AN: New year, new update ^^

My internships picks up again next Monday until Feb 28th, so don´t expect much acitivity from me until then.

Also, explicit sexual content ahead.

i. liquid one: blood

The girl didn't look dead.

Not a single strand of her honey-blonde hair was out of place, lining her delicate face like a frame woven from gold. In her blue eyes the lights of the pool were reflected like the stars on the wide ocean, a never repeating pattern that made them appear as if there was still a soul shining from behind them, locked in the body that would no longer obey. Her skin was pale – unnaturally so – and stood in stark contrast to her orange freckles that covered her cheeks and nose like star constellation on the night sky. Her thin lips were blue, as if she had just laid down because she felt cold and just had never woken up.

She didn't look dead. She looked like she had just sat down to watch the lights dance over the water in the pool and didn't have the strength to get up again. She looked as if she hadn't minded dying, maybe even welcomed it.

But that was only her face. The blood covering the rest of her body told another story.

It stemmed from an ugly cut marring her otherwise unblemished throat. It had been cut and like an animal led to its slaughter, the girl had bleed out on the stone tiles that surrounded the pool with naught but the stars and the lights as companions while her life had flowed out of her, a river of red that trickled away through the cracks in the ground.

Her face spoke of serenity, but her body spoke of predation.

Stiles wondered what she had felt while she was dying. Fear? Pain? Calmness? Had she even been aware of what was to come or had she clung to the hope that someone would come and save her until there had been no blood left for her weak and frail hurt to pump through her body? Had she accepted the inevitability of her demise or had she fought until the very end?

Those question would forever be left unanswered, maybe haunting them in their nightmares along the way.

"Why did you call me?" Stiles asked again. "And not the police?" He was so tired, so goddamn tired. He felt like he was running ever since that night he went out into the woods with Scott and hadn't stopped yet. One mystery after another, each more gruesome than the one before. Maybe it was a little bit unfair to Lydia, but she should have called the police instead of him. Maybe he was 'somehow involved' in all of this, but that didn't mean that it should be the responsibility of a barely seventeen-year-old boy to look at the corpse of his peers.

But when he turned his head and saw Derek standing next to Lydia, one hand on her shoulder in what was supposed to be a calming gesture, staring at Stiles like he was supposed to know what was going on, he realised that maybe he would never be that clueless teenager again. This town was his responsibility now; that was the duty becoming Alpha had thrusted upon him. And maybe with time his hands would turn as red as his eyes already were.

Stiles didn't think that being Alpha would be about peacefully upholding the law.

"I´m not stupid," Lydia finally said.

"I never claimed you were," Stiles agreed like you would agree with an upset child to calm it down.

"There´s something going on in this town and ever since the prom I´m unwilling part of whatever it is," Lydia spoke. "The doctors tell me that it´s just trauma and imagination, but I don´t believe them. I´m not some frail, little girl that builds herself fictive worlds to escape real world." She clenched her hands into fists. "And you were there: Whenever something happened you were there. I haven´t forgotten that night at the school. Humans don´t slash open rows of lockers and wild animals wouldn't even enter human settlements."

For the first time in that night Stiles truly looked at Lydia – the dishevelled strawberry-blonde hair, the tearstained face which she had tried to wipe away before they arrived, the rosé nightgown covered in dirt stains and her sore feet – and wondered what she truly felt.

Lydia was used to knowing – to be aware, to understand – but all of her skills and knowledge was falling short now and that scared her. He could see it her fraught posture, in the way her gaze flickered over her surroundings, trying to make sense of it. She was scared and despite vocally stating differently, she doubted her own senses. Stiles knew how that felt and could sympathise with it, but that didn't change how Lydia had lashed out and hurt him where he was most vulnerable: His own sense of worth.

But he also knew that in some aspects, Lydia and he were so much alike that they could be the sides of the same coin. Like he, Lydia had caught a glance of something that was hidden, that wasn't supposed to be discovered by ordinary humans (though, the question remained if Lydia was still that ordinary anymore) and she wouldn't – couldn't – let go of it until she had uncovered everything there was to know.

Lydia would be his spectre, whether Stiles wanted it or not, haunting him until she found out what she needed. All that was left to Stiles was to decide if he should fight her all along the way until one of them would give in or if he should make her an ally that would have his back while he more or less stumbled through the path laid out in front of him.

But that wasn't something he could just decide on a whim. He had Derek and Scott to consider. He couldn't just make a decision and force them to comply. Maybe the old Alpha would have, but Stiles didn't want to be Peter Hale.

"Maybe you´re right," he spoke. "But right now is neither the time nor the place for that conversation. I have others to consider." Lydia pursed her lips in displeasure.

