FIC: if that road leads to nowhere (find your way back home) ch 1
Title: if that road leads to nowhere (find your way back home)
Author: civillove
Rating: NC-17
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Isaac Lahey, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Allison Argent. Stiles Stilinski, Original Characters / (Isaac Lahey/Scott McCall) (Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski) Past Allison Argent/Scott McCall) (One-sided Allison Argent/Scott McCall)
Word Count: 4,585
Summary: Road trips always sound a lot better than they actually are. Stiles, Lydia, Allison, Isaac and Scott take a long weekend to travel up to a cabin that Stiles’ family owns; thinking that time away from Beacon Hills and the supernatural drama that goes along with it might be a good idea. But it turns out that you can’t run away from everything. While Scott and Isaac try to keep their relationship a secret from the rest of their friends, Scott deals with his blossoming friendship with Allison and Isaac tries to squash the paranoid sensation that the cabin is being stalked and deal with the constant battle inside of himself as he remains in a frustrating gray area with Scott.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the storyline for this fic and the OC characters *rolls*
Notes for Ch1: This is after the events of 3x05 and 3x06. It goes AU from there. The ‘is Derek alive or not’ is not really touched on because it’s not at the center of this fic.
Isaac has always enjoyed thunderstorms. He has never been able to thank his dad for many things but his fondness of booming thunder and crashing light, water pelting against his house with the reverberating sound of golf balls is something he can actually attribute to the older male. It started out as something when he was younger, when bad storms would roll in making his tiny frame, not yet lanky and long, shake and shudder. His mother and father would pull him into their laps and his mother would hold him to her chest, her voice vibrating against his back, humming as she sang to calm him down.
“Don’t worry bumble bee,” She would tell him, “People in heaven are just bowling strikes.”
He used to smile and ask about his grandparents, mentioning the shoes that reminded him of clown shoes and bowling balls. He never brought up that analogy again after his mother died.
His father turned thunderstorms into something different, warped, but not intentionally. In the end they were far more useful than his mother had ever made them.
On some particularly bad nights, when his father was in the peak of his drunken outbursts, sometimes it would rain. Isaac used to think the weather was almost a product of what he went through, that the clouds somehow felt sorry for him. Then he realized how ridiculous that sounded. The echoes of pounding thunder reminding him of his heartbeat and the scraping wind and the downpour of rain were easy sounds to get lost in. They blocked out his father tripping up the stairs, of bottles and glass breaking, of harsh words spitting against his skin.
Sometimes he even thought of his mother bowling.
But the picture in his mind’s eye always faded after the freezer lid closed.
He greedily thinks that life with Derek would have been better. After the bite, things were going to change. He’d no longer be that scared kid with bruises painted purple and black on his eye or sides, no longer the taste of blood in his mouth or marring his skin. Turns out, being a werewolf is a lot like being human. The cuts and bruises still happen but fade on the outside, burn on the inside, never really healing even though he’s physically fine. He swears he can still feel the ache and pinch of where Allison had stabbed him with those Chinese Ring daggers in his back or the paper cut sensation of glass digging into his scalp and cheeks from when Derek threw that glass at his head.
The one thing he has never really realized until that moment was that all he had done was traded in one abusive home for another.
Not directly, anyways, but it was still a good comparison. Derek is a great alpha, someone Isaac will always be grateful towards; he completely changed his life with just one bite. Something he easily could have died from, (and granted, he still can-the looming thought of an alpha pack hanging in the back of his mind, always, like a persistent raincloud) but at least, he thinks, it won’t be at the hands of his father. So yeah, he’s grateful. But with every ounce of good hidden beneath sarcastic banter and grunts of approval, there is a darker side to the alpha that Isaac doesn’t understand even though he’s tried. There are warped intentions and hints of misplaced selfishness, there’s hurt and a permanent ache of emotionally raw wounds. Derek doesn’t tell him things and he can’t distinguish if it’s because he’s a beta and doesn’t deserve to know his alpha’s reasoning (he has his blind faith anyways) or if he’s trying to protect him in a way.
It takes a glass thrown at his head for Isaac to make his mind up.
He doesn’t know what home really feels like until he’s living at the McCall household. (He can still feel his clothes seeping into the pores of his body from the rain, the shivers running down his spine from shock and from the cold, Scott’s warm eyes, Mrs. McCall’s worried expression and confusion, sympathy with its sickeningly sweet stench stinging the back of his nostrils, rolling off her shoulders in waves).
He swears it would just be for the night but one night turns into two, and into four, and into Mrs. McCall getting the guest bedroom made up for him, into Scott insisting he stay, until he just gives up insisting that he’ll be out of there the next morning. He still feels on edge sometimes, like Scott and his mother will one day give Isaac this look like they’re wondering when he’ll find somewhere else to squat or when Derek will take him back-but he’s slowly falling into the feeling that that day won’t come. That he’s finally found something good.
And now he just has to concentrate on not screwing it up.
Isaac feels safe at the McCall household-it smells like fresh laundry detergent, coffee and nearly always has the lingering scent of pancakes. There’s somewhere where he can go and actually call it home, where he can let his guard down. It has a roof, and four walls, and Mrs. McCall insisting that he calls her Melissa and reminds him to do his homework. And most importantly, it has Scott.
He thought it would be weird, staying with the other wolf that he had just started to get to know, to gain confidence in slowly considering Scott as his actual friend. But in all actuality, the only thing that he’s weirded out by is how not weird it is. There’s this rhythm between them, this rapport, which had started the minute he asked Scott for that favor. The heightened werewolf senses probably don’t hurt but it’s like they can sense what the other needs and how to help, a mixture of counting heartbeats, sensing emotions, and spending so much time with one another.
