24 Hours earlier…

"So, let me get this straight," Danny said as he squinted at the old book in his lap. "You want to create something called faol meadh, which you think means wolves' mead?"

"Yeah pretty much," Stiles said. He added more of the ingredients to the giant cask. Stiles had given Danny directions to the lot and the storage unit number. Apparently this was the best place he could think of to create his concoction without his father finding out about it.

"This recipe is in a different language. You know that right?" Danny knew what the answer was going to be, but he had to ask the question. It seemed sort of like his responsibility.

"Yeah obviously," Stiles said as he began to stir the mixture. "I just typed the stuff into the internet to get it translated."

"This is a recipe for fermenting mead according to the cheat sheet you printed out. That takes months, you just started doing this a few days ago." Danny was beginning to think he was speaking a different language from the boy who was playing mad scientist in the corner. "So how is it going to be ready by tonight?"

"Well," Stiles said, "I just had Jackson get ahold of some mead with similar ingredients. He's always getting alcohol of one kind or another. He wouldn't tell me the secret of how he got it, just brought it here a couple days ago. After that it was easy, I dumped it all in here then added the other stuff the internet told me was on that list."

"That's a joke right?" Danny was afraid that he already knew the answer. There was no way in hell he was going to drink anything Stiles McGuyvered together in a creepy ass storage shed on the edge of town.

"No of course it's not one of my jokes. If it had been a joke you'd be laughing. I'm pretty damn funny." Stiles added more pinches of spices and additional powders into the cask.

"Where did you even get this book?"

"It was a Christmas gift from my boyfriend," Stiles said.

Danny watched Stiles stir the fluid that was hopefully not going to turn out poisonous. He didn't want to end up in a hospital. At first he thought his only worry was going to be finding someone to kiss at midnight. He was beginning to wonder if he'd be dialing for emergency help and stomach pumping before they even started the scavenger hunt.

"Is it possible to create something poisonous by only mixing together things that are not poisonous?" Stiles turned towards Danny. Danny waited for a punchline that didn't come.

"Really?" Danny just didn't know what else to say to that. He had no idea, but he would think it was impossible. He wasn't sure he wanted to drink anything that prompted that line of questioning though. He was all for a good party, but this was turning into some weird chemistry experiment gone wrong.

Danny flipped to the next page of the book, not all of it was in Gaelic or Welsh or whatever language the recipe was in. He didn't really understand why Stiles would be interested in a drink that was supposed to 'subsume the primal instincts of a faoladh or conriocht into a human vessel'. He had no idea what a faoladh or conriocht was. It went on to talk about how during the ritual sharing of the drink that humans, particularly humans who were close to the creatures in question were likely to be compelled to act in accordance with the subsumed instincts, while the creatures themselves would be lulled by the strength of the drink.

In essence, Danny thought it basically said 'get some monsters drunk and take their powers if you're buddies with them'. It sounded like bullshit to him. It wasn't as if there were really monsters, and even if there were, the people drinking the same type of fluid meant to get a monster sloshed were probably going to be pretty epically drunk as a result. He doubted they'd be juiced up supernatural power houses. Everyone involved was probably just too wasted to realize the difference.

"So, did you read anything other than the recipe?" Danny hated asking Stiles questions, hated the answers that inevitably followed.

"Just the description at the beginning about how it was meant to get a werewolf drunk," Stiles said.

"This doesn't say werewolf." Danny turned the page back and looked again to see the words faoladh and conriocht to make sure. "It's some other language."

"I Googled it man, those things are werewolves, it'll totally work." Stiles was still engrossed in stirring his cask of unknown horror, occasionally adding more ingrediants.

"Is all of that edible?"

"Probably," Stiles said, "We're teenagers, everything's edible. I once ate a Dorito, pickle, banana sandwich on French toast."

Danny wasn't sure if it was the mental image of that or the sickly sweet smell of the alcohol in the enclosed storage unit that was making him more nauseous. Why would someone eat something like that? Did Stiles hate himself sometimes?

"That sounds… horrific," Danny said.

"It wasn't too bad, I've had worse. There was this one—"

"Don't, Stiles, please just don't," Danny interrupted the quirky guy before he could unleash another heave inducing culinary recipe.

Stiles looked down at his watch, glanced at the remaining powders and herbs on the TV tray next to him seemingly considering what to do next. Danny opened his mouth, but before he could say anything Stiles just swept the rest of the ingredients into the barrel and started stirring with insane fervor. Danny kept waiting for the lightning strike and maniacal laughter.

"Why would you care about a bogus recipe for getting werewolves drunk anyway? You know a lot of werewolves or something?" Danny laughed, what a silly concept.

Stiles froze in his stirring of the mead. Danny tilted his head curiously as Stiles turned to regard him with wide eyes. What a weird reaction, he knew Stiles was sort of goofy, but to think that werewolves were real was just flat out insane. Maybe he'd been huffing home brewed alcohol fumes for too long.

"Are you serious?" Stiles shifted nervously and went back to stirring his werewolf potion.

"Are you?" Danny supposed it was possible that Stiles had already dipped into his secret stash of mead before starting on the project. It was hard to tell, the guy was always sort of uncoordinated. "What's five times five?"

"Jackson's not said anything to you recently?" Stiles looked uncomfortable. "About anything?"

Danny swallowed the lump suddenly forming in his throat. He hadn't talked to Jackson much. He'd been really busy lately with Lydia and some advanced program that he was enrolled in doing all sorts of physical training.

"He's been busy," Danny said. "I've been pretty busy too."

Jackson had invited Danny to come to the party tonight, it had been the first time they'd made plans together since Jackson had left for his vacation earlier that summer. Danny was busy too, he'd broken up with the guy he'd taken to the formal and he'd spent most of the summer with his out of state relatives. They had talked at school, but Jackson had seemed down about something. Danny kept his distance waiting for Jackson to come to him but it hadn't happened yet.

"Well," Stiles said, "I think we're all going to learn a little bit more about each other tonight. Help me bottle this stuff up."

Danny sighed; it'd be hard to learn anything about anyone if everyone was in the hospital…