his lips were pursed into a thin line.

It took her a moment to process what he'd said, but when she did she felt her eyes all but but out of her head. "Seriously? You know I'm really gonna have to say that you're wrong because I'm absolutely not starting eleventh grade with dead animals. I refuse. I will literally kill Gerard before I let that happen, and honestly you could bribe me with bragging rights and I do it so it's probably not that much of a threat but—"

"—babes literally stop," Liam sighed, turning around and lowering into a half squat in front of her. She jumped onto his back without hesitating, tossing her bat over to Scott who caught it with ease.

The padding under his jersey was jabbing into her legs, but she didn't mind it all that much. It was better than him almost breaking her nose and ribs, anyway.

So much better.

"—you know if Gerard literally ever breaths in my general direction I'm gonna shove my bat so far up his ass—"

"—do you want to get coffee after practice?" Liam tried again.

Katherine grinned and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and then settled her chin down on his shoulder. "I thought you'd never ask."

At the sound of him inhaling sharply, she silently felt for his pulse until she realized it was racing. Then she thought of another moment similar, where she'd been on Liam's back walking through the forest, though that time had been with stiles rather than Scott.

So he's nervous...and my dumbass literally thought out loud to my own brain, he probably just stepped on something.

Katherine you dumb fuck.

"Make sure she's home by 10, okay," Scott reminded him with a pointed look. "Her dads at work so he won't know, but I promise I will."

She shot him a look. "Liam's staying tonight because we're binge watching the rest of Bones before school starts...he hasn't seen the thing with sweets yet so—"

"—what she's trying to say is that she's going to fall asleep after she chugs her coffee and I'm going to have to wake her cranky self up at 7:30 tomorrow so her dad doesn't have to," Liam cut her off, grinning.

Katherine smacked the top of his head, frowning when he didn't even flinch.

He was right, anyway.

Unfortunately.