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Post by stiles on Jan 22, 2024 22:26:16 GMT -5
In the end, Stiles knows that he lets them down: the two most important people in his life.
First, he lets them down when he finds no answers. There’s no easy solution or quick fix that will keep Ava in her tiny infant body for the duration of the full moon. The lack of progress he and Scott made the day Malia went dress shopping had rolled off his shoulders, quickly forgotten about as he let himself enjoy dinner and bathtime and then having Malia to himself. But then he laid awake afterwards while Malia fell asleep with her arm slung across his waist, feeling that panic settle back in the middle of his chest as he realized they were running out of time.
That panic has mounted all week with each passing day. Derek and Scott kept searching for something - anything - but their collective hope had waned. So Stiles had thrown himself into the things he could control instead. He restocked their first aid kit under the sink just in case. He counted and recounted the freezer stash of breast milk and snuck a single can of formula into the pantry, knowing a baby with fangs and claws couldn’t easily nurse. He got the air mattress ready for Scott in the nursery, even though it felt impossible that any of them would sleep at all. And then he took more of the night feedings, trying to give Malia more sleep leading up to the night marked on both of their calendars.
But that’s the best he can do. In the end, he fails Malia and he fails Ava.
And then he fails them again today, on that date circled and circled again on fridge. Malia had been quiet and tense that morning, saying little to him as she cradled the baby a little closer than normal while nursing her. The same way he had lingered a little longer when he kissed her and then Ava goodbye. He had hoped that being at work all day would be a needed distraction, but instead, his time spent patrolling had left him worrying about them. Mostly, he worried about Malia alone, worrying about the evening that awaited them. Which led to him sending her texts about trivial things. Which led to his mind continuing to drift back to those two girls, wishing he was with them instead.
His day drags on forever until the very end. Until he’s in that last hour of his shift, and of course, he ends up on a domestic violence call. And of course, the guy is too much of a dick for Stiles to just let someone else handle it. And maybe, in his stressed state, he provokes the guy to set him off until he has a sure reason to arrest him.
And suddenly, it’s an hour later than he told her he would be home. And he lets them down again.
The full moon is still a ways off, but the sun is starting to fade as he drives a little faster than he should all the way home. His heart races the whole way, like he’s truly racing the sun even as it remains above the horizon, just beginning to sink. And even though he comes home with a pizza from her favorite place and enough iced coffee to hopefully last them both the whole night, he still feels like he’s already failed this night.
“I’m sorry,” he says as he walks in the door, setting down the gifts he bears on the counter and following the sound of Ava’s cooing. He finds both girls on the living room floor, Ava on her tummy, her tiny head wobbling, while Malia lays on her own belly facing her. She looks up at the sound of his voice, her face free of frustration or anger, but he still says, “I’m so fucking sorry. Has she been okay so far?”
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Post by malia on Jan 23, 2024 22:26:38 GMT -5
Stiles is late a lot. Malia is never angry about it. She understands the nature of his job. She also understands that he very much dislikes his job, and that staying late isn’t any more pleasant for him than it is for her. But she never resents him for it. She remembers those months that she spent living with him and Noah, how unpredictable his dad’s schedule could be. How sometimes things would come up and calls would come in right when his shift was getting ready to end. And in a small town like Beacon Hills, there weren’t a ton of officers on duty at any given moment. So, usually Noah had to stick around to help or take care of things if they happened. Not much had changed since Stiles had stepped into a very similar role. And yes, this date had been marked on their calendars, they had known it was coming, but there wasn’t really anything they could do during the day except count the hours until the night came and the moon rose and they had to look all of their uncertainties about their tiny little werecoyote in the face.
So, her day had been just as agonizingly long as his, only she had their tiny daughter to preoccupy herself. So, after breakfast she and Ava had gone out for a run. The new running stroller that Stiles had bought her for Christmas had been used any chance she’d gotten. Then when they’d gotten home, Ava had taken a nice nap and she’d taken a long shower, trying to relax herself and the anxiety that she could feel building in the pit of her stomach. She’d done some laundry, and made sure that she had several soft and comfortable onesies set out for the baby in case she tore through the one she was wearing. She answered Stiles text messages, practically feeling his anxiety coming through the phone. She’d fed the baby and taken a nap with her in the afternoon. Then when she’d gotten up again, they’d gone for another walk and she’d even given Ava a nice warm bath.
And now they’re just waiting for him to come home. She rests her chin on her hands as she gazes at the sweet little baby in front of her. She wonders what it she will be feeling when the moon comes up. She wonders how scared she’ll be. She wishes with everything inside of her that she could take it away from her and take it all on herself. She loves Ava so much, it kills her to know that even after all their research (mostly Stiles’s) they still hadn’t come up with any answer to make this easier for her. Or to just take it away for now. Ava is getting better at holding her head up on her own and she stares down at the colorful mat she’s lying on, preoccupied by the bright shapes and designs.