Isaac knows when Scott is frustrated, can smell the acidity like sweat seeping out of his pores, knows that simply squeezing his hand or poking him directly in a ticklish spot on his side until a smile breaks through without Scott’s consent usually helps. Scott knows when Isaac is upset; because he’s never been one to say it in so many words but it’s not like it’s hard to hide from another werewolf either. The first time he has a nightmare he wakes up screaming, tangled in sheets, sweat soaking the collar of his white t-shirt. He was lying on Scott’s floor because the guest room hadn’t been done yet and it was bad enough that he not only woke up the other male easily but he also woke up Mrs. McCall. He must have apologized to her a thousand times until Scott told him to stop, because he didn’t need to, because her smile was kind and she offered to make him hot chocolate and because Scott had drew him into his arms and squeezed him until he had stopped shaking.
He’s never been one to accept touches so openly, something he can thank his father for, but Scott’s palms were warm, his muscles hard and his skin soft and Isaac had let him pull him into his bed, under the covers. He lets him do it every night after that when a nightmare visits him, grips him with claws, tears at his skin, and refuses to let him go even after memories of harsh words and freezers have long disappeared.
Isaac blames the touching and closeness on a pack mentality until Scott kisses him.
It had been one night after a particularly bad nightmare, where Isaac couldn’t keep the tears from pooling against his eyelashes and trailing down his cheeks. Scott’s fingers were warm against his face, padding the tears away, his forehead resting against his own. His body is still wracked with shivers, regardless of Scott’s legs tangled with his and his one arm wrapped around his waist; he thinks it’s an accident at first, the brush of their lips tingling with electricity until he smells it.
Want.
Tangy hints wrapped up in hesitance. He hates the feeling in his lower belly when they had pulled apart. Isaac’s thoughts had finally caught up with his mouth and he had been kissing him back.
Scott smiled at him like he had the sun stashed away in his mouth. He remembers that smile because he swears it’s burned into the back of his eyes, like the black fuzzy shape that appears in dots when you stare at the sun too long and then look away.
He wasn’t really sure what it all meant, he’s still not sure and it’s been a month weeks since that first incident, if he could call it that. Isaac has never tried to really put himself into a label before, never tried to identify himself under a list of characteristics. He’d talked to Erica about it once and her slow smile with bright red lipstick had been terrifying and reassuring all at once. Her makeup and tight corsets may have added to about ninety-percent of her bravado but beneath that he knew she was looking out for him, that she was trying to help when she said “don’t worry about it and just feel”.
He wishes he could have thanked her for that advice. He never thought that he wouldn’t be able to one day. He misses her more than anything sometimes when he wants someone to talk to about how he feels, especially when it comes to Scott.
Especially, after three months of letting themselves grow closer and not to mention kiss while leading to other things, when he finds out that the omega doesn’t want to tell anyone about them yet. ‘Them’ like they have an actual classification to use.
Isaac thinks he gets it, or at least, that’s what he keeps telling himself. Since it’s new for the both of them it makes sense to see where it leads before divulging their business. They’ve got too much to worry about between school and the alpha pack for an unstable and undefined ‘relationship’ tainting everyone’s minds. Derek wouldn’t approve for obvious reasons, tension thick like blocks of cinder weighing between him and Scott for ages now. It never changes, the weight just shifts back and forth, and not telling the alpha just makes sense.
He’s not sure why no one has noticed something is different between them; their dynamic has changed even though it’s subtle. They have eyes on one another when in a crowd of people, they sit closer to one another, their hands brush and secret smiles are shared and Scott smells like him and he’s certain that he smells like Scott. It’s an easy product of living with one another…but it’s also because Isaac spends as much time as he can lying against Scott’s body, feeling him breathe into his ribcage, his skin melting into his, his hands traveling the dips and curves of the other’s muscles.
He thinks Peter knows. Just because it seems like the elder alpha is out of the loop because he came back from the dead with less control and power doesn’t mean he’s not perceptive. He notices subtle shifts, he studies them, so it wouldn’t surprise Isaac if he knew. Boyd and Lydia are indifferent; at least he’s pretty sure. He pays attention enough to know that neither of them makes it their life mission to hone in on what he’s doing or trying to distinguish how he feels.
Stiles found out on accident. Though, if anyone, Isaac guesses that he would be the first to notice something was different between them just for the sheer fact that Stiles knew Scott so well. And for the fact that he may have walked onto them making out on Scott’s bed. So if that wasn’t a red flag he’s not sure what else they could have done.
There’s this hesitance though coming from Scott that is so potent it leaves a sharp acidic taste in the back of his mouth when he’s around Allison. Isaac wonders if Scott doesn’t want to tell everyone yet or if it’s just the gorgeous ex who he had a ton of chemistry with (and who also tried to kill him indirectly) that he’s really concerned about. Isaac likes to pretend he understands where Scott is coming from because it eases the ache in his chest and the rolling sick sensation in his stomach a bit. He’s not ready and the last thing he wants to do is push something that doesn’t even have a title yet because it’s warm and it’s good and Isaac always has a tendency to ruin anything good in his life so-
he waits it out.
He lets Scott decide when he’s ready.
In the mean time he tries to avoid Allison, because she smells like vanilla and a woodsy scent that reminds him of pines and Scott. He’s not sure why, residual impressions in her skin from when they were together, he guesses, but he doesn’t like it. The wolf inside him definitely doesn’t like it, the urge to claim Scott as his own and mark him and have himself as the only person who smells like Scott is frighteningly strong.
