Breathing

by missmishka

Summary:

After the events of 2x08 "Raving," all that matters to Isaac is that Scott keeps breathing.

Notes:

DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories, thoughts or circumstances embellished on a little more than the original format had done. Not for any profit.

Chapter 1

The veterinarian doesn’t want to let him in and the man had enough magic protecting the place that Isaac knows he won’t be able to force the issue.  His hands curl into the wooden door frame; made from mountain ash to dispel creatures of the night like himself.  His claws extend and bore into the wood as he puts on his more innocent and harmless expression.

“Come on,” he urges as Dr. Deaton keeps his body solidly placed in the opened doorway to physically bar the entrance. 

“They need rest,” the man sighs, finally stepping aside with obvious reluctance.

Isaac rushes inside without acknowledging the comment.

The back door leads almost immediately into the operating room where Scott is lying motionless on a cold stainless steel table.  Something lurches within him at seeing that; McCall lying unmoving.

His eyes dart around the room and he finds Derek leaning tiredly against the wall; watching him.

“Where’s Erica?” the Alpha asks with a familiar glower taking shape on his face.

“Taking care of Boyd,” Isaac answers with the speed and honesty of a teen that knows fists tend to accompany expressions like the man wore.

A curse and sigh escape Derek at those words; he slumps back against the wall with the glower wiped from his face.

“I forgot,” he confesses softly, rubbing wearily at his forehead.  “He should have been brought here.”

“He went back to the station…”

“You need to bring him here.”

Isaac hears the order but for a moment balks at it, his eyes inexplicably drawn to the still form on the table.

“I haven’t figured out how,” yet, Derek’s tone implies, “but the doc seems to know something about what he’s doing.  Scott’ll be ok.”

Isaac jumps guiltily at the rare reassurance from his Alpha and determinedly looks away then forces himself to leave the building as quickly as he had entered it.

He passes Stilinski on his way out and growls low in his throat when the other teen is granted entrance to the establishment without any challenge to his right to be there.

Just for that, Isaac doesn’t hesitate to hop up into the kid’s abandoned Jeep.  He’s fully prepared to tear out the steering column to get at the wires to hot-wire the vehicle, but, regretfully for him and luckily for Stiles, the keys are in the ignition.  He starts it and tears off without a backward glance.

He doesn’t get to drive often; never having been allowed much time behind the wheel of his father’s car and never having been given an allowance or permission to work a job so he could actually save up to buy his own vehicle.  He grinds the gears a little as he finds the right one to pick up the most speed and he grips the steering wheel tightly while bearing down on the accelerator.

This has been one hell of a night and the confusion of it leaves him craving distraction; an outlet for his churning thoughts.  Reckless driving and high speeds are the perfect release; especially in Stilinski’s Jeep because if he wrecked it, what the hell could the kid do to him?

He arrives at the entrance to the old subway stop far too quickly for his liking; causing him to curse yet again the smallness of this damned town.  He jams on the breaks, grinds the gears into park, turns off the engine and takes the keys from the ignition. 

One seriously could not just trust in the goodness of people and leave the keys in the ignition of a vehicle no matter how small the town; Isaac being case and point of that lesson which he is happy to teach Stiles.

He hurries past the barricades across the entrance to keep people from poking around the abandoned depot and navigates the defenses Derek has added to keep out any who might want to explore the Alpha’s new den.

“How’s he doing?” he asks Erica as soon as he makes it into the rail car where she’s tending to Boyd.

She looks up with an angry twist to her lips that does nothing to hide the worry in her eyes. 

“How the hell should I know?  He’s still breathing,” she dabs at the other wolf’s face as sweat rolls off it.  “I think it’s getting worse.”

“We’re getting him outta here,” he nudges her aside to bend down and pull Boyd up.

Even with the strength given to him from the werewolf, Boyd is no lightweight and with him unconscious while his body struggled to fight the Wolfsbane the other teen is a literal dead weight.  He doesn’t struggle with the burden; could have managed just fine on his own, but Erica slips herself under Boyd’s right arm while Isaac pulls the left across his own shoulders.  Between the two of them they get their packmate to the Jeep in minutes.

“Stiles?” she stutters to a stop at the sight of the Jeep and looks around as if expecting to see the bumbling teenage.

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at her for having any kind of reaction to Stilinski, Isaac continues onward to dump Boyd in the backseat of the vehicle. 

“Stiles let you borrow his Jeep?” Erica asks with an arched bow and disbelieving sneer as he digs out the keys and gets behind the wheel.

He doesn’t acknowledge the question because the answer is really obvious to anyone with even the basest brain function.  She gives up waiting for a response when he starts the engine; rushing to jump into the passenger seat before he can leave without her.

He pushes the speed limits of the old beater on the way back to the vet’s office; grinning with satisfaction when Erica’s hands move to brace, white knuckled, on the dash to keep her from being thrown around during the ride.

Dr. Deaton is waiting for him this time and ushers him inside with a red carpet virtually rolled out for his return.  He follows the veterinarian’s direction to put Boyd in another room then gladly steps aside to let the man work.  Erica remains, watchful as Boyd’s shirt is cut away to reveal the bullet holes Argent’s men had put in the guy. 

An unexpected wall stops him from backing too far, too fast from the room and only the familiar sense of his Alpha keeps him from startling like a little girl.  Derek’s hand clamps down on his shoulder and helpfully shoves him out of the way so that the man can move into the room to watch the vet work on the wounded member of the pack.

One watchdog down, Isaac thinks, seeing his Alpha nicely occupied with Boyd.

One to go, he steps into the room where Scott still lies unmoving on the table and glares at the teenager bowed over the unconscious werewolf.

“You have any idea how dumb it is to just leave your keys in the ignition?”

Isaac twirls said keys around his index finger as Stiles’s head whips around to gape at him.

The fish out of water impression is spot on, as always, and Isaac smirks maliciously to prod the other teen into action. 

Stilinski rushes to grab the keys from him; mumbling curses and threats as he races out the door to check on his beloved Jeep.

Left alone with McCall, Isaac finds himself at a loss for what to do.

His feet move slowly to the table until he assumes the position Stiles has just abandoned.  He braces his hands on the cold metal edge of the gurney and drops his head forward to hang over the still form.

He hears the wheezy rasp of air still struggling to move through Scott’s lungs; hears the irregular beat of the boy’s heart.  He can smell the foul traces of the Wolfsbane that that bitch had used to try killing the kid.

If it had been anyone else, Isaac could understand the malice of Mrs. Argent’s plan; could have applauded the creativity.  But she had focused her venom on Scott McCall, of all people, and werewolf or not Isaac doesn’t understand how anyone could want to kill this one.  

Sure, Isaac has fought the guy and would undoubtedly battle him again, but never with the intent to kill.  Even before tonight he’d never had any desire to hurt Scott.

After tonight he’s left with this insane urge to do something like protect the other boy.

Scott’s too trusting; too earnest to deal with some aspects of this life; the harsh realities that have been the only thing Isaac has ever known.  He wants to shield the young man from those realities.  He’s used to the brutality that leaves it’s scars inside and out of a body, his father had conditioned him to it for as long as he can remember; there’s no reason for a person as good as Scott to take such abuse as well at this point in his life. For as much as he might scorn and scoff at that goodness, it would be a real crime to see it tainted with cynicism and distrust.

Isaac had been given a choice to become this; Derek had sought him out for his weaknesses and offered him strengths that he was all too happy to accept along with the consequences.  Peter made the decision for Scott without any consultation with the teenager.

Scott’s body jerks suddenly; jarring him from his thoughts.  The tanned torso rises as a breath labors to enter McCall’s lungs while his throat seems to be constricting.

Unbidden, Isaac’s hand moves to touch that bare skin, sliding over warm flesh until he can press against the center of Scott’s chest to force the boy back down on the table.  He’s seen CPR enough to know the basics and his other hand moves to position Scott’s head to a better angle to aid in breathing before he bends to put his mouth over the other boy’s.

Thinking only of that wheezing breath struggling in Scott’s lungs; Isaac breathes deeply to force air past the resisting muscles of the werewolf’s throat.  He feels the chest beneath his fingers expand with the breath, but knows it isn’t enough until Scott’s breathing on his own.  He puffs another breath into the boy’s mouth then pulls away to apply pressure to the sternum and force the lungs to expel the air. 

Once the lungs are deflated of that breath he immediately moves to force fresh air into them; repeating the process until Scott suddenly rears up under him with a gasp of breath all his own.  Isaac falls back; both relieved and regretful that Scott appears revived.

The kid sits up and immediately doubles over; sucking in oxygen with the greed and gratitude of any asthmatic would after a near death attack, his hands grip the edge of the table with enough force to dent the stainless steel before he gains enough control over himself to let go.

“Jackson?” Scott gasps out.

“Got away,” Isaac replies softly, shaking his head in wonder and disbelief that the guy’s first thought after all of that was concern for their objective of the evening.

“Are you ok?”

He can’t help but laugh at that and once started the sound doesn’t stop; he knows he sounds like a maniac but he allows himself the excuse that it’s been a long and rough night.  He finally winds down when he realizes that Scott’s studying him with some real concern in those dark eyes of his.

“Have you noticed that you’re back at the vet’s office having nearly been killed yourself and you’re asking if I’m ok?”

Scott’s head tilts to the side; considering him and his words.

“Are you?”

Any urge to laugh is sucked from him along with his breath as those eyes just look at him.  It’s not just that Scott has these eyes that can seem to see into a soul; it’s that the guy seems to want to see what’s in your soul and, even more troubling, he cares about what’s inside of you no matter how bad or dark or secret. 

Until earlier tonight Isaac hadn’t let himself notice that, but Scott had gone and shattered his deliberate ignorance of how powerful those eyes were by adding words to the mix.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

It’s hard not to read into a statement like that with the guy looking so intent and sincerely at him.  Harder still to brush it aside as meaningless when Scott’s sitting there with a hint of pallor still leeching at his tanned features and all he cares to know at that very moment is that Isaac hasn’t been hurt.

So, really, no.  Isaac isn’t ok.

Because all he wants to do is put his hand back on Scott’s chest to push the boy back down then put his lips back over Scott’s so that he can allow himself to learn what that mouth feels and tastes like during a kiss.

 

Chapter 2

The strain of holding himself finally gets to be too much for Scott and the guy eases himself back down on the table. 

Breathes are still rasping through his lungs; harsh and labored in a way that curls Isaac’s fingers with the want to feel Mrs. Argent’s neck squeezing to breathlessness in his hands. 

“Allison?” Scott asks, putting a weary hand over his eyes for added cover against the glare of the overhead fluorescent lighting.

Merited or not, Isaac feels rather smug at having had his welfare asked after before McCall brought up the name of his girlfriend.  He drifts back to recover the distance that he had fallen back from the table when Scott sat up, drawn nearer to the weakened werewolf.

“Haven’t seen her,” he answers honestly, silently adding that he wouldn’t have looked for the girl or taken any note of her welfare even if he had managed to spot her in the chaos after Jackson went creepy, crazy Kanima and killed the raver.

Apparently Erica isn’t the only werewolf capable of being catty, he thinks with no small measure of self-disgust.

“This is bad,” Scott groans, rubbing at his eyes before dropping his hands to his sides.  “She’s going to hate me for this.”

“So let her,” Isaac can’t stop himself from declaring as his hands grip the edge of the table while he leans over Scott and fights the urge to touch.  “It’s her mother that went batshit insane and tried to kill you in a truly sadistic fashion.  Have you recovered enough of your senses yet to consider that maybe you should be mad at Allison?”

Those dark eyes slowly open to blink up at him with such innocence that Isaac’s wolf feels an urge to whack the guy upside the head just on principle to try to get McCall to understand that he could get seriously hurt by being so trusting.  Because having had his girlfriend’s mother try to kill him just doesn’t seem to have made that impression on Scott.

“She doesn’t know what her mother planned.  I can’t be angry at Allison for any of this.”

“But she can be angry with you because of it?” Isaac sneers, trying to at least make the guy realize that he currently has his head up his own ass with this logic.

Scott sighs; the action eliciting a wheeze as his chest collapsed with the exhalation.  He struggles to sit up once more, sensing that Isaac is itching for an argument and at least knowing enough not to take that lying down.  When he slouches forward, exhaustion and defeat in every line of his young body; Isaac can’t bring himself to care anymore about anyone with the name Argent.

“You need to rest,” he finds himself moving to put a hand on Scott’s shoulder.

The lightness of his touch surprises even Isaac because he suddenly can’t remember a single time since his mother died that he’s touched or been touched with any semblance of gentleness.

Scott’s body jolts at the contact and his head turns to look first at the hand on his flesh before following the line of his arm to Isaac’s face. 

His body jolts when those dark eyes lock with his own.

Isaac imagines that his gaze shows much of the same confusion he sees stirring in Scott’s eyes.

He’s about to pull his hand away and bolt when a pained growl sounds from nearby; jolting them both back to the memory of where they were and why.

“What happened?” Scott asks while sliding from the table to go investigate before Isaac can stop him.

“Boyd,” Isaac begins as he bolts around the table to grab the other boy as he starts to collapse, “got shot.”

He doesn’t bother to lecture Scott for having gotten up; knowing a waste of breath when he sees it.  Nor does he try to stop the guy from moving towards the doorway to seek out the other injured wolf. 

“The Argents were on a roll tonight,” he continues, wrapping an arm around Scott’s bare waist and slinging one of Scott’s arms across his shoulders to hold the boy up as they moved together from the room.  “While mommy dearest was killing you; daddy was putting trying to put holes in Boyd and Derek.  He succeeded with Boyd.  Wolfsbane bullets.  Those in-laws that you want are really dicks, you know that?”

He stops talking when he realizes Scott has stopped progressing forward and is almost entirely being carried by Isaac.  He feels the weight of warning in those eyes even before he looks around to see what the holdup is.

“It’s not her fault,” the boy grinds out, glaring at him with a snort of angered breath flaring his nostrils.

Again recognizing the futility of argument, Isaac gives a careless shrug and turns away like the whole topic bores him; which it actually rather does.  After a moment of silence and a deliberate step forward that lifts Scott off his feet to move along whether he wants to or not; McCall resumes shuffling along the short distance to the room where Dr. Deaton is digging a shell casing out of Boyd’s side.

Derek alone is holding the wounded wolf down while the veterinarian works and Erica looks on with an angry helplessness. 

Isaac understands her conflicting emotions better than anyone else.  The Alpha had lured them into this world of werewolf strength, abilities and senses with the promises that they’d never again have to be weak, beaten and vulnerable again.  They signed on to the pack without catching on to the fine print that nothing in this world can protect you from harm and helplessness as long as one lives and breathes with a brain in their head and heart in their chest.  Feelings happen as long as one is conscious and nothing changed the reality the feelings often hurt.  All the bite and pack has given them is the physical power to strike back to hurt some of the people that might hurt them and it finally made him and her part of a ‘them.’

She looks to him as he staggers to a stop in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb and unconsciously pulling Scott to lean against him.

For a moment he’s allowed to see the sheen of emotion in unshed tears in her eyes, but then she looks at Scott and blinks all traces of vulnerability away. The bravado returns and she tosses her head to flick back her long blonde hair and it’s like all her worries fall behind her with the settling mane.   

One thing he’s learned quickly in the time that he’s gotten to know her; when all else fails, she would be a heartless bitch so no one can see that she felt a failure.  He has yet to work out how to be a total bastard to follow her example.  She’s doing a good job of patterning herself after Lydia Martin, but Isaac is not about to use Jackson as a role model.

Scott stirs against him; trying to pull away to venture closer and assist his boss in fixing Boyd, but Isaac instinctively stops that by tightening his hold around the boy’s waist.

“They’re almost done,” he justifies his restraining grip when the other werewolf’s hackles visibly rise. 

He expects a fight given the low growl that accompanies the bristling, but his hand starts stroking Scott’s skin and the other boy just relaxes back against him without argument.

 They all fix their focus on the table as Dr. Deaton drops the last bloody bullet in a nearby pan and straightens with a swipe of his forearm to erase a trace of sweat from his forehead.  Boyd appears unconscious from the procedure and Derek eases up on his grip while the vet administers a shot to counteract the Wolfbane poisoning the boy’s defenses.

Isaac’s fingers curl a bit into the soft muscle of Scott’s side as his mind supplies an image of what it must have been like for the herb to have permeating his lungs and veins.  The struggles for breath that he had seen in the other room were at the tail end of Scott’s battle against the poison; he couldn’t imagine what it must have been like before Derek got the boy to this safe zone. 

He remembers all too clearly that strangled howl for help that they had all heard when Scott could finally take no more of that woman’s torture.

“Isaac,” Scott leans in closer; speaking as low as possible in an obvious want of some privacy with all the wolfen hearing in the room.

Isaac blinks away from his thoughts and the unsettling sight of Boyd now lying unfamiliarly still on a gurney.  He looks down at Scott and realizes how close they are, how their sides are pressed together from shoulder to foot and how one of them had to just turn a fraction for them to be pressed together chest to chest; groin to groin.

“Dude,” Scott breaks that little fantasy apart by frowning up at him and shifting awkwardly against him, “you’re petting me.”

Stiles, and God help Isaac if he ever has to say or think this ever again, Stilinski saves him from having to fumble for an explanation where he had zilch.

“Never,” Stiles breaks into the scene with an aggravated sigh, “ever, touch my Jeep!”

“Again,” Erica tacks on with a daring smile flaunted in the boy’s direction.

Isaac glances over his shoulder in time to see Stilinski roll his at the interjection. 

“He’s not dead is he?” the teenager shoves his way into the room, carelessly separating Isaac from Scott.

The instant his arm dangles emptily at his side, the wolf bristles and Isaac growls with a glare of intent at the interloper’s head. 

He takes one step; just one fricking stutter of motion forward and every eye in the room suddenly turns to glare at him.  Derek’s chest rumbles with the beginnings of that roar that Isaac has no intention of hearing aimed at him ever again and the beta immediately drops back against the doorframe.

Erica gives him a warning shake of her head and he can feel Scott tense beside him, waiting to spring forward in defense of his best friend. 

The veterinarian’s hand seems to be hovering over a second syringe on his tray of equipment and Isaac has no doubt it’s loaded with a sedative that Deaton is prepared to use on him if he so much as sneezes in Stilinski’s direction.  Isaac considers making a comment along the lines of hoping it works better than the ketamine that had done so much of nothing against the Kanima earlier.

He’s surprised Boyd doesn’t rear up from the table long enough to warn him off Stiles before passing out again.

Was he the only one not in love with that goober?

The red eyes glaring at him past Stilinski’s shoulder are a reminder that there is one very good reason why he must never do that boy harm; the Alpha was a total goner for the teenager.

Isaac hunches in on himself; making his body as small as possible through years of practice at trying to disappear into his surroundings for survival.  His head drops forward toward his Alpha and he unconsciously tilts to the side to expose his throat and shoulder in a primal show of submission to the older wolf. 