"But you will think about it?" she asked. Stiles nodded.

"Well, if that´s the best I can hope for then I´ll accept it," Lydia agreed. "But don´t think you can string me along forever, Stilinski."

"Maybe you should think about using my name if you want something from me," Stiles pointed out.

"We don´t have time for this," Derek interrupted. "Sooner or later someone´s gonna come looking why the lights are on or even worse, call the police." He walked over to Stiles and crouched down next to him.

"Do you smell it?" he asked, loud enough so that Stiles could pick it up but not loud enough for Lydia to understand.

"Smell what?" Stiles wanted to know. When they had first arrived the stench of chlorine had been so overpowering that Stiles had nearly gagged, but by now he could just blend it out, even though every now and then a breeze would flare up and bring with it a new wave of the smell.

He took in another deep breath: Again, there was the smell of chlorine, but also the metallic odour of the girl´s blood. Yet those weren't the only smells Stiles could make out: There was something else, something unnatural. It crept up Stiles nose and clung to it like oil, so disgusting that he had to supress a shudder. It smelled like the mould Stiles sometimes found in their house, like rotten food and decaying animal corpses.

It was a smell that shouldn't be here.

"What´s that?" he asked Derek with wide eyes.

"I don´t know," the older werewolf admitted. "But whatever it is, it´s not natural. It´s not human."

"Do you think it´s a danger to my dad?" Stiles wanted to know.

"It already killed someone, so it would be a lie to claim that it´s not," Derek spoke. "But you can´t keep this from your father, Stiles. We can´t just dispose of someone´s corpse." Stiles knew that Derek was right, but that didn't mean that he had to feel good about it.

"What are you talking about?" Lydia exclaimed from behind them. Both werewolves stood up and turned back to her.

"You still haven't told us how you found her," Stiles remarked, for now ignoring her question.

"I don´t know," Lydia replied. "My parents brought me home. I feel asleep in my room and when I woke up I was here at the pool and found the body." She swallowed. "I remember my dream, though. I felt this urge, this need, to walk here. There was something that wanted me here, something that led me to this place." Stiles shared a glance with Derek but otherwise they didn't say anything.

"So, this is what we´re gonna do now," Stiles told Lydia. "We´re gonna drive you home and you´ll act as if nothing happened. Derek and I will then call the police from a phone booth and give them an anonymous tip about the body. They´re required by law to follow up on it, so they´ll definitely find her."

"You want us to just go?" Lydia repeated incredulously.

"We can´t be here when the police come," Stiles reminded her. "What are you going to say when they ask you how you found the body? That a dream told you were it was? And what if they want to know why you called me first instead of the police, like any innocent citizen would? What if they ask us why we waited so long to call them?" Lydia kept silent, but she was obviously aware that what Stiles was telling her were the hard truths. "Derek already was the suspect of a murder case, so it won´t do him any good if he´s found at another crime scene. And I´m on thin ice with my dad, too." Stiles shook his head. "No, it´s the best if none of us was found here."

"Alright," Lydia finally relented. She sent one last glance at the dead girl, full of emotions Stiles couldn't wholly decipher, and then she turned around and walked towards Roscoe who was standing on the empty parking lot of the pool.

"I don´t like this, Derek," Stiles said to the older man while they followed her. "I already felt out of my depth before and now there´s some monster running around killing people."

"You and Scott managed to take down Peter," Derek replied and Stiles wondered if it was real or just his imagination when he saw a small hint of grief flashing through Derek´s eyes before it was gone again. "Whatever this is, you´ll stop that, too. And I´ll help you."

And somehow that managed to calm Stiles down when everything else had failed.

ii. liquid two: wine

Chris had never liked wine.

It played well into the image that many people, even in their small hunter community, had of him: The coarse, ungraceful male scion of the Argent family who wasn't good with words or politics but who had somehow managed to marry a woman of culture and taste. So, him favouring beer over wine just confirmed whatever notions others held of him.

Kate had always been the 'better' Argent: Her deadliness hidden under layers of grace, eloquence and beauty. With a few words she had been able to play even the most experienced man and her bright smile and innocent eyes had concealed the calculating and scheming mind that laid underneath.

Kate was the brain and Chris the brawn.

As Chris watched his father sip from the red his wife had offered him from their extensive wine collection (that she alone was responsible for, because to Chris a nine Dollar wine from Walmart tasted the same as a four hundred Dollar wine from Europe) he wondered if just being the second best had maybe saved him from suffering Kate´s fate.

Chris wasn't stupid. As smart and resourceful Kate had been, she still would have needed help to kill all of the Hales. She needed the weapons, the wolfbane, the hunters to control the perimeter and Chris still held a high enough opinion of his colleagues to hope that not all of them would break the Code like Kate had.

