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Post by stiles on Jan 7, 2024 12:32:57 GMT -5
There are a lot of things Stiles had anticipated changing when they became parents. Sleeping through the night, for one, and Ava hadn’t let him down. He knew their relationship would change, though he had thought parts would feel more strained, not that it would bring them closer in every way possible. He anticipated the house being messier (it was), his priorities changing (they did), and his level of anxiety rising occasionally (constantly). But he hadn’t realized just how different Christmas would feel.
Malia had looked at him like he was crazy the first time he brought up Christmas while she was still pregnant. But with each holiday they had approached while Malia was pregnant, his mind had wandered to what it would feel like a year from then, when they were dressing her up as a pumpkin or taking her to see her very first fireworks. And even though they hadn’t even known she was pregnant yet last Christmas, he had thought the most about that holiday. Hadn’t Christmas felt like magic as a child, he had asked her. And didn’t it feel like even more magic to create that for their own child now? Maybe he had had a beer or two at that point, and she had still looked at him like he was crazy, but she had indulged him in a conversation about their own childhoods. About Christmas traditions and Christmas mornings and the principles of Santa. And long before he ever actually held his daughter in his arms, Stiles had started planning.
Then Ava was born, and life became a whirlwind, and suddenly, Christmas is here. Their Christmas Eve had been quiet. No, their Christmas Eve had been perfect. With it being his grandmother’s first Christmas alone, Noah and Melissa had made the drive up to Salem. The memory from the last time still fresh in his mind, Stiles had declined their offer to join them, but offered to host the next day after Noah made that same drive back on Christmas morning. Stiles had also tried to not be offended when he extended an invitation to Scott to have him join them on Christmas Eve, and he had turned them down for Nat instead. (It turned out having his perpetually single friend now be in a relationship was proving to be a change he hadn’t anticipated.)
But then it was just the three of them, and that had been perfect. After Ava had gone to bed, they had sat up for hours, putting together toys and wrapping gifts the baby still wasn’t anywhere near capable of opening on her own. They had reminisced about the previous Christmas, when there was snow in California and they still weren’t entirely sure of what they were to each other. Which is probably how he ended up making love to her for the first time since their scare beneath the Christmas tree.
It’s that memory that is still fresh in his mind the next morning when Ava begins to fuss. It’s her normal soft fussing, the kind she makes when she’s still asleep but starting to realize she’s wet and hungry and not in someone’s arms. She makes a soft sound, and then it’s quiet again as she continues to sleep. Normally, Stiles would roll over and try to fall back asleep for this small amount of time when Malia would feed her, but this morning, he’s already wide awake.
His stomach flutters with his excitement as he opens his eyes, checking his phone to see it’s just a little after seven. He rolls towards the other side of the bed to find Malia still curled on her side, not yet reaching for the baby, even as she fusses a second time. Her hair is piled up in a messy bun, and her back is bare, having shed the matching pajamas his dad had bought for all three of them at some point during the night. It’s that bare skin that draws him closer as he moves to spoon her body with his own. He wraps a hand around her abdomen as he pulls her closer to him, pressing a soft kiss to her bare shoulder. “Merry Christmas, Mal,” he murmurs against her warm skin.
Malia’s only response is a soft moan as she curls in more tightly around herself so his arm is pinned between her thighs and her ribcage. In this early morning haze, it takes his brain a second longer than it should to recognize that moan as a pain filled one. “Mal?” he asks as he lifts his head. “You okay?”
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Post by malia on Jan 7, 2024 19:42:24 GMT -5
Christmas had always been a strange thing for Malia since she’d tried to adjust back into human life. There was no Christmas as a coyote. Just a chilly winter, when food was scarce and hard to come by, and sleeping with a pack for warmth was the one real pleasure. And then she’d come back, and Stiles had tried to get her excited about that first Christmas, but it just didn’t make sense to her. All of the things she’d remembered about Christmas as a child with her family seemed silly and made her sad. And Noah and Stiles had traditions that she wasn’t a part of. And then when she’d left Beacon Hills, she’d just kind of breezed over the holiday all together. She’d come home to see Henry, maybe…it’s what she’d been doing when Stiles found her. Or to see Derek and Braeden. But her family was tattered and the pack had been mostly scattered and Stiles had been with Lydia…or somebody else.
And then there was last year. It’s when she finally got it. The joy of the season, the warmth and the joy of spending it with somebody you loved. The warmth of a fire or the smell of the real Christmas tree. The snow! Sure, that probably wasn’t going to happen again anytime soon, but those were moments she would never forget and all of them led to the excitement she felt about Ava’s first Christmas. Some of Stiles excitement probably bled over to her because she can’t remember the last time she saw him as giddy as he was the night before when they were wrapping presents for the baby and putting toys together, getting things ready and dressing her in her little Christmas pajamas that had been a gift from his father. They’d made love under the tree and drank cups of hot cocoa and even she had had a hard time falling asleep because she was so excited for the morning.
