There's a constant haze hanging low in the stagnant air of the living room. Bodies are draped over the scant furniture and are propped in lazy, comfortable piles against each other around the room. Stiles slowly shifts himself away from the heat of the woman pressed against his side. He admires her for a moment and tries to recall her name. He can't conjure even the first letter, but he knows he has seen her before, has touched her before. He remembers the softness of her breasts – now barely contained in the cropped halter top she is wearing – and the pale, delicate feature of her face. It's more than he knows about most of the people currently in his house.
Stiles extracts himself from the room, climbing around heavy-limbed strangers too mellowed by drugs even to try to move out of his way. He's more lucid than most of them; the edges of the world are softened and dulled but he's aware of his surroundings and of the stale thickness of the air inside the house.
He moves through the kitchen, the air only slightly clearer there, and out into the empty yard. Or, he expects it to be empty. Instead Stiles freezes momentarily on the back step when he is met with the sight of a man lying naked in the grass, only a guitar across his stomach preserving any sort of modesty.
The nudity doesn't shock him particularly – more often than not someone will lose their clothes at a gathering like this, and it's been Stiles himself on more than one occasion – but he is startled that someone is out in the yard, and even more startled that that someone happens to be broad and well-muscled, his skin glowing faintly in the light of the full moon.
The man strums idly at the guitar, picking out the tune of a song Stiles vaguely knows – something about wearing flowers in your hair, he thinks – and he doesn't seem to notice Stiles at first. When the door drops shut with a clatter, the man turns his head towards the sound. Stiles can just make out the outlines of cheekbones and a strong jaw, the sharpness of them seemingly untouched by the fog that still blurs the rest of Stiles's vision.
Stiles steps off the stoop and onto the soft, cool grass, scrunching his toes into the dampness of it and feeling the steadiness of the earth under the soles of his feet. "Communing with nature?" He asks. Stiles's voice is rough from lack of use and the smoke that has been permeating his house and lungs. He inhales the crisp night air and lets it soothe his throat and clear the dregs of haziness lingering at the edges of his vision.
The man pushes up onto one elbow, his guitar sliding off to one side and exposing more of his body to Stiles, and long, dark hair swinging behind him. "Full moon," the man says, and then he tilts his face up towards the glow of it and shocks Stiles by howling. The noise is long and loud, the man's body rumbling with the sound as it seems to echo for long moments before fading.
Stiles feels like he's being magnetically drawn to this man, this one lone man out in his yard literally howling at the full moon. He picks his way through grass and around discarded clothes – torn denim, a vest, a white shirt, no underwear to be seen – and finds himself standing over the man without even thinking about it.
The man looks up at Stiles with bright, clear eyes and extends the hand he isn't using to prop himself up. Stiles takes it without hesitation and lets himself be pulled down until he is sitting hip to hip with the stranger in his yard. The man stares at him for a long moment and then nods towards the moon. Stiles watches him unblinkingly until the man gestures again, raising his eyebrows in a clear challenge.
Stiles doesn't let himself overthink, just tilts his head back and howls pouring everything into it. A second voice joins his, howling in harmony until they both run out of breath and flop back onto the grass.
They don't speak as they stare up at the moon together. Eventually the silence gets filled with lazy strums of a guitar and the words slowly crystalize in Stiles's mind. He shifts enough to reach the daisies growing at the edge of the garden and picks a pair of them, tucking one behind his own ear and then carefully weaving one into a braid at the man's temple.
He settles back onto the grass and quietly begins to sing, the lyrics drift hazily through the air
If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.