Chapter Nine:

Claudia Stilinski had always used the words "King Face/ Queen Face" to describe a happy person's face. She did this because, as she saw it- if someone walked in the room, looking as if they cared about nothing, owned the world- and had a shit-eating grin on their face- they were probably feeling like the King of the world.

Stiles, as he walked into work on Saturday morning for his shift, suspected he had quite a King Face showing.

"Why're you so happy today Stiles?" Jane asked, and by both her expression and her voice, she was definitely smug.

"Why would I be happy? I'm at work." Stiles muttered, setting down his back-pack behind the bench and pulling on his name tag whilst simultaneously scoping the place for customers.

As usual on a Saturday morning, the place was full, and the bane of Stiles' existence.

Jane looked at him, and raised an eyebrow, "Stilinski- I can see your face. You're glowing. Did you get laid!?" her face scrunched up in mock-horror.

"What? No! I-what?!" Stiles flustered…which, come on! You'd expect that reaction from any average teenage virgin!

Though- it would be nice to get laid. It had never happened to him, sure- but he assumed it would be nice.

"You didn't? Hmmm…what did you do then? Because you're awfully happy Stiles, and you're never happy on a Saturday shift." Jane was leaning in close, he gossip-loving nature reminding him a lot of Lydia Martin.

Stiles…okay, so Stiles may have woken up on the right side of the bed that morning…

And the reason…

"C'mon tell me!" Jane insisted, shaking Stiles by the shoulders and smiling evilly.

"Okay, Okay!" Stiles relented.

"Jesus, give me some time!" he complained, rubbing his shoulders- sore from where Jane had shaken them.

Jane crossed her arms and waited, quirking her eyebrows and tilting her hip- the perfect picture of a gossip girl.

"Okay, so. You know, like, those conversations you can have with someone…where, you don't necessarily have to talk about all that much- but it just, like, makes you feel better and happier afterwards because it was such a…I don't know, good conversation?" Stiles asked, and Jane nodded- still waiting for her explanation.

Stiles took a deep breath and continued.

"Well- I, ugh, I had one of those with this guy last night-" Jane started giggling and Stiles glared her into silence, he needed to get this over with!

"And- I mean, I thought that we hated each other, you know? Or at least that he hated me…thought I was annoying and stupid and all that jazz. But, the talk we had…the stuff that we talked about- it, I don't know…showed he cared, I guess? So…yeah, I'm just happy 'cause of that." Stiles was feeling incredibly awkward, mainly because it was Derek Hale he was talking about- and even though Jane didn't know that…it still annoyed him that these…feelings, were even occurring!

Like, a guy he's hated for ages, is nice to him for one second – and he…he gets these feelings. Ugh.

He really didn't need to be worrying about that anyway! He had a Saturday morning shift!

Stiles' Bestiary was actually going along pretty damn well. He'd got the werewolf thing pretty down-pat, and even then he was constantly adding to it after learning new things from Derek, Peter and Scott.

The Vampire section, courtesy of Toby, was also quite large…though he kind of wanted it filled up just a bit more, since it mostly had info on nice vamps like the one he'd met and not the Demon Vamps that he'd heard Derek and Toby talking about so much. Then again, he really didn't want to actually meet one of those, so first-hand info would be pretty impossible to acquire on that.

He'd also met up with Aubrianne and a few old looking fairies she called 'the councilmen', to discuss fairy law and mythology…They'd even, after discussion of secrecy, let him take photographs and personal statements. Though, Odette's statement went along the lines of "The Fae are awesome, humans are vile- go suck a toadstool."

So, the fairy section was pretty well filled, and he'd even scheduled a few more sessions…more because he actually liked the company of the fae , than for the bestiary. They were kind of a mixture between Tinkerbelle- feisty, mischievous and wicked…and also what you'd typically expect; one with nature, closely-knit and extremely wise.

Three down…every other mythical creature in the world to go!

Stiles had been typing it all up on his laptop- uploading the pictures and placing them in the text. He'd already written pages upon pages, and noticed that, the more he wrote- the better and more descriptive he became, and therefore he actually had to go back and add detail to his previous entries.

Stiles also tried to, with much difficulty; keep his personal comments out of the bestiary. Thinking things like "Kanima claws to the neck sting like a sonofabitch" probably weren't necessary.

So, Saturday night, as he finished up typing some more info on the Fae, he drew the conclusion that, yes, he was the master of the Bestiary…but eventually, he was probably going to have to go looking for these creatures soon- instead of finding them by accident, and that notion scared the shit out of him.

Stiles sighed, still stuck deep in his thoughts, and closed his laptop so that he could get ready to sleep.

He had a big day of destroying hunter's traps tomorrow and he needed all the rest he could get, regardless of his brain.

But as he lay his head down on the pillow, still totally awake, his phone vibrated and the screen lit up.

1 new text message

Deciding it was probably just Scott or something, Stiles decided to check it before getting some shut-eye.

From: Vlad the Friendly Vampire

Hi Stiles.