But now that the morning is here and she can feel Stiles rustling her out of a deep sleep, her body seems to be rejecting the idea entirely. The first coherent thought she has when she feels his lips against her bare shoulder and hears his voice is pain. Sharp, aching, biting pain from her abdomen. Not just any pain, period pain. And not just any period pain, the kind of period pain that made you want to curl up into a ball and die, even when you were a werecoyote with an abnormally high tolerance for pain.
Stiles voice is filled with concern when she curls in tighter, trapping his hand against her body. “No,” she moans pathetically. She pulls his hand away so she can sit up and even in the dim morning light she can see the blood on the sheets. “Shit,” she mumbles. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but she hadn’t been prepared for it, though if she were to sit and think about the way she’d been feeling lately, it would make complete sense. She can hear Ava beginning to work herself up in her bassinet beside the bed. She would be ready to eat, and it was Christmas morning! And they had so much planned and family coming over and all she can think about is the fact that she feels like she wants to die. “I think I started my period.”
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Post by stiles on Jan 7, 2024 20:34:14 GMT -5
Stiles feels sick to his stomach when he hears her mumbled No. Malia is the same girl who told him she was fine once after she had been shot by her own mother multiple times. To hear that she’s not okay now makes his chest feel tight as he fights the urge to reach for his phone before he even knows if this is a real emergency. She pulls his arm away from her body, and he finds himself mirroring her actions: she sits up, he sits up. Her eyes fall to rest on her lower body, and he hears her curse. He cranes his neck, that knot pulling tighter in his stomach as he spots blood on her side of the bed. And then, before he can do anything rash, she sighs and tells him that she started her period.
“Oh,” he says because even though this is something normal, that panic seizing his chest hasn’t eased. Malia moans again as she wraps her arms around her, letting her forehead fall to rest on her knees. This isn’t normal. He remembers when she got her period back when they were dating in high school, only because he had been her anchor and something about her hormone levels had made her shift then, too. But he doesn’t remember seeing her like this. And surely, he would remember this level of discomfort.
“Well, are you okay?” Her response is another moan, this one mostly stifled by her knees. Stiles’s mind races as he tries to think back to every conversation they had with Nat after Ava was born. He remembers her instructions about what level of bleeding was normal bleeding in that first week after delivery, and he remembers her telling Malia that she might not have her period at all while Ava was still nursing, but other than that, he doesn’t remember any warning that it would be like this, with Malia curled around herself in the middle of their bed.
Ava chooses that moment to cry, now wide awake and aware that she’s unhappy. Stiles doesn’t hesitate as he gets to his feet. There’s a spot of blood on his pajama pants from when he pulled her into his arms, but he barely notices it. Instead, his eyes stay locked on her as he makes his way around the bed to the baby’s basinet. “Can I do anything?” he asks her. He pulls his gaze away from her long enough to scoop the baby from her tiny bed, murmuring softly to her before pressing a kiss to the top of his head. When he looks back at her, she’s still bent in half, but he can see her hand wipe roughly at the bed. “Don’t worry about the sheets,” he tells her, his expression still lined with concern. “Do you need anything?"
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Post by malia on Jan 7, 2024 23:04:05 GMT -5
She can smell Stiles worry, but he seems to get the issue before she has a chance to really tell him there’s nothing to worry about. She has to admit she’s gotten kind of used to NOT having to worry about a period. Dealing with bleeding was a lot more annoying and complicated as a human than it was as a coyote. She hates it. She notices the blood all over the sheets, a complete mess. She feels embarrassed, though she’s not sure why. Stiles has seen a lot worse than this from her, but that doesn’t stop the fact that her mind tells her this was something that she should have been prepared for…and should have prevented. And now his sheets are probably ruined and there’s a huge mess to clean up…and it’s Christmas morning.
Thankfully, before she has to answer his question, Ava pulls his attention away. She’s hungry. She had settled out of her cluster feeding and was back to only eating two or three times a night. And it had been a few hours since Malia thinks she was up with her. She’s going to want to eat and she’s going to need a clean diaper, and they have all of her presents. And she has her gift for Stiles. And now there’s blood all over the bed and she feels like her entire ovaries are rebelling against her body.
