oh my, love is a lie

[stiles]

It takes almost a month, but a week before Ava’s second full moon, Stiles realizes this one is the worst than the last. The first time, the hardest part was the fear. He and Malia had walked on eggshells for the weeks leading up to it, apprehensive of what it would be like to watch their daughter struggle through that first night of shifting. But now, the unknown is gone. He has the tiny scar on his chest as a reminder of just how difficult the night was if the memories alone aren’t enough. But he remembers the baby’s fear and Malia’s guilt and the exhaustion that seemed to consume him on the other side, a kind of tired he felt in his bones. He remembers how helpless he felt as he watched both of his girls weather that storm together.

And now, four weeks later, they have to do it all over again.

An added weight to this second full moon is the guilt Stiles feels over having no better solution. He had sworn to Malia he would figure something out before this month. And he had tried. Goddamnit, he and Scott had tried as hard as they could. Scott had taken a trip to Michigan to visit with a pack of coyotes there while Stiles had spent an entire afternoon on a video call with Deaton, running through every possible solution. Malia had been willing to try microdoses of wolfsbanes, even when Stiles had silently panicked on the other side of the room. Derek had tried a fabled family tea. But four weeks just wasn’t enough time, and there were too many dead ends. And now they’re here, on the cusp of a full moon, with no more answers than they had a month ago.

The tension mounts in their house for a week, but he knows that Malia is rattled when she wakes up on the morning of the full moon and barely tries to rouse him before straddling him, her hand around his cock. Because sex has always been her form of comfort, and now is no exception. Afterwards, he wants to hold her, to lay her head against his chest and try to convince her that this time will be easier, even with her ear pressed against his heart where she’ll hear his lie. But Ava wakes instead, and Malia moves gracefully off of him to nurse the baby, moving through the motions of a normal day. She’s stoic in her determination to pretend like it’s any other Sunday. She changes the baby, she takes her for a walk, she watches her in her swing as they eat breakfast.

It’s Stiles who can’t stop bouncing his foot under the kitchen table and biting his nails to the quick. It’s when Malia notices he’s obsessively checking the time on his phone and begins to shrink in on herself that he decides he can’t spend an entire day like this. So when Malia lays down to nap with the baby, he packs the diaper bag and the tote that still has sand in the bottom from the last time she spontaneously decided she needed to be closer to the water. He takes her to the private stretch of beach Lydia’s parents own where they stay sprawled on a blanket in the sand, trying not to think about how quickly the day is passing. When the baby naps a second time, he lets her move to straddle him again, not even bothering to remove his trunks all the way before she’s sliding her body down onto him. Afterwards, they take turns rinsing off in the water before heading to her favorite diner for an early dinner.

But on the way home, in the silence of the front seat of the Jeep, he catches sight of the tears slowly slipping down her cheeks, and it breaks him.

His guilt eats away at him when they get home. Ava is fast asleep in her carseat, and Malia gingerly lifts her out, but Stiles can’t be in the room with them anymore. His mind races, trying to find a better solution than what they did the last time, and his hands need something to do, so he finds himself in their bathroom, desperate for a distraction. It’s when he’s searching for her favorite bath oil that he finds the infant benadryl he had bought last time, just in case. He slips it into his pocket, trying to craft a winning argument to convince Malia it’s their best option on the short walk back to the kitchen. But instead, he finds her standing there with her face buried in the baby’s soft hair, breathing her in as she sleeps, and every part of her screams that she doesn’t have the energy for a fight. “Let me take her,” he says instead as he steps closer, holding out his hands. “I ran a bath for you.”

It’s the least he can do after a month of failing them both. To give her this last little bit of freedom to herself before the sun begins to set.

[malia]

She’s not sure why she finds herself crying in the front seat on the way home from dinner. It had been a perfect day, really. She’d napped, they’d gone to the beach, and they’d even stopped at one of her favorite places to eat on the way home. It really had been perfect.

Except for one little nagging realization that neither of them could get out of the back of their minds.

There would be a full moon tonight. The second full moon since Ava’s first. And Malia’s body is so tense it might as well be a rubber band getting ready to snap. She can’t stop her mind from going back to that night. The fear, the way the baby struggled every time she shifted. The way Stiles had bled through his bandages. The whole night had seemed like a blur, but a bad one. One that she didn’t want to experience again. One that she didn’t want her daughter to experience again. And one that they were staring right in the face at this very moment with no progress made towards helping Ava get through this night any easier than she had the first one. She’s frustrated. Not at Stiles. He had tried so hard. The whole pack had. But over the fact that she’s the reason Ava is going through this and she still has no idea how to help her as she does.

Not being able to help her baby when she’s scared and in pain might be the worst feeling Malia has ever experienced in her life, and it’s weighing on her like a ton of bricks.

