#giftee: divineboyd

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For @divineboyd! Happy holidays! :)

Malia/Scott, fake/pretend relationship

“Doesn’t this seem kind of wrong?” Scott mutters, frowning. He lingers outside of the door to KFC, looking more than a little concerned.

“What? No.” As far as Malia is concerned, Scott gets a little too hung up on the morals of situations, especially considering that what they’re doing only has like, a 50% chance of working. Or something like that—she was still trying to figure out percentages and statistics.

“Isn’t it sort of stealing?”

She considers this. “I guess so. Look, if they don’t go for it, we’ll buy dinner, okay?”

He sighs. “Ok, but I’m gonna buy drinks no matter what.”

“What if they give us free drinks?”

“Then I’ll buy biscuits,” he huffs.

“Fair enough,” she says, and pulls the door open. “Come on, babe.” She takes his hand and pulls him into the restaurant.

There’s not many people inside—a group of teens sitting at a booth in the corner, loudly discussing their sex lives. If Malia had to guess, she’d say at least two of them are lying through their teeth. There’s only one guy in line, and a girl behind the counter who has bright blue braces. She smiles a lot, and Malia has a hard time looking away from the blue rubber bands.

“Now would probably be a good time,” she murmurs quietly.

“Not yet,” Scott says firmly.

So they wait, holding hands. Malia makes sure to smile adoringly up at Scott, acting as an ever doting girlfriend. He smiles back with his regular, full of sunshine grin. Honestly, it’s probably better that way. He already looks so loving, she’s not sure she—or anyone, for that matter—could survive a smile that contained any more admiration and appreciation.

The man in front of them collects his food, and suddenly Scott’s going down on one knee.

The cashier lets out a squeal. “Ohmigod!”

Malia can relate. Looking down at Scott, who’s looking up at her is—whoa. Her stomach swoops dangerously and—what the fuck. She should not be feeling this.

“Malia,” Scott says gently, and he pulls out the ring box. The ring box, which they purchased at Walmart, with a fake diamond ring. This is not real. “When I met you four years ago, I thought you were incredible, passionate, and more honest than anyone I’d ever met.”

“Ohmigod!” Blue braces is screeching again, and a manager has joined her at the counter, mouth agape.

Scott pauses to grin up at her. “But then you dated my best friend, and I thought for sure that all we would ever be is friends. Really good friends, which is awesome, but nothing more.”

“Fuck,” she whispers, because it sounds so genuine that she’s starting to think this isn’t just a ploy to get free chicken. Maybe Scott really does feel this way—except that’s ridiculous, because she would have smelled it on him.

The teens are starting to crowd around the napkin dispensers so they can get a better look at the proceedings.

“But then you were single, and I was single, and suddenly I had a chance to be with someone who always wanted to look out for me in the same way that I wanted to look out for them.” He chuckled. “And then we were together, and everything felt so right. And I want it to be this right forever. So… Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she gasps out, and pulls Scott to his feet. She kisses him hard, and pretends it’s because it’s the way they should be acting.

Scott kisses back much softer, though, his hands coming up to cup her face until she slows down to his pace of gentle presses and nips that tuck deep into her lungs until she feels like she can only breathe with him.

When he pulls away, and she starts to come back into the present, she can hear the whooping of the teens and excited squeaks of the cashier. The manager, she thinks, is clapping.

“The ring,” Scott says softly, and slips it onto her ring finger.

She looks down on it, and smiles. “It’s beautiful.” It feels almost mechanical, because she doesn’t give a shit about the ring. All she really wants to know is how much of Scott’s little monologue—which was totally unscripted—was genuine.

God, she didn’t even know that she wanted Scott to have feelings for her. But here she is, dying to know. Breathless, she kisses him again, quickly.

“Congratulations!” the cashier cries out excitedly. She digs around behind the counter and pulls out a fistful of coupons. “Here, holy crap, you have to—“

The manager doesn’t even protest, just continues clapping. He kind of looks like a seal.

Chicken never tasted so good.

Scott drops her off at the apartment she shares with Allison. They’d shared an entire bucket of free chicken and two cokes that Scott had insisted on buying until the cashier had relented.

“Fuck,” she mutters to herself as he drives off. When had she fallen in love with Scott? Sometime between studying for math and running together in the woods, she supposes. What’s she supposed to do about it, though?

She looks down at her ring and smiles to herself. She’d bought the ring after reading about the trick online. And she’d thought about asking Stiles or Allison, but maybe somewhere inside of herself, she’d known about her feelings for Scott all along. Maybe she’d wanted this chance.

“Totally worth the internal conflict,” she says decisively, and walks up the stairs to her apartment.

“We should do this again sometime.”

It’s a text from Scott, and for some reason, it fills her up with something like hope.

“Who can resist free food?” she sends back, playing it cool. Maybe Scott does like her. He never really smells like much to her, recently, and she knows alphas can disguise their scents. So even if he was crushing, she’d never be able to smell it. But she can’t confirm that he does have feelings for her, either, so she won’t press.

“With such great company, too,” he replies.

Her breath catches. Maybe—“We could always hang out without free food. But I can buy you food, if that’s what you’re really interested in.” There. Playing it cool, and implying that a date wasn’t out of the question. She should write a book about flirting.

“A date?” comes the reply.

“Yes,” she types, and hits send before she can regret it. She’s never been the type to be cautious, anyway. Life’s too boring that way.

“Cool,” he sends, and adds a smiley.

“Cool,” she says aloud, and plays with her ring.