So avoiding Allison should have been really easy-if he hadn’t agreed to a long weekend road trip to get away from the insanity of Beacon Hills and the ominous threat of death that keeps smacking them in the face from this alpha pack.
Stiles arranges the whole thing, the small group packing into his jeep to head to a small cabin a few hours away from Beacon Hills. It’s a great idea, one Scott couldn’t say no to and one Isaac couldn’t deny either after the other pleaded to him with those bambi brown eyes. It was offensive, to say the least. He doesn’t regret giving in until he’s jammed into the backseat of Stiles’ jeep with Scott in the middle and Allison on his other side while Lydia argues with Stiles that he’s going seventy in an eighty mile speed zone.
Isaac feels like the odd man out even though he knows he’s not, Scott wanted him to come. But part of him wishes that Boyd wasn’t busy with his mom for this short lived vacation so he could have came with them.
“We should probably stop for gas soon anyways,” Allison pipes up from her position against the window, interrupting Stiles and Lydia for a fraction of a second. “And find somewhere to spend the night.”
“You mean you don’t want to spend the rest of the night watching World War III in the front seat?” Scott asks her with a slow smile, leaning his body towards her to whisper it but it’s heard throughout the small space anyways.
Stiles makes an indignant sound, stating that wars have been started on smaller things and Isaac feels a pang of something shoot up his spine as Allison turns her head to look over at Scott and gives him a smile that he knows is just for him.
They might be broken up but chemistry and history are two things that never go away in a relationship as strong as theirs had been. Isaac licks his lips, tries to settle down a feeling like someone is reaching inside of him and squeezing his organs, hates himself because he knows Scott must feel it too. Can probably taste the jealousy it’s so palpable at this point.
It’s probably very immature of him (actually, it’s a lot immature) but he finds himself hating Allison a little bit. Their relationship just seems so simple, if you strip away the fact that her family has tried to kill Scott on more than one occasion, the static electricity between them is undeniable. Scott shifts in his seat, briefly, and settles his bag that he brought to straddle on Isaac’s thigh and his own before he feels it. The other’s hand discreetly slides against his under the bag between their legs and laces their fingers. His heartbeat slows, his pulse gently taps in his wrist, he calms-
and now he hates Scott for having such an easy effect on him.
It’s not that he doesn’t admire the other wolf for wanting to take whatever this is slow and steady but if he has to listen to Allison’s heart beat stumble like rocks skipping across water every time Scott talks to her he’s not going to make it.
Isaac nods his head at the notion of stopping soon when Stiles asks the rest of the car, except Lydia, what they would like to do for the night. And a bed sounds just like something he’d be interested in; he feels like a giant in a doll house in the back of this jeep, wisps of his hair keep sliding against the roof everytime he shifts to get into a more comfortable position.
His limbs creak and crack, his body settling back into itself as everyone piles out of the jeep when Stiles parks it in a gas station parking lot. It’s small and dark and he thinks if he wasn’t a werewolf he’d definitely be getting some strange vibes from most of the truckers heading into the 24 / 7 diner across the street.
“We should eat.” Stiles nods his head towards the diner. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.” Lydia grumbles but doesn’t protest to the idea, smoothing the palms of her hands against her skirt which is wrinkled from sitting in the jeep for so long.
“This well oiled machine doesn’t just run on ambition and sarcasm.” Stiles points out, motioning to his body with his hands.
Allison smirks and glances over at Scott before gently bumping her shoulder into his and the group starts over but they’re barely in the parking lot of the diner before Isaac can feel his skin shift, ripple against his bones and muscle. The wolf snarls inside of him, teeth bearing to scrape against his nerve endings. He tries to bite it back because this is ridiculous; he has no right to be possessive-but the wolf obviously disagrees. Scott was with Allison first and it’s not like they’re an established anything and they might never be. But that doesn’t change the fact that he wants to claim him all the same.
He tries to reason with himself that it must be a pack thing, a wolf itching to protect its own. Because even though Scott and Allison had been in love doesn’t cancel out that she had been on the opposite side when the battle lines were drawn between Gerard and the pack, and that she could easily find herself there again it came down to family.
“Do we have Advil back at the jeep?” He asks as they reach the diner door and Stiles digs in his jeans pockets when Allison says she thinks she has some in the bottom of her bag on the floor in the backseat.
He’s backtracking the moment the metal jingle of the keys meet the warmth of his palm, his shoes kicking up pebbles and dirt as he crosses the street back to the jeep. His eyes are flashing gold, he can feel his claws scrape against the paint on Stiles’ jeep as he leans against the passenger door, squeezing his eyes shut as he just breathes-
tries to get the wolf to back down, a whining growl building up from the bottom of his throat, his heartbeat throbbing in his ears.
The thunder rumbling in the distance helps, it draws him back, his claws metaphorically anchor onto something tangible-he thinks about his father, before his mother disappeared, he thinks about nights when it rained, the four of them (him, his dad, mom and Camden) gathering in the living room to build forts, when being enclosed in small spaces didn’t scare the shit out of him.
Warmth, stability, comfort; there’s a sense of trustfulness, security. He feels safe.
His muscles contract and relax; it no longer feels like lava is being poured into his joints and his bones.
Isaac thinks about Scott. Thinks about the warmth of his arms, the sharp lines of his body, the honey like complexion of his skin. He thinks about how much he trusts him and how much it means to be trusted back. He thinks about the coffee ground color of his eyes and the roughness of the pads of his fingers.