And is if that wasn’t bad enough, she feels her claws dig into her legs. Her canines pressing into her gums as they extend. She can feel the heightened color and smell and senses of a shift and when she lifts her head to look at him, her eyes are bright blue and her arms are getting harrier. And that’s when she panics. She has learned to control her shift almost completely since Stiles and Scott had found her all those years ago in the woods. There weren’t very many times she lost control. When she got very angry, when she got very protective, and when she was on her period. Every other time, she changed and shifted and changed back when she wanted for how long she wanted. She’d never lost control of her shift around Ava. And for some reason, it terrifies her. What if she hurts the baby the same way she hurt her mom and her sister? What if she accidentally claws her, or handles her too roughly, or does something else that she can never forgive herself for?
She scrambles from the bed, backing herself into a corner away from them, her hair and eyes wild. “Take her away from me,” she answers in response, her voice already a half growl. “Keep her safe.” She would never hurt Ava. She loved Ava so much. But she loved Stiles that much and she’d almost hurt him once. And Ava wasn’t old enough to talk her through it. She curls over in pain again, shifting back to normal right in front of his eyes.
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Post by stiles on Jan 7, 2024 23:31:27 GMT -5
Despite his best attempt at the rock-bounce she’s currently obsessed with, Ava manages to get his nipple into her mouth and then screams when she realizes it’s not what she wants at all. “Okay, Aves,” he sighs as he gazes down into her red little face. “I hear you. We’re gonna feed you.” When Malia still hasn’t told him anything she needs, it’s on the tip of his tongue to ask her if it’s okay if he warms up a bottle. When he looks up fully expecting her to still have her head down, he’s met instead with the bright blue of her eyes. She opens her mouth like she wants to tell him something, and he catches a glimpse of those elongated canines. “Oh shit,” he says as he stares back at her with wide eyes. “We’re doing this now.”
Because apparently, nearly a year without a period has left her body unused to managing this shift.
But he’s not sure if she even hears him. As slowly as she had moved to sit up in bed, it’s the exact opposite when she clamors out of bed and backs herself into the corner by his dresser. Her eyes are wide and wild, but it’s not a feral expression she wears. It’s fear. It’s fear in her voice, too, when she tells him to keep the baby away from her.
It’s only then that he realizes his grip on the baby has tightened. Not because he’s afraid of Malia, or afraid of what she might do to their daughter, but because of the flurry of activity. It hits him then that he didn’t even stop to think about her shifting with the baby in their room. It didn’t cross his mind to be worried for her or to protect her. Because no one has been more protective of their tiny baby than Malia, even now, as she tells him to keep the baby safe.
“Mal,” he says, raising his voice to make sure she can hear him over the sound of her own panting. “You’re not going to hurt her. You don’t hurt me.” She growls at that, like she’s trying to argue with him but too close to her coyote form to find human words. But before he can argue back that it’s been over a decade since she’s hurt him, she’s suddenly fully human, collapsing to her knees as she moans again. His voice is softer when he says, “You’re in too much pain to hurt anyone.”
When she lifts her gaze to meet his, that fear is still on her face. He can see her shoulders shake, and he’s not sure if it’s from the pain she’s experiencing or from her body trying to resist a shift. She tells him again to take the baby, her voice sadder this time. “But then who’s going to anchor you?” he immediately retorts. His chest feels tight again, torn between doing what she’s asking, and calming Ava down, and keeping her human. For a second, he feels like he might lose it. Like he might just fall to his knees beside her in the midst of a panic attack. But then his mind takes over, needing to solve the problem. “Ava needs to eat,” he tells her calmly. Her head is bent again as she stares at the floor, but he hears the rumble of a growl he chooses to ignore for the moment. “I’m going to warm up her bottle, but then I’m coming back to help you. You’re not going to hurt her.”
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Post by malia on Jan 8, 2024 17:25:45 GMT -5
The pain and the period would have been bad enough on their own, but the uncontrolled shifting makes it a thousand times worse. She’s having a hard time keep her body settled in one position, and the fact that there’s a fear, a mistrust of herself creeping in…it’s just all a lot. She can feel her body shaking as she tries to stay in control and even though she’d asked him to leave, Stiles comes closer.
You’re not going to hurt her… His words play over and over again in her mind. No, she loves Ava. She loves her more than her own life. She’d rather die than hurt her. Surely even her coyote felt the same way. But her mother was a coyote, and she didn’t feel the same way. The fear takes over again and she drops her head, her teeth bearing as she turns her head to look away from him and all she can offer is a growl in response. It’s more a growl of relief, relief that he’s going to come back and help her and relief that he’s going to take Ava further away from her grasp. Yes, she was hungry, and Malia was in no position to feed her right now. She lifts her head to watch him as he walks out of the room with the baby and she immediately moves into the bathroom, grasping the counter with claws out as she looks at herself in the mirror.
She hated herself like this. Out of control. Wild. In pain.
