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“Are you following me?”
Isaac jumped, caught completely unprepared by the voice behind him. “WOAH. Wow. Don't do that ever again,” he screamed, breathless as his heart tried to escape the fences of his ribs. “I think I just died a little.” How come he didn't see it coming, though?
“What are you doing around my house?” Malia snapped with an accusatory tone.
“You-your house?” he stuttered.
“Yeah,” she said pointing at the modest building right out the dense set of trees.
“I'm sorry, I was just...” following an alluring scent. Go, Isaac, tell her that. She already thinks you're a pain in the ass, she won't be late in calling the Sheriff accusing you of harassment. “Wandering. Stretching my legs.”
When Malia raised an eyebrow, Isaac finally saw her connection with Peter. Physically speaking there was no resemblance to her biological father whatsoever, so he thought she must have gained her features from her mother, but he was starting to realize that the Hale genes came to the surface in the small gestures.
“I needed to get away from the pack,” he blurted out with honesty.
Malia’s expression muted gradually, going back to the smoothness of her original features. She tilted her head to the side and studied Isaac like he was an animal from a newly found species. He wondered what she was seeing of such interest. She could pick up lies just like he could, so she had to know he was saying the truth.
“What?” he asked, uncomfortably.
“Nothing. I was about to do the same.” She shrugged.
Malia strode forward, brushing against Isaac’s shoulder, right into the woods. Isaac followed her with his gaze, watched her walk away until her feet stopped on the crunching undergrowth. She looked over her shoulder searching for him. “Well? Are you coming or not?”
It left Isaac dumbfounded for a second, staring wide-eyed at Malia’s symmetric shoulders. Making peace with the idea that this girl was as weird as he was, he stumbled forward and trailed behind her across the trees of the Preserve.
They didn’t speak along the path. Malia kept marching in silence, shoulders rigid and pace quick, like someone who’s headed to their favorite place, like she knew where she was going, like something was calling her.
They finally reached a clearing, and Malia turned left, leading him to a fallen tree that lied parallel to the course of water. She sat there, leaning back on the horizontal log, and after some hesitation, he mirrored her. He noticed as her eyes fixated on the little stream in front of them, the lines of her body mellowing in this familiar environment as the silence took over.
Her scent too told him she was feeling more at ease there, and Isaac basked into the aroma of summer rain and wet grass that clung to his nostrils. He noticed how her blend reminded him exclusively of natural elements. Usually, people had some shade of human-related substances in their scent, like Derek smelled of the yellowed pages he liked to stuff his nose into, Chris smelled of gunpowder, or Melissa always had the antiseptic of the hospital clinging to her skin. Even Stiles smelled of newly printed paper among a lot of other things, and Lydia smelled of tea under the various flowered fragrances (both artificial and not)… Malia, however, probably due to her eight-year break for the human world when she was trapped in her coyote – had no such layer in her perfume.
He tried to shake it off, realizing he was being a creep. It wasn’t his fault, anyway. It wasn’t like he could avoid it from such proximity. Plus, the longer the silence between them stretched, the more he focused on his second best sense.
It was becoming unnerving, and even though Isaac was bad at conversation – like really bad – whatever embarrassment would be less painful than this.
Besides, he had already made a shitty first impression, so what was the problem?
“So you and Lydia are best friends?” Safe zone, good start for a conversation… Isaac was kinda proud of himself. “You seemed pretty close today.”
She thinks about it. “We are. We don't really claim any label, but I guess we have that kind of relationship.”
For a moment, he thinks of Allison.
“That's why you got so protective of her with Jackson in the way?” Isaac mused aloud remembering the scene that happened earlier that day. Malia had jumped between Jackson and Lydia when he had approached her to talk. If Isaac hadn’t known about Lydia and Stiles’ epic love story he could have thought of her as a possessive girlfriend.
“I don't like him.” She furrowed her forehead, meditating. “I mean, I know they used to be together once, I gathered as much, but I feel like he has nothing to share with her now. I don't know about the Lydia he used to know, but she grew up a lot in the last few years.” She trailed off, reflecting on it, then she added, “Plus, I’ve heard things. He doesn’t deserve her.”
“I guess so,” he mused. “How did you ladies bond?”