Malia almost jumps out of her skin when she hears the door close. She’d been so caught up in thoughts of the baby she hadn’t even heard Stiles pull in. She’s usually aware he’s coming home as soon as he turns onto the road. She glances back at him, relieved to see that he’d thought of dinner because she absolutely had not. She can immediately smell the stress and the guilt coming off of him in waves and she hates that. She turns over, sitting up so she can look at him. “She’s been fine,” she tells him honestly. She climbs to her feet, moving to his side so she can wrap her arms around his waist and lean in to steal a kiss even though all of his attention is focused on the baby. She’s still contentedly cooing at her mat on the floor when Malia looks back at her. “She’s still just her normal baby self.” She glances out the window and sees that dusk is wearing thin, the last remnants of the daylight quickly fading away. “Was work bad today?”
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Post by stiles on Jan 23, 2024 23:08:10 GMT -5
Malia seems okay as she climbs to her feet and closes the distance between them. Part of Stiles’s guilt had stemmed from not knowing what he might walk into tonight. But Malia seems calm, calmer than he feels as she wraps her arms around her waist and leans up to kiss him. He returns her kiss distractedly, barely looking away from Ava for more than a split second. Malia is right, though. She’s as much of a baby as she had been when he left for work that morning. Her eyes are wide as she stares down at the play mat, her chubby little hand reaching for the dog in front of her and coming up empty handed over and over and over again. But still, she keeps reaching, fascinated by the images in front of her.
It all seems so normal, he wants to laugh. Or cry. Or scream.
He settles for returning Malia’s side embrace, giving her a squeeze before he lets go. At the sound of her question, he sighs. “It was fucking terrible,” he says, then winces, realizing he’s sworn for the second time in a few minutes in front of the baby.
Malia doesn’t seem to notice, or doesn’t seem to think it matters that he’s cursed in front of Ava. She watches him expectantly, and he sighs a second time as he realizes he’s going to have to relive the afternoon. Stiles pulls away without saying a word, unsurprised when Malia moves towards the baby, cooing softly as she picks the infant up into her arms to follow him back to their bedroom. At this point, she might know his routines better than he does, but there’s a comfort in that familiarity on a night when nothing feels familiar. “It was fine until the end of the day,” he amends as he moves towards the closet, watching his fiancee as she moves to the far side of the room by the baby’s bassinet. It’s only then, when she has the baby as far away as possible that he reaches for his gun.
“But then there was a domestic violence call,” he tells her, raising his voice so she’ll be able to hear him from inside the closet. He removes his gun and holster, unlocking the safe in their closet and placing the gun gently inside. “The guy was an asshole,” he says as he relocks the safe, then straightens up again to take care of his holster. “And the charges won’t stick. They never do. He’ll be home before this full moon.” His words are muffled as he removes his uniform, tossing it into the hamper there in their closet.
When he emerges from the closet again, he’s in his boxers, running a hand distractedly through his hair. His eyes immediately find Malia and the baby again as he moves towards the dresser, scanning Ava for any signs of a shift. “Have you heard from Scott?”
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Post by malia on Jan 24, 2024 22:35:07 GMT -5
She naturally follows him back to the bedroom, Ava in her arms. She holds the baby up against her shoulder, rubbing her little back as she listens to him talk. It had kind of become a routine for them. She wanted to hear about his day, especially when he seemed to come home burdened. And she knew he’d been burdened before he’d left that morning because of what they might face tonight, but she could tell that it was more than that too. She thinks at this point, she hates his job almost as much as he does. Not only does she worry about him physically, because people could be crazy, but she worries about him mentally. She’s not there to see what he goes through from day to day, but she knows the way he talks about it when he gets home, and she knows the lines of worry that mark his forehead when he first walks through the door. She hates his job for making him worry, and for putting him in danger every single day that he’s away from them. And there’s absolutely nothing she can do about it except listen when he comes home and occasionally check his location on her phone just to see where he is.
So that’s what she does. She listens as he recounts the afternoon, the frustration in the lack of justice that this awful person will see, and she can feel the frustration in his voice as he feels like what he’s doing doesn’t even have a point if he can’t really protect anyone. She listens as he locks his gun away and she wants to reassure him by telling him that he protects Ava every day. That he protects her even if he doesn’t feel like it. But she gets distracted when he walks out in on his boxer shorts, his hair messy as he runs his hand through it and makes his way to the dresser.
“He sent me a text a little while ago,” she tells him. “He’s going to keep his phone close. He said to call him if we need anything. I didn’t know what we needed…” So she hadn’t responded. That’s what she meant to finish with, but she realizes that probably wasn’t the best way to handle her alphas message. She wasn’t much better at texting than she was at talking on the phone, so she figures people probably don’t really expect much more from her. Occasionally she would send emojis, but she had been too distracted this afternoon to even think about doing that. “Derek said the same thing.”