She shakes as she turns on the cold water, splashing her face with it and sighing as she controls the shift again, her normal eye color staring back at her from her reflection. “Come on Malia…” she mumbles. She moves her hand to her abdomen, grimacing with pain. She’s still bleeding, so she cleans herself up and looks for the pads she knows they have under the counter so she can use one when she puts her clothes back on. But before she can get there, the claws are back and she tears through the box she’s holding. She’s vaguely aware of the fact that Ava’s crying has stopped and by the time Stiles is back in the room she’s managed to pull her pajama pants on, still naked from the waist up. She sits down on the edge of the tub, grasping it with white knuckles as she fights the shift again. This was going to exhaust her if it didn’t end soon. Then she really wouldn’t be able to control it.
She’s relieved when she looks up and sees Stiles there in the doorway again, though he still has the baby, holding a small bottle to her mouth. She needed him. There would have been a time when she might have been too stubborn to ever admit that, but now there is no room left for hiding things from each other. Not anymore. She steps closer, her eyes bright blue, her heart racing as she’s ultra aware of where Ava is in between them as she presses her lips to his.
Immediately, she can feel her herself relax, his effect on her instantaneous.
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Post by stiles on Jan 8, 2024 19:09:16 GMT -5
He needs there to be two of him. No - scratch that. He needs three of him. One to take care of the baby, one to clean up their bed so Malia will stop worrying about it, and one to keep her anchored in her human form. At the very last, Stiles feels like he could use backup. It’s the reason he stops in their bedroom long enough to grab his phone, even though he pockets it instead of sending an SOS text to Scott. Scott who’s probably still in bed with Nat, spending his Christmas morning the way Stiles did last Christmas. Scott who is blissfully unaware of the pressure that comes with having both a newborn and a hormonal werecoyote fiance.
But Scott also doesn’t get to love a newborn and a hormonal werecoyote fiance. Which is honestly 90% of the problem. It’s what leaves Stiles’s heart breaking and his chest tightening under the weight of the need to be everything for both of his girls all at once. Ava’s needs are more pressing for the moment, so he starts with her. He brings her into the nursery to change her diaper and then moves into the kitchen to warm a bottle. His hand shakes as he pours the bag of milk into a bottle, losing precious drops to the countertop, but he manages not to spill the entire thing when he twists the nipple on, so it feels like a win. Ava is more content now that she has a clean diaper, staring up at him expectantly as they wait, and he bends down to press a kiss to her tiny forehead. “Merry Christmas, Ava,” he tells her softly, feeling that same excitement buried beneath his worry and stress and panic. “You’re going to love Christmas.”
It doesn’t feel like a lie he tells her. That stubborn part of him that ended up with a newborn and a hormonal werecoyote fiance is determined to salvage the baby’s first Christmas. It is just also temporarily buried under his worry and stress and panic. But that panic lessens when Ava takes the bottle he offers her without complaint and he heads back to the bathroom.
The bathroom is quiet as he approaches, which feels like a good sign. He sees her first, sitting on the edge of the tub with her head bent as she grips the porcelain like her life depends on it. There’s a mess of cardboard confetti on the floor, but she’s managed to pull her pajama pants back on. He’s just about to say something to let her know that he’s there when her eyes open. They’re still that brilliant blue, but he’s always loved that blue. His eyes are glued to them as she wordlessly makes her way to him. He had planned to sit with her and talk to her, but Malai seems to know what she needs in that moment as she comes to stand right before him, pressing her lips to his.
It starts as a gentle kiss, but then her hand comes up to the base of his skull, as she lets her tongue part his lips. He keeps his arm around the baby to keep her from being squished between their bodies and moves his thumb to hold her bottle so that he can wrap his other arm around Malia. Her fingers pull tight on his hair as she sucks gently on his bottom lip, no canines in sight. Stiles lets her continue to kiss him, taking that lead, until she pulls away first. Still, she keeps her forehead pressed against his, her hand on the back of his neck. “Do you have what you need?” he asks her referring to the mess of cardboard on the floor. Malia nods without pulling away, and he rubs her lower back in slow circles. “Are your periods usually like this?”
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Post by malia on Jan 8, 2024 20:34:55 GMT -5
She’s breathless when she finally breaks their kiss, almost unwilling to let go of the hold she has on his bottom lip. She can feel the comforting way his hand rubs at the small of her bare back, her pajama top still left somewhere on the floor of the bedroom. And she can feel the warmth of the baby between them, hear the way she continues to suckle at the nipple of her bottle as if she’s completely oblivious to the fact that her little body is trapped in between theirs. She lets her fingers play softly at the short strands of hair that fall there at the nape of his neck and she breathes him in.
It’s exactly what she needed. He is exactly what she needed. He always has been.
She nods in response to his question, her forehead still resting against his as her free hand comes to find the baby’s tiny foot. She wraps her hand around it, finally feeling fully like her human self with no fear of her coyote coming back unexpectedly.