And the weight doesn’t ease up as she carries the baby inside, her little cheeks rosy from the wind and the sun from the day. Her hair smells like salt air and nature and she’s still the most beautiful thing Malia has ever seen. And she hates the fact that they can’t help her through this. And those are the thoughts she’s lost in when Stiles makes his way back into the kitchen. She doesn’t look up when she hears him come in, but she can smell him, and feel him. And she finally opens her eyes to look at him when he speaks. She doesn’t really want to leave Ava’s side, not when there’s a chance she could start shifting any time.

But there’s a look of determination and pleading in Stiles eyes as he holds his arms out for the baby and she realizes that maybe he needs this time with her as much as she does and had. So she relents, nodding as she hands Ava to him, kissing her sweet head one more time before she kisses his cheek and begins taking her clothes off on her way to the bathtub.

[stiles]

Ava’s weight is so slight in his arms, Stiles’s guilt immediately doubles. She’s warm and soft and limp, her cheek settling against his shoulder like she was made to fit just so. And he knows that it’s one of the last moments of calm their daughter will have until the sun begins to rise in the morning. The same thought must cross Malia’s mind. He watches the way her bottom lip trembles before she leans in to press a kiss to the baby’s soft hair. An equally soft kiss is pressed to his cheek, and then he watches Malia’s back as she moves towards their bedroom, hands already pulling at the hem of her shirt.

Alone with the baby, Stiles presses a kiss to the same place Malia did, rubbing her tiny back. He walks with her to the sliding glass door that leads out to the deck. The sun is still above the roofline of the house behind them, but there’s an orange hue to the sky already. Within an hour, the sun will slip away, and Ava will lose control. Stiles tightens his hold on her, heart aching. He had felt so certain they’d have a better strategy this time. He had promised Malia after the last full moon. The sky still gray, tears still drying on the baby’s cheeks, he had promised her they would figure something out before tonight. But they hadn’t. He had spent a month exploring all of the wrong avenues and none of the right ones, and now, Ava and Malia would suffer as a result.

“I’m sorry, Aves,” he whispers against her dark hair. The baby doesn’t stir, and his heart aches again at the peaceful state she exists in right now. The Benadryl in his pocket burns a hole, a reminder that she could exist in this state all night. He brings his hand down to his pocket, fingering the bottle as he feels that sense of relief wash over him. A full dose, and she’d been too drowsy to shift. At least, that had been Scott’s estimation. And for all of his doubts about Scott’s intelligence, Stiles trusts him when it comes to medicine. He doesn’t even realize his feet have carried him towards their bedroom until he’s following her clothes she left like a trial of breadcrumbs back to them. With any luck, Malia is inside their ensuite right now, cocooned in the warmth of the bath, relaxed enough for him to spring this idea on her.

But when he reaches their room, he realizes he has no idea how to say What if we just drug the baby tonight? It feels dirty and wrong just thinking the words, and they die on his lips as he realizes her answer will be a resounding no. His feet carry him away from her again, back to the kitchen. The knowledge that Malia would be adamantly against this level of interference should be enough to quiet the voice in his head, but the bottle only feels heavier in his pocket. And that wave of relief at the realization that they didn’t have to watch the baby suffer again feels like a drug, one he wants another hit of.

He blocks the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach as he goes into the freezer, digging until he finds a frozen pouch of milk tinged just slightly pink that will hide the Benadryl. Compartmentalizes it as he heats the pouch in the microwave before pouring it into the bottle. He sets the baby down long enough to measure out the dose, checking and rechecking Scott’s check with the dropper to make sure he’s not giving her too much Benadryl before he puts it into the bottle. And then he leaves it in the warmer, giving himself time and space to rethink this decision. He carries Ava to the nursery where she wakes up while he changes her diaper and puts her into her pajamas. Just before he picks her up again, she gives him a smile, and he knows.

He knows he’ll do anything to keep her from feeling that level of fear and pain again.

What he doesn’t account for is Malia’s bath lasting for no time at all. He returns to the kitchen to find her there, eyeing the bottle in the warmer. “I heated that up for her,” he says, like it’s not obvious. In his arms, Ava babbles excitedly now that she’s awake, reaching her tiny hands towards her mother. “I figured she should eat before the sun goes down. And this way, you won’t almost lose a nipple again.”

[malia]

The bath water is hot and relaxing. They’ve been together long enough now that Stiles knows exactly how she likes to take a bath. And since she’d gotten pregnant, he’d run many of them for her. So she sighs, trying to calm her mind as she lets the hot water surround her. She tries to think about anything else. The book she was reading. The last episode of Summer House she’d gotten sucked into and made Stiles watch with her. Even the stupid drama that sometimes surrounded the younger members of the pack. But nothing really works and her mind just keeps ending up back with a screaming Ava and a bleeding Stiles and doing it for an entire night all over again because they hadn’t been able to come up with a way to stop it.

