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Post by stiles on Jan 13, 2024 17:04:47 GMT -5
Lazy weekends are Stiles’s favorite.
In a life before Malia and Ava, his weekends off were full. Even on weekends when Lydia didn’t convince him to go out with everyone else and Scott didn’t suggest a camping trip, there were always things to do. He had moved into an older house, convinced that he, an individual who didn’t own a single powertool, could renovate it himself. So he rebuilt the deck with his dad over a series of weekends. He learned how to tile a kitchen backsplash, and to pull up tile and put down wood laminate floors. He painted so many walls, there had been a phantom ache in his arms when he realized he would have to repaint the guest room to turn it into a nursery. And on top of that, there was just normal maintenance and errands that he was solely responsible. Groceries to pick up, floors to vacuum, laundry piling up in his closet, and a lawn that couldn’t mow itself. Sometimes, it felt like he never actually had any time off at all by the time he was leaving for his next shift.
But in a life with Malia and Ava, he hasn’t touched the bathrooms he swore would be the next renovation project. The lawn is slightly overgrown, and the landscaping hasn’t been weeded in weeks. And he’s never been happier.
This morning, a few weeks into the new year, starts with rain that absolves the guilt he would feign over not touching any of the outdoor projects that have been piling up. Ava’s latest growth spurt has left her eating more again, but she’s also sleeping more, which means that Malia must wake up because of the rain and not the baby. Stiles honestly isn’t sure what rouses her, but he knows that she rouses him by settling her hips over his, heat already radiating from her center while he’s still blinking sleep from his eyes. They take turns reminding the other to be quiet as they come together while the baby slumbers beside their bed. And then they linger there, Stiles still inside of her, while the sound of the rain fills their bedroom, and he wonders for the millionth time how he got so lucky.
Which should be his warning. The omen that this peace won’t reign for long.
But he ignores it as the baby eventually wakes and they move into their morning routine. Even as the storm grows outside, as if it’s trying to warn him, too, he pays no attention. He doesn’t even think to savor the mundaneness of the morning before it’s shattered.
It’s his favorite time with Ava when it happens. Malia just fed her for the second time that morning before kissing each of their cheeks on her way to take a shower. And now it’s just Stiles and Ava for this small window of time between nursing and her nap, when she’s her most alert and most content. He lays with her on the floor, holding a book above both their heads as he reads to her. The storm has grown big enough outside that the lights are on in the living, like it’s 10 at night and not 10 in the morning, but Stiles barely registers it as they read about babies all over the world. Ava sucks on her pacifier beside him, gray eyes wide as she watches him flip the pages.
“The end,” he says aloud as he flips the book closed. He sits up as he sets it aside, moving to hover over the baby, supporting his weight above her with his arms as he leans down to kiss her tiny face. “Should we read another one, Aves?” he asks her. “You love the dog one.” And the irony is, it happens then. He looks away from her to rifle through her books and find Love that Puppy. Right then, there’s a boom that shakes the foundation of the house. Something nearby must’ve gotten hit by lightning, but the walls rattles with the noise and his attention is immediately drawn to the baby, anticipating her meltdown.
But instead of finding a crying baby, he looks back down to find… well, a puppy.
There’s a tiny coyote there instead of his daughter, stuck on its back as four paws wave frantically in the air. And it’s only as it registers that she has the same light gray fur as Malia and wide, scared eyes that are a glowing amber that this is]/i] his daughter. And he has no idea what to do.
“Hey! Malia!” he yells as he stares down at Ava in her tiny coyote form without moving. “Malia, get in here!”
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Post by malia on Jan 13, 2024 20:02:08 GMT -5
To say the morning had been perfect would be an understatement. The sound of the rain, waking up making love to her mate, feeding their healthy and beautiful baby, and now a hot morning shower after a cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. It it really didn’t get any better than this, not for Malia. Things had been good since Christmas. Her terrible first post-birth period and come and lingered for about one miserable week, but then things had returned to normal and Ava had begun eating more voraciously than she had in a long time. Contrary to Malia’s fears, she didn’t forget how to nurse, or decide that she preferred taking a bottle to her breast. She and Stiles had opened their joint bank account and now all of her money, all of the money that had been left to her was his too. They hadn’t talked about it much more than they did that Christmas morning, but he knew it was there and he knew that she considered it theirs, and not hers.
They had celebrated Ava’s first New Year at home, with Derek and Braden and Olive, and time had just moved on.
So she lingers that morning in the shower, completely unaware of what is about to be underway in the living room a few feet away from her. She washes her now long hair, towels it dried and pulls on a cut off t-shirt that reveals her belly and a pair of Stiles sweatpants. They hang low from her hips, too big to really fit properly, but her figure keeps them from falling all the way down. And it’s just as she’s finishing pulling her hair up into a messy bun that she hears him call her from the other room. Her ears perk at the sound. It’s not his normal voice. There’s a hint of frantic urgency to it. One that causes a heavy weight to form in the pit of her stomach, her heart racing. Was he okay? Was Ava okay?
