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Stiles was drunk and Derek wished he was.
“Man, I feel so warm. You ever notice that? I mean, scientifically, being drunk, it dilates your blood vessels, why you shouldn’t drink when you’re freezing. You only feel warm, while you’re actually, like, bleeding out your warmth through your skin. Maybe if you swaddled your face and your body, to keep that heat in, maybe then it might do something, but not many people are going to think that far ahead and if they’re in the position to be dying from cold…well, I suppose I’d want to be drunk and freezing rather than sober and freezing. Man, my lips are NUMB.” He lifted those long, deceptive fingers to his own lips, pressing at their drunk-flushed fullness. The tips grazed his lips, tugging as they slid across the plush flesh.
Derek closed his eyes tight, trying to not see, but, instead, he saw in vivid contrast the flush lips and long, delicate-looking digits. Saw those fingers in detail, remembered their impatient play across tables, chair backs, Stiles’ own knee caps. What Derek would give for those fingers to be on his skin, touching his lips… he’d catch the pads on his teeth, bite gently before sucking them in, one by one. But no, instead, Stiles was playing with them himself, lost in the alcohol and the feeling, intensified but fuzzed around the edges.
Derek had been drunk. He’d been told that certain strains of wolfsbane could induce a state not unlike alcohol intoxication. He’d had a cousin, born human but at 18 had elected to take the bite, take the chance that his mother’s blood had cheated him of a chance to be wolf, rather than keeping him safe from the death promised by a body primed to reject their curse. Either way, the cousin had experienced both and had deemed them equal. So, Derek knew pretty much exactly what Stiles was feeling, down to the distant haze. Emotions, while magnified in some sense, were at a distance, an unseen barrier between the devastating reality and the present. He would never rob Stiles of this escape, even the hangover would distract him from the shitscape his life had become.
Derek opened his eyes, Stiles had been quiet for too long. He’d know if Stiles had left, the teenager’s movements too heavy to be anything but silent, but quiet and Stiles were like oil and water, given enough energy they could make a slurry that looked cohesive but, given time, they’d separate and become distinct, clear that they’d never actually been one. A silent Stiles meant energy, and not always good energy.
Derek immediately regretted his decision. Stiles was staring into the fire but his fingers, his fucking fingers, were in his mouth. Well, to be honest, only one was inside his mouth, suspended between teeth casually bared and gently denting skin, the others were laid softly against lips.
A deep groan escape from the depths of Derek’s belly. He immediately felt his body flush and thanked the darkness and wash of warm red light from the fire that hid the blood flowing to the surface of his skin.
Thankfully, Stiles stopped playing with his lips. Instead, those blown pupils shifted to Derek’s face, a questioning look in those glazed eyes.
Choosing action, Derek stood, shoved his water bottle into Stiles’ chest, and, his voice rough, said “I will not clean up your puke, Stilinski. Fucking hydrate.” Then, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, made his way into the trees to check the perimeter.