So her mind is already in a frenzy when she hears Stiles footfalls come into the room. She opens her eyes, expecting to see him come into the bathroom, but he retreats just as quickly as he’d come. On a normal night it wouldn’t make any difference to her. She’s not an over-thinker. But tonight, tonight it has her wondering what’s going through his mind and it puts her just a little bit more on edge than she already was. And that’s when she knows there’s no way she’s going to be sitting in the bathtub for any longer than it takes for her to wash her body off and drain the water.

So that’s exactly what she does, climbing out of the tub and quickly drying herself off before letting the towel fall to the ground. She almost immediately turns around to pick it up and hang it on the towel rack when she remembers how much Stiles hates it when she leaves wet towels on the floor…hers or the baby’s.

She can hear him in the nursery and she can tell that he’s getting Ava ready for bed, so she makes her way to the kitchen. She’d been planning on nursing the baby one more time before they tried to put her down for the first time that night, but she sees the bottle in the warmer as soon as she comes into the room. She turns to look at him as he explains what he’d been thinking, reaching out and taking the baby from him with a smile. She’d gotten so big, and there’s nothing better than her excited face when she sees either of them, reaching out to be held or smiling. Malia kisses her, thoughts of the last time Ava had shifted and the bite on her breast making her wince. As much as she hates the idea of giving Ava a bottle when she’s perfectly capable of nursing her, she also isn’t really keen on the idea of experiencing that again.

“Thank you,” she tells him, leaning in to press a kiss to his lips. She can feel and smell his anxiety and she knows that he must feel the exact same way she does. “And thanks for the bath.” She reaches for the bottle, testing it, satisfied with the warmth. “I’m going to feed her and try to put her down for a little while before….yeah…”

She just lets her words trail off and she makes her way into their bedroom, settling into her favorite chair by the window so she can watch the last rays of sun set behind the trees and the houses behind them while Ava greedily takes her bottle, her tiny hands grasping at it though she’s not quite figured out how to hold her for herself just yet.

[stiles]

Guilt settles like a brick in his stomach as Malia smiles and thanks him before leaning in to press a kiss to his lips. It hadn’t been intentional to leave her to actually give the bottle to Ava. His plan had always been to give it to her himself while Malia was still in the bathtub. But now, he can only watch as she scoops the baby from his arms and then grabs the bottle from the warmer. “Want me to come?” he asks her. His hand shoots up to his neck, rubbing nervously, but she never even turns to notice, eyes focused on the baby as she tells him she’s fine.

He watches her back until she turns towards their bedroom, waiting for her to notice that the milk is slightly pink or that it smells faintly of bubblegum. When she doesn’t, he’s not sure what to do with himself. He turns towards the counter to clean up the water that had dripped from the warmer, and freezes when the solid bottle in his pocket hits the drawer in front of him. The Benadryl burns in his pocket again as he reaches for it. He fumbles it in his rush to get it away from him, almost dropping it before he finally gets a grip. He stares down at it, silently willing it to disappear before he thinks to shove it in the cabinet where they keep tylenol and his meds. Burying it behind bottles she’ll never search through.

Malia’s voice floats from their bedroom as she coos to the baby. He can’t make out her words, but there’s a soothing lilt to her voice. Stiles tries to busy himself with cleaning up the kitchen, sifting through the mail for the day, anything to keep his hands busy. But the more time passes, the more he begins to second guess his decision. He checks Scott’s text three times to make sure that the amount of benadryl he put in the bottle was right. Twice as much as a baby her size should’ve been given. But Scott had sworn this would be enough to keep her asleep, safe for her to take despite the bolded warnings on the bottle. Still, the knot in Stiles’s stomach pulls tighter with each passing minute he can’t see them.

His feet carry him back to the bedroom before he’s made a conscious decision to check on them. Malia looks more peaceful than he expects when he enters the bedroom, offering him a small smile as he moves to sit on her side of the bed, closest to the chair she’s in. His eyes are glued to the baby as she continues to drink from the bottle with her eyes closed. Malia tugs at the bottle a few times to get Ava to stir and take the rest, but Stiles has barely settled on the bed before Malia is pulling it away, the bottle drained. It feels like the color drains from Stiles’s face in response as he swallows hard. “She took the whole thing?” he asks, like it’s not obvious.

Mala nods, pulling the baby closer and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She seems tired but not lethargic, stirring a little against Malia’s chest. But Stiles can’t look away as Malia stands, laying her down in the bassinet. She’s silent as she holds her hand against the baby’s cheek for a long moment before she moves to sit beside him. She leans into him, resting her head against his shoulder, and he feels that guilt double as he wraps his arm around her waist in return. “This time will be easier,” he tells her, silently hoping it’s true.

