OTA; various locations and times

[mensrea]

A) One’s An Incident

“—listen to me!”

Somewhere near you, whether it’s at the park or on the sidewalk or in the café or riding the tube, there is a young man engaged in a heated conversation. The identity of the person he’s arguing with may not be readily obvious to those without supernatural hearing; the discussion is taking place over the phone. Should you attempt to tune Stiles out, it’ll quickly prove fruitless. His voice rises in volume the longer he’s on the call.

“I’m telling you, it’s fine. …No! I’m not sending you a picture of it. There’s nothing to see! …No. …No. It was just an accident, okay!?”

Distractedly, Stiles turns in your direction. There is an ugly, swollen bruise taking up half his face, clearly the work of someone’s fist. You may be able to infer that this is what the fight is about.

“—oh my god, don’t. You were the one who shipped me off here. You don’t get to pull that card on me, not now. …Dad. …Dad. Would you— …Would you just TRUST me for once!?”

Whatever his father responds with, it elicits an immediate reaction from Stiles. Expression twisting miserably, he seems to lose all energy for continuing the exchange. His voice is wooden, weary.

“Fine. I gotta go. …Yeah, I will. …Alright. Love you too.”

The call ends. Maybe you make eye contact with Stiles awkwardly. Maybe you decide to talk to him. Maybe you try to pretend you hadn’t overheard.

“Sorry about that,” he says to you, light and cheery. His smile is tight. “You know how it is. My old man always has to get his say in.”

B) Two’s A Coincidence

If you venture to the library, you’ll likely find Stiles buried nose-deep in an oversized tome. He’s piled high a wall of literature around him, to the point where it might be difficult to see him from the front. The titles of the books? All on mythology and mythical creatures. On occasion, a particularly interesting passage has him muttering under his breath and jotting down a few notes in his journal. Feel free to pull up a chair and harass him; he could use a break.

C) Three’s A Pattern

Guess who just drove his shitty used bicycle into you or your vehicle? This guy. Eyes wide, he hastily stammers out an apology, then loses his balance. Both bike and boy crash to the ground in a mess of whizzing gears and muffled groans. Maybe he took you down with him.

D) Four’s A Warrant

Night in London isn’t kind to humans—not that that’s ever stopped Stiles from exploring the city at inappropriate hours. However, there’s something different about the young man tonight as he wanders the streets aimlessly. For one, he’s clad only in a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and a long-sleeve shirt with no shoes in sight. He doesn’t even have his trusty lacrosse stick on him! If you get close, you’ll see the unfocused, glassy fog to his eyes. Hopefully your intentions are well-meaning. Or maybe you’re looking for an easy snack. Either way, Stiles doesn’t seem to be in a position to argue.

( If you prefer brackets over prose, I’ll follow suit! PM me if you’d like to plot out a specific starter for your character! c: )

Comments

[tippytoes]

"You don't like it?" Because he doesn't smell like he doesn't like it, just... anxious. Nervous. Kind of like she's cornered a cat that doesn't know whether or not it wants to run or stand still so she doesn't see it.

[mensrea]

"No! I mean, I..."

Wow, even though she's no longer invading his personal space, this is still so difficult to talk about. Fumbling, he picks up a book, opens it to a random page, and then closes it. If she picked up on his anxious energy before, he'll reek of it now.

"I don't know?" he admits weakly, because it's one thing for Malia to do it and not know any better as a near fulltime coyote shapeshifter. It's another thing for him to enjoy her ignorance. God, does that make him some kind of weird pervert or something? Then, awkward as hell, he suddenly blurts, "You smell good. Nice."

[tippytoes]

"Really?" She's surprised at that, mostly because she's never really considered it. If she'd ever been asked she'd say she probably smells like garbage, but living at the pack headquarters does do wonders for thar kind of thing. It's amazing what a shower can do. She sniffs herself anyway, frowning in confusion.

"What do I smell like?"

[mensrea]

"Like...girl...things?"

That's great, Stiles. Really great. Why don't you go choke on your own tongue next. It'll be less embarrassing. Wetting his lips, he glances away from her.

"Listen, I don't really have that impressive a sense of smell, but you smell like hair conditioner and denim. It's good. Works for you."

Works for him too.

[tippytoes]

Of course he doesn't have an impressive sense of smell, he's human. It's why she was so curious to know what he smelled on her. Malia considers his answer and finds it acceptable; there are worse things to smell like, after all.

Like Mrs Brown's poodle. That thing smelled like rotten tomatoes and wet dog nearly one hundred percent of the time.

"Cool." Malia crosses her legs at the ankle, swinging them back and forth from her perch on the table.

"So ghosts are real? Why are you trying to exorcise them?"

