Stiles was so full of adrenaline by the time he stepped onto the field, he could hardly hear anything over the sound of his own heart beating wildly against his chest. His sweaty fingers wrapped around his lacrosse stick, tightening his grip, bracing himself to play for the first time since he had made the team. He never thought the moment would come. It had been on the table before, sure. More than once, even. But every time he had had to miss it to go run with the wolves or keep everyone from dying. Not that he minded, though. He could live without glory if it meant the people he cared about lived at all. But that night he had not had to make the choice. That night, he had even thought, even just for a moment, that he was being given a chance to turn everything around; it was his chance to do something good that wasn't dangerous and see his dad look proud of him for the first time in a long time.
No sooner than the thought occurred to him than he found himself lying on the ground with a dull ache in the back of his head and the wind knocked out of him. When he stood up, he shook himself off and got back in, but his shoulders were slumped, the corners of his mouth pulled down by the weight of his disappointment, his energy coming from an entirely different place. Try not to look like an idiot, he thought, quickly replacing his hopes of heroism.
From that point, most of the game passed in a blur, cliché as it was. He ran. He dove. He fell, and he fell, and he fell. And he got up. And he tried. And he worked so damn hard, the way he always did, the way he was so tired of doing. And when he saw the ball lying on the ground, unguarded, he looked around to see if someone was going to get it. Scott should be here, he thought. Scott would get it, and he would score, the way he always did.
Then he heard the coach shouting at him and for once, he forgot to hesitate. He forgot that he wasn't Scott, that he couldn't do the things Scott could. He forgot he'd performed terribly throughout the game, his first game, his only game. He forgot about everything except how important it felt that he stumble forward and scoop up the ball; so he did just that.
Then he ran.
The pulsing of his heart once again drowned out the roaring crowd, his ragged breathing, and his inhibitions. He moved without thinking, without feeling, and then he stopped moving. The noises of the crowd came flooding back in along with his own incessant stream of HOLYFUCKINGCRAPHOLYFUCkINGCR APHOLYFUCKINGCRAP a thousand times a second. He saw the goal and he heard the shouting and he felt the sweat beading on his back and he tasted bile rising up in his throat. And then with a twitch of his muscles the ball was soaring towards the goal, into the goal.
Stiles choked out an elated cry, inhaling deeply and cleanly and for the first time in so long, easily. He looked into the crowd at his father, who stood and cheered and beamed, at Lydia who met his gaze and smiled, at a team of players who had always been indifferent who grinned in return, and suddenly he didn't feel like he was drowning.
An instant later he was moving again, back in the game, scoring again. And again. And thinking the whole time that this was what it must feel like to be the stupid hero in all those teen movies, the one who won the games and got the grades and won the girl. The lights of the field shone in his eyes and he smiled, he laughed, he felt exhiliration coursing through his veins.
Then all at once the lights went out, and he remembered who he was.