“No,” she tells him honestly. “They’ve never hurt this bad, or been this heavy. And I haven’t had trouble controlling my shift since that first year I was back…you know, in this body.” It’s brutally honest and she really is in pain. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing she takes will help. Something about her were metabolism and the way her body reacts to the drugs. It’s similar to the way they react to alcohol. No effect.
But she desperately wants this morning with him and their baby. She desperately wants to give him his gift and give Ava all of the presents they worked so hard on wrapping. She wants to eat the cinnamon rolls that they’d bought from the bakery in town just for this morning, and to drink a fresh cup of coffee, and sit with Ava while she watches the glitter of the lights on the tree. She wants all of those things.
“I’m sure I’ll feel better after some coffee,” Her lips are still brushing against his when she talks. She finally pulls away, bending down so she can clean up at least this part of the mess she’s made and then going to retrieve the shirt that is still laying in the floor beside the bed. He’s leaning against the doorframe when she pulls the shirt over her head and he smiles, offering the best I’m fine… look she can give him. She leans down, pressing her lips to the baby’s head. “Merry Christmas my loves.”
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Post by stiles on Jan 8, 2024 21:21:19 GMT -5
Stiles would know if it had always been like this. Sure, he had been a teenage boy when they had been together the first time, but the only memory he had of her cycle was the way she would shift, and even that had gotten better with time. By no means would he consider himself any kind of expert on women’s health (having a pregnant partner had made that glaringly obvious to him), but he had lived with two other women before Malia. Lydia would complain sometimes, but it wasn’t debilitating. And his last girlfriend’s birth control had kept her from having one altogether. But Malia, he knows in a way he’s never known anyone else.
There’s no sense of relief that comes with hearing her say that her period isn’t usually this painful or this heavy. Instead, it makes his chest feel tight again. He pulls her a little closer again, wishing he could do more than just hold her. But he knows painkillers won’t work for her. Somewhere, there’s a heating pad Melissa had brought when she came to visit Ava the first time, saying it would help with the contractions Malia felt when the baby nursed. Stiles makes a mental note to unearth it from wherever their sleep deprived brains stored it. But still, it doesn’t feel like enough. But Malia’s request is simple.
“Coffee, I can do,” he tells her. He follows her back to their bedroom, his eyes tracking her as she moves back to her side of the bed. She falters for a minute when she spots the blood on their sheets again, and there’s a quickness to her movements, like she’s afraid to be away from his side for too long, but she brushes a hand across the baby’s hair when she comes to stop before them again, pressing a kiss to her tiny head. Still, when he holds Ava out towards her, there’s a hesitation on her face. “You’re not gonna hurt her, Mal,” he repeats. “I trust you.”
That seems to do the trick. Malia gingerly takes the baby from him, holding her like he had when she was first born and he was sure he would break her if he wasn’t careful. Still, this is a major improvement from cowering in the corner and insisting he take the baby away from her. She coos softly to the baby as they make their way into the living room. He stops long enough to turn the lights on the Christmas tree on, then presses a kiss to her head on his way to the kitchen. Malia’s soft chatter doesn’t stop as she talks to the baby about the twinkling lights, the presents, the stocking with her name on it. And despite the way their morning had started, it’s the Christmas morning he’s envisioned with her.
He adds cream to his own coffee before heading into the living room. Malia is sitting cross-legged with the baby sitting in her lap, facing the tree. She offers him an attempt at a smile as he hands her one of the mugs, and it breaks his heart again. He slides behind her, staying physically close. If there’s nothing else he can do to help her feel better, at least he can try to be proactive in helping her stay anchored. As if she can read his thoughts, Malia moans softly then. One of her hands moves from the baby to slide just beneath the waistband of her pajamas, pressing tightly against her lower abdomen. Without thinking, he moves his own hand there, pressing his warm hand firmly against her abdomen. “Are you sure there’s not anything I can do?”
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Post by malia on Jan 8, 2024 23:02:37 GMT -5
She does briefly hesitate when he moves Ava toward her. The baby is wide awake, still suckling her bottle contentedly and Malia bites her bottom lip as Stiles urges her on. His trust in her has always given her a confidence in herself like nothing else ever had. He didn’t think she would hurt the baby. He TRUSTED that she wouldn’t hurt the baby, even if she lost control. He trusted her. If he trusts her, maybe she can trust herself. She takes Ava’s familiar weight into her arms, gingerly pulling her closer. She focuses every thought on keeping her claws away, her teeth under control. And it feels…good. It feels right to have the baby in her arms. She would rather die than let anyone hurt her…including herself.