[mensrea]

Relieved that he apparently didn’t fail some kind of secret test, he begins to relax a little in her presence. It definitely helps that Malia seems to radiate an aura of casual confidence. Somehow, it takes the pressure off him to meet her halfway—which is not how he usually feels when talking to a girl.

“They’re so real and I am totally not trying to exorcise them. Yet. Maybe.”

Stiles glances around to make sure no one else is in hearing range before continuing.

“Mostly, I just wanna see what’s involved. Y’know, just…in case? It’s good to be prepared. Or you might find yourself at the wrong end of a shotgun held by some demonic old lady.”

Don’t even ask, Malia.

[tippytoes]

She snorts at that last part, reaching for the book again and flipping it back open.

"Was it Mrs O'Grady? She thought I was trying to eat her cat once, when I was trying to save it from some weird fae. She's a really bad shot, though, so you probably had nothing to worry about." Her attention is mostly on the book, her tone distracted as she starts to look for something.

"Can you call them to you? Like, maybe if there's someone you want to see?"

[mensrea]

Stiles tells himself absently that he should start keeping a mental tally of how often this girl shocks him. Gaping in horror at her, he tries not to bristle in indignation at the idea of all these little old women indiscriminately shooting at people. Well, people and people disguised as coyotes. So maybe this O’Grady had legitimate reasons for brandishing a gun. But she could have killed Malia.

“Where the hell are they getting the certificates to carry these guns!?” he demands to no one, scowling. “The UK is supposed to have really stringent laws on this stuff!”

Her question slowly draws him back to the present. Brow furrowing, he glances at her and wonders if she’s asking because of her mom.

“I…don’t know. A witch might be able to.”

[tippytoes]

Malia shrugs in response to his rhetorical question; it's clear she's not exactly paying attention to what he's saying until the last part. The implication that there's more than one crazy old lady with a gun out there flies right over her head (for now). She looks up at him when he mentions a witch and slams the book closed, scowling.

"Nevermind, then," she says, staring at the nearby stacks of books. If it's not someone who doesn't already know, there's no point in it. Malia rarely likes to talk about what happened. The fact Stiles knows is more telling than she likes to think about (even if he did figure it out on his own), and not even her own cousin knows the details. It's still sore, even after all this time, like a tooth she can't stop poking with her tongue.

But she doesn't want him to think she's mad at him -- she knows enough to not kill the messenger, so to speak. Malia turns back to him after a moment, scrutinizing.

"So why are you looking?"

[mensrea]

The chair he’s seated on suddenly feels too stiff, too rigid against his spine. He makes a show of shifting uncomfortably, butt wiggling and shoulders rolling. On a subconscious level, he understands that the chair isn’t actually a problem; Stiles stalls and deflects when he doesn’t know how to react to a situation. Malia’s anger is palpable, and though he doubts that it’s directed at him, he feels like he let her down somehow. Already, he thinks he’ll investigate the issue more thoroughly, find out if it’s possible to summon a ghost without a witch or medium.

“I kinda had a run in with a violent spirit,” he explains, and while his tone is humorous and dry, Stiles watches her with a somber light to his eyes. “Sooo, I decided it was about time I did my research.”

[tippytoes]

"Are you okay?" She's worried, her anger subsiding a little. She isn't angry at him, he's right about that. She's angry at how futile it is. She can't tell her mother she's sorry or tell her goodbye. Malia leans back on her hands, watching Stiles with a concerned expression, now.

"Do you need help?" Beating it up, she means. She's not good at much, and she knows that. Maths, making friends, any of it -- but punching things is something she can do.

[mensrea]

Her concern warms him, so he fiddles with his journal for a moment while smiling absently.

“I’m fine, and it’s okay—we, uh, we took care of it. Plus, I’m pretty sure there’s not a lot you could do against a ghost. They’re kinda intangible. But thanks.”

And he means it.

[tippytoes]

She nods once, considering.

"How did you kill it?"

[mensrea]

He’s reminded, in that moment, of how different their worlds are. Malia instantly assumes that the spirit was killed, maybe as she would have dealt with an enemy in the wild. It should weird him out maybe, but it mostly endears him to her.

“Well, you can’t kill a ghost. They’re already dead. You can exorcise it…or trap it, which is what we did.”

Not before it possessed him and took his body for a short joyride, but he doesn’t mention that.

[tippytoes]

Her forehead wrinkles at that, mostly because traps aren't something she's really fond of. "Are you going to set it free? Or exorcise it?"

It's cruel, she thinks, to just leave it trapped. Even if it was hostile.

[mensrea]

Stiles, on the other hand, is cruel enough to care very little if the ghost was left to rot for all eternity in the bottle. Especially after what she did. But his expression is grim now, because it’s touching upon a topic he’s been grappling with for some time.

“Neither. We passed it on to the Night Council to take care of.”

