Chapter Text
1.
He knows it’s Malia the moment she steps out of her car, outside on his sidewalk, walking up to his porch with her long stomping footfalls. When he looks to his side, sit by the kitchen table with an AP Bio book opened, he can still see and feel the damage and the remnants of her and Braeden’s fight with the Desert Wolf. By seeing he means the scratches on the walls and the wooden floor, the lack of a few pieces of furniture they were still unable to replace.
By feeling he means the chemosignal-traces of aggression and hate, but also of hurt.
(But especially of power.
Around him is what’s left of a battlefield, of a battle they’ve won.)
Weirdly enough, Malia knocks on his door.
She must know Scott’s alone, so it confuses him she doesn’t just burst in like she does with everything else. Instead she waits, albeit impatiently, knee jerking, until he closes his book, gets up and opens the door for her. His amused half smile and lifted eyebrows slowly move downwards once they look at each other.
Thing is: usually, on the aftermath, there wasn’t much talking about it. Scott’d offer, an open invitation to his friends, his pack, to share their burdens with him but-- the last couple of weeks were proof they didn’t exactly believe him. It makes his skin crawl, knowing they’d rather keep it to themselves, and he was working on it, really. On trying new ways to get them to open up; a hand on the shoulder, a concerned look, knocking on their door until they opened and let him in-
(Or maybe talking himself)
Waiting for their own pace to take them to him.
“Is everything okay?”, it’s the most important question, be it personal or external problems. He makes himself get to that state of mind in which he looks forthcoming and sympathetic to whatever his friends are feeling, although sometimes it’s harder to understand them. He’s trying to learn from his mistakes.
Thing is: they haven’t talked about the omission and the bad decisions and the distance. They haven’t talked about their enemies and the pain, trauma and destruction they left in their wake. Learning from their past, Scott thinks this is something they may never do.
But Malia is on his porch with knees jerking and eyes moving. He smiles the largest smile he can having had two hours of sleep and not eaten yet.
(It’s five pm on a Wednesday. With the hours he’s been putting at the animal clinic, Wednesday’s become a work free day. It hasn’t helped much.
In fact, it might have worsened it. Scott likes his thoughts better when they’re distracted.)
--
Malia follows him wordlessly to the kitchen. Since opening the door, Scott’s were the only words spoken, and to his questioning she just shook her head and shrugged both shoulders, her hair shifting and covering part of her eyes. She also has that look she has when feeling out of place, and it concerns him.
Maybe the cause is whatever she came to talk to him about, but maybe it’s this divide that’s gotten to them all and that they still haven’t figured out. Maybe she’s come to. To solve these small yet relevant problems and miscommunications. Maybe she’s showed up at his doorstep to put an end to it. To cut all ties.
He can’t help but feeling restless as his feet lead them back to the kitchen, the buzzing of the light above their heads and the chairs scraping the floor as they sit the only sound he’s allowed to hear.
Once both are sitting and Scott feels tempted to return to his studies, even to distract himself from whatever chemo-signals his friend might be letting out. It’s a weird combination he won’t try to decipher, either for he expects Malia to tell him or because the feelings they emit are mixed and honestly a tad confusing—he doesn’t know. It is as though the werecoyote herself is trying to make through them, and Scott thinks maybe this is it. They’ll talk about it.
What comes out of her mouth is slightly unexpected.
To say the least.
“How do you court a girl?”, it’s what she says—throwing the words out as she usually speaks.
Scott stops halfway to a glass of milk, mid-passing to the next page, his yellow marker hanging between his middle and ring fingers. “What?”, he’s pretty sure he spits a little on the pages.
“I’ve never really courted anyone—unless you count me punching Stiles and helping him back then which wasn’t exactly my intention to—you know, do him, but I’m not totally displeased by the outcome—only that now I have the intention and I got from Stiles and Lydia that you’re a great flirt so I was wondering if you could--”, he’s still trying to clean the stains on the library’s book (very much not his—holy shit), and she doesn’t stop-
“Wait, Stiles said I’m a great flirt?”, he splutters, but—“That’s not even my first question…”, the same time she explains, very serious, “Well, he said you’re almost impossible to resist”, and then shrugs as if this isn’t some heavy-blushing piece of information.
