2015.08.09 - Cutscene: It's a severed head. I'm upset.

**Emitter:** N/A

*Stiles has had a really crappy couple of days. It doesn't get better.*

August 7, 2015

Beacon Hills, Stilinski Residence

*The night of Friday, August 7th, 2013...*

It had been a long day. In fact, it'd been a long *couple* of days. Thursday night had gone from a fairly ordinary time to chaos and terror thanks to the arrival of the creature Stiles has mentally labeled "Darth Overbite," though who introduced himself as Jason Christopher, exiled prince of House Lupus.

Come on, how pretentious can a werewolf get?

But he'd made it through that, even finding time to catch up with Derek--Derek, who Stiles was beginning to worry about. Derek had had a run of shitty luck lately, and there weren't many who would willingly call him friend. So Stiles did. And maybe he even helped the guy a little. He liked to think he did. After all, someone had to hold the pack together, and how could Scott do that? Scott had to lead, now. A leader had to look forward, not everywhere else. So Stiles had started learning to look *everywhere* else. He looked to the pack around him, he looked at all the possibilities that weren't straight ahead. He wasn't sure Scott would approve, even if Scott knew, but it was all right if not. Supporting people didn't always make them happy.

He'd learned that from his mother. In fact, it was the last thing he'd learned from her, before she died.

Too late to go home without running into his dad and having to deal with awkward questions, Stiles had crashed at Derek's place. *That* had at least been relaxing, but Derek was good for that--if in his own strange way.

And then came Friday--today. After finding time to give Liam a little gift and some friendly advice, Stiles had lived at the library all day, filling up on anything he could get from the coffee shop next door--mostly just coffee, 'cause damn but those bagels were expensive--while shooting off emails and calls to every expert he could think of, looking at every historical record he could find, wheedling or sneaking his way into every scholarly database he found references to. And he'd come up with almost nothing. He'd been having a thoroughly frustrating day when *she* showed up.

So these are his thoughts when Stiles finally gets home on Friday night. He devours some leftover pizza from the 'fridge, then trudges upstairs. After brushing his teeth with every intent to go to bed like a responsible human being, a stray thought sends him back to the laptop for what turns into a four-hour attempt at finding a way into a mysterious British database, rumored to have all kinds of arcane knowledge. No luck. Whomever they were, they were way above his level.

But what the hell was that smell? It actually smelled... kind of nice. Like it tickled a memory he didn't even know he had.

But odd, sweet smells that could easily be a pack of mint mojito gum that had gotten a bit too warm or... something... weren't a good reason to deprive his body of even more sleep. So, shutting his laptop, Stiles pressed both hands against his eyes, groaned, and stood. He trudged over to the bed in the dark, turned back the covers, and rolled into bed.

Only to bump into something hard, cold, and vaguely... round? He pulled back, reaching over to slap on his bedside light, illuminating...

A head. A body's decapitated head.

It was a damn good thing that his dad was working the night shift this week, or this would have become extremely awkward to explain, because Stiles' ensuing scream was both air-shattering and extremely unmanly.

Apparently, Jason Christopher Lupus, self-proclaimed Prince of Werewolves, was one to follow through on such a macabre thing as, oh, leaving a vampire's head in someone's bed. After taking a good few minutes to calm down, Stiles dialed Derek's number.

There was *no way in hell* he was sleeping at home alone tonight.