The Night Council…even now, he doesn’t know how to feel about what they do, how they interfere with human lives so casually, so easily.

[tippytoes]

"Who's that?" Malia tilts her head to the side. She's been out of politics her entire life, after all; her knowledge is limited to the shapeshifters of the Hillingdon clan and now Derek's pack. She's heard of witches, knows that they're probably bad news to people like her, and of course she's seen vampires before. But the idea that there's more than two factions is new to her.

[mensrea]

"Basically the authority on the Underground. They deal with security breaches with the normal population, and enforce rules on the supernatural."

Leaning closer, he drops his voice.

"They're kind of like the Men in Black."

[tippytoes]

He gets a blank stare for the reference. Sorry, Stiles, her pop culture knowledge is kind of lacking. She hasn't seen Star Wars, either.

"Oh, so like the police?"

That she's familiar with, and she leans back on the table, swinging her legs idly. "So if I did something stupid, like shift in front a human, and they found out, I'd get arrested?"

[mensrea]

“Seriously?”

He is so done with these were-teens and their ignorance of classic films. First Scott with Star Wars and now Malia with Men in Black. Not to mention Catwoman, who had never seen The Matrix. To his knowledge, though, “she” is at least totally human. Damn these kids and their priorities.

“Okay, you and me are gonna hit up Netflix one day. Anyway—yeah, but not really. They’re like the police, except you’re thinking about it from a human perspective. It’d be more like, you shifted in front of a human and they made sure you disappeared permanently, or removed your ability to shift at all.”

[tippytoes]

He gets a scowl in response. Not for the Netflix comment (even though she doesn't know what that is, either), and not even for his being aghast at the fact she doesn't know what a Men in Black is. Malia's more focused on the part about her shifting in front of a human and vanishing.

Not literal vanishing, she's aware that's not what he means. It's a nice way of saying they'll kill her.

"But I shifted in front of you and I'm okay." That's what she's having difficulty parsing. Malia doesn't want to let go of this friendship with Stiles, especially not at the behest of some shadowy creepers who might magically take away her shifting powers.

(Part of her wonders, though, if she could stay in coyote form if they did. It'd make everything easier, at least.)

"They can't be that dangerous if I've never even seen them."

[mensrea]

Stiles takes a mental step backwards, reminded now that Malia will approach issues from a highly different angle than he’s accustomed to. Her perceptions of the world have undoubtedly been viewed through a coyote-like lens. Dragging a hand through his hair, he considers how to explain and then tries again.

“Just hear me out. Imagine there’s this adorable, fluffy bunny. It takes a risk by venturing outside the den and thinks, ‘Hey this isn’t so bad!’ Everything is sunshine and rainbows and Disney princesses. But just because it doesn’t see a predator doesn’t mean it isn’t being watched. And we both know what’ll happen when the coyote decides to hunt it. That’s how it is with these people.”

The pen is tapped furiously against his notebook; he’s agitated, not by her lack of understanding, but by his fear of the Night Council.

“Maybe they wouldn’t care if you shifted in front of me, because I already know about the supernatural. I don’t know. Don’t think they’re not dangerous, though.”

[tippytoes]

She listens to his explanation with rapt attention, tilting her head to the side in consideration.

When the tapping starts, she reaches forward, puts her hand on top of his. She can smell the anxiety coming from him, even if she can't put it into words. Malia has an idea of the why though, and she scoots forward, leaning down. She's not too close, but she is close.

"I'll protect you from them. I promise."

[mensrea]

At the first touch of her skin against his, he stills. Glancing up slowly, he regards Malia with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. He expects rebuke or irritation. Nothing could have prepared him for the declaration that comes instead. There’s a tiny part of him that believes he must have misheard. Because no way did she just…so easily, earnestly—

“Me too,” he says shakily, swallowing. “I m-mean. I’ll protect you too. I promise.”

Stiles can’t be sure why he returns the oath. They barely know each other. Yet he continues to stare at her like she’s something remarkable, something precious. A full body shock courses through his veins, leaving him winded and electrified. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to him. This kind of thing is reserved for people like Scott. No one has ever offered him anything even remotely like this.

[tippytoes]

He doesn't get judgement or irritation or even patronization. She believes him when he says it because he's not like many other humans that she's ever met. He was kind to her, he's not scared of her, and he's the first non-supernatural person to even offer protection to her, regardless of whether or not she needs it.

Malia smiles at him, squeezing his hand a little before pulling.

"Cool," she says, and then realizes something. "I should introduce you to the pack." Not her pack. Malia knows she's never truly going to be a part of it, that she's always going to be an outsider, regardless of whether or not she's related to the current Alpha. She still feels like an outsider, but she also knows the pack can keep Stiles safe better than she can by herself.