He’s never realized that home doesn’t have to be a place, necessarily, but that it can easily reside in a person.
And that grounds him; his claws detract, his eyes return to that smoky blue color and his heartbeat stills compared to the ravenous pounding that was occurring moments before. He runs a hand over his face and lifts his head up from where it had been resting against the jeep to unlock the door when he sees someone behind him in the reflection of the glass.
He turns around sharply and Scott is smiling at him with that smile that makes Isaac feel like he reached into the sky and harnessed the sun. It makes his stomach flutter in weird sorts of ways that he can’t name or grasp with his fingertips.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on a werewolf.”
Scott smirks and takes a tentative step forward as Isaac opens the jeep door. “Come on, you knew I was there the whole time.”
Actually, he hadn’t, seeing as how he had been dealing with his unwarranted jealousy and the claws that had come with it.
“How bout it’s still not nice to sneak up on people in general?” Isaac looks over his shoulder and flashes him a small smile before giving his attention back to the task at hand to look through Allison’s bag for the Advil.
Scott hums from behind him and a moment later Isaac feels one of his hands slide up the spine of his back, fingers trailing along vertebra after vertebra.
“Are you okay?” He asks after a moment, Isaac still fishing through Allison’s bag and, seriously, how many tubes of mascara did a girl need? When he doesn’t answer the shorter’s question Scott takes that as a sign he should continue. “You just seemed tense on the whole ride up here-”
“Well,” Isaac pulls his hand out of the bag and leans against the jeep as he turns to look at Scott. “If you hadn’t noticed I was crammed into the backseat. You’re sort of…short, Scott.”
Scott laughs, it’s the type of laugh that fills up his entire chest and projects outward, a sound that makes the edges of Isaac’s mouth quirk into an instant smile. “I am not short; you’re just…freakishly tall.” His hand moves to slide down his side and he hooks his fingers through Isaac’s belt hoops, tugging him forward into his chest.
Isaac smiles slowly as his eyes flicker to Scott’s lips, their foreheads brushing, the omega’s breath skittering across the skin of his cheeks and jawline. “My height never seems to be a worthy topic for debate when we’re doing this,” He gently presses his lips against Scott’s, the warmth from his body seeming to seep into his from the simplest of touches.
The shorter nips at his lower lip before pressing up into the kiss, his toes pushing himself up a little so that he makes up for the height difference. “Definitely perfect for when we’re doing this.” He grins and then silences any further discussion with a kiss.
It’s slow and deliberate and there’s a steady crackling heat that reminds Isaac of a fire burning through the muscles of his lower belly as their lips move together. The tension fades from his shoulders and regardless of how odd it sounds his body melts into Scott’s embrace and neither of them pulls back until proper oxygen is needed, small puffs of air blossoming against each other’s mouths when they manage to stop kissing.
When they’re pretty much breathing the same air a million thoughts flash through Isaac’s mind, they bounce off one other and hit against his synapses. One of them is about Allison; he’s not sure how she could just let someone like Scott go. Because now that he has him, he’s almost certain he wouldn’t be able to make a decision like that. He’s hoping he never has to and that thought rams against his rationale as to why he thinks Allison is still in love with Scott. Because she never stopped and it’s honestly as simple as that.
“Is the storm bothering you?” Scott asks a moment later, his hand coming up to trace the outline of Isaac’s jaw before pulling his body back a little and breaking Isaac’s thought process.
A storm? Right; he can hear the boom of thunder in the distance, quickly approaching, can feel the moisture in the air, a storm.
He gives Scott a small smile and shrugs his one shoulder, his hand nervously rubbing the back of his neck because…what is he supposed to say? No? It’s your ex girlfriend bothering me and not the impending thunderstorm?
“Sort of.”
And at least that’s not a complete lie-not that he thinks Scott takes extra time to pay attention to his heartbeats but it’s easy to pick up on irregularities, especially when werewolf hearing is involved.
He gets ready to elaborate, figuring it will help more than hinder, but Scott is naturally three steps ahead of him. “I really understand why dogs have that flight response when they hear fireworks because thunder is just as bad for sensitive hearing.”
Isaac just nods because, yeah exactly, that’s what he’s trying to say and Scott always seems to know what he’s reaching for but can never seem to just grasp with words and syllables.
‘The first storm I heard when I was a werewolf,” He shakes his head, eyes wide. It makes Isaac chuckle softly. “I thought my head was going to pop off with how loud the thunder was.”
He finally locates the pill box at the bottom of Allison’s bag and pulls it out, shaking it in Scott’s direction. “Just a headache from the noise, this will do the trick.” He assures him because the other wolf looks like he needs to be reassured about something but Isaac’s not sure what.
Scott opens his mouth to say something but then decides against it, shaking his head with a small smile before a rush of air leaves his nose. He settles for kissing Isaac on his forehead instead and sticking his hands in his pockets.
“They have blueberry waffles at the diner, want to share?”
The question is so simple and innocent but it makes Isaac’s heart speed up anyways and the moment Scott hears it he tilts his head and smiles at him, which doesn’t exactly help in changing the tempo.
“Your heart sped up.” He teases, taking his hand when Isaac closes the jeep door and joins him on the walk back to the diner.
“I just like waffles.” Isaac winks at him, smirking and enjoys the sensations of their palms smashed together because he knows they’ll have to let one another go by the time they reach the door.
“Waffles are the best.” Scott beams while squeezing his hand.