The turn of his head focuses his gaze on Scott and realization hits him like a kick in the balls followed by a right jab to the jaw.  McCall has never submitted; never fallen in with any of these pack dynamics and he stands strong; apart from Derek’s fledgling group. 

With Scott looking at him in that moment, Isaac realizes he doesn’t want to be cowed like this.  He wants to be able to embrace the powers within him after Derek’s bite.  While he might not be able to prevent himself from getting hurt in this life; Scott sets the example that one doesn’t have to blindly submit to an ideology to cope.

He stands straight, squaring his shoulders and turning to meet Derek’s gaze, but the Alpha’s eyes have gone back to normal and are no longer paying any attention to Isaac.  Stiles is talking and that is the man’s sole focus; no matter the condescending words that Derek speaks in response to the boy’s babbling.

It’s always entertaining to watch those two together as no one gets to Derek like Stiles seems completely unaware that he does, but tonight Isaac watches with a new interest.  He’s never dated anyone; boy or girl, and his mother’s been gone for so long he hasn’t really seen anyone in a relationship to where he knows what one actually looks like.  He’s observed many couples over the years out of curiosity and some want of what they had, but none of those other relationships have been like Derek and Stiles.

He doesn’t see either of them as ‘gay,’ but the way they fit together is undeniable; even if they both currently denied it.  He wonders if they have hang-ups about their both being male; if that’s what stops them from embracing the chemistry they had rather than nipping at one another’s heels for attention.

Isaac considers his own sudden pull toward Scott and wonders if he’s gay or if it’s just Scott or if it’s just been a really long-assed overwhelming day.

Suddenly exhausted, he decides that regardless of the other options, it has been a really long-assed overwhelming day and they would all need to get some rest to face the fallout some morning.

His sigh is one that he simply can’t hold in; not something intended to drawn attention to him, but he finds all eyes upon him as his jaw unhinges on a deep yawn.  He snaps his mouth shut as Derek fishes his car keys out and throws them his way.

“One scratch and they will never find so much as a hair follicle after I finish with you,” the Alpha issues a new variation on his old threat. 

“How will you get home?” Erica asks while Isaac already knows the answer to that one without hearing it.

Derek’s eyes go to Stiles and Stiles’s eye go wide like he had had no idea he’d end up driving Derek home. 

Again.

They should either just get a room already or their own sitcom, Isaac thinks with fuzzy humor as sleepiness begins to warp his thoughts.

“I’ll help you get Boyd home,” the girl volunteers, but Deaton shuts her down on that idea.

“He’s had a heavy dose tonight and needs someone to look after him.  If you’ll move him to the couch in my office, I can monitor him through the night,” the vet adds to Derek.

“But Scott-“ she argues for some reason known only to her.

“Has a mother waiting at home who is a nurse.”

“I’m fine,” the boy in question declares over Deaton’s interjection.  “I just want to get to that home now and sleep in my own bed.” 

Isaac jingles the keys to the Camaro in a universal ‘let’s go’ signal and looks around the room to make sure that there are no more delays. 

Erica looks from him to Derek then back and heaves a sigh before shifting to indicate that she’ll be leaving with him.  Her gaze locks on the jangling keys and a bounce enters her step as she picks up the pace to snatch the keys from his hand and hurry from the room.

“Do not let her drive!” Derek shouts with genuine panic in his eyes as he moves to give chase.

“Relax,” Scott settles the Alpha with a wave of his hand.  “I’ll drive.”

He turns to leave with that declaration, moving better under his own steam, but still sluggish from his ordeal.

Without hesitation, Isaac follows; curls his arm back around Scott’s waist and draws the boy against him in a supposed offering of support.  They move a few steps away from the room before McCall grinds to a stop. 

Out of sight of the others and possibly out of Derek’s hearing range with Stiles heard to be talking once more at Boyd’s bedside, Scott turns to him and pointedly looks down at the hand Isaac has on his flesh.  Scott doesn’t have to say a word for Isaac to know that his wayward fingers had immediately begun to ‘pet’ again when they had come into contact with the boy’s waist.  Isaac can see his thumb idly rubbing a circle into Scott’s side, but he can’t seem to stop the motion or peel his hand away and after a moment; McCall doesn’t seem to mind.

“Any idea where my shirt is?” he suddenly asks like he doesn’t shed the thing to show off his torso not less than twice a day.

A breeze blows a chill in the back door that Erica has apparently left open and Isaac watched goose bumps rise over the boy’s exposed flesh and his dark brown nipples harden in a way that makes Isaac realize how those little nubs kind of perk up in a way that asked for fingers to tweak them.  His fingertips tingle at the thought of brushing over those nipples to turn them hard with arousal in place of cold.

His hands lift as if to dare such a touch just as the blare of a car horn shatters the moment.  He forces his hands to continue their upward motion to tug off the plaid shirt he’s wearing over a loose fitting tee; making it look like that had been his intent to begin with. 

“Here,” he extends the garment in offering to Scott.  “They probably had to cut yours off so the doctor could save your life,” he adds when the boy hesitates to take the shirt.

With obvious confusion and curiosity at Isaac’s sudden chivalry and obvious concern since arriving at the clinic; Scott accepts the top and slips it on.  He pauses to laugh as the long sleeves dangle past his hands before he pushes his hands out and begins to button the shirt.

“Thanks,” he pauses after fastening two buttons to give Isaac a fleeting; almost shy glance before he returns his focus to buttoning up to cover his torso.

Isaac just watches those fingers nimbly moving over buttons and kicks himself for providing concealment for that leanly muscled chest.  He realizes that thoughts like that probably tip the scales rather solidly towards the possibility that he’s gay.

Then Scott is finally fastened into his borrowed shirt and he does something that tells Isaac that it’s more than a possibility.  Scott’s fingers smooth down the collar of the shirt and his head dips toward the shoulder to take a discreet yet undeniable sniff of the top.

“It’s warm,” he smiles; grateful and sincere as he wraps his arms around himself; clearly appreciating cover from the cold night air.

Too long a day to be thinking, he reminds himself while hustling Scott out of the building toward Erica as she laid on the horn of the Camaro to get the show on the road.

 

Notes:

*I realize in my rewatching of the episode that Isaac *isn't* wearing a button-up shirt over a tee, that's really kind of Stiles's thing, but I'm leaving the scene as is with that goof because the idea of Scott buttoning up a shirt is a lot hotter than the idea of Isaac pulling off his long sleeved shirt (which does appear to have another shirt under it) and giving that to Scott.

Chapter 3

Notes:

In re-watching the episode a few more times, I realize I've made more errors than Isaac's shirt, like the fact that Scott was wearing his shirt as Dr. Deaton worked on him and the fact that Derek wouldn't have had the Camaro at the clinic since he told Boyd to take the car and go. I'm the type of person that really *hates* those little inconsistencies, but I really like how this story is coming together as it is, so forgive and overlook the errors and I hope you enjoy the journey.

Despite a great deal of huffing and puffing against the idea, Scott pulls the Camaro to a stop in front of Erica’s house to deposit the girl on her doorstep.

She could have gone back to the den with Isaac; as she’d argued; after they’d seen Scott safely home, but that would meant an end to the night without him having any real alone time with McCall since the rave.  Isaac finds himself needing that alone time more than he cared to have Erica in full on diva mode for the indefinite future because she hadn’t gotten her way with him or Derek.

He sits in an awkward silence with Scott after she departs the car with an unnecessary slamming of the door.  He knows Scott is waiting to make sure that she gets inside safely because he’s not the type of guy to dump a girl off and just leave without a backward glance, but the time it takes her to teeter off in her high heels seems endless.  He shifts his long legs uncomfortably in the passenger seat and reaches down to fiddle with the lever to make sure he really did have the seat pushed back as far as the car’s design allowed. 

He looks at Scott but the other boy’s eyes are busy tracking Erica’s progress into her home and he marvels at the complete lack of leering in that expression.  Even Isaac isn’t immune to the sight of her lithe body moving with such unconscious strength and deliberate seduction; the way she swivels her hips and thrusts out her modest breasts.  He’s quickly coming to see her as something like a little sister, but that doesn’t stop his eyes from watching the way her miniskirt flirts with the tops of her thighs in a way that makes him wonder if it was fair to call the bit of material actual clothing.

Scott, though, he looks after her departing form like a brother; showing only concern for her safety until she’s inside the house.  He relaxes his grip on the steering wheel once she’s disappeared from sight and Isaac doesn’t have the heart to tell the kid that she wasn’t necessarily free of danger just because she was ‘home.’  He’s back to wanting to protect McCall from the unseemly reality that the girl was likely to be denigrated and hit if her father happens to be awake to catch her coming in at such a late hour wearing such a skimpy outfit.

Derek had a definite ‘type’ in mind for the members of his new pack and Isaac wonders; not for the first time, why the Alpha liked children of abuse for his objectives.

Is it because they’ve already had much of their rebellion broken by their parents so the Alpha has no real concern that they’ll defy his rule?  Or can it be that Derek truly has some want to see them strong and confident as werewolves; able to right the wrongs that have been inflicted upon them in their childhood?

His wrist twinges subconsciously and he rubs at the fully knitted bones that his Alpha had broken so callously in training days before.  Somehow Isaac doubts any altruistic motives in the man’s selection for recruitment.

“I thought you hadn’t been hurt,” Scott frowns upon seeing him rubbing at the faded injury.

Before Isaac can say anything to explain himself the other boy grabs his wrist with surprising gentleness and pulls him around to investigate the arm.  Words die in his throat as Scott’s dark head bends over his forearm while his fingers gently probe the length of skin from wrist to elbow seeking the cause of Isaac’s discomfort.

“It seems to have healed,” the boy concludes when his eyes detect no bruises and his fingers feel no bumps or breaks beneath the surface of skin.

“I could have told you that,” Isaac’s voice croaks a little as he pulls his arm away from those warm, caring hands.

He doesn’t know what to do with that kind of human contact.  He doesn’t know the protocol or expectation for reacting to such touches; especially when Scott likely means it all in a purely platonic way.  Pack or not; Scott probably sees Isaac as some kind of surrogate family like Isaac sees Erica, only Scott really did only feel a brotherly care for him.

He shifts again in the seat, thankful for the odd angle of his legs to hide the growing bulge in his pants as he tugs at the hem of his tee shirt to add extra coverage; just in case.

Scott settles back in the driver’s seat and moves to put the car in gear before his hand hesitates to carry out the action.

“Where are you going tonight?” his gaze flicks over with curiosity and concern.

The reminder that he has no home to go to; that he hasn’t even the façade of family with his father gone; has an immediate dampening effect on his arousal from Scott’s touch.

“I have a place,” he answers, turning to stare blindly up at the night sky while thinking of the pitiful pile of pillows and blankets that make up his ‘bed’ in the subway car Derek has claimed as his new shelter.

He feels Scott’s eyes boring into his back; skeptical and not believing his words for a second.

“Right,” he hears Scott mutter before he turns his attention forward and puts the car in gear.

Scott has been causing him to act weird since the day on the lacrosse field when he’d known the guy was trying to scent out the other werewolf on the team.  He’d been energized and excited by that moment; by the thought of a confrontation with McCall; of pitting his body against Scott’s.  When they had met in mid-air and tangled together he had felt a connection with the other boy, but hadn’t understood it.

Still didn’t.

He fidgets some more and curses himself for it as he stares down at the darken windows of the McCall residence.

“Doesn’t look like she waited up for you,” he observes idly, head tilting to see how Scott’s reacting to the unwelcoming house.

A heavy sigh escape s Scott at the words and he turns the ignition off before briefly dropping his forehead forward to press against the steering wheel.

“I think she’s giving up on me,” he whispers it like Isaac’s ears wouldn’t have heard him even without the heighten hearing of a wolf.  “I think I’m technically grounded until I die,” he adds louder, speaking too Isaac now. “I should already be inside, not sneaking in  at,” he lifts his head enough to stare at the digital clock on the stereo display, “2 am?!”

“It’s been a really long-assed day,” Isaac shrugs at the disbelieving look the boy gives him at seeing the time.

“It’s been a really long-assed year,” Scott rubs tiredly at his forehead.

Try a really long-assed life, Isaac thinks but isn’t about to say in the face of the guy’s vulnerability.

Scott sucks in a deep, bracing breath and straightens in his seat.  He pulls the keys from the ignition, unbuckles the seat belt only he had bothered to put on when the three of them got in the car then opens the door to get out.  Isaac blinks and frowns after him, mouth opening to question his actions because he still needs to get back to the den.

The other boy gets out of the car and closes the door before Isaac can formulate a reaction.  He moves his legs around to get his hand on the handle to open his door.

“Hey,” he calls out as Scott pockets the car keys and begins to shuffle toward his home, “I need those.”

“No.  You don’t,” the boy disagrees without looking back.

Isaac cast a glance up and down the deserted street with all the darkened homes of suburbia.  With a bitten off curse he climbs out of the car and quietly closes the door before jogging after the boy.

“How am I supposed to get back to the depot?” he growls lowly once he gets alongside Scott.

“You’re not going back there tonight,” Scott digs the keys out of his pocket long enough to lock the doors and set the alarm with the remote key fob then he tucks them pack in his pants.

“Really?” Isaac huffs , but swears his huff is nothing like Erica’s earlier tantrum when Scott hadn’t been willing to agree with her.

Scott stops and turns to him, looking oddly small in Isaac’s big shirt as he hunches his shoulders against the cold.

“You can stay here.  For tonight,” he tacks on when Isaac probably looks as startled as he feels by the suggestion.  “You should have an actual bed after a day like today and I need someone to keep an eye on me and I’d really rather not wake my mom.”

That seems logical enough that he can accept the excuse without feeling like a horny teenager for latching onto the idea of sleeping with Scott McCall.  Because it really sounded like he would be sharing that actual bed with Scott.

He feels the other boy’s eyes on him; both asking and telling him to follow him into the house and Isaac just gives a nod, keeping his own eyes averted.

They resume their walk in silence and he slides his hands into his pockets to suppress an oddly strong urge to touch Scott. 

Rather than head for one of the doors to gain entrance in any normal way, Scott surprises him by scaling the wall to swing up into his second story bedroom window.  Muttering about ‘wannabe Spidermen’ Isaac follows the other boy’s example.

“Bathroom’s right there,” Scott nods toward a partially ajar door to the left as soon as Isaac settles inside the room.  “It has a second door in from the hallway, so make sure you lock that when you go in.”

He moves to his dresser and rifles through the second drawer.

“I have some jogging pants that should fit you if-,” he begins to offer, but Isaac cuts him off with a shake of the head.

It was one thing for him to give Scott his over shirt when the other guy was topless and cold, accepting pajamas from the guy to sleep in for the night while also sleeping in the guy’s bed with Scott seems overly intimate and makes Isaac twitchy on several levels.

Scott takes the rejected offer in stride, selects a pair of fresh bottoms for himself then closes the drawer before vanishing into the bathroom.  Isaac stands awkwardly just inside the window, keeping his hands in his pockets while looking around at the other boy’s domain.

He rushes gratefully into the bathroom when Scott returns from getting ready for bed; trying not to notice how the guy is only wearing a pair of well-worn jogging pants tied loosely at the waist to hang low from the jut of his pelvic bone.

He doesn’t have to use the bathroom once inside, he just needed the escape; the privacy.

He avoids his reflection in the mirror as he wonders what he’s thinking; what he’s feeling; and, most importantly, what Scott is thinking.  His hand grip the porcelain of the sink as he hunches over it, breathing deep and slow for calm.  When he thinks he has some kind of grip on himself he dares a glance in the mirror and bites off a curse at the flush he sees on his cheeks. 

Embarrassment or arousal or both; he doesn’t know or care as he turns on the cold tap and runs water to fill his cups hands to splash over his face.  His shirt gets wet from the run of water down his neck and he pulls it off; uses it to towel himself dry before tossing it towards the pile of clothes he can easily identify as Scott’s.  He likes that the kid isn’t some kind of neat freak even as his hands curl into fists against the urge to straighten the room and put those clothes in the laundry hamper as the ghost of his father screams at him to be doing.

Thinking of his father is effective as always is wiping out any thought or emotion that might be good and Isaac is finally able to face Scott without embarrassing himself.

He slips from the bathroom and considers leaving the light on and door ajar when he sees that Scott has turned on the lamp on his desk to cast some light into the room. He doesn’t know if Scott always likes to sleep with a light on or if he somehow knew that Isaac would need it and he doesn’t say anything about it because he’s just grateful not to have to try getting rest in complete blackness.

Scott has the left side of the bed claimed, so Isaac shuts the bathroom light off then circles around quietly to sit on the right side of the mattress to take off his shoes and socks before standing briefly to ease his pants off and leave only his boxers as coverage.

He settles down again on the edge of the bed, preparing to slip under the covers when the sudden touch of fingers on his side spurs him back to his feet with a noise he refuses to call a squeak.

“Jesus!” he turns to gasp, holding his side in surprise while Scott nearly falls off his side of the bed apologizing.

“You can’t just,” Isaac waves a hand agitatedly from his nearly naked body to Scott’s and back again in a speaking gesture. 

“Sorry,” Scott’s face twists into a woefully contrite expression that makes Isaac feel like he’s just kicked a little pup.  “I just…your side,” he nods his head and waves a hand toward the patch of flesh Isaac is covering to hold in the fleeting feel of Scott’s fingers having touched him there.

He frowns and looks down, removing his hand to see the three faint bruises left from the deepest jab of Jackson’s fingers from when the asshole injected him at the rave.  Fortunately for Erica and Isaac the paralytic hadn’t been as potent through the layers of their clothing so it hadn’t stopped them from getting the guy out of the club, but it had left a mark that was slow to fade as the venom delayed his werewolf healing abilities.

“Oh yeah,” he chuckles at the marks, “I actually forgot about that.”

“So you did get hurt,” Scott’s jaw flexing as the words grind out from his mouth.

“Seriously,” Isaac expels a slightly exasperated breath, rolls his eyes and flops down on the bed to stare at the other boy, “what is this sudden obsession with me being hurt?  It’s like I’m not used to it.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Scott looks at him with something indefinable in his gaze.  “You shouldn’t be used to it,” he clarifies upon seeing Isaac’s confusion.  “No one should have to go through what you have let alone adapt to it.”

Ice forms in the pit of Isaac’s stomach at those words and he looks at his pants and shoes on the floor; wondering if he should bothering putting them on or just grab them as he flees.

“What is it that you think I’ve been through?” he has to know before he runs.

“Derek showed me-” is all Isaac hears him say before the fury deafens him.

Isaac can only imagine what horrors the Alpha had had to show and tell of his secrets and the idea of Scott; of anyone knowing Isaac’s secrets and shames…Derek had gone too far.  He growls, panting as he feels his eyes changing in the dim lighting.  He suddenly knows that the lamp had been turned on for his benefit and he lunges after the object as if it's responsible for his anger.

His hand swipes out viciously to take hold of the lamp and yank until the cord pulls from the wall to darken the bulb.  He’s on the verge of hurling the offensive thing against the wall when Scott’s hand clamps down on his wrist.

