Work Text:
Stiles had been playing lacrosse with Scott ever since they had become best friends. Their love for lacrosse didn't spawn from anything other than the fact that lacrosse was the golden sport of Beacon Hills. Schools on TV shows always make football the big thing. Everyone goes to the football games on Friday nights and cheers on the football players and the captain of the cheer team and the captain of the football team date and at the last second the home team wins and the marching band goes crazy. It kind of confused Stiles when she was little, because Beacon Hills just wasn't like that. Lacrosse was cool and that was it. Stiles can remember perfectly every summer how she and Scott would practice from morning until night, constantly throwing balls back and forth. It never really made either of them any better because they both kind of really sucked, until Scott became a werewolf and began to kick ass at lacrosse the summer before sophomore year.
Getting Stiles on the all boys lacrosse team had been rough as hell. When she was younger and began getting into lacrosse, she never really gave two shits about the fact that there were no girls lacrosse teams in Beacon Hills. All she really cared about was that lacrosse was what she and her best friend wanted to do and that's all that mattered. Her parents never really cared what she was doing, as long as she was having fun and staying out of trouble, which she always had a problem with. She figured it was probably mostly her mom who didn't care what she did, and her dad just went along with whatever her mom said. Once high school hit, though, and she went to try out for the team, all the boys began to snicker at little Stiles and her lacrosse gear. Coach Finstock, too, was a little apprehensive about letting a girl on the team. "I mean, it's not that you are a girl, except, that's really what it is. You're a girl and if you're playing for an all boys team it'll be rough sweet heart. Why don't you go do dance or something and get the hell off of my field," Coach said the first time they met, which pissed Stiles off to no end. She had been working for this for years and she was not going to give up.
So, Stiles went to Melissa after she had been thrown off the field and Melissa made a few calls and a group of moms went to the superintendent's office, complaining about how they couldn't just let Stiles not play because she was a girl because, apparently, there was a law against it. They let her on the team real quick after that, especially when they were threatened that they would be sued if they didn't. Once Stile was on the team, though, it didn't get any easier. She tried to ignore the whispers surrounding her, which never really ever left, if she was being honest. The only difference between the new whispers and the old ones about her being into girls and spastic was that the new ones were about how she only made the team because she had to bribe the school board to get on it. It was partially true, but that only happened because she was a girl, and not because she sucked. She only sucked slightly, and would have definitely made the team, at least as a bench warmer, if she had been a boy. Stiles needed to prove herself and it took basically her entire first two seasons on the team to do it.
Stiles was now the last one to leave the field and the first one to practice every day. Scott was right there helping Stiles, offering as many tips as he could think of while still trying to help himself out. It was a team effort, and the two friends worked non stop on trying to be the best at lacrosse. All of freshman year, the two basically sat on the bench, watching the game go by and eagerly waiting to be put in the game. They never were, and ended up sitting with Greenberg, who was Coach's least favorite player, so the two kind of knew where that put them.
None of that stopped Stiles and all of her hard work payed off when she was finally played in sophomore year and basically won the championship game. It had been the best feeling in the entire world to prove everyone wrong, and when Finstock told her that she sucked slightly less than Greenberg, it made her life. She wasn't the worst on the team, and though the events after the game totally sucked, her being able to play and win made it just a little better.
You would think things would get better after she won the game, but honestly, nothing really changed except for the fact that everyone had high expectations for her. Every time she missed the ball, all she could hear were whispers about her winning being a fluke. But Stiles knew that she wasn't a fluke. She could win any game she wanted to, if she tried hard enough, and there was proof of that with the championship title that she earned. Every day, even up through her senior year, Stiles would have bruises covering her entire body. It was as if the kids she played with tried to kill her with the balls. Her black eye was not one of her best moments and she didn't look that great drenched in sweat, but every time she was able to score, she felt on top of the world. And, when Lydia had so kindly informed her that her percentage of goals scored had gone up drastically, she wanted to explode of happiness, which she almost did.
One day during Physics, Stiles was staring blankly at her textbook that she was supposed to have read the night before, and tuning out her ancient teacher talking about projectile motion or something. It was something Stiles had zero interest in, and staring at nothing was better than any problem the crusty old teacher was putting on the board. The word 'lacrosse' caught her eye while she was staring blankly and so she actually began to read the chapter and laughed at what was written at the top of the chapter. Without caring about what may have happened, Stiles pulled out her phone and took a snapchat of the passage to post to her snapchat story. She knew that Derek would appreciate this snapchat because she was constantly the person who Stiles would go to to complain about lacrosse. Lydia didn't give much of a shit about her lacrosse issues and Scott would mumble how it was best for the team if things worked out a certain way because he was captain and that was what he had to say. Derek, though, had the ability to be totally unbiased and if she didn't agree with Stiles, then what kind of girlfriend would she be? Smiling, Stiles put away her phone, thinking about her snapchat and thought about the practice that they were supposed to have later that day.