She quickly rushes from the room, following the sound of his voice to where she left them reading a book on the living room floor. And that’s where she sees him, staring down with a look of nothing less than panic on his face. Which makes her feel panic as she searches the floor for their baby. But there is no baby…there’s a…well, a pup.
“Oh shit,” she swears without even realizing what she’s doing. She looks at Stiles, his panic reflected back at him from her eyes as they flash blue. Ava had shifted. She wasn’t just a baby. She was a werecoyote. And now…well, she was just a coyote. A tiny, soft, pup of a coyote stuck on her back and whimpering slightly. Her instincts must kick in then. She rushes to the pup, lifting her up into her arms protectively. “Oh my sweet girl,” she coos. “It’s okay, we’re gonna figure this out.” She had no idea how. She hadn’t had help when she’d first shifted and then she’d never been able to turn back. But there was also a lot of trauma involved in that. She looks at Stiles who hasn’t moved a she makes her way to the couch, cradling puppy Ava in her arms. She nuzzles her, scenting her, feeling the softness of her fur. Her eyes glow a familiar amber, reminiscent of any beta she’s ever met…at least one with no blood on their hands of paws.
She gets distracted momentarily, overwhelmed by the beauty of the tiny creature in her arms. She brings a hand up to gently stroke her head. “She’s beautiful,” She mumbles, glancing at Stiles as if she has almost forgotten the urgency of the moment.
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Post by stiles on Jan 13, 2024 21:16:30 GMT -5
Ava is upset. She whimpers and she continues to kick frantically, but still, Stiles stays frozen. Because he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to pick up his own baby now that she’s suddenly a tiny pup. He can’t scoop her or pick her up under her tiny arms. He can’t hold her tiny hand. Ava’s whimper grows sharper, and Stiles finally thinks to rub the top of her head, but as he brings his hand closer… he can’t. Any time he thinks about touching his daughter’s fur, he just can’t.
This is why he needs Malia. Here. Now.
Malia’s footsteps are quick when he hears them, and she comes into the room in a whirlwind. He hears her swear, and then she’s swooping in, pulling Ava into her arms as easily as he had that very first time, when Nat handed the baby to her almost as soon as she had slid into the world. And Stiles’s brain is barely processing any of it. Because his fiance is settling onto the couch with a tiny little animal in her arms. An animal that he somehow fathered. One that he loves desperately, would do anything for, would give his life to safe. And yet, somewhere along the line, he simply forgot that she is an animal.
He knows what Malia is. Hell, he had been the one convinced there was a girl stuck in that coyote form over a decade ago. And he knows that Ava shares both of their genes, but he didn’t know how much of each of them possessed. He didn’t know how any of this part worked. And because it’s so foreign, he didn’t give it any though. Subconsciously, he thought he had years before he had to worry about what it meant that his daughter is supernatural. But now, she’s a tiny coyote nestled against Malia’s chest, trembling as her tiny tail wags. She’s something Stiles doesn’t understand, not like Malia does.
Malia is a little spellbound by the baby as she takes in her coyote form for the first time, murmuring that she’s beautiful. But Stiles is petrified, still frozen in his panic. He manages to get to his feet and moves to sit on the edge of the coffee table, but it still leaves a safe distance between him and the two girls he loves most in the world. “Did you know she could do this?” he asks, his voice shaking. “How can she do this!?” He runs a hand through his hair, unable to pull his eyes away from this tiny coyote his brain still can’t accept is his daughter. “How do we get her back to normal?”
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Post by malia on Jan 13, 2024 22:41:12 GMT -5
She gazes down at her baby pup, even though she can tell she’s distressed, and that’s her fiancé is distressed, she can’t help but be mesmerized by this little coyote in her arms.
Just like her. Ava was just like her. The one other person in the world that she knew was just like her. Her mother had been just like her and she had been bad. An awful excuse for a mother and a woman. And now she was dead, which meant Malia was alone. The only were-coyote she knew of in the entire world. And now, there was Ava. And Ava was theirs. And Ava was like her.
There’s a momentary pang of sadness in her heart for her baby. She didn’t want her to have the same life she had. The life of an outsider, an outcast. But she fights those thoughts. Ava had everything different. She was going to be raised by parents who understood her and helped her figure out who she was. She would never be alone. She would always have a pack. And she would always have a family. Malia doesn’t even realize that she’s crying until the tear drop slips from her nose and lands on Ava’s furry snout.