“Enough,” is all Scott has to say; firm and undeniable order in the single word with unflinching strength in the dark eyes he stares at Isaac with. 

A low growl rumbles in his chest to counter the snarling sound issued from Isaac’s.  The sound doesn’t intimidate Isaac into backing down like some of the howls Derek uses, but the wheeze and cough that quickly overtake the growl take any anger from him as he watches Scott double over hacking for breath.

He feels his claws retract, only realizing that they had unsheathed as he uncurls his fingers from the lamp to set it back down on the desk.

“Scott?” he frowns with concern as the boy seems to be going into an attack.

“Inhaler,” he gasps out with a pointed look toward a desk drawer near Isaac’s hip.

He moves without hesitation to tear into the indicated cubby until he finds the inhaler.  He turns back to Scott, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder to urge him back to sit on the bed while forcing the device into his hand.

His hand trembles as he shakes the inhaler to stir the medication within and Isaac wants to steady him with his own touch.  He’s petting again; rubbing at Scott’s back in a motion he can’t control as he struggles with a need to just connect; to pass some of his strength through the touch to ease the struggle for air.

“Hate…this,” Scott gasps between hits off the inhaler.

He isn’t familiar with asthma, but if this is what it was like for Scott before Peter’s bite healed the ailment then Isaac decides that he hates it, too.

Chapter 4

The spasms constricting Scott’s lungs and throat finally ease and the boy flops back on the bed; dislodging Isaac’s hand from his shoulder. 

Scott throws and arm over his eyes and places his other hand on the center of his chest; as if monitoring the rise and fall to assure himself that he’s actually breathing. 

Isaac can only stand awkwardly beside the bed and watch; fingers twitching for something to do while his mind and body debate to stay or go.

Once his chest stops heaving and settles into an even rhythm that almost makes Isaac wonder if he’d fallen asleep; Scott sighs and moves the arm from across his eyes.  He stares up at the ceiling for a few minutes; thoughtful and far too serious.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he finally says, turning his head to look up at Isaac.

The words have apology written all over them and warn at the beginnings of a real conversation that he does not want to have; causing Isaac to bend to pick his things up from the floor.

“Forget about it,” wishing that they could both just do that.

“Put those back,” Scott sits up to order upon seeing the bundle in Isaac’s hands.  “You’re staying here tonight.”

He freezes like that; feeling ridiculously guilty and justifiably foolish as those dark eyes just look at him.  He sees more apologies in those brown depths and knows Scott will beat himself up with guilt if Isaac leaves, but the idea of staying is, quite frankly, scary.

“Seriously,” Scott props himself on his elbows with a self-deprecating grin, “do not argue with me.  If I have one more episode like that tonight, I think I’m going to tear my lungs out and see if I can grow a new, healthy pair.”

“Gruesome,” Isaac huffs out a slight laugh and sits hesitantly sits back down on the mattress.  “Might be worth it to see if that’d work.”

Scott’s eyes narrow to indicate he’s not seriously going to try tearing any of vital organs out just to see how extensive the werewolf healing factor is and the look makes Isaac grin wider.  He bends to put his things back on the floor while the other boy moves over to make room for him on the bed.

It’s a double, so they settle on their backs beside one another beneath the blankets.

Suddenly neither of them has a thing they can think to say and they just lie there looking up at the dark ceiling.

Isaac swears he can hear crickets chirping.

In Nevada.

If he strains his heightened senses, he imagines he could probably hear the grass growing.

“Are you comfortable?” Scott shifts to look at him after a few minutes of increasingly painful silence.  “I can get you another pillow.”

“No,” Isaac shakes his head a little more emphatically than intended; unused to such consideration.

The other boy turns on to his side to stare at Isaac with a look of consternation.

“Is this blanket enough?”

“Its fine,” Isaac smiles at Scott’s determination to put him at ease.

“Are you too hot?  I usually end up kicking off everything but the sheet anyway, if you want to dump the top cover.”

“I’m fine.”

Scott lies back down again, but isn’t still as he stares up at the ceiling this time; he fidgets almost as badly as Stilinski.

“Do need a glass of water or anything?” he twists his head around to look at Isaac.  “Have you eaten?” Isaac senses more than sees the distracted frown on Scott’s face.  “We could go raid the fridge if you’re hungry.”

“I’m fine,” Isaac groans and rolls over onto his stomach, pushing his head under the pillow.  “Just need sleep.”

“Right,” Scott says after a moment and Isaac imagines him nodding his agreement.  “Sorry.”

He shifts around for a comfortable position; hands and feet occasionally touching Isaac’s prone form with a quickly muttered apology at each accidental contact.

Isaac grunts at an elbow to his side and pulls the pillow away enough to glare at the other boy in growing annoyance.

He doesn’t say anything; doesn’t have to as his blue eyes shine in the darkness to show his discontent.

“Sorry,” Scott’s lips twist in wry apology. 

“Don’t be sorry,” he huffs, jamming the pillow back over his head, “just be still.”

“Sor-“ a low growl from Isaac’s chest stops the word before Scott can repeat himself.  “I’m just not used to sleeping with anyone except Stiles and he talks.”

“It’s 3am,” Isaac sighs and turns on to his side to stare at the other boy.  “You want talk?”

“No,” he frowns, then sighs at himself and flops on to his back. 

Scott holds himself still and quiet for a minute; lulling Isaac into a false sense of security.

He turns on to his right side to stare at the far wall while tucking the pillow under his head in a somewhat comfortable position. 

“The night of the last full moon,” the other boy begins hesitantly just when Isaac has begun to believe sleep is possible yet this night.  “While Derek was getting you out of jail…I had Allison lock me in that freezer.”

Isaac goes deathly still; not having to ask what freezer.

He can sense Scott holding his breath after the confession; clearly expecting another fit of anger at the words.  Isaac is too confused to be angry at the idea, though.

“Why?” he rolls to face the other boy.

“Seemed like an idea at the time,” Scott lies staring up at the ceiling, a bitter twist to his lips.  “It was there; I was there; the moon was rising higher.”

He turns on to his side to face Isaac.

“Did he always put you in there?”

“No,” Isaac sighs the word and rolls to face the wall again.  “He wasn’t always like that.”

“Why did he-“

“I don’t know,” he interrupts tiredly.  “I’ll never know now.”

Tentative fingers breach the space near his shoulder; hovering in wait of a reaction without touching actual flesh. He turns on to his stomach, shifting away from that hand and putting the pillow back over his head in a clear indication that he doesn’t want to hear or say anything more.

The fingers follow him down, though, pressing against the back of his shoulder.

“We’ll figure out who’s controlling Jackson,” Scott promises with a reassuring squeeze to his shoulder.  “We’ll find out why he killed your dad.”

Isaac frowns against the mattress for a moment before rolling to dislodge the hand and express his frown to the boy.

“You actually care?” he focuses his eyes intently for manipulation.

“Don’t you?” Scott frowns back at him; his confusion unfeigned.

Isaac isn’t about to reveal how much he does, but doubts he’s at all successful at keeping the truth from those dark eyes watching him so intently.

A jaw cracking yawn overtakes anything else that McCall may have added and he drops back on his side of the bed as the exhalation seems to drain him.

“Go to sleep,” Isaac orders, putting his hand to Scott’s shoulder with the intent of playfully jarring the guy.

His hand has other ideas, though, and it moves to the center of the other boy’s chest; absorbing body warmth while feeling the steady beat of a strong heart.

A ridiculously big heart.

“Yeah,” Scott snuggles down into the mattress.

His hand lingers as he feels the boy actually relaxing for sleep.  When the moment grows a bit too long for his sanity, Isaac moves to pull away and settle himself down to rest.

Scott’s hand comes up to touch his wrist; stilling his withdraw.

“Could you leave it?” he asks quietly, looking at Isaac in the darkness.  “It…steadies me.”

Despite his better judgment, Isaac finds himself nodding in agreement to the request.  Scott gives a fleeting smile as he releases Isaac’s wrist; his fingers trailing over the flesh in an accidental caress. 

Isaac’s body is too tired to do more than shiver in response to the touch, but his mind is still active enough to capture the content for remembering later. 

He shifts for a more comfortable position; ending up lying on his stomach, close to, but not really on Scott’s chest as he presses his palm closer to the boy’s heartbeat.  The rhythm seems to give s lurch then settles into a normal pattern.  After a moment, Scott’s breathing grows deeper as sleep begins to slacken his muscles.

Unbidden, Isaac’s body begins to mimic the restful beat of Scott’s heart and the even pace of his breathes.  His fingers capture the motions of Scott’s body and taken them in.

The contact steadies him, too.

Chapter 5

Isaac doesn’t know what wakes him; only knows that it is a painfully bright morning sunlight pouring in through the window.

And that he has a painfully hard case of morning wood pressed against Scott’s surprisingly soft ass.

At some point in their sleeping they had moved.  The blankets are gone from covering them leaving only the sheet; just as Scott had said would happen. 

It surprises Isaac that the other boy seems to be a restless sleeper because at that particular moment, Scott is lying peacefully still and soundly asleep.

In Isaac’s arms.

His body is curled around Scott’s and it’s a perfect fit of their forms with the slightly smaller McCall tucked against Isaac’s chest.  His right arm is draped over Scott’s side; elbow crooked slightly to insure the other boy stays close to him while his hand is still lying flat against the other boy’s chest.  Their legs are loosely tangled with Isaac’s right thigh pushing between Scott’s with his foot hooked under the other boy’s calf. 

His forehead is pressing against the back of Scott’s neck and he pulls slowly away as the intimacy of their new position sinks in to his rapidly waking brain.  He licks his lips, which had been breathing against Scott’s shoulder, and tastes salt; what can only be a faint trace of Scott’s sweat transferred from the other boy’s skin.

Isaac licks his lips against for another taste, but finds that the first swipe of his tongue had apparently erased the slight residue. 

Scott remains oblivious as Isaac gives in to a compulsion to put his mouth back against that shoulder; lips parting and tongue slowly slipping out when the other boy doesn’t stir.  He feels like a total perv, but can’t seem to stop his animal senses from clamoring for more.

More taste; more smell; more feel.

He licks a path to Scott’s neck, pushes his nose into the hollow of throat and shoulder then inhales deeply.  He detects the typical male scents of musk, sweat and deodorant; Axe Essence, Isaac knows only because he had poked around some in the guy’s medicine cabinet while in the bathroom.  Beneath those smells, though, is something strong and addicting; something unique that can only be the essence of Scott McCall.

Isaac’s fingers curl slightly into Scott’s pectoral as he presses his nose in further to absorb the scent into himself.  He feels something between a moan and growl building in his chest to rise from his lips with a faint vibration against Scott’s skin.

His foot pulls back on the calf his leg is twisted around and he uses it for leverage to grind against Scott’s butt.  The friction doesn’t do anything to ease his erection, but he can’t stop the motion of his hips as they rock against the other boy.

He wants to roll Scott on to his back and crawl on top of the boy; wants to grind himself against Scott’s groin and feel the other boy harden while they kiss.

His mind is suddenly flooded with thoughts and fantasies about Scott and sex; like his subconscious has been creating the vivid images for ages and can’t wait to share them all now that he’s ready to open himself to the idea of being attracted to Scott.

More than ready.

Isaac’s breathing is getting harder to keep quiet as he moves against the other boy more urgently.  His hand strokes slowly down Scott’s chest to press into the softness of his abdomen; wanting to trespass beneath the boy’s jogging pants to see if Scott’s aroused at all by this or any dreams the other boy may be having.

As if reading his mind, Scott suddenly groans and squirms toward Isaac’s hand.  With a twist of his hips he dislodges Isaac’s touch from his stomach and jostles it down to the soft cotton tenting over an obvious hard-on. 

Isaac would like to say that he groaned too at the contact, but when he’s honest with himself he’ll admit the noise he makes is a rather pitiful whimper.  His hand jumps away from the hard jut of flesh and he stops all movement with his heart thudding in fear that the other boy is on the verge of waking to find himself thoroughly molested.

A frown puckers Scott’s features at the cessation and he pushes his body back against Isaac’s; moving in obvious demand of more.

“Don’t stop,” the boy mutters, twisting toward him.

Scott squirms to lay flat on his back and Isaac heart rabbits away with the realization that he can now spread himself atop the other boy.  He can touch and taste Scott’s well-defined and leanly muscled torso; can nip that jaw and kiss those lips.

He moves eagerly to do these things, sliding on top of Scott and pressing his lips to the side of the boy’s neck to mouth his way up to the jaw while he pushes his hips against the rigid line of Scott’s erection.

“Mmm,” Scott moans, one hand going to Isaac’s waist to encourage the grinding while his other hand goes to his neck to guide Isaac’s lips to his own as he shifts for a kiss. 

“Allison.”

A silver bullet packed with Wolfsbane and shot into his gut would have been far kinder than that single exhalation; sleepy and seductive from Scott’s lips.

Isaac feels something inside himself shrivel as he freezes there.  He wants to run again as he feels his erection fade so quickly it might never have been there.

He wishes it had never been there, because he’s knows he’d never had a chance with the other boy, but those eyes had looked at him with such promise at the rave and those lips had spoken so sincerely of a want for Isaac not to get hurt.

Hurting him is something Scott apparently had intended to do himself, Isaac concludes as he struggles with the gutted feeling of the other boy thinking of his girlfriend when Isaac’s dick was poking him.

For all he knew, maybe the Argent girl had one too.

 If Scott speaking the girl’s name hadn’t immediately killed all of his desire, Isaac’s random visual of Allison with a dick would have done it.  As it is, he doubts he’ll be able to get an erection again any time soon.  Within this lifetime.

His mind suddenly grinds to a halt on that disturbing train of thought as his body finally succeeds in transferring the knowledge that Scott has gone equally still beneath him.

“Isaac?”

He doesn’t look up at the soft, confused utterance of his name; just keeps his eyes where they had fallen to stare blindly at the bedding.  He can’t handle the other boy’s disgust and rejection as he realizes it wasn’t his precious Allison mouthing at his skin and touching him so intimately.

Hearing his name on Scott’s lips is finally enough to spur his sluggish brain to finally give the ok for his body to flee, but he finds that he can’t move.

“Isaac?”

Scott’s hand grips the side of his neck, thumb pushing up under his chin in demand for acknowledgement as he repeats himself more firmly.

There is an Alpha in McCall, whether he has donned the official mantle or not, and Isaac’s wolf obeys the firm tone even as the boy within him begs to just be gone from this sudden nightmare.

He looks into Scott’s eyes, gulping with fear of what he’ll see there.

Confusion is the most easily recognized emotion in those dark depths as they stare intently up into his own eyes.  The bewilderment is in the lines puckering Scott’s forehead and in the twist if his lips as he clearly seeks something to say in the moment.

While he considers words, his body acts; hand stroking unconsciously over Isaac’s neck in a gesture that makes him want to collapse on the boy and just be held. 

“Wha-”

Before the word finishes to begin what would undoubtedly been an incredibly awkward conversation; Scott’s bedroom door suddenly opens to make the incredibly awkward scene unbelievably more so.

When Scott’s mom pushes into the room and staggers to a shocked stop at the sight of him lying atop her son with Scott’s hand stroking his shoulder; Isaac doesn’t hesitate to bolt.  Scott is too busy gaping at his mother to make any effort to stop Isaac as he grabs his things off the floor and dives out the window.

 

Chapter 6

Isaac hides.

After dressing in the bushes behind Scott’s house and sending Derek a quick text to let the Alpha know where his car is, Isaac walked the town aimlessly for while.  The den was a definite no go destination and he didn’t want to go to the aunt that had reluctantly accepted responsibility for him after his father’s death.

He ends up at home because he needs the familiarity of his room.

His key unlocks the back door because the locks won’t be changed until the house is sold to some new family with a kid to overtake his room.  His hand goes to the kitchen light switch to flick on the light despite the fact that he doesn’t need it with the sun pouring in through the windows along with his heightened senses making him able to see even if were dark.

Turning the light on is habit; the normal action of someone returning home after a time away and he needed normal just then.

He closes and locks the door before setting his house key on the counter as he had countless times in his nearly seventeen years of life.  He paces two steps further before freezing and going back to those keys to pick them up off the counter and carefully hang them on the key tree hanging on the wall beside the door.  He stares at the keys blankly for several minutes; hones in on the empty peg where his father’s main set of keys should be hanging.

It’s an oddly powerful reminder that his father is not there and after a shaky breath Isaac pulls his house key down from its peg and places it back on the counter.  If his dad didn’t like the disorderly placement then he’d just have to rise from the grave and make Isaac move them.

Isaac is disturbed by the realization that he’d welcome his father’s return; dead or alive.

Chilled despite the warm spring day still dawning; he moves to the refrigerator.  He pulls the door open and stares in at the dark innards of the appliance.  The absence of light surprises him more than the emptiness of the fridge and he blinks before straightening to check the freezer.  He realizes that the thing has been unplugged only after he finds the freezer compartment empty and not at all cold.

He supposes it makes sense that his aunt would have taken the food, but his fingers still grip the handle to the freezer compartment until the imprint of hard plastic feels bone deep.  She’d been busy in the weeks since his father died; coming over a few days here and there to pack up a bit more of his life.

Evidence of her work is all around him in the empty packing boxes leaning against the kitchen table and the stack of packed and labeled boxes that he sees in the corner.  She had expected him to help her with the chore, but it had been one of many things he had balked at since being turned over to her ‘care.’ 

This is the first time he’s been back since … since.

He flinches at the suddenly vivid memory of glass shattering; so real and loud in his head that he can see his father hurling the pitcher at him and feel that shard once again embedding itself in his cheek.  His fingers go to his face; sure they’ll find the jagged piece of glass poking from his skin, but there’s nothing there.

Just as there are no shattered remains of dishes on the kitchen floor.

It makes sense that his aunt would have swept that hazard up, but he feels an insane kind of outrage that she had done it.  He should have cleaned it up.  It was the last thing his father had asked him to do; make this kitchen neat and spotless.

She had beaten him to it, though, even going so far as to straighten the picture that he had skewed on the wall when he’d fallen against it.

Coming in through the back door had been a mistake as it put him immediately back in the worst night of his life.

He shakes himself away from the memories and leaves the room; practically running for his bedroom.

The slam of the door is familiar and comforting to him as he leans against the barrier like it alone can keep the past at bay.  His eyes close tightly as his claws extend to dig into the wood while he tries to calm his suddenly panicked breathing.  The familiar scent of his room under a faint dust from his absence eventually calms him enough that he can open his eyes and move from the door. 

It’s not as he had left it; his sanctuary.

Pieces are missing from the room; much as he fears them to be missing from himself.

Most of the stuff is there because there wasn’t room for him to really be moved into his aunt’s house, but he senses her on everything.  She had been in here to gather the clothing and supplies she thought he would need most.  He supposes he should consider himself lucky that everything hasn’t been packed away into boxes with labels scrawled on the sides in black marker; saying things like “Isaac’s useless fascination with model airplanes” or “Isaac’s wasted efforts to do well in school to impress his father.”

The want to destroy it all rises up within him and his hands curl into fists against it.