Isaac just laughs and has to agree because, yeah, they really are.
Author: civillove
Rating: NC-17
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Isaac Lahey, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Allison Argent. Stiles Stilinski, Original Characters / (Isaac Lahey/Scott McCall) (Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski) Past Allison Argent/Scott McCall) (One-sided Allison Argent/Scott McCall)
Word Count: 4,585
Summary: Road trips always sound a lot better than they actually are. Stiles, Lydia, Allison, Isaac and Scott take a long weekend to travel up to a cabin that Stiles’ family owns; thinking that time away from Beacon Hills and the supernatural drama that goes along with it might be a good idea. But it turns out that you can’t run away from everything. While Scott and Isaac try to keep their relationship a secret from the rest of their friends, Scott deals with his blossoming friendship with Allison and Isaac tries to squash the paranoid sensation that the cabin is being stalked and deal with the constant battle inside of himself as he remains in a frustrating gray area with Scott.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the storyline for this fic and the OC characters *rolls*
Notes for Ch1: This is after the events of 3x05 and 3x06. It goes AU from there. The ‘is Derek alive or not’ is not really touched on because it’s not at the center of this fic.
Isaac has always enjoyed thunderstorms. He has never been able to thank his dad for many things but his fondness of booming thunder and crashing light, water pelting against his house with the reverberating sound of golf balls is something he can actually attribute to the older male. It started out as something when he was younger, when bad storms would roll in making his tiny frame, not yet lanky and long, shake and shudder. His mother and father would pull him into their laps and his mother would hold him to her chest, her voice vibrating against his back, humming as she sang to calm him down.
“Don’t worry bumble bee,” She would tell him, “People in heaven are just bowling strikes.”
He used to smile and ask about his grandparents, mentioning the shoes that reminded him of clown shoes and bowling balls. He never brought up that analogy again after his mother died.
His father turned thunderstorms into something different, warped, but not intentionally. In the end they were far more useful than his mother had ever made them.
On some particularly bad nights, when his father was in the peak of his drunken outbursts, sometimes it would rain. Isaac used to think the weather was almost a product of what he went through, that the clouds somehow felt sorry for him. Then he realized how ridiculous that sounded. The echoes of pounding thunder reminding him of his heartbeat and the scraping wind and the downpour of rain were easy sounds to get lost in. They blocked out his father tripping up the stairs, of bottles and glass breaking, of harsh words spitting against his skin.
Sometimes he even thought of his mother bowling.
But the picture in his mind’s eye always faded after the freezer lid closed.
He greedily thinks that life with Derek would have been better. After the bite, things were going to change. He’d no longer be that scared kid with bruises painted purple and black on his eye or sides, no longer the taste of blood in his mouth or marring his skin. Turns out, being a werewolf is a lot like being human. The cuts and bruises still happen but fade on the outside, burn on the inside, never really healing even though he’s physically fine. He swears he can still feel the ache and pinch of where Allison had stabbed him with those Chinese Ring daggers in his back or the paper cut sensation of glass digging into his scalp and cheeks from when Derek threw that glass at his head.
The one thing he has never really realized until that moment was that all he had done was traded in one abusive home for another.
Not directly, anyways, but it was still a good comparison. Derek is a great alpha, someone Isaac will always be grateful towards; he completely changed his life with just one bite. Something he easily could have died from, (and granted, he still can-the looming thought of an alpha pack hanging in the back of his mind, always, like a persistent raincloud) but at least, he thinks, it won’t be at the hands of his father. So yeah, he’s grateful. But with every ounce of good hidden beneath sarcastic banter and grunts of approval, there is a darker side to the alpha that Isaac doesn’t understand even though he’s tried. There are warped intentions and hints of misplaced selfishness, there’s hurt and a permanent ache of emotionally raw wounds. Derek doesn’t tell him things and he can’t distinguish if it’s because he’s a beta and doesn’t deserve to know his alpha’s reasoning (he has his blind faith anyways) or if he’s trying to protect him in a way.
It takes a glass thrown at his head for Isaac to make his mind up.
He doesn’t know what home really feels like until he’s living at the McCall household. (He can still feel his clothes seeping into the pores of his body from the rain, the shivers running down his spine from shock and from the cold, Scott’s warm eyes, Mrs. McCall’s worried expression and confusion, sympathy with its sickeningly sweet stench stinging the back of his nostrils, rolling off her shoulders in waves).
He swears it would just be for the night but one night turns into two, and into four, and into Mrs. McCall getting the guest bedroom made up for him, into Scott insisting he stay, until he just gives up insisting that he’ll be out of there the next morning. He still feels on edge sometimes, like Scott and his mother will one day give Isaac this look like they’re wondering when he’ll find somewhere else to squat or when Derek will take him back-but he’s slowly falling into the feeling that that day won’t come. That he’s finally found something good.
And now he just has to concentrate on not screwing it up.
Isaac feels safe at the McCall household-it smells like fresh laundry detergent, coffee and nearly always has the lingering scent of pancakes. There’s somewhere where he can go and actually call it home, where he can let his guard down. It has a roof, and four walls, and Mrs. McCall insisting that he calls her Melissa and reminds him to do his homework. And most importantly, it has Scott.
He thought it would be weird, staying with the other wolf that he had just started to get to know, to gain confidence in slowly considering Scott as his actual friend. But in all actuality, the only thing that he’s weirded out by is how not weird it is. There’s this rhythm between them, this rapport, which had started the minute he asked Scott for that favor. The heightened werewolf senses probably don’t hurt but it’s like they can sense what the other needs and how to help, a mixture of counting heartbeats, sensing emotions, and spending so much time with one another.