Then Malia looks at him expectantly, and that wasn’t what Scott had in mind for them to talk, but, he tells himself, baby steps. They’ll get there eventually.
--
It becomes a problem when Scott has little to no idea as to how to court a girl. He’s worked with his gut and newfound werewolf instincts with Allison, and Kira was just this slow and easy progression he knows isn’t the norm for developing relationships. Then it’s a struggle because—
(He both loves and hates remembering them; the fast pacing and non-stopping onslaught of memories and wishes and hopes and plans and the pain.
It becomes an issue because his love life—? Absolute tragedy.)
Up until Malia straight out tells him, reading the look on his face with her hawk eyes, “They all seemed pretty good and healthy to me, for what I’ve gathered…”, and to his questioning frown, because how why has she gathered information on this, “Like, in conversations here and there, you know.”
Because Malia enjoys taking notes on everyone, both careful and caring of others.
Then comes the killing blow, her brown eyes big and vulnerable as she hardly lets herself be seen, but as he’s seen her many times in the past. “You’re also the only person I can trust with this.”
It’s not like he can say “no” to that, but—
“I’m pretty sure Lydia is the most capable of us to talk about relationships, if you’re not comfortable talking to Stiles—“, which is understandable, if she’s interested in someone else; and he tries not to dwell too much on it, knowing his loyalty lies on both of their happiness, indifferently.
At that, Malia snorts. “As if—Stiles’ only had me for relationship and hadn’t Lydia only dated bad guys…?”, to put it bluntly, and Scott’s starting to build an argument to counterpoint that, something along the lines of yeah they weren’t exactly ideal but Jackson was just an awful person with issues and Aiden just had too much hunger for power— and he was even moving his tongue to form the words although he only half-agreed with them when she finishes, blushing slightly, “And besides—I can’t ask Lydia for advice to court herself”, her head shifts to the right, pensive, “Or would that work?”
And oh—
--
Instead of over-thinking, he simply answers, “I don’t think you could pull that off; you’re not that good of a liar. She’d know in a second…”, finally closes his book, “Unless that’s what you want?” He hadn’t noticed, but Malia’s at the edge of her sit by the time he finishes speaking.
“No! I want to be smooth”, at that she does this gesture with her hands, mimicking a wave, and Scott feels a giggle building up at his throat. “And you’re a worse liar than I am”, it comes in a grumble.
He’s breathless from snickering but when he speaks it becomes a tired sigh, “I’m so not.” As an answer, Malia suddenly sobers up. Both look down to the table, and Scott dances his fingers at the edge of it, thinking did I say too much is this it; he hears the werecoyote swallowing, but her heartbeat is steady.
She whispers, and her voice is this small thing Scott is surprised by, “It’s not about your lying skills, you know… It’s about us not being good friends enough to do something about it.” That catches his attention, his eyes wide, and he responds quickly, guilt eating at him, “It’s not your job to—”
“Is it yours?”, and he’s speaking before she even finishes, already re-creating his arguments, knowing not to share too much despite wanting to, “If it were, I’d be doing pretty bad at it.”
It’s meant to be playful, but when looking up again, Malia’s serious, eyebrows thrown together which always makes her seem angry rather than worried. Carefully, in a way he honestly didn’t know she could speak, although he must have known better when it comes to his friends, she says, “You don’t have to know everything about us— I know you care, but you can’t be everywhere and remedy all of our problems. What you can and you have done is offering— being here, and letting us work our things ourselves. Then, when we’re ready to ask for help, we will.”