She watches him pull a pair of sweats on, followed by a t-shirt, before he comes over to her side and she offers him the baby. He gladly takes her after only a brief moment of hesitation, smothering her little cheeks with kisses and talking in that voice he used only for her. She glances at the window again, the sky turning bright shades of pink and purple. “The sun’s going down,” she muses, walking over to the window and crossing her arms over her chest. She can feel her heart racing, her own body feeling wild and on edge with the coming full moon. She recognizes the feeling, Ava would not. “I don’t think we have very much longer.”
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Post by stiles on Jan 24, 2024 23:13:17 GMT -5
Everything tonight is up to Malia. It’s stressed the part of his brain that needs a plan more than he would ever admit out loud to her, but he’s stuck to that promise. It’s the reason why Stiles threw himself into all of the things that she wouldn’t think of, like restocking the first aid kit, and picking up dinner, and bringing home enough caffeine for a small army. But when they were only a few days away from the full moon and their only plan was Let’s see what happens, he had told her he would follow her lead, and he hasn’t strayed.
So she decided that they stayed here, in the comfort of their own home, and didn’t head somewhere like Lydia’s family’s lakehouse where they spent Malia’s first few full moons. And she decided that Scott and Derek didn’t need to stay over, though he had inflated the air mattress just in case. He had always known tonight would be more taxing on her, so it only felt right to leave all major decisions up to her.
He listens to her recount the texts as he rummages through his drawer, missing the same pair of gray sweatpants three times. But his brain is hyperfocused on the sound of her voice, even if she isn’t saying anything he didn’t already know. There’s a knot in his stomach as she trails off, knowing that her decision hasn’t changed. This will be the first new wolf’s first full moon he’s navigated without Scott. First, it had been Scott’s own, then Malia’s, and then eventually Liam’s. Part of him still wants to ask her if she’s sure it wouldn’t be helpful to have Ava’s alpha there, but the words die in his throat. He saw her that day when Ava shifted the first time, and he saw the way that Scott backed down from Malia, too. There’s something different about Malia’s bond with Ava, something that may outweigh Ava’s connection to her alpha. Plus, he left this decision up to her. And this feels like something maybe they should navigate together. Even if the thought still leaves him nauseous.
“He texted me too,” he tells her as he pulls on his clothes. “He’s not on call tonight at the hospital, so he can be on call for us.” Malia nods, but that calm that radiated from her when he first got home seems like it’s fading. And it feels like it’s taking his own calm with it. He moves closer to her, holding out his hands for the baby like having her close might restore his own peace. “Hey, Ava,” he says softly to her before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I missed you.” The baby stares up at him with those big eyes and just the hint of a smile. “Did you have a good day with Mama?” he asks her.
Malia’s voice interrupts his conversation with the baby, and he looks up to find her in front of the window. There’s worry laced through her words, and her fists are clenched at her sides. He watches as she sucks in a breath, her own body tense. This is the part he’s worried about - the part where her own body starts to respond to that full moon. He knows it takes more energy than she lets on to fight that shift, and tonight, it feels like all of her energy might be spent on the baby. “What do you need?” he asks her as he settles the baby against his shoulder. “What can I do?”
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Post by malia on Jan 26, 2024 14:42:09 GMT -5
She feels his presence close in on her as the hairs on her arms stand up and her eyes flash bright blue. She closes them, willing it away before he can notice. She couldn’t do this tonight. She had to stay in control. Ava needed her to be in control. Stiles needed her to be in control. She needed herself to be in control. She turns around, moving her hands to his cheeks and kissing him softly. She rests her forehead against his when she pulls away. That was what she needed.
“Just stay close to me,” She almost pleads with him. As much as Ava might need her as an anchor, she still very much needed him. It made it easier for her to focus on other things besides just keeping control of her body. He kept her grounded. He kept her human. He nods, patting Ava’s back gently as she bobs her head against his shoulder, attempting to hold it up on her own. She’s beginning to get restless, and Malia can almost feel her fussing coming on. “Do you think I should try to feed her again before…before it gets dark?” She asks him, genuinely curious about what he thinks. He says he doesn’t know, and why would he, but maybe it would be a good idea. So she nods, taking the baby from him and pulling off her shirt in one swift movement. She’s almost become an expert at it. She settles down on their bed, leaning back against the headboard and holding the baby close to her breast. Ava is already unsettled, but she does eventually latch on.
Stiles moves back to her side, resting his hand on the baby’s soft, dark hair. “Maybe we should try to eat a bit too…” she suggests in a rare moment of logical thinking. If they didn’t try to eat the dinner he’d brought them now, there was a chance they wouldn’t eat again until this was all said and done and they would both need their strength to get through the night. He nods ands he watches him walk out of the bedroom. She looks back down at the very human looking baby in her arms, wondering how long they have until it starts. It was the unknown that was the worst part of the entire thing. She wonders if this is the way that Stiles felt everytime she shifted? He’s back in only a few minutes with two plates, one for him and one for her, each with two pieces of pizza on them. He plops himself down on the bed beside her, but even in that lazy movement she can sense and see the nerves as they radiates from his body.