“It took some time… I hated her at first.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I was jealous of her strong relationship with Stiles... You know, not being used to human customs and still following my coyote instincts. I would have left her to die in many occasions just to have Stiles for myself. I was, hum—let’s go with ‘possessive’.” She scoffed. “But then we came around. She helped me understand myself quite of a lot since I and Stiles broke up, I owe-”
“Wait, you and Stiles?”
“Yeah.” She looks at him with raised eyebrows. Fucking Hale genes.
“You. And Stiles. Together?”
“That's what a break up implies.”
“And yet you are okay with them being together now?”
She looked out into the distance, flashing her eyes blue to watch into the darkness of a starless night. She intook deeply, straightening her spine before speaking again. “They're both my friends, and they're in love with each other. Why would I oppose to it?”
Isaac looked at her, curiously enraptured by the beauty in the tension of her face muscles, and smiled. She reminded him a little bit of Scott back in the days, when Isaac and Allison had started to mess around. He had tried with all himself to support them in spite of his still fresh heart wound, selflessly overlooking his own pain just to see them a bit happier than he was.
“Don't you think you deserve it more than her?” he questioned, testing the waters.
The glance she threw at him, however, had him frozen. She was squinting suspiciously as to try and make his thoughts add up, her expression conveying bitterness. Isaac's eyes widened and he shifted his weight, uncomfortable. “I mean, don't you love him too?”
“What Stiles and I had, wasn't love. Affection, yes. Dependability, undoubtedly. He was the one that saved me, twice, and I knew on an instinctual level that I could trust him with my life, that he cared and he would have looked after me. So I clung to him like...”
“A cub with his mother?”
“Well, if not for the fact that you would never be physically attracted to your-”
“OKAY. Eww, no! I don't want to be scarred for life, thank you.”
She snickered amused, but that small smile faded out as fast as it had lit up. “But attraction doesn't necessarily involve love, does it? In the last year, it was all shrinking to but simple duty. He saw me as something to protect. Not like he does with Lydia, but more in a childish way, like a big brother with his sister. He had gotten used to giving me instructions like a baby, and when I started to be slightly more independent he was so caught up in the old routine he kept going on his own. After he killed Donovan he cut everyone out, he stopped talking to me and sharing his worries, like I was a kid that needed to be sheltered from useless burdens. And I noticed because I loved him differently from the way he did. I still do love him, as a friend can do, but Lydia is in love with him, and so is he.”
“But you are a little bit jealous, aren’t you?”
“Who are you, really? Seems like you're trying hard to stir me up against my best friends.”
“I'm sorry. I was just--” he trailed off, not knowing exactly why he was doing it. Maybe he wanted to understand her position, get to know her better…She intrigued him, Isaac realized. There was something in this coyote girl that made her worthy of his time.
“You know, when I started going out with Allison I asked Scott to punch me. Twice.” He snorted at the ground, remembering that day. “He was my best friend at the time. Melissa had even allowed me to stay with them since Derek's loft was too far off town and I had no car. I couldn't really go to school running on all fours every day, after all, so they just... welcomed me in. It finally felt like I had a family again.”
He still remembered those days as the best phase of his adolescence: people to go back to, looking forward to dinner together, someone to tuck him in at night... Home. “When my feelings for Allison became unavoidable, I felt so guilty. It wasn't fair towards Scott and I know he was a little bit jealous so I said, 'If you want to hit me, you have all the rights to do it, man.'” He exclaimed, opening his arms as if inviting someone to punch him.
“When my feelings for Allison became unavoidable, I felt so guilty. It wasn't fair towards Scott and I know he was a little bit jealous so I said, 'If you want to hit me, you have all the rights to do it, man!'” he exclaimed, opening his arms as if inviting someone to punch him.
She laughed so hard Isaac felt the vibrations running up his spine.
“I had to do something to feel less guilty!” he tried to justify himself, but she just wouldn't stop chuckling, so he continued. “But you know how Scott is. He's so peace and love, live and let live and all that shit... Which is the reason why he's a True Alpha in first place, and the reason why he's my friend. He would have never hit me. It took all my persuasive skills to convince him, but in the end, I managed.”
“So you think I should punch Lydia?” Malia looked up at him with the remnants of laughter at the angles of her mouth.
“God, no! Have you seen what she's capable of with that Banshee voice thing? Scott and I were almost at the same level, you two have different abilities. No offence!”