She looks up at Stiles when she hears him speak, that same panic still written across the furrow of his brow. She wants to comfort him, but her hands are full ands he doesn’t have the answers to his questions. “I didn’t…” she stutters, holding Ava close to her breast. “I don’t know.” And she really doesn’t. Ava was part human. Malia had never been part human. Peter was a wolf and her mother was a coyote. Maybe there was a part of her that thought Ava would take more after Stiles than her, but that clearly wasn’t the case. The were gene must have been stronger than the human one. Or maybe she got some of both. But either way, she clearly had enough to do a full shift, which wasn’t something every were-creature could do.
Ava seems to full on panic in that moment, tiny pup growls escaping her mouth as her claws come out and she manages to tear right through Malia’s arm. She winces, blood immediately dripping from the deep cut. But as soon as it starts to bleed, she can feel herself starting to heal. But the pain does bring her back to her senses. Stiles is right, she can’t stay like this. She must be terrified.
She needed an anchor. And Malia was her anchor. She knows this.
She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again they’re bright blue as she stares down at her baby. She rests her palm against Ava’s cheek, holding her close to her heart. “It’s okay my love,” She whispers. Ava can’t understand her, but she could feel her. She could feed off of her emotions and she leans down to press her face against Ava’s little snout. “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here.”
She breaths calmly and she can feel Ava jerk in her arms, her tiny body tensing. And when she opens her eyes again, there is no pup, just a very naked and very wide-eyed baby who immediately begins to wail.
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Post by stiles on Jan 13, 2024 23:11:53 GMT -5
He doesn’t know what to do. That’s the hardest part of this. Stiles always has a plan. He’s always the one to come up with a solution. In their relationship, he’s usually the voice of reason, talking her down from the ledge or calming her down before she can throw a punch. He thrives on worst case scenarios that his anxiety has already plotted out in his brain multiple times, so of course, he knows what to do to handle whatever’s been thrown his way. He had been the one to help Scott figure this out when they didn’t know there was a whole supernatural realm lurking in Beacon Hills. But now, it’s his baby. And he knows too much. About the pain it causes to shift back and forth. About the stress it causes Malia when she can’t control her shift. About the fear it would create in the world if anyone ever knew there’s such things as werecoyotes living amongst them.
This is his baby.
He didn’t expect Malia to have an answer to his question, but she’s barely answered when there’s another loud crack of thunder outside. Ava panics again. Her back arches and her paws move wildly again as Malia tightens her hold on the pup in her arms. Ava’s limbs are a blur of motion, but Stiles hears the way Malia hisses as she flinches. Bright red blood blooms immediately in a cut on her forearm.
“Shit,” he says as he jumps up from the coffee table. But by the time he’s on his feet, her arm is already healing, and then he’s just standing there again. Useless in this situation.
But Malia… Malia is incredible. He’s known that. He had meant it every time he told someone she was an incredible mother. But there’s something about seeing her with Ava in that moment. His heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of his chest, but his fiance is the picture of calm as she talks softly to the baby. Despite the injury Ava just gave her, she brings the baby’s face close to her own as she talks softly to her, letting her know she’s not alone. It takes him a second to realize that Malia is trying to anchor the baby, the same way he’s been her anchor since she became human again. But unlike the first few times he did it, if she’s nervous or worried or afraid, it doesn’t show. She just holds their daughter close to her heart, murmuring to her until she’s once again a baby in her arms.
Watching Ava shift back leaves Stiles so nauseous, he thinks for a moment he might vomit right there on the living room floor. But then she starts to wail, the way she does when she’s in pain, and it breaks his heart. Malia murmurs softly to her again, but Stiles doesn’t catch it this time as he half jogs to the nursery in search of a blanket. It takes him less than a minute, but by the time he returns, Malia’s shirt is pulled up as she tries to console the baby by getting her to latch.
“Here.” He tucks the blanket around the baby as Malia lifts her arm and then hugs the baby closer to her chest. Stiles sinks down heavily onto the coffee table again as he watches the two of them together, these girls that he knows better than anyone in the whole world but somehow feel like strangers now. “God, she’s so upset,” he says, speaking his thoughts aloud even as Malia gets the baby to latch and they can once again hear the rain outside. “She’s so scared. How are we -” He cuts himself off, running his hand through his hair again. “What are we gonna do?”
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Post by malia on Jan 14, 2024 11:00:13 GMT -5
“Oh my sweet love,” Malia murmurs as she stares down at the naked baby in her arms. Ava has grown, she’s not quite the fragile newborn that she had been, but she’s still so tiny. Her little face is red from the force of her crying, and she kicks her legs wildly, as if she doesn’t know what to do with the long limbs she has again now. Malia pulls her against her shoulder, holding her close to her heart in hopes that Ava can feel the rhythm of it beating and find some calm in that. Ava grabs a strand of her loose hair, pulling it hard as she cries more loudly against her shoulder. By the time Stiles is up and racing to the nursery, Malia does the only thing that she can think of to try and calm the baby down, to give her some comfort.