She follows Stiles down the hallway, smiling as the glow of the Christmas tree lights fills the small room and she settles easily on the floor with Ava. She wants to nurse her, but she’s content with her bottle right now so she doesn’t disrupt her breakfast. If anything could make their baby mad, it was interrupting her food. So she holds the bottle, keeping her pulled close to her chest as the smell of coffee fills the small house. As much as Stiles trust in her had given her confidence, she’s relieved when he slides into place behind her. Feeling him close makes her breathe easier, knowing that if she starts to lose control again, he’s right there with her. She rests Ava’s bottle against her chest as so she can use that hand to take a sip of the hot coffee. It was good. He always made good coffee.
But the pain is still there, and it comes in waves. She can feel herself tense as the cramps cause her entire body to tense. She sets her coffee down and moves her hands to her abdomen, right below the waistband of her pants and she leans against him as his hand comes to rest on top of hers. She shakes her head in response to his question. “Why did it have to be today?” She whines in response. He chuckles softly behind her and she can feel the way his chest vibrates against her.
“I know what will help,” She says almost giddily, forgetting about the pain for a moment as she reaches for the small, hastily wrapped gift under the tree that she knows is for him. It was something she’d been thinking about for a long time. She’s nervous, but excited. Inside the package is a framed picture of him and Ava. It’s a candid photo, one she’d not even sure he knows she took. It’s him holding the baby close, smiling at her as she gazes up at him with big eyes, enamored by his face and his presence. She knows he’ll like it, but that’s not the real gift. The real gift is the envelope inside with a check for 250 thousand dollars.
She’s been living with him rent free, eating his food, for a year now. And now they have Ava and she needs so much. He’s never asked her for a cent. Not a dime. And she knows money is tight. And she never felt for once second that he felt she owed him something, especially not now. This is her home, he is her home, and she doesn’t doubt that. But she’s got a lot of money. A LOT of money that she never touches. Money that came from Peter. Money that’s hers now…theirs. She doesn’t know how much this house cost, but she hopes the money will help him pay for the rest of it and take a little bit of the burden off of his mind. She can’t think of a better thing to use it for.
“I wrapped it myself,” she says as she hands him the gift. “Merry Christmas Stiles.”
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Post by stiles on Jan 8, 2024 23:31:43 GMT -5
Why did it have to be today? He chuckles at her whined question, but he’s been asking himself the same thing. Of all the days, why did today have to be the day she feels miserable? Especially when Nat had said her cycle might not come back until after Ava was weaned. But at least she’s out of bed now, no longer curled in the fetal position while her body is wracked with cramps. And at least she isn’t shifting now, no longer trembling with the energy it took to stay in this form as her body stays pressed against his. This is still the Christmas morning he had hoped for.
Her sudden burst of excitement is the icing on the cake. She gasps before she launches herself forward, reaching for a gift that had suddenly materialized after he had turned off the tree and gathered his clothes from the floor the night before. He laughs to himself again as she tells him that she wrapped it herself because… well, the box was clearly wrapped by her. “It’s beautiful,” he tells her as he kisses her cheek before pulling the ribbon free. He brings his arm around her body, leaning slightly away so that he can unwrap the box. Setting it down on the floor, he gently lifts the lid to be met with a picture of himself with Ava. It’s a picture he’s never seen before, but one that looks recent from the length of Ava’s hair and the way she fills his arms more than she di when they first brought her home. He’s smiling widely, and she’s looking up at him with wide blue-gray eyes, wearing an expression that’s so much like Malia.
“I love it,” he tells her sincerely, swallowing around the lump that has risen to the back of his throat. “I’ll put it on my desk.” She nods emphatically, like this was also her plan for it, and he would laugh if his eyes weren’t suddenly glassy. He lifts the frame from the box to look more closely at the photo, but something white slips out and flutters to the floor.
“What’s this?” he asks, amused as he reaches down for it. Malia bites her bottom lip as she stares back at him without saying a word. She seems almost nervous as he slides his finger along the flap, opening the envelope. He’s not sure what he thought might be in the envelope - a gift certificate or a coupon she generated herself for a multitude of things - but whatever he might have guessed would be there, he wouldn’t have guessed what he finds.
As soon as he slides his hand inside, he feels the check and he stills. Even before he pulls it out to see the amount written there in her handwriting. Stiles knows she has money. A lot of money. Or at least, she had a lot of money at one time, back when he was still privy to those parts of her life before Sedona. And she had made enough comments since returning for him to know that there was still a lot of money. But he had been adamant about not using it for a crib or a carseat or her hospital bills that had seemed to come endlessly at one point. And now, it’s Peter Hale’s money he holds in his hand. “Mal,” he says again, that playful tone gone from his voice as he lifts his gaze to meet hers. “What is this?”