She takes a bite of her pizza while Ava nurses, and begins kicking her legs furiously. “I don’t think it’ll be too much longer now,” She says knowingly. And almost as if Ava takes that as a cue, she watches as her tiny baby fingernails turn into tiny pup claws against her breast. She gasps, almost in awe of watching the same thing that happens to her happen to their baby, but when she looks over at Stiles he has just stopped midchew, dropping his slice back to the plate. ”Oh shit… she hears him say before Ava’s claws dig into her skin.
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Post by stiles on Jan 26, 2024 22:05:03 GMT -5
It feels good when she turns and kisses him, rooting herself to that spot right in front of him. It feels good to be needed. So much of tonight had been focused on how he could support her and lessen some of the burden, but Stiles had mostly felt like the bumbling idiot who would just be present for the full moon (but still mostly useless). So it feels good to be reminded that while she may be the baby’s anchor, he’s still hers.
He loops his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him so Ava’s tiny body is settled between them. When she pulls back, her big brown eyes are worried, and it tugs on his heartstrings again when he’s reminded that he can’t do any of this for her. “I’m not going anywhere,” he tells her softly, forehead pressed against hers. She nods, but her worry doesn’t seem to fade. Instead, her eyes dart to the baby again, scanning her tiny form to make sure that she’s still just as human as she was a few seconds ago. At her question, though, he freezes. “I don’t know,” he says. It’s only then that he realizes that he didn’t ask her for an update on how their day went, the way he normally does as soon as he’s home. “It’s probably not a bad idea.”
Soon, the baby would be inconsolable. Or frantic. Or stuck in the form of a puppy with even less ability to communicate her needs. His stomach turns at the thought as he lets Malia ease the baby out of his arms after she takes off her shirt, and then as she settles on the bed to nurse the baby. Still, he stays frozen at the foot, keeping his distance from them. He’s the outsider in this situation, the one who can understand the least, the one who can only sympathize because he has no idea what this feels like. But at her suggestion, he’s quick to snap out of it. “Good idea,” he tells her, already turning towards the door. Because this he can do. He can get her dinner and make sure she eats and busy himself in this way.
By the time he returns, plates in hand, the baby is still nursing peacefully, and if it weren’t for Malia’s nervous energy, he might be stupid enough to wonder aloud if they might get through this full moon without incident. But it’s as if Ava can hear his thoughts. It feels like he’s barely settled there beside them when Malia says it won’t be long. His eyes are glued to the baby after that, so he catches the moment her little claws bloom. “Oh shit,” he says as he watches them dig into Malia’s breast. Beside him, she sucks in her breath, and he sets his plate down, turning to face her on the bed.
“What can -” he says, but it’s as far as he gets before Malia cries out. Ava writhes in her arms, and then she’s no longer a baby at all. Malia moves a hand to her breast and one on the baby’s back, like she’s trying to put distance between them. “Let me help,” he tells her reaching over hesitantly. His hands barely touch Ava’s fur - his baby’s fur - when she thrashes again, but at least, in her attempt to get away from his touch, she lets go of Malia’s nipple. Ava wriggles while Malia tries to settle her gently down in her lap, but the baby fights her the entire way. He catches the bright red bloom on her pale skin and notices the half moon of tiny little teeth marks around her nipple. “You’re bleeding,” he tells her, but he’s not sure if she even notices as her hands move back to the pup, pulling her into her arms as Malia talks softly to her.
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Post by malia on Jan 27, 2024 13:23:54 GMT -5
She feels the pain, of course she does. It’s one of the most sensitive parts of her body. She feels the pain when Ava’s little claws grasp at her skin, but she feels it more when the little sharp teeth sink in to her areola. She’s fully in coyote form now, her little human baby completely gone. And Ava is panicking. She can see it in her yellow eyes, bright and wild as they stare at her. She can feel it in the way all of her muscles tense and the way her hind legs scramble for some footing. There’s such a juxtaposition in all of this. When she was a human baby, she didn’t have teeth. But this little coyote pup does. When she was human baby, she couldn’t walk or control her motor skills at all, but Malia thinks that if she were to set her down on her four paws right now, Ava would probably figure out how to walk and then run very quickly. And the entire thing is just as confusing for her brain to comprehend as it must be for Stiles and it has to be even more confusing to the baby and that’s what breaks her heart.