She pulls her shirt up, tucking Ava right where she fits so perfectly in the crook of her arm and cupping her breast, trying to get Ava to latch on. She might not be hungry again yet, in fact, she really shouldn’t be. But even just the hunch that nursing might calm her down a little bit is enough of a reason for Malia to try. Ava’s mouth is wide as she wails and she tries to brush her nipple against the babies lips and tongue, but she doesn’t register it. But then Stiles comes back with one of her softest, warmest baby blankets and they work together to wrap her up tight. Once she’s covered, almost swaddled in the blankets, that seems to be the key to helping her calm down a bit. She’s warm again, safe in her mama’s arms, and this time when Malia offers her nipple, a drop of milk already waiting there for the baby, she takes it.
Her suckling is mixed with gasps, slight little whimpers, but eventually she calms herself down enough to rest easy in Malia’s arms. She alternates between little hiccuped sobs and a few suckles, her eyes still wide with what must be the fear of everything that had just happened. And it’s in that semi-quiet that she can finally focus on Stiles again. He looks small sitting there on the table across from them. Scared. And now that her senses can take in something other than her distressed baby, she can smell his anxiety and his sadness.
Their baby was like her. And even though she knows he’s not upset because he doesn’t love her, or love who she is, it adds a whole new level of complication to this parenting thing that they were still trying to figure out. And her heart breaks for him, for the fact that she’s dragged him one step deeper into this dangerous world that she lives in, and now she’s brought their baby into it too.
She gets up, careful not to move Ava too much as she holds her close to her breasts, and she settles herself there beside him on the table, close enough so there is literally not even an inch of space between them. Close enough so he can feel the heat off of her body, and she rests her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” She tells him honestly, quietly. She hadn’t been expecting this any more than he had. And she sure wasn’t any more prepared. Nobody had been there to help her, and look how she turned out. This is one of those times when she wishes she was good with words, like he is, or Lydia. But she’s not. “But she’s never going to do this alone.”
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Post by stiles on Jan 14, 2024 12:49:55 GMT -5
It’s normally a comfort to have Malia so close. Stiles isn’t sure when it happened, but at some point, her coping methods became his, and now physical touch is normally enough to calm his racing heart and his racing mind. It’s probably part of the reason why Malia moves to sit beside him, her thigh pressed against his as she lays her head on his shoulder. But his eyes never look away from the baby at her breast. She had cried real tears in her panic. He can see the trails they left behind on her flushed little cheeks. As she sucks, her chest moves up and down wildly, like she still hasn’t caught her breath from the way she screamed. And she looks impossibly small in Malia’s arms now. Just the night before, he had labeled her huge when Malia had pressed her into his arms, desperate for a trip to the bathroom without a baby in her arms. But now, she seems as tiny and fragile as she had the first time he held her. Too tiny to carry this weight she’s been given.
It’s a weight he feels now, too, heavy on his chest as he sits beside them. It presses down on his chest, making it impossible for him to take a deep breath. He knew, goddamnit, he knew this was the gift their children would possess. He had heard the way Derek talked about Olive, unsure when her own abilities would manifest. And he had been with Malia as she navigated her own. But watching their daughter shift made it real. Now, it’s not something that he knows to be true, but something that is happening to them. Happening to Ava. And he doesn’t know if he’s ever felt more powerless.
But she’s never going to do this alone, Malia says, her voice strong and sure. And Stiles doesn’t feel comforted at all.
“It hurts, right? When you shift?” It’s the thought he can’t move on from. The one he’s been fixated on since he saw the terror in Ava’s eyes and heard the way she whimpered in a form she couldn’t cry in. Malia’s quiet, but she tenses beside him, and that’s an answer in itself. “And it’s going to happen again. It could happen again today. And we can’t do anything.”
His voice breaks on that last syllable, and Malia lifts her head to look at him. Immediately, he’s on his feet. Not so much because he needs distance from her, but because he’s starting to feel like if he doesn’t move, he’s going to hyperventilate. Already, his breathing feels shallow. Too shallow. And his hand is shaking as he runs it through his hair again, beginning to pace. “She’s going to shift on full moons, and it’s going to scare her. And she’s going to do it in public. There’s no way to stop her from doing it.” He stops pacing long enough to look over at Malia, his expression bordering on distraught. “We’re supposed to keep her safe, and we can’t keep her safe from this.”
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Post by malia on Jan 14, 2024 14:51:26 GMT -5
Nothing she says seems to make a difference in the weight of his anxiety and worry as it fills the room. She knows scents and right now she would call his scent distraught. Not that she had any answers to offer him….