He moves to flop tiredly down on the unmade bed; stripped bare of all covering as his aunt had thought he’d prefer to sleep on her couch covered with his own blanket and pillow.

Just as Scott had the night before when the storm of his asthma attack had passed; Isaac throws an arm over his eyes and tries to shut out the world.

Somehow it manages to work and he falls into darkness with relief.

When he stirs again he knows that he has slept and that hours have passed because there’s no longer sunlight coming through the window.  His first thought is that it had all been a dream; that it all could have not happened and that he could expect to hear his father pounding on the door any minute now to jump him for sleeping a whole day away.

He slowly pushes himself to sit up; staring at the door as if the knocking would really come.

His shoulders slouch after countless minutes of fruitless hoping and he heaves himself from the bed with a sigh.

He shuffles to the bathroom to make use of the facilities and take a shower; lavishing in the overly hot water that had been sitting unused in the water heater.  He uses a towel from the hamper to dry himself off then wrap around his waist for cover because the ones that usually hung on the wall were absent thanks to his aunt’s working. 

His deodorant is gone from the countertop along with his toothbrush and he knows just where they are among the clutter of his aunt’s bathroom.  He turns his head to envision another bathroom in the small house with another countertop with the supplies he needed to truly freshen up.

Morbid curiosity moves him more than any real interest in brushing his teeth or applying antiperspirant to his pits.

Light from the kitchen bleeds out into the hallway, but he doesn’t need the faint illumination or his wolfish eyesight to navigate the distance.  He knows this house inside and out; could find anything in it blindfolded.

Or could have before his aunt had begun to put his world into boxes.

He finds several of the cursed things inside his father’s bedroom. 

She really went to town in here.

Almost everything was gone from the walls and surfaces in the room and now resided in cardboard cells with labels like “Goodwill” and “storage.” 

Isaac is drawn to a partially open box sitting on the corner of his father bare mattress.  The black marker writing on the side of the box reads “Isaac?” like she didn’t know what to really do with anything inside the box.  He pries back the flap of the box to peer inside; holding his breath in preparation for what he might find.

The first thing he sees is his five year old self laughing up at him from a family picture.  He’s perched on his father’s shoulders and vividly remembers laughing with delight at being taller than the tallest of giants from that lofty perch while his mother warned his dad to be careful as she took the picture.

She had been dead within days of taking that picture and Isaac tries to remember when he has felt that happy or carefree since. 

For a time after that his father had tried. 

Isaac remembers that; remembers the man being there for him as they both grieved the loss of that amazing woman.  What he can’t remembered is when it changed; what he had or could have done to make his father give up trying and just hate him.

He sniffs against the direction of his thoughts and determinedly moves that picture aside to dig deeper into the box.  His father’s trophies are there; those he had won as an athlete and the more recent ones achieved as a coach.

His fingers falter to a stop over the latter as something begins to itch in the back of his brain.  He pulls out the last trophy his father had won before he quit coaching; 2005 Regional Swim Championships.  The 2006 season had not been a banner year for the team and his father had left the school after that.  After that his father had turned his full and wrathful attention on Isaac.

What happened in 2006?  He frowns at the trophy like is can or will somehow disclose the answer to him.

A familiar chirp and vibration reaches his ears and he turns his frown toward the open door to glare in the direction of his cell phone as it rang.  He lets it go unanswered and puts the trophy back in the box before carefully folding the flaps closed as he can’t see any other personal effects that might go in with the pictures and memories.

He casts a glance toward the dark recesses of the master bath but finds himself no longer interested in minty fresh breath or Old Spice to cover any sweating he might do.  He picks the box up and moves from the room; pausing to shut the door firmly behind him as he leaves his father’s realm.  He carries the knickknacks with him back to his room and sets the container on his dresser while he begins searching for something to wear. 

His expectations are low that he’ll actually find anything in the closet or dresser and his aunt doesn’t disappoint.  Everything’s gone.

Stifling a growl of frustration he casts his eyes around the room for inspiration then looks at the towel threatening to fall from his hips and almost smacks his forehead as realization strikes. 

He goes back to his bathroom and dumps the laundry hamper on the floor.  He finds a pair of socks that don’t kill him with the odor of feet and a tee shirt that only has a trace of sweat soaked in under the arms and around the crew neck.  He digs into the pile and comes up with a pair of jeans with a grass stain on the ass that he thinks he got from being thrown from the McCall residence by a Scott fixated on protecting his friends.

His hand fists in the denim at thoughts of the other boy and his closes his eyes against a wash of confused and conflicting emotions.

Here; in this place that has been witness to so many of his traumas, Isaac allows himself a moment to admit that he has no idea what is happening to him and that it scares him.  More than his father’s anger or the untamed energy that the wolf elicits within him; his feelings for Scott make him afraid because it’s all so damned unknown to him.

His phone sounds again, causing him to start from his thoughts at the overly loud and artificial noise.  He recognizes the alert that he has a text and moves to retrieve his cell from the pants that he had left on the floor beside the shower stall.

He actually smiles at seeing notifications for ten missed calls with seven voicemails left along with a record twenty-two texts messages displayed on the phone’s touch screen.  He looks briefly at the call log to see who he’d missed; mostly Derek and Erica with two tries from Boyd’s cell and one number that his phone didn’t recognize to put a name to.  He wonders at that unknown caller and stifles a hope that it was Scott even though he doesn’t see how the other boy could have gotten his number.

The voicemails can wait as he isn’t in the mood to hear what anyone may have had to say to him while he had tried to stay off the radar.

He opens the newest text first and stifles a curse at seeing an all caps message from Derek.

Pack.

Now.

Somehow, he doesn’t think that the Alpha is indicating that he thinks Isaac should be helping his aunt to box up the contents of this house.

Chapter 7

Notes:

I'm opting not to take this series the same direction that the show has gone; so it's pure and complete alt-canon after 2x08.

Isaac hunches his shoulders against the moist chill of the deepening night and walks the streets from his home to the depot without paying much attention to his surroundings.

He dials into his voicemail to see if any of the messages can give him any kind of insight into what he can look forward to once he meets with the others.

Four of the messages are his Alpha; one from the night before as an obviously Derek checks in to update him on Boyd’s condition followed by an early morning message after the guy apparently went to Isaac’s aunt’s house looking for him.  That message and the two after from Derek are just variations of the Alpha snapping or snarling to know where Isaac is and ordering Isaac to call him.

In the middle of Derek’s messages is the first of two from Erica. 

“So, sweetie,” her voice drips amusement and he can easily imagine her arching brow and wicked grin as she drawls her message, “a little birdie just sang in my ear the most fascinating little tune.  Something about Derek’s car being left on the street outside Scott McCall’s house after having been parked there all night.  And the last that car was seen, you had it and Derek wasn’t able to find you at the station or at your aunt’s, so this little birdie has me having all kinds of thoughts about just where you were all night.  Call me back or I’m sending Derek to Scott’s and I’m betting we find you there.”

He scoffs at that and is glad he bolted when he did because the idea of being with Scott when the pack came knocking is only a little more embarrassing than the fact the Ms. McCall had seen him with Scott.  Erica’s second message doesn’t inspire any amusement; wry or otherwise.

“Daddy’s really angry and, frankly, Ise, I’m almost worrying now.  Call me back.  Or text even,” she pauses and not for any dramatic effect because the next part is spoken so quietly he knows she’s trying not to be overheard.  “Can you just let me know you’re ok?  Please?”

He feels bad at worrying her, but her flippant use of “daddy” struck him on a nerve left exposed by his return home.

The second to last message is from Boyd; a simple and direct, “Just call Derek.”

From the unknown number there are no messages and Isaac deletes all of the messages with a sigh of disappointment.

The texts are more of the same; mostly Derek ordering him to check in and Erica taking the softer approach to ask him to let them know that he’s alive.  Even her messages start getting all capital letters and bold font as the day went on without him contacting anyone.  Boyd throws in a message telling him to, “Just text Derek.”  And there’s even a message from Stiles wanting to know why people are asking him where Isaac is; “like they weren’t a pack of werewolves and why didn’t they just sniff around or something to track him down.”

Buried in all of that is one single, short text that his phone had received around noon from the unknown number whose call he had missed around that same time.

“Don’t hate me.”

Isaac stares at those three little words for a moment before saving the number to his contacts with Scott’s name then shoving the phone into his back pocket.

The idea of him hating Scott after this morning is laughable, but he takes it as oddly comforting because if Scott is worrying about Isaac hating him then that meant Scott most likely didn’t hate Isaac.

He tucks his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans and tries to figure out where that might leave them. 

If they eliminated hate as something they felt for one another then what did they feel?

When he arrives at the entrance to the depot his steps falter to a stop at the sight of Derek’s Camaro parked on the street.  He assures himself that it’s only logical that the Alpha would have gone to retrieve his transportation and that it doesn’t mean that Scott’s there.  Rather than reassuring him, though, that realization causes him to fold in on himself just a little further.

His cell phone twitters again with an incoming text as he’s navigating the path into den and he waits until he’s just outside the entrance to the platform before he digs the thing out to check the message.

“WHERE ARE YOU?” Erica’s message demands to know.

He steps out of the shadows and opens his mouth to announce to her that he’s “right here,” but he doesn’t get more than a squeak out as he’s suddenly grabbed and thrown against the wall.

“WHEN I CALL YOU, YOU FUCKING ANSWER,” Derek is in his face with red eyes flashing.

Erica and Boyd flank the Alpha; their expressions matching in intimidation to warn of dire consequences if he ever again ignores the pack like he has today.

“Geesh,” he frowns at them all and shrinks back from Derek’s hold, “I’m sorry.”

“Where the hell have you been all day?” the Alpha demands.

“I went home,” he answers with quiet honesty.

The fists in his shirt slowly ease their grip at the words while Boyd and Erica go from intimidating to oddly understanding.

“You couldn’t have sent me one damned text to say that?” Derek steps away with a glare.

“I texted you to tell you where your car was,” Isaac defends himself.

“I don’t care about my car,” the Alpha’s eyes flash while the words pin Isaac to the wall more effectively than his manhandling had.  “We’re in danger here.  I need to know where you are and when.  No one ignores a call or message from anyone in this Pack, is that clear?”

Those red eyes lock with Isaac’s until he nods his sincere agreement before Derek nails Boyd then Erica with the same look until they give their agreement.

“There’s something I have to say now that we’re all here,” Derek announces before moving toward the one actual chair in the place; which Isaac often thought of as the Alpha’s throne.

They all follow the man to claim something to sit on for his announcement.  Isaac knows it’s bad without having to see the tension in those broad shoulders. 

He wants to mention that Scott isn’t here; to delay whatever is coming and also just to have some confirmation that the other boy is part of their pack now, but he bites his tongue because he doesn’t know if he can face McCall yet.

“I need to say this before Scott gets here,” Derek leans forward with his elbows bracing on his knees to prop up his chin on steepled fingers.  “Last night I fought with Allison’s mom.  She was trying to kill Scott and she even stabbed me.”

Isaac wants to hurry the man past this part because he thinks they all know this by now.

“During the fight,” he pauses to sigh and scrub tiredly at the stubble on his jaw.  “I bit her.”

The words freeze Isaac and he feels a similar shock of tension take hold of the others.  The implications are staggering.

“You bit an Argent?” Erica asks with caution.  “Does that mean she’ll turn to a werewolf now?”

“It means that I haven’t heard any news of her dying today so the bite didn’t kill her.  Whether she allows herself to turn into a werewolf is something we won’t know until the full moon tomorrow night.  Regardless of the choice she makes; I infected her and Argent is not going to let that slide.”

“What choice could she make?” Erica asks with a frown of confusion.  “I thought it couldn’t be undone once you were bitten.  If it doesn’t kill you, it turns you?”

“The bite doesn’t have to be what kills her,” Boyd provides the answer quietly.  “They’re Hunters.  They kill our kind.”

“Mr. Argent’s going to kill his wife?!” she jumps up to pace at that notion.  “That is just too twisted to be possible in any universe.”

“Chris probably won’t have to do it,” Derek slouches back in his chair.  “Victoria’s a diehard.  She’ll never allow herself to become something she hates.”

“So she just kills herself?” Erica sighs and moves to lean against a pillar with a determinedly careless posture.  “And I thought my family had issues.”

“Regardless of what she does,” Derek straightens, ignoring the girl’s mumbled add-on.  “We have to be ready for what Gerard does.  He came here to avenge Kate.  After this I don’t think Chris will even try to hold him back.”

“So this means war?” Isaac asks; seeing the brace for battle in the line of his Alpha’s shoulders.

“On every possible front.”

“Tell me you’re joking.”

They all go motionless; not even breathing at the words that announce Scott’s presence among them.

“Allison’s mom,” the boy staggers into the middle of the gathering to stand before Derek.  “You killed Allison’s mom?”

“I only bit her,” the Alpha stands to face the accusation.

“’Only?’” Scott jeers in disbelief and a sarcasm that’s rare for the boy.  “There’s no “only” about that bit.  What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” Derek spits out with a raw honesty.  “I was acting and reacting.  She was killing you and I didn’t have the luxury to think.”

Scott’s chest heaves with angered breaths as he stares at the Alpha in fury; refusing to accept the words.

“Do you honestly think I would jeopardize the Pack – my life – by choosing to bite an Argent?”

The tension stretches between them while Isaac holds his breath; expects to see them Wolf-out and tear each other to pieces at any minute.

“Shit,” Scott suddenly exclaims with a defeated breath and Isaac is pretty sure it’s the only time that he has ever heard a cuss word come out of McCall’s mouth.

“Fuck,” he follows the first immediately with a second; more vehement exclamation and turns away to angrily kick an empty crate from the platform to splinter to pieces against the side of the subway car.

They all watch him pace; sensing the rare anger within him and waiting for signs that his Wolf is winning in Scott’s eternal battle for control over the primal urges of the beast within.

Isaac watches him struggle and feels a compulsion to jump up and offer some kind of support, but he stays still; can’t move as he has to see what Scott does on his own with this new knowledge.

For the second time that day, Scott voices one single thing guaranteed to wound Isaac deeply.

“Allison,” the boy whispers, running his hands through his dark hair and hanging his head.  “She must be….I have to…. GOD!”

“You can’t go to her right now, Scott,” Derek moves to block the boy from fleeing.

“I have to,” he pushes past the Alpha without even a flinch at the weight of the reddened eyes aimed at him.

“Scott,” Derek calls out without enough command that the boy actually pauses on the threshold of the entrance.  “I can’t protect you if she sides with her family on this.”

“And I can’t protect you,” Scott looks back with a flash of amber in his eyes.  “Not after this.”

The words echo in the silence Scott leaves behind him.

“Go,” Derek is suddenly beside Isaac, putting a commanding hand on his shoulder.  “Keep an eye on him.”

Isaac scrambles to his feet to obey the order; jogging towards the entrance rather than full out running after Scott.

“Use your damned phone and stay in touch this time,” Derek barks just before Isaac ducks from sight.

 

 

Chapter 8

It’s like a scene from a Shakespeare play or something equally sappy to make the girls swoon and guys like Isaac gag. 

He hides behind a tree across the street from the Argent house as Scott stares longingly up at the glow of light from the room Isaac identifies as Allison’s; mostly from the moony way McCall is staring at it.  He’s seen enough movies to know that the next part is Scott flinging pebbles at the window and Isaac looks at the decorative sandstones placed around the base of the tree; considers picking the largest one up and flinging it at Scott’s head to see if he can knock some sense into the teenager.

Not that Isaac thinks he has a real grasp on sense himself as he hugs closer to the tree and glares up at that window. 

Just as he can see the appeal in Erica, Isaac sees Allison’s attractive features; her eyes are pretty, her lips lush, her hair a dark fall that looked like it would unbelievably silky to the touch.  Her breasts aren’t overblown, but are definitely enough to draw and appreciative male glance and he has looked more than a few times at her butt and thighs because she’s very nicely toned and shaped and sometimes she wore tight pants that really showcased those assets.

If his arm were being twisted, as people seemed to like doing to him these days, Isaac might even admit that she’s a nice girl.

But his arm isn’t being twisted at the moment; his gut, possibly even his heart is as he watches Scott just looking up at that stupid window.

Just when he thinks he can take the inaction no longer, the other boy takes a deep breath and leaps up the wall to the roof over the garage then to the windowsill with a series of motions that scream at a familiar routine.

Allison’s dark head appears in the window as Scott hangs there; awaiting her rejection.

She surprises both Isaac and the other boy by reaching out to pull Scott into her bedroom.

Isaac focuses his hearing on the room, searching for and finding her voice as she exclaims her surprise at Scott’s sudden appearance.  Just surprise; no anger or self-righteous fury at the werewolf’s daring to darken her doorstep – so to speak – after what Derek had done.

And it quickly becomes clear from the whispers he hears exchanged in the room that Allison doesn’t know.

The Argents hadn’t told their daughter anything.

Isaac can’t decide if that’s a really shitty move on their part or oddly touching to want to spare the girl such a crushing blow.  Allison would find out, though, the moon would rise in just twenty-four hours to rip her world to pieces whether her parents tell her about the bite or not. 

For that reason alone, Isaac decides that their trying to keep her ignorant of the fact is, in all actuality, a really shitty move.

He listens to Scott stammer his way through a lie about his reason for being there, but then Isaac thinks it probably isn’t much of a lie as the words ring with truth; words about Matt and jealousy and how it hurt not to with her.

Isaac turns his hearing down after that and leans against the tree to watch the ground beneath Allison’s window to wait for Scott’s feet to touch down there again whenever the boy finishes whatever he’s doing in that room.

It feels like forever before that moment comes and he swears he just about frozen through by the time the boy finally lands in a crouch on the ground.

Isaac’s eyes follow Scott’s up to the window as Allison shoos her Romeo away with a tender smile before closing the window and covering it with a curtain.

“They haven’t told her anything,” he jumps at the words as they reach him from across the street and Isaac knows that Scott is aiming them at him.

He sinks deeper into the shadows and says nothing; just in case Scott’s only talking to himself.

“If I must have any, then I will only allow one werewolf in my life with creepy stalkers tendencies and Derek beat you to fill the role,” Scott announces as he steps calmly around the tree to look Isaac dead in the eye.

“Actually,” Isaac retorts instinctively to try covering his surprise, “Derek only stalks Stiles, so the position is still open in your life.”

“So…what?” Scott frowns faintly and tucks his hands into the pockets of the hoodie he’s wearing.  “You want to stalk me?”

“I clearly wouldn’t be any good at it,” Isaac casts a disparaging glance at his apparently ineffectual hiding place.  “How long have you known I was here?”

“I knew Derek would put a tail on me,” Scott gives a shrug and turns to begin walking down the street.  “I figured out it was you when the wind shifted.  You’re not wearing your Old Spice.”

Isaac pauses in instinctively following the boy and takes a self-conscious whiff of his underarm; thinking he maybe should have braved his father’s bedroom to put on some deodorant.  Deciding that he’s smelled worse after practice; he lowers his arm and jogs to catch up with Scott as the boy keeps right on moving.