Isaac knows when Scott is frustrated, can smell the acidity like sweat seeping out of his pores, knows that simply squeezing his hand or poking him directly in a ticklish spot on his side until a smile breaks through without Scott’s consent usually helps. Scott knows when Isaac is upset; because he’s never been one to say it in so many words but it’s not like it’s hard to hide from another werewolf either. The first time he has a nightmare he wakes up screaming, tangled in sheets, sweat soaking the collar of his white t-shirt. He was lying on Scott’s floor because the guest room hadn’t been done yet and it was bad enough that he not only woke up the other male easily but he also woke up Mrs. McCall. He must have apologized to her a thousand times until Scott told him to stop, because he didn’t need to, because her smile was kind and she offered to make him hot chocolate and because Scott had drew him into his arms and squeezed him until he had stopped shaking.
He’s never been one to accept touches so openly, something he can thank his father for, but Scott’s palms were warm, his muscles hard and his skin soft and Isaac had let him pull him into his bed, under the covers. He lets him do it every night after that when a nightmare visits him, grips him with claws, tears at his skin, and refuses to let him go even after memories of harsh words and freezers have long disappeared.
Isaac blames the touching and closeness on a pack mentality until Scott kisses him.
It had been one night after a particularly bad nightmare, where Isaac couldn’t keep the tears from pooling against his eyelashes and trailing down his cheeks. Scott’s fingers were warm against his face, padding the tears away, his forehead resting against his own. His body is still wracked with shivers, regardless of Scott’s legs tangled with his and his one arm wrapped around his waist; he thinks it’s an accident at first, the brush of their lips tingling with electricity until he smells it.
Want.
Tangy hints wrapped up in hesitance. He hates the feeling in his lower belly when they had pulled apart. Isaac’s thoughts had finally caught up with his mouth and he had been kissing him back.
Scott smiled at him like he had the sun stashed away in his mouth. He remembers that smile because he swears it’s burned into the back of his eyes, like the black fuzzy shape that appears in dots when you stare at the sun too long and then look away.
He wasn’t really sure what it all meant, he’s still not sure and it’s been a month weeks since that first incident, if he could call it that. Isaac has never tried to really put himself into a label before, never tried to identify himself under a list of characteristics. He’d talked to Erica about it once and her slow smile with bright red lipstick had been terrifying and reassuring all at once. Her makeup and tight corsets may have added to about ninety-percent of her bravado but beneath that he knew she was looking out for him, that she was trying to help when she said “don’t worry about it and just feel”.
He wishes he could have thanked her for that advice. He never thought that he wouldn’t be able to one day. He misses her more than anything sometimes when he wants someone to talk to about how he feels, especially when it comes to Scott.
Especially, after three months of letting themselves grow closer and not to mention kiss while leading to other things, when he finds out that the omega doesn’t want to tell anyone about them yet. ‘Them’ like they have an actual classification to use.
Isaac thinks he gets it, or at least, that’s what he keeps telling himself. Since it’s new for the both of them it makes sense to see where it leads before divulging their business. They’ve got too much to worry about between school and the alpha pack for an unstable and undefined ‘relationship’ tainting everyone’s minds. Derek wouldn’t approve for obvious reasons, tension thick like blocks of cinder weighing between him and Scott for ages now. It never changes, the weight just shifts back and forth, and not telling the alpha just makes sense.
He’s not sure why no one has noticed something is different between them; their dynamic has changed even though it’s subtle. They have eyes on one another when in a crowd of people, they sit closer to one another, their hands brush and secret smiles are shared and Scott smells like him and he’s certain that he smells like Scott. It’s an easy product of living with one another…but it’s also because Isaac spends as much time as he can lying against Scott’s body, feeling him breathe into his ribcage, his skin melting into his, his hands traveling the dips and curves of the other’s muscles.
He thinks Peter knows. Just because it seems like the elder alpha is out of the loop because he came back from the dead with less control and power doesn’t mean he’s not perceptive. He notices subtle shifts, he studies them, so it wouldn’t surprise Isaac if he knew. Boyd and Lydia are indifferent; at least he’s pretty sure. He pays attention enough to know that neither of them makes it their life mission to hone in on what he’s doing or trying to distinguish how he feels.
Stiles found out on accident. Though, if anyone, Isaac guesses that he would be the first to notice something was different between them just for the sheer fact that Stiles knew Scott so well. And for the fact that he may have walked onto them making out on Scott’s bed. So if that wasn’t a red flag he’s not sure what else they could have done.
There’s this hesitance though coming from Scott that is so potent it leaves a sharp acidic taste in the back of his mouth when he’s around Allison. Isaac wonders if Scott doesn’t want to tell everyone yet or if it’s just the gorgeous ex who he had a ton of chemistry with (and who also tried to kill him indirectly) that he’s really concerned about. Isaac likes to pretend he understands where Scott is coming from because it eases the ache in his chest and the rolling sick sensation in his stomach a bit. He’s not ready and the last thing he wants to do is push something that doesn’t even have a title yet because it’s warm and it’s good and Isaac always has a tendency to ruin anything good in his life so-
he waits it out.
He lets Scott decide when he’s ready.
In the mean time he tries to avoid Allison, because she smells like vanilla and a woodsy scent that reminds him of pines and Scott. He’s not sure why, residual impressions in her skin from when they were together, he guesses, but he doesn’t like it. The wolf inside him definitely doesn’t like it, the urge to claim Scott as his own and mark him and have himself as the only person who smells like Scott is frighteningly strong.