But it does take her by surprise when he asks her if it hurts. She doesn’t want to answer the question. She was used to it now, but she remembered how it had been that first time, and she remembered how it had been when they’d changed her back against her will. It didn’t hurt her now, but it wasn’t comfortable. But then, she would say that yes…it hurt. She can’t tell him that though so she avoids the question and she avoids his gaze. And as if that was all the answer he needed, he pulls away from her sharply, leaving her alone there on the table with the baby in her arms.
She lifts her hand to comfortingly stroke Ava’s cheek, wiping away the remaining streak of moisture left from the very real tears she had cried. She can feel Stiles beginning to panic, and she doesn’t know what to do. She can’t put Ava down, not now. She’s not really eating, but the nursing is keeping her calm and her eyes are even beginning to grow heavy. But then it’s almost like she can sense his panic too and she pulls a way from Malia’s breast, beginning to cry again. Stiles paces and Malia tries to listen to his words, what would they do? How could they keep her safe? They couldn’t be with her all the time. She would shift on the full moon, she would shift in public, and people would be scared of her.
All of the sudden, she feels as overwhelmed as he seems to be. She didn’t think about people where she was. In the woods, people were always the enemy. They hunted and killed and destroyed. They were the apex predator. So she had avoided them at all costs. But Ava didn’t have that option. Stiles wasn’t a coyote. It wasn’t like they could just turn away from this human world, from their pack, and hide out in the woods for the rest of their lives.
She wishes she had a mother she could talk to, which is something that she doesn’t wish for very often. Or even her aunt who had passed away long before she’d come back to Beacon Hills. Maybe they could talk to Derek? But she doesn’t know, and she can’t answer his questions. She lifts Ava to her shoulder, bouncing her slightly as she pats her back, her hands resting tenderly against the baby’s backside.
“We can’t stop it,” she finally says quietly. “This is who she is. It’s who I am.” It’s her fault. Maybe creatures like her shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce.
“I’m sorry,” She says, turning away from him. Though she’s not sure if she’s apologizing more to him or to Ava, or if it even matters.
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Post by stiles on Jan 14, 2024 15:53:08 GMT -5
He used to worry about Malia, but not like this. Her claws would make an appearance in Trig when she got overwhelmed by how much she didn’t know, and her eyes flashed blue sometimes behind her English teacher’s back when she got written up for cellphone use. But even as she was learning how to be human for the first time in eight years, Malia could understand why the world couldn’t know she moonlit as a coyote. But Ava can’t understand any of that.
As if to remind them this is really about her, Ava unlatches from Malia’s breast and wails again. It’s a sadder cry this time, one that’s tired and sad and less fear filled than the way she had cried before. But it still demands their attention. Malia coos softly as she lifts the baby to her shoulder, patting her bottom. In that moment, she looks tired, too. Like she, too, feels the weight of their future now. And it’s the first time Stiles thinks about what this must feel like to be her.
Her voice is resolute but quiet as she tells him that this is who she is, that this is how Ava is. But then her voice becomes smaller as she looks away from him, apologizing. A knot of guilt forms in the pit of his stomach as he watches her guilt wash over him. It wasn’t his goal to make her feel at fault for their daughter’s abilities, but there’s only one place those genes could have come from.
“It’s not your fault,” he tells her as he drops down heavily onto the couch.” Now, he just feels tired. He can’t imagine how she feels in that moment, but he’s grateful that she doesn’t try to argue with him. They both know their daughter is a werecoyote because Malia was first, but there’s a whole slew of things Stiles might have passed on to her, too. There’s no real fault in genetics. “I just - I thought we had more time,” he sighs. He stares at Malia as she rocks back and forth on the edge of the table, the baby now quiet again in her arms. “I thought we had more time.”
There’s a hundred other things he should say to her. Every part of him wants to move closer to her again, pulling her into his arms and reminding her over and over again that Ava’s ability to grow a tail isn’t Malia’s burden to bear. But he just feels… tired. He feels too tired. So he gets to his feet again with a sigh instead. “We should get her dressed again before she falls asleep,” he says and heads towards the nursery before she has a chance to respond.
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Post by malia on Jan 14, 2024 19:13:30 GMT -5
He’s quick to say it’s not her fault, but she knows that it is. And she knows that he knows that it is, even if he’s trying to tell her he doesn’t think that. But she can also tell he needs space, and she doesn’t have the words to tell him to change any of it, so she decides in that moment that she’ll give it to him. Sometimes, she supposes, there are things that people just have to figure out on their own. Without an anchor, or without a teacher, just within themselves.
Maybe this was one of those moments for Stiles, for both of them.
So she sits there on the edge of that table, rocking the baby against her shoulder as she fusses. It’s a tired cry now. Malia thinks she must be exhausted after what she’s just gone through. So when Stiles sighs and suggests that they get her back in some clothes, make sure she has a fresh, warm sleeper on, then she can nurse her again and perhaps she will sleep away the exhaustion of her first shift.