“Should I have told her?” the boy asks after they fall into step beside one another.

“People have killed messengers for better news and Allison has a crossbow,” Isaac scoffs at the very notion.  “Hell no, you can’t tell her.”

“She should know,” Scott sighs.  “This is so bad.  How did everything get so bad?”

The boy looks at him from dark brown eyes liquid with anguished adolescent emotion and it’s all Isaac can do not to just hug him.  His hands curl into fists against the impulse because only hurt would come to him from comforting Scott and Isaac doesn’t need that kind of pain if he’s just been drafted into a war he never saw coming when he lined up to accept Derek’s offer of superpowers.

They stare at one another; the same pain in each of their eyes only for vastly different reasons.

Something of what Isaac is feeling gets through to the overly sympathetic boy and Scott’s expression shifts with a new tension.  Isaac can practically hear the gears grinding in McCall’s head to formulate a new line of questions and he forces himself to break eye contact to being moving quickly down the road once more.

“Where were you today?” Scott asks quietly as he keeps pace.

“Around,” Isaac keeps the reply short and closed in hopes to discourage an actual conversation on the topic of them and the absolute impossibility of there every being a “them.”

“I got your number from Derek when he picked up the Camaro.  Tried to call you.”

“Got your text,” Isaac really wishes Scott weren’t compelled to be so open and honest and good.

“I think we established last night that Jackson didn’t hurt you, so…” Scott grabs hold of his elbow and pulls Isaac around to face him, “why didn’t you text back?”

“Only got it on my way to the den,” he shrugs off the hand and avoids those all-see and seeking eyes.

“And?”

“And I don’t hate you,” Isaac sighs, tucking his hands into his pockets and coming into contact with his cell phone.  “Shit,” he mumbles at the sudden reminder of Derek’s last order.

He gladly focuses on the task of sending the Alpha a quick message to relay the news that Scott was still alive because Allison was completely in the dark about what had happened to her mother the night before. 

“So you at least know how to text,” Scott muses from beside him as Isaac’s fingers punch out the words.

Isaac turns to make some remark to that bit of sarcasm when he realizes that the other boy had moved to look over his shoulder as he sent the text.  The quick turn of his head almost puts their mouths together and he freezes at an awkward angle to keep that meeting from occurring.

Scott blinks after a moment; seems surprised by their sudden closeness and breathes out a slow exhalation that skims over Isaac’s lips like a caress.

“What is this?” the boy asks with a frown.

“Cell phone?” Isaac replies in a weak attempt at humor as he twists away and waves his phone as a distraction.

Scott gives him a look that indicates a bone deep lack of amusement before he sighs and drops his head forward then resumes his walking.

“Fine,” he shrugs.  “Nothing to talk about.”

“Like I ever had a chance of us having something to talk about,” Isaac gives a heavy sigh of his own and stares at the boy’s departing back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scott whips around to glare at him, feet bracing for attack.

“All that,” Isaac looks over his shoulder and gives a telling wave towards the Argent residence, “with Allison.  She’s the only thing you see.  The only thing that matters to you.  So, no, we don’t have anything to talk about because I’m not some lovesick glutton for punishment.”

“And I am?”

“Are you?” Isaac challenges.  “You hear what happened last night; what Derek had to do to save you and your first reaction is to run here.  Check on Allison.  I still can’t believe she didn’t greet you with an arrow to the face and you expected that, too, but you still came to her.”

“I had to,” Scott frowns like he doesn’t get the source of Isaac’s anger.  “I love her.”

And that is the source of Isaac’s anger.

Chapter 9

Notes:

If you haven't noticed yet, you will with this installment: when I tag something 'angst' I mean ANGST. I kind of wallow in it; luxuriate in the dark, murky, conflicting depths of it. It just makes those moments of humor and lightness pop all the more when set against such potential depressants; gives the want for and seeking of happiness all the more power over a character and reader. We'll all be rooting quite rabidly for that moment when Isaac *finally* get to kiss Scott. And I hope I make it a moment well worth cheering for. ;)

Isaac goes back to his aunt’s house after parting ways with Scott in the middle of the street. 

He doesn’t really want to go there, but he really doesn’t want to face the others and there wasn’t any food at his home so the hunger of a day without eating guides him to the woman’s doorstep.  He doesn’t have a key to this door, another indication of how unwanted his presence is here.

He knocks on the barrier and waits for Judy to come let him in.  He knows the moment she peers through the peephole to see who’s knocking at her door and he also knows that she hesitates to unlock and turn the knob to grant him entrance into her house.

“I was thinking I’d have to call the cops to find out where you’ve been the last few days,” she chides as she moves back with the door to give him room to slip past.  “But then I figured that the Sheriff would likely be knocking on my door again if there were a real reason to worry.”

She gives him a look that blames him for the woes of the world before she moves to close and lock the door once he’s fully inside.

“I know,” she sighs again and presses her forehead briefly against the door.  “Actually, I have no idea what you’re going through right now.”

He senses that she wants to say something else; something more, but she stops herself at the sight of him hunched over with the cold he has just come in from.

“Where’s your jacket?” she frowns in concern and moves to touch his arm below the short sleeve of his tee shirt.  “You’re ice cold.  What have you been doing?  Where have you been?”

The questions are fired at him in much the same way that his father may have asked them, but the tone differs drastically.  She had stopped visiting years ago; when her brother had begun to turn on her as well as Isaac, but Isaac suddenly remembers family Christmases that Judy had been a part of; remembers that the woman has cared about him before. 

A lifetime ago and a world away from now.

His stomach grumbles loudly to draw further concern as she begins to usher him further into the house with an order to shower and get warm while she makes him something to eat.

Isaac really just wants the food, but likes the idea of clean clothes; especially the familiar pair of lounge pants and the sweatshirt he liked most to sleep in.  He undresses and steps tiredly into the bathtub before pulling the curtain closed on his aunt’s old-fashioned shower.  His hands scrub off the top layer of skin just because that somehow makes him feel renewed to have a fresh new layer replace it.  He rubs at his face, wishing he could cleanse his brain of Scott’s hurt expression when he’d left the boy standing in the road.

Walking away is the only thing he can do, he tells himself.

His reflection when he gets out of the shower and looks himself in the mirror; argues with him.

It reminds him that that kind of thinking is what had made him weak and pathetic enough for his father to bully and Derek to pick for turning.  His reflection reminds Isaac that he isn’t that boy any more. 

Derek had promised him strength and has delivered on that promise. 

You can fight now, the man in the mirror challenges him.

To what end?  

He turns from the reflection with a sigh as he hears his aunt’s careful tread down the hallway toward the bathroom door.

He rushes to smear on some deodorant, forcing himself not to wonder at how Scott knows that Isaac where Old Spice, then dresses to open the door while Judy stands on the other side working up the nerve to knock.

She falls back as he steps out of the room and he wonders if she’s always been so jumpy or if it’s just all the recent events that have freaked her out to be around him.

“I heated up some soup and made a grilled cheese sandwich,” she tells him cautiously.

Her hand worries the cross pendant hanging from a gold chain around her throat and he feels an irrational urge to laugh aloud and tell her that the cross trick only works on vampires and that he’s a werewolf.

She’s either call the cops or the looney bin to come take him away if he says something like that, though, so Isaac just nods and moves quietly past her to the small kitchen.  He eats the modest meal while standing over the sink and she makes no attempt to ‘civilize’ him by making him eat at the table. 

“I’ll just leave you be,” she says uselessly before retreating to her bedroom with the cross still clenched in her fingers.

With her gone he consumes the food she had prepared then moves on to pillage the cupboards like a starving man.  Because he was a starving man.  The last he remembers eating was a greasy burger before the rave and he’s pretty sure it’s been a full day since that.

He cleans out the box of Pop Tarts she had begun keeping around just for him, as well as a box of cereal and single serving of lasagna that he nuked from the freezer.  The hunger starts to ease after the lasagna so he straightens up after himself before selecting a second box of cereal from the cupboard and taking it into the living room to munch on before bed.

Having slept the day away, it surprises him that the thought of sleep holds any actual appeal, but it does.  The short time that he’s been awake this day has exhausted him.

His cell phone chirps with an incoming text and he stops shoving handfuls of Corn Pops into his mouth long enough to go retrieve the damned thing from where he had left it in the bathroom.

“Where u sleepin 2nite?”

Resisting an urge to write back with something witty like “ask your mom,” he responds to Erica’s return to casual text talk with the truth that he’s at his aunt’s.

She writes back almost immediately to tell him that they’re still with Derek, but Isaac brushes off her suggestion that he should join them. 

He puts the phone aside after her last text of a simple “K” and moves to resume eating when he thinks he should probably say something to the Alpha; not about to make the assumption that Erica will relay his whereabouts given the circumstances.

“At aunts”

He continues to hold on to the mobile for a few minutes, waiting for Derek’s reply, but nothing comes so he puts it back down on the coffee table.  He considers moving that table so he can pull out the bed of the sleeper sofa then discards the idea as too much work when he can just sleep on the couch with his legs dangling off the end as he’d done most of the few times he actually sleeps here.

He turns on the television, turning it down to nearly mute so he doesn’t disturb his aunt.  A quick flick through every single channel shows him that there’s nothing on, but he stills goes back through them all three more times before shutting it back off and tossing the remote aside.

The urge to sleep creeps up on him and he pushes up from the couch to put the half empty box of cereal back in the kitchen before pulling his bedding from the hall closet.  He tosses the pillow down against the arm of the sofa and unfurls his blanket to lie down when his phone sounds again with a new text.

Realizing that he may actually have to silence the thing for the first time ever so that it didn’t keep bothering him, Isaac pauses to scoop the object up before sprawling back on the couch.

He sees immediately that it’s from Scott and hesitates to read the actual content of the message.

“U r kind of a dick n should b the 1 sayn this, but I’m sorry.”

Isaac stares at those two little words at the end and knows that Scott is right even though he isn’t about to apologize for anything. 

He can’t.

Being a dick may be the only thing that saves him in dealing with the kindness of McCall.

The phone vibrates in his hand and chirps with another damned message before he can even think of replying.

“Can’t sleep”

“Try not texting me and maybe you can,” Isaac finds himself talking to the display of his phone like he can actually communicate anything that way.

He knows he can’t talk to Scott that way which is why he nearly has a heart attack when he gets another text seeming in immediate response to his comment.

“Mom thinks Im gay.”

“And I care because…?”

“What happened this morning?”

Isaac has no response for that one and just stares at the phone; knowing that another damned message will follow despite his lack of an actual response via text.

“I liked u here last nite.”

Isaac closes his eyes against that message and keeps them closed through the next incoming text and the one after that.

After a third message pours in on top of the others that he’s trying to ignore; he forces his eyes open long enough to bring up the keypad on the screen and focus on typing a quick response.

“Go 2 bed.”

“Already there.”

“Go 2 SLEEP.”

“Cant. already told u that”

Isaac sighs and curses himself for replying at all and getting drawn in any further.

“If I call, will u answer?”

“Can’t,” he croaks into the darkness.

He forces himself to exit the messages he’s exchanging with Scott and composes a new one to Derek.

“Lost charger. Phone dying. shutting off to save batt. b here if u need me.”

He ignores the incoming text from Scott as he hits send on the new message then deliberately powers the device off before tossing it blindly toward the coffee table.  He hears it hit the wooden surface and keep on sliding to fall to the carpet but doesn’t care where it lands.

He settles on his back on the cushions of the couch and stares up at the ceiling; the white paint coating the surface seems glaringly bright to him.  He closes his eyes against it and immediately sees his phone displaying the words “I liked u here last nite” as if the image is tattooed on the inside of his eyelids.

Those eyelids spring open to take the words from his sight; real or imagined, and he sits up with a growl.  His eyes search the light carpeting on the floor until he sees the dark shape of his phone and he stares at the thing like the evil device that it is.

He wonders if Scott has given up texting; wonders if the boy had actually tried to call him.

The phone is dark and silent on the floor; giving no indication of any possible answers to his thoughts.

For a good five minutes he sits there, glaring at the phone and losing the staring contest with a thing that has no eyes. 

His knees are bouncing with agitated energy when he finally breaks off to look around the room.  With grunt of frustration he pushes up from the couch and dives for the damned thing; not even bothering to get up from his sprawl on the floor as he turns it back on.

His eyes lock on the notifications of one new voicemail and he ignores the missed texts to zone in on the possibilities of that recorded message.

His fingers actually fucking tremble as he dials into to mailbox to play the message only to have his stomach drop at the sound of Derek telling him to be at the depot first thing in the morning.

He deletes the message and looks at the new text notifications. 

Five unread messages.

He opens the last one received.

“I guess I’ll stop now.”

He doesn’t bother to read back through the other to see what else Scott had had to say.  The last message is enough.

Scott had given up on him.

“I’m sorry,” he confesses to his phone as he refuses to allow his fingers to dial the other boy’s number.

Chapter 10

Isaac takes Derek’s instruction of ‘first thing’ literally and rolls off the couch after a restless sleep before the sun even begins to break the horizon.  He doesn’t bother to shower; just quietly grabs some clothes from the shelf where Judy keeps his things in the laundry room then goes into the bathroom to prepare for the day.

In less than ten minutes he’s done his business, dressed and gone out the door.  He pauses on the front stoop; thinking he should leave some kind of note for his aunt, but he had pulled the door closed behind him and couldn’t get back in without her waking up to let him.  He turns away thinking he’ll just text her only to realize that he has no idea what her number is. 

Or if she has a cell; if anyone out there actually didn’t have a cell phone these days.

Shaking off the feeling that he’s setting off the day with a pattern doomed to repeat; he gets his bike from its lean against the side of the house and pushes off toward the depot.

He arrives at the same moment that the Camaro pulls to a stop in the same spot it had been parked the night before.  He uses his feet on the pavement to stop the forward momentum of his bike and stares as Derek unfolds from the vehicle.

“Breakfast,” the Alpha grunts in response to Isaac’s questioning expression.

Isaac sees a single bag bearing the logo of Dunkin Donuts in Derek’s left hand and a cup of coffee in his right from the same establishment as the man walks around the front of his car.

“Um,” he frowns and scratches his head for a way to say this without setting the Alpha off in a fury, “I don’t know if you’re used to, like, being hungry, but that bag isn’t gonna cut it for the four of us.”

“Five,” Derek corrects while opening his passenger door, “and this is just my bag.  You just volunteered to carry the rest.”

“The rest” is a collection of fragrant, greasy bags from all the fast food establishments in town that opened this early and the number of them overflows the passenger seat of the car.

“I don’t take this the wrong way, but I may love you,” he exhales at the wonder of the sight he beholds.

The Alpha simply takes a drink of his coffee and bobs his head in faint acknowledgement of the words.

“That’ll change after you’ve eaten and I’ve kicked your ass some more.”

Even though it makes him feel like Stiles to do so, Isaac finds himself bobbing his head back at the man and giving him a “fair enough” expression.

“Better hurry,” Derek thumps him on the back before turning to make his way into the den, “you know what Erica’s like if she doesn’t get her mocha piping hot.”

Seeing that the man was really leaving him to carry all of it inside, Isaac curses and studies the contents of the car to determine the best way to achieve that goal.

“If I offer to help will you just ignore that, too?”

“I should,” he thinks aloud then voices another curse upon realizing that he had spoken the words.

“Why?” Scott moves from the shadows to stand before him.  “I know there’s been a lot going on around here lately so maybe you need to just tell me whatever I did or you think I did that’s making you act like this.”

“Like what, McCall?” Isaac tries to evade the real focus of the question.  “We’re not BFFs.  We’re not even Pack mates since you can’t be bothered to associate with us until you see that we might be able to stop Jackson.  How exactly am I acting any differently now than I was last week or the week before that?”

“I don’t know,” the boy doesn’t back off when Isaac gets in his face, “but you are.”

“Whatever,” he sighs and turns away like the subject is of no issue.  “You gonna help me carry this stuff in?”

“I shouldn’t,” he hears Scott sigh before he feels the warmth of the other boy behind him as he bends to begin pulling bags from the car.

They divide the carry out evenly between them; tucking bags under arms and chins to juggle cups of coffee to get everything inside in a single trip.

Erica pounces on him the second he enters the den; showing no vanity in Scott’s presence as she tears the lid off of her coffee and gulps the liquid down.  Her long blonde hair is a tangled mess; she has day-old lipstick smeared on her cheek along and the eye make-up that had been sultry the night before is just a dark mess under her eyes.

She is not a morning person.

Isaac is actually getting used to that about her, but he can see that Scott is a little taken aback by her appearance.  Possibly even afraid of it; which is what Isaac had been the first time that he had seen her before she really woke up.

“Leave the bag from McDonald’s at her feet and back away slowly,” he says in a stage whisper to the other boy to draw Scott’s attention away from the girl.

After a moment of just blinking at Isaac, the other boy rushes to obey like the instruction had been given in any real seriousness.

Then Erica squats down to tear into the paper bag with a series of curious grunts and Isaac finds himself taking a cautious step backward along with Scott.

“She’s not an exhibit at the zoo,” Boyd scorns them both as he comes to swipe a bag from each of them like feeding him is a toll that they each must pay to pass.

Duly chastised, they move away from the girl as she bites into a breakfast burrito with a groan of satisfaction that is way overblown for anything that came from a McDonalds.

He and Scott deposit the remaining items on a stone slab that looks suitable for a table.

“Is it always like this?” Scott asks him with a sideways glance as they each pick a bag and move off to sit and eat.

Isaac looks around them at the surroundings that are taking on an odd ‘home’ feeling for him.  He smiles at Erica finishing her hash brown and bolting across the room to lay claim to another cup of coffee.  He rolls his eyes at Boyd rolling his eyes at the girl’s antics.  He looks at Derek watching them all intently from the door of the subway car; sees the tension in his Alpha’s features and shoulders.

“No,” he finally answers with a crooked grin at Scott, “sometimes it’s a little weird.”

The snorts at the deliberate attempt at humor and the corner of his mouth tics upward in an almost smile before he focuses on eating; seeming to remember all of a sudden Isaac’s having pointed out that they weren’t best friends forever or Pack makes or anything really to one another.

He moves away from the other boy as Scott shuts him out; knowing that he deserves it and that he’d almost literally asked for it.  The food in his hands becomes nothing more than a congealing mess of artificial eggs and cheese mixed with meats that are allegedly sausage and bacon; none of which holds any appeal to his churning stomach. 

“What’s that?” Derek asks as Isaac moves to sit near the man.

“Breakfast burrito,” he offers the bag to his Alpha.  “Better eat it fast before Erica catches wind of it.”

“Not the bag,” Derek ignores the instruction with a frown before he aims his intent stare at Scott.  “What was that with Scott?”

“What with Scott?”

“That’s what I would like to know,” the man growls at Isaac’s playing dumb.  “If I wanted idiocy in the morning I would have invited Stilinski.”

Isaac is actually rather surprised that the kid isn’t there considering that Scott is and that Stiles does actually have a part of all of this now.

A low growl from his Alpha snaps him from any distracting thoughts and he sits up straight to look the man in the eyes and finally address his original question.