“None taken.” She grinned. “So you told me about it because...”
“If you are jealous, just know that your friends will never tell you not to be. Stiles and Lydia know that seeing them together causes you pain, a least a little bit, and they probably feel in debt with you for what you are doing for them.”
“I'm doing nothing.”
“You're supporting them unconditionally, no matter the awkward situation. Trust me, that is not nothing.” She bowed her head pensively and he continued. “When Scott didn't stop being my and Allison's friend, I felt grateful, and I'm sure it's the same for Stiles and Lydia.”
“As I already told you, Stiles saved my life more than once, even after we broke up. He saved me from that crazy bitch of my own mother. And Lydia picked up the pieces after all that. We supported each other when Stiles disappeared, she taught me to stand on my own feet. She taught me I don't need anyone to be myself, I am powerful enough.”
“I noticed.” The words and the sly smile appeared on their own volition on his face, and when Isaac realized what he had just done, it was simply too late.
“Are you flirting with me?”
“Wha- I. No, I do-”
“You ARE flirting.” She burst out laughing again, forcing Isaac to rub a hand on his face.
“This is so embarrassing,” he said, bowing his head forward and reaching for his neck to scrape.
She looked up at him as her laughter faded off into the dark woods, “You know, Lahey? I think I might like you, after all.”
“It's my fair charm, isn't it?”
“That, and the fact you're helping me without even knowing me.”
“Well, I helped you before. When you were still a lone coyote. Actually, I stepped onto a trap your father had set for you and it hurt like a bitch.”
“This teaches you to stay away from the daughter of a hunter.”
Isaac smiled faintly as the words sank in. “Oh my god, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that.”
He shook his head. “I know you didn't. I guess I'll never get over it. I mean, I know she wasn't the love of my life, that our story wasn't epic like her and Scott's, but she was important. I loved her and she died right before my eyes and I couldn't do anything to save her. I went off for months wondering if things could have been different if I had just turned around a bunch of seconds before the Oni could transfix her. That's why I took off to France. To put as much distance between me and Beacon Hills as possible, to run far, far away from that beacon of monstrosities which was the Nemeton and finally find some peace and quiet.”
He wasn't afraid to admit he had fled the scene like a rabbit even knowing he would have left the pack with water to their throats. In the first year being a werewolf he had already seen his fair share of death, and after Allison's... yeah, well, he had had enough.
“Did it work?”
“Not exactly,” he exclaimed snorting, wearing a bittersweet expression of disillusionment. “Everything in Paris would remind me of her smile, her fair skin and her almond brown eyes... She had lived there for a long time. Even Chris had to brace himself for a while before having the courage to get out of the house and see other people. But at least the surrounding would trigger happy memories for the both of us. I've been back in Beacon Hills for less than 12 hours and whenever I turn I'm reminded of everything I've lost.”
“Yeah, I guess this town does that.” Malia said, looking out into the wild. Then she turned towards him, “Why did you come back, then?”
“It wasn't my intention to.” When he had first landed in Paris, he had sworn he would have stayed in Europe forever. But, of course, it couldn't have lasted, could it? “Derek came to find me and asked me to help him rescue the pack. Seemed like Braeden had him well updated.”
“You could have said no to him. It's not like he's your alpha anymore.”
Isaac smiled. “I could have easily said no to my former alpha. It's my best friend I couldn't really let down. Not again, not this time.”
He felt her eyes on him while he played with the dirt, drawing meaningless signs with his fingers. She was observing him again and she didn’t move her gaze when he looked up and caught it.
“I confirm my previous impression. I like you, Lahey.”
He grinned his usual cocky grin. “Wanna go out sometime?”
She rolled her eyes and pushed his shoulder with a bit too much strength, almost sending him to the ground. “Don’t be so full of yourself,” she said standing up. “I just said I like you, not that I can’t resist you.” She stirred herself towards where they had come and held a hand up to salute him over her shoulder.
Once again, he found himself watching as she walked away.
“Tomorrow. 8 pm. I’m picking you up,” he cried out at her retracting back.
“We’ll see,” she whispered, knowing he would hear.
He sat there for a little longer, trying to regain full control of his face which was still split in an unruly smile. When he recollected himself, he rose and walked back to the old loft where the pack had gathered for the night. He had a date to plan.