She follows him into the nursery and by the time she gets there, he’s already got a fresh diaper out and is pulling out one of her softest little sleepers, one that ironically is covered with little foxes. Malia kisses her little cheek as she lies her down on the changing table and she asks Stlies to bring her a warm washcloth just so she can wipe the baby down and cover her in some sweet smelling lavender lotion before she puts her outfit on. Ava is mostly calm by the time she’s dressed again and Malia doesn’t touch her for a moment, not wanting to take the moment away from Stiles if he wants to lift her into his arms, just to verify that she is indeed just a baby. But he doesn’t make any move toward the baby, or toward her.
So Malia lifts Ava back into her arms, settling into the rocker in the corner of the nursery, one of her favorite spots to nurse the baby. Her shirt had never come back on from before. There didn’t seem to be a reason, and there was some comfort having Ava skin to skin in that moment after something so traumatic had happened. Ava is rooting for her breast before she even gets her in place and she takes it without any prompting, the other side this time because Malia can tell it’s full and she needs some of the pressure relieved.
And Stiles just stands there in the doorway, the anxiety coming off of him in waves. He’s just waiting for the moment when she starts to grow fur again, turning back into that little pup. She doesn’t know how to help him.
“You can get away for a little bit if you want,” she suggests. Sometimes running and being in the woods helped her work through her thoughts. Maybe something like that would help him too. “I’m just going to try to get her to sleep for a while.”
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Post by stiles on Jan 14, 2024 21:23:37 GMT -5
Stiles thought that giving himself a task would help to alleviate some of his anxiety, but as soon as he can’t physically see them, his anxiety only increases. His mind is filled with that memory of looking down at Ava to find that tiny pup instead. The way she had yipped and squirmed, stuck on her back flailing while he just stared on in horror. And he can’t forget the sound of her wailing as soon as she shifted back, terrified and cold and in pain, a pain they couldn’t keep her from feeling, not entirely. Subconsciously, he’s been waiting for it to happen again. With every crack of thunder, every sudden movement, every minute that passes, he’s been on edge, anticipating that tiny coyote appearing again. But it can’t be more than a minute before Malia walks in, human baby in her arms, and he only feels relief.
He stays on the periphery while she changes and dresses the baby. He runs down the hall to the bathroom for the things she asks for, but he lingers in the background. For all of his panic, Malia has been the picture of calm. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he files away all of these little things she does for a time when he can really process them. A bath and lotion is their normal bedtime routine, not her morning name, but his fiance thinks to do it now to help soothe their traumatized baby. It’s just instinctive for her to care for their baby in this way, like she’s been doing this for years, or she was just born knowing how to nurture a pup of her own. And he just feels… useless.
Malia hesitates before picking her up again, and Stiles tenses in the doorway, certain the baby is about to shift again. But then, she only watches him for a moment out of the corner of her eye before she scoops the baby back up into her arms and nestles into the rocking chair. Her legs fold beneath her, and the baby latches immediately, and it’s like it’s any other morning and not one that’s completely rocked his world.
He lifts his gaze from the baby when she speaks. “I don’t -” he starts, but then cuts himself off. He doesn’t want to be away from them - it terrifies him to think about not being here if it happens again. But at the same time, he needs to talk to Scott, and he thinks he might need to say some things he doesn’t want her supernatural hearing to catch from down the hall. “Are you sure?” he asks instead, and she nods. Just as calm as she’s been this whole time.
He presses a kiss to both of their heads and promises to not be gone long, then grabs his keys and heads out to the Jeep before he can change his mind. He’s not even to the end of the driveway when Scott picks up, letting him know that he’s on call and asking if it’s an emergency. “Scott, Ava shifted. A full shift. Like an hour ago,” he says because, yeah, this is an emergency. Evidenced by the way Scott takes a sharp breath and says, ”Shit.” Still, it feels good to talk to his oldest friends, to word vomit all of his worries to someone who didn’t pass these very same genes along to their daughter. To voice his fears, even the ones he had been too afraid to say out loud to Malia. To listen to Scott muse and problem solve calmly, to hear him say that of course, they’ll figure this out.
Before Stiles knows it, a half hour has passed when Scott curses again under his breath. ”I’m being paged,” he says, “But we’ll figure this out. She has the pack. And she has you guys. She’s gonna be okay.”
And Stiles does feel better, though he’s not sure if it’s because he’s gotten all of this off his chest, or because he truly believes they’ll be able to figure it out. At some point during the conversation, he had pulled into the parking lot of the diner Malia loved, the one she asked him to stop at at least twice a week for a milkshake while he was pregnant. It only makes sense to go in now, when he owes her for her patience and her strength this morning. Fifteen minutes later, he walks back into the house, bracing himself for what he may return to. But the house is silent now. Malia is curled up in the armchair in the living room, a book in her hands. The baby monitor sits beside her, the image showing a perfectly human baby, fast asleep in her crib.
