Stiles Stilinski scrunched up his face, using the back of his hand to stifle an enormous yawn. He cocked his head to the right and then to the left, trying and failing to crack his neck. He groaned, looking up and down the sidewalk in front of Beacon Hills High School and tapping his foot impatiently.

The first day of school was never a good thing, but it was even harder to go through exhausted. Unfortunately, the situation couldn't be helped. He had overheard—intercepted—completely eavesdropped on one of his father's calls from work. Apparently there were some hikers in the woods who had gone into a full on panic attack when they found half a body lying amongst all the autumn leaves on the side of the trail. They were calling in loads of back up, everyone the department could get their hands on, and sending out a search party into the preserve to look for the second half of the body before all traces of evidence had been washed away.

Well, how was he supposed to resist that? Before that, the most interesting call he'd ever intercepted had been about a huge fire on the edge of town, where the entire family had basically gone up in smoke. Well, that or the ten-car pile up that had been caused by Snuggles the Bunny, an escaped class pet from the elementary school. But nobody had died or even been seriously injured. It was only interesting because it sounded weird, not because it was gruesome or tragic or awesome.

So Stiles had done what any self-respecting, excited, overly energetic, bored, procrastinating teenager would do. He'd dragged his best friend Scott McCall out to the woods to look for the second half of the body. Of course, it'd only taken them about a total of twenty minutes before his father had found him lurking behind a tree. That had earned him a very long talk about invasion of privacy, the rules of the law, respectable bedtimes on a school night, and how much it really annoyed his father when he hid his jumbo bags of greasy potato chips. But at least he'd been the only one forcibly captured. Scott had gotten off scot-free. Heh… Scott-free…

The late night adventure meant that Stiles had woken up extremely tired and disgruntled, even less excited for a fun day full of learning than he might have been under normal circumstances. The only thing that was currently keeping him going was a text he'd gotten from Scott in the middle of the night. Apparently, while he'd been trying to find his way back out of the forest, Scott had been attacked by a herd of deer, bitten in the side by some kind of wild animal with vicious fangs, and almost been hit by a car. But despite the kickass welcome-back story he had, Scott seemed to be taking his sweet time in getting to school.

Stiles hoisted his book bag a little higher on his back. He thought momentarily about going in to his locker and just talking to Scott after class so he wouldn't be late. Then he mentally kicked himself. Who cared if he was late? It was the first day of school, and if he really wanted to go through the trouble of coming up with an excuse, he could just say that he had a little trouble finding the room. That wasn't an outrageous lie for a sophomore to tell, and if Scott didn't show up soon, it would be one that he definitely used. But thankfully, Scott chose that moment to appear, hurrying over from the bike rack with a slightly apologetic, if disgruntled, expression.

"Yo, bout time," Stiles greeted, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation.

"You wanna see it or not?" Scott dismissed with a small grin. Obviously he knew that Stiles couldn't actually be upset by his tardiness. That would just be majorly hypocritical. Beside, he was entirely too excited to be annoyed.

"Duh," Stiles replied, rubbing his hands together as Scott rested his backpack down on a nearby bench. "Kay, let's see this thing!" Scott glanced around the schoolyard for a moment before hiking up his T-shirt, revealing a large square of gauze that had been taped on. It covered his entire side, and unless Stiles's eyes were deceiving him, there was a splotch of blood seeping through from the bite. He could only imagine what kind of gory wound that was hiding. "Ooh," he breathed, instinctively reaching out a hand to poke it.

"Yeah—woah!" Scott objected, recoiling and giving Stiles a reproachful look. Stiles scrunched up his nose in annoyance, but nonetheless he backed off, holding his hands up in surrender. Scott dropped his shirt once more, swinging his backpack and lacrosse stick up and over his shoulder. "It was too dark to see much, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf." Stiles raised his eyebrows, suppressing the urge to snort as he followed his friend up the walkway to the school.

"A wolf bit you?" he asked skeptically.

"Uh huh."

"No, not a chance."

"I heard a wolf howling," Scott insisted, falling into step beside him

"No, you didn't," Stiles argued, failing to keep the tone of amusement out of his voice. Sometimes it was just hilarious how little Scott seemed to know about the world around him.

