undergrounds | they used to sing about the birds and the bees;

dirty paws and furry coat; (a)

It’s easier, now, to be human. Now that she has something like a pack. It doesn’t mean she prefers it by any means. Being human is still difficult, still something she doesn’t ‘get’. It might be easier to blend into the streets of London as a human, but Malia’s never really cared about easy.

Which is why she’s back to old habits, trotting around an area with multiple coffee shops, looking for breakfast. Or lunch. It’s late enough in the day to be either, at this point. It’s a particularly busy one that’s she decided to poke her face into the dumpster for, and she’s just managed to catch them after their morning rush, which means a lot of half eaten scones or donuts or toast or some kind of breakfast sandwich.

Her back paws are scrambling on the side of the dumpster as she tries to climb inside, and she finally does with a loud ‘Oof’. With that, she starts tearing through the bags.

After she’s eaten, she sticks to the shadows as best as she can as she makes her way around the city, doing her best to stay out of the way of people. She’s really not in the mood to deal with animal control now, thanks.

she ran down the forest slope; (b)

Sometimes, she remains human, because it’s the right thing to do. She has to learn eventually to navigate her way through this space. She can’t stay an animal forever. It helps having a family, even if it’s a small one. The gaping wound in her heart is still there, but it’s slowly starting to scab over.

She really hates having to pay for things, though. Malia may have found a family, but she has no income to speak of, and absolutely no job. She probably couldn’t get one even if she wanted one; she never went to school, still doesn’t go, and she has no credentials that she knows where to find them.

Malia’s standing outside that same coffee shop she was at for breakfast, now at the front door instead of the back. She’s got her arms crossed and she’s glaring at it like it’s personally offended her. It smells great, and her stomach is growling and she’d like to go inside, but--

But she can’t buy anything. And she’s sincerely contemplating just turning into a coyote and snagging lunch that way.

Ugh. Humanity.

the forest of the talking trees; (closed to derek hale)

Malia wasn’t going to argue that she probably needed a phone. Allying herself with her cousin’s pack meant that they were going to need a way to communicate with one another when they weren’t close by that wasn’t a series of complicated howls.

She was seated in the passenger side of his car, wrinkling her nose a little at the plastic smell of it.

“You really don’t have to do this,” she says, fastening her belt. Even though she knows that, yes, he kind of does. There was just some vague memory of her mother teaching her to be polite when it came to expensive gifts, and maybe still a little bit of wariness because of who Derek shared a surname with. She knows enough about Peter to know he probably won’t be an issue. It doesn’t keep her skin from crawling when she thinks about it.

( brackets or prose is fine, and if you have a different idea for a thread you'd like to use, feel free to leave it as a starter!! )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's almost hilarious how much Malia knows she doesn't fit in to this world. She's trying, but it's hard. Making friends is helping, spending time with Derek is helping, but her skin still crawls from time to time with the urge to just flee back to her coyote body, maybe go make a life for herself on the moors somewhere.

None of that stops her from rolling her eyes and looking at him, crossing her arms.

"I know that. But how often are you going to need to talk to me when I'm not there? I'm not—" She stops, sighing.

"I'm not really that useful to the pack."

Tilting his head to her, Derek's frown returns, deeper this time. Her remark might have nothing to do with him, but it's cause enough to doubt. Has he spurred her to feel this way? Has he been negligent in his duty, ignorant of her position? It's absolutely possible, he's forced to admit, but he hopes - he's trying --

"That's not true," he says, looking away from her resolutely as the car rolls out of the driveway. Hesitation has him falling silent again; he rifles through his mind for something, anything, that sounds like the right thing to say. "You're here because you have a place here. That means you're part of the pack. And that means you're useful."

Malia looks up at him when he says that, eyes narrowing a little. She's not suspicious, but surprised. No, Derek had done nothing to make her feel that way, it was more... she was a shapeshifter in a pack of werewolves. The general feeling on shapeshifters from werewolves wasn't lost on her. Some of Derek's pack went out of their way to avoid her, something she was entirely used to.

But knowing 'that's how things are' and experiencing it are two different things, and Malia had been wondering if this was the place for her after all. If, after so long, she still hadn't found someplace she belonged.

Derek's reassurance helped with that, a little. Malia smiles at him just a bit, turns her gaze back to the windshield.

"Thanks. I'll keep trying."

He's hesitant to put too much stock in his own ability to comfort, but Malia's response seems genuine and besides, he learned quickly on her integration into the pack that lying wasn't really her style. Relatively satisfied, he nods once, decisively. You're not the only one, he thinks, but doesn't say. It doesn't sound like what an alpha should say.

"That's why you're useful," he says instead, mouth quirking for all of a few brief moments. "So take the phone, and use it when you need it." He pauses, apparently considering, before he continues. "And try not to leave it in an alley somewhere."

She looks over at him, brow furrowed.

"But what if I need to shift?"

Being literal isn't something she really means to do, it's just a side effect of being on her own for so long. It isn't that Malia doesn't get sarcasm or jokes, she's just not tuned to them as well as many other people are. So her question is honest and a little confused.

Derek's first reaction is irritation, and a deadpan stare shot in Malia's direction, but then it kind of clicks that she has a point. It's easier with werewolves in the sense that they're all together when the shift comes, they can all anticipate it, but shifters are another matter entirely. Another weird, overly-complicated matter.

"How do you work out the clothing thing?"

She considers his question, leaning back against her seat and staring out the windshield.

"Usually I just find a spot where there aren't many humans or they haven't been around much, and I just shove my clothes into whatever I can find. People don't really look behind stuff much."

She hasn't spoken to anyone about how she managed to live on her own for so long. It's strange, putting it into words.

"There were a couple of lockers at one of the train stations that were broken and wouldn't open unless you did it right. I used those, too."

Briefly, Derek wonders about the idea of multiple cell phones stashed around the city. He questions whether or not they'd all need to be different numbers, and he'd have to send a collect message to every Malia in his contact list just to find her. If he could find her.

This is close to hopeless. Derek resists sighing.

"There's gotta be some places that you visit more often. We should start with that."

Maybe he should just get a set of cups with string.

There's no need for burner phones. Malia's actually got a thoughtful look on her face, staring out the window. She's silent for a while.

"I could just not turn into a coyote until I have to."

She turns to face him when she says it, a stubborn expression on her face. If Derek had suggested it, she'd be angry. Offended. BUt he's trying to work with her, and that means something. So Malia's decided that she's going to work with him.

"That way I only need one phone. And if I lose it, it's for a good cause."

Briefly, his eyes flick over her, studying her expression. There's an earnest, determined kind of set to her jaw that Derek thinks makes her look more Hale than anything has. On some level, he finds that he understands, because maybe in this they're similar - need to make their own decisions, pick their own solutions. He's under no delusions about how attached she is to her coyote form, and this strikes him as a sacrifice.

So he nods, unquestioning and grateful.

"Works for me."

It's very much a sacrifice. Being a coyote makes Malia feel closer to her mother, in a strange way. Giving that up for Derek, someone who's part of the clan that Malia's estranged, possibly evil, father is? Her mother probably wouldn't be very pleased. But it feels like it's something that she needs to do. She'll never move on if she doesn't make an attempt to.

She nods at his response, and settles back into her seat, some of the tension leaving her body.

"So what kind of phone am I getting?"

they used to sing about the birds and the bees;

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