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Post by malia on Jan 8, 2024 23:49:53 GMT -5
He loves the picture, just like she knew he would. She loves the picture, it’s one of her favorites. In fact, she thinks, maybe she’ll print another copy and keep it on the nightstand on her side of the bed so she sees it when she opens her eyes in the morning if she’s not looking at him. But it’s the next part that has her nervous. The money.
She knows how he feels about the money she inherited. But she doesn’t care about the money. It’s money. It was sitting in a bank account that Derek had helped her set up when she’d first come into it. She rarely touched it. She didn’t need it. Or at least she hadn’t when it was just her. When she was alone without love and without Ava and without her mate. But now she wants to use it on them, on what they have and what they will have and everything in between.
Her eyes sparkle, her heart racing as she watches him look at the check, but her heart falls when his expression turns sullen. All of the joy and emotion from the photo, the small, simple gift gone…replaced by something she can’t exactly place. As if she can sense his unhappiness, Ava pulls her mouth away from her bottle, whimpering slightly.
“It’s money,” she replies in a very matter of fact way, as if he really doesn’t know what it is and she needs to explain it even though she does know that’s not what he’s asking. He stares at her and she shifts slightly, that pain that had been momentarily forgotten flooding back into her lower belly as she pulls her gaze from his. “It’s our money.” He doesn’t seem to understand what she’s saying, so she shifts, sighing. She’s not good with words. Why do these moments come where she knows exactly what she’s thinking but she doesn’t know how to say it? She turns slightly to face him, reaching for his hand. She brings it to her lips so she can kiss it before she rests it against Ava’s little chest, her own resting on top of it.
“Ever since the moment we met, you have taken care of me, you have given to me, you have helped me…and you’ve loved me. Nobody has ever loved me like you. Nobody. And then I can back, and I stayed here, and all of these things happened, and then Ava came….”
She sighs, getting frustrated again. She doesn’t know how to express what she’s trying to say. “This is our money now. And I want to help. I want to help so you don’t have to worry. I want to help for this,” She looks around at what they have together. “For her, and for you.” She lifts her hand to his cheek, her finger tracing the line of his cheekbone. “For our family.”
It’s the first time she’s ever called them that out loud. This is her family.
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Post by stiles on Jan 9, 2024 16:30:55 GMT -5
It's more money than Stiles has ever seen. More money than he's ever possessed, or honestly hoped to possess. For him, it's life-changing money. Enough to pay off the house and still have almost half for that bigger home their family could grow into, or to send Ava to college, or... anything, really. But instead of feeling an overwhelming wave of relief as his gaze drops down to that number again, written in her familiar handwriting, he feels nauseous.
"It's Peter's money," he mutters under his breath because he can't help himself. In reality, it's her money, inherited when her father was locked up and the key thrown away. It is her money, and yet he's never been able to accept that. It still feels tainted in some way, like if he cashes this check, it will be Peter Hale who paid off his first house. Peter Hale who provided for his children. Peter Hale who made his dreams come true. And it's that thought that he can't stomach.
But Malia grows more impassioned as she tells him it's their money. He lets her take his hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles before she sets his hand on the baby's chest. It's when she starts listing the things he's done for her that he can feel his own unease growing.
"But I'm supposed to take care of you," he insists. And therein lies the real issue. In a world where he stayed with Lydia, she was always going to make more money than him. It's not some kind of toxic need to be the main breadwinner or her sole provider that's leaving him so rattled, but it's... something. It's a need to take care of her and provide for her. It's a need to be able to handle the bills so she can stay home with Ava. And then she's talking faster, talking about his worries, and his guilt feels like a brick in the pit of his stomach. Guilt over the way he had panicked when her hospital bills game. Guilt over the way he had talked about the expense of each Christmas gift they remembered they had to buy. Guilt over the way he had just mentally lamented over the $150 they had owed to be told that she had wet the bed.
His chest tightens when she says that she wants to help and he's shaking his head immediately. "I don't want you to help," he says frustratedly before he can stop himself. He sighs, setting down his coffee to rub a hand over his face. He hadn't been prepared for this, and everything about this morning is starting to feel like emotional whiplash. And then she repeats that one phrase.
For our family.
There's a sureness to her voice when she says it. The lights of the Christmas tree sparkle in her ring where her hand still rests on top of his, that symbol he had given her that he wanted his life to be inseparable from hers. That meant every part of her life.
He lowers his hand to meet her gaze. Her eyes look glassy, and subconsciously, he thinks it's probably due to the fact that her period started, but he doesn't want to make her cry on Christmas morning. He moves his hand resting beneath her to lace his fingers through hers, squeezing her hand. "This is for our family," he says slowly, watching as he nods. "So this isn't for me then." She looks startled when he says it, so he gives her hand another squeeze. "I'm not taking your money," he insists. "I can't take your money. But we can use this to open an account together. So then I'm not taking care of you, and you're not helping me. It's just our money."