"What do you mean 'no I didn't'?" he asked with a perplexed grin. "How do you know what I heard?"

"Because California doesn't have wolves, okay?" Stiles elaborated with a laugh. "Not in like sixty years." They paused on the verge of the school steps, Stiles turning back to face a very contemplative Scott. In his opinion, it was entirely too early in the morning to look like you were thinking that hard about something.

"Really?" Scott asked.

"Yes, really," he insisted, voiced tinged with a hint of annoyance as he repeated himself yet again. "There are no wolves in California." Scott looked like he might object again, but after a moment he changed tactics, trading the sour look of confusion for a secretive smirk.

"Alright, well if you don't believe me about the wolf, then you're definitely not going to believe me about when I tell you I found the body." Stiles stomach lurched with excitement, and for a moment he considered pinching himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Instead, his excitement seeped uncontrollably through his limbs the way it normally did, making his arms flail like they had a mind of their own while an open-mouthed grin threated to split his face in half.

"Are you kidding me?!" he gushed, holding one hand up towards Scott while the other grounded itself on his backpack.

"No, I wish," Scott sighed. He casually stuffed one hand in his pocket, holding the strap of his bag as he grinned slightly. "I'm gonna have nightmares for a month." Stiles attempted to hold back his excitement, letting out a gleeful laugh before trying to recollect himself.

"Oh God, that is friggen awesome," he wheezed, practically beaming. "I mean, this is seriously going to be the best thing that's happened to this town since…" He trailed off, his eyes immediately caught by something infinitely more interesting that school, Scott or corpses.

Lydia Martin was strutting up the pathway in all her glory. Her clothes were fashionably picked, her makeup impeccably accentuating all of her glorious features, and every perfect strawberry-blonde hair on her head blowing perfectly behind her into perfect place. She had two girls with her, a fumbling blonde that Stiles was fairly certain he'd had one or two classes with in middle school, and a pretty brunette girl who he didn't know. They all walked confidently—at least, Lydia and the brunette girl did—in battle formation with the five-foot-three-inch angel as the spearhead. Her head was held high with a winning smile on her face as several other students stopped to stare at her. Honestly, it was hard not to stare at Lydia Martin. Actually, Stiles found it completely impossible.

"…Since Lydia Martin was born," Stiles rushed to finish as the girls drew even with them. "Hey, Lydia," he greeted with his best attempt at a charming smile. "You and your friend look…" But as he probably should have expected, the group of girls blew past him without so much as a glance, leaving him with nothing but the sweet scent of perfume for his troubles. "…like you're gonna ignore me," he finished lamely, mentally kicking himself. It was a new year in Beacon Hills, but just because he'd gotten a bit of excitement the night before did not mean anything in the prison that was high school was going to change any time soon.

Or at least, that's what he thought. But then, a miracle happened.

Just as he'd resigned himself to enjoying nothing more but Lydia's back and flowing hair as she walked away from him, the brunette girl on her right turned around. She spun back with ease, lifting a carefully manicured hand in a wave and gracing Stiles with one of the most blinding smiles he had ever seen. Was this real life? Was this legitimately happening? Was he actually being acknowledged by an attractive member of the opposite sex who had absolutely no obligation to give him the time of day?

For the second time that morning, Stiles suppressed the urge to pinch himself. Instead, he attempted to wave back to the girl, his hand feeling almost numb. But the brunette had already turned her back once more, her hair flouncing behind her as she strutted after Lydia, into the school and out of sight.

"Dude," Stiles breathed, staring after the group and feeling almost frozen in place. He moved his raised hand behind him, blindly waving it about so he could hit Scott in the chest. "Dude! Did you see that?!"

"Uh, yeah?" Scott drawled from somewhere behind him, obviously not comprehending the vast significance of the phenomenon that had just taken place before their eyes.

"That was acknowledgement!" Stiles gushed, still staring at the doors. "That was like pure, straight up acknowledgement! Ha! I exist!"

"Um, okay…? But Lydia still didn't look at you," his so-called friend pointed out. Stiles spun around, now actually beaming, and far too enthusiastic to be brought down by Scott's details.