“I don’t know.”

Derek peers into his eyes for a moment; seeking another evasion on the topic and finding none.

“Figure it out,” the man orders like it could ever be just that simple.  “I can’t have you both distracted by your hormones or feelings or whatever it is.”

He sighs and slouches back down against the side of the rail car.  When he looks across the room at Scott the other boy quickly looks away and shoves food in his mouth like he hadn’t overheard the exchange.

Just to see how closely the other werewolf is listening, Isaac tilts his head to the side and says at the exact same pitch that he had spoken to Derek, “You’re gonna choke if you don’t chew some of that.”

Scott promptly chokes.

 

Chapter 11

Notes:

This chapter? Not what it was supposed to be. I intended a bit of wrestling and boy touching, but the muses produced this instead. I let them run and go with it because I like the point they reach at the end. Brief warning; violence ahead with nothing spared on Erica just 'cause she's a girl.

Derek starts them off sparring in pairs; putting off any discussion until they’ve worn themselves out enough not to argue too much with what the Alpha might have to say.

Isaac gets paired with Scott and immediately argues that.

“I thought you were going to kick my ass,” he tries sneering at the man to cover up his concerns about grappling with McCall.

“Don’t worry,” the Alpha states dryly, “everyone will have their turn at kicking your ass.  We have company today; it would be rude of me to have all of the fun first.”

“I’m not just company,” Scott moves forward to frown at Derek.  “I’m part of this Pack.”

“For now,” the man frowns.  “You set the rules that it was just temporary.  I’m not sensing any change in that, but if you’ve reconsidered; you’d be welcomed.”

“Yeah,” Erica sulks at the idea, “welcomed like mono.” 

Derek and Scott glare at her while Isaac resists the urge to do the same.

“Temporary or not, I’m here and I’m not going to be put down by you,” McCall declares.

“How exactly did I put you down?” Derek asks with a scoff.

“Putting us down is what he does, so, hey,” Erica chimes in at the same time, “welcome to the family.”

“Look,” Boyd steps up, “if this is just going to end up being another pissing contest between the two of you, I’d like to go ahead and find something interesting to do with my spring break.  Otherwise,” he turns his dark eyes on Scott, “you want to be treated like part of this Pack then earn it.  Derek is the Alpha and you asked to be a part of this so just….shut up.”

“I am so unbelievably hot for you right now,” Erica utters with sparkling eyes looking the boy over with a serious new interest.

Boyd blinks at her in surprise as she licks her lips very, very slowly and tosses her hair back like it isn’t still a virtual rat’s nest.

“I’m ready to go, boss,” she flicks a glance at Derek.  “Can we start now?”

She leaps for the other werewolf without waiting for a response and Boyd takes a startled step backward as the Alpha plucks the girl from midair and gives her a shake by the scruff of the neck.

“You’re to spar; fight one another and sharpen defenses,” Derek growls, seeing that her intent had been anything other than that.

The only damage she looked to inflict was to Boyd’s clothing as she tore it off, Isaac thinks with a snort of laughter.

“Can’t I start with McCall?” Boyd asks, still inching away from Erica’s sudden hormone rush.

“God above,” the Alpha sighs.  “Yes!  If you brats will just shut up and start already!”

Despite having asked for the switch up himself just moments before, Isaac’s eyes narrow at watching the two boys move away and square off on the other side of the platform.

Derek releases his hold on Erica and she straightens her crumpled shirt with a huff before turning narrowed eyes on Isaac.

“Nothing personal,” she begins casually as she moves to stand in front of Isaac, “but I’m just not a morning person.”

And without further ado her claws were unsheathed and slashing across Isaac’s face while she sprang forward to throw her shoulder into his chest and knock him down like a bowling pin. 

Somehow through the ringing in his ears from his head hitting concrete he hears Derek praising her blitz attack and the ringing is replaced by a roar of fury as his wolf takes offense.  He sees her foot by the side of his head as she foolishly stands basking the Alpha’s attention and Isaac grabs her ankle and pulls without compunction.  She flies forward to land on her face and he’s gratified to hear the crunch of bones breaking and cartilage shifting.

He immediately leaps to his feet and backs away as she shrieks in more fury than pain.

“You broke my nose!” her eyes glow icy fire tinged with gold as she gets slowly to her feet and turns to face him.

“I can fix it,” he offers with a malicious smirk as he steps forward to snap the bone back into place to heal.

She very deliberately ignores the offer and raises her hands to realign the cartilage herself.  Twin rivulets of blood trail from the quickly healing injury and she wipes at them slowly; deliberately smearing the crimson over her cheeks like war paint.  If that weren’t enough; the fact that she doesn’t make any noise aside from a quick grunt at the pain of correcting the broken bone tells Isaac that he’s in for a world of pain.

He tastes blood on his own lips as he licks them with an anticipatory grin; a gift from the claw marks across his cheek and over his mouth to the jaw line.

They fly at one another with the cruelty and confidence of young werewolves certain of the fact that their bodies will easily mend any injury that they inflict or receive.

He allows himself to be distracted just once by Scott when the other boy demands Derek break them apart, but Erica damned near puts his eye out when he turns to see if how Scott is reacting to the injuries Isaac is receiving. 

The eyes are a line not to be crossed with Isaac; sight a sense he refuses to lose to a shard of glass or a she-wolf’s claws.  With a growl that tears at his throat on the way from his chest to burst from his lips he heaves her across the room and studiously avoids anything Scott as he stalks after her body as it hits the ground and slides into the far wall.

He remains vaguely aware, though, that Boyd is not getting anywhere near the same kind of workout in sparring with McCall.  The blows they exchange are restrained on both parts; neither of them trying nor succeeding to break skin or bone.  Derek moves in to up the ante with those two; taking them both on to ratchet the ferocity up a notch.

Erica needs no extra incentive as she slowly gets to her feet and twists to straighten the spine that had gotten a little out of shape when she hit the pillar on the way to the floor before she hit the wall.  Her steps are slow as the injury takes a few minutes to repair; her left foot has a slight drag to it and the curl of her lips promises him that she is on the verge of ripping out his organs and eating them from her dainty blood-soaked fingers.

He almost defends himself, because, hey, it’s not like he put the pillar there.

It’s more fun to keep a truly murderous edge to their sparring, though, so he just tilts his head to the side and studies the chunk of concrete her body had dislodged.

“That almost looks like it hurt you,” he tsks in faint sympathy.  “Looks like our Tinkerbell can’t fly.”

She immediately proves him wrong with a flying leap to his shoulders; her legs wrap around his neck while her fingers pierce his scalp.  All he can see or smell is the very core of her as she uses the momentum of her pounce to topple him back against a slab of concrete.  His back jars and nearly snaps at the impact with the hard edge of the obstacle and she flips away as he crumples to his side on the floor.

Groaning from the blinding jolts of pain from the center of his back; he writhes to try and find a comfortable position to heal in and she stands over him with malicious glee all but dripping from the flash of fang in her grin.

“Aww, what’s the matter cupcake?  Got an owie?  Lemme kiss it better,” she draws her foot back to nail him with a solid kick to the gut that would have moved him across the room if he weren’t jammed back against that slab.

 “Enough,” sounds a roar that echoes in the depot and Isaac can’t really tell who it came from until Scott reinforces the order by yanking Erica away.

“Oooh,” she shows no fear at his growl.  “You tagging in?”

Isaac squirms to lay flat on his back as Scott stands protectively over him while keeping his dark eyes locked with Erica’s.

“You ok?” the other boy asks him.

“Peachy,” Isaac groans as he pops his spine and feels it slowly begin to realign properly.

“Yeah,” Scott says after a moment; answering Erica’s question.  “I’m cutting in.”

He throws a few claw swiping blows her way and she bats them aside like a kitten playing with dangled string.

“This is exactly what I mean, Scott,” Derek speaks up.  “You’re hesitating; holding back.  Forget that she’s a girl because she’s about to tear your throat out.  If you can’t defend yourself against that, then what chance do we possibly have against the Kanima as long as you keep seeing it as Jackson?”

“She wouldn’t tear my thr-“ Scott is distracted enough to turn to the Alpha.

“Yes,” Erica interrupts and quiet happily proves him wrong by pinching the boy’s throat in her hand and squeezing tightly to lift him off the ground.  “I would.”

With a flick of her wrist she sends him flying over the subway car to land somewhere out of their sight.

“Is anyone else getting hungry?” she asks with deliberate carelessness.

“Enough,” Derek snaps, but Isaac sees a glint of amusement and some pride at her violent antics.  “Go play with Boyd.”

She squeals like an overindulged diva and claps her hands in delight before fixing her eyes on the boy.

“I am going to climb you like a Redwood.”

“Fighting, Erica,” Derek closes his eyes at the lewd lick she does of her lips.  “We’re still sparring here.”

Boyd deflects her pounce with a growl and focuses on defensive maneuvers to keep her grabby hands away from him.

“You ok?” the Alpha squats beside him to ask as Isaac pushes to sit up and enjoy the show.

“I’m fine,” he answers more from habit than truth.

“Good,” Derek stands up with a smirk.  “You go play with Scott.”

A meaty hand sweeps down to grab the front of Isaac’s shirt; yanks him up and then throws him over the subway car in the general area that McCall had flown.

“Ow,” he allows himself to say as he bounces off the wall to thud down on the old subway tracks.

“Is it always like this?” Scott asks him from the shadows nearby.

Isaac can’t see the other boy in the shadows, but senses McCall nearby and watching him with concern.  He peels himself off the steel track that’s broken at least two…no, three…ribs and moves in the general direction of those eyes.

From the platform beyond the subway car he can hear the fighting between Boyd and Erica intensifying with Derek barking orders and encouragements for bloodshed.

“No,” Isaac finally says is an odd parody of their earlier moment before the sparring began, “sometimes it actually hurts.”

“This is funny to you?” Scott turns to face him with accusation as they sit side by side against the tunnel wall.  “Hurting one another like this?”

“No, Scott,” he answers as some of Derek’s backhanded wisdom begins to make sense.  “What’s funny is how it doesn’t hurt us.  Every session we push a little further; fight a little harder; break bones we would have sprained and draw blood where we would barely have bruised one another a week ago or the week before that.  You’re still thinking like a kid; like a human.  We stopped that.  The whole point to this for us was to get strong and stop breaking.  We hurt; we heal.  And every day it takes more to hurt us.”

He sees the liquid shine of Scott’s eyes in the shadows and focuses on that; staring intently at the other boy to try and drive the point home.

“Your wolf can be free here.  You have to let your wolf free here, just like you have to give it power to face Jackson; to take on the Kanima.”

“And if I do that?” McCall asks, “How do I pull the beast back?”

“How do you?” Isaac asks with genuine interest.  “We still have Derek swatting our noses to try and fully housebreak the Pack, but you’re managing.  Stop doubting that and start pushing whatever control you’re using to see how well it works.  The only way to know how you can come back from the edge is for you to go there.”

Chapter 12

“So I’m just supposed to forget that any part of you is a person; feels pain and can actually die, and I’m supposed get gung ho behind the werewolf’s want to rip you to shreds?”

Something in the idea that the inner beast wants Scott to rip Isaac to shreds is a little disturbing.  Isaac frowns at the idea, feeling a twinge of hurt he can’t explain because his wolf has no desire to do any real harm to the other boy. 

They had fought on several occasions and Isaac had always given his best effort to best Scott; but he’d always lost because something in him had held him back from any moves that might actually hurt McCall. 

So maybe he wasn’t the best one to be echoing Derek’s teachings, but this seems a safe time and place to release all restraints.  If he could let his beast go upon Scott with the same relish he did against Erica then maybe the other boy would fight back with all the ferocity they knew to be in there.  Give them all the chance to witness the depth of strength and power that Scott somehow manages to keep bridled back within himself.

“You think you’d really try to kill me?” he can’t help but ask before making any move to spur the boy into battle.

“I don’t know how I’d stop myself if I let it go,” Scott looks at him with tormented eyes.  “This thing inside me gets so angry; wants so much violence sometimes that I think my mind will break from trying to hold it back.  When I’m around you, it gets stronger; the urge to do something.  It’s like it just …,” his voice falters and he blinks as if in self-discovery.  “Like it just wants to get closer to you,” he turns away to whisper to the darkness.

Isaac hears the words despite the fact that he thinks Scott hadn’t wanted him to be privy to the sudden realization. 

He feels a struggle within himself at the notion; did it mean that Scott’s wolf was drawn to Isaac’s?  Was that all it was for Isaac?  It would almost be a comfort to blame it all on the animal and excuse his human side from any real want for Scott McCall.  For it to all be the want of his new powers to find an equal to match with; someone who could hold their own against the full force of his physical strength when unleashed in passion or the grip of other emotions.    

Isaac knows if that were all of it, though, then Erica should look just as good if not better to him.  His mind and body, though, see Scott as the one most capable of weathering or calming any storm Isaac’s wolf unleashed; physical or emotional and that idea makes the boy a serious threat to Isaac’s way of life.

He decides that he can’t allow himself to wonder at or want anything to do with the possibility that Scott could feel anything in return for Isaac.

“You’re forgetting one thing, McCall,” he breathes in calm and exhales anger. “My werewolf wants to tear your head off.”

His lunge from their sitting positions isn’t capable of doing any physical damage, but it knocks the other boy off balance and leaves Scott vulnerable while his brain is still trying to process what Isaac had said.

“Wha-“ Scott begins to ask.

Isaac cuts the question off jumping to his feet and grabbing the boy to throw him against the subway car.  He doesn’t allow himself any inner disappointment at the fact that his intent to throw Scott back over the obstacle, just justifies it as not enough room to get the proper momentum behind the throw.

He unsheathes his claws and focuses glowing eyes on Scott as he leans panting against the metal siding of the car.

So Scott wants to rip him to shreds? Isaac’s wolf sneers.

“Let’s see who shreds who here,” he growls lowly before moving to pin the other boy to the car with a violent jab of claws into the softness of Scott’s side.  “Wolf or not, you would hesitate to kill a fly and still wish you’d just opened a window afterward to force the thing out of.  But I,” he thrusts his leg between Scott’s and presses in close while slowly twisting his fingers inside the other boy’s skin tissue and muscle; “I pull the wings off flies.”

With a snap and snarl of pained anger, Scott slams an elbow into Isaac’s forearm to dislodge the fingers in his side then follows up with a headbutt to force Isaac back.

“So, what, you’re destined to be a homicidal maniac?” Scott pants as he puts a hand to his side and pulls it away wet with blood.  “I don’t believe that, Isaac.”

“Why not?  You’re buddy Stiles doesn’t have any doubts that I could be a killer.”

He throws a punch at Scott’s head and ends up with his fist plowing through the thin metal of the subway car as the other boy ducks easily to avoid the blow.

“Stiles doesn’t understand what this is like,” Scott surprises him by thrusting his claws into Isaac’s exposed side and twisting them just as Isaac had done moments before.

Jagged edges of metal slice into his wrist and hand as Isaac yanks his fist back through the hole he had made and he hisses at the sharp pain before he slashes out blindly with his claws to force Scott away from him.  The other boy just ducks the blow, though, and moves behind him to pin Isaac’s chest against the car while Scott stabs his right hand into Isaac’s side.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Isaac refuses to admit that there’s anything arousing about his position or the way that Scott hisses in his ear.  “Blood?” his fingers twist, pull out then stab back in to send blood running from the injuries to soak into the waist of his jeans.  “Pain?”

Everything about the unexpected edge in Scott’s tone is arousing and Isaac pants against the rush of blood to his groin to fill his erection without any care for the crimson staining his clothes.

His claws dig briefly into the metal he’s pressed against, poking ten little holes into the wall before yanking his right hand back to drive his elbow into the side of Scott’s head as he twists with sudden violence in the other boy’s hold.

They bite and claw one another; punching and grappling with sweat and blood pouring from them.  They keep the fighting close; not throwing one another around like Isaac had done Erica.

It isn’t the lack of room to maneuver that keeps their bodies pressing and writhing together; it’s that their bodies want it that way.

Isaac is so focused on trying to deny his own erection that it takes him several minutes to realize that he feels something similarly hard grinding against him when Scott throws him to the ground and slams down on top of him wrap his forearm around Isaac’s throat.

“Looks like I’m the one tearing your head off,” Scott chokes off Isaac’s airflow.  “Are we done now?”

“No,” he gasps out and literally tears the arm from across his neck. 

He digs his hands and knees into the dirt and bucks hard to send the other boy sliding from his back.  He twists around quickly to grab Scott and drag the other boy beneath him.

“We’re just warming up,” he puts his elbow against the Adam’s apple in Scott’s throat and pushes until the other boy claws at him for breath.

McCall squirms and bucks beneath him and Isaac realizes the error of this position as their groins press, shift and grind together.  The friction feels so damned good that he groans and moves his arm from Scott’s throat so he can curl his fingers into the ground.

Scott goes suddenly and deathly still under him, but Isaac doesn’t stop thrusting himself against the hard denim jutting back against his own clothed hard-on.

“Isaac?” something in Scott’s voice stops Isaac’s grinding even before the other boy puts his hands on Isaac’s hips to still them.  “Are you…getting off on this?!”

He can’t identify the tone in the other boy’s voice and Isaac clenches himself closed; eyes, ears and mind; against the revulsion and rejection he’s certain to be facing. 

“Yesterday morning,” Scott’s words sink in against his will.  “You were hard then, too.” 

Despite trying to hold himself still until he can will away his damned boner, Isaac’s body shivers when Scott moves his right hand up; skimming over Isaac’s side and worming until his arm until McCall can put his fingers to Isaac’s cheek to force him to look into those brown eyes.

“You were grinding against me yesterday, too,” Scott licks his lips and Isaac isn’t at all sure that he manages to stifle the whimper he feels at seeing those pink lips slick and glistening in the darkness.  “Are you … do you get off on me?”

Seriously thinking that he might do exactly that if Scott kept looking at him, Isaac tenses to leap up and run, but fingers curling into his hip and jaw seem to anticipate and forestall such a move.

“Isaac?” Scott’s tone demands an answer.

“Don’t act so surprised,” he snarls, finding anger to cover anything else he might be revealing.  “Put a body near me and, of course, I want to fuck it or fight it or sometimes both.  I’m sixteen.  I get off on everything,” he grinds deliberately against Scott’s groin and feels a shudder of pleasure move through him when he realizes that the other boy is still just as aroused as Isaac.  “What’s your excuse?”

“You weren’t turned on while fighting Erica,” Scott’s hips twitch up to meet the downward thrust of Isaac’s pelvis. 

“How the hell would you know?” Isaac stills in challenge, hating how the other boy refuses to be distracted from his intent to probe into Isaac’s psyche.

“I would have known,” Scott blinks away, looking faintly guilty.  “I would have smelled it,” he whispers in confession to the shadows.  “I would have gotten off on it.”

Isaac stops breathing.

