—

"Of course you're still the team captain. You got your grades up just like Coach told you to, right?"

Scott sighed, "Yeah, but he never told me I was back on the team. He just told me to show up at tryouts today."

"And Austin didn't say anything? You know, Coach is practically his stepdad, doesn't he have an inside to everything?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask."

Stiles gave him a deadpanned look before brushing it off, "We got bigger things to deal with anyway. Did you tell Argent yet?"

"I texted him but he didn't get back to me."

"You told him his sister Kate came back from the dead over a text?"

"Not the move, Scott." A voice said from behind them. They turned to see Josie and Ryder walking past them to get to the bleachers.

The girls clearly thought they were late for tryouts,

"Hey—Ryder!"

"Not now, Stiles!" She didn't spare him a glance as she hugged Austin, pressing a kiss to his cheek before following Josie to the bleachers.

"I didn't have the money to call France." Scott said as they made it to the field.

"Yeah, you think you got money problems? Try paying for an MRI and a visit to Eichen House."

"Another notice?"

"Yeah, this one said, "Final." Now, what the hell are we even doing here anyway? We got like a 138 million problems and worrying about our status on the lacrosse team is not one of them." Stiles rambled.

Scott's brown eyes traveled to the few players that were on the field, one person in particular catching his eye, "It is now."

"Who the hell is that?"

The pair of friends jumped at the feeling of someone slapping their shoulders, "That's Liam, he's the kid who bumped into me yesterday. He's really good."

Stiles and Scott shared a look, "Okay, maybe we should just practice a little bit."

•••

After watching the short practice before actual tryouts, Josie stood off to the side while Ryder spoke to Austin before he left to go change out of his sweaty clothing.

Her boredom was clear on her face as she stared ahead at nearly empty field. She locked eyes on the single person that was picking up his equipment, flinching as he lifted his head to look up.

She turned away as quick as she could to appear less like a stalker only to run face first into a wall.

"Ow." She lifted a hand to rub at her forehead.

"Hey! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine!" Josie shouted back, refusing to look at the teen that was running up to her.

"You sure? That looked like it hurt."

She mumbled under her breath, "Yeah, you should feel it."

"What?"

"Nothing!" She turned to face him, pretending to be shocked, "Oh! Hey, Liam!"

"Hi?" Liam furrowed his brows.

"I'm Josie."

"I know. We met a few hours ago." Liam chuckled awkwardly, "Did you hit your head that hard?"

Josie's smile fell.

"I-It was a joke. I was joking." Liam reassured her, "Hey, Uhm—I'm gonna go change. But i'll see you around."

"See ya." She raised a hand.

Her arm fell as she let out a soft groan, "See ya? Seriously, Josie?"

"That was painful to watch."

Ryder walked up to her little sister with a small pout, "My favorite part was definitely you pretending that you didn't know who was talking to you."

"I have a new crush every week, Ryder. I have never in my fourteen -almost fifteen- years of living embarrassed myself so much!"

"You clearly don't remember how you acted when you were between the ages of six and eleven." The redhead crossed her arms over her chest while leaning back against the wall, "It was not pretty, let me tell you."

"This is serious, Ryder—"

"So you've said."

"He's so pretty. And me acting like an idiot every time I see him won't get me any closer to high school love. Do you know that I walked into the classroom at the exact same time he did? We got stuck in the door. Granted no one payed enough attention to realize it and he simply smiled at me before gesturing that I go first..." She trailed off with a doe eyes, "I was still embarrassed!"

Ryder filled her cheeks with air before blowing it out softly,

"Wow. You're really going through it, huh?"

•••

"Hey, Liam. You want to explain what that was out there?"

Liam looked up, "What do you mean?"

"That little display. Your little circus act."

"What circus act?" Liam scoffed, looking at the three teens in front of him.

Two of the three looked like they wanted to be anywhere but behind Stiles interrogating the new kid.

"You caught every shot."

"I was in goal." Liam spoke as if it were obvious. Which, to Austin, it definitely was.

"Yeah, but nothing, not a single shot got past you." Stiles continued.

"Yeah, I was the goalie." Liam scoffed, "You guys played this game before?"

"Wh—"

"It is kind of his job, Stiles. You can't get mad at someone because they know how to play a game." Austin whispered.

"You're a freshman, right?" Scott looked back down at Liam.

"Yeah."

"But you weren't here last semester."

Austin furrowed his brows, "Neither was Josie—"

"Josie has an excuse." Stiles quickly cut him off.

"I transferred from Devenford Prep."

"You transferred?" Scott asked again, tilting his head down a bit.

"Yeah."

Scott shook his head, "No, you got kicked out, didn't you?"

Austin pursed his lips. He felt bad that his friends were badgering this kid on something that had nothing to do with them.

So what if Liam just so happened to be a werewolf? He wasn't bothering anyone. In fact, he seemed rather calm and unbothered for someone that wanted to supposedly hurt them. This was the calmest werewolf he had ever seen in his life.

"All right. Look! Kicked out or transferred, what do you guys care? I came here to play lacrosse." Liam snapped, "The team could use a few good players, right?"

"No. No, we don't need any more good players."

"Actually, we could sort of use a couple." Scott held back a wince at Stiles' betrayed expression.

"Yeah, you aren't that good. Greenburg has yet to graduate and he's somehow still on the team, Danny and Isaac aren't here—"

"Okay, I get it!" Stiles cut Austin off, "How'd you get this good? Have you always been this good? Or did it suddenly happen just once over night. Have you ever been out in the middle of the woods during the night of a full—"

"Stiles."

Liam hummed, "Look, I learned from my stepfather, all right? He made team captain when he was a sophomore. Like you."

Austin could tell that Scott was beginning to feel bad. Liam looked over at the George teen and gave him a nod before smirking over at Stiles,

"And yeah... I guess I'm just that good."

•••

"I hate math. It's pointless."

Ryder perked up at Malia's complaint, "So is life. But here we are."

"Who hurt you?"

"How about we don't answer that question?!" Stiles raised his brows, sharing a look with Lydia before he decided to pretend he didn't just randomly cut off the conversation Malia and Ryder were about to have.

Austin rolled his eyes with a shake of his head, leaning on his hand as he listened to the conversation.

"It's school. School is important, and math is essential."

"To what?"

"Absolutely nothing." Austin chuckled at his girlfriends remark.

"Not true. Knowing how much to tip at restaurants."

"And other less important things like medicine, economics, engineering..." Lydia trailed off.

"Tipping."

"All right, volunteers to the board. Lydia, Austin, Malia."

Malia watched Lydia and Austin get up without question, "Um... I didn't volunteer."

Ms Flemming eyed her, "You did now. To the board."

Malia looked like she wanted to talk back but the looks she got from Stiles and Ryder told her not to argue. She huffed as she stood in between Austin and Lydia.

Her fingers twitch as she stared at the problem in front of her.

"Did you go over the notes I gave you?" Lydia leaned over,

"I didn't understand them." Malia admitted.

Austin glanced back to see the teacher helping a student, after assuring she wouldn't catch him, he placed his own marker down and whispered to Malia before walking away, "X equals 25."

"And sweetheart?" Lydia looked down, "Put away the claws."

As Austin sat back down, he was immediately met with a phone to his face.

"Axe murderer?"

—
A/N: posted an edit of our faves on tiktok if you wanna see it
@/voidsoni