[malia]

Ava seems to balk at the bottle at first, which is surprising. Malia had been able to tell she was hungry, and that she was ready to go down for the evening, just by her body language and her cranky fussing. And as much as she hates the idea of giving the baby a bottle when she could be nursing, she has to admit that Stiles is probably right this time. She still winces when she thinks about the wound she walked away with last time she had nursed on a night when Ava had been shifting, even if the aftermath had healed pretty quickly. She doesn’t think too much about the baby being reluctant to take the bottle though, her mind too preoccupied with other things. And after a minute or so of hesitation, Ava settles into drink just like she does every evening. She rests a little hand on the bottle, her eyes drifting shut as she takes it, no signs of a little coyote appearing yet.

Malia looks up when Stiles comes into the room, watching as he sits down on the edge of the bed, a seemingly perfect metaphor for just how on edge she feels and she knows he does too. She’d heard him moving around in the kitchen, surely cleaning things up only because he doesn’t know what to do with himself when his body fills up with this kind of nervous energy. Neither of them know what’s going to happen as the night wears on. It could be better, or it could be worse, and she doesn’t really like to think about what worse would look like after how bad the first full moon was.

Ava finally finishes off her bottle and Malia lifts her to her shoulder, gently patting her little back as she urges a burp. She nods in response to Stiles question, not really sure why he’s so surprised. She was usually hungry when bed time came around. She kisses the baby’s head, standing up and walking her to the bassinet, laying her down and smoothing her hair down. She brushes the back of her fingers against Ava’s rosy cheek, wondering if maybe her temperature will let her know just how close she is to shifting….but she just feels normal. She leans down to press one more kiss to her cheek before sighing and moving to sit down beside Stiles.

Nervous energy radiates from his form as she rests her head against his shoulder, but she just chalks it up to the thing they’ve been nervous about for a full month, nothing more and nothing less. “No it won’t,” She tells him in response to his statement. She appreciates the fact that he’s trying to make her feel better, but she also knows that all of this will get worse before it gets better. Ava’s just too tiny to understand. “But hopefully there will be less blood this time,” she says lifting her head so she can look at him with a tense smile, a weak attempt at trying to lighten the mood.

[stiles]

Ava's tiny chest rises and falls at regular intervals. Stiles knows because he can't pull his eyes away. It's like it's their first night home again, hospital bracelets still on all three of their wrists, when he was afraid to look away because that might be the moment she stopped breathing. He checked, and double checked, and triple checked the dosage on the dropper before he emptied it into her bottle, but still, Stiles can't shake the tight feeling in his chest.

And then there's his guilt.

He slips his hand under Malia's shirt, rubbing circles against the small of her back. Her voice is soft and sad when she speaks, and he closes his eyes as he presses a kiss to the top of her head. Part of him wants to tell her in that moment, to come clean. It still might not work. She might wake up with the force of her first shift. But at least... there's hope? But a small voice in the back of his head insists the hope might only be his, and it keeps him from saying a word.

Stiles pulls back when she lifts her head. Her smile is small and playful, but his stomach still turns at what she says. He grips her hip a little more tightly and swallows hard. "It'll get easier," he insists again. "Eventually, it'll get easier."

As if she can hear him, Ava startles in her sleep. One tiny arm appears over the top of her bassinet, and Malia's whole body stiffens in response. She sucks in a breath as she bolts off the bed, peering down into the bassinet. His own knee bounces wildly as he watches her, certain this will be the moment. Ava will be lethargic. Her breathing will be too shallow. She'll forget to turn her head when she spits up and turns blue. Somehow, some way, Malia will find out now about the sedative in their baby's system. But the tension melts from her shoulders as she realizes the baby is still asleep, and he lets go of his breath.

Malia lingers there by the bassinet, worrying her bottom lip, and she needs a distraction. He needs a distraction. Stiles swings his legs up on the bed, and when she turns back around, he loops his arm around her waist, pulling her to him. It's more graceful than it should be for the way he pulls her down, but she settles beside him like she was made to fill that space. Her eyes are still wide with worry as he holds her gaze. He brings his hand to rest against her cheek, gently stroking her warm skin with his thumb. "She's gonna be okay," he says, his voice soft. It's not until he says it that he realizes he's saying it as much for himself as he is for her.

But if Malia notices, she thinks nothing of it. Instead, she leans in, pressing her lips against his. His hands come to rest on her hips in the same moment she moves, flipping him onto his back so she's straddling his waist. Her hands are firm against his chest, almost like she's holding him down as she leans down to capture his mouth. And he's certain that moment that despite his worry, despite the guilt settling in the pit of his stomach, he did the right thing.