She doesn’t try to push Stiles away when he reaches in, though maybe he should. If Ava is inadvertently hurting her, she knows the baby can do the same to him, and he wouldn’t heal as fast as she does. But his touch distracts her enough to get her to let go of her grasp on Malia’s breast. Her claws and her teeth pull away and Malia can’t help but sigh with relief. She does notice the blood, but she doesn’t care. She pulls Ava close as she struggles, whimpering softly as she smooths her by running her hand down her head and to her back. She settles her there in her lap, offering her as much comfort as she can with her soft words and gentle touches. She flashes her eyes blue and even though Ava doesn’t shift back she does seem to calm down a little bit.
Stiles is up scrambling from the bed and he returns in just a few minutes with a washcloth and the first aid kit. Malia continues to stroke Ava soothingly as he moves in to begin to wipe the blood from her breasts. She’s bleeding enough that the blood has begun to run down to her belly, dripping onto her shorts and her leg. He presses the rag to her tightly, trying to get the bleeding to stop, but she can already feel her body beginning to heal itself. She looks at him kind of helplessly. Ava’s breathing is rapid and panicked and Malia does the only thing she can think of. She pulls one of Ava’s little blankets from the bassinet beside her and begins to try to wrap Ava up tightly so she feels less out of control of her body. But the little pup in her lap fights her the entire way.
“What do we do now?” She asks Stiles, as if he has any kind of better answer than she does.
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Post by stiles on Jan 27, 2024 17:06:03 GMT -5
Ava is still upset, writhing in Malia’s lap, and there’s now a thin rivulet of blood making it’s way down Malia’s abdomen from the place where Ava broke the skin. It’s a bizarre feeling to watch it happen. To have his heart break for his daughter while he feels little connection to the small animal in Malia’s lap. There’s sympathy there, but it’s not the kind of raw, all-consuming pain he felt that night they had to take her to the ER. Some part of him knows that she’s his, can feel that need to comfort and sooth stirring somewhere deep inside him, but his brain hasn’t fully accepted it yet. There’s a little bit of shame when he realizes that it feels like he’s watching this happen to their pet, not their baby, but no time to process that shame either.
What he can process is his empathy for Malia. She winces in pain when an errant paw catches her skin again, and it’s all the encouragement he needs to hop off the bed in search of the first aid kit. It’s reassuring that he can only hear Malia’s soothing voice from the next room, but he still moves as quickly as humanly possible as he wets a washcloth and grabs the first aid kit from under the sink. The tightness in his chest eases slightly when he returns to find the scene mostly unchanged. The baby is still visibly upset in Malia’s arms. Malia is still bleeding, but it doesn’t seem to have increased at all. For now, they seem okay.
Malia flinches when he first presses the washcloth to her sensitive skin, but it doesn’t seem to deter her at all as she continues to talk softly to the baby. Stiles brings his other hand to the underside of her breast, cupping it gently as he applies pressure. She’s certainly had worse injuries than this, but it still seems like a lot of blood for so early into their night, and it leaves him feeling rattled. He pulls the washcloth away after a few seconds, but blood beads against her skin again almost instantly, and he brings it back to her breast, applying pressure again.
It’s a weird kind of dance they do when Malia reaches for a blanket with Stiles unwilling to pull his hands away. But Malia manages to pull the blanket free from the bassinet. In the end, though, it only seems to upset Ava more as she grows more frantic in Malia’s lap. Malia’s eyes are wide and worried when she stares up at him and asks her question.
Call Scott, is what he wants to say. It feels like they’ve already reached the point where they need backup.
“You need to try to be her anchor,” he says instead. His voice is gentle but firm. He hates that he’s putting all of this on her, but in the end, only she can be the baby’s anchor. It’s a weird feeling to be on this side of things, to try to guide her through the role he’s always played. He sinks down, squatting so that his eyes are level with hers, his hands still cradling her breast. “You have to try to keep her human,” he tells her. “Like I used to do for you.”
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Post by malia on Jan 27, 2024 23:05:33 GMT -5
She doesn’t take her eyes off of him as he moves to kneel in front of her. Both of his hands are on her body now and through that touch, and the way he looks at her, she can feel him anchoring her in the same way she knows she needs to anchor the baby. He’s right. The only option is for her to try to keep Ava anchored. She’s curled up in her lap now, her head resting on her paws as she whimpers, her little body shaking. Malia feels like the scene in front of her is tearing her in two. It’s her fault that Ava is going through this, but it’s not always bad, not like this. How do they get her to the point when it’s not so bad? How do they help her see that?