“Last night,” Scott blinks up at him, seeming lost in this purging of his dark secret, “I could still smell you in my bed; feel you on top of me like this.  Couldn’t sleep because I was so …. so hard,” he gasps, his fingers digging into Isaac’s butt to urge their bodies harder together.  “If you would have just talked to me,” his eyes flash accusation for the ignored texts.  “What is this?”

“Don’t know,” Isaac gasps, dropping his head to the crook of the other boy’s neck to avoid that probing stare. 

“Don’t stop,” Scott breathes against Isaac’s ear and he opens his mouth on a groan before biting down on the meat of the boy’s shoulder at how damned hot it was to hear those words uttered to him by Scott McCall.

Scott howls beneath him, twisting and turning desperately at the bite as he sought more friction against his erection and Isaac moves with the same mindless hunger for climax until Derek breaks them apart.

The asshole literally throws cold water on their bodies before either of them could find release.

“Playtime's over,” the Alpha barks in command without blinking an eyelash in reaction to either of the furious growls his action gets from both Isaac and Scott.  “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I forgot how damned sex hungry teenagers are,” the man turns away with a disgusted shake of his head, muttering to himself as he went about full moons, pheromones, getting himself a nose plug to be around these damned hormonal kids and something about cock rings that had a decidedly deflating effect on Isaac’s arousal.

Chapter 13

As Isaac and Scott climb back up on the platform the sight of Erica wringing water from her hair isn’t as amusing as it should have been.  He feels more of his odd kinship with the girl at seeing that she has obviously been doused by their Alpha as an overly hormonal teenager.

She flicks her dripping mess of hair over her shoulder upon seeing him and gives him a bold stare that dares him to say anything.  His lips give a wry twist and he moves his hands to pull at the tellingly wet shirt that clings to his back.  Wicked delight sparkles in her eyes as she leaps to her feet and moves quickly to worm her way between Scott and Isaac.

“What have you boys been doing?” she asks is a singsong tone as she winds a slender arm around each of their waists and digs her claws into their sides.  “Has there been boy touching here that I was not invited to watch?”

Derek moves up behind the girl, places his palm securely over her mouth and uses his other arm to drag her away from them. 

“There will be no discussing of any touching today or ever in my presence,” he orders before setting the girl free.

“Fine,” she turns on the Alpha with a sultry smirk.  “I much prefer doing than just talking.”

Derek is not amused.

Isaac, though, has to turn away before he busts a gut laughing at the tormented expression on the guy’s face.  He finds Scott’s eyes sparkling up at him with an equal humor and they exchange smiles that feel oddly natural between them despite all past tensions; good and bad.

“If you all have finished, I think there was a point to this meeting other than working up a sweat,” Boyd growls with aggravation from his lean against the far wall. 

Isaac notices that the other boy is completely dry and takes a moment to wonder exactly what or who Erica had been doing to merit her own bucket of water.

Isaac at least can pride himself on the fact that it’s only Scott that seems to get him so damned worked up that only drastic measures or situations can pull his focus from the other boy.  As far as he knows; she’s been all talk and tease despite her stated preference for action, but Erica seems to really be all over the shop with her new sexuality.  He wonders if she’s made moves on any other girls; wonders if he could have a serious talk with her about the possibility of werewolves being a lot more open to the whole same gender thing.

Then he remembers her leer at the ‘boy touching’ bit and quickly discards the thought of talking to her about anything that personal.  Ever.

Derek snarls a chastising growl at his wannabe Lolita and moves to sit down in his “throne.”

“Boyd’s right,” he snaps at them all, but Isaac can sense the thread of strain and exhaustion tensing his Alpha’s muscles.  “Everyone sit.”

They’re not actually puppies or anything, so none of them just drop down to their asses on the floor just because the man barks at them to do just that. 

They look around for something suitable to sit on and then take their own sweet time to actually seat themselves on it.  While Boyd and Erica finally settle on the dirty, bare concrete of the platform, Isaac claims the slab that had probably broken his spine earlier and Scott settles himself in the open door of the subway car.

“Tonight’s moon rising will be difficult,” Derek begins once they’ll all settled. 

“That’s what you called this meeting for?” Scott frowns and shoots the man a disbelieving look.  “What about Jackson?”

“I have not forgotten what happened with the Kanima, but we need a new plan in dealing with him and now is not the time to focus on that.”

“What other time is there?  He’s not going to stop killing and it’s clear that we can’t save Jackson-”

“We haven’t had much luck at killing him, either,” Derek interrupts the boy in return for his disruptions.  He grows stronger with each full moon and tonight will only add fuel to that fire.  I am not about to risk this combustible group of hotheads on him tonight.  I have enough consequences of my choices to be dealing with.”

“So we just leave him to the Argents?” Scott asks, losing some of his indignation in the face of the Alpha’s rare show of cracks in the stony façade.

“No,” the man sighs and looks away while rubbing at the tensed muscles at the back of his neck.  “They’ll be busy with their own problem when the moon rises,” the thought of Victoria Argent becoming a werewolf or being otherwise ‘dealt with’ passes through them all like a chill rushing past.  “Jackson is my responsibility.  I asked for the bite and I gave it to him; it’s on me to do something with what he’s become as a result.  But,” he drops his hand and turns his focus back to McCall, “not tonight.”

“Tonight may be our last best chance,” Scott pushes to his feet to press the issue as if compelled to keep trying.  “It’s Lydia’s birthday today.  Jackson will be at her party.”

“So, what?” the Alpha rises to stare the boy down.  “We should just forget the fact that we’re werewolves and it’s a full moon tonight and go to some party?”

“Not just some party, Derek,” Isaac surprises himself by speaking up. “Lydia Martin’s birthday is the party in Beacon Hills.  Her parents leave the place totally unsupervised and fully catered.  Scott’s right.  We’ll find Jackson there.  Everyone will be there.”

The Alpha growls in his direction at the statement, but Scott turns to give him a look that is thankful and surprised for the seconding of his opinion.  Isaac ignores the growling, used to it by now, and gives McCall a faint smile while shrugging his shoulders because he hadn’t exactly planned to ally himself with the boy.

“Doubtful,” Erica snorts into the growing tension.

They all turn to look at her and she glares back like their logic is all wrong and that their silly thinking puts them beneath her brilliance.

“Face it, the queen has fallen.  Ding dong the witch is dead,” she sighs and stands to move into the center of the group.  “This year’s going to be a total dud.  She’s a social pariah.  Everyone knows that Jackson dumped her ass right before the Spring Formal and she’s been cuckoo as Cracker Jacks since your Uncle Petey tore into her,” she has the grace to ease off that particular nerve when the Alpha snarls.  “I just don’t see anyone being there.”

While Isaac puzzles at cuckoo Cracker Jacks Scott boldly declares, “I will be there.”

No surprise there, Isaac thinks as he moves to retake his seat and remove himself from the growing drama.

“I need you here,” Derek growls.  “This full moon has BAD written all over it; even without knowing that Victoria may shift tonight.  It’s a worm moon; for most it’s about renewal, for us it can be a rise of hunger too strong to contain.  You need to be here.”

“Every moon raises a hunger in us that we can barely contain,” Scott brushes aside that concern.  “I have to stop Jackson or figure out who’s controlling the Kanima before it kills again.  Maybe after I’ve made some progress there then I can maybe worry about what you’ve done to Allison’s mom.”

“I think your priorities are skewed,” Derek sighs.

“And I think that you are your only priority and that’s pretty skewed to me.  We can only get over one hurdle at a time and tonight we keep the pressure on Jackson.”

“What pressure?  With all you’ve said and done, has Jackson or the Kanima even flinched?  Have you gotten any reaction from whoever is controlling them?  I’m trying to tell you that tonight’s moon will evoke stronger reactions.  That means in Jackson, too.  You haven’t had any chance or made any progress against him on your best day,” Derek lectures, circling in closer and closer on Scott.  “Trust me when I say that you do not want to face him alone on what may be one of your worst nights.  Not that I would care about your fate in such a situation given how I only care about myself,” the man ends with a sneer.

“I won’t be alone,” Scott gulps; shaken and fighting the fact as Derek stares him dead in the eyes.  “I’ll have Stiles with me.”

Before Derek can scoff at the very notion that that makes any kind of positive difference, Isaac feels himself rising again and moving to side with McCall.

“I’ll be there with them.”

That declaration surprises everyone; even Boyd rises slowly to his feet to stare warily at the growing standoff.  Erica moves slowly away from the guys, careful not to draw the red flashing eyes of her Alpha as she wisely keeps her mouth shut for the moment.  Isaac feels Scott looking at him, but he doesn’t take his attention away from Derek; doesn’t dare lower his gaze from the man in any show of weakness or submission.

“Your choice?” Derek finally asks after a seemingly endless moment.

Isaac nods once; firm and decisive.

“Be here to help me get them restrained before the sun sets,” the Alpha orders him with a jerk of his head towards Boyd and Erica.  “You can go die however you choose after that.”

“I’ll go get changed and come right back,” he agrees quickly, disregarding that last bit in his relief at receiving any concession from the man.

“Charge your phone while you’re at it,” Derek throws over his shoulder as he turns his back to dismiss his defectors.  “If I call, you come.”

Isaac nods again, accepting the order with every intention of obeying.

He moves from the depot immediately after that before any new arguments can arise or before he can recover whatever sense he’s apparently lost.

“Hey,” Scott says hesitantly from the entrance as Isaac moves to get on his bike.

Isaac stills at the boy’s presence; not having sensed anyone behind him as he left and not knowing why McCall had followed him.

“Does this mean we’re going to Lydia’s party together?”

Chapter 14

With each passing minute of the day, the restlessness within Isaac worsens. 

It feels as if his skin is crawling; not with any bugs skittering across him but as if the entire surface of his body is just shifting and pulling to change. 

He can feel the coming night in his bones and it’s calling him to do serious damage once the moon rises.  He feels the hunger in his gut, envisions violence in his mind and his fingernails even tingle with the want to extend to slash through flesh.

All in all, it does not bode well for the party.

He returns to the depot after changing and finds Derek sitting before an old steamer trunk. 

Isaac moves curiously towards the chest as the man flips the lid open; tribal tattoo looking design on the inside of trunk catches his eye.

“What is that?” he asks, tracing the swirling pattern.

“It’s a triskele,” Boyd provides the answer before Derek can.  “Spirals mean different things,” the other boy expands when they all turn to look at him.  “Past, present, future.  Mother, father, child.”

“Huh,” Erica huffs softly, drawing Isaac’s attention.  “Brains and brawn.  You have been holding out on me.”

Boyd doesn’t look her way at the softly spoken words that lacked any of her usual sarcasm and sounded sincerely fascinated.  Isaac swears he could see a blush on the boy’s cheeks from the look Erica is giving.  He finds himself smiling at his young pack mates; thinking maybe Erica’s lustful antics toward Boyd earlier weren’t just a passing fancy. 

The girl had cleaned up as well while he was away.  She had clearly showered and changed into clothing that actually looked comfortably casual with only a hint at sexy.  Her gunked up make-up has been replaced with a more natural look that would have made him question whether she wore any cosmetics at all if not for the red on her lips and cheeks.  She looks good and she looks totally focused on Boyd.

Interesting, he files the signs of her growing crush away for possible ammunition in the future.

“Know what it means to me?” Derek asks with a faint hint of pride in his expression at Boyd’s show of knowledge.

“Alpha, Beta, Omega?” the apt pupil says with a slight show of doubt at his own accuracy.

“That’s right,” the Alpha nods and rises.  “It’s a spiral. It reminds us that we can all rise to one and fall to another.  Betas can become Alphas, but Alphas can fall to Betas or even Omegas.”

Like Scott, Isaac thinks, but doesn’t say; imaging the day likely to come when McCall leads this pack. 

Isaac really has nothing against Derek, but the man is struggling with so much of this while Scott manages the leadership role and makes it all look so easy despite his young years.  Even the Alpha respects the teenager so it’s no wonder that Isaac and Boyd both want to model themselves after Scott.  Derek just doesn’t have the makings for an Alpha like Scott did.

A tremor goes through him at the thought of the other boy as Alpha.  Isaac can see himself standing proudly as Beta beside Scott; can see himself submitting to the other boy, following and obeying whatever Scott deemed best for the pack. 

Before he can drift off to fantasies of himself on his knees before Scott, Derek begins sorting through the contents of the trunk.  The clink and rattle of chains startles him back from thoughts of how pleasing it might be to submit to Scott and reminds him of the darker implications of submission.  Isaac watches his current Alpha pulling things out of that old chest and tries very very hard not to think about why Derek has these things.

“There’s a price you pay for this kind of power,” the man is saying while holding a belt with chains dangling from it.  “You get the ability to heal, but tonight you’re going to want to kill anything you can find.”

Isaac takes the belt because Derek forces it into his hands and the weight of the item surprises him. 

“Good thing I had my period last week, then,” Erica interjects and Isaac really wonders why Derek thought this pack needed a girl.

Or why that girl, he shakes his head to try and dispel the overly personal information he did not need to know.

“This one’s for you,” Derek all but smirks while holding up a circlet with screws all through it and Isaac does not want to think about how that gets worn.

“Oh, joy,” she drawls with insincerely.  “I knew you’d be giving me jewelry eventually.”

“Tonight is going to be hard on all of us,” the Alpha continues after tossing her the metal crown so she could get a feel for what she’d be wearing.  “That’s why it’s vitally important to stay together,” he digs out a pair of leg shackles to throw to Boyd before giving Isaac a pointed look.  “I’ll do what I can to limit the damage, but I can’t stop you if you’re not here.”

“I’ll be with Scott,” Isaac defends. 

“Scott may be able to keep a grip on himself, but can you see him managing that and keeping you from busting loose?”

“Yes.  I can.”

Derek stands running a length of heavy chain through his hands and studies Isaac closely for a few minutes.

“Go get something to eat,” the Alpha turns to order Erica and Boyd.

“With what?  Our good looks?” Erica scoffs.  “Sure, they are ridiculously good looks, but…”

Derek drops the length of chain and digs a worn leather wallet out of his back pocket.  He thumbs the folds open, plucks out a few bills then hands them to the girl.

“You’re a stripper, right?” she takes the money without taking her eyes from the other money in that wallet.  “That’s where the money comes from.”

Isaac considers throwing the belt at her to shut her up before she spoils their favorite game of guessing where the money got money for a Camaro or anything given he never did anything remotely work like.

“Go,” the Alpha growls without amusement at her guess.

She rolls her eyes at the growl and looks past the man to ask Isaac, “Coming with?”

“Bring us back a pizza,” Derek answers for him.

The tone wipes the careless expression from Erica’s face and causes Isaac’s shoulders to tense and straighten.  The Alpha is serious about something and that something clearly revolves around Isaac’s siding with Scott; a choice that could get him cast from the pack if he’s lucky or torn to shreds by the elder werewolf if his luck runs to form.

Sensing danger but knowing of no way to prevent it, the girl gives Isaac a sympathetic look, mouths the words ‘good luck’ then grabs Boyd’s elbow and bolts.

Isaac looks at the belt he’s still holding then he throws it back into the trunk as soon as they’re alone.

“So this is where you beat me around for backtalking now?”

“I’m not your father, Isaac,” Derek sighs and rolls his shoulders to pop a muscle in his back.  “Sit.”

Not wanting to get any more marks against himself in the man’s book, Isaac drops immediately to the ground and sits in the dust and grime like an idiot.  Derek actually smirks at the quick obedience before he flips the steamer trunk closed and settles himself on the chest.

“The moon makes us hungry for more than violence,” the man says unexpectedly.  “It stirs all of our basest instincts; to fight, to feed and to fuck.”

Isaac resists the urge to snigger like the adolescent he still technically is as he senses that Derek is actually preparing to give him ‘the talk.’

“What’s happening between Scott and you-”

“There’s nothing happening,” he interrupts instinctively.

Derek just looks at him.

Isaac’s gaze drops and he squirms under that gaze; biting his tongue against the urge to speak ever again.

“This thing that isn’t happening between you and McCall,” the Alpha resumes, “it isn’t going to make tonight easier for either of you.  Unless you can control it; use it to your advantage.”

Isaac looks up at that.

“Like Scott uses what he feels for Allison?”

Derek arches a brow at the mention of the girl’s name.

“He has an anchor.  It’s the only thing that can save you on a night like tonight.  You have to find something meaningful to you.  Bind yourself to it and it keeps you inside; in control.”

“What is it for you?” Isaac leans forward curiously to ask.

“Anger,” the man scoffs; seemingly at himself.  “If you’re raging all the time then what’s a little bit of moonlight madness?”

“But it isn’t like that for Scott.”

“And it won’t be like that for you,” Derek sighs.  “Don’t try to be like anyone else here, Isaac.  We all have our own demons to wrestle with and you know how to fight them just as well as anyone else; better, probably.”

It’s another reminder of his father and Isaac doesn’t respond to it on the surface. 

Inside, though, he remembers his first time in the freezer.  The blackness pressing in all around him as he heard the muffled rattle of chain being dragged over the outside of the appliance to seal him in.  He remembers all the screams and sobs he had hurled into that darkness; curses and please for freedom that only came when he stopped struggling against his imprisonment.  He remembers clawing until his middle and index fingernails tore off and panicking at the lack of fresh air until the darkness overtook him and he passed out; thinking that he had died.

He remembers how quickly he had learned to stop fighting the darkness and just sink into it after that.  For every time his father locked him into that tomb, the man got him out of it.  The only lesson Isaac ever got from it all was to stop fighting and just sink into it.

Some demons cannot be wrestled; they must be embraced.

Chapter 15

Their pizza is cold when it finally arrives, but Isaac doesn’t make any comment on the delayed delivery as he sees the reason for it in Erica’s missing red lipstick and the way she walks back into the depot holding Boyd’s hand.

She expects him to say something, though, and he’s delighted to disappoint her by simply taking the pizza with a quick thanks before moving to share the food with Derek.

They scarf it down; feeling rushed by the setting sun.

Isaac can feel that now.  The sun setting; moon rising.  He knows when these things happen because it causes a shift within him that heightens all his senses.

It’s a heady feeling most days, but tonight feels daunting.

“You can always stay,” Derek offers as if sensing his growing anxiety.  “Scott can handle himself.”

“Are you kidding?” Isaac attempts humor.  “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to crash Lydia Martin’s birthday bash?”

“There’s a slight difference between crashing it as in just showing up without an invitation and crashing it as in turning into a werewolf and destroying everything and everyone in attendance,” the Alpha points out.

“I won’t let that happen.”

“Do you think you can stop it?”

Remembering their conversation, Isaac only nods at the man.

“Okay then,” Derek rubs his greasy hands on his jeans and stands.  “Inside the car.”

Erica and Boyd immediately move into the subway car at the instruction while Isaac follows more slowly.

“Is this really the best place for them tonight?” he asks, running his hand along the thin metal of the car.

“It’ll do,” Derek says with a cursory glance at the windows, walls, bolted down chairs and the poles inside the car.

They move to the back where Boyd positions himself against the wall and in the aisle between two poles.  Isaac carries the belt that Derek had given him earlier, but Erica quickly moves to take it from him.