She hadn't been alone in this, but Chris just didn't know who had backed her.

"Your wife´s taste in wine is truly exceptional," his father remarked as he took another sip from the glass. "I hadn't had such a good one in ages."

"Victoria prides herself in her taste," Chris replied diplomatically. Gerard just hummed nonchalantly.

"Why are you here, father?" Chris asked. It had always been 'father' or 'sir'. Only Kate had been allowed to call him 'Dad' and that only until she started training.

"I´m here for my new job, of course," Gerard replied, his grin bereft of humour. "I´m the new principal of Beacon Hills High School." Chris didn't even bat an eye when he heard his father´s announcement. Gerard´s influence reached wide and deep, so that he was able to install himself as principal despite lacking the needed credentials didn't surprise him.

"To what end?" he wanted to know.

"Because somewhere in this towns are the mutts responsible for my daughter´s death," Gerard grinded out. "And I will discover who they are and make them pay for it."

"I told you what Kate did," Chris reminded his father.

"Lies and slander!" Gerard exclaimed. "And to think that my own flesh and blood would take the words of a deranged werewolf and his breed over his own." Chris didn't bother to mention that Kate had practically admitted her deed before she had been killed. He knew that his father wouldn't believe him, wouldn't want to believe him. His Kate could do nothing wrong.

Again, Chris was glad that he hadn't told his father about the McCall boy. The boy may be a werewolf and a danger to himself and others, but as long as he kept away from his Allison and didn't harm anyone, the boy could live his life unchallenged by any Argent hunters. No minor deserved his father´s attention.

"Why do you think posing as principal would help you flush them out?" Chris asked, genuinely curious. "The only known werewolf in this town has long since finished school."

"I know there´s a new Alpha," Gerard replied. "And I know that it isn´t the Hale boy. There´s at least one other werewolf running around this town, having inherited the mad Alpha´s power. We know that those beasts tend to go after children and teenagers because they´re likelier to survive the Bite." He took another sip from his wine. "So, yes, I´m sure: Whoever this new werewolf is, I´ll find him at the school.

Besides," his father added. "I want to spend time with my granddaughter."

iii. liquid three: semen

"Faster!" Jackson commanded, burying his head into the pillow underneath him. Danny happily obliged, his pace becoming even faster and harder as he thrust into Jackson from behind. Jackson was sure that he would receive bruises on his hips where Danny was gripping him so hard as if he believed Jackson would flee otherwise.

If Lydia wasn't in the hospital she would notice. Her eyes would narrow at the blue spots, her immaculate fingers would thrum on the table top and her lips would thin in displeasure but when they were alone again fury would blaze in her green eyes and she would cover up all of the bruises with ones caused by herself.

It was a game between them. Determining who could hurt the other the most, who was the first to drive the other away permanently. Lydia used cutting remarks, hurtful observation she flung at him when they were alone, charming his parents like he never could and Jackson – well, he used Danny. To show Lydia that she didn't own him, that she didn't control him, no matter what everyone else thought.

They were made for each other: Lydia, who didn't really know who she was, hiding herself behind dozens of personas, so that no one would know her real self, could find out her weaknesses and her true desires; Lydia who played and manipulated the people around her so that her greatest fear had become to suddenly find herself as the one being manipulated and Jackson who didn't really know who he was either, because his adoptive parents had taken that chance away from him; who always had to be the best at everything because if he wasn't, well, what kept his parents from abandoning him then? Apart the two of them were lost, drifting aimlessly in a world that didn't want them, but together they could keep themselves anchored. Being together hurt like swallowing broken glass, but being apart hurt even more.

Pleasure was rolling through his body like ocean waves. Heat cursing through his veins, coiling in his stomach, repelling all those other bothersome feelings that usually swirled in his mind. His cock hung aching between his legs, leaking pre-cum onto his pristine bedsheets. Jackson knew, one touch and he would be done. Maybe Lydia would notice that someone else had made him scream in his bed, had made Jackson twist in his sheets.

Probably not. She had been in a coma, after all and was now at home, recovering. She hadn't even bothered to call him since she had woken up.

She always knew how to hurt Jackson the most.

Danny bent forwards, slinging both of his arms around Jackson as he pressed his chest against the other´s back. Jackson could feel Danny´s breath ghosting over his neck, could feel his heart pounding against his back and feel their sweat rolling down his back.