She realizes this is mostly going to be up to her. She KNOWS that. This is a part of her that Stiles doesn’t completely understand. She can tell that just by catching the fear in his eyes and the way he smells. She knows he’s right. So, she nods her head, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She picks up Ava, holding her with both hands underneath her front legs, and Ava looks at her. The whimpering doesn’t stop, but she sees her as Malia flashes her eyes bright blue. “It’s okay my baby,” she says softly, she pulls her closer, nuzzling her nose against Ava’s little wet one. She breaths her in, willing her control into the baby’s tiny pup body. “Shhh,” she coos as Ava continues to whimper in her hands. She opens her eyes, looking at her again. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she tells her quietly. “I know it’s scary, but we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
Ava can’t understand her. Baby Ava couldn’t understand her, pup Ava definitely can’t understand her. But she can feel her. She must be able to feel her. Because as Malia pulls her closer, all of the sudden those little whimpers turn into cries. Loud and strong cries, and her baby is just a baby in her arms again. She holds her there in front of her, hands grasping her tiny body under her arms, not legs any longer. She takes a deep breath, a sigh of relief almost, and she pulls Ava close. She rests the baby against her shoulder as Stiles finally pulls his hands away from her body. She must have stopped bleeding. She kisses Ava’s head, breathing her in and stroking her back tenderly.
“It’s okay,” She coos again. She knows this is the first of many episodes they’ll have that night, but at least they seemed to have made it through this first one. She looks at Stiles then and she can almost feel the relief coming off of him in waves. He sits like he’s shellshocked for a moment before he moves to get the same blanket she’d tried to wrap Ava in before, covering her tiny body with it as Malia continues to soothe her. She doesn’t cry nearly as long of nearly as frantically as she did the first time this happened, but inconsolable for a few minutes.
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Post by stiles on Jan 28, 2024 0:40:52 GMT -5
Stiles watches as Malia turns her attention back to the tiny coyote in her lap. Her touch is gentle when she lifts Ava again, holding her up so she stare into those golden eyes. It’s so different from the way he had just barely touched her in his attempt to pull their daughter away from Malia’s bare skin. But it’s no surprise that Malia is better at this than he is. In fact, it feels like she was made for this as he watches her talk softly to the pup. Every part of him tenses when she brings Ava close to her face, waiting for the baby to lash out again with her tiny fangs or claws. Immediately, there’s the familiar pang of remorse, realizing he’s now seeing their child as a wild animal. But in the next breath, Malia succeeds. Ava is a baby again, and Stiles feels like he can breathe.
He pulls the washcloth away from her breast to find her completely healed. At least she has that benefit if she also has to be the one to bear the brunt of Ava’s shifted form. He straightens, pulling his hands away from Malia’s body as his focus returns to the baby. Her face is bright red as she wails in Malia’s hands now. She’s naked and shaking, her hair matching his once again, and his heartache for her hits him like a tidal wave. Now is when he wishes they could switch places, when she’s the infant that he knows again, appearing as human as he’s ever been. Now is when she feels like his child again.
Each time the thought crosses his mind, his guilt settles a little deeper into the pit of his stomach. It forms a tight knot as he reaches for the baby’s blanket, draping it over her tiny frame as Malia brings her to her shoulder. “It doesn’t make sense to dress her again,” he muses aloud as he fights against that guilt. His feelings about their daughter’s supernatural abilities feel like a complicated tangle of contradictions best reflected upon on a night when he’s not this stressed. So for now - especially when she’s back in human form - he tables them.
“Why don’t you let me take her?” he offers, holding out his arms. “You should eat while you can.” Malia looks up at him, already seeming worn, and he worries again about their ability to get through the entire night. At least she agrees, settling the baby into his arms so he can take her. “It’s okay, Aves,” he says softly as soon as he has her against his shoulder, patting her bottom in the way she likes as he starts to bounce and walk back and forth beside their bed. “I know it’s scary, but you’re okay now.” His now tastes like a lie when he says it, though. It feels inevitable that she’ll spend most of this night in fear and pain. “She’s shaking,” he says as he looks back over at Malia, not stopping his movement. “Did that happen last time after she shifted back, or is she getting ready to shift again?”
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Post by malia on Jan 28, 2024 16:41:18 GMT -5
She hands Ava over to Stiles waiting arms and he pulls the baby close. All she can do is watch as Ava wails, that tiny, toothless mouth gaping as she struggles to catch her breath. It feels awful, more awful than she could have imagined. And that guilt comes creeping back. The guilt that it’s her fault that Ava is going through this in the first place. It’s because of her genes. Was it even fair for her to have more kids if this was the fate that awaited them? Ava calms down slightly as Stiles bounces her, talking softly and patting her blanket covered backside. “We should at least put a diaper on her,” she says as she pulls her shirt back on. There was no point leaving it off if Ava wasn’t going to nurse and there was a chance her claws and teeth would be out again soon. “Or else we’re going to be doing a lot of laundry tomorrow.”
She’s trying to make light of the situation, but she gets up and retrieves a fresh diaper from the changing table that now sits permanently in their bedroom so they don’t have to go to the nursery every time she’s up in the middle of the night with a wet diaper. Stiles takes it and looks at her uncertainly as he asks his next question. She was shaking, Malia can see it, and the blanket doesn’t seem to be helping. But that was the way she was last time she shifted too. It was the way Malia felt every time she turned back. “I don’t think so,” She says thoughtfully. “I feel cold every time my fur goes away. Sometimes it lasts for a long time.” She remembers back to those first few weeks of being human, how miserable it was to be without that constant coat of warmth after she’d lived with it for years. She felt vulnerable and…well, naked. Even when she had clothes on. And the air just always seemed to penetrate her skin so deeply. She imagines this must be what the baby feels like.