She looks up when he walks back into the room, and he wordlessly hands her the milkshake as he presses a kiss to her cheek. “Did she go down alright?” he asks her as he sits down on the couch beside the chair. “Is she… okay?”
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Post by malia on Jan 14, 2024 22:44:27 GMT -5
She means it when she tells him he can leave. She knows that sometimes it’s the only way to really process the things you’re feeling, at least it is for her. So she’s not upset when he takes her up on the offer. She can sense his relief as he comes closer, kissing her quickly on the head, immediately doing the same to Ava but a little more hesitantly. She wants to tell him she loves him before he goes, but he’s gone from the room too fast and she knows that isn’t going to make any of this go away so she just lets it settle.
She sighs when she hears the door shut, listening with her keen hearing as he starts his jeep, pulling out of the driveway and down the road, and when she can’t hear him anymore, she focuses on Ava again. “You scared your daddy,” she tells her baby softly, her free hand coming up to stroke the baby’s soft cheek. “And you scared me.” She leans down, kissing Ava’s forehead. The baby stares up at her with wide eyes, eating sucking greedily from her breast and Malia wonders if her little mind remembers what happened. She wishes she could talk her through it, explain to her that it would get easier, that she would learn to control it. They would do it together. And that one day, she would see it as some kind of…gift.
“Daddy’s not like us,” she continues to talk softly. For some reason, it was easier for her to talk to Ava than it was for her to talk to people who could actually understand what she was saying. “We’re different, you and me. One day, you’ll understand. But that doesn’t mean he loves you less. It just means he worries about you more.” She sighs as Ava’s eyes begin to droop closed, her suckling becoming more sporadic as she moves into that familiar phase of sleep eating that she does so often before nap time. Malia can hear her heart beating that steady, normal beat, no more fear radiating from her tiny body, just contentment.
She loved this little baby, this little pup, more than she’d ever loved anything before. And she was as much a part of Stiles as she was of her. She knew they would figure it out.
“We’re gonna keep you safe, whatever it takes,” she says before kissing her one more time. Her nipple slips from the baby’s mouth and she lifts her to her shoulder, patting her just long enough to hear a tiny burp. And then she settles her, safe and warm, in her crib. Surrounded by little stuffed animals and soft blankets and none of the things that Malia had dealt with after her first shift. Loneliness, cold, mud, blood, fear, and a cold cave for a bed…at least Ava wouldn’t have to go through what she had.
She finds her shirt after settling the baby, pulling it on and turning on the monitor beside the armchair facing the large window in the living room. It was a gloomy day, fitting for their mood. She’s a few chapters into the book she’d just started about fairies and humans when’s he hears Stiles pull in to the drive again. He seems calmer, smells less anxious, and she’s relieved as he leans down to press a kiss to her cheek and hand her a milkshake.
Her favorite.
“She’s fine,” She assures him. “I think she wore herself out. She’s barely moved since I put her down.”
She never takes her eyes off of him, her worry focused on him now as he settles on the couch across from her. “Are you okay?”
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Post by stiles on Jan 14, 2024 23:11:37 GMT -5
Stiles’s eyes wander back to the screen of the monitor as Malia talks. Ava is sprawled on her belly in her crib, her tiny diapered bottom sticking up as she sucks on her pacifier. On the screen, she looks peaceful and calm. And so small in her giant crib it still feels like she’ll never grow into. She looks like the same baby she has been since the day she came into the world, forever separating his life into the time before Ava and the time after Ava. Now, it feels like today has become another marking point. There will always be the time before she shifted and the time after she shifted. And as much as the unknown that stretches before them scares him, it helps to think about it in these terms. Because there was a time when just the idea of Ava existing at all had terrified him, too.
He meets Malia’s gaze again as she asks if he’s okay. This time, he doesn’t hesitate before he nods. “Yeah, I’m okay.” He sighs as he sinks back against the back of the couch. Surely the baby wore herself out because Stiles feels exhaustion creeping in as he sits across from Malia. “I mean, I’m terrified,” he amends. He’s always been honest with her, and now feels no different. Even if he doesn’t say it aloud, he knows that she’ll scent him and find the fear that still lingers there.
“I called Scott,” he adds. “That’s all I did. He doesn’t know much about babies, but he was going to talk to Derek and Nat.” It doesn’t freak him out as much this time to tell her that there’s still no real answers. There’s nothing more that he knows now that he didn’t know when he left almost an hour ago, but Scott didn’t panic on the other end of the phone when Stiles relayed what happened, and that had given Stiles a little bit of peace.