"Does she make you feel like this?" Danny whispered into his ear. "Make you scream like this?" He emphasised it by hitting Jackson´s prostate with each consecutive thrust, making pleasure explode in Jackson´s whole body. "Make you cum like this?" Danny´s hands found Jackson´s nipples and then he was tweaking them. Jackson let out a hoarse scream and then he was coming, shooting his sperm all over the bed. The clenching of his ass sent Danny over the edge as well, the man slipping out of Jackson and stroking himself to completion, coming all over Jackson´s back.

Both of them collapsed onto the mattress. The smell of come, sweat and sex penetrated the air and for a while nothing but their laboured breaths could be heard in the room.

"We can´t do this anymore," Danny said after a while. "It´s only destroying you. Destroying us both. And it isn't healthy, anyway, you using me as coping mechanism for whatever is going on with you and Lydia." Jackson didn't reply anything. Danny always said the same after they had done the deed. He always wanted them to stop because he thought that Lydia didn't know and that she would be broken if she ever found out. That it would destroy the friendship between the two of them, but unlike Danny Jackson knew that Lydia liked the other because – not despite – the fact that he sometimes slept with her boyfriend.

Sometimes Jackson felt bad for turning Danny into the cliché of the gay boy yearning for his best friend who was in a relationship with a girl, fooling himself into believing that one day they could have the happy relationship he wished for. Sometimes Danny would smile at him and Jackson´s heart would shatter, a burning shame welling up in his gut. But the alternative was letting Danny go and allow him to find happiness with someone else. Someone who wasn't Jackson. Everyone was always leaving him (his own parents the first but not the last). Jackson couldn't bear the thought of Danny leaving him, too, for someone else. And if he had to use sex and empty promises of a future together to keep his only friend at his side than Jackson would swallow the shame and the disgust and go through with it.

He couldn't be alone.

When Jackson didn't say anything, Danny stood up and began to collect his clothes which had been thrown all over the room.

"Will you still be there?" Jackson asked just as Danny was standing in the doorway, about to leave. The other boy turned around and the expression on his face was one that Jackson couldn't quite decipher.

"We´ll find out, I suppose," Danny replied.

"Guess that´s only fair," Jackson said more to himself than to Danny. Then the other was gone and Jackson was alone again.

iv. liquid four: tears

Heather didn't know where she was.

The last thing she remembered was going to bed after an exhausting day of school and other activities. She had been looking forward to the next day, though, because she had finally decided that she would be brave and ask Stiles Stilinski out on a date.

She always had had a crush on the other boy, but over the last few days – she couldn't exactly pinpoint when – he had become even more mesmerising. Heather found herself unable to properly express it when she tried to speak about it with her best friend Lily, but Stiles seemed to have developed a new kind of self-confidence that shrouded him like an aura and it had made him even more appealing to her than before. And she just knew that she needed to make a move before the other girls (or God forbid, that harpy Lydia Martin) noticed and took her Stiles away from her.

Heather had closed her eyes to the thought of finally being able to get the boy of her dreams, but when she opened them again it was to a nightmare. Some dark presence had taken control of her mind, had forced her to gaze at terrible things before it had made her walk out of her room, down the stairs and onto the streets. She couldn't remember much more, only this sense of helplessness and despair, and when she woke up from the nightmare she had found herself in this old cellar, the cold gnawing at her bones like a hungry dog.

"Hello?!" she shouted. "Is there someone?" No reply but silence.

"Please!" Heather sobbed. "Please!" Tears were running down her cheeks and she hated herself for it. Hated herself for how weak and helpless she was, but fear made the flow of tears continue. She could taste them on her lips, the salty tang that clung to them like an oily film.

"Don´t cry, little girl." Startled, Heather looked up to see a woman standing on the stairwell that led up to the massive iron door that separated the cellar from the rest of the world. "There is no need to be afraid." She stepped into the light that streamed through the small window near the ceiling, the only source of illumination in the little room.

Heather let out a terrified scream when she saw the terrible disfigured face the woman was sporting. There was not a single strand of hair on her head, instead nearly all of it was covered in ugly black scars that revealed the purulent flesh underneath. Its – because that was no woman, that was a monster – lips were black and when it opened them instead of human teeth there were only sharp fangs, made to tear and rip.

"Please, don´t hurt me," Heather whimpered.

"Oh, no," the monster spoke. "I won´t hurt you. I´ll make you stronger, you see. Together with the others, we´ll be strong enough that even Deucalion won´t stand a chance against us." It came nearer and Heather couldn't help but whimper when its cold fingers grasped her chin and forced her to look up at its milky white eyes. "We only have to wait until tomorrow night until the next step can be done.

You should feel honoured, Heather, because it will be your sacrifice that will help me cleanse the world of a terrible evil."

AN 2: Honestly, can no one in this fic have a healthy relationship or coping mechanisms? I promise, when Sterek finally comes it will be wholesome *nods determined*