Stiles has become a pro at diapers and he quickly has her all covered up and wrapped back up in the blanket. He resumes his pacing beside the bed, gently patting the baby’s backside, now the familiar sound of his palm hitting the diaper filling the room. She looks at her plate of food. She doesn’t want it anymore. She’s not hungry. She can’t really think about eating. They just need to get Ava warm. Memories flash behind her eyes of being chained up in the basement at Lydia’s lake house, or being chained to herself in Stiles bedroom so she couldn’t hurt anybody when she changed and couldn’t control it. At least they didn’t have to do that. She gets up, dimming the lights and asking the Alexa to play the soft classical music that they’d sometimes put on when they were trying to get the baby to fall asleep. Maybe it would help if the room was more comfortable to her.
“Lay her down on the bed,” She suggests. He listens and Malia lays down beside her, looking at him and motioning for him to crawl on the bed on the other side of her. “She’ll warm up if she’s between both of us.” The idea makes sense in her head. She always remembers being warmer when she was close to him. She leans down and presses a kiss to Ava’s forehead, pulling the baby close to her side as Stiles climbs on to the bed and drapes his arm over the baby and rests it on her hip.
“I didn’t think it would be this hard to see it happen to her.”
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Post by stiles on Jan 28, 2024 19:09:04 GMT -5
Another wave of guilt washes over him when he realizes he has no idea what the baby did the last time she shifted. In the aftermath, he had needed space from that part of two favorite girls, so he had driven circles around Beacon Hills while Malia had comforted their daughter. Now, Ava trembles in his arms the way she does after a bath, and her cries become soft whimpers, like she doesn’t have the energy to keep wailing. “You’re okay, baby,” he murmurs softly as he presses his lips to the top of her dark hair again. Hair like his, because she is his. It’s the mantra he repeats to himself as he keeps pacing with the baby. It’s the mantra he wants to remember the next time she shifts. She’s his, she’s his, she’s his.
Malia sets a diaper down on the bed, and Stiles works as quickly as he can. Ava’s cries grow in volume and intensity as soon as she’s away from his body and unwrapped from the blanket. But he swaddles her tightly, and by the time she’s back in his arms, it’s soft whimpers again. “I forgot how cold you’d get,” he says softly, his words muffled against the baby’s head. Her hands had been like ice so much of the time. She would burrow against him in his bed like she wanted to find a way to burrow into him, like she couldn’t be close enough or absorb his warmth enough unless they were inseparable.
It makes sense when she suggests body heat. He presses a kiss to the baby’s forehead before he lays her down in the middle of the bed. Malia is there in an instant, bracketing her tiny body with her own before he’s even settled on the bed. Stiles scoots as close as he can, draping his arm over the baby so he can rest his hand on Malia’s hip. It’s her words that break something loose inside of him, a lump forming in his throat. “I know,” he says, but he probably doesn’t know. It’s impossible for him to know how it feels to be her, knowing what it feels like to shift and watching their baby go through it for the first time. “I just love her so much,” he says without taking his eyes off her tiny face. “It’s so hard to watch her be this scared.”
He can still feel her trembling against his body, even though she’s quiet now, her big gray eyes looking back and forth between him and Malia. But even her trembling is enough to break his heart. He can’t just keep sitting idly by. So Stiles pulls away to sit up, pulling his own shirt off. “C’mere, Aves.” He scoops her up from the bed, unwrapping her blanket and then bringing her to rest against his chest, the blanket still draped over her tiny back. He can feel the weight of Malia’s gaze, and he looks over to her with a shrug. “This worked when she was a newborn, right?”
And it seems to work. The baby settles against him as her shaking stops. She’s quiet as she stares over at Malia. His fiance comes closer, talking softly to the baby as she strokes her tiny cheek. And for just a minute, Stiles stupidly lets himself think they’re through the worst of it. But then the minute ends. Ava starts to whimper again. “What’s wrong, Aves?” he says softly, but he’s almost drowned out by her cries in the split second before he feels tiny claws against his chest.
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Post by malia on Jan 28, 2024 22:46:17 GMT -5
She loves this moment. This moment of quiet, with the baby resting on Stiles’s chest, the blanket draped over them and his lips pressed to her head. She loves the way that Ava looks at her with those big eyes. She feels like the baby knows her, knows the importance she has to her, even though she’s probably just making that up. She loves these two people more than she’s ever loved anything or anyone in the world. She would do anything for either of them, which is what makes this so hard. This shift, this split between animal and girl, it was easy for her now. Something she’d grown used to a long time ago. If only he could take it from Ava. But she can’t. The guilt begins to creep back, but the peace of the moment quiets it again.