So avoiding Allison should have been really easy-if he hadn’t agreed to a long weekend road trip to get away from the insanity of Beacon Hills and the ominous threat of death that keeps smacking them in the face from this alpha pack.
Stiles arranges the whole thing, the small group packing into his jeep to head to a small cabin a few hours away from Beacon Hills. It’s a great idea, one Scott couldn’t say no to and one Isaac couldn’t deny either after the other pleaded to him with those bambi brown eyes. It was offensive, to say the least. He doesn’t regret giving in until he’s jammed into the backseat of Stiles’ jeep with Scott in the middle and Allison on his other side while Lydia argues with Stiles that he’s going seventy in an eighty mile speed zone.
Isaac feels like the odd man out even though he knows he’s not, Scott wanted him to come. But part of him wishes that Boyd wasn’t busy with his mom for this short lived vacation so he could have came with them.
“We should probably stop for gas soon anyways,” Allison pipes up from her position against the window, interrupting Stiles and Lydia for a fraction of a second. “And find somewhere to spend the night.”
“You mean you don’t want to spend the rest of the night watching World War III in the front seat?” Scott asks her with a slow smile, leaning his body towards her to whisper it but it’s heard throughout the small space anyways.
Stiles makes an indignant sound, stating that wars have been started on smaller things and Isaac feels a pang of something shoot up his spine as Allison turns her head to look over at Scott and gives him a smile that he knows is just for him.
They might be broken up but chemistry and history are two things that never go away in a relationship as strong as theirs had been. Isaac licks his lips, tries to settle down a feeling like someone is reaching inside of him and squeezing his organs, hates himself because he knows Scott must feel it too. Can probably taste the jealousy it’s so palpable at this point.
It’s probably very immature of him (actually, it’s a lot immature) but he finds himself hating Allison a little bit. Their relationship just seems so simple, if you strip away the fact that her family has tried to kill Scott on more than one occasion, the static electricity between them is undeniable. Scott shifts in his seat, briefly, and settles his bag that he brought to straddle on Isaac’s thigh and his own before he feels it. The other’s hand discreetly slides against his under the bag between their legs and laces their fingers. His heartbeat slows, his pulse gently taps in his wrist, he calms-
and now he hates Scott for having such an easy effect on him.
It’s not that he doesn’t admire the other wolf for wanting to take whatever this is slow and steady but if he has to listen to Allison’s heart beat stumble like rocks skipping across water every time Scott talks to her he’s not going to make it.
Isaac nods his head at the notion of stopping soon when Stiles asks the rest of the car, except Lydia, what they would like to do for the night. And a bed sounds just like something he’d be interested in; he feels like a giant in a doll house in the back of this jeep, wisps of his hair keep sliding against the roof everytime he shifts to get into a more comfortable position.
His limbs creak and crack, his body settling back into itself as everyone piles out of the jeep when Stiles parks it in a gas station parking lot. It’s small and dark and he thinks if he wasn’t a werewolf he’d definitely be getting some strange vibes from most of the truckers heading into the 24 / 7 diner across the street.
“We should eat.” Stiles nods his head towards the diner. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.” Lydia grumbles but doesn’t protest to the idea, smoothing the palms of her hands against her skirt which is wrinkled from sitting in the jeep for so long.
“This well oiled machine doesn’t just run on ambition and sarcasm.” Stiles points out, motioning to his body with his hands.
Allison smirks and glances over at Scott before gently bumping her shoulder into his and the group starts over but they’re barely in the parking lot of the diner before Isaac can feel his skin shift, ripple against his bones and muscle. The wolf snarls inside of him, teeth bearing to scrape against his nerve endings. He tries to bite it back because this is ridiculous; he has no right to be possessive-but the wolf obviously disagrees. Scott was with Allison first and it’s not like they’re an established anything and they might never be. But that doesn’t change the fact that he wants to claim him all the same.
He tries to reason with himself that it must be a pack thing, a wolf itching to protect its own. Because even though Scott and Allison had been in love doesn’t cancel out that she had been on the opposite side when the battle lines were drawn between Gerard and the pack, and that she could easily find herself there again it came down to family.
“Do we have Advil back at the jeep?” He asks as they reach the diner door and Stiles digs in his jeans pockets when Allison says she thinks she has some in the bottom of her bag on the floor in the backseat.
He’s backtracking the moment the metal jingle of the keys meet the warmth of his palm, his shoes kicking up pebbles and dirt as he crosses the street back to the jeep. His eyes are flashing gold, he can feel his claws scrape against the paint on Stiles’ jeep as he leans against the passenger door, squeezing his eyes shut as he just breathes-
tries to get the wolf to back down, a whining growl building up from the bottom of his throat, his heartbeat throbbing in his ears.
The thunder rumbling in the distance helps, it draws him back, his claws metaphorically anchor onto something tangible-he thinks about his father, before his mother disappeared, he thinks about nights when it rained, the four of them (him, his dad, mom and Camden) gathering in the living room to build forts, when being enclosed in small spaces didn’t scare the shit out of him.
Warmth, stability, comfort; there’s a sense of trustfulness, security. He feels safe.
His muscles contract and relax; it no longer feels like lava is being poured into his joints and his bones.
Isaac thinks about Scott. Thinks about the warmth of his arms, the sharp lines of his body, the honey like complexion of his skin. He thinks about how much he trusts him and how much it means to be trusted back. He thinks about the coffee ground color of his eyes and the roughness of the pads of his fingers.