Slowly, this dawning realization, he knows they’re already in it, talking about it. It’s both terrifying and relieving. The words go straight through him, though. He sees them as comfort he doesn’t deserve, an excuse, a prepared speech that, although sincere, doesn't reach his core. These are words he’s heard before, has thought about and told himself, but he’s a practical thinker, and words, letters formed into sentences and spoken, unfortunately, mean little to him. Although he uses them, he favors actions, always. And, this time, they’re conflicting.
“But you haven’t”, he mutters to his closed book, the cover greenish with images of cells in red and blue.
--
“Haven’t what?”, she’s back to snappish, and part of Scott revels in the normalcy. It’s a shame this is a conversation he doesn’t want to have anymore, still, he pushes through, continuing to stare at his book, “It broke us in the past. You all had issues and I didn’t know—”, it’s not an answer rather than an explanation, the words escaping from his grasp.
“But that was on us, Scott, not on you! And if we didn’t want to involve you, it was our decision. You couldn’t have controlled this.”, by the end of her rant, her tannish cheeks are flushed, and her fingers are wrapped around the edges of the table separating them.
His answer, in contrast, is a bitter small thing, “I could have helped— maybe I could’ve helped you!”, they both slump back to the back of their chairs at the same time, “Maybe things would’ve been easier.”
“We were trying to protect you”, the answer comes in a similar tone.
It brings a memory and a choked laughter out of him. Malia’s scowl returns suddenly, cautious, she spits, “What?”
“And you want me to give you relationship advice?”, he’s shaking his head all the while. It’s ironic, in the least, that they’ve got to this part of their discussion, and that it takes them back to how it started, yet without making him feel any better. Malia just frowns harder. “My love life’s been a disaster from day one—”, there’s no mirth in his smile, but his shoulders shift with it nonetheless. “I lie—and in my head I feel like I’m doing it for them, for a good purpose, but to be honest I’ve done it for myself. And it backfires, always”, it ends sad and bitter and even a little angry. It makes him angry, his face twisting with it, nostrils flaring, eyes turned downwards.
“You mean you’ve lied to Kira—”, Malia starts, but he interrupts her right away, feeling like a child about to be scolded, for some reason. But lately that’s all he’s been feeling, during the fallout, seeing action and reaction before him. He’s a general by the end of a battle, thinking on what’s been lost and what’s been gained and measuring, weighting; at the end, it falls on his shoulders, and although he tries not to feel it, it only gets heavier.
“To Allison too”, is what he says. “In both cases, I wanted to protect them. I hid things from them, and somehow those things drove them away”, Malia’s answering snort is followed by, “Maybe it wasn’t about you”, in her blunt voice, her shoulders shrugging. But he’s thought of that too.
“Maybe; but my omission helped, you know? I could’ve—”, he sounds more tired than he means to let on, but it’s out there now, no turning back. “You could have, but you didn’t”, Malia says back at him. “Trust me; it doesn’t help to dwell on the past. We should just—”, she’s moving her hands, her eyes reminiscing.
“Move forward.”
--
“Yes”, and she smiles for the first time since arriving, nodding to herself, as if that was their conclusion and the issues were solved. Which— they aren’t, not by far, but—
Maybe they’ll never be, and all they can do is to keep walking. And this isn’t something that has never crossed his mind, but he needs to be reminded, or to remind himself, otherwise he gets stuck.
There’s still too much running under the bridge, but at least its foundations were strong again.
“Uh, I don’t even know if Lydia likes girls…?”, he gets back to the topic, after a short silence descends on them, scratching his head lightly. He knows they’ll only run in circles if they continue that discussion, yet he’s happy they had it, relieved to have talked to someone about the things that’ve been bothering him, that at least Malia apparently doesn’t blame him for anything, that at least they seem to be okay. “I didn’t even know you liked girls? Or Lydia. I—I didn’t notice”, he ends lamely.
As an answer, Malia shrugs nonchalantly, and honestly that sort of answer should not be a surprise.
“Will you help me?”, she dares, almost, and it’s as if he could answer with anything other than a small smile and a sighed “Yeah, of course.”