“I’ve got this,” she throws him a challenging look before facing Boyd with an expression that quickly grows soft. 

She looks down at the object in her hands and focuses on unbuckling it so she can slip it around the boy’s waist.  Boyd’s hands are raised, holding the poles in preparation to be shackled to them and Isaac can see the way the other boy’s fingers flex as Erica leans in to pull the ends of the belt together at Boyd’s abdomen.  He watches the almost instinctive dip of the other boy’s head as he moves to inhale her hair as she works to fasten the buckle.

“Too tight?” she looks up to ask as she tries one of the first notches on the belt.

“Tighter,” Boyd and Derek both order.

She keeps tightening it until there isn’t a bit of space between the metal and Boyd’s shirt, but before she fastens it there the boy sucks in his gut.

“Tighter,” he orders, gripping the rails harder.

She hesitates and Isaac wants to laugh because if it had been him in that position she would have been cinching it in until he cut in half, but a strong young buck like Boyd and she actually seems afraid of breaking him.

Derek sees the hesitation and muscles her aside to yank the strap tighter then fasten it in place. 

“Anchor him,” the Alpha orders while getting the shackles. 

Erica and Isaac both move to grab the chains now dangling from Boyd’s waist and fasten the ends to whatever they can.  Isaac stays crouched to slap on the leg shackles while Derek and Erica cuff the boy’s hands to the poles.

“Try it,” the Alpha orders and Boyd somehow just knows to struggle against the restraints to try breaking free.  “Good,” Derek nods, when the chains hold.

Erica turns with her left hand brushing Boyd’s as she grips the same pole she just fastening him to.  Isaac untangles a pair of shackles for her ankles and clamps them on to bolt her feet to the floor before he moves to stand behind her.

“Hold her,” Derek orders as he holds up the headpiece with screws.

“How come she gets the headband?” Isaac asks, mostly wondering why the man would use such a harsh device on a girl.

“Because she’ll be able to withstand more pain,” the Alpha looks at Erica.  “Focus on the hurt and use it.  You ready?”

She gives a nod and clutches the poles on either side of her and Isaac wraps his arms around her tight as an additional brace for what they all know is coming.  She does well when Derek places the thing over her head and begins to tighten some of the bolts. 

When the ends of the screws begin to poke into her scalp she breathes deeply and tenses and Isaac tenses right along with her.  They smell the blood before she screams from the pain of the screw drilling into her forehead.  Boyd and Isaac both look away from the crimson trickling down the center of her face as she finally starts to react.

He holds her tighter and tries to think of something calming to say as Derek moves to the other bolts, but he can think of nothing as blood begins to color her blonde hair red.  She screams and howls and thrashes with the pain, but never once begs or asks it to stop.

Isaac admires her for that and admits to himself that he would have wussed out at the first turning of a single screw.  She settles suddenly and Isaac focuses on her again, thinking the chore has been completed.  Derek is still working the screws on the back of the crown, though, and Isaac finds Boyd’s dark fingers curling hard around Erica’s, anchoring her through the pain.  Her claws are drawing blood as they dig into the hand the boy offers, but Boyd takes that bit of pain with just a clench of his jaw.

They might not know it yet, but Isaac senses at lot more there than friendship or kinship from being part of this little pack.

“Anchor it,” Derek snaps with a jerk of his chin as he moves back from tightening the last screw.

Isaac blinks at first then sees the length of chain dangling from the headpiece.  He grabs it and wraps the end around the back of one of the seats, using the metal bar to tie her to.

He moves slowly away from her, watching as she bows forward and sucks in air to focus on something other than the pain.

“Test it,” Derek orders, drawing glares from all of them.  “Try it now or it’ll be no good to you when you need it.”

With Boyd gripping her hand in support, Erica first tests the shackles on her feet then the cuffs on her wrists before throwing her head around to test the headpiece.  She cries out as the bolts dig further into her skull and they all step back at the overwhelming scent of her blood.

“Tighter,” she growls lowly after several breaths to control herself. 

Boyd tenses in protests and Isaac gives Derek a doubtful look before she raises her head to glare at them all through the trickles of blood now covering her face like something out of a horror movie.

“I can take it.”

The Alpha takes her word for it and moves to tighten each of the bolts with a few more screws to push the metal bits deeper into her head.

“Can’t say I’m sorry to be missing this tonight.”

They all whip around to stare at Scott standing in the door of the subway car.

His dark eyes are locked on Erica as he steps inside and move towards her.

“Still think it’s worth it?” he frowns with concern and wipes at the blood threatening to run into her eyes.

“Just part of the transformation,” she grimaces through the pain in an attempt at smiling. “Bondage is sexy, don’t you think?”

She licks at the blood on her face and uses the want to not appear weak in front of Scott to push past the pain she must be feeling.  Isaac’s admiration for her grows and he gives her a pat on the back before grabbing Scott’s elbow.

“Love to stay for the main event, but my evening is booked,” he throws the words out casually while pushing the other boy out of the car. 

As much as he would like it to be otherwise, McCall just doesn’t fit with the pack and Isaac finds himself uncomfortable with Scott having seen Boyd and Erica vulnerable and chained.  He gives Derek a look over his shoulder before he follows the other boy to the platform.

“Phone’s charged,” he says, trying not to worry about leaving his friends behind.

“I’ll only call if I need you.”

“I’ll get here as quick as I can,” Isaac nods at Derek’s stern expression.  “If you need me.”

“This party,” Derek moves toward him after a brief hesitation.  “Be careful.  Drinking, drugs, whatever there may be; stay away from it tonight.”

He wants to make some snappy comeback in defiance of the order, but the instruction makes too much sense for him to do anything other than nod.

He and Scott leave the depot in silence; thoughts weighing on both their minds and neither seeming over eager to share the burden.

Stilinski honks the horn and flashes his headlights the second he sees them step onto the street.

“We are becoming more than just fashionably late here,” he leans out the window of his Jeep to yell.  “Come on!”

“Yeah,” Isaac looks at Scott who just gives him a sheepish grin in return, “this is gonna be a great night.”

They move to get into the vehicle with Scott taking the passenger seat and Isaac left to climb in the back seat with some huge, brightly wrapped thing that left him very little room to get into the Jeep.

“Don’t touch that, it’s for Lydia!”

“A really great night,” he sighs as he barely manages to get the door shut behind him before Stiles has the vehicle in motion.

 

Chapter 16

Notes:

Sorry for the major delay in updating this. Real life has been running me ragged. And I'll advise in advance that my real reason for putting Isaac at the party is all Stiles, so don't look for too too much development on the Isaac/Scott front in this chapter or the next. Just consider these installments as a minor comedic diversion because...well, Stiles.

Contrary to her royal airs, Lydia Martin doesn’t live in a castle or palace.  Her home isn’t even in the league of what Isaac would call a mansion.

It’s a house.

Large and set nicely off to itself away from neighbors, but really just a house.

Isaac sits in the Jeep staring at the ivy covered brick and wondering what he’s doing here.

Then the door opposite of his is yanked open and Stiles begins the task of removing Lydia’s present from the vehicle.  The sight reminds him of a ship in a bottle, too large to fit through the opening and leaving one to wonder how it got in there in the first place.

“I got it!” the other teen declares after a hard pull sends him toppling onto his back on the driveway with the brightly wrapped package on his chest.

When Isaac scoots curiously across the seat to look down on the ground he sees that the box all but obliterates the other boy from sight.

“What exactly did you get her?” he can’t help but ask.

“It’s a surprise,” Stilinski pushes the box aside long enough to scramble to his feet.  “And it’s Lydia’s surprise.”

With that he picks the unwieldy box up, gives it a quick look over for any superficial damage then Stiles wraps his arms around as much of the thing as possible and starts toward the house.

Isaac watches him dash for the entrance and scoffs at those antics as he slides out of the Jeep.  He’s thankful that his own crush on Lydia never led him to do anything so moronic.  Sure, asking her out freshman year had been a dumb move, but sometimes a guy just had to try. 

Step up to the plate and swing. 

Lydia’s response may have felt like a fastball to the face, but at least he’d known where he stood to help get over those useless feelings.  No chance with the diva, so he hadn’t been wasting time pining or misspending money on things to try impressing her.  Just a few lingering masturbatory fantasies along with several revenge scenarios to keep him entertained and lately all of those had been absent in his life as Scott tended to feature in most any fantasy Isaac had.

In the world of baseball metaphors, he has no idea what he’s gotten from Scott; wonders if there’s even been an official pitch yet for either of them to make a move on. 

“I’ve never been before, but I think the party actually takes place inside.”

Isaac shakes his head clear of idiotic sports references and looks to find Scott standing beside him; looking and smelling good enough to eat.  Given the ominous tingling within him, Isaac really isn’t sure if he wants to literally or figuratively eat the other boy.  All he knows is that Scott is wearing a nice green button-up shirt with the neck unbuttoned and Isaac really wants to just grip one side of the collar in each hand and pull until every button is torn open to expose the boy’s torso.  Once bared, he really wanted to lick, suck and bite his presence all over Scott’s chest so that everyone would see and know that Isaac has touched the boy; that McCall was with Isaac.

Allison is already there, Isaac can sense her as he would any threat and he’s suddenly reluctant to be here and see Scott with his girlfriend.  Isaac may have had a moment with the other boy, but he knows that the girl’s presence will likely make Scott forget all about that as well as show Isaac how very little anything with him had meant to McCall.

Unless he bent to nuzzle aside the loose collar of Scott’s shirt so that he could suck a hickey onto the exposed skin of the boy’s neck.  The bruising would fade quickly, but Isaac is sure that Scott would think about the lovebite all night and that may work to keep him from falling all over Allison.

“Isaac?” Scott pulls away with a slight frown as Isaac bends toward him as the thought is still forming.

Sensing that window of opportunity closing, Isaac inhales deeply and stifles a groan at the flood of Scott over his senses.

“New cologne?” he asks by way of covering his half-formed and thwarted maneuver.

“Aftershave,” Scott gave a slight grin and sniffed himself.  “After that whole display on the field a few weeks ago, Danny gave me a sample of his Armani and I thought tonight would be a good time to use it.”

Isaac hears the low growl that rumbles in his chest and turns to stalk toward the house while cursing the knowledge that he’s now jealous of Mahealani.

“Hey,” Scott suddenly grabs his arm and spins Isaac around, “talk to me.”

The grab provokes the wolf within and lashes out with a flash of gold in his eye and claw to his fingers.  He takes hold of Scott’s jacket and yanks the other boy off his feet, holds him dangling for a moment while Isaac just stares at him.  Scott’s eyes flash fire and he growls in low warning before wrapping a strong hand around Isaac’s wrist.

“Control yourself,” the boy orders. 

The tone cannot be ignored or disobeyed and Isaac slowly lowers the other boy the few inches back to the ground.  He follows, though, bending to press his mouth to Scott’s for just a moment.  He takes just one taste, brief and fleeting, then turns and bolts through the front door without waiting for Lydia or anyone else to invite him in.

He goes straight for the punch, swipes a glass off the table and gulps it down to try cooling his senses.  The sickly sweet taste of fruit and alcohol does nothing to erase the faint trace of Scott on his tongue, so Isaac takes up another glass and drinks it more slowly. 

The doorbell rings and he turns to watch as Lydia appears out of nowhere to open the door and allow Scott in.  Isaac hears the boy give a sheepish apology for not having a present for the girl only to have Lydia brush that aside and shove a glass of punch in Scott’s hand.  She darts off leaving Isaac and Scott staring at one another across the distance. 

Scott looks around, finds a sidetable and puts his glass down before moving toward Isaac.  Isaac looks at the other boy’s lips, at the length of his neck above the opened collar of that shirt, at those dark eyes set do intently upon him and clearly wanting to have a conversation; he takes one look at all of that, puts his half empty glass back on the table and bolts.

He literally runs into Stiles in the hallway, mumbles something about looking for Jackson and shoves the other boy back behind him to distract Scott while Isaac tries to get himself sorted out. 

It takes him ten minutes locked in the first bathroom he came upon to even begin breathing normally.  His muscles are churning beneath his skin, waiting to shift and strengthen and all he can think about is how he wants to take Scott and get out of here. 

He doesn’t want to see the other boy in his element here, with his friends and with Allison.  He honestly doesn’t know if he can even handle seeing the girl again and knowing her place in Scott’s heart.  It had been hard enough to stand outside and watch them the night before when Scott went racing to her side; the wolf within him is very territorial and it wants Scott for his territory.  Being here where the other boy’s presence was shared with others may have been a dumber idea than even Derek realizes.

It really makes Isaac wish he had a camera…with a smirk at the lightbulb suddenly glowing above his head, he digs out his cell phone and starts taking pictures of all the party favors just sitting neglected while Lydia keeps her head on a swivel for newcomers that aren’t coming.  Isaac’s interest in Scott may have helped to ease his bitterness towards Lydia for her rejection, but it clearly hadn’t erased the slight entirely. 

He does a quick sweep of the house and property to make his statement to Stiles truthful as he looks for Jackson.  He slips back into the party after a check of the woods beyond the patio just as the doorbell rings to announce more people are actually arriving.  He takes a deep, bracing breath and crosses the distance to Scott as the boy stands talking to Allison and Stiles near one of the snack tables.

“No Jackson,” Isaac announces awkwardly as he tucks his hands into his pockets while Allison’s dark eyes stare at him in obvious confusion at his presence at the party let alone talking to them.

“We figured that out about twenty minutes ago,” Stiles scoffs while munching on the chips cupped in his hand. 

“Where have you been?” Scott asks, eyes narrowing with a concern that Isaac finds gratifying.

“What are you doing here?” Allison asks over the boy, her expression suspicious.

Stiles looks from Scott to Allison to Isaac then takes a big step backward while watching the trio avidly.

Isaac bristles at her challenging stance and feels himself tensing to attack when Scott places a calming hand on his shoulder.

“He’s with me,” McCall says it as firmly as his fingers hold Isaac. 

She blinks at the words and then again at the sight of Scott’s grip easing then sliding away from Isaac, fingers trailing away slowly in an almost caress that makes Isaac shiver.  She looks confused and Scott moves towards her as it becomes Isaac’s turn to blink.

“With the moon and everything, it just makes more sense to have another wolf here to help with Jackson,” the boy explains away Isaac’s presence as nothing more than backup.

Biting back a snarl, Isaac moves from the group to get another glass of punch before he can actually see Scott’s hand take hold of Allison’s as the couple moved to touch.  He gulps the drink down and the table seems to sway before him as he goes to get the empty glass back down.  He grabs for the edge of the table and misses then tries again and digs his fingernails into the metal folding table beneath the white tablecloth.

No more punch, he orders himself as the world seems to flutter around him for a moment providing a nice distraction from thoughts of Scot as he realizes he may be drunk.

Kicking himself for ignoring Derek instruction to avoid alcohol he grabs a handful for chips and moves to join Stiles off to the side of the growing party. 

“I’d be careful with that,” he says as the other boy finishes a glass of punch with a satisfied sigh and smack of his lips.  “You’re our driver.”

“You think Lydia’d let me crash here if I get drunk?” Stilinski holds up his empty glass to study it thoughtfully.  “It’s not like she can let the sheriff’s son drive home drunk.”

“If that’s your plan, it would really help if your dad were still the sheriff,” Isaac scoffs.

“Yeah, it probably would,” Stiles sighs, shoulders slouching, “but I got him fired.”

The kid looks so dejected that Isaac actually wants to offer support but Stiles goes for another glass of punch before he can try to think of encouraging words.

“This just isn’t going to end well, is it?” Scott sighs, suddenly at Isaac’s side.  “I don’t know why I thought it’d work.”

“It’s early yet,” Isaac says automatically.  “Jackson’s a prima donna; he’d never be first to a party.  It’s a good plan; we just have to give it time.”

“What plan?” Scott gives a crooked smile and steals one of Isaac’s chips.  “I’ve got nothing past the idea of this being Lydia’s party and Jackson’s bound to be here tonight so we’ve got one more chance to stop him becoming the Kanima.  Strong as we are, he’s proven stronger and I have no idea how to actually stop him.  Even if we figure out who’s controlling him, I have no idea how to stop them.”

“At least you’re trying.  That’s means something,” Isaac finishes his chips, dusts off his hand on the side of his jeans then tucks his hands in his pockets to stifle the urge to touch the other boy.

Scott seems to feel no similar need for restraint and he reaches out once more to grip Isaac’s shoulder.

“Thanks for coming with me,” his fingers contract while his thumb rubs a soothing circle against Isaac’s flesh beneath his shirt. 

Coming with Scott is not something that Isaac can think of while the other boy is touching him in even the most casual of gestures, so Isaac shrugs the other boy’s hand off and shifts to put some distance between them.  Scott blinks at the move and his lips pucker with a question he doesn’t get to ask as Stilinski moves into the space between them.

“Now it’s a party,” Stiles grins towards a rowdy group of new arrivals pushing out onto the patio and moving to raid the food table. 

Isaac follows the boy’s attention to the newcomers and blinks before flat out staring at the frizzed blonde wig worn by the tallest of the group.

“Is that a …?” he begins without taking his eyes of the man? woman?

“They just like to dress up sometimes,” Stiles says almost defensively.  “There’s nothing wrong with a little cross dressing.”

“And you know this from personal experience?” Isaac refocuses his interest to Stilinski at this idea.

The idea of Stiles in drag is one that Isaac prays alcohol will obliterate from his mind.

“No,” Stilinski retorts far too quickly to erase the idea from Isaac’s head.  “They’re cool, though.  Just watch how they liven up this party.”

“What are they doing at this party?” Isaac asks with a frown towards the group moving to mingle.  “Those are not students.”

“The party needed people and I invited some people,” once again the answer comes from Stiles and Isaac feels more questions racing for his tongue.

“These are friends of yours?”

“Not friends,” Isaac grins as Stiles begins to squirm.  “Acquaintances.  Barely that.  I met them like once and they just kind of made an impression.”

“And you just happened to have their numbers because...”

He keeps his focus on Stiles as the boy begins to blush and Scott sniggers beside them.

“Stilinski!” the blonde spots Stiles and calls out with obvious delight as three of the newcomers peel off and immediately race towards the boy.

Isaac can’t help but marvel at how quickly they move over the patio in their sky high heels and he moves back to leave Stilinski to be reunited with his ‘acquaintances, barely that.’

He looks to find Scott beside him, watching the scene with just as much curiosity as Isaac feels.  He wants to say something, make some witty comment to draw the other boy’s attention to him, but nothing comes to mind as he hears the telling question that the blonde asks Stiles.

“So, honey, which one of these little dishes is your Derek?”

Stiles looks like he wants to sink through the floor while she looks both Isaac and Scott over with a deliberation that leaves Isaac feeling naked and in need of a shower.

What exactly has Stilinski told these people about Derek?

Notes:

Ok. So these two are clearly going to consume a good portion of my brain unless I continue to write them. As much as I truly truly hate to have another work in progress in any fandom, I really think this one has legs and may move on to something more, but no promises as to when. Title and inspiration taken from the song "Breathing" by Lifehouse.