The wolfsbane-laced whiskey didn’t take long to work its way into Malia’s system. Already, things felt a little fuzzier, and she felt a little warmer. She kicked of her shoes and put her elbows up on the back of the chair.
“It’s a lot nicer,” she said. “You haven’t strapped me to a table, there aren’t any stabby eye goggles.” She gave him a close-lipped grin when he set her glass back down, refilled already. She let a beat pass. That had all been so long ago.
That was all before he’d taken her to her mother, before he’d shot her. Before he’d died and gone to hell and been resurrected.
That all was too much work to talk about, and it was so long ago now, it didn’t really matter anymore, did it?I n that time, she’d trusted him more than Scott, who was her Alpha, and more than Stiles, who’d been her boyfriend. Theo had always seen her, always known her.
She could feel the flush rising in her cheeks. Maybe it was the wolfsbane maybe it was him. She shrugged her cardigan off and tossed it onto the couch.
She lifted the glass to her lips and took a long drink, ice clinking as she set it back down. “I remember that day, in the locker room. With the needle.” He’d told her she’d have to come closer, and she’d made the steps in his direction. She took another drink. “It was pretty hot.”
Seeing the flush in Malia’s cheeks made him grin as he finished his drink. He slid it away as he looked at Malia. “We always got under each others skin in the best way.” He admitted, licking his lips as he swallowed. He poured another glass of whiskey, without the wolfsbane this time. “By the way, after a while, you won’t need the wolfsbane. It’ll just hurt you if you drink too much.” He murmured as he took a sip of his drink.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “We do.” No use denying it, it was absolutely true that they did get under each other’s skin.
The other painful truth was that the human skin Malia wore was still pretty thin, even on her best days. There were parts of her that were always going to be more wild than most people were comfortable with - more than maybe even her packmates were okay with. Most of them couldn’t fully shift, most of them hadn’t killed a sibling, hadn’t killed a mother. Or two mothers, in her case...
There were a lot of dead bodies in Malia’s wake. It was a fact that was mostly avoided. It wasn’t something she’d ever had to avoid with Theo. He’d always accepted her wildness.
She’d always vibed with Theo. That’s what people on the internet were calling it these days. Back then, when he’d first shown up in Beacon Hills, she’d just thought of it as a connection, an understanding, a knowing. A seeing the other without judgement, just fact. She still saw him that way. And the way he was looking at her right now, well... it looked like he still saw her like that, too.
“I’m done drinking,” she announced as she rose from the chair, running her hand through her hair. The flush was continuing to rise in her cheeks. “I’m already feeling pretty fucked up.”
Her human composure was slipping. She flipped the chair around and pulled it right in front of him, plopping back into it unceremoniously, her knees knocking into his as she did. “We’re pretty fucked up, aren’t we?” she said, narrowing her gaze straight into his face. She made no attempt to hide her chemosignals or slow her heartbeat.