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Post by malia on Jan 9, 2024 19:19:13 GMT -5
She hears what he says. It’s not lost on her. It was Peter’s money. And Peter was her father. Sometimes she wonders if he forgets that. If Peter’s money was so tainted, then what was she? Granted, she had no love lost for the man. She had seen softer sides of him, moments when he actually seemed to have regret for what he’d done to her….how he’d abandoned her. But then the monster that he could be and usually was would come crawling back to the surface and it would all be for not. But Peter was gone…locked away for the rest of his life. And the money was hers. And now the money is theirs.
She also hears him tell her that HE’S supposed to be the one taking care of HER, which she doesn’t really understand. They took care of each other. It had always been that way. But she can’t deny the fact that her heart swells when he says that. She’d gone so long in her life without anybody wanting to take care of her, sometimes she still forgot what it felt like to have somebody that wanted to do that. Even if she did think she was pretty capable of taking care of herself. It felt better to be taken care of by him, there was no doubt about that.
Her heart begins to sink. Maybe this was a mistake. She had truly only intended for it to make him happy, to let him know that there wasn’t anything to worry about. There were so many other things to worry about, that money didn’t have to be one of those things. That this money just sitting and collecting dust in a bank account could actually relieve a little bit of his stress. His job was stressful enough. She knows the kind of anxiety he comes home with.
But when she tells him again that it’s for their family, something seems to change in him. His expression softens, the rigidness of his posture relaxing slightly. He moves his hand so he can meet her gaze again and she searches his eyes for some sign of what he’s about to say…what he’s thinking. And a smile begins to form on her lips as she listens to him. That was it! That’s exactly what she’d been trying to say with the gift from the beginning.
“It’s OUR money,” she agrees, leaning in to press a kiss to his lips. Ava rests easy in her arms, captivated by the sound of their voices as they talk softly above her. “It’s our money, and Ava’s, and that’s just the way it is.” She feels good about this now, the uncertainty quickly fading away as he tucks the check back into the envelope. This Christmas was their first Christmas as a family. It seems fitting that this is when everything that she had became his too, and everything he had became hers. It makes more sense to her than anything has in a long time.
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Post by stiles on Jan 9, 2024 20:13:51 GMT -5
Malia’s smile warms her entire face. It’s like he can feel the tidal wave of relief that must move through her radiating off of her. But Stiles still feels that sense of unease in the pit of his stomach. He will for a while still, while the check sits on his dresser, waiting for an afternoon when they can both afford to spend a few hours at a series of banks, closing both of their accounts and opening one together. Because his brain can’t accept the fact that this is her money, not Peter Hale’s. Even though his same brain had no problem separating her from her father - both her biological and adoptive fathers. And he feels uneasy about the fact that she gave him the money as a gift. Like she owed him for room and board or every copay he had handed his debit card over during her pregnancy or every case of diapers they had purchased in the past three months.
But he also knows the girl sitting beside him. He knows that she loves him, a desperately devoted kind of way. And he knows that her mind works differently than his. Where he sees a shortcoming or a failing, she saw a gift. It wasn’t meant to be some sort of repayment for the past year she had spent here. It was meant to be her trying to take care of him. Reciprocally, not because he had failed in some way. He knows her intent is good because he knows her. He loves her. So he places the check back in the envelope and the envelope back in the box, and then he presses his lips against hers, feeling her mouth spread into another contented smile.
“Thank you,” he tells her sincerely. Because he does want that future with her. She told him a week ago that she wanted to expand their family, and he had laid awake that night, still caught up in the adrenaline rush of the scare, wondering how much overtime he’d have to work to feed each tiny mouth they added to their family. And then didn’t that defeat the purpose, if he was never actually there to enjoy the family they built together? But this money changed that. It changed a lot of things. And as soon as he could wrap his mind around just what this means, he knows he’ll feel grateful.
“I have something for you,” he tells her when he pulls away, and Malia squeals excitedly. It’s enough to help settle that remaining unease. Her eyes are bright as he pulls away to stand up. For the moment, she seems better. The pain isn’t keeping her from enjoying the moment, and she seems stable in this human form. “I didn’t spend $250,000,” he says as he crosses the room and then immediately silently curses himself for saying it. He had been excited about his gift before it felt incredibly inadequate.
No - he is excited about this gift.
He grabs the tall, lean box from where it balances against the wall. He had debated putting the jogging stroller together and leaving it beside the tree with a bow, but he knows the childlike delight she finds in unwrapping gifts. His desire to watch that mirth had won instead, and now, he lays the wrapped box in front of her before catching her chin. “Merry Christmas, Mal,” he says again before pressing his lips to hers, then taking his spot beside her on the floor again.
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