"But her friend did!" he argued. "Her very, very aesthetically pleasing friend totally knows that I am an actual human being that exists and is completely capable and worthy of receiving greetings!" Scott cocked an eyebrow, smirking at him in amusement.

"Yeah, good for you," he chuckled, shaking his head slightly. "Do you know who said aesthetically pleasing friend is?"

"No," Stiles replied turning back to the building and joining the procession to get inside. "Well, not really. I know she's Lydia's friend."

"Wow, way to go Einstein," Scott jabbed mockingly, but Stiles waved him off.

"No, no, no, not just like a casual friend. Like, an actual friend, her best friend. Pretty sure she moved in with Lydia over the summer."

"Oh," Scott replied, raising his eyebrows in mild interest. "So she's new?"

"Yeah," Stiles agreed, before correcting himself once more. "Well actually, she's new to the school. She moved in a couple months ago, so I'm sure she's plenty acquainted with all the quote on quote 'very important people' of Beacon Hills."

"How do you know all this anyway?" Scott asked him, narrowing his eyes as they finally managed to make it into the hallway flooded with students. Stiles winced internally.

"I observed. With my eyes," he dismissed casually. Unfortunately, his friend didn't seem to buy it.

"Stiles," he said in a warning tone, making him huff.

"Fine, so I may or may not have taken a little detour by their house a few times while I was going about my business over the summer. More on the side of may."

"Dude," Scott had the audacity to snort. "You know that's like stalking, right?"

"It is not stalking!" Stiles defended himself. "I just occasionally drove by their house and hoped they were outside. Lydia's like, the most important girl in my life, and if I want to get anywhere with her, I need to have a basic knowledge of what's going on with her." Scott simply rolled his eyes and dropped the subject as they deposited their books in their lockers.

Stiles's mouth might have been experiencing one of those ridiculously rare moments when he couldn't speak, but his mind was reeling. He realized it was undoubtedly an overreaction. It was probably a one time incident, after all, a singular wave from a confident new girl with the world wrapped around her finger. She didn't have a clue who he was. Unless of course—and his stomach lurched at the thought of it—she'd recognized him from one of the several times he'd nearly crashed his Jeep in front of their house. But he immediately dismissed the thought. If she'd recognized him as the "stalker" she had encountered at any point over the summer, she probably wouldn't have waved. And she definitely wouldn't have given him that dazzling, thousand-watt smile.

Stiles attempted to shake the image from his head, smiling to himself. It was all new to him, but as far as he was concerned, the year was off to a pretty good start. A gruesome murder, his best friend surviving an attack from some mystery wild animal, and a brief interaction with the hot new girl who he didn't know—didn't know yet, he corrected himself—and who just so happened to be best friends with the girl of his dreams. He didn't want to get his hopes up, but maybe this was the year that things in Beacon Hills started to change.

He let that glowing ember of hope settle in his mind for a few minutes, closing his locker and heading off to English with his wounded friend. But then another glorious thought occurred to him and he nearly stopped short, raising a hand to slap Scott on the chest.

"Yo, dude, how early do you think that whole experiment thing starts?"

"What?" Scott asked, scrunching up his face in pure confusion.

"You know, the whole experimenting-with-your-roommate thing," he elaborated with unbridled excitement. "Cause, you know, they are two very hot girls who just happen to be living with each other, so…"

"Dude!" Scott exclaimed, shooting him a reprimanding glare. Stiles held up his hands once more, but was far too intrigued to drop the subject.

"I'm just saying! Do you think that doesn't happen until college or…?"

"I don't know, Stiles!"

"…Oh my God, you think Jackson…?"

"Egh! No! Stop!"

"Oh please, tell me you wouldn't want to see that, cause, man, if I were him…"

"Stiles! Shut up!"

"Right, yeah. Sorry…"

A/N: Hey guys! Long time no see! Ha ha, so this kind of popped into my head. It's limited third person because when I write from other characters' point of view I tend to do that. I might do the next one as Stiles first person, not sure. Let me know if this narration style is okay, and what you think about the events that you missed! ;D Also suggestions for one shots! Thanks for reading!

-Brittney