She finds Ava’s pacifier, reaching over so she can pop it in the baby’s mouth. She takes it easily, sucking greedily. She wonders if Ava is hungry, if she’d gotten enough to eat before the shift, but her eyes look heavy and she’s just now finally calm in Stiles’s arms. She wasn’t going to risk moving her now. “I promise it won’t always be like this,” She says quietly, her hand coming to rest on top of Stiles where it rests against the baby’s back. She can feel her little heart racing through Stiles hand, hear it in her head when she really focuses on it. And that’s how she knows it’s about to happen before it does. It all happens to fast for her to be able to warn him, but Ava’s heart begins to race and she lets out a little wail, the pacifier falling from her mouth. And then she’s just that little bundle of fur and claws and teeth. Stiles curses, frozen in place as Ava panics, and this time it’s his chest that begins to bleed as the baby loses control.
He winces and she reaches for the pup on his chest, pulling her away before she can do any more damage. She doesn’t get a good look at how deep the wounds are, but she sees the blood as it begins to bead up on his skin. She holds Ava like she would a dog this time, her hand under her chest as her rear legs dangle. She’s still scrambling, and Malia feels the sharp edge of pain as her claws dig into her chest too, but now her concern is pulled in two different directions and she doesn’t know which way to go. “You’re hurt,” She says looking at him. “You’re bleeding”
He sits up, looking down at his chest and wincing again. But before she can do anything to help him with that, Ava squirms and nips at her shoulder, biting hard with sharp puppy teeth. “Shit,” She curses, but she only pulls the baby closer, making sure that Ava rests right against her heart. “She presses her lips to her fury little head. “It’s okay my baby,” She says, closing her eyes, willing some kind of control and comfort to pass from her body into the baby’s. And some of it must, because Ava calms in her arms, whimpering that soft puppy whimper as Malia softly strokes her fur. It’s only then can she reach for the same blanket and attempt to push it to Stiles’s chest.
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Post by stiles on Jan 28, 2024 23:36:48 GMT -5
“Fuck,” he grits out as the baby’s claws slice across his chest. The baby is frantic, looking for purchase as her claws scrape across his skin. And once again, he doesn’t know what to do.
“Okay, Ava!” he says, raising his voice over her scared yips. “It’s okay, Ava!” His hands reach for her in an attempt to get her to stop moving, but his hands just barely graze her fur when her claws catch his hand. He hisses, pulling his hands back. Luckily for him, Malia is there. She moves swiftly as she lifts the pup, bringing her close to her own chest. And that’s when Stiles freezes again, watching his fiancee hold their daughter like she truly is a puppy. As Ava’s hind legs kick frantically and her tail wags back and forth at a rapid pace. She’s his, she’s his, she’s his.
Malia’s voice cuts through his thoughts then as she tells him that he’s bleeding. Stiles glances down to find three deep lines across his chest, each one filling with blood. The rest of the wounds she left are mostly scratches, red and irritated, but nothing concerning. He sits up slowly as he studies the three deeper lines, wondering if they’re deep enough that he should be worried. With the blood there, it’s hard to know for sure.
Beside him, Malia swears, and his eyes dart over in time to watch the pup bite down on her shoulder. “Anchor her, Mal,” he says, feeling his own panic start to set in. “Be her anchor.” But Malia’s attention is torn. She flashes her eyes at the baby as she tries to reach for the baby blanket. It takes him a moment to realize she’s trying to staunch his bleeding with the blanket, and immediately, he leans away. “Don’t use her blanket,” he says, scooting towards the edge of the bed. “You worry about her.”
Ava takes that moment as an opportunity to… well, it songs like the baby equivalent of a howl, and it steals Malia’s attention. So even if she planned to fight him, she’s solely focused on the tiny animal in her arms. Stiles finds the first aid kit where he left it on the dresser, leafing through it to find the gauze pads they’ve always kept on hand. He unwraps it quickly before pressing it tightly against his chest, wincing at that added pressure. By the time he turns around, the baby is a baby once again, but Malia looks more worn than she did the first time as she hugs Ava to her chest.
He’s drawn to her then, moving to her side of the bed and sitting down on the edge. She reaches for his arm, and he pulls the gauze away, watching as fresh blood blooms again. “She got me good,” he murmurs, pressing it back against his skin. “But your claws have gone deeper.” He wants to assuage her worry, if there is any, that the baby might’ve cut him deeply enough to turn him. But the memory of her earlier full moons is a reminder that her struggle tonight is to be both anchored and be the anchor for their daughter. “How are you?” he asks her, then moves to brush her hair back from her shoulder, peering at the tiny half moon of teeth marks there. “How’s your shoulder?”
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