He’s never realized that home doesn’t have to be a place, necessarily, but that it can easily reside in a person.
And that grounds him; his claws detract, his eyes return to that smoky blue color and his heartbeat stills compared to the ravenous pounding that was occurring moments before. He runs a hand over his face and lifts his head up from where it had been resting against the jeep to unlock the door when he sees someone behind him in the reflection of the glass.
He turns around sharply and Scott is smiling at him with that smile that makes Isaac feel like he reached into the sky and harnessed the sun. It makes his stomach flutter in weird sorts of ways that he can’t name or grasp with his fingertips.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on a werewolf.”
Scott smirks and takes a tentative step forward as Isaac opens the jeep door. “Come on, you knew I was there the whole time.”
Actually, he hadn’t, seeing as how he had been dealing with his unwarranted jealousy and the claws that had come with it.
“How bout it’s still not nice to sneak up on people in general?” Isaac looks over his shoulder and flashes him a small smile before giving his attention back to the task at hand to look through Allison’s bag for the Advil.
Scott hums from behind him and a moment later Isaac feels one of his hands slide up the spine of his back, fingers trailing along vertebra after vertebra.
“Are you okay?” He asks after a moment, Isaac still fishing through Allison’s bag and, seriously, how many tubes of mascara did a girl need? When he doesn’t answer the shorter’s question Scott takes that as a sign he should continue. “You just seemed tense on the whole ride up here-”
“Well,” Isaac pulls his hand out of the bag and leans against the jeep as he turns to look at Scott. “If you hadn’t noticed I was crammed into the backseat. You’re sort of…short, Scott.”
Scott laughs, it’s the type of laugh that fills up his entire chest and projects outward, a sound that makes the edges of Isaac’s mouth quirk into an instant smile. “I am not short; you’re just…freakishly tall.” His hand moves to slide down his side and he hooks his fingers through Isaac’s belt hoops, tugging him forward into his chest.
Isaac smiles slowly as his eyes flicker to Scott’s lips, their foreheads brushing, the omega’s breath skittering across the skin of his cheeks and jawline. “My height never seems to be a worthy topic for debate when we’re doing this,” He gently presses his lips against Scott’s, the warmth from his body seeming to seep into his from the simplest of touches.
The shorter nips at his lower lip before pressing up into the kiss, his toes pushing himself up a little so that he makes up for the height difference. “Definitely perfect for when we’re doing this.” He grins and then silences any further discussion with a kiss.
It’s slow and deliberate and there’s a steady crackling heat that reminds Isaac of a fire burning through the muscles of his lower belly as their lips move together. The tension fades from his shoulders and regardless of how odd it sounds his body melts into Scott’s embrace and neither of them pulls back until proper oxygen is needed, small puffs of air blossoming against each other’s mouths when they manage to stop kissing.
When they’re pretty much breathing the same air a million thoughts flash through Isaac’s mind, they bounce off one other and hit against his synapses. One of them is about Allison; he’s not sure how she could just let someone like Scott go. Because now that he has him, he’s almost certain he wouldn’t be able to make a decision like that. He’s hoping he never has to and that thought rams against his rationale as to why he thinks Allison is still in love with Scott. Because she never stopped and it’s honestly as simple as that.
“Is the storm bothering you?” Scott asks a moment later, his hand coming up to trace the outline of Isaac’s jaw before pulling his body back a little and breaking Isaac’s thought process.
A storm? Right; he can hear the boom of thunder in the distance, quickly approaching, can feel the moisture in the air, a storm.
He gives Scott a small smile and shrugs his one shoulder, his hand nervously rubbing the back of his neck because…what is he supposed to say? No? It’s your ex girlfriend bothering me and not the impending thunderstorm?
“Sort of.”
And at least that’s not a complete lie-not that he thinks Scott takes extra time to pay attention to his heartbeats but it’s easy to pick up on irregularities, especially when werewolf hearing is involved.
He gets ready to elaborate, figuring it will help more than hinder, but Scott is naturally three steps ahead of him. “I really understand why dogs have that flight response when they hear fireworks because thunder is just as bad for sensitive hearing.”
Isaac just nods because, yeah exactly, that’s what he’s trying to say and Scott always seems to know what he’s reaching for but can never seem to just grasp with words and syllables.
‘The first storm I heard when I was a werewolf,” He shakes his head, eyes wide. It makes Isaac chuckle softly. “I thought my head was going to pop off with how loud the thunder was.”
He finally locates the pill box at the bottom of Allison’s bag and pulls it out, shaking it in Scott’s direction. “Just a headache from the noise, this will do the trick.” He assures him because the other wolf looks like he needs to be reassured about something but Isaac’s not sure what.
Scott opens his mouth to say something but then decides against it, shaking his head with a small smile before a rush of air leaves his nose. He settles for kissing Isaac on his forehead instead and sticking his hands in his pockets.
“They have blueberry waffles at the diner, want to share?”
The question is so simple and innocent but it makes Isaac’s heart speed up anyways and the moment Scott hears it he tilts his head and smiles at him, which doesn’t exactly help in changing the tempo.
“Your heart sped up.” He teases, taking his hand when Isaac closes the jeep door and joins him on the walk back to the diner.
“I just like waffles.” Isaac winks at him, smirking and enjoys the sensations of their palms smashed together because he knows they’ll have to let one another go by the time they reach the door.
“Waffles are the best.” Scott beams while squeezing his hand.
Isaac just laughs and has to agree because, yeah, they really are.