Malia nods, and he finds himself really taking note of her appearance for the first time this morning. She looks tired, too. There’s worry etched on her face, which may have just as much to do with him as it does Ava - maybe even more so him. And then he remembers the sadness in her voice when she apologized. He thinks about the fear she probably felt when he panicked and she took the baby in her arms, trying to anchor her for the very first time. And the kind and loving way she had suggested he take a moment for himself, despite all of that. “Are you okay?”
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Post by malia on Jan 15, 2024 10:23:30 GMT -5
She nods when he tells her that he’d called Scott while he was out. She feels a sense of relief that her Alpha knows. She’d never wanted to be part of a pack, but now that she was she couldn’t imagine her life without them. And she couldn’t imagine figuring any of this out without Scott. She thinks she and Stiles would figure it out, but it helps to have Scott in the court at the end of the day. Besides, he was Ava’s Alpha now too, if anyone beside them could help her…it would be him.
She can tell he feels better about it after talking to his best friend too, and that’s all that matters to her.
Now that he’s back and some of her worry about him subsides a little bit, she does begin to feel the weight of the exhaustion of the morning. It wasn’t just Ava that she’d been worried about, it was him too. She didn’t doubt their relationship, or his love for her. She knew that he was her mate. And she knows that they’re going to get married and that they’re going to do life together. But maybe there is just some lingering fear in the back of her mind that this supernatural occurrence would be the thing that would make him realize that he doesn’t want his life. Life would be easier with a human girl, and human babies, and a lot less stressful. And for a man that can get overwhelmed by the weight of his anxiety, wouldn’t that make life better?
But she doesn’t feel that from him now, no regret or apprehension. Just the same kind of exhaustion and uncertainty she feels. She tucks her legs more tightly underneath her, taking a long drink of her milkshake. It tastes good and she’s caught off guard when she hears his question.
She looks at him blankly, her standard answer to the question immediately flowing from her mouth before she can stop it. “I’m fine…” she says matter of factly, and she immediately regrets it. They were beyond that. But she doesn’t know how to say what she wants to say. She needs to be closer to him. So she uncurls her legs and makes her way from the chair to the couch so she can climb onto his lap, straddling him and moving her hands to his face so her thumbs can stroke his cheeks. She leans down and presses a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. “I don’t want you to regret this,” She says honestly, her gaze holding his. This life with her and their babies was going to be anything but normal. And clearly not easy. And she didn’t have any of the answers, even though she feels like she should since this is her fault. “And I don’t want you to be upset and worried all the time.”
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Post by stiles on Jan 15, 2024 12:19:38 GMT -5
Stiles’s hand fists at his side as Malia tells him she’s fine. He thought they were past this. He always thinks they’re past this. It’s not a game she plays, he has to tell himself, willing his fist to unclench. It’s possible that she really is fine, unburdened by the weight that’s still laying squarely on his chest, even if he can manage a deep breath now. But as if she can hear his thoughts, Malia sets her milkshake aside and stands up from the chair. His eyes track her as she moves across the room, coming to settle in his lap. She’s warm and soft, and they fit together just so, in a way that makes him momentarily believe in soulmates. His hands come to rest on her backside like she needs him to anchor her there. Her hands frame his face, one warm and one cold from her cup, and he leans up to meet her mouth in a kiss that he hopes she reads like the apology he means it to be. For not being able to do more this morning.
Her words leave him certain she doesn’t. His heart breaks as she holds his gaze, so sincere in that moment. “Mal, I could never regret this,” he tells her immediately. It’s the one thought that’s never crossed his mind in all of this. His brain can’t comprehend that his daughter is also part creature, but he never thought to regret her existence. Or their engagement. Or this life they’ve half fallen into, half built together. If anything, his only regret is freezing when his daughter needed him. Of cowering away from Ava’s new form while Malia took in the beauty of it. Of not possessing the same strength as his fiance.
As she speaks again, he scoffs. “Well, if you want to be with someone who isn’t worried all the time, you picked the wrong fiance. I was always going to worry. Now I just have new worries.”
She rolls her eyes, but her hand plays with his shirt, rolling one of the buttons on his open flannels between her fingers. Even if her worry doesn’t manifest itself in the same ways his does, this is still occupying her thoughts. “I still want more kids with you,” he tells her honestly. She lifts her gaze, and he holds it as he says, “But now, I want to make sure we can keep them safe first.” They’ve talked about it, briefly since that scare. Maybe it was the first time he reached for a condom, or maybe it was the first time one of them mentioned a former classmate who had a baby. They had agreed to wait until after they were married. It was his request that they wait until Ava turns one, but now, that date looms with more uncertainty.
He sobers again as he lets his hand move to her bare back, below the hem of her cropped shirt. “There’s a full moon in two weeks,” he says softly. “What are we gonna do?”
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